Wilson Post Blogs

Dear Ken: With a new “Dark Shadows” film out, what can you tell us about Tennessee native Lara Parker, who starred in the original TV series?

Parker, 74, who played bewitching Angelique Collins in the 1960s gothic soap opera, was born Mary Lamar Rickey, in Knoxville and grew up in Memphis where she earned a degree in philosophy from Southwestern (now Rhodes College). After acting at the Millbrook Playhouse in Loch Haven, Pa., where she played five leads in six weeks, she tried New York and within two weeks was cast as Angelique on “Dark Shadows” in 1966. She has been a guest on such TV series as “Kung Fu,” “Six Million Dollar Man,” “Police Woman,” “The Rockford Files,” “Kolchak: The Night Stalker,” “Emergency,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “Baretta” and “Highway to Heaven.” Holding a master’s degree in creative writing, she has written several “Dark Shadows” novels and has a cameo appearance in the new movie. The mother of three lives with her husband in the Santa Monica Mountains of California. One bit of trivia: Parker first went to Vassar College, where her roommate was Jane Fonda. She played the wife of Peter Fonda, Jane’s brother, in the 1975 film “Race With the Devil.”

Whether they win a game or not, the Stony Brook Seawolves are the story of this year’s College World Series.

I am sure I have heard of Stony Brook somewhere in my past of writing and talking about sports. For the life of me, I could not tell you anything about it without going to my research assistant, Mr. Google.

For all I knew, its most famous graduate was Rebecca of Stony Brook Farm fame.

It is cold and the jack pine fire in the small stove is finally heating the tent/cabin. The structure is composed of a tent top on a plywood frame.

Six of us sleep here. Some of them snore. However, it is almost dawn and cold or not, I have to get up. I heard the generator start 30-minutes ago so I know there is hot water for a shower. Shivering in the dawn, I half-run the 30-feet to the hot shower. It is late August and I am back on the Taiga.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

“Big things have small beginnings,” declared David in “Prometheus,” a science fiction adventure with inspiring vision and sinister overtones that faces the very beliefs and ideas we hold most dear, but delivers a tense ride.

"Prometheus” tells the tale of the 17 crewmembers of the titular science exploration spaceship as they travel to a distant moon after archaeologists discovered ancient drawings all depicting the same alien civilization.

The crew is seeking the answers and origins of human life, but finds far more than they bargained for in the end. Directed by Ridley Scott and superbly written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof, “Prometheus” is a prequel to Scott’s 1979 film “Alien” but tells it’s own mostly-unique story.

The crew is led by Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Dr. Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) who made the archaeological discoveries on Earth. Coming with them is android David, played brilliantly by Michael Fassbender.

Upon arriving on the moon, the crew enters an ancient stone structure that houses eerie silence, strange life forms and hidden dangers. The crew certainly finds what they’re looking for, but that knowledge comes with a heavy price.

Dear Ken: What is Linda Hamilton, who starred in the TV series “Beauty and the Beast,” doing now?

The actress, 55, most recently co-starred on the TV series “Chuck,” until it came to the end of its run in January, and has completed a psychological thriller, “Right Next Door.” 

The native of Saulsbury, Maryland, who starred as Sarah Connor in “The Terminator” films, was married to writer-producer-director James Cameron from 1997 to 1999 and reportedly received $50 million in the divorce settlement. In March she put her Malibu villa up for sale with an asking price of $5.5 million. She has a 22-year-old son by her first husband and a 9-year-old daughter by Cameron, who is famed for such films as “Titanic,” “Avatar,” “Aliens” and “The Terminator.”

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

Fairy tales are designed to tell us a story, often with a lesson to be learned at the end, but “Snow White and the Huntsman” is a slight deviation from the original tale and delivers excellent settings and interesting visuals, but the problem with fairy tales are the one-dimensional characters.

In this telling, Snow White, played well by Kristen Stewart, is a princess who is locked for years in the tower by her evil stepmother, Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron). When Snow White escapes, the witch-like Queen finds out from the magic mirror “on the wall” that only Snow White can prevent her from obtaining immortality.

Enter “The Huntsman” played by Chris Hemsworth, who stumbles around drunkenly, but is capable in a fight. He’s enlisted to track Snow White through the incredible Dark Forest to bring her back to be killed by Ravenna.

Director Rupert Sanders handles the film’s major settings with outstanding flair, bringing a gloomy, haunting forest to life, and its counterpart, a beautiful and visually enchanting, er, Enchanted Forest.

Anthony Gray called me the other night just to chew the fat about some of our old adventures. Later, I received a message from him on Facebook telling me some things that he had forgotton to mention when we were on the phone.

One of his home birds, a Robin caught a hugh grasshopper and the hopper decided that he was not going to lay down and give up. He struggled and fought back several minutes then Anthony said that the Robin got fed up and flew  to the birdbath where he kept dunking the grasshopper in the water untill it ceased to struggle. That was one smart bird.

Anthony also told me that he had never paid any attention to the way birds drink. They get water in their beak and hold their head back so the water will run down into their stomach. He said that it looked like the birds are giving thanks to God for the cool drink of water.

By Angel Kane
Wilson Living Magazine

I have a theory...

Mean little girls grow up to be mean Mamas that spawn more little mean girls.

In the case of mean girls – nature supersedes nurture most every time.

In fact, I truly believe when scientists crack the  gene code they will find a mean girl supergene and when they peer closely into their microscopes, the markings of this gene will be the overly made up face of a 5^th grade mean girl.  She will be smiling back at them with that mean girl smile – sans braces, of course, because her mean girl Mama made sure her braces went on in 2nd grade to insure she would be prime boyfriend material by 4th grade.

If my description makes you cringe a little on the inside – then you know of what I speak - for one reason …or maybe another.

I have another theory...

The fog lays close on the water. You can barely see the far bank. The temperature is at the edge between cool and cold…55-degrees. To fill time while I wait for Mark Campbell to park the truck, I make a cast.

Two turns of the reel handle and the lure is smashed. I put five on the bank before Big Bird gets back. They are all stocker browns about 10-inches long. What happened to the rainbows? The Caney Fork changes.

Is Tiger Woods for real this time?

Or was Tiger teasing us? Again.

The magic was back when it had to be Sunday at the House That Jack Built, i.e. The Memorial Tournament.

Tiger won for the fifth time at Muirfield, golfing legend Jack Nicklaus’ creation.

He had to do it under pressure. He did it by making three birdies on the final four holes. His flop shot birdie on No. 16 was one for the ages.

The Golden Bear himself said so. He called it the best shot he had ever seen at his tournament and considering the circumstances, the finest shot he has ever seen.

There was no margin for error on Tiger’s shot from the rough. It came out high, and landed soft as a butterfly. It found the crest of the green and began slowly rolling down the slope.

Dear Ken: We recently watched the movie “We Bought a Zoo.” What other movies has Scarlett Johansson, who played the zookeeper, been in?

The actress, model and singer has been making movies since she was 10. Her earlier films included “North,” “Manny & Lo,” “The Horse Whisperer” and “Ghost World.” Over the past decade or so, the 27-year-old starred in “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” “Match Point,” “The Island,” “The Prestige,” “The Nanny Diaries,” “Iron Man 2” and, most recently, “The Avengers.” She next portrays actress Janet Leigh in the flick “Making of Psycho,” while Anthony Hopkins plays Alfred Hitchcock, James D’Arcy plays Anthony Perkins and Helen Mirren is Hitchcock’s wife Alma. 

Dear Ken: Who was the host of the local pop music/dance show “Five O’Clock Hop” that was on Nashville’s Channel 4 back in the early 1960s?

That was WSM-TV’s Dave Overton, who came to Nashville in 1950 to work for WSM Radio. He also could be heard on “The Waking Crew” early morning radio show back in the day. The hostess of “Five O’Clock Hop” was Martha Sanderson.

Thursday night just happened to be one of those special times that makes sitting outside worth while. There were no mosquitoes to interrupt my train of thought. With all the lightning bugs coming up out of the grass, it took me back a few years ago to one of my Owl Prowls at the Cedars of Lebanon State Park.

It was a little before dark and my crowd of campers were already chomping at the bit to have a little nocturnal fun. We took the road up to the Group Lodge, took a right turn over to the edge of the woods where I was preparing to work some emotional magic to pull a Screech Owl out of the woods and hope that everyone could catch a look at it. Most of our birds live in territories where the sound of an interloper will justify a response. We saw about three or four Owls before returning back to the camp store.

On the road back to civilization, there were probably over a million lightning bugs all over the place. It was so bright that we all turned off our flashlights and walked back just using the light from their tails. I have only seen that one time, and it was way cool.

With a 7-15 record, eight games below .500, Vanderbilt’s baseball team was in danger of not making the NCAA Tournament field for the first time in seven years.

What happened after that makes this the best coaching job Commodores Coach Tim Corbin has done on West End.

Corbin overcame losing key players from the first Vanderbilt team to make the College World Series.

The pitching staff was young and inexperienced. Corbin could not have turned the season around if not for the job turned in by veteran pitching coach Derek Johnson.

They closed the regular season with a 10-2 record and carried over the momentum by winning their first four games in the SEC Tournament, placing them in Sunday’s championship game against Mississippi State.

By BECKY ANDREWS
Wilson Living Magazine 

It’s the end of another school year and that means my children (and probably yours) will repeat the same 4 phrases throughout the summer.

1. I’m bored.
2. Can we have a sleepover?
3. I didn’t do it.
4. There’s nothing to do around here!

And we parents will find ourselves also repeating the same chain of responses to our brood.

1. Clean your room or mow the lawn.
2. Someday when you get older and have children of your own, you’ll realize sleepovers are stupid. This usually occurs to you when your oldest child is 9 or 10.
3. Give me your phone, iPod, DS etc. Maybe you’ll think before you talk back next time.
4. I can’t wait for school to start.

Of course by preparing myself for the summer with the kids I often forget to relish these days. Eventually school will start and they will grow another year and we’ll be lost in the day to day of academia and fall sports. It won’t be long before we’ll all be thinking, ‘I can’t wait until fall break, Christmas break, spring break’.

It winds down the draws and hollers and through the fields for 99 miles. One more mile and it would be a river, so they tell me. I have no idea if that is true. I do know it is full of fish and some big smallmouth. It is floated, camped on, waded and at one time, so they tell me, it was famous for spearing suckers. Before that, the Indians used it as a highway. I have no idea if that is true.

The Smith Fork.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

It’s been quite a while since the first “Men in Black” film deputed in 1997, and 10 years since the sequel, but “Men In Black III” was a pleasant surprise that did more to scratch away at the titular characters than the last installment.

“Men in Black” follows returning stars Agent Kay (Tommy Lee Jones) and Agent Jay (Will Smith) who, like before, are busy protecting the earth from any alien bad guys.

But when an alien criminal, Boris “The Animal” (Jemaine Clement) escapes from prison and seeks revenge on Agent Kay, Smith’s Jay must travel back in time to stop Boris’ schemes, including meeting up with Kay’s 1969-self, played by Josh Brolin.

The film’s highest achievement was the ability to convey more about the heroes, their pasts and pry away at Kay’s emotional defenses. While you may need to brush up on the character after 10 years of separation, Kay isn’t exactly an open-book even for his partner.

Jones and Smith play the typical buddy-cop tandem, with Smith supplying the loud-boisterous jokes and comedic relief while Jones has two expressions: seriousness and an intriguing look of a man who carries more weight than the films ever reveal to the audience.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

There has to be a number of difficulties to adapting a board game where players randomly select points on a grid to hit or miss an opponent’s secretly-placed nautical force, and “Battleship” certainly pays homage to the game, but achieves little else in terms of enjoyment.

“Battleship” is based on the classic Hasbro game that actually dates back to World War I, when it was played with pencil and paper.

The film depicts wayward hero Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), his brother and U.S. Navy Commander, Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgard) who must repel an alien invasion during international Pacific war games off Hawaii.

The film starts by laying out the reason why the faceless and nameless antagonists come to earth. NASA sends a signal into space to a planet similar to earth, in hopes of contacting life. They succeed and bad things happen.

Nothing really happens for the first half-hour except attempts to show that Alex is a guy without much direction, while Stone is the polar opposite and gets his brother to join the Navy to give Alex some structure. Even though the opening is trying very hard to establish the characters, they’re still pretty one-dimensional.

By ANGEL KANE
Wilson Living Magazine 

So for the last few weeks I’ve been in a funk, thanks to a new addition to our menagerie.

It started about a month ago when I woke to constant banging. For days I could not find the source until I happened upon the dining room window. There, outside, was a beautiful, red cardinal perched on the windowsill looking in.

The cardinal immediately reminded me of an article I had read. In this article, the writer had felt that the red cardinal, which had recently appeared at her window, was her guardian angel during some trying times.

How neat, I thought, I have my own guardian angel, too. So as I turned around to leave, I was horrified when I heard BANG, BANG, BANG!!!

I quickly turned back to watch my guardian angel flying as fast as he could into the window, over and over and …over again.

Figures…my guardian angel would be completely deranged!!

Dear Ken: What’s the lowdown on Luke Evans, who stars as Detective Fields in “The Raven”?

The 33-year-old Welsh native came from a working-class background and labored in a shoe shop during his early teen years, using the money to pay for singing and acting lessons. It paid off well as he kept busy on London’s West End from 2000 to 2008 before making the jump to the silver screen as Apollo in “Clash of the Titans.” He’s been making movies since, including “Robin Hood,” “Tamara Drewe,” “The Three Musketeers” and “Immortals.” He stars later this year in the psychological horror film “No One Lives” and has taken the role of Bard the Bowman in director Peter Jackson’s two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.” As for “The Raven,” Evans partners with John Cusack, who portrays Edgar Allen Poe, as they seek a serial killer in mid-19th-century Baltimore. Filming took place in Budapest and Serbia.

While doing my Owl Prowl at Cedars of Lebanon State Park, Buddy Ingram asked me if I could come back the following Wednesday morning and take a group of kids from Trousdale County out to see some birds. Of course, I answered. Not everyone has an interest in just one subject. That’s why “Our Feathered Friends” has certain readers, as well as “Telling Tales” and our resident fisherman and hunter, John Sloan.

Bright and fairly early, I made my way to Cedars, looking forward to hiking up the concrete walkway past Hermit Cave in hopes of locating a few birds. The school buses had taken a wrong turn and were waiting up by the swimming pool when we discovered that they would be late. Buddy had planned on breaking the school bunch into groups of 17 which made four groups. The best time to find birds, especially during migration is first light in the early morning. It was almost 10:15 a.m. before we could get started, and the first thing they wanted to do was drink from the hose pipe down on the corner by the Nature Center. The birds were too quiet and there was nothing stirring except a Red-bellied Woodpecker. We looked all over the Jackson Cave area and then went out toward the Dixon Merritt ½-mile trail. Everything there was also muted till we took a short cut off the trail into the field next to where the Ranger's horses are stabled.