Brandon's Buzz

Honey from the Hive is taking a brief breather this Sunday so that I can bring you a Brandon’s Buzz exclusive presentation. A few days ago,
I got a chance to speak with ace entertainment reporter Shaun Robinson (who has covered major national news stories for local outlets across the country, including an award-winning stint right cheer in Austin, Texas; and who is currently the class of Access Hollywood) about the continuing feature — Living Legends, which shines a light on some of the most compelling and creative artists of our time — that she contributes to the series, and she got candid about the latest Legends to be profiled, as well as about the repetitive, mentally trying grind that her job can sometimes become.

BRANDON’S BUZZ: I’ve heard you say in other interviews that in your line of work, you get caught sometimes shining the spotlight on folks who don’t really deserve all the attention they get.

SHAUN ROBINSON: Exactly.

Given your hard news background, do you ever have days where you just wanna go, “Give me a break, not one more Mel Gibson story! Not one more Lindsay Lohan story, not one more….” Does it ever get to you sometimes, the seeming monotony of entertainment journalism?

Well, one of the reasons that I love doing [Access Hollywood’s Living Legends] series is that I got a chance to talk to folks who are real stars, and I think, unfortunately, today, if a person is on TV, they get that ‘celebrity’ title, which I don’t think many of them deserve. But, you know… it’s what people are interested in. But I think people are also interested in hearing these legends talk about their careers and about what got them to ‘legend’ status, because the difference between [the Legends participants] and a lot of the folks that are ‘in the news’ is that these people have true longevity in our business. And I don’t think that the reality stars that are on TV today will have that longevity.

(more…)

Morley Safer tonight called him “the father of television news.” Tom Brokaw: “The managing editor for America.” Long was he considered the country’s most trusted man, and that was an honor he forever wore with nothing less than the utmost seriousness.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a short story in which legendary newsman Walter Cronkite — and, more specifically, his awe-filled play-by-play of Neil Armstrong’s mind-blowing 1969 moonwalk, the fortieth anniversary of which we’re mere days from celebrating — played a brief but pivotal role. And even though Cronkite’s remarkable career was already beginning its twilight by the time I became aware of his enormous presence, his contributions to American journalism continue to stand as the form’s standard bearers, the impossible bar that today’s multiplicity of blank-faced telegenic jokers is forever aiming to clear.

The news of Mr. Cronkite’s passing this evening at the age of 92 saddens me in a way I can’t quite put my finger on just yet. But, as the marvelous Sherry Ann so wisely counseled me several weeks ago, I’ve reached that age where the heroes are beginning to prove themselves to be mere mortals, just like the rest of us, just like me. People are born, people die. One door opens, another door closes, and that’s the way it is.

The next time you see A, pull him into a warm, proud embrace and congratulate him, for, by experiencing a crucial rite of passage, he finally became a Texan last Friday night.

He hit a deer with his car.

(Fear not, neither car nor driver are any the worse for wear; judging, however, from what A scrubbed off the bumper of his poor Toyota Corolla Saturday morning, the dumbass doe — which was quite literally sitting in the median (!) in Cedar Park — can make no such claims.)

“I’m not gonna equate the two… there’s no degree here, but my son can’t go surfing in the bloody ocean for two weeks because they’ve shut the oceans down in California because they’re so filthy, and I can’t have sex without wrapping my body in rubber…. We have done a terrible, terrible… we have damaged so much. We are so far away from what is natural and what is healthy and what is normal.”

— Susan Powter, discussing the AIDS crisis with renowned naturopathic physician Dr. Jane Guiltenan on her radio show in 1998.