Story About Phillies Club for Hoboken Progress

Well, it was a tough week. The Phils lost to the Yankees in the World Series, 4 games to 2. But, in the November 6th edition of Hoboken Progress, I had a feature about Sean Iaquinto, the founder of Hoboken's famed Phillies Club. The club gathers every Friday night during the regular season at a local bar to watch the Fightin' Phils. His group has over 80 regular members and, during postseason play, draws upwards of 200 Phillies fans to the bar to fraternize and watch games.

Iaquinto also founded an Eagles club, which preceded the Phillies club, and he writes the blog Philly2Hoboken.com. You can read the whole story about Iaquinto and his club by clicking on the picture of the front page above and clicking here for the second page and here for the third page of the story.

Small piece on NYmag.com

While covering BGC Partners' Fifth Annual Charity Day--an event where famous people play the role of "celebrity investment trader" for a good cause-- for Hoboken Progress, I shot a picture of the adorable and newly engaged Ivanka Trump closing a trade over the phone. The pic features her enormous engagment ring, supplied by her fiancee Jared Kushner, and I sold it and a short post to New York magazine's "Daily Intel." You can read the article and see the photo here...and no, I didn't get any pictures of Lady GaGa. Unfortunately, I had to leave before she arrived.

The piece I wrote about the event for Hoboken Progress will appear in the September 18 edition of the paper. You can click here to see a few more pictures I shot of Ivanka Trump.

I'd like to thank the Academy...

...for naming Cash Cab the best game show of 2008! The show took place at The historic Orpheum Theatre in LA and aired live on the CW Network last Sunday evening. After a couple of L.A. Times bloggers ripped Cash Cab for its production values and writing and predicted Jeopardy! would win the statue, we pulled out the award, which was sweet indeed. The pic above is our executive producer, Tony, giving the acceptance speech. Below is one of the Orpheum's awesome marquee.

Winning a Daytime Emmy was very exciting, to say the least. A big thank you has to go out to Ben Bailey--the host--who I think really carries the show. Also a thank you to the rest of the staff, every member of which does a fantastic job on the show.

I was also able to get a little press from the win. The blog Hoboken Now, did a small story on me and the same writer of that wrote a short piece about me in The Jersey Journal. And, on its blog, my hometown newspaper, The Intelligencer, ran a blurb about me last week.

Click here for a roundup of cool pics from the evening, here for the video of the Cash Cab team accepting the Emmy and here for a few more pics of our executive producer making the speech.

Cake Boss Story

As I mentioned last week, I wrote a story on Cake Boss star Buddy Valastro for Hoboken Progress and it (and a picture I shot) will be on the cover of the August 14th edition.

You can click on the picture to the left to see/read the cover and then click here to read the continuation from page 6 of the newspaper.

Let Them Watch Cake

I interviewed Buddy Valastro, the star of TLC's hit show Cake Boss the other day. The story I wrote should appear in next week's edition of Hoboken Progress. Buddy's bakery is nearly 100 years old and is located in Hoboken right across the street from City Hall.

Buddy was a very nice guy--and so was his sister, Mary, whom I also interviewed--as he took some time out of his busy schedule of baking and shooting the second season of the show to talk with me. Above is a picture I took of Buddy doing a scene for the show.

Hoboken's Cammarano Resigns

Capping what was a wild week in Hoboken, Peter Cammarano bowed to pressure from the city's residents and the state's governor, Jon Corzine, and resigned from his post as mayor. That paved the way for the City Council President Dawn Zimmer to take over the office on an interim basis. Zimmer was defeated by Cammarano in a runoff election for the mayor's office by just 161 votes on June 9th. I interviewed Cammarano just days before he won the runoff election.

And I covered the events of the last week for Hoboken Progress, and, though it won't be out till this Friday, you can read the report I filed for the paper last Friday. Click on the above picture for the first page of the piece and the picture below for everything after the jump.

Drama In Hoboken

It's been a pretty wild end of the month in Hoboken, with the Mayor getting arrested by the FBI on bribery charges and, ultimately, announcing his resignation yesterday. I interviewed Peter Cammarano, the former Hoboken mayor, for Hoboken Progress just before he was elected and I'm going to try to get another interview with him. His tenure was the shortest of any mayor on the city's history. You can read the first page of the Cammarano interview here and click here for the second page of the story. Also, I have an article recapping the whole week in Hoboken in the next edition of Hoboken Progress. 

Before all the drama unfolded, though, I had a few other stories in Hoboken Progress. A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece on the closing of the Goldhawk, a popular rock and roll bar in Hoboken. Click here for the first page of the story and here for the second page.

The following week, I wrote a profile on Hoboken's new police chief. Click here for the first page of that story and here for the second. And I'll have the article about the resignation of Peter Cammarano up as soon as it's published.

More Stories In Hoboken Progress

Recently, I've had several more stories published in Hoboken Progress, a few of them cover stories. You can check the first one here (for page one) and here (for page two), published in the June 19th edition about some phony campaign work flyers. And click here (for page one) and here (for page two) of a story in the July 3rd edition about Hoboken inauguration-day trivia.

More Scripts for Bon Appétit Web Site

A while back I worked on another video project for the Bon Appétit Web site. The project was co-sponsored by Slowfood USA and Anolon Cookware and the gist of it is that a few high-profile New York City chefs used some of the Slowfood (a movement that's the opposite of "fast food") sustainability principles to prepare a gourmet, four-course meal. I wrote the scripts for the  five-part video series, the first of which you can view below and the rest of which you can see here or by clicking on the name of the dish in the right column. 

The four courses were: Butternut Squash Soup with Pancetta and Spice Creme Fraiche (prepared by Jonathan Lindenauer); Seared Diver Scallops with Cauliflower and Caper Gastrique (also prepared by Lindenauer); Herb Stuffed Leg of Lamb with Beans Confit (prepared by Bill Telepan of Telepan restaurant); and Heirloom Apple Tart with Almond Frangipane and Caramel Sauce (prepare by Galen Zamarra of Mas [farmhouse] restaurant). The last segment is a video of the chefs enjoying the meal and discussing the cookware and the virtues of the Slowfood approach to food.

Cover Story In Hoboken Progress

Last week's (June 5th) edition of Hoboken Progress featured a cover story I wrote about Hoboken mayoral candidate Peter Cammarano. It was part of a preview of the June 9th runoff election in Hoboken between Cammarano and Dawn Zimmer.

Pete was a nice guy and he's very knowledgeable about all the issues facing Hoboken. The interview focused on quality of life issues, something Cammarano has strived to improve during his tenure on the Hoboken City Council.

The election was so close that it will be decided by the absent tee and provisional ballots scheduled to be counted on Friday, June 12th. Click on the picture above to read the cover story and here for the continuation on page 7 of the newspaper.

Guest Post On Hoboken Now Blog

Check out NJ.com's Hoboken Now blog today for a guest post written by me. Many thanks to the supremely talented Carly, one of the reporters at The Jersey Journal, whose ubiquity around Hoboken makes the blog unrivaled in The Mile Square.

The post is about a minor cameo Hoboken made on last week's season finale of the NBC police procedural Law & Order. One of the bad guys involved in a political pay-to-play scandal--ripped from the headlines--was arrested at his apartment in Hoboken. Click here for the post.

Article On NYMag.com Today

Check out New York magazine's Grub Street blog today for an article I did about the Oak Room restaurant at the landmark New York City hotel The Plaza. 

After being closed for much of the decade, the Oak Room reopened, to much fanfare, in November of 2008. However, things didn't go so smoothly and several vendors, who wished to remain anonymous, claim they're owed thousands of dollars for food they supplied to the restaurant. I was able to obtain an e-mail from a French company that's been stiffed by the Oak Room to the tune of $35,000 plus. Of course, the Oak Room denied it's not paying bills and basically threw its former head chef under the bus.

Feature In Hoboken Progress

I wrote a Memorial Day feature for last week's Hoboken Progress, a weekly newspaper that covers the mile square. The piece is a profile of Carmine Varano, one of Hudson County's most highly-decorated WWII vets still alive. Varano was an unarmed medic in WWII, who was injured as the war in Europe neared its conclusion. For an 86-year-old, Carmine is still very with it, has a great memory of the things he experienced in war and even has a bunch of interesting memorabilia, some of which I shot pictures of for the article, which you can see the first page of here and the second page of here.

Report In TV Guide Magazine

Pick up a copy of this week's (the May 18th) issue of TV Guide, turn to page 19 and look for a report on shout-outs by TV writers which I wrote. It's a pretty cool piece about TV writers who've named characters after their friends and family. I talked to/e-mailed with a few cool writers--Shonda Rhimes from Grey's Anatomy, Ryan Koh from The Office, Terence Winter from The Sopranos and others. Everyone was very nice to take a few minutes to share their stories and all gave me interesting anecdotes. Check it out. There's no byline under the piece, but if you turn to page 20 you'll see a "reported by" credit. Also, the piece is only the magazine and not online. So, if you didn't pick up a copy, you can click here to see it and here to see the credit.

Nominated For Daytime Emmy Today

Well, for the second time in my career I've been nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award by the National Academy of Arts and Sciences...this time as a member of the Cash Cab writing staff. If you've never seen Cash Cab, it's a game show in a taxi cab and you can check it out on the Discovery Channel. The show's hosted by Ben Bailey who actually does an amazing job of negotiating patience-challenging Manhattan traffic while quizzing contestants/passengers. We had a great team of writers (whose names you can see in the screen shot above--click it to enlarge) that came up with really great material that's played well. Cross your fingers for us, though I won't be holding my breath for a win. We're up against some stiff competish: Jeopardy and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, a show I used to write for.

Interview on Mediabistro.com

My interview with Marc Rosenwasser, executive producer of Worldfocus, was published today on Mediabistro. You can see it here, however the interview is only partially accessible to non-members of Mediabistro. If you're not a paying Mediabistro member, I'll have the full version of it up shortly for anyone who'd like to sample my interviewing skills--see the sidebar on the right. Marc was a very nice guy and we had an interesting conversation that hit on a bunch of different topics. And congratulations to Marc and his staff are in order--they won the RFK Journalism Award a couple of weeks ago.

Article on New York Magazine's Web Site

Also today, New York magazine's online arm published an article I wrote about the future of the New York City local news sports anchor in the wake of WNBC's Len Berman being let go by the station last week. For the piece, which appears in the "Daily Intel" section of New York's Web site, I interviewed Len Berman, who is a really nice guy. It's sad to see him go, but he told me he plans on working on his recently-launched Web site to bring his audience sports news. I also interviewed Ron Simon, the curator of Television and Radio at the Paley Center for Media, who is also a nice guy and an expert on all things T.V. Many thanks to both of them.

New Videos On Bon Appétit Web Site

Some new videos, which I wrote the scripts for a couple months ago, hit the Bon Appétit Web site recently. The videos are hosted by contributing editor Dede Wilson and all of the recipes are easy to prepare and very delicious. Check them out at the three links below:

Salmon with Chile-Mango Salsa

Chicken Piccata

Spaghetti with Turkey-Pesto Meatballs

Marc Rosenwasser Interview Coming Soon

Just finished an interview with Marc Rosenwasser for Mediabistro.com. Rosenwasser is the executive producer of Worldfocus, an international newscast that launched in October of 2008 and airs on most PBS stations across the country. He's a really nice guy and we had an interesting conversation that touched on Al Jazeera and Phil Donahue (yep, that one) among other things. It's slated to run on April 20th, so check in with MediaBistro in a few weeks to see it, or come back here.

8 Million Stories

Good news! This week's edition of the New York Press, out today, features a piece written by me. I wrote this week's installment of the weekly "8 Million Stories" column. The story is about an unforgettable ride I took a few years ago on Manhattan's M96 bus. Suffice it to say, my days riding home from a Doylestown grade school on a bus driven by Pearl Roehrman never prepared me for the excitement of a ride on a New York City bus. If you didn't pick up a copy of the paper, click here for the story.