"No, Spiardi. I bought myself a ring that's too big." This is how Miss S.T. sarcastically answered when I asked if her boyfriend bought her the yarn-wrapped ring she was sporting on her finger. It had never occurred to me that the fuzzy bands worn by the A-list girls began their lives as one-size-fits-all pieces of cheap metal, purchased by…
Ah, you always remember your first time. There I was, in a dimly lit room...body tense and trembling under crisp sheets…heartbeat wild in anticipation…breaths short and shallow…spellbound by my first glimpse of something big, scary, and invasive…a spectacle that would excite me for the rest of my life: the 1935 classic, "The Bride of Frankenstein." This cinematic masterpiece introduced me to societal rejection, unrequited love, mob mentality, and the tortured soul of the outcast. It's the grandest monster flick of all time.
Ten-year-old kids shouldn't be worrying about the after-effects of unprotected sex, mind-altering drugs, and adult unemployment, but thanks to several artful public service announcements (PSAs) that aired on network television in the early 70s, I once considered pre-booking a room in a nunnery!
The Iron Curtain. That was a term I heard often as a kid growing up in the Cold War '60s. What exactly was this metallic barrier, and who or what was behind it, I wondered. Little did I know back then that British Prime Minster Winston Churchill had coined the term to refer to the ideological barrier that separated the…
A friend who had the misfortune of being born a bit too early to experience full frontal Beatlemania once said to me, "Ringo wasn't one of the more important members of the group, was he?" To a rubber-souled, revolver-raving, fanatical Abbey Roadster like myself, this was among the greatest blasphemies ever spoken. If you said that Chico wasn't important to the Marx Brothers, that Fredo wasn't important to the Corleones, that Donny wasn't important to The Big Lebowski, I'd simply overlook your lack of film savvy or question your taste. But to suggest that Ringo was less than essential is the ultimate fallacy. It is, in the jargon of the Brits, a complete load of BULLOCKS!