Thursday, March 04, 2010

biblical proportion

If "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" were not already a famous Broadway show, you could have easily convinced me that it was written expressly for the Miracle Theater. The production and the venue are a perfect fit for one another. Melinda Doolittle, who finished behind only Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis on "American Idol," stars as the Narrator. Melinda's strong voice is put to good use, especially in her big solo number at the start of the second act. The rest of the cast is just as good. Justin Meyer plays Joseph.



The music and lyrics by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice was oddly familiar even though it was the first time I had ever seen the show. Several genres of popular music are referenced and parodied. The Pharaoh is an Elvis look-alike and the character of Potiphar had some dance moves just like the Hitler character in "The Producers." A cowboy dance number sounded like an Aaron Copland opus. A reggae tune sounded like it could have inspired the great Ashman & Menken when they were writing "The Little Mermaid" some twenty years after "Joseph" debuted.

My wife and I thought that some of the music sounded a lot like Webber & Rice's next rock opera, "Jesus Christ Superstar." After the show, Jim Hedrick and David Fee said that they hope to bring more stars to Pigeon Forge after Melinda Doolittle ends her run. They also want to bring more Broadway-type shows to the Miracle Theater. My wife immediately said that she would like to see her favorite Idol winner, David Cook, starring in "Jesus Christ Superstar."

The Fee/Hedrick Family Entertainment Group hosted a performance and VIP reception for local business people tonight. Employees of several media outlets, myself included, were invited as well. I saw people I knew from my previous radio jobs and some people I have interviewed, including Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters.

A former improv brother of mine, Justin Benoit, was there with a professional video camera in hand. He now works for Fee/Hedrick as a videographer. Before the show, he recorded me taking advantage of the free camel rides offered to the invited guests. At intermission, he shot footage of WBIR's Michele Silva and me saying what we thought of the show so far.

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Tuesday, February 09, 2010

you're through

This year, 181 contestants on "American Idol" get reduced to 24 people in the lightning round known as Hollywood week. It's one of my favorite parts of America's favorite karaoke contest. I especially like the episode when the contestants are made to form groups and sing together.

I don't understand why they race through Hollywood week so quickly. Perhaps they are trying to minimize the amount of time that the identities of the 24 finalists must be kept secret. I would rather that they speed through the tedious audition episodes and spare us the frauds who know they can't sing.

On tonight's show, Andrew Garcia of Moreno Valley did a brilliant cover version of Paula Abdul's "Straight Up." His performance is already heating up the blogosphere with comments at About.com, PopEater.com and USAToday.com.

They had a camera on Vanessa Wolfe of Vonore as she headed toward the security checkpoint at McGhee Tyson Airport. Unfortunately she sounded nervous on stage in Hollywood and was eliminated. I hope she tries again next year.

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Tuesday, February 02, 2010

put down your weapon

On the show "24," Jack Bauer has a reputation for beating confessions out of people. I am unbloodied and unbruised but I have a confession for Mr. Bauer nevertheless. I've been watching your show and enjoying it... from 2009.

As my DVR automatically started recording the new season 8 of "24," I began feeling bad that I hadn't seen season 7. Like many shows, I was saving the episodes to watch together with my wife. Our son viewed the whole season online while at college and raved about how good it was. Last week, after I had gotten caught up on some recent episodes of "Fringe," my wife gave me the go-ahead to watch and delete season 7 of "24" without her.

If I were doing a marathon viewing of "24" on DVD, it would be no big deal. Why does keeping it on a DVR for a year seem weird? Could it be the commercials and promos? In one of the first few episodes, I saw a news tease about the Pope's appointment of Bishop Stika.

I've also seen a lot of promos for the debut of season 8 of "American Idol." They show face after face of contestants headed to Hollywood. I recognized none of them. So far I haven't seen anyone who remotely resembles Adam Lambert or Kris Allen or Danny Gokey or Anoop Desai. It makes me think that the televised audition process is truly a waste of time. They may as well start the show with Hollywood week.

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Friday, August 14, 2009

cookville

The women vastly outnumbered the men at the David Cook concert tonight. Well, at least they did in the first 15 or so rows at the Tennessee Theatre. The "American Idol" winner inspired girls to bring signs and dress up in shirts with his name. It was the 100th show on this tour and we all got free commemorative t-shirts.



My co-worker Gretchen and I introduced the show. We thought it would be funny if she tried to apply guyliner to me while I was reading the safety announcements. Unfortunately she forgot to bring her eyeliner. We had to use my wife's mascara instead. As she put some of the goop on my lashes, I said "David Cook doesn't wear mascara. Adam Lambert wears mascara!" The crowd loved it. In fact the audience was very receptive to Gretchen and me. As we posed for photos with listeners at intermission, I felt more like we were at a station event (such as a StarJam show) than at a "normal" concert.

Earlier in the day, Gretchen had interviewed David. She challenged him to learn to play "Rocky Top." He suggested that she bring a CD of the song for his sound guy to play as the band's intro music. Back at the radio station, I burned a disc with the song on it. We gave it to the right people and it got played just as David and the band took the stage. The sound guy was a little angry that I had mixed a Star 102.1 Go Vols jingle onto the front of the song. It turns out that he's a Florida Gator fan.

The concert was fantastic. He played mostly songs from his album and at least one that didn't make the cut, called "Souvenir." I got to hear my favorite David Cook song, "Come Back to Me." He referenced the way he had reinterpreted songs on "American Idol" before launching into an unrecognizable cover version of Cutting Crew's "(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight."



At the meet and greet after the show, David said he was surprised by the dance mix of Rocky Top. He expected it to sound like a John Denver song. I explained that I brought the version we play on our station, not the version they play on the old-school country station up the dial.



Several fans waited in the street outside David's tour bus after the show. I didn't notice the girl with the Gene Simmons tongue until after I got home and looked at the photos on my computer.

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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

game on

How many times did my wife and I vote for Adam Lambert on "American Idol" last night? We lost count.

I was working from 8 to 10 p.m. and didn't know which phone number was for Adam and which was for little Kris Allen and his George Jetson mouth. I had enough of a break to make a quick phone call. When I got through on the 01 number, I expected the recorded voice to tell me for which contestant I had cast my blind ballot. All it said was "thanks for voting for contestant one; watch American Idol tomorrow on Fox; sponsored in part by AT&T."

Worried that I had voted for the wrong guy, I scrolled through the contact list on my phone looking for someone who would have been paying attention. My goddaughter is a huge fan of "Idol," so I called her and asked which numbers were for which singer. The odd numbers were for Adam.

Later while we watched the show on our DVR, my wife and I sat there like a couple of tweens with our cell phones voting for Adam. It was much too easy to get through on his lines, which made us vote all the more. As of late last night, DialIdol.com had Kris leading by a slight margin. Of course that was before the Glambert-loving West Coast fans had a chance to call.

Adam performed like a professional while Kris looked like a talented amateur and not just because of his creepy mustache. My wife said that Adam had more vocal control and an incredible range. He played to the audience better than Kris too. The difference was most notable on the horrible song that Kara DioGuardi co-wrote for them both to sing.

Win or lose, Adam will be fine. He's guaranteed a successful career either way. In a way I'm reminded of the year that Ruben Studdard defeated Clay Aiken. In the time since then, Clay has had a more impressive career. At the time I wanted Ruben to win but in hindsight I think Clay deserved the title.

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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

crazy like a

It's almost become a tradition for me to watch the Fox upfront presentation at WTNZ. I always enjoy the opportunity to see a preview of the upcoming fall season.

The show that got the most attention was "Glee." I've been hearing about it a lot lately, including yesterday afternoon on NPR. Something did confuse me, however. "Glee" seems like a perfect fit for the timeslot after "American Idol." In fact, it will get a preview in that slot tonight. However in the Fall, it will follow "So You Think You Can Dance." When "Idol" returns next Winter, it will be followed by "Past Life" and "Human Target."

Other than "Glee," the Fall series that got the most attention was a comedy with Michael Strahan called "Brothers." Another comedy called "Sons of Tucson" looked a little more promising to me. Usually the show I like best is the first one canceled.

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Thursday, April 02, 2009

no more McCloudy days

Channel 8 wasted no time in removing Stacy McCloud's bio from the staff page of their website. Her blog posts are still online as of now. Wednesday was Stacy's last day at the station. They made a brief mention of it at the end of the noon newscast and ran a retrospective video at the end of the six o'clock show.

Stacy gathered with several of her co-workers and friends for a goodbye party at Soccer Taco. I stopped by on my way home from an RCIA meeting. We talked a little about her Celiac disease and a little about "American Idol." Now that she will be working for a Fox affiliate, Stacy will be closely following the show.

I snapped a photo of Stacy with her "work husband" Bob Yarbrough and his real-life wife, Kiley. Bob is a former radio guy and still has an interest in the medium.



As I said my goodbyes, I promised to ask "Access Hollywood" co-anchor Billy Bush (another radio guy) if I could share his contact information with Stacy. She's interested in seeking his advice on interviewing celebrities. I'm sure she'll do just fine.

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Thursday, December 04, 2008

what exit?

A highlight of NBC's holiday schedule is their annual broadcast of "Christmas in Rockefeller Center." I thought that this year's telecast was considerably better than last year and the year before. There were still some things to nitpick though. Al Roker said the tree lighting was the "official start of the holiday season." I'm almost positive he said the exact same thing about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade last week. C'mon Al, pick one.

The "miracle tree" came from 74-year-old twins Bill and Bob Varanyak of Hamilton, New Jersey. They explained that their late mother fertilized the tree with a mixture of manure and water for many years after planting it in 1931.

"America's Got Talent" winner Neal E. Boyd got to sing during the 7pm hour, which is shown only on WNBC in New York. His performance of "O Holy Night" had too much vibrato for my taste. For the nationwide broadcast, all they let him do was introduce "American Idol" winner David Cook, who did a good job on John Lennon's "Happy Xmas." I like David Cook's voice but his version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"on the pre-show wasn't that great, mostly because of his guitar playing and the way he "made it his own" by leaving out parts of the song. His guitar sounded like it was playing a different song than the one he was singing.

Faith Hill and Rascal Flatts made appearances on the telecast. I generally find country artists to be tolerable when they are singing Christmas standards. Faith did justice to "Little Drummer Boy" and "Joy to the World." Rascal Flatts was okay with "White Christmas." In fact, I preferred it over Harry Connick, Jr's jazz arrangement of "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." My wife says I'm biased because it was too different from the way good old Andy Williams sings it.

I may be in the minority but I thought Miley Cyrus sounded good on "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." It was the right song for her voice and was way better than the non-holiday song she did on the pre-show. It was fairly obvious that Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers and Beyonce pre-recorded their segments. Otherwise why would NBC stick them on a rooftop, away from the fans? Plus, the Jonas Brothers were on CBS minutes later in a live telecast from Los Angeles. I did like seeing St. Patrick's Cathedral in the background as Beyonce sang a song with a hint of "Ave Maria" in it. Co-host Jane Krakowski called it "her own personal version" of the hymn. As of last night, there were some comments on Beyonce's website complaining about her low-cut dress and the differences between her rendition and the actual "Ave Maria." After Jane Krakowski said that Beyonce's stage persona is "Sasha Fierce," Al Roker said that his was "Sir Gay Mild." Oh wait, maybe he meant "Sergei Mild."

The network did a good job of concealing Rosie O'Donnell's participation in the show. Britney Spears did less yet was promoted more. It was a surprise when Rosie showed up playing a bongo drum while her "Broadway Kids" lip-synced a song about Santa doing the mambo. Britney got a few seconds of screen time as she opened the show and teased the actual tree lighting prior to a commercial break.

Tony Bennett continues to make it sound easy when he sings. I can't believe he's 82 years old. I was also amazed to hear that "A Swingin' Christmas" is his first holiday album in 40 years.

I mentioned that the Jonas Brothers were in Los Angeles, not New York last night. They were present for "The Grammy Nominations Concert Live" on CBS. Mariah Carey opened that show with "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." That song is one of my all-time favorites, especially the cover version by U2 and the original by Darlene Love. I wonder if Mariah has got a cold or if the song was not quite in her range. She didn't sound as good as usual. I think I'll click over to YouTube to see Darlene Love do the song on David Letterman's show.

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Monday, July 07, 2008

what would Simon say?

"American Idol" finalist Ace Young got slammed on TMZ.com for performing in Pigeon Forge on the Fourth of July at StarJam 2008 while some of his castmates played nationally televised gigs. The fun would be spoiled for Harvey Levin and his crew if they knew that the crowd at StarJam numbered somewhere around 75,000. The fans were pressed in so tightly that the fire department had to hose them down. Oh yeah, Paris Hilton was there too.



As Terry Morrow mentioned in his blog, he and I talked with Ace in his tour bus. He had heard about the dig on TMZ but didn't mind because it meant that he was "on their radar."

During our conversation, the satellite TV in the bus was tuned to the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks on NBC. We saw Katharine McPhee singing "Save the Last Dance for Me" under an umbrella in Brooklyn. The fireworks were visible behind her. Earlier in the telecast Jordin Sparks sang her next single, "One Step at a Time." It was fairly obvious that Jordin's performance at Times Square was recorded on a night without rain.

When we got home from Pigeon Forge, my wife and I watched "A Capitol Fourth" on our HD-DVR. Taylor Hicks looked more like one of the congressmen in the audience than one of the performers. We cringed when he mugged into the camera like a cheesy lounge singer during a song called "Soul Thing." When he wasn't looking at the camera, we caught him looking at himself on the jumbotron several times. It got worse when he messed up the lyrics to "Dancing in the Dark" and went into the audience to select a dance partner in a pale imitation of Bruce Springsteen and Courteney Cox.

Of the four performances by Idol contestants that I saw on the Fourth, Ace's was easily the best. He won over the crowed with his original songs like "Addicted" and with one or two covers including a great version of "Dream On." Ace stuck around to meet his fans and sign autographs long after the post-concert fireworks. He is doing it the hard way by financing his own CD. I hope this nice guy finishes first, especially after what they wrote on TMZ.com.

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Saturday, May 03, 2008

wake the kids and call the neighbors

During May sweeps, you would expect to see my pal Jimmy Kimmel turn up on "Good Morning America" and "Live with Regis & Kelly," especially since he has to be in New York to host ABC's upfront presentation again. It's a lot more surprising to learn that Jimmy will be a guest on "Late Show with David Letterman" this coming Monday. When Jimmy and Jay Leno appeared on each other's shows, I was reminded that Leno used to be a great talk show guest. No one expects Letterman to show up on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" however.

On April 3rd Jimmy reached the 1000 shows milestone. Variety.com had an impressive section on Kimmel's 1000th show. Of the thousand, I have watched all but about five or ten shows due to an occasional DVR error or sporting event that pushed the show out of its regular timeslot.

For a while, Jimmy has had his Uncle Frank and parking lot security guard Guillermo do pre-recorded commercials during the show. Now Jimmy and Guillermo are doing "live" commercials for Pontiac in the middle of the show. Whenever one of these commercials come on, I stop fast-forwarding and watch it. Similarly the only commercial I ever watch on "American Idol" is the weekly Ford spot that looks like a music video.

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Monday, January 14, 2008

flavor fave

As popular as "American Idol" is, I shouldn't have been so surprised to see the familiar logo filling an ice cream case at my local Wal-Mart. The punsters at Edy's / Dreyer's must have worked overtime to come up with five new flavor names: One Split Wonder, Mint Karaoke Cookie, Cookies 'n Dreamz, Cheesecake Diva and one that Vols fans will love, Most Orange-inal.



For the uninitiated, Edy's is the brand name they use in the East. It's known as Dreyer's out West. Kind of like Hellmann's mayonnaise, which is called Best Foods west of the Rockies.

My extensive research shows that Dreyer's did this last year too, with five different flavors that had names not quite as clever as this year's. Did you try Take the Cake, Choc 'n Roll Caramel, Hollywood Cheesecake, Soulful Sundae Cone or Triple Talent?

Season 6 Idol contestant Melinda Doolittle and another guy I barely remember host a website where you can vote for your favorite new slow-churned flavor. I wonder who was on the Edy's website last year? Melissa McGhee and Kevin Covais? How about Scott Savol?

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Friday, September 14, 2007

sanjaya sandwich

The "American Idol" tour passed through Washington, DC this past week. My ten-year-old niece and her friends went to the show again this year. The word from my sister is that ticket sales were weak compared to the upcoming "Hannah Montana" concert and to previous Idol tours. Which means more people paid to see the cast that included Scott Savol. All this is really just an excuse to post a photo I took two years ago during a press junket. Please enjoy this picture as much as Scott is enjoying his lunch:

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Wednesday, May 23, 2007

short cuts

Stacey from Garde Bien Spa Salon cut my hair again today. I've been going there once a month since my makeover. Stacey is going to use my before and after photos in her ad in next month's Skirt! Magazine. She's thinking that some of the magazine's readers will bring in their husbands for Father's Day haircuts.

I watched the season finale of "Lost" in real time and skimmed through "American Idol" on the TiVo. From what I saw, it sounded like Carrie and Ruben have the best singing voices of the past winners. Kelly is still the most entertaining to watch. Taylor's facial expressions and haircut make him look like Lurch. He should definitely try out for the Broadway musical version of "The Addams Family."

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Wednesday, May 16, 2007

like a pushmi-pullyu

Two things on tonight's "American Idol" foreshadowed the shocking elimination at the end of the show. Blake and Jordin had big crowds at their hometown rallies. As Seacrest announced that the video package of Melinda's trip to Nashville was coming up, he said "and Melinda goes home next." There seemed to be fewer fans welcoming Melinda than there were for the other two.

Viewers of "The View" were reminded today that Elisabeth Hasselbeck picked Blake and Jordin to be the final two over a month ago. On "Access Hollywood" tonight, Katharine McPhee predicted a Jordin victory in the finals. In her blog, News Sentinel movie critic Betsy Pickle makes a strong case as to why Jordin would be the best fit for the Idol machinery. It makes sense. Except for Kelly Clarkson, most Idol winners have not fared as well on the pop charts as their runners-up. Losing could let Melinda and Blake have more control over their careers.

Maroon 5 performed on "American Idol" tonight. They'll be on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend. Last night Blake did a very good cover version of their song "This Love." As we watched the band, my family was reminded of the time we saw them live here in Knoxville. In 2003, I worked for a radio station that booked Maroon 5 to be the opening act for Jason Mraz at the Saturday Night on the Town free street festival (or SNOTT as it was called in the internal memos). We were surprised that the band chose to end their set with an unedited cover version of the Nine Inch Nails song "Closer" (NSFW). A funnier cover version of that song is by lounge singer Richard Cheese.

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Sunday, March 25, 2007

five unrelated paragraphs

Like me, the writers at Entertainment Weekly noticed the extra seven minutes worth of "American Idol" that we'll get on Tuesday. At least I got it posted the day before they did.

Scott Weiland trashed a room at Burbank's nicest hotel, The Graciela. I stayed there once. The service was top notch. The staff gave me some free deodorant to replace the antiperspirant gel that the TSA wouldn't let me carry on the plane at the time. Staying at The Graciela was a rare treat. Usually I stay at the Safari Inn, which has been used as a filming location in several "C.S.I." episodes including one that aired only a few weeks ago.

A long time ago I mentioned something about radio stations named Froggy or K-Frog, etc. Froggy 101 in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton is now capitalizing on the use of their bumper sticker on "The Office."

My post about the Seattle Times Peeps Contest prompted my sister's husband to send me an article about the Washington Post's Peeps Diorama Contest. It may be the beginning of a trend. The St. Paul Pioneer Press is having a Peeps Diorama Contest too.

Michael Crawley emailed me to ask for a plug for the Detroit Dave benefit concert this Thursday night at the World Grotto. Michael says:
The lineup includes Todd Steed and the Suns of Phere, The Labron Lazenby Trio, Scott Miller, Dave Landeo, Karen Reynolds, The Macdaddies, RB Morris and Hector Qirko, Matt Woods, Tall Paul and The Bearded. Also slated is a special reunion of Crawdaddy, with the four original members: Rick Wolfe on bass; Steve Brown on drums; Michael Crawley and “Detroit” Dave himself, hopefully. All proceeds go to help Detroit Dave with medical bills and daily living expenses.

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Thursday, March 22, 2007

worth what you paid for it

Here's some free advice for ABC. Call TV Guide and change the listings for next Tuesday so that the "Dancing With the Stars" results show begins at 9:07 p.m. instead of 9:00.

It's obvious that ABC has tried to schedule "DWTS" around "American Idol." First, they moved the performance show to Monday nights to avoid "Idol." Then they decided to not even have a results show this past Tuesday. Coincidentally "Idol" was having a two-hour performance show that night.

Since I'm busy every Tuesday night, I tried to set my TiVo to record the 9:00 p.m. "DWTS" elimination show on ABC. It asked me to choose between "DWTS" and the episode of "Idol" that was already on the To Do List. The programmers at Fox have scheduled Tuesday's "Idol" performance show to run from 8:00 to 9:07 p.m. Because the overlap is longer than 5 minutes, my TiVo won't clip the beginning or end of either program. I had to manually program it to record "DWTS" by setting the record time for 9:10 and then telling it to start 3 minutes early.

If fans of both series have Season Passes set up on their TiVos, only one of the two shows will be recorded that night unless each person sets up a manual recording like I did. ABC could fix it for everybody by just changing the official start time of next Tuesday's "DWTS" to 9:07. With Gwen Stefani as the guest coach, I don't want to miss the last few minutes of "Idol." That might be when Tranjaya comes on to sing "Just A Girl."

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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

note to self: buy extra newspapers

The News Sentinel article about my makeover will appear in the Style section of tomorrow's paper. However the link to the accompanying slideshow is active as of tonight. My segment on today's "Style" show went well. Michele Silva and writer Kevin Cowan asked me about my haircut, beard trim and weight loss. Kevin was kind enough to snap a photo of me with Michele and Moira Kaye. It's quite a change from the 2005 photo of fat me with ultra-tan Michele.



Jimmy Kimmel asked to see some of my makeover pictures. I emailed him yesterday when I saw something on "Access Hollywood" that would definitely qualify as the "unintentional joke of the day"
on his show. See if you can spot the comedy I found in the video clip of Aretha Franklin on the "Access Hollywood" site. When Jimmy wrote back to say he might use the clip tonight, he also asked for my makeover link. When I reply I'll have to mention a joke I delivered on the air this morning about "Tranjaya" who by the way did not get eliminated from "American Idol" tonight.

Speaking of "Idol," I liked the different arrangements that Chris Sligh and Blake Lewis used on their Diana Ross songs last night. I've written before about my interest in cross-genre cover songs and the Coverville podcast. USA Today's Whitney Matheson posted a list of her favorite cover songs this morning. Her list includes the Gary Jules song I've told you about but she likes a different Britney Spears cover than me.

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Wednesday, September 20, 2006

the stay-puft marshmallow man

What were you doing one year ago today? I was at Patrick Sullivan's, posing for a group photo with the other members of Einstein Simplified. It also was the day my wife and I started following the LA Weight Loss plan.



In August of last year, I posted what is still one of my favorite blog entries. It included a photo of me in front of the "Coldest Beer in USA" sign. I had cropped the picture in an effort to hide my waist. Here, for the first time anywhere, is the original, uncropped shot:



While I'm unburdening myself, I may as well share a couple more photos from 2005. In May, I saw Marg Helgenberger at the "American Idol" finale after-party in Hollywood. In July, I went backstage before Kelly Clarkson's Knoxville concert. It looks like I wore the same shirt both times. Is it any wonder why these pictures stayed hidden?



I can't leave you with these images of me looking like a big ol' tick about to pop. Now that I've lost 60 pounds, I finally have photos I'm not ashamed of. Here are some recent ones that you may remember from my trip to Foamhenge and from my visit with the reptiles.


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Tuesday, October 04, 2005

themesong performed by Robert Goulet

Congratulations to Jimmy Kimmel and the rest of his hard working staff. Their show has been picked up for another year by ABC. "Jimmy Kimmel Live" is a funny show that continues to improve. According to E! Online, several of the show's bits get circulated on ifilm.com.



Jimmy and I worked together at KROQ and he has always been kind enough to appear on the radio with me since then. This past May, Marc Anthony and I did a remote broadcast from the "American Idol" radio junket in Los Angeles. One night we got tickets to the Kimmel show. Jimmy's assistant set us up with passes to the green room. On the way in through the stage door we had a chance to visit with the show's director, Bobcat Goldthwait.



Patton Oswalt was a guest on the show that night. Another day I will write about how he and I worked for the same mobile deejay company but never met.

After the show, Uncle Frank escorted us upstairs to Jimmy's dressing room. Jimmy asked about our remote broadcast. We were going to be on the air from 2:30 to 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time. By coincidence, he had to get up early the next morning to appear on "Good Morning America." He showed up at the Kodak Theatre for our broadcast at 4:15 a.m. Pacific Time before running across the street to his own studio. The other radio hosts on the junket were surprised to see Jimmy and all the more surprised that he was there to talk to the Knoxville deejays and not the ones from Detroit or Cleveland or Columbus.

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