Rant #3,035: See

I am writing this Rant pretty early in the morning, and it has nothing to do with me having COVID at all.

I am in one of my sleepless nights, or almost sleepless nights, where I slept a few hours, woke up, and have been tossing and turning for a few hours without returning to sleep.

Writing relaxes me, so I figured I would compose a new Rant which would ultimately help me go to sleep.

On your end, I hope it doesn’t put you to sleep as you are reading it.

Anyway, I still have COVID, although my body is really fighting it off.

As I have mentioned earlier, my “due dates” are December 22—when I am not contagious anymore—and December 27—when I should be free of the disease once and for all, even though I should continue to mask up through these dates and beyond going into the new year.

And yes, this comes at a bad time, during the holiday season, and my family and I are supposed to be places, and I, at. least, might not be able to attend these gatherings because of what I have, and the feeling that not only might I make myself feel worse by attending, but I might infect others with what I have.

I have had to postpone some medical appointments because of this situation, and right now, while I do feel quite a bit better, I am still not there yet, but it isn’t December 22 yet, so I am pretty much proceeding to plan.

And yes, I have been contacted by New York State about having COVID, what I should do to minimize my threat to others as well as getting myself better, etc.

Big Brother is watching you, and when you have COVID, they are watching you with a microscope, a telescope, and with whatever other scopes they have at their disposal.

So you have my own personal update on how I am doing—and thanks to those who wished me well—but what else is there to talk about?

I was taken aback the other day by the passing of Dino Danelli, and I was also taken aback by the lack of coverage of his passing, in particular, right here on Long Island.

Danelli was the drummer of the (Young) Rascals, a band that made its name right here on Long Island, playing every club that was around at that time in the mid-1960s when rock and roll was still new, and the Rascals’ brand of rock was even newer.

Felix Cavaliere, Eddie Brigati, Gene Cornish and Danelli mixed rock, rhythm and blues and soul into what later was called “blue-eyed soul,” and that potent mix produced one hit single after another for the act, because they sounded like no one else on the scene at the time.

And they became among, if not the, top act on Long Island, honing their craft as they pranced and danced around in outfits akin to what the Little Rascals of movie fame would wear in their movie shorts.

And while the Rascals were just so different than anything else out there—and were signed to “black” label Atlantic Records to accentuate how different they actually were—Danelli was also quite different than the norm at the time.

He was probably the first or rock and roll’s flamboyant drummers, who would not just sit behind the drums and pound them to the beat, but who would be a show in himself, twirling the drumsticks and having raucous fun behind that kit.

He was sort of like an American Keith Moon, without many of the personal excesses that followed Moon around, and all drummers in American rock acts really owe Danelli a nod, because he made the drummers of these bands more prominent with his out-there style, as opposed to just being the guy in the back.

And he played on all the band’s hits—you can probably name them yourself, but they included everything from “Good Lovin’” and “People Got To Be Free” to all the hits in between those and after those two songs.

Years ago, I had the opportunity to eat dinner with Danelli and Cornish when the Rascals were preparing for a comeback tour, and I have to say that both of these guys were really fun people, and as the Saki flowed, they really opened up about what it meant to be a rock star in the mid to late 1960s … and they also gave me an exclusive at that time, which was that the Rascals turned down a chance to play at Woodstock, which both of then agreed “was the dumbest thing we ever did.”

But the music—and his drumming—live on, and these Rock and Roll Hall of Famers still had quite a career even without Woodstock on their resume.

And Cavaliere and Cornish have kept the band alive in current times, playing together on tour of smaller venues.

R.I.P. Dino Danelli. You done good.