Ranting and Raving

Rant #665: P.K. Limited Music

2012-01-31T04:03:00.000-08:00

Today is a crossover day, as I am linking this blog up with my Colgems Records Blog at http://colgems.blogspot.com/.

I want to highlight a pop group from the late 1960s and early 1970s to which I hope you would give a listen to.

P.K. Limited held down the fort as the Colgems label was on its last legs.

Colgems had one main artist--The Monkees--and a slew of one shots, wannabes and acts that simply fell through the cracks.

P.K. Limited was one of these under-appreciated acts.

The group--originally known as The Loved Ones but actually Dan Peyton and Marty Kaniger, two songwriters for Screen Gems/Columbia Music--recorded numerous tracks for the label, with some being used as singles, others as soundtrack music, primarily for the film "Getting Straight."

They kept the label going right before it was absorbed by Bell Records.

I really don't have that much other information on them, other than to say that they churned out a couple of pretty nice songs at the end of the 1960s and into the very early 1970s.

Peyton vanished off the face of the earth, but Kaniger re-emerged in the 1970s as a member of the band Big Daddy. This group took current tunes and recorded them 1950s doo-wop style. They put out a few albums in the 1970s and 1980s, and are still around, I believe.

Again, P.K. Limited never had a hit record, and I doubt too many people have heard of them, but they put out some fine records in the late 1960s, and they are worth a listen.

Go to the Colgems blog site for some MP3s of their work.

Rant #664: Eating Underground

2012-01-30T03:34:00.000-08:00

This was an extremely slow news weekend.

Nothing much happened to report on, at least where I live.

But one story did make some news.

A legislator in Manhattan is proposing that eating be banned on the New York City subway system.

That's right, banned.

The bill, proposed by state Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Manhattan), stipulates that anyone caught eating in the subway gets a $250 fine.

Evidently, the proposal came up as criticism of people's cleanliness habits on the subway mounted.

Another bill proposes to ban garbage pails on the subway.

Thousands of people use the New York City subway system to get to work throughout the five boroughs. When I worked in Manhattan, I certainly used it, and yes, you do see all kinds on the subway.

As far as eating, you see people eating candy bars, drinking a can of soda, munching on chips.

And you also see people eating full meals, like spaghetti, tacos, pizza, you name it.

And they often don't clean up after themselves.

So the thousands of pounds of leftover food that has to be cleaned up from the subway cars each and every day is often the dinner for the millions of vermin that live and breed in the subway.

The legislator said that with this ban, the vermin population will go down, because these pests literally live off the discarded food that subway riders leave on the subway and don't eat.

It's a fine idea, but it will be completely impossible to enforce.

The New York City subway has taken generations to and from wherever they had to go. It is as much part of the city framework as, let's say, the Empire State Building is.

It is often the only free time straphangers have before they get to their work or other destinations.

Eating on the subway is part of its ambience. Vendors hawk every type of food right at platforms on even on platforms.

How is the city going to ban eating on the subway with it so part of the New York City culture?

They can't. It would be an impossible task.

Sure, they banned smoking on the subway, but honestly, that was more a health issue.

When you eat a slice of pizza on the subway, you are really only hurting yourself, with the extra calories you are piling on.

I would instead run an informational campaign, alerting straphangers that it is polite to clean up after yourselves, not leave food on the train when you exit.

I think that that, ultimately, would be the best way to lessen the mess that the subways have to put up with.

And remember, the fast food is named "Subway" for a reason.

Not that that really matters at all, but the subway is what it is, and no legislation banning food on the subway will ever work.

It is a waste of time and a waste of taxpayer money.

Rant #663: Sweathog Memorial

2012-01-27T03:42:00.000-08:00

As a teenager, I really enjoyed ABC's "Welcome Back Kotter."

The show was about a class of remedial students known as "The Sweathogs," who were perpetual students in their high school.

Then one day they get a new teacher, Mr. Kotter, and all of a sudden, while they didn't become good students, they become at least students who cared--about their teacher, if nothing else.

The show was about as old fashioned as could be--one wonders what today's TV would do with such a show--but it was a hit.

John Travolta came out of that show, as did Gabriel Kaplan, as did Robert Hegyes.

Hegyes, who played Juan Epstein on the hit show, died yesterday. He was just 60 years old.

The actor, born in New Jersey, did many other things in show business. Right after "Kotter," people kind of forget that he was a regular on "Cagney and Lacey."

But in my mind, he will always be Juan Epstein, the Jewish/Puerto Rican member of those Sweathogs.

The show was probably the first to openly show kids who weren't brains or even average students. In today's world, they would probably be labeled as Special Ed kids, but back then, that monicker meant something much different than it means today.

Juan Epstein was the real comedian of the bunch, and he even looked a bit like Harpo Marx, but with a Latin accent.

Hegyes played the role to perfection. In real life, he was a mix of Hungarian and Italian, but his looks lent him to a role like this.

The Sweathogs' comic hijinks made Travolta a star, and the others became kind of his, and Kaplan's, support act.

But Hegyes' character never wavered. To me, he was the true star of the show. Maybe I gravitated to him because his character was openly Jewish--unlike Kotter, who was Jewish but wasn't very open about it--and that endeared the Epstein character to me, since so few openly Jewish characters were on TV then, and for that matter, now.

He had been in ill health for a long time, but when he appeared on the TVLand awards a year ago, there was talk of a "Kotter" reunion show, and Travolta was probably going to participate.

You just know Hegyes would have been there with bells on.

Rant #662: Hole-ier Than Thou

2012-01-26T04:09:00.000-08:00

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are possibly the most annoying of all Hollywood couples.

They prefer to remain partners, not married, which is fine if that is what they want.

They adopt kids from other countries, as if they are the white martyrs looking to convert the black heathens. There are plenty of kids to adopt here, and if they wanted one of color, there are plenty of kids who would love to call Angelina and Brad parents.

The two are ubiquitous, carting their family off all over the place when they make a movie.

Of course, unlike just about all of us, they can afford, financially, to make their own rules.

The latest news about them is that based on news reports, they are softening their stance on their own possibilities of marriage.

"We'd actually like to, and it means more and more to our kids," Pitt told the Hollywood Reporter.

Obviously, their children are smarter than their parents.

But what riled me is their reason for not getting married.

Evidently, Jolie and Pitt vowed not to get married until all people in our country can get married, i.e., same-sex unions.

First of all, isn't that a holier than thou attitude?

You are basing your own commitment on the rules and regulations of a country that you don't even live in full time? What is that all about?

And who are you to talk about rules and the rights of others?

You are entertainers, not politicians.

More importantly, anybody who believes this nonsense is as full of hogwash as they are.

They aren't getting married because they are simply afraid of the commitment.

They enjoy all the perks and privileges of being married without having that piece of paper.

And with their wealth, what would happen if they split? Who gets what or whom?

Please, don't insult our intelligence by saying that you aren't getting married because not everyone can.

That's like saying that you can't quit smoking until everyone quits smoking.

It is ridiculous, no matter where you stand on the same sex marriage matter.

Even Pitt said it.

"But to be in love with someone and be raising a family with someone and want to make that commitment and not be able to is ludicrous, just ludicrous."

So do it already, and don't bore us with your histrionics about why you aren't doing it.

Rant #661: Jackie the Hall of Famer

2012-01-23T04:07:00.000-08:00

Here's a 50-year anniversary that will likely go pretty much un-noticed.

Fifty years ago today, Jackie Robinson became the first black member of baseball's Hall of Fame.

And he was voted into the shrine during his first year of eligibility.

That doesn't eclipse the day he put on the uniform of the Brooklyn Dodgers and became the first black player in the major leagues. But it is still an incredible accomplishment.

He not only broke the color barrier in the major leagues, he also broke it in the most revered sports hall of fame of them all.

Robinson was the fireplug of the Dodgers during their glory years in Brooklyn, mainly in the 1950s before they left for greener pastures in Los Angeles. He was their "secret" weapon, bringing a whole new dimension of speed and wreckless abandon to the game that was almost more important than the fact that he was the major league's first black ballplayer, setting the tone for all who followed him to this day.

I guess you can say that General Manager Branch Rickey got lucky; not only did he choose the right person to break the color barrier, but he also got someone who could actually play the game to a higher level.

Other sports' color barrier breakers weren't as lucky. For instance, in the NBA, not only was the guy who did it something of a stiff-Chuck Cooper--but it is disputed as to whether he was actually the one who did it. There are others in the mix, and many say it was Sweetwater Clifton or even others.

I don't know what they based "the first" on in the NBA, but whoever it was, he didn't have the grandeur of Jackie Robinson.

And who did it in the NFL and NHL? Who knows?

Robinson could do it all, and do it in spite of barbs from other teams and fans.

And Rickey knew he had something of a thick skin, and he could take it.

Even some on his team hated him.

But Southerner Pee Wee Reese, another Hall of Famer, set the tone.

If a Southerner could accept this man, than anyone could.

And they did, eventually.

Robinson was as important to the civil rights movement as Martin Luther King was, in his own way.

King did it from the pulpit, Robinson from the diamond.

But their efforts led to more acceptance, more understanding, and more opportunity.

Robinson had something of a tough life after baseball, because there were, at the time, no opportunities for old black ballplayers as managers, general managers or executives.

It took another former ballplayer--Tommie Aaron, Hank's brother--to become the first black manager in professional baseball (at the minor league level), but that was yet to come.

Robinson died young, but his legacy lives on.

I will be taking two days off from this blog for some medical testing--nothing crucial--and for some other things, but I will be back on Thursday. Speak to you then.

Rant #660: Divorce Split

2012-01-20T04:05:00.000-08:00

I am a divorced man.

No, don't get the wrong idea, I am a very happily married man now. I am married to the greatest woman in the world, who I love to pieces.

My first marriage, which didn't last too long, wasn't a good one. The person I thought that I would live with for the rest of my life turned out not to be that person.

The only thing I have to show for it are a few battle scars, finances that are still creaky, and a beautiful daughter.

Nothing else.

But I kind of know what Newt Gingrich is going through as he tries to march toward the Presidency.

No, there were no infidelities involved in my first marriage, and my then wife and I weren't into having an open marriage like Gingrich is purported to have suggested to his then wife.

But I kind of knows how he feels anyway.

He has been married a few times, appears to have a good, solid marriage with his current spouse, yet all this nonsense continues to creep up about how his other marriages failed.

In 2012, we are still chastising people because they were part of a failed marriage.

On my end, my divorce impacted everything from my credit rating to my social relationships with others.

Thank God I met my current and future wife. She set me on the right course in so many ways. We'll be married 19 years this June and have a great son too. I love her dearly. She is the greatest thing to happen to me ever.

Anyway, when my first wife left me, I immediately contacted all my credit cards companies. Many of the cards we had were jointly held, so I wanted to protect myself from my soon to be ex-wife maxing them out.

Everything went pretty well. I managed to remove her name from just about every card, but the Discover card gave me a major headache.

Not only did they cancel my card immediately, they asked for immediate payment of my balance.

They were the only card to do so. I guess that was their policy back then, when they were run by Sears.

And I noticed that the "divorced man" label stuck to me like glue.

Every time I had to fill out an application for something, my marital status was questioned.

Is it anyone's business that I was divorced?

I guess certain entities thought it was, because of the money thing.

I paid child support, not anything directly for my ex-wife's upkeep (no alimony, using an antique term), so why should it have mattered to anyone?

But it did.

So, whatever I feel about Newt Gingrich, I get where he is coming from.

His past marriages really shouldn't have a bearing on whether he would be a good President.

Yes, I know that infidelity is not an attribute we want our Presidents to have, but heck, even JFK--whose inauguration anniversary is today, back in 1961--had his flings, as did Bill Clinton.

But they didn't get divorced.

Ronald Reagan was divorced, but somehow, it rarely came up when he was President.

And that was good, very good.

Sometimes, people just fade away from each other. There's no fooling around, just flailing around.

So why hold it against someone that they are divorced?

In 2012, where we look the other way for so many other "indiscretions," why is this even an issue?

Rant #659: Marky Mark and the Funky Hunch

2012-01-19T04:22:00.000-08:00

Again, we have an entertainer shooting off his mouth on something he knows absolutely nothing about.

In a recent interview with Men's Journal, actor and former rapper Mark Wahlberg made a remark about the 9/11 attacks that is making a lot of people think that he must be an idiot.

Wahlberg was originally scheduled to fly on one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center, but he ended up taking a different flight a week earlier. When he spoke to the magazine about what could have happened if he didn't change his plans, the former Marky Mark said, "If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn't have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, 'OK, we're going to land somewhere safely, don't worry.'"

Yes, it appears that Wahlberg truly believes that he is like many of the characters he plays on screen, characters who routinely save the world without batting an eyelash.

But to give him some credit, Wahlberg quickly apologized for the remark. He was reported to have said by several outlets that his comments were "irresponsible and that "to speculate about such a situation is ridiculous to begin with. I deeply apologize to the families of the victims that my answer came off as insensitive, it was certainly not my intention."

When are celebrities going to learn to shut up and do what they are being paid huge bucks to do? Although he did apologize, Wahlberg's remarks are completely insensitive to the plight of all of the passengers--all of them true heroes--who perished as a result of the terrorist incidents in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., including those on Flight 93.

And to all of those on the ground who lost their lives as a result of these cowardly attacks.

I don't know what gets into these people when a reporter sticks a microphone in their faces. They get this "high and mighty" ego stance, and shoot off their mouths with nothing but blanks.

The world is their pulpit, and I guess they feel the need to share their thoughts, however insipid, with everyone on the planet.

My goodness, these people are nothing more than entertainers, they are not heads of state or policy makers.

Talk about your craft, your new movie, your new recording, but please, don't talk about things that are way beyond your possibility of understanding.

Shut up already!

Rant #658: Catch Us If You Can

2012-01-18T04:06:00.000-08:00

Today, director John Boorman is 79 years old.

This certainly isn't as momentous an occasion as was yesterday's birthdays of Betty White and Popeye, but it will do for today.

And rather than go over this guys celebrated history--including being the director of "Deliverance," one of the greatest films of the 1970s-- I want to focus on his very first directorial effort, 1965's "Catch Us If You Can," known in the U.S. as "Having a Wild Weekend."

The Beatles were red hot back then, and their "A Hard Day's Night" set the standard for teen films revolving around pop stars, and pretty much still does.

With the success of that movie, every British rock band with a hit on the charts seemed to be looking to make movies to expand their reach. Herman's Hermits, Freddie and the Dreamers, and Gerry and the Pacemakers all made films during this time period, with most of them being out and out flops, trying to copy the "A Hard Day's Night" style with dopy storylines and music that couldn't match the Fab Four's output.

Another British rock band that also starred in a movie during this period was the Dave Clark Five, then pretty much the Beatles' main competitor for record sales and heart-throb status.

Led by Drummer/Entrepreneur/Producer and general Jack of All Trades Dave Clark, the band had numerous hits by 1965, including "Glad All Over" and "Bits and Pieces." The time was ripe for a film, and Boorman helmed the movie.

Named after the newest of the DC5 hits, but changed in America for whatever reason, "Having a Wild Weekend" was sort of a downer, especially compared not only to the other British films featuring pop acts, but also based on the DC5's wildly interesting catalog of original tunes and covers.

The stomp wasn't there in the movie, and that hurt it tremendously.

Boorman helmed a film about a guy (Clark) who basically went on a series of adventures, with his bandmates clearly second fiddles to the action, or lack of it, in the movie.

What's worse, the band is never actually seen performing in the film--and what makes this even worse is that the soundtrack is an excellent one, featuring some of the best tunes in the entire DC5 catalog, in my opinion.

And if I remember correctly, this was the first film that I can ever remember where there the emerging drug scene was at the very least hinted at.

The film received mixed reviews and after checking, even some Boorman filmographies inexplicably leave the film out of his directorial canon.

The film has been out on VHS and DVD off an on since the 1990s, and was highly bootlegged before it came out legitimately. It has been shown on TCM numerous times, and the DC5 actually appeared in a couple of other films, but not as the stars as they were in this one.

So, happy birthday John Boorman. With all the major blockbusters he helmed, "Having a Wild Weekend" is a curiosity of its time period, and if you've never seen it, I would definitely give it a go.

Rant #657: Sorry, Olive Oyl, It's Popeye and Betty Today

2012-01-17T03:53:00.000-08:00

OK, so who is older, the character of Popeye or actress and show business icon Betty White?

Both celebrate birthdays today, but who is older than who?

The records say that the character of Popeye debuted in a cartoon strip called Thimble Theater on this date in 1929.

Popeye, Olive Oyl, Wimpy, Bluto (or Brutus) and the rest of the gang were so popular, they were pulled out of that strip and they took on a life of their own.

Popeye the Sailor has been around in various incarnations since the Depression. He has continued in comic strips, comic books, cartoons, and even the movies--the ill-fated live action film starring Robin Williams. He even hawks a Spinach brand and even though he isn't directly credited, you know where the Popeyes chicken chain got its name from.

Even though he smokes that pipe, he has become an icon, and has enabled mothers to point to him when their kids don't want to eat their spinach. "Don't you want to be like Popeye?" they have said to their kids for generations.

While the response from the kids probably wasn't, "Well blow me down," Popeye has had an impact on culture.

Betty White was born on this date in 1922, and has seemingly been on our entertainment radar for generations, too.

Starting out as a model--her image was reportedly used on topless strip cards in the 1940s--she has reinvented herself time and time again.

She was one of TV's earliest stars, working in sitcoms before they were even known by that term.

She continued to ply her trade in this genre and married game show host Allen Ludden of "Password" fame.

For years, she was in her husband's shadow, as his game show became a national obsession. She, herself, appeared on the show numerous times, setting the tone for much of her career in the 1960s and 1970s as the perennial game show celebrity contestant.

But as she was appearing on game shows like "The Match Game" and "Password," she as also carving out her niche in several other areas.

She was the first celebrity that I can ever remember that came out for animal rights, and she has always been a major supporter of such organizations.

And she also played the recurring role of Sue Ann Nivens on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," which cemented her in the minds of sitcom fans forever.

Her husband died, and she never remarried, but White continued to work, appearing on numerous sitcoms and movies.

But a few years ago, due to her appearance in a memorable Super Bowl ad, her name started to shine again. She became the most sought after octogenarian in show business history.

Today, at 90, she leads the ensemble cast of the incredibly successful "Hot in Cleveland" show, and doesn't show her age at all.

So we now know who is older--Betty White is!

But long live both her and Popeye.

To steal a line from the Sailor man, "They're both strong to the finish ... ."

Toot toot!

Rant #656: The Way It Used To Be

2012-01-16T03:59:00.000-08:00

I have ranted against current TV offerings on many, many occasions on this blog, and I am going to do it again today.

This time, I am going to describe how it used to be on television, versus how it is today.

Today, you have everything basically out in the open on network TV, less nudity, of course.

Any topic is open for discussion, and, of course, that means that sexual talk is right out in the open, even during supposedly family time, at 8 p.m.

Everything can be spoken about related to sex, and I mean everything.

No, you still can't say the F-bomb, but I think we are coming closer to the day when you will be able to say that too.

Now that I have set the table, let's look back 40 years ago and how the situation of "sex" was handled.

I am going to base my observation on a popular, ground-breaking network television sitcom of that day, and one episode where, if the same story was developed today on a current show, you can only imagine what would have went on.

I saw an episode (actually a two-parter) of "That Girl" yesterday. One of the most popular shows of its day, the ABC sitcom starred Marlo Thomas and Ted Bessell, and even though it isn't given credit for it, it was the first network sitcom to show a woman pursuing the "American Dream" on her own.

Sure, she had a boyfriend pushing her to excel, but the character of Ann Marie was very driven to become the best actress she could be.

Anyway, on this episode, boyfriend Donald, a journalist, has been sent to Hollywood on an extended stay to cover Hollywood's current take on morals. He is going to be away from Ann for a month, and Ann doesn't like it.

Donald suggests that Ann go with him, work for him, and look for acting jobs in Tinseltown.

Today, Ann would jump at the chance, and there wouldn't be any discussion of her not going.

But back on TV in 1970, there was plenty of discussion.

Ann dad's objected, not only to her going but to her boyfriend paying her to go with him, giving her a salary where she might be losing a month's salary if she just went with him as his "guest."

Dad figured that the two would shack up in a single room, and Donald paying her almost made his daughter into ... well, you fill in the blank.

The two were determined to go together, and they did.

But dad kept tabs on them, and their hotel living arrangement, even from afar.

There was a mixup in rooms, and dad originally thinking he called his daughter's room, got Donald on the phone. Of course, he was wondering why Donald was in his daughter's room, even when Donald explained that there was a mixup and it was actually his room.

And by the way, the rooms were adjoining, separated only by a door--which Ann assured her father was locked, of course.

There were other mixups during their stay, all of which were cunningly handled by the writers and the actors to play up the comedy of the show.

There was one point in one of the shows where the cleaning lady comes in, and Ann had just finished getting dressed for bed. She was in her night gown, and the cleaning lady--why she was up there at night was probably a plot device--inexplicably opens the door between the two rooms, and Donald gets a glimpse of his girlfriend in her not-revealing-at-all nightgown.

Big mistake. Ann would have none of it, and the door was closed as quickly as it opened.

Here is another one: Donald ordered dinner for him and Ann which was to be brought up to her room, because her room was larger.

Well, Dad caught wind of this too, and Ann, trying to stave off this anger, came up with a plan: they could eat in her room--and eat in his room, too--by putting the table with the food through the connecting door, with Donald sitting on his side, in his room, and Ann sitting on hers, in her room.

That way, she wouldn't offend her father.

As almost a side story to the main story, Ann did get an acting job in a commercial, but her acting job forced her to into dangerous situations that made her uncomfortable, and while she was happy to get the acting job, she was unhappy at having to face danger at every turn.

These two episodes depicted the morals that were allowed on network TV back then.

Both Ann and Donald were in a committed relationship, but Ann had to be chaste at any cost, because these two episodes demonstrated the maximum point that shows could go to during that time in talking about adult male/female relationships.

You can only imagine how this would be handled in today's world of network TV, but looking at this 1970 episode from a 2012 perspective, it was quite refreshing.

Sure, you can say that they were able to do more with this subject that they could have done 20 years earlier in the 1950s, and you would be right.

But there is more to it than that.

Creativity was in place here. When you can't write directly about a subject, and you have to write around it, it certainly makes it more creative, more clever, and creates, like in this sitcom, funny situations.

One of the reasons "That Girl" was a hit when it was was that the writing on the show was superb, and this show truly developed that element of the show. Writers were forced to write around a sticky subject, as the nation's mores were changing.

But they did, and bravo to them. The episodes hold up, in their own way, 40 years after they were originally shown.

Heck, the writers of "Mike and Molly," "The Big Bang Theory," and countless others should really be forced to watch shows from 40 and more years ago to see how such situations were handled.

I am sure that they could learn quite a bit from those old shows, and make their current shows better.

But it won't happen, I know that.

I just wish it would.

Rant #655: Nothing Much Today

2012-01-13T04:19:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, I am usually not at a loss for words, but today I am.

There really isn't too much to report on today.

My life did not change when Kristy McNichol announced that she is a lesbian.

Didn't people kinda know about this already, or at least surmised that she was gay?

And she has been a non-entity for such a long time that I don't really think people care at this point.

Heather Locklear's story is a bit worse.

I heard this morning that she was in the hospital for an undisclosed ailment, and then later, I heard that it may have to do with mixing pills and booze.

What an idiot.

The Knicks have been playing well, but they lost last night, and much worse, let's hope that don't lose Carmelo Anthony for any extended period.

He was taken out of last night's game with a sprained ankle, but that appears to be it.

I have completely lost interest in the Republicans who have the eye on the big prize.

I have come to the conclusion that if any one of these guys runs, they are going to get stomped by President Obama.

Is this the best the Republicans have to offer?

And as for that quote from Mrs. Obama about being "an angry black woman," stop with the racial stuff, please.

Americans look at her husband as our President, not our "black" President, and we don't look at her as anything but our First Lady.

Enough with the racial stuff ... we should have passed that by when we elected her husband to the Presidency.

I don't know what else to say today. As I said, there isn't much happening that I care to report on.

But I am sure that next week, there will be much, much more to speak about.

I am not off on Martin Luther King Day, although I kind of wish I was.

I don't want to miss all the sales that will be offered by stores on that day.

I guess that day is no different from President's Day, as it's nothing but a sales day now.

Or for me, a work day.

See you next week.

Rant #654: Wrestling With My Problems

2012-01-12T03:57:00.000-08:00

Just a week ago, I was in a pretty big pickle with jury duty. I didn't know where I was going to be for the next month, and I didn't know what was going on with my place of work related to the time I was going to have to take off to serve on a jury.

Everything was a mess.

But a few months back, I bought Impact Wrestling (formerly TNA) tickets for myself and my son to see professional wrestling at the NYCB Theater in Westbury (formerly the Westbury Music Fair), and looking back, it served as the perfect antidote to what was ailing me.

It was fun. Period.

The newly renamed Impact Wrestling, doesn't, well, have the same impact on professional wrestling as WWE does, and they know it. The WWE controls probably 95 percent of the wrestling here, and the other 5 percent is divided up between other pro organizations, including Impact.

But since Impact only probably has about 2 percent of the pie, what impact does it have?

The organization has been around for about 10 years or so, started as an alternative to the 365 days/24 hours a day rigors of the WWE.

Impact is a bit different. It has a home base at Universal Studios in Orlando, Fla., and although there is some traveling involved--they often do house shows and pay per views away from their home base--about 75 percent of the action takes place in Orlando. Thus, the participants aren't always on as they are with the WWE. There is at least a little wiggle room.

On this occasion, they traveled to Long Island for a house show, and the two-hour event featured the usual professional wrestling stuff, like yelling and screaming, prancing, and egging on the crowd, and it also featured a lot of fine wrestling.

Sure, a lot of it is orchestrated, but these athletes do know what they are doing.

Impact Wrestling has inherited a lot of big names from the WWE, including Kurt Angle, Rick Flair and Gail Kim, but it has made its mark by creating its own stars, like Bobby Roode, Velvet Sky and A.J. Styles.

Most of the main roster was there, the bouts were generally of shorter duration, and the crowd--the place was about 75 percent full--seemed to enjoy the goings on.

I know my son and I did too.

And we saw history. Referee Earl Hebner refereed his 100,000th match in his career that night.

For me, for at least two hours, it took my mind entirely off of my jury duty troubles.

And more importantly, it was a bonding occasion between my son and I. He is now 16, and getting older by the day.

I cherish these moments when he and I can get out and witness a sporting event or a concert, and it serves to make us a bit closer.

So thanks, Impact Wrestling. You did your job that night.

Come again.

Rant #653: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

2012-01-11T03:50:00.000-08:00

Today is a momentous anniversary for those who can't stand cigarette smoke, or any smoking whatsoever.

On this date in 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued the first government report stating that smoking may be hazardous to one's health.

This seems so trite today. After nearly 50 years of warnings, we know so much more about how the use of tobacco not only can kill the user, but also harm those in the puff's way through second-hand smoke.

But back then, this was a revelation.

You have to put yourself back in time 48 years ago to understand what an incredible development this was.

Tobacco use, and, in particular, cigarette use, was simply thought of as one of those things that you did when you got older.

Many people tried cigarettes, some stayed with it, others either stayed with cigarettes or moved onto cigars or pipes and that is how they got their tobacco fix.

Cigarette advertising was everywhere. Even doctors were used in ads proclaiming that certain cigarettes were better than others.

Stars of TV shows openly smoked on these shows, like Fred MacMurray on "My Three Sons," who was never without his pipe dangling out of his mouth. And in the movies, smoking was as commonplace as eating.

Then, slowly, we started to wake up to the fact that the use of tobacco could actually kill you.

So this proclamation was simply a "small step for man, a giant leap for mankind" way before Neil Armstrong stated those words as he jumped onto the surface of the moon.

Smoking was just so commonplace in 1964. You could smoke anywhere, and not be told not to.

My grandfather on my mom's side was an extremely heavy smoker. He smoked cigarettes, cigars and pipes in one fell swoop.

I used to ask him why he couldn't stop, and he said that he just couldn't. I know that it helped relax him of all the stress he had, but I hated to see what he was doing to himself.

I swear, looking at him bathed in smoke probably told me that this wasn't for me, and I never smoked--anything.

He died at age 74. He probably shaved at least a good 10 years off his life by smoking.

But even in the 1970s, smoking was still so commonplace. But as the 1970s moved into the 1980s, smoking started to be banned in certain places, like movie theaters. Soon, smoking was banned in many other places, like sports arenas.

Warnings on cigarette packages became more graphic, and into the 1990s and to the current time, not only is smoking unhealthy, not only does it harm both the smoker and those near them when they are puffing away, but it is also not a cost-effective way to spend your money.

We know so much more about smoking today, but still, so many people smoke.

I guess it is an act of defiance, but these people are killing themselves while they are being defiant.

It is their right to smoke if they want to. It is a legal behavior.

But I wish that my grandfather would have stopped sooner, not at the end of his life.

He missed 10 years. How many more years will people waste puffing away?

I don't know, but I am so glad that I never got into this behavior.

I guess, in sort of a bizarre way, I have to thank my grandfather.

I just wish he had been around a bit longer so I could shake his hand.

Rant #652: I'm Back

2012-01-10T04:09:00.000-08:00

Yes, I was able to convince the court that I would be under a great financial hardship if I served on the jury for a month, so they let me go.

But really, that is only part of the story.

I vow that I am only going to bore you with this saga for one more Rant--this particular one--and then I will move on to something else.

But I have to say, the way I was treated at work during this episode was heinous at best, borderline illegal at its worst.

I asked for a meeting with the big boss to discuss this problem, and on Friday, I was granted my request.

The meeting ended up being attended by our two vice presidents too.

I outlined a plan where I could be paid while I was away. I offered to work on weekends and come in on days when we did not have a full day at the court. I also offered to do work at home.

Well, this got such a negative reaction and the following questions:

Why were you called to the Brooklyn court if you live on Long Island?

Why didn't you make up an excuse to get out of it?

Why don't you tell them you will be fired if you have to serve for a month?

The other questions were bad, but the final question, as I am sure you know, is not going to hold any water with any court in the land.

You can't fire someone for serving on jury duty. If you do, well, the company will be brought up on charges, and probably sued by the one who is being fired.

But more to the point, I have worked for this company for nearly 16 years, and I also worked for this company briefly on a loan-out basis a few years before being permanently hired.

For them to even bring up firing me ... well, if there was a hole to crawl into, I would have, head first.

I learned a lot about the company I work for.

True, they don't have to pay me for jury duty. They only pay for three days, and that's it.

But it would have been in their best interests if they would have talked this out with me like the caring executives that they think they are.

The ironic thing is that I work on a book that covers the military. We constantly write about service members' rights being abridged. We wear our patriotism on our sleeves here.

But when it comes to an employee who has been called to serve his country as a jury member, somehow, it is a different matter.

They wear phony patriotism on their sleeves. What they actually worship is the all mighty dollar. If it happens to tie into patriotism, that's fine with them.

And this hasn't been the only episode of abuse. We all get it here, and we all have to take it.

The unprofessionalism of the higher ups here is amazing. If they worked for a larger concern, they would have all been fired eons ago for their behavior toward fellow employees.

Well, this particular instance left a real bad taste in my mouth.

I will forever look upon the executives of this company as the phonies that they are. The trump up support for service members and their families, but when a long-time employee is faced with a problem like this, all of a sudden, it is not of their concern.

Believe me, if I could have stuck it out without my paycheck for a month, I would have done so, if for nothing more than to show them that I wouldn't be pushed around like yesterday's garbage.

I don't brown nose anyone, and certainly not in the work place.

But since I couldn't do that, at least I know the true stripes of this company. They are big fishes in a very small pond, they are unprofessional, and quite frankly, if I had another place to go, I would at this point in time.

But since I don't, I am stuck here, and stuck like glue.

I mean, who is going to hire a nearly 55 year old male with my background and experience?

So I just have to grin and bear it.

Again, no more about this. Let's move on.

Rant #651: See You Later, I Guess

2012-01-06T03:58:00.000-08:00

This may or may not be my last post on this blog for a while.

If you have been following my jury duty travails this week, you know that I was picked for a jury, but the trial I am on might last a full month.

My work refuses to pay for my time off, and I have asked the court to excuse me from the trial because of financial hardship.

My case is now in the hands of the judge. If the judge decides in my favor, that is fine. If not, I am sunk. I will have to do some things financially that I don't want to do in order to survive the month.

My work refuses to pay me past three days.

In their defense, I work for a small company, with about 30 employees. One person off for such a period of time puts a burden on everyone else.

I understand that, and let's face it, there is no law that says they have to pay past the three days.

But on the other hand, my company wears the American flag on their sleeves. We cover military matters, and quality of life of service members is one of the major things we look at here.

There is nothing more patriotic than serving your country, and while it certainly applies to service members, based on my company's stance, it doesn't apply to employees.

Yes, I am serving my country when I am a juror. I did not volunteer for this position, I was called upon to appear.

It is the patriotic thing to do.

So if you are going to wave the flag for service members, then it is wholly hypocritical that you won't wave the flag for me.

I have volunteered to do some work for the company on weekends via email. Since I am a writer, it would entail writing stories for the publication I work on.

Some of the days on the jury will be long days, but the court has said that some days might not be the regular 9 a.m.-5 a.m. timespan. If that happens, I could come into work after the court session for that particular day.

Of course, I am at the mercy of transportation, but I could get in some time at my place of business if that happens.

The bottom line is that I have alerted the court to my plight. I plan on speaking to some people at work today to plead my case.

There is nothing more I can do.

My question is this: If I were called to military duty, would my place be held until I got back?

Well, I have been called to duty, and my tour isn't for a year or two, just a month.

What's the difference?

I need my place of work to explain that to me.

Rant #650: Problems, Problems

2012-01-05T04:02:00.000-08:00

This jury duty thing has created a major problem for me, a headache that must be taken care of or I am in for it big time.

I told my work about my upcoming month-long jury duty, and I knew they weren't happy, but what can you do? It's not like I volunteered for this.

Anyway, I later found out after coming in for five-plus hours yesterday that they will not pay me for my jury service.

No, they will only pay me for three days.

If I don't get paid, I will for being on jury duty, but just $40 per day.

I can't live on $200 per week for four weeks, and what's more, if I don't get paid from work, I won't be able to pay my bills--including my car bill and my daughter's car bill--and I will be in arrears for several other bills that I have.

And this doesn't even count grocery shopping.

Yes, my wife works, but believe me, her salary can't carry the load for a month.

What I am going to have to do is throw myself at the mercy of the court and ask for an exemption from the jury. I will plead financial hardship.

I don't know how to do it yet--I am going to be calling some numbers this morning to see what I can do.

I will probably have to appear on Monday morning, ready for the trial, and will have to plead my case then.

I hope that they listen to me.

What gets me is my place of work.

We cover things that I would call patriotic. We write about the military, and we are most concerned with their quality of life, and the standard of that quality of life for service members and their families.

These are all patriotic themes.

But when it comes to an employee--who is doing one of the most patriotic things he can do as a regular citizen--my company doesn't back me, they revile me for "not getting out" of my jury duty, as if I can just flip a switch and disentangle myself from this situation.

Believe me, it isn't like it used to be. I have gotten out of jury duty several times before, but this is 2012. The court doesn't want to hear any excuses.

I am doing the patriotic thing by serving, but my company doesn't go for that when it concerns an employee.

Yes, their feelings are based on the fact that we are a small company--about 30 employees--and that there is no law that says that an employee has to get paid by their employer when they are on jury duty.

But what they are doing is not only unpatriotic, it is anti-American.

Now the burden is on me to get out of this.

If I can, fine, but if I can't ... well, then where is my quality of life that my company so proudly upholds for others?

It leaves a real bad taste in my mouth, I can tell you that.

Rant #649: The Jury Is In

2012-01-04T02:33:00.000-08:00

I spent a whole day at jury duty yesterday, and I do mean a whole day. I got there at about 7:30 a.m., and did not leave until 7 p.m.

And yes, I was chosen to be on a jury.

I cannot tell you anything about the case that I am on, but I kind of knew that I was going to be chosen.

Once I got interviewed, I figured that they wanted someone with an advanced education who was from basically a working class background, and I fit what they wanted to a T.

I have to go in today for some further instructions, and then the case starts on Monday. And it could last a month.

I know my employer isn't too happy about this whole thing, but I am doing what any citizen would--and should--do. It is my civic responsibility to serve, if chosen, on a jury.

So starting on Monday, my posts are going to be intermittent, at best.

And I can't talk about the trial at all. I don't want to cause a mistrial, so I can't say anything more than I have already said.

So the posts for about the next month will have nothing to do with the trial. Just the usual mix of opinion, sports, entertainment, and whatever else comes through my head.

So please bear with me. This is going to be very trying on myself and my family and my place of work.

I know Jews are known as "the chosen people," but to get chosen for a jury is another matter altogether.

Rant #648: I, the Jury

2012-01-02T03:32:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year.

In my last post, I said that I wouldn't be back until tomorrow, but the situation changed late in the day on Friday.

I had received a summons to appear as a phone juror for jury duty in one of the courts in my state. I cannot say which one.

Anyway, I called the court, as instructed, after 5 p.m. on Friday, and lo and behold, I have to appear for jury duty on Tuesday.

So my week is now a mess.

I am off from work today, which in New York State is a legal holiday, but I must start the new year tomorrow as a potential juror.

As you know, this can last a few hours, a day, a year, who knows.

In the past, I was able to get out of jury duty. Yes, I had to appear, but all I had to say was the phrase "child support," and they would excuse me quicker than you can say your name.

They never wanted to get involved in that mess, so they would let me off. It was the only time that I paid child support--nearly 20 years--that I actually benefited from having it.

Now, I don't have it anymore, and I have told my place of business that there is no way I can get out of jury duty this time around.

Hopefully, they won't put me on a jury, but if they do, I am pretty much stuck.

Look, I know it is my civic responsibility to appear as a potential juror and to serve on a jury if called. But it is a great sacrifice to those on the jury to serve.

There are work responsibilities, family responsibilities, and I will admit it, I am not looking forward to the transportation costs.

But serve I must.

So I don't know the extent of my jurorship at this time, which means I don't know if I am going to be posting much this week, if at all.

We will see, but for right now, Roger Wilco and out.

"I'm off to be a juror ... ."

Rant #647: Happy New Year

2011-12-30T03:41:00.000-08:00

2011 is just about over--thank goodness for that--and we are about to move onto 2012.

Looking back at the nearly past year, I really don't think this was the greatest year we have ever had.

The country is in a mess. We continue to have high unemployment, the economy is lousy, and we have legislators who really need a reality check on who they are and what they were elected to do.

The rich keep getting richer, and the poor keep getting poorer. Protests around the world showed that people have had it up to here with promises, they want action.

Unfortunately, those protests--including the "Occupy" folks--became parodies of themselves after awhile, and people, myself included, started to look at them as a joke, a place for hangers-on and never-will-bes to congregate, to hang out, and, unfortunately, to physically, emotionally, and violently attack others.

The weather was miserable. We had snowstorms, hurricanes, you name it, all over the country. It seemed like we got hammered this past year.

And one good thing--we got out of Iraq. Now they can kill themselves rather than kill our men and women.

Next, Afghanistan.

And yes, some world leaders who were our enemies met their end in 2011.

Good riddance to them and theirs.

Onto lighter things, the entertainment industry pretty much stunk up the place this year. People aren't watching television or going to the movies like they once did, because nothing is being created that interests people.

As I previously said, this holiday season produced the worst stench of movies I have ever seen, and I was backed up in my opinion by the fact that movie attendance has plummeted to record low levels during the holidays.

I wonder why?

In sports, well, my beloved Yankees and Knicks didn't really win anything this year, but there is a lot of hope on both sides for something better in 2012.

And I guess that is my final thought in this blog for 2011.

There is a lot of hope that 2012 will be a better year than 2011 was.

Heck, 2011 wasn't as bad as, say, 1968 was, but it was bad enough.

Like Howard Jones once sang in his hit song, "Things Can Only Get Better."

See you next year. Have a great New Year's, and I will be back on Tuesday to rant and rave once again.

Rant #646: No, It Wasn't Me

2011-12-29T03:41:00.000-08:00

You probably heard that there was a $208 million lottery ticket sold on Long Island for the recent Mega Millions drawing.

No, I am not the recipient of this prize.

It was sold at a King Kullen supermarket in Middle Island, and it was a Quick Pick ticket bearing the numbers 23, 32, 33, 39, 43 and a Mega Ball of 8.

The lump-sum cash option checks out at $153.3 million over 26 years before taxes.

No, it wasn't me.

At work, when these types of drawings get very high in cash value, we all chip in our dollars hoping to eventually cash in on a dream.

We won in this drawing, but just $2. That breaks down to like 50 cents each person who participated.

Oh well, one can dream.

One can dream of leaving his or her job, paying off every dollar you owe, and setting a course for yourself for the remainder of your life.

But it wasn't me.

When I heard that the ticket was sold at a King Kullen in Suffolk County, I immediately thought of my wife's brother, who has worked out there for the supermarket chain for decades.

But I guess it wasn't him either.

And who knows who it is? Customarily, the winners of such jackpots take their time before they make their good fortune public. They get a lawyer and a financial advisor, and make sure that they say the right things when they hold their news conference.

And sometimes, the winners never show, not realizing that they had won.

But it wasn't me, wasn't anyone I knew, but I still want to hear about who won and what they plan to do with the money.

I know what I would do, but I guess it wasn't in the cards for me this time.

Maybe the next time around ...

Rant #645: Downer Christmas, Part 2

2011-12-28T09:41:00.000-08:00

And you think what happened to me is an isolated incident?

No, I don’t think so.

There is a rise in anti-Semitic activity this holiday season, whether anybody acknowledges it or not.

Just several weeks ago, a Hassidic Jewish enclave in Brooklyn was attacked when several cars were set on fire and others were painted with swatstikas and other anti-Jewish venom.

Several synagogues have been desecrated recently with swatstikas and anti-Jewish hate.

I received my letter in the mail, with about as much anti-Jewish venom as I have ever seen.

Now I read that a man who was in mourning for his recently passed away wife has another burden to bear: his Hanukkah menorah, which has been displayed on his lawn for many years during the holiday season, was smashed to bits yesterday.

And this happened in a place called Plainview, one of the Long Island areas with a high rate of Jewish residents.

No, I don’t think the incidents are at all related, but there is a definite rise in anti-Semitism out there.

Just look at the Republican presidential candidates. Most of them are evangelical Christians, meaning that they don’t recognize the Jewish religion at all. They are out to convert us to their ways.

One candidate, Ron Paul, is so virulently anti-Jewish that I can’t believe that people are even considering him for the top spot in the land.

And people—and yes, I include many Jews themselves—accept this type of behavior. They look the other way when things like this happen, because it hasn’t happened to them.

But let me tell you, Jews that have so blended themselves into our society that they forget who they really are aren’t doing anybody any good—including themselves—with their behavior.

Yes, they are part of the problem, but the greater problem is answering the question, “Why is this happening in the first place?”

It is hard to pinpoint the reason, but I think that during tough times, scapegoats are always sought, and Jews are often categorized as the reason for whatever mess we are in.

That is wholly unfair, but to uneducated, ignorant people, that is what they believe.

And many Jews, by ignoring these incidents, just add into the senselessness of it all.

Well, I am not ignoring what happened to me. I did what I had to do—reporting the incident to the police—and when I hear of others who have been violated, it turns my stomach.

Both Jew and Gentile alike should be alarmed at these incidents.

If they aren’t, I feel sorry for them. Something is missing from their makeup that prevents them from being saddened by such incidents.

Hanukkah ended last night. The menorahs and all the decorations will come down, but my Jewishness will not be taken down at all.

It is who I am, what my family is, and what my ancestors were.

And if people don’t like it, that’s tough. I really don’t care.

Rant #644: Downer Christmas

2011-12-27T04:08:00.000-08:00

This will be a short Rant because I am not feeling too well today.

I had a lousy Christmas break.

Period.

I was sick virtually the entire time, and I still am.

I hope to make a doctor's appointment today, because as you can imagine, it was pretty impossible to get a doctor over the holiday.

On Friday, my first day off, I received a mysterious letter in the mail which had no return address.

I should have known this was going to be trouble.

Let me preface it by saying that a few weeks ago, I had a Letter to the Editor published in my local paper, Newsday.

The main crux of the letter was the lack of Jewish representation on network TV, but Newsday highlighted the portion of the letter about the popular coverage of Hanukkah, as opposed to Christmas.

Basically, I said that network TV shows ignore the holiday, and Jewishness altogether, unless it is used as a plot device.

Well, all hell broke loose with that letter.

About a week later, several replies were printed by Newsday, and they weren't pretty.

One person called my letter "anti-Catholic," and both Jews and Gentiles alike pretty much condemned what I said ... although I didn't think I said anything that wasn't out there already.

I mean, name me one Jewish family on network TV ... there, I have pretty much proved my point.

Anyway, fast forward to this past Friday, two days before Christmas.

I opened the letter, and there was this anti-Jewish diatribe that had to be seen to be believed.

It was scrawled--and I do mean that literally--across several sheets of paper, in often unreadable scratch. It was even worse than my own handwriting, which is pretty bad.

It blamed the Jews for everything, from the war overseas to 9/11.

It showed how all the evil people in the world are or were Jewish.

And it also included this final sendoff (paraphrased) "Most people in the world don't like Jews."

Very nice present for the holiday, wouldn't you say?

My wife had me call the police, and they made up a report on it.

On Facebook, I found that most people didn't want to acknowledge such a thing could happen during the holiday season, and I mean Jews and Gentiles alike--and mainly Jews, I might add.

I got ripped by both for even talking about this thing.

Of course, few of the people expressing displeasure at my nerve to posting such an entry forget that I called the police because I thought my family's well-being was in jeopardy.

I guess few people care about that when they are opening their presents and drinking egg nog and sitting by their tree--Jews more than anyone, by the way.

So I really couldn't win during this time off I had.

I got lambasted, and I got sick.

Oh, how I look forward to New Year's!

(I guess the rant was longer than I thought it would be.)

Rant #643: Snoopy's Christmas

2011-12-22T03:24:00.001-08:00

A continued Happy Hanukkah to all my Jewish friends, and a three-day-early Merry Christmas to everyone else.

Even though I am Jewish, I still occasionally get caught up in the frenzy of the Christmas holiday season.

And part of that frenzy is the music, more to the point, the contemporary music celebrating the holiday.

While there is scant little for Hanukkah—more than you might think if you want to look for it, but still not that much—for Christmas, of course, there is plenty.

Some radio stations jump onto this point with a loud crash, playing Christmas music—and nothing but Christmas music—from like September on.

Other stations mix it in with their usual fare, but during the week prior to Christmas, they mix it in ad nauseum.

But I’m one to talk. I have so many Christmas recordings that you might think I am a good goy, as in gentile. But I’m not, of course. I just have lots of Christmas recordings in my collection.

What’s my favorite Christmas record? Or more to the point, what's the favorite Christmas record of this Jewish guy (not goy)?

A year ago, I told you it was "Riu Chiu" by the Monkees, which really isn't directly a Christmas song, per se, but a Spanish folk song dating from the 1500s that the Monkees used on their Christmas episode. Thus, for the past 44 years, it has morphed into a Christmas recording.

And if there is a No. 2, it most definitely has to be "Snoopy’s Christmas”/”It Kinda Looks Like Christmas” by the Royal Guardsmen. Yes, the entire 45 that was released in 1967.

Both songs--and the Monkees recording--bring me back to a different time, so they are both nostalgic and Christmasy at the same time.

Although on their Christmas episode, "Riu Chiu" was never officially released until many years later. I will bet that if it was released in 1967, it would have been a huge holiday hit.

The Royal Guardsmen tunes are another thing altogether.

Dating from the same period as the Monkees’ tune, the A side of the single is simply a continuance of the band’s “Snoopy” saga, which would encompass at least four singles: “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron,” “The Return of the Red Baron,” “Snoopy’s Christmas,” and “Snoopy For President.”

(And I found two more: "The Smallest Astronaut" and the Royal Guardsmen reunion-related "Snoopy vs. Osama.")

It kind of blends bubblegum with the holidays, and it works to perfection.

It did not chart on the Hot 100 of the time, although it did chart on Billboard's Christmas chart. It has been a favorite for the past 44 years, and you regularly hear it during this time of year.

The B side is basically a standard Christmas song, but it works wonderfully with the more popular A side.

It's very light and fluffy, almost like aural snow.

The Royal Guardsmen kind of got pigeonholed into the Snoopy thing, and they aren't remembered for much else. But they did have several other terrific singles, including my favorite "Behind Enemy Lines."

But they will always be remembered for those Snoopy records, and I will always love "Snoopy's Christmas."

I still have the original single that I bought in late 1967 in my collection, and it still plays well.

So have a Merry Christmas everyone. I will take a few days off, and be back ready to look at the New Year on Tuesday.

"Christmas bells, those Christmas bells, ringing out from the land ... "

Rant #642: Phil 'Em Up To 76 Today

2011-12-21T03:44:00.000-08:00

Phil Donahue turns 76 today.

Although I often did not agree with his liberal politics, Phil Donahue, in my mind, is an icon of the TV talk show circuit.

Without him, there would be no Oprah, no Morey, no Ellen, and none of the other clowns who populate that genre today.

I used to watch Donahue's show--with a theme song by Don Agrati, better known as Don Grady from TV's "My Three Sons"--on occasion, when I was home, so I am by no means an expert on him.

But when I saw his show, I knew I was in for a roller coaster ride.

Whether he had on a famous politician or a porn star, you knew you were going to get everything Donahue had in him.

He was one of the first of the talk show hosts to run around with a microphone, trying to get the impressions of what was going on from his audience. He stuck that wand in front of their faces, and he let them speak their mind.

Donahue was as comfortable with important people as he was with the average Joes, and I think that is why people liked him so much.

I believe his very first guest was a young girl born without arms or legs. He treated her with dignity, and had her on several times as she grew into a woman to see how her life was progressing.

He had on transvestites, the latest TV and movie stars, everyday people with incredible problems, and the like.

And everyone seemed to like him, as his show seemingly went on forever.

And when he announced that he wouldn't do the show anymore, there wasn't this big fanfare like what Oprah wanted and got.

He just ended it.

Sure, he went onto cable TV, pretty unsuccessfully I might add, but when his regular show was over, that was pretty much it for him.

And I can't forget that I have always been a fan of his wife, Marlo Thomas, of "That Girl" fame.

So there you have it.

Have a happy birthday, Phil. You weren't the first TV talk show host, but you were certainly among the best of the lot.

Rant #641: Hanukkah, Hanukkah

2011-12-20T04:10:00.000-08:00

Tonight is Hanukkah.

I know that for most of our culture this means absolutely nothing, but for many of us, this holiday, which begins at sundown tonight, reflects the culmination of a year's work, and the time to party and celebrate.
Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah.

I know to most people, this means absolutely nothing, but to us 3 percenters--the percent of the U.S. population that is Jewish--it does mean something, maybe more to some than others, since there seems to be a rising tide for Jews to celebrate Christmas. No, I don't get it either.

Anyway, on the Jewish calendar, Hanukkah is not a major holiday. But it is a joyous and festive one, celebrating the rededication of the Temple of Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean revolt, during the second century BCE (before the common era).

After the Jews regained control of the temple, they found that they only had one night's oil for their candelabra, their eternal light. Somehow, through some type of miracle, the oil burned for eight days, hence the celebration of Hanukkah for eight days and the use of a menorah to signify the eternal light.

It is a joyous holiday and a festive one, but, as I said, it is not a major holiday on the Jewish calendar.

That is the reason that many give for high-profile Jews basically ignoring the holiday, at least out in public.

But of course, that is nonsense.

Whatever anybody says, Hanukkah is a huge holiday for Jews around the globe.

It is a gift-giving holiday, a holiday where you reaffirm your family ties, a holiday that is to be celebrated, and not shunned, like some unfortunate Jews do.

Sure, it's always right near Christmas, and a lot of people believe that it is the Jewish Christmas.

Well let me tell you, it isn't. It has nothing to do with Christmas at all.

However, because of the actions of some high-profile Jews, many people think that Hanukkah simply doesn't measure up, that Jews celebrate Christmas.

Sorry, at least in my family, we don't.

Christmas is a wonderful holiday, with its direction very similar to that of Hanukkah.

But Hanukkah isn't the Jewish Christmas much like Christmas is not the Gentile Hanukkah.

No matter how much society wants the two holidays intertwined, one has nothing to do with the other.

On that note, I wish everyone a joyous Hanukkah. Eat lots of sweet things, get and give your presents, and feel content with who you are and what religion you are.

I know that I am content, very content indeed.

Rant #640: Wrestling to Get My Mind Off Things

2011-12-19T03:24:00.001-08:00

Saturday was one of the strangest days I have ever experienced.

In the morning, we put our dog Max to sleep. He was a fine dog and I know he is in dog heaven now.

In the afternoon, we had some people over--my wife's side of the family--for a holiday get together.

And during the evening, my son and I saw a WWE wrestling house show at nearby Nassau Coliseum.

A house show is sort of like a pre-rehearsal or a dry run. You are not going to see any championship belts change hands, and while you will see some stars, you will also see plenty of bums.

The wrestlers are allowed to show more of their skills at these shows, because really nothing is on the line, except to put on a good show for the crowd.

And they did during the roughly three-hour show on Saturday night.

Playing to what I would say was less than half of capacity--TV shows and pay per views regularly draw sold-out crowds there and around the world--the WWE superstars put on a good show.

They played everything to the hilt, and wowed the audience--probably 75 percent kids from the ages of 5 to 16--with their moves, and with their mouths.

The good guys played that up to the max, the bad guys did everything bad guys are supposed to do to be bad guys--they put down Long Island, they put down the rickety Coliseum, they put down their competitors.

But the good guys won every match, the bad guys lost every match, and the WWE sold a lot of T-shirts.

Perfect fare for a cold December night right before the holidays.

My son and I had a nice time there. Our seats weren't that great, but we could see everything pretty clearly.

The crowd--the smallest I have every seen for a wrestling show there--was very loud and vocal, and cheered on their favorites and hissed and booed the villains.

And for me, it was a perfect tonic for what happened earlier that day.

Our dog sat by us many days that my son and I watched wrestling on TV. Every Friday, we would make popcorn as we watched the Smackdown show, and Max just loved popcorn, so we threw him some as we watched the show.

He loved it, he really did.

So as I watched the wrestling show unfolding before me, I did think of Max once or twice.

And I am sure in dog heaven, he really enjoyed that.

Max 1997-2011 R.I.P.

2011-12-17T09:44:00.000-08:00

Rant #639: Done

2011-12-16T03:44:00.000-08:00

Well, almost.

My wife and I have decided that our dog must be put down.

And we are doing it this weekend.

Our dog, Max, has lived a good life, but he has not been the same dog the past several months.

He has cancer, plain and simple, and a bum hind leg to boot.

The cancer is in his left side, and the tumor has ballooned to the point that he can't use his leg, and he can't hold his bowels.

He is 14 and a half years old. He is a mixed breed terrier and pit bull, but don't let the pit bull part of him fool you; he is about the nicest dog that you would ever want to meet.

He barks a lot, which puts people off, but he wouldn't hurt a fly.

Max has lived a good life as a house dog, but I think that time has just about come to an end.

We adopted him from a shelter after losing another dog to a variety of physical ailments, and unfortunately, due to financial constrictions, we are going to have to bring Max to the pound for disposal, just like we did his predecessor.

I would love to have the vet do it, but it costs several hundred dollars, which my wife and I don't have.

So it will be like a death march tomorrow morning, but we will march in a car to the dog death camp.

My wife can't bear this, so my father will come with me, as he did with the other dog.

Max is not pictured here, but Max was a handsome, lovable dog in his day. He had his quirks, but he always knew when he did wrong... and when he did right.

I don't know about other animals, but dogs do have a soul.

And this poor soul, who we are telling ourselves that we are putting out of his misery by doing what we are going to do, will go to dog heaven.

And he will be in our hearts forever.

See you, Max. We will always love you.

Rant #638: One Day At a Time With Schneider

2011-12-15T03:29:00.000-08:00

Another guy who had a tremendous influence on my youth is gone.

You might not know the name Bert Schneider, but he died on Monday at the age of 78.

No, he wasn't the Schneider from the TV show, "One Day At a Time."

No, this guy had a much more important role in Hollywood.

Bert Schneider was a key person in Hollywood's counter-culture movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The son of Columbia Pictures president Abraham Schneider, he somehow convinced his father that a teen-oriented rock show was needed on network TV, a show that would showcase the new, emerging talent that was playing out throughout the country.

Yes, there was "American Bandstand," and later, "Where the Action Is," but these Dick Clark productions weren't on in prime time. Schneider convinced his dad, sometime in 1964 or 1965, that the popularity generated by the Beatles could be compressed and repackaged in a half hour comedy show in prime time.

His father went for the idea, but who would star in show?

Jan and Dean were first mentioned, and then the Lovin' Spoonful. The Spoonful were what they were really going for--a lovable, daffy bunch who could play music--but then Schneider and his partner, Bob Rafelson decided that a created-for-TV group was more to their liking.

In 1965, an ad was placed for "Ben Franklin" types to audition for the TV show, and a horde of rock and roll types auditioned for these roles. Some were already established in the business, such as Paul Peterson, who was a star from "The Donna Reed Show." Others were just starting out, such as future Oscar winner Paul Williams.

But four guys were chosen, and the Monkees they became. Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork became overnight sensations, and solidified the newly named Raybert Productions as a force to be reckoned with.

Through the Monkees, Schneider and Rafelson brought long-hairs to living rooms around the world. The show was an unqualified success, and the music was among the best of the period.

And through this show, Schneider and Rafelson met Jack Nicholson, a partnership that would pretty much begin with the Monkees' film "Head" and which would continue for the next several years.

Using money that came from the Monkees project, Schneider and Rafelson were able to make "Five Easy Pieces and "Easy Rider," films that brought the counter-culture to the masses and which made people like Nicholson, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper massive stars.

He also produced other well known films, including "The Last Picture Show" and "Hearts and Minds," but it all started out with a little project called "The Monkees."

Schneider had been retired from the business for many years, but his legacy is an incredible one, one that most people really don't know about.

The films and TV shows that he was involved with live on on DVD, and his knack for capturing the moment really was pretty incredible. Of course, he had the proper Hollywood connections, which certainly helped, but his ability to launch new talent--remember, he also launched the career of director Peter Bogdanovich--was amazing.

Rest in peace, Bert. You done good.

Rant #637: Patty Dukes It Out At 65

2011-12-14T04:35:00.000-08:00

Actress Patty Duke is 65 today.

I find that hard to believe, but it is true.

In the world where people worship Lindsay Lohan, it is hard to believe that just about 50 years ago, people were holding Patty Duke in the same high esteem as they do Lohan today.

But it's like comparing apples with oranges, isn't it?

Duke was one of the younger stars of the pre-Beatles era who filled our minds just before we were going to get smashed upside the head by the four lads from Liverpool.

She was hot as a pistol. She won an Academy Award for her portrayal of a young Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker," and the world was literally her oyster.

She even had her own TV show, "The Patty Duke Show," and that is where I first encountered this young actress.

The show had not only one of the all-time great TV theme songs, but the theme song played off a gimmick: the versatile Duke played two characters on the show: a typical, nutty, fun-loving teenager, and her cultured, European cousin.

They would go to the same high school in Brooklyn Heights, but the fact that they looked so alike--heck, they could have been twins!--led to most of the show's comedy.

The show was funny in an almost subtle way. I know that I laughed out loud at this show when I was a kid, but now, the laughs are a little more subdued--especially when you know Duke's back story.

Duke suffered from mental illness, which was made worse by the fact that she didn't really know who she was until years later. She was mentally abused by many, and the realization that the Patty Duke everyone knew was not the real Patty Duke--her actual name was Anna--stifled her career after the mid to late 1960s.

Through all of this, she still acted, appeared on every game show there ever was, and continued to stay visible, especially during the 1970s when she was married to actor John Astin. She had several children, including actor Sean Astin, and the public persona pretty much took hold of the private persona.

She has come clean with her troubles, and, at 65 seems to finally be happy in the skin that she is in.

But as one of the first public personalities to come clean about her own mental illness, she was something of a pioneer.

So to Patty Duke, happy birthday, and many more.

And she is 65? I still can't believe it.

I guess she will always indelibly be in my mind as that wacky, crazy teen on "The Patty Duke Show."

Rant #636: The Incredible Hulk

2011-12-13T03:57:00.000-08:00

It is incredible how Hulk Hogan's name constantly is in the news.

While 30 years ago, it was for all the right reasons--he was the top wrestler in the world, and his popularity helped bring professional wrestling to a new level--today, it is for all the wrong reasons.

The latest one is that the Hulkster--Terry Bollea on his birth certificate--is suing his ex-wife for defamation.

Evidently, Hulk's ex-wife claims in a memoir and in interviews to promote that tome that not only did he brutally attack her while they were married, but that he had an affair with another person.

And the other person just happens to be ex-wrestler Brutus Beefcake.

She claims the Hulkster had his Beefcake and ate it too, I guess.

Of course, Hogan says that this is nothing but a pack of lies from a vindictive ex-spouse.

"If any of that was true, I would admit it, and I was a homosexual I would embrace it," he is reported to have said in news reports. "It's just so crazy to hear, so I have a real problem with it. ... If you're going to say I'm something that I'm not to try to ruin my career and my livelihood ... I have to answer her back."

The Hulkster has been happily married to his current wife--who looks just like his former wife, but much younger, of course--for a year now, but his divorce has been anything but amicable.

Both sides have leveled various charges against the other over the past several months, and it doesn't appear as if it is going to stop anytime soon.

So much for amicable divorces! I can tell you from personal experience that there isn't any such thing. Both sides can appear to be pleasant toward each other, but let's face it, there had to be something to divide the two, and you just know that there is something kicking inside of at least one of them that makes the prospect of a "happy" divorce completely impossible.

Are the charges true? At this point, it really doesn't make any difference whether they are true or not. It is pretty much all water under the bridge.

Hulk and his ex are divorced, they have each seemingly moved on with their lives--his ex is dating a guy who is probably less than half her age--and that should be that.

But his ex keeps on bringing things up, negative things about the Hulkster.

Again, who knows if they are true, but I see a very vindictive ex-wife here.

They have two children to parent. That should be their focus, and not this nonsense.

But I can tell you, again from personal experience, that the nonsense seems to always creep into whatever happens in the family that is rocked by divorce.

And what of Brutus Beefcake? What does he have to say about this mess that he has been drawn into?

Nobody has heard from him at all at this point in time. Maybe the former "Barber" has taken the best tack in this whole thing.

Just don't say anything.

Rant #635: Holiday Flops

2011-12-12T03:34:00.000-08:00

I am sure that you heard that this past weekend was the worst in the past three years for the movie industry.

In fact, even fewer people went to the movies this past weekend then went to theaters right after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"Only" $77 million was made this weekend. The top film was the flop "New Year's Eve," a film that will probably wind up on most "worst" lists for 2011. It recorded a "paltry" $13.7 million in ticket sales. It was followed by another new movie, the dreadfully reviewed "The Sitter," and the other top movies included "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 1," "The Muppets," "Arthur Christmas," "Hugo," "The Descendants," "Happy Feet Two," "Jack and Jill," and "Immortals."

Each and every one of these films received poor to horrible reviews when they came out--including "The Descendants," sorry George Clooney fans--and heck, with this slate of films, why would anyone want to go to the movies today?

My wife and I have been talking about this recent slate of holiday movies, and I cannot ever remember a worse lineup of movies during holiday-time ever.

And I mean ever.

The next "blockbuster" that is supposed to thrill us is the "Sherlock Holmes" sequel. You know, the sequel where Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal as a lazy slob superhero--Arthur Conan Doyle is probably turning in his grave--will continue. My family saw the first one, and even though my wife just loves Downey, she even said that it was one of the worst movies she ever saw.

So we won't be going to the movies for a long, long time.

I don't know where Hollywood's head is. The either remake movies or retread old ideas, and let me tell you, it generally does not work.

My parents were the type of people who used to go to the movies every week. And they continued going every week--they are now both 80 years old--until the past few months. They just can't justify spending $9 or more on the slate of films that Hollywood is releasing nowadays.

And don't be fooled by the dollar figures. Remember, movies cost about $9 a ticket now, and a couple of dollars higher for 3D fare. So while revenues have probably increased, the number of tickets sold has actually decreased.

And also, let's not forget that if you want to eat anything at the movie theater, you are going to have to pay for it, and pay for it with a lot of money.

So for a family of four, a movie day can cost over $50.

Why go to the movies? You can see the same trash, and save money, at home.

We did just that. My wife and I rented--and I really mean we rented because there was nothing else out there--a movie called "Bad Teacher," a film which certainly spells the end of Cameron Diaz's movie career.

She plays a teacher who is only in it for the money for a future boob job.

Yes, you read that right.

Diaz--who was never my cup of tea anyway--is horrific in this movie, as is her former real life boyfriend, Justin Timberlake.

The movie is embarrassing.

But we paid just $1.30 to see it through the local Redbox machine.

What trash.

And I know the other day I said that the "Three Stooges" movie looks interesting.

It does--but I pretty much expect that to be trash too.

But yes, I will probably fork over my money to see this trash.

Movies are a habit, and even though my family and I don't go regularly anymore, I wouldn't say the recent garbage put out by Hollywood is its death knell.

Dopes like me will always go to the movies, even if it isn't a weekly occurrence anymore.

But please, Hollywood, please put out something that is worth seeing.

Please!

Rant #634: Culture Vulture

2011-12-09T03:28:00.000-08:00

I guess I am a culture vulture, looking for scenarios of interest that are interesting to me.

With the holiday season in full swing, there are usually lots of things to talk about around this time of year.

Here are a few of them.

The 31st Anniversary of the Death of John Lennon: This one kind of came and went. It happened yesterday, when I was talking about the new Three Stooges movie. I could have written about Lennon, but so much has been said about him, why add to it?

But it was 31 years ago that he was so senselessly murdered. I remember the night vividly; it is something I will never forget.

But 31 years--incredible! The time goes so, so fast.

Lindsay Lohan Poses For Playboy; Issue Cover Leaked: We move from a cultural icon of my youth to a cultural icon of today, the very pretty but completely vapid Lindsay Lohan.

If anyone needs to put a finger on how society has fallen since Lennon died, just look at jailbird Lohan, now posing in the bunny book.

If I have said it once, I will say it again: if she looked like Rosie O'Donnell, nobody would care about the nonsense surrounding this idiot. But she is gorgeous with a great body, the media loves her, and she poses in her nothings and gets $1 million for it. What do the Occupy Wall Street protesters have to say about this?

NBA Star Amare Stoudemire Teaches Kids Hebrew: New York Knicks basketball star Amare Stoudemire appeared on Shalom Sesame, Israel's equivalent of our Sesame Street, in a short segment teaching kids the meaning of the Hebrew word "tov," as in "mazel tov," a word which means "good" in English.

And it's good--of tov--for Stoudemire. He is black, and I only say that because it belies his origins. Since coming to the Knicks, in a town with a large Jewish population, he has been very proud to say that he has Jewish roots on his mother's side.

He didn't play this up when he played elsewhere, but, of course, he is going to play that up here.

Heck, I like him as a Knicks fan, and it really isn't important to me that he considers himself at least partially Jewish. But it is interesting, isn't it? Judaism takes on all different types of people, and I am happy to have Stoudemire as part of the flock.

Albert Pujols Signs With the Angels: I tried, I really tried, to make my son into a baseball player. He played Little League from ages 5-12, but that was it.

I am sure that Albert Pujols' parents are very proud that they put him in the direction of baseball, because this former St. Louis Cardinal is going to get a payday from the Los Angeles Angels that is mind boggling, to say the least. In the biggest surprise of Major League Baseball's winter meetings, the Angels signed free agent Pujols for something like $25 million a year, snaring him away from the World Series winning St. Louis Cardinals.

Well, my dad tried to make me into a baseball player too, but it just wasn't in the cards. Neither was it for Pujols with his former team.

I Get Attacked For My Letter to the Editor: What else is new? I write a Letter to the Editor of Newsday about the lack of Jewish representation on prime time network TV shows and the lack of Hanukkah programming on television, and both Jews and non-Jews attack me online and in the newspaper.

One person, in the newspaper, even called my letter "anti-Catholic," which was clearly not my intention. My letter was edited by the newspaper to make it more of a holiday letter, but people sure take things the wrong way, and they sure did it here.

If you want to read the letter they printed and all the backlash, go here: http://www.newsday.com/opinion/letters/letter-why-so-little-hanukkah-1.3362914.

I am done for the day. Speak to you next week ... if a pox has not been put on me by one of the responders who must think I am the anti-Christ. Do I look like the Anti-Christ in my Yankees regalia?

That's right. The Red Sox call the Yankees "The Evil Empire," so maybe there is something to this anti-Christ thing.

Maybe ... maybe not.

Rant #633: I'm Larry the Stooge

2011-12-08T03:23:00.000-08:00

When I heard that the Farrelly brothers were going to do a reboot of the Three Stooges in a feature length film, I have to tell you, I cringed.

How can you remake comedy perfection? And why would you remake a film where, essentially, the actors would not only be portraying characters, but essentially, they would be aping Moe Howard, Curly Howard and Larry Fine?

Well, the trailer for this film--set to premier in April 2012--has just been released, and I have to say that at least over the course of the trailer, I am impressed.

The film, starring Sean Hayes (Larry), Will Sasso (Curly) and Chris Diamontopoulos (Moe), at least looks promising.

All the sight gags are there, all the slaps, pops and crackles are intact, the boys still have eyes for the ladies, and the breakneck pace of the trailer makes it look like a live action cartoon, which the Stooges' shorts were pretty much anyway.

The film will be kept at PG level though, because the filmmakers said that that was what the Stooges were, never venturing out of that territory, even though, of course, at the time of their heyday in the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s, there was no movie rating system.

And no, there are no apparent nods to Joe Besser or Curly Joe De Rita either. This is a plus, but nothing for Shemp Howard? He was an integral part of the Stooges story, and to completely omit him is a mistake.

Two other negatives, and they really aren't major negatives, in the film--it appears a lot of it takes place at a Catholic orphanage, so probably not only will some people be offended--there is one scene where one of the nuns wears a bathing suit that doesn't leave much to the imagination--but heck, the Stooges, less De Rita, were all Jewish in real life, and a lot of their schtick was related to that experience.

Second, and this is not a knock, although I guess it kind of is--every woman in this film, at least from the trailer, is built. And I mean really built, either naturally or by man-made means.

Yes, that means the Stooges will be sexed up, I guess to keep modern audiences interested. Of course, modern audiences have no tolerance for any actress that doesn't have a 36D chest, as you know. Even female viewers.

But that aside, the trailer does look promising. The actors do look like the characters that they are portraying, and they even have the vocal patterns down pat.

Larry, of course, was my favorite Stooge, and Sean Hayes looks like he "got" it, as do the other two actors.

Yes, I will eat humble pie here. The Three Stooges movie looks interesting, and with all the trash out there pretending to be art, I can go for some obviously lowbrow 90 minute garbage when it comes out next year.

And it comes out in April--around my birthday.

This Larry appears to be very, very amused.

Rant #632: NBA Schedules Released

2011-12-07T03:54:00.000-08:00

The National Basketball Association has put is woes behind it, and the new Collective Bargaining Agreement appears to be set in stone.

So finally, the NBA released its less than 82-game 66-game schedule.

All teams will play a much-compacted schedule, and that goes for my beloved New York Knicks, who open the season on Christmas Day, December 25, against the Boston Celtics.

Most teams have already put their tickets on sale, but no, not the Knicks. Their tickets won't go on sale until December 13 ... I guess, to build the excitement for the team in its partlially refurbished home of Madison Square Garden.

Look, I grew up in New York City, a place where basketball was, and still is, king on the sidewalks of the five boroughs.

I was growing up in the era of Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Bill Bradley and the others that made up the greatest Knick teams of all, coached by Red Holzman.

The Knicks haven't won a championship since 1973, and they may not ever win another one in my lifetime.

But I still love the Knicks, and I love going to the Garden to watch them play, no batter how good or bad they are.

And the best thing is that my son loves going to the games too. (For the record, my wife hates basketball, and even though I have asked her numerous times to see a Knicks game with us, she has refused. I won't give up though.)

If he had his druthers, I would get us season tickets so he could see every game in person.

Financials aside, that isn't going to happen. But he loves to go to the games, and he is now at the same age that I was when the Knicks won their last championship, so we will be there for at least one game this season, sitting in the 400 seats that are closer to God than they are to the court.

But it will be fun, and I really can't wait to go.

Call me a poor idiot, but the lockout aside, I guess I enjoy watching petty, ego-driven millionaires play others in the same tax bracket.

How will the Knicks do this year? Who knows. I don't live and die with the Knicks like I do with the Yankees, whose expectations are always high.

But I think the Knicks will do fine this year. With Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony leading the way, they will certainly be a hot ticket in New York.

But all I need is two tickets to one of their games, that is really all I need.

Let's see how I do next Tuesday.

The 400 section, here I (and my son) come!

Here is the Knicks' 2011-2012 schedule:

December
Sat 17 @ New Jersey Preseason 2:00pm
Wed 21 vs New Jersey Preseason 7:30pm

Sun 25 vs Boston 12:00pm
Wed 28 @ Golden State 10:30pm
Thu 29 @ LA Lakers 10:30pm
Sat 31 @ Sacramento 8:00pm

January
Mon 02 vs Toronto 7:30pm
Wed 04 vs Charlotte 7:30pm
Fri 06 @ Washington 7:00pm
Sat 07 @ Detroit 7:30pm
Mon 09 vs Charlotte 7:30pm
Wed 11 vs Philadelphia 7:30pm
Thu 12 @ Memphis 8:00pm
Sat 14 @ Oklahoma City 8:00pm
Mon 16 vs Orlando 1:00pm
Wed 18 vs Phoenix 7:30pm
Fri 20 vs Milwaukee 7:30pm
Sat 21 vs Denver 7:30pm
Tue 24 @ Charlotte 7:00pm
Wed 25 @ Cleveland 7:00pm
Fri 27 @ Miami 8:00pm
Sat 28 @ Houston 8:00pm
Tue 31 vs Detroit 7:30pm

February
Thu 02 vs Chicago 8:00pm
Fri 03 @ Boston 8:00pm
Sat 04 vs New Jersey 7:30pm
Mon 06 vs Utah 7:30pm
Wed 08 @ Washington 7:00pm
Fri 10 vs LA Lakers 8:00pm
Sat 11 @ Minnesota 8:00pm
Tue 14 @ Toronto 7:00pm
Wed 15 vs Sacramento 7:30pm
Fri 17 vs New Orleans 8:00pm
Sun 19 vs Dallas 1:00pm
Mon 20 vs New Jersey 7:30pm
Wed 22 vs Atlanta 7:30pm
Thu 23 @ Miami 7:00pm
Wed 29 vs Cleveland 7:30pm

March
Sun 04 @ Boston 1:00pm
Tue 06 @ Dallas 8:30pm
Wed 07 @ San Antonio 8:30pm
Fri 09 @ Milwaukee 8:30pm
Sun 11 vs Philadelphia 12:00pm
Mon 12 @ Chicago 8:00pm
Wed 14 vs Portland 7:30pm
Fri 16 vs Indiana 7:30pm
Sat 17 @ Indiana 7:00pm
Tue 20 vs Toronto 7:30pm
Wed 21 @ Philadelphia 7:00pm
Fri 23 @ Toronto 7:00pm
Sat 24 vs Detroit 7:30pm
Mon 26 vs Milwaukee 7:30pm
Wed 28 vs Orlando 7:00pm
Fri 30 @ Atlanta 7:30pm
Sat 31 vs Cleveland 7:30pm

April
Tue 03 @ Indiana 7:00pm
Thu 05 @ Orlando 7:00pm
Sun 08 vs Chicago 1:00pm
Tue 10 @ Chicago 9:30pm
Wed 11 @ Milwaukee 8:00pm
Fri 13 vs Washington 7:30pm
Sun 15 vs Miami 1:00pm
Tue 17 vs Boston 8:00pm
Wed 18 @ New Jersey 7:30pm
Fri 20 @ Cleveland 7:30pm
Sun 22 @ Atlanta 1:00pm
Wed 25 vs LA Clippers 8:00pm
Thu 26 @ Charlotte 8:00pm

Rant #631: Wally World

2011-12-06T03:46:00.000-08:00

Today would have been actor and comedian Wally Cox's 87th birthday.

Again, like yesterday's Rant about Alan Sues, I doubt a lot of kids know who Wally Cox was.

But I remember him fondly.

Cox was sort of a nerd before nerd became a word.

He always seemed to play nebbishes, milquetoasts, henpecked characters. I guess that look that he had, appearing thin and bespectacled and gaunt, added to that typecasting.

And his voice, which was very wishy washy and nasally, just added to the stereotype.

But Cox, in real life, was far from that stereotype. He was actually quite athletic.

Cox was one of TV's first created stars as the star of "Mr. Peepers," one of the new medium's seminal shows. He played a milquetoast character on that popular show, and it carried over to just about everything else he did as an actor.

Growing up in Evanston, Ill., Cox became friends with another neighborhood child, Marlon Brando, and that friendship lasted his entire lifetime.

But unlike Brando, Cox couldn't break out to more demanding roles than his stereotypical role as a nebbish. He perpetuated that role in a number of movies and guest shots on numerous TV shows, including on "The Lucy Show" and the original "Bill Cosby Show."

In the mid 1960s, Cox leaped to fame as the voice for the cartoon character "Underdog." And again, Underdog's alter-ego, Shoe Shine Boy, was a nebbish, and it fit his stereotypical character to a T.

Cox then found further fame as one of the regulars on "The Hollywood Squares" game show, where he continued in his stereotypical role. But here, he showed just how bright he was in between the laughs.

Personally, I always found Cox to be an adept comedian. Whenever he came on the screen, I knew I had to be ready for the laughs to come, because they invariably would. And when he was on "The Hollywood Squares," there seemed to be a bit of resignation about him that I couldn't put my finger on. It was as if he believed that this was the level he was stuck at, and he was going to make the best of it.

He displayed a very dry wit, and unlike Paul Lynde--who you knew was reading jokes that were given to him--Cox appeared to be answering from his own mind. Whether that was true or not is open to speculation, but I always thought that he answered himself without prompting.

Cox was married three times and had two children. He died on Feb. 15, 1973 of a heart attack. Brando scattered his ashes in Death Valley and Tahiti.

Cox's legacy can be found in all the nerdish characters that followed him, from those actors in "The Revenge of the Nerds" series of movies to the actors who currently populate "The Big Bang Theory." Even the Steve Urkel character owes a lot to Cox.

Cox set the tone for these type of roles, but to this day, nobody did that type of character better than he did.

Rant #630: He Laughed In, But Never Came Out

2011-12-05T03:31:00.000-08:00

Alan Seus died a few days ago. He was 85 years old.

For many people, the name of Alan Sues means absolutely nothing, but to a generation of baby boomers, he was one of the biggest TV stars of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Sues was a cast member on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, probably the most irreverent, off the wall show in television history. Changing the way we watched TV, the original show lasted five seasons, helped to make huge stars out of many of its cast members, including Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin, and as far as I am concerned, has never been equaled to this day.

Alan Sues was a member of the zany troupe which included Arte Johnson, Ruth Buzzi, Henry Gibson, Joanne Worley, Judy Carne Dan Rowan and Dick Martin themselves, and many others. They brought a youthful zing into our homes in the late 1960s, reshaping the variety show forever--and probably leading that format to its death in its own way just a few years later.

Sues played an integral role in the proceedings. He got under the radar of the censors, somehow, in his playing of the generally effeminate character on the show.

His greatest achievement, and character on the show, was his portrayal of the less than masculine sportscaster, Big Al, where all the wispy posturing came right out to the fore. No one ever said the character was gay, but even in this then young kids' mind, there was something "funny" about this character. He not only made me laugh, but he made me think.

His character was the perfect play on the ultra-masculine sportscasters of the day, and his parody of them is one of the most memorable in that show's history.

He also played Uncle Al, the Kiddie's Pal, which was less successful, but still funny.

And the skits on the show often put him in situations where his "gay" attitude was allowed to shine, even though it wasn't broadcast that he was gay.

Remember, this was the late 1960s. Things started to be lampooned that hadn't been tackled in prior years, but one of the taboos continued to be homosexuality.

There were several actors who appeared regularly on TV who were gay, even though they either didn't admit it for years or never admitted it while alive. That list includes Raymond Burr, Roger C. Carmel, Robert Reed, Paul Lynde and Richard Deacon. They didn't admit it because during those years, it might have meant the end of their careers.

However, in Lynde's case, even younger viewers kind of knew there was something "odd" about this guy, and I think the same thing can be said for Sues.

In his private life, he never admitted to be gay. He was a military veteran, married, and actually had a long-running act with his then wife, who he divorced n the late 1950s but was friendly with until his death.

But there was something with this guy, and as a young kid watching Laugh-In, I thought he was absolutely hysterical. And I mean funny. I probably didn't even know what "gay" was at that time.

After Laugh-In rode its course, Sues continued to be active. He appeared in numerous Peter Pan peanut butter commercials in the 1970s, and again, he played that effeminate-type character. Nobody minded, as long as the peanut butter flowed.

He appeared on Broadway and several films, and at the time of his death, was actually putting together a somewhat autobiographical audio book on his life in show business.

Sues was a definite pioneer on television, but to me, I am able to look past that, and just admire him as a terrific comedian, a guy I really liked on Laugh-In.

And maybe that's the whole point, and the point he was going for. Acceptance comes in many forms, and for Sues, the medium of television was his way to get the word out that he could be as funny as anyone, no matter what skin he was in.

Rant #629: Baby Talk

2011-12-02T03:36:00.000-08:00

I have to begin this Rant by telling you that my eyes are really bothering me today. Everything is fuzzy--like the way it was before I had my procedure a few years back--and I can't see clearly.

I have had this problem before, so I am hoping it goes away. If not, then I will have to see my retinologist sometime in the near future.

And with this fog encapsulating me, I am going to tell you what some of the most popular baby names are today.

Evidently, according to an annual survey done by something called BabyCenter.com, two out of five mothers find inspiration among famous people in naming their newborns.

The most popular female names are currently Sophia, Emma, Isabella, Olivia, Ava, Lily, Chloe, Madison, Emily and Abigail. A big trend here appears to be names with vowels as their last letter.

Boys names include Aiden, Jackson, Mason, Liam, Jacob, Jayden, Ethan, Noah, Lucas and Logan. I see a definite pattern here, with the letter "n" found at the end of six of these names.

I like the way myself and fellow Jewish people pick names. We honor someone who has passed away by either naming the child directly after that person or taking the first letter of his or her name and using it to name the child.

And we do the same for the child's Hebrew name too.

There are no juniors or repeat names in Jewish families, such as II or III. However, Sephardic Jews do often name their children by using "Jr."

So perhaps one day, the "L" in my first name of Larry will be passed on to a child in my family.

Or maybe the entire "Lawrence/Larry" will be recycled.

I hope that child will know who he or she is named after.

My hebrew name is Yoael, so I guess that that name will be passed on too.

I hope that person wears the name or initial well.

Believe me, I have tried, I really have.

Rant #628: And It Cost Just 10 Cents ...

2011-12-01T03:21:00.000-08:00

Just as an afterthought to yesterday's Rant about my father, another thing he passed on to me was the love of comic books.

He collected them as a kid during the 1930s and 1940s, read them, and put them away. In the mid 1960s, my grandmother got rid of them in the trash--on the very day my father and I came to her house to pick them up for me.

God, I wonder what issues were in that collection, and what they would be worth today?

As a kid, this was my hobby. I collected comic books like mad, read them all, and put them away in my closet, where they sit, virtually undisturbed, to this day.

Unfortunately, most of my comics are from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and evidently, they aren't worth too much, especially compared to the first issue of Action Comics, which featured the first appearance of Superman.

A pristine mint copy of this issue set a record Wednesday for the most money paid for a single comic book: $2.16 million.

It's the first time a comic book has broken the $2 million barrier, and no, the 2,000 or some comic books that I have sitting in my closet don't total anything near that amount that was paid for one, single comic book.

The most amazing thing about it is that the issue was published in 1938 and cost just 10 cents when it first came out.

I am sure thousands of kids bought this comic, but because of its age, not too many in any condition still exist. On top of that fact is that many kids' comics were trashed when the kids became older. People just didn't understand the value of these things way back when. I'm sure many others were scuttled during the paper drives of the 1940s revolving around World War II.

About 100 copies of Action Comics No. 1 are believed to be in existence, and only a handful of those in good condition.

But no, I don't have the issue in my collection, but I do have a reprint from I think the early 1970s. I wonder what that would go for on the open market today?

Heck, at this point, forget about the $2 million, I would take $20 for it--and maybe a couple of thousand dollars for the entire collection.

Anybody want to make me an offer?

Anybody?

Rant #627: My Dad's Day

2011-11-30T03:24:00.000-08:00

I am happy to announce that today is my father's birthday.

He turns 80 today.

I can't tell you how much I look up to my father as the patriarch of my small but vibrant family.

He has truly done it all in his 80 years, and still has lots to do in the future.

He grew up on New York's Lower East Side, the first child of my grandparents. They had come to the United States from Europe and my dad was the first of four children they would have.

My father was very smart, and also an excellent athlete. He skipped a grade or two, played basketball in school, but education was almost secondary to work.

My grandfather owned a butcher shop on Delancey Street, and my father worked there at a very young age, and continued to work there as an adult.

He went into the Marines, and was a cook. After his tour of duty ended--he was supposed to go to Korea but never went due to a mixup of orders--he returned to the butcher shop.

By that time, the family had moved to Queens. Subsequently, my father met my mother, and the rest is history.

I was their first born, and I think since the moment I was born, I looked up to my father as my ideal.

He was a hard worker, supported my family as best he could, and he took a chance in life--a major chance--and it paid off handsomely.

He had driven a cab on occasion even while a butcher, but at the prodding of a friend, he went into it full time.

My grandfather's store was about to close, due to a changing neighborhood and the city's plan to build a roadway right through the store on Delancey Street, a plan that never came to pass.

But he left the butcher business to drive a New York City medallion cab full time, and he still does--at 80 years old.

In fact, today, right as I type this, he is driving a cab, picking up passengers and taking them wherever they want to go.

At 80 years old.

No, he doesn't own his own cab anymore, and works for a fleet.

No, he doesn't work five or six days a week anymore, just three.

But he works, he is strong, and he could go on like this for many years to come.

He loves his family, his days off, his TV, and his work.

He and my mother will be married 56 years in January, and they might very well be married 56 more years for all I know.

My parents are grandparents to five kids, one girl and four boys. They love their grandchildren dearly, and are very involved in their lives.

They know my father as "Zaydy," a Yiddish term of endearment meaning grandfather. My father wanted to be known that way to honor his own grandfather, who spoke very little English but was a highly intelligent man, a man of dignity.

As for me, I look up to my father as someone I have always aspired to be. Sure, we have had arguments and haven't seen eye to eye on everything, but I believe if I could be like him, I will be a better person.

I have tried to pass on these attributes to my own kids, with varying degrees of success.

They are still young; I don't know if I have been successful, and won't know for years to come.

Anyway, here's to my dad, one of the most important people in my life.

Another 80 years of vim, vigor, spit and blood, sweat and tears.

That is how he would want it to be anyway.

Rant #626: Through the Hoop

2011-11-29T03:24:00.000-08:00

Now onto some better news ...

The NBA's 2011-2012 season will actually be played.

On early Saturday morning, the owners and players agreed, in principle, to a deal which would salvage the season.

Again, this is a tentative deal, and if it passes both the owners' and players' wrath, we will see a 66-game season this year, beginning on Christmas Day.

I am happy that the NBA season might be saved, but I wish they would have waited until this thing was 100-percent approved by both parties.

But I know why they announced a tentative agreement when they did.

It was the Thanksgiving weekend. People were out to shop 'til they dropped.

And now, they had a reason to buy NBA merchandise.

You can bet that merchandise sales--like T-shirts, jackets, hats, and every little chotchka imaginable--dropped while the two sides were haggling.

People were getting turned off big time.

But now, with an agreement supposedly in hand, people could show confidence again in the NBA, and buy its merchandise with pride.

There is always a tie-in to why things happen, isn't there?

The owners seem to have won this duel. They got their percentage of basketball-related income--BRI, another new acronym that we really don't need--to a more manageable level, and that is really all they wanted, wasn't it?

Sure, there are other things that they wanted, but this was the big thing, carving up a billion-dollar pie to their advantage.

But, raspberries to both sides.

With so many people out of work, underemployed, and miserably employed, and with so many people finding it hard to put food on the table during this prolonged recession that we are in, for millionaires to be fighting with billionaires like this puts them out of the realm of reality.

At least baseball gets this, years after their own strike, and ratified their own collective bargaining agreement without any fanfare or acrimony at all.

More importantly, all the industries that feed off an NBA season, like ticket takers, vendors, and restaurants, took a hit with this.

Of course, the players and owners claim they care about these people, but, c'mon, do they really? If they did, they would have settled this thing a long time ago.

And again, it is not yet a done deal, so while I would love to get some Knicks tickets for my son and myself, I am not reaching into my wallet just yet.

Let's see what happens.

Rant #625: Glad the Holiday Is Over

2011-11-28T03:48:00.000-08:00

I always look forward to the Thanksgiving holiday break. It gives me four days to recharge my batteries, and when I go back to work, I dive right into whatever I am doing.

And it is great to have four days off to share with my family.

Well, this year, I am not happy to say that I am glad the break is over. It wasn't the greatest holiday in the world for me.

Oh, yes, I did what I normally do. I bought everything I need for Hanukkah prior to the holiday and prior to the dreaded Black Friday. And I really did well. I got everything I wanted to get for family and friends.

We celebrated Thanksgiving at my sister's house this year. Although we didn't spend that much time there--my mother is a little under the weather--it was fun.

REMAINDER OF POST REMOVED BY REQUEST.

Rant #624: How Will You Choose to Celebrate Thanksgiving?

2011-11-23T03:27:00.000-08:00

Well, it is the day before the Thanksgiving holiday.

And the day before the day before Black Friday.

How do you choose to spend your holiday?

My family and I will be celebrating the holiday at my sister's house this year. For the past several years, we have made the big turkey at our house, but this year, it will be over at my sister's abode.

My parents will be there, and it will give me a chance to see three of my nephews.

I don't know if I will see my daughter. She has been out of sight, out of mind for the past few weeks. I don't really know why.

On Black Friday, I plan to not get involved in all the sales hoopla of the day.

Last year, I got a terrific deal on a computer for my mother, which I bought for her 80th birthday. It was something I could not pass up, so, for the first time in memory, I got up real early on this day, and waited in line for the store to open. And I got the last one they had at such a price.

This year, my pocketbook will hopefully rest for that day.

But you never know ...

This is the oddest holiday period of the year, going from one extreme to the next.

Thanksgiving is such a joyous holiday, very family oriented. I really like that aspect of it, and it is my favorite holiday on the calendar, along with Passover, which, similarly, is family oriented.

Then we have Black Friday, a day where all of the animalistic instincts of our species come out. People are generally nasty, rude, vulgar, and hateful, because they are all out to do one thing: buy, buy, and buy some more.

I can live without Black Friday, I really can.

So it is really up to the individual to choose how he will celebrate the holiday.

Will you bask in the joyousness of Thanksgiving, or burn in the insensitivity of Black Friday?

Or will you do both?

Me, I am going to relax as much as I can.

I am very happy to be off from work on both days, so I have what amounts to a four-day holiday to recharge my batteries.

Have a great holiday. Speak to you again on Monday.

Rant #623: Time To Remember

2011-11-22T03:22:00.000-08:00

Amid all the Thanksgiving holiday cheer, I think we must pause to remember that today is the 48th anniversary of one of the most chilling periods in our country's recent history.

President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in a motorcade in Dallas on this day in 1963.

I have spoken about this event many, many times, and have done it on this blog too.

All these years later, it continues to send shivers up my spine.

I won't rehash my personal story again, although I will say that I was in the school, and we heard about it via another teacher and then an announcement on the loud speaker system. We went home, watched its aftermath, and it has stayed with us for decades.

JFK was the first hero of our generation to die, followed a few years later by Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Whatever you think of those men, for the baby boomer generation, they were living and breathing touchstones for our existence.

But JFK was the President, so it was something much, much different.

The country's leader was gunned down, and we kind of lost our innocence then. This signaled that the 1950s were truly over, and we were moving into a new world, the 1960s, which would end up being probably the most revolutionary decade in our country's history.

Everything was turned upside down during that decade, and JFK's assassination pretty much started all of that to happen.

Remember, he was probably the last President whose portrait hung on walls of our homes.

The U.S. President was revered in those days. He was an icon. He was respected. We believed everything he said, and rallied around everything he did.

After JFK's assassination, things changed. The country changed. And the world changed.

Could you imagine if in 1963 we had the Internet, cell phones, and the like?

No, those were much simpler times on the outside, but very complex on the inside, just like today's world is.

So with the holiday turkey in sight, take a moment to think about JFK.

If you weren't around, read up on him, and read up on the day that the world stopped, at least for a brief moment, when some person decided that he would be JFK's judge, jury and executioner.

Like I said, the chills still run up and down my spine.

Rant #622: Something to "SMiLE" About

2011-11-21T03:34:00.000-08:00

I alluded to this release a couple of Rants back, but now, it's time to review this long-awaited LP.

The "SMiLE" set by the Beach Boys has arrived in stores, and with the holidays right around the corner, it might be time to invest some of your hard-earned cash into buying this release.

It comes in three version, as far as I know: the all inclusive boxed set, which not only comes with several CDs worth of songs, sound-bytes, dialogue and other features, but it also comes complete with the album on vinyl and a couple of vinyl singles.

Then you have the more economical boxed set, with two CDs and a button to wear on your shirt.

Finally, you have the vinyl LP version. This approximates the way it would have been released in early 1967 if the album would have ever seen the light of day.

I opted for the middle ground: the economical boxed set, which at 20 some odd dollars, fit my wallet a little better than the all-inclusive boxed set, which would have run me about $150. imagine the vinyl LPs would have cost me in the $35-$40 range, so what I did was save a little bread for myself.

Anyway, onto the recording.

As you probably know, "SMiLE"--and that is how it was supposed to look--was an album that Brian Wilson was creating for his Beach Boys. So many things got in the way--illness, in-group fighting, drugs, and probably more drugs--that this album never was finished in its entirety, and although it was to be released in January 1967, only bits and pieces of the LP ever were officially released, although bootlegs abound.

Right off, I am going to tell you that this album is not "Pet Sounds." That LP is probably Wilson and the Beach Boys' finest work, and this is not that, it doesn't even come close, if you want my opinion.

"SMiLE" isn't really an album, per se, or an album as we came to know what albums were during the mid to late 1960s.

Sure, there is music on it, but it more of a sound collage than anything else.

The music is often intercepted by noises, other sounds, and really, I think what Wilson was getting at was that he wanted to make this sort of the aural equivalent to being at a carnival, with all the sounds, rides, barkers, and everybody else going at it at once, trying to get your attention.

It's the same thing here. There is so much going on, so much for your ear to nibble on, if you will.

But does it all work?

That is the big question, and my answer is, that I really don't know.

Even after listening to this thing, I just don't know if Wilson's vision would have translated to the acclaim that he evidently so wanted.

He wanted it so much that it might have led to his eventual nervous breakdown.

The centerpiece of "SMiLE" was not, in my opinion, "Good Vibrations," which was being worked on at the same time as the rest of the LP. The centerpiece, was "Heroes and Villains," a weaker song than "Good Vibrations" but still a powerful one.

The song, like "Good Vibrations," did eventually get released, and became a hit single. But as the centerpiece of the LP, all of the bits and pieces given to us here demonstrate how Wilson worked and worked and worked on this song to make it perfect--just like he did with "Good Vibrations."

If I learned anything from this release, it is that "Heroes and Villains" was held in the same esteem by Wilson as was "Good Vibrations," and that miscalculation may have led to the LP's downfall and non-release until now.

Wilson was a perfectionist, a perfectionist stressed out on being perfect, abetted by lots of drugs.

His attempt to get this album right--and to get those two songs to a state of perfection--stuck a nail into this set.

What we have now, more than 40 years after the fact, is Wilson's vision, all right, but what his actual vision for the album was may never be known.

Wilson, himself, released his own version of the LP a few years ago, and it was one of the best albums of the year. But again, it was his vision more than 40 years after the fact.

What was his original vision? What did he want the album to say, what did he want the album to do?

This current album is the closest we probably will ever get to peer into his drug-addled mind at that time.

And for that, it is worth every penny.

If you are looking for a classic, a masterpiece, a master work from one of rock's greatest composers, I don't think you are going to get that here.

I wonder if Wilson, himself, thought that the project was doomed to failure, and that made him work even harder--and ingest more drugs into himself--to try to make it better than it really was.

I don't know about any of that, but I can tell you that SMiLE is worth your while.

I don't know if, when you finish listening to this, you will want to listen to it again and again.

That is my watermark for a classic. Any album that you want to hear again and again is a classic.

I don't think "SMiLE" is that, or even would have been that in 1967.

But it foreshadowed the coming album boom, when acts led by the Beatles took the LP format and made it into more than simply a collection of singles and other songs.

"SMiLE" might put a smile on your face, but is it a classic, a masterpiece.

No. Its legend precedes it, but don't be fooled.

"SMiLE" is a fine album, I think it is at least. But it is no classic, no masterpiece.

I don't think that Wilson regressed with this LP, I just think he got in over his head with a vision that he probably wasn't going to reach, even if he were completely sober.

Don't listen to snooty rock critics. They have no idea what they are talking about.

Go back to "Pet Sounds" and compare.

But get "SMiLE" anyway. You won't be sorry that you did.

Rant #621: The World HAS Gone Crazy

2011-11-18T03:17:00.000-08:00

I look at the calendar, and it says November 18.

It's a mere six days before Thanksgiving, and a week until Black Friday.

But when I saw this news item, I could have sworn it had April 1, April Fool's Day, written all over it.

NBC and the people that did the failed show "Pushing Daisies" are reportedly teaming up to create a revival of the classic CBS sitcom "The Munsters."

That in itself is an insipid thing to do, but they are really throwing themselves into the dumpster by what they plan to do with the show.

They are planning on making it into an hour long drama.

That's right, an hour long drama.

How can you make a situation comedy featuring a family of oddball characters like this into a drama?

Remember, "The Munsters" was originally a takeoff/satire on one of the creators' original shows.

Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher were the talent involved in the creation of "Leave It To Beaver," one of TV's most beloved sitcoms. The family was perfect--although Beaver was not, which is where most of the comedy came from--but they lived in a perfect city, had a perfect mom, a perfect dad, Wally was the perfect brother, and even Eddie Haskell was the perfect instigator.

A few years later, Connelly and Mosher came up with "The Munsters" as a perfect counterpoint to their earlier show. Here, you had a family of what most of us would call monsters, but they also had the "perfect" family. The only "imperfect" one was Marilyn, because she ... well, she stuck out like a sore thumb.

How can you make this show into a drama? Just the sight of the hulking Herman, the gorgeous but ghoulish Lily, the smart but vampiric Grandpa, and the mite Eddie would have to put a smile on your face.

How can they make this into a drama?

Will Herman be having affairs with the women he works with at the parlor, because his hulking stature also brings with it some other unforeseen prowesses?

Will Lily actually be having an affair with the milkman, because, like her husband, she has certain prowesses too?

How about Grandpa? Will he create a device so he can be a peeping tom on the rest of Mockingbird Heights?

And little Eddie ... is he really a drug dealer/user, and that's why his skin is so green?

Let's not forget Marilyn ... heaven knows what they have in store for this character.

Look, it's not like "The Munsters" haven't been revived several times already.

Not only did some of the original cast appear in the theatrical "Munster, Go Home" (which actually was supposed to herald the show's third season, which never happened) and a TV movie here or there, but other actors have portrayed the family in several TV movies and one absolutely dreadful 1980s show "The New Munsters."

Several years ago, the Wayan Brothers were supposed to be involved with a revival of the show--with an all-black cast.

But to actually make such a comedic situation into a drama ... well, that's why network television is so bad nowadays.

I guarantee they will have a "Charlie's Angels" situation on their hands if this thing ever sees the light of day.

I give it one or two episodes, tops.

And while they're at it, why not make "I Love Lucy" into a drama too. Heck, I always wondered what Ethel saw in the much older Fred ...

Maybe there's a premise here for something really, really big.

Rant #620: Somebody's Baby

2011-11-17T04:14:00.000-08:00

Amid all the other things happening in this world we live in, I am sure that you heard that the paternity suit against teen idol Justin Bieber was dropped.

The woman dropped her case after Bieber said he would not only take a paternity test to prove his innocence, but would also file a countersuit against her, presumably for defamation of character.

The woman, 20, claimed that she had an encounter backstage with Bieber, 17, and even though the suit was dropped, she is still pressing her claim that he fathered her child.

Yes, and I am sure Bieber fathered many, many more children around the country and around the world since he became a superstar about two years ago.

This has been going on since time began. An "innocent" woman claims that a famous person has fathered her child.

Sometimes, the claim is right on the money, as in the John Edwards situation.

Other times ... well, the women are simply delusional.

Or perhaps they think they will get a quick buck from a celebrity who doesn't want to go through the whole public relations mess that a paternity suit might bring.

I remember an interview that Micky Dolenz--one of the all-time great pop idols as a member of the Monkees--gave to Tom Snyder on the old "Tomorrow" show years ago.

Snyder asked him and Davy Jones point blank about the number of paternity suits that were filed against the two, and the other Monkees, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith, during their heyday.

He said something to the effect that, "Yes, many were filed. We used to hook up with other musicians, and compare notes. I would ask another musician, 'Did you get that letter in the mail from the Cathcart family of North Carolina, claiming that you fathered their daughter's child?,' and they would say 'Yes.' The problem was that it was a form letter and we used to get the same letter from dozens of families around the country. Nothing ever came of any of them."

Look, these guys aren't that innocent. Their pop stardom allows them to pick and choose, if they so desire, women (or in today's world, men and women), who they might like to have flings with.

Don't tell me that Bieber and Dolenz are/were immune to that type of lifestyle. That's how groupies came about, and yes, there are plenty of groupies even in today's politically correct age.

Bieber's accuser's lawyer claims that the lawsuit was never officially dismissed, so there is a possibility that it could be reopened.

If I were talking to the accuser, I would say she should move on. She appears to have some type of mental problem, and I would get that taken care of before she continues to proclaim that Bieber is the father.

I never thought I would defend Bieber, but I am now.

Because this time, he is right.

Rant 619: Wrong Justify ...

2011-11-16T04:36:00.000-08:00

Television often brings out the best--and the worst--in those that we watch.

We have seen people fried by what they say on the air--remember Al Campanis?--and I think that the latest crash and burn took place the other day, when former Penn State Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky answered a few questions put to him by Bob Costas about alleged inappropriate conduct carried out by the coach against young boys.

During the interview, which was played on the air, Sandusky denied--but did not vehemently deny--any illicit interactions with youngsters during his days at Penn State and while running his organization for troubled youth.

Costas asked him point blank if he had any sexual leanings toward young boys, and Sandusky said no, but he came off as being as guilty as sin.

Why?

His reactions weren't quick, and they weren't strong, either.

He had to think about each question, repeating each question as if he needed more time to think out a good answer.

Sandusky admitted to taking showers with young boys, some horseplay, even some touching on the leg and hugging, but he denied that he got sexual charges out of any of this. Rather, he said, he should not have taken showers with the boys.

Light the match. He fried himself.

First off, a then 40- or 50-year old man should not, under any circumstances, be taking showers with children. I don't care if it was "innocent," there is no reason to be doing this. None.

And second, the "horseplay" that he spoke about--why did he engage in this behavior at all?

The repugnant thing that this now 60-some year old pedophile tried to do with this interview is justify that what he did was not sexually motivated, but some type of simple interplay with wayward youth.

The guy disgusts me.

The latest angle to this is that now others have come forward and said they were molested by this creep. That's beyond the original eight who claimed molestation.

And then we have another assistant coach, Mike McQueary, who says he not only reported a sexual encounter he witnessed between Sandusky and a child to the proper college authorities, including Head Coach Joe Paterno, but he also contacted police.

In a Nov. 8 email from McQueary to a friend, which was made available to The Associated Press, McQueary said: "I did stop it, not physically ... but made sure it was stopped when I left that locker room ... I did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police .... no one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30-45 seconds ... trust me."

He also reportedly said in the email that he was "getting hammered for handling this the right way ... or what I thought at the time was right ... ."

He is now justifying his actions too ... and he is no better than the alleged perpetrator.

McQueary was placed on indefinite paid leave last week after school officials said he had received threats.

Why is this all coming out now, years after the fact? That no one thought that Sandusky should be removed from his position as assistant coach and should also be removed from the organization that he created is beyond me.

What it boils down to is that this situation really is an indictment against the entire NCAA system, which has been rife with holes and loopholes for years with few people calling attention to these infractions.

Sports--and primarily football and basketball--is put before anything else at the NCAA. Colleges and universities' educational programs--their primary reason for being--are overshadowed by their football and basketball programs. People in these programs are put on a pedestal, and it's real hard to knock them off.

Why no one is questioning the NCAA about this coverup is also beyond me. The entire environment is suspect, and they foster that environment.

I hope everyone involved in this gets what they deserve. Those kids got what they didn't deserve, and nothing these perpetrators, solicitors, and all those who looked the other way will get will ever make up for what was taken from these kids.

Rant #618: It's Over

2011-11-15T04:01:00.000-08:00

Two things ended yesterday.

At least for all intents and purposes they ended yesterday.

First, the Wall Street marchers who have camped out at Manhattan's Zuccotti Park have been removed, some forcibly, by police.

The park needs to be cleaned, and more importantly, the owners of businesses in the area, as well as area residents, have had it up to here with the debris, noise, and let's be honest about it, the vermin that have been attracted to this form of disobedience.

I really think most Americans supported the marchers, and other similar events across the country, when they first started out. People were finally getting together to try to alert those in power that they were aware of what was going on and weren't going to take it anymore.

However, over the past weeks, the marchers really have become nothing but squatters. They don't really have any focus anymore, with many factions breaking away from the original intent of those gathering at these events.

It's really flash mobs gone awry. Every freak in the area of these marches have been drawn to them, and reports of rape and other violent acts have become the norm.

They made their point; now it is time to move on.

Then we have a group at the other end of the equation, those making money like they had their own machines printing legal tender.

The National Basketball Association lockout has reached its apex, or nadir, depending on where you stand with the issue, and it appears the season just may be lost because millionaires can't agree with billionaires on how to split a multi-billion-dollar pie.

They haggled back and forth for weeks, but the players have rejected the last offer by the league in a 50/50 split of basketball revenues.

The players have threatened to decertify their union, and the players, in turn, will probably sue the league for anti-trust violations.

In times when the recession is eating away at about 98 percent of us, how can the players--and the owners--justify this game they are playing, one which doesn't involved a bouncing ball or a hoop?

They are as out of touch with what is going on, what the original Wall Street protesters were yelling about, as any group of people could be.

The other thing that links these two "ends" is that at this point in time, does anybody really care about what happens to either group?

Sure, I am sure there is more sympathy for the Wall Street protesters, but I think their welcome has worn thin.

How anybody can support either the owners or the players in the NBA dispute is beyond me.

Quite frankly, I am turned off by both "ends."

I think it is time to move on.

I think the protesters should investigate some more concrete means to get their points across. They are all over the place as far as the issues, and from where I sit, it looks more like a circus than a protest.

The NBA players and owners should look at what is happening in this country and the world, and they should kiss the ground that they are who they are.

It is time to move on. It really is.

Rant #617: Onward to 1,000--and Beyond!

2011-11-14T03:41:00.000-08:00

Is this the slowest news time of the year or what?

There isn't much going on to waste a column on, so I am going to waste a column on some self promotion.

My lone video on YouTube is nearing 1,000 hits. It's been up several months and quite frankly, I can't believe it even has 500 hits. let alone nearly 1,000.

Sure, popular clips on YouTube often get 1 million or more hits, but I am pretty happy with what this clip has received.

If you don't know about it, it is a less than 60-second clip from my childhood.

I was a big Little Leaguer, playing in my community--my fabled Rochdale Village, South Jamaica Queens, New York--Little League up until I was 15, a year past when my family and I moved away from this development.

I loved to play, even though I wasn't a very good player at all.

And you can see it all in this video.

I suspect that this was taken when I was eight or nine years old, so we are talking about the 1965-1966 time frame. My father took the clip on an old 8mm camera, pretty high-tech for those days.

I won't ruin it for you if you haven't yet seen the video, but my athletic ineptitude is demonstrated by this less than a minute clip.

I guess that some kids are good athletically, and some aren't.

I wasn't. I loved sports, but I really couldn't play any of them.

I was never the worst of the group, but I was always chosen next to last or next to next to last or next to next to next to last when we were choosing up sides.

And this clip really shows the world how "good" I was.

Anyway, it is nearing the 1,000 hit level. I am sure I went onto the clip probably 100 times myself for one reason or another, but evidently several others have also taken a look.

I hope they found it as hilarious as I do.

Onward to 1,000--and beyond!

(And yes, that is me today. And that Yankee hat is from the 1970s--I am sure I will be buried in it when my time comes.)

Rant #616: 11/11/11

2011-11-11T03:23:00.000-08:00

Happy Veterans Day. Rather than shop until you drop today, give at least some pause to why we have a holiday today. The men and women who have served our country, and continue to fight wars overseas, are the true heroes of this land, and while some people have called into question why we do what we do during different eras in our country's history, we should all be on the same page with our past, current and future service members.

They should be applauded.

Okay, today also happens to be 11/11/11.

One one, one one, one one.

I would think today would be thought of to be a lucky day for some. That's why the rate of people getting married today--on a Friday--is going to be very high.

And, it's not like we are waiting for a 2/22/22 with any anticipation.

Heck, I will be nearly 65 years of age then. Let's not rush it, I am very happy being 54 right now.

And I am sure, as I brought up yesterday, that my wife is very happy where she is with her age. Well, she probably would love to turn back the clock, but it isn't going to happen.

Anyway, I have to work today. This makes little sense, to be quite honest about it, because it is a federal holiday honoring our veterans and current service members. I just happen to work on a publication that covers military exchanges (department stores) and commissaries (supermarkets), stores that cater to service members and their families.

Why are we open today? I don't know, I really don't.

But it is novel to have 11/11/11, isn't it?

How about young people who celebrate their 11th birthday today--11 on 11/11/11.

That makes the day really special for them.

How am I going to celebrate today?

Other than writing about the people that today's holiday is all about, tonight, I am taking my wife out to dinner to celebrate her birthday, which of course was yesterday.

So I guess I am killing three birds with one stone, celebrating both a holiday that I don't have off for, but should, writing about the people that the holiday is celebrating, and celebrating my wife's birthday.

11/11/11 ... somehow, I am happy there won't be a 22/22/22 in my future.

Have a good holiday, and remember our fighting forces. That is what today is really all about.

Rant #615: Happy Birthday!

2011-11-10T03:24:00.000-08:00

Usually, when I celebrate a birthday here, it is for some celebrity who has made an impact on my life, usually in some small way.

Well, today I celebrate the birthday of a non-celebrity who has made an impact on my life in a very large way.

Today, I celebrate the birthday of my wife.

I am a lucky guy, I admit it. About 20 some odd years ago, I met this woman through a dating service. I was going through my divorce, and I admit I was lonely. I had a decent job, and it was time to move on from that disastrous first marriage and look for female companionship.

Not wanting to go the bar scene, and not having time to look around myself, I decided to do something completely different.

I signed up with the dating service, then I lost my job. I was laid off, and this was the beginning of a year and a half odyssey to find regular employment.

So here I was, going through a divorce, without a job, and without a clue about what my future would bring me.

It was undoubtedly the lowest part of my entire life.

I had signed up and paid for the dating service, so I figured I would use the service. What did I have to lose?

I went on a couple of dates, but none of them really did much for me. The girls were generally nice, but not my type.

Then, I went to the office, and the woman handling my case asked me this simple question: "What type of girl do you want?"

I hesitated for a moment, and asked her what she meant. She repeated the question. I got it then.

I described the type of girl I wanted top to bottom, and I really mean that, top to bottom.

She set up a date, gave me her number, and we started by talking on the phone for probably a half hour or so. It stands as the longest phone call I have ever had with my wife to date. Neither of us are that much of a phone talker.

Anyway, we went over our likes and dislikes, what celebrity we looked like (people told me at the time I looked like Dustin Hoffman, which I still think is wrong; she said Adrienne Barbeau, who she kinda does look like but kinda doesn't, if you know what I mean).

We then decided to meet at a local Friday's.

I went to the restaurant, and stood outside looking for her.

Then I caught her image.

She was a knockout. Well dressed, nice hair, pretty, nice figure.

I introduced myself and we entered the restaurant.

We talked for several hours about a lot of things. I told her up front my situation, and she seemed to accept it.

I asked her out again, and the rest is history.

My wife believed in me from the get go, and I can't tell you how much that helped me during this period where I didn't know which way was up.

I finally got employment, we got engaged, we lived together for about a year, and we got married in June 1993. We had our son in August 1995, giving my daughter from my first marriage a brother.

I really love my wife. She is my Rock of Gibraltar. I would do just about anything with her, except watch the Ellen Show or The Big Bang Theory, two shows that I hate but she loves.

Anyway, happy birthday to my wife. She is the absolutely greatest thing that ever happened to me.

This Rochdale Village, Jamaica, New York guy couldn't go wrong with a Far Rockaway girl, and I know we will be together forever.

I love you Elena. Have a great birthday!

(No, I won't tell you how old she is. Look at her picture. She is an ageless and timeless beauty to me. And she is like a fine wine, getting better with age.)

Rant #614: On the Watch

2011-11-09T03:40:00.000-08:00

So many things are in the middle of happening right now that I don't know where to begin.

They are stories that are developing right in front of our eyes, and their endpoints are, seemingly, far in the future.

Here are just a few that I, personally, have been watching.

NBA Players Reject Latest Offer From Owners: In an economy where so many people are out of work and so many others are having trouble putting food on the table, don't you find it kind of nauseating that the millionaire players are fighting with billionaire owners over a percentage point or two cut of a billion dollar pie?

There seems to be no end to this, and it will probably go to the courts--not basketball courts--one way or the other if the players seek to decertify their union.

These people live in a different world than most of us, and how both sides fail to see how sickening they are acting is beyond my comprehension.

Herman Cain Continues To Fight Back Against Accusers: The more Cain says he didn't do anything untoward to these ladies, the more I am starting to believe the women.

The only problem I have with this is that they seem to be coming out of the woodwork. When Cain ran for President in 2004, where were these women? Somehow, even though I am starting to see a pattern of behavior that I don't think befits a potential leader of this country, I think these women are coming forward for other reasons, maybe even the hope of a big payday down the line.

Can Cain survive this? Sure he can. Look at Bill Clinton for evidence of that.

Penn State Scandal Gets Worse: If this isn't the most heinous story of the year, I don't know what is. How school officials can put their football program ahead of the safety of children is beyond my understanding.

And it is getting worse. Although eight cases of abuse have been spoken about, I heard this morning that there actually may be more, many more, children who was abused by Joe Paterno's coach. If this is true, and even if it isn't and it remains eight cases, there are a lot of people with blood on their hands in this case, not just the perpetrator.

And yes, they should all be removed from their positions with the school. And that includes Joe Paterno, who didn't do anything illegal, but didn't do anything right either.

A Dog's Life: This is a more personal thing, but my family's dog is hanging in there. He is sick, and that probably isn't going to change, but he is starting to act more like himself than he was a few days and weeks ago.

Look, we know he is not going to get better, he is just going to get worse. But he seems to be almost "content" with his condition. He has learned to live with it to a certain degree, and even though he is 14 1/2 years old, there seems to be a lot of life in the old boy.

Personally, if he can get through the winter, I will be surprised. But I will tell you this, he will die trying.

Rant #613: Go to the "Head" of the Class

2011-11-08T01:52:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know that Joe Frazier died. He was a monumental boxer, and in his own way, helped change America. Frazier was a legend, and he will be missed.

And yes, I know that Dr. Conrad Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson. Well, you just knew that someone would be blamed for this, rather than the singer himself. Even in the court of law, evidently no one is responsible for his own craziness. I wonder that if Jackson were alive, would he have been brought in for hiring this doctor to administer to him drugs that are normally found only in doctors' offices? I guess we will never know.

And yes, the Beach Boys' monumental "Smile" LP has finally been released. More a document of its time than a straight reissue, it is nonetheless, a must album for anyone who is interested in rock and roll as we know it.

That moves me to a straight reissue that came out last week. It is also a monumental recording, and while it has been re-released several times, this newest issue came out on high-grade vinyl.

The Monkees' "Head" soundtrack album, like "Smile," is a document of its time. It was 1968, things were changing fast, and the Beatles had moved from "I Want to Hold Your Hand" to "The End" in a "Magical Mystery Tour" that would screech to a halt just two years later.

The world of cinema was also changing. Using French "New Wave" moviemakers as a touchstone, American filmmakers were starting to push the envelope. New freedoms were being realized, and starting in 1968, just about anything was game.

Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson helped to created the Monkees in 1966, and by doing so, brought the first long hairs to network television. They weren't rapists, murderers, druggies or bums. They were literally the kids next door, and Peter Tork, Mike Nesmith, Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz fit those roles perfectly. They even became a real band, and in 1967, the so-called Summer of Love, they outsold the flowery Beatles and Rolling Stones combined.

But this was 1968. The wheels were falling off the Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville" pretty quickly. Their popular show had surprisingly been cancelled, and a segueway to the big screen was inevitable.

So came "Head."

Written, or really, pieced together by then fledgling actor Jack Nicholson after a weekend binge with the boys, the movie served as a death knoll for the Pre-Fab Four as pop idols and also ripped apart not only rock and roll, but moviemaking at the same time.

It took on everybody and everything in Hollywood, and stands as one of the strangest, and most dead-on, movies about Tinseltown that has ever been committed to celluloid.

The problem was that the Monkees' pre-teen audience didn't get it. This was way beyond them. And it was one of the first movies to garner a rating, and it was "M", which back then, made it something like an "R" rated movie is today. Kids aren't supposed to see those types of movies.

And for hipsters, I mean, it was the Monkees, not the Beatles, and not even an appearance by ultra-hip Frank Zappa could save this film.

The movie flopped, and was destined to fade into the mist with the Monkees themselves.

As we all know, that didn't happen. The Monkees have lived on in one form or another as one of the most popular rock groups of all time. The show is also a document of the times, constantly rerun and repackaged for home video viewing. It was recently re-released on DVD and Blu-ray as part of the boxed set celebrating the films of Schneider and Rafelson.

And the movie has had more than nine lives, becoming one of the all-time cult classics of that exciting, bewildering era. I mean, it was released the year that both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. That was some year!

Anyway, the soundtrack to that movie has been re-released again by Rhino Records on high-grade vinyl. I received it in the mail the other day, and WOW!, what a re-release it is.

It is every bit as good as the various CD releases of the soundtrack that have been in the marketplace in the past. Its nooks and crannies are still there, but the sound quality is superb, even better than a CD.

The Monkees perform just six songs, but they are among the best songs the group ever recorded. In between are various soundbites that make the album sort of a aural stew rather than a traditional soundtrack.

"Porpoise Song" might be the greatest psychedlic pop number ever recorded. This Carole King song, sung to perfection by Micky Dolenz, is both rhythmic and daring at the same time, and you just can't get the song out of your head once you hear it.

Jack Nicholson, who also put the album together, pulled a switch here, because the shorter version of the song is on the LP. The longer version is actually on the original single. But the album version holds up as the better of the two.

"Circle Sky" is perhaps the greatest mix of rock and roll and country that there has ever been. The power of the Mike Nesmith song is felt throughout, abetted by appearances by Neil Young and Ry Cooder.

It is a real stomper, and once again, Nicholson fooled us, using the studio version to the far superior live--all Monkees--version. But the song is still fantastic.

"Can You Dig It" is a song of its time, and once again, Micky's vocals stand out, and actually bring the song to another level. Its use of Indian rhythms was certainly influenced by George Harrison's delvings at the time, and it is a great tune, as written by Peter Tork.

Side two opens with "As We Go Along," which pretty much explains the entire movie in a couple of minutes' time. Micky sounds like Grace Slick on this tune, and it is also one of his best vocal performances.

Then we have "Daddy's Song," a cover of a Harry Nilsson tune that is Davy Jones' showcase on the LP. Nicholson fools us again, using a different track on the LP than is featured in the film.

Finally, we have "Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again," a true rave-up that, like "As We Go Along," sums up the entire film. Peter Tork stands out here as both a writer and singer, certainly his best performance as a Monkee.

What an LP! And yes, it comes with its original mirror cover--get it? "Head"--you become the cover when you look at it.

Rhino's re-release comes with a bonus single, a different, live version of "Circle Sky" and a killer version of "Can You Dig It" with a Peter Tork vocal.

Whew! What a record.

If "Head" is not the greatest rock and roll movie of all time, it is right up among the best, and its soundtrack is a testament to that.

It is that good, and this new re-release is a must have for rock and roll fans of any ilk.

Rant #612: How Many Lives Does a Dog Have?

2011-11-07T03:25:00.000-08:00

Just to keep you up to date on the dog situation at my house, our pet dog Max, who I think was on death row last week, has made something of a recovery.

Ever since the middle of last week, he seems more himself.

Sure, he still has cancer, is dragging his swollen back foot terribly, and he looks like an old dog.

But he is keeping in his bladder fluids and other stuff better now.

He seems peppier, with a lot more play in him, although he won't go after his ball anymore. I guess he doesn't have the pep he once had as a puppy.

And he is eating us out of house and home.

For a sick dog, this dog can eat.

No, that's not a picture of our Max, but I like it anyway.

It's kind of funny. Once my wife and I spoke about putting him down--and spoke about it right in front of him--he seems to have rejuvenated himself. It's almost as if he heard us talking, and doesn't want to go just yet.

Maybe, like an athlete, he is reaching back for one more, even though he is dead tired. Not dead, just dead tired.

I don't know how much longer I give this dog.

The winter is coming, and going in and out of the freezing weather and snow to do his thing might be too much for this mutt.

As it is, he still has trouble going up the stairs.

I told my wife that once he can't go up the stairs anymore--and I have to carry him--that will really signify the end.

But right now, he has gotten a reprieve, from somewhere.

People have been known to live with cancer for years before succumbing to their fate. Perhaps it is the same thing with our Max.

If he continues to take his medicine, and receive the love that we give him, maybe the old boy can last a lot longer than we originally thought he could.

My wife doesn't have the heart to put him down, and even though my resolve is stronger than hers, I think I don't have the heart, either.

He doesn't seem to be in pain, just in a bit of a downslide. And I think he knows it.

But for right now, Max isn't a goner.

If anything, he's a stayer.

But for how long, who knows?

Rant #611: Coming Full Cyrkle

2011-11-04T03:33:00.000-07:00

This week is a pretty prestigious one in the annals of Rock 'N Roll.

Finally, the Beach Boys' "Smile" album has been released, in a number of different formats, including ....

VINYL!!!

Yes, the long elusive LP, which was never completed due to a variety of group mishaps, is finally out. I will probably get it soon, and I can't wait. I have so much bootlegged stuff on this album that I can't imagine that the legitimate release can have any more interesting material, but it supposedly has things that were never legitimately or illegitimately released before.

Since you can probably read a million reviews of the Beach Boys' release, I am going to move on to a group that didn't last long, had only two huge hits, and is an act that doesn't have any new re-releases on its schedule.

The Cyrkle was definitely a product of its time, and it's a group that I have always been enamored with.

Meeting in college in Pennsylvania in the mid 1960s, the band--whose core was Don Dannemann and Tom Dawes--produced some of the lightest-weight pop music possible in the mid-1960s.

Heck, they made a lightweight band like the Association seem out-of-sight by comparison.

Named by John Lennon and managed by Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, the band toured with the Fab Four and had two monster hits--well actually one, and one that got a huge amount of airplay.

"Red Rubber Ball" was not written by Paul Simon alone as many think. It was actually co-written by Simon and Bruce Woodley, who was with the red-hot Seekers at this time. It is everything a pop song should be--light, bouncy, with singalong lyrics that don't get too deep.

I have always loved this song. Simon and Garfunkel actually had a live version of this song, but the Cyrkle's version hits the mark.

"Turn-Down Day" was their second hit, and while it doesn't have the effervescence of the previous song, it follows along the same pattern of good-feeling pop.

They had a couple of other chartmakers, including the irresistible "Please Don't Ever Leave Me" backed with "Money to Burn," which I thought was their best all-around A and B side single, and they had some others, but generally, after two LPs and nine singles on Columbia Records, that was pretty much it for them.

But the story doesn't end here.

The put out the soundtrack to one of the early and classic adult porn films, entitled "The Minx."

The film started out as a standard movie, but the producers felt the film needed a bit more pizzazz, and added sex scenes after the main scenes were filmed.

Anyway, this was the Cyrkle's last hurrah, and while it isn't their best stuff, what a swan song it was!

Their total output is available on CD, and you can find these out-of-print collections on amazon.com.

But their story doesn't end there, either.

Both Dannemann and Dawes went into the commercial jingle field, and they wrote jingles for many major products. Dawes wrote the "Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is" jingle for Alka Seltzer, and that is just one of many that the two put together over the years.

Dawes passed away a few years ago, and Dannemann is still around. In 1980, he and his wife released a tune about John Lennon which I simply cannot find. It is the one Cyrkle-related artifact that I can't locate.

If you are fan of 1960s pop, the Cyrkle is a band to investigate.

Then, get the Beach Boys' release.

You just can't go wrong with either the Beach Boys or the Cyrkle.

You just can't.

Rant #610: "Occupy Wall Street" Is Over (Or Should Be)

2011-11-03T03:25:00.000-07:00

Making your point is one thing, overstaying your welcome is another.

I think that after six weeks, Occupy Wall Street protesters have made their point. Corporate America is partly to blame for the current economic state of this country. I don't think too many people can dispute that.

They made their point, but now, they are overstaying their welcome.

The ones who are still part of this movement, and who are occupying Zuccotti Park in Manhattan, are becoming parasites rather than protesters.

They are feeding off the initial goodwill that New York City showed them, and they are starting to cross the boundaries of staying too long at the party.

It seems that for every diehard protester, there are hangers on who really don't care about what is going on, but they are in for a free meal.

And based on recent news reports, some of them are also in for a good feel, as at least one "protester" has been brought up on sexual harassment charges.

According to news reports, the protesters are littering the streets, relieving themselves all over the park, destroying businesses in the area, and they are becoming more violent and defiant.

And as the movement has spread, the defiance and violence quotients are up. Look at what is happening in Oakland, the site of the Berkeley student protests of the 1960s.

It's becoming not a non-violent protest, but a mob scene, with a mob mentality.

The people who are part of this movement are basically descendants of the people who took over the universities in the 1960s. Many are from rich families, and they use corporate America when they need to, blast them when they don't.

Sure, many are homeless, out of work, in poverty, and are in other forms of personal disarray.

And their initial point was a good one.

But like I have said, they have overstayed their welcome. They made their point, and now it is time to move on.

They have become a joke, not a flashpoint for change.

Trying to shut down docks, office buildings and other commerce generators is not making a point, it is giving reasons for the effected companies to lay off workers.

Is that what the goal is now?

I think the goals have become somewhat frazzled now. People are just coming to the meeting places, with their iPads and cell phones created by corporate America, to be seen. They don't care about being heard anymore, they just want to be seen. And many don't go back to the park, the take the railroad back to their homes in Long Island and Westchester.

Cushy indeed.

And lest we forget, lots of celebrities, who would be down and out and not reeling in millions without the backing of various corporations, are showing up, to be seen.

One person who actually has been in attendance at some of the rallies actually told me that a major celebrity, who shall remain nameless, appeared at the meeting place after exiting a limousine.

C'mon now, let's get real!

I have not been there, and have no plans to. But if you want to believe what you read, this movement, if you will call it that, is populated not by protesters, but by squatters.

I think it is time to close it down, and close it down before there are any more problems.

And if it lasts any longer, you can bet there will be problems, and plenty of them.

And what have the protesters actually accomplished other than bring attention to themselves?

Nothing--absolutely nothing.

And they have become warts to the communities that they have seized.

It is time to use wart remover.

Get rid of them, and get rid of them before this becomes a situation that is completely out of control.

Rant #609: Dog's Day Afterthought

2011-11-02T03:50:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned yesterday, everything isn't going my way lately.

There are some good things happening, and some bad.

Here is the "ultimate" bad.

My family's dog, Max, a part of our family for 14 1/2 years, is not doing too well right now.

The last time we took him to the vet, this mutt--a mixed breed terrier and pit bull--had a bad left hind leg that he couldn't walk on. We were told that he had cancer in that area, and chances are that it would affect his bowel movement, since the use of his hind legs to squat is essential. Also, the cancer probably would spread.

I look at this dog--not the dog in the photo but he kind of looks like Max--and remember when he was a puppy and then an older dog. He was a house dog, but he had all the pep of a puppy up until about two or three months ago.

One day, after I took him out to do his thing, he almost fell down the stairs. He hurt his left hind leg, and was limping pretty badly.

We took him to the vet, and they did a couple of things to him, and he appeared to be fine.

But then, a few weeks after that, he almost fell down the stairs again, and yes, the left hind leg was bad all over again.

That is when we took him to the vet and was given the word that Max has cancer.

Max is a good, loyal dog. I swear he understands every word I say to him.

And yes, I think he understands that his days are numbered.

I look into his face now, and I see a hollow face, not the one that I remember.

He almost looks like he is asking us to put him down.

And yes, he is losing control of himself ... all over the house.

I have broached the subject of putting him down with my wife. My wife kind of agreed, but now she is backing off.

She just doesn't have the heart to do it.

And honestly, neither do I, although I am realistic, and I know that it is probably the best thing for him.

We were originally going to do this during the weekend on Saturday, but now my wife has said that she simply can't do it.

Max is eating well, and he still barks a lot when he wants food or water or a treat.

But he is a shell of his former self.

We simply don't know what to do with him.

Prior to Max, we had another terrier/pit bull mutt. His name was Mikey.

He had an awful disposition. He was nasty, and very vindictive.

He got old. He had tumors all over his body, and cowered under our bed. He couldn't hear or see very well.

It was a no brainer, and we had to put him down.

That day was a horrible one. My wife was working, but myself, my father, and my son, who was a baby at the time, took him to the pound.

Mikey knew where he was going, and put up a fight, but in the end, it was for the better of all of us, including him.

To see him suffer was probably almost as horrible as his own suffering.

I had nightmares about that dog for six months after we did this. I really did.

I don't like to play God, but I think Max's time may have come.

And like Mikey, I think he knows it.

People claim that animals do not have souls. I don't know about fish, gerbils, hamsters, cats or ferrets, but dogs do have souls.

They know when they have done wrong, and they know when they have done something right.

And I do believe they know when the end is near.

And Max knows exactly what is going on. I am convinced of it.

What to do? I simply don't know.

Do we let him literally shrivel up to nothing, losing himself in every portion of our house?

Or do we put him out of his obvious misery?

Like I said, I just don't know.

Any thoughts on this matter would be appreciated.

Rant #608: All Is Well In My World (Sort Of)

2011-11-01T03:23:00.000-07:00

All is well in the world, at least in my world.

That isn't really true. There are some unsettled things.

But generally, everything in my world is copacetic.

Sort of.

The Yankees signed CC Sabathia again to another lucrative contract extension.

That is good.

Kim Kardashian has ended her marriage to a basketball player after less than three months of wedded bliss.

Good. Really, who cares anyway?

The NBA is still not playing games, and the owners and players appear to be in a downward spiral to oblivion.

I am sure that some of you are again saying "Who cares," but I do care.

Millionaires arguing with billionaires over petty money issues is a downer.

And in this lousy economy, it is a punch in the face to families who are having a hard time putting food on the table everyday.

And I like basketball. I really do. So with the prospects of no 2011-2012 season looming, what am I going to do with myself?

Not shovel snow, I can tell you that.

Not now, at least.

At least in my neck of the woods, that fall snow storm brought nothing with it.

Sure, it was weird seeing snow in October, but we didn't get anything, or really next to nothing. Some areas got nearly two feet of snow, which falling leaves fell on top of.

It's too early for that, isn't it?

So, I guess all is well in my world, but to a point.

And later in the week, I have to tell you some bad news, at least on my end, that assures that this week really isn't that great after all.

Stay tuned.

Rant #607: Lucky Seven (Billion)

2011-10-31T03:24:00.000-07:00

First off, happy Halloween.

Second, congratulations to the St. Louis Cardinals for winning the World Series.

Now, we can get to the meatier stuff on the menu.

Today, our world is supposed to welcome its seven billionth member. The United Nations is calculating that today is the day.

I don't know how this is calculated, but supposedly, 51 babies are born every minute in the world.

I don't have statistics about how many people die each minute--and thus, are replaced by the newbies--but through some mathematical calculation, we are supposed to reach the seven billion mark today.

And if you thought that most of those people were protesting at events like Occupy Wall Street, that isn't true.

The continent of Asia supplies us with more than half of our world population, with 4.2 billion people living there.

That is so even with our Octomom, who has contributed, what, 14 kids to the equation.

Just who will be the seven millionth citizen of this planet?

I guess it is hard to calculate. Every kid born today will have a chance to be permanently impaled with that achievement.

How would you like the burden of being the seven billionth person on the planet?

Seven is normally a lucky number, but seven billion ... I just don't know.

More babies are born per year than people die, so I don't think the seven billion mark will last that long. So somewhere down the line, we will hit eight billion, then nine billion, and then 10 billion.

It will happen.

Where we are going to put all these people is beyond me. Maybe if we get the space program going again, some of them can populate the moon.

But wherever we put them, it's inevitable. The population is growing and there is little or nothing we can do about it.

Remember the idea of Zero Population Growth? Basically, a man and woman simply replacing themselves down the line with two children, and that's it.

Well, that appears to be a pipe dream. People will have as many kids as they want, and then some.

So move over, make room. Number eight billion is probably just around the corner.

Rant #606: Pre-Spook Halloween

2011-10-28T03:41:00.000-07:00

I know Halloween is on Monday, and I will have a Rant that day, but since so many adults will celebrate this occasion during the weekend--Monday is, after all, a work day--I figured I would talk about it today.

Halloween just isn't what it used to be.

I remember Halloween as a kids' day, but the holiday has been co-opted by what we used to call "The Establishment." It is now a holiday for adults, and not really for kids anymore.

Adults dress up, have Halloween parties, and act like the kids they were decades before.

Children dress up, have parties, and barely go trick or treating anymore.

What a shame.

My childhood, as I have said many times, was spent in a wonderful--and equally frustrating--place called Rochdale Village, in South Jamaica, Queens, New York.

The place had five sections, a total of 20 buildings, each building with three sections (A, B, C), 13 stories apiece, and about seven apartments on every floor.

Thousands of families lived there, so Halloween was simply the greatest holiday that there was.

We would go from building to building, section to section, apartment to apartment, and get our candy, money, and whatever else people threw in our bags.

We used to get bags and bags and bags of stuff.

It was simply incredible how those bags filled up like they did.

The bags had to be checked, of course, and my mother used to sit down with my sister and myself to go through the contents.

I remember one year, my sister got an apple with pins in it. We knew exactly where the apple came from--an elderly woman in our building--but in those days, you really didn't do much about it. You just knew not to visit that apartment again the next year.

And since I have never really been a candy eater, I gave all my candy to my sister. My sister has a sweet tooth, and believe me, between the Halloween candy I gave her, and the baseball card gum I gave her, is it any wonder that she has had problems with her teeth as an adult?

But Halloween was simply heaven to kids living in my development.

Heck, with all the pennies I got, if I could have kept them all, I could probably buy a slice of pizza today.

But all kidding aside, how can a Halloween like this compare with Halloween today?

It can't. It simply can't.

And that is why Halloween today is a far cry from what I--and probably many of you--celebrated way back when.

I wish it could be the same way today, but it can't.

Today, I basically look at Halloween as a nuisance.

We decorate our home, and put out candy for the kids, but hardly anybody visits.

And since Halloween is on a school night this year, I expect even fewer kids to be out.

So happy Halloween, but don't tell me that the holiday in 2011 is the same as it was in 1967.

It isn't the same thing, no matter where you grew up.

It just isn't.

Rant #605: Happy Birthday, Ralph

2011-10-27T03:30:00.000-07:00

Ralph Kiner is 89 today.

It is hard to believe that the youthful Kiner is nearing 90, but I guess we all get older.

If you are a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, you know of Kiner's exploits on the baseball field.

As the 2011 season nears its end, Kiner continues to stand as one of the most feared sluggers in the history of the game.

But to New Yorkers, and especially Mets fans, Kiner is something else entirely.

When the fledgling franchise began operations in 1962, Kiner was the third voice hired to guide fans through the pitfalls--and pratfalls--of the expansion team.

Along with Lindsey Nelson and Bob Murphy, Kiner made their first season--40 wins, 120 losses--at least somewhat palatable.

And he stayed with the Mets through the lean years and the good years, back to the lean years of today.

He was with them when they won the championship in 1969 and 1986, and he is still with them.

With Nelson and Murphy long gone, Kiner has been a broadcaster with the Mets for nearly 50 years.

And with that, we come to Kiner's Korner.

This was the long-time postgame show that Kiner hosted after Mets games, then on Channel 9.

The only way I can describe it is that it was sort of "The Twilight Zone" mashing up with a normal sports report.

And although that sounds bizarre, and it was bizarre, it worked.

Guests, usually the star of the game, would appear on the show. In fact, they considered it a badge of honor to appear on the show.

Kiner would often forget who he was interviewing, or would garble their names.

He often forgot the score of the game that was just broadcast, and when he gave the out of town scores, he often messed up who won and who lost.

He often garbled ad copy that he had to read.

And the cheesey set that the show used didn't help either.

It was surreal, but it was highly watchable, even for this dyed-in-the-wool Yankees fan. I tried to never miss it.

Most of the shows are reportedly gone, as most shows of this nature simply weren't thought to be anything that anybody would care about years later. How wrong that is! I would love to see some of the old shows again.

Kiner has slowed down some in later years. He suffers from Bell's Palsy, which greatly impacted his speech. He doesn't hold court at his Korner anymore, and he only occasionally joins those manning the booth, including former major leaguers Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling.

But he does appear during numerous games, and when he comes into the booth, you know that you are home. This guy knows baseball as well as anyone, and his Hall of Fame credentials notwithstanding, he is someone that you really have to stop and listen to. The insight he gives on baseball is really second to none. He knows what he is talking about.

When Kiner, Murphy and Nelson manned the Mets' booth, the were part of the heyday of New York baseball on television and radio. With the Yankees, you had their classic team of Phil Rizzuto, Bill White and Frank Messer.

Through these broadcast teams, you not only found out what was happening on the field, but off the field too, like what Rizzuto was going to have for dinner, or whose birthday it was.

It was heaven. Either you loved these guys or you hated them. I happened to love them. They looked at baseball as what it was--a kids' game played by grown men--and they went with it, full steam ahead.

So happy birthday, Ralph. Even though I am a Yankees fan, I always look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Rant #604: Nudey Booty

2011-10-26T03:41:00.000-07:00

Reports are that Lindsay Lohan will be appearing in a photo spread for Playboy.

She was paid between $750,000 and $1 million for this photo spread.

Her representatives are denying that it is for a nude spread, but heck, you don't pay that type of money to see any woman with her clothes on in this magazine.

We all know that Lohan has had numerous problems with the law, flaunts authority, and thinks she lives on a different planet than the rest of us.

Her family is no better. Her mother, Dina, also lives on another sphere, and her father, Michael, is a real piece of work himself, just being picked up for some type of domestic dispute with his ex-girlfriend.

The younger Lohan better get her money while she can. She is about the oldest-looking 25 year old that I have ever seen. And without the makeup, she probably looks about 40.

Hollywood has no patience for former starlets, and that is what Miss Lohan is becoming. With her numerous brushes with the law, she is headed for the dumpster, so the time is ripe now to get her into such a layout.

The way she is going, five years from now might be way too late.

And heck, the money ... I would pose nude for about a quarter of that, but who would want to see a 54-year old guy who has been around pose in the altogether?

I wouldn't even want to see that.

Do I want to see the issue that Lohan appears in?

No, not really. I haven't seen a Playboy magazine in ages. I had a subscription once, but let it lapse.

There are younger and prettier women than Lohan, women who have taken care of themselves and their lives much better than she has.

But then again, they are not Lindsay Lohan.

She has this allure that the press loves, a bad girl who you can't take your eyes off of.

She flaunts authority, which is something we all want to do, whether we admit to it or not.

And yes, she is pretty, with a terrific figure, and that helps. If she looked like Olive Oyl, no one would care.

So good luck to Lohan. Maybe this will put her on the straight and narrow, or help her pay her bills.

Rant #603: Slogan=Dollars?

2011-10-25T03:48:00.000-07:00

You knew it would come to this.

A couple on Long Island is trying to get a trademark for the "Occupy Wall Street" slogan.

With it, they reportedly intend to place the slogan on various items that they can make a buck from, including T-shirts.

The couple claim all they want to do is "spread the word" about the protests.

Please, give me a break. Isn't this very thing just what the protesters are railing about?

Greed, that is what it is, and whether you agree with the protesters or not, that is what this move by the couple, from West Islip, is all about.

The are attempting to grab a brass ring while it is hot.

I guess they have a right to do this. Just about anything can be trademarked, but this slogan, in particular, is kind of a rant for people who are fed up with the financial ways of our society. Trademarking this slogan would run counter to their arguments, no matter what the people who want to trademark the slogan claim.

It's co-opting the movement.

Looking back, there is at least one other symbol of a "movement" that was similarly co-opting, and means very little today because of it.

Although he didn't create the peace symbol, Pablo Picasso popularized it in the late 1940s. By the mid 1960s, the peace symbol was everywhere, and it was adopted by the younger generation. It came to symbolize the need to end the Vietnam War.

Today, you find the symbol everywhere, even on expensive jewelry. What does it mean today?

As singer Edwin Starr's immortal words in his song "War," "Absolutely nothing."

I mean, "Occupy Wall Street" is not a smiley face.

Whether the trademark goes through is another thing, but can't you just see 20 years from now someone carrying a Gucci bag with the words "Occupy Wall Street" emblazoned on it in sparkling letters?

Oh, what a sight that would be!

Rant #602: Comedy Just Isn't Funny Anymore

2011-10-24T03:38:00.000-07:00

As Friday was Friday, Saturday and Sunday were Saturday and Sunday for myself and my family.

Nothing with nothing.

So my wife decided to rent a few movies from the local Redbox machine.

How bad can the movies be for a dollar apiece? Even if they were awful, for a dollar, you can take a chance.

Well, we saw two stinkers, we sure did, and it addresses a problem that I have seen recently with comedy.

Comedy isn't funny anymore.

Maybe the times have passed me by, but I simply do not laugh at today's comedies, whether big screen or small screen.

I just don't find them funny.

I guess all the scatalogical references, all the sex references, and all the drug/drunk references turn me off too much.

I love to laugh as much as the other guy, and believe me, I am far from being a prude, but the constant pounding of comedies with these "jokes" and situations, well, it just isn't funny.

Take the first movie we saw, "Zookeeper."

Look, I wasn't expecting "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" here, but I expected something more from Kevin James, since his show, "The King of Queens," was probably the last TV show I really laughed out loud at.

Here, James plays the usual schlemeil, the guy who is in total self doubt about himself and the girl that he needs is right there in front of him.

Animals who can speak is so old already. I used to laugh at Goliath in "Davy and Goliath," and the dog in "The People's Choice" was pretty funny, but in 2011, this is so old hat as to be not funny.

And it wasn't in this movie. Not at all.

Then we have "Bridesmaids," starring comely Kristen Wiig.

Here we have a film about female bonding, in a way, revolving around a wedding party supporting the matrimonial vows of a best friend--or is the girl still a best friend?

This film was marketed as a comedy, a raunchy one at that, but it really isn't.

It isn't funny at all, and it has more dramatic tension than humorous scenes--or scenes meant to be humorous--anyway.

And it isn't funny, unless you like scenes of vomiting, elimination, and constant use of four-letter words.

I don't know, I don't find this stuff funny at all. For the two films, I probably laughed twice.

(I should have known--one of the stars of "Bridesmaids" is the star of the lamentable "Mike and Molly" TV show that I recently railed about.)

Funny, but in between films, my wife and I watched reruns of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" on TV Land.

Yes, I know the shows are cut to shreds on this station, but they leave in enough so that you can still laugh out loud, and marvel at the cleverness of these shows from the early to mid 1960s.

Ironically, they ran a show this weekend that I think addresses why I don't find current comedy that funny.

One show we saw had Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke) meet up with an old codger that was once his boss. He was Rob's comedy mentor, and Rob offered him a job working for him as one of the writers on "The Alan Brady Show."

When he begins to work with the other writers, he can't come up with a good gag if his life depended on it. He is from the old school (or what was the old school back in 1962 or so).

It isn't working out, and Rob has to let the old man go--but not before tapping into his brain, where he develops, using the old man's ideas, a sketch about--

Comedy not being funny anymore.

And the sketch was a riot!

So even back then, some people found the current comedy scene in 1962 far inferior to earlier times.

Now that is funny.

Today's movies and TV shows go for the lowest laugh, and the laughs simply are not there.

I don't know if it has to do with the lack of talent of the writers and the performers, or that now that everything is permissive, there isn't that much creativity anymore.

But I simply don't laugh at today's offerings. I find them offensive, vulgar, and every other adjective that fits with the term "unfunny."

I am still looking for something new to laugh at.

And I am just not finding it.

And that, to me, is no laughing matter.

Rant #601: Just Another Friday

2011-10-21T03:31:00.000-07:00

Hello, it's Friday.

It's just another Friday. Another cruel dictator is dead, and Lindsay Lohan is in trouble with the law again.

Ho hum, just another Friday.

Unlike the "Manic Monday" that the Bangles once sung about, today appears to be just another Friday.

What do you think is the greatest "Friday" song ever?

Could it be "Friday On My Mind" by the Easybeats?

How about "Friday's Child" by Nancy Sinatra?

Maybe "Friday I'm In Love" by the Cure?

Or does it even have to have the word "Friday" in the song title to qualify?

If not, how about "Bang the Drum" by Todd Rundgren?

It could be any one of those, but I do like "Friday On My Mind." It has that hook that doesn't go away from your mind too quickly.

But that being said, it's just another Friday.

Didn't that crazy preacher Harold Camping say that today would be the day the world ended? I know he has said this before about other days, but didn't he recently say it about today? And where is Mr. Camping now that we need him?

Personally, this has been a long work week for me, my first full week back at work after my recent vacation. I was at work last week, but I only worked four days, taking off Columbus Day, so this is really my first full week back. It has been difficult getting back in the saddle, but I am there, and not looking back.

And like the old Loverboy song, I am always "Working For the Weekend." I don't care if my family and I don't do much of anything on Saturday and Sunday. Even sitting around doing nothing at home is always better than sitting around and doing something at work.

I name dropped a lot of songs here, but somehow, songs do define the moment.

And yes, I do have "Friday on My Mind," because it's "Almost Saturday Night," as John Fogerty has told us for years and years.

And I can't wait.

Rant #600: The Mick

2011-10-20T03:36:00.000-07:00

Today would have been Mickey Mantle's 80th birthday if he would have lived. He died in 1995, and although gone for 16 years, he remains the quintessential American sports hero.

Mantle had humble beginnings in Commerce City, Oklahoma. He was the son of a miner, and he was destined to become one too ... although his dad thought otherwise.

As the story goes, seemingly from birth, Mantle was pegged as an athlete. He was named after Hall of Fame catcher Mickey Cochrane, and as a youth, excelled at just about every sport he tried.

He played high school football, was tackled hard, and the injury was something far worse: Mantle had osteomyolitis, a bone disease that could be fatal. He lived with intense pain in his legs the rest of his life.

Couple that with the fact that men in his family often didn't live past 40 years of age, and Mantle believed he was on borrowed time, and that seemed to define his life.

A Yankees scout, Tom Greenwald, saw him play baseball after he recovered from the football injury, signed him to a contract, and Mantle toiled in the minor leagues, where people couldn't believe their eyes. This then-scrawny kid could hit a baseball a country mile. He couldn't field at all, and was moved from the infield to the outfield during his minor league days, but he could hit--and run like the devil.

Joe DiMaggio wasn't a spring chicken anymore in 1951, and the Yankees felt his days were numbered. They brought Mantle up to be his successor.

DiMaggio didn't like it, didn't like it one bit. He was not going to give up his position without a fight, and Mantle played the other outfield positions while DiMaggio toiled in centerfield during his last days.

When DiMaggio retired, Mantle took over centerfield, and he was the Yankees' centerfielder through the 1967 season, when he himself was moved to first base to make way for another comet out of nowhere, up and comer and fellow Oklahoman Bobby Murcer.

Anyway, from 1951 to 1968--and particularly from 1951 to 1964--Mantle was one of the best players in baseball. He could run, he could hit, he could throw, he could play defense, and he had the look of the All-American boy.

And he didn't let anyone down, winning several MVP awards, winning the Triple Crown, and leading the Yankees to several championships.

Off the field, he also led the Yankees. As chronicled first in Jim Bouton's mammoth tome of the times, "Ball Four," Mantle was a drunk, a carouser, committed infidelity pretty openly, and could be extremely nasty.

Although the sportswriters of the time covered up a lot of his personal life, some incidents stood out, including his participating in the legendary Copa incident, where Sammy Davis Jr. was being heckled for being black and Mantle, Whitey Ford and Billy Martin got into a skirmish with the heckler.

After that well-publicized incident, the hard-drinking threesome was broken up, with Billy Martin traded away.

Although Mantle was the All-American boy on the outside, he was far from it from the inside. He drank constantly, by his own later admittance playing in several games when he had hangovers from hardy partying the night before.

He had a mistress, although the press made his family into the All-American family, with a loving wife and a gaggle of sons who adored him.

All told, he hit 536 home runs, just missed hitting .300 for his career, and was probably the most popular player of his generation. Think of Derek Jeter today, and Mantle was magnified 100 times more than that.

When people think of the 1950s, they think of Eisenhower, Monroe and Mantle. He typified the era.

When I got interested in baseball when I was seven or eight years old, all the years of playing, and partying, had seemingly caught up with Mantle and the rest of the Yankees. They were a sorry shell of their former selves, but I was a kid, and I loved them.

I have told this story many times, and I will tell it again.

My dad bought tickets to a Yankees game in May 1967, and he took my two friends with us. It was a birthday present to me, a little late one since I was born in April, but I anxiously waited for the game.

The problem was, my mother was not happy, because my father unwittingly bought the tickets for a game on the holiest day of the year, Mother's Day.

Well, we went anyway.

Mantle's Yankees were playing the Baltimore Orioles. My father had had Oriole Manager Earl Weaver in his cab a day or two before, and the two got to talking. The Yankees were destined for a ninth-place finish that year, and my father asked the seemingly inebriated Weaver if his pitchers could groove a pitch to Mantle during Sunday's game, the game we were going to be at, so we could be there when Mantle hit his 500th home run.

Weaver gave some unintelligible answer, and it was left at that.

Well, Mantle hit his 500th homer during that game, and the 25,000 or so in attendance--including me, my dad, and my friends--saw history that day. The place rocked and rolled for the rest of the game, with those in attendance cheering and yelling and screaming as if twice as many people were there.

Mantle, who was, by this time, a weary first baseman, made an error during the game, but the Yankees held on to win.

So did my dad have a part in Mantle hitting his 500th home run that day? Who knows, but it's fun to think about it that way.

And the next year, during bat day, I got (or my sister got) a Mickey Mantle bat. I got a Bill Robinson bat, but I used the bat she received for years in Little League and on the playground, and I still have it.

Mickey Mantle was "The Mick," "The Oklahoma Strongboy," but to many pitchers, he was poison.

In his private life, he may not have been the All-American boy, but he was as close to one as that generation had seen.

So, on what would have been his 80th birthday--he's as old as my parents--the dawn of another World Series, and my 600th rant, I found it fitting to cover Mickey Mantle, my first favorite baseball player and the idol of millions during his career.

He was the real American Idol.

Rant #599: "The Day My Mama Socked It To the Harper Valley P.T.A."

2011-10-19T03:20:00.000-07:00

Younger readers of this blog probably do not have the slightest idea what the title of this Rant means.

Others probably forgot what its meaning is after all these years.

But "Harper Valley P.T.A." was a pretty powerful message way back when, encapsulated in a song by country singer Jeannie C. Riley that hit the top of the Hot 100 charts in 1968.

Today, Riley turns 66.

Let's go over the context of the song. A widowed woman, Mrs. Johnson, is taken to task by the local P.T.A. after her daughter brings home a note from school that criticizes Mrs. Johnson's habits, including wearing a mini-skirt, having relationships with the opposite sex, and other behavior which the supposedly staid P.T.A. does not approve of.

Mrs. Johnson is far wiser than the P.T.A., turning the tables on them by bringing up their own individual "behaviors," if you will, of each and every member of the P.T.A.

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, eh?

The song was incredibly popular, one of the few tunes to hit No. 1 on both the pop and country charts. People of all ages got the hook of the song, showing hypocrisy to be a negative thing.

The song was so popular that it was turned into a movie and very brief TV show 10 years after it hit its peak.

Riley had other country hits, but the song was such a phenomenon that it pretty much eclipsed her other output, especially on the pop charts. She never really had another pop hit, with "The Girl Most Likely" only reaching No. 55 and subsequent singles either skirted the bottom of the chart did not chart at all.

Riley herself was something of an anomaly as a country singer herself. When female country singers were pretty strait-laced, especially about their dress, she bought into the current trends, living out the "Harper Valley P.T.A." lifestyle by wearing the current fashion styles, including mini-skirts, of course.

All told, Riley was a successful country singer, and through some trials and tribulations of her own, has emerged as a gospel singer in recent years.

But that song ... it kind of resonates today, doesn't it?

People continue to criticize the behavior of others without looking inwardly at themselves.

I guess it's something of a human thing to knock others while you, personally, are not that angelic either, but it was all bought to the fore by Riley's tune, which continues to get played on almost a daily basis on oldies stations around the country.

"Harper Valley P.T.A." really stands for "Anyplace U.S.A.", as the topics talked about in the song really can happen anyplace, anywhere.

And more than 40 years after hitting the top spot on the charts, "Harper Valley P.T.A." still resonates today.

Rant #598: Former Hotties Everywhere

2011-10-18T03:46:00.000-07:00

First, happy birthday to former hotties Dawn Wells and Erin Moran, who celebrate birthdays today.

Now, on to another former hottie who continues to use her mouth in ways that one might never have imagined.

Susan Sarandon called the Pope a Nazi. Yes, a Nazi.

It seems that she was being interviewed at the Hamptons International Film Festival out here on Long Island.

According to news sources, Sarandon said that she had sent the book "Dead Man Walking"--the book that was adapted into a movie that she starred in as a nun--to the Pope, but not the current Pope, the previous one.

She reportedly called the current Pope "this Nazi one we have now."

Oh boy!

Sarandon, who was raised Roman Catholic and graduated from the Catholic University of America, really put her foot into it, didn't she?

For the record, the current Pope, whose real name is Joseph Ratzinger, was conscripted into Hitler Youth at age 14 like most, if not all, young boys of that age in Germany at that time, but according to his representatives, he never participated in the group because he did not believe in its goals.

Sarandon, perhaps, is still feeling pain related to her breakup with fellow actor and big-mouth person Tim Robbins. She has always had a big mouth, never shying away from saying what was on her mind, but I think this one might have sunk her to a new low. although you have to bet that some people believe "once a Nazi, always a Nazi."

Heck, even Ah-nold has some very thin relationship with the Nazis through his father, and certainly Mel Gibson and the Nazis have been on somewhat mutual terms.

And what about Hitler's true legacy, the people car, the Volkswagen? How many of us who denounce the atrocities of Nazi Germany readily get into one of these cars on a daily basis?

What is my point?

My point is that, once again, people who really shouldn't be given credit for being statesman and politicians are being given too much credit for what they've said.

Like Tony Bennett a few weeks ago, Sarandon is no politician. She is just an actress, one with a very big mouth.

And she made the comment at a film festival, not at a political summit.

Sure, her comments really riled Catholics, as it probably should have, but I would simply link the comment with who said it and not take it as if the President said it.

Sarandon is who she is, and she isn't going to change.

Remember, she is an actress, one that was/is easy on the eyes, and nothing more.

Rant #597: Random Thoughts

2011-10-17T04:08:00.000-07:00

Usually, when I do a Random Thoughts-type of entry, I leave it to Friday, get-away day. I am tired from a week of work, and I figure that if I am tired, readers are too, and it's easier to key on several topics than just one when I write up things like this.

But even though today, Monday, is the start of the work week, there really isn't anything that outstanding out there to devote a whole column to.

So here goes some Random Thoughts.

I Still Wonder About "Occupy Wall Street": I don't know about you, but I am still a little "here and there" about the "Occupy Wall Street" movement.

I don't have a problem with the basic idea of this movement, which is to bring attention to the economic tumult that Wall Street and large corporations have foisted on the country. It reminds me of the Third Estate rising against the First and Second Estates during the French Revolution, leading to the Enlightenment, and that was good, and this is good.

But I wonder about the aims of many who are protesting. Are they in it to really force an examination of the issues, or are they there to be seen? Are they knowledgeable individuals, or Dead Heads looking for the next party?

Now we are finding out that this group is being funded, and many of the donations are coming from groups and individuals who are looked at as "tools" of the very corporations the groups are protesting against.

If that is so--and with all the actors and actresses donating money and making their solidarity with the protesters heard, it appears that it is--then aren't the protesters taking money from the wrong sources?

They are being funded through second and third parties of the very institutions they are protesting, and that, to me, is a clear conflict of interest.

Wider ADHD Testing Recommended: My son has this malady and he also has a learning disability. My wife and I have known about these since he was about four years old. In preschool, one of his teachers pointed out that he should get tested, and we did, and found out that he has these things.

It has been difficult, but my son is doing the best he can.

Now, the American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending that doctors evaluate all patients age four to 18 who show signs of the condition. This updates the long-standing recommendation that focused on diagnosing and managing ADHD in kids ages six to 12.

This is a good thing, trying to catch ADHD before kids go into kindergarten. And when they look for ADHD, pediatricians will probably find other problems, including learning disabilities, that add onto the problems these kids face with ADHD.

Six to 9 percent of kids have ADHD, so to start treatment earlier is a good thing.

However, the use of drugs is not.

It is my experience, or should I say my son's experience, that the longer you can hold off on the medication, the better. Not every kid needs medication. My son was taking medication for a few years, but as he entered adolescence, we took him off it.

Sure, there have been struggles without it, but I think all in all, he is better off not using anything, just learning to live and cope with what he has.

Texas and St. Louis in the World Series: Congratulations to both teams for making the World Series, They might not have been the best teams on paper, but the Rangers and Cardinals were able to outperform their opponents and have earned the right to meet in the Fall Classic.

It should be a good series. I think there will be lots of offense in this matchup.

And maybe this will be a ratings grabber.

Texas is in the World Series for the second straight year, and St. Louis is one of the nation's favorite teams.

Sure, it's not the Yankees and Dodgers, but people might just tune in this year.

My prediction: Cardinals in seven, although it wouldn't surprise me if the Rangers won in all.

NBA Lockout Continues: I have said it many times and I will say it again: people will find other things to do if there is no NBA season this year.

And the owners and players better get that through their heads.

In this economy, for millionaires to be arguing with other millionaires over how to cut a multi-billion dollar pie is not only ludicrous, it shows how out of touch both sides are with reality.

Do they think about the poor ushers they are putting out of a job, the ticket takers, and so many others who make minimal money and need these jobs to live?

No, they don't.

If I were one of these people, I might sue both sides for taking away my livelihood.

If I had the money.

As it is, I am just a fan, nothing more, and I think both sides are idiotic in their demands.

Let's play basketball, not play on making points that make little sense.

Play basketball and shut up.

Rant #596: And We Still Love Lucy, Too

2011-10-14T04:02:00.000-07:00

Going along with our look at classic (and not so classic) television shows, tomorrow just happens to mark the 60th anniversary of the debut of the situation comedy that set the standard for all the sitcoms to follow.

"I Love Lucy" started out as an idea to bring actress Lucille Ball to television, nothing more, but it snowballed, and the premier of this show raised the standards of the situation comedy to new heights, many of which haven't been equaled to this day.

Ball was pretty much a B-actress throughout her early career, but she worked regularly and appeared in numerous films. She stands as the only actress who appeared with both Abbott and Costello and the Three Stooges on screen.

She was known for her long legs and sharp wit. The henna rinse came later.

Anyway, in the late 1940s, she was achieving fame as a radio comedienne, as the star of a show called "My Favorite Husband." No Desi Arnaz was not her favorite husband at this point in time.

Ball had just married Arnaz, and she wanted to both keep her career moving and make a go at a good marriage.

So she and Arnaz tried to convince studio executives to allow them to bring a show revolving around Ball and Arnaz to the small screen.

Executives initially balked. Who would watch a show with a tall redhead and her husband who spoke with a Cuban accent?

To convince studio executives that they could pull this off, Ball and Arnaz went on a cross-country tour with a stage show, and the audiences loved it.

This convinced studio executives to give the thing a try, but Ball and Arnaz insisted that the show be shot in California. At that time, the center of the TV universe was New York, so how could they shoot a show in California and placate New York executives?

Arnaz decided to film the show using the best available recording devices around at that time, to give it a live feel. He also used different camera angles with three cameras to give the show a more intimate feel. And he used a live audience to give it a stage-type feel.

And most importantly, he and Ball retained the rights to the show, and were able to rerun the show in between new shows.

The show, which also starred Vivian Vance, William Frawley, and later, Keith Thibodeaux, was an out and out hit. It never fell below No. 3 in the ratings, and it made Arnaz, and particularly Ball, into megastars.

And there were those classic episodes: the pregnancy episode, and Vitameatavegimin, and the grape stomping, all the supposed trips they took to Europe and Hollywood, and the allure of watching the wacky hijinks of a redheaded wife of a Cuban bandleader get into the craziest predicaments each and every week--and all in black and white!

Since 1951, the show has never been off the air, and probably never will leave the airwaves. To this day, it is that popular.

"I Love Lucy" set the highest standard for sitcoms that it possibly could, helped create Desilu Studios, one of the more active TV studios of the 1950s and early to mid 1960s, and helped make TV the institution that it became and still is to this day.

So when I watch a show like "Mike and Molly," I have to think: Is this fellow CBS show a poor stepchild of "I Love Lucy"?

Is this how TV sitcoms have evolved over the past 60 years?

Or is this really a devolve?

I think it's pretty much the latter. "Mike and Molly" is what sitcoms have devolved to today, and Ball and Arnaz must be churning in their graves about this situation.

This is what "I Love Lucy" wrought on the world?

I think not, but the popularity of "I Love Lucy" allowed sitcoms to become immensely popular dollar generators for the networks, so, I guess in some tangental way, "I Love Lucy" did wrought on us "Mike and Molly."

It's horrible to believe that, but it's true.

Rant #595: Ed, We Miss You

2011-10-13T04:16:00.000-07:00

"Mike and Molly" notwithstanding, television wasn't always polluted by trash of this ilk.

Take "The Ed Sullivan Show." Originally called "Toast of the Town," the weekly variety hour showcased every type of act imaginable, from ventriloquists to jugglers to Broadway performers to the latest hit pop acts to Topo Gigio.

It was a three-ring circus every Sunday night at 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., and it was hosted by the dullest person on the planet, Daily News newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan.

And that was the charm of the show.

Sullivan knew he wasn't the star, even though his name eventually became even bigger than the show itself.

He was the booker, a presenter, and he basically let the acts do the talking.

Sullivan died 37 years ago today at the age of 73.

I don't think that people who weren't around during the show's heyday can fully comprehend the enormity, or the importance, of this program on the American scene.

The show was even larger than a TV show--it was a weekly event that had to be seen, whether you were watching Elvis Presley from the waste up or the Beatles top to bottom.

The show made news by having on those two bombastic acts.

But it also featured the likes of Roberta Peters, Soupy Sales, Stiller and Meara and George Carlin.

And don't forget Senor Wences.

Whatever was hot in show biz was on the show, whether it was the 5th Dimension, the Supremes or Joan Rivers.

He had it all, and it was clean, wholesome entertainment that the whole family could enjoy together.

If you didn't like an act, it was time to get up and go to the bathroom or get something to eat.

But if you did like the act, well, your anticipation for watching that segment, rarely lasting more than three or four minutes tops, lasted an entire week between shows.

When the Beatles first came on the show in February 1964, I was hooked, and so was an entire generation of kids.

I don't think Sulllivan understood rock and roll at all, but he understood the numbers, the ratings numbers, that is.

He knew that he had to have the hottest acts on the planet on his show, and if the Dave Clark Five had hit songs, well, they had to be on the show.

And they were. And most of these acts considered it a privilege to be on the show.

Sure, Sullivan wasn't perfect.

He banned Jackie Mason for supposedly giving the finger to him on the air, and he had feuds over song lyrics with the Rolling Stones and the Doors.

He could be very abrasive, and when he didn't like you, he would let you know it.

But he broke many major acts, and not just rock acts.

He gave the stage to up and coming comics like Carlin, Rivers, Robert Klein and Richard Pryor.

He furthered the careers of comics like Myron Cohen and Alan King, and made national celebrities of Stiller and Meara.

He loved Diana Ross and Petula Clark, and he loved Broadway, everything from "Oliver" to "The King and I."

And don't forget the Muppets.

Sullivan was bland, but he knew talent, and he booked the best talent on the show.

Sure, plate twirlers aren't the most talented people in the world, but he knew that the audience loved them, so he had them on during the 23-year run of the show pretty regularly.

My mom attended one or two shows in the audience, and tickets were as hard to get for those shows as they are now for the Super Bowl.

After the show ended in 1971, Sullivan lamented that CBS didn't give the program two more years so he could bow out gracefully after a 25-year run.

But times had changed by then.

People were losing patience with things that they didn't want to see.

And the TV remote was starting to become more commonplace, and people were changing the channel in the middle of his show to look elsewhere for something they were interested in.

"The Ed Sullivan Show" was a relic of TV's past, and even in 1971, the wear was showing.

So the show ended without that much fanfare, and its host died about three years later.

Bits and pieces of the show are available on DVD, as well as a number of full shows starring the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Elvis Presley.

During money-thons, PBS often runs Ed Sullivan retrospectives.

But I simply don't think that the kids today understand the importance of the show and its host.

When the kids' parents were kids, this show was golden. It had it all.

Sorry, the creators of "Mike and Molly" and shows like it can do much, much better.

And the very coincidence that "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "Mike and Molly" are products of the same network--CBS--kind of shivers my timbers.

This is what the so-called "Tiffany Network" calls entertainment today?

Sullivan, the bland host of a televised three-ring circus which lasted 23 years, proved that you can take coal and make diamonds out of it.

May he continue to rest in peace, and yes, I am sure he is turning in his grave at the trash that is around today, stuff that he might have to showcase on his program if he, and the show, were around today.

Rant #594: Fat Lot of Trash on TV Nowadays

2011-10-12T04:12:00.000-07:00

My wife likes the CBS sitcom "Mike and Molly," and I record it for her each and every week.

We watch it when it is more convenient for us, which is usually the day after it is aired, so we usually watch Monday's episode on Tuesday.

I have to tell you, I know this sitcom is popular, but for the life of me, I just can't figure out why.

Well, that is not entirely true. I kinda do.

One reason that I think it might be popular is that the two leads, Billy Gardell and Melissa McCarthy, aren't your typical TV sitcom cutie pies. Between them, they probably pack at least 600 pounds of blubber into every episode.

The show follows Mike, a Chicago cop, and Molly, a Chicago schoolteacher, as they set about wooing each other, sleeping with each other, and getting engaged to each other, pretty much in that order.

They will get married on an eventual episode, I am sure.

But they will have to fight their way through fat jokes, sex jokes and drug jokes.

There are no other categories of jokes on the show.

The two main characters are supplemented by a supporting cast which include Swoosie Kurtz, who plays Molly's often drugged out and more often then not sexed out mother; Reno Wilson, as the stereotypical smooth talking black partner cop of Mike; Katy Mixon as Molly's marijuana drugged out, slutty sister; and Louis Mustillo, as the dimwitted, stereotypical Italian fiancee of Molly's mom.

Since premiering in September 2010, the show has gotten good ratings, and McCarthy won an Emmy award for her performance.

But watching this show, I see how television has sunk to the lowest standards possible. This is the only way this show can be so popular.

It simply isn't funny. The show rolls along on, using its fat jokes as its backbone, but it simply isn't funny.

And all the other jokes are stale, and make no sense.

In particular, the marijuana jokes--and there are plenty of them--are a bit alarming, if for nothing more than Mike is supposed to be a cop, and he is in constant contact with Molly's sister, who is an acknowledged pothead.

I have to give credit to Wilson. He takes his stereotypical role and goes with it to the max. To me, he is the only likable character in the bunch.

But seeing how TV has fallen off the cliff in recent years, with more trash on it than I can ever remember, I guess it isn't hard to understand why the show is so popular.

And yes, I will continue to record it for my wife, and watch it with her.

I am an eternal optimist. Maybe there will be something that I will eventually crack a smile to. Maybe the show will get better.

Maybe it can't get better, who knows?

But I will watch the show. I would rather be with my wife than watching something else.

She has had to sit through some stuff I like that she doesn't--she hated "King of Queens," but watched it with me for all the years it was on--so I really don't mind watching this show with her.

I just don't get the point of the show.

And that's the fat of it.

Rant #593: What Is Occupying "Occupy Wall Street" Protesters?

2011-10-11T04:23:00.000-07:00

Now that I am back in the saddle, I have had a chance to really study what is going on on Wall Street and with the protesters who have been there for about a month.

I have a question: why are the protesters there in the first place?

I don't think I know, and the bigger problem is that I don't think they know, either.

Forty years ago, there were various rallies in major cities that took on the Vietnam War. Sure, people had other agendas, such as women's rights and civil rights, but the main focus was on the war.

This latest peaceful protest shouldn't be confused with the earlier one. There are many issues that the protesters have taken on, and based on what I've seen, if you take 10 participants aside and ask them why they are there, you will get at least 10 different answers ...

And maybe 11, 12 or more answers. And maybe even no answers at all.

Originally, people gathered at Wall Street to try to shut it down. They were angered by their belief that big corporations basically were running the country into the ground due to corporate greed, and like what happened during the French Revolution, they wanted to show that the little man had rights too, and that the majority of the people shouldn't be paying the majority of the taxes.

That was fine and good.

But now, with the protests going into their fourth week, and the movement spreading to other cities, I really wonder why these people are where they are.

According to the protesters I have seen interviewed on TV, there isn't now just one thing they are protesting. They are either protesting many things, or at this point, many of them are gathering to simply gather together in the place to be seen, and little else.

It has become something of a freak show, hasn't it?

They are protesting capital punishment, they are protesting our participation in foreign wars, they are protesting corporate greed, they are protesting the actions of the wealthy, they are protesting high unemployment ...

And they are also acting like squatters, just there to be seen.

Some shop owners are even complaining that the protesters aren't cleaning up themselves, and by squatting, people are not going into the shops that are in the vicinity of the protests.

And while they protest corporate greed, they use their cellphones provided by corporate greed mongers like Verizon and AT&T.

Mayor Bloomberg, certainly a target of the protesters since he is a billionaire and runs a billion-dollar corporation, said that the protesters can still do what they want as long as they don't break any laws.

For once he is being smart. Once the poor weather comes, you just know these protesters will disperse to their homes and leave the protesting behind them. There is no reason to waste crucial time and money in policing this bunch when their shelf life is so limited.

The protesters' mindset is also a little off as they plan to take on individuals by protesting in front of the residences of some of the richest people in the country.

Isn't it the American way to make as much money as you can? You can't fault successful people for being successful.

However, you can fault major corporations run by these people, who skirt the law at any given chance.

If the protesters had more of a focus, people would take them more seriously. I know that I would.

And what about celebrities joining the protests? Can you tell me what they are protesting about?

Russell Simmons, Tim Robbins, George Clooney and the like either run huge corporations or are part of the machine of these huge corporations. They make incredible money from these corporations. Their livelihoods are part of the foundation of these corporations.

So what are they ranting and raving about?

The more celebrities take part in this, the more I realize that again, these protests are the place to be seen, and nothing more.

If Simmons didn't live the American dream, and if Clooney and Robbins didn't live their American dream through the huge entertainment corporations, then they would be entitled to vent their frustrations at such protests.

As it is, they epitomize the American dream.

So why are they at these protests?

They profess solidarity with the protesters. But when the day is done, they go back to their cushy surroundings, which they paid for with money provided by these large corporations.

If they gave all their money away and lived like paupers, then I could see what they were doing there.

As it is, they are about as phony as the protests have become.

My advice to protesters: stay with the corporate greed focus, forget about the other issues for now, get rid of the Hollywood phonies, and make your voice heard clearly and concisely.

Right now, these protests are a joke. But they don't have to be.

Rant #592: I Have Returned

2011-10-10T05:41:00.000-07:00

I have returned.

My family and I took a cruise from Fort Lauderdale, Floria, to Key West, and then to the Cayman Islands and then off to Ocho Rios in Jamaica.

It was a fun trip, our first cruise, but it did have its mishaps.

My son lost his glasses. In the rush to get out of the room on the last morning, he just forgot them.

My wife lost something very personal to her. Let's just say that hopefully the insurance we have will kick in and help us out with this one.

The weather was terrible for most of the trip. We went in and out of violent rain storms while at sea, and even when we arrived at the Cayman Islands, it wss raining.

Not wanting to lose the day in the Cayman Islands, we swam in the rain. The water was crystal clear, which was good, because the ocean bottom was filled with sharp-edged rocks. I have a cut on my left foot's big toe that resembles the coast of Florida. Who knows when that will fully heal.

This former South Jamaica, New York, resident's arrival in the actual Jamaica was interesting, but I don't think I would go back. Seemingly all the natives have their hands out, and they attack you when you are walking around. They are very persistant, and quite rude, if you ask me.

They are even that way in the shops. Perfect example: we went into one shop that had MLB T-shirts and hats on display. I walked over to the display, in my full Yankees regalia--T-shirt and hat. The salesman came over to me, and reiterated to me that the goods there were official MLB apparel.

He then showed me a Boston Red Sox T-shirt!

You don't show a guy dressed in Yankees gear a Red Sox T-shirt. It is like showing a Confederate flag to a Union servicemember.

The guy obviously wanted to make a sale, but he turned pushy, not understanding the nature of what he was doing.

It was also darn hot in Jamaica. When we were there, it was in the 90s, seemingly 100-percent humidity, and it was not raining at all.

Why couldn't the Cayman Islands have been like this?

Anyway, Carnival Cruises puts on a good show on their ships. We went to numerous shows, and the actors and actresses were energetic. We even took in a comedy show, and the comedian, whose name I don't recall, was pretty funny.

And yes, I suffered through the Yankees' loss in the playoffs. I guess it was kind of softened because we were on a boat, not a sinking ship like the Yankees were on.

I have trouble flying. My ears go haywire, and they get stuffed for days and even weeks. Right now, my left ear is stuffed, yesterday it was my right ear. Soon, I will run out of ears to have stuffed.

The food was great, and the waiters and waitresses go for the big tips because of their courtesy and the way they handle themselves. I didn't tip big, but I did tip. I appreciate how they treated us, and especially my father-in-law, who is in a wheelchair.

So anyway, we are home.

Would I go again? Yes, I would. It was fun to be on the big boat, although I could have done without all the cigarette smoke. It is a weird feeling eating as you are moving on the sea, and frankly, I still feel like I am at sea right now. My sea legs are a little wobbly.

But yes, I would go again, probably to different destinations.

And maybe next time with my daughter. She needs a job.

Happy Columbus Day, and I will speak with you tomorrow.

Rant #591: So Long, For Now

2011-09-30T05:13:00.000-07:00

For the first time in my life, I am going to be taking a fall vacation with my family.

It just worked out this year that we could take two vacations a few weeks apart from each other.

And this one is going to be a cruise, the first for my family and I.

There have been a couple of problems with this.

First, making sure that my wife and I could get off from our respective works to take this cruise at this time.

That went OK. Actually, I was surprised that my work agreed to this, being that I already took over in July and early August.

Second, the last full day of the cruise comes on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, when Jews are supposed to fast for a 24-hour period.

I have fasted on this day since I was 12 years old, and even did it for shorter stretches before that.

Call me a heathen, but I won't be fasting this year, or at least I won't be fasting on Yom Kippur. I just can't do that when we are on a cruise. I personally don't think God will excommunicate me from the religion if I don't fast on that day. I will do it on another day.

Third, and even more important, we are taking my son out of school for a week.

This was the big consternation with this whole thing. We didn't want to take our son out of school, but honestly, the we could not leave him home for this trip. He is a teenager, but a very young teenager. We don't need a "Home Alone" situation when we are away.

He has plenty of schoolwork to do--his teachers were notified about his impending absence--but the school does not take kindly to such a situation.

I received an email yesterday telling me that these absences will be un-excused, because they do not fit the criteria they use to define an excused absence. And the email came from the school's principal.

This put the whole trip on a bit of shaky ground. We are still going, but what exactly does an "unexcused absence" mean to the student? Again, he has plenty of work to bring along with him so he won't fall far behind the other kids. In fact, one teacher gave him work related to the trip and our time on the ship.

I will call the school a little later to find out, but there might not be anyone there, as our school district is still off for Rosh Hashanah.

Otherwise, what can I say? My wife and I are pretty upset, but what can we do? We can't cancel the trip or our son's ticket at this late date, but we have vowed never to take another vacation with him during the fall.

So on we go, to Florida, Jamaica and other points.

Please wish us well.

Right now, my wife and I have agita. We really do.

(Also, I will be back at this blog during the week of Oct. 10. See you then, and until then, feast your eyes on Annette and her friend. They look great even in black and white.)

Rant #590: Rock and Roll Hall of Shame

2011-09-28T03:26:00.000-07:00

Let's get one thing out of the way right away: Michael Jackson's bizarre behavior killed him, and although Dr. Conrad Murray certainly fed into this behavior by giving the pop star certain drugs to help him sleep, he simply did what he was told to do and was paid to do.

Jackson is guilty of his own death because he insisted on being sedated beyond normal precautions. Trying to pin this all on Murray is like saying former President Bill Clinton didn't have a sexual relationship with an intern while in office because he didn't consider what he did sexual.

Please!

Now that that is out of the way, let's look at this year's nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Well, maybe let's not.

Oh, what the heck, let's give it a go: Guns N' Roses; the Beastie Boys; the Red Hot Chili Peppers; Joan Jett and the Blackhearts; Eric B. and Rakim; the Cure; Donovan; Heart; Freddie King; Laura Nyro; Rufus with Chaka Khan; the Small Faces/Faces; the Spinners; Donna Summer; and War.

Uggh!

This has to be the worst slate of nominees ever in the history of the supposedly hallowed HoF, which is constantly soiled by Jann Wenner's penchant for picking those he likes rather than those who deserve to get in.

Certainly, some of these acts have merit for inclusion in the HoF. I would say that the Red Hot Chili Peppers should go in because they fused funk with rock and roll in a way that even the now homeless Sly Stone couldn't even have imagined when he laid the groundwork for this to happen 20 years earlier. Donovan should go in, because his body of work shows that he was far beyond "the British Dylan," mixing folk and psychedelia better than anyone. Heart should certainly go in, as they paved the way for female rockers from the 1970s on.

Laura Nyro's fusing of rock, pop, soul and Broadway has certainly never been even approached. And yes, the Spinners were the last of the line of top-flight Motown-style acts like the Temptations and the Four Tops, even though they had their biggest hits on the Atlantic label (they did start out at Motown though, and their earliest hits were there).

But Eric B. and Rakim? Joan Jett and the Blackhearts? Guns N' Roses?

C'mon, the HoF should be able to do better than that.

Not that I, personally, thought they would gain a nomination, but the Monkees--and at least Michael Nesmith, if not the whole group--should get in. They fit the criteria of being influential. Musicians like Tom Petty and David Byrne have cited them as influences, and no less than Brian Wilson has said they belong in the HoF.

And their high profile reunion tour--well, three of them--this year certainly put them back on the map.

But nothing.

Another act that should have at least been nominated is Paul Revere and the Raiders. They are the "missing" link from late 1950s rock and roll to early 1970s rock, and they were highly influential. You just know that Van Halen was watching these guys on TV when they were growing up.

There are others who deserve nomination, but the current slate simply misses the point entirely.

Eric B. and Rakim?

What is that all about?

We go through this every year. The polls say who should be nominated--this year, Goldmine magazine listed the Monkees as the people's top choice--and then we get dreck like this.

To knowing rock and roll fans, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is little more than a joke.

However, the joke isn't funny anymore, and hasn't really been funny since the Dave Clark Five fiasco of a few years back.

I would tell Wenner to lighten up, and listen to the people, because rock and roll is the people's music, not just his.

Would he listen?

Probably not.

But once again I will say this ...

Eric B. and Rakim.

Case closed.

By the way, I am taking tomorrow off for the beginning of the Jewish High Holy days. This commences with Rosh Hashanah, which comes tonight at sundown. The holiday lasts two full days, and leads up to Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, which comes next weekend.

So there will be no talk of Michael Jackson and no talk of rock and roll tonight at my dinner table, just a look back at the past year, and whether we have lived up to God's belief in us.

I hope my family and I have done so.

I really do.

Speak to you on Friday.

Rant #589: The (Tortilla) Chips Are Down, But Will Never Be Out

2011-09-27T03:42:00.000-07:00

As the Red Sox sink to further depths in the East, let us take some time out of our busy day to reflect on someone who changed many of our lives ... but we wouldn't know who this person was if we walked right into him in the middle of the street.

Arch West was a snack food executive who pretty much stumbled upon an idea that changed history, and it all happened when he was on a family vacation in California.

He ate out at a Mexican restaurant, and was intrigued by fried tortilla chips that were served with a meal.

With his businessman's sense, he thought that these could go over big with his employer and with snack food fans everywhere.

And he was right on both counts.

His employer happened to be Frito-Lay, the major snack food manufacturer, and the product that he thought up was Doritos, the first nationally sold tortilla chip.

There have been many copy-cat and similar items since its debut in the mid-1960s, but Doritos is the real thing, and it has become one of Frito-Lay's top-selling snacks over the years.

And it pre-dated the Mexican food phenomenon that is seen in just about everything we consume, and the idea for a nationally distributed tortilla chip even pre-dates the overriding success of the Taco Bell chain and probably every other Mexican food chain that have become as American as apple pie over the last two or three decades.

There really isn't much more to the story.

West lived to the ripe old age of 97, and he passed away a few days ago.

But his creation will live on well past his life, and probably the lives of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

On my end, Doritos are addicting. Like they used to say about Lay's Potato Chips, you can't eat just one.

There are many variations of the original now, but I like the original. It is the best of the entire line, although its other line mates are intriguing.

So there you have it. Here's another unknown name, but a guy who had a bit of ingenuity, and one whose legacy will be everlasting ...

All because of a tortilla chip.

Rant #588: "Lion" Continues to Roar

2011-09-26T03:41:00.001-07:00

This is a kind of dead season for movies.

We are in the middle of all of the summer blockbusters and the holiday super movies, so the fall is like a dumping ground for a lot of trash that couldn't compete at the box office at any other time.

That's one reason you see movies like "Killer Elite" and "Contagion" in movie theaters now. Do you really think that if there was anything good out there that people would even consider seeing this type of trash?

That is also the reason why "The Lion King" is doing so well right now.

This 1994 movie was a box-office blockbuster when it was originally released in 1994. Hand-drawn, it is the largest grossing film of its kind in history, and came out just before computer animation virtually wiped the old fashioned cartoon movies off the map.

It is lush, it is beautiful to look at, and it is a classic in film making of any kind.

Using bits of the Bible and Hamlet as its influences, the film shows the conflict between Simba and Scar as to who will be the eventual leader of the lions. It is a great film for all ages, features nice music, and the vocal talents of a great assemblage of Hollywood and Broadway types, including Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane and Whoopi Goldberg.

Of course, the film wasn't re-released without a catch. It is now being shown in 3D, the bane of my movie-going existence.

Why? Well, you have to pay more to see 3D films--you pay for a ticket and the glasses--so the box office returns are truly not related to ticket sales, and are pretty artificial.

For instance, this past weekend, "The Lion King" reigned supreme at the box office, taking in $22.1 million, nudging the Brad Pitt baseball movie, "Moneyball," out of the top spot by about $1.5 million.

But it is safe to say that "Moneyball" sold more tickets, because it is not a 3D movie, and, thus, is about $5 cheaper to see per ticket than "The Lion King."

Hollywood gets my goat. Not only do they charge you extra for the 3D glasses, but we have all seen that tub that asks you to return the glasses after seeing the movie. So all you are paying for is a rental of the glasses.

Sorry, I take mine home, even if I never use them again.

I will bet lots of parents took their young children to see this movie. I mean, what else is there for them to see?

"Dolphin Tale," the story of a sick dolphin who gets a fake tale fin, was the No. 3 film in the country, but it got horrid reviews. I guess lots of parents took their kids to see this movie after seeing "The Lion King" the week before.

And yes, it is also in 3D, inflating its sales figure of $20.3 million.

Other than that, there isn't anything out there for families to see, lots of trash before the big movies for the holidays hit the screen.

Me, I stayed home and watched the Yankees this weekend. There's nothing better than staying home and watching baseball than wasting money to see garbage.

And it's not in 3D.

Rant #587: Happy Birthday To You All

2011-09-23T03:34:00.000-07:00

On some days, the people who are celebrating birthdays is kind of staggering, on other days, kind of interesting.

Today, the list of people celebrating birthdays is kind of interesting.

At the top of the list is Mickey Rooney. Rooney is certainly the last of his kind. He could act, sing, act, dance and do just about anything he wanted to do.

He was perhaps the biggest star Hollywood had in the mid to late 1930s. He made a number of "for the time"-type movies and while his stardom faded over time, he can be called a survivor.

In fact, my favorite movie of his came in the early 1960s: "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," one of the funniest movies ever made.

Amidst all the cameos featured in the movie, Rooney was one of the film's true stars. He played Dingy Bell, who along with Benjy Benjamin (Buddy Hackett), are two friends on their way to Las Vegas. Of course, their course gets interrupted by pure greed, and the rest is film history.

Rooney has been ill in recent years, but I wouldn't count this now 91-year-old out just yet.

Paul Petersen was one of the first teenybopper stars generated by television. His turn on "The Donna Reed Show" as Jeff Stone made him into both a TV and recording star, and he teamed with Shelley Fabares as really the archetype for all the teen idols that followed them.

After the run of the show, Petersen, by his own admittance, fell on some hard times, but he has bounced back, representing other former child stars who haven't been able to come to grips with adulthood.

He has far outlasted the teen idol monicker, and has done so with a lot of grace and dignity as he turns 66 today.

Next we have Bruce Springsteen.

No, I have never been a fan of his, have never jumped on his rock 'n roll bandwagon, but I understand his importance in the history of that musical genre.

This Jersey boy, who turns 62 today, stands as the beacon of light for a dying music. He puts out an album every year or so, tours endlessly, and people absolutely swear by him.

He apparently doesn't have a phony bone in his body. What you see is what you get, which is rare among pop entertainers today.

Another singer I have never gotten into is Julio Iglesias, who turns 68 today.

Some people believe that he is one of the sexiest men alive. I don't know about that, but his love songs--in English, Spanish and other languages--have captivated many from around the world.

Finally, we have Mary Kay Place, a performer whose popularity came in the 1970s.

Turning 64 today, Place was on "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," one of the revelations of the mid 1970s. This send up of soap operas hit a chord with the public, and while she has been busy since, this actress' career has been defined by her participation in that venture.

Sure, there are others who celebrate their birthday today, but this group stands out by itself as an eclectic group of people who made it during their lives.

Love 'em or hate 'em, when you hear their names, they do conjure up clear images in your mind.

And isn't that their true legacy?

Rant #586: Fiddler on the Roof/Fool on the Hill

2011-09-22T03:43:00.000-07:00

It is funny how things that oftentimes run parallel to each other can occasionally run right into each other, and one of these odd occurrences happens this week.

Today is the 47th anniversary of the debut of the classic musical "Fiddler on the Roof" on Broadway. This show, based on the stories of Sholem Aleichem, was the first Broadway show to pass 3,000 performances in its original run with Zero Mostel as Tevye. It has delighted audiences of all races, religions and creeds during its many incarnations, and it spawned a successful movie, soundtrack and other adaptations and revivals.

Broadway is in New York, of course, and so is the United Nations. This week, tomorrow, the Palestinians will formally ask the U.N. to grant it statehood. The U.S. has vowed that it will veto any move in this direction, and President Obama has said that the road to statehood for the Palestinians is through negotiation with their neighbor, Israel. Israel agrees to negotiate for peace, but the Palestinians want statehood now without any participation in the peace process with its neighbor.

How odd that these two events should run head on!

Fiddler on the Roof--a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein-- is set in Tsarist Russia in 1905. The story centers on Tevye, the father of five daughters, and his attempts to maintain his family and Jewish religious traditions while outside influences encroach upon their lives. His three older daughters are perhaps the earliest incarnations of the modern woman, as each is strong willed and hell bent on making their own decisions in life. Each one's choice of husband moves further away from the customs of his faith. All the while, Jews are not thought of as full citizens in Russia, and the Tsar serves to kick them out of their village.

Israel and its neighbors have been in conflict since the formation of the Jewish state in 1948, and have actually been in conflict for centuries. Through various wars and other conflicts both big and small, Israel has not only fought off its attackers, but solidified itself as one of the strongest countries in the world, with armed forces that are the envy of many countries. Built on pretty much barren land, the Israelis used their knowledge to make this land truly one of plenty, even as they have been at odds with their neighbors, who have tried to annihilate them. The Palestinians are a people that no country in the Middle East have wanted to call their own, and they live in constant turmoil with the Israelis.

So we have both an old view of the Jews, years before Israel was formed, running into the current situation, where Israel has yet another Arab enemy to contend with.

Many believe the Palestinians are an oppressed people; others look at them as terrorists. They want statehood, but have never formally recognized the state of Israel.

The Jews know about oppression, the Palestinians proclaim that they are oppressed. Israel allows Palestinians to work and live in its environs and counts them as among its citizens; the Palestinians rue the day that Israel was created.

What do you do?

Look to Tevye for guidance, that's what you do.

The Palestinians should look to this fictional character for guidance. I know it's simplistic, but it is what it is.

Tevye constantly asks God for guidance, whether it is for killing a goat or related to the whims of his daughters.

And God seems to always have an answer for Tevye, which he voices through song: "If I Were a Rich Man," "To Life," etc.

Tevye believes that God has asked him for patience, to understand each situation as it comes to him, and to look at both sides of the equation.

And when his daughters want to get married to men who he believes are not right for his daughters, God asks Tevye, again, for patience, for understanding both sides of the situation, and for his eventual blessing.

So should the Palestinians. If they want statehood, then they must sit down at the negotiating table. They must recognize Israel, basically giving the Jewish state their blessing.

Like Tevye, they don't have to like it, but for the good of his family--and in the Palestinian's neck of the woods, for the good of the Middle East--they should just accept it.

Again, I know that is simplistic, but perhaps simplicity is needed to solve this age-old conflict.

Because without some type of compromise, Israel has no reason to negotiate with the Palestinians. What are they to gain from this?

Everyone wants peace in the Middle East, but the Palestinians must learn that peace is not obtained through terrorist activities like car bombs, suicide bombs, using women and children as decoys, etc.

Those are terroristic acts of violence, and have nothing to do with peace.

And until they understand that--and vow to clean up their act, recognize Israel as the nation that it is, and live as neighbors with the Israelis--peace will never happen, and statehood will be nothing more than a pipe dream.

As Tevye says, "God be with you."

Rant #585: I Left My Heart ... Somewhere ... ?

2011-09-21T03:40:00.000-07:00

In the latest chapter of "Shut Up, Don't Leave Your Day Job," crooner Tony Bennett decided to become a diplomat yesterday, and in the process, caused an uproar that could be heard from New York to, err, San Francisco.

In a bizarre interview with shock jock Howard Stern on satellite radio, Bennett proclaimed "we caused" the 9/11 attacks and said former President George W. Bush admitted to him the Iraq war was a mistake.

"They flew the plane in, but we caused it," the 85-year-old singer told Stern on his Sirius Radio show Monday night. "We were bombing them, and they told us to stop."

Bennett's controversial answer came after Stern asked Bennett, a World War II veteran, how the U.S. should deal with the terrorists responsible for toppling the World Trade Center. "Who are the terrorists?" Bennett said. "Are we the terrorists, or are they the terrorists? Two wrongs don't make a right."

Bennett went on to describe a night in 2005 when he claims then-President Bush made an admission to him about the Iraq war. The two were at an event at the Kennedy Center honoring Bennett. "He told me personally that night that, he said, 'I think I made a mistake,' " said Bennett, who was appearing on the Stern show to promote his new album, "Duets II," and whose granddaughter concurrently has an art exhibit opening in Manhattan.

The singer said he believed that the President made this revelation because "he had a special liking to me," said he agreed with that assessment. "To start a war in Iraq was a tremendous, tremendous mistake internationally."

We know that Stern often gets people to say things that they would never say out loud, only think about.

And he certainly did that to Bennett, who spent a good part of yesterday denying that he said anything wrong.

Of course, people who were directly impacted by the terrorist attacks have been taken aback by the crooner's comments.

Bennett is not a diplomat, he is a singer ... a singer who was born in Astoria, Queens, and has basically made his nickel on one single song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." He is not a politician, not a legislator.

If he really believes what he said--and I have my doubts the octogenarian performer even realized the gravity of what he was saying--then he should just shut up.

The 10th anniversary of these attacks was just a few days ago. To voice such tripe right now, even if that is what you really believe, is pretty stupid, don't you think?

His granddaughter, who is worried that her grandpa's big mouth will ruin her exhibition, said that her grandfather was a lifelong Pacificist, and is against any type of war or retaliation for such an act. And she left it at that.

Well, maybe she left it at that, but you just know that people won't forget this slip of the tongue by a guy who should be singing, not mud slinging.

Shut up and sing. That is what I would tell Bennett to do the next time he feels the need to have diarrhea of the mouth on the national airwaves about something he knows absolutely nothing about.

Rant #584: Mo, Mo, Mo

2011-09-20T03:44:00.000-07:00

Mariano Rivera.

The name trickles off the tongue like a good pasta sauce.

Mariano Rivera is the greatest closer the game of baseball has ever seen. He solidified his place in sports history yesterday by recording his 602nd save as the Yankees downed the Twins, 6-4 in a makeup game played at Yankee Stadium.

Rivera has had a truly remarkable career. Coming up through the Yankees minor league system during the dark days of the franchise--the early 1990s were not kind to the team from the Bronx--this scrawny kid with a blazing fastball came up to the Yankees in 1994 as, believe it or not, a starting pitcher.

He was not tall and was lean, but had that mean fastball. Some likened him to Ron Guidry, the Yankees' great starting pitcher who had the same build and temperament.

Rivera was up and down as a starter, but then the Yankees braintrust had a great idea--why not make this kid into a relief pitcher, not for save opportunities, but to set up their closer?

This decision redefined baseball bullpens. Now the setup man was just as important as the guy who closed out the games, and it has been a model used by every major league franchise since then.

The plan worked. Rivera initially set up John Wetteland, and the Yankees went on to win the World Series in 1996. Beginning in 1997, Rivera became the closer, and he hasn't looked back since.

His 602 saves broke the record of another top-flight reliever, Trevor Hoffman, who played mainly for the Padres in the National League--so Hoffman continues to hold the National League record.

What differentiates Rivera and Hoffman are the number of big games that Rivera played in versus Hoffman. Hoffman's teams were only occasionally in big games, playoff games, and World Series. Rivera, playing for a team in New York, is always in the spotlight, anyway, but incredibly, the Yankees are in the postseason just about every year. His exploits on the national stage have made him one of the most dependable--and popular--baseball players ever.

He has more than 40 saves in the postseason, which includes the playoffs and World Series. No one is even close to him on this biggest of stages.

And his regular season percentage of saves made versus opportunities--really the most important statistic--is also No. 1. Anything over 85 percent is phenomenal, and for his career, Rivera--who has at least one save against every team in baseball--is over 89 percent.

That means that 11 times out of 100, he fails to do the job he is on the mound for. Heck, I guess you can say that he is really human.

And he is in incredible shape. He has had some minor arm woes throughout his career, but overall, Rivera has never had a major arm injury as a major leaguer. Having pitched so many years, it is incredible that he has has been so durable.

Rivera was often called the greatest relief pitcher of all time well before he reached save number 602. But now he has the statistics to prove it.

His save record will go down as one of the unreachable baseball records, right up there with Cy Young's 511 wins. In today's world of baseball, it is a record that might be approached, but not topped, at least not in my lifetime.

There are some great relievers out there, but to record 600 saves, you have to save at least 30 games a year for 20 years, or 40 games a year for 15 years. Relievers generally have a short shelf life, and really, anything over 300 saves for a career is incredible. To have more than twice that many, as Rivera and Hoffman have, is just simply unbelievable.

Saves have only been an official statistic since 1969, and some relievers have just now gotten their due as Hall of Famers. Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter were two of the dominant relievers of their time. In those days, relievers pitched two or three innings at a time, not the one that current closers pitch today.

And Gossage and Sutter are, deservedly, in the Hall of Fame for their accomplishments.

Sure, some old-timers still don't get what closers do and what saves really mean, just like the unofficial "hold" category that will probably one day become an official statistic.

But Rivera, and for that matter, Hoffman, have done something that is so unapproachable, so out of this world, that both should also find their way into Cooperstown down the road.

Hoffman is already retired, so his 601 saves are his career total.

Rivera is still pitching, although he is hinting that when his contract runs out next year, he might close it down.

So we just don't know how many saves this 41 year old will finish with.

And that's the fun part about it.

Many of us were not around to see Babe Ruth's exploits, nor Cy Young's. But at least for my generation, I can say that I saw the greatest relief pitcher, bar none, to ever play the game of baseball.

Congratulations to Mariano Rivera. He is the greatest at what he does.

Rant #583: Child Abuse Up in Recession?

2011-09-19T03:42:00.000-07:00

As if my recent posts about abusive parents weren't enough, now there is a study that may back my personal contention that we are hearing more and more stories about child abuse lately.

According to the study, an increase in such incidents, especially against infants, is being linked to the country's current recession.

The results came from a small study conducted by the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of 422 abused kids spread over four states. The children were from mostly lower income families, where I would assume that the risk is higher for such abuse, in both good economic times and bad ones.

Based on the findings, there have been more cases of shaken babies being reported, as well as other brain-injuring abuse.

Evidently, the hospital decided to do this study when it discovered that there was a rise in abusive head trauma cases in its own environs during recession years--in this case late 2007 to June 2009--as opposed to times when the economy is in better shape.

During the recession years, such cases rose 76.5 percent, from 17 annually before 2007 to 30 cases a year during the recession years.

Overall, the rise in the number of such cases in the counties that were part of the study jibed with the percentage rise of the cases at the hospital. In those counties, there were nine cases per 100,000 children in the pre-recession years, to about 15 per 100,000 kids during the recession years--a rise of 65 percent.

Although this is a small study, this is an incredible statistic. You can point to a lot of things that caused the rise--including more teenagers and younger people who are not married and having kids, and people unemployed having children--and you can say that immaturity of the parents caused the numbers to rise.

But can you actually link the recession to the rise? Does a parent shake an infant because he or she can't afford to have an extra mouth to feed?

You really have to wonder. If our economy was better, if more people were working, if people weren't worried about their finances, would the increase be at such a high rate?

I don't know the answer to that. People are going to have children whether we are in good financial health or bad financial health, and that goes for individuals' personal finances, too.

So to sum it up, I don't know if the information in this study is valid or not. Just because someone is on the lower rung of the economic ladder doesn't mean that they will abuse their kids. And can you tie the abuse directly to the financial woes of our country?

But it is interesting that at least the news media is picking up on these abuses. Maybe the abuses were more of a behind-closed-doors type of thing in the past.

Lately, everything has been out in the open. And maybe that's a good thing.

But if the findings of the study are correct, then parents should use a punching bag to get out their feelings of inadequacy, and not babies.

What is this world coming to when infants are being used like lifeless rag dolls?

Again, I just don't know what's going on in this world, I really don't.

Rant #582: Darn Right It's Butch

2011-09-16T04:15:00.000-07:00

Tommy Bond would have been 85 years old today.

Who is Tommy Bond, you ask.

Tommy Bond was the kid actor who played the meanie Butch in all those old Our Gang/Little Rascals short features.

Although Spanky, Alfalfa and Darla got most of the applause, Tommy Bond was probably the best pure actor of the bunch. He started off with the Gang as merely an ancillary player--most notably warbling the adult tearjerker "Just Friends" in one episode--but as the series grew and a protagonist was needed, Bond kind of morphed into Butch, the bully who really wasn't all that bad.

From about 1936 to 1940, Butch regularly competed with Alfalfa for the attention of comely Darla. Although he only periodically won the favor of the Gang's lovely lass, he became the comic foil for the good guys of the Gang, including Buckwheat and Porky, two of the little kids that he regularly threatened, often sending his henchman, Woim, to do the dirty work.

In 1937, still as a kid actor, he was one of the first members of the Screen Actors Guild.

When Bond finally left the series in 1940, he continued to do films. and he served in the Navy during World War II.

After the war, he was the first movie Jimmy Olsen in the Superman serials alongside Kirk Allyn and Noelle Neil.

Bond later turned his attention to television, and worked on many productions behind the scenes. In fact, if you remember Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, and all the crazy props they used, you can thank Bond, because he was the prop master of that show.

As one of the last surviving major members of the Our Gang/Little Rascals cast, in his later life he represented the Gang in a number of productions, and he eventually wrote his own autobiography.

Bond died Sept. 24, 2005.

His legacy are those Our Gang/Little Rascals films. Today, where bullies are looked down upon, Bond's characterization seems completely out of touch with today's reality.

But way back when, the character of Butch was a bully, but he kind of had a heart of gold. Although he won many victories over the more popular characters, he never won the war, so to speak.

And he took it, and we laughed at him, with him and against him.

Tommy Bond was a one of a kind actor in a series that has also been proven to be one of a kind, and I salute him on what would have been his birthday.

"Darn Right It's Butch"--and we're all better for it.

Rant #581: Daddy Demented

2011-09-15T03:46:00.000-07:00

In part two of our unofficial look at the worst parents on the planet, here is another episode of "Parents Gone Mad."

A father was charged with child abuse after prosecutors said he slapped his seven-year-old son until he cried, and then, for good measure, threw the boy overboard during a recent pleasure cruise in California.

Sloan Briles, 35, of Irvine, Calif., had been drinking before the boy was tossed 10 feet over the side of the Queen in Newport Harbor during a cruise on Aug. 28, authorities said. When other passengers became angry, Briles jumped into the water before someone on a nearby boat retrieved the boy, prosecutors said.

Several days later, Briles told the syndicated show "Inside Edition" that the episode amounted to "roughhousing."

"We were just screwing around, just showing off, just being guys," he told the show. "It's not like I threw him off. We went together. It was just like a hand-in-hand thing."

Briles, who has had several run-ins with the police in the past, is scheduled to be arraigned on Sept. 26 in Newport Beach on one felony count of child abuse and endangerment and one misdemeanor count of resisting an officer. If convicted, he could face up to six years in prison.

Well, doesn't he make our previous day's "Mom of the Year" look just stunning?

This guy obviously lost it. Under the influence of alcohol, anything is possible, and I guess that pretty much sums up what this father did to his son.

And his claims that what they were doing was "roughhousing"? I don't know about that. Sure, I have roughhoused with my own son. It's part of being a dad. Nobody gets hurt. It's fun.

But when you endanger your son's life ... no, I would not call that roughhousing. I would call it plain stupid.

And like yesterday's perfect parent, this guy should get the book thrown at him. He is a jerk.

And he should not be able to see this kid again--and, for that matter, his other kids from his previous marriage again--unless the visits are supervised.

So there you have it--one "perfect" parent on the East Coast, the other on the West Coast.

This doesn't absolve the middle of the country, nor does it absolve any other part of the country (you might remember that in Rant #565, I talked about a mother in Alaska who forced her child to take hot sauce for being a naughty kid).

What is going on in this world today? Have some parents completely lost their minds?

I know this is harsh, but some people shouldn't be parents. Just because they can sire kids or have kids doesn't mean that they should.

Maybe a good doll would do. Or maybe a good doctor's procedure.

I just don't know ...