I almost didn't tune into NBC last night to see who won America's Got Talent on its finale show.

It was so damn obvious the winner was going to be Nuttin' But Strings, the violin-playing Escobar brothers from Queens, NYC, there seemed little point in wasting an hour watching Jerry Springer… Read full post »

One morning about a week ago, bleary-eyed and sipping on coffee while ritually scanning OS to jumpstart my brain, I conceived an idea to compile and post a list of stories on a regular basis. Stories about interesting people, places, events, things, observations, rantings and more that somehow missed… Read full post »

 

NPR - you are like a bad partner who keeps hurting me, but I just can't leave you, no matter how hard I try.

Your latest radio transgression, one I'm having a really hard time forgiving, is the March 20 annihilation of "Day to Day," your quirky, West-coasty, thought-provoking midda… Read full post »

Friends, writers, countrymen - lend me your ears.

I come to unbury Open Salon -- and to praise it!

As a relatively new member of this intelligent community of thinkers and ponderers and musers and speakers and artists and poets and dreamers and wonks, I am proposing to post, each week, a… Read full post »

HERE, IN NO SPECIFIC ORDER - AND BASED ENTIRELY ON MY EXPERIENCE OVER THE PAST YEAR or so - are my observations about how to glean the highest ratings and most views on Open Salon as a writer.

1. USE 'SPAMALOT.' Specifically, use it in your title:"Pitbulls in Spamalot," 'Thongs in Spamalot,… Read full post »

I love Thanksgiving. It's my favorite part of the holiday season, before everyone's a stressed-out mess. Family is happy to be together, there's non-stop chatter, and no forced laughter like you hear by Christmastime. Relaxed, warm, and aromatic with every wonderful spice that has blessed mankind and… Read full post »

 1. Way to go, Arlen Specter!

Here in PA, we don't give a rat's ass that you've been a Republican and now you're a Democrat. Big woo. You're one of the most respected, most senior senators in the whole darn-fangled nation, you've more than ably represented the interests of not just/… Read full post »

I can't help but notice the Next Big Story on America's financial meltdown isn't getting much press this morning on the mainstream media, so let me break it to you here:

The FDIC - the iron-clad $100,000-per-person-per-bank insurer that has "never failed" to deliver and has been con… Read full post »

SEEN & HEARD ON A RECENT BLOG read by hundreds of OS readers:

Advertising inserted into blogs? What if we don't endorse said product[s]? WTF? ARE YOU SERIOUS? 

My honest response, and apparently my mistake:

Sorry, friends. As a long-time journalist who's always had to share my word space wit… Read full post »

WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL, you know, back in the early ‘70s (born in the far-out ‘60s), I wore dresses. And roughly cut-off, hand-me-down jeans as shorts. And pixie-cut hair – and no shirts.

I looked like a little boy. The way my sister and I ran around the… Read full post »

Hey, YOU! Yeah, YOU - I'm talking to you, pal! The guy who's publicly humiliating the poor cowed waitress at the table next to me like she doesn't only owe you decent service but isn't fit to wipe the mud from your pathetic Birkenstock knockoffs....

Or YOU - the girl who's sassing… Read full post »

You know how you wake up in the middle of the night, and you're struck by a thought that's so completely random but insightful that you vow to remember it no matter what? And (having no pencil nearby) you repeat it over and over in your mind, in the night, in… Read full post »

I'VE OVERCOME AN ABSOLUTE TERROR OF HEIGHTS since I was a kid by putting myself in situations that force me to deal with it. So one of my greatest successes in curing me of this phobia (well, as much as anyone can actually be said to be "cured") was leaning into the windows at the… Read full post »

IF YOU NEED A REASON TO SMILE, this one's as good as any:

I got this from a girlfriend tonight. As of now, YouTube says only 3oo+ people have viewed it.

I'm going to go out on a limb - and say by weekend's end, it's MORE.

Celebrate life. Celebrate love. Be… Read full post »

Go on, admit it.

You've clicked. You love clicking. You'll click anything that moves. You click when you think no one is looking.

But they're looking, trust me. I don't know who "they" are - but your every move is monitored - and what we're fed as news online is entirely based… Read full post »

Nearly 40 OS writers responded to my blog last week about "hidden gems" they'd carefully crafted as members of our talented community - and purely for our amusement, edification or perusal.... Gems that, for whatever reason, perhaps didn't get the attention the writers hoped for or expected.

Let the… Read full post »

When I started my career more than 20 years ago, nearly all my friends were reporters.

We worked at small papers, where you got your start - writing obits, then on a smaller beat or assisting other reporters with theirs, and moving up the ladder. Some transferred to bigger metro… Read full post »

YOU KNOW HOW PEOPLE TALK about lightning strikes being the COOLEST THING EVER?

They have no idea what the hell they are talking about. I know because, before last night, I was one of those people.

I was working on the computer - late as usual, because when you run… Read full post »

I've heard from a number of you asking this very question since I dropped off the face of the Earth around Thanksgiving.

Shucks! <kicking of foot, bashful expression> ... I knew we were a community here, but I didn't realize or even hope anyone would notice! 

I'd love to say I've… Read full post »

Under 10,000. Bad as things have been lately, I honestly didn't think the day would come when I'd see the Dow plummeting like this, when people like Mad Money's Jim Cramer would be urging Americans who need money within the next 5 years to pull funds from the market ASAP. (Click… Read full post »

Dear Santa,

I know you're busy with Mrs. Obama and your helpers getting ready for The Big Day (Jan.  20!), but I thought it was a good idea to get my list in really early this year. I bet you're already receiving lots and lots of loooong lists from everyone in… Read full post »

LAST NIGHT, I WATCHED FRIENDS OF MINE AND PERFECT STRANGERS AROUND THE COUNTRY FALL APART - in their own individual ways - grieving, sobbing and emotionally distraught over the deaths of their formative icons Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.

They blogged or tweeted messages of "RIP" and pers… Read full post »

My dear, talented, omni-sexual, ever-lovin' Adam,

Say it ain't so! How can you have possibly been in the bottom three when I was sure, quite sure, you were a ringer for gold in the non-competition that is season 8 of American Idol?

Let me confess: I haven't voted for you… Read full post »

Here, in no specific order, is a list of recent favorite books I recommend to anyone who's looking for something to do now that the election's through:

Watership Down (Richard Adams)  - Rabbits and warrens and society, oh my! Required reading in high school that, somehow, I never was requir… Read full post »

A FEW MONTHS BACK, WHEN ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS, DAVE - aka "The Squealer" to those of us who knew him as the king of snarky columns at our college newspaper (before the word "snarky" became vogue, and the vogue became law) - well, as I say, when Squealer sent… Read full post »