Ellie B earns the dreaded double leash

My around-the-block with Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle turned into an unwanted adventure last week. The dog slipped her gentle leader. Oh, my wily beloved rescue mutt has managed to free her nose from the black circle of mesh before, but as we walked down the hill on our street, four houses from home in…

‘The Book of Mormon’ knocks on Syracuse’s door with Broadway laughs and sound

Some topics are ripe for the picking. They sit on the shelf of our society ready for any amateur yuckster to poke at playfully, for stand-up guys and girls to jab at with certain enthusiasm, for monologue writers to roll over disdainfully with the toe of their shoe. Did you hear the one about the…

As ‘John Wick’ gets good reviews, Keanu Reeves has a beef

Everything is relative. So when Cinema Blend comes out with a story on the week that the movie “John Wick,” starring Keanu Reeves, will hit the theaters with the news that all is not great in Mr. Reeves’ world, well, I’m not rushing out there to Hollywood holding out my box of Kleenex. Still. I…

For Jimmy and Tootie Heath, the brotherly love of music started in Philadelphia

In 1975, three siblings who grew up in Philadephia thought they’d pool their vast talents in jazz as the Heath Brothers. The eldest, Percy Heath, played double bass. Middle man Jimmy Heath was a star of alto sax. Kid brother Albert “Tootie” was the drummer. They’d been in the bands of Dizzie Gillespie and John…

But my Nashville Hawkeye friends win the drinking game

I know it did not take long for moonshine shots to go down in a mini-manse in Nashville. On the first offensive play of the game, a little past noon Saturday, C.J. Brown, the quarterback of my alma mater Maryland Terrapins, threw the football into the arms of an Iowa linebacker. A couple plays later,…

‘The Best of Me’ almost brings out the worst in me

I did not want to sit through 2 hours, 15 minutes of a World War II movie, so I said no to “Fury.” Instead I picked the 1 hour, 51 minutes of “The Best of Me,” yes, the Nicholas Sparks melodrama, full of romance and twists and turns and beautiful actors. My first Nicholas Sparks…

At the Tin Rooster, we kick up our birth week heels

The Tin Rooster was a really big deal. The name may conjur up a dusky little backwoods joint where somebody’s playing banjo on the sagging porch, but certainly not at this place my dear wife Karen chose to celebrate the cornerstone dinner of her Birth Week celebration 2014. When we walked into the lobby of…

Mum

Paul Curran is a Canadian who can be found commenting often on this blog and many others. He always has much to say, and I find him to be wise, funny and smart. Paul definitely caught my attention when he sent me a photograph of he and his golfing buddies after they’d dunked their cart…

Looking out my back porch door

Stepping to the top step of the porch to let Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle out to do her backyard morning thing, I couldn’t help but look right and left to check out autumn’s progress in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. The empty lot to the right has a brightly yellowed tree hiding out…

A Big Ten clash with a pinky swear bet on the line

This move to the Big Ten for my Maryland Terps is serious stuff. We ran all over the Indiana Hoosiers in our first game ever in the new conference. At their place, yet. It made me very, very happy. And then Ohio State came to College Park and made Byrd Stadium Buckeyeville. After a bye…