Thursday, August 13, 2015

TBT: The Temptations, "I Wish It Would Rain."

›
Last week, as a nod to my friends in Florida, I TBT'd Creedence's "Who'll Stop the Rain?" This may have started a ...
Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Maritime views from an evening walk.

›
Yesterday evening I took a walk down to Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier 5. As I walked out onto the pier, the sun had already set, but it...
Wednesday, August 05, 2015

TBT: Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Who'll Stop the Rain?"

›
This is for my friends in Tampa, my old home town, although I'm sure you've heard it many times on local radio over the past few d...
Wednesday, July 29, 2015

TBT: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Summer in the City."

›
It was ninety degrees in the shade yesterday, so this may seem an obvious choice. Maybe too obvious. Still, I like the song. It's worn...
Monday, July 27, 2015

Steeleye Span at B.B. King's, New York, July 23, 2015.

›
When my wife said Steeleye Span were to appear at B.B. King's I was surprised, thinking the group, an old favorite of mine, had broke...
Thursday, July 23, 2015

TBT: The Tams, "What Kind Of Fool Do You Think I Am?"

›
California in the 1960s had the Beach Boys; the East Coast, from Virginia down through the Carolinas and Georgia, had Beach Music. The Tam...
Monday, July 20, 2015

Tania Grossinger, 1937-2015

›
Tania Grossinger's autobiography, Memoir of an Independent Woman , begins with the following paragraph: I was born in Evanston, Illi...
Saturday, July 18, 2015

A tour of the historic Brooklyn waterfront, with the Working Harbor Committee.

›
On June 11 my wife and I went on another of the Working Harbor Committee's "Hidden Harbor" tours. A year ago we took one th...
Thursday, July 16, 2015

TBT: The Grateful Dead, "Cumberland Blues."

›
I am not now, nor was I ever, a Deadhead. I will confess--it is a confession, as I have some friends among the rock cognoscenti  who make ...
Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Queen Mary 2 arrives in Brooklyn from England, celebrating 175 years of transatlantic service.

›
In July of 1840 RMS Britannia inaugurated the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company's transatlantic liner servic...
Wednesday, July 08, 2015

TBT: John Stewart, "July, You're a Woman"

›
And I have not been known as the saint of San Joaquin... Last week my TBT was about the Kingston Trio , featuring a song from their earl...
Saturday, July 04, 2015

William Ranney, "The Battle of Cowpens."

›
This painting, by William Ranney (1813-1857), considered one of the foremost American painters of the early nineteenth century, depicts a...
Friday, July 03, 2015

TBT: The Kingston Trio, "South Coast"

›
I've written before about the Kingston Trio , who were favorites of mine in my youth, and whose music I still enjoy. Back when they we...
Thursday, June 25, 2015

TBT: Eddie Cochran, "Summertime Blues."

›
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

›
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."

›
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?

›
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' "

›
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.

›
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."

›
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.

›
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"

›
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.

›
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, ...