Memoirs of a Failure is like no other Hollywood memoir. It is the autobiography of a Hollywood agent and former casting director, Tom Jennings, whose personal demons provide a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of hubris and how to stay out of them. After the University of Illinois, Jennings moved to LA and two years later became a top casting director, first at Universal and then at Warner Brothers. Always fast out of the gate. He was then talked into starting a talent agency with Walter Beakel, which they parlayed into some early success and became one of the top boutique agencies in Hollywood with a partner in London. At its peak, Beakel and Jennings represented stars on The Dukes of Hazard, Charlie's Angels, Happy Days and many more series; writers such as Irving Stone and Taylor Caldwell, musicians Burl Ives and Gene Simmons, DJ Rick Dees, athletes Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith, and comedians Foster Brooks, Henny Youngman, and Buddy Hacket, as well as future super star Julian Fellowes. Uber agent status was next. A bright star appeared on the horizon. Or was that a nuclear explosion? Explosion it was. Alcohol fueled business deals unraveled at an alarming rate. The Hobbit, Bat Man, The Blues Brothers, Red Star Over China, Norton and Ali, King Tut, Blitz, Dracula and several others fell through the cracks and became missed opportunities later championed by others. The movers and shakers of the time would have made them happen; Beakel and Jennings had them first, but were too busy figuring things out over cocktails at The Rangoon Racket Club, or The Polo Lounge. Worst of all was the chronic illness of his youngest son, Hugo, who developed epilepsy, which changed his life completely, as well as his Dad's. In 1969 Jennings was on the fast track. In 1993 he was by himself living in his brother's fourteen foot duck hunting trailer. What went wrong? This book answers that question.
Somewhere In the Middle of God, I Got Lost, is a book of short stories about the meaning of life. The stories are the question marks of living as experienced in love, hate, joy and sadness, life and death. All the anecdotes are based on experiences and observations by the author over a 40 year career as a clergyperson. Each story (vignette), tells a story about life from a different perspective. Some of the stories are personal, and revealing about the author. Other tales are funny and light hearted. Many of the stories deal with the mystery of pain and death. The narratives some times reveal no meaning only the whisper of possibility. The author gratefully acknowledges his wife and editor, Delia Grace Jennings and the cover designer, Jeffrey Scott Bardzell, Son Found.
Private Detective Stories features Robert Leslie Bellem's Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective. In this issue are three of his stories: Murder by Proxy; Drunk, Disorderly, and Dead; and Syndicate Snatch. We round out this issue with Vance Miller's "The Clue of the Hunted Vampire", Tom Jennings' "Jewels of Murder", Ellery Watson Calder's "Wire Trap", L. S. Worth's "Marijuana Vice Trap", Alvin Yudkoff's "Trail of Corpses", Ray Cummings' "Fate Plays Postman", Robert A. Garron's "A Straw for the Thirsty", and a 2-page Betty Blake comic.
Advertising Creative, Fifth Edition continues to weave discussions about digital messaging through every chapter. Yet, the underlying theme is still about one thing that never changes—the need for fresh concepts and big ideas in pursuit of the One Thing. This edition introduces a new co-author, Marcel Jennings, who brings a fresh perspective from his background as a copywriter and creative director, as well as teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University. As always, the authors draw upon their experiences as working advertising professionals and teachers to get right to the point, stressing key principles and practical information that students and working professionals can use to communicate more effectively to build memorable brands. They also address some of the key issues impacting our industry today, such as gender equality, diversity in the workplace, and business ethics.
Presents biographies of 13 Americans and discusses "ideas," such as freedom, cooperation, education, and division of labor, upon which America was founded.
We human beings are a complex bunch. We often get only glimpses of heaven before smashing back into the muddle of our mixed emotions. And yet we find, again and again, that the things we seek comfort in disappoint. How can we escape from this trap into the freedom Jesus wants for us? Tom Shaw's sermons on the second half of Mark's gospel draw readers in to a closer look at the way Jesus led his followers through the battle for body and soul. In this down to earth exploration of human nature and our longing for a deeper walk with God, Tom invites us to really understand the circumstances, motivations and behaviour of the disciples and all who came into contact with Jesus in these biblical accounts. Why did Peter make that strange statement after he'd been with Jesus on the mountain top and seen the transfiguration with his own eyes? What was really going on in the Pharisees' hearts when they set their traps for the Son of God? What did Jesus think was so special about Mary pouring oil over his feet? And what is Jesus saying through all these stories to you, today? In The Comfort Delusion, Liz Jennings has moulded Tom's talks into themed studies, suitable for personal reading or group study. At the end of each section, there are opportunities to journal and think things through more deeply, either privately or as part of a small group discussion. With inspiring challenges to encourage your spiritual growth and further reading to explore, The Comfort Delusion shines a light on Jesus' character of challenge, loving care and overwhelming grace.
Jack Pascoe ended a well-earned holiday prematurely to pay an unscheduled visit to his laboratory. There he discovered that two of his partners, Sally and Liam Jennings, had taken advantage of his absence to steal the lynchpin of his cloning system, just when he'd been finally ready to share it with the world. In the days that followed, Jack would be assailed on all sides, as so-called friends and lovers joined forces with a disgruntled police officer and a shadowy character known only as The Dutchman, all determined to destroy him. Treachery, as Jack was about to discover, is a slippery slope. Until he found someone he could trust, something to stop an inevitable slide into the abyss, it seemed he would lose not only his laboratory and his freedom, but maybe his life too.
What do the New Testament writers actually teach about (1) the poor, (2) women, and (3) sexual minorities? Why do traditional commentaries and introductions so often ignore or treat superficially such burning questions churches grapple with today? Must we seek out specialized monographs to get adequate information and satisfactory answers in each area? At last, in a single volume Tom Hanks brings together the fruit of decades of study, examining each New Testament book in each of these three crucial areas, which often overlap in human experience (Latin American male liberation theologians often forget that the "option for the poor" may involve solidarity with a lesbian of color who wants to be ordained!). Building on his pioneering study on oppression and poverty in Biblical theology (Orbis 1984; Wipf 2000) and his Anchor Bible Dictionary article on "Poverty" in the New Testament (which the New York Times review commended for its balance), Hanks analyzes the teaching of each New Testament book regarding the main cause of poverty (oppression) and the variety of liberating Christian responses. Feminist and womanist studies are mined to highlight the presence/absence and role/leadership of women in each New Testament book. The remarkable absence of modern notions of "family" and "family values" in the New Testament books is emphasized, along with the prominence of sexual minorities as authors and subjects of the New Testament books. L. William Countryman comments regarding the poor, women and sexual minorities: "Tom Hanks has brought these issues to the exegesis of the New Testament in a sustained and orderly fashion. He demonstrates beyond question that most of the New Testament authors were not interested in maintaining the household structures of the ancient Mediterranean and that, indeed, most of the individuals presented in the New Testament documents would not have seemed to be models of 'family values' either in their time or today....The works of Hanks and [Theodore W.] Jennings, with their detailed and careful argumentation, show that excellent work is being done in this vein. However surprising their conclusions may be to casual readers (or offensive to readers protecting what they conceive as orthodoxy), they are, in fact, deeply grounded in attentive scholarly work" (Dirt, Greed & Sex, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007, p. 251-252).
A father (Tom) hears his son Richard say, “School is OK except I don’t like learning numbers or arithmetic.” After dinner, Tom sits with Richard and tells him a story of a kingdom long ago where the use of numbers is forbidden by King Kcaj and of the chaos that ensues because of it. As Tom’s story unfolds, he hopes to instill in Richard a sense of the importance of learning numbers, counting, and arithmetic along with other life lessons.
In his long journalistic experience as the senior European correspondent for CBS News, Tom Fenton has reported on everything from the fall of the Shah of Iran to the movements of al Qaeda throughout Europe -- a story he was tracking before 9/11. And in the three years since that fateful day, he has come to a sobering realization: Our once-noble news media -- and network TV news in particular -- have abdicated their responsibility to the American people, and endangered us in the process. As Fenton points out, much of the United States still depends on the networks for most of its information about the world. But after the fall of the Soviet Union, the networks gutted their news-gathering operations -- just as the old Cold War status quo was shattering -- leaving behind an unstable and violent new world order. Once a public service, the network news was commandeered by its corporate parents as a cash cow. In-depth reporting on critical issues was replaced with saturation coverage of sensationalistic crime stories and simpleminded "news you can use." Even as genocide spread through Africa -- and Islamic terror festered in the Middle East -- international reporting disappeared almost entirely from the airwaves. And Americans were left uninformed, unable to judge the accuracy of politically biased stories (on both sides of the spectrum), and utterly unprepared for the war on terror about to descend on their doorstep. In Bad News, Tom Fenton offers a fiery indictment of just how far "the news" has fallen. As a frequent voice in the wilderness himself -- who fought in vain to interest CBS in an Osama bin Laden interview in the 1990s -- Fenton reveals a news-gathering environment gutted by corporate bottom-lining bottom-feeders, staffed by dilatory producers and executives (who dismissed important stories as depressing or obscure), and dangerously dependent on images and information gathered by third-party sources. In hard-hitting interviews with Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Tom Brokaw, he exposes how even the anchors themselves believed they were outlandishly compensated -- while quality coverage was being slashed. And he charges that the news media must lose its entertainment-industry mindset and reestablish its role as a keeper of the public trust. "This is not just a book," writes Fenton. "This is the beginning of a campaign to galvanize America. We need more and better news. Our lives depend on it.
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