Friday, July 18, 2008

meow mix

Susan Olsen wants your clicks. The actress who played Cindy on "The Brady Bunch" sent out an email tonight to a bunch group of her friends and family members with the news that she is in the cast of "Gimme My Reality Show," which will air on the Fox Reality Channel starting October 11. The show is filming now. As part of the competition, Susan needs as many of us as possible to click on a YouTube video she made. Whoever gets the most clicks over the weekend wins the challenge. It's a faux PSA called "Kittens In Peril" that could be analogous to the hazards faced by former child stars. Or maybe it's just about kittens.

Susan and I worked together at the defunct Comedy World Radio Network (which was way ahead of its time in online audio and video streaming). Previously she had a talk show at KLSX. Susan did a radio interview earlier this month in Colorado that made the news when she got sick. Rather than fabricate a story about having the flu or something, she knew from her past radio experience that it was best to be honest and tell the morning deejays that she was hungover from a few glasses of wine the night before. The altitude and an oncoming migraine didn't help either. The deejays were quick to get a video of the interview to CNN and other outlets, saying it was the weirdest thing that ever happened to them. Funny, it's happened to me plenty of times. Someday I should try to make a list of all the different celebrities who showed up hungover to morning radio interviews that I had booked.

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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

prey for Cas Walker

The dream of almost everyone who has done a commercial voiceover is to become a cartoon character. I've always been a fan of the voices behind the drawings. When I was casting the radio dramas we did at KLOS, I would be sure to get some talented voice actors to work alongside the more well-known celebrities. Jess Harnell was in all of my productions. At other times we had Nancy Cartwright, Christine Cavanaugh and the legendary June Foray. Mark Hamill was in several of our productions. He is known for his on-camera performance in "Star Wars" but truly shines for his voiceover work as the Joker in "Batman: The Animated Series" and other roles.

The topic of voiceovers came to mind when my friend Sandy Weaver Carman left a comment on my blog entry about downloading a Mark Twain audiobook. DC radio fans will certainly remember Sandy as one of the best deejays to ever grace the market with her work at Q107 and WAVA. She recently launched her own voiceover business and a blog that will help push her name to the top of the search results.

Sandy's blog inspired me to add some newer samples on my own voiceover page. I recently did a couple of radio commercials using character voices. Although I have yet to become the voice of an animated cartoon character, publicist Zane Hagy asked me to create a voice for Ronnie Raccoon, the spokesplushy for Saving Little Hearts, a charity for kids with congenital heart defects.



One day last week, there was a slight advertising emergency at the radio station. A local used car dealer wanted someone to do a superhero voice for their new commercial. The others who had tried it weren't "whitebread" enough. Strangely, I was asked to give it a try. Because of the circumstances, there was a rush to get it done. On my way to the studio, I saw that the script called for three voices. I thought it might be funny if I did all of them myself. If it didn't sound right, they could still get somebody else to be the announcer or the woman in distress. Gene Wooten added some reverb and the perfect music. Bottom line: the client loved the spot and wants to do more. Former radio PD Gishelle Diva Gish called the request line on Sunday to tell me that she too thought the spot was good. Click here to take a listen for yourself. C'mon it's only 30 seconds!

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Saturday, July 05, 2008

that's hot

Some guy at Good Charlotte's record label assured Terry Morrow that Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie would not be accompanying their boyfriends to StarJam 2008 at Patriot Park in Pigeon Forge. And we all know what happens when you assure, you make an ass out of you and re.

One of my co-workers picked up the band at McGhee Tyson Airport on Friday afternoon and was surprised to see that Paris was traveling with Benji Madden. His brother Joel was without Nicole. On the way to Pigeon Forge, they all got out of the van and bought a bunch of fireworks at a stand on Wears Valley Road.

When I had a little bit of a break later, it occurred to me to call Terry Morrow and to tell him that I had met Paris. He loves to tell people about the party he attended at her house. Naturally, Terry was surprised to hear that she was in Tennessee. He couldn't get off the phone fast enough so he could start driving to Pigeon Forge. As a result of his efforts, he was able to phone in a story for this morning's paper and post a few more details on his blog.

Here are the photos I took from my vantage point backstage. You may not use any of these photos on your own site without my permission, but you may go ahead and link back to this blog entry freely.

Copyright © 2008 Frank Murphy. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2008 Frank Murphy. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2008 Frank Murphy. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2008 Frank Murphy. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2008 Frank Murphy. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2008 Frank Murphy. All rights reserved.

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Thursday, June 26, 2008

and here we go...

Batman fans are buzzing today about the first review of "The Dark Knight." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone absolutely loved it. He's talking about a posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger. The movie trailers have allayed any fear I had that Heath's untimely death would distract from the film. When I look at him in character, I only see the Joker, not the actor.

Meanwhile Adam West fans can set their TiVos to record the 9 a.m. hour of the "Today" show on Tuesday. Adam, Burt Ward and Lee Meriweather will be interviewed. A couple of Adam West interviews popped up online this week. If you only feel like reading one, I would recommend The Den of Geek instead of ComicBookMovie.com. It's no surprise that Adam is less than enthusiastic about the darker version of the caped crusader.

I don't think it's a contradiction for me to be a fan of both the '60s TV "Batman" and Christopher Nolan's interpretation in "Batman Begins." Of course, I also loved all the other Nolan films I've seen: "Memento," "Insomnia" and "The Prestige."

Some other bat-bits: It's too bad that Adam West wasn't chosen to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this year. I hope his supporters keep trying. My friend Bean wanted to make sure I had seen a cool behind-the-scenes photo of Adam and Burt filming one of their famous Bat-climbs. My friend Lee sent me a sound clip of a 1960s radio deejay telling his audience that it was time to go watch "Batman." That's a sure-fire ratings winner. Lastly, I saw a picture on the Knoxville Blog Network of what is truly the worst Batman toy ever. Funny, though.

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Tuesday, June 24, 2008

surprise at the pearly gates

George Carlin seemed younger than 71. Maybe not in appearance but certainly in attitude. If someone asked you last week, could you have guessed that he was born in the 1930s? Yesterday morning I awoke to the startling news that Carlin had died. Although he was only a couple of years younger than my parents, he didn't behave like a member of their generation.

The 28-year-old Carlin was virtually unrecognizable in some footage from a 1965 episode of "The Merv Griffin Show." He was clean-cut and doing a more standard form of shtick reminiscent of Rodney Dangerfield. By the time he hosted the first "Saturday Night Live" in 1975, he had reinvented himself into the comedian we all knew. That could explain why he seemed younger than he was.

When asked for a reaction, Jay Leno told ABC News, "If there was ever a comedian who was a voice of their generation it was George Carlin." Leno's quote for USA Today was "He was a student of Lenny Bruce, and, like him, he spoke directly to his generation." Uh, Jay? Please see paragraphs one and two above.

I remember first listening to one of Carlin's comedy albums while visiting some second cousins in Baltimore. They let me use headphones so as not to disturb the grown-ups. And by grown-ups, I mean the people in the house who were closest to Carlin's age.

George Carlin was one of the many celebrities to appear on KLOS while I worked there. I think he was promoting a book at the time. Or maybe an HBO special. Or possibly both. Carlin was nothing short of prolific. I may not agree with all his beliefs, but I am glad to have met him. I think I may have had him sign a book. If I did, it would be packed away in in box in the basement.

Yesterday I flipped over to NPR as part of my resolution to listen to it more often. They were rerunning an interview with George Carlin from 2004. In the segment I heard, the interviewer asked George about his philosophy of life. In her question, she aptly described it as a mix of narcissism and mysticism. Then she asked about his heart attacks and his thoughts on death. He talked about how he would be sad to know that his life was ending whether he had a minute, a month or a year's notice that his time was up. I wonder what was going through the interviewer's mind as she asked the questions. Was she thinking ahead to the day the interview would eventually be replayed?

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Friday, June 20, 2008

one down, nineteen to go

At the urging of my friend Tim, I tried listening to some NPR this week. Today I heard a show that was so good, I'm kicking myself for not knowing about it sooner. Fortunately all twenty past episodes of Radiolab are available online. They produce five episodes per season.

The episode that got me hooked was about the famous 1938 broadcast of "War of the Worlds." I downloaded the mp3 so I can hear the parts I missed while out of the car. People who posted comments on the show's blog loved it as much as I did.

Every Halloween some radio stations would rerun the old Mercury Theatre show. I used to hear it as a kid in New York on WOR. In L.A. it was on KNX. While I was at KLOS, I produced and directed a version of "War of the Worlds" at the Museum of Television & Radio, as it was known back then. We paid some old guy for the rights and used the same script.

In our production, Paul Sorvino played the Orson Welles part. I cast Paul Moyer and Colleen Williams from KNBC and Leonard Maltin from "Entertainment Tonight" in the roles of the newscasters who "interrupt" the program. They were all great but it was William Shatner who stole the show. He played Carl Phillips, the reporter who (spoiler alert) gets burned up by the Martians. Shatner got a well-deserved standing ovation during our first commercial break.

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Thursday, June 05, 2008

hi-yo

The news about Ed McMahon's financial troubles has him and his family in my thoughts. I once went to his house with a digital tape recorder for him to voice the intro to a Kevin & Bean Christmas album. We recorded his segment in the same den that was shown on "Access Hollywood" last night. I loved seeing all his photographs and memorabilia. Ed is especially fond of the toy trains that ride on tracks suspended from the ceiling.

I moved to Burbank just before Johnny Carson's retirement. I wish I could have seen a taping of the "real" Tonight Show with Johnny and Ed but all the tickets were long gone. Because of his other projects, Ed was always accessible to the local media. Just as you would expect, he is a great sport. We had several interactions with him while I was at KROQ. He let us dress him up in the grunge attire of the day so he could introduce Henry Rollins' performance on stage at the Weenie Roast. Another time he wore his suit and tie so we could videotape him on the beach with Jenny McCarthy. My wife and I ended up sitting at the same table as Ed and his wife Pam at Kevin Ryder's wedding reception. Best of all was the time Ed flew several of us and our wives to Orlando for a remote broadcast from Walt Disney World. Kevin & Bean were there to make a guest appearance on "Star Search." I've always regretted the time I had the flu and was too sick to attend Ed's birthday party. Especially since I had already bought a gift.

"Access Hollywood" had an update tonight. I didn't get home in time to see Ed and his wife on "Larry King Live." Did you?

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Saturday, May 31, 2008

the darndest thing

Art Linkletter is alive and kicking, as far as I know. Although I had my doubts yesterday when I saw an online obituary for the very talented Harvey Korman. Some fool put Linkletter's photo alongside Korman's obit.



eFluxMedia has been turning up a lot lately in the Google News headlines that I scan. Dumb mistakes like this will keep me from clicking on their links in the future.

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Sunday, May 18, 2008

where do I send my dollar?

How is it possible that Adam West, TV's Batman, doesn't already have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? KROQ's Kevin & Bean talked to Adam on Friday. They hope to right this wrong, as you can hear in their interview. They had previously gotten behind the efforts to get a star for James Doohan, who played Scotty on "Star Trek."

How do you get a star? The nomination process is detailed online. There are certainly enough "Batman" fans out there to help raise the $25,000 fee. It would make a great birthday gift for Adam, who turns 80 on September 19. If they can make the May 31 deadline, Adam could get his recognition in 2009.

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Friday, May 09, 2008

lowering the bar

All the Barenaked Ladies songs that I can think of are uptempo tunes with verbose lyrics. After a couple of listens, I tire of them and tune away when they come on the radio. "One Week" is a perfect example. You might also know "If I Had $1000000."

Given their penchant for clever lyrics, I was interested in hearing their new children's song, "Snacktime." I had read that the song named the favorite snacks of several celebrities including Lyle Lovett (watermelon) and Weird Al Yankovic (honey roasted peanuts). Plus, I enjoy a good snack as much as anybody. The song can be heard on BNL's MySpace page. Instead of intricate rhymes, the song is a sleepy number that repeats the hook: "Snack time, snack time, oh snack time." The celebrities literally phone in their snack choices. Janeane Garofalo likes microwaved chocolate donuts and Gordon Lightfoot enjoys pasta, which is more of a meal than a snack.

Most of the snacks of the rich and famous in the song would fail the "rules to eat by" that were on "Nightline" last night. A proponent of organic foods says we shouldn't eat anything our great-great-grandmothers wouldn't recognize as food. I know that Michael Pollan's point is to get us to eat mostly plants but my favorite part of the report (four and a half minutes in) was the old Twinkies commercial that claimed the snack cake gave your child "energy to go on and protein to grow on."

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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

five years until Willard

Happy birthday Grandma! No, my grandmother doesn't usually read my blog but I once sent a link to my aunt, who printed the entry and gave it to Grandma.

Grandma turns 95 today. She was born one year after the Titanic sunk, 48 years after the day Lincoln died.

On her 14th birthday, the first footprints were left in the cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and some others. On her 34th birthday, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball.

Congress ratified Amendment XVI, which allowed them to collect an income tax, about two and a half months before Grandma was born. Her birthday didn't become the official Tax Day until she turned 42.

About nine years ago Grandma gave me a gift subscription to the statehood quarters. Every few months we get a panel in the mail from the Postal Commemorative Society. At the time, Grandma made me promise to continue buying the panels after she's gone. Fortunately for me, Grandma is still going strong and the final quarters will be released this year.

Grandma spent her 80th birthday with us in Los Angeles. We took her to the Chinese Theatre, to Beverly Hills and to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. That's where she saw the statues of some of her favorite stars, like Jack Benny.

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Sunday, April 13, 2008

hair slicked back, wayfarers on

This is my friend Brad. He makes me laugh.



As shown here, he's taking a quick break from filming a scene with his corn dog to inform us that "The Boys of Summerville" will have its premiere at the Regal Downtown West Cinema this Thursday at 7:00 p.m. Brad and the rest of the cast will make their red carpet arrivals starting at 5:30 p.m. He tells me that "Live at Five" plans to have a crew there.

The movie was filmed in East Tennessee last summer. Knoxville's Official Movie Star, David Keith, has a part in the film as well. I wonder if any longtime readers of this blog took advantage of the opportunity to be extras in the movie. I mean besides David.

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Tuesday, April 08, 2008

the bee's knees

"The Insider" may as well be called "The Insidious" in my book. I have seen enough of the show to know that I would rather avoid it. In all fairness, I will have to try it again if Donny Osmond is hired to replace Pat O'Brien, as rumored.

Tonight I heard some of "The Insider" in the car on 87.7 FM. They were trying to predict who will be on the next season of "Dancing With the Stars" based on who was in the audience for Monday night's show. '80s pop star Debbie Deborah Gibson, Trump's ex Marla Maples and famous choreographer Paula Abdul were mentioned as possibilities.

"The Insider" totally missed the audience member who, in my opinion, would want desperately to be on a show as big as "Dancing With the Stars." With all the attention that Los Angeles radio personality Adam Carolla got from dancing with super cute Julianne Hough, you know that Rick Dees must want a piece of that spotlight too. Thanks to my HDTV, I had no difficulty seeing Dees in the crowd behind the best live TV host in the business, Tom Bergeron. Dees certainly knows how to promote himself but would he be willing to risk embarrassing himself on the dance floor? Could he stick around longer than Adam, who was unfortunately the fourth celebrity to be sent home?

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Sunday, April 06, 2008

to pry or not to pry

John Charles Carter died yesterday. The world knew him as Charlton Heston, the star of two of my favorite movies, "Planet of the Apes" and "The Ten Commandments." I had the pleasure of meeting him twice.

Mr. Heston visited KLOS a couple of times to promote his books. It is unusual for a movie star of his magnitude to do a radio interview. He came because the publishing business has a better appreciation for the power of radio than the movie industry. I was there when he came in to plug "To Be a Man: Letters to My Grandson." On another occasion we needed to bring the show to him. I can't remember exactly why. I made a few calls to his house and spoke with Mrs. Heston to make plans for the broadcast. On the appointed day, we took the Mark & Brian Mobile up Coldwater Canyon Drive to the Heston home. The entire interview was conducted in the driveway, near his grandson's sandbox.

The broadcast from Heston's driveway was similar to our on-air visits to the exteriors of the homes of Peter Falk and John Travolta. We didn't presume to set foot in their houses either.

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Monday, February 25, 2008

egos checked at the door

As soon as the news leaked out that Jimmy Kimmel had booked Ben Affleck on his post-Oscar show, we could all guess that they would do a response to Sarah Silverman's hugely popular Matt Damon video. However nobody could have predicted exactly how fantastic Jimmy's Ben Affleck video turned out to be. It's the talk of the entertainment blogosphere this morning on sites like Best Week Ever and Pop Candy.

The best place to find clips of "Jimmy Kimmel Live" is on visiontellie2's YouTube page. He/she/they make it easy to see the whole progression of the Matt Damon feud, the Silverman video and the Affleck response.

Not surprisingly, visiontellie2 also has the most complete list I've found of all the celebrities making cameos in the new video, even catching some that Best Week Ever missed. It makes me wonder if visiontellie2 has some inside information. In addition to Ben and Jimmy, look for Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford, Joan Jett, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle, Meat Loaf, Pete Wentz, Dominic Monaghan, Macy Gray, Perry Farrell, Lance Bass, Huey Lewis, Josh Groban, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Dicky Barrett, Rebecca Romijn, Christina Applegate and Cameron Diaz.

When I needed help trying to post the video of Jimmy mentioning me, I wrote to visiontellie2 for advice. Better than advice, I got back a link to the video that he/she/they had uploaded for me!

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Sunday, February 24, 2008

thank the academy

The Oscars are always must-see TV at our house even though I've seen hardly any of the nominated movies this year. In the past, my wife and I have made an effort to see the films nominated for the major awards. With the price of gas and everything else going up and money getting tight, I am reluctant to shell out cash for movie tickets, much less the concessions.

Lately some movies I had wanted to see in the theater have been showing on a plethora of HD channels. In the past month I've seen "Children of Men," "Pride" and "The Astronaut Farmer." None of them won any Oscars but I enjoyed them nevertheless.

I won't attempt to live-blog the awards like they're doing at Best Week Ever and elsewhere. However, I noticed a few things worth mentioning. Did Steve Carell actually curse when pretending to be upset that he was presenting the animation award instead of the documentary award? One of his "shoots" sounded like the real deal to me.

During the dead celebrity tribute, I always feel embarrassed for the people who don't get applause. Some of the deceased get carryover applause by having their name announced right after a popular actor or actress. Shouldn't they mute the microphones during the annual montage?

I thought I saw Knoxville Catholic High School alumnus Cormac McCarthy in the audience when the Coen brothers won the adapted screenplay award. Yes, it was him. They pointed him out when "No Country For Old Men" won Best Picture.

All night long I've been trying to catch a glimpse of Diablo Cody's shoes. I read that she was going to wear the million dollar pair from Stuart Weitzman. Why do I care? One year, Stuart's publicist hired me to help out during Oscar week. According to her blog, Diablo has mixed feelings about wearing them. Oh yeah, she won an Oscar for "Juno," one of the few nominated movies that I saw.

Hey, the "I Drink Your Milkshake" guy won! I look forward to seeing that movie next year when it's on HBO or Showtime.

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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

metal mettle

While looking online to see which Super Tuesday candidates were endorsed by our local newspapers, I was distracted by the front page of the Metro Pulse. The cover story is about guitarist Randy Rhoads, who is one of three famous musicians who died shortly after being in Knoxville. The other two are Hank Williams and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

I was not familiar with Randy's music while he was alive. In fact, it wasn't all that long ago that I first heard of him. I was invited to a year-end presentation of video projects by the students in a media class at Providence High School in Burbank. One of the upperclassmen appeared in a documentary about his late uncle, Randy Rhoads. I recognized Randy's sister Kathy in the film. My wife and I knew her as one of the other room mothers at St. Finbar School.

Kathy's husband Richard is a talented cabinetmaker. He made a gorgeous wooden ambo for St. Finbar Church as well as other altar furniture. When I looked online, I discovered that he is now in the wine business too. Kathy and Richard's daughter Jenna was a classmate of our son for seven years until we moved to Knoxville. Jenna turned up in some red carpet photos as the date of a young actor named Daniel Hansen.

My wife took an extra copy of the paper from the stack on the bar at Patrick Sullivan's last night after my Einstein Simplified show. Now we need to find an old parish directory with Kathy's address in order to mail her a copy of the Metro Pulse. As she read the article, my wife saw that Randy's last name was misspelled on the plaque when he was inducted to the Hollywood RockWalk in 2004. Kathy and her mom are in the photos from the ceremony. They eventually fixed the plaque.

Knoxville has a statue honoring Rachmaninoff and an annual festival for Hank. Perhaps it's time to think of a way to commemorate Randy here too. And spell his name correctly.

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Thursday, January 31, 2008

please, please, please don't go away

The TV in our living room stayed tuned to WATE all evening for "Lost" and the new show that followed. "Eli Stone" was pretty good and worth watching again next week. One of the stars is Natasha Henstridge, who first became famous in the movie "Species." I remember when she visited KLOS to promote "Species II." As I recall, she was pregnant at the time. A few months before I started my blog, I saw Natasha at the 2005 "American Idol" finale party. I would have liked to have had my picture taken with her but the opportunity didn't present itself. Instead I took a picture of Natasha posing with a fellow partygoer because she looked a bit like my Aunt Kitty McArdle. Not Natasha, the other lady. I've been hanging on to the picture all this time in case I ever had reason to write about either Natasha or Aunt Kitty even though she wasn't really a relative but a close family friend.



The 11 o'clock news on WATE had another story about the unusual advertising campaign for "Lost." My grandmother will probably be interested to know that Knoxville has one of only a very few Oceanic Air billboards. Maybe the placement of that billboard means Sawyer is one of the "Oceanic Six." I'll have to ask Grandma if she started watching "Lost" again. She had thought about giving up the show when it became too much about the Others.

Speaking of WATE, I will miss their noon newscast. Terry Morrow reports that the station will drop the broadcast after tomorrow. I was one of the people who watched it almost every day. Other stations owned by the same company have been canceling newscasts and making staff cutbacks. I was glad to see in Terry's report that Lori Tucker is staying put.

There's still one more show on WATE for me tonight. I will record "Jimmy Kimmel Live," as I always do and watch it later. Tonight he celebrates five years on the air. Happy anniversary Jimmy!

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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

too soon

Some audience members at the Einstein Simplified show tonight wanted us to joke about Heath Ledger's sad death. Fortunately we ignored their suggestions.

I heard the news about Heath from my daughter, who knew I would want to know as soon as she saw the breaking news on CNN and Fox News this afternoon. When she called, I was watching our local stations, which were reporting only on the winter weather.

By odd coincidence, my friend Bean posted a blog entry early this morning about the rash of celebrity deaths so far in 2008. My friend Lisa Burks has an entire blog about (mostly celebrity) deaths.

When I turned on my cell phone this morning, I had a voice mail from Terry Morrow. He said he wanted to ask me something about Brad Renfro. Terry wasn't there when I called back so I don't know for sure that he wanted to try and talk me into going to Brad's funeral, which was yesterday or his burial, which was today. But that's what I suspect.

The Associated Press made news with their decision to prepare an advance obituary for Britney Spears. The concept of updating the obit files was even the plot of a "Mary Tyler Moore Show" episode. Yet, the most recent deaths of the young and famous caught the wire services unprepared. Some writers feel they should only keep obituary files on older, more accomplished stars. With instant news on the Internet, readers now expect to see complete obituaries as soon as a celebrity dies. The news services will have a hard time keeping pace with Wikipedia.

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Sunday, January 20, 2008

no time like the present

The news of Suzanne Pleshette's death wouldn't have caught me off guard today if I had read about her poor health last fall. Instead I was watching her in "The Birds." By coincidence, I just saw her interviewed in the profile of Bob Newhart on "American Masters" that I had recorded last month on PBS and finally watched on Friday night.

The obituaries described her as "husky-voiced' or "smoky-voiced." Listening to her speak, it wasn't much of a surprise that she succumbed to respiratory failure. The longtime smoker had been fighting lung cancer. There's a nice appreciation of Suzanne's work on USA Today's website.

As usual, I hope that when people hear the sad news they will decide to quit smoking.

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Saturday, December 29, 2007

waxing with the stars

The Hollywood Wax Museum in Gatlinburg put their best, um, foot forward by positioning their Angelina Jolie love doll statue to be the first thing you see once you get inside. King Kong is the first thing you see before you go in. You may recall that I saw Kong over the summer while at a wedding reception next door.



Angelina Jolie looks like the real thing. A couple of others don't. For example, Elvis Presley, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. And Tobey Maguire.



Colin Farrell is posed in a tuxedo at a wedding chapel. I think women can pose in the wedding dress that was hanging nearby. Somebody must have thought they could literally take Colin's hand in marriage.



After a while you can't help but get into the campy spirit of the place. For example, the file name of this picture of the creature is "FrankAndStein.jpg"

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Saturday, December 08, 2007

shave and a haircut, two bits

A couple of new mini shopping centers on Middlebrook Pike are nearing completion. Snap Fitness Club will go in to one that is still under construction near the Pilot with the new, smaller sign. Nixon's Deli will be in the other one, which I wrote about in July. Nixon's neighbor will be Gentlemen's Top Cuts. I have seen their huge billboard along I-40 while driving back from Farragut. They promise to