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My dear friend Phoebe Snow
Posted- Wednesday, February 3, 2010

My heart is broken as I write this. My friend Phoebe Snow suffered a brain hemorrhage and is now in a coma. I hope as you read the rest of this entry that you will keep her in your prayers. I have included liner notes from her CD that I wrote because I wrote it from the heart and that pretty much explains how she rolls and why we have been so close through the years. Also, I did an interview with her for a podcast I was doing. This is a compilation of the two part interview. We had only done one other....and that was the one that I did the day I met her for Entertainment Tonight in 1988. We've been buds ever since.

Below are the liner notes I wrote for Phoebe's best of CD that she refers to in the interview.

I could not possibly recount every accolade that has been written about my friend Phoebe Snow. They simply wouldn't fit in this tiny space on the CD. So I tried to remember just what it was in our first meeting that resulted in a friendship that has lasted years. It is more than the fact that I get "Happy Birthday" sung to me every year by a voice that surpasses anything I have ever heard. I was assigned to interview Phoebe for Entertainment Tonight. She was promoting a new album. I don't generally become friends with my interview subjects because….well, many of them need PR agents just to arrange a beer and a game of pool. Not Phoebe. There wasn't a handler in site. Just her, me and my crew. After the crew left we talked for what seemed like hours about everything from love lives and family to music and her beloved daughter Valerie. By the time I left that New York City rehearsal studio, I had a friend. I can chock it up to one factor- Phoebe is real.

I love it when a friend new to her music asks me how I would label her work. I just laugh, knowing that is one subject that is guaranteed to make Phoebe roll her eyes. I really don't have an answer for my friends or for you if you are picking up a Phoebe CD for the first time. I can tell you this- whether she is remolding a McCartney classic like "Every Night" or rocking the house with "Standing on Shaky Ground" or reminding you of the love of your life with her signature "Poetry Man", she gives you every ounce of her soul and talent. She is unfiltered. She speaks her mind and sings with her heart. She can have every jaw in the house on the floor moments after walking on a stage and hitting her first note. I watched from the side of the stage at a benefit as another diva, Mariah Carey, was so blown away when Phoebe started to wail, all she could say was- "Wow". I don't know if a singer of Mariah's caliber could offer a higher compliment. The letters Phoebe gets on her website (www.phoebesnow.com) share Mariah's sentiments. Longtime fans tell stories of love gone bad, good times, hard times and everything in between (with Phoebe's music serving as a soundtrack to their lives).

I do know that after you have taken the CD and proceeded to the check out counter (am I being to pushy?) and then popped it in your CD player in the car or at home- you, me and Mariah Carey will have one thing in common: when Phoebe Snow hits your speakers, your vocabulary will be pretty much reduced to one word. Wow.

Michael Castner
Los Angeles

And let me add now in 2010 that the word "Wow" describes Phoebe as a friend as well. Wake up Phoebes. We're all going to Ernies!

Kathy Griffin drops F-bomb on CNN
Posted- Sunday, January 3, 2010

I don't know why everyone made such a big deal out of it. Last year when she said "I don't go to your job and knock the dick's outta your mouth"-- THAT was funny. Wrong to say....but funny. There seems to be a belief among comedians that being on cable means you can say or do whatever you want to do. The first year Joan Rivers appeared on E! TV's red carpet she let her mouth lose. She seemed unaware that there was a BIG difference between basic cable and an HBO comedy special. Still I preferred watching Kathy and Anderson over Ryan and Dick Clark. Radio host Opie, of "Opie and Anthony", Twittered that it was like watching "Weekend at Bernie's". Sadly I have to agree. It is fantastic that Dick is making a great recovery, but there are many changes in one's life that can curb a TV career and I am afraid that is a reality here. It is uncomfortable to watch. The focus should be on the start of the new year and instead it seems to have turned into the traffic accident that everyone can't help but look at.

Happy New Year!
Posted- Sunday, January 3, 2010

Why the pic of waffles you ask? I'll get to that. First of all, what a wonderful holiday break...or several. I spent a great Thanksgiving with my aunt in Las Vegas. We saw the no longer great Wayne Newton and the AMAZING Beatles Love show. I took a long weekend to Utah and met with friends and business peeps. It is a wonderful place and is where I was born. Finally, I went to Portland to be with my family for Christmas. I always get recharged when we spend time together. There my schedule isn't my own...which I love...and I just hope on the train from one outing to the next. As always these breaks are a time to reflect and boy did I do a lot of that. It has not been an easy year to say the least. By best bud of 14 years, Layla passed away. That just gutted me.

On the professional front I took on a new show on WJBO in Baton Rouge while still doing the morning show in New Orleans. That program went through some major changes and while everything is moving forward now, getting to this place was not at all easy. In many ways it is great having 2009 in my rear view mirror.

Oh yea.. the waffles. That was breakfast at a simply amazing restaurant, Screen Door in Portland. Chicken and waffles..just like like Roscoe's in Los Angeles. Only problem is with the morning and now afternoon show, I have not been to the gym once. I have been too tired for the past 6 months. Taco suggested I buy a treadmill and I did just that...from QVC...I'm not kidding. Even though I have only had it a few days, it has been so energizing to get on and go for a crawl...I am working up to a walk. lol. Sadly, I am doing to have to do something about the "Louisiana 20" that everyone seems to gain when they get here. They say "10" but I went all out! All the best to you and yours in the New Year. I hope it is a year of positive change and one where we can at least agree to disagree. Yea, I'm still a dreamer.

Woman goes through life with ‘Marijuana’ first name
Posted- Sunday, January 3, 2010

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Jib Jab's Look back at 2009
Posted- Sunday, January 3, 2010

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