Maybe it’s because I talk for a living.

Whatever the cause, when I was in an ISDN session this week (and I don’t do too many of them, much to Dan Friedman’s chagrin) the commercial producer at the other end had me do my line readings (literally two lines) in sets of threes and sixes (or until I lost count) and then turned off the mic after saying she’d get right back to me. So I stayed on hold, in the announce booth, waiting.

Why they didn’t have the instrumental version of “The Girl from Ipanema” playing in the background while I waited, I’ll never know.

All I heard was….silence. For minutes.

While I made small talk with my ISDN host, in my mind, I’m imagining a conversation across to the other codec as the silence continued.

Producer: Why was this guy chosen again?
Assistant: We can probably still get some of the other voices, it’s not too late.
Engineer: Can we just fire him so I can go to lunch now?

Now, in fact what they were likely doing was listening back, matching my reads with the female voice talent whom they recorded earlier, Catherine Sheehan, whose sentences I was finishing as part of the script.

Mr. Everyman Voice wins again!

Anyway, then everything was fine and they said thanks and I went on my merry way.

But for a brief moment, inside this only occasionally paranoid voice actor’s head, the silence was deafening.

Did this ever happen to you?

The Archive of American Television has so many amazing interviews of performers who have truly fascinating stories that you really can’t hear anywhere else. Most of the interviews are uncut and I’ve really enjoyed that.

Well on a You Tube fly around I found this great series featuring the legendary Don Pardo from 2006. They are long segments but they are amazing.

I hope you enjoy.

Here’s another one of those situations where I missed out in meeting somebody whose work I always enjoyed.

Last week the voice over world and TV fans everyone bade farewell to Dick Tufeld.

Most of us “of a certain age” can remember Dick as the voice of “Robot” in the TV series “Lost in Space” and he WAS great in it.

But I also remember him on a number of award shows where at the end, he would say “This is Dick Tufeld speaking.”

I’ve written about Dick before on these pages. Here also is an obit.

Two nice ways to remember – or learn about – a great voice talent.

And of course, have a listen:

If a guy does a radio show across the country for 25 YEARS – do you think maybe you could let him say goodbye to his listeners if his tenure on the show comes to an end?

Especially if the show is pre-recorded?

The story from ALL ACCESS reported that Bill didn’t get to say that “goodbye” and that Matt Pinfield will take over St. James’ show “Flashback” (OK, he was the host, not the producer – but he was host for 25 years!)

I don’t know Bill St. James and I was not an addict of the show but I certainly knew of the show and know of his fine voice work.

I don’t really care what kind of political BS maybe involved in any of this…there’s a respectful and dignified way to end something like this. But it didn’t happen that way…again!

I think way St. James was treated here, as described, unnecessarily sucks.

Doesn’t it just seem wrong to you, or should I just stop caring?

The headline screams: “American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and Screen Actors Guild Reach Agreement on Merger Package for Recommendations to SAG and AFTRA National Board of Directors”.

Tip of the hat to Mercedes Rose for the heads up on Facebook.

Read all about it…this merger WOULD impact professional voice over talent in either union or a VO considering joining the new union.

In years past, these two professionally aligned unions couldn’t really get out of each others way in contractual disputes with studios and production companies and finally each other. People have realized for years that there is no need for TWO unions doing basically the same thing. Finally in the most recent elections, those supporting a merger were elected and now it seems, if the plan is ratified by the memberships, it will happen.

Will anybody outside of New York and Los Angeles care?

I’m not asking that in a snide way, I mean it as a real question: Has the non-union train left the station, not only for the people who join the performing unions but for people who hire the talent?

While talent outside of NY and LA question the value of agents to bring them substantial new work, those same people will debate the value proposition of what a union can really offer in calculable ROI for dues memberships. The performing world operates differently than it used to operate.

If this merger goes through (and I would be surprised if it didn’t) the resultant organization will have a LOT of work to do, I think, to encourage non-members to see significant value in becoming a member. It can be done…but that’s going to be a tall wall to climb.

What do you think will happen following a proposed merger?

My friend and bilingual voiceover talent Liz deNesnera recently achieved one of her written goals from Faffcon 3 which was to redesign her web site and rebrand her company.

Take a look for yourself but I think she did a very nice job.

If you’re looking for expert advice in this post, you ain’t gonna find here today…nah.

Today you’ll just find some observations of how social media and voice over are intersecting and maybe some thoughts on if any of it is still useful.

How do you like Google+ so far? Have you hitched your wagon to that social media train yet?

Me? I’m not feelin’ it. I’ve tried….I’ve got circles and connections and posts, oh my. But so far it feels too much like work to keep up with another network. I’ve got lots of connections…many from people I have NOTHING in common with (I’ve been trying to do something different…learn from people outside my normal circle). But I’m not finding much of it interesting. Again…this could all just be me…for others it may be a panacea. And I’m not trying to insult the network…I don’t think it’s bad or difficult to use or anything. I just don’t find myself wanting to check it out.

Oddly, I’m feeling the same about Facebook. I certainly read it more often than Google+…and yes I get drawn into silly chats, and try and make funny comments that probably amuse me more than any other readers…but I also find myself internally cursing myself when I go on it for wasting my time. I feel I should be doing something either more productive or constructive. It’s almost like I can feel part of my brain melting away, never to be thought from again, when I’m on Facebook.

For the purposes of helping my business, I post blog post links on Facebook (and Google+ and Twitter and LinkedIn) just so I can bore a broader audience, but even this gets tricky (the post part is tricky, not the boring part…just think how bored you are right now after reading only THIS far and how easily I was able to manage to elicit that reaction from you).

On Facebook, there are personal profiles and “Like” pages, on LinkedIn and Yahoo there are Groups or Boards, on Twitter there are hash tags -all with the imagined purpose of allowing you to share your thoughts among the widest audience possible and with whom you share some common interest…in this case voiceover. Conceptually, that’s awesome but operationally…oy!

Well my friend, who is both talented and lovely and a great voice talent with whom I have shared a microphone on more than one occasion, Connie Terwilliger pointed out on a forum (it might have been FB but to show you how mind numbing it has all become, I can’t remember which forum) recently how she wished that all these groups would just merge because of both the duplication of information across multiple channels (and some people are artists at managing this, Paul Strikwerda being my idol on managing all these channels to get his message out) and just the sheer volume of channels to keep up with. I’m paraphrasing here and if I’ve inadvertently mis-quoted Connie, she will right my wrongness without malice (I hope).

What was interesting was that another friend, who is both talented and lovely and a great voice talent with whom I have never shared a microphone on any occasion, Terry Daniel made the observation, as one of a group’s moderators, that he wouldn’t want to merge his particular group because it’s a niche voice over group – many (but not all) newbies to the field of voice over join his group. OK, makes sense from his perspective too.

All I kept thinking was: more niches, more channels, more work.

But are there more readers? I bless those with the time to sift and digest the multitude of voiceover groups, posts, tweets and twhats…they hurt my head. I gotta work, it’s more relaxing.

Where do you stand on any of this? Is my brain just shutting down early? Or might we be approaching a turning point in people’s reaction to and interaction with social media…especially as it relates to voiceover?

Tom Rohe was a professional voice over talent until about a year and a half ago. He is still involved in a voice over agency called SunSpots.

Because of complications following oral surgery, Tom has enormous trouble even speaking today without the help of the drug Ambien.

What Tom is asking for is help from anyone who can direct him to medical professionals who might better diagnose and help treat his condition which I would imagine to be enormously frustrating and as a voice talent, heartbreaking.

This is a video of his plight.

If there IS someone in the medical profession who you think Tom should speak to please contact Tom at Tom (at sign) mysunspots dot com.

Thanks.

I knew Sunday would come when I was sitting on the plane Friday at 5:00 a.m.

I knew I would be glad to return home to my wife and kids come Sunday but that I would be depressed that the special weekend that is the NYC Voice Over mixer (presented by friend and agent Erik Shepard at Voice Talent Productions) would be over. I really did think about this. I know how fast time goes. Oy!

The party was actually only one part of the weekend.

I did do some serious work – six different meetings Friday with voice over studios in the city which went very well…then the rest of the weekend seems to be a blur of food, drink and voiceover.

So as I now sit in the comfort of my home trying not to talk as I rest my laryngitical voice from two days of hard talking, I just want to offer some thanks for this weekend:

- My wife and children because Da travels enough and going away for a weekend is a lot to ask

- Lindsay Sheppard and her husband Erik (I put that in rank order) for creating, hosting and improving the party every year

- My Sister-in-Law for a room at her apartment

- The VO-BB. For those who understand, no answer is necessary. For those who do not understand, no answer will suffice

- Liz de Nesnera and Melissa Exelberth for some great advice and insight. Thank you both VERY much.

- A New Yorker who would like to remain anonymous for serving as a voice over sherpa

So here are some visuals for you from the weekend…

Friday night dinner at Ted's Montana Grill in mid-town with a lot of VO-BB'ers and other fellow VOs like Larissa Gallagher, Liz de Nesnera and Roy B. Yokelson (taking a picture of me taking a picture of him)

Connie Mustang and Lisa Biggs chatting away!

Two talented and funny ladies (and friends of mine) Pam Tierney and Natalie Stanfield Thomas

UK Voice Talent Darren "Sweetcheeks" Altman and Connie Terwilliger at the VO-BB lunch on Saturday afternoon (I was having such a good time it was the only picture I took)

VoiceOver Xtra!'s John Florian and Voice Talent Tom Dheere

Friends and fellow voice talents Venus Crute and Bobbi Owens

Dave Courvoisier, Trish Basyani & Terry Daniel up on the photo line at the Mixer

The great female voice talent Amy Taylor and VoiceOver Xtra!'s John Florian

Terry Daniel is a man of his word - when he says he will buy you a Pepsi, he'll buy you that Pepsi. But he'll also steal your french fries.

Bob Souer is a chick magnet! Ask the great Leslie Diamond (from Buffalo) and former Buffalonian transplanted to Greenville, SC, Diane Merritt

Up on the photo line with me are voice over talents Lisa Biggs and Amy Snively

The lighting in the room was kinda cool and it shows in the back lighting of this shot with me, Trish Basanyi and Tom Dheere

This is one of my favorite shots only because we were all so happy at the party and it shows - Philip Banks, Chuck Davis and Dave Courvoisier

It was great to see my pal Kelley Carruthers Buttrick at the mixer

Kelley is also great pals with New Orleans' finest VO Mara Junot

From Faffcon 2 and Faffcon 3 my friend and fellow voice talent Tasha Johnson

There were dozens of other folks I met and spoke with but didn’t get a picture with but I enjoyed visiting with you all. Thanks!

Because of an NDA I have been forced to sign by Mr. O’Connor, er, Mr. “X”, I cannot offer any details of the afternoon’s voice over activities in New York City except this somewhat random shot of a tourist walking in front of an Olive Garden.