Put another dime in the jukebox, baby

The losses to COVID-19 continue to pile up, now exceeding 43,000 deaths worldwide, and over 4,000 in the United States. I put in a link so that the total can be tracked in real time, but it’s going to be an awfully big number by the time it is all over. Awfully bigger, I should

We are the Dreamers of Dreams

R.I.P. to Gene Wilder, who brought Willy Wonka to life like nobody else could.  2016 hasn’t been a good year for guys who wore purple. Thanks for all the memories.  

I spent the 80s in purple

Prince died today, at the age of 57. Coming on the heels of the deaths of David Bowie and Glenn Frey already this year, I didn’t think there would be any more meaningful musical deaths for some time. Apparently I was wrong in that belief. This one really left me stunned. The high school I attended

Back to the bench

A a quarter of a century ago, I was fresh out of college, and finally on my own. There were bills to pay, of course, but life as I had imagined it to be was underway. I moved into an apartment in Chicago, lured by a free month’s rent. And each day, I rode the

All your strength, all your power, all your love

The Rocky series is my favorite film franchise of all, with Star Wars a distant second. I’m hoping Stallone wins an Oscar tonight for CREED, and that he gives Ryan Coogler some props for revitalizing the franchise in his acceptance speech. We’ll know soon if that’s what comes to pass, but that’s my happy ending.

Art, Religion, and David Bowie

 This is a tale about art and religion, with some David Bowie added in for good measure. The story begins in a Catholic grammar school during the 1970s and early 1980s. The pastor of my parish was an elderly man who called every boy “Butch” and every girl “Sissy.” The priest’s name will not be

2015 is slipping away

Now that Christmas is behind us, there’s just a few days left in 2015. It’s been quite a year, as I suppose is true of every year on the crazy blue marble we call home. Our losses this year included Ernie Banks, Minnie Minoso, Stuart Scott, Dusty Rhodes, Roddy Piper, and lots of people who

Hang in there, Cubs fans

So the Mets won a game. No big deal.

Spending an afternoon with my mom

Some debts can never be fully paid, but it’s worth the effort to try.

A victory for weirdness

I’m very glad that Birdman won the Oscar for best picture tonight. The director admitted it was a crazy idea, but somehow the film got made. I’ve never seen a movie quite like it, and this award will hopefully inspire more people in the movie business to follow their weird ideas until they make it

In Technicolor

Today I was futzing around with an app called Photo Booth on the laptop, and found that smiling for pictures just looked dumb. They were forced smiles, after all. But when I glared at the camera, the images seemed to turn out better. Funny how that works. Having recently seen The Birdcage in the aftermath of

Radio Raheem for a new generation

Twenty-five years is a long time. I have many memories of the Summer of 1989, and one of them was going to see a movie that shook me up, Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.” And apparently, the current president and his then-girlfriend saw the movie too that summer, as evidenced by the film clip

As fresh as a Foghat concert

I was on my way to work yesterday when, for reasons I’ll likely never understand, one of the greatest movie insults I have heard came to me. It happened in the movie Kingpin, where Woody Harrelson’s character is told that his act is “about as fresh as a Foghat concert.” The implication is that Foghat,

The best film ever made

Sometimes my daughters ask me questions about what my favorite things are. When they ask about my favorite song, or my favorite book, or my favorite food, I usually give some sort of dodgy, non-committal answer because I like many songs, and many books, and too many types of food, but none really stands out

Roger and Me

As a college student in the late 1980s, riding the el was an entirely new experience for me. I secretly envied those who hailed from New York, or Chicago, or any place large enough to have a train service in operation. There were a few bus lines in Springfield, Illinois, where I grew up, but nothing remotely

Irreverent to the end

What made Harold Ramis and his collaboration with Bill Murray so special was the irreverence that was infused into their films. Whether it was the country club in Caddyshack, the military in Stripes, or the Greek system in Animal House, there was a gulf between those who played by society’s rules, and the heroes of

He made the movies funny

Everyone in my generation who likes to laugh owes an enormous debt to Harold Ramis. The challenge of putting that debt into words is very daunting, but I’m going to take it on, anyway. When Ramis’s classic work was produced in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was too young to see them in

A eulogy for Brandt

As a member of the Dudeist clergy–the only such group I would ever belong to–I feel a need to say a few words on behalf of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who so brilliantly played the part of Lebowski’s manservant, Brandt. I have been fortunate enough to never get mixed up with heroin. And even though Hoffman

A poignant reminder

The movie theater above is the closest one to my house. Cineplex Odeon, the chain that ran it last, hasn’t existed for many years. I could google it to know for sure, but it wouldn’t matter. It’s a relic from another time now. As I stood in the parking lot of this desolate place yesterday,

Don’t you forget about me

There’s a Chicago radio station that I don’t much listen to, but they’re having an 80s-themed weekend. I’ve written about 80s music before, because music mattered to me more in that decade than it ever had before, and more than it ever has since. And I doubt I’m the only one who’s like that, either.

Link to a post on ThroughTheFenceBaseball

Last night I sat down to reflect on the passing of Dennis Farina. I liked his work in the movies and on television, of course, but the fact that he was a life-long Cubs fan is what hit me the most. So I tied his passing to the recent sing-along with Eddie Vedder and Ernie

In memory of the 54th Massachusetts

Back in the days when I was still teaching, which was more than a decade ago now, I always made it a point to show the movie Glory to my students. But I never went the route of just putting the tape into the VCR (it wasn’t quite DVDs back then) and pressing play. That

Operation Goose: An Introduction

Ten years is long enough. Ten years can sometimes feel like an eternity. And yet, for an event that took place almost a decade ago, the 2003 NLCS still feels close at hand. That’s because we have collectively frozen the moment in time, as if to preserve it somehow. It’s a natural response to something

Just keep truckin’ on

With May now behind us, and June coming into view, there are a couple of significant dates ahead this month. The 11th will be the two-year anniversary of this blog, and the 14th will be my birthday. I’m sure that the proximity between the two is accidental, but I like it, anyway. I never expected

A movie worth looking forward to

When I was teaching many years ago, I would go on and on about Jackie Robinson. One of my favorite quotes is his: “A life is only important for the impact that it has on other people.” And in a few days, we’ll get to see his story told on screen. Last year was Abraham