I love a good timeline, so here’s mine featuring some career and personal highlights:
August 30, 1985: Wham! play at Hollywood Park outside Los Angeles.
On this day, this George Michael fan began a lifetime of concert-going. Everyone in the entertainment industry starts as a fan first with some early experience that imprints on your soul. This is mine. It’s the first of 9 times I saw him live. What you watch, see and love as a kid creates really sticky memories. I find these incredibly useful in my research and archive career. I’ve learned methods and tricks that have made me an effective researcher and archivist, but sometimes what helps me the most is the personal experience of having seen it air or play on the radio at some point in my life.
September 26, 1985: Alex P. Keaton falls for Ellen Reed on the Season 4 premiere of Family Ties.
I was watching at home as Alex and Ellen met in her dorm room at Langley College. I replayed my VHS tape of their dance to “At This Moment” over and over and over. Little did I know that this two-part episode would go on to be an all-time favorite of mine and play a key role in a film I’d be working on almost 40 years later. I was the archive producer on Still: A Michael J Fox Movie, finding footage and photos from across Michael’s life and career. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, the film premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and is currently nominated for 7 Emmy Awards . You can find it on AppleTV+.
October 9, 1985: George Clooney appears on The Merv Griffin Show.
Currently featured in the last season of The Facts of Life, George Clooney had a mullet and a great story about being discovered on the beach while playing volleyball. This interview was not particularly significant when it aired. But time and history can turn an ordinary daily talk show appearance into something significant. In 2014, I was the Associate Producer on the 12-DVD box set of The Merv Griffin Show. My job was to watch the surviving episodes of the legendary talk show and find the good stuff. I’ve watched over 1000 episodes, cataloguing guests, performances, interview topics, historical importance. It is such fun to come across Molly Ringwald as a childhood model, Phil Spector coming out of the audience for a surprise appearance or a guy with a mullet on a TV series at the end of its run.
October 21, 1986: Adam Curry interviews Janet Jackson on Countdown in Amsterdam.
I spent my workdays at Reelin’ In The Years Productions researching and cataloguing in an archive with over 20,000 hours of interviews and music performances. While I grew up with American Bandstand, Dance Fever and MTV, my international counterparts grew up with The Tube, Wetten Dass? and two shows called Countdown. Discovering them as an adult has been one of the best parts of my career. (Did you know Adam Curry hosted Countdown in the Netherlands before he was at MTV? Now you do.)
December 21, 1988: Pan Am 103 explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland.
There were 35 Syracuse University students on board. I remember the story when it happened as I was an avid news watcher as a kid, but I didn’t know then that I would later attend the school that lost those students, and those students and that story would be part of me forever. In my senior year, I was chosen as a Remembrance Scholar. Every year at SU 35 students are picked for scholarships who embody the character traits and hope of the students lost that day. It is an honor I am still proud of. Over the years, my career has woven through news, music, television and several places where they intersect. At the Newhouse School at SU, I developed a solid foundation in journalism practices. Pairing that with a natural curiosity and interest in people has served me well.
August 12, 1996: The first day of the Republican National Convention in San Diego.
I ran the tape library for ABC News affiliates. It was one of my first experiences of being in the room where it happens. Later that summer, I performed the same role at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
May 19, 1998: True Life: She’s a Player airs on MTV.
This was one of the first shows I worked on at MTV News and Docs and one of my favorites. The show spotlighting female athletes was part of the first season of the award-winning True Life series, which aired for over 20 seasons.
November 10, 1999: Roots, Rhymes and Rage: The Hip-Hop Story opens at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
With our partners at BET’s Rap City, I produced the videos that accompanied this exhibit, the first major one on rap and hip-hop. I also was charged with writing the labels that accompanied the artifacts. I was pretty confident in their accuracy, but the best validation of that was Chuck D telling me at the opening party I got the date right on a particular jacket of his.
March 9, 2000: The Backstreet Boys fly overhead on hoverboards as they perform at Gund Arena on the Millennium tour.
I look up and say out loud: I want those. And I got them for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s first Teen Idols exhibit. As lead curator on that exhibit, I collected costumes, props and childhood items from 5 decades of teen idols including ‘N Sync, Britney Spears, Debbie Gibson, Rick Springfield and Bobby Sherman.
November 7, 2006: I interview Engelbert Humperdinck.
Throughout the 2000s, I worked on several music DVD releases including Smokey Robinson and The Miracles The Definitive Performances 1963 – 1987 and The Temptations: Get Ready The Definitive Performances 1963 – 1972. I produced the one that featured this interview: Engelbert Humperdinck Greatest Performances 1967 – 1977. From Teen Idols to the King of Romance, my career in pop music has certainly had range.
June 5, 2010 Interviews conducted for the Oral History of Carden Hall School.
I was really glad to take my TV production skills back home as I conducted a series of interviews with the founders of my elementary school. I produced an oral history on Carden Hall School in Newport Beach, a private elementary school with a unique philosophy and founding story. It’s a story that I am proud I helped to preserve for generations of Carden students and families to come.
May 11, 2018 I make my podcast debut as the guest for an entire episode of The Hustle Podcast.
We talk about career adventures and favorite music. I’ve posted a link over on the Talk About Pop Music page.
July 29, 2021 Behind The Music is back!
Over 20 years after I last worked at MTV and over 20 years since I became a fan of the classic music documentary series, my worlds collided! Check out the latest episodes on Paramount+. I’m particularly proud of the Duran Duran one!