Anybody who left Supervalu Inc. without at least a hug from Smokey Robinson didn't want one or didn't come anywhere close to the music legend Wednesday.

Many women received kisses with his hugs. I got two of each from Robinson, giving me the time to take a good look at his face.* His smile didn't look out of place and if you looked closer it was easy to see he didn't have on a trace of makeup. Some of those photos that have him looking Botoxy and made-up must have been the result of bad photography.

Robinson was the life of the party* here to kick off Supervalu's celebration of Black History month, which included performances by students from LoveWorks Academy, the Golden Valley arts-related charter school, and to do a little business for his line of frozen entrees.

Robinson told me that his frozen entrees were inspired by food he has cooked. There are a lot of "family recipes in our food. We have seafood gumbo and chicken and chicken sausage gumbo and red beans and rice. And I've been eating that stuff all my life."

Speaking to the students, Robinson encouraged the kids to look beyond the field of entertainment for careers because for every singer who succeeds, there are probably a million who don't.

"I've seen thousands upon thousands of people come through show business," Robinson said. "They get to the point, once they get a hit record or some type of notoriety or people recognize them, they think to themselves, 'How could show business possibly have survived before the world became aware of me? If I'm out of this, how will show business go on?' I guarantee you that you didn't start it and you're not going to finish it."

Robinson told the audience that he feels sorry for Britney Spears and the life she's living. "She is so scrutinized; every step she takes they are filming it and talking about it," he told me later. "So the girl doesn't have a chance to be a person. I thought it was ridiculous that [while he was in Europe] the No. 1 story on the news on CNN was she had cut her hair."

Robinson is a gentle soul who clearly cuts everybody some slack. These days everybody's doing that for Spears, who didn't ask for the mental health issues she has been dealt.

(* Copyrighted lyrics borrowed from the Robinson song "The Tracks of My Tears," the theme song of Hillary Clinton's campaign when she's not getting her way.)

To see video of Smokey and all his hugging, go to www.startribune.com/video.

He liked Mike Carleton College student Peter Fritz, a Republican, had a much nicer encounter with DFL U.S. Senate hopeful Mike Ciresi than with Ciresi's opponent for the nomination, Al Franken.

"He [Ciresi] did really well," Fritz told me Thursday. "I knew he was [on campus]; stopped by to see what he had to say. Everyone was fairly impressed in terms of his command of policy and the way he was going through different things." So, a much better conversation than Fritz had with Franken? "Absolutely," Fritz said.

Barnard defends ME? "You probably have heard this, but on KQ this morning ..." a close friend called to tell me Thursday.

Uh-oh, I thought, as my pulse rate slowed.

"Has anybody told you Tom Barnard was actually defending you? He was reacting to your Thursday column in which someone called you a 'right-wing hack.' He told KQ listeners, Leave the woman alone. She should have written that. C.J. and I have had our differences, but she had every right to write that."

Hearing these words as she was awakening, my friend said, "I sat straight up in my bed. You know he could have thought these things and not said them aloud, but he spoke up for you." Then she started laughing and second-guessing herself: "I heard this, unless I was dreaming. But I don't know why I would be dreaming about YOU and Barnard!"

Wasn't a dream. At Thursday night's r.Norman's Steakhouse opening bennie for the Hennepin Theatre Trust, attorney David Valentini said: "Tom Barnard was defending you. When your name came up, he said, As you probably know, C.J. and I are maybe not the best of friends, but I just want you to know somebody's taken a shot at her and that's wrong. Stop doing that. That is not fair."

Barnard sent me a nice e-mail thanking me for being nice to "Mrs. Barnard" when I talked to her at a June bennie for a Minneapolis policeman's family.

Being a smart aleck, I responded to Barnard's first e-mail by asking if he was dying. Nope, he apparently really treasures his wife and was pleased with how I interacted with her. We swapped a few e-mails; I tried to get the publicity-shy Barnard to let me interview him, but he wasn't having it.

John McGrumpy? "McCain looked like he was auditioning for the sequel of 'Grumpy Old Men,'" Paul Begala said on NBC's "Today" show Friday. The political consultant was talking about Sen. John McCain's demeanor during the last debate of the Republican presidential hopefuls. Since the "Grumpy Old" movies were shot here, we remember better than Begala that there was a sequel.

C.J. is at 612.332.TIPS or cj@startribune.com. E-mailers, please state a subject -- "Hello" doesn't count. Attachments are not opened, so don't even try. More of her attitude can be seen on FOX 9 Thursday mornings.