June 08, 2004
As I was saying...
Funny story for those not old enough to remember Jack Paar (the guy who invented the late night talk show). Once in 1960, when one of his jokes was cut from the monologue by NBC censors without his knowledge, Paar quit the show briefly in protest. In his emotional goodbye message, he said, "I am leaving The Tonight Show. There must be a better way of making a living than this." After NBC execs begged him to return, and feeling that he had made his point, Paar came back to the show a few weeks later. On his return, the first words out of his mouth were, “As I was saying…(huge applause), there must be a better way of making a living. Well, I’ve looked…and there isn’t.” The studio audience roared.
In my case, censors aren’t to blame for my long silence, but a very busy web mistress. You don’t think I update this blog myself do you? I’m strictly an analog guy who’s still getting a handle on that whole email thing. Which brings me to another funny story. Because of this blog, which I don’t even update myself, I was invited to sit on a panel at The Symposium on Converged Journalism at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications in Gainsville. Man, that’s a mouthful.
On the panel with me were Retha Hill and Elizabeth Spiers. The moderator was Mark Glaser. Our panel was Entertainment bloggers, or at least I think that’s what we were. The jist of the discussion was how websites are becoming more and more popular with big media corporations who are now putting more and more effort into having the most up to date websites. Being new to this whole blog thing, I found it pretty interesting. If you’d like to see what went on, here’s the streaming video, or whaterver you call it.
And here’s a picture of Mark the moderator, me and Elizabeth Spears.
Hollywood goes South
On March 31st, my wife Lisa and I attended a gala premier at Atlanta's Fox Theatre. The film? Bobby Jones-Stroke of Genius. If you're not familiar with Jones, he’s considered to be the greatest golfer ever, or at least until Tiger. About all I know about golf is that Tim Conway made a small fortune playing some guy named Dorf. Anyway, Bobby Jones (a native Georgian), played from around 1916 to 1930 and won the Grand Slam of his day. I guess that’s a really a big deal.
As for the premier, it was all for charity. In our case, proceeds went to Christian City, a group that takes care of abandoned children. A buffet type dinner was held at the Georgian Terraced Hotel, which is across the street from the Fox. For movie trivia buffs, the Georgian Terrace is the same hotel where the cast of "Gone With The Wind" stayed when they came to Atlanta for that premier. GWTW didn't run at the Fox though. Why? Because the film was made by MGM and at the time MGM owned the Loews theatre in downtown Atlanta. For Atlanta transplants, just toss that into the conversation at the next party you're at and they’ll think you’re one of those rare native Georgians.
But back to the premier. Dress was either: business attire, black tie or vintage twenties. Lisa suggested I compromise and wear my white dinner jacket. At the party I noticed one other person in a dinner jacket and said to my beautiful wife, "Look there's the other idiot." The other idiot turned out to be Jim Caviezel, the actor who played Bobby Jones.
By now I'm sure you know the name. Caviezel is the actor who played Christ in Mel Gibson's little film, The Passion. I'm sure he did Jones long before Jesus. I don't know what Stroke of Genius will do for his career, but I can guarantee you he'll be Christ the rest of his life.
Oh! I did ask him if he really could see Peter's house from up there.
If you don't get the punch line, no need to tell you the joke.
Here's Lisa and I with her cousin Terry and her husband Dr. Barry Brasfied. We are about to board the bus to Atlanta. Someone suggested we take a limo and I said why take a 60-thousand dollar car when you can take a hundred thousand dollar bus?
