Month: June 2026

  • Earworm Wednesday: A 2003 Karaoke Staple

    I graduated college in December 2003 and a bachelor’s degree in Theatre Performance. As such, just about all of my college friends were theatre majors. Though I can’t sing, just about everyone else in could, and this was one of the staple songs that was performed at karaoke night by the women in the department.

    So, besides the fact that this song gets easily stuck in my head, it also reminds me of smoked fill bars over run with theatre majors clogging up the waiting, hoping to get a chance to sing this, and “Come On Eileen.”

  • So… The Knicks Lost

    And it was all Trump’s fault.

    I sure am glad that The Orange One shut down all of New York just so he could fall asleep at the game.

    Hopefully, he learned his lesson and will stay the hell away from Madison Square Garden.

  • The Knicks Tonight (Unedited)

    First of all; I just want a fair and competitive game tonight, which showcases why these are the two best teams in the NBA.

    I said the other day about how amazing it is that the Knicks have united this City in a way that I haven’t seen in the twenty years that I have lived here. Even my kid, who only follows women’s soccer, is excited by this team, and has somehow taken on even more pride that she’s from New York, is rallying around this team. It’s been great the past couple of weeks seeing just about everybody in orange and blue on the streets. Crime is down, people are getting along, and we all know where we are going to be tonight; around a tv watching the game, and quite a lot of us will be doing it with a group of friends who a few hours ago were total strangers. It is exciting to be here with all of this going around.

    Which is also why I am so annoyed, and disappointed, but not surprised, that Trump will drag his useless orange ass here, and take a big fat stinky dump in the middle of the court and try to ruin it for all of us. And he will ruin it, because even his presence is enough to attempt to kill all the fun that the rest of us are having.

    Yes, he will be booed tonight in a way and manner that he fully deserves from a City that never accepted him, but put up with him. I guess every circus needs a clown, and he will happily fill that role while trying to make it all about himself. Take the hint bro; you’re not welcome.

    I did see Stephen A. Smith’s comments about how if Trump comes it will through the Knicks off, and kill the energy that the fans will give this team. I don’t necessarily agree with that. This team represents New York, and we get to be the beneficiaries of their success. I know they deeply appreciate our support which we willingly give, but at the end of the day, they are playing for each other. They want to win for each other, because that’s what a team is. They are getting each other’s back, and that’s the way it should be.

    When Trump’s face comes up on my tv tonight, I will join in on the booing. Not because I dislike Trump, which I do by the way. No, I’m going to boo Trump to protect this team. He is not allowed to come into my City, and shit up this great moment.

  • ODDS and ENDS: World Cup Countdown, Knicks, and Gotta Go

    ODDS and ENDS: World Cup Countdown, Knicks, and Gotta Go

    (Wha’ca talking about?)

    Group of diverse soccer fans watching a live match outside a neighborhood bodega
    Fans gather outside a bodega to watch a soccer match on TV

    I am slowly seeing the neighborhoods of the City get ready for the World Cup. I’m not talking about the big corporate stuff, or the FIFA shit. I’m not even talking about the stuff the City is putting up for the tourists, if the tourist show up. No, what I am talking about are the people and the stores doing stuff. How people are displaying nation flags in their windows, how store fronts and bodegas are getting tv positioned in the windows for people on the street to watch. I love living in a City of Immigrants because everyone is from somewhere, and there is a special pride in being able to show that off. The World Cup in New York City is a special time, regardless if it’s being played here or not.

    Speaking of sports, Game 2 of the NBA finals is tonight. I will admit that I am a half-ass Knicks fan. I watched less than a handful of regular season games, and was hit or miss with the playoffs. But, I am here for the Finals. In a weird way, I am trying to use the Knicks as a learning experience for the kid, to have some pride in her hometown team. My loyalty to teams has pretty much been spoken for, but pro basketball seems to be the one area of fandom that I have some wiggle room, which means I have a very clean concience when it comes to rooting for the Knicks and Liberty. (Also, I’m cool with the Gotham FC, and iffy with NYCFC but that is a blog for another day.) All of that being said, all the Knicks love should be totally welcomed because the Knicks sure have brought this whole City together, which is damn near impossible to do.

    I gotta go to the grocery store, so the last point here is a little thin…

  • Short Story Review: “Stories” by Annie Ernaux

    (The short story “Stories” by Annie Ernaux, which was translated from the French by Alison L. Strayer, appeared in the June 8th, 2026 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photograph by Jet Swan for The New Yorker

    You know what I like most about Annie Ernaux’s “Stories”? Well, besides the language, and tone, and ethereal feeling of the loss of a past childhood, or how it feels innocent and menacing at the same time, or the power of words and storytelling, or how the protagonist/narrator doesn’t seem to be a very nice person because she sort of traumatizes a five-year-old. No, my appreciation for this story began to form when I finished reading it, as I was left wondering how fictional was this piece? I know full well that the overwhelming majority of Ernaux’s work is autobiographical, but I was still left wondering, to what degree is this fictional, or factual? For the sake of writing this, I’m going to come down on the side of fiction, as it is in the “Fiction” issue of The New Yorker, but I feel that for this story to work on all levels, Ernaux needs us the believe that this really happened. And not a portion of it; all of it. Even though I am sure this story is based on an event which has been fictionalized.

    See, it’s that last paragraph which might well be the best, and correctly used version of the “Dead chick in the basket” trick. (To explain, “Dead Chick in the Basket” refers to a writing device where the final paragraph of a short story contains new information about a character which is meant to make the reader view the actions, statements, or feelings of that character in a different light. This device was effectively used in J.D. Salinger’s short story “Just Before the War with the Eskimos,” where the name of the device comes from.) We go through this whole story, and then are given this last paragraph which seems to explain that this is all real. Or is it? She is a character in her own story? She wrote this to understand herself, but ended up writing another story? (You know, this just might be an unreliable narrator.)

    I will die on this hill of a fictional interpretation, because wasn’t Ernaux trying to tell us in this story that she discovered she had the ability to create a fiction so powerful that the audience accepted it as reality and had an honest emotional reaction to it? It’s like it’s meta on meta on meta. And we will never figure out what the truth is because only Ernaux knows that.