Current cans Keith

If only Keith Olbermann had invited me back on his show after he got the Current TV gig, maybe this wouldn't have happened.

Blasts from the past: Me on MSNBC

Back when I had a place of honor in some producer's Rolodex at MSNBC, I was periodically called upon to offer Oscar predictions, mini-movie reviews, respectful obituaries and other sage commentary. (I think I was the guy they called when Roger Ebert's line was busy, or when they couldn't get anyone else on a holiday weekend.) I had a lot more hair back then -- and relatively little of it had yet turned gray. (Of course, it helped that I occasionally touched up the beard with Just for Men hair coloring.) In the above clip, I chat with anchor Gregg Jarrett (now a Fox News Channel employee) about the great George C. Scott the morning after the reluctant Oscar winner's death in 1999.



And in this clip, I chat talk with the lovely and talented Ashleigh Banfield about three movies -- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Thirteen Days and O Brother, Where Art Thou? -- that had Oscar-qualifying runs in New York and L.A. in late 2000, but didn't open until January 2001 in most markets. (You'd never guess that I bought that spiffy-cool faux leather jacket off the rack at a Target store in Seattle, would you?)



And even though I already referenced this one in an earlier blog post, here I am talking with the man himself, Keith Olbermann, about The Day After Tomorrow in 2004. (More beard, and a lot more gray in this one. Now you know why I went back to the goatee.) Which reminds me: I guess I need to get myself planted in some Rolodex over at Current TV, don't I?

Confession of a news junkie

I keep telling myself: OK, tonight I'm not going to watch all those freakin' news shows. No Keith, no Rachel, no Hardball or Last Word. I'm not gonna plant myself at my dining room table and divide my attention between MSNBC or Current on my HDTV, and Talking Points Memo or Daily Kos on my laptop. I'm gonna go out to a screening, or watch a movie on my HDTV -- hell, I still haven't caught up with all the Harry Potter films! -- or write something for this blog or some other venue, or connect my new Blu-Ray player so I can downstream movies, or even try to organize the piles of magazines and stacks of DVDs in my home office. But then a story like this breaks, and I know -- I just know, dammit! -- what I'll really be doing tonight. (Hat tip to Kelly for the above illustration. You can check out her other work here.)

A career highlight: My night as a guest on Countdown With Keith Olbermann

After this, it's been all downhill for me.

Say it isn't so!

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Keith Olbermann says goodbye. Raising, of course, the inevitable question: Did he jump, or was he pushed?

Keith Olbermann bids adieu -- eloquently, enthusiastically -- to Leslie Nielsen

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And I swear: I wrote my fart story before Keith told his. Great minds think alike, eh?

Before we depart for the Toronto Film Festival... one last glance at the real world

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Flashback: Me on Countdown

June 1, 2004: The grass was greener, the skies were bluer, friends were truer, my beard was fuller. And, best of all, I enjoyed a career highpoint as a talking head for Countdown With Keith Olbermann. (The burning issue of the day: The Day After Tomorrow.) It's been all downhill for me ever since.

(P.S: Once again, my thanks to producer Robert Clark.)