Google states that 96.7% of all Americans have television sets. As we all have families, at some point in your life, you have had a debate about what to watch on television.

So yes, the vaccine has been made available to millions of Americans. I have friends who refuse to get vaccinated as it is a form of alien life form-related brainwashing and I have some that think that the apocalypse is coming tomorrow and anyone who is not vaccinated by midnight tonight sho…

My name is Mike Elis and I’m a workaholic.

Every year around this time, the Academy Awards comes up and as I don’t ever go to the movies, I haven’t heard of most of the films that are nominated. And every year, they seem to add award categories that make one wonder how they fill such a specific genre with enough nominees.

Every day, I scroll Facebook and it has gotten to the point where I read it and prepare myself, “Okay, what is being canceled or done away with today due to the cancel culture?”

I love living in the South. Maybe it’s because the people, the history, along with the views of farms and mountains are more my speed. Maybe it’s because of the arts, the lack of bumper to bumper traffic, or the clean country air.

Now is when I should be doing that 100-word essay as to what I want to be when I grow up, not when I was in fifth grade. Because now it is so much clearer to me; or is it?

I was 15 years old when I landed my first job. While many of my friends who were also starting their employment went the fast food or grocery store route, I did something that was much more glamorous.

The picture attached to this column represents what a parent will do for his/her children when they really want something; and how every story can have a twist in a matter of seconds.

It is that time of year again. If COVID wasn’t enough for us to put on an extra 10 or 20 pounds, now we have to contend with Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and ringing in the new year.

So, here we are. Nearly 40 years after Rick Springfield ran up the charts with this song called “Jessie’s Girl,” and still today I can’t help myself from cranking it up every time it comes on the radio.

Miami Vice, Murder She Wrote, Purple Rain, The Cosby Show, Nightmare on Elm Street, Night Court, Highway to Heaven, Van Halen 1984, Sixteen Candles, Punky Brewster, E/R, Muppet Babies, the personal Apple Computer, Springsteen’s Born in the USA Album and Gremlins.

I am a math guy by nature. Being in entertainment promotions and ticket sales, I am constantly running numbers in my head.

Okay, so maybe 2020 hasn’t been the year you’ve always dreamed of. Let’s not try to pumpkin-coat it. We have had tensions at an all-time high with politics, racial tension, COVID-19, rules and opinions for and against wearing masks, and just recently we lost an icon in the form of Eddie Van Halen.

It is so much easier to see our good points than our faults. I have many faults, and some of them haunt me. I rarely share personal information about myself, but one of my biggest faults is I tend to run away from my problems rather than hit them head on. Yup, it’s true.

I am excited to say that I have a new alarm clock. What is so exciting about it, you may ask? My alarm clock doesn’t have an annoying tone, it doesn’t play music and it doesn’t have a snooze button. I don’t need a snooze button as my new morning eye-opening assistance machine wakes me up eve…

I have more than 4,400 Facebook friends. Being in the entertainment industry, I get friend requests from entertainers, fans, attendees at my shows and the friends of friends that send me requests for no reason other than our common acquaintances.

Oh my God, look what Network TV dragged in.

So, I broke down and bought a new car. My 2020 Hyundai Ioniq is my new life partner. She gets 59 miles to the gallon, comes with a nice sound system and I can see a long future of happiness. I named her Alanis. “Isn’t it Ioniq, don’t ya think?”

Being in the entertainment industry for the past five-plus years, I guess you can say I have grown comfortable in most of the spectrum of being in the limelight. I am now used to being on stage, dealing with the personalities and egos that I come across and even the occasional superfan or gr…

I recently took part in one of those online exercises where I counted how many states I have physically been in. The total was 38 of the 50, and of course every state is different and beautiful in their own way. Some I can’t wait to go back to, and some, well let’s just say my favorite part …

Six feet is not what separates us the most ...

As many of you know, I live in the booming metropolis that is Etowah, North Carolina. We have just more than 6,000 people and I happen to live next door to the town dentist. Known to everyone around here as “Doc,” Doc is a fantastic neighbor to have. He is very handy, always up for some fasc…

Among many of the ways I work and entertain to put food on the table, I also have my fall-back of being a driver for Uber. I enjoy being in my car, meeting new people — and it’s not a bad way to spend an evening, getting to converse with new and interesting people, drink some coffee, and enj…

I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on television. I am not a politician, a frontliner, a news reporter, nor do I in any way have credentials that would make any hypothesis of mine relating to COVID-19 valid.