“What a year we’re having …” Actually, Eugene Levy’s great line in the 1984 movie “Splash” was him moaning about what a week he was having, but as the bizarre year 2021 draws to a close, the expansion seems legitimate if not entirely appropriate. It has certainly been a year of negatives, starting with the …
I suppose I ought to be a little embarrassed that I had never heard of Taylor Swift until 2015. It was February that year and my wife, my son and I went to a concert at Symphony Hall in Atlanta. The performer was Jackie Evancho, whose genre is called classical crossover. She was just 14 …
Some folks might be surprised to learn the battle between Jesus and Santa has been going on a lot longer than they realize. The first memories I have of Christmas go back to the mid 1950s, and there were plenty of people whining about the overcommercialization of Christmas, arguing that Christ was the only legitimate …
Christmas Day was never the most exciting part of the holiday season. Sure, it’s the day the kids awake at the crack of dawn and open their presents, which is nice if you still have children at home. But even if you do, most of the excitement of the day is finished by the middle …
Christmas Eve Eve? American families seem to have two different ways of celebrating Christmas, one in which Christmas Eve matters most and the other in which the focus is on Christmas morning. Kevin Costner even alluded to it as Crash Davis in the famous “I believe” speech from the 1988 movie “Bull Durham.” ” … …
“Suppose the streets were all on fire, the flames like tempers leaping higher. Suppose you’d lived there all your life, do you think that you would mind?” The above quote is a song lyric from 1968, from another summer of inner city rioting. The song was by Spanky and Our Gang, who had previously had …
LIFE IS TOUGH ENOUGH WITHOUT DEMONIZING THE POOR Read More »
Everyone has their favorite Christmas movies, even if too many people call something a Christmas movie just because it takes place in late December. “Die Hard” and “Die Hard 2” take place at Christmas, but neither one is about Christmas. Pretty much the same with “Home Alone.” And so many of the more recent ones …
‘LOVE ACTUALLY’ DEFINITELY MY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MOVIE Read More »
It was 50 years ago this coming April. For some reason, I was writing a great deal of poetry in 1972 and ’73. They were two pretty depressing years in my life. My first real love relationship had ended in late 1970, and until I started dating the woman who would become my first wife …
A BRIEF GLANCE FROM AGE 72 to a 22-YEAR-OLD IN 1972 Read More »
I don’t know how long it has been that I’ve been collecting music on iTunes to play on my computer or various portable devices. At least 15 years or so. I have what I guess was the biggest iPod, with a 160 gigabyte hard drive that seems to hold more than 20,000 songs and comedy …
MUSIC, MUSIC, MUSIC that takes up very little space Read More »
“… I’m sorry it’s come down to this, there’s so much about you that I’m gonna miss …” Things I should have said? Who would believe that two minutes and just a couple of sentences could do so much damage that they ruined the better part of two decades and maybe had even more effect …
