NEWS LITE : `TODAY' HOST NOT IN LOVE WITH SELF.

Women may think ``Today'' show co-anchor Matt Lauer is a hunk, but he doesn't.

``I'm a guy who is about to turn 40, who has a large nose and an overbite, whose hairline in the front is receding, whose hair in the back is disappearing, who's losing his butt,'' Lauer said in the latest People magazine.

Lauer ``always paid attention to his clothing,'' said his sister, April Stone. ``Even as a child of 7 or 8.''

Lauer took over as co-host of the show nearly a year ago, Jan. 6, after Bryant Gumbel left, and ratings are up 12 percent.

While Lauer said he has ``the best job in television,'' he has other visions for the future.

``Great kids, great wife, own a bed-and-breakfast,'' he said. ``Fish in the morning, golf in the afternoon.''

Denzel turns down Spielberg, Oprah

Denzel Washington is comfortable enough about his star status that he can say no to some of the biggest names in Hollywood. The actor tells USA Weekend that he wasn't exactly enthused when Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey approached him for roles in their respective movies.

He chatted with Spielberg about a part in his slave epic, but ``I just didn't see myself in `Amistad,' '' he says. ``I ain't putting no chains around my neck.'' In the true story, a shipload of slaves revolt, kill some of their captors and are arrested and tried in a U.S. court.

``I'm like, `Yeah, that's what happened then, but how about me cutting everybody's head off and end the movie there?' '' he said.

Denzel also turned up his nose at Winfrey's film about the Toni Morrison book ``Beloved.'' The guy ``was walking around with his hat in his hand, bowing and scraping. . . . (He) sleeps with Oprah and two minutes later he's sleeping with her daughter, who's a ghost.

``That ain't me. I said: `Get Danny (Glover) to do it. Danny'll do it.' I'm not knocking him, but it wasn't my part,'' Washington says. Next up, he'll play a cop in the serial-killer flick ``Fallen.''

Dylan's a-changin' music focus again

Bob Dylan may be entering his bluegrass phase.

The singer, who has gone through folk, country, rock, gospel and pop phases over the years, is collaborating with bluegrass musician Ralph Stanley, said Day Hays, executive director of the International Bluegrass Music Association in Owensboro, Ky.

``Bob Dylan went in the studio with Ralph Stanley last week,'' Hays said. ``Several artists not normally associated with bluegrass are performing bluegrass tunes these days.'' They include country stars Vince Gill and Garth Brooks.

Hooligans ambush Santa with water balloons

Santa Claus is nursing a painful black eye and making a list of who is naughty and nice after being pelted with water balloons during a New Zealand Christmas parade.

Local pharmacist Brian Brewerton agreed to be Santa for the parade down the main street of Kaikohe, a town 80 miles north of Auckland.

After the parade started, water balloons were hurled at him while he rode on top of a fire engine in the Southern Hemisphere's summer. At first he didn't mind, welcoming the cool water on his hot Santa suit.

But then one caught him off guard, hitting him in the eye. ``I couldn't see. It was wildly painful,'' he said.

The 62-year-old's eye socket was blackened and his eyeball bright red from burst blood vessels - and he was not planning to do an encore performance.

Sinatra's birthday quiet, sweet

An ailing Frank Sinatra got three cakes Friday for his 82nd birthday - banana, coconut and Boston cream pie - and more than 100,000 greetings from around the world flooded his Internet site.

Sinatra and his wife, Barbara, spent the day together at their Beverly Hills mansion, spokeswoman Susan Reynolds said. Friends and family were to visit Sinatra at home later Friday.

The messages sent to Sinatra's official Web site were printed out, bundled into books and delivered to him.

Sinatra hasn't been seen in public since he had a heart attack in January. Asked about his health, Reynolds would say only that he was OK.

Across town, 32-year-old Sue Keys of Boston stood next to Sinatra's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as a friend took her picture.

If she could give Sinatra a birthday wish, she said she hoped he could have ``many, many more.''

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos

PHOTO (1) Clothes for a Claus

A Santa suit, complete with boxers, hangs out to dry on a clothesline in Marshfield, Wis. As an arbiter of naughty and nice, no reason St. Nick would be ashamed to air his own laundry.

Associated Press

(2) LAUER

(3) DYLAN

(4) SINATRA