While being a life-long (mostly always) practicing Catholic, I try not to get into too many religious discussions here because that’s not the point of this blog. My beliefs are mine, your beliefs are yours and I’ve always been of the mind that there’s nothing wrong with that (what’s right for me is right for ME).

But what I will write here now will touch on Catholicism and you’ll get the context no matter your beliefs. I think it will, however, make you wonder no matter your belief system. Or maybe you’ll care not a smidge.

Wednesday, I was trying to look up the phone number of the very famous (Father Nelson Baker, known as the “Apostle of Charity” created it) and beautiful (please take a tour) Our Lady of Victory Basilica in Lackawanna, NY as I have some pending marketing business there. Being a web guy, I tried to do a quick Google search to find the phone number (because the phone book is so last century).

While searching, up came this article from the Buffalo News about Catholics not going to confession much today. The pastor at OLV was featured in the article which is why it came up in the search. I hadn’t seen the article and so I read it.

Now a brief primer on Catholic confession for the unfamiliar: considered an important Sacrament in the faith, Catholics meet with a priest in a room called the confessional to privately confess their mortal (gravely wrong desires, thoughts, words and actions performed with sufficient reflection and full consent of the will) sins and venial ( not grave, not committed with knowledge nor was it deliberate) sins. After discussion with the priest about the sins, there is usually absolution bestowed upon the confessor by the priest. (NOTE: there’s way more to confession than this – but this is a blog post, not a seminary class).

Back to my point, if you haven’t already changed channels, being that in this April, 2009 newspaper article on confession there was a wonderful quote from Rev. Richard Husted, pastor of St. Bonaventure Church in Allegany, who said about confession: “If you were sitting down having a cup of coffee with the Lord, what would he want to talk about?”

That struck a chord with me and I thought I would throw it out there on the net because I thought it would be thoughtful for Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. I figured I’d throw some perspective in there for folks etc.

So I paste the quote “If you were sitting down having a cup of coffee with the Lord, what would he want to talk about?” into my ping account and I look to see it was exactly 140 characters. Not 139, not 141 but 140 on the nose which is the maximum character count you can use on Twitter. I could offer no perspective, no color commentary because there wasn’t room….just the quote. So maybe I was not supposed to comment. I was just supposed to post it and see what happened

So I did.

audio'connell Twitter post, 7/8/09

I got some comments back and I specifically shut up, I didn’t respond. I decided that my job was just to expand the concept of the quote to a wider audience and let the conversation begin, good-bad-indifferent.

I just cannot get past the fact that the quote was kind in nature, thoughtful in content and exactly 140 characters in length.

Does God understand Social Media? I think I know the answer but I would be interested in your thoughts.

Tags: commentary // 3 Comments »

The cynical would say when television networks produce anniversary shows it is to prove they are still relevant. While I get that argument, I look at it differently; I see it as a kind of a history lesson.

Maybe it is because I am so fascinated by such things that I found this blog post from the KINESCOPE HD blog so terrific. The post features clips from the 1978 production of CBS-TV (and to a degree, radio) celebrating its first 50 years.

What is so poignant for me watching this was seeing so many of the stars long since passed today shown healthy and vibrant and so duly noted in this 1978 special. I cannot help but imagine how cool it must have been back stage, not because of some past, present or future “celebrity” status but rather to have all those talented people together, mixing, sharing stories…what an amazing experience it must have been. Some egos? Sure…you’ll note the absence of a certain Jackie Gleason in the show. What’s up with that?! Maybe it was a “scheduling” thing.

Can you IMAGINE sitting, chatting and mostly listening to Lucille Ball, Red Skelton, George Burns and on and on – likely pleasant folks with mind-blowing stories and experiences and more than a few great belly laughs. So much to learn!

Also of note were some of the sets in the show which used graphics still on the air today on shows like CBS News Sunday Morning. The designs are classic and timeless, much like the network’s famous eye logo (shown respectfully above).

Look, the songs and the skits are a bit hokey but it was celebration and taken as a whole, a pretty OK one at that.

I hope you enjoy watching these clips as much as I did and kudos to KINESCOPE HD for putting it together. They always do a bang up job and I am a proud subscriber to their blog.

Tags: CBS Television Network, commentary // Comments Off on 1978 – cbs celebrates 50 years on the air

7/11/09 UPDATE: Please note that I have been notified that Justine Martin has been found alive and safe. I’ll leave this post up for a few days so the internet can catch up with this great news, then I will delete the post.

Thanks for your help!

– Peter

Voice Over Talent Terry Daniel has asked for help from the voiceover community (and anyone who could help) because his voice over agent, Julie Martin, has a family member named Justine Martin that is missing.

Terry has posted a video on YouTube with the details. Please watch the video and help if you can.

MISSING PERSON: Justine Martin

If you have any information that could assist in Justine’s safe return, please contact the Cobb County Police Department at 770-499-3900.

Thank you.

Tags: commentary, video // Comments Off on your help is requested to find a missing person – 7/11/09 UPDATE: She has been found safe.

Sometime ago a voiceover friend gave me a tip on how to monitor craigslist.org through my Google reader. He threatened me with certain harm if I dared share this tip with anyone and, as I promised I wouldn’t, I won’t.

You have Google, you don’t need me.

I wanted to monitor craigslist.org because I was always hearing about voice over jobs on the site. If you’ve been on the site you know you’d have to click through every city and some drill down menus before you get to listings. This, to me, was an unworthy time suck.

So with the unmentioned tool, I can now receive these postings into my reader. The only problem being that for the past two to three months, the jobs posted have either been low to no pay or geographically prejudicial.

Therefore, for me, craigslist.org went from being a time suck to time waste. That’s like going from bad to worse.

If craigslist.org is going to be a cheap floozy of a classified ad site, so be it. On it, you can find crappy voice talent jobs, many other lousy jobs, hookers (allegedly), murders (allegedly) and antiques ((allegedly)).

Clearly, based on the web site’s success, there is a market for this schlock. But it comes across as being less than a bargain and more like an on line junk yard with the occasional treasure found.

Am I being an elitist? Is this just me being bitter about crappy voice jobs on craigslist.org? Did I go in expecting too much?

It’s just that I saw such potential for the site and it makes me feel a bit disappointed. We should all want to aspire to buy more than cheap crap on line, shouldn’t we?

Tags: advertising, commentary, internet, voiceover // 7 Comments »

Jack Mahl on WGR-TV, Buffalo, NY

My hometown of Buffalo, NY gets picked on for many things (most of them deservedly so- except the weather, it’s not nearly has bad as people think) but one proud fact that this city doesn’t get credit for is its broadcasting and announcing talent. It is historically outstanding!

Before you go blathering about how this post will be self-serving (no, this has nothing to do with my voiceover business) or how every city has great announcers (yes many do), I just want to share with you here one example of a great, not properly recognized voice talent that I briefly worked near (not with, I wasn’t that lucky).

When I was a high school intern (yes, high school, not college) at WFXZ-FM (originally WBUF-FM), I worked with legendary Buffalo broadcaster Jack Mahl. I understood then that he was talented, but I didn’t understand how much he had accomplished.

Have you ever been in the presence of greatness but not understood at the time how lucky you were? That was me in 1981 with Jack Mahl (pronounced “mall”). At the time I was working as a news intern in the morning with Susan Hunt and in the afternoons with PD/MD Jeff Appleton. The afternoon news man was Jack Mahl who worked with the afternoon DJ’s Steve Mitchell and Chuck Stevens (who is now over at WJYE-FM).

Great googly-moogly what a powerful, resonate yet calming voice Jack Mahl had. To me, he could read the phone book and it would sound interesting. I knew he had worked for many years in local radio and television but it felt very much for the teen-aged me when I worked with him like Jack was in the Fall of his career.

That was likely a misguided teenager’s opinion based only on what I saw. You see Jack was an extremely tall man who I think had leg problems exacerbated by the fact that the on-air studio was on the first floor and his office was on the second floor; the stairs he had to ascend after each newscast made his pain obvious. I never actually asked about his condition for fear of prying into something that really wasn’t my business, and likely his issue could just as easily have been temporary and fixed medically. The point here was he seemed old to me at ae time when I didn’t understand what old was.

Nevertheless, I loved to listen to his newscasts.

At some point during my internship, Jack was replaced as afternoon news anchor by Dwayne Walker with whom I did a bit of interning work. I remember being surprised by this change (my first experience into what is an everyday occurrence in radio). I don’t recall whether this was Jack’s choice or the station’s choice and ultimately that’s not my business either. Jack worked on-air up until December 29, 2000, his last job at all-news WNED-AM. But having come across Steve Cichon’s terrific staffannouncer.com site and seeing Jack Mahl on it, I felt like I wanted to share my small story about Jack Mahl.

In many ways, I wish I was smart enough with Jack to pry just a little but I was too young, too shy and too stupid. I could have heard stories about his career, a summary of which was taken from his 2000 induction in to the Buffalo Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

JACK MAHL’s booming voice, warm smile, friendly manner and snappy salute became the stuff of legend during more than a decade as “Your Atlantic Weatherman” each weeknight on WGR-TV (Channel 2) starting in the mid-1950s. But his career goes far deeper than that indelible impression. A prime member of the original Channel 2 air staff, Mahl earlier had gained the attention of listeners with his radio newscasting and DJ stints at WKBW, WGR and WHLD, becoming a late-night favorite of GIs stationed in Greenland during his KB tenure as host of “Spotlight Serenade.” Not long after Atlantic stopped sponsoring TV weathercasts, Mahl returned to radio and helped pioneer the introduction of all-news radio to Buffalo at WEBR. After serving a 10-year stint as news director at WBUF-FM, he returned to WEBR (which later became WNED-AM). For 13 years Mahl also was the live announcer for the Mark Russell comedy specials on PBS. He was often asked by longtime fans to deliver his signature TV sign-off phrase: “That’s all for Mahl, good night!”

Jack Mahl died in 2002. He certainly wouldn’t have remembered me but I remember him. That man had a wonderful voice. Here’s a sample (about :21 seconds in) from a Mark Russell comedy special for which Jack served as announcer for 13 years.

Tags: announcers, commentary // 1 Comment »

When adults fall all over themselves with accolades for or accusations against a dead person, leave it to a child to remind us of the real truth.

Three children buried their Daddy today. Nothing, not one other thing matters.

Their lives have been unfairly and irreparably changed forever.

For them and for all the children who have lost their parents to sickness, war or hatred, please offer a daily prayer for their mental, physical, spiritual and emotional well-being.

Over time, we will forget their saddest day. They never will.

Tags: commentary // 6 Comments »