I Talk to the Wind
Sean MurphyOn the dissolving horizon the sky looks good enough to eat: orange sorbet on a dark purple plate; overhead black birds want in on the action, circling one another, entwined…
Jack Bruce: The Thinking Man’s Golden God (One Year Later)
The recently-departed Jack Bruce could have had no complaints. He made history, he made records that made people happy, and he made some money along the way. Still, as one-third…
The Problem with The Homeless Problem (Revisited)
THERE IS A MAN who sits near the pumps at the gas station I drive by each day. The man is very obviously from somewhere else and has about him…
Born In The U.S.A. or, Every Day Is Veterans Day (Revisited)
I. Personal Remember when Born in the U.S.A. was ubiquitous? The album and the song. Bruce was already big, but he wasn’t over the top. Born in the U.S.A. put…
Over/Under the Volcano
I STILL HAVE HANGOVERS, thank God. Everyone who has known an alcoholic knows that as soon as you stop feeling the pain, it’s because you are no longer feeling the…
Bill Buckner, Mookie Wilson and Me (Revisited)
(10/2011) I've never been able to appreciate the aesthetic perfection (that is to say, the perfection of baseball's most imperfect play; it's most jarringly incongruous moment) because it was too…
The Fall Classic: 27 Years Ago
I don’t believe what I just saw! No one else in the room could believe it, either. Kirk Gibson had, before our eyes and on television, done something so improbable,…
Never Say Nevermore: A Reappraisal of Edgar Allan Poe
If Edgar Allan Poe—and his writing—has not aged well and seems more than a little passé for 21st century sensibilities, it’s not entirely his fault. Like others who have done…
You Want To See Something Really Scary?* 10 Horrific Scenes for Halloween (Revisited)
First off, a confession of sorts: scary movies don't scare me. Or, to put it less bluntly, as a one-time horror movie aficionado, I quickly outgrew the ways gore supplanted…
Hurricane Music, Sandy Style (Three Years Later)
Let's just get right into it. Some of Young's finest blistering guitar fury. Led Zep may have had the hammer of the gods, but there were four of them; Neil…