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Browsing all posts tagged with cnn.
06/09/10
Chicago's Laura Baron on VH1's "You're Cut Off!"
join kiss fm, time out magazine, vh1 & the rockit ranch crew for a crazy kickoff to tonight’s blackhawks game six of the Stanley cup finals!!!!!!!! “You’re Cut Off” premieres tonight on VH1 taking 9 self proclaimed “princesses” who have lived nothing short of blessed lives and simply cuts them off. No money, no pricey belongings, no swanky living accommodations… and makes them work like hard working chicagoans like the shows host, my long time chicagoan buddy laura baron! (clip above hilarious!)
laura, who’s been featured on NBC, CNN, Extra and quite a few others, is teaching these young ladies how to grow up, take responsibility and live outside their perfect bubbles of decadence. A true Chicagoan, Laura chose her hometown to celebrate the premiere of the show at her hometown fav Rockit Bar and Grill tonight from 6-9pm…. And we are psyched to kick off this crazy victorious chicago night with her and the vh1, timeout, kiss fm crew & you!!!!!!!
Tags: ask laura baron, billy dec, blackhawks, cnn, extra, kiss fm, laura baron, life coach, MTV, NBC, princess, Radio, reality tv, rockit, rockit bar and grill, rockit ranch productions, spoiled, stanley cup, time out magazine, vh1, You're Cut Off
03/10/10
UNICEF "World Water Week" Tap Project Kickoff in Chicago
I was flipping thru channels last night and saw jessica biel on cnn w/ larry king talking about how millions of children around the world don’t have access to clean water, and thought about how when I was in 3rd grade at st clements, a speaker came in to teach us the same, and passed on many ways we can help conserve from as simple as turning the water off when brushing our teeth. That talk has actually stayed with me forever since couldn’t fathom that water could ever be scarce anywhere, but realized although I was trying to follow the speaker’s advice all these years, I never did any work to try and help share the message, so trying to help do that now.
Tags: charity, chicago, cnn, conserve water, emile hirsch, jessica biel, kenna, kilimajaro, larry king, larry king live, lupe fiasco, MTV, mtv documentary, rodelio aglibot, santigold, st. clement, summit on the summit, sunda, tap project, unicef, unicef tap project, united nations international children's emergency fund, water, world water crisis, world water week
10/30/09
my experience as "Principal for a Day" at Fenger High School
If you follow me on twitter (click here to follow if don’t), you are probably used to seeing the behind the scenes craziness of my life, as I explore the beauty of Chicago’s character, art, entertainment & cultural scene. But no matter how random, I am sure like most, you were not expecting to see me as “Principal for a Day” at the much talked about Chicago Public School, Fenger.
I first heard about Fenger when I was being interviewed live on cnn from Copenhagen on oct. 3rd about the olympic decision… as I was being patched in live via skyp from my hotel room, waiting to go on, I could shockingly hear in the background that there was a ton of commotion about a brutal death in the streets of chicago and something about a highschool called Fenger… I panicked, having no idea where this interview was about to go… just waiting in my lonely hotel room staring at skyp waiting to speak live to the world about whatever they asked… (click here to see the cnn interview)
It started with normal olympic questions, which were tough enough having just lost the bid, and then cnn hit me live with questions about violence and murder w/ our hometown school kids… I was terrified… partly because the news immediately broke my heart, partly because I had been so removed on the other side of the world and had not heard all the details of what just happened at all… but mostly because I never thought of myself as one to speak publicly about such a shocking event like that…
If you saw the interview, you know I spoke from the heart and expressed my firm belief that it is all of our responsibility as a community to get involved with whatever we can to help… I even mentioned how one of the things I do is volunteer to speak to school children in need when ever I can, like I do every year at mayor daley’s chicago public schools “principal for the day” program, which actually was held yesterday, oct, 29th.
Immediately after the cnn interview, thankfully all my twitter followers and friends hit me with some very positive comments about how i answered the surprise questions to this very sensitive and tough issue (thank you for that by the way, it was only my second time on cnn, and I was freaking out). Many of my twitter followers also suggested that I take on fenger when this “principal for a day” came around, as they thought I could really get in there and have a positive impact- so I did….
I will admit, I was a little nervous before my arrival. The media had scared me about fenger, like they did everyone else. But let me tell you, having been probably one of the first random visitors allowed in the school since the tragedy, especially w/ a camera (which btw I respectfully asked and received permission to use, and attached just a random piece that shows the energy, talent and desire to thrive), I will tell you the school, students, faculty, talent, spirit, character,… is nothing like the international media portray it to be… to some it up… they are wrong, it is beautiful, hardworking, respectable,… and I am now a huge fan and supporter of fenger, and you should be too.
Although I can go on forever about how great they are as there was just so much positive surprise, here are some quick thoughts… The newly acquired Principal Dozier is a hero- she is so passionate, hard working, smart, inspiring, respected, committed,… she will be someone people write books about and make movies about one day. I feel the same way about her entire staff that she leads so well. The kids are so great. They want to learn. They want great lives. They deserve more of a chance. The halls and classrooms are bright, clean, organized,… respect and order is obvious everywhere. Fenger has been designated one of chicago’s new “turnaround” schools, google it, this school will turn around.
It broke my heart to see that the kids’ spirits and feelings were a bit hurt that our media has portrayed them as part of a very bad thing. they are not. I was there, I spent time with them, I visited as many classes as I could, talked to as many kids as possible, shared my stories, heard all of theirs, gave advice, learned a lot myself… they are amazing, they deserve a fair chance.
It bums me out how far the media stretched things… that tragedy did not happen on school property, the things the media said the school did in response are not true, the school is a good school w/ good kids trying best they can to improve.. and as mayor daley said yesterday during our lunch, that tragedy was not a fenger problem, it was a community problem. And to me, that’s all of us!
I truly believe that if we don’t take care of our students, and educate, and mentor, and volunteer,… a lot of our problems as a community will never be solved. Kids don’t start out as a problem, they learn from their environment. Finger pointing gets us no where, these kids are there open to help, each one of them told me that they could use a mentor, people to talk to, people who will give them a chance. They suffer more if we not only ignore them, but discriminate upon them by buying into what the media made these young hard working students out to be,… we must respond.
The fact is, they have a lot of work to do at fenger to improve and get their kids where they need to be, just like a lot of schools do. They can struggle on their own, or we can help or hurt them. There are opportunities to do both. if we all spent the time looking into those opportunities to help as much as we complain about community problems or feed into the stories people just throw out there when they don’t really know the deal… we would be on our way to solving a lot for them, and solving a lot for our total future as a community.. and continually working to make this the best city in the world….
With that I leave you with fenger’s impressive website showing what they are really about… www. Mentor, volunteer, help,… give them a chance…
If you follow me on twitter (click here to follow if don’t), you are probably used to seeing the behind the scenes craziness of my life, as I explore the beauty of Chicago’s character, art, entertainment & cultural scene. But no matter how random, I am sure like most, you were not expecting to see me as “Principal for a Day” at the much talked about Chicago Public School, Fenger.
I first heard about Fenger when I was being interviewed live on cnn from Copenhagen on oct. 3rd about the olympic decision… as I was being patched in live via skype from my hotel room, waiting to go on, I could shockingly hear in the background that there was a ton of commotion about a brutal death in the streets of chicago and something about a highschool called Fenger… I panicked, having no idea where this interview was about to go… just waiting in my lonely hotel room staring at skype waiting to speak live to the world about whatever they asked… (click here to see the cnn interview)
It started with normal olympic questions, which were tough enough having just lost the bid, and then cnn hit me live with questions about violence and murder w/ our hometown school kids… I was terrified… partly because the news immediately broke my heart, partly because I had been so removed on the other side of the world and had not heard all the details of what just happened at all… but mostly because I never thought of myself as one to speak publicly about such a shocking event like that…
If you saw the interview, you know I spoke from the heart and expressed my firm belief that it is all of our responsibility as a community to get involved with whatever we can to help… I even mentioned how one of the things I do is volunteer to speak to school children in need when ever I can, like I do every year at mayor daley’s chicago public schools “principal for a day” program, which actually was held yesterday, oct, 29th.
Immediately after the cnn interview, thankfully all my twitter followers and friends hit me with some very positive comments about how i answered the surprise questions to this very sensitive and tough issue (thank you for that by the way, it was only my second time on cnn, and I was freaking out). Many of my twitter followers also suggested that I take on fenger when this “principal for a day” came around, as they thought I could really get in there and have a positive impact- so I did….
I will admit, I was a little nervous before my arrival. The media had scared me about fenger, like they did everyone else. But let me tell you, having been probably one of the first random visitors allowed in the school since the tragedy, especially w/ a camera (which btw I respectfully asked and received permission to use, and attached just a random piece that shows the energy, talent and desire to thrive), I will tell you the school, students, faculty, talent, spirit, character,… is nothing like the international media portray it to be… to some it up… they are wrong, it is beautiful, hardworking, respectable,… and I am now a huge fan and supporter of fenger, and you should be too.
Although I can go on forever about how great they are as there was just so much positive surprise, here are some quick thoughts… The newly acquired Principal Dozier is a hero- she is so passionate, hard working, smart, inspiring, respected, committed,… she will be someone people write books about and make movies about one day. I feel the same way about her entire staff that she leads so well. The kids are so great. They want to learn. They want great lives. They deserve more of a chance. The halls and classrooms are bright, clean, organized,… respect and order is obvious everywhere. Fenger has been designated one of chicago’s new “turnaround” schools, google it, this school will turn around.
It broke my heart to see that the kids’ spirits and feelings were a bit hurt that our media has portrayed them as part of a very bad thing. they are not. I was there, I spent time with them, I visited as many classes as I could, talked to as many kids as possible, shared my stories, heard all of theirs, gave advice, learned a lot myself… they are amazing, they deserve a fair chance.
It bums me out how far the media stretched things… that tragedy did not happen on school property, the things the media said the school did in response are not true, the school is a good school w/ good kids trying best they can to improve.. and as mayor daley said yesterday during our lunch, that tragedy was not a fenger problem, it was a community problem. And to me, that’s all of us!
I truly believe that if we don’t take care of our students, and educate, and mentor, and volunteer,… a lot of our problems as a community will never be solved. Kids don’t start out as a problem, they learn from their environment. Finger pointing gets us no where, these kids are there open to help, each one of them told me that they could use a mentor, people to talk to, people who will give them a chance. They suffer more if we not only ignore them, but discriminate upon them by buying into what the media made these young hard working students out to be,… we must respond.
The fact is, they have a lot of work to do at fenger to improve and get their kids where they need to be, just like a lot of schools do. They can struggle on their own, or we can help or hurt them. There are opportunities to do both. if we all spent the time looking into those opportunities to help as much as we complain about community problems or feed into the stories people just throw out there when they don’t really know the deal… we would be on our way to solving a lot for them, and solving a lot for our total future as a community.. and continually working to make this the best city in the world….
With that I leave you with fenger’s impressive website showing what they are really about… www.fengerhighschool.org Mentor, volunteer, help,… give them a chance…
Tags: chicago, chicago public school, cnn, copenhagen, fenger, fenger high school, mayor daley, principal for a day
10/06/09
CNN Interviews Billy Dec Live from Copenhagen about Chicago 2016 Loss
Thanks for all the nice comments on twitter about this interview… it was a tough one. Btw, who cool is skype? It’s amazing that they can just dial me up free to my hotel room and just put me on live like that… I sort of freaked on the one from russia a posted about a week ago but I had never done it before… blew my mind.
Anyway, as I said here, I truly am proud of our city, we did the best job we could. I am happy for rio and looking forward to enjoying the games there in 2016. As for my total thoughts on the experience, too big for words for me right now, I am just happy that I was on your team. I will be sending some final thoughts on all soon…
oh, and since I mentioned the chicago public schools’ “principal for a day” program here, I will blog about that soon too… if anyone knows of any other great programs, initiatives, volunteer work,.. that regular people like me and you can get out there and do to help… comment below and will try to integrate that in… so that everyone can actually jump in and get involved… thanks all!
b
Thanks for all the nice comments on twitter about this interview… it was a tough one. Btw, how cool is skype? It’s amazing that they can just dial me up free to my hotel room and just put me on live like that… I sort of freaked on the one from russia i posted about a week ago but I had never done it before… blew my mind.
Anyway, as I said here, I truly am proud of our city, we did the best job we could. I am happy for rio and looking forward to enjoying the games there in 2016. As for my total thoughts on the experience, too big for words for me right now, I am just happy that I was on your team. I will be sending some final thoughts on all soon…
oh, and since I mentioned the chicago public schools’ “principal for a day” program here, I will blog about that soon too… if anyone knows of any other great programs, initiatives, volunteer work,.. that regular people like me and you can get out there and do to help… comment below and will try to integrate that in… so that everyone can actually jump in and get involved… thanks all!
b
Tags: 2016, chicago public schools, cnn, copenhagen, olympics, rio, skype
09/27/09
cnn just skype'd me live from russia! omg.
That was a serious rush- almost out of no where- CNN, played around the world to millions, wants to skype me while in Russia in my hotel room? Crazy! Keep following me on twitter (click here to follow) as I make my way through Russia, then sweden, ending in copenhagen to meet mrs. obama & my fellow chicago 2016 olympic committee members for the official 2016 olympic host announcement on oct 2nd where i am sure chicago, and the U.S. in general, will win! especially if everyone helps now…
you can help by just sharing all the celebrity messages on this site w/ your friends, family, coworkers & everyone else you can for the next couple days… by email, phone, facebook, twitter, chatboards,… which helps these celebrities virally get the word out to the world that chicago (and the u.s in general) will be the perfect place to hold the 2016 olympics, and that americans are all very excited to host all who can join us (including the 4.4+ billion people watching on tv) for the most amazing sport, cultural & friendship strengthening event ever! thank you for your help everyone & keep spreading the news!
That was a serious rush- almost out of no where- CNN, played around the world to millions, wants to skype me while in Russia in my hotel room? Crazy! Keep following me on twitter (click here to follow) as I make my way through Russia, then sweden, ending in copenhagen to meet mrs. obama & my fellow chicago 2016 olympic committee members for the official 2016 olympic host announcement on oct 2nd where i am sure chicago, and the U.S. in general, will win! especially if everyone helps now…
you can help by just sharing all the celebrity messages on this site w/ your friends, family, coworkers & everyone else you can for the next couple days… by email, phone, facebook, twitter, chatboards,… which helps these celebrities virally get the word out to the world that chicago (and the u.s in general) will be the perfect place to hold the 2016 olympics, and that americans are all very excited to host all who can join us (including the 4.4+ billion people watching on tv) for the most amazing sport, cultural & friendship strengthening event ever! thank you for your help everyone & keep spreading the news!
Tags: chicago, chicago 2016, chicago 2016 olympics, cnn, michelle obama, obama, skype
09/23/09
billy dec on cnn headline news?
Ya, I can hear you from here… in case missed it, here is the cnn headline news segment I was on called “meet the newsmakers” that just ran every hour on HLN for about a week! It was a really big wake up call for me that fighting for the olympics wasn’t just a chicago thing, but it’s always been a usa thing. and now, sitting on this plane to Moscow, realizing that I will soon be in Copenhagen on oct 2nd for the official olympic host decision, it’s even feeling bigger than that. (btw, follow me on twitter out here, will give ya all the behind the scenes!)
Speaking of the big decision, I got to tell ya, I am feeling good about it! And at bare minimum, I can say I sure feel good about the effort put forth… the extremely hard working dedicated people on the chicago 2016 committee and all the volunteers across chicago worked their butts off and I appreciate their love for our city and their fight to say there is no better city out there than ours…
and as for my small part, interviewing 50 celebrity friends and putting them up here, one a day until the official decision on oct 2nd, I have to say I could not have been done w/o the support of all the celebrity friends obviously, bridges media group who are master creative editors, my flashpoint video studs ryan Berena & michael Bartello, my assistant Katie rose, my intern ilysa, the entire rockit ranch family, and all the good people across chicago who read this blog and have shared all the videos as far and wide as possible which helped virally spread the word around the world about how great this city is, and how great this country is,… and for all of that, I am just very thankful and proud to be a part of it… so thank you all for everything.
But wait, don’t stop now everyone! We are in the final stretch of 8 days left only!!! We need you to share with all your friends, family, chatboards, facebooks, twitter,…. that everyone must pass on these videos more and more so the whole world hears us before they make that final judgement on oct 2nd as to whether our country, and our city, wins or loses! So just send that one email to all your contacts now about it? and keep pushing them out! thanks all!
Ya, I can hear you from here… in case missed it, here is the cnn headline news segment I was on called “meet the newsmakers” that just ran every hour on HLN for about a week! It was a really big wake up call for me that fighting for the olympics wasn’t just a chicago thing, but it’s always been a usa thing. and now, sitting on this plane to Moscow, realizing that I will soon be in Copenhagen on oct 2nd for the official olympic host decision, it’s even feeling bigger than that. (btw, follow me on twitter out here, will give ya all the behind the scenes!)
Speaking of the big decision, I got to tell ya, I am feeling good about it! And at bare minimum, I can say I sure feel good about the effort put forth… the extremely hard working dedicated people on the chicago 2016 committee and all the volunteers across chicago worked their butts off and I appreciate their love for our city and their fight to say there is no better city out there than ours…
and as for my small part, interviewing 50 celebrity friends and putting them up here, one a day until the official decision on oct 2nd, I have to say I could not have been done w/o the support of all the celebrity friends obviously, bridges media group who are master creative editors, my flashpoint video studs Ryan Berena & Michael Bartello, my assistant Katie Rose Cronin, my intern Ilysa Bass, the entire rockit ranch family, and all the good people across chicago who read this blog and have shared all the videos as far and wide as possible which helped virally spread the word around the world about how great this city is, and how great this country is,… and for all of that, I am just very thankful and proud to be a part of it… so thank you all for everything.
But wait, don’t stop now everyone! We are in the final stretch of 8 days left only!!! We need you to share with all your friends, family, chatboards, facebooks, twitter,…. that everyone must pass on these videos more and more so the whole world hears us before they make that final judgement on oct 2nd as to whether our country, and our city, wins or loses! So just send that one email to all your contacts now about it? and keep pushing them out! thanks all!
Tags: 2016 olympics, bridges media group, chicago, chicago 2016, chicago 2016 olympics, cnn, cnn headline news, comcast, copenhagen, meet the newsmakers, michael bartello, moscow, newsmakers, paul lisnek, ryan berena