To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People April 6, 2000 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/2000/04/06/np0406 Chevy Chase's pretzel logic Former SNL comedian gets rampaging ego disease! "Barbie Girl" singer gets breast implants, gets "the creeps when I'm compared with that doll"; Plus: Boo-hoo! Darva and Rick officially call it quits! - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amy Reiter Live, from New York ... it's Chevy Chase bragging up a storm. At Tuesday night's premiere party for the Paul Newman/Linda Fiorentino flick "Where the Money Is," the "Saturday Night Live" alum told gossip guy Baird Jones that he's a way better musician than the members of Steely Dan, with whom he used to play in his Bard College days. Chase played drums with Walter Becker and Donald Fagen for two years when the band was starting out in the '60s. "I was the one who quit because they wanted to go mainstream rock, while I wanted the music to be more loose and jazzy," he says. When the band re-formed in the early '70s, Chase recalls, "Steely Dan begged me to rejoin the group. They especially wanted me on stage when they toured because they were so shy with stage fright. They knew I could deal with the audience." What's more, he boasts, "I played better music than those guys in the '60s and I still do." He's especially good at tooting his own horn. - - - - - - - - - - - - Ken's got his hands full "The fact is that I would have got silicone breasts a long time ago if I hadn't been in the music business ... I've always been thin and flat-chested, in short very boyish. I just want to be more feminine ... [but] I have nothing in common with Barbie. I get the creeps when I'm compared with that doll." -- Lene Nystrom (whose band, Aqua, is famous for its 1997 hit "Barbie Girl") defending her decision to get breast implants in the Norwegian daily Verdens Gang. - - - - - - - - - - - - No lifeline for Rege? Who wants to drop Kathie Lee on Regis' head? I do. Apparently, so do a lot of other people. The mildly addictive SmashRegis.com -- which allows you to crush the world's most hyped game-show host with a flailing Ms. Gifford, Hello Kitty, Andre the Giant, a box of Better Cheddars or a bag of cash -- has reportedly been logging on about 150,000 to 200,000 visitors a day. "'Millionaire' has more to do with marketing demographics, product placement and tapping into people's consumptive fantasies of greed" than reality, game creator Adam Werbach explains on the site, "The hope for a better life is staked on pre-packaged, homogenized and processed media -- devoid of any meaning or nutritional value. It is for this reason that REgis Philbin, as the elected (read: hired) symbol of 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' -- the most popular example of McMedia today -- should be smashed ... immediately." Over and over and over again. I'm getting pretty handy with the Better Cheddars ... - - - - - - - - - - - - Private Affleck "I don't think I scrubbed a urinal [before] in my entire life." -- Ben Affleck on his four days in Army Rangers boot camp while preparing for his role in "Pearl Harbor." - - - - - - - - - - - - Juicy bits Judge to Darva: Hmmm ... well ... OK. Las Vegas Family Court Judge Steven E. Jones made it a little more difficult for Darva Conger to divorce her "multimillionaire" husband, Rick Rockwell, than Fox made it for her to wed him. Rather than instantly granting TV's most reluctant bride an annulment, the judge scheduled a hearing for Wednesday before going ahead and giving Conger a permanent out. (That judge must be the only person on Earth who feels he hasn't already heard enough about this case.) After her annulment was granted, Conger told the press she never wanted to talk to her nonhubby again. "I have to learn from this and move on." When a reporter asked if she planned to marry again, Conger quipped, "Is that a proposal?" Our suspicions are confirmed: Now she's married to the media. Mariah Carey's hard-won lesson of the week: Don't eat raw oysters in Atlanta the day before a big show. A nasty bout of food poisoning forced Carey to cancel her Boston appearance Tuesday night. On Monday, the raucously ill diva checked herself into Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was treated for food poisoning and dehydration and is said to be recovering apace. So much for finding a pearl. Brooke Shields ... suddenly puckered? The actress thoroughly seduced the audience at the GLAAD awards last weekend by playing along when fellow presenter Lea DeLaria grabbed her onstage and gave her a big ol' kiss full on the mouth. Shields gamely wrapped a famously long leg around DeLaria midclinch -- eliciting whoops from the audience. Andre's a very distant memory now ... Leonardo DiCaprio's people are not taking ABC's slurs sitting down. They say the star was sent to Washington expressly to interview the president. "Whether he was going to be talking while walking around the White House or seated was not something that we frankly thought about," said DiCaprio spokesman Ken Sunshine told the New York Post. "DiCaprio did exactly what the people at ABC told him to do." Watch your back, Mr. Donaldson. The fight's over for Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. Hollywood.com reports that the reportedly off-again couple is settling the lawsuit brought against them by the masseuse who claimed their Rottweiler "viciously" attacked her in 1997. Too bad no one got that on video ... salon.com | April 6, 2000   - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Amy Reiter is a staff writer for Salon People. For more columns by Amy Reiter, visit her column archive.