Kiss

Good morning -- Bill Cowher -- After 15 years, time to kiss those helmets goodbye.

1983: Band KISS removes its makeup1984: Madonna's "Like a Virgin"1985: Live Aid1987: Big-budget "Ishtar" flops

Todd Pearthree is a director who doesn't shy away from a challenge, and staging "Kiss of the Spider Woman" at small, conservative Theatre Hopkins definitely qualifies as a challenge.Based on the Manuel Puig novel, which was in turn the basis for the 1985 movie starring William Hurt, "Kiss of the Spider Woman" focuses on two cellmates in a Latin American prison. Theatre Hopkins' production, which opens tomorrow, stars Edward J. Peters and Christopher Millard. Lanor Long plays the title role -- a fictitious movie star idolized by one of the prisoners.

Benjamin Spock's enduring gift is the comfort he provided parents who came to a new job with no training.In his landmark 1946 book, "Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care," the tall, graceful Yankee sent parents a simple but profound message: There really were answers to their questions about raising children. Until then, pediatricians used intuition when it came to behavioral or developmental issues or ignored them.Spock's book allowed parents to feed their babies when the babies cried, not according to an arbitrarily imposed doctor's schedule.

WHENEVER I REACH for my son, in an attempt to administer a hug, he snakes out of my grasp and says sharply, "Off. Off."Whenever my daughter passes through the room, my husband reaches out to her, and, before he asks for yet another hug, she waves him away, saying, "Don't even think about it, Dad."Occasionally, my tender-hearted daughter will sigh and stand still for an embrace because she feels sorry for us, but my son will not endure a hug without a promise of cash."This isn't a petting zoo, you know," he says.

WHENEVER I REACH for my son, in an attempt to administer a hug, he snakes out of my grasp and says sharply, "Off. Off."Whenever my daughter passes through the room, my husband reaches out to her, and, before he asks for yet another hug, she waves him away, saying, "Don't even think about it, Dad."Occasionally, my tender-hearted daughter will sigh and stand still for an embrace because she feels sorry for us, but my son will not endure a hug without a promise of cash."This isn't a petting zoo, you know," he says.

WHEN Glen Burnie High School sophomore Brok McFerron suggested a 5-kilometer race for a community service project, his teacher John Himmelheber had reservations that a student could organize such a large-scale event.His concerns will be put to rest Sunday, when runners take their mark at 9 a.m. at Brok's "Kiss A Pig 5K" at the Avalon area of Patapsco State Park in Elkridge.The cost is $10 for running club members and $20 for other participants.County graduation standards require students to have community service hours.

If you ever needed a demonstration of the term "rhetorical question," try this: Just before the final encore of the KISS show at the USAir Arena Sunday night, Paul Stanley took to the microphone to ask the fans, "You didn't think we'd let you down, did you?"As the deafening cheers made plain, the thought never even crossed their minds.It helped, of course, that most of the 14,000 or so attending arrived fully expecting to have a great time. After all, this wasn't just any KISS show; it was the KISS reunion tour, with Ace Frehley and Peter Criss back in the fold, and all four back in makeup.

Rebecca Hulit's menagerie mostly charmed children in her Howard County trailer park community -- until Kiss-Kiss, a diaper-wearing duck, joined the crew.Adopted six months ago when it was only a duckling, Kiss-Kiss prefers to stay indoors with Hulit. It sleeps and showers with her. It even throws little tantrums if not properly tucked in at night.During waking hours, Kiss-Kiss -- its bottom wrapped in diapers made of plastic, batting and cotton rags -- prances around the trailer in one of eight outfits that Hulit has made, including two velour ones for dressing up and six not-so-dressy housecoats.

The kiss wasn't captured on film, immortalized in bronze or celebrated in song. It didn't inspire any poetry or longing sighs in darkened movie theaters. In fact, as kisses go, it didn't amount to much. Just a 6-year-old boy giving a classmate a peck on the cheek at an elementary school in Lexington, N.C. Still, it was enough to land Johnathan Prevette in hot water and make him the most notorious pint-sized kisser since Georgie Porgie.Given the cultural and historical significance of kissing, perhaps it isn't surprising that Johnathan has became such a national cause celebre that people are still talking about.

Terri Rossman considers herself a visual learner. So when the 52-year-old marketing professional wanted to learn a new knitting stitch, she turned to the Web. "I searched for 'knit bobble stitch' on Google and I found a video of someone doing it," said Rossman, who lives in the Detroit area. "It was perfect for me." The Web has become the place where people go to learn new tricks. Traffic to sites like eHow.com and WikiHow.com have doubled over the past year, according to figures from ComScore Networks, while startups such as Howcast.

He never kissed Jennifer Hudson. This week on American Idol, the scroogy Simon Cowell was so impressed with Lakisha Jones' rendition of a Bon Jovi song that he kissed the contestant from Fort Meade. "You rose to the challenge, you absolutely nailed it," Cowell told Jones before smooching her. "And nice lips." A kiss may be just a kiss, but some, perhaps like Cowell's and Jones', belong in a Hall of Fame: Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty: Last month, mobs in India burned Gere in effigy after the silver-haired American dipped and kissed the Bollywood actress in New Delhi.

Good morning -- Bill Cowher -- After 15 years, time to kiss those helmets goodbye.

The latest monument to American mediocrity, The Last Kiss, should make local movie lovers ask: Instead of redoing terrific foreign films with hard-to-recapture qualities in English, why not rerelease the originals with great ad campaigns? Tony Goldwyn's American version of Italian director Gabriele Muccino's splendid 2002 Italian hit turns a sunny Mediterranean tragicomedy into an awkward Midwest mixture of farce and soap opera. It can be great when a filmmaker remakes a foreign classic or cult movie and puts his own spin on it -- the way John Sturges did when he remade Kurosawa's Seven Samurai as The Magnificent Seven.

In a land of commitment-phobes, where people are scared and don't know why, The Last Kiss understands. A remake of Italian writer-director Gabriele Muccino's L'Ultimo Bacio, The Last Kiss is about those last frightening days of youth, when it looks as though all the carefree good times are about to end. It's about the human animal's uncanny ability always to believe the other man's grass is greener and never appreciate how perfect his own lawn is. It's...

Remember the Seinfeld episode "The Kiss Hello"? The hysterical 30-minute segment in which every woman in Jerry's apartment building was puckered up when they greeted him? The one in which Jerry slapped a moratorium on hello smooches? "Uh, listen. I decided I can't kiss hello anymore. I'm sorry. It's nothing personal. It just makes me a little uncomfortable and I can't do it. I'm sorry," he said, after backing away from a neighbor posed to plant a quick one. Summer is a time for weddings, high school reunions and bumping into acquaintances on the walking trail.

WASHINGTON -- On his increasingly difficult path to re-election, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman keeps getting kissed. And not lovingly. Kisses mock Lieberman, the incumbent Democrat, all over Connecticut - on signs, on buttons, even on giant parade floats. They commemorate the one President Bush appeared to plant on his cheek after last year's State of the Union address, a symbol, in the eyes of Lieberman's liberal critics, of an unforgivable alliance in support of the Iraq war. "It's a `Godfather' kiss - one of those kisses that says, `I own you,'" said Edward Anderson, a supporter of Lieberman's Democratic primary opponent, Ned Lamont, who was distributing "kiss" buttons outside a Lieberman campaign event in Stamford, Conn.

MARYLAND Poll finds Ehrlich gaining Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has gained significant ground in his re-election bid over the last year, though his Democratic opponent, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, holds a solid lead built on the backing of moderate voters and strong support from the state's most populous areas, according to a new Sun poll. pg 1a Police expunge duty records Top officials of the Maryland Transportation Authority Police have ordered officers to destroy records of the extra security the department provides to VIPs at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, expunging the paper trail showing its armed escorts of celebrities.

SPLURGE OF THE WEEK TASTY ON YOUR SKIN KISS N' MAKE-UP 827 W. 36th St., Hampden 410-467-5477 Buying cosmetics should be fun, which is why we adore Kiss n' Make-Up, Hampden's funky new beauty products shop on the Avenue. Owner Debra Stoll says she's trying to create a "mini-Sephora," with hard-to-find, eclectic lines. Stoll used to work behind a cosmetics counter, so she knows her stuff. Now, she says, "I want to help people so they don't have to go to the mall." Among her beauty lines is Two-Faced, which offers trendy colors and innovative products.

Today's best actors have to go the extra mile for their craft. Joaquin Phoenix had to learn to sing and play the guitar like Johnny Cash for Walk the Line. David Strathairn puffed as many as 50 cigarettes a day for his role as Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck. Philip Seymour Hoffman had to mince and develop a high-pitched voice for his role as Truman Capote in Capote. And Jake Gyllenhaal? He had to make out with Heath Ledger for Brokeback Mountain. It's that kiss -- two of Hollywood's hottest actors in an intense lip lock -- that has the movie biz buzzing.