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Happy Holidays...
From a Burly Alaskan Man
(also pictured: Frank Murphy)
Merry Christmas and A Happy 2002
from your pal Frank Murphy
Click here for a Christmas greeting from Frank and the late Burl Ives!
Click here for the annual holiday newsletter
www.frankmurphy.com more Alaska photos
Copyright © 2001 Frank Murphy. All rights reserved.
And now, the Frank Murphy Holiday Newsletter!
Thanks for clicking on my anthrax-free Christmas card for 2001. I’m actually using the whole “anthrax-free” thing as a way of diverting attention from the fact that I’m saving the cost of cards, envelopes and postage this year. Being anthrax-free is just added value.
As with most Americans, 2001 was a year
of ups and downs for me. There was
work, there was unemployment, there was traveling, there was happiness and there
was mourning.
I started the year with my own radio show called “FM in the AM” on the Comedy World Radio Network. By the end of April, the network was one of countless dot-com failures and I was unemployed. I loved hosting my own show and I decided that my next job would be hosting rather than producing radio shows. In fact, I turned down a couple of producing job offers this year. I signed with an agent/manager over the summer and I hope to land an on-air gig in 2002.
The freedom from going to work every day allowed me to travel this year. When my father-in-law died on May 1st, I was able to go with Jere and the kids to the funeral in Northern Virginia. I went to Virginia again in late August when my mother needed surgery and I’m going a third time for my niece’s baptism on December 30th. In June, my sister and mother invited me to meet them in Alaska for my birthday. In early August, I went to Las Vegas to lead a panel at the Morning Show Bootcamp convention. In October, I was able to go to New York for the funeral of my cousin, who was lost in the line of duty at the World Trade Center. I was honored to be one of the lectors at his funeral mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
I had the freedom to work several odd jobs this year. In June, I worked as a press liaison at the Radio & Records convention. I was assigned to escort Pat O’Brien and Nancy O’Dell from “Access Hollywood” as they covered Bill Clinton’s speech. It’s not bad work, if you can get it. A publicist friend hired me to assist him at a few Hollywood events including a science fiction awards show, a fashion show, an Armenian film festival, the filming of a PSA for a massage therapy group and news coverage of a Beverly Hills shoe salon (twice). And I interviewed some celebrities for the new Parade RadioFax service.
Some friends in the radio business asked me to help them with their shows this year. As a result, I now have a few consulting clients around the country. My plan is to continue consulting once I get a full time job on the air. I enjoy the travel and someday hope to get to all 50 states.
In other radio news, I donated some old WAVA tapes that I found in the garage to the Museum of Television & Radio. In August, my friend Pam Baker interviewed me for Radio & Records newspaper.
In the spring, I noticed that a restaurant in Burbank called Ribs USA had dozens of photos on the wall of people I had never heard of. I asked the hostess who put the pictures up and she said she thought the people put them up themselves. Well, while Comedy World was still solvent, they had given me 8x10 publicity photos of myself. I think you know what happened next.
On my first plane trip after September 11th, I saw two people boarding the plane who could have been plain-clothes police officers or sky marshals or something. As the plane is taxiing to take off on our cross-country flight (actually Phoenix to Baltimore), a man in the seat in front of me gets up and desperately heads to the bathroom at the back of the plane. One of the flight attendants, who reminded me of Chris Tucker, starts screaming at the guy to return to his seat. Turns out, the guy doesn’t speak English but really needs to get to the bathroom. So the flight attendant starts yelling, “the cabin is not secure, the cabin is not secure!” The two people who I thought were sky marshals jump up and run to the back of the plane. They grab the guy and drag him back to the seat in front of me and start yelling at him in Spanish. The guy is still not responsive, so they drag him to their seats near the front of the plane. Oh by the way, the plane was still taxiing this whole time. The sky marshals get the guy into a seat just as the plane starts accelerating for take-off. An hour later one of the marshals brought the guy back to the bathroom and then to the seat in front of me. The flight attendant who sounded like Chris Tucker comes up and says slowly and loudly to the guy, “I don’t have anything for diarrhea, but I do have Alka-Seltzer. Do you know how to do this? ‘Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is?’” Meanwhile the Hindu guy next to me says, “usually I’m the one who gets hassled” and he gave me the beef stick from the snack the airline served.
When the City of Burbank organized a fundraiser for the FDNY, they asked me to gather raffle prizes. The proceeds went to my cousin’s firehouse, Rescue Company 1.
My friend Rodney Lee Conover started filming a movie he wrote called “Bachelor Man.” He’s been working on it for as long as I’ve known him. I visited him on the set in December and Rodney said I could do a voiceover once they get into post-production!
My wife Jere and I were in the audience for an episode of the CBS sitcom, “yes, dear.” We really like the show because it’s about a couple that moved from Washington, DC to Los Angeles. Greg Garcia, who was an intern at WAVA when I worked there, created the show.
I’ve had time to watch a lot of great TV. One of my consulting clients gave me a TiVo system which makes it easier to watch even more TV. I know you’re wondering what shows I can’t miss, so here’s a list:
The
Amazing Race; The Bernie Mac Show;
Smallville;
24; CSI;
Everybody Loves
Raymond; yes, dear; Whose
Line is it Anyway?; Maybe
It’s Me; Undeclared; Scrubs;
Alias; Law
& Order: Criminal Intent; Malcolm
In the Middle
After Comedy World folded, I had time to build a website for my résumé, airchecks and other stuff. Once www.frankmurphy.com was up and running, I was contacted by a children’s book author named Frank Murphy and by a college student also named Frank Murphy. A little research showed that there’s a football player with that name and a dead Supreme Court Justice too! You can see more on my “Not Me” page. Now that I was totally screwing around with the Internet, I decided to make a page about my fondness for marshmallows too. Speaking of marshmallows, I think my New Year’s resolution will be to get an on-air job and do a live remote broadcast from the Ligonier Marshmallow Festival on Labor Day Weekend.
Jere and the kids continue to be my source of inspiration. We’re always trying to make each other laugh. Jere is working at the same high school where Meaghan is a sophomore. Frankie is in sixth grade and is on both the basketball team and the academic decathlon team. Both kids make Jere and me very proud. The kids and I took an improv comedy class together through the City of Burbank Department of Parks & Recreation. I know it’s boasting, but Meaghan stole the show at our performance in May.
Thank you for all the help and support during this tumultuous year. May the joy of the season bring you much peace and happiness!
Merry Christmas,
FM
Copyright © 2001 Frank Murphy. All rights reserved.