Bill Mardo, sportswriter for the Daily Worker newspaper, died last week. His NY Times obituary notes his column’s crusading role in pressing for the racial integration of Major League Baseball in the 1940′s. “In the years before the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson as the first black player in modern organized baseball, Mr. Mardo was [...]
Read more →A conundrum that charter schools face when recruiting prestigious one percenty-types (celebrities, politicians, stockbrokers and lawyers) to serve on their governing boards is that, yes, this may open the school up to more charitable giving. But, people with outrageous fortunes sometimes came to them through outrageous means. When a school board member is hoisted on [...]
Read more →Since it seems my main venue of non-labor activism is charitable giving, I have signed on as a Co-Chair of the New York Abortion Access Fund‘s 10th Anniversary Celebration. This is a wonderful organization that directly addresses what may be the greatest threat to reproductive freedom today: the high cost of, and limited access to, [...]
Read more →It’s been a while since we Gen X’ers had a good, long stare at our collective navels. The occasion of the 20th anniversary of our invention by the media is begging for more of this “are we becoming them?” kind of nonsense. Count me in! Nirvana marks this auspicious anniversary with a reissue of “Nevermind” [...]
Read more →I voted for myself for U.S. Congress today. I walked into the polling place intending to vote for Michael McMahon, our first term Democratic Congressman. Bay Ridge, y’see, is lumped in with Staten Island for representation. This is the first election that I’ve ever been in a swing district. Boy, the number of phone calls [...]
Read more →Maybe it’s because I was recently badly quoted in the press that I’m revisiting some of my dark sarcastic hits from the past. I mean, I could claim that I was misquoted, but, no, I said it. I could quibble with context and editing, but anyone who deals with the press seriously knows the importance [...]
Read more →Alex Chilton died of a heart attack today, at a too-young 59 years of age. While it’s sad, it’s not too surprising. I’d already written an obit about him five years ago, when he went missing in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. I still never travel far without a little Big Star.
Read more →It turns out maintaining a blog while taking on increasing responsibilities at work and trying to finish my Masters degree and trying to maintain some semblance of a personal life is a bit tricky. Plus, I think Facebook statuses suck up an alarming amount of my wit (or potential wit). But before I throw in [...]
Read more →Presented without commentary: big rats selective service letter allen sessoms gastonia strike,1929 “mary loritz” red strawberry shoelace licorice umass ula program red scare political cartoon shaun richman finska black licorice “federation of union representatives” old fashioned licorice laces not twirler cat abortificant “shaun richman” jew shaun richman aft national staff
Read more →Socialism truly is a dying religion. Tonight, I’m lighting some red candles for some wonderful comrades who have passed on this year. Yesterday, I learned that Ruth Greenberg-Edelstein passed away on November 24th. Ruth was a stalwart of the Socialist Party in upstate New York. On the National Committee, she was an effective advocate for [...]
Read more →When, exactly, did the celebrity-obsessed tabloid press switch over to first-name-basis reportage? Celebrities used to have full names, not that long ago in fact. Sure, there was the occasional Cher or Oprah, but they were the exceptions to prove the rule. Or perhaps they were the pioneers that got the tabloids asking “why take up [...]
Read more →Can rock music ever go back to the days of “headphone records,” gatefold albums, mysterious liner notes and fans creating their own image of the band in their minds? Music video did much to kill the radio star, by presenting a carefully screened image for mass consumption…but Ed Sullivan started it all rolling downhill and [...]
Read more →If you can find the full, ten-minute clip on your favorite internet video-sharing service, David Letterman’s blackmail confession was brilliant, riveting and hysterical. It was almost a throwback to his nervy, early days on “Late Night.” If only the blackmailer had been revealed to be Andy Kaufman.
Read more →Michael Azerrad’s excellent collection of 13 micro-biogrophies of beloved 80′s indie bands is a love letter to the era when pop culture began to fragment into mini-mass media of fanzines, underground rock clubs and vanity record labels. Cribbed from a Minutemen lyrics, Azerrad’s book, “Our Band Could Be Your Life” fleshes out the notion of [...]
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