Mark_Thompson's Blog

 Well, I uh...geez...um...I just presumed that  I would be the ONLY one featured, but okay....I share the ink (to say the least) with a few others.

Here's the LA Weekly piece that features me and those OTHER people who do what I do  :)

http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/sunny-and-mild-gettin
g-to-know-our-fair-weather-friends-of-local-news/19030/

Before you read this you have to know I have NO ongoing health concerns and I am not a bit hypocondriacal ..... so how weird and a bit funny the following is:

Last night I awoke from a dream in which I am watching the 5pm television newscasts and I see a story come on.   The anchor, Furnell Chatman (yah, why him?), tells the audience  "Mark Thompson of Fox11 has just been diagnosed with testicular cancer".

Then I flip over to see the anchor on channel 2 reporting the same diagnosis....and then, channel 7 as well.

Now I'm worried that my newscast on Fox11 is also going to report it at 10pm.  Plus, in the dream I am confused and worried because I don't know anything about this, and I suppose I must be wondering why the other stations would have such a keen interest -- make that ANY interest-- in me. 

then....

I wake up, check my private parts and go back to sleep.

What's it mean???

Does anyone else suffer as I do from allergies?? Bad allergies?

Y'know the full range of symptoms: sneezing attacks, itching and drippy nasal passages, and the tickle in the throat...and that's  AFTER all the antihistamine is coursing through my bloodstream.

And, by the way, which IS the best antihistamine/decongestant????  Have you gone to the pharmacy??  There is wall upon wall of decongestants and allergy treatments.  You need a sherpa guide just to navigate all the  options you have.  Then, they all seem to work with varying degrees of effectiveness depending on when I have tried them.

Recently, I have been so hobbled by these allergic symptoms that I actually considered a trip to a cold place where there is little currently in bloom, if only to get temporary relief!!   Then I realized what a stupid idea that was (When you are me, you have to wave stupid ideas like that off on an almost daily basis so you get used to it)  

We all love the return of the warm weather, but, when it's coupled with the winds, the pollens and allergens are scattered through the air like cash through the hands of "Client No 9".

What's the best treatment?? I have yet to figure it out. 

The other night I got up at 3:30am, boiled water and then stood over  the stove to breathe in the vapor of steam which actually brought profound relief....relief that vanished seconds after walking away from the stove by the way.

Okay, enough about the misery of allergies in my world,  but if you are indeed a sufferer I wish you a better allergy season ahead and my hopes that all of us improve as the weather settles in.

Happy Spring

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I guess Eliot Spitzer has 10 foot pole marks all over him. No one wants near this guy unless they've got a camera and a microphone.

Sex outside the marriage is something that we are not crazy about in this country and when you find a woman on the internet --make that WOMEN on the internet--whose trade is the sex biz , you are likely gonna have a rough day if you get caught.

Oh, and when you are the Governor of New York, you can make that bad day, a bad few years.

Should we change the way we view these public officials who have affairs, relationships with prostitutes and other transgressions in their life?? I don't know, it just seems to be America's favorite media pastime every few months. Many say how great a governor Spitzer was but all note he was tough and kind of lacked any friends because of his personality and aggressive style. Now the dude is apologizing and is forced in shame into the shadows.

His real sin is that of hypocrisy isn't it?? He's the crusader who's gonna bring down every BLEEP house, crack house and illegal gambling house in New York State. He was doing well at it. But the truth hurts and his personal transgressions were substantial and apparently chronic.

The Spitz is a Democrat but that's my problem also with the holy roller Republican Larry Craig as well. Not so much that Larry Craig was trying to get a date in the men's room (that's pathetic and disgusting but if it's what he does on his lunch hour and he's not missing a meeting, should I care??) but his judgment and unrelenting criticism on the public stage and in the media of others with "less than traditional" personal sexual practices.

In Europe they look at our puritanical tendencies in this country and the way we drum politicos out of public life for private sexual habits and laugh. Are they right? I ask you??

AND WHAT ABOUT DAWN WELLS???

She's 69 years old, used to play Mary Ann on Gilligan's Island and now the poor woman's picture is back on TV everywhere because she got stopped with 4 marijuana cigarettes in the car. You HAVE to be kidding.

Unlike the previous examples, she is not a person who is preaching the straight and narrow to us so there is no hypocrisy here. She's just a senior citizen on the way back from her own birthday party and she got nabbed.

My problem here is the driving part. Get someone else to drive you Dawn. After that, you are 69 years old honey...if pot is what you are into, God bless. You can get baked every day from now until the end.

Wait, In Dawn's case, a little publicity might not be a bad thing, especially with a community at large that probably doesn't care that much about pot. She hasn't been on TV in a long time. Come to think of it, this might actually lead to a casting!! I see a guest role in her future, or at least a visit to the Larry King Show.

Hmmmm...call me when I turn 69 ...I'll let you know what I'm thinkin'

The U.S. Government should NOT . ..worry about this environmental, conservation thing…

I mean paying lip service to the issues surrounding preserving the environment is a much better strategy and a whole lot cheaper than trying to reinstitute a real clean air or water act or acting responsibly or in a breakthrough way as a nation when it comes to energy conservation.

We have a right to live the way we want here in the U.S. This is a country that does what it wants when it wants and that’s reflected in our energy and environmental policies as a nation…yah, that’s right…

Heck, our bloated lifestyle, which is clearly the coolest, most fun lifestyle on the planet can continue while we make the environment and energy consumption other people’s problems. If they were as cool as we are they would drive huge cars, relax emission standards and deadlines for gas mileage, throw away instead of recycle and live here in the U.S. like we do right?

I mean really, isn’t this place planet earth put here by some divine being for us to exploit and squeeze the life out of so that we can get richer, more self-indulgent and less informed without having to worry about the consequences. What are the consequences anyway? Aren’t you gonna be dead? Yah, me too!!

What do we care whether we throw our cigarettes out the window or recycle that water bottle (which we now want to drink from ‘cause we don’t want to touch the tap water anymore).

And while I’m on the subject of water…Who cares if we put some stuff in the ground that then toxifies rivers. Aren’t there a bunch of rivers in this country. So eventually we’ll run out. I get it. But in the meantime, this is our crib man, and if we wanna go to the bathroom in the kitchen well that’s what we’ll do.

Hey that’s why we dumped radioactive waste from the Hanford Nuclear Power plant right IN the mighty Columbia river. So what if the fish there are radioactive and there are signs of that in the livestock nearby and the salmon population is way down and the food chain is contaminated with cancer causing toxins.

I know all that but I need power for my 52” plasma to run my high def receiver. Plus, can’t we find salmon and livestock elsewhere?

Put a memo out saying where the polluted stuff is and we’ll avoid it as best we can.

I mean it’s going to be so polluted here on earth soon that we won’t be able to live healthily anyway. So why not just dump our stuff where we want and lift more of the regulations on these big companies... most are going to other countries anyway to avoid what few environmental restrictions still exist here.

We want them to do business HERE so that we can make some more money and jobs here in this country, which from what I hear, has more money issues than a shopoholic housewife at Pottery Barn with the family credit card.

We, meaning the U.S. government, have undone a lot of those environmental restrictions that have hindered corporate giants and have asked a lot of them to police themselves. There is still a bunch more to go.

Energy policies have slipped away from us and gas cannot get expensive enough for us to roll our consumption back so it would seem.

Do we possess the will as a country to change??  Well, we possess the power to change. We have to find the will to change. We have made monster changes in our political representation because of war policy and global strategy. Messages need to be sent to our political representatives and then we need to vote with our pocketbooks.

Change means caring about companies’ energy efficiency and it also means insisting on our own energy efficiency.

Together we can share the burden and make energy conservation and energy consumption as a country and as individuals the work of our every day life.

We ARE America and we can do anything we want. It’s time to start wanting.

Three weeks ago I had the grimmest of tasks. I arrived at the point at which I had to put to sleep my favorite little companion of the last 15 years, a cat that I had rescued those 15 years ago named Lupe. I felt a sense of obligaton to be there to her last breath and she was beautiful to the very last instant of her life. Perhaps you can tell, it was so very difficult for me.

Anyone who has put a dog or cat to sleep knows about the pain to which I refer. Plus, I'm a very emotional dude on this stuff so it was rough.

10 days later I helped my ex-girlfriend with her dog that was not even 2 years old. He had to be euthanized and I was there to help her be with him and get through it, if that's even possible.

I was emotionally raw as you can imagine.

So no more death of pets for awhile please, but this is a story of a new beginning.

When I was filling in for Steve Edwards on GDLA just 2 weeks later, a cat was brought on the show whose owner had died and the cat was found malnourished and close to death.

I guess I should say here that I feel in general cats are sort of neglected and live in the shadow of dogs. I truly love cats and dogs equally, but I just sorta' feel that cats (because the cannot run and catch a frisbee for you) have a rougher ride.

Anyway, my heart broke for this poor thing, although I should also say that my heart breaks on Thompson's Tails every week for the mostly dogs that we have on. I have come close to adopting dogs so many times from our show but my cat to whom I referred has always been sick and I felt that it would have been unfair. I'm sure that there is a dog in my future soon.

Anyway, this cat is now being fostered in my home and it's an adventure trying to get her used to the new environment and me, oh, and the other surviving cat who smells her through the door and is NOT happy.

I'll keep you posted... I hope I won't be one of those guys found face down in his home with 300 cats crawling all over....but would like to think I am an animal lover trying to do a good thing one animal at a time...

I

I think it was awhile back that I blogged about the ashtray syndrome ...y'know, that thing where smokers flick their butts out the window of their car and out of their lives... It' as though we are living in some giant ash tray and the cigarette butts will just kind of take care of themselves.

Originally this was just an issue of polluting the environment, having those butts washed out to the ocean, accumulating on the street and in parks and on the beaches, etc. Now, it's an issue of safety.

Our area is so dry after a record dry rainy season that we are looking down the barrel of a loaded gun and my loving smokers are doing us no favors with that bad habit.

It's okay to smoke if you cannot kick it, but please dear smokers, you will cost us all potentially the communities in which we live if you get careless at the wrong time and place.

Okay, off my serious jag... next post will be light and frothy... until then get off the butt tossin' please.

Every show, reality or otherwise, needs drama of some kind right?

I mean that's why there's a plotting evil force in most dramas, or a criminal that looks like they will outwit the forces of justice. Or someone everyone hates on Survivor.

Well in that same way Sanjaya, regardless of his lack of skills as a singer or performer, made the Idol hunt all the more interesting. Why was he still there, we asked. How long could America overlook this dude? What is up with his look? His hair?

It seems like a little thing but these are the questions that hijacked the Idol discussion for week after week.

With Sanjaya out of the mix who will provide the next dramatic storyline on Idol that we can sink our teeth into?

Without a bad boy or misbehaving, or a back talking even sassy contestant, Idol becomes a little less interesting. Of course, it still is an oddly compelling TV show that I love to check out.

By the way, here is some American Idol trivia:

For the first three seasons the voice of American Idol introduced the elimination round of show. He said the same thing essentially that Ryan Seacrest says now to kick off each show. Who was that announcer?

 This one should be easy.

John Beard and I have been friends for a long time...so you have to keep that in mind as I take you back to the days that John Beard was at Ch 4 anchoring the 6 and 11pm shows...already wildly successful on television John called me to tell me about his brush with lotto success.

John Beard is a terrific gambler...a good gambler, a smart gambler but a remarkably lucky gambler as well. In fact, some would say that in the gamble of life John is incredibly lucky and has already won the lottery.

This is John's call to me when he actually won the lottery, which he played every week. The following is true:

JB: Thompson.   It's Beard! Just won the lottery pal. Y'know   the scratch off game.

MT: Wow John that's great! How much did you win?

JB: Well there are three payouts...10 thousand, 25 thousand and 50 thousand...guess which one I hit.

MT:  I dunno....uh..25 thousand? JB:50 thousand!!!!!!!! (THE LAUGHTER OF A MADMAN FOLLOWED FOR ABOUT 45 SECONDS)

And so it was. another chapter in the incredible life of John Beard. Now you can appreciate Brother Beard in a whole new way....the luckiest anchor on television in Los Angeles.

Wolfgang Puck, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Models and Hepatitis A

 

I will soon tell you all the story, and it may be brief but there are some good pics, of the Wolfgang Puck, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Girls, myself and Hepatitis A.

So check this space for pics, video and text of all mentioned...

Hope you are all great...and, in the meantime,  beware of even the best chefs :)

We have a new show called THAT'S SO HOLLYWOOD.

The show is hosted by Jillian Reynolds and myself and a third rotating guest host.

It's a fun show for me because it's free from and ad-lib intensive. We do a lot of material in the hour, some of which is covered in the mainstream media and some of which is not.

The show is a work in progress .... an evolving show. That means what you see today is likely changing a bit with each episode, hopefully improving as the weeks go by. There are hits and misses like any new show but we try to have fun so that the audience can have fun.

There are a bunch of cool guests and fun topics..

I'd love for you to check it out and let me know what you think.

Boy, I may regret that last part.. :)

Saturdays at 6pm and Sundays at 11p...

Enjoy..

The New Year is here and it's odd how the calender day, artificial though it is, gives us a chance to make the changes we want, or at least initiate the process we want to begin.

But it does work...sort of...

I find myself a slow starter...on diet, on increased exercise and even on correspondences or returning calls or punctuality or whatever it may be... no matter how superficial....that may be because I'm so close to perfection already? Uh..I don't think so...

Eventually, changes are made I suppose..but oh so slow they tend to be...and then there is the horrible slide back to old habits by Sept. or Oct...geez..I'm depressed now.

I cannot believe the way adoption authorities have ganged up on Madonna after she's rescued a child from what was at best an uncertain future and put him on course for what at the very least will be a better future in the universe of a family that will more than provide for him.

To be fair, I don't know all the details, but what do you need to know? The mother died, the father gave up custody to an orphanage because he cannot provide for the little guy, and now in comes Madonna and her husband who circumvent paperwork and fast track an adoption. Yes, they fast tracked it and donated 3 million dollars to AIDS/HIV charities there. That's good too in my opinion.

It's NOT LIKE THEY FAST TRACKED A LIVER TRANSPLANT. These kids are literally dying for someone to look after them. They are in an orphanage!!! Madonna didn't go door to door and find a house with no one home but a baby, toss the baby in her back pack and onto a private jet.

Doesn't it amaze you that high profile administrative figures spend a lot of time trying to get people worked up about things that don't really matter, while the state of things that do matter (in this case social workers who miss abuse and neglect in the home for example) continue to deteriorate...

Madonna: Take your child. Yes it's not a purely fair system and I suppose the rest of life isn't fair either. But I do believe this kid will have a good shot at a life now. He'll probably be running up a tab at Sky Bar before he's even of legal drinking age, crash his car on Sunset and prove me wrong, but I for one am willing to take the chance.

For those of you who watch late night television, you should know that there is no show funnier, more on top of pop culture and music, and none more fun to watch than Jimmy Kimmel's show called Jimmy Kimmel Live.

So when I saw that Jimmy had used a clip of me from the Channel 13 newscast last Thursday night, I was totally blown out.

I am such a fan of Kimmel's that for me it was way cool.

If you are curious to see the funny clip they pulled, you can click here for the link to the story we did about Jimmy's show.

Dear George Bush,

I'm a resident of L.A.

There are a couple of things you should know about life in Southern Calif.

The first is that the traffic here is horrible a lot of the time. The second is that the traffic here sucks. We as residents understand this and suffer through it for the really cool other stuff there is here.

It's sorta like how you must have to suffer through Washington press conferences where there are pointed questions being shot at you Mr. President. But then you get to hang out and have a bunch of people then do stuff for you, tell you how great you are and put you on a private chopper to a special plane with a bunch of other yes men who tell you about a bunch of other great stuff that maybe the first guys who were sucking up to you forgot to mention. Y'know presidential stuff... Then you arrive in places like L.A. to raise money for your party.

Dude, I'm not about the politics of this. I'm about the traffic situation.

I don't care if you wanna raise dough...In fact, how much do we have to pay to have you avoid coming here during rush hour? That's money you've just raised right there by not messing with my commute.

I mean there are a lot of times you can arrive. 4pm???? 4pm??? What, are you kidding me??? Who decided on that? Lemme guess..someone who's been riding in motorcades too long.

Please don't make the evening nightmare commute become even more nightmarish than it is.

Mr. President sir, this isn't personal, but some sweet Indian lady flipped me the bird today in bumper to bumper traffic...that's the reality here on the ground.

Love,

Mark