Buzz

Make that 1,000 lap dances
Those North Texas Toyota Dealers sure know how to protect their image. When Michael Irvin stepped out of line with drugs and topless-dancer hootchie-kootchie, wham--the dealers dumped him as their shill and, worse, took his Landcruiser away.

They shrewdly replaced the Cowboys' fallen star with a hot new TV commercial in which Toyotas frolic to Wilson Pickett doing his 1966 hit, "Land of 1000 Dances."

This is, of course, the same Wilson Pickett who recently pleaded guilty to charges of being under the influence of cocaine. Pickett, who already sports 1992 convictions for assualt and drunken driving, was also recently ordered into a year's counseling for beating his wife.

Buzz imagines Michael at home singing, "Na-na-na-na. Na-na-na-na..."

Swift Justice
Every time The Dallas Morning News' Alan Peppard gets a big scoop in his gossip column--like a sighting of Ray Nasher or Bruce Jenner lunching somewhere--Buzz laments that we don't get similar hot tips.

The best we can offer this week is a certain sleek Dodge sports coupe that screamed by us on I-30 westbound. We had the presence of mind to clock it: 75 mph!

When Buzz tried to catch up to warn the driver that his Clinton-Gore bumper stickers were peeling off, we noticed the "State Judge" license plate (TX 656 A). We want to make it clear that it wasn't retired Appeals Court Judge Joe Spurlock rushing a little too energetically home after a hard day as a visiting judge--unless he was in drag. We're guessing it was wife Monica tooling back to Cowtown after a day in Big D.

Buzz likes to ponder the possibilities of Spurlock presiding in traffic court someday.

Momma of all bagels
In another sign of the apocalypse, Mrs Baird's Bakeries is going into the bagel business next month, vowing to dominate the market within two years. That would involve selling up to $12 million of the round delights. The monolithic Fort Worth-based bakery--best known for its ho-hum white bread--has already overrun the local tortilla market, shoving into second position.

The crux of the Baird's bagel blitz will be a 30-second television spot featuring an alleged New Yorker in a taste test who proclaims Mrs Baird's bagels "authentic."

Knowing the Missus' reputation for brutal competition (the company, after all, did plead guilty to federal charges of unfair competition) and fearing a plague of Cowtown bagels unleashed on the world, Buzz immediately tipped off Helmer Toro, president of H&H Bagel company in New York, New York.

When informed that Mrs Baird's was launching an "authentic" New York bagel, Helmer, who makes 200 million dozen bagels a year, replied, "They have New York water in Fort Worth?"

Toro, who ships bagels all over the world--from Israel to Korea to, yes, even gastronomes in Texas--seemed unperturbed by the Mrs Baird's threat. "They come up with these all the time," he says. "I love competition."

Low mileage
We couldn't help but be intrigued by the "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" charity fund raiser sponsored recently by the Variety Club of North Texas. In short, you buy a chance in a drawing to be able to hang out for a day with one of 30 Dallas celebs--including Mayor Ron Kirk and KLIF's Norm Hitzges. It's a good charity idea, though we're not sure how many tickets were sold for celebs like Lyle Yates, area Kroger president--"Experience the exciting world of the grocery industry..."--or John Stuart, chief lending officer, Guaranty Federal Bank, where you got to spend "the day with the senior credit analyst [and] touch on various concepts and applications used in the day-to-day life of a banking officer."

What was odd, though, was that several of the celebs attached provisos to your hanging out with them. For instance, city manager John Ware stipulated "no media" would be allowed to attend "meetings with staff, department directors, and the mayor..." Since we couldn't hope to go along, Buzz can only wonder if the winner got to join in one of Ware's infamous dressings down of a staff member.

Corky Campisi specified that "no competitors" could hang out with him to "play golf in the morning then help manage the lunch and dinner operations of Campisi's Egyptian Restaurant." Presumably he fears someone might steal the secret of his square pizzas (or maybe he cheats at golf).

Finally, Channel 8 anchor Gloria Campos also stipulated "no competitors" could tag along at a "Wednesday's Child" shoot and "watch a 5 p.m. live news broadcast." And we had yearned to steal the TV talking-head secrets, like reading from a teleprompter.

--Glen Warchol