As a New Englander, Patriots’ Day is a day I can’t help but notice. The Sox play at 11:05 in the morning. The Boston Marathon happens. But as a Non-Mass and Non-Maine New Englander, it is not a day I celebrate. I am fascinated by holidays like Patriots’ Day, though. They add a lot of…
April 15, 1947 was the day Jackie Robinson played his first Major League Baseball game. For the past ten or so years, Major League Baseball has celebrated the date as Jackie Robinson Day. It’s a nice day for baseball. There are ceremonies before all the games. All the players wear Jackie Robinson’s number, 42, as…
Today is opening day of the 2015 Major League Baseball season. I know there was a game last night, but today is the real opening day. It’s one of my favorite days of the year. Baseball is back and that makes everything better. There are so many things to like about opening day, that it’s…
I am from a mixed family. We range from devout Roman Catholics to more-Jewish-than-you-probably-think-of-when-you-think-of-Jewish. I am neither, but it has given me a different perspective on the different traditions. This is the week when my family’s different worlds collide. The biggest holiday of the Christian tradition coincides with one of the big three of the…
I don’t hate commercials. I know that makes me a freak and you probably don’t want to be my friend anymore, but I don’t hate commercials. As a matter of fact, I often kind of like them. I really think you should give them a chance. If you think about them, I’ll bet you’d like…
I heard “I Wish It Would Rain” by the Temptations at the cafeteria at work today. It is a truly spectacular song. If you have three minutes, I can think of no better way to spend it. When it was playing, I couldn’t help but think how well everything works. The performance and the arrangement…
A couple years ago, I discovered that Kirk Cameron’s father in “Growing Pains” had a kid who had a hit song. I’ve never heard the song, but I read an article about the fact that he was pre-emptively suing Marvin Gaye’s estate so that the courts would certify that he had not stolen one of…
I hate Daylight Saving Time. I hate everything about it. It makes my electric bill go up. It means I have to try to wake up and wake my daughter up while it is still dark. It means I have to try to put my daughter to sleep while it is still light. It takes…
Orrin Keepnews died today, just one day shy of his 92nd birthday. I knew his work, of course, but I went to his Discogs page just to look around and I was totally blown away. He is credited on 752 records for production. And a huge percentage of those are absolute classics. There’s Monk, Sonny…
Today is the last day of February. That also means I have written a post here every day this month. I wanted to see if I could post that often. It meant that most of the posts were short. It also meant that most were essentially first drafts, but I’m satisfied that I met my…
