Me showin' some ass. I was reading through a travel journal I kept on a trip around the country my family took when I was 10 and thought I'd share a few excerpts: "We went to McDonald's for breakfast. I had hotcakes & sausage." "We went to a nearby KOA campground to their drug store and I got a lot of comics." "The Grand Canyon was beautiful. The shades of rock were pretty colors. The length could make you sick." "The Petrified Forest was nothing like we expected. All it was was wood everywhere, no forest or trees." "We were right next to a waterslide. We went on it ...

After writing my last post, I thought of a couple other fire-related incidents I've experienced and decided to share: #1- I was living in my first LA apartment after returning from Hawaii. When I moved in I thought, "Great! I'm right up the street from a fire station." Then I realized, "Fuck! I'm right up the street from a fire station." I figure it's probably similar to the reaction people have when they cheer their proximity to an airport until they realize it's a bad thing more often than it's a good thing. My apartment had new cream carpeting and I took advantage of Hawaiian traditions in requesting that people take off their shoes- everybody. One day there were some repairs ...

I just got word that a friend's house I'd adored when I stayed there this summer was spared in the San Diego fires. You wanna talk about close calls? That's his house on the left in this photo. All he suffered was some minor damage to the side like a melted screen door. Even the fish in his Koi pond that separated the houses survived. At the time I visited I thought a side yard was an odd place for a Koi pond but who knows? Maybe it helped in some way. While I can't fully fathom what it's like to suffer the kind of loss his neighbor did, I can sort ...

I just read that Merv Griffin passed away. I had a great experience with him a few years ago and thought I'd share. I was asked to be a part of a new show called "The Court of Common Sense." It was sort of like "Judge Judy" except that the decisions were based solely on common sense rather than the law. Needless to say, I loved the concept. Every day for about a week we did run-throughs in Merv Griffin's Beverly Hilton office. A run-through is when you test out a show and hopefully work out the kinks before the pilot is filmed. There were only a handful of us involved ...

There was a link on my homepage today that said something like, "Larry King Has Interviewed The Royal And Reviled." Unaware of any book Larry King has coming out, I figured he must have died and that, ironically, news of his passing must have been bumped for the bigger story of the week. So I clicked the link and it turned out there's going to be a tv special honoring his 50 years in journalism. There was one quote in the article that really got my attention. It was from "60 Minutes" correspondent Mike Wallace who said about King, "He also works so damned hard. There's a reason he has been around so long, and it's that he does the ...

Five a.m. rolled around and one of the guys asked, "You wanna paint a bomb?" I had absolutely no idea what that meant so I quickly said, "YEAH!"

As I alluded to yesterday, one of the comps I got out of the Paris Hotel and Casino was two free nights room and a couple tickets to see Don Rickles on New Year's Eve. I don't recommend Vegas for New Year's. The drive, which usually takes me a little more than three and a half hours took eight. I'm not exaggerating. The casinos hike their table minimums way up and close their doors to non-hotel guests. My friend and I actually had to play the "We know the pit boss" card to get into the Barbary Coast (it's crappy but I love it there). Back to Rickles. I brought a couple friends to Vegas but could only bring my partner ...