Public Speaking

This past summer I agreed to speak to the North End Club in New Haven. I can’t always say yes, but this was at a convenient time, in a convenient place. I like speaking – once I’m doing it. I hope that makes sense?

Today was a significant weather day with snow/sleet/freezing rain/rain in various parts of the state. The president of the organization was nice enough to shuffle her meeting and get me on early – which got me out early.

I don’t work from a script, but I’ve given variations of the same talk for 20 years. I know where I’m going and where the laugh lines are. Actually, the laughs aren’t guaranteed and there are places where I can gage how my audience is accepting me. I’ll field edit if it isn’t going well.

I hate to bomb but audiences have group personalities… and not all are conducive to what I do.

Of all the people I’ve seen on stage Johnny Carson brought something I had never seen, before or after. It was in Las Vegas, and as soon as he walked on stage, he was a hit. For the rest of us, the first goal is to win over the audience. I’ve never seen anyone but Johnnybe a hit from second one.

The woman who introduced me read from my bio. Oops – a few of the jokes I wanted to tell were there and she was delivering them. Oh well, – my fault.

My program ran 30-35 minutes followed by some questions. They were very responsive while I spoke and their questions afterward were also very good. So, all in all, a success.

I won’t take money from a non-profit organization, but they did give me an honorarium to donate to charity. Since our morning meteorologist, Dr. Mel and his fight with cancer became a topic of discussion, I will be donating the check to the Cancer Center at Yale.

A Day in New Haven

Maybe it was the beauty of the day. Maybe it was because I had my camera and wanted to take some shots. I spent a good part of today walking through Downtown New Haven and was mostly pleased by what I saw.

Sure, I work on the edge of downtown, but I drive in from the ‘burbs, park in our lot and don’t hang around when work ends at 11:35 pm.

A little backstory is probably necessary. I wasn’t here, but around 30 years ago New Haven set out on a vast urban renewal program. The ripped up and relocated and began to rebuild… until they stopped.

A highway, garage and right of way for more highway that was never built, isolated part of the city from its core. A poorly thought out urban mall was built. Some very ugly architecture (like the now defunct New Haven Coliseum) went up.

It started as a flesh wound, but left untreated this urban renewal project sucked the life out of the city.

When I came, 20 years ago, there was talk of the Ninth Square Project… and nothing happened. One of the mall’s anchor stores, Malleys, had already closed. It wasn’t long before Macy’s shut down too. The city festered. The downtown deteriorated.

A few years ago a restaurant renaissance began. Along with the Italian restaurants of Wooster Street, fashionable… might I say trendy restaurants started popping up.

Still, the central city emptied out before dark. Streets were deserted.

Now, it seems like the corner has been turned. The Ninth Square Project is finally bearing fruit. People are living in that downtown neighborhood… and as people at work have told me, with reasonably pricey rents – a sign of demand.

Today I walked past more downtown apartments with more under construction. This is a very good sign.

The older architecture of the city is truly beautiful. There are lots of buildings with ornate exterior work. These are buildings with structural integrity which have been or can be refurbished.

A thriving downtown is the key to a thriving city. Downtown New Haven was built for walking – literally. It should be a walking city again, day and night.

I am serious when I say today I got excited as I walked around New Haven.

It isn’t perfect. Taxes are high. The problems of an urban center add a hidden tax in the form of higher insurance. In a society that primarily shops at malls, the mall is no more. Yale is often perceived as a foreign enclave plucked into, but not part of, the city.

But there is a lot going on. There are places to eat, places to live. There are residents walking the streets.

The Downtown New Haven neighborhood is as strong, probably stronger, than I’ve seen it in 20 years.

Drugs

A year or so ago, one day without warning, my upper lip swelled to about the size of my thumb. It wasn’t pretty. Though I wasn’t in pain, I couldn’t work because I was scary looking (I thought about posting a photo I took at the time, but it really is gross).

From that time on, I started having episodes where my toes or fingers or lips would swell. If things weren’t swelling, they were itching, like my palms or the soles of my feet.

It wasn’t hurting me, but the swelling would come on without warning and be a distraction. And, of course, I was worried about the unknown. What was in me causing this?

I saw my family physician (I do tech support on his computers, he does tech support on me) who had me take a small battery of tests (probably an AAA battery) only to find nothing.

Then I went to visit the chief allergy guy at Yale/New Haven Hospital. He too could find nothing. But, he was confident, without even knowing what was wrong, that I could be treated. Not only that, he didn’t think we’d ever know what was wrong! But, it made no difference because we’d control it.

There is a great leap of faith necessary to accept a diagnosis like this… and I leapt.

He was right. I started a daily Zyrtec pill and the problems went away. Zyrtec isn’t the most expensive drug you can buy, but it’s not cheap either. My insurance company was paying a large part of the bill and my cost was $60 for 3 months.

Then Claritin left the world of prescription drugs and insurance companies started licking their lips.

With Claritin available over-the-counter, my insurance company decided to remove all the drugs like it from their formulary. Not only wasn’t Zyrtec covered anymore, neither was any generic or proprietary drug in its family. My costs were about to skyrocket.

When I last saw the allergist, I asked if there was anything cheaper to take. There was, and tonight, I got the $7 antihistimine. The pharmacist gave me a stern look and said this was an “old” drug. Though I was taking a small dose, it was powerful. Maybe I should take it at bed instead of with dinner. I might get sleepy.

Now I’m scared.

I told Helaine and she said I was crazy. Why would I let money stop me from taking something that has been incredibly effective? And, as always, she’s right.

If they don’t work, or if they knock me for a loop, I’m only a day away from changing prescriptions again. And now, my insurance company gets added to the ‘do not like’ list.

This is Jeopardy: The Taping

Jeopardy’s producers decided the 2003 College Tournament would be held at Yale. Excellent choice. Not just because it’s down the street from work, which it is, but because Yale is steeped in tradition and excellence.

I have been involved in a number of Yale events over the years, and every time I’ve interacted with its students, I’ve come away impressed.

Unlike your high school prom, Jeopardy was able to make a gymnasium totally unrecognizable as such, and move in with everything you need to make TV. Cameras, a lightning grid that would make a rock band jealous, a new Jeopardy set… it was all there and in place. A replica of Rodin’s Thinker wore a Yale cap.

As the weatherman from the ‘host’ station, I was invited to say a few words to the 1,500 or so in attendance for the two final shows. To quote the title of a long forgotten Broadway show, “We Bombed in New Haven.” It was not my finest, most stellar moment, as a live entertainer.

When I am unhappy with a performance, I want the opportunity to do it again. It’s frustrating.

Johnny Gilbert, the man who starts every show by saying, “This is Jeopardy” did the real warm-up and seemed like a nice guy. Bob Boden from Game Show Network once did a count of Johnny’s TV shows – and the count reached over 50.

I was very excited to meet Johnny, because I’ve always had this ‘thing’ about announcers. It probably goes back to the first time I attended a game show broadcast. It was the early ’60s, NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and I can’t remember the show or host for the life of me.

I do remember Wayne Howell. He was the announcer and he did the warm-up. He was great. I remember how impressed I was that we were getting this comedy routine before the show. He was really killing with some really old material.

More than anything, I remember the floor manager calling out “thirty seconds to go” and Wayne, not missing a beat, adding, “if you have to.”

With the warm up over, Alex Trebek came out. So many people look different on TV, not Trebek. He looks exactly the same. Though I don’t sense he is outgoingly warm, he spent a great deal of time in the audience answering questions. That personal contact is very important. I give him credit for that.

Because the shows haven’t yet aired, I will hold my tongue on exactly what transpired, only to say, the three contestants were male, very smart and astoundingly young. One could easily have passed for 14 or 15. None of the three came from Ivy League Schools and one attended a more or less a local, non-selective college that you’ve never heard of.

Though the staff tries to tape Jeopardy in real time, doing a half hour show in 30 minutes, that was not to be. A few of the responses weren’t what the writers had expected. Were they as right as the chosen answer? A conference took place – research was performed. This was no two bit game show. Someone was going home with $50,000 and a car. The answers needed to be correct beyond the shadow of a doubt.

There was also a bit of technical trouble. One of the computers used by the contestants to write their answers went down. Technicians coaxed it into working on the first show, but couldn’t get it to cooperate for Final Jeopardy on the second.

During one of these breaks, I was introduced to Harry Friedman, Executive Producer. He had the confident manner of the guy who knows how to get the goose to continue laying those golden eggs.

I could tell from speaking to him that he knew a show like this had to be a first class production in every way to succeed. Everything had to look perfect.

When we began taping without the computer working, one of the staffers told me how Harry was a major stickler, and that the problem must have been insurmountable for him to allow production to continue.

In local TV, unfortunately, because we’re live and on a much tighter budget, we often move through problems without solving them. Jeopardy can’t afford to do that. I am so jealous.

Lung Cancer Cure at Yale?


If true, this is one of the biggest news stories of my lifetime! Imagine, a major form of cancer being cured… and right where they diagnosed Steffie’s fractured finger last week, and where she was born, and where my mother’s cancer was cured, and where they botched an operation and cost my dad an eye.

This headline is so amazing that I just stared at it somehow imaging I was misreading, or it would go away, or this was some sort of ratings stunt (newspapers can be just as sleazy as TV stations when it comes to circulation/ratings).

Yale is an elite research institution and if a discovery was going to come from somewhere, you could certainly assume that Yale would be high on the list. And, over the past few months I had heard rumors of pending blockbuster discoveries.

If true, this discovery will change the world. Seriously.

Continue reading “Lung Cancer Cure at Yale?”

Fractured Fairy Tales

Before Stefanie was born, Helaine and I had a long running joke. If our child turned out to have any athletic acumen, there should be an investigation.

Let the investigation begin!

Steffie’s school requires students to play sports – period. Nearly everyone, two of the three semesters a year, plays some sort of team sport. Steffie has played basketball, lacrosse and field hockey.

She’s actually been playing basketball since she was in grade school. This can probably be attributed to the very popular University of Connecticut’s women’s basketball team, which is a perennial powerhouse.

Over the past few years, Steffie has gravitated more and more to field hockey and there’s no doubt it’s her favorite sport.

Forget what you’ve heard about women being demure. These girls mix it up. Field hockey is by no means a gentle game under any circumstances. Wooden stick in hand, playing over sometimes rough fields, the ball is hard and travels fast. Shin guards are worn, but that’s about it for padding (except the goalie who wears an unbelievable amount of foam and plastic).

Steffie is very good at this game… and fearless. Playing a defensive position, she knows letting a ball get past her can easily become a goal by the other team.

Today, playing at home, her team dismantled a team from Stamford. With two quick goals in the first few minutes, they never looked back. Steffie played hard and with great skill.

She was fast and relentless, digging out the ball and changing it’s direction. Her position calls for a ball stealer, not a pass catcher. She’s perfect.

Defense is not a glory position. When played properly you don’t hear about those playing it. When played poorly, you’re counting losses.

All went well until there were about 10 minutes to go. In the middle of the action, another player swiped for the ball and caught Steffie’s right hand, middle finger. Most hits wouldn’t have caused a problem, but Steffie’s own stick stopped the motion and concentrated the force into her finger.

She was in pain.

It wasn’t long before Steffie was on the sidelines being attended to by Ethan Victor, who was assisting the trainer. The finger and hand were swelling.

It seemed like the right thing to do to go to the hospital, so Steffie and I drove to Yale/New Haven Children’s Hospital’s Pediatric Emergency Room. When the receptionist was taking down Steffie’s information and asked where she was born, I got to say, “upstairs.” Steffie was born at Yale, like George W. Bush (though he is less likely to admit to any Connecticut connection).

Ethan the trainer, was now Ethan the emergency room trauma specialist! That was a good thing because he helped speed along what would have been a slow and tedious process. The emergency room was jammed. It was “Sports Injury Saturday” with soccer, bicycle and paintball related injuries around us, and more that I don’t know about.

After seeing a few doctors and nurses and getting an X-Ray, we were told Steffie had fractured the tiny bone at the tip of her finger. More than likely, it would be just fine. But, Steffie would have to wear a splint for a while. And, field hockey would be out for two weeks… OK, maybe a week if her pediatrician said it was OK.

We drove home. Steffie was still in pain, but I think there’s a certain satisfying comfort in really knowing what’s wrong with you.

Though she always shies away from pictures and complains I take too many, Steffie agreed to ‘pose’ for this shot to archive the occasion (and possibly email to friends – I never quite understand what she’ll do). She will wear the splint with pride. Her team won.