Annual swim party

One day are church held a annual swim party.(aug/14/09)Every body was allowed to bring food and water toys.A lot of people came to it,and it was a lot of fun with all of are friends!Some people brought chips,cake,brownies,fruit,and crackers.Friends were:

James,Carl,Derek,Spencer,and Eli (these were some of my friends)

We had a lot of fun at the annual swim party!!!!!!!!

My turtles

This is Speedy Speedy and me

Hi my name is Garrett (a.k.a turtle man).This is my first time blogging so I have a lot to work on.What I would like to talk a little about me. First of all I would say that I really like turtles and collecting arrowheads and crystals.Right now I have two turtles at home,Turtwig and Squirtle

(April/12/09)

Turtwig's favorite food is strawberries.Squirtles favorite food is blueberries.Now my favorite turtle of 2009 would be speedy he was:

1 inch in heigth,

4 inches in perimeter,

1 inch and 3/4 in length,and

he was a red eared slider.

1/400 Bandai AZIERU Pt.1

Honestly, I haven't touch Gundam Plastic Kit for almost 3 years, but recently I am taking an interest in one of the GunPla kits that were imported into CH-Toynation. The kit is 1/400 NZ-333-AIZERU by Bandai. What so interesting of this kit is that some of the parts had been pre-painted. Yes, I was so surprised when I picked up the kit and found the logo "Painted Model" printed on the cover of the box. What is even more interesting is that the kit is " Made In China"!!! Wow!!! I always thought that Bandai only manufactured domestically and never had it manufactured elsewhere due to the quality control. Something we don't know huh!!!

1/400 is HUGE! That is also one of the reason why I picked this model kit.

Lots of painted parts!!!


Check out the detail painting on one of its leg....

....maybe due to the painting, it maybe cheaper to have this kit manufactured in China


Here are some of the completed sections....

....here is the side view, by the way the kit was a breeze to assemble~~

....turtle Shell?

Here are my work station, pretty cramp-up!


- to be continued -

Ellie Greenwich

Every inch on every wall of her apartment was filled with awards, gold records, recognitions, framed notes and articles. There were pictures of her with the Beatles. Lyric sheets, music sheets, album covers. If she and I had lunch plans I always insisted on meeting her at her apartment. A half hour early. Ellie Greenwich’s apartment was like the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Better. It was in New York, not Cleveland.

You may not know her name but you’ve sung her words.

You many not recognize her voice but you’ve heard it on the radio a billion times.

Ellie Greenwich was a singer/songwriter who during a golden period of the 60s expressed the feelings, angst, and joy that my generation was experiencing and she put them into the meaningful words we couldn’t … even if those words were Da Doo Ron Ron and Doo Wah Diddy.

Ellie Greenwich passed away this week. She was only 68.

Along with Jeff Barry and other collaborators, Ellie wrote many teen anthems. “Leader of the Pack”, “Be My Baby”, “I Can Hear Music”, “River Deep/Mountain High”, and countless more. The Broadway musical “Leader of the Pack” was loosely based on her career. She discovered Neil Diamond and sang background on all his hits. She had a couple of hits herself as lead singer of the Raindrops. She’s produced records, wrote famous jingles (e.g. "Ooh-La-La-Sasson"), sung with Frank Sinatra, Dusty Springfield, Blondie, and Cyndi Lauper. Brian Wilson called her "the greatest melody writer of all-time".

Ellie was part of the Brill Building, which basically was a stable of songwriters who churned out most of the smash hits of the day. Working in little offices side by side were Leiber & Stoller, Bacharach & David, Goffin & King (as in Carole), Mann & Weil, Sedaka & Greenfield, and a few other heavyweights. (Some of them like Neil Sedaka were still teens in high school at the time. I always loved the fact that Jewish kids who couldn’t get a date would take the subway into Manhattan after school and write the love songs that every teenager in America was singing.)

Anyway, I had an idea to write a musical about the Brill Building and connected with Ellie about providing the music. Thus began a collaboration (although I never got the project off the ground) and friendship I have cherished for years.

God, she could make me laugh. There are some people who just know how to tell a story. Hers often involved giving Phil Spector shit (it’s a wonder he didn’t shoot her). They were the kind of stories you couldn’t repeat because no one but her could do them justice.

She used to love my travelogues. I email them to my friends as well as posting them. One of the joys of writing these travelogues (lord knows I’m not making any money off of them) was hearing from Ellie. And it’s ironic because I’m writing this on a plane to Cincinnati and am in the middle of another travelogue. I’m sending it to her anyway.

Ellie Greenwich loved a good song and loved a good laugh. I hope all of those wonderful treasures and keepsakes on her walls are given a good new home; somewhere where the life and contribution of this lovely talented lady can be forever appreciated. Y’know, Cleveland’s not so bad after all.

Who is that guy with the weird laugh?

Greetings from Cincinnati. Here are answers to some of your Friday questions.

velvet goldmine wondered this last week:

I know that even shows filled before a live audience sometimes used to "sweeten" them with recorder laughs. But there's this one man's laugh that you hear on TONS of shows from the 70s, from MTM to Taxi. You know the one I mean? First there's a startled "Haw!" as the setup gets underway, then this extended "Haw Haw Haw..." when the joke reaches its zenith.

Why in the world would they keep using this familiar, even annoying laugh? And if by chance it was the same guy at all the tapings -- say, a superfan, or a self-impressed writer -- why wasn't he muzzled?

This is less of an answer than a confirmation. As several people correctly mentioned in the comments section, the distinctive laugh you hear belongs to James L. Brooks (pictured above). It’s less annoying when you realize it’s genuine. And when he laughs at something I’ve said or written, it’s sheer music.

There are also two very distinctive laughers on the last seven years of CHEERS. Phoef Sutton and Bill Steinkellner. I can’t describe them but watch any episode from those middle and later years and you’ll know what I mean.

Jim Stickford asks:

What's the procedure for deciding what particular line to use. I saw Carl Reiner in an interview years ago and he said one of the reasons he stayed in the writer's room for Your Show of Shows was that he could type, which was a bid deal in the days before computers and photocopiers. When the writers threw out lines, Carl picked the one he liked best and typed it in.

Is there a procedure? Is it decided by the show runner? Do you vote on it?

It’s either the showrunner or the person designated to run the room in the showrunner’s absence. Someone has to have the final say otherwise you have the scene in GODZILLA with all the people running through the streets crazed. Although, wait a minute. It's like that normally.

From Jaime J. Weinman:

Do you prefer writing sitcom episodes with a tag before the closing credits (M*A*S*H) or episodes that have no tags and end the episode with the second act (Cheers)?

Also what are the reasons for having tags or not having tags: is it usually network policy (like in the '80s when almost none of NBC's sitcoms used tags), or is it sometimes the showrunner's decision?

Tags are those little two minute scenes at the end of sitcoms. They serve the purpose of rewarding the viewer for staying through the last spot break. Some shows have them, others don’t. It depends on their format and needs of their network. There seem to be fewer today as networks are going more to a three-act format -- again, all in the cause of audience maintenance; none in the cause of better storytelling.

I MUCH prefer writing tags to the teasers we employed on CHEERS. At least with tags you could draw upon content established in the episode and just do a call-back. Teasers were completely independent of the story that followed. The Charles Brothers thought it would be novel and help establish the world of the bar. They were right of course, but teasers were a bitch to pull out of our ass every week.

What’s your question???

You can't say that on the radio!

I read in Wednesday’s edition of L.A. Radio People.com a glowing story about former talk show host Joe Ortiz. I worked with Joe once and my encounter was, uh… devoid of glow.

1972. I’m a relief engineer at KABC and their sister station KLOS-FM. That meant I played the records on KLOS and played the commercials on KABC. My shift on Sunday nights was to play the public service shows. As preposterous as it sounds now, radio and television stations once were expected to actually serve the community. A certain amount of their programming had to be devoted to public affairs. So of course stations would bury these shows in the middle of the night or early and late Sundays when no one was listening.

One Sunday night I see we have a new program scheduled. IMPACTO. It’s a talk show geared to the Hispanic community. I’m thrilled. It was live. Normally I played half hour tapes on how to fill out Social Security forms.

The host is Joe Ortiz. He’s relatively new to radio; primarily a community advocate. I ask, “What’s the game plan?” He says he’ll take calls and if there’s a lull I’m to just play a record. What kind of record? He says it makes no difference, just grab something KLOS normally plays. Sounds easy enough to me.

So he starts taking calls. And every other one starts off like this: “Hey man, I’m tired of this fucking shit…” Whoa! Every two seconds I’m diving for the kill button (we were on an eight second delay). I tell Joe on a break to remind his callers they’re not allowed to swear on the radio. He gets pissed at me. That’s censorship. No it’s not, I tell him. It’s the FCC. We could lose our license. He ignores me.

So for weeks I’m hitting the kill button so often you’d think I was tapping out Morse Code. Needless to say, our relationship was frosty.

From time to time there are lulls and he calls for a record. He says, “We’ll be back right after a little music” and I play Crosby, Stills, & Nash or whomever. KLOS was your classic rock station even before we knew the stuff was classic.

So one night the swearers aren’t calling. He signals for a record. I grab one from the rack and cue it up. He announces on the air, “We’re going to take a break but here is a record that expresses the perception of the Hispanic community.” I let the record fly. It’s “Dead Skunk In the Middle of the Road”.

Joe goes nuts. I show great restraint by not falling to the floor in laughter. I say, “It’s on the playlist. Who the hell told you to introduce it like that?”

So Joe files an official union grievance on me. I have to go before a board of the Chief Engineer and union representatives. I’m charged with being a racist. Once they hear my side of the story they fall on the floor laughing. The grievance is dropped and I’m completely pardoned. Better yet I’m taken off that shift.

For years I had no idea whatever happened to Joe Ortiz. He hasn’t befriended me on Facebook. And then in the article I learn he’s primarily no longer in broadcasting. But ironically, his last on-air gig was hosting a talk show on a Christian station. I wonder how “Hey man, I’m tired of this fucking shit…” would go over there.

P.S.
On a totally unrelated subject, I know a lot of my readers also follow Earl Pomerantz's blog (if you don't you should). Anyway, he had a little health scare that proved to be not nearly as serious as he had first thought. So he wants me to remind you that he's continuing to blog. Check him out while he's still alive. Thanks.

Bumper Sticker Of The Week

I just happened to have my good camera in the car when I spotted this in front of me on Park Avenue last week. It's sort of clever, but I'm not a fan of advertising your relationship status and mate requirements via bumper sticker. I do wonder what the liberal version of this would be, though.