tomversation

Am I bored by high culture?

I was asked today to be a judge at a local Film Festival. I turned them down. I can’t sit through all those movies in one day, it would drive me insane. I’ve also turned down judging arts events, as they take a day or two of looking at non-stop art and then making decisions on who and who wouldn’t be part of arts festivals and shows. Guess I just don’t have the patience.

But Breaking Bad, Real Housewives, Naked and Afraid. I’m in. I’ll sit for hours on end watching these shows and their marathons. Not sure what it says about me but the high culture events bore me. TV doesn’t.

The queen of reality tv

10 With Tom
10 questions in 10 minutes

Glenda Hersh 1 Glenda Hersh shown here, is an Emmy award winning producer and co-president and CEO of True Entertainment and Original Media, two leading producers of reality tv. True was taken over by Endemol which makes me laugh because I had a friend who worked for Endemol in Miami and he would always tell me to come and pitch some of my reality show ideas that I had. I never did, but it’s almost coming full circle with Glenda doing 10 With Tom today.

TOM: You produce the Real Housewives of Atlanta and Real Housewives of Potomac, but not the others (NY, NJ, OC, Beverly Hills, Melbourne, etc.). How do they have that same flavor and look if they are done by different production companies?
GLENDA: What makes the franchise so great is that each location has its own distinctive personality, but they all share a similar grammar and feel.

TOM: Of all the housewife shows, which would you like to be a part of if you had to, not including your own?
GLENDA: I would love to be a part of my own [RHOA and RHOP], because I am so proud of them. However, if I had to choose another location it would Beverly Hills because the weather is better.

TOM: What would be your housewife opening tagline?
GLENDA: “You can sleep when you’re dead.”

TOM: You also produce Don’t Be Tardy, Vanity Fair Confidential, Hack My Life, A Baby Story and Trauma: Life in the ER, and Mystery Diagnosis. Original Media’s series include renowned Ink Master and spin-off Ink Master: Redemption, Swamp People, Dual Survival, Comic Book Men, and I Love You…But I Lied. That is some lineup, when do you sleep and what do you do for relaxation?
GLENDA: I am also married with a 7-year-old son, so sleep is not a huge part of my life. But I do run off to my lake house for relaxation when I can.

TOM: Ink Master is back for its 8th season on August 23 on Spike TV. Do you have any tattoos yourself?
GLENDA: I don’t have any tattoos personally, but I am a huge fan of the art.

TOM: Last show you binge-watched?
GLENDA: House of Cards

TOM: Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul?
GLENDA: Breaking Bad

TOM: Favorite city you have lived in?
GLENDA: New York City

TOM: Last song you listened to?
GLENDA: “I Took a Pill in Ibiza,” by Mike Posner.

TOM: Glenda, interesting name. Were you named after someone?
GLENDA: I don’t know what my mother was thinking. I can’t say that it was easy as a kid, but as an adult I love it. I rarely have to use my last name; how many Glendas do you know?

Thanks Glenda! Check out some of Glenda’s work when Ink Master returns to Spike TV with a new season on Tuesday, August 23 at 10 pm eastern time.

Remembering Smokey Stover

I bought an old book the other day called, “Great Comics.” It has comic strips from the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune. So many I remember well from the Daily News years ago. There is Dick Tracy, Dondie, Little Orphan Annie and Smokey Stover, to name a few.

I always loved Smokey Stover. I never understood it, but loved it and my mother did, too. She liked the crazy words thrown out throughout the strip like “Notary Sojac” and “Foo.” Smokey, created by cartoonist Bill Holman, was a fireman and the strip was about his crazy life. He and his boss Chief Cash U Nutt drove to fires in the Foo Mobile.

The Smokey Stover comic strip started running in March 1935 and ended in 1937 when Bill retired it. I guess I remember it from the early ’70s, possibly, late ’60s.

After seeing it in the “Great Comics,” book I looked for more Smokey strips online and was pleased to find a whole site dedicated to Smokey and gang with hundreds of comics from the 1930s through the 1970s. That’s here: www.smokey-stover.com

Check it out if you get a chance. It’s really good stuff.

She sculpts Lucy

I’m sure you’ve seen the news lately about the Scary Lucy statue in Celoron, NY. You’ll remember that a sculptor made a sculpture to honor Lucille Ball, which was placed Lucille Ball Memorial Park, in her hometown, only the sculpture was scary and ugly. Lucy fans were upset, there was even a Facebook page created to push the cause of replacing the statue with new one with Lucy’s actual likeness.

Finally, “New Lucy” was unveiled earlier this month on Lucy’s 105th birthday.
New Jersey sculptor Carolyn Palmer was chosen by the town to make a “better” version of Lucy and the rest is history. I kept seeing Carolyn in the news regarding the statue and it was all about the statue and Lucy and I thought, “Let’s learn more about Carolyn,” so I asked here my 10 With Tom questions. Here they are: (that’s Carolyn with Lucy below)

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TOM: Did you watch I Love Lucy or any of the Lucy shows before you decided to create the statue?

CAROLYN: Yes, I grew up watching, “I love Lucy.” After winning the competition, I immediately subscribed to “CBS – All Access” for reruns and watched countless episodes. She was fun to sculpt because I never laughed so much while creating a piece of art. I actually had to turn off the sound at one point so I could just focus on the visuals. When I found poses or expressions of Lucy’s spirit that I liked, I’d screen capture the images, enlarging them onto big computer screens. I also hired 5’7″ models that were Lucy’s actual height and enlarged “head to toe” reference photos for my studio walls.

TOM: Do you know Lucy Ricardo’s address in Manhattan without looking?
CAROLYN: No, I don’t and that’s a great trivia question. I can’t recall a time when their address was mentioned on the show.

TOM: Gotcha!- it’s 623 E. 68 St., NYC.

TOM: Where was Ricky from?
CAROLYN: Ricky was from Cuba. Speaking of Ricky, fans have contacted me wondering if I was going to make a sculpture of him too. They feel Ricky was a part of Lucy’s success and should be honored as well.

TOM: I agree, a Ricky statue would be great next to Lucy!

TOM: Name 3 things in nature you find most beautiful.
CAROLYN: It’s so difficult to choose just three because nature is filled with abounding beauty. For one, I love gazing at starlit skies and watching the phases of the moon as it waxes and wanes. Another joy is witnessing how the play of light changes with the seasons and influences all the warm and cool colors dancing around the landscapes. And my third choice is watching animals in their natural habitat. Right now we have a surplus of deer around our property. They are so gentle and graceful in how they interact. I wish all humans were that way.

TOM: Starry Night, Mona Lisa or Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Picasso?
CAROLYN: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is a powerful painting by Picasso; one of my favorites at the Moma.

TOM: What do you usually order at Starbucks?
CAROLYN: My daily addiction: Venti Mocha Frappuccino Light with only one shot of frap roast (instead of 4)

TOM: Which tv show would you like to crawl into and spend the day ?
CAROLYN: Downton Abbey – I love the era but only for a day. I’ve grown to enjoy the vast information available today by computer and social media.

TOM: What scares you the most, and why?
CAROLYN: The current crisis with the human condition. History reports that evil always existed and probably always will but our weapons are no longer just bows and arrows or rifles. Today we have advanced machine guns, chemical warfare and other methods of mass destruction. There are now ways to destroy the entire planet ….and all of this frightens me.

TOM: Where would you like to live?
CAROLYN: I love living near NYC but would like to be bi-coastal and have a home in California too.

TOM: What talent would you most like to have?
CAROLYN: I’d like the talent to be a playwright because not a week goes by that I don’t think of writing a play. It’s like background noise in everything I do. I’m always thinking, Wow, that person would be the perfect character or this scenario would convey a powerful message, or the lighting over there would highlight a dramatic backdrop. These kind of thoughts haunt me. So, if my hands ever give out from sculpting, I just may take a try at it!

Thanks, Carolyn!

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Hillary Looks

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Found this great page on Instagram called HillaryLooks where they post various photos of Hillary Clinton from throughout the years. It’s a sort of look book for Hillary’s fashions. One image is better than the other. They have Hillary from her younger days to present and along and with well-known figures. These are a couple of my favorites, but check out the page yourself to see which ones you like: instagram.com/hillarylooks

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hillary3 — Someone commented: “Basically, my parents on vacation.” That’s so true.

Pay as you go news stories

blendle There’s a website called Blendle which started up two years ago. It’s a site where you can pick and choose stories from various newspapers and magazines – The New York Times, Time magazine, Barron’s, Newsweek, etc. And they have a paywall for each article you read, where you pay something like 25 cents per article and if you don’t like the article, you can ask for a refund on the spot!

They do ask you why you didn’t like the article first before giving the refund, but I’m not sure why you wouldn’t like an article other than boredom. I mean if you disagreed with what the writer was saying, would that be a reason not to like it? If it has bad grammar, is that a reason? I don’t know, but I don’t see myself asking for a refund if I didn’t like an article. Unless it was something bad about me, of course.

Blendle has 1 million members already. You sign up with your email and then pay as you go.

The New York Times calls it, “The iTunes of Journalism.”

It turns out that people don’t like paying for actual news stories, as you can get them anywhere, but they are willing to pay for more in depth stories and articles. Stories they can’t get elsewhere.

This might be a good model for comics – pay as you go for each comic you like. 25 cents for Peanuts or $1.00 for any six comics, or whatever, although you can read them free at GoComics or Comics Kingdom, so maybe not.

10 things you didn’t know about ‘Naked & Afraid’s’ Ryan Holt

10 With Tom
10 questions in 10 minutes

You probably know Ryan Holt, a favorite survivalist, from the Discovery Channel’s hit, “Naked and Afraid” and “Naked and Afraid XL“ – “Survivor” on steroids. Ryan is a friend in my head, that’s why I reached out to him.

“Naked and Afraid,” now in its 5th season is about a random couple – a man and woman, dumped somewhere remote, exotic and dangerous in the world and they have to survive for 21 days. They have no food, water or shelter and they are on their own. No one wins anything at the end of the show, the prize is the knowledge that you survived the wilderness. Each hour episode each week consists of a different man and woman.

“Naked and Afraid XL” has 12 survivors from past shows, dumped in a remote place with the same premise, but they are in groups of three and they have to last 40 days. No one is voted off but they disappear little by little due to sickness or just leaving, which they call “tapping out.” XL is interesting in that the intensity is different with each episode as the teams randomly come upon each other and one group of three that soon becomes five or six, totally mixes up the dynamic. XL has the same “characters” on all season, so each week you see the same people unless they’ve left (tapped out).

Ryan is home now in Maine. He runs the Human Nature Hostel and the Wilderness Warrior Project, which he created to assist returning Veterans who may be struggling with PTSD, like he was when he returned. He served eight years in the US Marine Corp Infantry and by his own admission was lost when he returned home. He explored the Appalachian Trail after an honorable discharge and “walked off the war.” Now he wants to do the same for other returning vets.

Ryan is a good sport, he agreed to participate in “10 With Tom.” What I find funny is that I picture him as being a primitive man in the forest, but according to his answers, I can see he lives with all the comforts of home in Maine.

ryan-holt2 — RYAN HOLT (photo courtesy Discovery Channel)

I asked him the following questions:

Tom: Are you recognized on the street?
Ryan: I live in a very mountainous and rural part of Maine (Roxbury: population 370). Not many people to be recognized by, although the other day I was at a local swimming hole and a family of “flat landers” approached me and said, “Hey! Are you famous!? The guy from Naked and Afraid?” I said, “Ayah, that’s me.”

Tom: If you were able to vote off members of the XL cast, who would you have voted out of Africa first?
Ryan: Since I was only paired with two other survivalist (Angel and Steve) for the first few weeks, I would have voted off Steve because, well, we all know “he’s kind of a big deal” and there is no room for such an arrogant ego and no existent humility.

Tom: You live in Maine, you’ve “lived” in the Everglades and Africa. What’s the perfect outdoor temperature for you?
Ryan: Having been born and raised in Maine might make me a little biased but there truly is something unique and special about my homeland. It is the perfect temperature in the summer and offers four seasons to ensure a wide range of every single outdoor activity. Not the best state for couch potatoes, Maine is for the adventure and nature lover.

Tom: Name 3 things in nature you find most beautiful?
Ryan: I find everything in nature to be beautiful, but if I had to pick three things that really resonate with me… Mountain Summits, Trees/Plants, Observing Wildlife.

“Anyone can love a rose, but it takes a great deal to love a leaf. Its ordinary to love the beautiful, but its beautiful to love the ordinary.” -Unknown

Tom: Last place you visited outside US
Ryan: My last trip outside the US was South Africa. This Fall I plan to explore Iceland.

Tom: What do you usually order at Starbucks?
Ryan: If you were searching for me inside a Starbucks, you would NEVER find me. I don’t drink caffeine or pay extra for name brands.

Tom: Other than Naked and Afraid, favorite tv show
Ryan: Other than Naked and Afraid, my favorite TV show is Alone.

Tom: What scares you the most, and why?
Ryan: Other people. They are the most unpredictable.

Tom: What are your three favorite foods (other than alligator and snake).
Ryan: Other than alligator, lizard and snake, my favorite foods are Sushi, BBQ, Fresh local cafes.

Tom: Tell me about someone you really admire?
Ryan: I really admire my Girlfriend Dani Beau. Not only is she beautiful, skilled and passionate about nature and all living beings, she completed 21 days and the first 40 day challenge of Naked & Afraid as a Vegan. You have to be driven and dedicated to your morals & beliefs to accomplish such a challenge as a Vegan and to be doing it with laughter and a smile!? She’s a total badass! I will always admire her for her accomplishments, how she cares for the Earth and for putting up with me, haha.

Thanks, Ryan!

Naked and Afraid XL is on Sunday nights, 9 pm, on the Discovery Channel, you can see Ryan and gang in action, there.

Suction cups in the news

Who did this? Randomly saw it on social media.

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And the New York Daily News’ front page is really funny, too.This guy climbed Trump Tower today. The whole country was glued to their tv’s and social media, watching it all happen live.

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Draw it; don’t Snapchat it

starynight — Starry Night at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

Such a great idea – the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is asking people to sketch the art they see in the museum, rather than take photos of it! Love this.

I’m at museums often and there are different policies, many allow you to take photos if you don’t use the flash, others are strict about you not taking photos, but this idea of recreating the art by drawing it yourself is really cool in that you can appreciate the art even more so when you get into every detail of the subject.

I see many people taking photos of themselves in front of the art and I can understand that, years ago, when I saw Starry Night for the first time, I was in a trance, I just stared at it and one time I had my cousin take a photo of me in front of it. Back then it wasn’t behind glass, I can’t remember if it was framed or not, but the fact that it wasn’t behind glass and you could get right up close to it and almost smell the paint was special.

Next time I’m at MOMA, in NY, I’ll be sure to sketch Van Gogh’s Starry Night, which is my favorite work of art. Maybe.

Probably not, but it’s a great idea.

Scott Adams – Ten With Tom

10 With Tom
10 questions in 10 minutes

After looking over the 10 With Tom I did with Stephan Pastis, Pearls Before Swine cartoonist, I thought why not ask the 10 questions of Scott Adams, creator and Dilbert cartoonist, after all, it was Scott who was Stephan’s tipping point. He liked the strip when it was kind of new, talked it up and overnight it became a sensation, something like that.

Here are my 10 With Tom questions with Scott Adams.

Tom: Are you recognized on the street?
Scott: Almost never, except locally.

Tom: If you had to kill off one of your Dilbert characters, which one would it be and why?
Scott: I have a character named Ted the Generic Guy. I kill him whenever I need something bad to happen in the strip. After that, probably Dilbert, but he’d come back to life somehow later.

Tom: What newspaper(s) did your family subscribe to/read when you were a kid?
Scott: Albany Times Union

Tom: Which comic strip, past or present, would you like to crawl into and spend the day?
Scott: Sounds like a sad life any way you look at it. But I’d go with Mutts because I like pets.

Tom: Without looking, what color is Lucy Van Pelt’s dress?
Scott: I’m thinking yellow or red. My final answer is…yellow?

Tom: No. It’s actually blue.

Tom: What do you usually order at Starbucks?
Scott: Cafe Mocha (hot) with whipped cream.

Tom: Me too! Always.

Tom: Last book you read
Scott: Hard to Ignore by Dr. Carmen Simon.

Tom: What bores you?
Scott: Listening to someone describe food or TV shows.

Tom: Tell me about someone you envy.
Scott: Someone has a better life than I do? My life hasn’t always been easy, but at the moment it’s spectacular. I honestly can’t think of anyone I envy. (But envy isn’t a big part of my personality in general.)

Tom: Do you still feel that Trump will win the election? (I know you endorsed Hillary)
Scott: It wouldn’t be any fun if I changed my prediction now, would it? My prediction assumed Trump goes into a deep hole before powering out toward the end. So we are right on schedule.

Thanks, Scott. Good sport.