WCWP Homecoming Weekend Radio Show! October 1, 2011
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio.add a comment
I was back at WCWP (on the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University) yesterday afternoon to record a radio show – CJazzPlus with Mike Chimeri – that will air during the station’s 50th Anniversary Edition of Homecoming Weekend. You can hear it Saturday, October 22, from 1AM to 3AM Eastern; Friday, October 21, from 10PM to midnight Pacific. If you’re outside the signal range, head to the WCWP website and click on “88.1 WCWP” to hear the stream.
16 hours later, I’ll be at the 50th Anniversary Celebration dinner at the Top of the Commons. It should be an exciting event, as will the rest of the weekend. WCWP has been on the air for 50 years, and I’m glad to have contributed to one-fifth of that. Wednesday, October 5, marks the 10th anniversary of my first radio show – the maiden voyage (as I called it) of The Mike Chimeri Show.
Irene, Five Days in Freeport September 8, 2011
Posted by Mike C. in Comedy, DVD, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, News, Personal, Photography, Radio, Technology, Travel, TV, Video, Video Games, Weather.1 comment so far
After 26 years of barely missing hurricanes, or at least direct hits, Long Island’s luck ran out last weekend.
On a Friday afternoon, September 27, 1985, Hurricane Gloria, a fast-moving Category 2, made landfall near Long Beach. 25 years and 11 months later, it was Irene’s turn. Though Hurricane Irene was barely a Category 1 when it made landfall on Coney Island last Sunday morning (immediately weakening to a tropical storm), it wasn’t moving as fast as Gloria and it came during high tide rather than low tide. The south shore of Long Island got pounded. Over 500,000 Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) customers, including myself, were without power at the height of the storm. Either giant limbs or uprooted trees fell on power lines or transformers caught fire. I lost power at 1:30 AM Sunday because of the latter. (Also, the sub-station in Plainedge that we were linked to was badly damaged.)
I prepared my bedroom for the worst by covering up some belongings, including CDs, and putting them on the floor:
I spent Saturday night and much of Sunday in the basement and on the main floor, only going to the top floor in the afternoon to take a [cold!] shower. While preparing my room on Saturday, I found a lucky rabbit’s foot. I kept it close by or in my shorts pocket.
I don’t know if the rabbit’s foot was the cause, but our house was spared. The only damage for us was smaller branches and twigs, and leaves falling around the house. I took these pictures Monday morning in the front and back yards under a partly-to-mostly sunny sky:
I put everything I had put on the floor back where they were before on Sunday night. This picture was also taken Monday morning:
More pics from Monday near my house:
I stayed home without power until Monday afternoon when a family friend in Freeport was nice enough to let me stay with them until power was restored at my house. Villages like Freeport that have their own utilities didn’t lose power for long. If only that were the case for LIPA customers. Some didn’t get it back until early this week. I got it back 3:30 PM Friday. The family friend was without FiOS (for reasons I won’t get into), so I was stuck with radio, wireless internet (on my laptop), and mobile web (on my cell phone). I also passed the time by going for walks, listening to music on my iPod, and playing video games. I hadn’t played Game Boy or Game Boy Advance games in ages until last week. I brought my camera on one of those walks and stopped by my late grandparents’ old house and Cow Meadow Park (swatting mosquitoes along the way):
Before getting to the old house and Cow Meadow, I saw a sad sight walking up the block where the friend lives. Curbs on both sides of the street had flood-damaged carpeting, couches, and appliances waiting to be picked up. I used to live in southwest Freeport. So, I know what it’s like to get flooding from the bay in the bottom floor of the house. I got that during the aforementioned Gloria, and Nor’easters in December 1992 and March 1993. Within months of those last two storms, I had moved to a part of Wantagh that’s a few miles inland.
Back at the friend’s house, she had the complete run of I Love Lucy on DVD. I got into that show years ago when it was on Nick at Nite. My love for it was rekindled. I watched the latter seasons while the friend had them on.
The ride home late Friday afternoon was great. I knew I’d be returning home to electricity and cable, albeit with an empty refrigerator. Before leaving, I thanked the family friend for putting up with me for five days. I returned the favor this Tuesday when I stayed at her house while she was at work to be present for a Cablevision technician to install their services–iO, Optimum Online, Optimum Voice–in place of Verizon’s–phone, FiOS internet, FiOS TV.
Three footnotes:
1. As I type this post, Hurricane Katia is about to turn northeast and move away from the U.S. East Coast. Good.
2. There were plenty of columns and blog posts in Irene’s aftermath that downplayed the storm and/or reprimanding the media for overhyping it. Many media did overhype it, but damage is damage. Downed trees are nothing compared to massive flo0ding, whether from storm surge or rivers overflowing from nonstop rain. Residents of New Jersey, Eastern New York State, and Vermont are among those that got the latter. And the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee in the last few days have only added to the flooding.
3. I stumbled upon a blog post that offers the Washington, D.C. area perspective. It’s written by freelance writer Kristine Meldrum Denholm: How I’ve dodged the demise of the east coast, part II: Goodnight, Irene. There was minimal damage in her neighborhood and she never lost power. Kristine is not alone. My neighbors two houses to the west of me never lost power, neither did my piano teacher in Freeport.
4. Yet another link: Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean summed up Irene at her blog last Monday.
9/27 UPDATE: It’s hard to believe that tomorrow will mark one month since Irene made landfall here. And as I noted at the top, Hurricane Gloria whizzed (compared to the slower Irene) through Long Island 26 years ago today. Since I wrote this post a few weeks ago, a few more Atlantic tropical cyclones have formed and none have directly impacted the U.S. (Knock on wood.) In checking the August archives at the website Johnny Dollar’s Place, I found an interview John Gibson did with Janice Dean on his Fox News Radio show. It took place on August 29, the day after landfall:
12/30 UPDATE: Irene was the #1 tri-state area news story in WCBS 880’s countdown of the top 11 stories of 2011:
… But Sunday morning, August 28, we knew the caution was called for.
Irene swept ashore in Brigantine, battered New Jersey, then crossed Coney Island at 9 a.m. on a path for New England.
Throughout its path, Irene caused widespread destruction, left millions without power and killed 56 people.
“We are now into day three of no electricity for hundreds of thousands of Long Islanders,” reported WCBS 880 Long Island Bureau Chief Mike Xirinachs. …
Even with all that Irene turned out not to have been a hurricane when it hit our area.
Okay, fine, it wasn’t a hurricane. It was Tropical Storm Irene. It might as well have been a category 1 hurricane because it moved slow enough to cause the same amount of damage.
You can read and listen to the rest here.
Bolder & Fresher Tour at Westbury recap August 21, 2011
Posted by Mike C. in Audiobooks, Books, Comedy, Commentary, Media, News, Personal, Politics, Radio, TV, Weather.11 comments
(2/22/13 UPDATE: For those that found this post by search engine, this is a recap of the original Bolder-Fresher show at Westbury in August 2011. There will be another show there on June 1 of this year, but I won’t be attending that one.)
(12/6/14 UPDATE: On the other hand, I will be attending the Don’t Be a Pinhead Tour show at Westbury on May 2, 2015. The new name for the tour is the result of retooling.)
(Update at the bottom with viewer e-mails from audience members at 10/29 Mohegan Sun show, 11/2 Miller Time segment, my quick review of Killing Lincoln, and highlights from the 10/29 show.)
Last night, I returned to what is now the NYCB Theatre at Westbury for the debut of the Bolder & Fresher Tour starring Bill O’Reilly and Dennis Miller.
I went with my dad and we were joined later by family friend Joe Falco. Joe is a former FDNY firefighter who survived the collapse of the World Trade Center’s south tower on September 11, 2001. My college senior project was a documentary featuring his recollections and a return to Ground Zero where he retraced his steps.
The show was at 8:00, but since it was nearly sold out, Dad and I left the house at 6:45 to be safe. It took about fifteen minutes to arrive. Once in the theatre, we sat down for 50 minutes. Our seats were adjacent to the aisle where Bill and Dennis walked to and from the stage. A few minutes after 8:00, the lights dimmed, and Bill, via the public address system, introduced “the fresh part of the Bolder Fresher Tour, Miller!” My dad said he and Dennis made eye contact during his walk down to the stage.
Dennis’ material was toned down a bit. In TV ratings terms, he was TV-14-DL; no s- or f-words but suggestive dialogue. His 35-minute set touched on many topics, including:
- Global warming
- California
- The southern U.S. border
- Michael Moore
- Getting old
- What he likes and dislikes about President Obama
- Barney Frank
- Nancy Pelosi
- Pope Benedict XVI
Then, it was Bill’s turn. Among his topics were:
- President Obama
- The Republican presidential candidate field
- Who has the best chance to be the Republican nominee
- The split in the Republican Party between the Tea Party and the establishment
- His upcoming appearance in an episode of Rizzoli & Isles
- His upcoming book, Killing Lincoln
- Recounting his previous appearance on The View
After a 15-minute intermission, Bill and Dennis returned for 35 minutes of Q&A. At this point, the two sat in stools while the stage rotated. It took Dennis a few minutes to notice that and then he acknowledged it to the audience. They each had stories to tell. Dennis talked about:
- How he moved from the left to center-right politically
- His old CNBC show and how things fell apart between him and his monkey sidekick Mowgli
- His work in Bordello of Blood and on Monday Night Football
- Meeting Frank Sinatra
- Checking out the room Elvis Presley stayed in at the Vegas Hilton
- A story Billy Crystal told him about Redd Foxx
Bill talked about his upbringing, from Levittown to The O’Reilly Factor, and everything in between: working as a lifeguard for the Town of Babylon, going to St. Brigid’s, Chaminade High School, Marist (to which Dennis made a Marist/Roger Maris joke), working his way up in TV news.
It was a great show. Bill and Dennis both entered and exited to standing ovations. To be honest, I enjoyed this more than the Bold & Fresh Tour show last year.
If you’d like to see Bolder Fresher for yourself, check the tour’s website for upcoming dates and venues. You’ll be glad you went.
8/23 UPDATE: Three e-mails from audience members were read tonight on The O’Reilly Factor:
Keith Warhola, Mineola, NY: “Bill, you and Miller killed at Westbury. Loved the show.”
Bill’s response: “We didn’t actually kill anybody. It means that–[in] show biz–we were good.”
Gina Serra, Syosset, NY: “Bill, the Bolder-Fresher show was great! You were charming and Miller was a riot.”
Caryl Taylor, Briarcliff, NY: “Officer O’Reilly, we salute you and Dennis Miller. We were fully entertained by your observations and Miller’s stories.”
Bill’s response: “Well, thank you for all the nice mail, guys; got tons of letters. Clips from the show are now posted on BillOReilly.com for premium members. Next week, we’re gonna open ’em up to everybody. So you can see about 15 minutes of the Bolder Fresher show on BillOReilly.com. Info on upcoming shows in Connecticut; Richmond, Virginia; and Atlantic City available on BolderFresher.com. BolderFresher.com.”
In addition to those e-mails, a few clips were shown last night in the Reality Check segment. I compiled that and tonight’s e-mails into this video:
9/9 UPDATE: The latter half of August 24’s Miller Time segment was devoted to the Westbury show:
I would have posted this sooner, but Irene set me back and then I forgot.
11/1 UPDATE: Saturday night, the Bolder Fresher Tour came to Mohegan Sun. As the winds howled and snow mixed with rain here in southeast Nassau, I wondered if the show would even happen, but this tweet confirmed it did:
Dennis Miller & Bill O’Reilly – Bold[er & Fresh[er] Tour (@ Mohegan Sun Arena) http://t.co/UJ475ItU
O’Reilly and Miller weren’t going to let a pesky snowstorm/Nor’easter stop them. I’m sure everyone got back home, or home away from home (i.e. hotel room), safely.
One viewer e-mail from an audience member was read tonight on The O’Reilly Factor:
Lynda Hanratty, Selden, NY: “Hey, Mr. O, we drove five hours to Connecticut in that snowstorm to see you and Miller. And it was worth the white knuckle ride! You two were hysterical! Was that your limo that passed us on the ride home?”
Bill’s response: “No limo for me, Lynda. I drove up there, just like you did, from Long Island. Glad you liked the Bolder Fresher show. Watch out, Richmond, Virginia; and Atlantic City. We’re comin’ to you Thanksgiving weekend. Details on BillOReilly.com.”
11/2 UPDATE: Tonight’s Miller Time only made a passing reference to Saturday’s show at Mohegan Sun. Here’s the video, anyway. And here’s another viewer e-mail:
Mark Underhill, East Aurora, NY: “Bill, my wife and I drove seven hours to see you and Miller in that snowstorm on Saturday. To make the trip go faster, we tried to buy the Killing Lincoln audio. It was sold out everywhere. So we bought the book and my wife read it to me. Excellent.”
Bill’s response: “Your wife’s a trooper, Mark, and I’m sending you the audio for your ordeal. Killing Lincoln is selling out everywhere, but we are printing them as fast as we can get ’em out to you. More than 900,000 copies of ‘Killing Lincoln’ in print right now. Thank you all.”
I pre-ordered the audio of Killing Lincoln before it came out and began listening to it September 28, the day after it was released. It got me through my daily walks and I finished it in two weeks. It reads (or is read by Bill) like a thriller. I vividly remember where I was walking while listening to key passages.
11/3 UPDATE: Highlights from Saturday can be seen on the BillOReilly.com video page. Look for “Bolder & Fresher Tour at Mohegan Sun” and click to play.
For the third night in a row, a viewer e-mail from an audience member was read:
Kathleen O’Gorman, Meriden, CT: “Mr. O, we lost power in the storm and it’s been rough. You and Miller were the only bright spots as we caught the Bolder Fresher show.”
Bill’s response: “[I] appreciate that, Kathleen. The power situation in the Northeast is gettin’ desperate. A clip from the Bolder Fresher show on Saturday [is] posted on BillOReilly.com. And Miller and I will see everybody in Richmond, Virginia; and Atlantic City at the end of November.”
11/4 UPDATE: Another day, another update. Psychotherapist Dr. Karen Ruskin was in the audience Saturday night and tweeted Dennis this afternoon:
Hi Dennis, Dr Karen Ruskin here, mental health expert- appeared on O’Reilly. Great show w Bill Sat! Will never see ED the same
@DennisDMZ
An audience member viewer e-mail all the way from Montana!:
Margot Belden, Missoula, MT: “Bill, I came from Montana to see you and Miller in Connecticut! It was worth the ordeal. You were so funny, I had tears in my eyes.”
Bill’s response: “I hope from laughing with me, Margot, and not at me. Signed copy of Killing Lincoln coming your way for that big trip. …” That was followed by another reminder about the Richmond and Atlantic City shows in a few weeks.
Bolder & Fresher Tour at Westbury August 10, 2011
Posted by Mike C. in Comedy, Commentary, Internet, Media, News, Personal, Politics, Radio, TV.add a comment
Next Saturday, Bill O’Reilly and Dennis Miller will kick off the Bolder & Fresher Tour at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury. It’s the sequel to the Bold & Fresh Tour with Bill and Glenn Beck.
The Tour is billed this way on its website:
Bolder and fresher than ever before… Bill O’Reilly, godfather of “no spin” and in-your-face television, and Dennis Miller, the king of references and rants, are teaming up to take the country by storm! Your town may never be the same.
So far, three other shows have been booked after Westbury:
- 10/29: Mohegan Sun, Uncasville, CT
- 11/25: Landmark Theatre, Richmond, VA
- 11/26: Borgata Hotel and Casino, Atlantic City, NJ
I will be in the audience next Saturday. I can’t wait.
8/21 UPDATE: Here’s my recap of the show.
Jessy J at Daniel Street, Fourplay at the Blue Note August 2, 2011
Posted by Mike C. in Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Travel.1 comment so far
Last week, my friend–blogger, graphic artist, and author Katherine Gilraine–attended four jazz shows. For my post, we’ll focus on two of the shows.
First up is Jessy J at the Daniel Street club in Milford, Connecticut, last Friday. (6/22/12 UPDATE: Daniel Street closed six months later.) Jessy’s band featured Jay Rowe, another friend of mine, on keyboards. K.G. writes in part (with links added by me):
… Out came Jessy on the alto, and out came Dizzy [Gillespie]’s Tin Tin Deo, and immediately, I saw that she has made leaps and bounds in her stage presence. She danced, she played to her audience, she back-and-forthed masterfully with Rohn Lawrence and Carl Carter, and she made it clear from the first thirty seconds that she was very much into the music that she was playing. The show quickly became a showcase as she went to the mic and got to singing – Mas Que Nada, mind you, is a favorite of mine – and commandeered a party through a Gloria Estefan cover. Granted, I’m no Gloria Estefan fan by any stretch of the imagination, but Jessy knew how to incorporate it into her style. There was no one with her on stage who wasn’t equally involved in the overall dynamic, and the audience was just as into her music as she was. …
Jessy has a new album coming out the day after Labor Day, Hot Sauce.
K.G. had this to say about the Fourplay show:
If Bob James or Chuck Loeb come to the Blue Note, I’m very sure that you will find me in the audience. If Bob James and Chuck Loeb are at the Blue Note, so is every Fourplay fan in New York City.
No, really.
… [Let’s Touch the Sky] was the focal point of the Blue Note show, and I saw how New York Attitude on guitar worked its way into the (admittedly) smooth dynamic of Fourplay. If you want to hear a great example of it, check out 3rd Degree. Written by Chuck in a tribute of himself being the third guitarist in the Fourplay lineup, it’s classic Loeb indeed: sharp, gritty, and almost toeing the line of rocker guitar, but not quite there. At the Note, this was a crowd-pleaser, right along Nathan East‘s voice on I’ll Still Be Loving You. …
Tim McCarver auto-tuned July 19, 2011
Posted by Mike C. in Baseball, Commentary, Media, Music, News, Personal, Politics, Sports, Technology, TV.add a comment
During the last commercial break for the 8PM Eastern airing of last Friday’s The O’Reilly Factor, there was a promo for the MLB on Fox. In the promo, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver are to be auto-tuned during their broadcasts to appeal to a younger demographic. Tim follows through, but Joe refuses:
This promo has been running since the start of the season, but Friday was the first time I saw it. I initially posted it to my Facebook wall, but decided to post it here, too. As I said in my previous post, I find auto-tune hilarious and always get a kick out of it, especially if spoken word gets the auto-tune treatment.
Mindi Abair on Happily Divorced!; auto-tuning on Hot in Cleveland July 9, 2011
Posted by Mike C. in Comedy, Jazz, Media, Music, TV.add a comment
Last week, I began watching the new TV Land sitcom Happily Divorced. Wednesday night, the show’s fifth episode aired, “A Date with Destiny.” Mindi Abair appears in one scene as the saxophonist in Judi’s (Tichina Arnold) band and another scene as an extra. Check TV Land listings for a rerun of this episode. It happens about 19 minutes in.
HONORABLE MENTION
Happily Divorced was preceded by Hot in Cleveland. Wednesday’s episode, “Battle of the Bands,” featured the four main cast members–Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves, Wendie Malick, Betty White–singing into an auto-tune wireless microphone. I find most voice alteration (pitch/speed modulation) funny, especially auto-tune. So, I got a kick of the auto-tuning in that episode.
11/27 UPDATE: Cablevision recently added the TV Land HD channel. So, I got to see “Battle of the Bands”–and many other episodes airing this weekend as part of a marathon–in HD for the first time.
FLASHBACK: Interviewed for Dave’s Gone By on New Year’s Eve 2006 June 6, 2011
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Comedy, Internet, Interviews, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Politics, Radio, Theatre.add a comment
I was Googling my name just now and came across this page. It’s the website Dave’s Gone By, a weekly radio show hosted by Dave Lefkowitz. There I found an interview I did–in which I was the interviewee–for the Dave’s Gone By New Year’s Craptacular special on New Year’s Eve 2006. You can hear that interview here. It starts at the 8:11 mark.
I was returning the favor after interviewing Dave a handful of times for The Mike Chimeri Show, which was days from its last show. Here are all those interviews (with air dates in parentheses):
Dave Lefkowitz Interview, Part 1 (August 17, 2005)
Dave Lefkowitz Interview, Part 2 (August 17, 2005)
Dave Lefkowitz Interview II (November 23, 2005) (In this one, I accidentally refer to Dave by his show title at one point. I had to rush down to Rockville Centre after I recorded the interview and my mind was all over the place.)
Dave Lefkowitz Interview III (March 29, 2006) (This was the first of three interviews I recorded in one day. After Dave came Nick Colionne and Mindi Abair. For all my Mike Chimeri Show interviews, which I self-consciously haven’t listened to since I edited them, click here.)
Dave Lefkowitz Interview IV, Part 1 (December 22, 2006)
Dave Lefkowitz Interview IV, Part 2 (December 22, 2006) (This was the last interview I recorded for The Mike Chimeri Show.)
About four years later, I was the interviewee again during the Fan Phone Call segment of Alison Rosen’s UStream show, Alison Rosen is Your New Best Friend. You can hear that here.
Rating Improv-A-Ganza games; the ratings May 25, 2011
Posted by Mike C. in Comedy, Commentary, Game Shows, Media, Personal, Radio, Theatre, TV.add a comment
I have been a fan of improv comedy since I discovered reruns of the British version of Whose Line is it Anyway? on Comedy Central 14 years ago. The American version with Drew Carey and much of the American performers from the British version brought the Whose Line franchise and improv to the stratosphere. My love for Whose Line carried over to Drew Carey’s Green Screen Show, which unfortunately didn’t last long. But I had the good fortune to conduct phone interviews with Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood while I was at WCWP. Here’s how those interviews went:
Brad Sherwood Interview (May 25, 2005)
Colin Mochrie Interview (September 14, 2005)
Brad Sherwood Interview II (November 10, 2006)
(More interviews can be heard here and here.)
Four years into Drew Carey’s run as host of The Price is Right, along came Drew Carey’s Improv-A-Ganza on GSN. With a month and a half of the show under viewers’ belts, I’ve decided to choose my favorite, least favorite, and so-so games from the show:
(NOTE: Ratings are subject to change and vary by the episode in which the games are performed.)
FAVORITE
- Fairy Tale
- First Date
- Forward/Reverse
- Freeze Tag
- Kick It!
- Options
- Playbook
- Question This!
- Sentences
- Two-Headed [Expert]
LEAST FAVORITE
- Sound Effects – I’m a perfectionist. With the exception of Rich Fields and Steve Kamer, audiences members’ attempts at sound effects are tough to watch.
- Moving People/Bodies – This is also tough to watch.
- Mousetraps – All I can say is ouch! I feel for whatever two performers have to participate.
SO-SO
- Bob’s Call – When Bob Derkach hears a line that songs like a song, he’ll improvise a song and the two performers in the scene have to do the same.
- Compilation Album
- New Choice
- Song for a Lady
I’m hoping there will be more Improv-A-Ganza in the weeks, months, and perhaps years ahead. But unfortunately, it may not be around much longer, either, as it is suffering from low ratings. I got so caught up in watching each episode and savoring every moment, I didn’t consider looking up the ratings. Since the show’s competition includes cable news opinion shows, I’m not surprised. The ratings would probably be higher if DVRs were factored in. I’m one of those DVRers, if that is a word. I watch my Improv-A-Ganza recording later while watching Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor as it airs.
I convert each episode to my MiniDV camcorder then capture those episodes to my computer as AVI video files. The final step is normalizing audio and inserting fades or crossfades then rendering as MPG files and deleting the AVIs to save hard drive space. Unfortunately, the recordings are in SD (standard definition) because Cablevision hasn’t added GSN’s HD feed. Improv-A-Ganza airs in HD.
If Improv-A-Ganza is in its last days, then there is an upside: there will be more episodes of this show than the Green Screen Show.
5/25 UPDATE: Last night’s episode featured those so-so rated games Bob’s Call and Compilation Album. I liked them both. Moving Bodies was all right.
5/26 UPDATE: I have a theory about some of the Improv-A-Ganza ratings analysis. The show is not a traditional game show, yet it’s on GSN. Therefore, if its ratings can be negatively spun, perhaps that will hasten its cancellation. It’s similar to the Fox Business Network (FBN): highlight the channel’s low ratings and root for its demise.
I’m probably wrong. It is, after all, just a theory from a fan of Drew Carey’s improv franchise, from the American Whose Line to Improv-A-Ganza.
5/27 UPDATE: Look at this post on the MGM Grand Las Vegas Facebook page (h/t Improv-A-Ganza Facebook fan page):
Stand-up comic, producer, writer and host of “The Price is Right,” Drew Carey, will return to the Hollywood Theatre at MGM Grand with his Drew Carey’s Improv-A-Ganza. Audience members may appear in an original, primetime GSN (Game Show Network) television series being shot during these special live performances!
Improv-A-Ganza is alive!
6/3 UPDATE: Or is it? Tonight’s show was the season finale. Let’s hope it wasn’t the series finale.
MikeChimeri.com 
My 9/11 experience September 10, 2011
Posted by Mike C. in Commentary, Media, Music, News, Personal, Radio, TV.3 comments
Related posts: 20th anniversary retrospective, 2024 Freeport 9/11 Memorial Ceremony Photos (20th anniversary link includes 2013 ceremony photos)
9/2/20 UPDATE: Original photos have been replaced with higher-quality retouched scans and the links at the bottom removed. A link to a subsequent relevant post was added.
9/16/21 UPDATE: I forgot to mention in my portfolio or the addendum that I was tired and wanted to sleep a little longer before getting ready to go up to campus for class. My classes were either Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday. I recall having two or three classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester with the first, public speaking, at 11:30. If I had a 10:00 class, I would have been up sooner, probably seen the news break, and seen the second plane hit before leaving my house.
The following is an excerpt from a written summary of a 9/11 portfolio I made at the end of the Fall 2001 semester (December 16) at C.W. Post (9/2/20: now LIU Post) for my Broadcasting 1 course, edited for brevity and accuracy:
Addendum:
Classes were suspended in the afternoon and didn’t resume until Thursday. So, I needed a ride home in the mid-afternoon. I couldn’t get through to either of my parents for that ride. When I walked past Humanities Hall, I found my Human Values professor from two semesters prior, John Lutz. Dr. Lutz was gracious enough to give me the ride home I needed. We listened to 1010 WINS for much of what turned out to be a long ride. Traffic was heavy nearly the entire way home. Lutz is still teaching at C.W. Post, now as an associate professor of English (9/10/13: and Chairman of the English Department). If you happen to read this, Dr. Lutz, I can’t thank you enough for your help on that chaotic day ten years ago.
I was so overcome with emotion that I wasn’t in the mood to listen to any music (on CDs or MP3s on the computer) for up to a week. Yet, I had a song in my head that I couldn’t repress. As the song looped, I kept visualizing either the two towers on fire after being hit or the image from NewsCopter 7 – one that got replayed repeatedly – of United 175 flying diagonally into the South Tower. It was chilling, as I said in my summary. When I wasn’t watching the nonstop coverage on that day and the days ahead, I watched syndicated reruns of The Simpsons that I had been taping for a year. (I gave that up in 2006.) It was a therapeutic escape from the insanity of real life.
I’ll conclude this post with a
fewhandful of pictures. These were taken on a return trip to Ground Zero while shooting my senior project: a documentary about Joe Falco, a now-retired FDNY firefighter who survived the collapse of the South Tower:9/2/20 UPDATE: There were several links at this point in the post, but none of them work anymore. Instead, I refer to a post five years later which includes video of the Joe Falco documentary.