Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Dolla, 50 Cent, Barney the Dinosaur and more Steve McQueen



CLASSROOM BANTER My students were talking about the recent shooting of a rapper by the name of Dolla.

“Is there really a rapper named Dolla?” I asked.

“Yeah, dollar’s tight.” one of them said.

To which I pointed out, “I guess he must me twice as good as 5o Cent.”



I COULD A BEEN A CONTENDER

It was a decade or so. I was hosting educational television programming. A local actor told me his agent was looking for voiceover artists who could imitate the voice of “Barney the Dinosaur”. I could indeed do the voices of Shaggy and Scooby, Goofy, and yes – Barney the Dinosaur. I met with the agent; we created a tape and the agent and she sent it to the Barney the Dinosaur people. If it panned out, if I were to become the voice of Barney, I’d be looking at a couple hundred grand a year – just for doing a goof ball kids show voice. Alas, it turned out producers used the voiceover tape to show the real voice of Barney he could be replaced. So you see, one of my worthless talents was almost worth something – almost.





STEVE MCQUEEN

Anchorage police arrested The King of Cool for drunk driving in 1972. Legend has it that McQueen executed a back flip during the field sobriety test.