In a few days, a week of events will mark the first two decades of the Empire Arts Center in Grand Forks. A 20th Anniversary Celebration Concert on April 21 will open the week that will also include an open mic night, a movie night and more and conclude with the Empire’s annual dinner and dance. The Empire is such …
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was fired this week. Being fired in the Trump administration has become commonplace, but the means by which Tillerson was “let go” was new. Secretary Tillerson learned of his dismissal by reading a @realDonaldTrump Tweet. Seems a little distance for someone whose television catch phrase was “You’re Fired!” I was fired only once, from a …
One thing about the Super Bowl is that if you’re not disappointed by the outcome of the game, you can be disappointed by the halftime show. This year it was Justin Timberlake’s turn to disappoint. Part of the problem is that we’ve set the bar for the game’s show unreasonably high. Also, everybody is a critic, myself included. To begin, …
Visitors to this blog may recall that I like to scam scammers. You know, the ones who steal a Facebook friend’s identity and use FB messaging to try to get you to send them some of your hard-earned money. I like to fight back in my own little way by writing back. Wasting as much of their time as possible. …
Meryl Streep just picked up another Academy Award nomination this week, her 89th. Something like that. This time it’s for her role as Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham in The Post. Tom Hanks, who plays the Post’s editor, Ben Bradlee, was snubbed, as they say. The story revolves around the newspaper’s publication of the Pentagon papers, classified documents detailing U.S. …
It’s been awhile, but it’s time once again, boys and girls, to play what I call Scammin’ the Scammers. Here’s how it goes. We message a real Facebook scammer, in an effort to waste as much of his or her time as possible. We had a lot of fun with this one over the course of a couple of days. …
I’ve never been much for bucket lists. But if I were, I’d have been able to check off a big one earlier this month. That is to see Havana, Cuba, from the backseat of one of the country’s classic American cars from the 1950s and ’60s, still operating on the streets every day. The importation of new cars — and lots of …
For me, a trip to Cuba earlier this month would not have been complete without experiencing the Tropicana nightclub in Havana. Its cabaret show is considered among the top three shows in the world (by people who decide these kinds of things, I guess). After seeing it, I believe it. For openers, Havana’s Tropicana nightclub shouldn’t be confused with the …
As a kid, a lot of stuff confused me. Some of it centered on Santa Claus and Christmas. Part of it was the usual confusing kid stuff. How can Santa and the reindeer fly? How does Santa get down the chimney? How does he get UP the chimney? What if we don’t have a chimney? My confusion wasn’t helped at …
Even with hundreds of television channels, HBO and all the rest to watch, and Netflix, Amazon and Hulu to stream, sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be “much” on TV. So, every once in awhile, Ginny and I like to watch “What’s My Line?” The 1950s and ’60s game show is seen currently in all its glorious black and white-ishness …
An interview I did with Dan Keating of KMAV/KMSR Radio in Mayvillle stirred up some memories for me earlier today. Clomping down memory lane a bit. For me, before there was television, there was radio. And before there was television news, there was radio programming. KMAV is where I picked up my first paycheck in broadcasting “some” years ago. In …
This is a cautionary tale. It involves drug abuse on my part, no less. Even though it was inadvertent and one time only. The drug in question here is a popular one, the sedative sold as Ambien. After a surgery my doctor prescribed Ambien to help me sleep. I can attest that for me, it works like a charm. I …
After a long struggle with Alzheimers disease, Glen Campbell died this week at the age of 81. Of all the celebrity interviews I’ve done, the two I did with Glen Campbell are among my very favorite. For openers, it’s always as surprise that a star of his caliber was willing to talk with little, old me. For some reason, the …
It’s amazing what you can run into on a daily walk. Today on 32nd Avenue South in Grand Forks I encountered firsthand an anti-circumcision protest group called “Bloodstained Men and their Friends.” The core group is made up for four young men from places like Boston and California. They are criss-crossing the country on a 17-day mission to bring attention …
The other day, I met a very nice young man who is immigrating to the U.S. Let’s just call him Ernesto. Because that’s his name. I’ve run into him at least a dozen times on the Greenway this summer. We’ve struck up a couple of nice conversations. He’s getting a little bored. He’s been waiting for his green card so …
When the Red River Valley Fair rolls around each year about this time in West Fargo, N.D., a rare moment of nostalgia sometimes comes over me. Sometimes. Allow me to paraphrase Marilyn Hagerty each (and every) Christmas Eve. Excuse me, please. But I must go back. If only for five minutes and only in my thoughts, I have to go back. When I think …
Q: Why — at your advanced age — did you decide to grow a mustache? A: I was asked to. It’s for my role in “Death by Chocolate,” the Fourth annual Firemen’s Ball on July 27 at the Mason Lodge in Grand Forks. It’s a fundraiser for the Fire Hall Theatre. I’ll be playing a detective, and everyone knows all detectives have mustaches. Q: I …
For some, it will probably open a scab wound that has just barely started to heal. A few of us got a first look Sunday night at the still unfinished “The Fighting Sioux: Unauthorized” movie. (I’ve seen several variations of the title.) All I can say is that it exceeded my expectations. And my expectations were pretty high. The story of UND’s fight with the NCAA over …
I’ve never been much for writing book reviews. Mainly because I don’t know how to write book reviews. Call this one an appreciation. (If you feel you have to call it anything at all.) I noticed a lot of interest in “Al Franken: Giant of the Senate” on Facebook and elsewhere. So, here we go. The new memoir follows Sen. Al Franken’s …
A new biography of David Letterman has reminded me just how much I miss those nightly Top 10 lists of his. So much so that I thought it might be fun to put together one. Not the ha-ha, funny kind. But for no particular reason, a list of the coolest people I could think of. My cool criteria is simple. It’s based mainly on achievement. …
Today is Don Rickles’ birthday. It’s also my mother’s birthday, but that’s another story and another post. Don Rickles died a month ago. If you’re like me and you always wanted see him live but never did and you feel cheated, the next best thing may be to watch the terrific John Landis documentary “Mr. Warmth.” Johnny Carson was the first to call …
The picture above of Ginny and me was taken on a pretty cold day, as I recall, a little more than 40 years ago in downtown Grand Forks. Yes, it’s our engagement picture. Yes, we’ve been married for nearly 40 years. And yes, I know, I married “up.” Virtually every man does in my opinion. When the topic of our anniversary came up with my …
This has never been a very easy story for me to tell. For that reason, I haven’t told it very often. It had been a very long, very hard day. There had been a lot of April days like that during the 1997 Red River Valley flood. They were long days whether or not you were a television reporter. It was about a week after …
“Bates Motel” has been one of my very favorite guilty television pleasures for the past couple of years. The A&E series is a prequel, of course, to arguably Alfred Hitchcock’s most popular film, “Psycho.” I saw “Psycho” back in the 1960s, when I was way too young. Apparently, they didn’t check IDs back then. Anyway, I was too young to have an ID. Suffice …
I look forward to it every year. What has become for me an annual visit to the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences. This year was my first time in the school’s beautiful, new building, which opened last summer. Also invited was Dr. Brent Williams. He’s a Sanford Health urologist in Fargo, a UND Med School graduate and a native of Cavalier, …
Arguably, Los Angeles International Airport is one of the most stressful places in the country. Why not? LAX is the third-busiest airport in the U.S. and seventh busiest in the world, serving almost 75 million passengers a year. And yet LAX is trying to make itself a little less stressful for passengers. Enter Cali. Cali is one of the airport’s PUPs, Pets Unstressing Passengers. Coming back …
The Los Angeles Times has named a work by North Dakota native and UND graduate Sam Anderson one of the Top Ten L.A. Theatre Productions of 2016. Edward Albee’s “The Play about the Baby” was produced by the Road Theatre Company last year. Sam is the company’s artistic director. Edward Albee died last year. The Times says of “The Play About …
Friends of ours, Mark and Kitty Westin, came up with a lovely Christmas card tradition for themselves a couple of years ago. Each year, they discover and repurpose a classic Christmas card from another era, sending them “back out into the world!” As they visit antique stores throughout the year, they find interesting, vintage Christmas cards that they repurpose, usually by copying the front …
Lefse season is well under way. Lefse-making season and, for me, lefse-eating season. For those unaware of the potato-based Norwegian delicacy, I would just say I feel very badly for you. But if you are very, very good, when you die and go to heaven, I believe, waiting for you there just inside the Pearly Gates will be a nice warm, freshly made batch. But with lefse …
Even during the holidays, online scammers continue their “work.” The ones who use a Facebook friend’s identity to try to get at your personal information. I had the following Facebook message conversation right around Thanksgiving Day. Here’s how it went. Scammer: Hello … How are you doing? Me: Hi … How are you? How’s Bill? Scammer: We are doing great we cannot complain Me: …
When I was in television, I used to make a list about this time of year. It was a list of things for which I am especially thankful. We would run it from the bottom to the top of the screen at a very high rate of speed. Too high to read. We all enjoyed a good laugh. Most of us, anyway. …
I’ve never gotten a very big kick out of shopping on Black Friday. Although, I must admit that $1.29 is a pretty good price to pay for a 52-inch Sony flat screen. After getting people all riled up for years about Black Friday shopping, retailers began trying to convince us that shopping at midnight on Black Friday was a good …
Forget show business, Bobby Vee was simply one of the nicest people on the planet. That is not an opinion. It is simply a fact. Bobby died today at the age of 73. He had lived with Alzheimer’s disease for several years. His wife, Karen, died in August of last year. They were married for 51 years. I was a Bobby Vee …
For me, about the only good thing to come out of the whole sorry, sordid Donald Trump/Billy Bush/”Access Hollywood” tape affair is that I have new respect for Nancy O’Dell. O’Dell is the anchor of “Entertainment Tonight.” She is clearly talented, classy and — even by Donald Trump standards — beautiful. But until this past weekend, I’ve always been a bit ambivalent toward her, good at her …
The conventional wisdom is that Hillary Clinton won the first presidential debate Monday. I was less certain. She was clearly better at talking policy, but I doubt that she really drew many undecided voters to her side. If she had been debating an inspired or charismatic opponent, she would come off as dull and uninspiring. My own study of American …
The other day, I mentioned casually on Facebook that a nice neighbor of ours had come to the door with a Tupperware container full of tuna noodle hotdish (minus the crumbled potato chips for the top). I added snarkily something about it being almost as much fun as attending at a Lutheran funeral. Well, that seemed to wake up the internet a bit. Almost 200 Facebook friends chimed in with …
It was 1976. Just a half-dozen years old, already The UND Writers Conference was a well-established and highly regarded cultural event. But conference founder John Little had outdone himself that year, booking two of the country’s best-known authors, Tom Wolf and Truman Capote. Wolf, ever the clothes horse, opened the weeklong conference with a reading of his works wearing a blazing yellow three-piece suit, …
Shortly after the election in November, a piece of presidential memorabila goes on the auction block. Well, sort of presidential. The skin-tight, highly sequined gown Marilyn Monroe wore on the occasion in 1962 when she breathily and memorably sang “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy. The dress, which has been mostly out of the spotlight, so to speak, since that night is …
“I never thought I’d sing in Devils Lake,” third-generation gospel singer Mark Blackwood said Monday night, “but here we are.” And a near perfect night it was. The rain held off, the temperature was perfect, and there wasn’t a mosquito in sight at Roosevelt Park. This will certainly date me, but I first heard the Blackwood Quartet at a little county fair …
A big thank-you to the organizers of this year’s Reynolds Rib O’Rama, Reynolds (N.D.) Community Betterment, for inviting me to be one of their six judges. I’ve judged chili, pie, ugly dog contests and more but never a rib contest. (To be clear, the ugly dog contests were not cooking events.) Reynolds’ beautiful city park was filled with cooking teams and …
For most of the past couple of months of my life, much of my time and what little concentration I can muster has been taken up not with writing or speaking but rather with acting. Yup, acting. I had a small role in the Fire Hall Theatre’s “Arsenic & Old Lace,” a 70-year-old dark comedy about two little old ladies who, as …
Perhaps inspired by that clever television commercial in which a guy trades his lederhosen for a kilt after learning he’s not really German as he was led to believe all his life but rather Irish, the other day Ginny signed us up to take one of those Ancestry.com DNA tests. For about $90, Ancestry.com will send you a DNA test kit. You get to spit …
Here we go again. Readers of this little blog know I like to play a game with scammers. The ones who hang around our Facebook pages pretending to be somebody they aren’t. All in an effort to separate us from our personal information and eventually our money. Here’s my latest effort, written mostly during television commercials in prime time last …
Even before the untimely death of Minnesota music icon Prince a few days ago, 2016 was shaping up to be a particularly bad year for celebrity deaths. Yahoo lists something like 30 celebrities ― major and minor ― who have left us so far this year alone. David Bowie, Glen Frey, Patty Duke, Merle Haggard, George Kennedy and Abe Vigoda among them. On Facebook, …