Specials

Saturday, at the first Seder of Passover, we will ask the question, “Why is this night different from all others?” And the answer will be: Because the Boss is on TV! Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: Live in New York City (9 p.m. Sat., HBO) was taped over two nights last year at the Madison Square Garden finale of the band’s reunion tour. This is a rare TV gig for Springsteen and the E Streeters (although drummer Max Weinberg and guitarist Steven Van Zandt have a couple of nice little TV projects going for themselves these days). The concert is slated to run a little under two hours and features old favorites (“Prove It All Night,” “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” “Born to Run”) as well as the new songs “Land of Hope and Dreams” and “American Skin (41 Shots).” So wind up the Seder early, crack a bottle of Manischewitz (don’t forget to pour a cup for the Big Man) and settle down to witness rock ‘n’ roll miracles. For those of you who prefer more traditional Passover TV fare, The Ten Commandments (7 p.m. Sun., ABC) gets its annual airing. Golden girl Julia Roberts plays a law student who uncovers an assassination plot in a rerun of the 1993 thriller The Pelican Brief (8 p.m. Sun., NBC). The new miniseries Horatio Hornblower: The Mutiny (8 p.m. Sun., A&E), a continuation of the 1998 miniseries, stars Ioan Gruffudd as C.S. Forester’s dashing naval hero, who finds himself in a bit of a pickle after seizing control of a ship from its crazed captain (David Warner). The cable movie Club Land (8 p.m. Sun., Showtime), written by and starring Steven Weber, is a comedy-drama about father and son talent agents in the 1950s. Alan Alda, Saul Rubinek and Brad Garrett also star. The 2000 miniseries Jesus (9 p.m. Sun., CBS) gets a repeat airing. Jeremy Sisto has the title role; the cast includes Jacqueline Bisset, Debra Messing, Jeroen Krabbe and Gary Oldman (as Pontius Pilate, of course). Allosaurus: A Walking With Dinosaurs Special (9 p.m. Sun., Discovery) uses computer animation to reconstruct a possible day in the life of the 145 million-year-old carnivore.

Sports

Baseball:
Braves at Marlins (7 p.m. Fri. and Sat., TBS; 1 p.m. Sun., TBS)
Mariners at Rangers (8 p.m. Sat., FX)
Giants at Dodgers (8 p.m. Sun., ESPN)

Basketball:
Knicks at Heat (12:30 p.m. Sun., NBC)
Trail Blazers at Kings (3 p.m. Sun., NBC)
Lakers at Timberwolves (5:30 p.m. Sun., NBC)

Hockey:
Capitals at Sabres (8 p.m. Fri., ESPN)
Stars at Sharks (3 p.m. Sat., ABC)
Flyers at Sabres (3 p.m. Sun., ESPN2)

Talk

Rosie O’Donnell (syndicated) Steven Weber, Connie Britten
David Letterman (CBS) Carson Daly
Jay Leno (NBC) Marcia Gay Harden, Mel C
Politically Incorrect (ABC) Kathy Griffin, Marilyn Manson
Conan O’Brien (NBC) Paul Reubens, Eliza Carthy

All times Eastern unless noted.

“There has been the wildest speculation about criminal forces, Russian mafia and other sensationalism,” Becker says. “All that is not true.”

Well, except for the paternity suit part. “There is a baby called Anna. And a DNA test will prove who is the girl’s mother and who is the father.”

And that may take a little longer than 10 minutes …

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Send in the clowns …

“My life is definitely a circus, but I’m not the ringmaster.”

– Jennifer Lopez on her hectic, high-wire life, in Fashion Wire Daily.

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Temper, temper!

You’ve been going over it again and again in your mind: Just where did Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger go wrong?

Basinger’s people would like you to blame Baldwin’s temper.

“Kim is more passive and Alec is more aggressive,” one friend tells Us Weekly. “They have a pretty stormy relationship.”

The friend cites one night in early December, three days before their split, when Baldwin publicly blew his stack at Basinger at a snazzy Hamptons restaurant.

“You never do what I tell you!” witnesses couldn’t help hearing Baldwin bellow. “What is it about ‘listen’ that you don’t understand?”

(No wonder she’s afraid to go out of the house.)

And the couple’s troubles were no secret to Basinger’s family either. “I have known for a year and a half that she was thinking about this,” the actress’s father, Don Basinger, blabs to People magazine. “Alec has this anger where he reaches down for something that hurts, something that may have happened a year or two ago, and then abuses Kim with it.”

But when Baldwin started to blow in front of their 5-year-old daughter, Ireland, papa Basinger says, “Kim finally said, ‘Well, I’m not going to put up with that!’”

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Daddy dearest?

“I’m still a little selfish. I’m sure I’ll fuck them up somehow.”

– Brad Pitt on why he and Jennifer Aniston (whom he lovingly refers to as “Golden”) are not planning to pop out the progeny just yet.

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Juicy bits

How desperate are the Republicans to get big names at the Inaugural parties this week? (Throwing around the names Kelsey Grammer and Sly Stallone can only get you so far.) Capitol Services catering is providing “live statues” — people dressed up in period costume, standing stock still — for several Inaugural events. Benjamin Franklin and George Washington will be among the “living statues” in attendance at the South Carolina Inaugural Ball. Guess that’s one way to ensure that Strom Thurmond will have someone his own age to talk to.

Breaking up may be hard to do, but Meg Ryan has apparently gotten the hang of it. USA Today has confirmed rumors that Ryan split with Russell Crowe in mid-December. Proof of life after spouse?

Great news for the ladies. Marilyn Manson is back on the market. Manson and his fiancée, actress Rose McGowan, have called off the wedding and made a beeline for splitsville. “There is great love, but our lifestyle difference is, unfortunately, even greater,” McGowan said. And he had his dress for the big day picked out and everything!

Together again: Kathie Lee Gifford and Regis Philbin. Gifford told a group of TV critics that she and her former cohost shared a friendly dinner the other night, their first meeting since she left “Live!” last spring. Who paid? “Who do you think?” Gifford said. “My sweatshops do really well.” Hey, now …

“Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” and Cybill Shepherd may be out of a job. Variety reports that Columbia TriStar Television may ditch Shepherd as the host of the troubled TV show based on the self-help bestseller in an attempt to revive it. But don’t cry for Shepherd just yet. The actress says she hasn’t given up hopes of a career in politics. “I want to serve,” she recently told USA Weekend magazine. “It makes me feel good about myself.” And hey, if the political career doesn’t work out, she can always moonlight as a waitress.

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Miss something? Read yesterday’s Nothing Personal.

But he won’t feel bad at all if George W. Bush takes the White House, he says. On the contrary. “I think music and all art really flourishes and becomes much more exciting under a conservative president because there’s a need to react against limitations,” Manson says, sounding rather Nader-esque. “If it’s right-wing, it just instantly makes me want to push the envelope more.”

More?

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Ever heard of Elvis, boys?

“We thought it would be cool to do something that no one has ever done.”

– Backstreet Boy Kevin Richardson on the band’s new superdeluxe tour jet (complete with gold fixtures and king-size vibrating bed).

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Tick-tock goes Martha’s clock?

Be afraid, be very afraid …

Martha Stewart may be 59, but it seems her biological clock has not stopped ticking.

In fact, she tells Canada’s National Post, during a recent photo shoot in which 16 babies were gathered in her studio, her internal clock’s alarm went off loud and clear — and she had to silence it fast. “You’ve already done that, Martha,” the mother of one says she told herself.

But in case you’re worried she’s only hit the snooze button, the doyenne of domesticity claims she has no intention of starting another family. “I was married for 30 years. Isn’t that enough?” she inquires. “I’ve had my share of dirty underwear on the floor.”

Skeevy skivvies are apparently not a good thing.

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Yeah, baby!

“We have a concept based on a prequel, where Dr. Evil and Austin are together in the 1950s as young men in some academy. Of course, something goes wrong. Dr. Evil goes off to some zone and Austin launches the British revolution in American music and color, just to annoy Dr. Evil.”

– “Austin Powers” director Jay Roach on the concept of the next film in the series, on the British film site Popcorn.

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School for scandal

You’re an A-list movie actress whose famous marriage is on the verge of collapse. Who you gonna call?

If you’re Meg Ryan, the answer is Carrie Fisher, Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds, all of whom have survived their own very public marital scandals.

“I’ve been around scandals with my parents and their breakups. I think that’s why Meg confided in me,” Fisher tells the London Daily Telegraph. It was she who invited Ryan to come for a little tête-`-tête-`-tête-`-tête on the set of “These Old Broads,” which Fisher is writing and Taylor and Reynolds (whose husband, Eddie Fisher — Carrie’s father — left her for Taylor) are starring in with Joan Collins and Shirley MacLaine. The rendezvous took place just before Ryan left Dennis Quaid for Russell Crowe.

“I thought it was a good idea for her to come to the set because those two women have both been through their share of public romantic scandals in their time — I thought they’d have some wisdom for her,” Fisher says. “They did.”

What do you suppose they told her: run?

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Hitch-free hitching

The wedding of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas at the Plaza Hotel in New York apparently came off without a hitch Saturday.

She reportedly looked resplendent in a David Emanuel gown. He looked a little sweaty in his tux. And their 3-month-old baby, Dylan, remained mum throughout the ceremony.

Among the 250 guests in attendance at the $2 million affair were Crowe and Ryan, Jack Nicholson and Lara Flynn Boyle (on again?), Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, Anthony Hopkins, Goldie Hawn, Sharon Stone, Sean Connery, Christopher Reeve and his wife, James Woods, Art Garfunkel, Ellen Barkin, Oliver Stone (who reportedly praised Barkin loudly during the ceremony), and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Wait a minute, what was Annan doing there?

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Ick!

“I’d marry her myself, but my wife won’t let me.”

– Father-of-the-groom Kirk Douglas on his new daughter-in-law.

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Miss something? Read yesterday’s Nothing Personal.

“He’s very bright and I’d love to sit down and talk to him sometime, but I was on duty,” explains the agent, who says she was forced “to bend his thumb back” to break a rather constrictive hug.

Nookie monster Affleck also propositioned the hapless agent within earshot of reporters, suggesting that the two repair to a Holiday Inn. “I’ve always wanted to lay a Secret Service agent,” he said.

Listen, Ben, it’s not that kind of Secret Service. Next time, try an intern.

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What would Sonny say?

“Has everyone lost their f–king minds? Doesn’t anybody remember the illustrious Reagan-Bush years when people had no money and no jobs? What has happened to people’s memories? It’s like they have Alzheimer’s or something.”

– Cher, providing a little insight as to why she’s delayed the recording of her new album to campaign against George W. Bush.

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Goths for Gore

Don’t hold your breath for a press release from the Gore camp, but it looks like Al’s just racked up one very important endorsement: Marilyn Manson.

True, the ultra-tattooed Goth rocker recently told Talk magazine he was backing Bush, but now he tells the upcoming issue of High Times that he’s changed his mind. And it has nothing to do with W.’s poor grammar.

Manson says he’s made the move because the Democrats are “safer to deal with” and more likely to appoint “art-friendly” judges. Then again, he says he’s pretty sure “both sides hate me.”

Awww. Sounds like someone needs a hug.

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In fact, hugs all around

“I’m your classic rock guy, I have a lot of anger, a lot of rage inside of me.”

– U2′s Bono, revealing that he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for.

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Mind-bending lawsuit

Attention, Nintendo fans: Uri Geller is not game.

The “psychic entertainer” says he’s outraged that Nintendo has used his name and image on Pokimon cards. It debases him, he says. So he’s filed a lawsuit against the company in Los Angeles federal court.

Geller, who is suing for damages as well as the removal of his name and trademark bent-spoon image from Pokimon cards and related paraphernalia, contends that “Nintendo turned me into an evil, occult Pokimon character. Nintendo stole my identity by using my name and my signature image.”

He’s particularly upset by the star on the Pokimon Geller character’s forehead and lightning bolts on his chest, which he says evoke the Nazi SS symbol.

Says Geller, “I want to tell the world before the start of the holiday season that I have nothing whatsoever to do with these violent characters.”

Put that in your spoon and bend it.

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Pow! Right in Paula’s kisser!

“Actually, I want to win … so I can show Paula Jones what the correct response was supposed to be.”

– Conservative columnist Ann Coulter, commenting in the Washington Post on the likelihood that she’ll win Playboy.com’s “Beltway Babes” poll, which carries the option of appearing in an upcoming issue of the magazine as a reward.

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Juicy bits

Will Eminem’s tribulations never cease? Now the towheaded rapper’s lost the notebook containing the lyrics to his as-yet-unrecorded upcoming album. He last saw it on a Delta Air Lines flight from Cincinnati to New Orleans, according to his spokespeople. And if you spot the vitriol-filled spiral notebook with Britney Spears on the cover, you can e-mail found@eminem.com and collect your cash reward or a chance to meet the rapper himself. Or, of course, you can sell it for a lot of money on eBay.

Eddie the mook, a fashion inspiration? Someone apparently thinks so. “Big Brother” winner Eddie McGee will take home an “Inspiration Award” at the fashion industry’s version of the Oscars on Nov. 27. What, exactly, has he inspired us to do?

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Miss something? Read yesterday’s Nothing Personal.