Whitney Houston: One Moment In Time

Sad to read that one of the greatest singers ever, Whitney Houston, died today in Los Angeles.

I expect the following days, weeks and months -- starting with tonight's impromptu radio station memorials and tomorrow night's GRAMMY Awards broadcast -- will be filled with updates and tabloid details on Houston's career and demise. Fortunately most are remembering her beautiful music and celebrating it.

Like millions of other middle schoolers of the mid-1980s, I first heard Whitney Houston via "How Will I Know" on the radio and on MTV. We may not have known what "You Give Good Love" really meant, but we knew that lady could sing.

With my best friend Jason, we used to give his sister a hard time for crying to "Greatest Love Of All" and we can probably still sing all the lyrics to "Saving All My Love For You," All At Once," "Hold Me," "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)." Other greats of course include "Didn't We Almost Have It All," "So Emotional" and "Where Do Broken Hearts Go."

After shaking hands with Peter Ueberroth and Clay Bennett at a June 1988 fundraising party for the 1989 U.S. Olympic Festival in Oklahoma City, "Love Will Save The Day" was the song playing when I tried to dance (age 15) with a cute girl at the event (sadly, love did not save the day, but it's still a good song).

Then came Whitney Houston's "One Moment In Time" during the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Who could forget those iconic images of Korea's games, with NBC's montage of medallists including Florence Griffith Joyner, Carl Lewis, Phoebe Mills and others in slow motion while Whitney delivered the goods?

"One Moment In Time" remains the gold standard in Olympic theme songs.

Other favorites include "Run To You," "I Will Always Love You," "I Have Nothing," her Super Bowl rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Do You Hear What I Hear."

It would have been so cool to see/hear Whitney Houston perform live. The closest I got was in Torino during the 2006 Winter Olympics, during which she performed at the nightly concert Live Site series (sadly, I heard it was a terrible concert, with U.S. media nearly banned from attending).

During all the time Houston lived in Atlanta, there was only one in-person sighting -- we thought we spotted Whitney in the backstage area of the Atlanta Olympic Village disco hall at Georgia Tech when Bobby Brown "performed" for the athletes (the concert was loud and a let-down, and still not sure why they could not entice Whitney on the stage to sing "One Moment In Time" for the Olympic athletes in attendance.

Her appearance on "Saturday Night Live" remains hilarious.

I must admit to cracking jokes about Whitney Houston's problems, and her clip on reality TV ("Kiss my ass!") still cracks me up. Just the other day (seriously, within the last week) I forwarded the Nancy Reagan anti-drug music video "Stop The Madness" to a colleague, and there Whitney was, the pre-diva, pre-GRAMMY, pre-"How Will I Know" Whitney Houston singing the lyrics "Everyone's a loser in this deadly game that's played." Interesting that Bobby Brown also appeared in the video as part of The New Edition (did they meet there as teens?).

If only she had followed the simple message of that Just Say No-themed production, "Stop The Madness."

Photo via Amazon, album cover photo by Garry Cross

Gov. Arnold and the Olympics: Together Again!

I heard from several sources today that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to be a 2010 Olympic torchbearer on Friday, Feb. 12, in Vancouver's famed Stanley Park.

This is a curious selection on a number of fronts, but I have to wonder if Schwarzenegger is getting some overdue payback for his past connection to the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Village.

If you read VANOC's "defense" of selecting Schwarzenegger, it does not appear VANOC CEO John Furlong has any idea about Arnold Schwarzenegger's Olympic connections from 13 years ago.

During the summer of 1996, Atlanta's Olympic Village was the site of the world premiere of Arnold's film "Eraser" -- as an Olympic Village employee that summer, it was my understanding that Olympian Willie Banks, the entertainment manager for the Village, secured this entertainment offering that was screened with thousands of athletes viewing a big screen on the field at Georgia Tech's Bobby Dodd Stadium.

As a witness to Arnold's arrival and speech to the athletes (with "Eraser" co-star Vanessa Williams), it was surprising to learn (and I am certain those in attendance on Friday in Vancouver will concur) that Schwarzenegger is shorter than he appears in most of his films (at the moment, I don't believe sources that report Arnold at more than six feet tall). But he did share some inspiring remarks with the Olympians, who were thrilled to see him in person (it was pretty darn cool that he made time to meet the athletes that summer). Of course,

Schwarzenegger stated at the event, "I'll be back" -- maybe even then he knew something regarding planned or offered torchbearer activation?

"Eraser" turned out to be an utterly forgettable film, but it is remotely possible the IOC or other Olympic Torch Relay officials recalled Arnold's past Olympic ties and presented the honor of torchbearer duties to Mr. Olympia (oh, yeah, there's that Olympic connection, too).

Hopefully the only "juice" Schwarzenegger will take (for carrying the torch) will be some product from Atlanta's hometown beverage bottler (which happens to be a co-presenter of the Olympic Torch Relay).

See you at Stanley Park!

Photo via the Globe And Mail and Associated Press

Better Know An N.O.C. -- Iceland

With all this week's chatter about the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, I thought for "B.K.A.N.O.C." installment No. 3 it might be best to peek at an undoubtedly winter sport nation.

You can imagine my surprise to find that the Atlantic nation of Iceland (ICE) earned numerous Olympic medals across the history of the Modern Games, but not one medal was in a Winter sport!

According to the IOC directory of national Olympic committees, Iceland did well earning medals in Beijing, LA84, Melbourne '56 and Sydney 2000. Several summer Iceland Olympic memories come to mind.

First, in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Village at Georgia Tech, my colleagues and I ("Village People") often commented that the athletes of Iceland House (situated in what is now a sorority house near Bobby Dodd Stadium) were unanimously the most gorgeous people in the Olympics. I ran into one of the Atlanta Olympic athletes from Iceland in 2004, on the metro rail to Beach Volleyball, and she was just as beautiful at the latter Games as in '96.

Also, during the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympic Games, several of the athletes participated in an early version of chat rooms, and one athlete who wrote back to me was a skier from Iceland who had one of those dreamy, umlaut-infused names like the Icelandic woman in the outstanding Robert Altman film "The Player." She, too, was a bombshell beauty. We finally met in person at Iceland House in downtown Salt Lake in 2002 (I was biting my wrist like the Lenny & Squiggy on "Laverne & Shirley" credits).

No Iceland post would be complete without mentioning Bjork's performance at the 2004 Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies.

There is not yet much info on the team that Iceland will field for Vancouver, but no doubt they will make an impression in the new Olympic City next year. Get to know an NOC: Iceland. And look out for your opportunity to meet Sumicelandicgudmansdottir.

Photo via the Iceland National Olympic Committee site and via this Bjork fan site.

Fun With Nick & Jane

Georgia Tech's Ferst Center for the Arts (disclosure: an Edelman client) was the funniest place in Atlanta last night, with Mark Twain Prize (and Emmy, and Tony, and GRAMMY) winning comedienne Lily Tomlin playing to a standing room audience.

As a special treat (though not surprising), local star resident Jane Fonda -- Tomlin's co-star from one of the first Beta-tape home video cassettes I ever viewed: Nine To Five -- was in the audience. Jane was seated on the center aisle, on about row 15. My seat was on the front row (purchased online at 12:01 a.m. ET/12:01 p.m. Beijing time, as I was working in China during the on-sale moment, determined to have an excellent seat, and it was, as we could practically see Tomlin's nose hairs whenever she strolled stage left!).

During her 90 minutes of monologue, in-character sketches and even some pantomime and dancing, Tomlin delivered and outstanding array of laughs. Given this week's election news, perhaps Tomlin's best pseudo-impromptu line was her lamentations on how she is "now deeply worried about the future of comedy" in a post-W. presidency. She also described how graffiti in her hometown of Detroit sold thousands of cars:

"Teenagers used to spray paint that four-letter word that started with 'F' on bridges, and overnight the adults would repaint it to read 'BUICK'!"

Tomlin also touched on Hollywood, family and sexuality several times, noting that in her youth, family and society, "no one was gay -- they were only shy."

Following a sustained standing ovation, a couple hundred "VIP" ticket holders joined Tomlin and Fonda on stage for a delightfully informal meet-and-greet session. Everyone got as much time as they wanted to snap photos, ask questions or seek autographs from both stars.

For the sake of this blog, when it was my turn to chat with Tomlin, I decided to reprise my "reporter" role in an Olympic version of "The Chris Farley Show" and ask whether Lily had a favorite Olympic moment, athlete or experience (Tomlin is now the fifth celebrity to indulge my Olympic curiosity after Ennio Morricone, Kelly Clarkson, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and most recently Garrison Keillor).

Tomlin took a minute to think about it, and eventually replied (see the video) that she was amazed by the opening ceremonies in Athens and Beijing, in particular the giant LED "scroll" in the Bird's Nest. A bit later, off camera, Tomlin introduced the topic to her stage manager while we were exchanged e-mail information (Tomlin missed Fonda's departure from the event, and I offered Fonda's G-CAPP manager's e-mail to Tomlin & Co. -- thanks, Ms. Tomlin, for answering my questions and for signing my ticket).

Before she left the venue, I also asked Fonda whether she had ever seen Tomlin perform live on stage. The answer was, "No. No, not ever in Atlanta. And this venue [The Ferst Center and Atlanta] was a great place for this."

On the advice of Fonda's team from G-CAPP, I did not go down the Olympic path of questions, which I now regret. One of Fonda's G-CAPP colleagues said that she did not believe Jane had attended an Olympics, and unsure about the Goodwill Games with Fonda's then-husband Ted Turner.

Today, the morning after, the Web yielded that Fonda DID have at least one five-ringed connection as host of some sort of 1984 televised "Olympic Gala" (with Neil Diamond, The Beach Boys, James Stewart, Paul Hogan, Olivia Newton-John, Christoper Reeve, Dizzy Gillespie, Brooke Shields, Bruce Jenner, Peggy Flemming, John Houseman, Robert Wagner, Placido Domingo, Johnny Mathis, Henry Mancini, Barbara Walters, Andy Williams, Gregory Peck, Gene Kelly, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jack Lemmon, Burt Lancaster and even Prince Charles and Princess Diana -- man, I need to find a tape of this) which presumably took place in Los Angeles before or during the Games of the XXIIIrd Olympiad.

Oh, well -- guess I'll have to ask Jane the next time we cross paths at the Midtown Whole Foods Market.

But back to Tomlin. Of several dozen celebrity introductions over the years, Tomlin was one of the most gracious, friendly and genuine. I appreciated her time to talk with so many people and her thoughtful answer to my questions -- some of the best 1x1 celebrity time since working with Benazir Bhutto's media tour at CNN. To paraphrase the interviewer Chris Farley, "That was AWESOME!"

And that's the truth.