Tony Stewart won't face charges in fatal wreck

More facts than I actually needed, but OK. lol

We actually do a NASCAR report on the sports show I engineer every week. Shows you how much attention I pay to that. About as much as I do to the football report.

Fortunately, the NHL season is right around the corner. :-)

Cheers. - Frank

Well, that's even funnier although I do appreciate the kind words. There was a brief period in my life where I actually wrote for some of my income. I covered east coast AMA road racing for the now defunct Motor Cycle Weekly. I covered hockey for what was at the time Philly's coolest underground weekly, 'The Drummer.' Also did some freelancing for the Evening Bulletin covering motocross events. I wonder if there is any direct correlation between my contribution to their pages and the fact that they are now out of business. I'm hoping it's more that I've just been a live for quite a while. lol

Being the proud recipient of a GED which I acquired while in the Army, I have always questioned how I ever wound up doing that type of work for any length of time. I had an editor at the Drummer, who always got me to do stories that I had no interest in doing by telling me I was his 'best' writer. One day I asked him why he thought I was his best writer. He said it was because when he read my pieces he felt as if he was sitting on a bar stool next to me and was just listening to me talk. He said that they just can't teach that in journalism school. lol

When I first arrived in NYC to pursue my acting career I did what everyone does and signed up for acting classes with a well respected but long retired thespian. I informed her that I had never had a professional acting class before and that I was extremely grateful that she had accepted me based upon my theatrical resume and that I was very excited.

My very first class, I got up, did my 3 minute monologue and sat down, terrified that I was going to get reamed. There was a moment of silence and then the instructor said to me, "Mr. Falcone, I am going to have to ask you to leave this class." Not a peep from the other students. I think they were afraid to even breathe.

"Oh, my," I thought to myself. "Even worse than I imagined."

I slowly gathered my belongings, feeling as if I had been rabbit punched. I could sense the blood draining from my face. "I'm very sorry," I meekly replied, as I headed toward the exit, feeling quite mortified.

Just as I approached the doorway she said, "Stop! Now turn around and look at me." Even though my first instinct was to just walk out the door, I did as I was instructed. "Aren't you going to ask me why I'm not allowing you to continue taking my class?" I said something along the lines of, paraphrasing of course, "Uh, I obviously suck at this and am completely devoid of any talent, whatsoever?"

"Not at all," she said. "I'm not allowing you to take this class because what you demonstrated in that three minute reading was something that you could never learn in this class. There is nothing that I can teach you that you don't already possess. I would advise you to never take an acting class, anywhere, from anyone, lest you taint the talent you were born with. Now - get out there and become a working actor."

Wow, right? I took her advice, never took an acting class and went on to have quite a nice career doing national TV commercials and small character parts on most of the soap operas shooting in those days. I had a blast, though I was despised, professionally by all of my friends that preceded me to Manhattan and still hadn't landed anything while I would have 2 or 3 commercials running at the same time and a mailbox stuffed with residual checks. I loved it.

I would have stayed in that business but could not come to terms with the fact that my career would always be determined by the whims of a director or casting director at any given audition. I'm much more suited to creating my own destiny. So I milked it for all I could, took my money and moved to the Poconos where I purchased a hotel/bar/restaurant and started the next chapter of my life.

While I like to say I have few regrets in life, when I'm brutally honest with myself I must admit that if there is one thing I should have stuck with in my life, it was acting. I never actually acted. It was more like letting different aspects of my personality come to the forefront based on the role at hand.

I rarely suffer pangs of sadness, either - but when I watch the Tony Awards each year, I realize that I made one huge turn in my life that I never should have made. I coulda been a 'star.' lol Of course, I would have died of a cocaine overdose during that run, but hey, if it was good enough for John Belushi, it would have been good enough for me.

In my next life, I intend to do get it right. :-)

Cheers. - Frank