Local actor living a dream on stage

When he steps onto the Peoria Civic Center Theatre stage on Saturday, Eddie Urish figures he will finally realize the feeling he's thought about for nearly 30 years — to have people he knows watching him perform professionally in his home town.

In that respect, he is "living a dream" as part of the cast of the Tony Award-winning musical "Memphis," which is on a national tour that stops in Peoria for two shows on Saturday.

"I literally am the 'third guy from the left' in this show," he said, remarking about the fact it is a smaller, non-starring role as part of the ensemble. "But that's fine with me right now. That is exactly where I want to be and where I need to be while still getting to share my passion with people I know. It is a dream come true."

Urish, with whom we caught up while the show was on a bus from Cedar Falls, Iowa to Ames, Iowa, has long been a headliner in Peoria, either on stage or directing in community theatre or on local television.

He attended the Goodman School of Drama out of high school and has acted professionally in the past, but he is now on a journey that started more than two years ago when he left Peoria after going through life changes to search for something different, something new.

After spending years running a theatre after co-founding Haberdashers in Peoria and then Eastlight Theatre in East Peoria, teaching theatre, co-hosting a morning television program and other jobs while being a family man, Urish took the opportunity to get into professional theatre in upstate New York and has been pursuing that path since.

"I found something different, and I am still on that wheel without any knowledge where it will lead after this tour is over next June. But right now I am enjoying it. It is truly amazing," said Urish, 49.

"There is still a lot to get used to, like the vampire lifestyle professional performers sometimes have. But we really just got started. At this point, it's all still so new and exciting," he said.

The Peoria stop will be only the fifth on the tour, which started Oct. 15 in Appleton, Wis., before heading to Cedar Falls, then Ames and then Whitewater, Wis., before it lands in Peoria just in time for the cast and crew to do sound checks for the 3 p.m. matinee. There is also a 7:30 p.m. performance.

All told the tour will reach 35 states, including Alaska, and there will be well over 200 performances before it is finished.

This is actually Urish's second professional tour; he did a tour in "Huck Finn" last year. But that was not what is known as a Broadway tour and the difference, he said, is incredible.

"I will say this — I will never again trade where I am working for a role. This is one of the smallest roles I've ever done but it is glorious because of everybody around me. The quality of the people, the talent that everybody has on stage and backstage ...

"I remember on opening night standing in the wings and looking out onto the stage and thinking, 'this is amazing. Here I am, standing here where I've always dreamed of being. Everything about this is mind boggling. Everybody here is 100 percent committed to what they are doing. It is even better than I anticipated it being," he said.

"For the first time I felt like I was part of something where everybody was rowing in the same direction."

He talked about the logistics of doing a professional touring show and his amazement at how it all gets done. "You walk out on stage and everything looks different. No two places are alike. But everything you need for the show — props, costumes, everything — is right where it is supposed to be. I tried at Eastlight to make everything there be as close as possible to professional theatre and I think we did okay. But what we see here is incredible," he said.

Urish also is enjoying the close-up view of the business end of professional theatre. "There are so many checks and balances. There really has to be, of course, but it is so different," he said.

Also different is "living the life of professional theatre. We aren't running from a day job to get to rehearsal for a couple hours for several weeks just to do a handful of shows. On 'Memphis' we rehearsed for only two weeks before we took it to Boise, Idaho for previews but those rehearsals were eight hours a day."

Urish doesn't like to talk much about the life changes he experience a couple years ago because he prefers to keep his private life private. He said his decision to seek out professional theatre, the life he always wanted since he saw his first professional show as a teen-ager and "Children of a Lesser God" played at the Shrine Mosque in Peoria, was basically spur of the moment.

A friend who ran a professional theatre in Rochester, N.Y., called and asked Urish to come out and be in a show called "You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up." After it ended he got a role in "August: Osage County" in regional professional theatre in Lancaster, Penn. He hasn't stopped yet.

"I literally thought, 'Life is too short to not go for it.' So I did, and it gave me a chance to be closer to my daughter Whitney, who was in New York City at that time. But I really didn't expect it to last, either. I thought the rep theatre bit in Indiana was going to be my last show outside of Peoria," he said.

He was referring to his run of a few weeks in a drama called "Woman in Black" at Crossroads Repertory Theatre in Terre Haute, Ind. It closed July 23. Soon thereafter he was in New York auditioning for a role in a touring company of "Beauty and the Beast."

He didn't get that, but he was offered the opportunity to be in "Memphis," a show he'd seen on Broadway and loved.

He didn't rush at the opportunity, even though he knew it was really what he wanted. "I guess I still wasn't that sure of myself. But my friends and people I care for urged me on. Even though I was scared they said 'you can do this.' I'm doing it, and I'm loving it," he said.

Urish has no idea what he will do when the tour is finished. He is taking voice lessons while on the road in case another musical opportunity presents itself.

"I don't want to be an actor for the rest of my life but I'm enjoying it while I can. Like I said, right now this is where I need to be," he said.

He hopes to see a lot of family and friends in the audience on Saturday, watching him realize his dream. That includes his younger daughter, Ellie, who performs in area musicals and played Jane in the recent production of "Tarzan" at Youthlight Theatre in East Peoria.

It also includes Whitney, who toured professionally herself a few years ago in "Big River." Urish admits he was living vicariously through his daughter by seeing the show in several different venues. "I think I drove Whitney nuts going to so many of the shows but it was so much fun watching her perform and she was so good. Maybe now I can fully realize what it feels like. I think I will," he said.

Frizzi: There used to be a ballpark right here

"And the sky has gotten cloudy
when it used to be so clear
and the summer....went so quickly...
this year....

"Yes, there used to be a ball park...
right here...."

Written by: Joe Raposo
Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.

One of the things I believe sets baseball apart from the other sports is baseball's appreciation for its history. No sport celebrates its past better than baseball. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, who played for the Yankee powerhouse team in the 1920s, are still revered. The sight of Cubs Hall of Famer Ernie Banks, 82 years young, still turns middle-aged men into star-struck school kids, myself included.

I still listen to Dodger games on satellite radio and marvel that broadcaster Vin Scully, who has already signed up for his 65th season in baseball broadcasting, sounds as exuberant as he probably did when he started to call games for the old Brooklyn Dodgers. It reminds me of the days of listening to Bob Prince, Jack Buck, Ernie Harwell, Harry Caray and Vince Lloyd through a small transistor radio speaker.

It helps that I'm a history nerd (to me, a geek is one who is gainfully employed with a roadside carnival and bites the head off of chickens). However, instead of studying the seamy underbelly of politics and the horrors of war, I prefer to study the glorious history of baseball.

I've been to Gettysburg and found the place still be engulfed with the pall of sadness. But to visit the site of a baseball park, to stand on the grounds where the great ones once played, still brings a shiver up and down my spine. It also helps me relive my youth. I can go to the sites of Forbes Field and Three Rivers Stadium (both in Pittsburgh) and go back to being a kid again.

Of course, only two of the grand old parks still exist. There's Fenway Park in Boston and of course, Chicago's Wrigley Field. For me, it's interesting to visit the former sites of the grand old green cathedrals. Some of them are creatively marked.

When I was at Busch Stadium during the Pirates-Cards playoffs, I pointed out to visiting Pirates fans that the white line crossing through the walkway in left field was the right field foul line of Busch Memorial Stadium and that right field of the old Busch, where Roberto Clemente played when the Pirates were in town, intersected the current Busch Stadium's left field. The first base line outside the park, going up to the Jack Buck bust, is the approximate site of first base, where Albet Pujols and Willie Stargell used to stand guard.

It's great that St. Louis is finally doing something with the vacant lot that was Busch II. It used to be a giant hole filled with water that I had nicknamed "Lake Gibson." They are building a new section of the park with left field stands just across Clark Street, similar to what Wrigley has. It probably will have a watering hole of some sort. I hope it will house the return of the St.Louis Baseball Hall of Fame, which used to be down the left field line at Busch II and was later moved across the street.

(Editor's note: It is called Ballpark Village and indeed will have a couple watering holes as well as other retail and residential. The Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum will relocate there.)

However, if you want to see where Stan Musial, Marty Marion and the Gas House Gang played, just take a 10-minute drive northwest to the corner of Grand and Dodier, where Sportsman Park used to stand. The former home of the Cards and the St.Louis Browns is now the site of the Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club. Parking your car on Dodier, you can see signs on the club's building telling you the history of Sportsman Park. Walking to the corner of Dodier and Spring has you walking past the home offices of the Cards and Browns. In 1944, both teams met each other in the only World Series to be played completely in St. Louis.

The new ballpark across the street with the Sportsman Park scoreboard actually sat on a parking lot for the original Sportsman's. If you go onto the football field and stand on the corner of the end zone, you are standing approximately on home plate. Look down the left field line and you can envision the giant manually operated scoreboard. Look straight ahead and you can see what used to be the YMCA (prevalent in many pictures of the park) still located in dead center field and across the street on Grand and Sullivan.

August Busch, the owner of the Cardinals, donated the site of Sportsman's Park to the Boys and Girls Club of St. Louis. If you're lucky, you'll see kids and coaches practicing on the field.

The Browns played at and owned Sportsman Park until 1953 when Bill Veeck sold it to August Busch. Busch attempted to rename the park "Budweiser Stadium" but the National League felt that naming a ballpark after a product would reek of crass commercialism. Busch's argument was that Wrigley Field advertised Wrigley's gum. So, Busch contacted the old brewmaster at Griesedieck Bros brewery and created Busch beer and Busch Stadium.

The neon Budweiser eagle that sat on the scoreboard of Busch Stadium is rumored to still exist, in all its splendor, on a Budweiser sign as you head west on Highway 40 in Downtown St.Louis.

Most Cardinal fans are not aware that the Cardinals initially played in a wooden stadium known as Robison Field up until 1920. The site of the park is located at the corner of Natural Bridge Avenue and Vandeventer Avenue and is now the site of Beaumont High School and their athletic field. When I was there a group of kids came onto the field with a soccer ball. I don't think they knew they were playing on a field of legends.

Over time, I've visited other ballpark sites. Here are a few of them:

COMISKEY PARK, CHICAGO: The site of the first All-Star Game and the 1919 Black Sox World Series has been marked with home plate and the foul lines. The ramp that sits across West 35th Street from "The Cell" (Cellular Field, the White Sox current stadium) is built in the same angle as the part of Comiskey Park that housed the White Sox's front office. The site is now a parking lot but it would've been great if they would've left the bleachers intact, turning that into a White Sox Hall of Fame. Or McCuddy's Tavern.

TIGER STADIUM, DETROIT: The corner of Michigan and Trumbull was the site of baseball stars from Ty Cobb to Hank Greenburg to Al Kaline. The site is now named "Ernie Harwell Park" after the iconic Tiger broadcaster and is a ball field complete with the dirt infield Alex Trammell and Lou Whittaker once patrolled.

EBBETS FIELD, BROOKLYN: The original home of the Dodgers is also where Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. It's now the site of the Ebbets Field Apartments, a public housing facility. Home plate is rumored to be inside someone's living room. Across from McKeever Place, which ran parallel to Ebbets' left field line, is The Jackie Robinson Public School #375. Walk south on Bedford Avenue and into the parking lot and you are in standing right field. A courtyard runs down what would've been right field to first base.

FORBES FIELD, PITTSBURGH: Every October 13, Pirates fans gather at what is left of the brick outfield wall, still complete with ivy, the outfield numbers and flagpole, and listen to the audio of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. That's the one where Bill Mazeroski hit the tie-breaking homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to beat the Yankees in the series. Forbes sat on the site of the University of Pittsburgh's law and business schools. Roberto Clemente Drive winds through the site.

HUNTINGTON AVENUE GROUNDS, BOSTON: About two miles and some change southeast of venerable Fenway Park is Northeastern University, located on the site of the Red Sox's first home, the Huntington Avenue Grounds. It was the home of Boston's American League franchise (also known as the "Americans" or the "Pilgrims") and the site of the first World Series, played in 1903. Barney Dreyfuss, owner of the National League Champion Pittsburgh Pirates challenged Boston owner Henry J. Killilea to a best-of-nine series, which Boston would win in eight games.

A plaque on the Huntington Theatre Company's building on Huntington Avenue marks the spot of the first World Series. But if you go to St. Botolph Street, between the Theatre and the Matthews Arena, you'll find a statue of series hero Cy Young pitching toward a brass home plate that also marks the site.

(Boston does a far better job than Pittsburgh in marking the site of the first World Series. While the state of Pennsylvania did mark the site with a plaque, the only other mark is by someone with gold spray paint, marking home plate and the bases. The site, a parking lot on the corner of General Robinson Street and Tony Dorsett Drive, just west of PNC Park, is also the approximate site of Three Rivers Stadium. The Gate "D" marker of Three Rivers remains and is now a part of the Steelers' Heinz Field.)

Just a mile west of Fenway Park on Commonwealth Street is Boston University's Nickerson Field. It sits on what was once Braves Field, home of the Braves before they moved to Milwaukee in 1953. The field is now a soccer pitch. The building that housed the front office and ticket office still exists as do the right field bleachers (still in use) and the right field wall. The concourse beneath the bleachers has changed very little since it was a part of Braves Field. The Red Sox played the 1915 World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies at Braves Field instead of Fenway Park because, at that time, Braves Field had a larger capacity.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention both of Peoria's lost ballparks. Now known as Shea Stadium, Bradley University's soccer pitch was the incubator of Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, Mark Grace, Greg Maddux and Joe Girardi. That was when it was known as Meinen Field and its second reincarnation as Pete Vonachen Stadium. The bleacher seats, ticket booth and the announcer's booth are the only parts remaining of the baseball park, very similar to Braves Field in Boston.

Potential future baseball stars still play at Woodruff Field, which was built in 1920 on Northeast Adams Street, across the street from the Peoria's old Lake View Park. Woodruff was home to the Peoria Tractors of the Three-I League and other leagues until 1937. Hall of Fame Yankee second baseman Tony Lazzeri played for the Tractors in 1923, when he batted .248 with 14 home runs in 135 games. The Peoria Chiefs would rejoin the Three-I league in 1953 until 1957. During that time, the Chiefs were a farm team of the Cleveland Indians. The field and diamond still sits just west of the Komatsu Dresser factories. A portion of the old park's wall still exists on Grant Street.

The new ballparks are indeed beautiful. But Clemente didn't play there, nor did Stargell, Mays, Aaron or Musial. And when you're sitting in Wrigley after seeing a game at the new Comiskey — no, U.S.Cellular Field — can you honestly tell me you don't wish Old Comiskey still existed?

All I know is when they tore down the first Yankee Stadium, I realized that nothing was sacred.

Cat: Mining downturn continues to plague sales, profits

Sales within the mining industry, a bright spot for Caterpillar Inc. just a few years ago, were down again in the third quarter and proved to be a drag on overall sales and profits during the period, the company announced Wednesday.

Further, it resulted in Caterpillar downgrading its outlook for the full year and issing a cautious preliminary outlook for next year, a move noticed by a nervous investment community that responded quickly in trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Caterpillar reported a third-quarter profit of $946 million, or $1.45 a share, a decline of 43 percent from the third quarter of 2012 when the profit was $1699 billion, or $2.54 a share.

Sales and revenues were $13.423 billion in the third quarter this year, an 18 percent decline from the sales and revenues of $16.445 billion a year earlier.

For the first nine months of the year sales and revenues were $41.254 billion, compared with $49.8 billion through three quarters in 2012. The profit was $2.786 billion, or $4.21 a share, through September this year, compared with $4.984 billion, or $7.44 a share, a year ago.

Caterpillar said it now expects sales and revenues to be about $55 billion for the year with profit of $5.50 a share. The previous outlook called for sales and revenues for the year to be $56 to $58 billion and profit to be about $6.50 a share.

If that holds the expected $11 billion drop in sales and revenues from 2012 would represent a 17 percent decline, said Chairman Doug Oberhelman. Noting that "this year has proven to be difficult," Oberhelman said much of the blame is in the Resource Industries segment, which is principally mining. "We expect Resource Industries to be down close to 40 percent for the full year and Power Systems' and Construction Industries' sales to each be down about 5 percent," he said.

Oberhelman said demand for mining equipment has been difficult to predict. When the year began the company said mining production was starting to pick up for many commodities, so it expected demand for equipment to start picking up in the second half of the year. "Unfortunately, order rates have not picked up much despite continuing strong commodity production. That has caused us to ratchet down our sales and revenues outlook as we have moved through 2013," he said.

During a meeting with reporters, Group President Brad Halverson said a reduction in inventory that has accompanied the downturn in demand is helpful to the company's cash position, but that it still comes with a cost. Some of that has been in employee cutbacks, across-the-board temporary layoffs and rolling plant shutdowns during the past year. To date worldwide employment has been reduced more than 13,000 workers, to about 137,000. Most of the reductions have been in overseas employment, the company said.

Cost reductions will continue in the fourth quarter but the company declined to provide details.

Year-to-date, the company said, it has lowered costs by about $700 million and reduced capital expenditures by about $400 million. Under the circumstances, Halverson said, "Our employees can be proud of what we are delivering operationally. Safety and quality continue to improve. We are proud of where we are at this point. The team has sacrificed to meet our commitments."

Many segments continue to do well, Halverson said, including Caterpillar Financial Products and the company's power systems segment. He added the construction industry just needs some confidence, domestically and abroad, and it is poised to take off.

"If we get some stability, North America has huge pent-up demand. I think we would see infrastructure construction really pick up. Of course, we're going to wait to see it pick up before we call it returning," Halverson said.

That as well as uncertainty in U.S. fiscal policies and global economics is why the company is being cautious in its preliminary outlook for 2014, he said. That outlook calls for sales and revenues to be basically flat with this year.

Wall Street took note of that caution, as well as the fact Caterpillar's profit in the third quarter was well below the $1.67 a share expected by a consensus of analysts who cover Caterpillar. It was the fourth consecutive quarter actual earnings missed analysts' predictions.

Investors returned the caution. Caterpillar stock fell $5.41 a share, or more than 6 percent, to $83.76 in trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange. Nearly 21 million shares, or about four times the daily average volume, were traded.

Noting Caterpillar expects growth in some segments, including construction industries, Oberhelman said, "There are encouraging signs, but there is also a good deal of uncertainty worldwide as we look ahead to 2014, and our preliminary outlook reflects that uncertainty. Despite prospects for improved economic growth and continued strong mine production around the world, we won't be increasing our expectations for Resource Industries until mining orders improve. We can't change the economy or industry demand, but we've taken many actions to align our costs with the environment we're in currently.

"While we've done much already, we're not finished and expect to take deeper actions to improve our cost structure and balance sheet. We're not seeing bright spots in mining yet, but the turnaround will happen at some point, and when it does, we'll be ready to respond," Oberhelman added.

Some items of note in Caterpillar's third-quarter report include:

Sales and revenues were down 18 percent total and also declined in all geographic regions where the company does business. The worst decline, 32 percent, was in the Asia region.

The least decline was in Latin America at 12 percent; sales were up in all segments except mining. It was down 42 percent in that segment.

Sales were down 7 percent in construction industries, 42 percent in resource industries and 7 percent in power systems.

Cat Financial Products reported a 4 percent increase in revenues and a 15 percent improvement in profit.

Dealer machine and engine inventories decreased in the third quarter of 2013 by about $800 million, which compares with an increase of about $800 million in the third quarter of 2012. Most of the change in both periods was related to mining.

To read the company's entire Third Quarter report visit www.caterpillar.com.

Hummingbird: SEO is Now Blogging

Hummingbird in the field. What will his probing yield?

No fake flowers, that's for sure. Its aim is true and will not blur.

Google has unleashed its new Hummingbird semantic search engine.

Hummingbird is Google's first major new search engine platform since 2001. SEO is now completely different and far more laborious. It means keeping up with, and grinding out answers to, customer questions that are flying at you relentlessly.

It's an entirely new search engine that has new laws and deeper motivations. Hummingbird is hoped to be the ultimate in delivering fantastic search results, while outsmarting black hats, junk websites, and spammers.

It comes simultaneously with the total blackout on keyword referrer data, that Google used to provide, showing you what keywords people are using in searches. Without keyword data, SEO can no longer be dominated by keyword ranking.

Hummingbird shifts the SEO focus from keywords to user intention. "Find polish to clean my silver necklace": keyword focus says "silver necklace" is the primary topic, but intent focus says "wants to clean it" is the real theme. Keyword SEO might return web pages trying to sell you a silver necklace, while Hummingbird SEO will know the true purpose of the search behavior and return far better results to the searcher.

Hummingbird is faster, smarter, intuitive. It can quickly probe the dark swamps and bleak deserts of the internet and extract the nectar. Semantic nectar that other search engines are not capable of finding. It's actually an AI (artificial intelligence) application. It analyzes at lightning speed the semantics of a search query, rather than matching query keywords with keyword skewed web content. Also, it can interpret voice search commands in natural language. Voice search tends to be more wordy, awkward, using jumbled keywords, imprecise keywords, or no keywords at all.

Google wants to, in every possible case, give you the answer to your question WITHOUT you having to see any search results pages or clicking on any websites. It's called Clickless Searching. Eventually, Google may be this Universal Digital Brain Soul with all the information on its own servers, so the web will vanish, leaving only Google with all the facts it gets from newsfeeds and social media.

Hummingbird basically means grinding out new web pages on long tail topics and converting existing web content into an FAQ or compelling narrative format in natural, conversational, spoken language.

How old and moldy is your web content? Is it bullet lists and brochureware, or is it friendly and conversational? Is it informative, or just promotional? Is your web content interesting or just technically correct? Can you expand your FAQ page? Why not develop an FAQ page for every product and every topic and issue related to your field of expertise? That would increase your perceived authority value.

Does your website have strong calls to action on every page? Is it mobile friendly? Have you tested it on a variety of browsers, operating systems, live devices, and mobile emulators? Is your website HTML5 code implementing Schema.org semantic markup — and H1, title, and meta description tags to identify webpage themes?

In what ways does your web content reflect the latest, smartest, or most talked about developments, innovations, and facts? Are you using comments, social sharing buttons on all your web pages, interactive widgets, and forums to facilitate audience engagement with the content? Is your web content spewing product stats and fluff, or is it telling a fascinating story about how to solve a problem and what differentiates you from competitors?

Google prefers "hot off the press" content that is helping people, explaining things, engaging with an audience — not boasting about the organization and hyping product.

In a nutshell, in our new Hummingbird environment, SEO is now blogging.

READ MORE:

www.infoworld.com/t/search-engines/googles-new-hummingbird-algorithm-about-queries-not-just-seo-227732

www.searchengineland.com/google-hummingbird-172816

www.inc.com/aaron-aders/how-to-strategize-for-googles-hummingbird.html

www.streetfightmag.com/2013/10/11/gauging-hummingbirds-impact-on-local-seo/

www.thefinancialbrand.com/34488/google-hummingbird-search-engine-rankings/

www.reelseo.com/googles-hummingbird-video-seo/