"Movin' Out"

I missed "Movin' Out" on Sunday at the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts.

I wanted to go, but because it was a one-nighter, the tickets were made available to season ticket holders first, so it sold out fast.

V.J. Roberts went and said it was fabulous.

I interviewed Matthew Friedman, who played "The Piano Man," and he told some funny stories. I guess it helps that he was an attorney in his previous life.

Anyway, he went to Japan with the show and told me that Konishiki, the Hawaiian-born sumo wrestler, was in the audience one night. Matthew said usually, when you're on stage, you really can't see anyone in the audience.

He said he couldn't help but see Konishiki. The theater took out three seats and put in a bench for Konishiki so he could watch the show.

After the show, Konishiki went backstage and Matthew (far right) and the band had their picture taken with him.

Ten years ago, when I was in Japan, I was visiting my cousin Kotoe, who lives in the Edogawa section of Tokyo.

There's a sumo stable nearby and she said you can smell the sumo wrestlers before you see them. What? That puzzled me until I smelled something very perfume-y and sweet. Just then, a sumo wrestler on a bicycle passed me. That was a sight!

That explained that cryptic thing that Kotoe said. It's the hair oil they use to keep their hair in the distinctive top-knot.

We also got a tour of Fuji Television in Odaiba, which is a section of Tokyo that's on Tokyo Bay. One of Kotoe's friends works there and she gave us the VIP tour.

It was just before Christmas and there was a special being taped. Japanese television is goofy. If you think American television is crappy, it's "Masterpiece Theatre" compared to the real crap on Japanese TV.

This special featured the various "talents" of sumo wrestlers vs. Japanese baseball players.

I peeked into the green room and it was filled with sumo wrestlers. Several of them were stretching and I was very impressed. These huge guys were doing splits! I can't do splits. Never could; never will.

And then I spotted Akebono, another American wrestler. Akebono was the first American to become a yokozuna or grand champion. The highest ranking Konishiki ever got to was ozeki (the second highest rank in sumo).

Akebono (born Chad Rowan in Hawaii) is the biggest human being I've ever seen. I met Dikembe Mutumbo and he's probably the tallest person I've stood next to, but Akebono is 6'-8" tall and weighed well over 500 lbs.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to interview him. That would have been great.

Maybe next time.

Ever wonder how those guys get to be so big?

It's the chanko-nabe. Chanko-nabe is the dish that sumo wrestlers eat at every meal. In a pot, they throw in chicken, pork and seafood and make a broth. Then they throw in all sorts of vegetables. When all the meat and veggies are gone, they put either noodles or rice and you eat that until it's all gone.

A lot of retired wrestlers open up these chanko-nabe restaurants. My aunt took us to one.

It was great. And I was soooo full. I'm sure I looked like a little sumo wrestler after I rolled out the restaurant.

The good thing about Japan is that you have to walk everywhere. You walk to the train or bus station or to a street where you can find a cab.

We'll be going to Japan in May, and I'll be doing a blog from there.

Me and my big mouth

I just had to tell Dennis Neuhring that I would be happy to do a cooking class for him next week.

I was joking.

He thought I was serious.

Now I have to do a cooking class at Columbus Cooks next Thursday.

I don't even have a menu yet, much less the recipes to hand out the people who pay their hard-earned money for the class.

No matter what, we'll have some laughs.

And I promise, the food will be good.

I'll be doing Japanese home cooking. The same kind of things we eat at home.

Maybe my sister Nancy and my mother will come and bail me out.

Or else they'll be laughing their heads off somewhere.

No rest for old women

At least there was no rest rest for this old woman this past weekend

And it's my fault.

A couple of weeks ago, I agreed to judge a beauty pageant. I'd judged one before, and it was professionally run. It was the Miss Georgia's Outstanding Teen competition. It took all week, just like the Miss Georgia Pageant, but the winner was crowned on Friday.

Wait, I also judged a reverse Miss Columbus beauty pageant. It featured Columbus Cottonmouths' Jerome Bechard dressed like a woman hosting and singing. It was absurd. But the organizers knew what they were doing.

This time, it was a local pageant, and it was the most unorganized thing I'd ever been involved with.

It was supposed to start at noon Saturday. But at 12:45 p.m., they were still taking contestants!

I was also told it would last about 90 minutes. But I left Brookstone School around 4 p.m.

Toward the end of last week, I found out that one of my best friends' daughter was a contestant. I immediately told the organizer that I was practically there for her birth and perhaps I should recuse myself.

I was told that it was OK because another judge was also a good friend of the couple. I was relieved to find there were three more judges there. So even if the other judge and I gave the child really high scores, the other three judges may offset the scores. We didn't have a judges meeting and we were looking at each other and pointing to the right papers!

On top of that, we were judging on a 30-point scoring system for each category. And it turned out that the people tallying the scores didn't even bring a calculator!

Well, the child I know won.

But I didn't feel bad because I told them that I was close to that child. And I know judged fairly.

Another child in another category came in as the first runner-up. I thought she should have won.

Boy, was her aunt angry! I would not have wanted to be the organizers whom she cornered.

This will be the last children's pageant I ever judge. Ever.

I had just a few hours to get home and eat before heading to the Springer Opera House to see the final show of the run of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

It was a phenomenal show. It just may be among my Top 5 best non-musicals ever done at that theater. I still think "Dangerous Liaisons" was the best non-musical ever produced there. Well, since I've been going to the Springer.

Then yesterday was my mother's 79th birthday. I took her to Sunday brunch at the Hilton Gardens Inn.

The buffett is nothing like one at a Las Vegas hotel or Callaway Gardens, but it's quite good.

At dinner at Tokyo Japanese Restaurant last night, my mother told my sister Nancy that I ate a lot.

I did not.

And I'm sticking to that!

So it's not wonder that I was running late today. I'm just pooped

A friend lived through that devastating tornado

Steve Beverly and I have been friends for more years than I'd care to admit.

I met him when he was a reporter for WTVM 9. Back in those days, I was the editor of the Green Sheet, which later became the TV Book. I also covered local media.

Steve, for many years, also wrote a wrestling column for me, first in Arts & Leisure and later in To Do.

I see him about once a year when he and his family come to Columbus to visit.

He's in Jackson, Tenn., teaching broadcast journalism at Union University. If you've watched the news or read our newspaper, you know that his town was hit hard.

I tried to call him, but the lines were always busy. Duh! They must be down and probably won't be back up for a while.

So I e-mailed him, not knowing if he had Wi-Fi available somewhere.

I was elated to find this e-mail from Steve this morning.

I thought I'd share it with you.

"I can't tell you how much I appreciate hearing from you. So many of our
Columbus news family have been so kind to just check in and be certain my
family and I are okay.

"Rebecca and Holly and I live 10 miles from campus ... and we rode out the
rather harrowing evening in our neighbor's basement that is as large as a
living room. We had battery powered TV and a police scanner, so we knew
everything that was going on. Our neighborhood, up in the country, was
spared, thankfully. But we were in our neighbor's shelter until about 2 a.m.
Wednesday morning.

"The moment the police radio sounded, "UNION UNIVERSITY HAS BEEN HIT!," my
heart sank because we'd been told how powerful this storm was (as it turns
out, it was an EF-4).

"How we avoided any deaths, much less 200 or more, is only by divine
providence. If you saw what I've seen the last two days up close, the modern
miracle is that no lives were lost.

"It will be a long road back. I don't think my classroom building will be
inhabitable until probably January at the earliest. They could fool me and we
may be able to get in it by fall semester, but we are going to have to do some
extreme makeshift things for this semester. They may even be bringing in
either a portable classroom or a small house trailer to allow us to have a
makeshift studio. You can't just put a broadcasting class in a standard
classroom and say, "Teach." But I'm not worried. This is a day-at-a-time
situation and I've learned a lot of patience. These are not normal times. We
do what we have to do to keep going and try to be of good cheer in the
process.

"We have had a pretty tough setback but our university is resilient and a
wonderful sense of community exists here. Slowly and patiently, we will forge
our way back, hopefully, stronger than before.

"Thank you again, my friend! I'll keep in touch, and also on TVgameshows.net,
I am keeping a daily blog ... I've had about 900 e-mails."

So if you remember Steve, go to his blog and check out what's going on in Jackson, Tenn.

This and that

About 10 years ago, we had a new assistant to the executive editor. She had just retired from the Air Force, so some people called her Sarge.

I called her Rhonda.

When I found out that she lived in Opelika and commuted every day, I told her to be very careful because the 280 Bypass is so dangerous. I called it the "death road."

She scoffed.

About a month later, she came to me and said that I was right. Of course I was right!

Anyway, I thought of Rhonda yesterday when I was going to Jordan High School to interview Austin Scott for a new series I'm doing. I'll tell you more about that later.

The car ahead of me had a bumper sticker that said, "Pray for me. I drive on the Phenix City Bypass."

I drove to Auburn Monday and the drive wasn't too bad, though the traffic was heavy. No one was really driving like a maniac.

I did buy gas for $2.82 a gallon, which was about $.15 less than gas in Columbus. Why is that?

Mardi Gras

My favorite Mardi Gras memory is from 1990. I know that's a long time ago.

A bunch of us from the Ledger-Enquirer and a friend, Linda Szabo of the local March of Dimes office, and I went to New Orleans. We spent a good week there.

We were lucky enough to get a room at the Hotel Monteleone, which is right in the middle of the French Quarter on Royal Street.

Yep. I said one room.

That meant Linda and I had to share a room with Tim Chitwood and Mike Haskey. All of us brought sleeping bags, so we took turns sleeping on the bed or floor.

The guys were very gentlemanly.

It's strange but Linda and I roamed around the city during the day but by some unspoken agreement, we all met up for dinner every night.

The king of the Bacchus parade that year was Dennis Quaid. I swear he blew me a kiss.

The thing I remember most clearly is the final night of Mardi Gras. We all had dinner and then went walking through the French Quarter, which was packed. I mean we could hardly turn around.

For a while, I was hanging on Tim while Linda was hanging on me. And then Mike and Tim stopped to watch a woman on a balcony take off her top. The crowd pushed us on.

When I saw the end of the block, I grabbed Linda and we popped out on a side street. We decided it was safer to go back to the hotel.

We spent the rest of the night watching the festivities on television.

I don't even know what time the guys came back in.

Of course, both Tim and Mike are married now. Sadly, Linda and I are still single.

I wonder what that says about us!

I doubt that I'd got back to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but I always tell people that they need to go at least once in their lives.

You'll have the time of your life.

Season announcements begin

I got word that the first of the 2008-09 season announcements are beginning.

The Springer Opera House will announce its season on Feb. 21. Please don't ask me what plays Paul Pierce has selected. I have no idea. Honestly. Every year, I'm surprised.

I do know that he'll probably do one new show, one classic musical, one classic drama and a rollicking comedy. He'll probably do "A Tuna Christams" and "A Christmas Carol" for the holidays. In the Studio II series, again, I'm drawing a blank.

And every year, people ask me if I'm going to do another show. And recently, I tell them I'm too old. I love it, but ...

So what shows do you think the Springer will present to us next season?

Let me know.