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It practically gallops!

Deep Southampton

Almost any show about the Hamptons will grab my attention. I fell in love with the area a long time ago when my family went to Noyac each year for vacation. No trip was complete without a visit to the Penny Candy Shop or Crutchley’s Crullers.

Entertainment Weekly’s cover story is about “Revenge,” which they call “TV’s greatest guilty pleasure.” I got an early seat on the “Revenge” bandwagon when they made the pilot script available as a free download for the Kindle. My only gripe with the show is that North Carolina and California play the part of the Hamptons. However, EW says they sent a camera crew to New York to get some footage of the Hamptons in winter, now that the show is a hit.

The beautiful Hamptons scenery should receive co-star billing on the show “Royal Pains.” The third season resumed last Wednesday, after a four-and-a-half month break. Thank goodness for DVRs. “Royal Pains” now airs at the same time as “Revenge.”

There was no reason for me to ever watch CMT until now. Tom Arnold was on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” promoting a reality series called “My Big Redneck Vacation.” I was half-listening until he said that the show was about a family named the Clampets (really) who were sent to the Hamptons. He got a laugh describing the Clampets’ skills with plywood when Hurricane Irene was on the way.

January 25, 2012 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

By the Old Familiar Name

Because she was out of town at the time, my mother missed the news that her former pastor, Monsignor Tom Cassidy, died in October. She found out at Christmas and then told me. Had she been home, she would have attended his funeral at St. Mark Church in Vienna, Virginia. The following sentence in the November issue of the parish newsletter caught my eye: “Following an Irish tradition of mourning for 30 days in special memory of the deceased, his remains were interred in the Memorial Garden on November 2.” I’m not familiar with that tradition, nor did I know that the parish now has an area for the burial of cremated remains.

Msgr. Cassidy preferred to be known as Father Tom. Before my wife and I were married, we went to Fr. Tom to sign up for preparation classes and to take a compatibility quiz. We appreciated his help and his kindness toward us.

We had my father’s funeral at St. Mark in what is now the “Msgr. Tom Cassidy Activity Center.” Back then it was the sanctuary. After my father died, my mother and my grandmother went on a trip to Europe with a church group led by Fr. Tom. They visited several famous shrines including Fátima and Lourdes.

It may be three months late, but I remembered Fr. Tom when they prayed for the dead at Mass in Knoxville today. I’ll make an effort to visit the St. Mark Memorial Garden this summer when I’m visiting the D.C. area.

January 8, 2012 | Filed Under Catholic | Leave a Comment 

Christmas Rush

Now that I’ve completed my quest to visit all fifty states, I suppose I won’t be buying many more souvenir Christmas ornaments. There isn’t room on our tree for all the ones I’ve collected so far.

Christmas ornament from Mount Rushmore One of the last turns out to be one of the best. The Christmas ornament from Mount Rushmore is of the same high quality as the White House ornaments that my wife loves. There were a few other designs in the gift shop, but I remember being thrilled when I first saw the one I purchased. It looked almost exactly as I had hoped it would.

December 29, 2011 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

TDOn’T

Traffic standstill on I-40 on November 6, 2011 A small sign on the road warned that the right lane would be closed ahead. It was wrong. In fact, all lanes of Interstate 40 were closed for an hour Sunday morning, near the Alcoa Highway interchange. Additional closings occurred throughout the day as utility crews worked on power lines above the two highways.

Traffic standstill on I-40 on November 6, 2011 I was attempting to make my way to Chilhowee Park. My friend Sandy Weaver was going to give me a tour of the Great Smoky Mountain Cluster of Dog Shows. I never got there. Instead, I made conversation with the other drivers stuck on I-40. The lady in the car behind me was trying to get to a 10:45 service at a church near James White Parkway. She said she would turn around and go back home once traffic started moving. The lady in front of me was headed to Jonesborough to visit a sick relative.

The stopped cars, many with doors open, reminded me of “The Walking Dead.” The zombie apocalypse series has several scenes of abandoned cars along Atlanta’s highways.

November 7, 2011 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off 

Bean There

A picture of the interior of Doc Brown’s DeLorean got me thinking. Yesterday was the 26th anniversary of Marty McFly’s fictional trip from 1985 back to 1955. I realized that on the real Saturday, October 26, 1985, my friend Bean and I were hard at work on a show called “The 25th Hour.” Without the benefit of digital technology, we put together a one-hour program full of songs about time. It aired on WAVA as Daylight Saving Time ended on Sunday, October 27 and the clocks were changed from 2:00 a.m. EDT to 1:00 a.m. EST. One of the songs in the show was “Back in Time” by Huey Lewis and the News from the “Back to the Future” soundtrack. I don’t think either of us realized that we were using that song on the pivotal date from the summer’s hit movie.

Six years later, October 26 once again fell on a Saturday. That year I was in Los Angeles, interviewing for a job with Jay Thomas at Power 106. After a bizarre meeting in which Jay and the station’s marketing director pretended to be a gay couple just to make sure I would be okay with it, I had the evening free. I went to dinner with Bean, who by then had started working at KROQ. After burgers at Carl’s Jr., we went to Bean’s apartment near the Hollywood Freeway to watch the World Series. I’m pretty sure we heard gunshots in the neighborhood.

Bean asked if I wanted to go to a movie or if I would rather go to Las Vegas and be best man at his wedding to Donna. I had not been to Nevada, so I chose the wedding. In rapid succession, we took a Southwest flight to Vegas, a cab to the Clark County Courthouse and another cab to the Graceland Wedding Chapel. The sign out front said Lorenzo Lamas had been married there two years earlier. According to Vegas.com, the Thompson Twins were also married there on October 27, 1991. I never stopped to figure out if Bean and Donna’s wedding took place before or after midnight local time. As a result, I’m not 100% sure if their 20th anniversary was yesterday or today.

October 27, 2011 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment 

Pretty Big Stuff

Smoky Mountain Morning, the online video show I’ve been co-hosting with Taz Cable, is changing and growing. On October 15, a new version of the show, now called Smoky Mountain Magazine, will premiere on East Tennessee PBS. It will air weekly on Saturdays at 10:00 a.m., right before Marshal Andy’s show. Taz has been working very hard to make this deal happen. As you can imagine, I am extremely happy about the news.

Smoky Mountain Magazine will be a show for anyone who uses the Smokies, whether they live in Tennessee, North Carolina or anywhere. The broadcast signal of East Tennessee PBS reaches four states. Clips from the show, along with timely updates, will be available online to viewers worldwide.

Because locals and tourists use the Smokies as a place to relax, the show will focus on recreational activities and entertainment. I’ve already been contacted by someone who wants to teach me fly-fishing for a segment. Taz and I are also looking forward to covering performances and festivals around the region. I’m already wondering what different foods I’ll be able to try, like the duck taco I ate at Bele Chere in July:

September 8, 2011 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 6 Comments 

Boomington, Minnesota

The World’s Largest Prairie Chicken could have improved our trip through Minnesota. Last month, my wife and I visited the last four states on my quest for all fifty. Because we were going to be in the neighborhood, relatively speaking, we added stops in Wisconsin and Minnesota. I had visited those two states but my wife had not. Both turned out to be a bust.

My wife read about a restaurant in La Crosse that was designed to look like the betting parlor in “The Sting.” However it was closed on Sundays and holidays, which meant bad news for us over the Fourth of July weekend. After a long day of driving, we elected to skip the town’s Riverfest, even though two-hit-wonders the Spin Doctors were playing. I figured that the $7 per person admission fee could be better spent on buffalo burgers or loose-meat sandwiches in the days ahead.

Because we love the movie “Fargo,” we originally planned to drive through Brainerd, Minnesota. We scrapped those plans and chose a more direct route to Fargo, North Dakota. Along the way we stopped in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. Some quick research revealed that they had a giant river otter statue. Unfortunately neither the customers nor the employees at Walgreen’s could give us usable directions to find it. We drove around the wrong city park several times, only getting frustrated. Things immediately got better once we reached North Dakota, thanks to the staff at the Fargo-Moorhead visitor center.

Two days ago, my friend Bean shared a photo on Twitter that he had received from one of his followers. It showed the World’s Largest Prairie Chicken. I Googled the bird to learn more about it. Imagine my disappointment when I learned that it is just off I-94 in Rothsay, which is about halfway between Fergus Falls and Fargo.

August 27, 2011 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off 

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