Way back, I think in 1999, my buddy and fellow cartoonist Ted Rall got a gig as a radio talk show host for KFI, a huge Los Angeles AM radio station that has claimed to be the most listened to radio station in America (mostly on the basis of its hugely strong signal that spreads out across the western states). He asked me to contribute in some way, and I came up with a satirical "character," Wade Hamilton, who would do ridiculous celebrity reports on his show. I came up with a voice (imitating a specific informercial spokesperson who I thought was hilarious), and would spend an hour or so reading gossip websites and cobbling together each three minute bit.
I had occasion to recall these reports when I just did a vanity-google search and found a web-page listing suggestions LA-based guests for a radio show that said: "The cartoonist Ruben Bolling ("Tom the Dancing
Bug" in Salon.com), I think he lives in LA. [I don’t. -RB] He used to do funny sketch
characters on Ted Rall’s LA talk radio show back when he had one."
"Funny sketch characters!" Never has an anonymous message board posting filled me with such pride. I had a blast doing the character, meeting Ted in a New York studio at midnight (it aired at 9pm in LA), and gearing up for my segment. It actually taught me a lot about the nature of performing.
Anyway, I looked around the ol’ hard drive to see if any scripts survived the various computer shifts, and sure enough, I found some. Take yourself back to April 16, 2000, imagine the hilarious delivery that only a master of voice and humor could muster (yes, please imagine that, because I sure wasn’t actually delivering that), and enjoy an installment of Wade Hamilton, Hobnobbing With Celebs.
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April 16, 2000
Wade Hamilton: Hobnobbing With CelebsHello, fellow Star-Gazers! I’m Wade Hamilton, and you’re not going to BELIEVE the incredible celeb scoops I’ve got in store for you! You’re going to listen in horror and amazement as I tell tales of titillating Tinseltown that will make you scream in gossip-fueled ecstacy. If you’re driving, pull over, turn off your ignition, take your hands off the wheel and brace yourself because this report is guaranteed to make you lose all control of your higher and lower motor functions. Here we go…
Now, what’s all this flak about Leonardo DiCaprio doing an interview with the President? True, the 25-year-old doesn’t have the celeb credibility of say, a Paul Newman or Meryl Streep, but come on, he kicks Sam Donaldson and Barbra Walters in the butt! These journalists should be happy they get the assignments they do get, boring interviews with secretaries of state, visiting ambassadors or six-year-old immigrants, but listen pals, once a REAL celeb wants a gig, step aside, juniors, and don’t whine about it.
Now, before I get off the soapbox, let me say I’m sick and tired of all this talk about Whitney Houston. You’d think no one else had a bad month in their lives. I myself recently went through … an episode, that, yes included an on-air tirade that I’ve apologized to Ted, KFI and Hillary Swank for, but when a mega star like Whitney Houston forgets a few lyrics and loses her train of though a few times on stage, suddenly the nasty rumors fly. Listen here, folks, when she rambles incoherently onstage, can’t everyone just pretend they understand and applaud enthusiastically? When she fails to negotiate a couple of stairs in concert and stumbles clumsily, can’t the entire audience pretend to not see it by bending down to tie their shoes? Come on, she’s given us so much — show of hands, who hasn’t been alone in the car and belted out I Will Only Love You along with Whitney? — She deserves our support.
Now, Cybill Sheperd’s new Kiss and Tell book failed to mention me, but if it did, I would simply say that Cybill is a wonderful woman who obviously needed to write this book in order to find herself and I wish her the best. Am I a class act, or what?!
This week’s INSIDE CELEBRITY REPORT is on Edward Norton. Some celeb reporters might try to get you inside information on this Oscar-Nominated mega-star, but I dig the deepest — getting you the scoop on his very structural biology. My spies tell me that this bright young light of Hollywood not only produced, starred-in and directed the smash hit “Keeping the Faith,” but his Malic enzymes in a closed form reveal a divalent cation coordinated in an octahedral fashion by no less that six ligating oxygens — two from the substrate inhibitor, three from the enzyme and one from a water molecule. Are TYR 112 and LYS 183 possible catalytic residues of the malic enzymes of this chameleon-like actor, who recently purchased JFK Jr.s loft in lower Manhattan with his actress-girlfriend Heather Graham? Edward “Don’t call me Ed” Norton refused to comment, but let’s just say that changes in the tetramer organization of the enzyme have been observed in Norton’s quaternary complexes. Wink, wink.
I know money manager Dana Giachetto is in a lot of trouble for allegedly misappropriating or stealing funds from his celeb clients, but I can’t wait til he’s gets of out of jail so I can give him some money to invest! I mean, did you see his client list? Ben Affleck, Leo, Tobey McGuire… he must be GOOD! Dana, think up some strategies for the small but aggressive investor while you’re in lock-up. I’ve got five grand I’ll be proud to hand over to you when you’re out of the big house.
That’s it for this week, fans. Until next time, With a nose for news and a face for radio, I’m Wade Hamilton saying, What good is the ground when you can reach for the stars?
Back to you, T-Bone Ted.