John Postel, Peter O'Connell & Donna Postel
What a great treat it was to meet St. Louis based voice talent Donna Postel and her husband John tonight for dinner at the famous Blueberry Hill restaurant.
What a fabulous career in radio she had and now she enjoys a terrific voice over career.
And the best news of all is she’ll have her new web site up by April 15th of this year. Look for it!
My “friends” at US Airways lost my luggage making my trip a bit more inconvenient than it needed to be (although to be fair the ground staff at US Airways GSP- who had to deal with the outcome caused by the baggage dolts’ who did the losing of the bag – were nice, especially Chad). But the trip has otherwise been terrific including a nice dinner Wednesday in North Carolina with my friend and the man beloved by all voice talents Bob Souer, who brought along his very bright and charming son.
He and I plotted our individual world tour travels to personally meet every voice talent in the world, lull them into a state of complacency and then steal all their voice work. Bwahahahaha! (That, by the way, is the correct spelling for “evil laugh”).
Of course I’m kidding but he and I have been able to meet so many of our fellow VO’s over the past few years, we both feel very fortunate.
While we could have spoke for hours, Bob had some narrations to do and I had luggage to find but we’ll get together for a late lunch today before heading home. Another successful trip.
As Mrs. audio’connell and I had just celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary, we decided a trip to New York City was in order.
With grandparents over seeing the littlest audio’connells, off we went.
Using sister in law’s snazzy new apartment as our HQ,we had a swell time.
A couple of must dos for you (from our perspective):
* You have to have dinner at Rocco Restaurant on Thompson Street in the Village. This restaurant goes back to the 1920’s…they know real Italian cooking. Very friendly service, not a contrived, phony ambiance….great food. For me I will not go to NYC without visiting the REAL Rocco’s. You shouldn’t either.
* The NYC bus tours. Touristy? Yeah but also a great view of the city with tons of cool information You can pick the area you want to go. I enjoyed it a great deal.
* The Lion King – OK, it opened on Broadway in 1997 and won best musical….but I never saw it until this trip…5th row center. If you haven’t seen it…please do so. Not for the kids but for you.
Of course what would a trip be without a meetup of some new and old voice over buddies. As you might imagine we had fun, got in trouble and traded great stories.
This time our group included Liz de Nesnera, Melissa Exelberth, Patrick O’Connor and a special guest appearance by Mary McKitrick and her sons Peter and Edward.
I coordinated the meetup, picking the location and time. I picked a Starbucks in Times Square from my earlier travels and arrived at the appointed time only to realize that it was not a sit down Starbucks. I suppose it would have been smart of Mrs. audio’connell and me to actually cross the street and go in after we picked the place but we didn’t.
Luckily, voice actors are both vagabonds and a flexible bunch and as we all gathered at Starbucks in Times Square we quickly chose another locale to make our temporary camp.
Suffice it to say there was so many stories and laughs we got yelled at for being too loud (ok, well I did). But I need to point out that it was Liz, Melissa and Patrick who got thrown outta the joint after Mary and I had left.
My thanks to all of these talented folks for coming to meet with me. A great way to end a great treat.
Everybody’s favorite voice coach Pat Fraley is in town this weekend courtesy of Toni Silveri’s All Coast Talent (of which I am proud and founding represented voice talent). Pat was in a couple of years ago to do a character voice seminar which I attended; he did an updated version today which I didn’t attend, though I will be in attendance on Sunday for his audio book class.
But three who did attend the character voice workshop today are some of my favorite folks from north of the border. I stopped by the seminar on their lunch break today to visit with them.
Elaine Singer and I first met at the first Podcamp Toronto a few years ago and I was very pleased to hear she caught wind of my announcement of the seminar from this blog and reserved her space. While not exclusive to her voice over talents, Elaine explained to me how she was looking to increase her Herbrew-based voice work. She enjoys it quite a bit and it occurs to me know I’ll have to have her send me her demo for the International Voice Talents page.
David and Stephanie Ciccarelli drove in from south of Toronto, London, Ontario to be exact, taking in Pat’s class and sharing some of their insight on the voice over world gained from their business, Voices.com. David and I spent a good bit of time reviewing some of the proposed changes they’ve alluded to on line at Voices.com, which I assume will result in the usual impassioned debate. From what he told me, I think they make sense but I’ll let David and Stephanie unveil it to the masses. Wonderful folks, the Ciccarellis.
I’ll post later how things went at the Fraley audio book class.
UPDATE: Here’s my Fraley review
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When it comes right down to it, where would you rather be in August than in Phoenix?
OK, don’t answer that.
Anyway, here I is and t’aint no way I was going to let this trip go by with a visit with one of my most favorite professional voice over talents, Bruce Miles.
Tonight we had dinner my hotel, the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort.
I know if you’ve read any of these “audio’connell in (city name)” I always say very nice things about the people I’m with. Well it’s because the people I meet with are nice which, in addition to us sharing professional similarities, is why we want to get together.
Just ask the people at VOICE 2008 this weekend.
In comparison to that large event, our dinner made up in quality what we lacked in quantity. Bruce and I share an affinity for history….mine America Presidents, his also American Presidents and every other damn historical thing. Puts me to shame.
And that awesome voice of his! I think if I got the opportunity to add any voice to my repertoire, Bruce’s voice would definitely be in the top 5.
If you get the chance to visit with Bruce in Phoenix, I highly recommend it, for the voice over stories and for the history lessons.
P.S. I bought a news camera to have in my briefcase now and this is the device’s first outing. Now next time I have drinks with Caryn Clark, unlike last time, I’ll be able to post a pic.
Thanks for reading.
If you haven’t already, we’d be honored if you subscribe to voxmarketising – the audio’connell blog and podcast by clicking the “subscribe” button on this blog.
If you have previously subscribed, as of August 1, 2008 we’ve implemented a new RSS feed. Please update your subscription now in your reader because as of September 1, 2008, the old subscription feed will go away and we want you to stay!
If you really like this post (of course we hope you do), please feel free to bookmark and or promote it by clicking the buttons below on your preferred services.
Woe is me for being so late (over a week) in posting the happenings of a great dinner with my voiceover peers in San Diego. The words were ready but WordPress was being technically malfeasant regarding the picture upload. With the problem solved and all apologies for the delay, I shall commence.
San Diego, California is quickly ranking right up there with Toronto, Ontario as one of my favorite cities, this time made all the more enjoyable by a great dinner with my voice over friends of the left coast.
I had warned Connie Terwilliger back in December during the NBC Nightly News Voice Off that duties for a marketing client of mine would bring me out to SD where she’s based. Usually women who are forewarned of my arrival scurry like mice uncovered by a flashlight but not Connie. She up and helps organize a dinner out there with some great voice talents and their better halves.
I was the only one flying solo as she-who-must-be-obeyed was at her Mother’s house with the little O’s at a family gathering that I obviously missed (or that was strategically scheduled…take your pick…kidding).
Some great voice over stories, secrets and ideas on marketing tools were shared and a successful trip was made even more so by the kindness and generosity of some amazingly talented voice actors.
My thanks to my fellow voice talents (pictured from left to right) Bobbin Beam, Awesome Voice (guess who), Connie Terwilliger, James Alburger and Penny Abshire for sharing their time with me. Thank you doesn’t cover it…but thanks.
