On an average April day in Cincinnati, Ohio, a little girl was born by the name of Tara Leigh Patrick.  Attending school in White Oak, little did any one know that the sparkle behind Tara’s eyes would take her to Los Angeles, California, and into National, if not International, stardom.  Tara would use her singing, dancing and choreography talents to jumpstart an entertaining career that only she was able to see, even as she sat behind her desk in White Oak.

In 1981, Tara was accepted into the School for Creative and Performing Arts, and after several years of honing her skills, she moved on to Minneapolis and received some modeling jobs with the Target store chain.  Eventually moving to Los Angeles, and changing her name to the now well known ‘Carmen Electra’, Tara’s goal was to land a recording contract, as all she really wanted to do was sing. 

After meeting the infamous artist Prince, she signed as ‘Carmen Electra’ to his record label, Paisley Park.  After Carmen released her first album, it quickly became clear to all involved that Carmen’s voice would never allow her to make it on her own.  In a bold move, Carmen decided to show-off another side of herself and pose nude in Playboy for the March, 1996 issue. 

After her Playboy pictorial was released, Carmen became the new ‘It’ girl and began landing gigs on MTV, and even replacing the popular, if not annoying, Jenny McCarthy on the hit MTV game show, “Singled Out”.  In 1997 Carmen was offered the chance to fill in for the well known buxom, blonde beauty Pamela Anderson on Baywatch.  Carmen’s face, figure and fantastic name were becoming more and more recognizable, as posters of her in that in-famous red bathing suit from the Baywatch set hung on countless teen-boys walls across suburban America.

By now, Carmen Electra and her life, was of interest to millions of Hollywood star watchers across the country.  Along with this new found fame came tabloid reports and  papparazzi, and Carmen handled it all with all the grace that a good girl from Cincinnati could muster.  From a quicky marriage to NBA Superstar Dennis Rodman, to Playboy Videos and large budget, movie cameos, Carmen Electra had finally found a place for herself amidst the Hollywood Stars. 

With her latest marriage to husband Dave Navarro, and a reality show based on their lives together, Carmen has shown once again that that sparkle in her eye is just as bright as it ever has been.  Carmen Electra has found her spotlight, and though it was not exactly the same one that Tara Patrick had sought out so many years prior, it is a spotlight none the less.   

Lindsay Lohan is an American pop singer, model and actress.  She has appeared in several movies and magazines, and has been starring in commercials and on television shows since her childhood. 

Lindsay was born on July 2nd, 1986 in New York City, and spent most of her childhood growing up in Cold Spring Harbor, New York.  She is the first of 4 children to her parents Michael and Dina Lohan.  Her father, Michael, was a successful Wall Street stock trader who made a fortune on a family owned pasta business.  Since then, Michael has become a film producer.  Lindsay Lohan’s mother, Dina, was a Radio City ‘Rockette’. 

Lindsay Lohan’s career began as a child model for Ford Models at the age of just three years old, and later she went on to model for Calvin Klein Kids, and Abercrombie Kids.  During that time she appeared in numerous commercials, and in magazines, such as Vogue, Elle, Bliss, and Blenda.  She also made regular appearances on the television shows Guiding Light and As the World Turns.  At age 10 she had a significant role in the series Another World.

Her first movie was the Disney remake of the 1961 movie ‘Parent Trap’.  The movie was a success and her role in the 1998 version attracted her critical acclaim for her acting talent.  In the upcoming years she would star in the Disney productions Life-Size (2000), and Get a Clue (2002), both of which were only moderately successful.  After this she took a break from acting to launch her music career, signing on with Emilio Estefan Enterprises. 

Her next major film appearance would be in the highly successful 2003 production ‘Freaky Friday’, as the teenage daughter of Jamie Lee Curtis, and performed the movies theme song herself.  Her first full length album, ‘Speak’, was released in 2004, produced by Casablanca Records.  It soared on charts in North America, and went platinum by 2005.  She released a second album, ‘A Little More Personal’, in 2005, which has so far also been successful.  

The film she is most widely known for was the 2004 Paramount production, ‘Mean Girls’, her first ‘non-Disney’ movie.  In 2005 she starred in the movies ‘Herbie: Fully Loaded’, ‘Gossip Girls’, and ‘Fashionistas’.  She is also starring in the upcoming releases ‘I Dream of Jeanie’, and ‘Dramarama’. 

Many rumors and tabloids have suggested that there is some hostility between Lindsay Lohan and fellow American teenage celebrity Hillary Duff.  Both Lohan and Duff have commented that they barely know each other, and have never alluded to any actual animosity.

A young girl with many talents, Linday Lohan has already made a clear mark on several performing arts industries, and will likely remain an icon of American pop culture for years to come. 

There is nothing to beat a vase of freshly cut flowers but an alternative is sometimes needed. Artificial flowers have greatly improved in quality since their inception. They brighten up restaurants and hotel lobbies and bring a splash of color to our homes during the bleak, winter season. It is a very old tradition in some cultures and arranging sprays was revered as a skilled craft. Materials used in the past would be beyond affordability today. The Romans used gold and silver, the Italians used silkworm cocoons and bird feathers were used in South America.

The modern industry began in Italy but the French made it popular in the 18th century and it gained favor across the rest of Europe and America. Today, it is big business and most artificial flowers are the result of mass production manufacturing methods. There are still some producers however, who follow traditional, hand made processes.

The plastic varieties that we are all familiar with are made by injection moulding. This produces mass quantities and is the only method that results in identical flowers. The plastic material used to look shoddy and cheap but even this material has been improved in most cases. There are some plastic flowers that are difficult to tell apart from the real thing by sight alone.

Other more individually skilled processes include clay flowers. This method uses a paste of powdered clay and water, which the modeler uses to shape the flowers. There are also soap flowers. Colored soap is put through a lathe and shaped with a chisel. The end product is very precise. Another soap method uses soap without oil, which is ground into a paste. This is shaped and then embossed into the required designs by hand. It’s a very time consuming and expensive way of processing artificial flowers.

Arrangements made from cloth or paper are very popular. These artificial flowers have a soft texture and subtle colors. This is a largely hand made process, starting with cutting the material into shape. The petals and leaves are perfected, dyed, assembled and then mounted on wire.

Whichever method is used, there will always be a place for artificial flowers and there is less snobbery around the subject. The industry would progress further no doubt, if someone could invent an artificial spray that carried the actual scent of a garden flower. This would probably be very popular, without the need for watering or getting rid of bugs!

The power of laughter must not be underestimated. The top comedy shows are the lifeblood of many television networks. They are the sorts of shows that families tend to gather to watch together, just as they did in the heyday of radio. A hit comedy can make the cast a lot of money, as in Frasier and Friends. The cast of Friends broke new ground in fact by being the first to negotiate their contracts as a group, ensuring that every one of the six main actors earned the same.

Sometimes it’s difficult for leading actors in high profile comedy shows on TV to go on to forge a movie career when the series is cancelled. Jennifer Aniston has managed it but not everyone succeeds. Matt Le Blanc tried his hand at movies but moved back to the familiar situation comedy world in his Friends spin off, Joey.

One of the most controversial series was Ellen, starring comedienne Ellen De Generas. She came out in the course of the final season, the first major actress to do so through her character. The public reaction was generally warm but the advertisers got twitchy and the network pulled the plug. The show however, led the way to Will and Grace and now gay characters in comedy are commonplace.

Comedy is cited as the new rock and roll with the comedy clubs being very popular. It’s a brave person who can walk out in front of a live audience and try to make them laugh. It’s how a lot of performers get started. Comics such as Woody Allen honed their skills and tried out material, changing it according to where the audience reaction came. It’s invaluable training and nothing can beat that hands on experience.

Veterans such as Bob Hope and Jack Benny could have given master classes on comedy timing and how to work an audience. They did hundreds of comedy shows, learned how to handle hecklers and how to raise a laugh with the subtlest of gestures. Radio, cinema and television brought them to a wider audience and their apprenticeship in live comedy shows served them well.

In Britain, it was a radio show during the 1950s that inspired the next generation of comics. The Goon Show with Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Seacombe was avidly listened to by schoolboys up and down the land. Those boys included later members of the Monty Python’s Flying Circus, who had inherited the Goon’s surrealism and irreverent sense of silliness. Silliness is still alive and well and currently on show in London and New York in Spamalot, a musical version of the Python team’s Holy Grail movie.