On Monday night, I met up with my sister-like friend and used-to-be-AMP3er, the infamous Jillian Marie Kelleher, on location for a taping of her new show “The Jillian Marie Show,” a lifestyle talk show that will cover a range of topics, Jillian-style.

This time, Jillian was set to interview my client, Amber Lee Ettinger AKA “The Obama Girl” and all we needed was the venue. So I called up Sam, event planner over at the newly-opened Haven, and he was happy to have us. What I forgot was that Jillian was the one who originally introduced me to Sam, when she met him during his stint at Slate Plus, 3 years ago, while she was on the prowl for a venue for a “Survival of The Wildebeest” promo party, one of our AMP3 indie film clients at the time (which just premiered at the New York Independent Film Fest, congrats Joe Wolf!). I later met Sam through Erica (of AMP3) and again through Marcus (my jazz client), so needless to say, Sam is basically Kevin Bacon.

The taping went great. The chemistry between Jillian & Amber on screen was fun, as Jillian explored the stigmas surrounding her “Obama Girl” persona and tried to get the dirt on who Amber really is and what’s shes all about besides her Obama crush. The camera man was also very skilled, Andrew Baxter, who tells me he’s a “permalancer” at BET, and I had to work that tidbit into this blog, as I am now fascinated by the oxymoron-ness of the word “permalancer”.

Then, while at the space for the taping (which was the perfect location BTW), we propositioned that Jillian film a segment on the space itself, since it is a very unique New York venue with its worldly décor and global tapas menu. To my surprise, after following Haven quite closely in the past few weeks, as Jillian went to interview the co-owners, I realized that one of the two was Jorge, Jorge of Tillmans, who I also met via Erica, back when Tillmans was one of our fav after-work places. If you havent tried the French Onion Soup Grilled Cheese Sandwich… you must! Yes – soup IN a sandwich. And I don’t even like French Onion Soup – so trust me when I say, it’s major!

This is not news to me, but for the rest of you, I’ve got to say that Jillian is a true talent. A host at heart, she’s the perfect balance of fun & energy with natural investigative reporter instincts and the ‘piece de resistance’—her genuine interest in her interview subjects. Stay tuned for more info on the debut of The Jillian Marie Show, details TBA soon. And if you have a potential segment idea to pitch to Jillian, you know where to find me!

(Alyson Campbell for Its All Very PR)

Tags: Alyson Campbell, amp3, AMP3 pr, AMP3 Public Relations, It's All Very PR

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 3:14 pm and is filed under AMP3pr, blasts from the past, client relations, connecting the dots, people to watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.