Tlc

Charles Street may be one of Baltimore's major arteries, but take a stroll up this historic pathway from Fayette Street to Centre Street and one can only conclude that a beautiful and diverse collection of buildings has fallen on hard times. There is no excuse for their shabby, down-at-the-heels appearance. What do we see? Vacant ground-level storefronts where no attempt has been made to decorate empty spaces. Paint peeling from Brown's Arcade; windows fronting on Charles — like those of the American Heart Association building — that are bare or tastelessly furnished.

The description at the TLC website for "On the Fly" gives a pretty good sense of the up-with-Southwest-Airlines tone that permeates this reality TV series premiering at 9 p.m. Thursday. " On the Fly gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the large-scale operation and personal customer stories at Southwest Airlines," the promotional copy says. "Each episode introduces viewers to Southwest Airlines employees who must think on their feet as they cope with weather delays, irate passengers, and more surprising situations.

NEW YORK -- Jean S. Fugett Jr., hand-picked by his late half-brother, Reginald Lewis, to succeed him as chairman and chief executive officer of TLC Beatrice International Food, resigned from both posts yesterday.Loida Nicholas Lewis, Mr. Lewis' widow, will take over as chairwoman of the nation's largest black-owned business Feb. 1 after being elected to the post by the company's board of directors. TLC Beatrice will begin a search for a new chief executive. Mr. Fugett will remain in that position until a successor is named.

Plan your week with our guide to everything going on 12/26-1/1. NOTABLE TV MONDAY You Deserve It (season finale; 9 p.m.; ABC) Rizzoli & Isles (season finale; 10 p.m.; TNT) TUESDAY Best in the Business (series debut; 8 p.m.; Discovery) Texas Multi Mamas (series debut; 8 p.m.; WE) The 34th Annual Kennedy Center Honors (special; 9 p.m.; CBS) Extreme Couponing All-Stars (season premiere; 10 p.m.; TLC) THURSDAY Happy New Year, Charlie Brown (special; 8 p.m.; ABC)

NEW YORK -- TLC Beatrice International Holdings Inc., the nation's largest black-owned business and a recent contender to buy the Baltimore Orioles, has filed to sell $150 million in bonds to help shore up its weak financial position.The New York-based company, which is run by former Baltimore lawyer and football star Jean S. Fugett Jr., filed the bond offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday.The bonds, which are underwritten by Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Merrill Lynch & Co., are due in 2003.

CRAZYSEXYCOOLTLC (LaFace 73008 26009)Few R&B albums celebrated the exuberance of adolescence with as much style as TLC's debut, "Ooooooh . . . On the TLC Tip." It wasn't the way the producers -- mainly Dallas Austin, Daryl Simmons, L.A. Reid and Babyface -- distilled hip-hop and club beats into a catchy, utterly accessible package; there was also an honesty and intelligence to the songs that kept them from seeming like typical teen-pop product. But TLC has done some growing since then, and the trio's second album, "CrazySexyCool," has a decidedly adult bent to it. Although that's most obvious in the bedroom talk that fills out such songs as "Kick Your Game" and "Red Light Special," that's not the only area in which TLC's newfound maturity is evident.

Bethesda-based TLC Laser Eye Centers Inc. announced yesterday that professional golfer Tiger Woods will be a spokesman for the company after having corrective vision surgery at one of the centers in the fall. Woods, a longtime wearer of corrective lenses, underwent the 20-minute surgical procedure at the Rockville TLC on Oct. 1. "He went out that following weekend and won a tournament," said Jay Van Vechten, president of Van Vechten & Co., the Boca Raton, Fla., public relations firm representing TLC. "You hear this testimonial stuff all the time, but when you hear it from the mouth of a Tiger Woods, it makes you sit up and take notice.

Jean S. Fugett Jr. was a big, nice kid. Too nice, the football coach at Cardinal Gibbons High School thought.So when the 6-foot-3-inch, 230-pound senior asked for a tryout, Coach Robert Patzwall told him not to bother. "I told him he wasn't tough enough to play football, and I wasn't kidding," Mr. Patzwall said.Mr. Patzwall was wrong. Mr. Fugett never turned into one of those "nasty kids" who enjoy knocking players down on the field, but he was plenty tough, Mr. Patzwall recalled.The speedy tight end led the high school team to a 7-1-1 record.

There seemed to be no public middle ground with Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes. You were a fan, or you thought she was nuts. Lopes, the 30-year-old, hip-hop flavor of R&B megastar group TLC, died Thursday in Honduras, killed in a car accident while on vacation. She was the "Crazy" in TLC's "Crazysexycool" persona. It was a role she and those around her embraced. It was who she was - outspoken, sweet and temperamental. If you didn't like it, too bad. She wasn't a great artist in the truest sense of the word.

In what may be the start of a campaign to take the company public, TLC Beatrice International Holdings Inc., the closely held foods company, yesterday released financial results for the first quarter that showed a small and decreasing net loss.The numbers show that TLC Beatrice, the nation's largest black-owned business, is benefiting from improving economic conditions in Europe, where it does most of its business.In the first three months of 1994, the company reported a net loss of $3.4 million, compared with a loss of $6.2 million in the first quarter of 1993.

Travelers at BWI Marshall might notice camera crews scurrying around concourses A and B next week when a new reality TV show about air travel begins shooting at the airport. The show from TLC, which doesn't yet have a name, claims to give TV viewers unprecedented access into the day-to-day inner workings of Southwest Airlines, BWI's largest carrier. The bit of celebrity comes at an opportune time for the airline, as it's in the middle of consolidating with BWI's No. 2 carrier, AirTran.

Theresa Jenkins has coupons down to a science. She knows which stores double and triple them, which let her "stack" manufacturers' and store vouchers on the same item. She holds onto coupons until the goods are on sale, then buys in bulk — from the sort of checkout clerk least likely to hassle her about her great savings. "I tend to pick the youngest boy, a teenage boy," said Jenkins, an Abingdon mother of four. "It's a thing about couponing moms: A teenage boy doesn't care what you do. … He just wants to scan the coupon and get you out of there.

In previous issues I read the comments of the Charles Street Association, which explained the need of improvement in downtown section of Charles St. ("More Charles Street TLC," Readers Respond, Aug. 22). But I wished to hear some comments of Johns Hopkins University, which lies on very north Charles Street and receives students and parents from all over the U.S. and the world. Anyone who drives from south to north on North Charles Street after 29th Street will be sorry that he took this what city officials call scenic drive, because of its potholes and poor surface, especially in front of Hopkins University.

Charles Street may be one of Baltimore's major arteries, but take a stroll up this historic pathway from Fayette Street to Centre Street and one can only conclude that a beautiful and diverse collection of buildings has fallen on hard times. There is no excuse for their shabby, down-at-the-heels appearance. What do we see? Vacant ground-level storefronts where no attempt has been made to decorate empty spaces. Paint peeling from Brown's Arcade; windows fronting on Charles — like those of the American Heart Association building — that are bare or tastelessly furnished.

A small Maryland-based cable channel and a large Pennsylvania family have improbably teamed up to supplant Hollywood starlets such as Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton as the new epicenter of our celebrity-obsessed pop culture. TLC, which began in 1980 with the educational mission implied by its title as The Learning Channel, has a megahit on its hands with the fifth season of Jon & Kate Plus 8, a no-holds-barred reality TV series about a suddenly unhappily married husband and wife, Jon and Kate Gosselin, and their eight children (sextuplets and twins)

For more than 40 years, the American family held center stage in prime-time network television. From the Cleavers of Leave it to Beaver to the Huxtables of The Cosby Show, family life formed the backbone of the sitcom genre. And there was no shortage of family dramas either with such memorable series as Family, The Waltons and Eight is Enough. With the arrival of the new millennium, however, families seemed to have all but disappeared from the network TV landscape. Typical of TV today, CBS' sophomoric sex romp Two and a Half Men is what has come to pass as a family sitcom.

Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas, the surviving members of the music group TLC, will turn to television to find a third singer. They'll do it through a UPN reality series. And when the eight-week competition is over, they hope to have a performer to replace Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, who was killed in a 2002 car crash. "We want to find someone with the right chemistry and magic to work with us," the duo said in a statement. "We have been blessed with great success, and this is a chance for our fans to join us as we give someone a chance in a lifetime opportunity to fulfill their dreams."

Bill Clinton isn't the only public figure trying to make a fresh start these days. Blondie, the most successful band punk ever produced, has just released its first new album in 17 years. Likewise, the hip-hop trio TLC is hoping that after five years of silence, its fans haven't forgotten how crazy, sexy and cool they are. But the biggest blast from the past comes from Jimi Hendrix, who may be seen in a whole new light thanks to previously unreleased performances by his Band of Gypsys.Send this in a plain brown wrapperTLC`Fan Mail' (LaFace/Arista 73008-26055)