Monday, October 16, 2006

Misc-takes

My email server has been down. At least I hope it's Adelphia's problem and not mine. In any event, I feel completely cut off from the world. I suppose if I really need to get a hold of somebody I could use the phone. But that just seems so...so 2003. I remain helpless and alone.

You can breathe a sigh of relief. None of the LOST sets were damaged in the Hawaii earthquake.

Fox Sports fired baseball analyst, Steve Lyons last week for making “insensitive remarks”. I heard the remarks. They were stupid but not cause for immediate termination. And what did Fox expect? They hired a guy whose nickname is “Psycho”!

A worse offense to me was play-by-play man, Thom Brenneman having the wrong pitcher in the game last Sunday night. Ooops. Thom, as someone who has done that myself I feel your pain. Although it didn’t happen to me on national television…but still. It reminds me of the great story about old time radio sportscaster, Bill Stern, who if he had the wrong receiver running with the football would just have him “lateral” it to the correct guy. Then he screwed up the Kentucky Derby once and someone said, “I guess you can’t lateral a horse.”

Martin Scorsese has announced that THE DEPARTED will be the last big budget movie he will make for awhile. His next film will be an adaptation of Shusaku Endo's novel "Silence," which tells the story of two 17th century Portuguese missionaries who travel to Imperial Japan and witness the persecution of Japanese Christians. If he can’t make a tiny picture like that for under $200,000 there’s something wrong.

I hope Air America stays on the air now that it’s bankrupt. Maybe if they had one affiliate that wasn’t twelve watts at 1590 on the AM dial they could amass some listeners.

Bruce Willis got his star on the Hollywood Blvd. Walk of Fame. He follows recent Hollywood legends Ryan Seacrest, Charlie Tuna, and Porky Pig

The Walt Disney Co. will begin serving more nutritionally balanced meals at its domestic theme parks. However, they insist that churros are a vegetable.

And finally…

XM’s 60’s channel now runs old Wolfman Jack shows, conveniently leaving out the fact that he’s dead. My favorite moments are when he takes requests. What’s the number? “Hello, Wolfman, can I speak to Natalie Wood?”

10 comments :

Anonymous said...

The Bruce Willis induction ceremony was sponsored by Botox.

Ryan Seacrest has a star?

Have they lowered the requirements to have only walked on Hollywood Blvd. to get a star?

Anonymous said...

Just remember that Spielberg got a star before Billy Wilder...go figure!

Anonymous said...

DOUG THOMPSON wrote:

I have nothing against Ryan Seacrest, Charlie Tuna (I assume it was the DJ and not the animated Starkist Charlie) or Porky Pig getting a star, but there is a rip roaring injustice in these Hollywood Walk of Fame honors.

My longtime friend, former boss and a guy you and David Isaacs worked with on "Volunteers" DOES NOT have a star (and I'm not talking about Tom Hanks either. He already has one and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is probably willing to give him another one tomorrow just because he's Tom Hanks and one heckuva great guy, which he is, by the way, as you well know).

No, I mean John Candy, who had 60 movies to his credit. John would have been the first to say that they weren't all great, but he did star in some classics (and made a lot of people laugh, which is more than I can say for Ryan Seacrest). Plus John's a much bigger name outside of LA than Charlie Tuna, even though he died in 1994.

I say, let's start a grass roots movement to get John Candy a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Who's with me?

(Sorry I had to to borrow a line from "Animal House", a classic film John Candy was not in. I couldn't think of one from "Uncle Buck" or "Planes, Trains and Automobiles").

Anonymous said...

Well, there's low budget and then there's low budget. Keep in mind, Scorsese was able to make "Last Temptation of Christ" for seven Million in 1988.

Also, I saw "The Departed" last week. Great flick.

DOUG: I'm with you. The fact that Seacrest has a star and Candy doesn't validates my latent Atheistism. Let's get that man a star.

Anonymous said...

Oh well... At least John made the Canadian "Walk of Fame":

http://www.canadaswalkoffame.com/inductees/98_john_candy.xml.htm

At least that's something. It doesn't mean much to Americans, but I know he'd be proud of it.

Rays profile said...

Not to go all Cliffie on ya, but it was Clem McCarthy who messed up on the Preakness (not entirely his fault; the horses got lost behind the starting gate when it was pulled into the infield, and that's when the leader fell behind.) And it was McCarthy himself who used the "can't lateral a racehorse" which is pretty good self-deprecation.

Actually, my favorite "did he say THAT?" line from a sportscaster was from an old Baltimore Colts player, Alex Hawkins, who was once covering a game which included a player who was on the field with a broken wrist.
Hawkins: "That's toughness. We had a guy on our team who had both hands in casts, and when you have to go to the bathroom, that's when you find out who your friends are."

Scott Stambler said...

anyone ever tell you you're a funny guy?

churros as a veggie. awesome.

Scorsese on a budget? Do you think someone used to that large an army is going to trim down all that much?

Anonymous said...

The Hollywood chamber of Comemrce will give pretty much any famous person a star PROVIDED somebody ponies up the fee, which runs into the thousands of dollars. You wanna spend $5000 to get John Candy a star, go for it. I loved John, and he's worth any honor, but I have other ways to spend $5000, or whatever the cost is.

howie said...

Ken,

Miss you in Baltimore. You may remember that a hero to both of us, Chuck Thompson, had the wrong Yankee pitcher on the mound for Bill Mazeroski's Series winning homer in 1960. Chuck was calling the game for NBC radio, I think. It became somewhat known when Bud used the clip in a commercial about twenty years ago.

Chuck, of course, was a good sport and did all the interviews about the flub when that ad came out.

On Air America: I had been listening to WCKY in Cincinnati to get my AA radio fix, but Clear Channel moved AA to one of those station you're talking about and put Fox Sports on the 50,000 watt blowtorch. Locally, Baltimore talk get more right wing every year.

Geoff said...

On a recent trip to Edmonton, Alberta, I was amused to discover a local oldies station running those old Wolfman Jack shows. In the 10am-noon time slot, no less.