Jeff Conaway has died. He was terrific as one of the stars of Taxi, a TV series that ran from 1978-1981, and we loved him in the musical Grease. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy when he appeared on my talk show in the early 90s. I extend my condolences to his family and I’m sharing this video in his memory.
Click here.
I was stunned to see Scotty and both Haley and Lauren in the final three and not James. He wanted it more than any of them and clearly had a hard time accepting defeat. Watching this show is too sad when losing is so painful. I remember being on Star Search and how with every performance my heart pounded so hard I was afraid the microphone would pick it up. Everything was at stake. And when I won, my career soared. But the comic I defeated seemed to disappear. Watching this episode brought back a lot of memories of striving for acceptance, dealing with rejection, and the roller coaster of emotion that being a struggling performer brings. I thought once I succeeded, things would change and I’d no longer have to face rejection and even worse, I’d never feel like I didn’t matter. Some day, I will talk about the many times I was rejected at the peak of my television career and by whom. Maybe that’s why I won’t go back…
The painters are gone.
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I got my house back.
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And I photographed some back yard flowers.
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I had to add the smilies to make this page fit right.
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More smilies.
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Now it all fits. Enjoy my flowers.
It was a beautiful, sunny day today so I knew when we heard water drops on the living room floor, it was not good. We saw a leak that ran the length of our double doors so we had to put down a row of bowls to catch the water coming from the door frame. I called the plumber. I was not ready for this. I was already dealing with the exterior of the house being painted by a crew of twelve painters who have been here every day this week from 7 am.
The plumber came right away and had to cut into the wall of my bathroom – my sanctuary – my beautiful powder blue bathroom, tossing insulation and drywall onto my floor, to get to the broken pipe. The leak is fixed but now I have two giant holes in my wall. I started to imagine what might come crawling out of these openings so I just taped some fabric over the holes as a spider-block. Tomorrow: more painters… AND an electrician who is coming in the morning to fix an electrical problem guess where? In my bathroom! Why is this happening to me? I don’t want all these men up there! That’s too much testosterone in my girlie place. After they all leave, I’ll have to burn a smudge stick to cleanse the room, or some incense or candles to get rid of the butt-crack vibe and get my girlie place back.
My talk show premiered in the fall of 1991 and one of my first big features was a behind-the-scenes tour on the set of All My Children including a sit down interview with its biggest star, Susan Lucci. Here we are chatting in Erica Kane’s wardrobe room. Now remember, this was almost twenty years ago but when you watch the video, look at Susan then compared to how she looks now. She looks awesome today, maybe even more awesomer (a made up word) today – how does that happen? I can’t say the same for the woman in the royal blue shoulder pads and bouncy hair… Hey, I just noticed my flying saucer earrings! Don’t look at me. Click here
Osama bin Laden is dead!
Ding Dong – the witch is dead!
Hey, Osama,
Good luck spotting those 72 virgins through all the flames down there!
It was a warm, sunny day so Denis and I went to the Grove and Farmer’s Market. I always go to Sur La Table there and this time I bought some white balsamic vinegar and a bottle of vanilla. We came home and sat out on the patio. I felt guilty enjoying the weather in my back yard when so many in the south have no home or back yard to go to any more. Those tornadoes put my fear of earthquakes in perspective. My fear of spiders, however, has not diminished.
Something landed on me outside. At first and I thought it was a spider so there was a momentary panic. But then Denis (my hero!) put it on his hand to show me it was a ladybug, so spring is here. There were other signs of spring, too. Let’s see…there was the Easter snake I almost stepped on. The squirrels are hanging around my plum tree, just waiting. And the gophers ate my parsley. And there was a HUGE, scary spider in my closet today – he was doing chin-ups on one of my hangers. Spring is definitely here.
I must be in a bad mood because I tried to watch Idol and see how the singing was but I couldn’t focus for all the distractions. When Jacob sang, I couldn’t stop looking at that upholstery jacket and the yellow shirt, then I couldn’t stop focusing on the bow tie. Why? It’s too close to the face. Then the wide shot and I saw those shoes! It was too much! The only thing louder than his voice was his clothes.
Then Haley sang something but I don’t know what it was. I was trying to identify those giant objects dangling from her ears. Were they car parts? Sifters? Cheese slicers? Her song escaped me.
Scotty sang and…. wait…. was this last week’s show I recorded? Are you allowed to sing the same song over and over?
Note to James – no backlighting.
Casey, Casey, you’re getting on my nerves and I don’t know why. If I want to hear growling, I’ll just wake Denis up at 3 a.m. to kill a spider.
And another thing: This show is just like Taco Bell meat – too much filler! Maybe I’m just in a bad mood and I’ll have to post a retraction tomorrow.
(I added a new “Send Me a Message” blog category) 🙂
Here’s what happened in 1980:
Mount St. Helens erupted, causing $3 billion in damages.
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back was released.
Gas cost $1.19 a gallon.
Pac-Man, the best selling arcade game of all time, was introduced.
Vigdis Finnbogadottir was elected president of Iceland.
CNN was officially launched.
Ronald Reagan was elected president.
The Polish government recognized solidarity.
My band played a gig at the Black Angus.
And we recorded it! I found an old cassette tape we made and thought it would be fun to share a bit of it. Here, for your listening entertainment, is a short “Jenny Jones & Company” compilation. You’ll see what songs were popular in 1980, and you’ll see why we never got a Grammy. 🙂 Click here
Look what I almost stepped on just outside my back door! 
This is not the Easter weekend I wanted to have. It was a nice day so I headed outside to check my tomato plants. If I hadn’t been looking down, I would have stepped right on this snake. It didn’t look like a rattlesnake but I wasn’t sure. To make things worse, he went into a planter right by the patio door so I was afraid to go outside any more. But I still managed to enjoy Easter. I started off with an Easter egg hunt where I hid some beautiful Polish painted Easter eggs around the house for Denis to find.
He didn’t seem too excited about the search, saying he was a little too old for this, but he did find them all. In exchange, he made me promise never to hide eggs again. He gave me a chocolate bunny for Easter and I made him an apple pie. He says I make the best apple pie in the world so it was my Easter present for him.
Oh, and we went to a Greek Easter Festival in Pasadena. We ate some Greek food, listened to bouzouki music (Opa!) and came home for pie. Then we watched The Ten Commandments. Except for the snake, it was a good Easter.
CANADA
CALIFORNIA
U.S.A.