Thanks to everyone for your get well wishes to Kelsey Grammer. I have emailed them all directly to him.It’s my brother’s birthday Sunday. My gift is coming. It just takes four to six weeks before your subscription to AARP magazine begins. Happy birthday, Corey.
Speaking of magazines, nifty profile on my daughter Annie in the current Northwestern alumni monthly. She’s featured as the “Funny Gal” in their “2008 Graduates to Watch” article. The humor she gets from her mother, the bad eyesight she gets from me.
They go in threes – Sydney Pollack, Bo Diddly, and Mel Ferrer.
The HuffingtonPost recently ran my SEX AND THE CITY piece and under related articles listed “date rape”. WTF?! I can’t even imagine Gloria Allred reading the article and thinking that.
Congratulations to the Detroit Red Wings for winning the NHL Stanley Cup last Wednesday. They begin defending their title tonight as the NHL 2008-2009 season begins.
Nice to have the Lakers-Celtics NBA Finals but it’s just not the same without broadcasters Chick Hearn and Johnny Most. Chick once said a player was so thin he could “shower in a rifle barrel”. And for Most, what Celtics fan will ever forget “Havilicek stole the ball!”?
It’s not just Hillary Clinton. Bill Belichick still refuses to concede the Superbowl.
When should a network cast only gorgeous-looking people? When they’ve got a show like SWINGTOWN.
Does anybody read blogs when they’re not at work?
I remember two stories about Johnny Most (whom I found odious). One was him going to the doctor after a prolonged period of hearing loss. The doctor looked in his ear and found an earpiece Most used for his broadcasts and had never taken out.
ReplyDeleteThe other was late in he life when was on oxygen for emphysema, I believe. He was still smoking, though, and the combination of cigarette and oxygen set him on fire briefly.
Chick, on the other hand, was the absolute best. To grow up in the 60s and 70s in LA and be able to listen to Vinny, Chick, Enberg, and Bob Miller was a privilege.
Sadly, at 11:34 pm, I'm reading your blog and it ain't because I'm at work...but I do know I'll sleep well tonight, so thanks for the bedtime story.
ReplyDeleteKen, Ken, Ken...
ReplyDeleteI love your blog the most, but...
I was actually saying to my fiance just a few minutes before reading your post how I missed hockey already, and that tonight would've been game 7.
Hockey can't start soon enough for me.
That's what baffled me about Swingtown! Except for one actress, those were the homeliest group of actors/actresses I've ever seen. Who wants to think of them "swinging"?
ReplyDeleteEdie
I'm reading your blog from a cafe in Middlebury, Vermont... on a Saturday. So, to answer your question, some people, at least me, read blogs on weekends.
ReplyDeleteI read your blog from home every day. Even the weekends.
ReplyDeleteYes, I alone represent a good part of your weekend ratings.
Annie called you "the old block?"
ReplyDeleteKen, you must be so proud of Annie!
ReplyDeleteAnd, Happy Birthday to Corey! (Where, oh where, have the years gone?)
I realize the comment about "Swingtown" was a throwaway joke, but actually good-looking cast members would work against the show. Here's why:
ReplyDelete1. It's not on HBO.
There's no nudity, so what's the point? The show's producers had originally pitched it to Showtime. When CBS picked it up, they had to adjust "Swingtown" for a network audience. If you have a show about swinging without nudity, you better have good acting.
2. The European Topless Beach Effect.
Just as topless beaches usually are filled with fat German tourists, swingers aren't always the best looking people.
3. It was hard to look good in the '70s.
The fashion and hairstyles worked against women. If you were good looking int the 1970s, you were good looking for all time. Look at Adrienne Barbeau on "Maude." I looked at pictures the "Swingtown" cast in real life. They look good. It's the clothes and the hair.
When did people decide that Grant Show wasn't good-looking? I missed the memo, as he still looks fine to me, or as fine as aman can look in a 1970s hairstyle. (Though I looked good in mine back at the time. No I did. Really. I have pictures. Well no, I can't show the pictures to you here, but trust me.)
ReplyDeleteI don't work except at home (3 kids)... and I read your blog at home... so do I read it at home or at work?
ReplyDeleteSee, I shouldn’t have listened to mcp. I didn’t even read for Springtown, because I had just assumed I was too damned good looking. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteDisappointment all around here this afternoon, but, as consolation, Big Brown was awarded Least Imaginative Name for a Horse.
I worked at WBZ-TV in Boston upstairs from Johnny Most starting in 1979, the year the Celtics got Bird. It was the first time I saw him up close downstairs in the radio booth. Blew me away. The wrinkles, the skin, the voice, the quintessential poster boy for anybody who smokes too damned much. To me he always looked like a yellow raisin with feet, in the same way Rickles looks like a goiter with feet about to explode.
Of course, apart from the mellifluous tones, the thing we liked most about Johnny was his impartiality and aversion to hyperbole. The high praise he was always heaping on guys like Kurt Rambis. OK maybe I was fiddling and diddling and didn’t notice the rare occasions when he would lapse. Yeh he was a character, but he was our character, an institution.
I don’t doubt the oxygen/smoking story. Except for the fire part, I seem to remember peersonally witnessing the same pair-up with Sam Arkoff here, at a screening, in a theater – but with a cigar, so I guess that was OK. Also remember reading about the same phenomenon with some famous crusty executive producer, and it’s going to bother me all night that I can’t remember who.
I’m pretty sure Most had replaced Curt Gowdy as the team’s sportscaster at the station. Except for Johnny, we tended to lose them pretty fast. During the relatively brief time I was there, we went through sports directors Dick Stockton, Len Berman, Roger Twibell, and a couple of others to ESPN. Whatever became of those guys? Because of the kinds of decisions we made, it never occurred to me that each might not have been replaced by the next guy, and simply had gone on to better jobs – leaving the position open for the next guy. I’m still not sure.
After I shot a commercial with John Havlicek, he gave me the #17 uniform he wore in the spot. Not only the jersey but the shorts. Still have them. Still don’t fit. Big surprise. My wife once mentioned I had this keepsake to the owner of a sports memorabilia store, then came home to inform me, “A-hole, if you had gotten him to sign it, it would have been worth something.” Did put it to good use one Halloween though, when I wore it with a Chanukah menorah around my neck as John’s wife “Temple Beth Havlicek.” Still hoping OJ might steal it for the insurance.
Incidentally, there's a special membership you can get in AARP called "Schwunger." It's for people who used to be swingers in the 70's, but for the life of them now can't remember why.
Ken,
ReplyDeleteThanks.
Corey
This is still bothering me.
ReplyDeleteCould it have been Al Ruddy with the oxygen? Arrrghhhhh.
MCP, I disagree. The 70's were when women were at their foxiest.
ReplyDelete“I really enjoy the process of collaborating with other writers,” Levine says. “That’s where my strengths lie, not just coming up with my own writing but helping other people form their ideas into something that works.”
ReplyDeleteSounds like she would be a "great" network executive.
Hey, I love the profile on your daughter. She's cute, talented and so fresh she's flipping. I can't wait to see what's TK.
ReplyDeleteRe: the appalling lack of women comedy writers, they always say they are "looking for women" and yet we women on the scene have never seen any evidence of this -- quite the opposite. Maybe they go on safari? Or are rooting through Tina Fey's trash? Dunno.
I read blogs at work and at home for the same reason, to avoid having to do actual work.
ReplyDeleteYou're blog is the best distraction ever Ken.
I'm not at work and I'm reading blogs. *g*
ReplyDeleteWow Ken... I don't suppose Annie is single?
ReplyDeleteScott,
ReplyDeleteAnnie's dance card is currently full.
All apologies.