WNYC-FM
Loveline
CBS-FM
 
 

neil diamond, the jazz singer
 
 

Real Life
Albert Brooks is shameless!
 

Midnight Sun by Elwood Reid (which includes a major typo by misusing "illicit" for "elicit") 
 
 
 
 
 

don't get me nothin', just take a look at my lovely list.
 
 
 
 
 

"A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election."
-- Bill Vaughan

There are good things which come along. I won a contest! By cheating! Well, sort of. I had to be the ninth person to correctly identify who said this quote:

"My dad was the town drunk. A lot of times that's not so bad -- but New York City?"

And speaking of museums, I am now in touch with another Internet guy (and no, I didn't sign up for another service; this guy is from waaaaay back and just now decided to answer his email) and he seems to be into museums. Maybe there's a tie-in somewhere ... we'll see.

As I consider other dating options (I have this distinct feeling I'm going through all the possibilities so I can look back and say, "Well, did that, it sucked, I've run out of options, I'll become a nun (well, not really).") I'm still a little skeptical here of the whole thing. Anyway, I actually called one of these "personal" dating service type people, who for a fairly elevated sum get tons of info on you personally and then match you up with other single suckers who've gone through the same process. For $1,000, she'll guarantee to set you up with 6 dates over the total of a year, and you can freeze the membership any time. I dunno. For a thousand bucks, I could go to Club Med again. And that works out to about $175 per date. Each! On the other hand, she asked what attributes I go for and I got to personally be as shallow as possible and say "a dark curly haired guy with big eyes who's of the British/Irish/Scottish/Welsh/Australian/Kiwi persuasion." Who's also funny and self-possessed and likes himself. Damn. No wonder I can't find anybody.

I also went back to Greenspeakers, the Toastmasters group I belong to and gave my first ever speech! I got so nervous towards the end of the six minutes that my leg started doing that shaking thing it does when I'm under big stress, and I quavered my way out of the piece with none of the elan I wanted to express. Nevertheless, out of three speeches mine was voted best! I won a sunflower magnet. This luck was too good to last.

I also had yet another reminder of why I love freelancing: The Reporter has me doing an article on the morning programs, and Good Morning "We're No. 2 So We Try Harder" America's publicist invited me to come out and watch the show from behind the scenes. Yes, I had to get up obscenely early and forgo the morning workout for a day, but once there it was tres cool. I love watching TV getting made, and national live TV is really exciting. I would also like to mention that the publicist, a nice woman named Lisa, sits next to the hottest weather producer I've ever met. Well, he's the only weather producer I've ever met (he joked about creating the weather anchor in a test tube), but he was hot no matter what he did. My big downfall: that curly dark hair. And beautiful Semitic good looks, which would get my mom all happy. Alas, I couldn't get direct energy vibes, so I didn't pursue it. But I gotta track this boy down. Gary Steiner. There it is! My newest crush.

But I digress. The rest of the show was cool to watch; I actually met Diane Sawyer and shook her hand and she was very nice. She was one of my inspirations for going into journalism, and one of my direct reasons for not going in front of the camera (I was nowhere as skinny as she was). She looks older and more drawn in person, but who cares? Her cohort, Charlie Gibson is a bit pudgy and looks a lot stouter than on TV, the first person I've met the camera doesn't add 20 pounds to. He came back into the control room where I was briefly during a break and commented that the crowd downstairs "looked like a bunch of bobblehead dolls today." "Off the record!" the publicist leaped in. It was kind of cool to have even the vague illusion of power. I have no idea what I'm doing half the time, but I fake it well. Towards the end of the show I had to leave to get to my real job on time, but they let me stand with the "bobbleheads" and toss a blue beret in the air (Gary handed me mine... yay!) with the rest of the crowd a la Mary Richards, since a statue of Mary Tyler Moore was being dedicated in Minneapolis. Man, that's some hard news there. More power to Ms. Sawyer, but I'd be embarrassed to have that job if I had as distinguished a career as she has. Then again, my respect level dropped considerably during her Russell Crowe interview. She interviewed somebody recently on one of the nighttime magazine shows and actually began a question this way: "Dream a little dream for me...." Gack.

Speaking of ABC/Disney ....

Another nice thing was that for about 24 hours I could really believe I might have something published in My Favorite Magazine, Entertainment Weekly. The show I cover for the mag is on ABC, which peddles whatever crap they think people will buy based on their soaps on "Shop The Soaps" online. Mostly it's overpriced comforters and junky jewelry, but my show has a character who has South Park-esque animated fantasies and they made a doll based on the little girl, which is cute. Then, they decided to make a doll based on her daddy, the infamous Todd Manning. 

Here he is. Up close and on a good monitor it looks as though they've even put him in a Regis-esque matching blue suit and tie, which is totally not what the character is about, and let's face it, the hairline is all wrong. But the truth is this: This is a doll based on a character who started out in the early 1990s as a gang rapist. (See that scar? He got it when a woman bashed him in the head with a lead pipe when he was menacing his former victim.) Yeah, he's married with kids now, but the irony of (of all places) Disney selling this item was too good to pass up. My clever editor Minju at the Hollywood Reporter suggested I pass this info along to EW, and dontcha know I did, and they actually wanted 150 words on it. They didn't want a really snarky piece, just an "only in the world of soaps" piece. So, great. Then The Meyers Report did the kind of story I wanted to do originally, with the headline "Disney's Newest Toy: A Homicidal Rapist." Within hours the doll was pulled from the web site, sellers on the 800 line were claiming it was "sold out" and Disney was issuing a retraction. Funnier, yes, but lousy for me -- EW decided it was already out there in the public and they couldn't add to the discourse, so no dice.

Shit. But it was close. And for a while I was doing articles for four magazines all at once. It always comes just when you're ready to get out of town.

Which is what's got me really jazzed: This time next Friday I'll be on a plane to Los Angeles (I'll have actually touched down, I think) and my friend Joey (if he's reliable, which he is, in an unreliable way) will be meeting me and I'll be staying at his and his wife Jennifer's place for the night and in the morning I'll pick up my compact car and start my week-long journey up the Pacific Coast Highway. I love getting away for a week. I hate having to work twice as hard before I leave and twice as hard after I get back.

But for that week, I am free!