I’m two weeks away from launching my web opus: USofAnderson.com—hence my recent hiatus from the blogging world.

It’s a project that has consumed me like a room full of puppies, vicious puppies gnawing my ankles like KFC chicken wings, for nearly three years.

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I was in the TC this past weekend to attend the Upper Midwest Emmy Awards (the Redemption Party videos I produced last year were nominated in a promotions category) and to visit Dad who, God willing, will be starting his second round of chemo at Abbott Northwestern Hospital this week (the peach-fuzzed monk is upbeat and ready to go to battle).

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My father turned 65 on Saturday, and sadly I wasn’t home in the 'Sota for the big shebang. On the blessed day, he grilled some burgers; drank a brandy Manhattan; and took Uncle Howdy, Aunt Barb (his sister), and his father for a ride through some Wisconsin wilderness on his John Deere four-wheelin’ Gator. No shame in keeping it simple.

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I only have two resolutions in 2009:
1) Look more sporty
2) Be more thankful

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While the 2004 election may have introduced America to the viral political video, the 2008 election has taken the medium to new heights.

The viral video came to define the candidates from the beginning of the primaries. Remember Obama Girl? Or the remake of the 1984 Macintosh ad with the Orwellian Clinton? Or Mike Huckabee's Chuck Norris ads?

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When I heard Moosenator Palin speak in the flesh two weeks ago at Xcel, I was touched by God.  If you don’t believe me, just listen to the rap I wrote for my Wasilla Woman. Clearly, I’m channeling my higher power as I mix these mad rhymes.

I’m not alone. Since Palin appeared on Grand Pappy McCain’s ticket, Hollywood has been moved to speak. Here are some examples . . .

—Tina Fey rejoined SNL on Saturday night for a frighteningly impressive Palin impersonation. “I can see Russia from my house.” Comic genius.

—People magazine posted Palin’s reaction to the skit: "She thought it was quite funny, particularly because she once dressed up as Tina Fey for Halloween," her spokesperson Tracey Schmitt said.

—Matt Damon likens Palin to a “bad Disney film” in this AP interview.

—Palin causes Lindsay Lohan to speak about something other than herself. 

—Robin Williams makes a funny Zamboni joke.

—And this comedian, Sara Benincasa of MTV, has taken Palin to task in an ambitious vlog.

I've never heard of Lisa Nova, but she's had more than a million YouTube hits on this video. I love the machine gun opening . . .

LA Log has returned to the Twin Cities this week for some good old lake and cabin culture, but the R & R was put on hold when a generous invite arrived to the Twin Cities' red carpet event of the year, The Starkey Hearing Foundation’s “So the World May Hear” gala, an event that raises millions of dollars to fit hearing aids for impoverished hearing-impaired children across the globe. And it draws Hollywood like paparazzi to Paris.

We’re talking A-list celebrities—Garth Brooks, Pat Benatar, Billie Jean King—and plenty of B-list celebrities, too—Leslie Nielsen, Lou Ferrigno, Marion Ross—who all descended on St. Paul’s RiverCentre this past Saturday night to raise more than $5 million. I rented a tux from Men’s Warehouse, grabbed my digital camera, dug into the red carpet, and now offer this riveting report in two blogs: one covering Brooks’s concert at the gala and the other covering the red carpet, Pat Benatar’s performance, and celebrity dish.

Part 1: Garth Brooks

Garth Brooks, still in some sort of retirement, played an intimate acoustic set for the 1,500 plus in attendance. Sadly, the black-tie affair attendees didn’t take to their feet like a State Fair crowd; only sixty people, including me, were willing to get out of their seats and rush the stage for the country legend. Everyone else seemed content to sit at their dinner tables and eat strawberry shortcake.

I like Brooks more than shortcake, and in fact, during my formative teenage years, I was quite a fan. Truthfully, and perhaps sadly, once I moved to LA, I lost interest in Brooks and country. Whether it was out of necessity (most LA types, including my friends, don’t get country music and equate it to NASCAR) or just West Coast maturation, I’m not sure.

Regardless, having seen Brooks at the State Fair and Target Center back in the day, I was excited to see this master of the spectacle go unplugged with just his guitar, sans pyrotechnics.

Right after taking the stage and admitting he was a little nervous about not having his band to hide behind, he strummed the opening chords to "Friends in Low Places", and the gala collectively gasped. Was he going to blow his load right out of the gates? He chuckled like a coy cowboy who knows he’s gonna score with the rodeo queen and said that we’d have to wait.

Brooks had clearly planned out his set, but it felt so intimate, like an impromptu campfire sing-along, only those listening weren’t Boy Scouts, they were the crème de la crème of the Twin Cities in monkey suits who’d shelled out $1,250 per ticket. Brooks was going to take this crowd on a trip of his musical influences.

After talking about how his father introduced him to Merle Haggard and George Jones, he played a few verses from Haggard’s “Mama Tried” and Jones’s “She Thinks I Still Care”. In fact, Brooks only played one or two songs in its entirety during the forty-minute set. For his third song, he launched into his eponymous first album with “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)”, a song he claimed first took hold in Minneapolis. He then strummed a little of “If Tomorrow Never Comes”, which definitely injected some life into the crowd. Impressed with the renewed energy, he quipped, “And I thought black-tie affairs were stale.” I don’t know, Garth, I don’t think Glen Taylor, seated a few tables from me, was clapping his hands yet.

Moving away from country, he spoke of being the youngest of six kids and how his older brothers opened him up to pop music. He launched into Cat Stevens's “Wild World” and then “Mrs. Robinson”. It was fun, but hasn’t everyone covered these songs? He wasn’t straying far from WLTE tonight.

It then became the James Taylor love feast, and Brooks mused about his love for “Mud Slide Slim” and “Sweet Baby Jane” before singing a tender “Fire and Rain”, which I really liked because it made me think of my freshman year roommate who played this song on repeat for days on end while designing the Northwestern University Marching Band website all while making out with the band’s first-chair flutist, who straddled his keyboard—I kid you not.

He moved then to “The River”, citing it as clear example of Taylor’s influence. I was surprised he’d say this as this song always struck me as very much a contemporary Christian ballad. Taylor, in his heyday, struggled with a serious heroin and drug addiction and sang about some bleak life struggles. “Fire and Rain”, for example, is about Taylor’s time in an asylum when he hears of a friend’s suicide. Brooks’s music, especially “The River”, never exposes such depths or visceral experiences of the artist. (Which is not a condemnation, just a suggestion that Brooks should reexamine to whom he likens himself. But he’s retired, so it doesn’t matter anymore, right?)

Brooks then said with a smile, “You got your dad’s music, your brother’s music, and you got your own” and hit Bob Seger’s “Night Moves”. He stopped after a verse and added, “Seger’s music had muscle.”

It was a fun comment and perhaps a suggestion that today’s music it a little too lean for Brooks.

He rocked next with “Thunder Rolls” before talking about how influenced he was by singer-songwriters, the likes of Billy Joel and Elton John, which was followed by a rousing sing-along of “Piano Man.” Entertaining, yes, but I’m sure it’s sung just as well nightly at every karaoke bar in the country.

Next came the most memorable quote of the night: “James Taylor is why I play music, George Strait is why I play country music,” and he hit Strait’s "Unwound". It’s a song I’m not familiar with, but I really enjoyed it. Brooks was tapping his roots well. He finished and said, “All I ever wanted to be was George Strait, Jr.”

Of course, all this culminated in his anthem, “Friends in Low Places.” The gala had reached liftoff and the climatic moment of the whole night with a sing-along of the entire ballroom. I figured Brooks was done, but he kept going. He tackled solid versions of “That Summer” followed by “Rodeo”.

He then, for the first time, explained why he was playing the Starkey Gala. His daughter, Colleen, had lost 30 percent of her hearing at age twelve, and the Starkey Foundation had helped fit her with a hearing aid that “changed her world.”

Brooks strangely alluded to the fact that her hearing loss was due to, “Dad’s ignorance on how to treat things.” I have no idea to what he was referring or what was the cause of his daughter’s hearing loss, but it was a strange comment, and I could find no explanation.

He appeared to have one more song in him and said, “I’m blessed enough to find a song that defined me as an artist.” His song “The Dance” followed, and party goers swayed and held up their hands with fake lighters, and I must admit, I got chills.

Brooks then took off his hat, revealing gray hair and a receding hairline, bowed, and marched off stage.

But will he ever be back?

I watched Oprah’s Big Give last Sunday on ABC because I had read the reviews and could not believe a TV show, by Oprah nonetheless, could be so terrible. The Hollywood Reporter reviewer railed against the first episode:  “ . . . there is nary a single genuine giving moment to be found during the opening hour . . . ” It concluded with: “Shallow as a birdbath, the program would appear to exist less as a true philanthropic exercise than yet another self-aggrandizing vehicle in Oprah's divine quest to become synonymous with all that is virtuous and good on Earth.”

I admit, it was a pretty tough watch, but I’d argue it at least reached kiddie-pool depths. The show is really sunk by execution: a diverse group of Americans driving around in Ford’s fleet of automobiles, giving away products from the show’s sponsors, and doling out loads of money from other people to the less fortunate. This is the twenty-first century definition of selfless giving, I guess.

Judges vote off givers who don’t give “right,” and the last giver standing gets a million bucks (but supposedly the givers don’t know this yet). And knowing what I know about the editing process of reality shows, it’s likely the most disingenuous philanthropic storytelling ever broadcast. Nice work, Oprah.

That said, most reality television shows are about elimination and consumption, and the Big Give is about that, too, but at least it attempts to make giving sexy. Undoubtedly, throughout the show, lives are made better by the dollars doled out to unsuspecting Target shoppers, impoverished neighborhoods, and handicapped kids. And in truth, if lives are made better, why should anyone criticize the method or the fact that it makes for bad television? Additionally, it just might inspire viewers who drink the Oprah give-aid to go on a giving frenzy. Watching Matlock never did anything like this for humanity.

Because LA LOG models itself after Oprah, it has decided to get in on the giving.

LA LOG will selflessly give away celebrity secrets, too salacious to print on this page, to you via a Hollywood postcard. All you have to do is send your mailing address to: LALOGSBIGGIVE@gmail.com.

Pay these secrets forward to friends, sell them to a gossip magazine, and then donate your thousands of dollars to the charity of your choice, or put the postcard in your safe-deposit box for posterity.

These secrets come from the streets of Los Angeles, so you know they’re heartfelt.

I know I’m a generous giver, so there’s no need to load my comment section with gushing adulation. I, like Oprah, give because I can.

Please excuse my recent hiatus from the blogging world. It’s certainly not for a dearth of Los Angeles blog-worthy items, which I hope to catch you up on this week.

My sis, a fellow MN to LA transplant, landed in the hospital with pneumonia two weeks ago. She did a tour at a Kaiser Permanente Hospital—be happy this HMO has yet to infect Minnesota—where she was misdiagnosed and released. Her hacking continued, and she ended up in a Los Angeles County Hospital because of an insurance snafu. Although it took a day to get her admitted, she did receive excellent care, proper diagnosis, and thorough treatment. She’s on the mend now, and her illness, which included severe laryngitis, forced my parents to learn to text message. WTC!

It’s also important to note that a ten-hour wait in the LA County Hospital waiting room offers a wonderful opportunity to sober up to the realities of our health care crisis, see the latest in county jail jump suit fashions (orange V-neck jumpers are so in this spring), and hear the preachings of the metal-detector operator: “These days you can even got shot in church worshiping the Lord.”

Regretfully, you won’t see LA’s county hospitals featured in celebrity illness tabloid stories. Celebs all head to Cedars-Sinai, a private hospital next to West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, when rehab and enhancing emergencies call.

Celebrities and white people like private hospitals.

Which reminds me . . .

If you haven’t visited the site Stuff White People Like, you’re probably missing out on water-cooler conversation. And who wants to miss out on that kind of titillation. (If you’re uninitiated, MSP blogger Adam Platt posted on the phenomenon several weeks ago. The site is penned by Christian Lander, a white Canadian living in Los Angeles, and last Friday, he cashed in, signing a six-figure book deal with Random House. Some bloggers were speculating around $350,000.

I guess white people really like to read about themselves.

Almost a year ago, a story ran in the LA Times about Cory Kennedy, a Santa Monica teenager who became an overnight Internet celebrity sensation—an Internet “it girl”—with fan sites across the globe and photo spreads in Nylon magazine. She accomplished all of this by attending the right parties and having a unique look. The LA Times article played up the fact that Cory achieved her stardom without her parents’ knowledge. And she did it with the help of party scenester and photographer The Cobrasnake—who, despite being considerably older, became her boyfriend. He’d post photos of her on his website, and his hits, especially from the fashion world, soared. Her star was born.

When the LA Times story hit, Kennedy had already been riding the celebrity wave for approximately a year. I thought about blogging about her, her strange form of celebrity, her bizarre Good Charlotte music video, her upcoming magazine spreads, etc. But ultimately, I figured she was a just a flash in the pan of Internet stardom. In a few months, she’d be gone, and we’d be on to other Internet sensations, such as Minnesota’s own Chocolate Rain.

Obviously, I don’t understand Internet celebrity. Last week, a pair of Red Bull and Vodka-stained socks that she wore to her seventeenth birthday sold on eBay for $46.

And even though she’s now broken up with The Cobrasnake, her career appears to be flourishing with a growing blog, fashion tours across the globe, and a modeling career.

This is the new face of celebrity: Do NOT do anything or bother with talent or skill. Just come on down to LA, hit the right parties, look attractive—yet unique—in photos, and allow the Internet to grow your fame. It’s easy.

Here are some of The Cobrasnake’s Flickr photos of Kennedy, so you can study up on how to “look.” She definitely has a look.