Album Cover Revealed

Santa Barbara warbler Katy Perry appeared topless in a new image shared on social media last week.

The former Dos Pueblos High student was debuting her new album cover and announcing it is titled 143, revealing that the release date is September 20.

143 is code for “I Love You” after being used in the early 1990s in messages sent by pager.

The singer was wearing a skinny acrylic tank top that appeared to make her look naked as she added a see-through iridescent skirt.

Behind her was a red and white celestial storm that made Katy look lost in the cosmos with her arms spread out to make her look like an angel.

The album’s lead track is “Woman’s World,” released last week, with the video scheduled at the weekend.

A Farewell Statement

Montecito comedienne and former TV talk show host Ellen DeGeneres says she is “done” with show business after her next Netflix appearance.

Ellen, 66, hit the stage for a standup show in Santa Rosa as part of her “Ellen’s Last Stand Up Tour,” two years after her Burbank-based show was cancelled due to accusations of running a toxic workplace that tarnished her reputation as TV’s favorite host.

During the show Ellen discussed her exit from the spotlight and joked her career would end for “being old, gay and mean,” according to one San Francisco outlet.

When asked if she might return to the spotlight in the future, she firmly put down the possibility.

“This is the last time you’re going to see me. After my Netflix special, I’m done,” Ellen said of her upcoming one-woman show taping in the fall.

Career Choices

Sex and the City actor John Corbett, who lives in Santa Ynez with his actress wife Bo Derek, says he regrets being an actor.

Corbett, who returned with the spinoff series And Just Like That, reflected on his career, sighing: “I picked the f—*&ing wrong thing to do with my life.”

The actor, 63, shared his thoughts on David Spade and Dana Carvey’s Fly on the Wall podcast after reaching (in his description) “the fourth quarter of the football game, in life and in showbiz.

“I made a lot of money, I live in a beautiful house. People come up to me in every f–*&ing restaurant I go in. I’m a friend of the world.

“But as far as having a fulfilling work life, I didn’t write one f–&*ing line. I didn’t write one joke to make people laugh. So it has been unfulfilling on that level.”

A New Program Emerging

Opera Santa Barbara has announced a new program funded by philanthropists Roger and Sarah Chrisman, known as the Chrisman Emerging Artists Fund, which will replace the company’s Chrisman Studio Artists program.

It will fund advancing the careers of alumni of that program and other California-based young artists through principal roles in mainstage operas.

“In the post-pandemic era, the most urgent priority in supporting young artists is to provide them with those coveted next-level opportunities,” says OSB artistic and general director Kostis Protopapas. “We have so many amazing artists living here in California who have gone through our Chrisman studios and similar programs at other companies.”

The company’s production of The Marriage of Figaro next February will be cast entirely by alumni of the Chrisman Studio program and young artists from with the company’s ranks.

These include bass-baritone Colin Ramsey, sopranos Sunwoo Park, Jennifer Lindsay and Olivia Barker, mezzo-sopranos Max Potter and Christina Pezzarossi, baritones Matthew Peterson and Byron Mayes, bass baritone E. Scott Levin, and tenors Manfred Anaya and William Grundler.

Hats to the Ready

On Sunday, for the 17th consecutive year, I have the onerous task of judging the Santa Barbara Polo Club’s annual hat contest.

Hopefully we’ll have a torrent of colorful tony tête toppers in the stands and cabanas to choose from while my trusty shutterbug, Priscilla, snaps away with the winners appearing in my popular weekly column in due course.

Remembering Dr. Ruth

On a personal note, I remember the delightful diminutive sex guru Dr. Ruth (Westheimer), who has died at the age 96 at her Manhattan home.

The vertically-challenged psychologist, who became recognized as America’s best-known sex counselor with her frank and funny radio and TV shows, was in her 50s when she first hit the air in 1980.

I would often appear with her during my regular slots on The Joan Rivers and Geraldo Rivera shows, totally amused by her delivery, best described as “a cross between Henry Kissinger and a canary!”

Armed with a degree from the Sorbonne in Paris and a frank pizzazz on matters sexual that would turn the air blue, Dr. Ruth was a delightful character who blazed an amazing new trail…

Sightings

TV host Conan O’Brien at the Rosewood Miramar… Oprah Winfrey in Sun Valley, Idaho, at “summer camp for billionaires”… Michael Douglas and actress wife Catherine Zeta-Jones at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix.

Pip! Pip!