Outside Looking In

Seeing The Social Network made me realize one thing: We all just want to belong

"I wouldn't want to be part of any club that would have me as a member."That's a classic Groucho Marx quote paraphrased by Woody Allen in the movie Annie Hall. Boy, does it apply to the hit flick The Social Network, which more than anything else explores our basic human need just to be accepted by others. How many of you reading this right now can still painfully recall the potential prom date who blew you off, the summer job you were rejected for, the bullying you endured off some jerkweed athlete DECADES after the fact? Heck, I'm in my fifties and I still feel like I'm on the outside looking in at times.

The 10 Artists Who Have the Most Songs on My iPod

Who’s on yours?

Les Bowen wrote a provocative piece in the Daily News on race and Michael Vick this week, and, unfortunately, I ended up talking about it with my listeners for two nights.  While I recognize that discussion on race is ultimately important, I HATE IT, because racists on both sides with their own agendas come out of the woodwork. By the time I get off the air I have a headache and I feel confused over whether these bozos even deserve to have a forum.Driving home in the pouring rain on the treacherous Schuylkill this morning in a bad mood, "Charlie Brown" by the Coasters came on the radio.  It's such a silly, fun song ("Yakkety Yak!  Don't talk back!") and it immediately lifted my spirits.  How awful can a world be that can produce such a terrific song?  I could not begin to tell you how many times a song has come along at a specific moment and literally saved my life.  Music is the single greatest proof that there might be a god.

Tolls…And Why I Hate Their Guts

Is it time for a revolution?

Did you notice in the title that I referred to tolls as “they” as if they are human?That’s how much I hate them! They suck and they’ve sucked as long as I remember being alive. With the dirtbags who run the DRPA all over the news lately, I thought I would take a look back at the history of tolls in my life.My first memory of tolls is my dad bitching about them. And we didn’t even own a car. Is that too much? Guess it was my dad’s way of sticking up for the working man. Lord knows what he would have thought of beach tags. My old man would sit in the kitchen drinking his Ballentine and listening to the news on the radio. “Goddamn tolls” he would bark when the traffic report would proclaim a “backup at the toll” on the Walt Whitman or the AC Expressway. This went on for years before I was ever even in a car going through a toll. Then some of the toll lanes went automated and that really flipped the old man out. “Taking a job away from a man!” To him tolls were just another arm of City Hall taking money out of your pocket. AND REMEMBER, HE DIDN’T OWN A CAR.

What Do Your Kids Have That You Didn’t Have?

Read my list, then tell me yours

I was going to watch a movie today called Prefontaine. I had the flick DVR'd. It tells the story of runner Steve Prefontaine from Oregon, an Olympic hopeful who died tragically at the age of 24 in a car accident after breaking numerous records, but before he got the chance to compete in the '76 Olympics. I have no idea if the film is any good or not, because I got stuck on one of the opening lines. Steve's dad is talking about life in the small Oregon town where he raised Steve, and he says, "We just tried to give him the life we never had."That's a pretty heavy line if you think about it. "We just tried to give him the life we never had." The problem is, I never thought about it. Now certainly all parents love to bitch about what their kids HAVE and what they DIDN'T have. That's just human nature.

High Times at the Jersey Shore

Or: How I got a (totally legal) marijuana buzz and had my best weekend of the summer. Or so I thought

Last Saturday afternoon, despite what the inane weather morons screamed at us all week, was a gorgeous day down the Jersey Shore. Hurricane Earl had provided some huge waves, but that was it. I had put on the sunscreen, drank my three Ensures, and was now staring down the various pills that I have to take every day since the docs discovered my cancer back in February. At one point, about six weeks ago, I had been prescribed marinol. Now marinol is marijuana in pill form. Little brown pills that look like tiny little Milk Duds. The idea behind this pill was basically to give me the munchies and restore my appetite. Now, believe me, the 54 pounds that I have lost has not been due to a lack of appetite. Watching TV is a nightmare for me because every other commercial is for some food being presented in its most mouthwatering form. AND I WANT TO EAT IT ALL!

Where Did the Summer Go?

And other really stupid things people say

Although I can be just as guilty as the next person, I always have to laugh when, inevitably at this time of the year, I hear a friend exclaim, "IS THIS THE QUICKEST SUMMER OF ALL TIME OR WHAT?"The snot-ass side of me is always dying to respond., "Well, I think if you check a calendar from last year, you would discover, give or take a few seconds, that this summer is EXACTLY the same length of last year's."

How Did I Survive My Childhood?

Knuckles. Buck-Buck. Kill the Man with the Ball. With games like those, it’s amazing any of us Philly kids made it out alive

The radio station I work at, WIP, recently had an event titled PLAY DAY. It was a fun nostalgic day where games like Step Ball, Soft Ball, and Street Hockey were played at South Philly's FDR Park. A real family day.It got me to thinking. Thank God WIP didn't feature the "alternative" street games I grew up "playing" at Finnegan Playground in Southwest Philly. Bloodcurdling, vicious "games" perpetrated by the neighborhood's "oldhead" on its "younghead." I'm not even sure the concept of "younghead" and "oldhead" even exists anymore. When I grew up, NO ONE STAYED HOME. You were always out on the corner or the playground. There were so many thousands of grubby kids squeezed into one block, turf wars were always rising up. When you weren't fighting another neighborhood, you fought each other. Hence, "oldhead/younghead" wars. An "oldhead" was any dude who was two or three years older than a "younghead." When there was simply nothing else to do, inevitably some "oldhead" would stand up and say, "Let's beat some younghead ass!" When they got bored with simply physically pummeling them, they would force them to participate in these "games." Here's a few that might bring on a nightmare or two.

Who’ll Coach the Eagles in Heaven?

And a few other thoughts about life, the afterlife, and really missing my mother

“We’ll meet again. Don’t know where, don’t know when.

 

But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day.”Those are the lyrics of an old World War II hit sung by a British songstress named Vera Lynn. I highly recommend you catch it on YouTube to get the full effect of this piece. It’s REALLY over the top and incredibly corny and sentimental. And I love it. So did my mother. She sang it all the time while she was ironing. The lyric of the song was originally intended to be about women singing these words to their men as they marched off to war. “Don’t worry, honey, this war will be over some day and we’ll meet again, some sunny day.”

My Favorite Drunk-at-the-Shore Stories

I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours

I been approached by a publishing house to produce and write a book called Jersey Shore Drunk Stories. It would be a mish-mash collection of stories of my own and those told by others, with a celebrity yarn or there.Not that the Jersey Shore is all about drunks and wild times. In fact, what I have always loved about the shore was how much it has to offer. If you wanna just chill out all day at the beach and call it an early night, well, that's there for you. There is great food and fishing and rides for the kids ( and the young at heart).  There is a bunch of different directions you can choose to go with your day.