Been a long time, been a long time

Well much has happened since I last made an entry....been way too busy to even sit down and collect my thoughts.

Of course in the middle of all this racing around, came the passing of Billy Mays which was brought vividly to mind yesterday, when I happened to be visiting Block Island, RI, one of my very favorite places on earth. Several of my pals on the island, particularly Kate Atwater-Butcher of Block Island Realty and John Sweinton of Twin Maples Bait and Tackle commented on Billy's passing. They reminded me of Billy because one of the infomercials I did with Billy for Orange Glo and Oxi Clean featured a segment about Block Island and the wonderful, "full-time" islanders. We cleaned up a lobster boat (only Orange Glo would remove smelly pogy oil, a favorite lobster bait) and then we interviewed a restaurant that loved OG and on to a bunch of rental homes, where the cleaning crew loved OG products.

And so Billy has been on mind a lot since yesterday. He was immensely talented and had genuine charisma and likability both on TV and off. I'm always on the lookout for new talent and the ones like Billy that have it all going on at once are extremely few and far between. When I first met Billy, he was working as a presenter for Orange Glo at HSN. Over the years we went on to do three half-hour infomercials and a lot of 90 and 120 second "spots" for Orange Glo International that put both Oxi Clean and Billy on the map.

In one of my favorite segments we shot in an appliance junkyard outside of Tampa, Florida, with Billy running around cleaning old, disgusting, grimy, moldy washers, microwaves and refridgerators....wonderful stuff. Hats off on that whole idea to Carmine Curto a close friend to both Billy and me and a great collaborator. We also did a segment in a public laundromat, with Billy cleaning everything in site, from loads of clothes, to the washing machines themselves.

Think I'll end here. Life is precious, don't waste a minute.
Best to all,
Mark O