Friday, November 13, 2009

What I've Learned So Far...

I've got a birthday coming up. So it's time to sum up all my knowledge.

1. There's a very thin line between being a "cool old guy" and being a "creepy old guy."

2. I'm part Italian, part Irish and part French Canadian. So I eat with the Italians and drink with the Irish. I haven't figured out the French Canadian part yet.

3. Two things I swore I'd never do but did anyway - 1) Go into radio. 2) Get married.

3. If I can find a woman who'll agree to our wedding song being "Lawyers, Guns and Money" I'll remarry.

4. Be they child substitutes or (in my case) the girlfriend experience, pets are wonderful companions. But if you think you need a chimpanzee you're nuts.

5. Once a weasel, always a weasel.

6. Not having kids has worked out very well for me. But if you look at #3 you know things don't always end up the way I've planned.

7. As Jim Morrison once said, "you cannot petition the Lord with prayer." As my recent experience seems to prove.

8. Getting along with my ex-wife is something I'm proud of.

9. The lower down the food chain the tastier the food. I haven't met a bivalve I didn't like.

10. It's time like these when I appreciate my friends.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

More Dead Celebrity Stories

My last post got such a positive response I decided to come up with a few more:
I may be partly responsible for Wolfman Jack's death. One morning before working a satellite tour with him I asked him if he wanted anything to eat. "A doughnut and a coffee with cream and three, no, four Equals" he replied. A week later he was dead of a heart attack.

During a roundtable interview for "Village of the Damned" a colleague asked Christopher Reeve if his equestrian hobby was dangerous. Reeve literally knocked on wood (a table) and said "I haven't had any accidents yet." Needless to say this was the ironic soundbite I dug up the day after his horrible accident.

I remember telling Ed McMahon that my father, like Ed, is a former Marine. After several hours of working he remembered. "Tell your Dad 'Semper Fi" he said on the way out the door.

A few weeks before doing a satellite tour with Richard Harris I was part of rountable interview where he told us he had started drinking again. Just one Guinness a day he said. When the day came for the satellite tour it was snowing heavily and I snuck out to a deli and bought him a bottle figuring he wouldn't be able to get out to a pub. When I presented it to him he smiled and said "you're a true gentleman." A year or so later during another rountable interview I asked him if he thought his early days as an actor with the likes of Peter O'Toole and Peter Lawford would make a good film. "Oh no" he said, "nor will I write one of those tell-all books. All of the women we slept with in those days are grandmothers now. It wouldn't be fair."