Dave On Vacation

Tomorrow morning, I am leaving on a 10-day vacation to the Southland. I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and I will be back with you sometime in 2004, the Good Lord willing. So don't look for e-mail. Don't even SEND me e-mail when I'm away. That means you too, spammers.

Happy Birthday Susan Lucci

Susan Lucci is 56 today.

Somewhere in her house there's gotta be a picture of her with wrinkles, saggy skin and shock white hair.

All of which she certainly doesn't have!

Pushing Prom

I want it recorded to the world that on December 19, 2003, I saw a PROM magazine at the supermarket checkout. Sweet Jesus! I'm sure even the most airheaded and vacuous teenage girls know that it's too damn early to be thinking about "Prom" (as it's now called, somewhere during the last generation, the "the" was dropped), and all the extracurricular activity that goes with it.

Were I still teaching high school students, I would have taken a poll of the teenage girls in my classes to see if they are of the same mind as me - that it's TOO EARLY to be thinking about the Prom in December.

We're Back

Congratulations if you can read this. The Christmas elves reminded us in the (St.) Nick of time that our domain name was up for renewal, and we have done so. You should be able to read this again in a day or so. Meantime, you may want to resend that e-mail... but only if you're not selling me something I don't need or you're not one of my long lost friends from Uganda wanting to siphon money through my bank account.

In Case You Missed It Last Night..

Hope you saw this Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" rerun on Game Show Network... you never know who may show up at the game!

New Horns For Asbury Park HS Band, Courtesy Of...

...The Boss.

As one of the beneficiaries of this weekend's concert performances by Bruce Springsteen and The Max Weinberg 7, the Asbury Park High School Marching Band will step out on its next performance with an entirely new set of band instruments and drums, as well as a nice monetary donation to the program. APHS Band members will attend this weekend's performances and solicit further donations in the hopes of purchasing new uniforms.

The APHS band actually disbanded in the early 1990's when its longtime director Dorian Parreott Sr. retired. I've known Dorian for years and more recently as a member of AFM 399, and remember the glory years of the band program back when I was a high school student. However, the program had been in decline for several years prior to Dorian's retirement. Two years ago, James Dinella was hired and charged with resurrecting the marching band, and this just-ended football season marked the first time APHS fielded a halftime show since the Parreott days.

As an elementary band teacher, I feel it's critical that the students who take the time to learn instruments have a decent place to go when their time is up at their current school. Thanks to Bruce Springsteen and his friends, the kids in Asbury will have greater pride and a better sound playing on their brand new instruments, and hopefully down the road, new uniforms. Who knows? One of them could be the next Clarence Clemons or Max Weinberg!

HELP

Okay, here's the deal. I wrote back on USENET on January 1, 1995...

How did Vanna White's singing debut on last night's pre-taped "Merv Griffin's New Year's Eve" go? To me, it was underwhelming. She sang "You Do Something To Me" from the roof of some hotel in Beverly Hills, then we found out who she was singing about: her son Nicholas.

More exciting than Vanna's singing was what came before it: Mort Lindsey and the band played the new version of the "Wheel Of Fortune" theme, "Changing Keys". It was the exact same arrangement used on the TV show beginning this season.

I have this show on tape somewhere. Only thing is, I have to look through ten years of tape to find it. I sounded a clarion call for this show sometime before, but if anyone out there in the tape-trading subculture has it, I'd like to talk. I have dozens of episodes of Trading Spaces, rare cartoons, all kinds of stuff available for trade... anything out of the Robair Collection of rare game show episodes.... who's got the Merv Griffin ringing in 1995?

"It's an O.J. world again..."

We couldn't agree more with the opinion of veteran writer Mark Evanier on this blog item, but I sure wish Mark and the rest of the news media would not strip Michael Jackson of the last bit of dignity he has - his NAME. The five-letter nickname that appears in most of these reports make it appear that his middle initial should be "T", standing of course for "The".

Random thought

I wish I had a nickel for every clown who had a middle initial "T" and claimed it stood for "The".

New lyric

Spotlight on Arthur Conley (yeah, yeah)
He's our one and only (yeah, yeah)
Singin' "Sweet Soul Music" (yeah, yeah)
Oh yeah (yeah, yeah)

MR. SMITH GOES TO TOMS RIVER

I truly apologize for the late notice on this. G.E. Smith, the former bandleader of Saturday Night Live, will be appearing TONIGHT (Wednesday, November 12) at the Ocean County Library on Washington Street in Toms River, at 8:00 p.m. G.E. will be performing during the awarding of a $19,000 100th anniversary Harley Davidson V-Rod motorcycle, to benefit the library's expansion.

And how's this for a cruel twist of fate! Because of parent conferences at one of my schools, I'm unable to attend.

Damn.

Ocean County Library Press Release
SNL Band Pages

Taps

...But it's the deaths that are a little closer to home that are a little harder to take. I just found out from a fellow union brother that we've lost one of the better reed men in the county, Jerry Walther. Jerry was also a member of AFM 399. I played with Jerry in a few ensembles and what I am most reminded of is his perseverance in learning oboe so he could play that instead of clarinet in the Ocean County College Band.

Visiting hours are Thursday at the Anderson & Campbell funeral home in Manchester.

Gerhard Walther obituary

THE BEST GOLF TEACHER I EVER HAD

Because he taught me how to properly address the ball. You just walk up to it and say....

HELLO BALL!

R.I.P. Art Carney.

BRILLIANT

Wow. This oughta make you buy the Golden Collection. We're going to be reworking a lot of title cards and bullseye graphics over the next few days. They are just so much nicer on the DVD. By comparison...

Okay, not really a fair comparison, because they're from slightly different eras... but hey, the DVD one looks SO DAMN MUCH BETTER.

Rod Roddy 1937-2003

Robert Ray "Rod" Roddy, announcer on "The Price Is Right", died this morning in a hospital in Los Angeles, at the age of 66. He had been hospitalized for the past two months with breast and colon cancer.

Besides "Price", other game shows with Roddy as announcer included "Press Your Luck", "Love Connection", and "Hit Man". He also provided the voice of Mike the microphone on "Disney's House Of Mouse". He had also been a disk jockey, working in the early days of Top 40 radio with such legends of the genre as Todd Storz and Gordon McLendon, and also branched out into radio talk, including one particularly memorable stint at KLIF in Dallas.

A week ago, I appealed to you to send cards and letters into Rod as soon as possible. Nobody would say as much, but we knew that we were going to lose this much beloved member of the Price family.

Looney Tunes DVD's Coming Tomorrow!

We repeat our earlier recommendation of the Looney Tunes DVD's, which are being released tomorrow.

I strongly recommend you lay out the bucks for the Golden Collection, the four-disc set loaded with extras. If you click on the handy link, you can get it from amazon.com at a discount and make your obedient humble webmaster a few cents in the process. I once again suggest this collection rather than the lower-grade Premiere Collection.

All Sitcoms Should Take This Pledge

With the debut of "Two And A Half Men", Chuck Lorre is back in the sitcom business. If you will recall, the 107 episodes of his previous effort, "Dharma And Greg", each had a different message scrawled in very tiny print on the producer's "vanity card" at the end of each episode (basically his production company logo). Lorre has continued the tradition with "Two And A Half Men" but this time he has a halfway decent show to go with them. Check out the show on CBS and read the text of his latest manifesto here, a pledge every sitcom should heed. We'll check back with you, Chuck.

Maybe Rush Limbaugh IS A Big Fat Idiot After All...

With a little more fanfare than he perhaps wanted, Rush Limbaugh has recused himself from his commentator slot on "ESPN NFL Sunday Countdown", or whatever they're calling it these days.

Limbaugh now joins the likes of the late Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder and Al Campanis in the Foot-In-Mouth Hall Of Fame, for controversial comments that the media wants a black NFL quarterback such as Donovan McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles to succeed.

Don't these guys ever learn? I'm not the biggest Eagles fan, but don't you think that a quarterback like McNabb has succeeded on talent, not because of media expectations? Even a casual football viewer like myself can see that.

Is it too late to bring Dennis Miller back?

Show Us Your Shoes...

The Miss America Parade is on for tonight on the Boardwalk. Winds should be diminishing through the day making it a safe experience for all. The parade was originally to have been broadcast by CN8, but they pulled out. (Not too late to pull back in, guys.)

Tomorrow night is the Miss America show, hosted as previously noted on this blog by Tom Bergeron. If he can handle a tic-tac-toe grid with nine stars, then certainly he can handle 51 beautiful women competing for scholarship and other awards.

SNL Band In Vegas, Baby!

The Saturday Night Live Band has a Vegas gig to warm up before kicking off the show's 29th season. They, along with vocalist Christine Ohlman, will be at Bally's on Wednesday, September 17. Contact Bally's for more information.

In other SNL Band News, happy belated 55th birthday to trombonist Steve Turre, and a shout out to Katreese Barnes (and yes, we will fix your spelling!) for the nice e-mail and pointer to her website, www.katreese.com. The site is currently in the lab for an overhaul to be rolled out on Season Premiere night!