Tom Lorenz

Wow! After a week's worth of "vacation", I'm back in my regular routine. I have to put "vacation" in quotes, because it was far from restful. On Monday we went to Pioneer Tunnel in Ashland, PA for a tour of an old coal mine. Tuesday and Wednesday were spent at Knoebel's amusement park in Elysburg, PA - just a half hour north of Ashland. On Thursday we spent the day in Cape May, going to the zoo and the boardwalk. On Friday we shopped at Ikea, which is only 30-40 minutes away. On Saturday night Justine, my parents and I spent the night on board the U.S.S. New Jersey during one of their regular encampments. Sunday was spent at my in-laws' house in Tom's River. On Monday I finally had the chance to really relax a bit, though I did indulge in a trip to CD World to take advantage of a good Labor Day sale.

In case you're interested, here's what I came away with at CD World:

• Mr. Show, season 3 (DVD)
• Cheap Trick: Special One
• Jeff Beck: Who Else?
• Jeff Beck: You Asked For It
• Blondie, Pat Benatar: Back To Back Hits
• Various Artists: Contemporary Jazz Sampler

Now in in my second day back at work, and I'm enjoying a return to normalcy (such as it is).

It came as a shock to nobody who was at all familiar with him, but yesterday Warren Zevon succumbed to lung cancer. He publically announced his condition a year ago and worked at a feverish pace to complete one final album, which was released earlier this year. He was also fortunate enough to survive long enough to see the birth of his twin grandsons, one of whom was given the middle name Warren.

I was never a tremendous fan of his, but while in high school I latched onto his then-new live album, Stand In The Fire, and immediately fell in love with it. The songs are strong, the performances are hot, and the energy just jumps out at you. Though he was at the height of his alcoholism at the time, he was also at the peak of his powers as a performer - and fact that comes through loud and clear on that album. For my money, it ranks as one of the greatest live albums ever recorded.

Unfortunately, his record label still appears to disagree, as they have yet to release it on CD. Why that is I'll never know. I guess they didn't deem it to be commercially viable. But I'll tell you what: I found a pristine vinyl copy a while back and burned my own copy onto CD, and when I put it in my Mac and fired up iTunes, CDDB found the right track list for the CD. Apparently I'm not the only fan of that album!

I have gotten a few of his other albums over the years and they all have some really strong songs on them, but SITF remains the clear standout work from this gifted artist. I may not be his biggest fan, but that album remains one of my absolute favorites. Last year when his web site posted an email address to which one could send him a message, I sent him one telling him exactly how I felt about Stand In The Fire and thanking him for the great music. I'll never know if he read it (though I always doubt that artists read crap like that), but I hope so.

Either way, I'll say it once again: thanks so much for the great music. See you on the other side.

I didn't know John Ritter personally. I never met him. The closest I came to meeting him was when my family visited San Francisco in 1980.

Then why was I so saddened this morning at the news of his death? I guess he just seemed like a genuinely good guy, and he was simply far too young to die. Nobody saw it coming, either. One minute he's fine, the next his aorta bursts and he bleeds to death internally. It's a rare condition, but not rare enough.

Like most people of television watching age in the late 1970's I was glued to the set (and Suzanne Somers' breasts) when Three's Company was on. He was what made that show great. He teemed with both charm and phenomenal comic timing, and his gift for physical comedy was the icing on the cake. The next thing I recall seeing him in was Stephen King's It, which should have been spelled with an "sh" at the beginning. The ending of that movie completely torpedoed what had been truly suspenseful and gripping, but that's beside the point. He was good in it, and it seemed a shame that he wasn't on TV on a regular basis anymore.

That changed in the 90's with his sitcom whose name escapes my at the moment. That ran for a few years, then got cancelled. Finally last year his new sitcom, 8 Simple rules... turned out to be a surprise hit. And just about a month ago VH1 showed a movie dramatizing the Three's Company years, which portrayed Ritter as a genuinely good guy.

Just when things were going well and his career was on a strong upswing, his body fails him. He collapsed and died right on the set. I cannot imagine how shocking and devastating that must have been for those folks who were there. My only hope is that no cameras were rolling at the time, so we won't have pirated copies of his death floating around the 'net for all eternity.

This is only the third time I actually felt sorrow at the death of a celebrity. Sam Kinison was the first. His years of stellar appearances on Howard Stern's radio show endeared him to me, for some reason.

The worst one, however, was Phil Hartman in 1998. Man, that put me in a funk for a couple of days. Phil (as I like to call him) is more or less my idol. He began performing a bit later in life than most - at age 30 - and quickly went from performing with The Groundlings in L.A. to writing for Pee Wee Herman to writing and performing on Saturday Night Live. His talent also earned him a fairly steady gig on The Simpsons, where he voiced two of the shows most memorable characters: attourney Lionel Hutz and actor Troy McClure.

As one who always wanted to do cartoon voices, I found Phil Hartman to be a real inspiration. When I found out he had been killed, I felt somehow deflated.

In a way, I feel similarly with the death of John Ritter. Just when things were finally going his way once more, he lost absolutely everything. He deserved better

I have nothing but sympathy for those who knew and loved him. Again, he seemed to be a good guy, and to date I have neither read nor heard accounts to the contrary. He left us far too soon. It would have been great - and probably a lot of fun - to watch him age.

Y'know, I'm getting a little tired of writing about beloved celebrities who died. Warren Zevon, John Ritter, and now Gordon Jump.

Once in a while you find the perfect marriage of actor to role. Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker. Dennis Franz as Andy Sipowicz. Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce. Jean Stapleton as Edith Bunker. Their performances were so strong that we often have a hard time seeing these actors as anybody but the characters they portray.

Such was the case with Gordon Jump. Though he only played Arthur Carlson for four years on WKRP in Cincinnati, he will be forever remembered as "Big Guy", the often bumbling station manager who cowered in the presence of his mother, the station owner. One wonders how much of Arthur Carlson is in The Simpsons' Seymour Skinner.

His was a thankless job. Though his was a funny character, he was used most often as the straight man, a wonderful foil for the ever so neurotic cast of players that surrounded him. The chemistry in that show was vibrant and unmistakable, and he was no small part of it.

In later years he became The Lonely Maytag Repair Man, a role for which he was well suited, but to me he will always be Big Guy.