{"id":1682,"date":"2008-02-06T14:05:30","date_gmt":"2008-02-06T14:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/my-new-frenemy-famed-singerson.html"},"modified":"2008-02-06T14:05:30","modified_gmt":"2008-02-06T14:05:30","slug":"my-new-frenemy-famed-singerson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/my-new-frenemy-famed-singerson.html","title":{"rendered":"My New Frenemy: Famed Singer-Songwriter Donovan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here at Beliefnet, we&#8217;re frequently asked to comment in the media about religious happenings and headlines, and this morning I was a guest on the local NPR station&#8217;s &#8220;Brian Lehrer Show,&#8221; discussing the death of <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/choprafamily\/2008\/02\/meeting-maharishi-by-gotham-ch.html?WT.mc_id=HOMEBLOGS\">Maharishi Mahesh Yogi<\/a>. The other guest for the segment was <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Donovan\">Donovan<\/a>, one of the Maharishi&#8217;s most dedicated and outspoken celebrity followers, whose name seems always to be accompanied by some variation on the phrase &#8220;famed singer-songwriter.&#8221; I&#8217;d spent the morning refreshing my memory about all things Maharishi, but I needn&#8217;t have worried. Donovan, famed singer-songwriter that he is, more than monopolized the conversation, interrupting me and the host, Brian Lehrer, refusing to stop talking when Lehrer tried to get in a new question, and sticking to his own script regardless of the question. Lehrer was interested in the Maharishi&#8217;s savvy marketing skills and the reason for his success&#8211;and, of course, the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/beatles-guru-maharishi-mahesh.html\">Beatles angle<\/a>&#8211;but Donovan wanted to extol the virtues of the Maharishi and his Transcendental Meditation movement and win souls to it.Now, Donovan knows far more than I do about the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/choprafamily\/2008\/02\/growing-up-with-maharishi-mahe.html\">Maharishi <\/a>and TM and has much more passionate opinions about it than I do. But it was fairly uncomfortable and a bit humiliating to be unable to get a word in edge-wise. So, tongue firmly in cheek, I&#8217;ve added Donovan, famed singer-songwriter, to my just-created <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Frenemy\">frenemies list<\/a>. Listen to the interview here:  <object width=\"350\" height=\"36\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.wnyc.org\/flashplayer\/mp3player.swf?config=http:\/\/www.wnyc.org\/flashplayer\/config_share.xml&#038;file=http:\/\/www.wnyc.org\/stream\/xspf\/93208\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"><\/param><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wnyc.org\/flashplayer\/mp3player.swf?config=http:\/\/www.wnyc.org\/flashplayer\/config_share.xml&#038;file=http:\/\/www.wnyc.org\/stream\/xspf\/93208\" id=\"WNYC_Mp3_Player_93208\" name=\"WNYC_Mp3_Player_93208\" bgcolor=\"#FFFFFF\" wmode=\"transparent\" height=\"36\" width=\"350\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here at Beliefnet, we&#8217;re frequently asked to comment in the media about religious happenings and headlines, and this morning I was a guest on the local NPR station&#8217;s &#8220;Brian Lehrer Show,&#8221; discussing the death of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The other guest for the segment was Donovan, one of the Maharishi&#8217;s most dedicated and outspoken celebrity&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pop-culture"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>My New Frenemy: Famed Singer-Songwriter Donovan<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/my-new-frenemy-famed-singerson.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My New Frenemy: Famed Singer-Songwriter Donovan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here at Beliefnet, we&#8217;re frequently asked to comment in the media about religious happenings and headlines, and this morning I was a guest on the local NPR station&#8217;s &#8220;Brian Lehrer Show,&#8221; discussing the death of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The other guest for the segment was Donovan, one of the Maharishi&#8217;s most dedicated and outspoken celebrity&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/my-new-frenemy-famed-singerson.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-02-06T14:05:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"mkress\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"My New Frenemy: Famed Singer-Songwriter Donovan","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/my-new-frenemy-famed-singerson.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"My New Frenemy: Famed Singer-Songwriter Donovan","og_description":"Here at Beliefnet, we&#8217;re frequently asked to comment in the media about religious happenings and headlines, and this morning I was a guest on the local NPR station&#8217;s &#8220;Brian Lehrer Show,&#8221; discussing the death of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The other guest for the segment was Donovan, one of the Maharishi&#8217;s most dedicated and outspoken celebrity&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/my-new-frenemy-famed-singerson.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2008-02-06T14:05:30+00:00","author":"mkress","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/my-new-frenemy-famed-singerson.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/my-new-frenemy-famed-singerson.html","name":"My New Frenemy: Famed Singer-Songwriter Donovan","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-02-06T14:05:30+00:00","dateModified":"2008-02-06T14:05:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/e057b0cd671703a20d0b2469410a0027"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/my-new-frenemy-famed-singerson.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/my-new-frenemy-famed-singerson.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/my-new-frenemy-famed-singerson.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"My New Frenemy: Famed Singer-Songwriter Donovan"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/e057b0cd671703a20d0b2469410a0027","name":"mkress","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/ad8\/ad8bcb0b4cbf7760cc1c8a13e277348dx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/ad8\/ad8bcb0b4cbf7760cc1c8a13e277348dx96.jpg","caption":"mkress"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/mkress"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}