Rant #860: Hanukkah Lights

Tomorrow evening at sunset is Hanukkah, the festival of lights.

It's the first evening of a seven-day celebration that is in the November/December time frame each year.

It's not my favorite Jewish holiday, but it is the end-of-the-year Jewish holiday that all Jews look forward to.

But it is not Jewish Christmas, if anybody thinks it is.

It is a completely separate holiday that has nothing to do with Christmas.

In fact, it is probably older than Christmas.

Yes, it involves gift giving, but in the sum total of all the Jewish holidays, it is a relatively minor one on the calendar.

It harkens back to the victories of Judah and the Maccabees, and the days of the old Temple, which was destroyed, and its rebuilding, and the almost "magic" candelabra that burned brightly for eight days, although it had just enough oil for one, single day.

To me, it is a celebration of much more than that.

It is a day to be thankful, a day to look at ourselves and see where we have been and where we are going.

If that sounds like Yom Kippur, it is kind of similar, but this holiday is celebrated in a more fun way.

Dreidels are traditionally spun, Hanukkah gelt is given, small presents are exchanged, and food heavy in oil is traditionally eaten.

It is a holiday that the family gets together, and it's a day of fun.

Again, it's a relatively minor holiday on the Jewish calendar, but in the U.S., it has risen to much grander status.

Giant menorahs are lit around the country to symbolize the strength of the Jewish people. Sometimes, they stand proudly next to Christmas symbols, and this has often riled some people who think that their religion should not have to share the stage with another.

I happen to disagree. Both Christmas and Hanukkah represent the most joyous of seasons, but again, they are separate. One holiday has nothing to do with the other. But I certainly don't mind public sites where symbols of both holidays are represented.

I think some people believe that Christmas doesn't have to share the stage with another holiday because they are anti-Semitic, although they certainly wouldn't admit to it.

I also think that many Jews forget that they two holidays are separate. They so want to assimilate into the mass culture that they forget who they are, forget their faith.

I am offended when symbols of the two holidays are mixed into one, such as putting a Jewish star on top of a Christmas tree or reindeers wearing yarmulkes.

Sure, people think this is fun, but it is really a slap in the face of both holidays.

Yes, I know that there are many intermarriages, and multiple faiths are celebrated at the same time of year in the same household.

That is fine for some people, and for people in that situation, I guess it is a way to resolve the fact that there are two religions in the same household.

For me, I don't have such a quandary. My wife is Jewish, I am Jewish, and my children were raised as Jews.

I am not knocking Jews and Gentiles who have married, but that is something they have to deal with. 

I don't.

So happy Hanukkah to all my Jewish friends, and in a few weeks, I will wish my non-Jewish friends a Merry Christmas.

It's a joyous time of year, and each holiday stands proudly on its own.

Rant #859: Tall Tale

I read yesterday that the world's tallest woman passed away at age 39.

Her name was Yao Defen, she lived in China, and she was not only the world's tallest woman, she was one of the world's tallest people, period.

She was 7 feet, 7 inches tall.

According to reports, she suffered from gigantism, which can stretch limbs and other parts of the human body to almost unimaginable lengths.

And in some cases it can be deadly.

She played basketball at one time, of course, but Yao Ming evidently had nothing to worry about.

Defen was not happy with her size, often wondering why she was burdened by this curse.

I am sure that along with the height, other normal body functions that we take for granted didn't work right for her.

For one, I am sure the burden her heart could bare was increased by her size. A human heart really isn't made to support such a skeleton.

And like most very tall people, she probably had leg and foot problems.

I am sure she had to get her clothes custom made for her.

And socially, she was probably something of an outcast.

But she seemed to be a smart woman who was not comfortable with her body, her features, and her challenges, and probably all the people that stared at her because of her huge height.

I am 5 feet, 9 inches tall. That's pretty normal for the American male, I would say. 

I think the average height for the American male is 5 feet, 8 inches, so I guess I am slightly above normal height.

I just can't imagine someone as tall as she was. Put us side by side, and she was like half a person taller than I am.

I do feel sorry for people who have such a burden. 

They get stared at from the get go, and if they are not athletic, what do they do with their lives?

I remember in my old neighborhood of Rochdale Village in Jamaica, Queens, there was a guy who lived in the building across the street. 

There were a lot of rumors about him, but the fact of the matter was that as a little kid, this guy was absolutely enormous.

He must have been 6 feet, nine inches or thereabouts, maybe even a bit taller, give a few inches, and to us little kids, he looked like a giant.

We mocked him, we stared at him, we yelled things at him.

We did it because we were scared of him because of his height.

We weren't very nice to him, and there were other rumors about him that I won't get into now that added to our behavior toward him.

I always wondered about that guy. I know he didn't take kindly to our taunts, and would yell back at us.

But if you aren't a world famous basketball player, it must be difficult to live in a world where most people are at least a foot shorter than you are.

Defen was like two feet taller than her peers, if not more, and she must have had a very difficult life.

So here's to her, and all the other people in the world who have to bear the burden of enormous height.

And that's the long and short of it for today.

Rant #858: Wham Bam

I wrote about the Monkees the past two days, and I won't write about them again today.

But their very existence can be linked to this performer that I celebrate today, who is himself celebrating his 80th birthday on this very day.

Heck, not only do the Monkees owe their existence to him, but so do the Beatles, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, the Rolling Stones, yes, even Elvis.

Little Richard Penniman is an icon, a living legend, and the guy, who, for all intents and purposes, started it all.

Yes, he had help. Others, like Bill Haley and the Comets, Chuck Berry and Ike Turner, laid the groundwork, but Little Richard is the guy who allowed rock and roll to become mainstream music.

Having his first national hit, "Tutti-Frutti," about two months before Elvis had his first national hit, Richard set the benchmark for what followed.

And his flamboyance irked many oldsters, who looked upon rock and roll at the beginning of the end of the world in the very staid 1950s.

Richard had that high hair, he often wore makeup, and wore wild outfits. He stomped and preened for his audience, and they loved him.

Sure, his hit years were encompassed in basically a very short time period--between 1956 and 1958, although he continued to chart into the 1960s and beyond--but those hits, along with Chuck Berry's music, laid the groundwork for rock then and into the 1960s.

Every rocker worth his salt covered his hits, whether it was "Tutti-Frutti," or "Lucille," "Long Tall Sally," or "Jenny, Jenny." They were simple songs, but without them, dare say there would have been no rock 'n roll as we know it.

Little Richard has had his ups and downs. He has battled with his talent, leaving show business for awhile and going the religious route.

He has battled with other demons, including his sexuality, but for all his battles, he seems to have won each and every one.

His influence is monumental, and even at 80, he is seemingly as spry today as he was nearly 60 years ago.

I missed Little Richard's hit years, but I ran out and bought his last national hit, "Great Gosh A'Mighty (It's a Matter of Time)" in 1986. It was the theme song to the hugely successful "Down and Out in Beverly Hills" film, and it marked a major comeback for Little Richard, coming back into the rock fold. It only hit #42 on the Hot Singles chart, but Little Richard was back, and he has been going full throttle ever since.

I also have one of his greatest hits albums, and I have a lot of other material he recorded in my record collection.

But those early, seminal songs set the tone for rock and roll as we know it, and for those songs, Little Richard will always be remembered.

He was probably the first performer with that rock and roll attitude, and it's great that he is still around today, wowing audiences with those wonderful songs.

Happy birthday, Mr. Penniman. Here's to another 80 years to wow us even more.

Rant #857: Oh My My

I am still on the Monkees bent. The show was so good on Saturday night that I can't get off of it just yet, so bear with me.

In 1970, the Monkees were just about over.

The show had been cancelled by NBC in 1968, and while the group continued to spew out records, and still toured, the interest just wasn't there anymore.

After cancellation, the show went into reruns, and it was picked up by CBS, which ran it as part of its Saturday morning lineup of kids shows.

Although the Monkees' original fans, including me, were growing up, CBS knew that there was another generation to mine with the show, the kids born in the mid 1960s who were just getting old enough to know what they liked on TV.

With that in mind, the show was placed on the Saturday morning schedule, and years before MTV tapped into the Monkees' magic for another generation, they had another hit on their hands with the small fry generation.

Decisions had to be made about how to extend the Monkees' brand, and some wry choices were made to tap into this resource.

Although Mike Nesmith had, for all intents and purposes, left the band in 1969--and Peter Tork had left earlier--Nesmith still was contractually obligated to appear in some commercials with the band.

The newly formed Nerf line of products was first promoted by the Monkees in a series of commercials linked in with long-time sponsor Kool Aid. Nesmith--with Monkees lifers Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones--pushed this new product, and, well, Nerf has been part of our culture for more than 40 years now. This was the product line at its very beginnings.

The group also appeared on several cereal box records. Buy a Post Cereal, get a Monkees record on the back of the box. It was as simple as that, and thousands of records were produced in this way, probably a whole lot of them being the first Monkees' records--and the first records period--that these youngsters ever owned.

But the big ploy was to put out a record to appeal to this young segment.

Thus, the Monkees' last original record on the Colgems label was born.

"Changes" features just Micky and Davy. In fact, the cover photo is from their appearance on "The Joey Bishop Show," when Mike was still part of the band, but his part of the photo is cut.

Davy always referred to this record in negative terms as "our Andy Kim" record, and that singer/songwriter's stamp is, in fact all over the record, as a writer and producer.

It is a record for little kids, eons beneath the music the Monkees put out for their film, "Head," which probably most of their then current audience didn't see until they were in their 40s.

Even though it is a really bad record, it does have its moments, maybe two of them.

Micky's "Midnight Train" is a song that could have found its way onto any of the previous Monkees records. It is a spare production, but Micky's vocals rise it up to another level. I have heard that his sister, Coco, is also on this song, and if so, she adds to its attractiveness.

"Oh My My" was the Monkees' final, official single on the Colgems label. It is sort of a then-new amalgam of bubblegum and soul, and it features one of Micky's finest vocals.

It should have been a hit, and probably two years earlier, it would have reached the upper echelon of the singles chart. As it is, in 1970, it barely scraped into that chart at No. 98.

It wasn't for lack of trying, though. An original video was put out to run with the show to promote the single and LP. It showed Micky and Davy on motorcycles. It was the Monkees' first promotional video in two years, and it is a pretty good one, directed by Micky himself.

The album didn't even chart in its original form, but it did years later during the 1986 Monkees revival.

CBS soon dropped the show from Saturday mornings, it was picked up by ABC, ran on that network for awhile, and then went into syndication, only to be revived by MTV in 1986 ... and the rest is history.

Once woefully out of print, "Changes" today can be found today pretty easily.

As an artifact of its time, it is an LP to listen to, probably once, and put away for another time.

And that is it on the Monkees from me, at least for now.

Rant #856: Monkees Business

I have always absolutely loved the Monkees.

I loved the concept from the get go in 1966, I loved the music, and yes, I loved, as performers, the four guys who made up the project/band/group/experiment, whatever you want to call it.

And on Saturday night, my family actually went to see the three remaining Monkees in what was probably the next to last time the name "Monkees" will ever be used in a concert format.

The surviving Monkees--Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, and yes, Michael Nesmith--decided to tour after the February 29 death of fellow bandmate Davy Jones, and they scheduled a very brief 14-date tour across the country.

They finally got to Long Island on Saturday night, playing in The Paramount, a relatively new concert venue. The old place--which started life as a vaudeville house and became one of my favorite haunts in my early 20s as a laser light show venue--shined brightly on this night, showcasing the surviving Monkees in a no holds barred celebration of their accomplishments, and those of Jones.

The spotlight was on Nesmith--who has rarely toured or seemed to care about the Monkees since he left them for good in 1969--during most of the night. Showcasing the songs that he wrote for himself and the other Monkees, Nesmith was fully in gear during this show, and I must say, he was really good.

His vocals haven't changed much over the years, and when he sang a song like "You Told Me," or "Tapicoa Tundra," you could just shut your eyes and really think that you were listening to him on the old records from the 1960s.

And contrary to what I've read, his guitar playing seemed to be intact. Maybe as the tour made its way north, he got more comfortable at what he was doing, but whatever the case, I didn't hear the slips he supposedly made early on.

Dolenz is Dolenz. He has been singing these songs for nearly 50 years, and I have never seen him where he holds back on these classic tunes. Each one he sings like he never sung it before. You can tell that he really cherishes this music, and this legacy. His vocals are still smooth as silk, as he possesses one of the great rock voices. "I'm a Believer," "Randy Scouse Git," whatever the song, those tunes are his. He owns them.

And while he played some guitar during the show, he mainly played drums and any percussion instrument he could find, and he was more than adequate.

Peter Tork is the oldest Monkee, and the one who has probably had the most interesting life--not necessarily career--after the Monkees of the foursome. Whether teaching, in jail, battling cancer, or just singing the blues, Tork has certainly lived the life. And his voice, never his best instrument, shows the ravages of those past times. But for a 70 year old, he is still spry. While he had the spotlight on just a couple of songs as the lead singer--"Auntie Grizelda" and "Long Title: Do I Have To Do This All Over Again" were two of them--he really showed his prowess in other ways.

As a musician, Tork was never given much credit back in the day, but he really can play multiple instruments, and he showed his talents by playing guitar, keyboards, banjo and several others during the show. And let me say, he is really, really good.

Now to Jones. His life and his contributions to the Monkees legacy were fully acknowledged during this concert. The trio took breaks during the show by showing videos of his most popular Monkees songs, and only one Jones song, "Early Morning Blues and Greens," was sung by the trio--Peter at the lead--during the concert.

How do you perform "Daydream Believer" without Davy? According the Dolenz, they took the suggestion of Nesmith and let the audience perform the song. Taking one audience member up on stage with them--was she a ringer?--Dolenz sung the tune with her and with the audience.

It was a perfect tribute to Jones, a nice farewell to their bandmate.

The place was sold out for months, the fans were really into this music and the trio, and I absolutely loved the show.

The backing band and vocalists--including Nesmith's son, Christian, and Dolenz's sister, Coco--was top notch. Many had been with one form or other of the Monkees during the past 25 years, some were new to the "family."

There is really no Monkees, per se, without Jones, so the feeling is that this will be it for the use of the Monkees name in concert. In fact, the show's program had ads for Nesmith, Tork and Dolenz's latest non-Monkees projects.

Yes, the trio probably will move on after last night's show, the last show of the tour, at the Beacon in New York. They will still perform as solo artists, but that will probably be it for them as the Monkees.

I have heard rumors that a DVD will be coming out of the tour, and I know there was filming being done on Saturday night.

Between all the pictures I took myself, and the video I also took from the rafters, and this supposed release. I will have a real keepsake of this tour, the final tour of the Monkees.

And yes, I bought a "Head" T-shirt.

And I will wear it proudly, probably wear it out from use.

And my wife loved the show, as did my son. In the midst of his love of rap, he loved the performance, only disappointed that his favorite Monkees tune, "Cuddy Toy," was not either performed or shown on the video monitors.

I guess you can't have everything, but at least my 17 year old "gets" the Monkees ... another generation embraces these guys.

However, I feel the Monkees are my band, made for MY generation, and I am not ashamed to say that.

Never have, never will.

Rant #855: Happy Birthday

At this blog, I have celebrated the birthdays of those who are famous, and those who are not so famous, those who have changed our lives and those who have changed our lives maybe just a little bit.

Today, I am going to celebrate a birthday that is very important to me.

This guy may not have changed or shaped anyone else's life, but he certainly did mine, and for that matter, my sister and my mom too.

Today, my father turns 81 years of age.

He was born during a different era, when things were simpler, but still pretty hectic. The Depression was a time to reflect on how or when you might eat your next meal, and times were tough, really tough.

He lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with his immigrant parents and three younger siblings.

When the family became too large, they ventured out to the then uncharted area of Queens to live, which was quite a hike for them, as my grandfather owned a butcher shop on Delancey Street, and rather than it now being in the neighborhood, they now had to trek there by car.

My father was very smart in school--he skipped a grade or two--but his role was destined. He was going to work in the butcher store, and he became a butcher upon graduation from high school. He tells us he barely got out of school, but I really think he was too smart for school.

He served in the military during the Korean War. He was a Marine Corps cook, which is funny, because up until that point, I don't think he had cooked a day in his life. But the war effort saw he was a butcher, so they figured he could cook. Go figure.

He never went to Korea. He was supposed to go, but he had two sets of papers, and while the Marine Corps sorted this out, they put him in jail, so he says he has a jail record.

He did serve in Cuba, and he tells stories that I cannot repeat here about his dalliances with the natives. Very funny, but XXX-rated.

What I can tell you is that he served during a time when the Armed Forces were slowly being integrated, but very, very slowly. He says that the Marine Corps put him with others they considered "malcontents" because of his religion--Jews, Puerto Ricans and blacks were often lumped together--and he tells of the time when he was one of the few, if not the only, white person on a Marine Corps bus in the Deep South, and he was sent out to get sandwiches for his troop, because he was the only person that would be served.

Anyway, after he served his time in the Marine Corps, he went back to the store. My father could have gone to college, and in another time, he would have. But during those days, the oldest child, especially the oldest son, went to work to help support the family and to allow his siblings to continue their education.

That is what my father did, in fact, the day after he was out of the Marines, he went right to work.

His brother became a doctor and a teacher. His two sisters became teachers. 'Nuf said.

In the mid 1950s, he was set up on a blind date and met the lady who would become my mother. They will be married 57 years come January.

I came around in 1957, and my father gave up smoking cold turkey for me. The doctor told him to stop, because my mom was pregnant with me, and he did.

As I was growing up, I always looked up to my father. He worked long, hard hours as a butcher, but he was home on the weekends. He slept a lot on the weekends, but he always had time to play with my sister and me.

We played lots of ball, and his influence really made me a sports fan. He loved competition, and while he was a very good athlete, I wasn't, but it didn't stop him from pushing me, and I loved it.

He was my coach for a couple of seasons in Little League, and we won a couple of championships in our league. I vowed as a child that if I ever had a son, I would also coach him, and I kept my vow, coaching my own son for a few seasons. I hope my son, if he ever has a son, will follow this direction, too.

In the mid 1960s, faced with the loss of the butcher store because of some grand plan New York City had to build a highway right through it--which they never did--he became a full time, licensed New York City medallion cab driver. It took a lot of gumption to change your career in midstream like that, but he did it, and did it very successfully.

He owned his own medallion for decades. He still drives a cab a few days a week to this day.

He has been very successful as a cab driver, and I still remember that I picked out the colors--blue and white--of his first cab. In those days, cabs didn't have to be yellow, now they do.

Anyway, we later moved ourselves, from Queens out to the wilds of Long Island, and the move initially wasn't easy, but it all worked out for the better for our family.

Through it all, my sister and I graduated high school, college and graduate school. We are both pretty successful at what we do in life. My mom is the most active person I know, and she enjoys life to the fullest with my dad.

They have five grandchildren, four boys and one girl. I contributed one boy and one girl to that mix. And the kids love their grandparents, and worship their Zaydee.

My father lives downstairs with my mom in the same house as my family does. It has become a good arrangement. My wife and I help out when we can, and yes, my parents help us out too.

My father is every bit as competitive as he was when he was much younger. He has that spirit that will never leave him, and that keeps him going.

His hearing has deteriorated, he doesn't seem as tall to me as he once did, but his work ethic has never left him. Honestly, with his hearing in the state that it's in, I don't know how he drives a cab, but he does, and he still is a top booker. And he is honest as all hell. He won't take you 20 miles out of the way to get to your desination. He never did that when he was younger, and he won't do it now.

He is the patriarch of our family, and although he has weathered the years, he is as strong as an ox in at least mind if not body. But that body continues to allow him to do pretty much what he wants to do, so it is OK, too.

That picture I included here is my father in 1969 on his birthday in that year, when he turned 38. More than four decades later, he hasn't changed all that much.

So I salute my dad on his 81st birthday. He is probably the most important male figure in my life, bar none, my link to my past, my present, and yes, my future too, as is my mom.

I am so damn lucky to have both of them around. I love both of them so, even if we mix it up from time to time. That is the competitive nature in me, I guess.

Thanks to him, and my mom, for being there when I've needed them, and my family has needed them.

I don't know if we could have done it all without them.

Rant #854: Pong Ping

No, I did not win the Powerball jackpot. I think the winning tickets were purchased out west.

Oh, woe is me.

So let me move on from that to a day in history that will be immortalized by some, and for others, it's a day of infamy.

And for still others, well, it doesn't mean anything to them.

In 1972, 40 years ago, the so-called first video game, Pong, was introduced to the world.

No, it wasn't the world's first video game--even though it is identified by many as the first--but it was the first to be widely accepted by the public.

Created by Atari, the video game debuted at Andy Capp's Tavern in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Pong was the simplest of video games--basically, akin to tennis, it was just hitting an object back and forth--but it set the stage for later video games, the explosion of these games in the 1990s, and today's video game market, where not only are the games more life-like, but you can play these games online with people half way around the world from where you are.

I did play Pong. It was a real novelty at the time.

I remember playing it in a bowling alley, probably in Queens, maybe around this time or maybe in 1973.

It was kind of neat, but I never really got into video games at all.

Later, in the 1980s, I remember playing Qbert and Space Invaders and PacMan and lots of other video games, but I was a pinball machine guy, really.

Not a wizard, but I always found those games more challenging.

And they were more "real" to me. There was actually a ball darting down this maze.

With a video game, it was nothing but electronic figures going all over the place.

Not real to me, I guess.

My daughter and son got into video games, got out of them, and got back in them.

My son likes the sports-oriented ones, like the ones with the NBA and WWE stamp on them.

I know my daughter plays them, too, but I don't know what she goes for, certainly not the sports one.

My son as the Wii, and he is firmly content with what he has.

But he is too young to realize that the leap from the simpleness of Pong to the complexity of NBA 2012 took about 30 years to happen.

And it all stemmed from the popularity of Pong.

Once Pong took off, a new way to spend our time was created.

Board games survived, pinball machines survived, but well, it was never the same anymore.

And we can both blame and applaud Pong for helping to change the shape of the gaming world forever.

It's been 40 years, and things have changed a lot during that period of time.

Could I play Pong now? Sure I could, but honestly, I have better things to do with whatever free time I have now than to sit down and play a game where I am simply hitting a figure back and forth.

Here's to Pong, though. It's sort of the father of the video game, the link where all video games started, so for that reason, I have to give it its kudos.

Now onto more important matters ...