If you are a regular on this blog site then you've read about my two oldest friends, Neil and Danny, before (Now That I Think About It). As we've aged, our day to day existences have pulled us apart geographically, and so we end up talking about each other's lives more than actually taking part … Continue reading Brooklyn Music Factory: Playing By Heart
Pop Culture
Family Valued
I am by virtue of my years (age fifty-five) and a life with long periods of somewhat parlous financial circumstances, someone who came to the world of cable television well into my fourth decade on this planet. I think that the relative lateness of my introduction to the idea of a home entertainment … Continue reading Family Valued
Not Bad For A Beginner
Before I enter into the body of this piece I find myself forced to take a brief, but probably annoying tangent in a self promotional direction. Beginning sometime around the middle of November, I will be appearing on a podcast as well as doing some additional writing for the associated site, both to be titled … Continue reading Not Bad For A Beginner
Nothing In, Nothing Out
I am, by trade, a pediatric echocardiographer. Practicing for more than twenty years now, I have come into contact with tens of thousands of kids. No small percentage of them have been either college age or college bound high schoolers. During their examination I try and put them at ease by discussing, amongst other things, … Continue reading Nothing In, Nothing Out
The Song and…
Driving home today I caught about half of "The Long and Winding Road" on the radio, and experienced the wave of vague melancholy that I'm prone to when listening to the song. Part of that is the movement of the melody between tonic (E Flat major) and it's relative minor (C). The lyrics also play … Continue reading The Song and…
More Than One Road to Perfect
As a boy I loved going to the movies. With family or friends when I was little, on my own as I slipped out of childhood, I was seldom more dependably happy than when I was settling into a theater seat as the lights went down. The darkness helping me focus on the screen in … Continue reading More Than One Road to Perfect
The First Time, Again
The other day at work my friend Eric and I were discussing musical moments that had a significant effect on us. The magic of a first hearing was the conversational staple. A pleasant few minutes, and then back to work. Later in the day I realized that I had (inadvertently) lied to him. About pretty … Continue reading The First Time, Again
Damon, Maher, Cross: Adventures In Irony
As we live in a world increasingly sensitized to injustice both real (plentiful) and imagined (also plentiful) one of the more interesting (at least for me) developments has been the uptick of incidents involving men whose progressive credentials are well established making the news with public utterances that have come to shake up their "good … Continue reading Damon, Maher, Cross: Adventures In Irony
Ed Wood: The Real Disaster Artist
On the first day of December, the movie The Disaster Artist was released. Directed by James Franco, the film was adapted from the book of the same name By Tom Bissell and Greg Sestero and refers to Tommy Wiseau, the film maker responsible for a movie, The Room, which is on virtually every top 10 … Continue reading Ed Wood: The Real Disaster Artist
Moved
Starting from the premise that art is, at its most fundamental level, about communication, it follows that the artistic endeavors that leave the biggest imprint on us are the ones that really speak to some part of us that might otherwise be lost in the minutiae of our day to day existence. When I think … Continue reading Moved
Just Thinking 