Rant #953: Coming Out Day

A few weeks ago, I made some comments on a cover of Sports Illustrated featuring voluptuous model Kate Upton.

That cover was her "busting out" day, for sure.

Today I am going to make some comments about another Sports Illustrated cover, this one featuring an athlete's "coming out" day.

Jason Collins, a journeyman player in the NBA who last played with the Washington Wizards and is currently a free agent, came out yesterday, telling the world that he is gay.

He is the first current player in one of the four major team sports to come out as being gay--major male team sports specifically, as I believe a few players in the all-female WNBA have come out--and some are looking at him as a pioneer of sorts.

He got congratulatory messages for his coming out from everybody from Presidents Obama and Clinton to the First Lady, to Kobe Bryant and many other sports and show business celebrities.

Why did he come out now?

The 12-year veteran and Sports Illustrated fully knew what they were doing by having him do this now, which makes it a calculating maneuver on both of their parts.

The NBA is at the height of its yearly frenzy now.

The playoffs are on, and the sports world is tuned in to the exploits of teams like the Miami Heat, the New York Knicks, the Boston Celtics, and all the teams that are in the mix to win the league championship.

The Washington Wizards are not in that mix, having a pretty woeful season, preparing for the draft lottery.

So he, and Sports Illustrated, got the biggest bang for their buck, and that is something that has to be taken into account here.

Would Collins have come out right now if the Wizards were in the playoffs?

Very, very doubtful. It would have thrown the playoffs, and his team's chances, into a sideshow next to his admission.

But Collins did what he did now, with the Wizards out of it and his own NBA future in doubt.

Collins is a journeyman player, has never been much of an impact player, but has had a nice career. He has nothing to be ashamed of.

As a player, he is one of the few groups of players who has been in the NBA with his twin. Jason and Jarron--Jarron is the same type of player as his brother, also having a good, but unspectacular career--join the Van Arsdale twins and the current Lopez twins in this select group.

Anyway, what about his admission?

Look, there is no doubt in my mind that he is not the only professional athlete who is gay. Heck, there are probably dozens of others.

But he is the first current, active athlete to admit as such, so he is taking a major chance here.

He is a fringe player, and I am sure he will be fighting for a job next season with some team.

He has gone through a dozen years of not bringing this up. I am sure there were some players who knew about this already, and it really didn't matter to them.

Nor should it really matter to anyone else.

If he is on the team that I root for, and he has the ball at the last seconds of a game, and if he is lucky enough to hit the winning shot, well, he is a hero, a hero not only to me, but to all the fans of my team.

If he misses, well, he is a bum just like anybody else. Better luck next time.

And that is the way it should be. That is the way sports is, and I am sure that Collins would agree with that 100 percent.

And I have to tell you, I don't like the comparisons at all to Jackie Robinson.

Robinson went in as the first black player in the major leagues.

He couldn't hide being black, he couldn't cover it up.

He wore it on his face, and on his sleeve, so to speak.

Collins has been in the league a dozen years, and he was able to hide his sexuality.

Sure, I bet he is now going to be subject to taunts from fellow players and from fans, but please, do not ever equate what he did to what Robinson did, as so many people are stating right now.

Robinson was a true pioneer, for not only blacks, but anyone of any color, creed or background. What he did during a time in our history where tolerance was not within most of our society will live for the ages.

Today, we are in a more tolerant period than 70 years ago. People look past a person's color and sexuality, to a great extent. We have a black president, and many states have given the green light to gay marriage.

I am not saying that Collins will get a full pass here. He will hear it, you know that.

But to come out like this, when he may be at the end of his career anyway, well please, don't compare him to Jackie Robinson, who had to endure this throughout his career with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Collins did a brave thing, but let's put it in context.

Collins is not Robinson, he is not Hank Greenberg, and he is not any of the group of players who were the first black players in the NBA.

His coming out may have actually ended his career, and I think he is smart enough to know that.

But give him kudos for doing what he did, and let's move on.

(Just as an add-on to this, and I must admit, I totally forgot about this until hours after I wrote this Rant, but Jason Collins is not the first professional male team player to come out as being gay. Years ago, baseball player Glenn Burke, who played briefly for the Dodgers and Angels in the late 1970s, came out, but only to teammates, never publicly. His story only became known to the outside world when he proclaimed his sexuality just prior to dying of AIDS in 1995 and through his autobiography.

I am sorry I totally forgot about this when I wrote this up, but here it is, and if you want more information, go to your favorite search engine and put his name in. You will find that his story was even more interesting than the one that Collins has told us.)

Rant #952: 56 + 1 (Day)

As I alerted you to on Friday, I did have my birthday yesterday.

I reached the magic number of 56.

I don't know why it is a magic number, but to me, reaching 56 years of age is a milestone, so maybe it is a magic number.

With one day of hindsight under my belt--56 + one day--I can provide to you a good picture of what I did yesterday to celebrate my big day.

How did I celebrate?

The celebration commenced on Saturday. My wife took myself and our son out to dinner at a local Chinese all-you-can-eat place.

There are a number of these in our environs, but most of them are pretty bad.

This particular restaurant is one of the few that is quite good.

So we had a nice meal, then we came home, and I passed out watching TV.

No, not fainted, just fell asleep really early, like at 9:30 or so, maybe even earlier, I just don't remember.

Then for my actual birthday on Sunday ...

I woke up the normal time on Sunday, did my usual things, and had a few of the cupcakes my wife made to celebrate the occasion.

My son iced them, unbeknownst to my wife, which made her angry, but he meant well. He wanted to help my wife with the cupcakes, but he made a bit of a mess.

But heck, it all winds up in my stomach anyway, so it wasn't a catastrophe. We all laughed about it afterward.

I received my gifts. My wife bought me some much needed shirts--I wear them out pretty well, so these should last a while before I need new ones--and my parents gave me some money.

My daughter came over for a time, bought me a lunch bag--the one I am using is still usable but falling apart, so when it goes, I have a new one to use--and my sister called to wish me congratulations. I also spoke to my wife's brother, and he wished me a good day, too.

I then went out, got my son his "much needed" Wii controller--he has had the game for a while, and one of the controllers died last week, we bought a replacement, and it didn't work for some reason, so he needed another one--and then I came home, and as is my tradition, I gave my wife and son gifts too.

I bought my son WWE wrestling tickets for June, when pro wrestling comes to Nassau Coliseum, perhaps for the last time.

I bought my wife iTunes cards, so she can download a show which I think is called "The Walking Dead." She has been catching up with the three seasons of the show on NetFlix, so this way, she can watch the most recent season right now.

Then I settled down for the rest of the afternoon, which was going to be sports, sports and more sports.

I watched the Knicks and Celtics battle it out in a terrific game that the Knicks lost. They come back to Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, when I hope the Knicks close out the Celtics for good.

The game went into overtime, so I missed the Yankees sweep of the Toronto Blue Jays. The Jays were supposed to be the top team in the division, but they appear to be headed to be this year's Miami Marlins, a team that made many trades to upgrade its roster but which isn't meshing at all.

The Yankees, however, have had one major injury after another, yet they are playing better than anyone could have dreamed. I watched the highlights, and then moved over to non-sports stuff.

MeTV ran a contest yesterday. Every Sunday, they have a four-hour block of themed programming, where they pair old shows by a common theme. Yesterday, they had the viewers guess the theme.

At first, I thought it was guest stars on the shows that they put on who were born on April. 28, because on one of the shows, "The Mod Squad," the guest star was Carolyn Jones, most famous for her role as Morticia on "The Addams Family," who shares a birthday with me. But I soon saw that that guess was wrong. It took me about two and a half shows, and I was able to figure it out.

No, I am not going to tell you what the theme was, because I want to win a trip that they offered, or at least a T-shirt.

Anyway, we had dinner--peppers and eggs, which was very good and very filling--and my family and I settled down to a nice evening, just watching more TV and relaxing.

I went to bed, as did my wife and son, at 10 p.m. and that was it.

Some might say I did absolutely nothing on my actual birthday, but I say just the opposite.

I did plenty. I did exactly what I wanted, which, to me, was the best gift I could have given to myself.

My daughter's birthday is next, on May 15, and I hope she has as nice a day as I had yesterday.

Thanks to everyone for a nice birthday.

Rant #951: Another Year Under My Belt

Happy birthday to me.

Well, not just yet, but happy birthday to me anyway.

My birthday is on Sunday, April 28, and since I don't write any Rants on the weekend, I figured I would celebrate a little early.

I will be 56 years old on that day.

It seems the years have gone fast.

My mother has often told me that as a young child, I was clearly "Larry the Menace," getting into everything and being a real pain in the butt.

She has told me a story that one time, she was shopping with me, and visibly pregnant with my sister, who was born at the tail end of 1959. I was so bad that she was standing on line to check out, and another woman actually had the nerve to say to her, "And you want another child?"

I could swear that only yesterday, I was playing in the mud in the grime of my old stomping grounds in Rochdale Village, South Jamaica Queens, New York.

Even though I haven't lived in New York City since 1971, I am a city kid at heart, always will be.

The suburbs have been my home since then, but you can take the kid out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the kid.

Fast forward all these years, and I have several layers of education under my belt, married (twice), have two kids, and a halfway decent job.

Looking back five years, one of the most tumultuous times of my life played out back then, and I prefer where I am now.

On April 24, my car died after being on life support for several months.

On April 25, I bought a new car.

On April 27, I had horrible pains in my stomach, and was rushed to the hospital.

On April 28, I had gall bladder surgery, the best birthday present I ever gave to myself.

Wow, what a ride it has been.

And I plan on being here many more years.

I just had my physical, and other than being a bit overweight and having some minor cholesterol issues, I am fit as a fiddle.

I have a great wife, a great family, so why complain?

So happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear Larry, happy birthday to me ...

Rant #950: Tattoo You ... Not Me

President Obama has finally taken a stand that I agree with 100 percent.

It has nothing to do with foreign or domestic policy, it has to do with family policy, maybe the most important policy of them all, because it literally sets the groundwork for everything else.

The President told his daughters that if they ever get tattooed, he and the First Lady and First Mom, Michelle, will get the exact design tattooed on the same place on their bodies.

He added, "And we'll go on YouTube and show if off as a family tattoo," he said on NBC's "Today" show.

The President believes that this type of thinking will dissuade Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11, from ever getting inked.

Tattoos are a current fad that goes back eons, but the latest craze is really pretty disgusting. The tattoos are large, garish, and stand out like no other tattoos I have ever seen.

I don't like tattoos. I believe it cheapens one's body to make yourself into a walking, talking body of graffiti, although others think it is about expression.

To me, there are better ways to express yourself than through tattoos. It just cheapens what you have.

And today, it seems the more the better--up and down the arm, on the legs, on the chest, and even on the face.

And to me, nothing is more disgusting than seeing a woman with tattoos.

Call me sexist--and I must say that I proudly am--but a woman with tattoos completely turns me off.

Look, I know that many of you will disagree with my, and the President's, views. You believe that tattoos are nice, and the more the better.

Bu heck, I see high school kids with tattoos.

In my generation, you wore your hair long or you wore certain clothes to show what you believed in.

You could get a haircut, and you could wear different clothes if your mood changed.

But tattoos are permanent. They don't come off so easily, except through painstaking laser procedures.

What happens if your mood changes, and you want the thing off?

The cure seems to be worse than the disease to me.

And let's be honest about it. If I am an employer, I don't care how good your qualifications are, if you have a noticeable tattoo, you won't get the job.

As a Jew, we are not supposed to get tattoos. The feeling is that you leave this earth as you go in, and that means without drawings on your body.

Jews were tattooed by the Nazis in World War II, and that is ever more the reason for Jews not to get tattooed.

But that aside, I find them to be a turnoff, plain and simple, so I applaud the President's actions.

I hope his daughters get it.

I don't know what brought this on in the Obama household, but I hope other families do the same thing and take the same stand.

It might not work, but then again, it just might.


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Rant #949: New York Sports

I am a sports fan.

No bones about it, I am a sports fan.

I have my favorites, of course.

I love baseball and basketball, and I really can't stand football and hockey.

I have always loved baseball. It is the first sport I understood and the first sport I played, and it is as much a part of me as my blood is.

I grew up in an urban environment, and basketball is king in that environment.

I was never much of an athlete, but I always liked playing--and watching--baseball and basketball.

The other sports I can live without, and in addition to hockey and football, I have no use for tennis, golf and soccer.

I also like bowling, too, but that is an individual sport, not really a team sport.

Anyway, right now, sports in my neck of the woods is in a pretty exciting mode.

The baseball season is in full swing, and my Yankees are doing a bit better than everyone--including myself--thought.

I don't know if they are playoff bound, but with all the injuries they have had, many predicted them for a lowly finish.

Right now, they are near the top of their division, and if they can hold on until their many injured players come back--including Derek Jeter--they might make a run for it.

On the other side of the pond, the Mets are also playing way above expectations, led by many young players. I am not a Mets fan, never have been, but I am a baseball fan, and I marvel at the skills and talent level of their young players.

And then we have the Knicks.

No team captures the imagination of the general Metropolitan area populace as the Knicks.

They own this area, always have, always will, and when they are going good, everyone roots for them.

Right now, they are going quite good, beating the Celtics last night for the second game in a row in the first round of the playoffs.

With the best team they've had in 20 years--led by Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith--this team has a real chance to win a championship this year.

I am convinced of that.

And then we have the Nets, who might stand in the way of the Knicks as the two teams push for the championship.

In their first year in Brooklyn, the Nets captured the fancy of many fans, and they currently are deadlocked at 1-1 with the Chicago Bulls in the first round of their playoff series.

The Nets will always be the second team in New York, but it is fun to watch them battle.

So right now, New York sports are red hot.

With all the horrible things that have happened in other places lately--including nearby Boston--it is nice to take a break once in a while, and all of these local teams are providing that for fans.

What could be a better tonic right now?

Rant #948: A Living Death

This will be an entry about two of our most talented guitarists.

First off, I heard last night that Richie Havens died.

I was not a super Havens fan, but I respected this musician and activist tremendously.

What he could do with a guitar ... well, nobody else could do things like that, nobody I've seen, at least.

He learned to play guitar in a different way than other musicians, and although his technique looked harsh, it produced beautiful melodies.

Now, let me segueway into something, unfortunately, that is akin to Havens' passing in more ways than one.

And let me preface it again by saying how unfortunate what I am going to say is, and how unfortunate the situation I will talk about today is.

It was just announced that Glen Campbell, maybe the greatest guitarist I have ever seen, will not tour anymore.

He has Alzheimer's Disease, and it has gotten so bad that he simply cannot get up on stage anymore and play to audiences.

Campbell was diagnosed with the disease a few years back, but he continued to perform in concert and record albums.

In concert, he was assisted by two of his children, who helped him go through the tunes, acting as almost human teleprompters for him, to keep him on line with his music.

But now, it has reached a point that he can't do that anymore.

He is releasing a new album, which I read will be a "reimagining" of his hits, like "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston."

If I read correctly, he will simply be singing, not playing, on this LP.

Campbell was sort of the touchstone between crossover country/pop music in the 1960s. Along with artists like Michael Nesmith and, to a certain extent, Ray Charles, he helped to bring country music to a wider audience, both with his hit records and his TV show.

Today's country artists would not be where they are today without performers like Campbell.

But he was so much more than that.

He was a session guitarist who played on dozens of rock and pop hits, including those registered by the Beach Boys, Monkees and so many others.

Why he is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is anyone's guess.

But back to the disease that is robbing him of his abilities.

I know all too well about it. My grandmother had it.

She went from an effervescent, very proud woman to someone who barely knew her own name in the course of just a couple of months.

The last time I ever saw her, she was in a nursing home, and I went there to visit with my father--her son--and my son, who was just a baby at the time.

She had no idea who my father was, although she did know me for some reason. She asked me, "Who is that man with you?"

She also asked me why I was holding a baby.

Just a few months earlier, she helped to put her great grandchild to sleep as she cradled him in her arms.

After that visit, my father told me, "If I ever get to that point, I give you permission to shoot me," and he was not kidding.

She died just a few weeks later, and let me tell you, it was what is referred to in Yiddish as a "mitzvah," or a blessing.

No one should have to live like that. It is truly a living death.

There have been advances in research on the disease, but it still exists, and there is no cure.

And like all diseases, it does not discriminate. It can hit any one of us.

Campbell is going through that now, and it has been many months leading up to this point.

By the time his album comes out, he just many not even know that he actually did it, that he was on it.

I hope it does not get to that point, but it just might.

Alzheimer's is a horrible disease, and I personally wish him well.

Rant #947: Cover Me

So, they finally got the Boston suspect.

Congratulations to the authorities and the people of Boston for not allowing themselves to bow down to this type of terror.

He will be judged by a jury of his peers, and hopefully, when found guilty of his actions, they will deal with him the right way, the only way they can.

'Nuf said on that matter. Let's get back to some fun.

Along with overseeing this blog, and a couple of other blogs that are more or less inactive, I run a bunch of Yahoo sites, some more active than others, but the one that stands out is my Alternative Top 40 site. You can access that site at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlternativeTop40/.

I have been running this site for years, and it is a fun destination for people who are looking for forgotten songs and artists, mainly of the 1960s through the early 1970s, sometimes beyond that point, sometimes prior to that point.

The premise of the site is simple: usually a dozen to about 18 songs are posted, and members of the site have to vote on the six that they like best.

After a week, the votes are tallied, and the songs that get the most votes stay on the chart for up to five weeks, the ones that get little or no response get kicked off, removed for newer songs.

Simple as that.

Each April I run an April Fools poll, where each week, I put up cover versions of popular songs done by artists not necessarily known for those songs or who have covered those songs as part of their song canon.

There are a wealth of these songs out there, and I simply go through my record collection and find ones that are interesting or unusual or just darn good to put up at the site.

This week, the following songs are on the list to be voted on:

Petula Clark - We Can Work It Out

Cilla Black - Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves

Micky Dolenz - Sugar Sugar

Beatles - Long Tall Sally

Dave Clark Five - Won't You Be My Lady

John Cougar Mellencamp - Under the Boardwalk

Annette Funicello - Surf City

Al Green - To Sir, With Love

David and Jonathan - A Must To Avoid

Bobby Darin - Clementine

Mindbenders - Off and Running

Who - Batman

George Harrison - Wake Up My Love

Nick Lowe - Baby It's You

Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy

Elvis Presley - Blueberry Hill

Just about every song is a cover song, with a couple of exceptions. Those exceptions were held over from the previous weeks, such as the songs by the Mindbenders, Dave Clark Five and George Harrison.

But all the others are cover tunes.

Petula Clark, one of my guilty pleasures from the era, covers a Beatles song, while the Beatles cover a Little Richard tune.

Cilla Black, very popular in Europe but virtually unknown here, gives her all on a Cher song, while Micky Dolenz, of Monkees fame, does his best with the Archies' No. 1 hit.

John Cougar Mellencamp does the old Drifters song while he was still kinda Cougar, and beautiful Annette Funicello, who passed away a few days ago, gives the old Jan and Dean tune a female perspective.

Al Green gives a soul slant to the old Lulu tune, while David and Jonathan cover a Herman's Hermits song.

Bobby Darin takes an old ballad and gives it a rock treatment, and the Who take the old theme song from the popular TV show and give it their own buzz.

Nick Lowe, Bow Wow Wow and Elvis Presley gives their own takes on songs that they covered from other artists, and there you have it.

Nothing shocking, nothing too deep, nothing that is going to rock the world, but it is a fun thing to do each week, and like I said, I have been doing it for years, and I really enjoy it.

After April, the cover versions will be done, and we will move on to songs and artists doing their original songs that I feel are worthy.

So if you want to take a break from the usual nonsense of the week, go and visit the site and join in.