Photo courtesy of the AP

There’s nothing more enjoyable than meeting a fellow collector and hearing about their autograph collection. As somebody that prefers autographed records and CDs, it’s always the most fun to hear about those.

I have a lot of authors I like, yet I don’t own a lot of signed books. I’m always envious when I go to New York and see the…

There have been so many stories about athletes being injured in weird ways. A former major league pitcher I know (who once pitched a perfect game), once cut up his hand while chasing a friend around his kitchen. He slipped on the floor and was holding a mug that broke.

I’ve heard of at last two baseball players that ironed their jerseys – WHILE WEARING THEM!!!

If…

When St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Famer Stan Musial died at 92 (a year after his wife), I was bummed to hear that his family was going to sell off his memorabilia. I thought about how if I was one of his kids, I’d want to save those items.

Heritage Auctions of Dallas ended up totaling $1.2 million, a lot more than expected, when the auction ended over the…

If I’m doing a story about Doodles and autographs, I’d prefer it to be about the unknown comedian named Doodles Weaver (related to actress Sigourney). He was a brilliant comedic mind, and ended up killing himself when medical issues popped up. I know somebody that currently has a signed Doodles Weaver picture (pictured here). It’s the first autograph of his I’ve ever…

Here was a David Letterman Top 10 List from last nights show that I thought memorabilia collectors could appreciate.

He started it by saying, “In California, Oprah had a yard sale to get rid of stuff she’s had since 1985. She raised over $500,000 for charity; and really, aren’t we all just sick and tired of clutter? Even Oprah has the brains to know…humans can get by on…

I’m sure by now you all heard that rapper/actor Chris Brown is back in trouble with the law. No, he didn’t beat his on again/off again girlfriend Rhianna to a pulp. This time he actually punched a man. What I find odd about this is that he had a bodyguard with him. Isn’t that what you hire those guys for? Let them do the fighting, and you stay out of jail (especially when…

I woke up this morning all prepared to watch football, read the Sunday paper, and relax. Then I got a phone call from my friend telling me that Lou Reed had died. He was 71, and had a liver transplant recently, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been as shocked as I was.

Most people probably only know Reed from his one hit “Walk on the Wild Side.”

Rock fans that know…

Three Dog Night holds a special place in my heart. As a kid, I remember family trips to my grandmother’s house. It was a two hour drive, and my stepdad only played cassettes by the following bands: The Beatles, Stones, CCR, Elton John, and Three Dog Night. Now, that’s a lot of great tunes, but you get tired of hearing them over and over.

Three Dog Night is…

There’s a documentary out called The Trials of Muhammad Ali. It wasn’t all that interesting, but as a movie critic, I have to see all the movies. If you’re a fan of Ali, I’d suggest the documentary When We Were Kings.

There was an autograph story that was told in The Trials of Muhammad Ali that I thought I’d share because it was so…

I always hate when getting an autograph costs me money. Here are examples. If I’m interviewing an actor, I’ll want to buy a movie that they wrote or directed to have them autograph, because they’ll like that a lot more than the big blockbuster they had little to do with.

When I’m going for a musician I like, I learned from the experience I had with Warren Zevon…

I’ve always enjoyed film festivals. As a movie critic, it’s just great to mingle with the filmmakers and listen to them talk about their films. As an autograph collector, it’s fun to have them sometimes sign a DVD.

At the San Diego Film Festival (in full swing if you’re in the area), I was talking to the parents of a young producer who won an award. I can’t…

There’s a movie coming out in a few weeks called About Time. Domhnall Gleeson (Harry Potter) finds out when he turns 21, that he can travel in time. He uses this power to get Rachel McAdams to be his girlfriend (hey…it beats trying to find Hitler and assassinate him).

I’m not allowed to write my review about it until its release date, but I wanted…

People always say the news just shows blood and guts. The old phrase goes, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

Well, I was watching Fox 5 San Diego last night and saw the most adorable girl. She was 5-year-old Alanah Poullard. She was visiting the White House last week with her father, a wounded serviceman. There were other veteran families there as well.

White…

As a movie critic in San Diego, I often post my reviews on my Facebook page. When I did that for the documentary Salinger, I included this: If anybody has a 1^st edition of Catcher in the Rye, can I have it? 

One of my friends did some research on the internet, and found this one for sale. I thought I’d share with…

I saw the Ron Howard movie Rush, which deals with a racing rivalry in 1976. Good movie (review in a few days), but there’s an autograph scene I thought I’d mention. Obviously, there were lots of autographing scenes in the movie, as these were the two best drivers during that time. One was interesting, though. A driver is asked for his autograph. He signs. The fan then…

We all have that autograph we didn’t get and we still think about it. Well, I think it’s safe to say that the one missing signature this guy didn’t have cost him more money than all of our moments combined. You see, he owned a Van Gogh painting, but it wasn’t signed. That meant the Van Gogh museum turned it down. A two year investigation just concluded, and the verdict – it’s…

As a fan of comedians and a collector of autographs, one of the most thrilling sets of autographs I got to complete was with the comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall. And as anybody knows that has tried to complete sets – it’s always a bit more fun when it doesn’t all come at once.

Sure, we’d love to have the entire 1969 Mets team sign a baseball at one sitting.…

I was sad to hear about author Elmore Leonard passing away Tuesday. He was 87 and hadn’t been in the best health, but you hate when you’re a fan of somebody and you realize you’ll never get new material from them.

His gritty crime novels become fun movies – Get Shorty and Out of Sight. His short story 3:10 to Yuma was a movie in the late ‘50s, and a…

As a kid that grew up playing sports, my favorite autographs to get were the athletes. Yet it was always so hard. After Padres games we’d wait by the tunnels, and you’d be lucky if one or two came over. I remember when Steve Garvey left the Dodgers and came over, he was a good signer. He was also doing appearances at sports stores often, and always very nice.

I remember a neighbor got a ticket stub signed by future Hall of Famers Ozzie Smith and Dave Winfield. I ended up trading him a…

Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel makes the news a lot. Sometimes it’s for football related things, like wining the Heisman Trophy in 2012. Other times, it’s for fights in bars or his dad saying in an interview that his son has a “gambling problem.”

The recent story I heard today was rather interesting. He is…