I’d say that whatever NBC pays the people responsible for the promos for “Smash,” they need to quadruple it — they’ve been everywhere, including all eleventy-three of NBC Universal’s stations, magazines, and probably the inside of your eyelids (they can do that now, we hear. No unused advertising space). Even before it bows on Super Bowl Sunday, you probably know that it’s the behind-the-scenes story of a fictional musical about Marilyn Monroe, from the conception to auditions to rehearsals and the actual show, with all the soapiness and drama that surreal talent, ego, bright lights and competition can bring.

It’s gonna be soapy. But is it realistic? I know a little something about show business, having written about it for almost two decades, and being an occassional performer myself (My Ariel in the the 1999 Dreamworks production of “The Tempest” in a park in York, Pennsylvania was a triumph of will and a particularly smug flame-painted body stocking). Also, my twin sister Lynne has been a professional in musicals and theater in general, including two tours with Children’s Place for the Kennedy Center. But I wanted to get the opinion of someone who’s spent a lot of time on both sides of that auditioning table — so I watched the first few episodes of “Smash” with Donalda McCarthy.

Donni started as a performer and is now a professional theatre educator, having worked both domestically and in Hong Kong (fancy!). She’s the Artistic Director of Acting UP! Performers’ Academy (www.ActingUP.webs.com) and works with developing playwrights with her monthly New Playwrights’ Workshop at the S.D. Spady Museum in Delray Beach. She’s also a friend, dryly hilarious and a scream to watch TV with. We watched the first two episodes, which introduce fresh-faced newcomer Karen (“American Idol” runner-up Katharine McPhee, who the show insists it’s introducing you too almost 10 years after she became famous) and jaded, competitive and deadly-talented chorus vet Ivy (Megan Hilty), and then she watched the next two on her own and told me what she thought.
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Relish has become a go-to spot in Northwood. (Post file photo)

Northwood’s Relish is one of my favorite spots – it’s yummy, neighborhoody and has a menu with approximately eleventy-seven combinations of burger fillings, toppings, cheeses and other deliciousness. And they’ve added even more stuff since the last time I was there – mini mac and cheese, fresh hot doughnuts and mini corn dogs. I’m still partial to the polenta fingers, but it’s nice to have even more snacky variety to wash down with a red velvet milkshake. Hungry yet?

Relish, 401 Northwood Road. (561) 629-5377 | Directions, invite a friend

This is a hearwarming moment.

This is not.

Dear “Glee” children:

Well, looky here!

I was all set to be all annoyed with “Glee”‘s special Michael Jackson episode, because they have proven not only to do a disappointing theme episode now and then (that Madonna episode was lacking, and the less said about the Christmas episode and its outing to sing depressing guilt-inducing songs about starving Africans to homeless children.) And they seem to have a habit of taking older music and singing it without seeming to be listening, you know, to the words they are singing, and then making a concerted effort to have it make sense in the story. You know, like you should.

So I didn’t hold out much hope. OK…no hope. Negative hope. A hope account with a negative balance and checks bouncing all over the place. Imagine my surprise that “MJ” was not only one of the better episodes of the season, musically speaking, but managed to make at least a minimal effort to tailor the songs being sung to the action of the episode – action that actually compels the season’s biggest stories forward. And they were gorgeously done – Artie and Hot Mike Chang (this is his new name) danced their way through the anime space-time continuum of “Scream,” and the surprise cast face-morphing in “Black and White,” just like Michael did it, was a sweet tribute. Also, Mercedes and Sam’s “Human Nature” was sexy, well-harmonized and romantic.

Just a couple of things – because you knew they were going to be:

- The lyrics of “Smooth Criminal” were creepy enough when Michael was singing them and we weren’t sure what he was saying. Hearing an attractive teenage girl doing a menacing duet about “blood stains on the carpet,” with a guy who’s just blinded one of her friends with a toxic slushie, is a wee unsettling. And creepy. Nice hat, though, Santana.

- No matter how much you frame “Ben” as a sweet song about a true blue friend, and no matter how adorable and accurate the harmonies are, and how cute Darren Criss looks in an eye patch, it’s still a song about a friendship with a rat. A murderous rat leader of a rat gang who will reward your friendship with gentle chewing on your face.

Look it up.

But overall, good effort, kiddies.

Love, and I almost mean it this time,

A (not that bitter) Gen-Xer

P.S. Nice Andrew McCarthy reference.

Imagine a scene out of any Rat Pack movie, or Goodfellas, and then imagine the place where they would eat — it’d be a cozily stylish place, with black and white photos on the wall and the feeling that you’re among regulars, even if they’re there for the first time. Meet Frank and Dino’s, restaurateur Dennis Max’s ode to the Southern Italian-meets-New York flavors that invoke the cool ’50s world of Sinatra and Martin.

And the food’s amazing, too — the Polpette di Carne Damiano ($12) are plump meatballs with creamy ricotta; the Calamari Fritti ($13) is golden-kissed perfection, and the Dentice Oreganata ($30) is yellowtail snapper perfectly kissed in white wine, bread crumbs and love. Check out the great wine list, and the never-ending string of Rat Pack hits playing with your dinner. Bring your palies, and your best dame.

Frank and Dino’s, 718 S. Federal Highway, Deerfield Beach. (954) 427-4909 | Directions, invite a friend

Andie MacDowell with her daughter, Rainey Qualley, at the 2012 Golden Globes. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times / MCT)

"We all have highs and lows. There are going to be moments that are perfect, and there are going to be moments that suck. You have to learn to be really happy in the moments that suck. That’s the true secret to happiness."

And with that, actress Andie MacDowell not only gives an idea for the next matter-of-fact T-shirt slogan, but sums up an attitude that she says has seen people through almost anything, including the women she’s seen heroically fight ovarian cancer.

"Those ladies are so inspiring, for us to see people who are dealing with real problems, instead of ‘Do you have a hit movie or not,’" says MacDowell, the keynote speaker for the Palm Healthcare Foundation’s H.O.W. (Hearing the Ovarian cancer Whisper) Time is of the Essence luncheon today at the Flagler Museum on Palm Beach.

"They can maintain joy and a sense of self and reach out to others to lift them up. I had some of the ladies over to my house recently, and they were trying to lift me up! It blows my mind how people can be so generous in their own spirit to do that. I’ve learned a lot from them," she says.

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Frustrated with the current crop of Republican presidential hopefuls? You’re not alone. But local actor Frank Licari, director of the Atlantic Academy of the Arts and host of televised talent competition “Recreating a Legend,” has taken his angst to song. And like many current “American Idol” contestants, he’s involved Adele.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/bVN6RFis7E8

Behold “Someone Other Than Newt,” in which Frank gets all moody and black and white-musey in front of a body of water, and ponders the possibility that someone besides Mr. Gingrich get the nomination. It’s funny, timely and calls to mind some of Weird Al’s best wordplays. Funny knows no ideology.

The Cliffhanger is one of the fair's unmissable rides. (Courtesy wadeshows.com)

With the South Florida Fair ending Sunday, here are five rides to try before the closing bell:

The Megadrop: Fear of falling? Just ate a doughnut burger? Maybe it’s not for you. But do you live for that sweet scary second where your stomach seems to drop before the rest of your body, as you plummet about 120 feet, your feet dangling free as your screams go viral? You’re gonna love it.

Two rides tie in poll for favorite | More on the South Florida Fair

The Cliffhanger: You’re strapped in, face down, in a prone position, like a hanglider, as the wind whips around you and you survey the faces of fairgoers who aren’t as brave as you are.

RC-48: Or, as the guy who operated it when we got on called it, Final Destination 3. This fast, whippy roller coaster isn’t quite as scary as a movie about Death coming back to find you, but for a non-permanent fair coaster, it’s got some impressive twists and a few thrillingly sickening drops.

The Fire Ball: It feels like the air is a stick-wielding kid and you’re the piñata, as the brightly-lit chamber hurtles you back and forth, up and down. It’s so much more fun than it sounds. Note: Unlike a piñata, this one’s probably best if you’re not full of candy.

Himalaya: It’s old school, and good old-fashioned fun – you’re riding round and round, faster and faster, over simulated slopes, while being propelled into whatever friend you’re sitting next to.

Author Beth Raymer at the Blue Planet Writers' Room in Northwood. (Bruce R. Bennett / Palm Beach Post)

It was a surreal moment for Beth Raymer.

There before her was her old office — well, not really her office, but its exact re-creation, from the desk to the lighting to the chairs.

"The difference," she recalls, "is that Catherine Zeta-Jones was sitting in one of the chairs."

The Chicago star wasn’t one of Raymer’s real-life co-workers, and neither were Bruce Willis and Vince Vaughn. But the details of Raymer’s real life, a journey that began in her hometown of Wellington, are so surrealistic that they practically demanded to be written into a book and a Hollywood movie.

And now they have.

Raymer’s life in the unpredictable world of bookies and offshore gambling provided the background for her memoir, Lay the Favorite, and a new movie of that same name starring Zeta-Jones, Willis, Vaughn and British actress Rebecca Hall (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) as Raymer.

The film, directed by Stephen Frears (The Grifters, High Fidelity, The Queen), premiered this month at the Sundance Film Festival, where reactions among critics was mixed, and does not have a general release date yet.

Raymer, 35, is temporarily back in Palm Beach County to research her next book, a semi-autobiographical novel about a young girl who moves from the Ohio Valley to the wilds of Loxahatchee.

She will appear Friday for a reading of Lay the Favorite at Harold’s Coffee Lounge in West Palm Beach’s Northwood Village, to benefit the Blue Planet Writers’ Room.

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Larry King performs at the Kravis Center on Tuesday. (Thomas Cordy / Palm Beach Post)

I admit to not knowing exactly what to expect from Larry King’s live comedy gig, “Larry King Standing Up” (love a play on words!), where he would be not only doing stand-up comedy, but standing rather than sitting behind his CNN microphone. I mean, no greater an authority on his act than the bespectacled one himself explained it to me, but that’s not the same as knowing whether he would be actually funny … without, you know, prompting or a guest.

I should not have been worried.

“Larry King Standing Up” is a warm, down-to-earth hour of storytelling from a master storyteller, dishing about his upbringing in Brooklyn and his meetings with the famous. He is, in parts, a little schticky – my favorite  invisible rim shot moment was when he addressed the huge age difference between he and his wife Shawn, and the chance that the age difference might one day cause issues since their life spans might not match.

“If she dies,” he says, “she dies.”

It’s a quick, corny bit, but the timing is not only self-aware but deliciously arch. Game on.

Photos: Larry King at the Kravis

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Welcome to the Oscar nominations! Let’s see which nominees the reporters on hand shamelessly cheer for, even though they’re probably not supposed to! I always feel bad for the ones that the crowd isn’t so psyched about, here and during the In Memoriam segment. It’s like  ”Sorry you died! Just not as sorry as we are about him!”

For the sake of time, I’ll just be running down the acting nominations and Best Film, because…deadlines and such. Here we go! Tom Shirk, Academy president, welcomes us, and introduces Jennifer Lawrence, soon to be the next huge thing after “The Hunger Games” comes out. Good for her.

‘Hugo’ leads Academy Awards with 11 nominations | Oscars.com: Full list of nominees

Supporting actress: Berenice Bejo, “The Artist,” Jessica Chastain, “The Help,” Melisa McCarthy, “Bridesmaids,” Janet McTeer, “Albert Nobbs,” Octavia Spencer, “The Help.”

Unless the Oscar voters are going to massively zig where everyone else has zagged, this is probably Octavia Spencer’s night, unless they can’t resist the chance to give some love to a true genuis comic performance like the one Melissa McCarthy gave. It involved puppies in berets, bad Brazilian food and extreme fighting. What’s not to love?
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