Gambling, throwing around more multi-trillion dollars than our chug to Mars and Saturn, today bears the higher-class appellation “gaming.” Well, gaming’s heading here. Within two years. I don’t think — I know. It’s getting the necessary referendum.
Most states welcome it. Florida, not. Seniors fought the idea. Utah, not. Think, Mormon Church. However, Albany’s as hot for it as Justin Timberlake is for fiancée Jessica Biel. In New York, it could be everywhere. Hamptons. Catskills. West Side. Times Square.
Political thinking is, it’s a good idea. Eases the local economy. Rational thinking is, a lousy idea. Crap tables will replace soup kitchens? Poor people could lose their homes over a hard eight?
The money that’s bet crosses no state lines illegally. The pot remains within the state in which it was bet. We’re also talking Internet gaming.
NOW, this “Queen of Versailles,” about whom nobody cares but who immortalized the word trasheteria.
Florida’s Mr. & Mrs. Siegel, building USA’s largest 90,000-square-foot home, is in a 100-minute documentary. The thing’s playing theaters. Having met yellow-haired Mrs. Jackie Siegel, whose dress was so short and low-cut that Nurse Jackie could check her incisions, I newly report the couple’s being offered — ready? — their own reality show.
Mazel tov. TV finally found two fake pearls who’ll outboob and outbutt Snooki.
‘RUBY Sparks” opened yesterday. Yesterday I spoke with its co-star Elliott Gould, with whom I speak maybe once every equinox.
“Life’s been good. I take nothing for granted. I’m no hypocrite. I’m not in denial, but I have no ego. Ego is toxic.
“Someone asked how I stay easy and sane after all I’ve been through. [Having once been Barbra Streisand’s husband might be what triggered the remark.] I told that person: ‘My mother had no choice. She had me, and I had to come out. So here I am, and I’ve learned to accept what comes.’
“I live in LA. I have four grown children, three grandchildren. The depth of love for my family is deep. I believe we’re all related. And I’m a realist. I’m married, but I live alone. Listen, at my age I’m grateful to live alone. I was never a businessman, so I need to work. I made seven films last year. Some independent. Some not-for-profit.”
This mystic zen attitude, was it a product of psychiatry or religion?
“Religion is only discipline. So we don’t step on one another. I just did Showtime’s one-hour pilot ‘Ray Donovan’ with Liev Schreiber. They’re writing it now. In it, I play an Orthodox Jew. In real life, I’m not Orthodox. And I just won the Jewish Film Festival Award, which Kirk Douglas got last year. And in ‘Ruby Sparks,’ I play a Jewish psychiatrist. It was written for a woman, but they changed their mind and out of the blue called me.
“The lead has writer’s block. My character motivates this boy who comes to see me and who I get off his ass to write. I shot four scenes in one day. Annette Bening’s his mother. Antonio Banderas plays the boyfriend. Zoe Kazan, who’s in it, originated the script idea.”
Are you good in it?
“Don’t know. Haven’t seen it. I love the movies. I won’t mind paying to see it.”
SUSIE Essman headlines “Comedy in the Catskills” Aug. 25. Opening act is local comic Harrison Greenbaum . . . Jersey’s Rabbi Shmuley, running for Congress, is pushing American Sabbath Day. Also, tax breaks for businesses that close Sundays to give employees time with their children.
DANNY DeVito now in London’s “The Sunshine Boys”: “My thigh has a bowling-pin-shaped birth mark. It was embarrassing. My mother would say, ‘Pull down your pants, show everyone.’ As a baby I did. I don’t anymore.”
OBAMA’s pooch trainer, the late Dawn Sylvia-Stasiewicz, who taught Bo sit, stay, pee, heel, naturally wrote a book, “Training the Best Dog Ever” . . . Right hand of Selena Gomez, 20, who beliebes her future’s with Justin Bieber, 18, flashes a diamond ring shaped like the letter “J”. . . Speaking of “signs,” Cyndi Lauper: “Singing in a concert, a flying bird once pooped on my lower lip. I couldn’t taste it. Considering that’s good luck, I just wiped it and went on.”
MARIAH Carey, TV’s $18-million-a-year judge, not only believes in money but also in Mr. Claus: “I accept that there’s Santa. Maybe because I’m whimsical.” . . . Olympics brings up 1994’s gold medalist for figure skating Oksana Baiul, who says: “My last name’s pronounced like the swamp bayou. It’s always mispronounced. What bothers me is when they just call me ‘B.O.’ ”
DAVID Salidor parked outside Mount Sinai, waiting for a friend. Turning off his engine, he turned on WPLJ’s Scott Shannon and Todd Pettengill burblathon. Listening for two hours, he wore his battery out. His friend’s health came out A-1. Salidor’s car, not. He needed an AAA boost.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.