Please Wish Me Well

Please wish me well for the hour of Thursday April 17 at 11PM EST for one hour.

No Trouble with the cable please.

No Trouble with the DVD Recorder.

Also no techical glitches from CMT Canada.

The reason:

Martina's interview will be broadcast!!!

"mega Concert" Considered In Hamilton?

HECFI plans mega concert at Ivor Wynne this summer
TheSpec.com - Local - HECFI plans mega concert at Ivor Wynne this summer

Graham Rockingham
The Hamilton Spectator

(Apr 15, 2008)
The city-owned corporation that runs Copps Coliseum and Hamilton Place wants to hold a major country concert at Ivor Wynne Stadium this summer.

If approved by city council, it would be the first large-scale concert staged at the football stadium in almost 30 years.

Duncan Gillespie, CEO of Hamilton Entertainment and Convention Facilities Inc., said he could not name the high-profile U.S. country act yet because negotiations have not been finalized.

"The show we're looking at is a large production," he said, "probably the biggest show in this city since the '70s."

The city has been reluctant to allow concerts at Ivor Wynne since some 55,000 rock fans filled the stadium in 1975 to see Pink Floyd. City officials were flooded by complaints from people living near the stadium about noise and rowdiness. The last big concert staged at Ivor Wynne was Rush in 1979.

Gillespie said representatives of Live Nation, the company that would co-promote the show with HECFI, toured Ivor Wynne yesterday to check on the logistics of staging a concert at the venue.

City staff have been requested by HECFI to report to council on whether the concert should be allowed to proceed. Gillespie said he expects that report to be discussed by council on April 23.

HECFI is hoping to stage the concert late in the summer with at least 25,000 people attending.

Councillor Bernie Morelli, whose ward is home to the stadium, said he would not be opposed to a middle-of-the-road act performing there as long as concert organizers are "respectful" to the needs of the neighbourhood.

"It's got to be done with due consideration for the needs of everyone," Morelli said.

http://thespec.com/News/Local/article/354612

Cmt Canada Dedicated

I just saw the Ad on CMT Canada, the interview with Martina will air on Thursday April 17 at 11PM.

I didn't see any reference to this on the website.

Street Feud Accelerates To Homicide

http://thespec.com/News/Local/article/351794


Street feud accelerates to homicide
TheSpec.com - Local - Street feud accelerates to homicide
Friends watch girl, 15, die of hit-and-run injuries

Paul Morse and Paul Legall
The Hamilton Spectator

(Apr 9, 2008)
"Help me."

Those were the last words 15-year-old Ashleigh Maegan Carmichael managed to gasp as she lay mortally injured just metres from her central Hamilton home.

As shocked friends tried to help her, a purple car raced away down Cheever Street, its driver now a murder suspect.

The events began around 10 p.m. Monday at Barton Street East near Cheever Street, where Maegan and her brother, Justin, 18, lived with their disabled mother.

More than a dozen friends had gathered to help them move into a new apartment near Centre Mall when friends say an old feud flared up. News spread that a woman who physically assaulted Justin in the past was in a nearby building. The group decided to run the woman out of the neighbourhood.

"We stood out in front of the house telling her to come out," said a 17-year-old who was there helping the Carmichaels move. "She came out and we told her to get lost, to get out of our neighbourhood."

Witnesses say eight teens chased the woman, only to find themselves chased by her boyfriend, who grabbed Maegan by the throat. Moments later, Justin arrived and punched the man in the face.

Soon after, friends say a car "started speeding through the alleyway, and then it all happened."

The witnesses say the car sped straight at the group of teens, barely missing one friend who is pregnant. Then the driver threw the car into reverse. Maegan had backed onto a grassy strip between the sidewalk and her building's parking lot driveway.

"He came backwards and ran over Maegan backwards, then he ran over her again forwards, and then hit Justin before he took off," the friends said.

They said the collisions left Maegan bleeding on the ground, her leg badly broken.

"All she said was 'Help me.'"

During a news conference at the scene yesterday, Staff Sergeant Steve Hrab, head of Hamilton's homicide unit, confirmed there was a previous confrontation related to the Monday night incident. He said some of the same individuals were involved in the previous incident but he wasn't specific about what happened.

No charges were laid then.

Hrab said Maegan and Justin were struck at about 10:30 p.m. while they were standing in an area behind Duarte Supermarket.

"The suspect vehicle pulled out westward from the alleyway ... and then travelled across the street, striking the group on the street and sidewalk," he said.

Justin suffered only minor injuries and was treated and released from hospital. But Maegan, who was treated by paramedics at the scene, died later in hospital.

From the family's new apartment, where he emerged limping and with cuts on his hand, Justin Carmichael said he and his mother are asking for privacy.

Last night, Maegan's young friends built a makeshift shrine in her memory on a patch of grass off Cheever Street. They began congregating in the area with flowers, candles and other tributes by mid-afternoon, but it was early evening before police removed the yellow tape from the crime scene and let them leave the memorials where she fell.

Maegan's friends knew her by the nickname Lil Shawtz and remembered her bubbly nature, her love of music and dance, and her ability to make other people feel better in the worst of times.

Many of her close friends, including Chantel Robichaud, called her "little sister."

Robichaud, 16, said she became close to Maegan and her family when she lived with them for a few months in the last year. She said Maegan had an excellent singing voice and dreamt of competing in Canadian Idol. Robichaud would often join Maegan and her mother in impromptu renditions of her favourite song, Concrete Angel by Martina McBride.

The song, about a young girl suffering from domestic abuse, has echoes of Maegan's sometimes difficult life and tragic end:

"A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate, When morning comes it'll be too late."
According to friends, Maegan's parents separated a long time ago and she lived with her grandparents in Kitchener before moving in with her mother, who is confined to a wheelchair and survives on a modest disability pension. Until a few months ago, she attended Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary School. But friends said she recently transferred to an alternative school for students who have trouble coping with regular classes.

According to Lexi Gale, 18, Maegan spent some time with her in a Stoney Creek group home about three years ago.

"We would hang out, make jokes. She was funny. Both of us were funny when we were together," Gale recalled.

Randy St. Aubin, 43, who described himself as Maegan's surrogate father, said she would come to his house on Barton Street East almost every day. He thought she'd become a nurse because of her compassion for other people.

Justin St. Aubin, 16, Randy's son, came to the scene with his dad yesterday carrying a candle with a picture of Jesus on it. He wanted to set it down where Maegan landed after she was run down. At the time, police were still gathering evidence in a large area between Cheever and William Street and police told him he'd have to wait until they removed the yellow tape. At that point, it was still easy to pinpoint the spot where she fell from the pale blue paramedic gloves, the trail of broken glass and radiator fluid the vehicle left in its wake.

"I feel terrible," he said as he clutched the candle.

Thomas Quinton Shade, 25, who has been linked to a Grant Avenue address in Hamilton, was charged yesterday with second-degree murder. He is expected to make his first appearance at the John Sopinka courthouse today.

A Little More London

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