Today is Sheryl Crow's birthday, and I'm writing to encourage you to celebrate with me by listening to her tell her life's story in 97 very short minutes. Audible has an ongoing series, free to its subscribers and produced in part by the inimitable rock journalist Bill Flanagan (a lifelong personal hero of mine) called Words + Music. When the
https://youtu.be/N-DcQu5Yszc I'll never be able to properly show my gratitude to the many educators, artists, friends and family -- most especially, my parents -- and dozens of actors, writers, directors and producers who inspired me to pursue my own creativity to its fullest extent. But, this man, Robert Redford, has had as wide-sweeping an influence on me as any have in
This time last year, my wife and I were gearing up to travel to Spain for Christmas. We spent the holiday with Jorge Suquet, one of my closest friends -- and onetime guest on my podcast -- and his wonderful family. We learned all about so many of their holiday traditions (for one thing, Spaniards celebrate Christmas on the Epiphany),
Host and creator Rod Serling, a Jewish man born on Christmas Day, presented viewers with a profound twist on the many fables of Christmas as only The Twilight Zone could in its December 23, 1960 episode "The Night of the Meek." Art Carney plays Corwin, a drunken department store Santa who discovers a magic bag of presents. The supernatural is
The image most Americans today have of Santa Claus, the big jolly man with the rosy cheeks in the red suit, that image of St. Nick originated with Swedish-American painter, Haddon Sundblom. Prior to Sundblom, the most recognizable, arguably the first Americanized version of Santa was created by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly, but in 1931, the first of
https://youtu.be/HYM3zQvJqt8 On December 10, 1975, John Denver's Rocky Mountain Christmas Special aired on ABC and featured the appearances of Steve Martin, Olivia Newton-John and Valerie Harper. Produced to promote of the release of his album of the same name, the special was viewed by a record 65 million people, the largest audience assembled for an ABC music program at that time,
https://youtu.be/u5XLjG_S6eE The first time I heard "The Santaland Diaries," I had just turned 18. Driving from an early morning swim practice, I could still smell the chlorine in my hair, and for some reason, the radio drifted from a low-on-the-dial college jazz show that I would listen to occasionally to our local NPR station. It was Morning Edition. I heard the
https://youtu.be/9sKKan_Q9VU Eddy's World is a short documentary produced by The New Yorker and directed by Eddy Goldfarb's daughter Lyn. Take thirty minutes and watch the inspiring story of the man responsible for inventing hundreds of the world's best toys.
https://youtu.be/k08e_4T-2Cs While I enjoyed Sir Patrick Stewart's turn as Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1999 TNT version of A Christmas Carol, I so prefer it when he does all the parts himself. Beginning in 1991, Sir Patrick Stewart took Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and turned it into a one-man Broadway show in which he portrayed 35 characters. While I was a
https://youtu.be/ByAINYDyFXs Before ever having read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, like many of my generation, I first encountered the story of a curmudgeon visited by three ghosts in a 1983 Disney featurette called Mickey's Christmas Carol, produced initially as added value for ticket-buyers of the reissued The Rescuers in the United States and The Jungle Book in the United Kingdom. It's significant