Celebrity Divorces of 2008.

The end of the year brings lists.

Lots of lists.

"Best of" "Worst of" "Most" "Least", etc.

Click here to see the list of all the celebrity divorces from 2008, compiled by blogger and tv writer Ken Levine.

All I can say is....wow!

Happy New Year!!

Out of Practice

Yeah I know...it's been a while.

I was just thinking tonight about a TV show that I believe got cancelled way before its time.

It's a sitcom called "Out Of Practice" starring Henry Winkler and Stockard Channing.

I think it was produced by the same people who did "Frasier" so you'd think it would be a success.

I am at a loss to explain why the show didn't make it.

Here's the first part of the pilot episode. It sets the stage:



Do yourself a favor and search youtube for this show. The quality of some of the clips are a little poor. It looks like it was recorded off a broadcast tv signal. It is SO worth it.

I wonder if we could bring it back. I mean if "Scrubs" can come back, then surely THIS show can too.

A couple of holiday musings.

Can someone tell me why "My Favorite Things" is considered a Christmas song? It's from "Sound of Music" and sung during a summer thunderstorm!!

and...

Does anyone else think it's strange that Woodstock eats a turkey at the end of "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving"?

My Mom's Famous!

So my Mom was out Christmas shopping, and got interviewed by WTHR Channel 13!

You can see the story here!

I'm so proud!

Best Seats Ever!

Friday afternoon my friend Tim calls me to tell me that he's scored primo seats to the Pacer game, and asked me if I'd like to come along.

I tell him, 'sure'.

They were the best seats I've ever had for a professional sporting event.

The tickets said 'row 7', but when we got there, there were no rows 1, 2, or 3.

So if you actually counted the rows, we were more like in row 4.

The seats were so good, I was able to get this pic of Pacers head coach, Jim O'Brien:


Not to mention this nifty pic of Boomer:


Even though the Pacers lost the game, Tim and I had a blast. I'll probably never get good seats like this ever again.

I hope if you get the chance to have nice seats like this for ANY sporting event, you take advantage of it. It is SO worth it.

Working with Jeff Pigeon.

A lot of things happen in radio by being in the right place at the right time.

Well, I got to work with Jeff Pigeon by being able to answer my cell phone at 345 in the morning!

Libby Farr, who is usually Jeff's co-host in the morning, couldn't make it in on Wednesday because she was stuck in early morning construction traffic for over an hour! She called me and asked me if I could make it in.

So I did.

As a result I got to work with "Uncle Pidge".

I had a blast. If you didn't get to hear it, you can listen to a couple of breaks by clicking here.

The Funniest thing that has EVER been on TV!

I promise that this blog won't turn into a 'my favorite youtube clips' blog. But I found one that brought back many memories for me.

The year Johnny Carson retired from TV, I was working as a Store Entertainment Coordinator at the Cattle Company restaurant in Roseville, Minnesota.

We were big on music videos, and played LOTS of them during the evening.

Before the dancing started, I would try to warm up the crowd with unusual video clips that I would come across.

By far, THIS was the most popular clip that I ever played. I had numerous requests for it.

I give you...The Great FLYDINI!

To Boldly Go...

OK so I'm usually about all things Star Wars, but this is kinda cool too.

CBS is posting full length episodes of Star Trek on Youtube.

It's to celebrate the shows 42nd anniversary and to promote the new movie.

Click here to see the episodes already posted.

Radio Formats

One interesting thing about radio is the different formats that are out there. Country, Rock, Oldies, News/talk, Spanish, Sportstalk, Punk Gospel, yadda yadda yadda...

The station I'm working for now, Oldies 101.9, considers an 'oldie' to be from the 60's and 70's.

I applied for a job at a cluster of stations a few weeks ago, the format of the AM station is 'music of your life'. Believe it or not, one of my first radio jobs was working at a station that had that format. I played music from Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Tony Bennett, etc...

The 'music of your life' format nowadays forgoes most of that music and plays stuff from Michael Buble, The Platters, The Carpenters, Pat Boone, Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, and so on....

It's interesting to me that music past a certain date becomes irrelevant, even though it's still great stuff.

I'm a fan of Big Band music, and am sad to not hear a lot of it on the radio anymore. If I ever get on a morning/afternoon drive radio show again, I would love to be able to highlight some of this stuff. Just because it's old, doesn't mean it's not good.

Colts Win!

What a game the Colts played on Sunday against the Texans.

I had pretty much written the game off in the 4th quarter, while listening to the game on my way to work.

In the time it took to get from my car in the parking lot, up to the second floor of the building, The Colts went from being down 27-10, to winning the freaking game!!!

I don't know what you think, but if the Colts name a player of the game, it would have to be this guy...


Go Blue!!

In the still of the afternoon...

I know I've been kinda scarce around here. I really haven't had much to write about.

I've pulled my first weekend shift on Oldies 101.9 last weekend, and I have more hours coming up this weekend.

I'm going up to the station today to get my first post-'track' paycheck. Woo Hoo...

We'll be taking staff pics later this week for the website.

If you get a chance, check out my links along the right side of this blog, as well as check out the blogs I am following. You might find something interesting in there for yourself.

The Office is back!

This is the week that a lot of my favorite TV shows return. There are still a few more weeks before the original CSI returns, but I digress.

One favorite of mine that IS returning this week is "The Office".

I was a Johnny-come-lately to this show as I picked it up in the middle of the second season. I am all caught up now and can't wait until Thursday.

To celebrate it's return, I present to you a youtube clip featuring just about every instance of "That's what she said". An 'Office' running joke.

My first weekend back at work!

Well...

I'm wrapping up my Sunday DJ shift.

It was kinda like riding a bicycle.

I had to learn a whole new computer system for the music and commercials.

Who says you can't teach old dogs new tricks??

I'll be back filling in for Chris Love, the morning news and traffic guy, on Thursday and Friday of this week.

For the upcoming weekend, I'll be on Saturday from 3-7pm, and Sunday 4-9pm.

If you want, you can email Scott 'records' Roddy at scott@wklu.net and tell him how smart he is for hiring me!

Good News!

I have a job!!

It's part time, but you gotta start somewhere right??

I'll be working weekends at Oldies 101.9 in Indianapolis.

The hours will vary from week to week, but I am very excited about this!

Wish me luck!!

Click here for my audition tape.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Necessity is the mother of invention. Insert your favorite quote that applies here.

While I'm not ready to stand out on I-465 near Allisonville road with a cardboard sign reading "Will DJ for Food" just yet.

I'm putting my audition tape or 'aircheck' as we say in the biz, on this blog.

If I've done everything correctly with the HTML code, you should be able to click on the headline of this blog entry to hear it.

Youtube suggestion.

I know, I know...

EVERYBODY has suggestions for things you should see while surfing the 'net.

I have a set of links along the right side of this blog, for example.

But if you are a fan of television in any way, shape, or form. You HAVE to check this youtube subscriber out.

It is The Archive of American Television. Their youtube subscriber name is: TVLEGENDS

Here is a sample of what you'll see:



The interviews are un-edited and very in-depth. Some interviews run 2 to 3 hours!

A lot of the subjects are sadly no longer with us. However, thanks to these guys, you'll be able to hear from just about any TV icon you can think of..forever.

These interviews are like potato chips. Once you start, you won't be able to stop.

Oh, by the way, if you ever want to publicly comment about what I blog about here, just click where it says '0 comments' at the bottom of each entry.

My TV commercial debut!

With my former employer 'making a change' I have had more things to do now, than just a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately, everything I've been doing hasn't really made me a lot of money. You gotta start somewhere, right?

Could this be the start of a new career? Check this out:



Nice robe and slippers eh?

Thanks to Paul Montgomery at WRTV 6 for casting me.

Online Poker

So I'm up late playing poker in an online tournament with over 200 people.

I finished respectably (you'll have to click on the pic to see it more clearly):


Look out Phil Hellmuth!!

My Army Days.

I graduated from high school in 1982. I had studied radio/tv, and I was also involved with the ROTC program.

After graduation, I had trouble finding my way. I could get plenty of work as a DJ in a roller-skating rink, or at an under-21 club. But not the radio DJ job that I wanted.

So...I joined the Army.


Why??

Well, they offered me the opportunity to do what I always wanted to do since I was a kid, be a DJ on the radio!!

Sure I'd have to go through Basic Training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. After that, I would be home for about a year because the radio/tv training was at Fort Benjamin Harrison.

Let me tell you. Basic Training was hell on Earth!! I didn't have ONE good day there. I'm amazed I made it through.

Well, there WAS one good day. That was the day my family was allowed to come down to the post and visit me. THAT was a good day. My Grandma brought me a box of homemade edible goodies. She asked me if I was going to share them. I told her, NO! hehe

After surviving basic training, I made it to Fort Ben. It was good to be home. After a few months, I was allowed to go home on weekends. What a relief!

The radio/tv training at the Defense Information School was a piece of cake compared to basic training. A year later, I graduated.

I was assigned to go to Fort Ord, California to work in the public affairs office. Since the main job of a broadcaster is overseas, I was sent temporarily to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, for about 6 months.

I was sent there by way of Panama City, Panama, where I had to get my jungle uniforms, and special equipment.

When I arrived in Honduras, I started working for the Navy in a small broadcast studio.

Back then, there was no satellite, so we had to receive our tv programming from Panama on Beta videotape. The TV news and sports were always a week behind, but at least we had it!

I had a night time radio show I inherited from another Army broadcaster who had just left.

This is getting kinda long, so I'll stop here and continue when I feel like it!

Breaking news about Barack Obama!!

Who knew???

My Early Years

Once in a while, I think I might use this blog to talk about my life experiences.

My dream is to work in radio, and thankfully over the majority of my life, I've had the opportunity to to just that.

In fact, I would say that I have been a DJ in one form or another most of my life.

My first DJ gig was at a roller rink. I worked at USA south, behind Southern Plaza in Indianapolis.

Next came a job at an under 21 club on Indy's south side. It was part arcade-part dance floor. I remember Henry Lee Summer coming to play one night. It was a bad situation for me as I was a major video game addict. OK so I still am, however...



One game at that under 21 club pretty much sucked all my money down the tubes: Dragon's Lair.


It was the first video game that used a laserdisc and you had to 'control' the hero to make it through.

In reality you 'guessed' what Dirk The Daring would do, and would move the joystick or press the button at the right time.

I loved that game. I think I even asked my boss at the time to pay me in quarters, rather than go through all that nonsense of taking the time to go to the bank and cash a check. All that time took away from my actual playing of the game!!

Next: My Army Years.

Pictures.

You can't have a blog without something interesting to see or say. The pic to the left combines both my interests: Star Wars & Radio.

It's the cover from a Los Angeles radio station survey from the late 70's. My friend, Paul Poteet, gave it to me.

He has a very entertaining blog as well, I can only hope my blog is half as good as his.

First Post!

It's amazing what happens when you get a little free time on your hands.

For those who don't know, after 7 years of loyal service with the Mystar/Entercom radio stations in Indianapolis, Indiana. I got fired.

I always wanted to have my own blog...I'm not sure where this is going to lead. The journey starts with a first step though, so here it is.

I will write more as I get inspiration.