Lauren-Blair Donovan

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Shameless Sunday Plugs #5 Mike Lewis Podcast & My YouTube Page Updates

Oh, hello. Mark your calendars for Thursday as a BIG life update will be revealed/confirmed and it’ll all become clear why I haven’t been blogging much this fall. But for now, despite a genuinely insane schedule amidst several life changes, I have some updates! Let’s dive into new business before addressing some old business!

As I mentioned in the last Shameless Sunday Plugs (nearly a month ago because whoops life has been insane!) I have re-entered The Challenge chat. Read all about that in the link above if you’re not caught up with what I mean by that, but as of this week I’m unexpectedly back in the podcasting world as I’ve been invited to join renowned Challenge podcaster, Mike Lewis, to recap season 39: Battle for a New Champion! Mike and I met via TikTok late this summer and pretty quickly our conversation led to possibly covering The Challenge together. I am honored as hell as I’m a long time listener of his interviews with cast members. Initially we were going to wait until Allstars 4 because I’m more in that world, but after some discussion we decided to jump right into season 39 and I’m so glad because it gave me an excuse to catch up on more recent seasons. I left the flagship show some years back (around Total Madness/Double Agents…I don’t think I saw either season entirely) but apparently I left right before it got good again because I loved season 37 and 38. I’m so glad I caught up before Battle for a New Champion because I would be so lost and clueless about most of the cast as there’s very few true vets on it. Mike and I covered the premiere episode and had so much fun doing it, so please check it out below!

I also have a new MTV’s The Challenge: A Historical Deep episode that covers the first three episodes (and entire first half) of season 2, Real World Vs Road Rules. AND I dropped a new Creepy & Kooky episode. I returned to Home of Peace, and while I’m no stranger to returning to cemeteries to find graves I missed, this time around I did an entire re-filming. I’m genuinely not at liberty to explain what happened with the original Home of Peace episode, but basically it was taken down for reasons outside my control or anything relating to me. That’s all I can say on the matter and I apologize for the vagueness. Believing I was ending the series, I wanted Home of Peace in my “collection” so I asked my dear friend Zach Jobe to re-do the episode with me and dare I say, it’s better than the original? Zach is a critical thinker and hilarious so we had quite the existential time, but in a funny way! Also I believe this is the first time I publicly announced Creepy & Kooky is not in fact ending, so go watch that if you don’t know and hear me start to sprinkle in why it’s not ending and where it is heading! Below are the links to both episodes, and then I’ll explain my posting schedule for the new few weeks as it will be a little bit hairy.

I have three Creepy and Kooky Cali Vlog’s filmed but as I keep alluding to, life has been a whirlwind and I had to de-prioritize editing them so I can get incredibly time sensitive things accomplished. It’s just as well because my guest in the second episode may need me to obscure his face for valid and unexpected reasons, so while that’s being worked out I’m glad I don’t NEED that episode out too soon. I believe the second full week of November will finally bring the next Creepy and Kooky, which is a can’t miss as a very lovely man named Craig (who’s now my uncle, but you’ll have to wait to watch that episode find out why-ha) granted me and frequent co-host Lacy Hornick access to many of the secret areas of Forest Lawn Glendale. I’m beyond excited to release this episode and am a little sad it’s going to have to wait a few extra weeks. But once that is out in mid-November I’ll be back to an every other week schedule. And after the third episode, you’ll start seeing cemeteries in OTHER parts of the country, but I’ll best explain that on Thursday (seriously, come back Thursday!).

MTV’s The Challenge: A Historical Deep Dive also got delayed, in part because of my insane life right now but serendipitously also when my source for getting the old episodes got deleted, including the second half of the season I was covering. It appears I have access to the seasons again, but I’ll figure that out for sure in November. And either or I managed to save episodes from several other pivotal seasons, so worst case I won’t cover them in chronological order. But in mid-late November I’ll start doing my Historical Deep Dive again and that will also likely be an every other week (possibly every month, but we’ll see) posting schedule.

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel if you haven’t already because it really helps me out, plus you won’t miss anything going forward! I semi-frequently post in the community page about updates and photos and may be releasing some shorts soon despite the crazy schedule. And if you don’t already follow me on social media, my links are at the top or bottom of your screen (depending on your device) and I would super appreciate the follow! Since my videos have been staggered, I’m going to drop lots of upcoming photos for future episodes, as well as Zach Jobe’s and my photos from the latest episode. Thanks so much and again, come back Thursday!

Home of Peace with Zach Jobe

Outside of one of the two Warner Brother’s family mausoleums.

Zach outside of Shemp Howard’s grave (Three Stooges).

Me and Lady Grim at Shemp’s brother’s grave. Jerome Howard doesn’t have his stage name, but you’d know him as Curly from the Three Stooges.

And finally, us being haunted in real time by the portrait of a little girl at Carl Laemmle’s family crypt (he founded Universal Studios).

Forest Lawn Glendale with Lacy Hornick and Craig Talbot

Gang’s all here outside one of the many “secret gardens” of Forest Lawn Glendale.

I was BEYOND happy to have access to many graves that are locked away, ranging from Natalie Cole, Sam Cooke, and many more of both familiar faces and new to figures that I learned about (including one of my now absolute favorite epitaphs of all time).

Thanks to our uncle Craig (he’s Lacy’s uncle too now, so I guess Lacy and I are sisters or cousins now haha- seriously this episode is a trip and it’ll make sense when it comes out) we were a bit more bold and went behind the velvet ropes. Here is Lacy Hornick and I in front of Gracie Allen and George Burns shared mausoleum crypt. (No, we didn’t both plan to wear green.)

We also got to visit Jimmy Stewart’s grave. He’s out in the open but in the first episode a funeral was happening right by him so we opted to not go there with our selfie stick out of respect.

Rose Hills Memorial Park

I’m obscuring my guest in name and only posting photos of myself out of respect for them while they figure out if they can even appear in this video.

Not only is the Rainbow Chapel mausoleum at Rose Hills gorgeous, it literally plays classical music and has fancy chairs to sit in. 100% my favorite mausoleum and I would LOVE to be buried here.

Just a girl and her dog thinking…surrounded by dead people.

We also visit the grass of Eazy-E, Billy Loughlin (Froggy from Our Gang), Bryan Gregory (The Cramps), Dennis Stewart (Crater Face from Grease), Thuy Trang (the yellow Power Ranger), and I believe a few others but my brain is soup from the past month or so. I hope this episode is released in its original format because it’s going to be a great one. But we’ll figure it out! More pics to come!

Oakwood Memorial Park with Lacy Hornick

Lacy Hornick at Ginger Rogers grave.

Always the epitome of a walking disaster, I decided to dance for photos by Fred Astaire’s grave and whoops- kicked off my shoe in the process!

I actually asked Lacy to be in the final episode of the series and intended for it to be here, in Oakwood Memorial Park, because I had been wanting to go to Fred & Ginger’s grave since before I started the series. Instead she was in the final taping of the LA portion of the series (until 2024…). It was a lovely final-ish episode and in this episode I explain all of the places I’ll be going for the series. Stay tuned…!