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The Pan Am Review

As a child, I occasionally went with my parents on vacation and we would, when the price was right, use as an airline Pan Am. I distinctly remember thinking it was a shame that it went out of business in 1991 after the harsh loss of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. It therefore came as a surprise to me when ABC announced that they were making a television show about flight attendants (formerly called stewardesses) and their experiences working for Pan Am Worldwide in the early 1960’s.

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Peter Stone and the Short Con

Peter Stone was a great writer of Broadway musicals, movies and television.  He was also prickly, an un-diagnosed INTJ personality, and a good friend and mentor.  Peter always told me I was more than an assistant.  I was his associate. That distinction with a difference meant a great deal to me.

When Peter was working on — The Will Rogers Follies — we had a lunch routine we never broke:  Tuna fish sandwiches on a roll with mustard, mayo, lettuce, tomato and provolone and a Martinelli’s apple cider to wash it all down.  Our time to talk about life and art and living was in that break when we’d walk to and from the corner deli to pick up our lunch.

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Why We Were Right All Along about the Wrong of Celebrity Rehab

On March 17, 2011, I published The Death of Mike Starr Questions the Value of Celebrity Rehab in our Celebrity Semiotic blog:

I find Celebrity Rehab and Sober House to be depressive and memeingless.  The toxic relationships are difficult to tender and impossible to abide.  Should rehab and therapy and healing be done in private and away from the public square or shown weekly on VH1?  I can’t imagine anyone who is addicted ever wanting to attend a rehab program after watching those Pinsky train wreck soap operas.

I am most disappointed in Drew Pinsky, who appears to be a good man, but his direct involvement in the exploitation of celebrity addiction is stunning because he is trained to know better.  Drew Pinsky must know those people need privacy and ongoing, deep, therapy away from the very lights and microphones that likely helped push them down the path to their addiction in the first place.

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The Brilliance of the Degrassi Telenovela Format

It is no secret to readers of the Boles Blogs Network that I love the television show Degrassi — so much so that I used the power of it and the internets to scare David Boles. I would now like to tell you why I am quite impressed by a decision the producers made last year — to nearly double the length of the season and have part of it in a telenovela format.

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The Non-Dynamic Duo: Me, Adam West, and Batman at the X103 Car Expo

When I was a wee lad, I had job at a radio station.  I was lucky enough to work on both the AM and FM sides of the dial.  The FM station was known as X103 and we were in the prehistoric rotary dial days before the Age of Digital Radio Tuners.  One night, I was working on the FM side, and a listener called and told me he’d just spent $5,000.00USD on a new home stereo rig and his FM tuner was digital and our station was coming in clearest at 102.7 and not 103.  He asked me why that was, and I told him that the station was actually broadcasting at 102.7, but that the rotary dial methods made 103 close enough for advertising purposes.  The caller grunted and told me to fix it.  A few years later, “X103” was gone, replaced by: “102.7 FM.”

In the early 1980’s, I was told by the radio station I had to work a weekend car expo for X103.  I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I was the low man on the hiring pole and they were going to pay me time and a half, so standing around for six hours handing out X103 car window stickers would at least stick some money in my pocket.  I was also told that Adam West, aka Batman, had been hired and flown in from California to appear with me at the X103 van.  Adam would be dressed in full Batman regalia.  I was surprised that a big star like Adam West would be in Lincoln, Nebraska at a car show standing next to me.

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The Degrassi Review

A long time ago (Fall 2004) in a Seattle apartment far, far away (about three thousand miles or so depending on what route you drive,) a man and his then girlfriend sat down at his television to watch a television program that was called “Degrassi — The Next Generation.” He was hesitant to watch it because it was a program meant for teenagers and he was not a teenager in any sense of the word, though he did have a youthful mentality about many an issue. Fast forward to the present day. I am that man, and am married to aforementioned then girlfriend, and am eagerly awaiting July 18 as the beginning of the eleventh season of the show now known as Degrassi. Yes — I, kooky tati, love Degrassi — here is why you might come to love it as well.

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What Does Rob Mariano's Survivor Win Say About Our Mental Health?

On Sunday, “Boston Rob” Mariano won a million dollars on — Survivor Redemption Island — and his win should be a cold shock to the rest of America as a morality cringe and pure evidence of a tasteless failure our societal values.

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