Editor’s Note: This post is my contribution to Blog Action Day, joining thousands of other bloggers to write about one topic for a single day. This year’s topic is poverty.

On my recent trip to New York City, among the glamor and the excitement that engulfs the city is a site familiar to anyone who has walked that city’s streets.

The homeless. The needy. The poor.

Some residents in the area may have become immune to site of beggars on the streets and I can understand why. Walking past them I was torn between whom to give the money to…there were so many. Would they use my money for food and shelter or to buy booze and drugs to help briefly lessen their pain? I didn’t know.

It sadly crystallized for me how monumental a problem poverty is in the United States.

Recent statistics are even more painful to comprehend:

• 37.3 million people live below the official federal poverty level, which was $20,614 for a family of four in 2007. This number is up from 36.5 million in 2006.

• The number of people who are poor by the official government standards is more than to the combined populations of Iowa, Connecticut, Oklahoma, Oregon, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Colorado, New Hampshire and Idaho.

• Almost half of all Americans will have experienced poverty for a year or more at some point in their lives by the time they reach age 60.2

I have worked for many years as a leader in my parish for the Catholic Charities campaign in the Diocese of Buffalo. There are many truly valuable services provided by Catholic Charities in my city and yours. One of those services is help for the poor. Catholic Charities agencies serve one in every 10 people living in poverty.

Catholic Charities USA has established a formal program that you can participate in to encourage a focused effort to significantly reduce the problem of poverty for people in the United States. Catholic Charities’ Campaign to Reduce Poverty in America. The campaign provides a multitude of ways for you to get involved in this fight and help reduce this problem. It starts when you register.

I hope you will register. I hope you will donate. And like me, I hope you will remember not to forget those less fortunate than us.

Please consider participating in Blog Action Day 2008 if you haven’t already registered by clicking here. Thanks very much.

Tags: blog action day, commentary, public service announcement by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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If you haven’t already registered, please do so by clicking here.

It would be well worth your time to post your ideas on the topic of poverty (this year’s theme), no matter the normal focus or theme or your blog.

Poverty is not a Republican or Democrat or Green Party issue. It’s a universal, non-denominational and indiscriminate catastrophe that we all need to address in whatever way we can.

It could easily be anyone of us at any time.

Thanks very much.

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Tags: blog action day, commentary, public service announcement by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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As Mrs. audio’connell and I had just celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary, we decided a trip to New York City was in order.

With grandparents over seeing the littlest audio’connells, off we went.

Using sister in law’s snazzy new apartment as our HQ,we had a swell time.

A couple of must dos for you (from our perspective):

* You have to have dinner at Rocco Restaurant on Thompson Street in the Village. This restaurant goes back to the 1920’s…they know real Italian cooking. Very friendly service, not a contrived, phony ambiance….great food. For me I will not go to NYC without visiting the REAL Rocco’s. You shouldn’t either.

* The NYC bus tours. Touristy? Yeah but also a great view of the city with tons of cool information You can pick the area you want to go. I enjoyed it a great deal.

* The Lion King – OK, it opened on Broadway in 1997 and won best musical….but I never saw it until this trip…5th row center. If you haven’t seen it…please do so. Not for the kids but for you.

Of course what would a trip be without a meetup of some new and old voice over buddies. As you might imagine we had fun, got in trouble and traded great stories.

This time our group included Liz de Nesnera, Melissa Exelberth, Patrick O’Connor and a special guest appearance by Mary McKitrick and her sons Peter and Edward.

I coordinated the meetup, picking the location and time. I picked a Starbucks in Times Square from my earlier travels and arrived at the appointed time only to realize that it was not a sit down Starbucks. I suppose it would have been smart of Mrs. audio’connell and me to actually cross the street and go in after we picked the place but we didn’t.

Luckily, voice actors are both vagabonds and a flexible bunch and as we all gathered at Starbucks in Times Square we quickly chose another locale to make our temporary camp.

Suffice it to say there was so many stories and laughs we got yelled at for being too loud (ok, well I did). But I need to point out that it was Liz, Melissa and Patrick who got thrown outta the joint after Mary and I had left.

My thanks to all of these talented folks for coming to meet with me. A great way to end a great treat.

Tags: commentary, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Another great night in Rochester, NY for 6th Annual RAF Freelance Creative Expo, held at the Memorial Art Gallery Ballroom.

While only about 90 minutes away from me I don’t spend enough time with clients in the area so this is a nice time to catch up with some old friends and make new ones. In fact my thanks to Ken from Studio 2B for shooting the pic of me at the booth.

Lots of great leads to follow up on. My thanks to everyone who visited my table at the expo.

Tags: advertising, audio'connell voice over talent, commentary, marketing by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Got word last night off the wiki from Connie Crosby that Podcamp Toronto is set for February 21 and 22 again at Ryerson University (a great set up for the camp).

Now I am pretty sure already that some how that date could interfere with my son’s first birthday party unless we do it the weekend before or the week after….and if you’ve got people traveling from out of town, the later in February they have to travel to Buffalo, the better. So we’ll see how THAT discussion goes.

But be that as it may or may not, save the date and stay in touch. It should be great, especially if YOU are there.

Tags: blogs, commentary, pcto09, podcamptoronto, podcamptoronto2009, podcasting, social media, social networking, technology by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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One of my new agents emailed me to get my updated voice over demos (thank you Pastorini-Bosby). While I was attaching the cuts to an email, it occurred to me that I never properly finished my narration demo update that I had started in May (hey, don’t laugh, paying jobs come first!)

So I spent another two hours to fix some parts and voila (that’s a word my friend Mary McKitrick taught me) here is the finished product:

[audio:http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/Peter_OConnell_Narration_Demo_081001.mp3]
Click here to download Peter O’Connell’s narration demo!

In it, you will hear that I am:
* tall
* short
* happy
* sad
* confident
* unsure
* serious
* jovial
* thoughtful
* scatter-brained
* newsy
* conversational
* and most of all available for hire as the perfect choice for your awesome narration voice.

Tags: announcers, audio production, commentary, narrations, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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