Thursday, June 25, 2015

TBT: Eddie Cochran, "Summertime Blues."

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Eddie Cochran had a hit with "Summertime Blues" (which is what the Mets are having now)  in 1958, when he was nineteen, and died...
Saturday, June 20, 2015

R.I.P. Wendell Holmes

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In the early 1980s some friends and I used to go to a place called Dan Lynch on Second Avenue between 12th and 13th streets (the location ...
Wednesday, June 17, 2015

TBT: Ornette Coleman, "Lonely Woman."

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Ornette Coleman , who died last week, was, along with Eric Dolphy and others, one of the jazz musicians who took the music a step beyond t...

Dare I keep being optimistic about the Mets?

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Let's see. They storm back from a bad outing by Gee, now designated for assignment, to win the rubber game of a series with the Braves. ...
Thursday, June 11, 2015

TBT: Jan & Dean, "Sidewalk Surfin' "

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It's not officially summer for another ten days or so, but it sure feels like it already, so here's some summer music. Well, truth...
Sunday, June 07, 2015

Of God, children, and she-bears.

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The Deity and I, you might say, got off in a bad way. When I was five or six, my mother would read to me from a book, published in the late...
Thursday, June 04, 2015

TBT: Harry Chapin, "W*O*L*D."

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Harry Chapin grew up in the neighborhood I've called home for the past 32 years, Brooklyn Heights. His singing skills were honed in th...

'Bout changes 'n' things.

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I first saw New York City in December of 1951. I was five years old, and my mother and I came here to embark on the S.S. Washington  for...
Thursday, May 28, 2015

TBT: The Bobby Fuller Four, "I Fought the Law"

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Back when I was in law school (1967-70) at this time of the year, as final exams were finishing, lots of calls went from my classmates to t...
Tuesday, May 26, 2015

The Mets aren't toast...yet.

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Back on May 11 I blithely suggested that "[s]hould the Mets play .500 ball for the rest of the season, they would end with 86 wins, ...
Thursday, May 21, 2015

TBT: B.B. King, "Sweet Little Angel."

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B.B. King, who died one week ago , was perhaps the best known blues artist of the past several decades. He wasn't my favorite; I prefe...
Thursday, May 14, 2015

TBT. A salute to American Idol: the Dollyrots, "Because I'm Awesome."

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The news that American Idol will be going the way of all pop culture phenomena after one more season brought to my mind a delightful send...
Monday, May 11, 2015

Taking the Measure of the Mets at (almost) mid-May

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Quotation of the day: "This is the National League. You have to be on your toes." --Mets third string catcher Johnny Monell (...
Thursday, May 07, 2015

TBT: Ben E. King with the Drifters, "This Magic Moment."

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Ben E. King , born Benjamin Earl Nelson in 1938, who died one week ago today, is most remembered for the haunting ballad "Stand By Me...
Monday, May 04, 2015

You graduate; you don't graduate your school.

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For some time now I've been getting periodic email updates from a blog called "Law Prose" from Bryan Garner , who seeks to i...
Thursday, April 30, 2015

TBT: The Dovells, "You Can't Sit Down"

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Sometime in 1963 I was with the Robinson High School debate team at a tournament held on the campus of Florida State University in Tallaha...
Monday, April 27, 2015

South Street Seaport Opens for 2015 Season

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The South Street Seaport Museum has been an important part of my life since I arrived in New York as a permanent resident in 1973. At tha...
Wednesday, April 22, 2015

TBT: Golden Earring, "Radar Love."

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I remember somewhere this Dutch group's 1973 hit being voted the best song to listen to while driving. This live video must have been ma...
Tuesday, April 21, 2015

DH for the National League? Say it ain't so!

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Do you want to deny Bartolo Colon (photo) the opportunity to repeat his two RBIs for the Mets so far this season? That's what lots ...
Thursday, April 16, 2015

TBT: Percy Sledge (1940-2015), "Take Time to Know Her"

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Percy Sledge, who died Tuesday, is most remembered for his 1966 number one hit, "When a Man Loves a Woman." My favorite of his, t...
Monday, April 13, 2015

One week Mets report: they're above .500!

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What we know about the Mets now: (1) Bartolo Colon is a wonder at 41, having won two games, and driven in the winning run (see it here ) i...
Saturday, April 11, 2015

Michael Simmons and Slewfoot, "The Teaser's Waltz"

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"Dance with me, dance with me, Devil...."
Wednesday, April 08, 2015

TBT: John Fogarty, "Centerfield."

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Yes, it's that time of the year. There's lots of great old baseball footage on the accompanying video.
Monday, April 06, 2015

Mets tied for first in NL East!

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Forty one year old Bartolo Colon (photo) went six innings, striking out eight and giving up three hits, Lucas Duda drove in two runs with ...
Wednesday, April 01, 2015

TBT: "Leader of the Laundromat" by the Detergents.

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The news that coin operated laundromats are disappearing from New York , victims of ever-rising rents for commercial space and of services...
Tuesday, March 31, 2015

My movie career acquired by Yale's Sterling Memorial Library.

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Thanks to John Lee, who was part of the superb technical crew that worked on the movie, I've learned that "Toxic Zombies," a...
Wednesday, March 25, 2015

TBT: The Left Banke, "Walk Away Renee"; RIP Michael Brown.

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"Walk Away Renée , by  The Left Banke  was a hit for this previously unknown New York group in 1966, rising to number five on the pop...
Monday, March 23, 2015

Mets 6, Yankees 0; a good sign?

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Yes, it was a spring training game, and therefore meaningless. Well, unfortunately for the Yanks, perhaps not. One of their prospects, Jos...
Saturday, March 21, 2015

Coney Island Brewing's "1609 Amber Ale."

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Coney Island Brewing Company's "1609 Amber Ale" takes its name from the year Europeans first set foot on what we now know a...
Thursday, March 19, 2015

TBT: Etta James, "Tell Mama."

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We're back to 1967, when Etta James went to FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and recorded "Tell Mama," a superb exa...