Catching the corner

So you want to know how high the flatbed carts are in the retail store where I’m working as a cashier? Shin-high. My shin, anyway. I’m not always the most nimble working my way from the register to the carted merchandise that must be scanned with the portable shooter. Apparently. Yes, I felt it right…

Going for the green

Every year at this time, I turn on the Golf Channel and wish. Wish I were in Hawaii. Wish I were really good at golf. Wish I could be playing really good golf in Hawaii right now. Of course — pun intended — I have to be content with clicking on The Golf Channel and…

Whaddya know, the sky is falling

The news folks like to talk about snow in Syracuse, N.Y. How much are we going to get? How much have we gotten? How much of this have I heard since I moved here in August of 1983? Plenty. After all, Syracuse is the snowiest top 100 population city in the United States. And so…

So far, not so good for the Orange

Syracuse sports fans will gather round their screens and hope for the best tonight. The Orange men’s basketball team will trot onto the court at Boston College and try very hard not to fall to 0-5 in the Atlantic Coast Conference standings. That 0-4 start is not good news here in the heart of upstate…

Salad or something bigger?

The Pie Guys for a quick dinner sounded good to my dear wife Karen and I as my Thursday Night Bowling League picked up again after our two-week break for the holidays. Karen, wise woman that she is, ordered the small antipasto, with Italian dressing. We know from experience that these folks make a mean…

The B-Sides sound A-1 at Shifty’s

When my good friend Dave Kaspar gives me the heads-up that a trip to Shifty’s is needed to see a new band on the Syracuse scene, I believe him. After all, over the last quarter century, I’ve stood next to the guy hundreds of nights, appreciating the best our city has to offer. And then…

Joey Alexander has the world at his fingers

Joey Alexander is great, period, the music critic from New York City told the 60 Minutes reporter Anderson Cooper. Not just for a 12-year-old. Indeed, I thought, as my dear wife Karen and I watched this stunning piece Sunday night on CBS, this is a jazz artist that can flat-out play. Cooper did a nice…

My worst movies of 2015, from 10 to 1

Hold your nose! At least when you get to the bottom of my list of my 10 worst films of the 52 first-run films I saw in the theater during 2015, one each week for my Monday online reviews. That’s where the real stinkers reside. I must admit, a couple that you’ll see a paragraph…