People

By Joel Stein

NEXT TIME, I WILL HIT YOU WITH A TULIP

PRINCE CHARLES has trouble with the chickadees. There's that whole mistress business, and the way his mom won't leave her job so he can have it. Then last week, during the Prince's tour of Latvia, a girl named ALINA, 16, slapped him with a red carnation--her way to protest Britain's involvement in the war against Afghanistan and Latvia's attempt to join NATO. That's a lot to expect from a flower that usually only conveys the message on prom night, "Now maybe your parents won't think I'm a total jerk." The 11th-grader was later charged with endangering the life of a high official. Though shocked, the Prince gamely continued working the Latvian crowd, some of whom were armed with larger, even more menacing bouquets.

ALMOST AS GOOD A VEHICLE AS ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE

To fill those few moments when Rudy Giuliani isn't on television, the New York City mayor's office released tourism commercials for him to appear in. Supporting cast includes Barbara Walters and Woody Allen. In one spot, a man runs the bases in an empty Yankee Stadium, sliding headfirst into home. Why, it's Henry Kissinger! He brushes the dirt off his face and says something that's supposed to sound like "Derek who?" In another, ROBERT DE NIRO, on a Thanksgiving parade float with BILLY CRYSTAL, yells, "Are you gobblin' at me?" In yet another, Yogi Berra conducts the New York Philharmonic Orchestra before asking "Who is this Phil Harmonic?" And in the most disturbing spot, a woman at a diner orders a "Ben Stiller with a side of bacon," at which point Ben Stiller and Kevin Bacon sit on either side of her, fulfilling her sandwich fantasy. Warning to tourists: If this happens to you, just pay the check and leave.

FEUD OF THE WEEK

CARNIE (FORMERLY FAT) WILSON AGE: 33 OCCUPATION: Poor man's Ricki Lake BEST PUNCH: Angry at the fat jokes in Shallow Hal, she said, "I had tears running down my face in the theater...It made me feel like I was a big joke."

PETER (FORMERLY FUNNY) FARRELLY AGE: 44 OCCUPATION: Co-director of Shallow Hal BEST PUNCH: "She's dead wrong...it must have hit things for her that we couldn't have foreseen." Plus, Wilson, like the Hal lead character, once busted a chair.

WINNER: Wilson. Compared with her gastric-bypass surgery on the Net, this is a dignified publicity move

Prexy Punch-Out

The ugliest political brawl since the Jefferson-Adams presidential campaign--MELISSA GILBERT vs. VALERIE HARPER for the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild--is being contested owing to a ballot-instruction technicality. Gilbert's surprise victory culminates a campaign in which Harper, who ran on the Actors Moving Forward slate, refused to debate Gilbert, of the Restore Respect party. Harper sent out a mailing disclosing that Gilbert was a scab in a 1989 movie; Gilbert was forced to send out an e-mail explaining why she was too busy to appear at SAG strike events last year (birthday parties, dying dog, nanny quitting, husband Bruce Boxleitner's knee surgery). Victorious Actors Moving Forward treasurer candidate Kent McCord, of Adam-12, said, "I have never seen an attempt to obliterate the truth in the manner the Melissa Gilbert campaign has." The election was seen by many as a referendum on Harper-supporting outgoing president William Daniels, the voice of Knight Rider's K.I.T.T., who was faulted for his handling of the commercial strike this year. Others chose to see this election as a really funny mudslinging feud between '70s TV stars.