As the football game interrupts the commercials, which will be your favorites?

I remember when everybody loved to talk about the football game. Like way back in the third Super Bowl, before it was one big league that decided this yearly get-together deserved Roman numerals, when upstart renegade Joe Willie Namath stamped his guarantee and his and my New York Jets of the American Football League beat…

Throwback Thursday: Pop Pop, Nana and me

When my mind brings up memories of my Pop Pop and Nana, grandparents on my mother’s side, George is always smiling. The old guy — yes, no matter the age I am in these flashbacks that still warm me today, Pop Pop is remembered as old — is happy when he had I are walking…

The Cheesecake Factory gets a second chance

After the bad shrimp scampi with clumped pasta and awful sauce, bitter and hard lettuce core, burned fry, dirty utensils, harsh ambulance lighting from the window, et al, what, you ask, would bring my dear wife Karen and I back to the Cheesecake Factory in the mega shopping, dining and entertainment complex Detiny USA in…

Ready for the next full moon

Some people think every four weeks is too soon for a hair cut and beard trim. Especially when there’s not much left on top to cut. I visited my good friend Theresa Constantine at her place in North Syracuse, N.Y., yesterday, for my regular vanity appointment. Because there’s plenty on the bottom of my face…

At The Blog of Funny Names, I offer my first Mets manager, Casey Stengel

Over at The Blog of Funny Names, I wrote my monthly offering about the first man to manage the first sports team I ever fell in love with. That would be Charles Dillon “Casey” Stengel, a 71-year-old who cut a quite curious and funny figure for a 4-year-old figuring out the world. So my story…

An old friend from the music world shares some hard news

I got one of those emails on Sunday that makes you … Well … I got one of those emails Sunday that makes you think about life, and its ups and downs and the people that you meet and the ways that your paths cross and how relationships grow and how you can cherish friends…

The Full Moon effect, you ask? Do you follow?

My friend Justine over at the always-interesting Eclectic Odds N Sods asked early this a.m. from over there in the U.K., “What happens to you at full moon?” That was her entry into some pretty cool photographs of the lunar situation over at her side of the big pond. She’s good with the lens. Check…

On the wake of a farcical ‘Mortdecai,’ how do you prefer your movie humor?

Johnny Depp goes deep in his comedy closet in “Mortdecai,” while Gwyneth Paltrow as his wife is funny while using different tools. You can read my take about the farce directed by David Koepp from a screenplay by Eric Aronson as today’s weekly Film Blog review post on the Syracuse New Times site by clicking…

Pale Green Stars enters NPR Tiny Desk Concert contest

Jeff Jones was always a good, smart guy to be around when I worked the music and entertainment beat for the big daily. Leading the historic glam-rock band Dracula Jones. Fronting the Americana band Pale Green Stars. Being a citizen of Syracuse. I like the guy. He’s sent over a couple of emails of late,…

Kohlton Pascal decides to pass on ‘American Idol’ Hollywood ticket

The 21-year-old who sounds like an old soul blues singer won’t be trying to match up with the young pop world of “American Idol” in Hollywood after all. My good friend and former colleague Melinda Johnson reports this morning on syracuse.com that Kohlton Pascal of Auburn and Skaneateles and Syracuse, N.Y., has decided to pass…