Shhhh! Let's listen in on Marie Osmond's phone call

Marie Osmond stopped signing her new book, "Might As Well Laugh About It Now," to take a cell phone call from her attorney last week at the Mall of America.

Those Osmond fans, gushing over how cute she looked and repeatedly asking her to "Say, hello to Donny for me," would have waited forever. The phone call did take awhile, but fans could watch as Osmond conducted the private conversation in plain view, while walking around the back of the stage.

After telling the attorney, "I love you to pieces," Osmond gave the phone to her assistant, and told the audience "OK, guys, I never would have taken that call, except that's my attorney. And it's about my children. You know, the divorce and everything. Thank you." Assuming a prayerful pose, Osmond bowed to the audience, as you can see at startribune.com/video and returned to the obligation that had brought her to the metro.

A snag for Tafoya? Where is that deal that reportedly will take Michele Tafoya to WCCO-AM?

Broadcast insiders do not believe that it's dead, but they speculate that there may be a snag or two. One may be related to salary and the other to managing a CBS employee who would essentially need the first day of the workweek off to hit the sidelines for a competitor, ABC, on "Monday Night Football."

Dylan's dirty business Bob Dylan is creating quite a stink in L.A.

Neighbors have been getting a whiff of the portable potty on Dylan's sprawling Port Dume estate, and they claim that his poop does indeed stink. The potty is used by employees working on the property.

And these are ill winds, according to Pool's story from March. I found out about the odorous controversy from a friend who just returned from L.A., where it's a hot talker.

City officials are supposedly looking into the matter. "By some accounts, the city's response has been sluggish," Pool wrote.

Not exactly a tweety Word has it that Gophers football coach Tim Brewster was ordered to delete a Twitter.com entry that took a large shot at Strib sports columnist Patrick Reusse.

By the time I heard about this, the alleged tweet from Brew was gone from "Play4brew."

But an e-mailer name Ron claims that Brew posted this: How would you like to wake up in the morning and look in the mirror...... if your [sic] Fat Pat.

Not a tweet. Friday afternoon I tracked down Reusse, who had heard all about this, and he said, "Coach Brew has detected that I'm overweight and that makes him an astute observer. And this situation could in no way lessen my opinion of him."

Left a voice mail for Tom Wistrcill, an assistant to the university's AD Joel Maturi, seeking to get a confirmation or a comment on gossip that a higher up told coach to make the naughty tweet disappear. Getting no response from Wistrcill, I then posted another tweet at DishCentral by C.J. that read: Coach Brew I need a quote from yooooou. You are not being a tweety. Please e-mail [me].

Reusse didn't see the alleged Brew tweet, either. "I wouldn't know how to Twitter, although I am on there; I don't know how I got there," Reusse said. "But I got five or six e-mails telling me about [what Brewster allegedly wrote]."

My tweety of a tipster Ron told me, "Brew should probably worry more about the upcoming season than local scribes. For a guy who was supposed to be better at dealing with the media than Glen Mason, I just don't see it and I am very disappointed."

A quip from Couric CBS's Katie Couric sent a funny e-mail Thursday to Jason Matheson of FM107 and "the F O X," as the entertainment reporter has started calling his main employer.

It drew Matheson's first contact from the network news superstar, whose attention he has been trying to get with the help of yours truly.

Matheson wants Couric to call his new radio show, which recently started being replayed at night in its entirety because FM107 dropped the Cooper Lawrence show.

"Hey! I know all about you, Jason," Couric wrote jokingly, adding "Security!"