Val Kilmer is an amazing talent. The stories of his early days are legendary. He was the youngest actor to ever get into Juilliard acting program. He was offered lots of film roles while he was there, and did stage work before hitting the big screen.

It’s hard to pick your favorite role of his, because so many were great. Here in San Diego, most locals would pick his Ice Man character in “Top Gun” since it was…

I just read in the paper this morning that Guy Webster died. Most of you won’t know that name. He was a great rock photographer. He did The Doors first album. He did the photo of the Mamas & Papas that has them all in the bathtub (he said they were all so stoned, it was even hard to do that). Dunhill record label producer…

When I was a teenager, Morrissey and The Smiths were huge. I was more of a Morrison and The Doors fan, but I liked a few of The Smith songs.

About 29 years ago, I was having dinner with a couple of women I’m friends with in downtown San Diego, and we walked out of a restaurant and nearby was a concert hall. There was a tour bus with about 50 fans surrounding it, screaming as if The Beatles were inside. We walked…

It’s always weird when I’ve gotten an autograph from somebody that dies soon after. There have been many people I could’ve gotten signatures from, and I decide not to put the effort into going to the venue -- and they die a few months later. And I regret those. One of the most regretful of those moments comes when I worked as a DJ at a radio station and I brought winners backstage at a concert. It was Joe Cocker and Stevie Ray Vaughn. We were told by the…

All of us that have gotten in-person autographs complain about how much harder it’s gotten over the years. With all the eBay people, and folks wanting selfies, it’s really a mess. In the old days, you could bring a few of your albums, get them signed, and sometimes have a great conversation with the musicians. Now they see a stack of albums, and figure you’re going to sell them. And having albums doesn’t show you’re a fan. Anybody can go to an old record store or antique…

I only met Oliver Stone once. It was at CinemaCon in Las Vegas years ago, and a luncheon with a few big name directors (Guillermo del Toro being one). The directors had the most interesting things to say about filmmaking and it was an incredible lunch. 

As I saw him walking to the escalator the same time as me, I wanted to say, "Why did you make such a horrible movie…

In Poway, one of the surrounding counties of San Diego, a statue was unveiled of Padres Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn. It was a wonderful event, and the papers here covered it heavily. One of the things his son, former player Tony Gwynn, Jr. said, was how great it was to have his dad watching and filming his basketball games. I remember a few years when I coached youth basketball, and our team played against his. Another Padres player -- Gary Templeton -- also had a son on the…

I have a lot of autograph dreams. Over the years, I'd say I've had about 25 (that I can remember). Now, I'm not talking about an upcoming person I'm going to get. I've had so many times where I was going to interview somebody famous, or meet them at the venue...I didn't have a dream about that. I'm not sure why, but I only have dreams about getting autographs from dead celebrities. It's friggin' baffling to me. Not sure what Freud would say about that.

Last night, I had a dream that I…

When I heard Florence Henderson died this morning, it was right before I was set to go on the radio and do my movie reviews for the weekend. I mentioned how The Brady…

Well, last week was the Bruce Springsteen stuff. I found out I was the only person at the L.A. show that wanted his autograph and didn’t get it. One person had his arm signed. I’m not sure why. Perhaps he’ll get it tattooed. Another kid got lucky. He held up a sign asking for a note from Bruce for his…

There are lots and lots of great autographed guitar stories out there. I thought I’d share some that involve broken guitars.

The one that involves a guitar I own is a bit frustrating. Mostly because it left me with an item that isn’t all that interesting to look…

When Autograph Magazine could be found in newsstands everywhere, I enjoyed writing columns and stories for the publication. I still love writing the blogs.

Steve Cyrkin brought in a lot of interesting people to write for the magazine, but one person bugged me. Not on a personal level, but what it was she wrote about. It was handwriting analysis.

Now, as somebody that loves autographs – it’s something I should’ve really dug.…

There’s a venue here in San Diego (well, Solana Beach), that has the best concerts. It seats about 600, the acoustics are fabulous for no matter what type of music is being played…and it’s been around since 1974. The amount of bands I’ve seen here is in the triple digits, easy.

Since they get a lot of big names looking to play smaller venues, those tickets sell out…

So, as the week is about to start, thought I’d write about some of the thoughts and stories popping into my brain. It’s almost 1 a.m., so forgive me if it’s not as clever as it seemed late at night, right before bedtime.

Since the guitar George Harrison played (I wrote about it a few weeks ago in a blog) recently went at auction for almost $500,000, I couldn’t help but…

My favorite ‘60s band is The Doors. They’re closely followed by The Beatles. Yet one thing I’ve found when I became a movie critic 25 years ago was…there’s nothing interesting about asking somebody their favorite movie or favorite band. You always hear the same answers. I like to ask people the movie they love that everyone hates. When it comes to music, I like to…

Jack Bruce was the first autograph I got. Sort of. I mean, it was the first autograph I ever got that I asked another person to get for me. I had just started working in radio, and was 20-years-old. An afternoon DJ was going to be interviewing him, and one of my all-time favorite albums was the Cream record “Disraeli Gears.” I didn’t think it would be professional for me to just “show up” at a time I wasn’t working, and bother the talent for a signature; but the DJ was a nice guy and I knew…

I worked at a publication for years with a music writer/photographer that was always a blast to share stories with. He met a number of rock stars (mostly in the punk scene), and had some great photos and autographs. The best autograph in his collection came as a fluke. He was working a part-time job as a librarian and they were doing one of their book sales. We’ve all seen…

We all know about the auto pen. If memory serves, I remember reading they were first used by politicians. Of course, anybody that goes for autographs in the mail has to worry about secretarial signatures. We know about the actors that have used them for long periods of time (Jack Lemmon and Clint Eastwood, to name a few).

When I was the sportscaster for a radio station, I ran into a number of athletes that told me great autograph stories. Sometimes when baseballs were handed over the…

Well, it seems like just yesterday we were talking about Bruce Springsteen lyrics going for 200k (you can read the previous blog about that). Now it’s a Bob Dylan guitar that went for a cool million!

Now, I know a little about guitars and what they sell for. My friend Greg Dorsett owns a business called “Rock Star Guitars” and they have dealt with a few Jimi Hendrix…

Since music autographs are the favorite in my collection, and I’m thankful for the amazing collection I have, I thought I’d share some recent stories that popped up in the news.

Here in San Diego, Michael Buble had a concert at the Sports Arena. I’m not a fan of the crooner (and I turned down a free pair of tickets to…