And the word of the day is: CONCINNITY!

cDR Rodzinski---there were great interviews and segments that my friend and fellow editor Tom might have kept. He was compiling a lot of VMC stuff and said he would give me a copy. I had some bits from my demo reel that I gave him to put on this reel. If I ever am able to get a copy from him, I will make a dub for you. I'm sure it would bring back some memories.

I didn't know Glen. My time with the VMC did not end well. We had a group of investors who were leasing channel 69. They finally realized that it was like throwing money down a black hole and decided they wanted to buy the station. When the owner refused to sell, the VMC investors pulled out, and the VMC was technically finished, although it stayed on the air.

We all had to re-apply for our jobs with the owner, and we were all hired...at first. Then, people started getting fired. The new management was horrible. The  owner brought in a buddy of his---you may remember the ancient cowboy dude who had a very sleazy past---to be the new program director, while still keeping me on for continuity. He decided that the VJ's should select their own music. Well, the old music director had worked long and hard to get credibility and be reported in the tip sheets along with MTV and radio stations. We also had deals with all the labels that they would let us have certain music videos if we played others from their catalogue. I would work with the VJ's to make sure that music they liked would be represented, but there was a real science to programming that required a holistic approach, not just letting each VJ play whatever they wanted.

The cowboy dude, who apparently bathed in Stetson®, (whew!) brought in some young thing to be his "assistant". So you may have seen her on air, too. She would come and sit on his lap during breaks and the director said it was so dusgusting that he wanted to turn the monitors off! A special moment in the history of the station was when the bimbo's husband showed up and dumped all of her belongings in the parking lot, and placed their wedding photo in the VMC lobby. Sadly, I was gone before I got to witness that drama!

After a few weeks of letting the VJ's program their own shows, the cowboy dude  decided that they should pull their own copies of the videos instead of the assistants. B.J. Rucker, whom you may remember, was walking across the control room with a stack of 3/4" tapes in her arms and didn't see the hole in the floor where one of these geezers had pulled off a floor tile. She stepped in it, had a compound fracture of the leg, which essentially ended her modeling career, and was never compensated rightly for it. At this point I had had it with the VMC.

Glen was another buddy of the owner, or maybe the old cowboy dude, who was brought in as I was leaving. The cowboy dude, one morning, decided to call me before I left for work, and fired me over the phone. He didn't even know my name, and asked for the wrong person! I was in shock. I had never been fired before!

The VMC old guard were shocked, too. After all, I was one of the people who started the station and was the only original person left from when we went on the air. How could that be?

Well, I was depressed for months, but as it turned out, it was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I was just the first of a mass exodus from the VMC. I got back into editing, my first love, and never looked back. The VMC staggered to an end a few months later. Those of us who worked together in the original crew have remained very close---it's almost a feeling that we served in the trenches together. It was fun working with a video music pioneer like the VMC while it lasted---until the regime change, anyway.

(cut, copy, post!)

TOTD:  The Studio Ghibli output.

BK:

How do we get tickets for the December 9th evening performance?

We watched a movie last night. I had heard about how bad it was but I had never seen it. I think Ant had seen it many years ago. It was on Turner recently and Rose recorded it for us. The legendary stinker is called:

The Horn Blows at Midnight

Wow, what a dog! No wonder Jack Benny was embarrassed by it. And our lovely Alexis Smith. It had a roster of practically every character actor in Hollywood at the time but I don't think anything could have saved this turkey. As it was approaching the end I just wanted to push them all off the roof.

Casey would waltz
With a strawberry blonde
And the other couples on the dance floor attempted to achieve a kind of CONCINNITY with Casey and his partner
But the sad result was a traffic jam at the dance floor's center.

I always get lost when driving in Concinnity - once I ended up in Louisville across the river!

To start your week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abekqjso47c

The film is THE HORSEMASTERS and the redhead in the duet is, of course, Millicent Martin....a few years away from Side by Side by Sondheim....and musically light years away from same.  

I hate getting up early.  

Then let early sleep late.  

Harharhar.

Monday morning greetings!  Today is the last of my 5-in-a-row-off and it's a pretty special one - DH Richard's 60th birthday.  We had pecan waffles for breakfast and later today we'll go with our DS Rob to Montgomery Inn for dinner.

Richard's birthday always represents for me the start of the holiday season - 2 weeks from today is my mother's birthday, 2 weeks from that is mine, and two weeks from that is Christmas.  That means that Christmas is 6 weeks from today, for anyone who's counting.  Scattered in there we also have Thanksgiving and several more family and friend birthdays.

I agree completely with bk about CARS' length and meant to mention that when I was commenting on it last night. The predictable storyline and the overlength were my two criticisms of the film. But most of it was very entertaining.

How ironic that we both watched the same film on the same day, and my friend Penny and her boy friend also watched it yesterday unknown by me until I read her e-mail this morning! Small world!

I'm looking forward to watching last night's DEXTER after my lunch out with best friend John today. I also have COLD CASE and WITHOUT A TRACE to see.

I peeped over to CBS during commercials for DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES last night, and the local CBS affiliate was showing the programs in HD, a change from the past two weeks.

TOD as to music - I'd say my real appreciation for Stephen Schwartz's work came a little late.  I'd always enjoyed it, but his work somehow got lost respect-wise in the shadow of Sondheim in the 1970's, at least among my friends and schoolmates.