WATERLOGG PRODUCTIONS: WAMU to air The Joe Bev Holiday Treat! Christmas Eve!

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

WAMU to air The Joe Bev Holiday Treat! Christmas Eve!

WAMU 88.5 FM is the leading public radio station for NPR news and information in the greater Washington D.C. area. It is member-supported, professionally-staffed, and licensed to American University. Since 1961, WAMU has provided programming to a growing audience that now totals more than 450,000 listeners in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. http://wamu.org/

AIRING: 12/24/14 3 pm Christmas Eve (After Tinsel Tales)

"The Joe Bev
Holiday Treat" is a joyful and surprising self-contained, magazine one-hour compilation of Christmas themed stories--some true, some fictional--hosted by veteran public radio producer and Ellenville Journal reporter Joe Bevilacqua.

Give your listeners a Christmas present this year--a rest from the bad news of the world--with this happy holiday treat. The perfect show to run Christmas Eve!

The stories included in the hour are:
"Sleepy Santa" "The Christmas I Saved Macy's" "Sherlock Holmes Creepy Christmas in Scotland" "A Rockabilly Christmas" "Willoughby and the Professor Spend Christmas in the Middle East."

THE MISADVENTURES
OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

A Rockabilly Christmas

If you are looking for a short Christmas piece, check out THE CHRISTMAS I SAVED MACY'S (04:18) as a stand-lone at: http://www.prx.org/pieces/22168 or A Rockabilly Christmas at: http://www.prx.org/pieces/22410.

If you would like to broadcast my half-hour Christmas Special, go to: THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES CHRISTMAS SPECIAL: "Holmes Creepy Christmas" (28:57) http://www.prx.org/pieces/21906.

Three Year Old Boy
Saves Macy's

Public Radio Veteran Recalls Stamping Out a Fire in 1964

This holiday season is a special one for Joe Bevilacqua (or Joe Bev as he often known). The veteran, award-winning writer, cartoonist, radio producer and actor has not one, but FOUR different Christmas Specials being broadcast on public radio stations across the country, over the next few days.

THE CHRISTMAS
I SAVED MACY'S

In one of them, "The Christmas I Saved Macy's," Bevilacqua recalls the time he stamped out a fire at Bambergers Department Store in Newark, New Jersey in 1964 when he was three years. The story was published in the December-January issue of Orange Magazine, reprinted in December 6 issue of The Ellenville Journal, and Joe Bevilacqua will be reading it on Public Radio International's "Here and Now," XM Satellite Radio and public radio stations nationwide, now through December 25.

Bamberger's department store was founded in 1893 by Louis Bamberger,and the building, which was erected in 1912, had a big clock on it. Unlike the sprawling malls of today, Bamberger's took up the entire building and sold everything from ladies underwear to model homes. In 1929, Bamberger's was purchased by R.H. Macy Co. of New York City, but it wasn't until 1986 that the name was changed to Macy?s when they went national. Today, there are Macy?s across the country. "And you can thank me for it," says Bevilacqua. "The same year The Beatles invaded America, I saved Bamberger's, so if it were not for me, the Macy's we know today may not have existed."

Bevilacqua's mother, Joan, brought her some to downtown Newark to shop for Christmas and so he could see his father, Joe, Sr., who was a policeman, directing traffic at the intersection of Market and Halsey Streets, where Bamberger's was located. After a visit with Santa, his mother took the boy into Bamberger's ladies lounge.

Bevilacqua recalls, "It was a handsome place with real wood paneling, glass ashtrays on ornate brass stands and leather chairs in which sat seven or eight Jackie Kennedy look-alikes, wearing pillbox hats, half-jackets and white gloves. They had all kicked off their spiked healed shoes and were rubbing their stockinged feet in between puffs of their cigarettes." A woman screamed and Bevilacqua saw flames coming out of one of the ashtray stands. The woman kicked over the stand and jumped up onto her leather chair, and the carpet was on fire. The woman screamed and jumped up. "Somebody put it out!" urged one woman. "I can't! I don?t have my shoes on!" replied another. "Me either!" added a third. The last suggested, "Get that kid to do it! He?s got shoes on!" Bevilacqua says he "quickly stamped out the fire" and the women lifted him up and "hugged and kissed" him. What does the 35-year public radio veteran remember most about that day? "The woman who had suggested my act of heroism picked me up, kissed my cheek and smiled. Her makeup smelled just like a delicious cotton candy.

Bevilacqua has edited and written several books, including Daws Butler: Characters Actor, the authorized biography of the voice of Yogi Bear. A frequent contributor to National Public Radio, He has won many awards, including a Silver Reel from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters for A Guy Named Joe Bevilacqua. His radio documentary Lady Bird Johnson: Legacy of a First Lady won best radio documentary at the 2001 New York Festivals. Most recently, Bevilacqua won a New York Festivals for his 2006 All Things Considered tribute to cartoon legend Joe Barbera. Bevilacqua has also written, directed and acting in hundreds of radio dramas for NPR and XM Satellite Radio. In addition, he writes three to five articles per week for The Ellenville Journal in Ellenville, NY. He also contributed a number of articles, essays and cartoons to the premiere issue of Orange Magazine. "Joe Bev" and his wife and co-creator, Lorie Kellogg, live in their uniquely cartoonish home in the woods of Napanoch, NY, with their three dogs, George, Gracie and Zasu, and their two cats, Offica Pup and Krazy Kat. You can hear over 30 hours of his audio work, much of it for National Public Radio, at: www.joebev.com.

PODCASTS CAN BE HEAR HERE: http://www.waterlogg.com.