Instead, we started with a panel for “PBS Newshour,” moved into a via-satellite appearance by Placido Domingo for his “Great Performances” special, and then slid into several panels in a row which, God bless them, simply weren’t as scintillating overall as one would’ve liked them to be. “Black in Latin America” did had Wyclef Jean on hand, which was kind of cool, and I’m very intrigued by the concept of “NOVA: Smartest Machine on Earth,” about a computer that’s going to compete on an episode of “Jeopardy,” but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that either kept me riveted from start to finish. Ironically, though, a panel I’d planned on skipping – “American Experience: Freedom Riders” – turned out to be so fascinating that I stayed ’til the bitter end, thrilling to every word. From there, we got a few sneak previews of future PBS projects, most notably Ken Burns’ look into Prohibition, and had a long-winded but still entertaining panel from highly underrated talk show host Tavis Smiley, but after that, the triple-threat of “Frontline: Are We Safer,” “Where Soldiers Come From,” and “StoryCorps” was more than sufficient to leave me wishing and hoping for the evening event to arrive sooner than later.

Finally, the event did arrive, and, boy, was it worth the wait. “Great Performances: Hitman Returns – David Foster & Friends” features the imminent songwriter performing his songs with vocal help from several other artists, and we’d been forewarned that at least one of them would be turning up and joining him onstage for his TCA performance, but believe me when I tell you this: it’s one thing to know that Donna Summer’s going to be in the house, but it’s quite another to actually have her belting out “Last Dance” only a few feet away from you. The woman turned the Langham’s Venetian Ballroom into a discotheque, and it was fucking spectacular.

Best moment of the tour…? Try one of the best moments of any TCA tour ever.

And, now, on to our quotes…

1. “The world of conventional television recording has pressed down the length of a report from three minutes to two and a half minutes, to two, to one and a half, to now one minute and 10 seconds, becoming more like a radio spot on a lot of the network news, there are actually stories that need telling that can’t be told in a minute and 10. Sorry. You just can’t. You could be a clever journalist. You could be a good writer. You just can’t do it.

The (PBS) Newshour is a great place to do that, but also, because of the new online opportunities, a place to bring the tremendous cargo that you come back from the rest of the world with in your reporter’s notebook, in your camera, and find another way to tell ancillary stories, to tell stories that didn’t make it into the main report, to start a dialogue with viewers, and really to do the other part of coverage that you can’t necessarily do on television. And also because a flight from Maputo, Mozambique, takes 31 hours, you’ve got a lot of time to work on your reporter’s notebook on the way back.” – Ray Suarez, PBS Newshour

2. “You live almost a life of tragedy constantly on the stage and you are rehearsing those big dramas, but, of course, you concentrate at the performance and even in the rehearsals, but doesn’t have to touch you. I know many people, many actresses, that were having problems after playing ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’ for instance. And I believe that, after all, you are acting. You cannot let yourself in the suffering. That’s the reason I am a happy person.

Of course you have your sad moments in life, like we all have, like tragedies, losing dear people, dear relatives, parents, friends. But you live optimistically a life, which I like to live. But as I say, I love to be happy, but I love to suffer on the stage. On the stage it’s wonderful, the suffering. I like also the comedy, but I am better at suffering.” – Placido Domingo, “Great Performances: Placido Domingo – My Favorite Roles”

3. “As Watson’s developed over the years, it’s had a lot of silly answers. There’s quite a variety of them. I guess one of my favorites is we asked it what do grasshoppers eat and the answer was ‘kosher.'” – David Ferucci, “NOVA: Smartest Machine on the Planet – Can A Computer Win on ‘Jeopardy’?”

4. “It was in Parchman that I had that decision that I asked to be arrested. That was when we arrived in Jackson, and we were getting off the bus. And I was up front, and I started to get off because I had to go to the bathroom. Because we had come all the way there with the bus going 60 and 70 and 75 miles an hour. And so I was waiting for that opportunity. But then, those who had gotten off the bus told me to be the rear guard because we needed to have someone of influence to make certain that everyone was off the bus and that no one was attacked from behind right without everybody else knowing.

I was in the restroom some time. By the time I came out, everybody had been arrested, Captain Ray had put everybody in the wagon, and so I tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around and he looked at me. And I said, ‘I’m with them.’ And Ray turned. He straightened he turned back around, but I could see the other side of his face. He was just straightening out because he was smiling. So then he got his face straight and he turned back around and he said, ‘Get in there.’” – Dr. C. T. Vivian, “American Experience: Freedom Riders”

5. “Harrison Ford hates being interviewed. He got sick years ago of all the Calista (Flockhart) questions because the stuff is so predictable. So Harrison Ford walks on — he didn’t even walk on the show. He just kind of shuffles onto the set. I can tell by his body language that he doesn’t want to be here, he hates doing this. He sits in the chair. He crosses his leg. I’m sitting over here. He leans away from me. So his body language is…I just met this guy for the first time, and I’m prepared to have a great conversation with him, but Harrison ain’t trying to talk to me because he hates doing this. And I just decided out the gate — once I said good evening to him, he gave me a barely audible ‘Nice to be here.’ And I said to him, ‘You don’t really mean that.’

“He leaned forward. I said, ‘You don’t really mean that it’s nice to be here, because I know, because I’ve been told by anybody and everybody who has interviewed you, that you hate to be interviewed. So I know you don’t really want to be here. So why don’t we just get that out of the way first. I mean, you’re such a huge star. You’re such a huge star, and people love you. They respect your work. You’re an icon in this town. Why do you hate being interviewed so much? I mean, you ought to revel in this. You ought to love the fact that people want to talk to you, they want to hear from you, they want to be a part of your world and have you share with them. Why do you hate this so much?’

“He says, ‘Let me tell you why I hate this.’ And he leans up, and before I know it, we’re into it. And that conversation took off because I followed him. I listened to his heart. I tried to get inside his head and where he wanted this conversation to go, which initially was that he didn’t even want to be there. And by the time we got through doing that conversation, that clip that you saw, at least his face, Harrison Ford — and I remember this only because it was so moving for me — at the end of the conversation, he said to me, ‘This is perhaps the best television conversation I have ever had. I appreciate your candor. I appreciate your authenticity. I appreciate your honesty. I look forward to coming back on your program.’” – Tavis Smiley, Tavis Smiley

Okay, there’s your top 5 quotes. Now for that great anecdote…

First, a bit of back story: in addition to my duties as an associate editor with Bullz-Eye.com, I’m also an occasional contributor to Popdose.com, and within the site’s stable of writers is a gentleman named Terje Fjelde. Terje, bless him, took a bullet for all of us that, while it arguably never really needed to be taken in the first place, resulted in a really great column with a premise as simple as it is horrifying: one man spending one year listening to nothing on his iPod but songs written and produced by David Foster.

Fast-forward to the TCA Press Tour, the second night of PBS’s evening events. David Foster is sitting onstage. It’s my turn to ask a question.

As he sips from his water, I speak into the microphone.

“David,” I begin, “a friend of mine wrote a column where he listened to nothing but David Foster songs and productions on his iPod for a year…”

At this, I watch David Foster perform an actual, honest-to-God spit take.

“I heard about that!” he shouts.

“And,” he adds, with a grin, “I understand he killed himself at the end, is that right? You know, I don’t take elevators, and the reason is I’m afraid I’m going to hear my own music in there.”

“Well, he made it from Celine Dion to Jaye P. Morgan,” I say. “But he wanted to know if there’s any obscurities that you think he should have checked out, or even some that you may have apologized for, maybe from the early years?”

“Well, like all of you who probably read some of your reviews from 20 years ago, some of them you look at and you go, ‘Holy shit, that could have been written yesterday, it’s so fantastic,’ and others you just wish they would just go away,” Foster says. “In particular, I produced Alice Cooper in 1979, and I had a great time producing him. It was a wonderful time. When I hear that album, I cringe, not because of him, but because the production is so dated-sounding. And, yet, in that same year, I produced and co wrote ‘After The Love Has Gone” for Earth, Wind & Fire, and I hear that record, and it sounds like it could have been done yesterday. That was me in the same year doing two different projects. One I couldn’t stomach to listen to, and the other, you know, I like a lot.”

After the panel, I catch up with Foster as he’s literally running out the door, remind him who I am, and ask him to offer a quote about the column.

“I thought it was awesome,” he says, laughing. “How could not love that? It was me, me, me!”

That I could confirm for Terje that David Foster not only knows of his column but, indeed, thinks it’s awesome…? That may go down as my favorite accomplishment of the tour.

P.S. Sorry, dude, had to be done…

There was a time in this world when young people were frequently slightly ashamed of being bigger than average fans of horror, science fiction, fantasy, and especially comic books. I, personally, wasn’t embarrassed …and I paid a price. Those days may be over. In any case, the capacity crowd that showed up for Spike TV’s Scream awards, largely in costume and largely dramatically over- or under-dressed for a nighttime outdoor show after a very warm day, seemed more like club kids and less like the kind of uber geeks who become entertainment bloggers and film critics and stuff like that.

The Scream Awards are, in their fun/silly way, a big deal. Big enough to attract a good number of stars and even a few superstars like Tobey Maguire, Jessica Alba, Morgan Freeman, Harrison Ford, Johnny Depp and his living legend “Pirates of the Caribbean” muse, Rolling Stone Keith Richard.

I, however, am not such a big deal and was reminded of that fact when, prior to the show I found myself with the less fashionable members of the not-quite paparazzi on the “red carpet” (actually a checkered walkway) with my little digital camera and even smaller digital recorder device, wondering whether I’d really get a chance to ask a question of one of the super-famed folks, knowing that the only question I could think of at the time would be something in the nature of “What’s it like be the most notorious rock and roll star in the world, having your blood changed, and snorting your late father’s ashes?” That probably would have been inappropriate, especially if I asked it of Jessica Alba.

What actually seems to happen at events like this is that, if you’re a small-timer especially, most of the big stars either go through another entrance or walk right by you at warp speed. Meanwhile, folks who are a bit more anxious to meet the press find their way to you with the help of PR types. As an example, for about half a second, I was almost able to talk with actor Karl Urban, who did such a great job homaging DeForest Kelly while putting his own hilarious stamp on “Bones” McCoy in “Star Trek.” However, within a nanosecond he remembered he was in a big hurry and politely scurried off.

After a few odd reality show people I didn’t recognize, and the pretty young actress who assays the part of “Female Addict” in “Saw VI,” our first actual notable was statuesque model turned actress Tricia Helfer. Helfer is, make no mistake, a true superstar to TV sci-fi fans and is best known as Number Six, aka “the hot blonde cylon” on “Battlestar Galactica.” The actress appeared with her significant other, the owner of a British accent and a Giaus Baltar-style beard, but I’m sure that’s a total coincidence. I had a not terribly consequential discussion with her — lost because I apparently forgot to press the “on” button on my digital recorder. One would expect no less an effect from Number Six. UPDATE: Yeesh! As pointed out by my PH compatriot John Paulsen, the actress was actually Kate Vernon, who played the lady-MacBeth-like Ellen Tigh. It is true, all statueseque blonde women in shiny dresses look alike to me! My apologies to all concerned or unconcerned.

The lovely Ms. Helfer Vernon was followed by the somewhat less lovely David Paymer. A first-rate character actor who is also directing television these days, Paymer is still best known for his roles in “City Slickers” and his very justly Oscar nominated turn opposite Billy Crystal in “Mr. Saturday Night.” He responded to my brilliant question, about whether he’s gotten any negative feedback from bankers for his memorably oily portrayal in Sam Raimi’s “Drag Me to Hell,” with all the seriousness it deserved.

“No one’s complained but they should realize that if they evict poor people from their homes then they’re gonna get dragged to hell!” he said with a grin that would make Paymer a great old-school TV horror movie host, if they still had those.

Paymer was followed by another terrific supporting player from Raimi’s cult not-yet-hit, Dileep Rao. Rao was not only previously interviewed by PH Editor Will Harris, but when I mentioned it, he proudly described Harris as “a bud of mine — I knew him back in the day.” (Harris and Rao bonded primarily online as fans of the Trashcan Sinatras, a Scottish pop band.)

The sad truth was that, after sincerely complimenting him on his on-the-money turn in the film, I had nothing interesting to ask the actor. So, I resorted to the the eternal fall back: “What are you doing next?” His answer was a new production he’s very excited but was allowed to say absolutely nothing about. That led to a discussion of another little upcoming movie he will be in, James Cameron‘s much ballyhooed, yet also still mostly top-secret 3-D sfx/CGI extravaganza, “Avatar.” Naturally, there’s not much he can say about that.  “I think they do that so the story stays intact.” Hard to disagree, but a bit limiting.

Another reporter asked him if anything spooky happened on the set of “Drag Me,” and Rao gamely came up with an anecdote about an ill-tempered goat, which doesn’t quite add up to a supernatural occurrence, but that’s probably because supernatural occurrences are, you know, fictional. Anyhow, it was time for Mr. Rao to get going. Fortunately, the interview with Will has plenty of good stuff. If only I’d remembered he was a “Jeopardy” winner I could have at least asked him what question finally sent him off the show. Nice guy, though.

Soon, we watched Quentin Tarantino and Keith Richard stroll by us at warp speed and it was time to retire to my blogger’s station where I got to watch the show…on a big screen TV in a tent a few hundred feet away from the actual festivities. Oh, the glamorous life of the entertainment press.

****

Now, the consensus on the Scream awards is that it’s a loose, fun evening. And that’s largely true if you ignore some pretty strange or artistically indefensible award choices by the fans. (A terrific cover of Bob Dylan‘s masterpiece, “Desolation Row,” by My Chemical Romance from “Watchmen” defeated by some Linkin Park ditty from the second “Transformers” movie? Ouch. ) Another interesting quirk of the evening that was a small problem for me, but most fans will doubtless dig, is that Spike TV’s standards and practices folks seemingly have no issue at all with gore. It wasn’t only during the “Best Mutiliation” award that this gore-phobe had to turn away from the television set.

The first award of the night was typically offbeat in that it went to a movie that isn’t even finished yet. The “most anticipated fantasy film” award went to Tim Burton‘s upcoming version of “Alice in Wonderland.” That proved to be a pretty good excuse to make that film’s Mad Hatter, Johnny Depp, appear on stage for the first of two times that evening.

And that led to one of the better quips in the evening when the next presenter turned out to be comic actor Justin “I’m a Mac” Long, representing his straight-man gig in “Drag Me to Hell.” Long confessed his feelings of inadequacy in comparison to Depp. “I feel like Richard Greico,” he said, risking a “21 Jump Street” gag. Moving to the award for “Best Science Fiction Actress” Long admitted that his “first boner” could either be attributed to Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia or “the triple-boobed Martian in ‘Total Recall.'” The award itself seemed to have been based more on pulchritude than on acting skill as it went to…wait for it…Megan Fox for that notorious piece of Oscar-bait, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

The actress who, as described by yours truly, got into some hot water a while back for comparing thud-and-blunder specialist director Michael Bay to Hitler (Holy Godwin’s Law, Batman!) tried hard to sound a sincere note and she certainly gave her attempt a unique ring. I’ll resist my tendency to mock and simply present the moment as is.

An entertaining combination of unintentional and intentional amusement occurred a bit later when 6’4″ Alexander Skarsgard of “True Blood” accepted his “Best Villain” award at a mike that had apparently been set up for the much shorter Kate Bosworth. Gamely leaning down, Skarsgard said that he was proud to be named the “most evil man in Hollywood” and dedicated his award to his fifth grade wood shop teacher in Sweden. “He was a very evil man and he inspires me.”

Eventually, there was the first award that went to something I’d both seen and respected. “Watchmen” — a flawed but accomplished film — won for “Best Comic Book Movie.” (If Frank Miller’s soulless travesty of “The Spirit” which, unbelievably enough, was also nominated, had won I believe the very earth would have opened up and swallowed us whole.) Accepting the award was the film’s perfectly scary Rorschach, Jackie Earle Haley, who responded with appropriate enthusiasm. “This rocks out loud!” He then wondered what director Zack Snyder would say if here there: “This is awesome!” That actually does sound like Snyder.

Then, for me, a highlight — a new trailer for Martin Scorsese‘s upcoming version of Dennis Lehane’s “Shutter Island” with Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo. It looks like Paramount is going for the full horror treatment in marketing the film, with this trailer at least. It’ll be interesting to see just how scary, or not, the new film is. One thing I’d bet on, however, about the movie: If Marty wants us to be scared, we’ll be scared.

Then, Johnny Depp comes back and I start to get annoyed. Not by Depp, but by the youngish guy next to me whose tweeting obsessively while having an argument with either his girlfriend, sister, or coworker, I couldn’t quite tell. (Let’s hope she isn’t all three.) Was he even watching? And, two rows back I’m being treated to a live commentary one older guy’s inside-dope on what’s going on behind the scenes that makes absolutely no sense. Fortunately, for you, however, the Spike TV people did provide a short video clip of the evening’s most historic moment.

Nice to see Keith looking about as hale and healthy as you can expect the guy to be, and in fine verbal form as well. His quotable line for the evening referred to a 1989 lifetime achievement award. “I liked the ‘living legend,’ that was all right, but immortal is even better.”

The next presenter was Jennifer Carpenter who was announced as the winner for “Best Supporting Actress” for her work as the title’s character’s endearingly emotional, foul-mouthed younger sister and homicide detective coworker on “Dexter.” I’m a fan of the show and I was happy to see her get the award. Like the rest of the show’s supporting cast other than Julie Benz, she’s taken some hits for her acting, especially as compared to the virtuosic efforts of star and her now real-life husband, Michael C. Hall. Her work on the show has always been solid in my opinion and she’s made what could have been a grating character into a sympathetic and integral part of the show.

Delivering some rather dumb lines that had been written for her with aplomb, it fell to Carpenter to present the award for “Best Horror Movie” which turned out to be “Drag Me to Hell.” Apart from lead Alison Lohman, who was not there, the entire main cast appeared on stage alongside cowriter/director Sam Raimi. After Raimi thanked the cast and his wife, the actors had their turn. Lorna Raver, who really did deserve an award of some sort for her role as the exceedingly unpleasant Mrs. Ganush, was very much in the spirit of the evening, despite looking shockingly normal, returning her director’s compliments and proclaiming “Raimi rocks!”

Next, it was the cast of “The Big Bang Theory” presenting a special farewell award to the multiply awarded “Battlestar Galactica.” Writer/producer David Eick made a comment about how a few years ago, the mere mention of BSG would elicit laughs (for good reason, I’d add) and thanked the fans for transforming that perception. Actress Grace Park made a gag about members of the audience getting “Oprah” style gifts of memorabilia.

The show’s Admiral Adama, Edward James Olmos, was in his usual philosophical frame of mind and still enjoying his role as a leader of sorts while recalling a past example of first rate science fiction in which he appeared. “‘Blade Runner’ got accepted more on its 30th birthday than it did when it was born,” Olmos said. “Battlestar Galactica” will do the same. We love you fans more than you love it. So say we all! So say we all!” The crowd seemed to like that.

Steven Moyer of “True Blood,” accepting the “Best Horror Actor” award from Liv Tyler was more in vein of a stiff upper lip. He acknowledged his real-life British accent as part of a growing number of English actors playing Americans on U.S. television. “If you think this is some sort of vampiric affectation, I’m channeling Hugh Laurie.”

Then came the most important award of the evening for the cinephile and movie geek set. Quentin Tarantino, dressed like a character from the proposed “Kill Bill” sequel in a polka dotted suit suit with perhaps one button too many fashionably undone (have we learned no fashion lessons from the seventies?) came on like a horror evangelist, hurling praise at the recipient of the “Scream Mastermind Award,” the man who basically invented the flesh-eating zombie in the original 1968 “Night of the Living Dead, 1978’s “Dawn of the Dead” and so on, George A. Romero. Though I quite literally have to get myself drunk to see his best known movies, that’s at least partially testimony to the Pittsburgh-based film-maker’s absolute command of his craft, and it was easily the most deserved award of the evening. Romero was characteristically good-natured and relatively low key, recalling his first job on that early horror classic, “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” He also worked in a plug for the newly renamed next installment in his career-spanning zombie epic, “Survival of the Dead.”

After Anna Paquin accepted her “Best Horror Actress” award for “True Blood,” Harrison Ford presented the best director award to J.J. Abrams for “Star Trek,” who thanked Leonard Nimoy “for spreading the magic and Gene Roddenbery for doing all the hard work.” The audience was then told to “set your phasers on stud” for the appearance of Trek co-stars John Cho and Karl Urban, who presented a deleted scene from the film involving bad-guy Eric Bana and some violent action.

The next big award was for “Best TV Show” and, not surprising given the vampiric/romantic trend of the night, that award went to “True Blood.” Creator Alan Ball followed the trend of night by complimenting the audience for being “crazy!” and happily proclaimed Scream the “most fucked up award show I’ve ever been to in my life, and therefore the best.”

The pro-vampire-love-story trend also continued with Elijah Wood presenting the “Best Fantasy Film” award to, no surprise, “Twilight,” which won in a number of categories. Wolf-boy hunk Tyler Lautner accepted the award for the movie, quickly followed by the now justly derided clip from the upcoming sequel.

Actress Rhona Mitra then presented the “Break Out” film award to “Zombieland.” Accepting the award, a surprisingly wholesome looking Woody Harrelson appeared, looking like a balding version of Woody Boyd, the “Cheers” bartender. His speech, on the other hand, went in a more traditional Harrelson direction. “A little confession, I hate scary movies because they scare me, honestly. They the shit out of me. I couldn’t watch TV after ‘Poltergeist.’ I gave up surfing after ‘Jaws.’ I can’t go near a kitchen ever since ‘Julie and Julia.’ You know, nightmares.”

That was followed by the appearance of  real-life science fiction fan Morgan Freeman, along with some spiffy camera work, who presented the award for “the Ultimate Scream” to J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek.” In a fit of absolute brilliance by the Spike TV folks it was accepted by…well, I could tell you, or I could show you.

Really, this clip doesn’t begin to do justice to the brilliance of having the infamously non-featured Trekker William Shatner appear. Say would you will about the original James Tiberius Kirk, the man knows how to suck up attention. Sheer brilliance.

Still, the Scream organizers cleverly avoided too much of an anticlimax with the next and final presentation. The Comicon Icon Award was presented by an extra-personable Tobey Maguire at his most Peter Parkerish, to the most famed creator in comic book history, Stan Lee. Accepting the award, Lee was his usual theatrical and avuncular self. He was also clearly a bit overwhelmed, but not with gratitude and humility. He was brought on to the stage by a “Spiderman” themed device that USA Today called “a flying sled,” but which reminded me of a theatrical “god in the machine” kind of devices. Anyhow, poor Stan the Man thought the machine wasn’t entirely stable and was apparently scared witless. Nevertheless, he dealt with it in typical good humor, praised Sam Raimi and Maguire, and closed with a hearty “Excelsior!”

The clip I’m going to close with leaves out the best part of the moment, but it will give you a general sense of the evening’s somewhat calculated zaniness. Whatever else is true of “Scream,” it’s not stodgy.

For more on the Scream Awards including, as of this writing, a complete list of nominees but not the winners, check out Spike TV’s site here.