Goodbye Henry

Last month, just as I was sending out my first issue of this newsletter, I got word that an old friend and radio legend had passed away. Henry Boggan spoke with listeners from Key West to Nantucket on WBT's "Hello Henry" talk show from Charlotte, NC.

He didn't "do" controversy. He didn't criticise or condemn. He simply listened to his callers. With them, he taught us all to celebrate the good and simple things in our world, and he made us glad, once again, to be a part of it. May his spirit live on.
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Puzzle Me This

Not that I have a ton of idle time on my hands, but Irene and I have expanded our puzzle mania to include the popular number puzzles, sudoku. (No math skills needed) Just in case any of you are also big puzzle fans, I want to share a couple of excellent web sites where you can learn about sudoku.

DailySudoku.com is just what it's name implies... a source for sudoku puzzles, featuring a new one each day. Archives of old ones are also available on the web site, and you can sign up to have your daily sudoku delivered to your e-mailbox each day. But KrazyDad.com is so much more than a great source of sudoku puzzles! This is a fun site for anyone with curiosity and a sharp mind.
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Bogie 'N Me

I enjoy a departure from the hard sell automotive or sports promotion VO jobs, when they come along. I don't often get to see or hear the final production, but this one was the exception. A nicely produced spot for The Bogart collection from Thomasville Furniture.

If I've done something for you recently that you are particularly proud of, please send me a copy of it... audio or video... via e-mail, so I can share it with everyone.

May 2006 issue
______________________ Studio of the Month

OK... so it's not like a big award or anything like that. In each newsletter, I plan to pick out one of the studios I work with and introduce them to you. This month, it's Hippo Studio in Warwick, RI. One reason I picked Hippo is that I collect hippos. (Little ones, not the live ones.) But one other reason is Martin Glitesman, the owner and operator of Hippo.

Martin tracked me down through the internet and has put my voice on several spots via ISDN in the past months, including the grand opening of several Eckerd drug stores. His dry wit and professionalism make each session a pleasure, and the spots he works on have an unusually creative flair. His web site reflects this whimsical mood. Check it out.
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Changes At School

My lovely wife, Irene, is enrolled in a doctoral program at Widener University, here in the Philly area, and the traditional class assignment has taken on a quite different form these days. The last few papers she has written have been delivered from a key fob instead of a blue book!

It's a half-gig USB plug about the size of a stick of gum, and her assignment goes onto it as a PowerPoint file. Often the entire class is conducted via the internet instead of a classroom.

Irene seems to have no problem keeping up with the new academea: She's been holding a 4.0 average ever since she started three semesters ago!
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You Asked For It...

I got several requests for a current photo of myself in the newsletter. Some from clients who've only worked with me by phone or ISDN, and others from old friends who want to see if I'm aging as fast as they are. The answer is...
I'm losing hair, finding wrinkles, losing weight, and finding my way to the gym more often.
It's like Mickey Mantle said; "If I'd known I was going to live this long I'd have taken better care of myself!"

Crapal Tunnel Syndrome!

Yeah, yeah, I know... it's supposed to be Carpal Tunnel. But when you get it from editing thousands of radio and TV commercials, they spell it differently.

My doctor sent me for an "EMG" exam. .. They send a mild electric charge through your nervous system and measure how well it registers at the hand. No big deal.... usually. Turns out I have one of the worst cases they've ever seen. They couldn't get any reading at all, even after turning the juice up to maximum voltage! I was flopping around on the gurney like a hooked trout,and didn't stop twitching for several minutes afterwards! Not fun. Looks like there're a couple of orthoscopic operations in my near future.

I may actually be able to button a shirt and pick up small objects with ease once again. And I can still edit all that "Crapal" I read into ProTools.
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How To Write Good

Always willing to help copy writers in their craft, I offer these guidelines:

1- Avoid alliteration always.
2- Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3- Avoid cliches like the plague.
4- Employ the vernacular ad nauseam.
5- Eshcew abrev., etc.
6- Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7- It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8- Contractions aren't acceptable.
10- As Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
11- Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
12-0 One should never generalize.
13- Don't be redundant; it is highly superfluous to use more words than
necessary, and it tires readers long before they get to the next point,
especially if you write long, meandering, run-on sentences.
14- Be specific, more or less.
15- Finally, chech for pselling erros and typeos.

Podcast Pick

Familiar tunes... done very differently! I'm crazy for Coverville.