Lawrence Siulagi

Sometimes the best stories arrive by accident as The Oregonian’s television critic and reporter Peter Ames Carlin discovered when Jeff Alan, former news director of Portland’s KOIN-TV, a CBS affiliate, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit and exposed a larger-than-life character with a past. You know, things like

• Jeff Alan wasn’t his given name
• His Social Security number wasn’t his
• He left his wife and daughters in Los Angeles in 1986
• His ex-wife declared him dead in 1993

Oh, and did I mention he was present at the Ambassador Hotel when Sirhan Sirhan shot Robert Kennedy; had a thriving career in television syndication; reinvented himself as a TV news anchor and executive; wrote two books; taught broadcast journalism at the University of Pittsburgh; and appeared on CNN and MSNBC as a media expert?

Does it sound over-the-top? Sound too good to be true? Sounds like it’s time for a sequel for Catch Me If You Can.

Read the entire series in Carlin’s three-part special.

…the New York Times online features a story about Trekkie love for Kirk’s captain chair on their home page.

Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a command-chair building machine!