Raising awareness of hearing loss prevention is a personal thing for trumpet virtuoso Chris Botti — who is starring in a new public service campaign from the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary (NYEE) and brought in his friend Sting as narrator. Asked about people in his life who are dealing with hearing loss, he is quick to respond: "Every musician."

"If you're playing live — any performing musician, it's just inevitable that it's going to happen. It's kind of one of the downfalls of the business I'm in, because if you're onstage with a loud symbol behind you all night long, it's going to affect you. It

makes me want to do anything I can to heighten the awareness for people to understand that, as they get older, their hearing is going to lose its luster...getting it checked and wearing earplugs when possible, and ear guards, that can help."

The sexy trumpet man himself doesn't wear ear plugs. "It's the worst, because with a trumpet, it's hard to explain, but if you wear earplugs, you hear your internal sounds, the buzzing of your lips, rather than the music. Musicians like rock drummers and guitarists — and there are millions of them around the world — can wear earplugs. They have ones that are clear and no one knows they're there."

Botti's involvement in the campaign also includes his presence at the NYEE gala in November — with the winner of NYEE's Favorite Sounds sweepstakes and 10 friends as his table mates. Contest entries will consist of videos that capture people's favorite sounds. (Information can be found at iLikeMyHearing.org.) May is National Hearing Month, but the NYEE plans to keep the campaign going all year.

MEANWHILE: Botti, who tours 300 days a year, has just come out with his latest recording, "Impressions" — with one of the most wide-ranging lists of composers and guest artists you'll find on any album. "The unifying theme was probably to make it as non-unified as we could," he says with a laugh. But Botti's polished sound serves as the tie that binds them all together.

"Through the years I've made records that have a certain space, a certain sheen — very audiophile — and that sort of links them together, whether you're doing an R. Kelly song, or Michael Jackson, or Mark Knopfler. It just kind of rolls off rather nicely," he says. "And I'm very proud of the eclectic nature of this; to go from Andrea Bocelli to Vince Gill to David Foster is a real thrill for me."

ATTENTION-WORTHY: Everyone wants to know the location of Ground Zero in our ongoing financial disaster — the place this recession all began. PBS's "Frontline" provides an answer in its special, two-part, four-hour "Money, Poser and Wall Street" (tomorrow, (4/24) and May 1). It was in the '90s, at a swanky Boca Raton conclave of twentysomething brainiacs from JD Power, when the idea of credit default swaps was conceived.

"They were well-intentioned. I would not say they were greedy," observes revered broadcast journalist Martin Smith, speaking of that team of young Turks. He points out that the idea stemmed from wanting to insure themselves against loan risks. The Frontline report tracks how trading risk as an insurance product began in a seemingly smart way with corporate loans, then morphed into a market of its own that spread into mortgages and ultimately the toxic loans that resulted in 2008's financial crisis. Smith is quick to credit Gillian Tett and her book, Fool's Gold, for the Boca Raton story. (Tett appears on the docu.)

Smith has won numerous journalistic awards for his reporting on documentaries like "Gangs of Iraq," "Beyond Baghdad" and "Return of the Taliban." The labyrinthine world of high finance is most different from war reporting, he tells us, in that "you don't have to explain to people what happens when a bullet hits," but the practices and terminology of finance require careful boiling down for non-expert viewers. Smith makes the point that instead of merely chalking up financial matters as arcane and complex — which many media members do — "it's important that we, the public, understand them. And we can understand," he stresses. "As someone pointed out, every time we buy a box of cereal, we're paying a price that involves derivatives."

Judging by the galloping first hour of "Money, Power and Wall Street," "Frontline" has achieved its goals. In fact, the fascinating saga has so much potential to be portrayed as a smart thriller, one wonders whether Hollywood will soon be looking to dramatize it.

INDUSTRY BITS: Casting is going on for a comedy flick they're calling "Not Another Celebrity Movie" — with look-alikes and celebrity impersonators being sought for roles, including George Clooney, Donald Trump and Brad Pitt. The storyline has Charlie Sheen getting the idea that Justin Bieber is his biological son, and conspiring with his famous pals to kidnap the Beeb. Hey, it's all in how it's done.

With Adam Sandler's "Grownups 2" en route to production, casting forces are filling subsidiary roles including that of Penny, Adam's 9th grade girlfriend who thinks he still has the hots for her, even though she's in her forties. Fun stuff.

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.