225BatonRouge.com

Doobie’s B.R. connection

Husky-voiced baritone Michael McDonald put on a strong show in April at the Our Lady of the Lake Foundation annual gala at the Baton Rouge River Center, despite an exhausting day of travel. But the gig meant a little more than usual for the Steely Dan and Doobie Brothers alum. His first gig with the Doobies was at the LSU Assembly Center when he filled in for ill lead singer Tom Johnston. “This is a special place for me,” he told Lake Foundation CEO John Paul Funes. Funes had arranged a small private plane to meet the band’s rented van in Lake Charles after a day-long travel debacle. McDonald said his bandmates would accept provided there would be two pilots aboard. Maybe he feared becoming another cliché by dying in a small plane crash a la Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, Jim Croce and Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Speared again

Young Jamie Lynn Spears was spotted recently sporting a brown T-shirt proclaiming “The Rumors Are True” during a very public shopping trip to the Babies“R”Us store near Cortana Mall. With rumors constantly swirling around the pregnant teen actress and her more famous big sis, it’s hard to say which rumor she was confirming. Are she and boyfriend Casey Aldridge engaged? The younger Spears has reportedly been flashing around an engagement ring to friends. Here’s hoping that union will last longer than the combined total of Britney’s two marriages.

And again!

As if one story about Jamie Lynn Spears weren’t enough, the Nickelodeon star recently celebrated her 17th birthday in style: a trip to the local Wal-Mart and dinner at Ruby Tuesday. And gossip site TMZ is reporting that Aldridge, the presumed father of Spears’ unborn child, was recently caught on tape brandishing a weapon at paparazzi near a dirt track in Kentwood. Aldridge is reportedly shown telling photographers to get off the land, claiming it’s private property before he drove off with his dirt track date, Jamie Lynn, in an all-terrain vehicle. Nice.

Chilling with Fonda

Baton Rougeans Allee Bautsch and Jodee Niswanger got to hang out with actress Jane Fonda (far left) recently at the W Bar in New Orleans. Fonda was in town participating in the star-studded production of The Vagina Monologues. Fonda asked Bautsch for a sip of her strawberry mojito and liked it so much she ordered one of her own.

All dried up

The popular interactive fountains near Lafayette Street outside the Shaw Center for the Arts have been bone dry for several weeks now. Billy Wilson, director of the Office of State Buildings that maintains the fountains, says a power outage shorted out the fountain’s controller and software program. The controller has been removed and shipped to the designers at Wesco Fountains Inc. in Florida, who will reboot the program and send it back for installation. No word on a timeline, but Wilson says “not long.” Depending on the cost of the reboot, Wilson says his office may tie the controller’s power to the Shaw Center’s emergency generator.