“Who are these people I keep hearing about? Burt and… Laura?”
— the marvelous A, requesting more information on the greatest love story in the history of American soap opera — that of Luke and Laura on “General Hospital” — after listening to my interview with former “GH” star Lynn Herring on Brandon’s Buzz Radio. (Gotta love him!)
For much of the past year, I have been helping out — in the form of writing, guest research, and calling in when no one else would — a woman who has become a great friend of mine, the marvelous JoAnn Kubasek, with her fledgling online enterprise, an internet talk show entitled Stardish Radio. Hosted on the BlogTalkRadio network, a fascinating cabal of self-help and celebrity-driven chat shows, Stardish is a blast of a program whose main beat is connecting fans with their favorite soap stars (although we’ve also stepped outside that box of late, having recently had hilarious exchanges with the fierce and fabulous singer Kimberley Locke and with Academy-Award-nominated actress Marsha Mason, among others), and its moderator — a thirtysomething cancer survivor who recently relocated to the Buffalo area — is a total doll, and one of the coolest gals it has ever been my pleasure to have a conversation with.
Because Stardish is not my show, and because the show is designed specifically for the fans who call into it and not necessarily for its host(s), it often happens that many of my guest questions are forced to go unasked. (In no way am I denigrating JoAnn and/or the show for this; as it is the fans and the fans exclusively who keep these shows on the air, that’s not only the way it is, but the way it should be.) This was never more heartwrenchingly apparent than during a brisk, brilliant conversation we had last month with the legendary Constance Towers (whose best-known role is as Helena Cassadine on “General Hospital”); although I was able to chat with Ms. Towers about a number of topics throughout the hour we had scheduled with her, I was only able to skim the surface of what I really wanted to ask her about. And as utterly grateful I was for the experience and for the opportunity — how many regular schmoes like me get to hobnob with the same folks he watches with awe on television every single day?! — I closed out the episode with an extremely heavy heart.
Later that sleepless night, while exploring BlogTalkRadio’s main website, I ran across a button which read, “Become a host now!” Not sure what lay ahead of me, I clicked the link and filled out the information which the resulting application requested. (You actually wouldn’t believe how mind-bogglingly easy it is to be granted your own show! Anybody can get one!) Literally within minutes, Brandon’s Buzz: The Radio Show was born.
I have no idea what form the radio Buzz will ultimately take. As this blog is largely music-centric, I would hope and expect that the online program which now shares its name will eventually be as well; however, as pretty much any topic is fair game for this blog, so shall it be for the show, at least in the early going. (In my wildest imaginings, the radio show will essentially be the blog brought to glorious, three-dimensional life.) I’ve reached out to roughly twenty celebrities with whom I have always dreamed of having a serious conversation, and while Annie Potts’ (of “Designing Women” fame) press agent gave me a swift and rude “no,” and the divine Robin Strasser’s (of “One Life to Live” fame) webmaster gave me a firm and hopeful “maybe,” I’m thrilled beyond words to announce that I have gotten two bites right out of the gate. One of them has graciously agreed to be interviewed but has yet to be scheduled — we had a lovely chat earlier this evening; tune in tomorrow for more news on that front — and the other has taken an enormously brave leap of faith and agreed to be my very first guest.
Next Wednesday night — January 14, 2009, at 11pm EST (that’d be
8pm PST) — Brandon’s Buzz will welcome the marvelous Robert Krimmer. Once known professionally as Wortham Krimmer, Robert portrayed, with a stunning, steely grace, one of the most unique and riveting characters that has ever been created for daytime television — that of Reverend Andrew Carpenter on “One Life to Live” — throughout much of the ’90s. (You’ll hopefully recall how brightly Krimmer shone in one of the most daring, groundbreaking storylines in the history of the genre, the 1992 tale which found Krimmer’s Andrew falsely accused of molesting one of his teenage parishioners, who just happened to be gay and was struggling to come to terms with the fact. The story culminated with outdoor scenes which featured both the AIDS quilt and a gut-punchingly powerful sermon from Andrew which pivoted on the idea that hatred can only be consumed by love. Trust me: if you saw it, you never forgot it.) After his “One Life” stint ended at the turn of the century, Krimmer stepped away from showbiz altogether and enrolled in law school, and he is now a practicing attorney based north of Los Angeles. And, in what I predict will be a smashing hour of discourse, I and Robert and his fans will broach all of these topics and many, many more.
I can’t tell you how greatly I’m looking forward to this, and I’m very hopeful that you’ll all join me as the Buzz embarks on this latest leg of its journey. The show can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/brandonsbuzz, and the call-in number is (347) 202-0799. January 14, 11pm EST, be there.
Dear Mr. Obama,
I understand you’re kinda new at this racket, so let me say at the outset that I’m willing to give your shameful ignorance the benefit of the doubt, and willing to believe your silly, impetuous actions on Friday will never again be repeated. But, sir, you’ve been president-elect for barely a week, and you’ve already made no fewer than one enormous miscalculation, one which, try as I might, I simply can’t allow to stand.
The flair board is slowly but surely filling itself in. Latest additions: a quartet of buttons I constructed with my own ingenuity — three of them featuring my all-time favorite soap actress Laura Wright (who became a star on “Guiding Light” and is now setting Port Chuckles on fire over at “General Hospital”), and one of them, a brilliant rendition of my beloved Stop the Insanity-era Susan Powter; buttons for two of my all-time favorite television personalities (Judge Judy and Tom Snyder) and films (The Silence of the Lambs and Dancer, Texas, Pop. 81); a tribute to Tetris, the greatest video game in the history of home entertainment, and to Rent, which just exited the Great White Way after a historic twelve year run; a gorgeously stylized shot of fingers tickling the ivories (I’ve always had this thing for piano players; sue me); the lovely Miss Bonnie Tyler (just looking at that photo makes me want to scream in my finest rasp, “You’re such a pretty boy / lemme tell you what to do / and you’ll do it!” ); a hilarious button which offers optimistic hope for the future**; and finally, the patented Buzz button, whose creator won’t rest until he sees it front and center on every last Facebook corkboard.
** “I dream of a better world where chickens can cross roads without having their motives questioned.”
Sorry for the brief delay in this week’s record store report — Sherry Ann has been so antsy anticipating this, it’s hard to ponder how she survived the pre-Buzz days — but here we go, with yet another brilliance-packed week before us. Buckle up, kids: we’ve got fourteen albums to discuss.
Solid proof that you shouldn’t judge books by covers: in the same week in which word has broken that Rob Thomas’ second solo album is due next spring, Matchbox Twenty’s guitarist (and former drummer) Paul Doucette — who, throughout his band’s entire history, has never failed to represent himself as an irritatingly sarcastic horse’s ass — scores a home run as the leader of a fascinating new side project,
The Break and Repair Method. An album of pleasant melody and stunning depth, Milk the Bee finds Doucette manning both the piano (and adeptly, at that) and the microphone (and while his vocal prowess is certainly no match for Thomas’, Doucette’s timbre proves to be surprisingly rich), creating a ten-track set whose sensibilities land somewhere in between Wilco’s and Keane’s on the yardstick of pop. (Even if you ultimately choose to let the album as a whole slip by you, be at least sure to check out track number five, “Calling All Electrical Prints,” the kind of sweet, haunting love song Jeff Tweedy only wishes he could write.)
It’s a slow one this week out in America’s record stores, with the only major release of note being the latest album
So, this is a perfect week to catch up on some worthy recent releases that may have slipped past you. (You can’t all be me, after all.) Herewith, a handy pocket guide:
Following the phenomenal success of the official bootlegs from her 2005 tour in support of The Beekeeper, Tori Amos has just digitally released all 27 shows from last year’s American Doll Posse jaunt. Available right now as an iTunes exclusive (and, beginning next week, available everywhere else), the series, entitled Legs and Boots, is pretty Posse-centric, a fact which anyone who wasn’t a fan of that album (hi!) will find disheartening. However, as you scan the tracklists of each show, you’ll no doubt find some pleasant surprises (like her surprising inclusion of the classic b-side “Beulah Land” from the Dallas concert, or the radically slowed-down take on “Etienne,” one of Y Kant Tori Read’s few highlights, from the Boston set). The audio is crystal clear, and serves as a vital reminder of Amos’ masterful potency as a live performer.
In what is shaping up as a watershed, telltale year — one marked by radically slashed budgets, by a crumbling ratings, by a series of breath-stealing actor dismissals, and by entire shows coasting on the fumes of asinine plot-propelled drivel (“The Bold and the Beautiful,” anyone?) — for a uniquely American art form — the serialized daytime drama — let’s pause to toast the one soap that’s more or less getting it exactly right: ABC’s “One Life to Live.” The show marked its fortieth year on the air on July 15, and today and tomorrow, they’re pulling out all the stops to mark the occasion by revisiting three of “One Life’s” most successful and most beloved storylines: Tina Lord Roberts’ 1987 tumble over an Argentinian waterfall (today, it’ll be her daughter Sarah taking that plunge); Viki Lord’s infamous trip to Heaven that same year (she’s going back, but this time around she’ll only encounter the folks — like her former father-in-law (and second favorite sparring partner) Asa Buchanan, her dear friend Mel Hayes, and her late husband Ben Davidson — who have died since her first visit); and Clint Buchanan’s lavishly brilliant time-travelling adventure (twenty years ago, he fell off his horse — seriously, you just had to be there — and landed in Arizona in the late 19th century; this month, Bo and Rex are struck by lightning and wake up in 1968 — the year this series hit the air, wink, wink — and faced with a choice to either change the future — will Asa’s bastard son David Vickers even be born? Will Bo not be drafted and sent to Vietnam after all? — or leave it alone). Soaps are all about execution, of course, so the final verdict will be out for a bit, but this ploy feels like a spectacular way to both honor this show’s rich, bountiful history and to re-engage the attention of lapsed fans who have been alienated over the years by shoddy writing and boneheaded plot twists (how many besides me are still infuriated about Nora sleeping with Sam Rappaport ten years ago?!). Contrast this celebration with fellow ABC soap “General Hospital” — which marked its 45th anniversary on April 1 with a dopey thirty-second clip reel tacked onto the end of that day’s episode — and you get the distinct feeling that its network no longer considers “One Life” to be the redheaded stepchild of its daytime lineup.
