Rant #2,418: Tomorrow

As we move ahead through the doldrums of 2019, and before you know it, get to the sure-to-be-interesting year of 2020, we pause to look back, because if you don't recognize your history--or try to change it, like so many people nowadays want to do--you are completely missing the boat on yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Vinyl records are hot again, and while they simply cannot compete with streaming and downloads--the lazy man's way to get the music you like--it remains a very viable way to listen to music--and it certainly is, hands down, the best way to listen to rock and roll.

Rhino Records is one of those retro record companies that has kept the pulse for older recordings going for more than 40 years, and as owner of the Monkees' music catalog, the continue to milk that goldmine, and have done it again, re-releasing the epic "Head" soundtrack yet again as part of is "Summer of '69" group of recordings.

Of course, not only has this great soundtrack to one of the era's best movies about rock and roll been released and re-released in several different permutations before, but the original movie and soundtrack were on the Colgems label and in the stores in 1968, not 1969, but why quibble ... what does the difference of a year make?

Well, the celebration of 1969 has to do with the coming of Woodstock, and while this soundtrack was somewhat revolutionary within the context in which it was released, it has as much to do about Woodstock as, well, Alvin and the Chipmunks do.

Just so you know, this latest release does not replicate the mylar cover--which made anything that reflected in it the actual "cover" of the LP--but it is on silver vinyl.

While vinyl is hot, CDs remain I guess what you could call the most accepted way of collecting music for grass roots customers.

You can still go to Target and Walmart to pick up popular CDs, and amazon and other venues continue to sell them online.

So when the latest homage to the 1960s came out in the movie theaters this past week, its soundtrack bypassed vinyl, for some unknown reason, and went directly to CD release, although that release is also mired in some controversy.

Quentin Tarantino's new movie, "Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood" is a big hit, looking at the late 1960s in Hollywood through his skewered vision of what happens in his fictional movies versus what actually happened there in real life 50 years ago.

The movie has generally received rave reviews, and is doing well at the box office.

But what would a Tarantino movie be without a really boss soundtrack, and this movie has it--it is probably the "soundtrack of the year" at this point, and is filled to the gills with music that we loved back then, but which many of us have virtually forgotten about now.

Thus, not only are Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio the stars of the film, but also starring in the film is the music of Paul Revere and the Raiders, one of the top bands of the era that had been relegated to the trash heap of music of this era prior to this release.

Using four of the band's top hits as a background for the action on screen, Tarantino has put the Raiders--and namely, its chief songwriter, producer and lead singer Mark Lindsay--in the conversation once again, which is a "Good Thing."

But the CD was at least originally released on amazon--and amazon only, by the way--as a "made based on popularity" order; in other words, it would be pressed only based on the number of orders amazon received for it, and thus, it was not a standard release, but a CD-R, like you can make in your computers.

Why they went this way is beyond me, but depending on where you see it on amazon, it remains a CD-R release or there is no mention of it being such a release. I cannot figure it out myself.

There is an official vinyl release coming later this year--why it wasn't timed to come out with the release of the movie is another mystery--but for right now, you can only get the soundtrack via amazon and only on CD or CD-R.

Going back to the popularity of vinyl, these types of releases are my personal, preferred way to listen to my music collection, always has and always will be that way.

So the other day, I went to my local record store, as I do about once a month, to see what they had for sale. Very enticing indeed, I must say.

One of the records I purchased was something that I cannot say I had been looking for forever, but it is a nice addition to my collection.

"Incense and Peppermints" was one of the biggest records of the 1960s, hitting No. 1 on the Billboard charts in late summer and early fall of 1967. When you think of a record that certainly personified that era, this one must be part of the conversation.

Legend has it that the band hated the song, and that the lead singer refused to sing it--and they let the janitor of the recording studio that they were in warble the song to spite those who pushed it on them!

Whatever the case, it established the Strawberry Alarm Clock as a hitmaker, and they enjoyed two or three years as a name band. Ed King, their lead guitarist, would go on to form Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the rest is history.

But back to the Strawberry Alarm Clock. When the song took off, their record label looked for a followup, and "Tomorrow" was chosen, sort of a soft rock/psychedelic tune that was, in fact, sung by their lead singer.

Anyway, even with a No. 1 record under their belts, they could not carry this admittedly inferior followup past No. 23 on the charts in very late 1967 and into early 1969, and it doomed the band to lesser chart status for the nest few years, with none of their single releases charting above No. 65.

Yes, fame was fleeting, and they barely made it into 1970 before appearing in Russ Meyer's "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" film and then breaking up for good.

Anyway, although not something I was really looking for, I found "Tomorrow" in the 45s bin at my local record store, and gobbled it up as if I had found some buried treasure in the bin.

Now that I have it in my collection, it remains and inferior recording to "Incense and Peppermints," but I still kind of like the record anyway.

Speak to you again "Tomorrow" ... err, tomorrow ... but even in 2019, the past still lives!

Classic Rant #1,063 (October 15, 2013): Attack of the Allergies

I have allergies.

I have had them my entire life.

I remembering suffering as a kid, and back then, the science of allergies wasn't as known as it is today, and I suffered, and suffered some more.

Today, the study of allergies has been well refined.

I have been getting allergy shots, continuously, for 41 years, since I was 15 years old.

They have helped me immensely. I am allergic to the usual stuff-dust, ragweed, and believe it or not, the season of fall, when everything, well, falls off the trees.

But there are days and instances when the shots don't help at all.

Last night, I got an allergy attack, and let me tell you, I am still feeling it right now.

I was watching WWE Raw with my son, which I do every Monday night.

And it was so exciting that I think I dozed off about 90 minutes into the three-hour show.

I was fine as I dozed off, but when I woke up a half hour later, I was wheezing and coughing like it was nobody's business.

It was time to go to sleep, and I couldn't even talk. I made sure my son was in his bed with the lights out, and then I went into my bedroom.

With my wife asleep--she dozed off watching her shows after working late--I was wheezing and coughing so that I figured that I was in for the long haul, and I was.

I was making so much of a racket that I thought I was going to wake her up.

I tried everything to return back to normal--blowing my nose, clearing my throat, turning over from side to side--but this thing was not going away so quick.

Finally, after about an hour of total discomfort, I guess I fell asleep, pretty soundly asleep after my struggles.

But as I am typing this, I am still feeling it.

It is in my throat, and really, it is just going to have to peter out on its own.

I have these types of attacks probably two or three times a year, and while I wouldn't call them scary, they do put me ill at ease, because they have to play themselves out on their own. There really is nothing I can do about them.

I have struggled with allergies my entire life, and one guarantee is that no matter how old I am, I am going to struggle with them.

That is just how my body is put together.

But hopefully, these types of attacks will be few and far between.

I am happy to say that my daughter does not have allergies, and my son apparently doesn't, either, so I guess I didn't pass what I have along to them.

Good. This is one character trait that needs to stop with me.

Why I am an allergic person is anyone's guess, because nobody in the family has what I have.

But happily, the buck--or more precisely, the allergies--stops with me.

I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

Rant #2,417: Every Body Plays the Fool

Good morning.

It's July 29, and we are officially in the doldrums of summer.

The weather is hot, few of us want to really do anything but complain about the heat,and here it is, the beginning of the work week, and we have to wear our "Sunday Best" to go to work.

So let's start the week on a nice note, at least a nice visual note, if nothing else, but you are going to have to go through some verbiage before you get to the point of today's Rant.

In previous generations, there were personalities that we saw here and there, generally on TV screens, who defied description about what their purpose in life was.

On the male side, there was a guy like Monte Rock III, who was on all the talk shows, but what actually did he do?

Was he a hairdresser to the stars, an actor, a singer, or was he just ... Monte Rock III?

Om the female side, probably the all-time person in this regard, male or female, was Zsa Zsa Gabor, who was on every talk show under the sun during the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and even into the 1980s, but viewers would be hard put to categorize her.

Was she an actress? Was she a beauty pageant winner? Or was she simply Eva Gabor's look-alike sister?

Who knows, but she used to really talk it up when she was a guest on such shows as "The Tonight Show."

Fast forward to 2019, the present time.

Such "celebrities" do not need television talk shows today to become this generation's version of Zsa Zsa Gabor; all they need is the Internet, a photographer, and BAM!, they are this generation's version of the Hungarian whatever-she-was.

In particular if the camera loves you as much as a bee loves honey.

Case in point--among numerous so-called female celebrities--is Britisher Elizabeth Hurley, who has become the Internet's version of Zsa Zsa, with a perk, and a nice perk for the male audience in particular--

She does her celebrity sitings usually with a bikini on.

Look, yes, Hurley is a beautiful woman, with curves that many actresses decide to purchase and have man made. She has them naturally.

And yes, she is something of a marvel at 54 years of age, not old in my book but I guess in Hollywood, is about double the age she should be to be viable.

Anyway, have you noticed--and yes, I have--that every couple of weeks, she puts up a new bikini photo, to show us how perfect she is?

She just put another one up, along with a short video where she appears to writhing in ecstasy at her bikini, body and looks, and yes, like any red-blooded male, I saw this on my Yahoo home page and took a long look at it.

And like Zsa Zsa, how would you describe Hurley?

Is she an actress, a model, or is she simply now, at the old age of 54, simply an Internet personality?

Look, the TV talk shows still exist, but they are not driven by celebrities anymore; they seem to be driven by politics.

So if Hurley was in her bikini running for office, she would be prime fodder for these shows (Tulsi Gabbard, where are you?).

Anyway, she isn't, so she keeps in the public eye by putting up these alluring, but not lascivious at all, photos of her in bikinis, writhing in her own beauty on beaches around the world.

No, even Zsa Zsa during her heyday would not do that. She left that to women like Jayne Mansfield to do, not her.

So what Hurley is doing is showing herself off, and keeping in the public mind, just in case anything comes up that she actually could do.

It is like mentions in gossip columns in past years; publicists used to fight tooth and nail to get their clients--and particularly their female ones--into columns like Earl Wilson wrote for decades.

Being in the public mind--even if it was a negative--was essential back then, being out of the publc's mind was a death knell for celebrities, and particularly those not named Katherine Hepburn.

So Hurley has gone the bikini route.

Look, you can say that she puts these photos up for all to see because she is the typical show-biz personality with a lot of baggage, and that is probably true.

But she looks so contented showing off her 54 year old figure on the Internet that the only person she could possibly be spiting is her former beau, Hugh Grant, who has to be the absolutely stupidest person in the world for giving her up, or he is one of the smartest people in the world, because he gave her up for a reason or reasons that we will never know about.

It is probably a mix of the two.

But whatever the case, Hurley is in her glory again on Yahoo, and we can all marvel at her, because let's face it: if she looked like Olive Oyl, would anybody really care?

I have some things to do tomorrow, so I won't be here on Tuesday, but I will be back in the saddle on Wednesday, and who knows, maybe Hurley will put up even more photos of herself being so full of her own beauty that she cannot contain herself and must put up more photos of herself in another bikini.

Yup, I will be watching for it.

You can bet on that.

Classic Rant #1.062 (Ocrober 14, 2013): "Gravity" Has Weight

My family and I went to the movies yesterday.

We often don't do this for a variety of reasons, first and foremost being that today's movies, with all of their technical prowess, have generally lost their way with stories.

Filmmaker have forgotten how to tell stories in current movies.

Also, the price is so high for tickets that you can spend $50 for just two hours worth of entertainment, and it just isn't worth it.

Just when I get sour on movies, a film came out nearly two weeks ago that knocks my reasoning on its ear, and that film is "Gravity."

The film has just two stars: Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.

It is the number one film in the world right now, and for good reason.

He plays the experienced astronaut, she the tyro (a great word that nobody uses), and they are out on a space walk trying to repair the Hubble Telescope.

Suddenly, space debris hits them, and Bullock loses her attachment, and is literally floating in space.

The next nearly 90 minutes--yes, the film is a short one, long on story, short on length--basically shows her trying to get back to some type of control of herself in space and with her life.

I am trying not to give too much away, but with the help of Clooney, she comes to terms with both of those goals.

We are taken on a whirlwind tour of outer space, both through Bullock's eyes and as an observer, and it is pretty harrowing.

We get the sense of weightlessness while sitting firmly in our movie seats, and we see the terror on Bullock's face as she works her way to a dramatic conclusion.

My family and I saw it in 3D, and the theater that we saw it in didn't charge that much more for these tickets than for normal tickets.

Has the price of 3D movies come down because people simply aren't going to them as they had?

I don't know, but that was certainly a welcome site. I had expected to pay about $40 for the three of us, but it was quite a bit less.

Anyway, the 3D does add to the film.

Sure, you see the requisite things coming toward you, but it also gives you a third dimension to watching the astronauts float through space, often unbridled.

A lot of people are knocking the film because it isn't scientifically accurate--for one, they say that Bullock's tears would not be floating as they were--but to that, I say a big "Hooey!"

Is "Iron Man" scientifically accurate?

Heck, is the way people behave in modern films accurate? Does anyone actually behave like this in real life?

Throw that nonsense out the window--Astronaut Buzz Aldrin enjoyed the film, and if he can give it a thumb's up from his perspective, that is good enough for me.

The only negative is Clooney. His character, well, he pretty much plays George Clooney in space, and that can be annoying.

But the film is Bullock's, not his, and so that knock really isn't that great, certainly not a major distraction to take away from the glory of this film.

If you see one film this year--and I think my family has only seen maybe three movies because they are mainly garbage and a waste of money--see this film.

"Gravity," at least in my eyes, has weight, a lot of weight, and when Oscar time comes, for whatever that is worth, it is going to be getting lots of statues, and they won't be floating aimlessly in space.

Rant #2,416: In the Year 2525, Crystal Blue Persuasion Leads to Spinning Wheel and My Cherie Amour, What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)

This was a pretty momentous week in history, with some of those momentous occasions, including the first moon walk and Dylan going electric, taking place this week 50 or more years ago.

Another event took place this week, but in a bit more recent times.

Yesterday was the 41st birthday of Louise Joy Brown, who came into this world as our first test tube baby, as this Britisher was born after conception by in vitro fertilization.

Not that much is known about Brown today, as she has pretty much faded into the woodwork, although it is known that she is married and has two sons, both born naturally.

Happy birthday, and I guess the 1965 Herman's Hermits song, "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" presaged by nearly 20 years the events leading up to Louise Brown's birth.

And since we are on the subject of music, what songs were the most popular 50 years ago today, on July 26, 1969?

These songs were popular just after the Apollo 11 mission was over, but they still smack of that very special time and place.

Let's look at what we were all listening to on the radio way back when.

In 10th place on the Billboard Hot 100 for this week half a century ago was the "Love Theme From Romeo and Juliet," by Henry Mancini, which continued to be a hot song from one of the top movies of the day. This former No. 1 song left the Top 10 after this week.

At No. 9 was Andy Kim's "Baby, I Love You," a cover of the old Ronettes hit. A Canadian of Middle Eastern extraction, Kim was a writer and producer who was white hot at this time, with his many collaborations with Jeff Barry leading to the No. 1 hit "Sugar Sugar" by the Archies.

One of the Beatles' strangest concoctions, in my eye and ear at least, was their "Ballad of John and Yoko," which came in at No. 8 this week. The song memorialized the increasing relationship between John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who had recently married, and I do believe that Lennon and Paul McCartney are the only band members on this tune.

At No. 7 was the first big hit--one of the eventual many--that were produced by Three Dog Night, a band with three lead singers. "One" did eventually get there, and this tune was written by Harry Nilsson, who was one of the brightest young singer songwriters of the day, brought to the fore by his tow associations--with the Monkees to get his career in high gear--and with the Beatles, and namely John Lennon--the two were major party buddies, if you know what I mean.

"Hair" continued to be a hot Broadway show, and Oliver's "Good Morning Starshine" certainly fit the mood of the play and the mood of the country as the Apollo 11 made its triumphant voyage, and it sat at No. 6 on the chart this week.

Entering the top five, at No. 5 was "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love) by Motown's Jr. Walker and the All-Stars. This was another vocal hit by the once all instrumental act.

Reaching No. 4 on the chart this week was another Motown soon-to-be classic, "My Cherie Amour," by the then-teen wunderkind, Stevie Wonder, one of his many hits during his recording career, which stretches to this day.

Blood, Sweat and Tears were one of the hottest acts on the charts back then, and their mix of pop, rock and jazz was perhaps never more evident than on "Spinning Wheel," which was at No. 3 on the Hot 100 this week.

Tommy James and the Shondells were one of the few acts that were able to crossover from AM radio staple to FM radio darlings during this period, and their single "Crystal Blue Persuasion" got played on both areas of the radio dial, and was the No. 2 song on the chart this week.

Topping this week chart was, like a few other songs on this Top 10 list, a very appropriate song for the time and place. It was by one of the ultimate one-hit wonders, Zager and Evans, who had one fo the biggest hits of the 1960s with "In the Year 2525," and then were virtually never heard from again.

The highest debut on this week's Hot 100 chart was the wordplay bending "A Boy Named Sue" by Johnny Cash, which came into the Hot 100 at No. 42 and eventually became the country singer's biggest crossover hit, reaching No. 4 a few weeks later.

The "Biggest Mover" on this week's Hot 100 chart was another song that eventually became a major smash, the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women," which moved up 51 places on the chart from the prior week to this week, from No. 79 to No. 29. The song would eventually hit No. 1 in August, supplanting "In the Year 2525" as the top song in the country.

So there you have it, the top 10 best-selling singles in America the week after the crew of the Apollo 11 landed on the moon.

What a chart, and what a time to be alive!

Have a great weekend, and I will speak again to you on Monday.

Classic Rant #1,061 (October 11, 2013): Keeping the Past Alive With YouTube

I think that YouTube is the greatest Web invention since, well, probably since the Internet was invented.

Our former vice president, Al Gore, says that he invented the Internet, so I have to go with him.

How can you doubt a vice president (snicker, snicker, or as they say on the Web, LOL.)

Anyway, I enjoy going onto YouTube from time to time to see what's there, what's new, and actually, what's old.

And as you know, I punctuate my posts here with lots of YouTube videos.

There are so many old clips of various things that I am interested in--TV, movies, music, sports--that you can literally spend the entire day on there if you want.

They say that you can find just about anything on the Internet, and the same goes for YouTube.

You can find old TV shows, and music either that you've never heard or completely forgotten about.

And you can also find movies that bit the dust a long time ago that few remember, but you do, and it's nice to see that you are not alone.

And you can find that chestnut, that thing that is so far out of the understanding of most people, that you really have to scratch your head and wonder why it was put up in the first place.

I have put up exactly one video myself on YouTube, and it pretty much fits that description.



It is me, playing baseball probably around 1966 in my old neighborhood, Rochdale Village.

The clip isn't that great. It is basically a kinescope of an old 8mm movie my father took way back when.

But in its less than one minute, it goes directly to what mattered most to me way back when--playing baseball with my friends in our community's Little League, the Rochdale Village Athletic League, or RVAL.

Family was, of course, very important to me, and still is.

School was important, too, and I wasn't a bad student at that.

But sports, well, that was the ultimate for me. Even though I wasn't a good athlete, I loved those games, dreamed about playing them, and I did OK.

And that is what YouTube brings to the table.

It is an outlet for stuff like this, videos that have been tucked away for years and years.

I wouldn't think that people would be interested in my playing ball, but the video has received many, many hits.

It's just a fun video of my youth, and I guess it taps into things that we all feel, we all remember.

And now, I have discovered that there is another video up that I am in, and no, I didn't put it up.

It is a video of the Reunion that I helped put together, from this past Saturday.

Nobody other than former Rochdale folk should have the least bit of interest in this video, but it was a revelation to me because even though I was there, and I was in the video, I had no idea at all that a video was being shot.

Video cameras are so small now--and they can even be shot by your phone--that you can walk by a camera and not know it.

Heck, I knew people were taking still pictures, but I had no idea that one enterprising soul was taking video.

And it just brings the whole thing back, which is fine with me.

Again, me and probably 150 others will have interest in this thing, and that is it, but YouTube allows these items to last into perpetuity, so this thing will be up for anyone to see.

And that, really, is what makes YouTube special to me.

What I find interesting might not be your cup of tea, but we can all enjoy what we want on that site, stumble onto things that we never knew existed, and have fun.

And really, that is what YouTube is all about.

Rant #2,415: It Ain't Me Babe

Today is July 25, the 206th day of the year.

And just think, that in leap years, today is the 207th day of the year.

In an era where people get outraged at everything--spurned on by the Internet, social media, and simply being completely bored with their own lives, 54 years ago on this date, a segment of the population also became outraged at something that most people wouldn't normally give a wink at, but it helped change the course of popular music.

Bob Dylan, nee Robert Zimmerman, the young wonderbrand folk singer who was taking the world by storm at the time with his musicianship and songwriting, appeared at the Newport Folk Festival, plugged in, and it outraged folk music purists, who believed that the "spokesman of the generation" had sold his soul to rock and roll.

Traditional folk was basically a guitar, a stand-up bass, and maybe some light drumming, along with adept singing full of purpose, but when Dylan went electric at Newport, some folk fans went with the flow, others were ready to cut his throat.

It wasn't as if this all came out of the sky for Dylan, The groundwork for his "electric coming out" was planted in his current music direction at the time.

In March 1965--or a full four months before his musical epiphany--Dylan released his fifth album, "Brining It All Back Home." The first side of the disk features the singer backed by an electric band, while side two has him accompanying himself on acoustic guitar.

Right before his electric appearance at Newport, his song with a definite rock bent, "Like a Rolling Stone," was released, and it became one of his biggest hits.

So the seed was there for Dylan to go electric, and he did just that, joined by fellow musicians Mike Bloomfield and Barry Goldberg on stage.

Again, some people loved what he was doing, but others booed him, criticizing him for selling out, moving away from political songwriting and selling out to the devil--money--by going electric and joining the burgeoning rock and roll scene.

Although no one knows why Dylan made such a great U-turn with his music at that very moment--other than getting the biggest bang for his buck, so to speak--it is known that he was very impressed with what rock bands were doing with his songs, namely the Byrds, who were taking his more simply arranged folk songs and gearing them up for a much louder rock explosion.

With the success that the Byrds had with Dylan's tunes, seemingly every rock and pop act of any renown began adding Dylan's songs to their set lists and recordings; literally everyone from the Turtles to Davy Jones were recording Dylan's tunes with a rock bent.

After Lennon and McCartney, the most covered songwriter of the time was probably Dylan, fueled by the rock and pop successes that his songs were enjoying.

But folk fans thought that he had sold out, period, never to return to pure folk music ever again.

One can scoff at this controversy more than 50 years later, but on an audience weaned on the Kingston Trio, Peter Seeger and Peter, Paul and Mary, and the intimacy of what folk music brought to the table, the very spokesman of the folk generation going electric to a rock beat must have been catastrophic, much as if, let's say, the Rolling Stones moved away from rock and roll and went operatic.

The hero of the folk generation was gone, and the folk boom of the late 1950s to early 1960s was dead, too.

The Kingston Trio were never the force that they were a few years earlier, and Peter, Paul and Mary turned to more rocking tunes themselves.

Protest music had morphed from folk to rock, and it was just something of a natural progression. Dylan just firmed up that progression by leading that movement along with his electric guitar.

But even more than a half century later, there are people who still rue the day that Dylan went electric, just as the singer continues to play concerts all around the world and continues to record music that maybe doesn't stir the masses to action anymore, but remains viable nonetheless.

Today, not only is folk music dead, but so is rock and roll, so what is the new music to rue our consciousness?

It is hard to say--some say it is rap music, but it is too brutal to be held within that context--but something might just come along that will do that.

Right now, that type of music is in a holding pattern, but maybe the next "Dylan" is on his or her way to wake us up.

Classic Rant #1,060 (October 10, 2013): Wonder Who?

Every once in a while, I like to go back into my record collection and assess what I have, and today looks like a day that I am going to do that.

Do you remember the Wonder Who?

No, not the Who or the Guess Who ... the Wonder Who?

I didn't think so.

But around this time in 1965, they had one of the most unlikely hits of the decade rising up the charts.

"Don't Think Twice" was one of the best known songs in the Bob Dylan canon at the time, and at that point in rock and folk history, well, Dylan's music was untouchable.

However, as his music became more and more popular, acts that had little or nothing to do with the folk genre were starting to cover his songs, and have pop hits with them.

The pop-leaning Turtles were one, with "It Ain't Me Babe" around the same time as the Wonder Who were moving up the charts with their own version of a Dylan song.

But just who were the Wonder Who, and yes, I keep on forgetting to put the question mark after their name, so it really is the Wonder Who?

A group of performers who had finally broken through to pop stardom a few years earlier were the Wonder Who?

They were fooling around in the studio one day, and the lead singer, who was very well known for his falsetto voice, turned it up a notch when they recorded "Don't Think Twice."

His name is Frankie Valli and the group of performers who were the Wonder Who? was the Four Seasons. They were planning to record an album of Dylan covers, and this one was simply a goof, but it had a good sound, and the record company figured that they could release it and make some money off of it.

And that is just what they did.

Right at the time that they had a massive hit with "Let's Hang On," they also placed "Don't Think Twice" on the charts, and its uniqueness and falsetto whine got it up to #12 on the chart at its highest peak in November 1965.

With this unlikely success, the Wonder Who? actually released a few more records, with their takes on such chestnuts as "On the Good Ship Lollipop" and "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" also hitting the Hot 100 in 1966, but "Don't Think Twice" was by far and away their largest hit.

I have the song with its picture sleeve in my collection, and I listened to it the other day after not hearing it for years and years.

It is simply a fun song, a different reading of a Dylan classic that showed how elastic his music really was back then.

Here it is, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did back then, and do now.

Rant #2,414: Too Much Time On My Hands

Not really,

I am busy as a bee, whether it relates to work or life.

I just can't fit 25 hours into a 24-hour day.

And last night was the result; after not eating until past 7 p.m. because of things I have to do, I promptly fell asleep on the couch at 8 p.m., and didn't get into bed until about 10 p.m.

And here I am now, nearly 4:30 a.m., chugging away here at the blog.

Before you know it, I will be off to work, and another such day will begin.

And on the weekends, it is just as bad, but at least I can wear a T-shirt, shorts and sneakers in getting through my day.

It has become a rarity just to sit down and do nothing, and my family's vacation was no different.

In a period that is supposed to be "chill out" time, I drove a total of about 2,700 miles during our just-passed nine-day vacation to Florida and Georgia.

I have to say that it was a lot of fun, but it took a lot out of me, and a lot out of my pocketbook, too.

And evidently, I am not alone in feeling that way.

According to Allianz Global Assistance's 11th annual Vacation Confidence Index (https://www.allianzworldwidepartners.com/usa/media-room/vacation-confidence-index-19), Americans on holiday this summer plan on spending a significant amount of cash on their summer vacations this year--if they are even able to take a vacation during the summer months.

According to the index, Americans on holiday this summer are expected to spend more than $2,000 on their time off--$2,037--a 5.2-percent increase from the previous year--and the highest number in the survey's history.

Now of course there are variables built into the survey and how much people are planning on spending. How much do you spend prior to the vacation to make it just right, such as, for hotels, cruises, etc.?

In our case, we secured a few motel rooms, and paid for a few other things before our trip, like baseball tickets.

In addition, since I was taking my car on our vacation, I spent x amount of dollars to make sure the car was in as tip-top shape as a 2014 model could possibly be so that our trip would be a safe one.

And then you have the money that you actually spend on the vacation, and yes, my wife and I. as well as our son, did spend some hard-earned cash during this past vacation.

But heck, I have absolutely no regrets, because that is what a vacation is for: to get away from the norm, to do things that you wouldn't ordinarily do, with the bottom line of having fun and getting away from the rat race for a few days.

And the index said that total Americans spend for summer vacations this year is going to cross the $100-billion threshold.

This is not surprising. The economy is pretty good, the unemployment rate--which as we all know is a phony number because it does not count people who have stopped looking for work because they cannot get anything--is low, and you put these things together, and people want to enjoy themselves when away from home, and that involves spending money, honey.

I personally have no regrets about the spending my family and I did on our vacation. It was all worth it, and we had a fun time.

But if I sat down and calculated every penny that my wife and I, and our son, spent on this vacation--including what we spent on gas for the car--it would really boggle my mind.

In fact, that $2,037 average that the index said was what Americans were spending on their summer vacations this year would probably be in our ballpark, if you add in everything we spent money on, including tolls--and I still have not received my toll bill for the wonderful Verrazano Narrows Bridge in Staten Island, New York, where you are recorded electronically and are billed later.

So my spending for vacation is not yet over until I get that bill and pay for it.

Who knows when I will receive that bill in the mail.

If it stretches into August, then, theoretically, my vacation spending stretches into August.

I would hate to think I would not get this bill until September, but with New York State, you never know.

Can't wait!

Classic Rant #1,059 (October 9, 2013): Going Out To Eat

My family and I don't go out to eat very often.

If we do, it is usually for a special occasion.

We went out on Sunday, not to anything really special, but we ate at the local Dairy Queen.

Not only is this the local Dairy Queen, but right now, it is the ONLY Dairy Queen on Long Island or in the metropolitan New York City/Long Island area.

There was one in Suffolk County that closed probably 20 or more years ago, but since opening a few months ago literally in our backyard, the place has been busy from the moment it opens each day to the moment it closes.

We are very familiar with DQ, as it is called, from our trips to Florida. We always make at least one stop at DQ during our trips, and even though we won't be making those trips anymore, we have fond memories of the restaurant which we now can experience again just about right around the corner from us.

The place, which operates in a former Burger King, is nice and homey, and the workers are very professional and very pleasant.

Unlike most such restaurants in our area, the food is brought to you when it is ready. You don't have to stand around and wait; you take a number, they call the number, and they bring it to you.

Even if you order ice cream, and you want it after your meal, you just let them know, and again, they will bring it to you.

I am very impressed with the food, and the service, and the ice cream is very, very good. I told my wife that it is good that we only go here occasionally--this is just our second time at this particular DQ since it opened a few months back--because if we went more regularly, we would both look like houses (my son is so skinny that I don't think it would put an ounce on him if he ate this a few times a week).

It is a bit more costly than other fast foods, but at least in my neck of the woods, there is nothing else like it.

Dairy Queen in one of several restaurants that we discovered on our past trips to Florida that we have frequented once they come here.

Another that we go out occasionally to is Buffalo Wild Wings, which recently opened up about 10 minutes away from us.

We had first gone to the one in Orlando, and we liked the food and the atmosphere, although it was a bit loud, as it is really a sports bar.

The ones we have frequented on Long Island are less frenzied, and you can actually hear yourself talk in these places.

And I want to add that I don't even eat the signature offering of the place--chicken wings--but the other food on the menu is good tasting and reasonably priced.

I remember that up until a few years ago, there were no more Arby's on Long Island.

I have always enjoyed Arby's, and was unhappy when they left the area.

They have now been back a few years, and I still like them, although their prices have skyrocketed.

Most Arby's by us are more Express operations than full restaurants, although about two years ago, a full restaurant opened about 10 minutes away from us.

It features the full menu, unlike the Expresses, which only offer a portion of the menu.

The food is good but very pricey, and they don't stack on the roast beef like they used to, so you often taste more bread than roast beef.

But I still like it, and I still like their sauces.

We now have a Sonic within driving distance from us, although I have never eaten at one, even when in Florida. Also, some other restaurants are working themselves back to my area, including Hardee's and Roy Rogers, so I am sure I will at least try them out when they get here.

The first fast food place I ever ate in was a McDonald's in Queens that probably isn't there anymore. It was in the early 1970s, when these places weren't around the New York area too much, and my friend David's brother took a whole lot of us there, telling us that they had a special cheese that melted immediately when it was put on the hamburger. I thought the place was incredible.

Now, I can go to McDonald's anytime.

But I am still waiting for one concept I have not seen in years: fast food kosher deli, an idea which came and went several years ago under the Kosher King name.

It was good, but so high priced that it couldn't really survive.

I guess the original fast food was a hot dog and a knish, and I can go to a kosher deli for that anytime.

Rant #2,413: Fly Me To the Moon

Even 50 years after the first moon walk, that orb in the sky continues to captivate us.

It certainly did to Jackie Gleason, who put his face on the moon in the opening sequence of the classic "The Honeymooners" TV show, and that image has been etched in our memories forever.

Remember when many people described the moon as being made of Swiss cheese, because of all the craters in its surface?

And also remember that the cow jumped over the moon in a classic nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle."

We have had fictional characters named after the moon--"Moon Mullins" for one--and real personalities who have "moon" in their names--like Warren Moon, Wally Moon, and Soleil Moon Frye.

And the moon has always represented romance; and on the other hand, it also represents danger when it is in its full form. Just ask Lawrence Talbot what the moon means to him ... but get him before he turns into a werewolf.

Talbot: "When the moon turns full, I turn into a wolf!"

Lou Costello: "You and a thousand other guys!"

The moon has been the basis of hundreds of popular songs, including the one that this Rant is named after. The most popular version of this song during the rock era was by Joe Harnell, who in 1963 had a No. 14 hit with the tune, which has been recorded by many artists.

Let's name a few more:

"Moon Over Naples" - Bert Kaempfert (#59, 1965)

"Moon River" - Jerry Butler (#11, 1961); Henry Mancini (#11, 1961)

"Moon Shadow" - Cat Stevens (#30, 1971)

"Moon Talk" - Perry Como (#28, 1958)

"Moon Walk" - Joe Simon (#54, 1970)

"Moon Was Yellow" - Frank Sinatra (#99, 1962)

"Moondance" - Van Morrison (#92, 1977)

"Moonflight" - Vik Venus (#38, 1969)

"Moonlight Feels Right" - Starbuck (#3, 1976)

"Bad Moon Rising" - Creedence Clearwater Revival (#2, 1969)

And let's remember that the Earth is not the only planet to have a moon, or several moons. Jupiter has 79 moons, and Saturn has 62 moons.

Those aside, sometimes the moon, which is a noun, is used as a verb, and it is not a funny sight when someone takes down their pants and "moons" you.

But it is interesting that the same part of your body that you can moon with is actually the modern representation of the heart, which, of course, in actuality, looks nothing like the nice thing that some women wear around their necks.

But back to the moon ...

Yes, literally.

I hope that we have a chance, during the next 20 years or so, to go back to the moon in a manned expedition.

I don't think that people will galvanize around visiting that orb as we did as a civilization back in 1969, but I do believe that it will be a simply stupendous thing if we can visit the moon once again.

Perhaps it can be, literally, the jumping off point for a manned expedition to Mars, but even taken without that caveat, wouldn't it be great to have our astronauts back on the surface, doing experiments, surveying earth from that perch, and just having fun on the moon's surface ... while we all watched with utter glee?

I think it would be a great idea, something to bring all of us together as one once again.

And who would be this generation's Neil Armstrong? Would NASA stay with the status quo, or would a minority be the first one to walk on the moon, or maybe even a woman?

Who knows, and really, it doesn't matter at all.

As long as they represented our country, and our planet, really, does it make any difference?

Over the next 10 or 15 years, we are supposedly going to go back and visit our neighbor once again, and let me tell you, I am ready for such a thing to happen once again.

The excitement that I had all those years ago will be present once again, even though by the time it happens, I will probably be in my 70s or early 80s.

But it will make me feel like a kid again to see Americans on the moon ... and then maybe walking on Mars.

I really can't wait.

I might be older, but my sense of wonder remains intact.

Heck, I wish it was going to be me that was making this journey.

I would go in a heartbeat.

Sign me up!

Classic /Rant #1,058 (October 8, 2013): Here and There

Now that the Reunion stuff is over and done with, I can finally give my full concentration to things that I have kind of passed over recently.

I notice that gas prices are down, way down. 

I can get gas in my neck of the woods for less than $3.50, certainly the lowest price I have paid for gas since 2012, when my family and I drove down to Florida on vacation for the final time and in certain places we could find gas for $3.

This is all good, but I don't expect this to last.

You just know that we will be paying near $4 a gallon again sometime in the near future.

Also, is the government shutdown really effecting me?

Well it is at work in particular, where the military commissaries had been closed since last week, and I couldn't get in contact with those people at all.

Since most of the commissaries have been open since yesterday, that is a good thing for people who rely on them, and for me, because I rely on them too, but just in a different way.

But overall, this shutdown is absolutely crazy. Our legislators all have agendas, and they don't care about their constituents at all. What else is new?

I would vote all of them out when their terms are up--and I do mean all of them. It doesn't matter what party they are, vote them out. They have proven, collectively, that they are not worthy of a cushy seat that we vote them into in Washington.

It is the only right thing the common person can do, to voice our disapproval for this political nonsense that is juggling people's lives.

How about Miley Cyrus?

I don't get this singer/actress, or purported singer/actress, I just don't.

Sure, she wanted to leave behind her previous teenage "Hanna Montana" persona, and that is fine.

But to parade around the way she does ... is this what they call entertainment?

Put your tongue back in your mouth. You may be smart, but you have absolutely no talent whatsoever.

And, did you know that Thanksgiving Day and the first full day of Hanukkah are on the same day this year, November 28?

This makes it especially difficult to keep the two holidays separate for Jewish families, so I guess you can kill two birds with one stone by celebrating two holidays at once.

But with my family, it is even worse.

My dad's 82nd birthday is on November 30, so we will be celebrating three occasions at once in my house.

Is there anything else on my mind that I need to talk about?

No, not right now, but I will bet that there will be more tomorrow.

Speak to you then.

Rant #2,412: Moonflight

Once the Columbia came down from the heavens and the first moon mission ended, the hype was still there, at least for a little while.

Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were feted on earth as conquering heroes, had various parades where they were the honorees, and moon fever was still a positive malady that we seemingly all had, worldwide.

I was listening to Tommy James' "Gettin' Together" show on Sirius Satellite Radio yesterday, and James recalled that period of time from his perspective.

He said that he and his band were slated to play a concert the evening that the moon walk was slated to be held, and he admitted that the fever had struck he and the Shondells, and they rushed through their set so that they would be able to watch the walk like everyone else in the world would be doing.

They finished the show, rushed back to their hotel rooms, but alas, Armstrong had already set his feet on the moon surface, but at least they were able to see Buzz Aldrin make his walk.

James declared that the walk was "our defining moment" as human beings for anyone that was around to see it, and he is right; I cannot think of another such moment that galvanized not only our country, but just about every other country on the face of the earth, like this one did.

We have not seen anything like it since, and probably never will ever again.

After everything had died down, Armstrong became a professor, and although he had the most advantageous position to cash in on being the first human being to walk on the moon, he simply never did.

He died on August 25, 2012, right after celebrating his 82nd birthday.

Buzz Aldrin stood out as the most prominent member of the crew during the past decades, mainly for his admittance of mental health issues. Edwin Aldrin has also battled alcoholism.

He celebrated his 89th birthday in January of this year, continues to battle his demons, and is winning the fight. He remains a staunch supporter of manned moonflight, in particular, to Mars.

Michael Collins, the least celebrated of the trio but the man who probably had the most difficult job of the threesome--he was alone in the Columbia during the moon walk and had to position his craft just right to re-dock with the Eagle--has been employed by a number of aerospace firms over the decades since the moonflight.

He celebrates his own 89th birthday in October, and like Armstrong, he kept a very low profile after the mission.

As for me, the mission still fascinates me, the pursuit of landing men on the moon continues to intrigue me, and I hope we can do it again in my lifetime.

My fascination began at an early age--certainly by reading comic books--and it continued to grow as my uncle, an engineer based in California, was one of the engineers for the Gemini program, the initiative that came directly before the Apollo program.

He would send us lots of things related to Gemini, and I wish we still had them.

But couple that with a young boy's world of wonder, and you had someone who was firmly ensconced in the moon program and what I believed to be the eventual Mars program.

It didn't happen like many of us thought it would, but there is increased interest in not only going back to the moon, but also, jumping off the moon to Mars.

I am hoping that within the next several years we can do that.

And when we do, I will be sitting at my TV, just like I did 50 years ago, and I will be watching with the same keen interest that I had way back when.

What a thrill it was back then, and I guarantee, what a thrill it will be now, to see such a mission come to be.

We can dream, can't we?

Classic Rant #1,057 (October 7, 2013): The Mother of All Reunions ... At Least For Me

We had our Reunion this weekend, and I have to say, it went off without a hitch ... or nearly without a hitch.

People were happy to see one another--many people hadn't seen other people for 40 or more years--and pretty much everything went hunky dory.

Again, this Reunion celebrated a neighborhood, rather than a school or a class, so it was a bit different than your normal, everyday reunion.

When you celebrate a school or a class, you generally know a finite amount of people who will come to such a thing, because there are only so many people in a class, and even a school.

But when you do a neighborhood reunion, you really are looking at a pool of many, many people in many, many different age groups, and that is what we got at this Reunion.

We got people who were kids in our old development, Rochdale Village, kids who are in their 50s and early 60s, many of whom are parents and grandparents themselves now.

We also got people who were parents way back when, and are now in their 80s.

And not everybody knew everybody, which made it that much different from a class reunion.

We had 150 people, and everybody broke into their own groups, many of the same groups they fraternized with 40 years ago.

My group certainly did, and I saw my friends, basically sitting at one table, although I did have other friends sitting elsewhere in the room.

I also knew several other people there, and they were scattered across the room.

I spoke to dozens of people, welcomed them to our party, and made my way across the room pretty well.

There were some problems at the door with whether certain people paid, but all of the problems were resolved pretty quickly.

One person, who gave me heck over on Facebook for excluding his name from my final list of attendees--I was never told he paid by the person who received his check, and then I made the mistake of skipping over his name when I reviewed another list given to me of payees--actually was left off the master list this time, and my list had him! He was not a happy camper, not gracious at all, but you get all kinds at a thing like this.

Other people were standoffish, but again, this is a mix of people, so it had to be expected.

Most people were very complimentary, and I thanked them for being so appreciative.

I really appreciated it myself.

But I got to see my friends, my true friends in the old neighborhood, and heck, I even told a girl who barely remembered me that I had a mild crush on her way back when!

There was a point where I have to tell you, I felt like the father of the bride or the bar mitzvah boy.

I was sitting alone, and it all hit me at once.

I was the one who came up with this idea a few years ago, with the 50th anniversary of our development staring us in the face, to do something special to celebrate that mark.

It ultimately took four people to put this thing together, and while we fought like cats and dogs most of the time, the end goal was never part of those arguments--to make this the best darn party that we could.

And we did.

So here I was sitting like a proud papa, and it all hit me that the many months of agreements, entanglements and yelling and screaming had come to an end, and a very pleasant end indeed.

I guess I could not ask for more, could I?

Well, I could. I wish I could have taken more photos of my friends--I didn't get all of them in my photos, so guys, please send me what you have--and my family was there, and I didn't take a single picture of them. My bad, I guess. I was so caught up in the moment, I didn't think ...

Now for the 75th anniversary in 2038 ... nah, I won't be involved in that, not because I won't be here, but because I just can't do this again.

But be warned, anybody who does get involved ... well, you had better start your planning now.

Take it from me, you will be in for a long haul, a very, very long haul.

But I hope that it ends up as well as this one did.

Rant #2,411: Everyone's Gone To the Moon

Beginning on July 19, 1969, and over the next several days, the world watched as one of mankind's most stupendous achievements unfolded before our eyes.

And with television as our guide, people around the globe didn't have to miss a thing.

But it all started with mundane housekeeping chores aboard the Columbia, performed by the crew: Commander Neil Armstrong, Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin, and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins.

A course correction had been canceled, and the crew knew that the next day was going to be the biggest one for them, as the mission that President Kennedy directed--the U.S landing on the moon--would finally take place the next day, on July 20.

With everything going well, the crew was given some extra sleep time to prepare for the big day.

On July 20, sometime after 9 a.m. in the morning, Aldrin crawled through the command module Columbia to the lunar module Eagle, to power on the module, the capsule that would take him and Armstrong to the moon's surface.

At about 1:30 p.m., the astronauts were in the Eagle module when it separated from the mother ship on its trek to the moon.

After several computer glitches, at 4:18 p.m., the phrase "The Eagle has landed" came into the lexicon, as the capsule holding Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon.

Much had to be done before either man could actually walk on the lunar surface, and more than six and a half hours later, the time had come.

The hatch opened. Armstrong exited, backing out of the module with Aldrin watching for any glitches. Armstrong turned on the module's TV camera, so mankind could join him in his endeavor.

At 10:56 p.m., Armstrong's feet met the moon's surface, and he uttered the immortal lines, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

For the next two and a half hours or so, Armstrong--joined by Aldrin on the moon at 11:11 p.m.-- collected moon rock samples, planted the American flag and a plaque commemorating this accomplishment, and simply cavorted with the majesty of where they were and what they were doing. They also took a phone call from President Nixon.

By 1:11 a.m.on July 21, it was over.

At about 1:54 p.m., the Eagle began its ascent back to the command module. Slightly less than four hours later, at 5:35 p.m., the Eagle successfully docked with the Columbia and rejoined Collins.

On July 22, Apollo 11 began its journey home, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at 12:51 p.m. on July 24.

Mission accomplished.

As far as what I was doing while all of this was happening, we were still in the Catskill Mountains on vacation on the day of the lunar walk, but our vacation was ending and we were leaving that day to come home.

I remember that I could not wait to get home, because I wanted to watch the men on moon at home.

I don't remember everything about that day, but we left in the morning for the ride back home, and I distinctly remember that somewhere on that ride, we hit some tremendous traffic, which held us up quite a long time. I thought we were going to miss everything, not realizing that the moon walk was going to happen much later.

Finally, we got home, unpacked, and I think I even went outside to find my friends later in the afternoon. By this point, I knew that the moon walk would take place later that evening, so I knew I would see it at home.

After dinner, our old and reliable black and white Dumont TV went on, and stayed on for many hours. While my sister and my parents ended up going to sleep, I stayed up to see Armstrong touch down on the moon, later joined by Aldrin, and I watched the entire thing on that TV.

When it was over, I went to sleep, and how I got up the next morning to go to day camp I will never know, but I do remember that the moon walk was the conversation of the day.

Or at least I think it was.

I honestly don't remember much about the Apollo 11 mission after the moon walk. I don't know if I had tuned out of the return of the spacecraft, or at least I was overloaded with everything that had gone on the past few days, but I really don't remember the splash down nor the subsequent heroes' welcome the crew got, nor the parades and all the other hoopla.

I guess I had maxed out when Armstrong and Aldrin took their walks, and that was enough for me.

There would be five more successful lunar landing missions, not including the failed Apollo 13 mission, but none would have the allure of the first mission. I watched all of those, too, but by the final mission, public interest waned, and by Apollo 17, which left the moon on December 14, 1972, the mission to the moon was over.

We have been in kind of a stand still since then with such exploration. We have sent up numerous unmanned spacecraft, we have sent up numerous astronauts on missions like Skylab and the space shuttle, but public interest--and government money--lessened over the decades, and we have not had a mission to the moon in more than 40 years.

Other countries have joined the fray, including China--which landed on the dark side of the moon earlier this year--and even tiny Israel, which tried to land a craft on the moon early this year but crash landed.

And the Russians are always there, too.

We have had the Challenger disaster, we have had many ups and downs over the past decades, and we have partnered with other countries as well as private concerns to put men and machinery in space.

But another manned moon mission? No, that has not happened.

There is talk that by the 2030s we will once again be voyaging into space, possibly even to Mars, but it just seems so far away now. Will it ever be accomplished? Who knows.

But for this 12 year old boy back in July 1969--and for the world at this time--the dream became a reality. We galvanized together, not just as a country but as a planet, maybe for the last time, and it was an incredible journey not only for the three astronauts, but for mankind.

I can only personally hope we get such a plan going again, and that we make Mars the next target. If you were around during 1969, you know just how invigorating such a mission was, how it made us feel better and told us that whatever dreams we had could be accomplished.

I know in my heart that we can do it again, and it is something that this country and world needs right now--to put aside petty nonsense and galvanize together in the glory of mankind.

Classic Rant #1,056 (October 4, 2013): The Day Is Almost Upon Me ...

Tomorrow is my long awaited neighborhood Reunion that I had a hand in putting together.

We are expecting 150 attendees to this thing, which will play out in a hall on Long Island.

It celebrates Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, New York, where I lived from 1964-1971, an exciting development and revolutionary place to live at the time.

I have spoken volumes about the place on this site over the years, and I am not going to pontificate about it again.

I will center on the Reunion in this Rant.

What do I expect from the Reunion?

Well, it is like any other reunion.

I will see people I have not seen in decades, I will reacquaint them with myself and what I have been doing over the years, they will do the same to me, and most importantly, I will have fun.

Many of those who will be there are people who were very intricately involved in my life back as a young boy leading up to my early teenage years, and we have all moved on, lived our lives, and had our families.

We were kids when we met, and now we are adults, so a different dynamic will be in place at the hall that wasn't there 40 or more years ago.

I will probably see people who don't remember me, and if they do remember me, won't have much to say to me.

And that is fine.

We all had our friends, our groups, and sometimes, one group didn't intertwine with another.

And there is an age difference. We will have people there my age, people there younger than me, and people there older than me.

But just about everyone there will share the same common denominator--we grew up in this development, and saw it rise from the ground to a place that we called home in the 1960s and 1970s.

It should be a fun night, but it is way different from a class reunion, so that dynamic, at least for me, will not be there.

But 150 of us will get together, talk over old times, take lots of photographs, and put lots and lots of stuff up on Facebook and other places over the next few days.

And after just four hours, it will be over, and we will go back to whatever we were doing wherever we are doing it.

It will be fun, and I look forward to it.

It's almost like you can go home again, without actually physically going home.

And to be a part of getting this whole thing together makes it even more satisfying.

Needless to say, I can't wait for it to happen, and on the other hand, yes, I can't wait for it to end, too.

Sure, I am playing both ends here, but it really isn't against the middle, it is in concert with the middle.

And the middle is spelled F-U-N.

Monday's Rant will most probably be a recap, and I just know that even if you haven't a clue about my old neighborhood, you will read the Rant and get to experience a little bit of what I did this weekend.

Speak to you then.

Rant #2,410: Moon Shadow

On July 18, 1969, 50 years ago today, the Apollo 11 craft and its inhabitants--commander Neil Armstrong, Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins--entered the moon's gravity, and needed to make a slight course correction to do so.

The team checked out the Columbia spacecraft during a live television broadcast, and all seemed to be well, and the mission was right in front of them now, and certainly attainable.

With everything A-OK, the crew was given an extra hour of sleep, which they probably needed anyway, as perhaps the most difficult part of the mission was right before them.

Back on earth, the moon mission became the hottest topic on the planet, and it was getting the maximum coverage it deserved from all channels of the media.

The three-man crew was already being hailed as world and national heroes even before reaching their goal--landing and walking on the moon.

Everyone seemed to have a passion for space and for this mission, and it cut across all lines--young and old, black and white and yellow and brown.

My family was pretty much ensconced in our vacation in the Catskill Mountains of New York, and while we continued to play ball, swim and eat to our heart's content, the moon mission was certainly on our minds, too.

We received the local edition of the New York Daily News while vacationing, and the newspaper was giving the mission the stupendous coverage it deserved, with page after page of news and analysis about the Columbia, the crew, and the moon itself.

I don't remember if I read each and every article in the newspaper, but I read enough to keep me up to date on what was happening and what was yet to happen.

Yes, in between the sports and swimming, something stupendous was about to happen, and I know that while I probably was having a good time on vacation, I really could not wait to get home and experience what was going on in more familiar surroundings.

And as I said earlier, this entire mission--suggested by the late President John F. Kennedy just a few years earlier in a mandate that at one time seemed almost impossible to meet--was a moment of national unity in a country that was being split apart by the war in Vietnam.

No matter who you were or where you stood on the war, you could look into the sky and wonder and dream about what was about to happen, and it cut across all lines, beliefs, parties and cultures.

You wanted the crew to succeed in its mission, and you wanted to crew to then return to earth safely.

There was no political grandstanding by anyone on those ultimate goals, absolutely none.

Sure, there were some people who said we should be using the money we were spending on this project on the earth, where it was needed, but even those people had to be taken aback by the grandeur of what was happening.

And those people eventually got their way, so everything seemed to even out, although at the time, no one could realize that that was the path we would take after the moon missions ended in the mid-1970s.

Me, a 12 year old kid, didn't worry about such things; the stuff I had been reading in my comic books for years was actually going to happen right before my eyes, and that was all that I cared about.