Marjorie Johnson's hip move on red carpet annoys a reader

A Carver-based PR guy is holding Marjorie Johnson's little old feet to the fire for, of all things, how she treated the Eagles' Joe Walsh in her recent "Tonight Show" segment.

Minnesota's "Baking Dynamo," as Jay Leno dubbed her, was dispatched to the red carpet of the Grammy Awards for her latest late-night assignment.

"I have to admit, I never thought I'd see the day when MJ would/could walk right over accommodating Joe Walsh (no slouch in his own right) en route to getting brushed off by the goofy Beatle (Ringo Starr)," read an e-mail signed by Michael Deering of SuperStarPR. "Don't know if you saw the segment personally, but her actions weren't too far removed from the celebrity bloodsuckers we've come to know (and commonly despise) as the Hollywood paparazzi. (No offense, of course -- you are carrying a camera these days, huh?)"

Is Deering comparing Marjorie to those fools who torture Britney Spears by throwing themselves on the hood of her car at an intersection to snap photos?

Apparently so.

"Don't get too big for your little red dress," Walsh said to Johnson through me. "I'm telling you it was ridiculous. Come on! Joe Walsh! He was looking at her like You're a nice old lady, I'm going to sing for your cookie. Out of the blue Ringo comes over and she literally, I swear her hip probably pushed him out of the way on the way over to Ringo."

What hyperbole. I've looked at the video from the Monday show three times now and nothing like that was on the verge of happening. It was typical red-carpet chaos; Walsh knows the drill.

Cookie adulteration More outrageous than how Marjorie Johnson treated Joe Walsh were the celebrities who took cookies from her basket and then returned them.

Lord only knows where these show people's hands have been.

Ringo Starr was one of the culprits. Starr doesn't eat sugar, but he offered to pass a cookie along.

Wolfgang Puck was more disgusting because he tried to slip the cookie back in the basket. It's one thing for Puck to go around washing his hands and sampling dishes in his own kitchen. But on this night, I'll just bet Puck was shaking germy hands and touching people before encountering Johnson.

His sly cookie move was caught on tape and replayed with highlights on the show, sure to make for some funny footage next time Puck is on Leno's couch.

Phoning it in? Tom Barnard, the KQ92 franchise, might have been in Minnesota on Thursday, but he wasn't really answering my question about last week.

A FM radio source -- who for years has maintained that Barnard does way more of his morning shows from Florida, via phone, than KQ lets on -- sent me a link to a RedandNater.com reader posting on this subject. The radio listener claimed on Feb. 7 that "Tommy B phoned it in ... literally. The Florida studio line crashed and he said he was out on assignment."

Then a "David Kaiser" e-mailed me a link to a mspmag.com blog that essentially said, "So what?" According to mspmag.com, a KQ spokesman confirmed the technical glitch and gossip that Barnard had nose surgery.

"Doesn't everyone know he has a studio at his house, and this time of year he does a lot of shows from his other place in West Palm Beach?" read the mspmag.com blogger. "What percentage of Minnesotans are either in Florida this time of year or wishing they were? I'd think it'd be a pretty good running bit, playing up the piña colada stains on my Rash Guard swimwear while my knucklehead compatriots are kicking slush off their Uggs. The KQ spokeswoman argues that Tommy B. in Florida is 'no different than doing a remote.' Well, when Dan Barreiro is out on the deck at Maynard's, he says so constantly. I get the feeling Tommy isn't exactly copping to his Florida 'remote.'"

So I e-mailed Barnard on Valentine's Day, saying I was seeking the truth and asking whether he'd be inclined to throw light on the technical difficulty that occurred in Florida, because people keep telling me he does more radio shows than we realize from there.

Anybody else feeling like a mushroom?