Coldplay kid

A guitar teacher friend of mine handed me a CD one day and said, “Check out this band. They’re going to be big.” As it turns out, the band was Coldplay and the album was "Parachutes." The production was sparse and the music had an intimate quality to it. I also heard it described as “Radiohead before they went off the deep end.”

When I heard they were going to be on PBS’ Austin City Limits, I figured it may be my best chance to see them live considering I’m a parent whose biggest social dilemma is which Redbox movie to rent. Austin City Limits has always been very hip in my book. I remember seeing Stevie Ray Vaughn for the first time on the show about 20 years ago, and 80s retro band The Killers about a year ago.

I Tivo’d Coldplay’s performance on Austin City Limits a while back and played it back one afternoon while I was working around the house. My three-year-old son Matthew—who is, of course, a destructive, short-attention-spanned little boy that was just learning to walk at the time—stood transfixed in front of the TV during the show. I had never seen anything stop him in his tracks like this concert did. (Luckily, I taped it. You can watch the video right here on the blog.)

Being a musician myself, I could only hope it was some sort of defining moment where he discovered how cool music really is and was fascinated by seeing made in front of his eyes. (Either that or it was just really loud. Anyway you look at it, it was a very cool show, much cheaper then a ticket, plus you could pause it for a potty break.) The best part about Austin City Limits is when they pan around the audience to show the applause. I swear these are the same people on those Billy Mays infomercials. Check it out yourself, though. You’ll never watch the show the same way again.

Working at MPT, I’m lucky to work in an environment that fosters creativity in every aspect. There are tons of musicians in the building from sr. VPs to the security guard and I’m lucky enough to play in a band with two of them (actually, one present, one former). Interested? Come check out MPT’s own Poseable Action Figures at a bar near you. MPT…no commercials….no mercy.


Aaron Harris
Associate Producer (& guitarist/vocalist for Poseable Action Figures)

The woman behind NOVA: Paula Apsell

So you’re the world’s biggest NOVA fan. Or maybe you’re on the hunt for advice on how to break into public television production. You’re in luck.

MPT recently took some time out to interview Paula Apsell, senior executive producer of NOVA. Hers is the ultimate story of perseverance and success. Apsell joined WGBH Boston straight out of college, taking on the very unglamorous task of typing the station’s daily television program log. Decades later, she’s at the helm of America’s favorite science show.

The interview is the latest in MPT’s new podcast series, where we talk to big names in public television and find out how they got where they are today.

Click here to listen to the interview. (You can also download it to any portable mp3 player.)

Anyone and Everyone

When parents or family members first find out that their child is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered (GLBT), the reaction varies. Some accept the fact unconditionally because their love for their child is overwhelming. Others, however, react differently. Their emotions range from shock, disbelief and disappointment to outright hostility. They sometimes blame themselves and also feel alone.

At PFLAG-Columbia/Howard County, we demonstrate to parents with gay children that they are not alone. The parents’ reactions are common and through support, they ultimately realize that their child is the same person he or she was before the disclosure. It is OK to be gay. It is OK to love the child. Getting this message out to parents is a challenge for PFLAG. With so many in denial initially, they tend not to reach out for support and absorb this new development internally. That is not healthy for the parent or the child.

The documentary that MPT is airing tonight—Anyone and Everyone—at 9 p.m. will send a message to those who would not take that first important step and seek support. Viewers will see that being gay transcends cultures and religions. It will show that parents should not feel alienated and will hopefully stop blaming themselves or the child.

Our goal is that the resources that will be offered through the live phone bank tonight (800-222-1292) will stem this alienation. There are varied and complex reasons why some need support. The referrals from the phone bank should be able to match the resource to the need.

PFLAG’s involvement in the phone bank will serve to allay the fears of parents who call, or children who are having difficulties at home or school because of their sexual orientation. We will inform them about our chapter’s mission, when and where we meet and offer information that will mitigate the caller’s fears. We have a very successful Parents Support Group that is comprised of folks who have had that initial negative reaction, but have completed the journey to full acceptance and advocacy to improve the lives of their children.

Our youth group, the Rainbow Youth Alliance, consists of GLBT youth and heterosexual allies, ages 13-22. They meet twice a month, facilitated by young adults, in a safe location where they can draw support form each other and also form social contacts. Our chapter launched a scholarship program last year, and the success of this group has served as a model for other PFLAG chapters.

The chapter also has older members who are GLBT, with many living successfully in committed long-term relationships. These members are valuable to the chapter as not only do they volunteer their time to help the chapter achieve its goals, but also serve as role models for the GLBT youth. They also demonstrate to the parents that their child has a very good chance to grow up living his or her life in a happy, stable, loving relationship.

MPT should be congratulated for helping to open doors that need opening.

PFLAG-Columbia/Howard County

http://www.pflagmd.org/

The power of forgiveness

Everyone makes some sort of improve-your-life resolution this time of year. Like many of us, I’m grateful for my family and my health and have resolved to strengthen both. While I have yet to kick my workouts into high gear (tomorrow, I promise!), I consciously try to strengthen my relationships with my closest family every day. I cherish and enjoy my moments with these blessed people and I’m mindful of every single day that I have with them—no matter how difficult the day (or person!) may be.

My work on MPT’s Campaign for Love and Forgiveness has magnified the importance and impact of love and forgiveness in my life over the last year. There are many paths to forgiveness, and it’s something that must be practiced every day. The Prayer in America documentary recently broadcast on MPT explored different ways that Americans use prayer, including asking for strength and guidance to forgive others and oneself. A recent Direct Connection episode (available on MPT's YouTube page) highlighted the experiences and perspectives of Dr. Gordon Livingston on this topic. Dr. Livingston is a local author and psychologist who has written books and lectures widely from the perspective of a parent who has lost a child.

This week we’ll be airing the documentary Anyone and Everyone, which illustrates the strong bond of love between parent and child. Through the stories of parents of gay youth from various religions and cultures, we learn important and universal lessons about love and acceptance. During broadcast of this moving film on Friday, January 18 from 9-10:30 p.m., MPT will open our phone lines (800-222-1292) to refer viewer calls to local support services, spiritual resources and related organizations to strengthen families of gay youth.

Turns out that there’s a health benefit to love and forgiveness, too. A recent Baltimore Sun article cites new research that forgiveness may be “medicine for the body.” Other studies have illustrated that “forgiveness interventions…can improve cardiovascular function, diminish chronic pain, and boost overall quality of life.” The upcoming documentary The Power of Forgiveness (airing on MPT March 19) traces some of this research and explores recent notable stories of forgiveness. Apparently, love + forgiveness = stronger bodies. Who knew?

So it turns out I’m killing two resolutions with one love & forgiveness stone. Pretty good deal. Here’s wishing all of you a strong, healthy and love-filled 2008!


Faith E. Michel
Director of Community Outreach Initiatives

From Romania to Brooklyn

The last time I made a point of watching a TV show was probably sometime around 1991, and—while I’m sheepish to admit it—there’s a good chance it was Beverly Hills 90210. Since then, it’s coincidental when I actually remember to sit down and watch something. So when my cell phone alarm started manically buzzing and beeping at 8:45 Wednesday night, it took me a minute to register why I set it in the first place. Aha! I was supposed to watch The Jewish Americans, a new three-part PBS documentary about the history of Jews in the United States. I figured it would be good to watch. Worst case scenario, it’d be less than thrilling and I might absorb a little something I didn’t know before. Best case scenario, I may actually manage to learn about my ancestry.

Two days later, I’m still flabbergasted by how much it helped me understand my heritage. As I watched the show, it was like all these disparate pieces of my life and memory finally came together—all the stories my grandmother told me about growing up in Brooklyn and Bayonne, New Jersey; what my father told me about his mother’s immigration to Philadelphia; the mysterious class trips we had in Hebrew school to Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Everything that didn’t quite gel from my Jewish American history class from college started to make sense.

I’ve always thought there’s a big disconnect between knowing something and truly understanding it. When you truly understand something, you can feel it—it becomes palpable. I knew that, generations ago, my family immigrated to America from Eastern Europe (Ukraine and Lithuania on my father’s side; Romania and Belarus on my mother’s), but I didn’t feel it. There was a disconnect. The show made their experiences a lot more tangible. It finally occurred to me how hard they must have struggled to make it here—living in cramped quarters, desperately trying to feel comfortable in a foreign place while holding onto to their roots, struggling just to get by.

It’s mind-blowing to me that here I am, just two generations later on my father’s side and three generations on my mother’s, as American as can be. Unlike my grandparents and great grandparents, I’ve never struggled to be Jewish. And I’ve been lucky to grow up and live in areas (northern New Jersey outside of New York City, Washington, D.C. and its surrounding suburbs and now Baltimore) where I can feel 100 percent comfortable as a practicing Jew. I wonder if my ancestors could have possibly imagined that not even a hundred years later, all of their sacrifices, their long trip across the ocean to live freely as Jews and embrace an unknown country would result in someone like me—a feisty journalist and public television employee who’s as thoroughly American as she is Jewish.

As I stared at the television screen, I felt immeasurable gratitude to these ancestors (most of whom, with the exception of my paternal grandmother, I never met) who risked everything to come to America. That they decided to leave the comfort, customs and language of their homelands to travel thousands of miles for freedom and opportunities and a better life for themselves and their families. (If they hadn’t left when they did, there’s a strong possibility they would have been killed by the Nazis and I wouldn’t be here at all.)

This summer, it will be eight years since my grandmother’s passing. She was my mother’s mother, my best friend and confidante. She used to tell me stories of how she spent her youngest years in a cramped two-room tenement in Brooklyn. “I had to share a bed with my grandmother,” she’d recollect as we sipped coffee together in her apartment. Her brothers put wooden chairs together as makeshift beds next to their sister and grandmother. Her mother—my great grandmother who spoke mostly Yiddish—always managed to make something out of nothing, and served steaming hot food—recipes from the old country, I’m sure—from a single bowl in the middle of the family table. Her father was a tailor, and her grandmother was so observant that she fasted every day that the Torah was read aloud in synagogue. The day she graduated college (a big deal for sure), “You know what I did afterwards?” she’d ask me with equal parts laughter and heartbreak. “I came home and scrubbed my mother’s kitchen floor on my hands and knees.” It was only through hard work and a whopping dose of elbow grease that her large family got by. But they did. And after watching The Jewish Americans, I wish more than ever that she was here today to tell me more stories from her youth.

My father’s mother came to America when she was 14 years old. Her family immigrated here to save theirs lives, bringing only what they could carry in their arms. They were fleeing a widespread hatred of the Jews, specifically the Cossacks—skilled militants on horseback—sent by the czar with specific instructions to kill any Jew within sight. (She told my father stories of how she and her sisters would hide under the family table while the Cossacks came through town.) When she arrived here, she was put in the third grade—as a teenager. She studied and studied and skipped ahead, grade after grade. She read aloud from the dictionary before she went to bed and lost her strong Russian accent. Anne, my late grandmother, grew into a beautiful American woman—a seamstress and beautician, a wonderful wife, mother and grandmother.

To my grandmothers and grandfathers, great grandparents and great-great grandparents, I never knew most of you, but thank you. Thank you for struggling for my sake, and the sake of my children and my children’s children. Thank you for making the long and unfamiliar journey here, and having faith in this wonderful country and making it your own. I’m a Jewish American and I couldn’t be more proud.

(The remaining two parts of The Jewish Americans air on MPT Wednesday, Jan. 23 and Jan. 30 at 9 p.m.)


Jessica Leshnoff
Communications Specialist & Blog Administrator

Mother Maybelle and me

Back in early December, I was checking the results of a TiVo “wishlist” search for one of my favorite actors, Robert Duvall. To my surprise, one of the results was for a show that aired on MPT December 19th. The American Experience program’s title was The Carter Family: Will the Circle Be Unbroken. TiVo is great for finding programming like this. After looking at the program description, I saw that Robert Duvall was the narrator! I thought this might be pretty good, so I set it up to record.

Now, I’m just a country boy at heart and even though I was raised on late 60s and 70s heavy metal, through the years I’ve somehow developed an affinity for old-time country music, folk and bluegrass. Sometimes my wife calls me a hick or a hillbilly. Maybe she’s right. But these types of music truly speak of the human condition, running the entire gamut of emotion. They tell stories of sorrow, grief, and depression, but also of hope, prosperity and love. They also tell stories of our history, and people that passed before us. But above all, this music just makes us feel good. I once heard an old bluegrass musician say that you could take the most depressing theme for a song, play it ninety miles-per-hour on a banjo and people would start clapping and tapping their feet.

The Carter family was no exception in that respect. I knew a little bit about their history, but the American Experience program filled in the gaps. Springing from the mountains of southwest Virginia, three brilliant musical talents came together to truly become “The First Family of Country Music.” There was A.P. Carter, whose drive, ambition and ability to find and pull songs out of those mountains (and then arrange them), which laid the solid foundation for the group. His wife, Sara, lent her powerful, haunting voice, and his sister-in-law, Maybelle—with her innovative “scratch” guitar style—became what was perhaps the backbone of the group.

They rose to prominence in the 1920s and continued to record and play through the early 1940s. As the American Experience website says, “The Carter Family sang of love and loss, desperation and joy, and their music captured the attention of a nation entering the darkest days of the depression.” The Carter Family’s music helped people through that depression and gave them hope for the future. They truly became a big part of our musical heritage.

I must admit that I’m a very frustrated guitarist. A few days after the show aired, I did some web searches for the “Carter scratch guitar style.” One link took me to a website selling a CD for learning the “Maybelle Carter Guitar Style.” I figured that for $17.50 it might be worth it. It arrived the other day, and I think I can learn some things from it. So maybe if I practice everyday until my fingers bleed, six months from now I might be able to play “Wildwood Flower” and sound somewhat like “Mother Maybelle”! That would be quite an accomplishment for me—and I could thank MPT, PBS, TiVo and Robert Duvall!


Mike Shriver
Computer Network Systems Administrator

Roadshow in the house!

The day has finally arrived! Season 12 of PBS smash hit Antiques Roadshow kicks off with three episodes filmed right here in our own Baltimore!

For a sneak peak, check out the Baltimore Sun preview in today’s paper—there’s even some video to watch. Big finds include a World Championship jacket worn by Colts legend Johnny Unitas and four rare American Indian artifacts valued at $130,000 to $200,000!

We’re so excited, we’re just bursting at the seams here at MPT. (Many of us volunteered over the summer when Antiques Roadshow rolled into town—we’ll have some personal stories for you soon all about that.) So throw some popcorn into the microwave, sit back and join MPT tonight at 8 p.m.! The Baltimore episodes continue Monday, Jan. 14 and Monday, Jan. 21 at 8 p.m.

What would Jane do?

(adapted from MPT’s January Tea Times newsletter)

My wife is 55 years old. She loves many things “Jane.” (That would be the late British novelist Jane Austen.) Most of these things are in print (the Jane books, biographies and so on) or on video (the Jane British TV mini-series and, of course, the Jane movies). She calls them “bonnet movies.” But she doesn’t know about the Republic of Pemberley yet.

Two of the hottest things these days are social networking and online video. I’m thinking Jane might be a fan of both. But I might be wrong. On the one hand, Jane wouldn't have to venture too far into the world to experience these things (seems fitting). She could do so with a great degree of discretion (also in line with her style). And she could observe, synthesize and comment as she saw fit (right on the money). On the other hand, she might simply shun the Internet all together. In the happy circumstance that Jane would venture online, I’d direct her first to Republic of Pemberley, an entire world dedicated to all things Jane (and done so with a great deal of taste).

The site began sometime around July 1996 as a spin-off of AUSTEN-L, an email discussion list, and evolved into a message board for fans nutty about the Pride and Prejudice BBC television mini-series. While “the Republic,” as its known to its devotees, does not claim to be the site for all Jane information and discussion, it does claim to be the destination for true Jane “obsessives.”

A tight-knit, intimate community, the Republic aspires to exude a bit of attitude what they characterize as “polite with a bite”—a delicious and wholly appropriate tagline. Its creators maintain the Republic is one of the most civil places on the Internet, a distinction the community prizes and cultivates through emulation of Jane’s own honest, moral and forthright ways. When you resonate with its tone, visiting the site is all the more fun. But beware: part of the attitude involves frankly matriarchal governance. But when you get down to it, it’s all about gushing over Jane.

So stop by the Republic of Pemberley as you sit back and prepare to watch fourteen hours of great Jane adaptations coming to MPT beginning Sunday, January 13 at 9 p.m. I know my wife will!

Eric Eggleton
Senior Vice President and Chief Content Officer