Get ready to revisit the bombast of Mike and the Mad Dog

Will they or won’t they? That was the question that made Mike and the Mad Dog tick on talk radio (and TV simulcast) for nearly 20 years. Go off on each other? Surely, Christopher Russo, the Mad Dog, would scream and shout about one sports item of the afternoon or another and most likely at…

I’ll miss my Sunday selection of The Sports Reporters

The Pirates and Orioles are battling down on the field at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore in early fall 1979, and I’m a young guy just graduated from the University of Maryland standing in the press section waiting to spring into action. I’m four months into my job as sports editor of The Prince George’s Journal,…

We started singing, bye-bye American Idol …

I don’t know if you noticed, but American Idol put on one hell of a finale last week. The FOX competition show signed off after 15 seasons of crowning an amateur singer as best of the bunch by winning over the panel of judges and America in voting week after week. The system worked to…

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…

OK, let’s talk Mad Men finale

If it hadn’t had been for that real-life Coke commercial of peace and love, I might have gone home angry. Oh, wait, I already was in my recliner of the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood, my dear wife Karen on the couch, both us somewhat exhausted after finally wrapping up our…

Rachel Dolezal stumps me with her explanation

My mind and heart are open to those who don’t identify with the crowd with which they are born. Simply put, you bet expectations put upon you by others can be the wrongful weight of ten thousand mornings past and future. Gender. Sexual orientation. When people in our world raise their fists, shake at the…

Some splainin’ about Lucy and Ricky

The other day I used a line in a comment on lilrant’s blog that seemed second nature to me. She had some splainin’ to do about something or other. Huh? was the basic response, and so I went on to explain to my friend LR, the 24-year-old from India who of course shouldn’t have an…

That’s not really a selfie, Oprah

I’m halfway listening to CBS News Saturday Morning as I’m catching up on blogs just now when the sign-on 90-second catch-up segment reveals Oprah on Dave last night because every big star wants to say goodbye before he’s not chatting on CBS anymore. Frankly, I’m surprised she didn’t get one of the final-three-show slots before…

Goofy decisions on ‘Guy’s Grocery Games’

My dear wife Karen and I are relaxing in front of the wide screen with some easy-to-watch TV, as we like to do, and a previously DVR’ed episode of “Guy’s Grocery Games” from the Food Network is winding down. I’m splitting my attention between the contestants and my iPad Air and Ellie B aka Dogamous…