So, was your brother on Hardball this week?
T.A. Barnhart
Ok, Chris Matthews gags me (I still can't believe he got away with calling Dean a "car bomber" after the Iowa caucuses four years ago), but I am a big fan of my brother, Aaron. He's the tv writer for the Kansas City Star; you can think of him as their Peter Ames Carlin, only more so. Aaron not only writes for the paper (as did both Calvin Trillin and Ernest Hemingway), he's the Barn behind TVBarn.com, one of the top websites for real info about the medium and the business; Aaron appears on radio frequently, including NPR's Marketplace, and has been known to show almost as frequently at family events. When I was asked to be on Detroit's Air America a few years ago, it's Aaron I went to for advice on how not to embarrass myself (it worked).
He was in New York this week to be named of CableFAX Top 100 movers and shakers:
Today, the industry publication CableFAX named its 100 movers and shakers of 2007. High atop the list was John Malone, the billionaire who buys and sells cable systems like he's in a fantasy league. Down towards the bottom [item #93] were CableFAX's three favorite people who cover cable: the New York Post's Adam Buckman, Ted Hearn of Multichannel News and ... me!
So I came to New York for the awards ceremony, the first time they've had one in the several years they've been doing the CableFAX 100. Here's the moment when my, or should I say our, picture was flashed on the screen.
My editors agreed to send me, on the condition I come back with a strike story — and tomorrow the forecast calls for snow and sleet and temps right around freezing. Poifect!
And as long as you're in New York City to get an award and cover the writers' strike, hell, you might as well go on Hardball. Which he did, with Howard Kurtz, to discuss the impact of the absence of Letterman, Leno, Stewart and Colbert. Chris lets his own perspective overrun things at the end — you can see his vehement dislike of bloggers coming through — so Aaron's attempt to opine that these shows may actually encourage participatio (he tries to quote Stewart telling him that kids wouldn't watch or get the jokes if they were connected and informed to begin with; Mattthews is too busy talking to listen) get kind of overwhelmed.
Anyway, let me know when your kid brother is on national tv; we'll get togeter and buy each a beer. (That's him & his lovely, talented wife, Diane Eickoff, author of "Revolutionary Heart," the award-winning biography of women's rights leader, Clarina Nichols). What I'm really waiting for is the reason he was at MSNBC studios: to interview The Man, Keith Olbermann. When he's on Countdown, then I buy me a big screen tv TiVo.
Now, go watch my brother. I love him.
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Dec 15, '07
Hmm, the link takes me to a Hardball interview with Hillary Clinton. Something freudian there.
10:23 a.m.
Dec 15, '07
the link goes to an odd little launch button that does, when clickiated, launch the right segment. if you continue to have trouble, just take my word for it: Aaron was brilliant!
Dec 15, '07
So have you moved back to the homeland?
Dec 15, '07
My brother's never been on Hardball, but a fellow Big Sky High School graduate that I grew up with in Montana was the Subject of one of those Dateline crime shows.
After he moved to Vegas, he and his stripper girlfriend murdered her mobbed-up husband by making it look like he overdosed on heroin. Then this genius, Rick Tabish went out into the desert in the middle of the night and tried to dig up the old mobster's buried vault full of silver. (No, I'm not making this up). A curious patrolman stopped to find out what was going on, and things unraveled from there.
And another fellow Big Sky High School graduate, Larry Krystowiak (a year ahead of me and Rick), is head coach of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks. I saw him on TV the other night when his team played the Blazers.
I also saw one of my former fellow Portland bike messengers on The People's Court a while back being sued by one of his ex-girlfriends.
None of those is my brother, but I still think the Tabish story alone is worth a beer. Waddya say T.A.?
6:26 p.m.
Dec 15, '07
YAY AARON!!!!!
11:04 a.m.
Dec 16, '07
Congrats, Todd (and Aaron).
11:39 a.m.
Dec 16, '07
Yo Malach... Be sure to pick up and read the book "Positively Fifth Street" by James McManus. He's a journalist sent to Vegas to cover the World Series of Poker - who parlayed his travel advance into a $10,000 entry to the tournament itself. He ended up at the final table -- oh, and the whole tournament happened at the same time as the murder trial of Rick Tabish... which he also covered.
Fascinating and bizarre. Only in Vegas.
Dec 17, '07
Thanks, Kari!
The book is on its way.
By the way, Tabish still owes me $10 from high school.(It's a long story).
Indeed, Rick was a major-league sociopath.
<h2>Krystowiak on the other hand, was always a nice guy and level-headed.</h2>