Double Doody
I learned yesterday that Carl Bernstein, the legendary Watergate reporter, won a Howdy Doody lookalike contest when he...
Children of the Corn
Not long ago a new book of mine, Another Fine Mess: Life on Tomorrow’s Moon, arrived on little...
Fame
I discover I’m mentioned in Adam Gopnik’s latest memoir, At the Stranger’s Gate, when he describes going to...
Gershwin Hatches the Egg
Pick hits from my program last week: In 1924, three weeks before he premiered Rhapsody in Blue and...
Standing in the Shadows of Stax
Last week I came upon two major examples of The Song Behind the Song. Like so many things,...
Judy Judy
Among the great women folk singers of the early to mid Sixties, Joan and Judy (Baez and Collins)...
Krazy Kats
Last week being pledge-drive time at the station (wmpg.org, it’s never too late) I brought back some old...
Iron Womb
Last week I was putting together a set of songs for my show (Dog’s Breakfast, Monday mornings, 5-6:30...
Ondrej Goes to Hollywood
Ondrej Havelka and His Melody Makers, whose music I’ve featured on-air a couple of times, are like Max...
The Long Fingers of Claude Debussy
In the early 1960s an album called “The First Family” appeared, comedy bits making fun of the Kennedy...
Ornithology
Not long ago I was grappling unsuccessfully with Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, but I did carry away one...
South America Stole Our Name #2
Randy Newman has a new album out, Dark Matter, his first in nine years. One cut that especially struck...