Madonna at Tribeca Film Festival

New York Premiere of “I Am Because We Are” at BMCC, Tribeca Film Festival, New York City.
April 24, 2008

Even in celebrity weary New York City, where on Monday (04/21) night I saw Maria Sharapova play tennis with Billy Crystal in the middle of 53rd Street and 14 blocks uptown I photographed a movie screening with Bette Midler, Helen Hunt and Sarah Jessica Parker, Madonna still makes news. The platinum blond pulled up in a black SUV and hurried inside the BMCC Theater for the screening of “I Am Because We Are,” at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Gone were the pointed metal breastplates she wore in concert. Tonight the material girl was simply dressed in a short-sleeved brown patterned dress. The big M smiled briefly at the chorus of waiting fans outside the theater before heading into the scrum of photographers who waited inside the auditorium.


“I Am Because We Are” is a documentary directed by Nathan Rissman and produced by Madonna about Malawi orphans who have lost their parents or siblings to AIDS.

I found it strange that while Madonna was out promoting her documentary, Malawi's High Court delayed a hearing to finalize pop stars adoption of a boy from the southern African nation until May 15.

Cast & Credits
Director: Nathan Rissman Principal Cast: Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, Desmond Tutu, Bill Clinton, Dr. Paul Farmer, Dr. Matthews Chikaonda, Madonna Executive Producer/Writer: Madonna Producers: Angela Becker, Madonna Associate Producer: Grant James Editor: Danny B. Tull

Bernadette Peters attended the screening of “I Am Because We Are”. Peters won a Tony Award her portrayal of Annie Oakley, in "Annie Get Your Gun" in 1999.

Then She Found Me Premiere

Loews Lincoln Square, New York
Release Date April 25, NY-LA

About the Film:
Philadelphia schoolteacher, April Epner, is having a midlife crisis. Her husband leaves, her adoptive mother dies, her biological mother, an eccentric talkshow host, shows up and turns her life upside down, and she starts a romantic relationship with the father of one of her students.

Cast:Helen Hunt, Colin Firth, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick, Lynn Cohen, Ben Shenkman
Director: Helen Hunt
Screenwriter: Alice Arlen, Victor Levin, Helen Hunt
Script: Novel Adaptation

Genre:
Comedy, Drama, Romance

Gala Tribute for Meryl Streep at Lincoln Center, New York

GALA TRIBUTE TO MERYL STREEP

It was a beautiful crisp New York evening, for the Film Society of Lincoln Center Gala Tribute to the two-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep.
The crème de la crème of Hollywood stars came out for the gala tribute including, Glen Close, Uma Thurman, and Streep’s only daughter Mamie Gummer.

Meryl Streep won two Academy Awards for Kramer V Kramer (1979) and Sophie’s Choice (1982).

Fire

I was walking up Ninth Avenue on Thursday (04/03), at approximately 7.30 a.m. when I saw smoke coming from a residential building at the corner of 47th Street and Ninth Avenue. Fire engines arrived at the scene within seconds. The smoke quickly turned to flames as they leapt from a third story apartment window. Firefighters climbed up the outside fire escape and started rescuing residents from the apartment next to the fire.
One firefighter-battled flames coming from the third floor apartment window – thick grey smoke hindered his entrance. One resident was taken from the building on a stretcher as emergency crews performed CPR on him. His condition was not known at the time of the incident. The fire is under investigation.

A Walk Up Ninth Avenue / Hells Kitchen

I walk up Ninth Avenue everyday workday from Port Authority on 42nd Street to 56th Street. I am usually pre-occupied with re-living the past weekend or looking forward to the next weekend. Occasionally I think about the workday ahead of me. I pass umpteen buildings but I rarely take notice.

Today, I decided to live in the present and pay attention to the buildings around me, just in case I am called in to a police line-up and asked to identify one!

I noticed that my favorite coffee shop in Hoboken – Empire Coffee has a store between 42nd and 43rd Street on Ninth Avenue, but I don’t buy my morning coffee there because it’s still 15 blocks away from the office and my coffee will be cold by the time I get to work.

I pass a Tasty-Treat ice cream store that is conveniently located next door to a dentist’s office offering specials on white smiles.

The pavement is always splattered with the spills and stains like a Jackson Pollock painting. There are ice cream droppings and coffee spills, and scraps of food from the numerous restaurants that line both sides of the avenue.

On ‘recycle days’ there are small skyscrapers of cardboard boxes tied up with string lying flat on the ground where the pavement meets the street, as if waiting for a bus.

On 43rd Street and Ninth is a decrepit grocery store called Meatpacking.

Rudy’s Bar a New York landmark sits in the middle of 43rd the 44th Streets, where you can get bucket of beer for $7.75.

Amy’s Bread nestled between 46th and 47th Streets would not look out of place in small town in Vermont, specializes in specialty breads.

The run-down Three Aces barbershop next door to Amy’s Bread, with its hand painted sign and authentic red white and blue barber pole pays homage to the old Hells Kitchen.

Mazzalla Wholesale Fruit and Veg. warehouse, between 47th and 48th Streets, with its cardboard boxes of oranges left of the pavement outside, looks awkward opposite the Amish Market on the opposite side of the street, with maliciously laid orange fruit stand resembling a great orange pyramid from Egypt.

Runners 'High'

I am a runner. I run three to four times a week; sometimes more if I am training for a marathon. I was fascinated by an article in the New York Times on Thursday (03/27) about ‘runners high’; that euphoric feeling runners are supposed to get when they finish a race. I assumed ‘runners high’ was a myth or at the very least, something an elite runner experienced, not a duffer like me. The Times article put an end to the myth and described how a German doctor discovered a scientific method of measuring ‘runners high’.

I read about ‘runners high’ from magazine articles. I don’t believe I ever experienced this ‘high’; usually described as a release of endorphins in the brain which brought about a state of euphoria - akin to being stoned. (Endorphins affect mood.) I ran seven marathons and I never felt like that. All I felt was exhaustion, as I clutched my heart and did everything I could to avoid puking, as I collapsed on the ground.

So here is the scoop on how the ‘runners high’ was finally measured.
A Dr. Hening Boecher of the University of Bonn discovered that PET scans used to measure pain, combined with new chemicals could be used to measure endorphin levels in a runners brain. The good doctor tested runners before a race and at the end and discovered elevated endorphin levels in the area of the brain associated with emotion. Dr. Boecher compared the ‘high’ to the feeling one gets from being in love.

Dr. Boecker and colleagues recruited 10 distance runners and told them they were studying opioid receptors in the brain. But the runners did not realize that the investigators were studying the release of endorphins and the runner’s high. The athletes had a PET scan before and after a two-hour run. They also took a standard psychological test that indicated their mood before and after running.
The data showed that, indeed, endorphins were produced during running and were attaching themselves to areas of the brain associated with emotions, in particular the limbic and prefrontal areas.
The limbic and prefrontal areas, Dr. Boecker said, are activated when people are involved in romantic love affairs or, he said, “when you hear music that gives you a chill of euphoria, like Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.” The greater the euphoria the runners reported, the more endorphins in their brain. – New York Times, Thursday 03/27

Now I know that ‘runners high’ is not a myth, but is a real and measurable feeling, instead of puking or collapsing at the end of my race, I will dig deep in my prefrontal brain for those euphoric feelings of love.

Note to my Dear Sister Michelle: Update on the kids.

A mother’s love for her children is a powerful emotion; one that kept my 43-year-old sister Michelle clinging to life in Beaumount Hospital, Dublin, a year after the doctors said she should have died.

My sister was diagnosed with renal cancer in 2005 and was given six-months to live. For a year and a half she fought hard for every breath. Michelle just wanted to stay around to see her two young children grow up. She died in January 2007.

Dear Michelle,

I spent the last week with my niece and nephew, Rachael (5) and Christopher (3) in your home. I wanted to write to you to let you know how they are getting on. I know you were worried about them before you passed on last year - so here is the latest. Rachael will be five next week and we're having a big birthday party for her and her friends. Can you believe it? She goes to the infant's school in Marino now, where you and me went as kids. You would tear up just to see her in her green uniform and tie, all grown up at five. She is the cutest five-year old you have ever seen. She is a real 'girly' girl - she loves her Barbie's and boy does she have an imagination! Rachael plays 'Barbie’s' andChristopher and I end up playing some minor role in her sitting-room floor dramas. You would get a laugh to see your 42-year old brother lying on your sitting room floor playing 'Barbie's, petrified to call a doll by the wrong name in case I get a scowl from Rachael that would make a CEO flinch.

You could not have chosen a better husband or father to the kids thanRichard. He is the most involved and loving parent I have witnessed. The kids adore him and he them - but you knew that. Every morning, I wake-up to the sound of the kid's laughter, as they jump and roll around with Richard in your old bed. He gets as much out of it as they do. I swear!'

Mommy' Richard, that is what I call him - is just as good when it comes time to kiss those 'booboos' better after a slip or fall. Recently, Rachael got a cold, Richard nursed her back to health with all the love and caring our mom gave us to us. He was there at every turn to sooth and to calm her. God, you would have been so proud Michelle.

He cooks healthy meals as per your instructions and he's a good cook at that. I must apologize up front because I occasionally slip the kids sweets. What are uncles for? Now, to the living terror, Christopher; Michelle he's crazy. He is a three-year-old energy bunny. He keeps going and going and going. Remind me to cut down on his sweet allowance! Christopher flies around the house pretending to be a cross between a power ranger and a ninja turtle. He loves his 'Morphin - Power Ranger', the one I got him for Christmas. He takes him everywhere, even out to Tescos.

But mind me Michelle, you cannot take your eyes off Christopher for a minute, otherwise he's off to the races. Speaking of eyes - he still has those bright blue buttons you hoped he'd never lose. He loves his crèche and when I picked him up the other day, his teacher told me he gets along famously with all the other kids. You can relax; it doesn't look like he is going to be the shy and retiring kind! Rachael and Christopher still ask about you in heaven, not as often though. I think you'll agree that is a good thing. Occasionally, Rachael asks me what it was like being your brother. I talk about you until she is bored. Anyway, I must dash. I can hear Christopher calling me, another power ranger stuck between two chairs! You know how it is. I'll keep in touch.

P.S. You did great - no need to worry.

Love

Uncle Charlie.