Thank God, it's a Friday's? Not for spa owner

It looked as though Shauna Raisch, the "Millionaire Matchmaker" alum, was on a date at a TGI Friday's with her favorite kind of man -- a young one.

In front of large TV audiences, Bravo's snarky "Millionaire Matchmaker" Patti Stanger verbally beat down Raisch, owner of Wayzata's Twiggs Salonspa, about not being attracted to older men. (Of course, Stanger's got her own image problems these days with gossip publications claiming her recent failed engagement was a fake from the start to enhance her credibility on the reality show.)

"I was actually with my nephew," Raisch said with a laugh when told I'd heard all about her brief stop at a metro Friday's. "He's 17."

Oops ... squared!

"That was not a date. Sorry to disappoint you," she said. "Who thought I was with a 17-year-old?"

Then Raisch poured on the acid that made her so entertaining during two appearances on Stanger's show: "I would really love it if you'd focus on the fact that I was on a date with my nephew instead of being at Friday's."

She was joking about the nephew while being totally serious about not memorializing in ink her presence at a Friday's.

Ah, yeah, but I like you anyway. "I'm really not," she protested. "I just get caught in horrible moments."

During this particular horrible moment at TGI Friday's, did you say something along the lines of, We have to leave. This place isn't as classy as we thought it was going to be...?

"No, would never say the word 'classy'-- ever," Raisch said. "It just wasn't what I expected. You see it on TV, and it looks fun." The new Mozza Mia Pizza was more her kind of fun place.

Diller remembers LaBelleWord is that Phyllis Diller was deeply saddened by the death of Minneapolis ad executive Lawrence LaBelle.

LaBelle's widow, Joanie LaBelle, telephoned the actor and comedian at her home in Los Angeles a couple of days after Larry was buried. Joanie believes Phyllis had a little crush on Larry, as Diller called him -- his stage name, although many others called him by his other nickname, Lorney.

"It was a funny thing. I mean, I hardly think the woman ever cooked an egg in her life. She came here and we invited her out to, as I recall, Charlie's Cafe Exceptionale for dinner. She liked him a lot, and I don't think she even knew he was married at that point. But anyway, she said, Pick me up, I'll be at the Radisson. She answered the door to her suite with her darling little puppy, and she took one look at me and said, Who sent for her?"

"This is true, all of this is true," said Joanie, who declined to give me Diller's phone number to get her version. Joanie said Diller is suffering from congestive heart problems, the same condition that claimed Lorney during surgery.

Joanie and Phyllis began to forge their own friendship that night over dinner at Charlie's. "That was when she had her first facelift," said Joanie. "And she said, If you ever have one or if you ever have any plastic surgery, do it in the city in which you live. You can run into so much trouble. Yeah, that was the advice she gave me. But I did it out of town anyway."

No matter what Joanie does to her face, the only place she's not allowed to take it is on a date.

Her son and my good friend, musician, producer and commercial-maker Shaun LaBelle, told her "No dating" when we had dinner at Rojo in St. Louis Park. And he wasn't teasing. "I know the sexual object," laughed Joanie.

Joanie was thrilled with the obituary the Strib's Jim Adams wrote about Lorney. I had no idea what a powerhouse Lorney was in the ad world. "It's too bad that article couldn't have been written when he was alive," said Joanie.

"Phyllis always said Lorney was the most talented, creative person she knew. And that if she had had Larry write, direct and produce her television show, 'The Pruitts of Southhampton,' maybe 40 years ago, he would have made a big hit out of it. But it bombed."