BREAKING NEWS!!!

TED'S NEW 2024-2025 VENUES
AND PROJECTS!!!

1. UPDATE 7/1/24 (From Ted Neeley.com and Ted's Facebook Page)

YOU MIGHT BE A TEDHEAD IF.....

On 2/7/01, Michelle Owens (MAY121961@aol.com) came up with this idea on Ted's list.  Here, with permission, are some of the VERY FUNNY - and - VERY TRUE responses:

From Michelle Owens (May121961@windstream.net):
 ...You have seen the show in multiple states
 ...You are still paying off hotel, airline, food, gas, show ticket and memorabilia items that you charged
     when Ted was still touring
 ...You sold blood to buy a ticket (I know someone who did, and it wasn't me I swear)
 ...You stole a JCS poster from anywhere
 ...You carried palm leaves to a show to wave around during Hosanna
 ...You have several bootleg copies of Ted as Jesus
 ...You have a JCS mousepad, created from a picture you took at a show
 ...You have purchased more than 10 tickets to one performance to take as many friends and relatives as
    you could
 ...You have broke bread and wine with Ted and then stole the wine glasses from the hotel lounge, and
    have them sitting in your China cabinet.
 ...You have stayed at the same hotel as the cast
 ...Your office has JCS posters in it
 ...You tell the people as your job "I was once inspired, now I am sad and tired.
 ...You have more than two autographed JCS T-shirts
 ...You own more than one copy of the same souvenir program
 ...You own a Playboy magazine that cost         , that is 20 years old because it contains an interview with Ted
    and you are a woman
 ...You have flown with, talked with, called, written, exchanged videos and pictures with people you
    never met before, just because they were Tedheads
 ...You own all the videos that Ted had any appearance in even if they are really bad
 ...You brought electric Christmas Candle decorations to a show that run on batteries so that you can
    hold them up during "Could We Start Again Please"
 ...You thought of having any song from JCS played at your wedding, or funeral 
 ...You have had dreams about JCS...or perhaps nightmares like when you dream you are cast as Mary
    Madeleine and then when you ask the casting director who will starring as Jesus and your fingers
   are crossed hoping he will say Ted Neeley and he says.......Neil Diamond. (TRUE STORY...A
   nightmare I recently had while taking cough syrup with codeine.) (NOTE:  HEY MICHELLE - NO
   FAIR!  I'M ALSO A DIAMOND FAN FROM WAY BACK!!!)
...You have seen Ted graciously accept a Jiminy Cricket gift that you know for a fact that he has a
   dozen of already!
...You got caught taking pictures during the show and an employee of the theater tried to confiscate your
    film, and you lied and told them they couldn't have the film because the beginning of the roll contains
   the baptism pictures of your Godchild...Hail Mary Full of Grace I said 10 of them for that lie.
...You traveled at record breaking speeds to see a show in the next state were still running late and had
   to roll you hair and put your makeup on in a local Laundromat because it was on the way to the
   theater
...You baked Ted a pecan pie
...You have a receipt from Ted's Visa when he rented a car in Tulsa
...You know that Ted's female Costar in Of Mice and Men gave him a home permanent, for his role of
   Curly
...You savor the time Ted help up a wine glass winked at you and said "Wasn't that a glass of water a
   few seconds ago?"
...You have a Ted Neeley fan club sticker on the back window of your car along with a Grateful Dead
   Sticker
...You were actually a Tedhead before you were a deadhead
...Your orthodontist sings O what a friend we have in Jesus every time he checks your braces, because he
   knows you drove from Oklahoma to Kansas to see JCS on the same day he put the braces on
...You borrowed the JCS guitar player's tuning instrument to pull the rubber bands from between your
   back molars so you could enjoy the last half of the show because you were in so much pain! What was
   his Name BOB?
...You once sent Christmas cards to some friends you new wouldn't be offended that said "Merry
   Christmas from our family" on the front with a photo of your family and when you open it up there
   was a picture of Ted with a line that said "and from a man who looks a lot like Jesus" (Sorry Father
  Lahr)
...Everyone you know calls you on the telephone when JCS is playing on television and you don't let
  them know you watch it every morning when getting ready for work
...Your Mom looks at you seriously and asks "You do know that he isn't really Jesus"
...You wait outside the theater so long that the tour bus leaves and then after talking with Ted, he leaves
   in a limo to do an interview with a radio station...and then out comes a cast member and you HAVE to
  give him a ride back to the hotel and you get lost (Give me the map babe, We love you Anthony!)
...Your friend who knows how obsessed you are has to go to MD Anderson for Cancer Treatment in
  Houston (Bless her Heart! She's Cured) calls to get Ted's address so she can take a picture of his house
  for you

From Liz Turner (Tedhead4life@aol.com):
 ...If you made your husband drive from Tulsa to Fort Worth Texas for an overnight trip to get a tattoo of the Two Angels from the album cover on your ankle.  I did in 1999.  Michelle Owens has photos if you are interested. 

 From Linda Holloway (linda.holloway@starzencore.com):
 ...You spend an inordinate amount of time during the tour writing little letters, calling the production
    company to get the "next stop" info and fed-exing them to Ted, timed to arrive at each and every stop
   on the tour. (that's not obsessive is it?)
...You drive your friends and family, (who just don't "get it") crazy trying to convince them of what a
   wonderful human being Ted is.
...You spend time trying to reach the old friend from 1973/74 that turned you on to JCS in the first place.
   Nancy Alexander, are you out there?
...You cry each and every time you watch and/or listen to the "Gethsemane" part.
...Being from Dallas, Texas, you're sure if you had just taken a drive past Ft. Worth and hit Ranger,
  Texas, way back before Ted took off for California, you could have been the present Mrs. Neeley.
  (ladies, I'm sure you can relate to this fantasy, ha! ha!)
...You contact strangers on the internet to try to connive them out of "all the videos that Ted had any
   appearance in even if they are really bad".
...Totally, out of the blue, for no reason whatsoever, you have a dream that includes Ted.
...You force your poor child (because he has to "mind you") to stand in freezing weather for 45 minutes
   outside of the theatre in hopes of getting your  "Ted-hug".
...You won't allow anyone to borrow your JCS videotape..."it's mine, and what if something happened to
   it?"
...You respond to a list with the open-ended question "you might be a Ted-head if..."

From Debbie Meeker (dlmeeker@juno.com):
...You just CAN'T GET THROUGH THE DAY without hearing "Ithaca" at least once before you go to
   sleep....
...Your twelve year old looks at you funny as you are about to put the needle on your 1974 AD album,
   AGAIN...
...When the subject of relationships comes up with your children, you know You might be a Tedhead if
   your kids say, "We know, Mom; You have told us before," as you tell them of how old Ted was before
  he got married and how he met his wife as an example of how waiting to get married is a good thing...
...You taped all of Ted's albums onto a cassette so that you can hear them in your car...
...You record onto a cassette tape your  3 favorite songs from Ulysses over and over again so that you
  don't have to keep putting the needle back on the record...

And - here is Maribel Navarro's (maribelnm63@yahoo.com) hilarious/horrendously frustrating account of her struggle to get the JCS 1973 film on DVD, which may make her one of the biggest "Tedheads" of all:

Hi Cindy:

It has been so hard for me to get the DVD that right now I cannot think about anything else than looking at it. The story behind the DVD makes me a real "Tedhead", I will just write a summary:

- First try, May 2002: Spanish Web claims that they have the 1973 for Region2. I order. There is a problem with the post code. They get the DVD back.

- Second try: I change the address to my personal one. I phone them to make it sure that it was the 73 movie, they say YES. I received a couple of weeks later the Glenn Carter stuff. Send it back to them. I was paid back, but terribly disappointed

- Third try: A French colleague (that lives in Paris) goes to US on holidays. We order the DVD from Amazon to her relatives address. No news yet...

- Fourth try: I order it from one web. After a week they asked me to send all my data (including bank accounts) BY E-MAIL : I rejected (I am crazy about JCS and TN but still not that stupid)

- Fifth try: I order the DVD from dvd.com. After two months I am told that nobody knows what has happened to the order. Never get back my 25$

- Sixth try (November, 2002): I order again from dvd.com. After 10 days I have the paper from the Post Office. They have tried but I was not home. Go to the Post office and they do not find the box. I started shouting like crazy. I insisted so hard that they looked in every single shelf. I was about to cry when they found it. IT WAS MINE!!

Then I needed some extra help from a friend to get some program that eliminates the "region problem". And since last week I am just crazy about it...

Well, sorry for the long story, but every single word is absolutely true..

But the important thing is that after 6 months I have the DVD with me and I am able to share all this fantastic shots with everybody.

Cheers and take care.

Maribel.

Jenn Bernbaum (J_bernbaum@yahoo.com):

hi all--

well, it was a great day! lunch with ted was wonderful... sharing conversation, laughs and hugs...what more could a girl ask for. ted looked awesome! when we saw him last, ted was nearly bald, had a horrible scar over his eye and looked very tired...true, he was in make-up from the play 'murder in the first' but it was a shock to see him like that. yesterday he looked great. hair was long again, eyes were twinkling and he looked well-rested.

veth, my mom and i took a lot of pictures and i promise to get them to you sometime today. out of three cameras, we should have some good shots. have to get them developed and put on cd. my mom is actually going to do that this morning. veth used a digital camera so i'm sure as soon as she gets a chance, she'll download them and get them out as well.

it was great to meet veth in person. as all of the ted friends have proven to be, she is very kind and friendly.

our lunch ran a little late. karyl lynn arranged for us to go to the matinee of 'defying gravity' which began at 2:00 but at 2:10, we were still deep in conversation with ted. he had already seen the performance and had other plans for the day so we tore ourselves away from him, said our good byes :-( and headed to the theatre. we were almost a 1/2 hour late and were snuck into the theatre. the play was great. if there is anyone on this list living in so. california who hasn't seen it yet, i highly recommend that you do. i think it runs for another week. afterwards we found karyl lynn, thanked her for arranging all of this for us. karyl lynn, you really are a sweetheart!!!!!!! thank you again for everything. it was a fabulous day from beginning to end. i'm glad you and the cast enjoyed the tray of sweets. i love to bake. in fact i used to be a pastry chef. i would be thrilled to submit a couple of recipes and i'm sure my mom would as well.

ted really enjoyed the guestbook. i took a couple of pictures of him reading it...he was really touched.

one more thing, i asked ted about carl and ted said he was actually going ot visit carl today at the hospital with jim o'neil. carl is undergoing more medical treatments. i know this goes without saying, but keep sending all those positive thoughts and energy his way.

what else....
veth, fill-in what i have left out.

you were all definitely there in spirit...we talked about you throughout the lunch.

ttys,
peace,
jenn

~~~~~~~

Veth (VJ) Javier: (vjla@netzero.net)

As of 5/1/03, some of our Tedheads have been posting some wonderful stories about first meeting Ted.  My story is posted above in Ted's introduction, but I thought I would post some of their stories here.  Tedheads, as always, if you would prefer your story remain on the list and not be posted here, just let me know and I will gladly remove it.  Enjoy, everyone!

From:  Stormy Porter-Reiley (stormy62@abingdon.net):

Hi guys,

Today while corresponding with another Ted Neeley fan (who apparently is not on our list yet), I found myself telling her of my first encounter with Ted.  I have never shared this story with you folks.  I have never really shared the story with anyone before today, because that time in my life and that night are all mixed up with a lot of other emotions that until today I never really thought out, or put down on paper (or keystroke).  Once I did, there it was.  Don't know really why I didn't share this story before now.  Here it is.

Let me tell you what I did the first time I met Ted. Got to remember now, this was about 1994. I'd carried this torch for him since '73.  I found out they were doing the JCS 20th anniversary tour.

I am so excited I about pee my pants the day of the concert.  My then-husband (now x) takes me to Charlotte, NC to the show.  You'd have to know the control freak my x husband was to really appreciate the dramatic "coming out" with my independence I pulled that night.  This is the kind of husband who drove me to work because he was so jealous. For ten years he drove me to work and picked me up!   He wouldn't let me take Spanish classes on Tuesday nights at the local community college because there were "men" there.  Just a real insecure guy who was probably out doing what he was constantly accusing ME of.  Spent over ten years in this marriage to this guy who made me take one of the kids with me to go get groceries (so I wouldn't be going somewhere I shouldn't)...Geeze, I could kick myself now, years later when I look back at the girl I was then.

Anyway, I tell you this so you can see the frame of mind I was in, the kind of life I was living etc.  So anyway, he knew when we began dating back in about 1981 that if Ted Neeley ever came along, I was gone.  I said it jokingly on our third date, proudly showing off the photo album I had of pictures I'd collected of Ted as a young child and teenager.  I hadn't heard anything about Ted since the 1978 album Ulysses came out, and I'd spent time on the phone calling places, and  writing to "Hollywood" trying to find out where Ted was (this was way before internet came along).  I pretty much figured he'd dropped off the face of the earth.  So saying that if Ted ever DID come along was sort of just a joke because at that time no one I knew, knew where he was or even IF he still was.

This husband was also a remote control warrior and we always watched what he wanted on TV, with me (again jokingly on the sidelines) meekly saying "well if something is on with Ted Neeley we are watching that"....he would just roll his eyes and tell me to get over it.  Ok, so life goes on, move from the early 1980's to around 1994.  This controlling husband has only agreed to take me to the JCS show because for once in my life I stood up to him and said I was going no matter what he did. Ok, so I bring my camera and we get to the show.  They had a program on a table as we went in telling what songs were being sung, and having a picture of the scene from the movie.  I grabbed a handful and stuck them in between the photo album I had brought that I had since childhood containing all those clippings of Ted I'd collected.  

We had back row seats.  When we get there, the lady at the door said I couldn't use my camera.  Never having been to any concert in my life, I was "in the dark" about the rules when one goes to a concert.  I was sadly disappointed that I wouldn't be able to take a picture of Ted, but I complied with the rule (like I did with everything in my life then).

At the end of the show when they all came back on stage to take their final bow, I told my husband I was going to get up close to the front there, so I could at least SEE Ted.  He said ok, and told me he was going to the lobby to the bathroom.  Well I walked up to the edge of the stage, Ted and Carl both happened to look at me.  Eye contact!  I mouthed the words "will you sign my book" holding up my photo album.  Ted nodded and at that point all 20 or more of those programs I'd grabbed on the way into the concert fell out of the book and scattered all around me!  Talk about looking like an idiot!.

Within moments the curtain dropped and Ted and Carl had disappeared.  I don't know what happened to me but at that moment I was like a women possessed!  I made a straight line for the stage door, and the guard told me I couldn't get in.  I tried to look all official and serious and what I had hoped was my "intimidating look".  I announced that "Ted was expecting me".  He firmly told me to leave.  I then began to cry and to beg and to plead.  "mister PLEASE you don't know, I have followed this man since 1973, I just HAVE to meet him, please sir please"....I must have been a pitiful site because he took mercy on me and said "ok, you can come in but stand here and don't move.

I stood for 20 minutes. Remember the controlling husband?  I didn't.  I forgot I even had one!  

It was then that Ted and Carl came out and I walked up to Ted and said how much I appreciated his music and his performance not just tonight but throughout the years, and how I just wanted to shake his hand.  He smiled and said "no handshake, a hug".....at that point I was enveloped in one of Teds famous hugs.  It was also about this time that my husband who had been scouting the parking lot, the lobby, the rest room and the auditorium finally wandered back to that stage door and found me.  Did I care?  Not at that moment.  In fact this meek controlled women, handed him (husband) the camera and said "pictures, take pictures, NOW!"....and he did!  There are some of them posted on my web page.  

Life goes on still further and not long after that show of independence,  the husband and I split up.  Not because of that night. Not at all, but over something much more serious that he had done.  I am no longer that submissive women.  I never will be again.  I am remarried now to an awesome guy who knows how to show love, to trust and to communicate.  I wouldn't trade my life for anything in the world.  I often look back on that night though.  It was not only the highlight of my life having finally met Ted but was symbolic of my own "declaration of independence" as well.  It was a pivotal point in my marriage and in my own growth into the women that I am today.

Stormy

From Kate Yuvasheva (kittyu@comcast.net): (This is  actually a story about meeting Carl):

Stormy, your story made me think of how I was looking for Carl after the show this February (I actually came there to meet him... well, but I liked the show, too... when Sebastian was silent for a while.) I was kind of trying a "backstage crusade", never succeeded, got mad and disappointed, and when I finally give up and about to just get out of the building - there he is! I just stood there with my mouth wide open, but at least managed to make myself look OK when he turned around and looked at me... (not sure this will be the case if I EVER got to meet Ted... I would just stand there... unconscious. and happy)

It's so nice to read the discussion that's going on... thank you, everyone! You are great!

Sunshine from
Kate

From VJ (vjla@netzero.net):

From Kat (I believe this is Kat Finnson -Kat, correct me if I am wrong - (KATFINNSON@aol.com )):

...I'm 47, and an old Ted Neeley fan. Met and saw Ted and Carl after JCS myself - my pictures look just like yours!!!! How 'bout Carl's winter coat, huh? He gave me a bearhug and I almost died in there! LOL

From Shelley Malo (housemouse70@hotmail.com):

I guess I became a Tedhead when I was 13 and saw JCS for the first time.  You didn't see or hear much about Ted in Canada after JCS, so you can imagine my delight when I found out the show was coming to Calgary with both Ted and Carl. I won tickets off the radio for the first show. My sister and sat there with our binoculars watching Ted's every move lol. It was only later that week when my niece told me she had met Carl that i realized people were able to go to the backstage entrance and meet the actors. The only thing left for me to do was buy 2 more tickets and go again lol. My sister thought I was strange but she agreed to go again. The lineup after the show was horrible but I was bound and determined to be there to say hi. Finally after about 2 hours the actors started coming out. Most people had because it was going on to 1 am and it was a Monday morning lol. Carl Anderson was the first out, I watched as he chatted with people and then shyly went up and introduced myself. We chatted for a few minutes and then he left. I went back to the front of the line as there now were only 4 people left, Me, my sister and the security guard and his friend lol. Then i turned around and there he was, I was shell-shocked. I mean here was the man who i had been dreaming about meeting for the last 22 years. He came up and said hello there, and I guess I just stood there with mouth open until my sister nudged me. I told him how great it was to finally meet him and asked if it would be ok to get a pic. He agreed and the picture was taken. Then it was over, he was gone and I was broken-hearted lol. I was the first one at the mall the next day waiting to get the film developed. When the pics were ready i tore into the pack and there it was, normally my pics are terrible but this one turned out perfect. My sister wanted a copy so i got her one not knowing she had an ulterior motive. She went down and got the pic put on a coffee cup for me, now I guess you can say I have coffee everyday with Ted. The feeling you get meeting him is so different. I have never met such a kind, soft spoken, down to earth person in my entire life. My sister always says What's the big deal? I'm still trying to figure that out, but all I know is once you meet the man you never want to stay out of contact with him as i'm sure you and all others well know lol. I was able to see him 3 more times after that first meeting and the last was when I gave him the half of the dollar bill. Wow wouldn't it be something to be able to put the dollar back together again!