Chuck The Writer

Although I didn’t find out about it until today, I am saddened by the November 2007 passing of Chickie Williams. Back in my days of writing for Goldmine magazine, I penned an article that eventually appeared in the Journal of Country Music on the history of radio station WWVA and its “Saturday Night Jamboree,” a…

Started off great at trivia, but I (along with everyone else) missed the final question – category was fast food, and it was about what sandwich was invented in 1972 by someone named Herb Johnson. The answers were split between the Whopper and the Big Mac – but it was the Egg McMuffin, which nobody…

Well, my plans on getting that Schaefer beer clock to light up and tell time has been halved. Apparently according to Lake Electronics, the people who are hopefully restoring my clock, I was told that it’s not a malfunctioning switch that is preventing the clock from lighting up, it’s something called “the ballast,” which apparently…

Had a nice solid run at the Elbo Room Thursday night. Really only missed one question (the band formed by Chris Cornell after he left Soundgarden, augmented with members of Rage Against the Machine – apparently it’s Audioslave, I didn’t really know that), and skipped two other questions (what did the caveman order at the…

My one-man wrecking crew team, “Street Academy,” picked up another point for finishing in third place in the Elbo Room Trivia Tournament, so Week 4 is in the books. Two other teams garnered first and second, so I actually gained a point on everybody else. So here’s the standings in Elbo Room’s tournament as of…

Replaced the light in the beer clock last night – but the light wouldn’t go on. So now we’ve got some other issues with the beer clock light – and this will now involve a higher power than me. That higher power would be Lake Electronics in nearby Colonie. I took the beer clock over…

I’m currently participating in a $2,000 trivia tournament against the top trivia teams in the Capital District. My one-man team, “Street Academy” (my wife comes along, everybody needs a rooting section) is currently in the lead in this season-long tournament. Each team gets 5 points for winning trivia for the night, with 3 points for…

Among the several items I bought at the recent beer and breweriana auction was a fine looking Schaefer bar clock. Schaefer, in case you’re not familiar with the brand, was an extremely popular brew from the 1960’s and early 1970’s, and was best served ice cold for the best beer taste. It also had one…

It was a bittersweet day yesterday. My wife and I, along with my daughter Cassaundra (who had just come in to Albany the night before from Seattle) drove up to Boston to meet with my Aunt Elaine, for the specific purpose of visiting my grandmother’s resting place. My grandmother lived a solid, long life, but…

I was thinking about this yesterday. Back when I was a teenager, around 1979 or so, Albany had no real professional sports franchises to speak of. We had the Albany Metro Mallers football team, but that was a “semi-professional” squad. There was the Albany Twilight League amateur baseball season, but how charged up can you…