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The Trivial Sublime
One of my Facebook friends posted that she was excited about the season premiere of “Law & Order SVU.” Just as I started to think that was weird, I scrolled down and saw the posts on my news feed from the show “Dexter.” They are counting down the days until Sunday’s season premiere and posting red-themed recipe ideas for viewing parties. Within seconds, I was watching video clips from the premiere episode. Don’t click on this if you don’t know how last season ended.
After watching the “Dexter” video, I saw a post from “The Office” with a link to the cold open of tonight’s season premiere. In the scene, the Dunder Mifflin staff does a lip-dub to “Nobody But Me.” It must have been inspired by the (somewhat) famous lip-dub video of one of my all-time favorite songs, Harvey Danger’s “Flagpole Sitta.” Here’s both:
Three Big Dog Night
It was a thrill for me to have a former boss in the audience at last night’s Einstein Simplified show. I felt a bit like the opposite of Mark Thompson’s character in “Mother Ghost.” That guy is angry over his father’s failure to attend any of his Little League baseball games. I was psyched to have a mentor see me perform.
I’ve worked for some well-known program directors in my career. Mark St. John has always been a favorite because he was supportive of me as I transitioned from assistant promotion director to morning show producer at WAVA. He let me try other things too. He taught me how to use the music-scheduling software and had me edit the logs when he and the music director were both out of town. Other bosses have unwittingly pigeon-holed me into one role. St. John saw me as versatile.
Radio is a small world. I work for a company that utilizes Mark’s services as a radio consultant. The job brings him to Knoxville once or twice a year. This year it happened to work out that he arrived on a Tuesday and could make it to The Square Room. His decision to attend inspired Paul Moore of Q93 and Darren Stephens of Hot 104.5 to come to the show too.
Smell Test
Adam Longo visited the Body Farm in 2006 when he worked for WATE in Knoxville. I wrote a blog post about it at the time. He was able to repurpose parts of that report yesterday for his new employer, News 13 in Central Florida.
Longo is covering the Casey Anthony case. Casey is accused of murdering her daughter Caylee. Her lawyers traveled to Knoxville to take depositions from Body Farm researchers. Prosecutors and scientists believe that air samples collected from the truck of Casey’s car are consistent with the gases emitted during human decomposition. One of the names on the report is Dr. Arpad Vass, who developed an electronic sniffer to help find missing corpses.
Adam’s wife, Melissa DiPane, also worked at WATE. She is now at WOFL in Orlando. Four years ago, I served hot dogs alongside Melissa and several other news anchors. I’ll be back at Market Square this Friday serving hot dogs for United Way.
Big League Chew
The lush lawn of World’s Fair Park was the setting for the first Families in the Kitchen festival sponsored by the Junior League of Knoxville on Sunday. The exhibits and demonstrations promoted diet and exercise to combat childhood obesity. Food City gave away bananas and apples. Froyoz gave away coupons for the first four ounces free, which my wife and I redeemed on our way home.
I was invited to be the emcee and a judge of the Healthy Living Cook-Off. Each chef was charged with making a meal that would be easy for kids to help make. To illustrate the point, they worked with a child assistant. The food also had to taste good without being expensive or fattening. The other judges were Covenant Health clinical dietitian Barbara Foster, Junior League of Knoxville president Anne Stair and Anne’s daughter Emery.
All the meals we sampled were great, however Chef Martin Smith of LeConte Medical Center (and his assistant Madylan) edged out the competition with their flatbread pizzas, quesadillas and sugar-free orange Jell-O with strawberries and marshmallows. The other participating chefs were Rachel Reagan of Touch of Love Catering (and assistant Elizabeth), Chris Jones of Lakeside Tavern (and assistant Anna), Greg Williams of Tom & Barry’s (and assistant Mitchell), Rick Dreinhoefer of Parkwest Medical Center (and assistant Makayla) and Mary Gushen of Knoxivi.com (and assistant Haley).
Ticket Broke
My son was too young to remember seeing the Washington Redskins play the Los Angeles Rams at Anaheim Stadium. Both teams had abysmal 2-7 records. I got tickets for my family from a former WAVA co-worker who had gone on to a job at WTEM. The Redskins lost the game, 10-6.
The current “Snatch and Grab It” commercials for NFL.com Ticket Exchange got me thinking. Perhaps my son could look online for a ticket to see the Redskins play the St. Louis Rams next Sunday. The worst seats in the house cost $40 apiece plus service charges, which is too expensive for a college student’s budget. Double it if he wants to bring a friend.
Even if he paid the money to sit in the rafters of the Edward Jones Dome, his view of the game would be worse than if he watched it on TV. A couple of recent newspaper articles have examined the same problem. The Washington Post points out that television ratings for the NFL are up but attendance at the games is down. USA Today reminds us that teams like the Redskins, Cowboys and Giants are putting massive HD screens in their stadia.
I love watching the NFL in high-definition in my living room. I’ve been to games in New York, New Haven, New Jersey, Washington, Anaheim and Nashville and never had a view of the field as good as a high-def broadcast or a seat as comfortable as my recliner. I’ve had more fun at high school games because I can get a seat on the 50-yard line and actually see the game. I wonder if the NFL owners realize how bad some of the seats are and if that’s why they installed the HD screens. As the at-home experience continues to improve, the obvious answer is for the owners to drop ticket prices to attract those willing to brave the elements as a way of showing their loyalty to the team.
The Subject’s No Venus
Kate Pratt takes a photography class at Pellissippi State Community College with the goal of becoming a professional photographer. She already has a pretty spiffy website for Kathryn Pratt Photography.
My wife and I had the pleasure of attending Kate’s wedding three years ago. She thought of me when she got a class assignment to take pictures of someone at work. What I do can hardly be called work but Kate thought it might be interesting to see what happens in a radio studio.
I chose three favorites from the twenty-three pictures Kate sent me. I’m not feeling self-confident enough right now to post one of me making a dramatic face. Maybe later.
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Alert Farm Demand
A new NBC series was mentioned in my Google Alert for the Body Farm. The Jimmy Smits legal drama “Outlaw” had been reviewed by PopMatters.
Upshots being what they are, the point of these very speedy plot turns is to catapult Cyrus into his new career, an ex-Supreme Court Justice, saddled with massive debt and remorse, as well as an inclination to righteous vengeance, a quick wit, and a team of youngsters comprised of his former SC clerks as well as a black-leather-jacketed, whip-smart private investigator, Lucinda (Carly Pope). It’s not clear yet whether she has a dragon tattoo, but she does like to irritate fancy-suited, colossally ambitious Eddie (Jesse Bradford), most memorably when they visit a body farm (where donated corpses are exposed to elements, so CSI aspirants can learn their trade) to seek the most rudimentary info regarding the Beals murder case. While Eddie grimaces and complains, Lucinda points out the usefulness of science in such instances: “I know that you right wing whackos have an issue with that, but unfortunately, Jesus isn’t around to let us know exactly when [the victim] died.” The camera is angled up from the ground, where a blue-skinned body rots in the foreground. “People lie,” Lucinda asserts, “Maggots don’t.”
I was skimming through the On Demand menu on my TV yesterday afternoon when I noticed that “Outlaw” was available in high definition. I ended up watching the entire pilot, just to see the one scene at the Body Farm. A lot of the episode was shot on location in Washington, DC. Other action took place in Philadelphia and at a church in Massachusetts. Unfortunately they didn’t mention that the Body Farm is in Knoxville. There was no real reason for the characters to stand next to a fresh corpse while looking at crime-scene photos from 11 years earlier. The body, which looked more like a “Thriller” zombie than a real corpse, served only to gross out the uptight Eddie. The forensic anthropologist who studied the photos knew how many degree-days had passed since the murder. In real life, that analysis would have happened in a less fragrant location.
Coincidentally, I got an email from Susan Seals of the Bone Zones team just as I finished watching “Outlaw.” They have set January 24, 2011 as the date for the next “Dinner with the Bone Doctor” at Echo Bistro & Wine Bar. Susan thought that tickets to the event would make great Christmas gifts for the tough-to-buy-for forensic fan. I had the good fortune to attend a similar event in July at which Dr. Bill Bass showed the skulls of murder victims while the crowd ate their veal piccata.
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