I love to Singa In 1936 Warner Brothers produced a Merrie Melodies cartoon short about a little crooner owl who called himself Owl Jolson. He was born to German parents who were traditional classical music buffs, just like Al Jolson’s 1927 classic movie, The Jazz Singer. Like in that movie, he was cast out for his musical preferences and found his way to Gong Productions (now you know where Chuck Barris got his Gong…
I’m Back in the Saddle Again I’m very excited at the moment. I’m sitting at San Diego airport on a rainy, foggy Sunday when Kim and I are heading back to New York after a ten-day hiatus out here for a motorcycle ride and a few days of communing with our Casa Moonstruck and our siblings. Our flight is delayed two hours due to weather and I don’t seem to give a shit. First of…
Fire & Ice The beauty of planning an annual motorcycle ride in the Southwest in May is that you can usually count on warm and dry weather (it is mostly desert after all) and yet you are out ahead of the summer RV traffic, which can screw up any road trip. The downside of May is that those mountain passes can get pretty cold and wet and occasionally snowy and you are always fighting to…
Up on the Roof The sun was shining on Fayette Street. On the street it came in dappled pieces of sunlight through the leafy cover of the elms that lined the street. But Karen had opened her bedroom window and gone out on the roof of her mother’s house as had been her habit for many years. Ithaca was not Tampa, but as they say, even the sun shines on a dog’s ass some days,…
Living the Dream I am sitting at the Bloomberg Center cafeteria on the Cornell Tech Campus on Roosevelt Island between Manhattan and Queens. Back in 2012 when I began the New York Wheel project, I was in lockstep during the NYC approval process (called the ULURP process) with the Cornell Tech Campus project. We were destined to open at about the same time, but after six years, that project went off the rails while the…
On Friendship Tonight we are having dinner with several of Kim’s closest friends, or, to be precise, one of her closest friends and her beau. Usually we would be having dinner with those two and their other mutually good friend with whom they share a long theatrical history (I think it was on the National Road Tour of State Fair). Unfortunately, that person is not invited and is somewhat at odds with the one with…
The Bagel Suit My father was married seven times, as best I can count. He had three of us with my mother (marriages #1 and #2). He had two daughters with Shirley (#3). He had another daughter from a marriage in Northern California (#4). He had a son from an annulled marriage in Mexico City (#5). I can’t identify #6 or the possibility of children, but I know Bobbie, #7, with whom he had no…
Mini Us Who doesn’t like a good ferry tale? The morals of the stories alone make most of the ferry tales worth reading. Once upon a time there were a man and wife who loved each other very much. They had both grown up in the Midwest and ate way too many donuts as children. He had actually figured out how to scam the milkman into thinking he was supposed to leave a dozen donuts…
Cher Groupie I am not really an avid music person the way some are. I wasn’t so much in high school and college and I am now a person who would rather listen to a book on tape or news program than listen to music on a long trip. However, I do enjoy music at times and my tastes are narrow, but well-defined. I like oldies, I like Billy Joel and Meatloaf (mostly for their…
Candice the Magnificent Candice is an old friend of Kim’s and she has become a friend of mine as well. She is a retired school teacher who gets more out of life than any five people you can mention. I like that about Candice since I tend to believe that life is way too short to approach it timidly. I like Candice’s moxie and zest for life. The Urban Dictionary says of the name Candice,…