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OUR AULD LANG SYNE
TO LIZ RIGNEY...
BY A. FRANK GRUNT
LIZ RIGNEY IS ALL “GROWED UP.”
AND HER DEPARTURE AS AN ON-AIR CTV
PERSONALITY MARKS THE END OF AN ERA.
Liz, 44ish, packed in her entertainment gig on
Robie Street, Friday, September 3 in the
dying minutes of Live at 5, pressed shoulderto-shoulder
between host Starr Dobson and
newly christened entertainment reporter Maria
Panopalis.
Complete with the on-air presentation of a
Best Wishes cake, it was a tearful but not an
undeserved send-off for Liz, who takes over
as the CTV Community Relations gal, replacing
longtime CR supremo Renee Fournier,
who bolted for the Halifax Discovery Centre.
Liz, a ’94 Kings School of Journalism grad,
chose not to take my phone call.
We were prattling on famously until I came to
the Frank Magazine part, at which point Liz’s
demeanour turned cold, her voice shrill.
“I don’t want to talk to you. I have another
call....”
Then nothing but dial tone.
Guess community relations only applies to a
certain community, of which I am obviously not
a member.
We used to talk one time, me and Liz.
She’d be her usually bubbly self and I would
be my usual boorish self trying to find out why
she no longer sported her wedding ring or her
engagement ring.
On other occasions it would be to enquire
about a new boyfriend or why a recent relationship
went south.
This went on for a few years until Liz finally
had enough of it.
Truth be told, diplomatic relations in recent
years haven’t been what they once were. Pity
that.
Maybe I would’ve done the same. Maybe I’d
react the same way if the stiletto was on the
other foot.
Then again, maybe somewhere down the line
I’d come to realize that Frank Magazine is
only interested in me because Frank Magazine
readers are interested in me.
Maybe, I’d wake up one morning to realize
that many CTV viewers also, by some bizarre
stroke of misfortune, are also Frank Magazine
subscribers. Heaven help us.
Maybe, I’d realize that, like it or not, the power
of the idiot-box has suddenly fashioned me a
local celebrity in a very small pool of idiot-box
celebrities and now I will chose to take the good
8 ATLANTIC CANADA FRANK SEPTEMBER 28, 2010
with the bad. Suck up the idiot-box celebrity
perks when they come along, and take my idiotbox
celebrity lumps on the head when they
come along. Simple man-up celebrity idiot-box
physics. Or, one might think.
Famous Wedding
Photographs
You know, folks, Frank Magazine, as far
as I know (and I’ve only been dragging my sorry
arse here for 20 years) has never claimed any
monopoly in the business of “good news.” Seriously.
We haven’t.
Still there are some television personalities
who, even after all these years, just don’t get it.
MEDIA
MADNESS
Liz with
Rita MacNeil.
Oh, sure, they’ll go as far as secretly emailing
to The Bunker their summer wedding photos,
the few wedding photographs which don’t
showcase that lazy left eye or that horrendous
speed bump on the bridge of the nose.
They’ll even send you pics of the newborn:
Yepper, the proverbial 27 eight-by-10 colour
glossy photographs with circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each attempting
to explain away why their baby’s head is as big
as Winston Churchill’s and contains a face
like Truman Capote’s.(Must be the bad lighting
is all I can figure!)
No matter.
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