What's His Line? A Great Steve Jobs Impression

We lost most of Father's Day waiting for the carpenter who never showed up, thus denying Len his Father's Day brunch. Finally, we realized we needed to head over to Hollywood to do a day-late birthday get together with J. Keith Van Straaten (who was filming a still-secret project on his birthday), make a drop off to my friend Karen, and then head over to the Acme Theatre for What's My Line Live on Stage.

This week's panel is shown sitting in the photograph above: Teresa Ganzel (the "Tea-Time" hostess for Johnny Carson), Jimmy Pardo, Annie Wood, and Andy Zax. Standing is this week's Mystery Guest, Fred Armisen from Saturday Night Live, and WML host J. Keith Van Straaten. The other guests were the announcer for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Los Angeles Kings, J. Keith's father who is a forest ranger in Colorado (it was Father's Day, after all), and a dance instructor who did a demonstration of "The Hustle." When guessing the "Dance Doctor's" line of work, Andy asked "If you do this on Saturday night, do you get feverish?" I just keep asking "do people still dance 'The Hustle'?")

For information about next Sunday's show, click here. My husband Len Wein will be a panelist on July 1 along with the hysterically funny Ms. Ganzel, so don't miss it.

Tempus Fugit--Dammit

The month has sped along, helped by the time I need to spend in preparation for the photography class I'm teaching at Pierce College this semester. Since it is a hybrid dealing with both film and digital cameras, I've got all new lectures to prepare so all of the students are covered.

In my less than copious spare time, we've managed to catch an actual movie at an actual movie theatre: "Music and Lyrics. " Drew Barrymore has truly captured the market in romantic comedies. This one is delightful, as have been "Never Been Kissed, " "The Wedding Singer," and "Ever After." If you haven't seen them, pop some corn and settle in. Fortunately, my husband loves these films, but you may have to do it as a chick-flick night.

We also had a terrific meal with our friends Andy Zax and Lisa Jane Persky last week at an Italian restaurant called Risotto in Studio City. While we were eating, Len identified James Van Der Beek walking into the restaurant. I had know idea who he was, but I'm told he was Dawson of "Dawson's Creek." Nice looking kid, but not on my radar. Len can identify old radio stars at the grocery store--it's one of his super powers--so identifying a television actor is quite easy for him.

I'm much less likely to notice folks I haven't photographed at some point, but I did identify David Spade one morning at a breakfast place, and my boss (with whom I was eating) was quite impressed. In Los Angeles, it's common to run into actors all over the place. Usually, we don't speak or otherwise bother them. We met Andy because we both recognized him from "Beat the Geeks" (he was the music geek) as we were leaving a restaurant, and a friend who was with us spoke to him and made introductions. Turned out that Andy was a huge fan of Len's work and thus are great friendships begun. When Andy started dating Lisa Jane, we were pleased to let her know that we were both fans of her film and television work. There's a link to her web page on the right,

Time to head out to dinner with Melinda Snodgrass, my good friend who bred my Arabian Prince and wrote the noted Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Measure of a Man." We're heading to Tarzana to Fabrocini's, a terrific local Italian eatery. Comfort food for a chilly and damp Los Angeles evening.