This, after I had the VCR nice and warmed up with a new videotape, ready to record what I was sure would prove to be some lively TV, as national callers asked the sort of odd and probing questions that would likely prove to be either insightful or evidence of regional bias.
Whether this was because of prior commitments on the part of the mayor -perhaps prepping for the joint meeting with Miami-Dade County mayor Carlos Alvarez and MLB Commissioner Bud Selig- or because C-SPAN simply wanted to spend more time dealing with viewer comments on AG Gonzales's resignation, I can't say.
Instead of the the multiple hours that Dallas received on Sunday morning and Detroit received Monday, Miami was short-changed, though represented -quite thoughtfully I thought- by Andy Gomez, a Senior Fellow at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban & Cuban-American Studies, http://www6.miami.edu/iccas/ and by Gepsie M. Metellus of the Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center, http://www.santla.org/
They were given a grand total of 48 minutes to discuss their personal perspective of the Cuban and Haitian experience in South Florida and answer caller questions, many of which were quite hostile. http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/cspan.csp?command=dprogram&record=556586599
Actor Jimmy Smits films scenes for his upcoming CBS-TV show CANE at Dolphin Stadium
August 12, 2007 photo by SouthBeachHoosier
I've been meaning to post this for a bit: One of the ways that people amused themselves on a sweltering Saturday night at the Dolphins-Jaguars preseason game two Saturdays ago at Dolphin Stadium -aka the former Joe Robbie Stadium- was gawking and squealing at actor Jimmy Smits as he went through his paces taping some segments for his upcoming CBS-TV show, CANE, set to air Tuesday nights at 10 p.m., and premiering on Sept. 25th
(See official CBS-TV website http://www.cbs.com/primetime/cane/ or IMDb.com's entry at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0955250/ ).
The show has looked great in the trailers I've seen so far, one of which was run on the giant screens above the end zones before taping began, which is where the above photo was snapped. There were two segments that were taped. The first was of Jimmy's character, Alex Duque -and actor Samuel Carman, who plays his young son Artie- being escorted by City of Miami mayor Manny Diaz towards mid-field to deliver a pre-game speech regarding "Hispanic Heritage Week" or something similar-sounding.
Frankly, his character's speech seemed a bit longwinded to me, suggesting -to me at least- the possibility that the producers were consciously going against the audience's preconceptions for this particular character, by showing that his character is someone who, while a smooth operator behind the scenes, is, perhaps, like many successful people, somewhat awkward in public settings or afraid of public speaking.
This would be a nice counterpoint to the usual suave and articulate characters Jimmy has long played in the past, who never lose their cool and who always say just the right thing.
A later sequence filmed was of him and TV son Samuel Carman and Mayor Diaz walking out towards the middle of the field for the pre-game coin-toss, with a few well-known Dolphin alumni in their Dolphin jackets standing nearby, at least one of whom I believe was Dick Anderson. (Dick's horrific injury during the 1975 Pro Bowl game at the Orange Bowl happened right in front of me, producing a very sick feeling in yours truly since it was SO clearly a bad injury!)
Among the better combination of stories and photos I've found about the new show are:
Cane" Is Anything But Sweet
http://content.meevee.com/?q=node/fullstory/7056
For those of you who want a better photo of the stadium itself, as well as the Orange Bowl, see this North Carolina State Wolf Pack sports site, in a series of posts regarding the Hurricanes leaving the Orange Bowl for Chez Huizenga.
http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=491076&page=1