| 13th October 2007 06:25 PM |
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| Joey |
" UNL dedicates facility to Johnny Carson "
" Johnny Carson's widow, Alexis, and Harvey Perlman, University of Nebraska-Lincoln chancellor, are among the dignitaries attending the renaming Friday of a UNL school in honor of the entertainer, who left a $10 million gift to the university.Nearly two years after his death, Johnny Carson returned to campus Friday in spirit.
He was there in photos hung inside the newly remodeled and expanded Temple Building: Carson as a child, Carson as a college student, Carson hosting "The Tonight Show," Carson dressed as the swami "Carnac the Magnificent." And he was there on audiotape played for the occasion.
He was there with two dozen relatives, including his widow, Alexis, at the newly named Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film inside the Temple Building to celebrate the late entertainer's $10 million donation to the university.
And he was there for the resurgence of the university's once-struggling theater and film departments.
The college opened a state-of-the-art, 200-seat theater this summer thanks to Carson's donation and launched an internship program that gives broadcasting and film students experience producing documentaries.
Applications are up. So is excitement.
"Amidst all the celebrity and all the fame, he never forgot his Nebraska roots. He never forgot this place," said Giacomo Oliva, dean of the College of Fine and Performing Arts.
Carson graduated in 1949. He taped a 45-minute audio senior thesis in which he discusses the do's and don'ts of writing funny.
Dick Carson said his brother could always write — his college education helped hone that skill and laid the groundwork for Johnny Carson's success in comedy.
Now Johnny Carson has given other film and broadcasting students the chance to get serious experience while in school, said Josie Azzam, a junior film major.
A dozen film and broadcasting students now serve as Nebraska Educational Television interns and complete projects partly paid for by Carson's donation.
Four of the interns, including Azzam, recently completed the group's first major project: a Carson documentary spiced with interviews that the students scored with Dick Cavett, David Letterman and Jay Leno.
The public can see the film at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Temple Building's Howell Theatre.
Azzam, who was 4 years old in 1992, when Carson signed off "The Tonight Show" for the last time, said she grew to know the native of Corning, Iowa, during research for the documentary.
"I actually began to miss that which I never had," she told Carson's family.
For a brief moment Friday, the entertainer's family, students and university leaders heard Carson's voice return to the theater building.
Harvey Perlman, chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, ended his speech by playing a small part of "How to Write Comedy for Radio."
During the clip, the famous Carson voice introduces his senior project.
He sounds like a student hoping for a decent grade. He doesn't sound like one who suspects he'll grow so famous that his senior thesis will be publicly released, or so accomplished that a film school will be renamed in his honor.
It isn't hard to figure out how Johnny Carson — who spent much of his youth in Norfolk, Neb. — would have felt about the dedication ceremony, the new theater and the rebuilt Temple Building if he had lived to see them, Dick Carson said.
"I think his gifts say it all about how he felt," Carson said. "
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10156779
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| 13th October 2007 06:40 PM |
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| mojoman |
Heeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre's JOHNNY!! |
| 14th October 2007 05:49 PM |
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| Joey |
quote:
mojoman wrote:
Heeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre's JOHNNY!!
That's Right !!!!!
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| 14th October 2007 06:30 PM |
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| Fiji Joe |
Johnny was a husker...but he never talked about it
LINCOLN, Neb. - On a day players from Nebraska's greatest era returned to Memorial Stadium to be honored, the Cornhuskers suffered their worst home loss in almost 50 years.
With Tom Osborne and the rest of the undefeated 1997 team that won a share of the national championship watching, Oklahoma State handed Nebraska a 45-14 loss Saturday, the largest rout of the Huskers at home since Missouri's 31-0 shutout in 1958.
This embarrassment came after a 41-6 loss at Missouri last week.
The Cowboys (4-3, 2-1 Big 12), who had lost 20 straight games in Lincoln since 1960, scored on their first six possessions while getting out to a 38-0 halftime lead. That marked a stretch of six quarters that had seen Nebraska outscored 79-6.
Dantrell Savage rushed for 212 yards and a touchdown, Julius Crosslin scored twice, and Zac Robinson ran and passed for touchdowns.
Nebraska (4-3, 1-2) now has given up 40 or more points four times in a season for the first time in the program's 118-year history.
It was Oklahoma State's second-most lopsided Big 12 win, topped only by a 66-24 victory over Baylor last year.
The Cowboys averaged 8.5 yards a play in the first half, then scaled back their offense after the game was safely in hand. They finished with 551 yards to Nebraska's 335.
Sam Keller passed for Nebraska's touchdowns, a 13-yarder to J.B. Phillips and a 1-yarder to Thomas Lawson. Nebraska freshman Quentin Castille rushed for 102 yards. Keller was 10 of 18 for 129 yards, with two interceptions.
Robinson completed 12 of 19 passes for 234 yards, with Adarius Bowman catching six for 100. |
| 14th October 2007 09:15 PM |
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| robpop |
Who the fuck is Johnny Carson? |
| 15th October 2007 07:45 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
robpop wrote:
Who the fuck is Johnny Carson?
Good fuckin' question.
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| 15th October 2007 08:35 AM |
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| Lil Brian |
quote:
Fiji Joe wrote:
Johnny was a husker...but he never talked about it
We're hurting right now, Fiji. The drums are beating louder and louder in Lincoln. Say a prayer for the Husker Nation. We've Texas A/M on the road this week...
signed,
Forever Red |
| 15th October 2007 08:38 AM |
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| Lil Brian |
Oh wait. We're at home this week. Maybe that'll help. ;-) |
| 15th October 2007 08:42 AM |
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| Lil Brian |
Future of NU brass up in air
By BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star
Sunday, Oct 14, 2007 - 11:58:25 pm CDT
Sure, Dale Jensen had a few minutes to talk Nebraska football. Got a half hour?
Never mind that it was hours before his Arizona Diamondbacks were to play Game 3 of the National League Championship Series on Sunday. Jensen had his Huskers on the mind.
He painfully listened to Saturday’s game, a 45-14 Husker home loss to Oklahoma State, a day Jensen considers the program’s lowest in modern history.
“At halftime, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, just don’t let this thing get into the 60s,’” Jensen said.
A Lincoln native and one-time University of Nebraska-Lincoln student, Jensen made himself worth hundreds of millions of dollars as a bank computer software mogul, big enough that he’s now part of a four-man partnership that owns the Diamondbacks.
Big enough that he’s given millions to UNL. Big enough that when he says he’s had it with that university’s athletic director and football coach, you pay attention.
“The general consensus from everybody I’ve talked to is that (Bill) Callahan and (Steve) Pederson both have to go,” Jensen said.
And if they don’t go, would he keep sending money to the athletic department?
“Right now, today, if someone came to me (asking for money) and I knew the current leadership was going to be there, probably not,” he said. “Not even probably. I get to vote with my pocketbook and that’s the only vote I have.”
Jensen said he doesn’t know of any coordinated effort afoot by big donors to try to inflict changes on the athletic department.
But he does hear plenty of unpleasant talk after an embarrassing seven-game start to this Husker football season. Losses by 18, 35 and 31 points have left many red-faced and asking for dismissals.
Much of the disgruntled voices don’t want to just get rid of coach Bill Callahan, but also of the man who hired him, athletic director Steve Pederson.
“I don’t have a bone to pick with anybody. I just know what’s happening, and it’s not good,” Jensen said. “I’m a Nebraskan and Nebraska football became the largest single point of pride for many Nebraskans that never even had anything to do with the university. Well, that pride isn’t there now.”
Insert another opinion, this one from Dan Cook, another guy with a lot of money, a 72-year-old and prominent Husker booster.
“Don’t panic in a decision like this. This has profound changes if you make some quick move,” Cook said Sunday. “And what message does it send to other people that you may want to hire? If you fire a coach or something like that, what’s the next coach think: ‘Every time they lose a game, they’re going to want to hang me.’”
Though he called Saturday “a sad, sad day for Nebraska,” he thinks he’d give Callahan and Pederson at least one more year.
“Steve Pederson is a friend of mine. I will say that straight out,” Cook said. “But I will say … if you don’t deliver, there is a time when you pull a plug. I don’t think this is the time to pull the plug on either of those guys.”
But if the plug were to get pulled on Pederson, who’s doing the pulling?
According to University of Nebraska Board of Regents members Randy Ferlic, Kent Schroeder and Chuck Wilson, such a decision is reserved for Chancellor Harvey Perlman.
“In this case, Perlman has the management decision in his hands,” Ferlic said. “The regents could interfere, but I think it’s highly doubtful.”
Perlman could not be reached Sunday and did not return a message left on his home phone.
Ferlic said no regents meetings have been held to discuss the state of the football program, nor were any scheduled.
“I just get the same e-mails everyone gets (from fans), 100 a day,” he said. “They’re all saying roughly the same thing.”
Wilson, the regents chairman, said he had received a couple hundred e-mails over the weekend “lamenting the sad state of things.”
Such is the gloom that has overcome Husker football.
By the final minutes of Saturday’s loss to Oklahoma State, half the stadium was empty. Callahan heard angry shouts from fans as he left the field, and even worse things were being written by the anonymous on message boards in the day that followed.
Cook thinks the negativity has almost reached the point of absurd.
“I think there are people in this state who really want to see this thing fail, and if enough people want to see things fail, it’ll fail,” Cook said. “And the consequences of it are enormous to Nebraska.”
Jay Noddle, a booster out of Omaha, said the results on the field have been troubling, but hoped decisions of potential changes would not be made rashly.
“To rush to a decision and make major changes and so on and so forth may seem like the right thing to do at this moment, but could do more harm than good,” Noddle said.
He had a hard time watching Saturday’s game, not just what happened on the field but also the environment that surrounded it.
“It’s sort of shocking. It’s sad,” he said. “I don’t think it’s indicative at all of the spirit of Nebraska. We got to go get that back.”
Noddle does not think big boosters will influence any change so much as Nebraskans at large.
Cook also downplayed the role of the boosters, saying the people who shoot off their mouths the most often give the least to the program.
“You’d be stunned at the number of people who are the loudest talkers who do nothing for that program except sit back and bitch and carp,” Cook said.
He said he would not pull back on the donations he gives despite the recent struggles.
Some former Husker players have been less accepting.
There was one invitation sent to former Husker letterwinners Saturday night inviting them to a Wednesday meeting where they could have an “open and candid discussion on the direction of the Nebraska football program.”
Jensen said he knows of many people in Nebraska’s N Club, made up of former Husker letterwinners, who “feel alienated” from the current program. This started soon after Pederson arrived as AD, he said.
“I’m not going to name names, but trust me, these are people with household names and they are incredibly upset,” Jensen said.
“It’s one thing when the program is going through a down time, but when you feel betrayed, you were loyal all these years, and these guys are N Club members feeling that. There’s too many of them for somebody to just dismiss it.”
Jensen wanted to stress that he’s not blaming the current players. He thinks Nebraska’s athletes are as good as anyone’s out there.
“I don’t blame the kids at all,” he said. “The problem comes from leadership. That’s where it all starts. It starts with leadership, and that leadership is as far up the flagpole as you want to go.”
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| 16th October 2007 12:12 PM |
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| Joey |
" Downtown lights up and turns the corner
JOYCE SMITH, The Kansas City Star "
" .. For a few hours Saturday, downtown became, well, a Downtown.
Sprint Center concertgoers didn't just park, listen and leave. They came early, got a good parking place and then strolled the sidewalks to see what else downtown had to offer.
Hotels were booked solid. Restaurants were jam-packed, many having been booked for weeks. A smattering of limousines cruised the busy streets, and a feeling of festivity seemed to abound.
For the dozens of restaurants in the area, it meant a new dinner period -- 5 to 7:30 p.m.
Michael Smith was booked for that period as long as three weeks ago. Lidia's Kansas City had 400 reservations by Wednesday, and customers were calling Saturday afternoon "desperate" for a table, said Charlene Welling, reservation manager.
Willie's Kansas City, across from the arena, was filled from late afternoon through show time and after.
But while downtown has added dozens of food operations in the past few years, they are still not enough to support an arena event. Concertgoers who expected to eat downtown without a reservation were hungrily searching for an open table two hours before Elton John took the Sprint Center stage.
"We thought we were smart getting here before 6 p.m. for a parking space," said Steve Penyock of Lee's Summit, who was going to the concert with his wife, Marcia. "But maybe not. Now we're looking for a place to eat. We walked down to the Freight House, but they're booked."
City Tavern couldn't begin to seat more people until nearly 8 p.m. and could have filled the restaurant two or three times over.
"It breaks my heart to turn them away, and many were the larger tables," said Dan Clothier, owner.
"When the Cordish project opens it will change things, but for now we appreciate having a shot at this business."
Indeed, several people said they planned to return downtown once the $850 million Kansas City Power & Light District opens in March across from the Sprint Center. Two restaurants plan to open in mid-November.
"It's exciting to see people walking around downtown instead of a deserted business district," said Kevin Gabert of Independence. "
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=11C48F4448E3D548&p_docnum=1
.....
[cc:ss]
[Edited by Joey] |
| 16th October 2007 02:43 PM |
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| Lil Brian |
I hope to see the Stones again someday in KC. |
| 16th October 2007 04:32 PM |
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| Joey |
quote:
Lil Brian wrote:
I hope to see the Stones again someday in KC.
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| 17th October 2007 12:29 AM |
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| glencar |
You know, the lame ass school ran an ad 2 days AFTER the induction/whatever ceremony. A nice ad in Sunday's NY Times. I wonder if any faggots here would like a copy... |
| 17th October 2007 07:18 PM |
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| Joey |
quote:
glencar wrote:
You know, the lame ass school ran an ad 2 days AFTER the induction/whatever ceremony. A nice ad in Sunday's NY Times. I wonder if any faggots here would like a copy...
You GO Girl !!!!!!
Snaggle Puss ! |
| 17th October 2007 11:55 PM |
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| glencar |
PM me fast if you want it. He's your hero; to me, it's just recycling material. |
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