Give me your music, your art, your huddled masses of words and rhythms yearning to breathe free.
Post-communist Czechoslovakia was a country reborn of the fire of rock and roll! Today is the 26th anniversary of the start of the Velvet Revolution, a peaceful student-led anti-government protest movement that led to the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia in December 1989. The name of the revolution stemmed directly from Lou Reed’s Velvet Underground, … Read more
Guido Barilla, president of the world’s largest manufacturer of boxed pasta, has vowed his company would never feature homosexuals in its ads: “I would never make a spot with a homosexual family,” he said yesterday on Italy’s radio program La Zanzara (The Mosquito). “Not out of a lack of respect but because I do not … Read more
All the Beatles smoked. But then, who didn’t have a ciggie ‘tween their fingers in those days? Keith Richards of The Stones was simply incapable of playing guitar without a cigarette dangling from his lips. But John Lennon obviously cursed his cigarette habit. In two of his Beatles’ songs he makes references to the evil cancer … Read more
I’m noting two things today: first, the 20-year anniversary of Ellen DeGeneres announcing, “Yep, I’m gay,” on her popular prime time TV series, thus ending weeks of speculation regarding a “coming out” announcement from the star. Second, it’s National Hairstylists Appreciation Day. Here’s how I relate the two events. On April 30, 1997, I was … Read more
Every family has its folk tales — those sometimes sweet, often cringe-inducing stories we’re forced to endure at every holiday gathering. Like the time my grandfather decided to forgo dental expenses by removing his own teeth with the help of Canadian Club whiskey and a pair of pliers. Or that day back in 1960, when … Read more