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March 22nd, 2007 10:00pm

I've put up a preliminary ICON 26 review page earlier than I usually do so maybe I can keep track of my thoughts and reactions of the convention closer to real time. You can check it out right here

Captain Phil's deep thoughts on ICON 26

I'm moving the Iraq Veterans Memorial video to the front page here so both the front page and the What's New page load a little faster.

Captain Phil Online Front Page

Don't forget the live ICON Mystery Guest special on Destinies, 11:30pm Friday Night. If you miss it...don't worry, it will be archived right here on the

Destinies Page

March 14th, 2007 4:50pm

More Comic Con Podcasting excitement they now have made the J.Michael Straczynski spotlight panel available as a podcast and downloadable here:


Click on my Archos to listen

This was a great panel, Joe was in a great mood and the crowd loved him. He brought some video production diaries of the new Babylon 5 The Lost Tales with him and afterwards he sat outside the room and signed autographs for any fan that wanted one. Terrific!



Again I can't believe what a great service the New York Comic Con is doing for us fans by making these fantastic panels available online. They're really turning me into a die hard NY Comic con fan and saving me a lot of trouble of editing my own inferior audio files I recorded during the show. I'm not going to upload any of my own audio for this show since these copies are so terrific.

March 12th, 2007 9:35pm

Some sad news today I read over on Mark Evaniers site:



the death of Comics writer Arnold Drake. I really didn't know too much about Drake except some of the books I read he wrote or created the character. I did get to see him several times in person, at the Big Apple Comic Con in New York and last month (right before he took ill) at the New York Comic Con. Mark Evanier has an excellent write up on Drake check it out here:


click the cover


Arnold Drake at the Big Apple Comic Con 2006

And some better news now. It looks like the kind folks at the New York Comic Con are putting up the audio from the panels at their recent convention and some video too! This is great because I love convention audio and having some clear clean copies of these panels is just wonderful. Here is a link to the Battlestar Galactica panel which was hosted by Kevin Smith!


(Please note....lots of profanity from Mr. Smith....who knew? So put on the headphones or plop the kids in front of the Atari 2600 while you listen)


Tricia Helfer and James Callis


Click on my Archos to listen

This is a terrific resource for the fan. One of my regrets at the NY Comic Con was most of the panels I was interested in were programmed against each other. Check out all the con Podcasts and video right here:



March 9th, 2007 9:45pm

I've fixed all those pesky files over on the

Destinies Page

with a better quality copy of the March 2nd show and new Classic Destinies episodes as well. If you haven't had a chance to listen this week tonights your night! Howard is kicking off several weeks of shows concentrating on



and highlights the various types of programing ICON offers. This is quite an interesting thing since traditionally most Science Fiction conventions do not have a radio station host promote and program specific shows to educate, entertain and ultimately entice the public to attend a convention. I mean, of course today in 2007 a convention like the New York Comic Con has it's own podcast on it's own website to promote itself but Howard is broadcasting on the air to local people on Long Island the wonders and joys of this convention. He's been doing it for years, he probably started these types of shows while some of the people currently running ICON were still in diapers.

Howard also trys his best to really give you a sense of the entire convention by playing selections from the ICON Cabaret, interviews with the guests, a special guest preview show which occasionally has the convention committee members (The ConCom) show up to promote the show. Afterwards he even has a group of Sci Fi nerds (I'm speaking mainly of myself here) come on to give the "post convention wrap-up" and discuss what went right at ICON and what went wrong. If you catch that show you'll wish you had attended ICON if you didn't and you'll plan to attend the next year. After all that, over the course of the year on Destinies Howard will interview local and not so local authors who attended ICON giving them a chance to promote their work and keep that ICON feeling going.

Why does he do it? It's pretty simple really. He's doing it for the same reason I put up this website. He loves Science Fiction and being part of Science Fiction. He's found his own unique niche in Science Fiction and ICON is pretty lucky to have him devote four weeks of shows to the convention. So if you attend ICON this year please remember the convention doesn't really start on March 23rd at 6pm. It really starts on March 9th at 11:30pm on 90.1 WUSB Stony Brook. And it continues for the rest of the year.

Thanks Howard!

Okay, how about a little politics. I want you to do me a favor and go and sign this petition. Just do it, okay? This guy has me thinking about changing the bumper stickers on the Philmoble and the cool thing about that is it's not to late to consider this elder statesman.





March 5th, 2007 9:22pm

Here's something I didn't know about and that I should try to pick up at my next Science Fiction convention. Kim Stanley Robinson has published a new trilogy called "Science in the Capital" which is made of these books: Forty Signs of Rain (2004), Fifty Degrees Below (2005) and Sixty Days and Counting (February 27, 2007). I didn't know about this new trilogy but this article in Salon caught my eye, especially the title:

The anti-Crichton

You may have to watch an ad to access Salon content but it's usually no big deal. A little more digging and I found this way cool Kim Stanley Robinson podcast on the Bantam Dell publishing website here:

Episode 6: Sixty Days and Counting

Check it out!

March 4th, 2007 4:42pm

Iraq Veterans Memorial

March 3rd, 2007 11:55pm

Hey! I wanted to sit down and watched all my TIVO'd episodes of Heroes tonight but instead I sat here and made some minor stupid adjustments in Captain Phil Online. Let me know if any hotlinks go dead. I'm trying to have these "what's new" postings on some sort of blog page but getting that set up is a little hairy for me. I'm real slow to learn new stuff and the whole "blogging thing" is kinda passing me by because I'm using notepad instead of some web tool applet to cast my nonsense into the ether. Well at least I got the google blog page to load this What's New page, I just wonder if anyone sees it but me.

Here's something annoying, I totally crashed on Friday night and fell asleep during the Destinies broadcast. I had set Real Player to WUSB 90.1 Stony Brook before I parked my posterior in the recliner but of course the connection timed out. So I had recorded 90 minutes of nothing.

Today I pulled the audio off the WUSB website which actually doesn't sound that bad. WUSB did cut off the beginning theme music and I know Howard will eventually make a CD-R of the show for me so a proper copy is archived here.

The show was really quite nice as Chris' DeFlip side is about tonights (soon to be last nights) Lunar Eclipse. We had a nice time seeing the eclipse on our way out of BJ's Wholesale after a big shopping trip. We caught the end of the event as the shadow of the Earth slowly moved past the moon to return it's light to us. Pretty cool to look at that with my wife and kids. That was doubly cool after listening to what Chris had to say about the whole thing making the entire day even more profound. Nice job Chris and good luck to you! You can listen to the whole show which includes clips from last years ICON science fiction convention cabaret right here:

Destinies Page

Besides fiddling with some of the links in the Captain Phil Online engine room I've also changed the picture on the front page of this website right here

Captain Phil Online Front Page

Lastly, look for some updates coming in the Classic Adventures page and hopefully that terrific Comic Con content from last week.

March 1st, 2007 10:10pm

Well it's been a tough week recovering from the wonderful New York Comic Con and dealing with Monday morning snow among other things. So I am very late and beg your forgiveness in uploading the special

John K Muir Classic Destinies show

here on a Thursday night, almost 7 days since Howard announced it would be going up. But since it's one of those Destinies shows I think are important I'll be leaving it online probably from now on. Eventually I'll have a page for these "Essential Destinies" shows, either shows I think are essential or relate to my great nerdy love:



I'm organizing my New York Comic Con audio and picture files but I can put up this little fun audio highlight of the proceedings for your listening enjoyment while you wait for the rest of the thrilling Captain Phil coverage of the 2007 New York Comic Con (Which was way more fun than I thought it would be....even though I got a traffic ticket!)






February 22nd, 2007 9:10pm

Well I've been slowly getting my head together for the New York Comic Con tomorrow. It's one of those "mega" events that I think I have to be cautious in going to, not expecting to get every signature I go to get and not expecting to get into every panel I really want to see. The main problem is most of the talent that I'm interested in seeing is the very high end talent that brings in the crowds. Stephan King, Stephan Colbert, George Perez, The Cheerleader from Heroes, J. Michael Straczynski. So that's a tough list. I'd rather see a really small guest list but this is supposed to be the East Coast version of the San Diego Comic Con and that place is a medium sized fannish city every year. At any rate I'm going to drive in tomorrow to check it out and then go full blast on Saturday and Sunday.

I've been using a new (to me) google tool called Blog Search



mostly to read bloggy reviews of Boskone 44, the convention I attended in Boston last week and no I still haven't uploaded my photos or written a proper con review either. So far no one has written about the con-chairs yelling at the people in the gripe session which is what I was mostly looking for. But using it intermittently over this winter vacation I've been finding all sorts of goodies including a blog that linked to the history of Miracle Man over at Wizard.


Click the cover for the article

Other than that my big triumph of this vacation is replacing a rusty baseboard heater cover with a new/soon to be rusty baseboard heater cover. I only cut myself once which is why I'm typing with my middle finger instead of the usual. Don't take it personally.



February 21st, 2007 1:02am

A couple of things have been fixed up on the

Destinies Page

which includes the February 9th show which I had a poor copy of. This week the upload is late because I was away in Boston for
Boskone the Science Fiction convention organized by NESFA. We had a great time, David Gerrold was the GOH and I got a chance to speak with George RR Martin and Melinda Snodgrass for a bit. Very enjoyable, I hadn't seen Melinda in a few years and she's as wonderful as I remembered. Hopefully at some point I'll have some pictures and audio uploaded for you to enjoy. I hate to promise a date for that because I get so backlogged and I know there are conventions from 2006 I still haven't uploaded yet!

Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes. I also had a wonderful time speaking to Maryann Johanson, the Flick Filosopher and Geek Goddess. Howard wasn't able to get his scheduled guest on the air on Friday night so he put together a great show very quickly and used audio from the 2005 Space 1999 convention in Tampa. It was wonderful to have Barry Morse and Zienia Merton's voice broadcast over the air on Long Island this weekend even though I wasn't there to enjoy it live. I just wish during the recording I hadn't said YEAH so loudly, it still makes me wince to hear myself do that.

I'll be trying to attend the NYC Comic Con this coming weekend but I'm very nervous about that. Last year they held it and so many people showed up no one could get in. I'm not hoping for too much but it would be great, no spectacular to see some of the guests they are promising like Stephan King and J Michael Straczynski.

Not to mention Stan Lee and the Cheerleader from Heroes!



Here's to hoping.

January 29th, 2007 5:22pm

Busy busy times here at the Captain Phil underground headquarters. I do have time to give you this little newsflash unless you've already heard. On January 31st the entire world will be celebrating the life and art of Don Martin, Mad's Maddest Artist! Check it out here:



I see there's a celebration planned on Moonbase Alpha as well!




On Moonbase Alpha make sure your Gorilla suit is complete, not like David Prowse here who is wearing a half lizard head and half Gorllia suit model. To punish him Tony Anholt hits him with fire extinguisher in the crotch.



Maya's almost got it right but it's Gorilla Suit day Maya, not Chimp suit day!


The "eye" of the Gorilla suit hurricane is the excellent weblog of author Mark Evanier better known as



I read his weblog everyday (I don't watch every you tube he posts though!) and really enjoy it. Mark writes a lot about a lot of things. I'm sure there's something he's written on that site that will cause you to smile. My favorites include the Barry Manilow story and the Vegas stories and the Jack Kirby and ....oh just go and read it!

January 22th, 2007 12:55am

Barbara Kelly the voice of the Computer in Space 1999 died in London on January 15th 2007. Also known for her roles in the 1950's TV show What's My Line and the films Castle in the Air (1952), Jet Storm" (1959), and "The Flying Fontaines" (1959)

    

The Computer Voice in Space: 1999 was always a fan favorite based on the HAL 9000 voice in 2001 A Space Odyssey. I'm sure Computer from Space 1999 and HAL would have gotten along great together.

    

Speaking of HAL over on the

Destinies Page

under Classic Destinies is a classic interview with author Hal Clement from 1985. Hal Clement was in my circuit of Science Fiction conventions and I always saw him at pretty much every Sci Fi Convention I went to from 1985 onwards. Hal was always pleasant, interesting to talk to and a scholar of Science Fiction. My favorite Hal story is the convention (Probably a Readercon....I think Michael Bishop was the Guest of Honor) where I bought a Hal Clement book from a book dealer and Hal was walking by the dealer at the same time. I spun around and had him sign it for me. It went down as the shortest time between book purchase and autograph!

Check out the interview and of course the current Destinies show with the latest DeFlip Side segment on the best books Chris read in 2006. He has an eclectic mix with top honors going to Charles Stross and Stephen King's Misery. Since Chris is backlogged on his King reading I think he ought to try out The Green Mile and my latest King favorite Hearts in Atlantis next to get them on the best of 2007!

January 14th, 2007 12:55am

Check this out....I am Spiderman!

Your results:
Spider-Man
Spider-Man
80%
Superman
75%
Green Lantern
65%
Robin
55%
The Flash
50%
Iron Man
50%
Batman
45%
Supergirl
45%
Wonder Woman
35%
Hulk
25%
Catwoman
5%
You are intelligent, witty,
a bit geeky and have great
power and responsibility.
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

I found that over on Chris's DeFlip Side my space page which you can visit by clicking on the Green Lantern Ring below



Chris will be doing a Destinies show next week on the books he read in 2006. I really like the idea of him not doing a show on the books of 2006, instead the books he read in 2006 because for the last 40 years or so (Probably longer) Science Fiction fans have been unable to read and review every single SF book that is published in a given year. There are so many that it's become impossible to do. This is probably a good thing since the last time a fan was able to read all the Science Fiction published in a given year it was called Scientifiction! Not a lot of people reading Scientifiction today but on Chris's site he lists a couple of Edgar Rice Burroughs which is pre-Scientifiction I think!

I've done some cleaning up of the

Destinies Page

with all the current shows posted and I've moved some of the older shows into the

Destinies Offline Page

Aside from that I haven't had too much time to post here since our wonderful vacation over Christmas. We had an amazing time and my children are now officially spoiled rotten. I am too. My wife is still blameless and pure.

On January 5th I had a blast doing the best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror films of 2006 on Destinies with Howard, Chris and Jim on the Destinies show. We all pretty much agreed V for Vendetta was the best of the year. I also tried to make use of a list Howard puts together listing all the films of the year by watching some of the more eclectic and independant films. The list is under the film reel here:



and the ones I saw were:

Tristan & Isolde
Nanny McPhee
Roving Mars
CSA: The Confederate States of America
The Hills Have Eyes
V For Vendetta
Ice Age: The Meltdown
Slither
Art School Confidential
X-Men: The Last Stand
Superman Returns
A Scanner Darkly
Monster House
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
The Ant Bully
The Descent
Feast
Flushed Away
The Mirror Mask (05)


And the ones I'm sorry I missed before the review show were:

What the Bleep!? - Down the Rabbit Hole
Cars
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Renaissance
Stranger Than Fiction
The Fountain
Pan's Labyrinth
The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam
Illusion
The Illusionist
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes


Some of these I'll probably see on Pay Per View or Blockbuster before too long but I'll save my reviewing for the times I'm on the radio with Howard. The internet really doesn't need me to post my film reviews online, there are so many sites that do that so much better than me.

Speaking of a great site my friend John Muir has a terrific blog where he does a lot of reviews and musings about film and classic television, click the Mattel Eagle fly to his site:



John's also got an Internet TV series in the works and the trailer is up on YouTube. Give it a spin!



I've got to do some major updates on the Classic Adventures page and my Space 1999 pages haven't been updated in ages so I'll try to get to that sometime soon.
I'm also making plans to attend to New York Comic Con in February at the Jacon Javitts center. The guest list is amazing!



December 22nd, 2006 10:30pm

Just a last quick note here before our Christmas Holiday begins. I have to say my family and I have been incredably blessed this season and I hope I can live up to the kindness and generousity that has been given to me this year.

There won't be many updates during the next week but I'm sure everyone who usually stops by here will be too busy to notice. In case you are looking for something to do this week I have updated the

Destinies Page

with a cleaner copy of the December 15th show and thanks to Howard Margolin I also have tonights show available, probably a little bit before it actually airs. Have a safe holiday season everyone and Captain Phil will be back in 2007 to celebrate our one year anniversary!

December 16th, 2006 1:30am

Again another week has passed without too much news from me. In between my important work at Captain Phil Online I also had to play a couple of school winter concerts and sing-a-longs this week. I'd upload a song or two but the sound of my singing tends to make cats and dogs spontaneously combust.


And no one wants that.

I've uploaded one new and one classic Destinies show tonight over on the

Destinies Page

Even though everything here was working fine at one point I heard the broadcast go dead and then music start playing in the middle of tonights show. When I checked the file (I was busy watching a TIVO'd recording of the show HEROES....yes they saved the cheerleader....but will they save the world?) I realized that something happened but I'm not sure what. So I edited the file and took out that stuff. You'll notice that I posted the cover to DC Comics Shadow #1 under the Classic Destinies show. I did this not because Howard covered that on this Shadow double header, I put it up because I remember that cover so well when I bought that comic years ago off the rack at a 7-11 store (Or a Circle K) in Phoenix Arizona. It's a great cover and holds a lot of nostalgic value for me.

The holidays go into full swing tonight as Hanukkah starts so Happy Hanukkah to all my friends who celebrate the Festival of Lights. The Hebrew word Hanukkah means dedication which even though it commemorates the re-dedication of the Temple after its desecration makes me think of our dedication to our loved ones and how at this time of year is filled with peace, love and eventually at New Years our resolutions to do better in the coming year. With that thought I wish everyone a Happy Hanukkah.



December 9th, 2006 12:30am

Not a lot of time for a proper "What's New" since all of Captphil's relatives have made the trek from the forbidden galaxy to visit for the holidays. But I was able to upgrade several Destinies episodes tonight with better quality copies (Thanks Howard!) including the current episode which concludes the Sudden Death concert taped at I-CON 24!

Check it out inbetween Decking your Halls on the

Destinies Page


Happy Holidays!





December 2nd, 2006 12:30am

Wow! It's been a busy season so far and I didn't even have a chance to do a new "What's New" with Captain Phil for all the tens of readers out there! I had a terrific Thanksgiving in Massachusetts with my family and saw the film, "Flushed Away" which was a terrific film even though it was set in the world under the bowl. I got home in time to record Destinies November 24th episode but the WUSB high speed stream was down so I had to record that show on the low bandwidth stream. It doesn't sound that bad except when the interview cuts back to Howard, somehow his voice sounds off but the phone in guest, Brandon Sigrist sounds fine. We'll be replacing that file with a better quality one at some point.

Tonight on Long Island we're having a huge wind storm which caused the WUSB stream to go out (I assume) sporadically during tonights Destinies Sudden Death concert. I've cut the blank spots out of the MP3 file and eventually we'll have a better recording of that as well. Howard is an amazingly dedicated host as you'll hear from this show.

I've been tuning onto WUSB a little bit more this past week on my way to work. I needed a little break from all the political shows I listen to and I'm in between audio books right now as well. I've really enjoyed listening in the morning on the way in to work. I've heard a couple of surprises like my favorite band, ELO playing some versions of Telephone Line and Evil Woman that I hadn't heard before. Nice!



I'll be leaving last weeks Classic Destines show online for a little while longer since I didn't get to updating the "What's New" page here so please check out all four new Destinies shows from the last two weeks right here on the

Destinies Page

Other than that not too much else that's new except I've got to catch up on my TIVO'd episodes of Heroes, Lost and (Don't tell anyone)
Desperate Housewives!



Out of that three I'm really loving Heroes so far but I'm hoping I'm not getting the vibe of a comic book mini-series that starts strong and the slowly fades away as if the author only had the idea for a good beginning but no idea where the story is supposed to go.

Battlestar Galactica continues to impress me and I think I heard a little bit of inspiration in McCreary's score from Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata in some of the sequences during Baltar's torture/orgy scenes. I hope I'm not mixing up my Beethoven references here but I "think" that's what I heard.

November 16th, 2006 4:30pm

The Geek Goddess and Flick Filosopher Maryann Johanson has reviewed

.....wait for it....

Evil Dead: The Musical



Read her review right here at: Flick Filosopher.com

Mrs. Captain Phil has been talking about seeing more plays in NYC....Hmmmm maybe this is something we can do together?



Maybe not.

November 14th, 2006 11:15pm

The LA Times has an obituary for Jack Williamson that says pretty much everything I was trying to say in the last installment. So skip my November 13th, 2006 What's New and read this:

Jack Williamson, pioneering science fiction writer, dies at 98

"science is the door to the future and science fiction is the golden key,"

November 13th, 2006 12:15am

I just learned author Jack Williamson died on Friday November 10th. Jack came to a bunch of ICON conventions in Stony Brook, New York in the 1980's and 1990's. When I was just getting into Science Fiction and SF Fandom I really didn't have an idea who Jack was but I liked talking to him and listening to him speak. After I read his autobiography, Wonder's Child I learned what a fantastic opportunity it had been to see him at these conventions. Jack Williamson started writing Science Fiction when it was still called Scientifiction. He had been there at the beginning of modern Science Fiction and it was an incredible privilege to see him. I'll miss you Jack, you were one of the reasons I kept reading Science Fiction over the years and one of the reasons I got so interested in Science Fiction history.

     
Jack Williamson April 29, 1908 – November 10, 2006

Jack Williamson Bibliography

November 12th, 2006 12:01am

I was so busy doing cartwheels since last Tuesday that I haven't had time to write another "What's New" segment. I guess I don't have the stamina to be a political blogger.

Well I did make a bunch of changes here on captphilonline.com. First and most importantly now that the cartwheels are over please head over to the
Destinies Page to listen to this weeks show celebrating the new James Bond movie. While your there click on the link to donate a little spare change to help keep WUSB Stony Brook on the air. It's a great little station that now with internet streaming you can enjoy anywhere in the world. The staff and DJ's are very dedicated, putting in long hours and making some great shows. Please do what you can.

On the
Classic Adventures Page I've uploaded pictures and a review of the Chiller Theater convention from June 2006. I know your thinking this guy just went to the October Chiller convention but it took this long for me to get around to putting up the June material. The October stuff is coming along with my review but until then there is plenty to see on the June 2006 convention page. When you're there I know you'll enjoy checking out all the various actors and actresses plus our pal Zacherly!


Zacherly and Rosemarie

I've got the audio from that convention converted to MP3 as well, it just needs a quick edit so if the force is with me they'll be audio of the June Chiller available by Sunday night. But as always things move slowly on captphilonline so don't hold your breath!


copyright Universal Studios

Coming up is the review and pictures from the October Chiller Theater convention, the 2006 Albacon convention plus the Readercon convention review I never got around to writing up and uploading even though I was on vacation in July! I figured it would be easier to update the site in the winter when I'm not busy at all. What the heck was I thinking!



So enjoy what's uploaded so far and there's much more to come. Plus did I mention that there is a new Doctor Who fan in the
Captain Phil Secret Underground Headquarters? My 10 year old daughter is well on her way to becoming a Whovian thanks to the talents of Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant. Not to mention Billie Piper! We absolutely loved "The Girl in the Fireplace". Check it out if you have time on the Sci Fi channel.



November 7th, 2006 11:50am

Well today is election day in the US of A and I encourage anyone reading this today to go out and vote. Use your conscious and your morals, now more than ever I believe we all have a moral obligation to be involved. I've been doing some calling for MoveOn.org and it's been interesting. If you want to get involved with a little grass roots effort and try to make a difference in todays election click the button below.

Call For Change

The tools MoveOn provides are very easy to use and the fact that they are using people, not recordings or so called "Robocalls" makes it a very real and important thing to do. Don't you think we ought to use some of the freedoms we're fighting for? So make some calls, don't forget to vote and let's make a positive change one vote and call at a time!

November 4th, 2006 12:50am

Some new Destinies shows are uploaded over on the very cool Destinies Page This week another local Long Island author Michael J. Cavallaro speaks about writing his novel Cybernetica. I've gotten a bunch of emails about my friend Phil L and I appreciate all the kind words. Phil was a great guy and I think he'd get a kick out of all the people who are talking about him, on-line and even on the radio. Thanks for that.

Been very busy at work lately so I haven't had a chance to look at my Chiller Theater pictures, upload them or even write up a little convention report. I still haven't done that for the June 2006 show I attended either! And add to the to do list a revision of my convention schedule which has pretty much run out now that the October Chiller show is over. So I need to do some updates and revisions there. I tried to do all that tonight but I was just too tired with everything that went down this week. I will say I had a terrific Halloween, I was the DJ at my schools Halloween dance and our house was decked out in it's haunted attire for the 31st. The kids had a blast and this year (This was a first for me) parents were having me pose for pictures with their kids when I came out to hand out the candy. I have no idea why. Maybe you can tell me.



Already I'm looking forward to next year. Well, thanks for reading! Hopefully I'll get to a couple of more updates soon as we're just hanging out and doing laundry this weekend. Gotta get that green make-up out of my Big and Tall Lab Coat!

November 2nd, 2006 7:50pm

I'd like to be writing about Halloween here or what I did on Saturday at the Chiller Theater convention in New Jersey but instead I need to tell you about my good friend Phil L. Phil is a friend of mine back from the 1980's, he's opinionated, argumentative, pretty smart and tells great jokes. I was in a car once with Phil and some other guys (Everyone could have modeled for the Big & Tall brand of clothes store) and we stopped at 7-11 for something to drink. Being all Big & Tall we got the 44 oz super duper giant size Big Gulps.



I thought if we had a car accident we'd all drown in the car! Years ago I was involved non-profit group that did fund raising by holding costume dances. Being a Sci Fi geek the year I ran it I choose Fantasy and Science Fiction. My friend Phil L came as Lt. Uhura. And that was the Lt Uhura of the Classic Star Trek series with the red mini skirt! My friend Joan showed a picture of Big & Tall Phil L. to Nichelle Nichols at ICON in Stony Brook New York.
Nichelle almost gave up acting after that!



Phil L liked attending the Unitarian Church and at some Church mission years ago a speaker was talking about the malnutrition and poverty in his home country. Phil was sitting in the front row and at the end of the speech he raised his hand and asked, "Are you the man?" The speaker said, "What?" Phil said, "Are you the man my mother told me about?" Baffled the guest speaker repeated, "What?" So Phil said, "Are you the man my mother was talking about when she told to to finish my string beans because people were starving in other countries?"
Years ago Phil L gave a terrific speech at a convention I was attending, I wish I had recorded it because I remember all the spontaneous applause his comments generated. Phil L ended up being one of the ushers in my wedding party, he got me through the death of my parents, he gave me tons of terrific advice over the years and was never too busy or too tired to talk to me when I had a problem.

When Howard Margolin started having me on the Destinies radio show I got an email from Phil L the next day after one of the shows I did

Date: Sat, 07 May 2005 09:47:08 -0400
Subject: Mr. USB
All right Mr. Celebrity, so you were pretty good. Funny too!
Don't get a swelled head.
Hope all is all right -- maybe we can get together soon.
Love you, Classic Phil & Kathy L


He's referring to the station call letters in the subject line, WUSB Stony Brook. I never told him I would be on, he just sorta knew. Well on Saturday, October 28th my friend Phil died after battling pancreatitis for about 2 years. I wish I had spent some time with him when he was in rehab but it never happened. I feel bad about that. On Monday, October 30th I paid my respects to him at the funeral home and slowly I'm coming to accept a world without Phil L.
A world that's a little less Big & Tall now but sometimes Big & Tall has a little more meaning than what your eyes tell you. In Phil L's case the biggest and tallest thing about him was his love for his wife Kathy and their two children. Phil L always had some new musical or academic news about the kids that he was proud of. His patience and friendship for me when he would listen to my problems, call me on my own stupid crap and occasionally surprise me like the time he heard me on the radio. Everybody needs someone in their life like Phil L and if you do than you must realize how lucky you are.

Goodby Phil L, I'll miss you.
The Biggest and Tallest thing about you was your heart.

December 6th, 1950 - October 28th, 2006

October 21st, 2006 12:50am

Still stuck in the Campbells can of too much work to do but I did manage to upload two Destinies shows over on the

Destinies Page

This weeks episode has an interview with author Timothy Zahn who I remember seeing before he wrote the Star Wars book series at a small convention at Niagara Falls. Actually it was held in a hotel NEAR Niagara Falls way back in the 1980's. I had read a novelette called Cascade Point by Zahn which I really enjoyed but my friends were reading his other work and were disappointed that the latest Zahn book wasn't available at the convention. So we pack and go to the airport to fly home and the book is available at the Airport gift shop. My friends were upset that they wouldn't be able to get the book signed by Zahn now but it turned out he was taking the same plane as we were and signed it at the gate!

Also on this weeks Destinies DeFlip side looks at haunted Long Island.

October 18th, 2006 10:10pm

Busy, Busy, Busy! Well I was hoping to write a little bit about the third season of Battlestar Galactica, The new show Heros, a bunch of Destinies shows I've listened to in my car and some music Mateo grooves on but instead I find myself super busy with work and home. Some sites put up a picture of a can of Campbells Cream of Mushroom soup when they're busy. So I guess I can do the same, with a slight Captain Phil twist!



October 11th, 2006 7:35pm

I had a great time in Albany this past weekend, Peter David was a terrific speaker and I should have some pictures and audio files up from the convention soon. Albacon is a small convention and next year the group that runs it will be running the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, New York.

That's a prestigious opportunity for the group,



but too much work to run the World Fantasy Con and Albacon. Alas that means no Albacon next year over Columbus Day weekend and with the World Fantasy Con being held from November 1st - 4th it means I won't be able to attend without the luxury of a 3 day weekend.

I've made an adjustment on the What's New pages moving items that aren't really that new anymore to a new page called,

What's Not New Anymore


The goal here is to let the current What's New page load a little quicker since I threw a bunch of images and links to You Tube files and some audio stuff all over What's New. So moving those old dates to a different page will keep the current page coming up faster here. At the bottom of the current What's New will be a link to What Not New Anymore.

Take a look at the
Destinies Page to hear the latest show uploaded today (Delayed because of Albacon). It's a terrific interview with local author Marc Vun Kannon.

There are tons of Classic Destinies shows up right now so take advantage of that because I will be doing a slight reorganization of them soon.
The Space 1999 Destinies shows will head over to the
Space 1999 Pages
of Captain Phil Online and a new Destinies page will makes it's appearance in the next couple of weeks called Essential Destinies.

E.D. are shows I enjoyed listening to and ones I feel should be online and available all the time. If you have a suggestion for Essential Destinies let me know by sending me an email.

I've also got some cleaned up episodes of Destinies coming to the Classic Destinies section, namely the Colin Baker Interview and the Jon Pertwee Interview. So if you've downloaded those already you may want to upgrade your copies to these new ones that Howard has worked on recently. Those should be up and running sometime tonight, October 11th after 11pm or so.

That's all for now, thanks for reading What's New with Captain Phil, I appreciate the emails and the comments tremendously and I look forward to seeing you all on the internet!

October 6th, 2006 3:51pm

Big delay in What's New entries here, I realize the page is loading slow so I have to split it up into pieces now making me decide where to make the cut. But I can't do that today since we're all going to Albacon to enjoy some fannish Sci Fi fun and listen to Peter David talk about what it's like to be Peter David.

There are a bunch of new and new Classic Destinies shows uploaded on the ever lovin'

Destinies Page

When we get back I'll upload even more Destinies shows and maybe work on a new Destinies page idea I've had....Essential Destinies! All this and more coming up on What's New with Captain Phil!

September 24th, 2006 1:40am

I had a great time last week at the Big Apple Comic Con. Pictures, Con Report and more are over in the

Classic Adventures Pages

or go direct by clicking here:
Captphil's Big Apple Comic Con Pictures and Convention Review!
Who knew Howard Chaykin really digs Barbara Bain?!

New Destinies are uploaded over on the

Destinies Page

There was a little mess up either at my PC or at the station as Destinies aired late. While I was waiting for the show to begin I put in a CD in my drive which played in Real Player! That's the application I use to stream the signal from WUSB. So when I got the station back the show was already eight minutes in. I only had my glitch for about 2 minutes so I think the show was in progress when it went out on the air. The show was complete on the WUSB site so I recorded the segment I missed from there....at a lower quality bitrate, and then cut and pasted it into the part I already had from my recording here. It seems to work but Howard may want to replace it at a later date since they had to put in a station ID around midnight and the first part of the show sounds a little muddled.

I must say I enjoyed Christopher DeFilipis segment on the remastered Star Trek episode "Balance of Terror." (No, that episode isn't about my checkbook!). He had the same problem I did, WNBC aired the episode 45 minutes earlier than scheduled so my TIVO only got the last act. Chris' positive take on the situation made me reconsider the whole thing so I'm going to try to catch another episode this weekend and set the TIVO to start recording at 2am on Monday instead of trusting the weird scheduled time of 3:05am.

Or I could take my Windstar really fast around the sun and go back in time a week to catch the complete episode. But even with gas prices falling towards November 7th it still would be a lot of gas to get that old Ford going FTL! I better just wait for another re-run.

September 16th, 2006 12:50pm

Brand new Destinies are uploaded over on the

Destinies Page!

This week is Peter David Palooza with a new interview and a Classic interview from 2003. My Internet connection problems have evaporated as the modem transplant surgery I performed last week has had it's desired effect and terrible condition of Netus-Interruptus is now in remission.

Things have been super busy here at the
secret underground Captain Phil headquarters and I have a couple of emails to answer plus leftover content that I never got around to uploading over the summer. I'll try to get to everything but tomorrow I will be to attending the Big Apple Comic Con to see Ernie Colon discuss the The 9/11 Report: A Graphic adaptation
and some of the other guests and artists like:
Neil Adams, Lori Petty, Barbara Luna and Yvonne Craig.
And maybe Ron Palillo too!

September 13th, 2006 7:30pm

Well today is the 7th anniversary of the moon blasting out of Earth's orbit. If you're having trouble remembering the event that changed our planet forever, if you miss moonlit romantic walks which require moonlight to be romantic, if you miss having Barbara Bain or Martin Landau on our planet, here is a little video to remind you of the events of September 13th, 1999.



I've finally uploaded the missing Destinies show from last weeks internet problems last. Now there are three interviews with George Takei up on the

Destinies Page

for your listening enjoyment. Listen in as Howard follows up on one of the world's longest held grudges against the Marriott Marquis Times Square hotel.



Whenever George Takei sees this hotel he probably hears this music



September 10th, 2006 8:14pm

Happy Birthday Kurt!



And so the summer ends and we all return to work and school. I think we needed to go back, especially me on the day I ended up watching 10 episodes of DeGrassi The Next Generation (Or whatever it's called) back to back. That was the day I decided vacation had to be over!

You may be looking for the latest episode of Destinies-The Voice of Science Fiction over on the

Destinies Page

I'd love for you to find it there but my super fast, super expensive cable internet connection went down right near the end of Friday night's broadcast. This was the second week in a row this has happened and I'm getting a little ticked off. So on Saturday I called the tech support and we decided my modem was too old and needed to be replaced. Cablevision, the company that competes with no one out on Long Island, was kind enough to give me another modem so I had to drive out to the cablevision store. I took my son with me and we stood on line together standing in front of a sea of televisions!

It was like the scene in
Harlan Ellison's Jeffty Is Five when Jeffty sees the televisions for the first time. Unfortunately for me my son does not channel media from my childhood era of the 1970's or I'd be home watching the 4th season of Space: 1999, reading issue 76 of the Len Wein's and Berni Wrightson's Swamp Thing comic book and then we'd head off to watch Jack Kirby's Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth movie. So that didn't happen, I got the new modem and after I installed their annoying software which rearranged all my Desktop Icons everything seems to be working. I miss my old modem a little bit, it looked cool like it belonged on Rocky Jones Starship. It was this 3com model here:



Maybe I should send it over to Roger Corman's prop department. He could make 4 movies using that thing as the McGuffin.



If this lady was holding it could it be a double McGuffin? Or a Peach McGuffin?

Anyway, I could do this for hours so here is the new modem which, right now, when Destinies is NOT on the air is working pretty well.



You might want to check out the ABC mini-series "The Path to 9/11", which I hear is filled with some inaccuracies. If a major network is spinning the facts of a national tragedy they need to be called in it. Something to look into and find out who is right. I plan on watching it then comparing what I know with what's presented.

Speaking of national tragedies I read this article about New Orleans in The Nation magazine this morning check it out here:

New Orleans Forsaken

Well I hope to have that Destinies show up sometime this coming week. It has a great interview with George Takei. Speaking of great interviews I've been listening to a bunch of the Destinies shows the last two weeks in my car. I've got this MP3 player in my cell phone and it's great for short stuff like Howards show or podcasts. This week I listened intently to the two Bear McCreary interviews on the Destinies pages and then listened to the 2nd season Battlestar Galactica soundtrack. I'm really impressed with McCreary, I think he's doing some great work with this show and I hope to hear his work for many years to come. It's a new type of Science Fiction soundtrack, not the usual strong themed swashbuckling type that you heard with Star Wars or Superman. This music gets under your skin a little bit and while watching the show really helps enjoy the cues it really isn't a prerequisite to enjoy the music.

September 2nd, 2006 12:53am

Wow, summer is almost over and to celebrate it's been raining on and off for the last week of August here. I set up a few things at the various buildings where I work this week and I'm starting to get ready for some steady income! Today I inched one year closer to that fabled land of senior citizen. I wonder if the movies will be any good when I can use that discount?

The current episode of
Destinies-The Voice of Science Fiction
is uploaded with a great interview of Perseverance Records owner Robin Esterhammer. One big problem was my connection went down in the middle of the show so this is a cut file. I decided to go ahead and upload the show because it's good and interesting. I should have a corrected file uploaded by Monday.

It was neat to hear "Crocodile Margolin" read Kelly's letter on the air. I had a feeling he would and it was such a moment of fannish serendipty that all three of us can discuss that wonderful man, Julie Schwartz.

The Los Angeles Worldcon is over and here is a list of the Hugo Winners!

Hugo Winners

Best Novel: Robert Charles Wilson, SPIN
Best Novella: Connie Willis, "Inside Job"
Best Novelette: Peter S. Beagle, "Two Hearts"
Best Short Story: David D. Levine, "Tk'tk'tk"

Best Related Book: Kate Wilhelm,
STORYTELLER: WRITING LESSONS AND MORE FROM 27 YEARS OF THE CLARION WORKSHOP

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: SERENITY
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: DOCTOR WHO:
"The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances"

Best Professional Editor: David G. Hartwell
Best Professional Artist: Donato Giancola

Best Semi-Prozine: LOCUS
Best Fanzine: PLOKTA
Best Fan Artist: Frank Wu

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: John Scalzi

This was David G. Hartwell's 32nd nomination
(in various categories)--but his first win.


This is reprinted from the
MT Void Email Newsletter

If all goes well tomorrow I'm going to try to see the Mars Rover IMAX Movie and I should have something interesting to say about this coming Sunday. Thanks for reading!

August 29th, 2006 8:45pm

Got a terrific letter from a fan down under who's been listening to the Destinies shows in his car and looking over the site. Kelly posts some interesting information about Australian reprints of DC comics and a link. Read on!

Hi Phil and Howard,

Just a short note to let you know how much I've been enjoying your podcasts, con recordings and in particular the the weekly Destinies shows.

I tend to listen to Destinies on my way to work in the car and it's a great way for me to keep in touch with what's happening on the other side of the world.

Very appreciative of the inclusion of the Julius Schwartz interview, which proved to be most illuminating for me!

Before I began collecting Gerry Anderson memorabilia full-time in 1976, as a little kid, from about 1972 onwards I'd began collecting Australian reprints of DC comics for about 5 - 6 years before it became too expensive for me to continue, (with my Anderson collection taking most of my financial resources).

Here in Australia, DC comics were not readily available in their original US formats, being repackaged locally as black and white, low quality paper, digest-form reprints, under titles that were not reflective of the US originals, see

Australian DC Comics Reprint Gallery

I was truly amazed whilst listening to the Schwartz interview because not only did I learn that I must have started collecting Superman comics from the same story that Howard Margolin did, (which was printed down here in the 1972 Australian reprint of the comic in which Superman finds that kryptonite no longer affects him.... with that classic cover with Superman breaking free of the green chains; that was issue # 150 here),



but I also learned why there was such a shift in the stories and the basic look of the strips in general, (which the publisher of the comic down here used as a means to "celebrate" their own publishing milestone with that issue number).

I know that was an old interview, but my thanks for including it, as it truly was very enlightening and enjoyable for this old-phart fan. It brought back many great memories of my old collection

Anyway, that's all just for the moment. Just to let you guys know that you have a new regular listener downunder and I look forward to each new episode when they appear.

All the best!

Kelly (Adelaide, South Australia).


I've been reading Kelly's posts and emails about Space 1999 and other Gerry Anderson shows for years now and I'm thrilled to get this feedback from him. Thanks Kelly!


SUPERMAN is the property of DC COMICS

Click on the comic book to hear the Destinies Julie Schwartz tribute that has fans on both sides of the equator talking

August 26th, 2006 1:10am

I've uploaded the current episode of
Destinies-The Voice of Science Fiction pages
which features the story of Leiningen Vs The Ants by Carl Stephenson. I did a little digging and found out it was published in Esquire Magazine in December of 1938. What a time to be reading about the Amazon jungle. I imagine many readers in 1938 coming home from their Christmas shopping and sitting next to the fireplace and reading that classic! I saw the movie, The Naked Jungle years ago which freaked me out a little bit but reading about Leiningen I guess Heston was the perfect choice for that role! I'll have to give the movie a re-watch one of these days as I have the DVD now.

If you look closely you'll find the Podcast buttons on this site missing now. I removed them all the other day. The Podcasts I did do are still hanging around on the Classic Adventure pages.

Here is something amazing, a graphic novel version of the 9-11 report. It's up on the
Slate.com site
right here:
The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation

You can order it on Amazon starting on August 31st 2006



Illustrated by by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon. Read it on the Slate site first.
The 9/11 Report: A Graphic adaptation

Found out about this through Mark Evaniers web log which I read everyday. Check it out!
news from me

August 23rd, 2006 2:35pm

I've added a new page to my Classic Adventures section reviewing the Super Comic Fest that was held last weekend in New Jersey. I wrote up a little review and uploaded my pictures! Enjoy!

Captphil's Super Comic Fest Pictures and Convention Review!

Some of you may be devastated that I haven't recorded or uploaded another podcast since April. Some of you may be relieved. Probably most of you are relieved. The Podcast was something I had to try, thought I'd love doing and it turns out it's probably not my thing. I won't completely abandon homemade audio for this website, I'd like to do audio interviews down the road, I still have one with Peter Fernandez I never uploaded from last January so the door isn't totally closed on that. What I will do is incorporate that audio on my Classic Adventure Convention pages and remove the Podcast page. I'll get around to this in the next couple of days so if you want to bask in the glow of the Captain Phil Podcast page do so now. And don't worry, the podcasts I did do I will leave up so you can have something to scare the cats at night with.

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