All articles filed in General

Bruce Spizer is a very good friend of mine, and he’s written several highly-detailed coffee-table books on the history of the Beatles’ American-released recordings.  They’re quite good and very informative.  You can order copies of them through his website. He also enjoys playing a type of “What If…” game with the Beatles.  Such as, “What…

Laugh if you want, but five of these fifteen performing acts will be in the Class of 2011 in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Your potential inductees are, in alphabetical order: The Beastie Boys Bon Jovi Chic Alice Cooper Neil Diamond Dr. John Donovan J. Geils Band LL Cool J Darlene Love Laura…

That’s where I’m located.  Me and eventually 999,999 other people.  In fact, you can see me here. This is part of a new book called “One Million People,” and it’s an upcoming book which will feature the pictures of one million people in our current digital world. This is the brainchild of Alex Tew, who…

So I’m getting ready for the November 6th “Mockingbird Marathon: To Kill A Saturday” fundraiser, in which a public reading of “To Kill a Mockingbird” will take place to benefit the Literacy Volunteers of the Greater Capital Region. Since I’m one of the readers for the event, it pretty much behooved me to actually go…

It’s 4:00 in the morning and I still can’t stop thinking about this horrible story.  I’ve been sick over it for the past day or two. An 18-year-old freshman at Rutgers University killed himself.  Tyler Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge.  His body was recovered last Wednesday. And we instantly found out that he…

Sometimes I will run a Google news search on my name. It’s not to be vainglorious; sometimes I get inspired by what other people who share my name have done, and it turns into blog posts. And then I saw this piece, which ran a few weeks ago in the Austin American Statesman. And it…

There are classics in television game show history. Jeopardy. Wheel of Fortune. Match Game. Joker’s Wild. Price is Right. The Gong Show. And then there are game shows in which you sit there and watch – and scratch your head, wondering what the heck did I just see? Games with strategies that are mixtures of…

A few weeks ago, I received a letter from Albany County.  They needed me to fill out a questionnaire – update all my information and such.  I filled out the questionnaire as dutifully as I could, and mailed it back.  Simple as that. A week later, I got a response. “Congratulations.  You have been selected…

Part one of this saga can be read here. It’s August of 2002.  I’m in the middle of a major book-signing and autograph tour for my record collector’s guide, Warman’s American Records 1950-2000.  Through my work in the book, and because of my association with Goldmine, I received an offer to speak at a record…

I never met Maxine or Eileen Newcomer, and they never knew of my existence. But because of something they did in 1947, I was able to pay their gift forward. Background. It’s the spring of 2002, and I’m puttering around a used record and memorabilia show in Wayne, New Jersey.  For me at that time,…