1. When I worked at Wallichs Music City, an LA record store, in the 60’s I used to throw Neil Young out of the listening booths for smoking pot. Once every two weeks. If only he had shared!
2. Ann Jillian was my childhood friend (and still is).
3. As a teenager I was offered a job writing for LAUGH-IN. I declined in order to go to college. So I missed my chance to write comedy for Richard Nixon.
4. I’m an idiot savant trivia expert when it comes to Top 40 music of the 60’s. Titles, artists, even labels – I pretty much remember them all. Is it any wonder my sex life in high school was nil? Ask Ann Jillian.
5. And finally – O.J. Simpson was at my wedding. Now this requires explaining. He wasn’t invited. We got married in the outdoor patio of the Beverly Hills Hotel. O.J. had just finished playing a game of tennis, saw the ceremony going on and stood in the back and watched. He wasn’t there for the reception however. He was probably breaking into our room.
Ken, you brought the OJ thing on yourself. If you hadn't bought that pair of Hertz-ad-worn Bruno Maglis off that black market sports memorabilia dealer, he wouldn't have had to steal them back.
ReplyDeleteYou lose. I knew ALL of those. Oh wait...yeah I'm your daughter.
ReplyDeleteAs for the O.J. wedding- I knew someone as a kid whose parents had O.J. in their wedding photo- them bracketing the Juice in the middle- of course that was in Buffalo around 1969- they used the have the picture up in the entryway to their house about 30 years ago
ReplyDeleteAnnie's post made this blog-entry so much more cute ^^;
ReplyDeleteMy favorite of these is throwing Neil Young out for smoking pot. That's funny.
ReplyDeleteKen, why don't you turn this particular post into a "Can you top this" contest? Here's my entry:
ReplyDelete(1) I had an imaginary friend named Ann Jillian that I would play Doctor and Nurse with when I was a kid. Not surprisingly, she looked just like Ann Jillian the actress.
(2) I used to listen to Neil Young records while smoking pot.
(3) As a teenager, I was offered a job cleaning the bathrooms of an auditorium where Richard Nixon made a campaign stop. If I had known he was also going to make a pit stop, I wouldn't have taken the job.
(4) Up until the age of 15, I could name the capital of every country that belonged to the United Nations. I lost this remarkable ability when I started smoking pot while listening to Neil Young records.
And finally (and this is actually true):
(5) When O.J Simpson was playing for Buffalo, I had him autograph a Sports Illustrated poster of himself for my younger brother who had just gotten out of the hospital... My brother just noticed recently that the poster is missing.
I once got on an elevator in LA just after buying a copy of WIRED magazine with the Simpsons on the cover. Before the door closed, the last person on the elevator was Matt Groening. I was cheesy enough to ask him to autograph the cover. He did and I still have it.
ReplyDeleteA few weeks later, I was at the Tower Records on Sunset and bought a Beck CD. Got on the elevator to go to my car and who gets on with me? Beck! (I didn't ask him to autograph the CD because I was so shocked to see that he's the size of a 10-year-old.)
Now everywhere I go I carry a copy of People with George Clooney on the cover. Just in case.
A lot off the subject but what do you think about the upcoming WGA strike probability? Is it the right move and how will it effect you personally?
ReplyDeleteThe little known fact I like about you, Ken, is that you knew Hall of Famer Robin Yount when he was just someone else's kid brother...
ReplyDeleteSurprisingly enough, I have been thinking about Ann Jillian lately. The picture of her that always stands out most in my mind was one I saw in People magazine many years ago. There she was as pretty and sparkly as ever, cuddled up against her teddy bear, average joe-type husband. The picture made me smile and made me admire her even more.
ReplyDelete-Nikki
How does one go about getting an autographed Ann Jillian photo, now that we know that you know her personally?
ReplyDeletewell I thought I would post 5 things that pissed me off this week:
ReplyDelete1)- they Killed Sarah on Prison Break! (how stupid is that?
2) I just heard a while ago that we will find out in the next few days if a writters strike will happen, and the last one lasted 22 weeks by the way. that will be depressing.
3) as much as I try I don't understand a thing about this new ratings system that they are trying to introduce. I believe it has something to do with adding the "2nd viewing" numbers of a determined show to the original ones, but I don't understand why it only counts for a certain number of shows right now (like Heroes)
4) Keifer Sutherland went to jail! On a positive side, he opted to go for a longer period of time, in order not to prejudice the shooting of 24. I know they are paying him 40 Mil, but that was still a nice move.
and 5th, my cable service keeps running "the simple life"! that just shouldn't be possible.
did I mention? they killed off Sarah! forget the relationship thing, she was one of the best actresses on that show, period. I'm just venting. I'm almost over it. no... wait... wait... there, now I am!.
My friend Tim had a cute line...
ReplyDeleteKeifer's judge is a fan of the show, and sentenced him to 30 seasons.
anonymous: I met George Clooney once at the Taco Bell across the street from the Warner Bros. studios. He patted me on the shoulder. I will let you pat said shoulder for a nominal fee.
ReplyDeletediogo: I think Neilsen already dropped the "second viewing" ratings thing, at least in regard to Heroes.
Love Ann Jillian, but I watched "It's a Living" mostly for Gail Edwards. Whatever happpened to her?
I watched "It's a Living" mostly for Gail Edwards. Whatever happened to her?
ReplyDeleteAccording to IMDB, she hasn't performed on screen (big or small) since 1994. And she has a Web site that looks like it was last updated six years ago.
Hope she's okay. Several years ago I got curious about why I couldn't remember seeing Larry Breeding in a long time. I thought he was good on a show called The Last Resort around 1980. Turned out he died in 1982, but wasn't famous enough for that fact to get a lot of publicity. Kind of sad.
Hang on, they were asking teenagers to write for Laugh-in? And you turned it down?!
ReplyDeleteThat's crazy. How did it happen that they asked you to write for Laugh-In?
I know this will make quite a few groan and throw up the hands - but - who the hell is Ann Jillian?
ReplyDeleteThere's more...
What exactly is a listening room? Like a viewing room? Or more like a phone booth?
www.theskinofmyteeth.com
David B.
I didn't have much sex in high school either... but I went to an all-male high school, so that's alright with me.
ReplyDeleteSomeone remembers him! I had a teen-aged crush on Larry Breeding and was saddened when, many years later, I ran across an item on the net saying that he had died. I thought he was going to be a star.
ReplyDelete-Nikki
David B. you know how when you're in a record store (there's an anachronistic name) there are listening stations set up with headphones and a way for you to listen to one of several different CDs? Back in the vinyl days there were rooms with turntables the customers would go into with their potential purchases to try them out.
ReplyDeleteAnd Ann Jillian is that stunning, sexy, elan-filled blonde Ken's got a picture of in his post. A really talented comic actress.
Hey Ken, thanks for meming! Memeing? Hm, that looks like mimi-ing. What? :-D
ReplyDeleteSaw Neil Young sing "Home Grown" at Farm Aid this year. Some things will never change.
Ann is one of those talented actors who never got cast in the right vehicle for their talents (kind of like Margaret Colin). She came close with "It's a Living", but it got lost in its original network run, and Ann only appeared in one season after it went to first-run syndication. That show never became the mainstream success it probably should have.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was young, people used to tell me that I looked a lot like Neil Young. Interestingly, whenever I would go to Wallichs Music City, some jerk would always throw me out.
ReplyDeleteAlaskaray
If you look up Larry Breeding in Wikipedia, you get an entry that says, "List of Baltimore Orioles opening Day Starting Lineups."
ReplyDeleteSCARY!
Aw, I miss Ann Jillian! How is she doing?
ReplyDeleteAnn Jillian was my first crush on a TV actress. To this day, I still get the theme from "Jennifer Slept Here" stuck in my head.
ReplyDeleteAnd I have never confessed that to anyone before.
Whoo boy, lemmie tell ya that Ann Jillian is some dish.
ReplyDeleteBRAAAAAIIIINNNS!
I love fascinating factoids...
ReplyDeleteTell me, did Ann Jillian introduce you to Natalie Wood (when she was playing Dainty June in the film version of GYPSY)? It goes without saying you were one of her pillars of strength when she faced her double mastectomy (fittingly, since you were there when they came in).
I too want to know what precocious display of talent led to the LAUGH-IN writing offer
And I can go mano a mano on 60's music trivia...while you may have me on record labels, I can counter with national chart peak. I have been buying the books from Record Research (which compile the info from the various BILLBOARD charts) for decades.
There was a time when I would have been excited to have OJ Simpson or Michael Jackson at my wedding.
ReplyDeleteI'm disappointed that a comedy writer would use the word "meme".
ReplyDelete