My Los Angeles Kings* flamed out on their way to the Stanley Cup. Shoot, they didn’t even make the playoff this year. Nothing left to cheer for in the 2017 playoffs except every team playing the loathsome Anaheim Ducks. Attention NHL: let’s get this done ASAP.

Needless to say I’m a little depressed after watching this season. So many reasons including the Bob Miller, the vaunted voice of the Kings is retiring after 44 years and then the team’s decision to fire the coach and the general manager right after the season ended.

To say I need a stiff beverage is definitely an understatement.

For once, I have to tell you that this column is written for more for me than for you. And so, if you don’t want to read my catharsis about a sports announcer, I forgive you. Come back later for a new column or re-read an old Oscars column. Today, it’s about a beloved voice that impacted me in ways too profound to truly describe…

Bob Miller is special for many reasons. None of which most would ever understand. In my sports universe, Bob was there for almost every high and every low. Bob Miller announced 3,353 Kings games, closing with this unscripted speech:

For those 44 years and nearly 4,400 games, Angelenos have been hearing those passionate words come floating out of that voice: the most passionate, most welcoming, most knowledgable voice in the sports universe. And if it feels as if this voice has been a part of your life forever, well, it probably has.

He has been as much a presence over these last 44 years as the cool ice mist and the sparkling spotlights that hover above the broadcast booths where he has spun his magical web of hockey tales. So how am I supposed to comprehend life after Bob, life after hockey’s most iconic voice exited the booth for the last time?

When Bob first walked into the Kings broadcast booth, I was just a kid who was allowed in Jack Kent Cooke’s office stuffing season tickets into envelopes. I went to so many games in the early years, that I only heard his voice on away games and home games that were sold out (those were the games I couldn’t go to for free). In a game that featured non-stop motion and a rubber disk you could never see on a 1970’s TV he drew a verbal picture that guided my hockey senses for nearly four decades now. It was one particular instance that forever engrained him into my life.

It was April 22, 1976. My Kings were overmatched against the Big, Bad Boston Bruins (yeah I hate alliteration too) playing game six at home trying desperately to force a deciding game seven. Try as we might, there was no ticket to be had for me. Staying at home wasn’t something I was used to doing when the Kings played. After all I had been to about 100 games in three seasons. With the game NOT on television (imagine this today), I sat cross-legged in my dad’s Inglewood apartment as I listened on my Toot-A-Loop radio, staring intently as if I was willing Bob’s voice from the device. The game ventured into overtime and the playoff torture was on. Each shot resulted in a heart attack for this eight-year-old. Late into the fourth period of the game, the magic happened and I can still hear the words exploding from the AM dial:

So how do I capture the magnitude of Bob Miller, the meaning of Bob Miller, the majesty of Bob Miller? I guess it is not with my words, but with the words of the people who have known him best and whose company he has shared:

To some of you reading this, you’ll say, “it only sports.”

To me…to many…Bob Miller was the steady voice showing us the way. First, through decades of failure. Then through a pinnacle of success. He was the cadence of my life. The one steady force I could count on to get lost with after a bad day or celebrate on a good day. Surely, there will be someone decent, maybe good, maybe great, to replace him over the airwaves. But that all rings hollow right now.

I’ll miss you Bob.

Hockey will never be the same.

#ThankYouBob

AD OF THE WEEK/MONTH/WHATEVER


Panasonic was the trail blazer of the gadget mobility path. Making electronics smaller and smaller was a big part of the second-half of the twentieth century. The the Toot-A-Loop could transform from a loop that (kind of) fit around your one’s wrist into a shofar-like horn contraption, and yes, it was also a radio.

The Cooper Hewitt Museum explains “Simply by twisting the swivel joint at its thinnest point, the radio opens out into a snake-like ‘S’ shape with a bold, circular station selection dial at the top and the speaker grill at the bottom.”

In print ads, Panasonic emphasized how crazy such a radio was. It was no gray box. No, it was “as much fun to look at as listen to.” While I opted out of the color model — I went white — the device that predominantly delivered Bob Miller voice during hockey games was beautiful with smooth, interesting curves. Good times…!

Toot-a-Loop Radios – great ads. Great sound. Better with Bob Miller.

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According to those who care about me (yeah, yeah, oxymoron) I spend an inordinate amount of time at Staples Center from October to May each year. I mean, who wouldn’t? Kings, Lakers, concerts. There’s also the Clippers, but no one cares.

Today I’m back at Staples Center—media pass in hand—to cover the unveiling of former Lakers superstar Shaquille O’Neal. If you’re not a basketball fan, you still might know him as the player with the most noms de plume in the history of sports:

-The Big Aristotle
-Diesel
-Shaq Daddy
-Wilt Chamberneezy
-Big Shaqtus
-Superman
-Big Shamrock

Statue unveiling are seldom worthy of a blog column or covering other to see stars are breathe the same air they breathe. I’ve covered some of the Hollywood Walk of Fame Ceremonies…Jennifer Aniston, Katy Perry, Kate Winslet, LL Cool J, Jeff Lynne, and more…but I always dream of a ceremony like the time Clubber Lang mocked Rocky Balboa in Rocky III. Lang was desperate to get Rocky into the ring and started insulting Adrian:

Then it was on. Well, kind of. *-See the clip below to see how to call out someone at a press conference or a statue unveiling. Yet, I digress…

Shaquille O’Neal with his new statue.

Shaq (also a nickname) became the latest Lakers legend to be honored in sculpture form at the Staples Center. Fellow Lakers legends Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Phil Jackson, Jerry West, and Kobe Bryant joined the fun at an unveiling ceremony, during which the imposing 1,000 pound statue was formally revealed.

This isn’t any statue, it’s possible the greatest statue in the history of sports tributes.

The mammoth sculpture depicts O’Neal pulling down a basketball rim as a freshly-dunked ball drops through through the rippling net. At almost nine feet tall, the statue is just a bit larger than Shaq himself. It’s only fitting that Shaq be honored in bronze. Lakers president Jeanie Buss pointed out that O’Neal broke ground for Staples Center in 1998 and was the leader of a team that brought the venue’s its first three titles.

This is the eighth statue honoring a Los Angeles sports icon to be unveiled at the Staples Center’s Star Plaza—though O’Neal is one of the few to have actually played in the building.

Shaq Ceremony Highlights:

* – Clubber Lang provokes Rocky Balboa at his own statue ceremony:

Luc Robitaille / Los Angeles Kings

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar / Los Angeles Lakers

Oscar De La Hoya

Jerry West / Los Angeles Lakers

Sorry…didn’t cover this one…Wayne Gretzky / / Los Angeles Kings

Marge Hearn with her late husband’s statue…Chick Hearn / Los Angeles Lakers

Magic Johnson / Los Angeles Lakers

Sorry, didn’t cover this one either…Los Angeles Kings 50th Anniversary

The post Statue Unveilings appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

It’s been a busy week for the Media Guy!

I’m in Hollywood this week with what seems like LL Cool J Week. First, I run into him at the fabulous Redbury filming NCIS: Los Angeles and today I watched him get the 2571st star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Usually I only see LL Cool J at the Grammys, but twice in one week? With all the broo-ha-ha about diversity in Hollywood (well-deserved I might add), there was some front and present at the Hard Rock Cafe on Hollywood Boulevard with Diddy and Queen Latifah flanking him with his new star after the hour-long ceremony. At least this took my mind off the deaths of some the greats in entertainment, namely Alan Rickman, David Bowie and Glenn Frey.

I took the first two pretty hard. I mean who doesn’t get a chill when Hans Gruber implores his ballet terrorist buddy Alexander Godunov to “shoot, the glass” or when you hear the David Bowie and Freddy Mercury wax poetic about being under pressure?

But Glenn Frey? The Eagles? That’s another level of loss. That a loss of inspiration. Seriously, when I heard that he passed away, a tear crept down my face (much like the three that streamed down when I heard the Rocky theme crescendo in Creed). It wasn’t planned. It was just there. Like a stomach punch of epic proportions.

As an ad man you need inspiration. The Eagles provided that from when I was a just a kid and took me to a different place as the idea man working in New York. Don Draper had his old fashioneds and his women. I had the Eagles.

What was great about the Eagles is that, for me, it took me to a place I could not get by myself emotionally. Glenn Frey may have said it best when he reflected that “people do stuff to the Eagles.” They go on drives. They dance. They get intimate. A lot of music you just chill with and listen to at home. The Eagles were different altogether.

For me, I created. When I was a kid, I created stories that I hoped would be turned into movie and television scripts. As an adult I create commercials and ad campaigns. Some of my better work had the Eagles as a soundtrack in my head. Maybe everyone has that soundtrack where they find their spot. The Eagles were/are my road map to creative success.

I mean, this is the kind of ad you whip up when you don’t have a muse like the Eagles driving your creative energy:

The Bloomingdale’s holiday date rape print ad for the retailer shows an image of a woman and a man with a very questionable headline between them. The headline reads, “Spike your best friend’s eggnog when they’re not looking.” It was quickly followed with a pullback from corporate:

Like I said, this is what you get without the Eagles…yet I digress…

As America’s greatest band, they were a success outside of their Eagles work. Much like the Beatles (each of the Fab Four had success in music and business in addition to their Beatles’ work), the Eagles found greatness with their individual work as well. Don Henley and Joe Walsh found stardom on their own. But Frey was beyond that. Even his bit work on Miami Vice and Jerry McGuire stood out to me. I felt like his talent made my talent better. When therapy was needed, and it was (try working at an advertising agency for month with all of those insane client demands), the Eagles were always there driving me to a place to confront the demons.

Let’s just say that it there were a biopic of my life, the producers would have to pay a fortune in royalties to ensure the Eagles are playing in most scenes.

RIP Glenn Frey:

RIP Hans Gruber (aka Alan Rickman) … apologies to Harry Potter fans, but he will be forever Hans Gruber:

RIP David Bowie:

The post Everyone Needs a Muse – A Tribute to Glenn Frey appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

Melissa Leo opened “Meet the Oscars / credit: Peter Dressel / ©A.M.P.A.S.

Okay, so where am I?


I wandered the plastic-covered red carpet at the Kodak Theatre on Wednesday looking for the story of the day. All of the good stuff was happening in Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Terminal New York. There, Oscar fans were the first to see the actual Oscar statuettes that will be presented to the Best Actor and Best Actress winners at this Sunday. The 1987 Best Actor Oscar awarded to Michael Douglas for his Wall Street performance was there as well.

A few of my colleagues were there and they said it was a fabulous morning. I could wax poetic all day about New York, Grand Central and walking everywhere you go as I debate here, but then a little birdy dressed in a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department uniform said these magic words:

“Jennifer Aniston is getting her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in forty-five minutes.”

Her bodyguard wouldn’t let her stop to talk to the Media Guy.

Faster than you can say “Free Starbucks” I was hoofing it to Hollywood and Vine, which at the time seemed like a good idea. However, with the wrong Ferragamos on my feet and thirty pounds of camera equipment in tow, the ten blocks seemed more like a trek through the unpaved roads of Sicily.

When I arrived to the ceremony which was directly across from the Pantages Theater and inform of the W Hotel, it was, needless to say, packed. At least 1,000 people, maybe more. I didn’t have a press pass and there was no place to camp out for the best shot.

Call it divine intervention.  Call it The Media Guy Timing. Call it whatever you like, but I lucked out standing in front of the Metro station entrance. This stumbled upon nook-and-cranny-of-space that the security guards left unfettered, would wind up being the catwalk area that hosted the celebs walking from the hotel to the microphones.

I was in the perfect spot to see everyone — Adam Sandler, Wanderlust co-star Malin Ackerman, John Aniston, Justin Theroux and the star of the day — walk in.

“Wait a minute…let me get my bearings…where’s Michael?” (…a boy can dream)

On this 75-degree, clear Los Angeles day, Aniston became the first of her “Friends” to be awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her brief 2:10 speech was packed with humbleness and enthusiasm as she mused exclaiming that one of her “wildest dreams” had come true. “I was born in Sherman Oaks, CA. I am a California girl through and through. And I’m sure this has always sort of been in the back of my mind,” she said.

As she received the 2,462nd star Walk of Fame, she concluded with, “I am utterly humbled and grateful to all of the fans who have come out today and supported me throughout my career. … I love you!”

credit: TODD WAWRYCHUK / ©A.M.P.A.S.

Oscars Notes

The four Oscar-winning actors from the 83rd Academy Awards – Christian Bale (left), Colin Firth (right), Melissa Leo (right center) and Natalie Portman – will present at the 84th Academy Awards, telecast producers Brian Grazer and Don Mischer announced today.

Meryl Streep, Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis will also present at the awards, while Tony Bennett will perform at the Governors Ball on Oscar® Sunday.

More Walk of Fame Photos

“I’m going to get on all fours, so this could get interesting…” – Jennifer Aniston

Malin Ackerman was the first celebrity on the scene.

Adam Sandler remarked that he “wore my best shirt for you today…”

“I was born in Sherman Oaks…it was always on my mind to get a star.”

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