To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People August 10, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/1999/08/10/rodman Dennis Rodman, auteur Ex-hoops star revealed to be creative visionary; Hugh Grant on scintillating secrets of celebrity nostril evacuation. Plus: We bid adieu to Tish, a great and noble fish, though a wee bit moody on occasion. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amy Reiter Are radically rambunctious ex-rebounder Dennis Rodman and his shapely ex-wife, Carmen Electra, revving up to give Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee a little competition in the real-life sex videos of the scary stars category? Depends on how much faith you put in the fantasies of the risqué ruler of the hardwood. Rodman's dream, he recently told TV Guide, is to make a skin flick that's "cool and sexy, so you can see us doing it, but it's still softcore." Lucky for us all, Electra will likely be too busy airing other people's racy home movies as host of a late Saturday night, too-hot-for-prime-time version of "The World's Funniest!" on Fox. Plus, Rodman, who changes his mind almost as often as he changes his hair color, doesn't sound too committed to his co-star; he allegedly threatened to ditch the magazine's photo shoot if Electra's name was so much as mentioned. In fact, his dream mate is, not at all surprisingly, himself. "If I could find a female Dennis Rodman," he elegantly confides to the telly bible, "someone who wants to drink and have fun, I'd be happy as s---." Take heart, Dennis, they can do so much more with mirrors these days than they could, say, when the old "Patty Duke Show" was being made. Cousins ... identical cousins doing softcore? Uh ... I think I'll pass. - - - - - - - - - - - - Time to break a few fingers? "What impresses me most about Bill professionally and personally is that no matter how successful he has become, he has never repaid me the 20 bucks he borrowed from me in 1971." -- Playwright/loan shark David Mamet on his defaulting buddy William H. Macy. - - - - - - - - - - - - Purported buffet is mere morsel Remember that appetizing little NP item about edgy actor Christopher Walken sautéing up an edgy new cooking show for cable with edgy artist Julian Schnabel? Turns out I may have gotten your stomachs anxiously churning for a little more Walken/Schnabel kitchen madness than you're set to get. The two epicurially inclined celebs actually taped just one segment for John Pierson's "Split Screen," which airs Mondays at 8 and 11 p.m. EDT on the Independent Film Channel. The tasty segment, produced by Doug Stone and P.H. O'Brien, features the actor and artist rustling up the grub for unsuspecting restaurant patrons and will kick off the show's new season on Sept. 6. The gastronomic gaffe was first brought to NP's attention by sometime "Split Screen" collaborator Joe Corey, who claims that, while none of his segments have included food preparation, he "always washed my hands before touching the videotape." That's great, Joe. Here's hoping that if wacky Walken ever realizes his dream of producing a cooking show in which "models would dice the food with their long fingernails," he learns a thing or two about digital hygiene from you. - - - - - - - - - - - - Snot funny "I learned interesting things from James Caan, like how to blow my nose without using a handkerchief. It's a Brooklyn technique. I'm pretty good now. It very rarely happens on British film sets. You almost never see Emma Thompson do it." -- Hugh "Phlegmatic No Longer" Grant, riffing on his brand-new Caan-do attitude toward nasal mucous disposal in the September Ladies' Home Journal. - - - - - - - - - - - - Juicy bits If the bio don't fit, you mustn't quit. At least not until you've churned out 18 friggin' pages about your sweet fancy self. Even Johnnie Cochran's fellow lawyers (not known to be a short-winded bunch) were startled by the long-ass biography the man who sprung O.J. Simpson turned in for a panel discussion about truth in the legal profession, which took place at the American Bar Association's annual meeting this weekend. (Former Monica lawyer William Ginsburg by contrast, turned in a tidy one-page bio, reports Reuters.) Cochran's tome touched on such career highlights as his inclusion on Ebony magazine's list of "one of the ten best dressed black men in the country" and appearances on "Guiding Light," "Roseanne" and the "Chips" movie reunion. Now Ponch and John, those are two guys who could cough up an interesting 18 pages. I believe a moment of silence is in order for Tish the fish, the world's oldest known captive goldfish, who floated belly-up to that glass bowl in the sky last week after at least 43 years of swimming around a tank in a loving British home. The Hand family had cared for Tish since Peter Hand, then 7, won him at a fairground in 1956. "I am very sad," said Peter's mother, Hilda, after finding silver-tinted Tish lifeless in his tank. "Over the years we have become very close and I could sense if he was happy or not." He will be missed. salon.com | August 10, 1999