February 28, 2009

God bless the grass

Back in the late 1970s, I believe, there was a folk song that got a fair share of airplay on FM college stations; I think it was written by Pete Seeger -- it was called "God Bless the Grass."
The song went on about how the will of grass, indeed the will of all nature, is to grow, and to take root. The song talked about how grass grows in the most unusual places, like the cracks in a sidewalk.
Truth be told, I have even seen small trees growing in the cracks of walls and bridges.
The lesson there is that the will of nature is to grow, and to live. That is exactly why I know the credit crunch we have been in for about half a year now is going to loosen up -- because banks are in business to LEND money. That's how they make their money. For a bank to stop lending out money at interest, in the form of personal loans, lines of credit, credit cards, mortgages, etc., is antithetical to a bank's reason for being.
And so it is with consumers, as well. The U.S. is a consumer culture -- we derive our sense of identity, time and place, among other things, from the products we buy and consume. Diet Coke is not just a flavored drink, one among countless many -- it is a statement about who we are. Americans have stopped spending for a few months, true, but at some point all that pent-up consumer energy is going to erupt and people are going to buy clothing, cosmetics, new hairstyles, etc., again. Because asking someone who grew up in a consumer culture to not consume is like expecting the proverbial leopard to wipe off its spots.
New industries like alternative energy and energy farming, new products we want to own, new jobs like construction as we rebuild worn-out infrastructure, new sources of revenue even for newspapers as our digital sub-culture matures and people buy virtual papers and Blackberry editions -- the sheer weight of the shoulders against the door will break it open at some point.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Mini-book review: easy plants

Back in the 1990s, when I was married and owned a small ranch house in Stratford, there was a shady area on my back lawn where no grass would grow. I noticed, though, that there was a wild plant -- I think it was called wood sorrel -- that actually liked that shady spot and WANTED to be there. So rather than fight nature, trying to grow grass where grass refused to grow, I encouraged the sorrel to grow instead, by letting it come to flower rather than cutting it back, and that season the sorrel rewarded me by luxuriously filling out every square inch of what had been a bare spot of the lawn under the shade of a large maple tree. A carpet of sorrel is prettier than grass, if you ask me.
That is exactly the lesson you find in "100 Easy-To-Grow Native Plants for American Gardens," by Lorraine Johnson (Firefly Books). The new book, a revised edition with richly reproduced color photographs by Andrew Leyerle, explores the merits of hardy native American plants like the western trillium and the white wood aster, that make it a snap to decorate your property because they really want to be there.
Every lawn has its tough spots where grass doesn't want to grow, for one reason or another, so a native plant that is easy to grow and has eye appeal, like the wood fern -- which also grew like crazy for my lawn in Stratford -- makes sense.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 27, 2009

Bow Tie Banker signs books

David Carson, who led People's Bank and was known for his dapper bow ties, will join author Lennie Grimaldi Saturday for a book-signing session of Grimaldi's new book about Carson, "The Bow Tie Banker."
The session gets underway at 2 p.m. at Borders Books on the Post Road in Fairfield center.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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John Mayer has interesting project

I know lots of rock music artists who AREN"T millionaires, or even close to being "staz," but of course if you want to see one who is you look at Fairfield's John Mayer, who has been a prince of the Top 40 for most of this decade.
He has an interesting new blog, all about a project he has in which he converts a house in a clandestine location to a type of rock n' roll recording experience, like the Caribou Ranch in Colorado back in the mid-1970s, when artists like Elton John and Chicago made some of their best commercially successful records.
I don't know exactly where the Mayer house is, but I am guessing based on rumblings I have heard that it is in the Fairfield area.
Check out the blog at http://www.johnmayer.com/battlestudies/
-- TONY SPINELLI

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New meaning for "post"

Lots of people in Southern Connecticut have read "the Post" for years -- the Connecticut Post, and of course the Bridgeport Post that preceded it -- but some did not know what the word "post" meant.
Some thought it was a reference to a hitching post, a place to tie horses. Some thought it referred to the mail, as in post office.
Here's what it really means: in Colonial New England, there were typically bulletin posting posts around town, on a main road or near the town green. These were public domain and a place where people in the community could post notices about events in their lives. It was literally a place to post bulletins.
The Town of Easton still has one of these Colonial-type posts. It is on Center Road, nearby the Town Hall, and people still use it to post notices about missing pets and babysitting services. Several years ago the town refurbished it and I wrote an article at the time about the history of New England posting poles.
Of course, nowadays, the original meaning of the word "post" has been revived on the Web, where every story, video, blog, etc., must be "posted."
LOL, it has nothing to do with hitching up horses or delivering the mail!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 26, 2009

Opportunity for independent music artists

As you've noticed, some of the videos here at ConnPost.com contain musical soundtracks. Some of these soundtracks are by yours truly -- for example, the background music on the "Winter at Milford Point" video was from my latest indie radio single, from my other life as an independent music artist. My main genres are progressive acoustic rock and contemporary blues.
But of course there should be a variety of music to put on the soundtracks, and that's where the opportunity for independent music artists is: if you have recorded a CD of your own material -- instrumentals, ethnic and holiday themes are particularly needed -- and you are not infringing on anyone's copyright, please send a copy of your CD to Tony Spinelli, Connecticut Post, 410 State Street, Bridgeport, CT, 06604.
It doesn't pay royalties or anything, but we do give you a credit line on the video for the soundtrack music. Also, please know that the tracks will probably be edited.
So send in those CDs!
-- TONY SPINELLI

ADDENDUM: Congratulations to the Jim Royle Drum Studio Steel Band for being the first to submit a CD!

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February 24, 2009

It's clam chowder day!

It's a big day for me -- my multi-media enterprise series for the food page on Connecticut's clam chowder traditions appeared today in print and online.
To see all the photographs, read all the articles and watch all four videos I produced for this series, please click on the Accent page, here at ConnPost.com, or go to http://www.connpost.com/food/ci_11767621
Bon appetit!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 23, 2009

Mini-book review: from gloom to grins

It's a forboding time in which to live, with a recession so deep that it makes the last bruising downturn 20 years ago look like a warmup lap. So reading the excellent non-fiction book "Six Degrees: Our Future On A Hotter Planet," by Mark Lynas (National Geographic books) was like a double-dose of gloom. Its warnings of how sea levels will rise to wipe out islands and coastlines, among other bad stuff like land turning to desert, is not going to brighten anyone's day. It was scary stuff, all right, so after a couple of nights reading it -- (one of my favorite non-fiction books of all time, "Entropy: Entering the Greenhouse World," was in this genre, so I was attracted to the subject) -- I had to switch to something light, just for a laugh. The book was was "The Argyle Sweater," a collection of syndicated newspaper cartoons by Scott Hillburn.
There's not enough humor and comedy to go around in times like these, if you ask me, so kudos to Andrews McMeel Publishing for putting this book in the stores. We could use a little levity.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 22, 2009

Giant chimpanzee sub-species a longstanding legend

The news out of Stamford about the 200-pound chimpanzee that ate steak and lobster has captivated the nation's imagination, and has been the subject of daily updates that are read probably by millions of people, when you total all the news organizations reporting the story.
I found an interesting article in the UK Mail on a related topic that bears noting: there is a growing belief that a sub-species of carnivorous chimpanzees exists in the jungles of the Congo in Africa.
It's a legend that's been around some time: you may remember the 1980 Michael Crichton sci-fi thriller "Congo," about a super-ape.
A Swiss photographer, Karl Amman, visited the area in 1996 and reportedly found a skull which was similar in size to that of a chimpanzee but had a prominent bony crest like a gorilla. The question is whether the skull represents a hybridized gorilla/chimpanzee, since both live in the Congolese jungles, or is a complete sub-species.
Amman also reportedly got hold of a photograph that appeared to show a huge chimpanzee; he also found footprints bigger than a gorilla's.
Then, in 2004, Shelly Williams, a primatologist affiliated with the Jane Goodall Institute, had a direct sighting and reported the apes had a flat face, with a wide muzzle and grey fur all over their face and bodies, according to the Mail.
If this seems far-fetched, consider that the legendary mountain gorilla was not officially proven to exist until 1902. The stories of giant gorillas fascinated the public and by the early 1930s had been transformed in the classic film "King Kong." Other giant gorilla movies, like "Mighty Joe Young," followed.
The large primates are reported by the Mail to be powerful (not so hard to believe), curious about humans, and capable of taking on leopards and lions with their huge chimpanzee teeth.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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The effect of the recession on churches

I am working on a video and article about the impact the recession is having on local churches, and I would love to hear from churchgoers who have had to cut back on their tithings, as well as those who have stopped going to church altogether because they are embarrased at how they have no money to donate.
So please write to me at tspinelli@ctpost.com, or call at 330-6361, which is a confidential way for you to reach me rather than writing in to this blog. The recession is hurting the churches and we need to hear your story!
Thanks,
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 21, 2009

Something in common with Jim Buchanan

I was over at WICC AM studios in Bridgeport taping the Jim Buchanan show Friday, and during the course of casual conversation about cable television with entertainment writer Joe Meyers of Go, I discovered that Jim and I have a mutual interest: we both love classic and vintage monster movies.
It doesn't matter to me that movies like "Plan 9 From Outer Space" aren't really scary. They're just kind of goofy in the way they TRY to be scary, in a kitschy, 1950s b-movie kind of way.
I have to laugh when I see a film like "The Giant Gila Monster," where the monster is nothing more than a regular desert lizard, filmed at close range with miniature background around it to make it appear to be the size of a dinosaur.
When we were kids, we read magazines like "Famous Monsters of Filmland."
So I look forward to chatting with Jim about all the videos here at ConnPost.com, and telling the stories behind the stories. I should be joining him on the air on Thursdays at 4 p.m.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 20, 2009

George Washington: descendant of St. Stephen of Hungary?

I have just read a fascinating article on the Hungarian magyarnews.org Website, in which it is claimed that a genealogical chart written in Hungarian suggests that Margaret Butler, the wife of Lawrence Washington, grandfather of George Washington, was a descendant of St. Stephen, the first Christian King of Hungary and the patron saint of Hungarians.
The story is that St. Stephen ( Szent István, in Hungarian), had a grand-daughter, Agatha, who married Edward, pretender to the throne of England. One of their children was St. Margaret (Szent Margit in Hungarian), who married the Scottish nobleman, Malcolm. Their daughter, Edith Matilda, married Henry the First, King of England. King Henry and his wife Edith Matilda were the ancestors of Margaret Butler, according to this Hungarian genealogical chart.
If anyone has any history books or information that corroborates this, please write in!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Calling all polka fans

I have often listened to polka shows on the radio when I'm out driving in my car. I did a Google search on the Web for polka shows in Connecticut and found there are more than a dozen of them.
So, being the ever-vigilant reporter looking for the next story, I decided to do a multi-media series on polka in Connecticut. I have arranged interviews with a polka radio host and a polka bandleader. Who I would like to hear from at this point is a polka society or polka club, that conducts polka events.
So if you are involved in polka that way, please drop me a line so I can give you a call and get this story rolling! Thanks!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 19, 2009

A visit to Fairfield's Hungarian Alps

Fairfield reporter Genevieve Reilly is writing an article about how Fairfield residents of Hungarian descent are taking language classes to connect with the culture and heritage of their parents, grandparents, etc. So my editor, Ted Tompkins, asked me to make a video to go along with it, showing the old Hungarian neighborhood in Fairfield, etc.
I like to get things done sooner rather than later so I wasted no time in getting out to the Black Rock Turnpike area of Fairfield.
I turned down a small street along Saint Emery Hungarian Catholic parish, and noticed a couple in their late 70s walking toward the church basement door. I got out of the car and followed them and bingo! The basement was full of Hungarian seniors having a little lunch and a few card games.
"Well, you are in the right place at the right time," one of the Hungarian men told me, when I explained I was there to make a videotape about Fairfield's Hungarian neighborhood. (He made me promise I would mention the name of the church's pastor, Friar Louis M. Pintye, so there it is.)
Then it was off to the Hungarian butcher shop and deli, just across the street from Saint Emery's, where, bingo! again, some Hungarians, Hungarian accents and all, were in there buying meats.
"You can't leave until you try some of this stuff," said one of the customers, a guy who had driven in from Madison.
I had to laugh -- my family is of Hungarian descent on the maternal side, and I am as familiar with Eastern European foods as I am with lasagna.
-- TONY SPINELLI

ADDENDUM: Hungarian food is something I have actually been known to cook, but Hungarian language has eluded me. I am semi-literate and semi-conversant in Italian, which I picked up from my environment without any formal training, but the Hungarian language is a horse of another color. Credit to those Americans of Hungarian descent who are learning the rather complex language.

ANOTHER ADDENDUM: Hungarian food includes entrees like stuffed peppers, stuffed cabbage, pierogies, kielbasa and sauerkraut, kielbasa and eggs (I used to cook that that all the time when I was on the Atkins diet), kielbasa and just about anything, lol. Don't forget chicken n' dumplings paprikash, potato pancakes, veal goulash, cucumber salad (cucumbers are the favorite vegetable of Hungary) and cabbage n' noodles (ribbon noodles.) But in Connecticut, the one Hungarian food item that has caught on among everyone is the Hungarian bow-tie cookie, known as the kalacs. It is a bow-tie baked pastry filled with apricot, strawberry, or other types of fruit preserves.

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February 18, 2009

Memories of the Beardsley Zoo chimpanzee

Decades ago -- when I was a kid in the '60s -- the Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport had a chimpanzee, a male named Charlie who had a nasty disposition.
I am bringing this up because in today's article by Kate Ramunni about chimpanzees, Gregg Dancho, director of the zoo, talks about how they had to get rid of Charlie Brown, as he was called, way back when because he was too hard to handle.
Charlie had a dislike for boys. Perhaps he had a need to try to dominate them, because he viewed them as competing males. In the wild, adolescent chimpanzee males must assert dominance to maintain their place in the troop.
Charlie would sneer at us and spit at us. One of my friends got covered in spit, for doing nothing more than saying "hi Charlie."
I was probably no more than 10-years-old at the time, but it completely changed my television-fed perception that chimpanzees are cute, friendly creatures to play with and laugh about.
And it was not my only encounter with a foul simian with a dislike for human males. At several zoos, I have had some bad experiences near the cages, which I cannot spell out for you here because this is not an alternative weekly, but when it came once from a massive specimen whose teeth were nearly as long as my thumbs it was pretty scary and made me glad about little things that mean so much, like walls.
So thanks to Kate for writing the followup story to the Stamford chimpanzee attack incident, which for me, was neither shocking nor surprising.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Air of incredulity at Stamford dispatch center

Listening to the recording of the 911 dispatch center in the Stamford chimpanzee attack incident, I heard what appeared to be a clearcut case of incredulity in the dispatcher's responses to the frantic woman's call.
Woman: Tells dispatcher to send police to her address, in desperate tones, with chimp yelling in background.
Dispatcher: "What's the problem? What's the problem?"
Woman: Chimp yells. Dispatcher asks again, "what's the problem there?" She tells him the chimp just killed her friend.
Dispatcher: "What's wrong with your friend?" The chimp is screaming even louder now. "What's the problem with your friend?" The woman is exasperated, "uh, please!" He repeats it, although she has already told him the chimp has killed her friend: "what's the problem with your friend? I need to know."
Woman: At her wit's end, "send the police out! With a gun! With a gun!"
Dispatcher: "Who has a gun?," he asks. "Please hurry up, he's killing my girlfriend!," she says. Now the dispatcher finally puts out the call, but his information is badly bungled, as if he did not believe a word the woman just told him about a chimpanzee attacking her friend, and he seems totally oblivious to the sound of the chimpanzee in the background: he tells officers to respond to that address because "someone has a gun; he's trying to kill somebody."
Woman: "Hurry up, hurry up." The dispatcher tells her police are on the way, but he needs more information: he asks who is doing what; he is still oblivious to the clear communication, with background noise and all, that a chimpanzee is going wild. He asks her again, "who has the gun?" She responds emphatically: "no, BRING the guns! You've got to kill this chimp!"
Dispatcher: "What's the problem there?" He acts as though nothing he has heard has penetrated him. He tells her to calm down, as if she actually could do so when an animal is going wild and mauling someone at the scene. "Why do you need someone there?" By now, the woman can't believe the dispatcher is acting so incredulous. "What? Please just...he's killing my friend!" "Who is killing your friend?," he asks, still oblivious to what he has heard about a chimpanzee attack.
Woman: "My chimpanzee!"
Dispatcher: "Oh, your chimpanzee is killing your friend!," he says, with an air of amusement. "Yes," the woman tells him, "hurry up, hurry up please!" Now the dispatcher finally has the message, but puts out a call that underplays the danger at hand that the woman has communicated to him: "the monkey is beating up on somebody," he says.
If that was not an incredulous response, I don't know what is.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 17, 2009

An unorthodox method of quitting smoking

I read some articles lately about how hard it is to quit smoking, and why it's important to quit, and I thought I'd share my own unorthodox method for quitting smoking.
First off, let me say that I was a heavy cigar smoker, like a lot of Connecticut guys who took a liking to a product that our state is famous for. (Connecticut wrapping leafs are used on the finest Cuban cigars.) I also smoked pipes, and over the years had a collection of nice briars that looked a lot nicer, lol, than any tobacco could possibly smell. Pipes and cigars had more appeal to me than cigarettes, which I had given up years ago in favor of the darker, denser tobaccos of cigars and pipes.
When it came time to quit -- something every smoker hopefully comes to do for the sake of his or her health -- I looked at the methods that were available and saw there were three over-the-counter solutions: nicotine patches, nicotine gum, and nicotine lozenges.
So rather than try to figure out which one worked the best, I paired them and stacked them: for a few weeks I wore a patch and chewed gum, then I wore a patch and sucked lozenges, then I just savored lozenges until I was able to walk away completely. It was pretty easy -- the nicotine jolt from the OTC products, combined with the heavier amounts of caffeine I was drinking in the form of coffee and diet soda, more than made up for what I was missing in smoking. The hard part was the behavior modification, which I pulled off thanks to a CD that came with the stop-smoking kit. I played it in the car every day.
When I quit smoking and went on all those nicotine products and caffeine, I had a tremendous surge of energy -- nervous energy most likely -- which I put to good use by going on a boot camp program at the gym and losing a lot of weight. (I dropped six or seven pants sizes, going from a 50 to a 38, and have over the past two years since losing all that weight gained back only two pants sizes, which I can live with and is maintainable without extreme measures like fad diets and excessive exercise.)
So, quitting smoking cleared up my breathing, gave me a lot more energy, and helped me to lose a substantial amount of weight.
Is there life after smoking? Yes, and it is a much healthier life.
-- TONY SPINELLI

ADDENDUM: How I went from being fit to being overweight is a story in itself. I had been a fit, 215-pound martial arts student in 1995 when I tore a groin muscle and had to lay off exercise for several years for the bad injury to heal. I did join a gym and return to exercise in 1999, and had lost quite a bit of weight by 2001, but I fell on the stairs at home in 2002 and suffered a spinal injury that incapacitated me from exercise once again, and I gained all the weight back and then some. The moral of the story is: don't get hurt.

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February 16, 2009

In defense of the Web

Someone the other day made the mistake of calling the Internet "a boob tube" in my presence.
I am a guy who has worked on the Web in one form or another for fun, profit or both since 1999, when I worked as a freelancer for an Internet-based news organization, and I have to defend what for me has become the beloved frontier.
A boob tube is what they called television. Television is passive -- it shows you what programmers choose to show you and you just sit there and take what they give you. There is not much interaction there. There was a saying back in the '60s I believe: "the revolution will not be televised."
The Web, on the other hand, is the farthest thing from being passive. It is not only active, but interactive. You tell IT what you want to see, read, or hear, when you want. It is a medium for information as well as entertainment, even for socializing.
Visit a Web site and you can typically interact in some way through an email, a message board, etc.
That doesn't make you a boob. It makes you more connected to people, more in touch with your world, more informed than ever.
It wants to hear from you as much as you want to hear from it.
And you can even catch old episodes of Bonanza!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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First and ten for President Obama

It is President's Day, and President Obama has his hard-won economic stimulus package aimed at carrying the U.S. out of the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Clearly, it is like Obama's team has the football, and it is the first down with 10 yards.
Economists are already complaining that the stimulus package is too small and too late, and if you watch television current events shows there are enough prophets of doom and gloom to fill Yankee Stadium. Obama's team is already weary of this tail-biting, and trying to dampen the high expectations for the stimulus package by saying that it is going to take some time to kick in.
So what's a fair 10-yard line? As a reporter with eight years experience on the business desk, I would say that October, the beginning of the critically-important fourth quarter on which American business makes it or breaks it, would be a good checkpoint to aim for. We've got to see some bubbling in the pot, some steam from the kettle, by the fourth quarter or it's a safe bet that the economists are at least somewhat correct and the stimulus package is probably too weak a prescription for the illness at hand.
But I've seen some economists put expectations on our new president that he cannot possibly live up to, setting him up like a bowling pin for certain failure: expecting him to develop an economic stimulus that will pull the WORLD out of global recession. To be fair, we have to admit that we elected Barack Obama to be president of the United States, not president of the world. (That's taking the concept of globalism way too far.) We can't expect any American president to solve all the world's problems, especially when his hands are full with our own concerns.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 14, 2009

End of a season

The high school wrestling season is wrapping up, and I have just completed editing a 3-1/2 minute newsvideo of the FCIAC title matches in New Canaan.
I videotaped each of the 14 matches but you can quickly see by doing some simple math that if I gave each match 30 seconds, it would be a seven minute video, more than 100 percent too long. So it was time to cut.
In the compressed amount of time I had to view the clips on the editing board -- I watch them at high speed when editing because on deadline there isn't time to watch an hour of clips at normal speed -- I picked what seemed to be the beefiest, brawlingest action captured on tape.
So great job guys -- Danbury and Warde have had particularly good seasons -- and good luck to all the wrestlers who are graduating this year, going on to the next chapter in their lives. Keep sports in your life, if you can, because we all need to exercise for the good of our health and having a sport makes it all come together.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 13, 2009

In praise of the humble peanut

I was saddened with the news out of Virginia today that the peanut processing company at the heart of the national salmonella outbreak is going out of business. The Lynchburg.-based Peanut Corp. of America filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Virginia, after a salmonella outbreak was traced to a company plant in Blakely, Ga., where inspectors found unhygienic conditions. The salmonella outbreak sickened more than 630 people, could have possibly killed nine, and led to the recall of more than 2,000 peanut products, making it one of the largest recalls in U.S. history.
It's a lot of bad publicity for peanuts, so I thought it would be a good time to say something good about them.
For one, peanut butter was invented right here, and of course we Americans do love to eat our peanut butter. When you're hungry for a snack, a peanut butter sandwich, or peanut butter on crackers, is near to perfect. There are times when I actually get a craving for a peanut butter sandwich. (Yea, me and Elvis, lol.)
Peanut butter is good nutrition. Sure, it's not something you want to eat if you are on a low-fat diet, but otherwise it is a healthful, nourishing snack food.
Peanut butter is one of those things that sprang from ingenuity. That's one of the great things about the U.S.: we have a pioneering spirit, and like to do new things that haven't been done, including invent our own food (chili, burgers, meatloaf, etc.), music (blues, jazz, country, cajun, alt-country, bluegrass, rock n' roll, etc.), art (modern art, illustration, etc.), etc., that is unique to these shores. The U.S. isn't just a place on a map; it is a state of mind, and the beauty of it is that anyone, from anywhere, can join in this state of mind. I have Internet friends in Japan who are more American in their way of thinking and dress than some people I know who actually live here.
So, for my part, I am sticking by peanut butter.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Calling the congregation

I'll be working on a multi-media reporting project in which I tell the story of how churches are being adversely impacted by the recession, and I'd like to hear from you.
Are you a churchgoer who has had to cut back on your tithings? Are you a churchgoer who has temporarily dropped out of going to church because you can't afford the weekly donations?
If so, please give me a call at 330-6361 or email me at tspinelli@ctpost.com. I would love to hear your story -- and of course to use that material in my upcoming piece.
Thanks!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Getting a rolling shot

I was watching a preview copy of "The Human Footprint," a documentary that will appear on television this spring, and I noticed that the cameraman was using a rolling platform to get moving shots -- a technique that is common in dramatic films but relatively unused in documentaries.
In this case, the camera seemed to have been mounted in the basket of an extended cherrypicker truck, the kind used by utility companies. The movement of the camera, in a straight line or a curving one, gave a sense of motion to what otherwise would have been a closing telephoto shot, and it was very effective.
So, of course, I wanted to imitate it. Only I didn't have a cherrypicker truck. So when I was working on my mini-documentary of Barnum's Mansions, I got a moving shot on the gates of Phineas Taylor Barnum's fourth and last mansion (called Marina) by steadying the camera on my car door, and driving smoothly up the circular road that leads to the gates.
I would say the rolling closeup made for a much more interesting shot than a telephoto closeup.
So please enjoy the video when it's posted!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Digtal media and multi-dimensional stories

Only a couple of years ago, if an outstanding young athlete were to be the subject of a newspaper's attention, he or she would get a full-length (15 to 25 column inches) feature story with a photograph, or maybe a couple of photographs, at best.
Today, with the emergence of digital media, we can do a lot more than that. We can give the equivalent of a full-court press in basketball.
Paul Chavez, a freshman wrestler from Oxford High School, is the first athelte to receive this full throttle digital coverage. I have been at work on a multi-dimensional digital package about Chavez that includes a full-length feature article, photos by Christian Abraham, a video piece that includes an interview with Chavez as well as footage of him in action on the mat, and a photographic slideshow accompanied by mp3 audio clips of Chavez talking about his passion for his sport.
This multi-dimensional approach to a story brings more of the subject to life; you get a sense of Chavez as a human being as well as as an athlete. It's good, because the stories of our lives are often multi-dimensional and have only been waiting for this Digital Age to come to fruition.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 10, 2009

A dog for all seasons

It's been a long time since I've had a dog in the house. But my niece, Christina, had to go out job-hunting for the day so I found myself spending part of the morning and afternoon babysitting her Tibetan Spaniel, named Patron after the brand of tequila
I had to laugh at the coincidence I saw: only the night before, I had been watching the 1957 Warner Brothers film "The Abominable Snowman," about a Yehti living in Tibet, and here in the flesh was a breed of dog with origins in that frozen, far-away mountain land.
Patron warmed up to me quickly, like Wonder Bread to a General Electric toaster. Within a few minutes of talking to him and letting him hear my voice and sniff me over, it was like we had known each other forever, and he proved to be amazingly well behaved.
He heard the mailman coming from down the block, and barked out a warning that someone was approaching. But when the mailman actually came to the door to drop off a package -- a delivery of books on video and filmmaking I had ordered off the Web -- he did not bark or make a nuisance of himself. Rather, he lay on the floor quietly and observed, as if he were in an obedience class.
Patron seemed as interested in finding out what was inside the package as I was!
I don't know exactly what my niece's secret is for getting a dog to behave like that, but something tells me that Patron the Tibetan Spaneil is going to become a regular visitor.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 9, 2009

Barnum's mansions

I made a mini-documentary today on the Mansions of Barnum, a subject that has intrigued me for years because I grew up in Bridgeport and knew that Phineas Taylor Barnum had magnificent houses built in the city. But I had never actually seen all of them.
So it was a treat when Alessandra Wood, collections manager for the Barnum Museum, took out some old photographs from the 1800s that showed Barnum's four Bridgeport homes: Iranistan, on the corner of Fairfield and Iranistan avenues; Lindencroft, about 500 yards away from Iranistan; Waldemere, an enormous ginger bread Victorian house overlooking Long Island Sound, which was Barnum's home the longest of any; and finally, Marina, the home he lived in during the last years of his life; it was built next to Waldemere on what is now Marina Circle while Waldemere was dissasembled because it brought back memories of his late wife.
What you don't see in the historical collections are the homes and apartments Barnum lived in during the years in the late 1850s when his mansion burned, his museums in New York burned, and he was bankrupt. He was a self-made millionaire, though, having made a fortune exhibiting human curiosities -- bearded ladies and liliputians -- and he knew the road back. By 1860 he was financially solvent again and built his comeback home, Lindencroft.
Lindencroft was a fairly normal sized home, by Victorian standards. There are many old homes in Bridgeport from that period that are larger.
But the stones of Lindencroft still stand, on the corner of State and Yale. They are a reminder, perhaps, that we can rebuild what we have lost.
It is a message we need to hear in this recession that has claimed so many of our homes, businesses and jobs.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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The exciting way to pronounce offense and defense

Football is the sport of passion here in the United States, no doubt. It's a game we invented ourselves, by American tastes for American tastes, and now that the Superbowl is won and the season over, it's a good time to talk about offense and defense.
In football, you get to use alternative pronunciations for those two words. Nowhere else in life do you get to say them the way you do in football.
In a court room, when you are accused of a crime, it is an uh-fense. But in football when you run the ball it is awf-fense.
In a court room, when your lawyer speaks on your behalf, it is deh-fense. But in football when you tackle the ball runner, it is deef-fense.
It would be interesting if for one day, all the courtrooms adapted the football way of speaking.
"Call in the deef-ense attorney," the judge would say. At that point, a crowd of family and friends in the courtroom yells out together, "deef-ense, deef-ense." One guy has his bare chest and face painted blue.
The attorney steps up to the table and make his bid.
"Your honor, this was my client's first awf-fense." At that point, a dj in the corner of the courtroom lets fly with a recorded track of "Rock n' Roll Part II," by Gary Glitter, and a marching band in red uniforms blasts out the classic television theme from Hawaii 5-0.
(The attorney gets four downs to try to spring his client).
When the courtroom session is over, a reporter gives the judge a post-session interview.
"Well, I thought the state prosecutor played a good game today but you know, these guys came here to win and they were up to it," the judge says. "They had a good deef-fense and I give them credit for that."
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 8, 2009

Coldplay beats Metallica for best rock album

I just watched Coldplay beat Metallica for the Grammy award on best rock album of the year, and I felt sorry for Metallica.
True, with an album title like "Death Magnetic" and the sheer darkness of their musical, lyrical and vocal style, it sounds like the band just woke up from a bad nightmare after falling asleep watching a slasher movie, but you have to admit, they have charisma. Dark and brooding charisma, like the spooky girl in that movie "The Ring," but charisma nonetheless.
Coldplay did have something original to say though. They described their music as being "soft like limestone, not as hard as some of the others but charming in its own way." I can honestly say I have never heard that one before and it kind of fits.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Amusing grand opening for a recession

I was watching a newsvideo about some new nightclubs for the 20-something crowd in Miami. One of them has a minimum of $1,000 per single male! (There is no cash requirement for women; they just have to be or look like Pamela Anderson.)
Now, let's face it, $1,000 is a lot of money for a single male in his 20s, or lol, a single male of any age for that matter. And it will certainly buy a lot of liquor --more than any human being can drink at one sitting, for sure....unless they are buying rounds for the house.
I can say right now that I have never been in a nightclub that had a $1,000 minimum, and I can say I most likely will never do so.
In a recession, in which most average guys are switching from expensive imported drinks to lower-priced domestic products, a nightclub like that may as well be soaked with radioactive waste because there is no way I am getting near it!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 6, 2009

True facts about New England

Well, I have just completed writing a series of articles on Connecticut's heritage of clam chowder, the local equivalent of crawfish in Louisiana. (I was inspired to do a big spread on Connecticut's unique culinary tastes after seeing an excellent travel video about crawdaddies in Louisiana by the Ventura, Calif. Star.)
I have sampled more New England chowder in the past few weeks than a taste tester at Campbell's. But the comedian Jeff Foxworthy has been here too, and probably done the same.
Thanks to a friend who just emailed these to me, here is what Foxworthy has to say about our neck of the American woods:
+If you've worn shorts and a coat at the same time, you live in New England.
+If someone at Home Depot who doesn't work there, offers you assistance, you live in New England.
+If you've had a telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you live in New England.
+If you know several people who have hit deer with their car, you live in New England.
+If you can drive through two feet of snow during a blizzard, you live in New England.
+If you carry jumper cables in your car and your wife knows how to use them, you live in New England.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Those irritating second-guessers

As I have previously blogged, one of the most irritating types of behavior I encounter in my line of work is incredulity. That's when somebody doesn't believe what you're telling them, and reacts as though they are hearing a tall tale, even though it is the straight dope.
Like the time a guy didn't believe I was shooting video for a news organization, because I didn't have a big camera like he sees on TV. He was so irritating I wound up getting up and moving as far away from him as I could, at a major football game I was shooting.
The second type of behavior that grates me like sandpaper against oak is when people second guess me.
"I'm doing a videopiece on clam chowder," I told a guy the other day, hoping to get him to tell me about his favorite type..
He second-guessed me.
"Why would you do that. Clam chowder?," he asked, in disbelief.
When I was at a high school wrestling match, I asked one of the team managers for a complete list of all the wrestlers, in order of their appearance, before the match started so I could follow it and know how long it would run, because an hour of tape takes an hour to load onto my computer and I try to shoot only what I need, so there isn't a lot of time wasted. In the newsvideo production world we call that diarreah of the camera.
"Why do you want to know who's wrestling who beforehand? Why don't you get it later?," she oblivious to what I had just explained to her.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Pleasure Beach takes a hit again

It has been about 15 years since a fire caused by a tossed cigarette destroyed the wooden swinging bridge that led to one of Bridgeport's gem parks, Pleasure Beach. I was out there last year, to make a newsvideo about the history of the park's carousel horses, which originated in New York's Coney Island, arrived at Pleasure Beach during the jazz age, and ultimately found their way to the carousel house at Connecticut's Beardsley Park as restored display pieces.
To get out to Pleasure Beach these days, you either have to take a boat, which I have done thanks to the Bridgeport Police marine unit, or walk what seems like a mile across a rough, narrow beach from Stratford (which I have also done) with piping plovers complaining loudly all the way about your presence near their nesting area.
But if you have no access to a boat and don't have the gumption to walk a mile across rough beach, there is no way to get out to Pleasure Beach.
Sure, times are bad, the economy is the worst since the Great Depression, and this is obviously not the right time to attempt to put Pleasure Beach back on the map. That's why Gov. M. Jodi Rell has cut the earmark of $3 million for Pleasure Beach park access. But where was all the effort when times were good? When the stock market was enjoying a historic bull run, banks were lending, and tax dollars were running strong?
Who stepped in to help Bridgeport when they could have?
It's lamentable, because it could be a long night's journey before we see those ideal kinds of economic conditions again.
-- TONY SPINELLI

Posted by Spinelli on 9:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 5, 2009

Calling all chowder lovers

Yes, it's true: I have been working hard on a series of videos about Connecticut's clam chowder heritage. I've made a video for each of the three major styles, New England, Rhode Island and Manhattan, and will probably make one overall video before I am done. This is a multimedia food page extravaganza designed to encourage us all to get out and enjoy some good food
So please, write in and tell me about your love of chowder, and what style you prefer, or call me at 330-6361 or email me at tspinelli@ctpost.com.
Do you go clamming? Tell me about that too!
Thanks.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 4, 2009

Fun times at the DVD blowout sale

I stopped by one of my favorite pawnshops on the way to the newsroom this afternoon, to work the evening shift making a video of a high school wrestling match, and found they were having a terrific sale on used but like-new DVDs.
Now, you know I love movies, so I grabbed some good ones for a mere three bucks each:
+"The Exorcist III." Oops...thought it was the original Exorcist, which I've seen mucho times but always want to see again because it is so well-done.
+"The Ring II." "The Ring" was one of the cleverest horror films I'd ever seen -- someone sees a particular movie and within a couple of days they die. The splendid Naomi Watts -- who played Ann Darrow perfectly in "King Kong" with my homeboy Jack Black four years ago -- is in this one too.
+"Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter." I bought this one for laughs because I get a kick out of low-budget B-movies with ludicrous titles and premises.
-- TONY SPINELLI

Posted by Spinelli on 9:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The fascinating Mr. Brady and the terrapin

In yesterday's video on Winter at Milford Point, I mentioned that Diamond Jim Brady, the self-made millionaire of New York City who began his career as a bellboy and messenger and wound up wealthy enough to fling with celebrities of the day like Lillian Russell, used to spend summers at Milford Point, in a hotel that is now the Connecticut Audubon Society Coastal Center.
There is an important reason why Brady may have taken a liking to Milford Point, which has a huge saltmarsh on one side, and an expansive Long Island Sound beach on the other. The reason is terrapin.
Terrapin, a meat harvested from the terrapins that live in saltmarshes like Milford Point, was a favorite gourmet dish during the Victorian era, when Brady was a noted figure. (He had made his first fortune as a 20-something railroad supply salesman during the time when the American railroads were being built. He got a piece of an enormous amount of action.)
Brady was nothing if not a fan of gourmet food, and he ate lots of it. He had a prodigious appetite -- his typical breakfast was eggs, pancakes, pork chops, cornbread, fried potatoes, hominy, muffins, and a beefsteak, washed down with nothing less than a gallon of orange juice, which he called golden nectar and his favorite drink. His mid-morning snacks, lunches, and dinners were also quite large. Importantly, historians note that he was fond of terrapin -- he would often eat two servings of terrapin, as well as a few servings of green turtle soup (and lots of other stuff including ducks and lobsters) for dinner.
When I looked at that native Milford Point terrapin swimming in a tank at the coastal center, I knew in a flash that it was not the lovely view of a saltmarsh and a lot of mosquitoes in the evening (we love them lol) that drew Brady to Milford Point.
Nope. It was all that terrapin!
-- TONY SPINELLI

Posted by Spinelli on 12:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Recession getting bigger, like a snowball

When you roll a snowball, it gets bigger.
That's exactly what is happening to the economy in 2009, as wave after wave of manufacturing companies that lost sales in the worst Christmas shopping season in four decades lay off thousands of workers. Panasonic Corp. is one of the latest, announcing today it will slash as many as 15,000 jobs and shut 27 plants worldwide.
The greater the unemployment rate, the lower consumer confidence. More unemployment just feeds low consumer confidence, which leads to declining retail sales and declining manufacturing orders, and the cycle continues. There is loss of revenue for just about everyone trying to sell anything -- including news organizations selling advertisements.
It is not an abstract economics problem, like stagflation was in the late 1970s. It is already slamming local and state tax bases around the United States -- the Town of Easton has suffered a $2 million decrease in its Grand List based largely on the loss of personal property tax revenues, as people stop buying new vehicles, for example.
Every business is struggling, from Hong Kong to Tokyo to Bakersfield. It is clear to me as an observer of current events that we need not only stimulating programs, like everyone in D.C. is talking about: we also need some stabilization. For example, a buildup in the military to take young men and women off the unemployment lines, and a relaxation of Social Security retirement eligibility standards so more Baby Boomers can retire. The improvement in the unemployment rate would theoretically drive consumer confidence and help reverse the downward spiral. Then, whatever jobs the Obama administration can add in the form of alternative energy industries, etc., would be icing on the cake and push us high into the profit-sphere.
Like they say in the medical field, first stabilize the patient; then focus on making him well.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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February 3, 2009

My own recipe for pork chops

If you read today's food page article on pork, and watched the video, here's to you:
Pan-searing pork chops before baking them is a technique some cooks use to give the meat a crispy exterior, but there is another method, broiling, that also works quite well.
Begin with a large baking sheet. Cut potatoes into cubes or wedges and arrange them all around the pork chops, in the center of the oiled tray. Brush some cooking oil to the surface of the potatoes and the pork chops, and season to your taste: salt, pepper, rosemary, etc.
First bake the chops and potatoes, at 375 degrees, until they are far along. Then, when they are ready for some finishing, switch to broiling and give the tops a nice sear. Flip the chops over and sear the other side as well.
The combination of crispy potato wedges and seared pork chops, lightly seasoned to your liking, is a refeshing switchup from the standard fried pork chop served with mashed potatoes. Serve with one of your favorite vegetable side dishes.
-- TONY SPINELLI

Posted by Spinelli on 12:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Calling crockpot cooks

One of the things I discovered while researching today's food page article and video on the emergence of pork in the recession is that crockpot cooking is also on the rise because of the recession. The theory is, you can buy the least expensive cuts of meat that are too tough to enjoy by the usual methods of cooking, and soften them up in a crockpot.
Crockpots are also good for making soups and stews, of course.
So, if you recently began using a crockpot because of recessionary pressures on your grocery bill -- or if you are an old hand at crockpot cooking that never lost your faith in the stuff -- please email me at tspinelli@ctpost.com so I can interview you for a food page article and video I'd like to do.
My phone number is 330-6361.
Thanks!
-- TONY SPINELLI

Posted by Spinelli on 12:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 1, 2009

Steelers, as expected

I had figured the Steelers would win the Superbowl, for the simple reason that as a team they have far more experience under championship pressure. The Cardinals did well, of course, but not as well as Pitt.
I was expecting a point spread of about 31 to 15, but the Arizona Cardinals performed very well and actually came closer to victory: the score was 27 to 23.
It was one of the most thrilling finishes to the NFL title game, certainly equaling last year's upset by the New York Giants, as reported by the wire services.
But the real winner is probably Bruce Springsteen, the halftime performer. At nearly 60-years-old -- an age at which a football player is way over the hills and far away, so far away from his glory days that he might as well look back on his kindergarten experiences -- Springsteeen is still cranking out rock n' roll that lots of people want to hear. Somebody give that guy a Superbowl ring!
-- TONY SPINELLI

Posted by Spinelli on 10:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Almost like Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park, the terrific 1993 Steven Spielberg film about cloning dinosaurs from DNA samples, is not that far-fetched from reality these days: The Telegraph of the UK reported the other day the extinct wild mountain goat known as the Pyrenean ibex of northern Spain has been cloned/resurrected.
Scientists were able to create a new animal just like the extinct one by preserving skin samples taken from one of the goats before its death. The skin samples were stored in liquid nitrogen (cryonics) so that they would not rot.
The DNA taken from the frozen skin samples was used to replace the native genetic material in eggs from common domestic goats.
Importantly, it was the first time an extinct animal was reported to be cloned.
There were complications though: the newborn ibex soon died because of defective lungs; defective lungs have been a problem when scientists have attempted to clone other, non-extinct animals like common sheep.
But, like anything else, the more you work at it, put your shoulder to the wheel and put your back into it, you get better at it. It is quite possible that within the next 10 years the science of cloning will be perfected, and we will be nearer to the ability to reproduce animals humans have driven to extinction.
Now, I doubt that anyone will find a supply of dinosaur DNA -- dinosaurs did not live anywhere near a lot of ice and snow -- but I do think it is entirely possible there may be frozen animals of the past somewhere in the Arctic, such as the wooly mammoth, which died out 10,000 years ago after being hunted to extinction by our spear-wielding and hungry ancestors, who did not have the benefit of shopping for meat at a supermarket. They had to find ways to collaboratively hunt and kill large and dangerous animals, which, apparently, they mastered all too well because we are still here and the animals are gone.
-- TONY SPINELLI

ADDENDUM: Speaking of Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park:" the film took expensive special effects that simulate dinosaurs to a new level. You really see the difference when you look at the old low-budget method of making dinosaurs in the movies: in the Flash Gordon serials of the early 1930s, for example, (I was just watching some of them last night) the cameraman would get a closeup shot of a common pet shop lizard, wearing a costume to appear more exotic, overdubbed with some audio effects; this closeup shot would be interspersed with shots of people screaming, running, etc., to suggest that the giant monster was after them. (Of course the lizard and the people never appeared in the same shot together.) This low-budget way of "monster making" was still in use in the 1950s, with films like "The Giant Gila Monster."

Posted by Spinelli on 11:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

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