Super Bowl Wrap Up

My past week has been spent on Superbowl coverage... or at least a lot of it... and this is the first break I am getting...

So, here's my recap.

First, props to Amelia for picking the winning team.. we did a prediction with seeds....







Yep, she chose the Giants seed, left the Pats behind.. she's 1 for 1!




Then I went to Foley's bar in Downtown NYC to watch. The bar was all Giants... they even pulled Sam Adams off the tap.. you know.. it's from Boston....



The crowd was fantastic. And this is where Mike and I started our bar rivalry. He was at a Patriots bar across town.

Here's the audio:





They were major fans and they were on their feet (and later on tables) as the final moments on the clock ticked down. Then we of course snapped a shot...



Tuesday it was off to the parade.... I don't have pics of Eli and the trophy coming by because I was on the air at the time... but here's what I do have. HOURS before the parade started... the crowds were already huge!


ticker tape was falling early and rolls of toilet paper as well as footballs and beach balls were bring thrown back and forth across the road...



I ended up taking up a post in the McDonalds at Broadway and Maiden. They had a great view


and they were a sponsor anyways, so it was a win win. It even ended up being more of a win win when there was no cell service and they let me use their cordless phone so I could do reports from the crowd just outside their door!

Here's one of my post parade reports





and a couple more reports on things I learned.... 1 on what not to wear..



and one on the bathroom situation



Enjoy!

Janet Evanovich Interview - One for the Money

Ok, so some days I really love my job! Well every day I love what I do, but some days I really really really love it. This was one of those days.

Today I had the pleasure of a 15 minute interview with one of my favorite authors, Janet Evonovich. She writes the Stephanie Plum Novels, and One For the Money just came out in the movie theaters.

I used small pieces of the interview for stories that ran on the air today, but figured I would share the rest with everyone.

Here's the audio (transcript is at the end of the post)

　



And here's the trailer for the movie that opened today -




and wanna go for 1/2 off... there's a Groupon if you get it in the next couple of hours!

Transcript of my interview with Janet Evanovich:

M.M. : When you saw the script, and now that you've seen the movie, how did they do in taking the book and putting it on the screen?

J.E. : Well I never saw the script. I really didn't have any part in the production of the movie. This was sold way back when my first book came out, 18 years ago. I kind of lost track of it. You know, once in a while I would get a phone call and they would say, you know we've attached a screenwriter. But nothing ever happened. So, I had become pretty casual about the whole production. When they finally really went into production my schedule was so congested that I just didn't have a whole lot of time to participate. So, I was surprised by the movie.

When they finished the movie they asked me to screen it and they brought it down here to Naples for me. I was really terrified, you know, because I didn't know what to expect. I was afraid it might not be fabulous and what would I say? But the movie is great. I love the movie. I think they did an amazing job of translating that first book. The first book is a little darker and has a little more grit to it then the rest of the series. After I did that first book I decided to homogenize the tone a little bit more and to make everything a little bit lighter.

So, this is very much an action adventure film. It has some sexy moments and it has some funny moments but by no means is it a chick flick. It really is a very good representation of the book.

Katherine Heigl is fabulous. She is absolutely Stephanie Plum. She had a voice coach so she got the jersey accent right. She had the dark, unruly, curly hair. And she is just so talented. She has such good comic timing. She's such a good physical actress. There's a scene where she just takes this guy down, she clotheslines him. Take him down to the ground and Custan. I loved it. I was so relieved when I saw the movie because, you know, I thought wow I think my fans are really going to like this

M.M. : How was it seeing, one of your babies on that screen? You've been writing these for years and to actually see how people are going to see it in that light?

J.E. : I went to the theater with the attitude of you have to keep an open mind. I tried to go into the theater as a fan and not as the author. I think anytime a book is translated into a movie you have to realize it's not going to be your perfect image. You've created these characters in your head and no one is ever going to totally replicate that. So, I tried to keep this in mind. I think that when you walk into that theater what you really hope for is a good movie experience. You hope that you enjoy it. You hope that it has some of the same elements of the product that you like, the book that you love, but you have to be a little open.

Now, having said that, they did a pretty darn good job with this movie. I couldn't have asked for a better Stephanie Plum. Joe Morelli who was the Trenton cop that she's tracking down, in my book he's this Italian guy. Of course they cast Jason O'Mara, this Irish guy. But after about 45 seconds, you really don't care. He is so much the role. He is just perfect as this cop. And I found that pretty much to be true, once the movie started I was just enjoying the movie. I was just loving being there. I was into the story. I was hooked into the characters.

I have this character grandma Mazer who I portray being kind of like a soup chicken, you know she's this little, skinny little old lady that gravity has not been kind to. For whatever reason they chose to cast Debbie Reynolds in this role. Debbie Reynolds is by no means a soup chicken. Debbie Reynolds is still a very pretty lady. And she gave her own interpretation of grandma Mazer and she was fabulous she was so funny, and I really appreciated her the second time I saw it. I screened the movie a couple weeks ago. And then, I was at the premiere this past week and I saw it a second time. I realized just how funny Debbie Reynolds was in this role and I thought to myself "Oh man, I wish I had made Grandma Mazer Debbie Reynolds. I like that character better than the one that I actually created."

M.M. : That's quite a compliment to the movie makers.

J.E. : Yeah, yeah, they worked very hard, I think, to keep the integrity of the book and the series. It really shows.

M.M. : This is a movie that anyone can go see but for folks in New Jersey that are going to recognize the locations, the accents, the hair, the stereotypes to go with New Jersey, how do you think they're going to feel going in? Is it even more personal?

J.E. : Yeah I think it is. You know, it wasn't filmed in Jersey. I'm not sure exactly why not. I suspect it was financial reasons which is usually why locations are chosen, talent pools, tax breaks, you know all that kind of stuff. It was filmed in Pittsburgh, which they tells me looks a lot like Jersey. The house where Stephanie lives really does resemble the burg. The kind of gritty part of town where some of it takes place, I call it Stark Street, they scouted a pretty good location. They actually made it a little grungier, I think, then I had in mind when I created the story. But, it's very effective. I think people in Jersey are going to love it. Anybody that can embrace Jersey shore has to have a decent imagination anyway, because that really is stereotype Jersey, and my book is not quite that far yet.

M.M. : So I have to ask this on the side. How loved are you by the Trenton cops for making them all sound hot and sexy?

J.E. : (laughs) I have a really good relationship with the Trenton police. I love those guys. They've been really helpful to me. I have a couple friends who will be friends for life. I have a very good relationship with them and they have a very hard job. I would not want to be a Trenton cop.

M.M. : So you're down in Florida now?

J.E. : Yes I'm down in Naples. We got tired of the cold and a bunch of years ago we bought a house down here. I had been living in New Hampshire which is a very beautiful but for a girl from Jersey, you know, not so much. After the first year of being granola woman I just, I needed a mall. I needed shoes. There was nothing to do it night. There was no shopping. I just missed my jersey fix. So I wasn't ready to go to Jersey. I think if I ever move back to Jersey I'd probably never get a book written because I'd always be at Macy's and that wouldn't work for me. But, we did get this house in Florida that was supposed to be a mud season house for a couple months and then we just fell in love with Naples. So we almost never go north anymore. We stay here full-time.

M.M. : You were my introduction to Jersey through the books. And then I got the job up here in New York and I'm living in Jersey and thought okay I have the basics.

J.E. : Yeah, right, I got it down. I was like that the first time I went to London on a book tour. I knew everything because I had been reading Regency romances.

M.M. : Nice! Was anything else you'd like to add about the movie?

J.E. : I don't think so. It's out now and we hope it's going to be a success because then they would make more. And I think that there are a lot of fun books out there that I would like to see translated into a movie. Especially, in book 2, Stephanie Plum kicks Joe Morelli out of the car naked. You know, he only has his gun. I would like to see that happen to Jason O'Mara, who by the way is even hotter in person than he is on screen. And he's a really nice guy. But, I could go there!

In this movie, one for the money, the one that's out now, Stephanie Heigl is naked. She gets chained to the shower curtain rod in the book and they did it in the movie. And Jason O'Mara, who plays Morelli, is going through her apartment and emptying out big jugs of cheese doodles and you know, so he tells me that that scene took all day to do. For whatever reason, he was like Darn it, I just couldn't get it right. It had to take all day.

Tanker Truck Fire in Elizabeth Nj

Today I was out covering the story of a car the crashed into a tanker truck in Elizabeth, NJ.

Once again I marvel at emergency workers and the hard jobs they do.

A car hit a gas tanker and they both went up in flames. Rescue workers had a hard battle with it from the beginning. This is a picture I got from Mario, who worked at the gas station across the street.


"About 8,000 gallons of gasoline involved in fire. Elizabeth police tried to make an initial rescue, but it was too hot and they were driven back." said Elizabeth Deputy Fire Chief Lathey Wirkus.

The driver of the car was killed in the crash. But getting the fire out was not their only problem. There was spilling fuel.

"Gasoline did get into some of the sewer systems," said Wirkus, "We've done monitoring of all the homes in the area to ensure explosion levels are not there. We continue to apply foam that keeps the vapors down.

There was a literal sea of that white foam that was floating down 1 & 9, but he said that was necessary to keep the fumes down and from being able to ignite. They spent much of the morning siphoning fuel from the wrecked tanker into a new vehicle and then clean the roadway.

siphoning the fuel


The sea of foam


a close up... looks like clouds doesn't


See how far the truck is from the traffic light behind it... it's a good distance...


but the heat was so intense it burned and melted the traffic light


A video of the foam operations by the tanker.



and a video about 1/4 mile down the road of foam blowing/floating by.

Happy Thanksgiving! Here are the Balloons!!

Well we know it's the Macy's Day parade on Thanksgiving.... and here in NYC, the night before means joining what seemed like billions to see the balloons getting inflated.

You think Disney has lines? You have no idea. The line of thousands to see the balloons never got shorter... but it flowed at a great rate and kept moving... So here's what I saw

It's the Thanksgiving turkey... ok well it's what he looks like when lying on his side....



Sailor Mickey - face down.... Funny, since many of them are facedown and netted when they are being blown up, someone said it looked like all the characters were arrestees :)



Kool-Aid!!!



AFLAC!!!



Sonic



Snoopy



Larry Brewer (from my WMMB days in Melbourne) and Spiderman...



It's the Energizer bunny!



And of course we had to stop for the tourist picture in front of the poster!




And it may not be the perfect picture, but even the Empire State Building is colored for Thanksgiving!!




Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!

OWS Day of Action

Ok, so it took me a day to recover from the OWS Day of action before posting.... Thursday was a long day.... and I only covered part of it.

My morning started with me at Zuccotti Park at 6am. The occupiers were planning to close down Wall Street by literally putting so many bodies in the way that people could not get in or out of the area.


It took a while to get everyone together across the street from the park. There were many sharpie markers going around so people could write the legal aid # on their skin in case they got arrested. There was also a 'breakfast' offering. That was a man with a bag of bread passing it around, another man with a bag of grapefruit and a guy walking around with cases of water.

Once everyone had breakfast the march began. As the protesters marched to areas where they thought they could get into the Wall Street or Exchange Plaza, they found they had already been barricaded off and there was a massive police presence. Workers who needed to get in had to show a work ID to get past the barricades. It was a no win for the protesters...so they kept marching...



Once they made it to 60 Wall Street, in front of Deutche Bank, everyone took to the street, did a couple bank -bashing chants and then started marching again. Now they were trying to come up the other side of the plaza to see if there was a way in... no such luck.

I should mention here there were three different groups marching. I was in the first group. So, after not being able to get in anywhere on three sides of the plaza, there was a lot of confusion of what to do.



It truly seemed no one had considered the police would have barricaded the road off and stopped them from accomplishing their goal. I even heard people say -'Where the hell are we going", "What should we do now?". There was a lot of confusion and disorganization. This surprised me since I knew this was a planned event. At the protest I was in on Tuesday, which was an unplanned protest, they seemed to keep things together better than they were at thier 2-month anniversary event. Go figure.

So, we went down Broadway to the entrance of Exchange Plaza there, and that is where more police were waiting. They were again, letting people in only if they showed thier ID. Now, here is what I kind of chuckled at. The idea of OWS was to 'stop wall street' on Thursday. But as the Wall Street workers came up to the crowd and said, "Excuse me, I need to get through", they let them through. I am not saying anyone should be taking their anger out on people who just happen to have a job there, but if your goal is to stop Wall Street, then letting the workers get in is not going to accomplish that goal. Just saying.....



This was the first area where there were major clashes. After a while, the police got sick of the crowd of protesters in front of the barricades and told everyone to make some space. They didn't. So, after a few warnings the officers started pushing the crowd.



The way they do this is to hold thier nightsticks sideways, and literally push against the crowd of people, pushing the crowd back. They also tend to have some pretty good sized officers take the lead on this, so it's pretty effective. Well, usually I am 3-4 people back in the crowd. Not this time. I was right at the front taking pictures and grabbing audio....so... when the night stick came out and I turned to get out of the way, it was my back that it got pushed into. That was a new one.

Did I get hurt? No. It was not slammed into my back or anything, just set up against my back and he leaned in pushing me, and thereby pushing the crowd as I let the people in front of me know they needed to move by my pushing into them. It worked. the crowd moved back about 10 feet this way.

Here I am doing to take a side jaunt. Someone already asked me "But didn't they know you were a reporter?". Doesn't matter. When there is a crowd of hundreds of thousands, you cannot and I do not expect the police to stop and say 'excuse me, who are you before I decide whether to treat you like everyone else?'. I am a part of the crowd and therefore amd treated just like the rest. If I am in the wrong place and there is an action against the crowd, I'm going to get it too... Perhaps that's why I didn't see a lot of other on-air reporters in the crowd. But I think if I am going to cover something, the more I can understand what is happening, the better I can tell the story...

After the 10-foot gap was made, there was a little lull. The officers went back to their stations and we were standing about 10-feet away, with protesters plotting the next move. That's when their roit gear came out. They had made their own sheilds and such to create a wall and approach the PD with.



By the way, the police did not have shields. a few fights broke out at this time and I watched a couple protesters go down and get arrested.





Then we stood. It seemed like a long time that we were there with no one knowing what to do... more of that confusion I mentioned earlier, and then someone decided we should go back the way we came and see who was at the intersection on the south side of the plaza. Well it just so happened EVERYONE was there. The other marches had shown up and this is where the most of the clashes against police happened.







At least one time watching this unfold I was truly terrified for a pair of police officers. They were swallowed by the crowd. That's really the only way I can describe it. The officers were suddenly enveloped and cut off from the rest, with protesters on all sides. I know I have described this before, but the crowd truly seems like a living breathing creature at times like this, constricting around the officers and everyone tightening in on them. It is frightening to behold. Other officers then pushed through the crowd to get them out.




We spent a while at this intersection and I can only imagine how frightening it also was for traffic. A vehicle would pull down the street and then suddenly would be swarmed by protesters who had taken ot the street. There were regular calls of 'take the streets' where everyone would rush into the streets, only to be told by police to get on the sidewalk and then to get into fights with police when they didn't.





This off and on fighting with police went on for an hour or more and then everyone started getting bored, me included. I had the same stuff to report over and over again. About that time they decided to move back up to Broadway and to Zuccotti Park again. So we marched...




When we got back to the park, there was a quick 10 minute celebration where people cheered what they called a victory... but I am not really sure what they were victorious over... and then decided to march again. Ok.... where to this time? The subways... to clog them up.

Once again I started reporting as we left the park. We started marching down Broadway and got about three blocks up when the leaders of the pack turned around and started retracing their steps. Were they going the wrong way? Did they just not know where they were going? I'm not sure, but we switched directions. We back-tracked a few blocks then everyone stopped again. Once again we were milling about in the road with no one knowing where the protest was going to go. Just about that time, things got really ugly. You see this budget truck?



It seems it belonged to the protesters and had all their tents and supplies in it. They saw the police getting into it and confiscating it and got into a brawl. Now, I don't know why the police targeted it. Did they know it was the protesters? Maybe. But it was in a no parking area so, well ask anyone who has been ticketed or towed... that's what happens in the city. That was not good enough for protesters. They were livid. And it took many more officers to bring things under control.

I mentioned before I usually stay towards the front of the pack, but as I saw a 5-person deep police line in riot gear moving in, I stepped back a bit. In a few moments it was under control, with, yes, a handful more arrests.

The marchers still seemed confused as to what to do and circled back to Zuccotti Park to regroup once again. Well, by this time it started raining. I am not sure if it was that they were hungry, tired, or didn't like freezing rain, but the numbers dropped, substantially....to half or less of what had been there before....

My shift was over so I started to head out.... and my impression of this days protest was that it was so disorganized compared to what I had seen in the past, even earlier in the week. I know Thursday evening was a massive event with the march over the Brooklyn Bridge and I know almost 250 people were arrested over the course of the day. From the helicopter shots of what was going on it may have looked like they knew what they were doing, but from the inside, it was a mess. From in the crowd, no one had an idea of where they should be going or what to do... and it makes me wonder if the movement has turned into a number of angry people, but without the focus it had not long ago...