Archive for April, 2010
From Los Angeles to London Via The Magic Castle
Sunday, April 18th, 2010
Even after an exhausting day at Disneyland, it is hard to sleep in very late when your body’s time is three hours ahead of the real time. So despite the exhaustion, on the morning of Sunday, March 28, 2010, my eyes still open at about 6:30am in my friend Jimmy’s guest room in San Pedro, California. I tinkered around with my email and Facebook (having brought my laptop along with me on this trip), then slowly got ready for the day. It would be a long one…and it would be about 33 hours before my head would hit another pillow – in a country far, far away. Read the rest of this entry »
Cool-Hand Red-Mouthed George Kennedy
Saturday, April 17th, 2010
It may be a disservice to Oscar-winning actor George Kennedy, but every time I picture him in my head, two images come to mind – and neither one of them flattering. The first is the scene from Naked Gun when he and Leslie Nielsen are shoveling red-dyed pistachio nuts into their mouth and emerge from the police car with bright red lips. The second involves Kennedy at the baseball game in the same film as he is seen shoveling various ballpark food (hot dogs, pizza, ice cream, etc.) into his mouth in cutaway shots. Hey, I can’t help it. Apparently I like to watch George Kennedy eat. Read the rest of this entry »
Star Wars in Fairborn
Thursday, April 15th, 2010
While not a complete Star Wars junkie, I am a fan of the franchise, so when the opportunity presents itself, I generally snap up any autographs of members of the cast of both the original films and the later prequels. On Monday, December 8, 1997, I got the chance to meet two members of the Star Wars family at the Bookery Fantasy comic book store in my hometown of Fairborn, Ohio: Kenny Baker, the dwarf actor who was the performer inside the R2-D2 costume in all six of the films, and John Hollis, who played Lobot in The Empire Strikes Back. At the time, I had no idea that Hollis was Lando Calrissian’s cyborg aide – but that didn’t stop my from purchasing one of his photos. Read the rest of this entry »
The Kindly Mrs. Huxtable
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010
Phylicia Rashad will forever be remembered as being the wife of Bill Cosby…even though they were never married. I began watching Cosby’s groundbreaking series The Cosby Show when it first debuted in 1984, back in the day when she was still going by her maiden name Phylicia Ayers-Allen. Her named changed, naturally enough, when she was married to her third husband, NFL wide reciever and sportcaster Ahmad Rashad. Fresh from the stage, The Cosby Show was her first major screen work and she was called upon by Bill Cosby once again to be his screen wife when he began his new series Cosby in 1996, four years after the former series ended. And I might add that she starred in the pre-show of the Dinosaur ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Read the rest of this entry »