Rant #1,649: Cheap Trick

Everyone who regularly visits this site knows how I feel about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I think that while its original intentions were good, it has fallen into its own abyss of politics, and I don't think that it generally honors the acts that it should be honoring for enshrinement.

It has gone way off based in acknowledging performers that don't belong in its hallowed halls, even when stretching the imagination to the breaking point.

It ignores acts that were groundbreakers, in particular those mid-1960s acts which set the table for those that followed them.

Ironically, one of the acts that benefited from these mid-1960s bands' work, an act which became popular in the 1970s and still puts out new material today, got its kudos this past Friday night, as Cheap Trick was inducted into the Hall of Fame during a ceremony at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

The ceremony was open to the public to sit in the the nosebleed seats, and I knew a few people that went, and they saw the ceremonies of the other inductees, including Chicago and Steve Miller.

But I will focus on Cheap Trick, because I have been a huge fan of theirs for 40 years, and they are what is right--and what is wrong--with the HoF, right in one band.

What is right is that they are deserving.

If the Rolling Stones are rock and roll's greatest band, then Cheap Trick is rock and roll's greatest touring band.

They play more than 200 dates each and every year, have been doing it since the mid 1970s, and even though the band members are all getting up there in age, they show no signs of slowing down at all.

In fact, their greatest album, "Live at Budokan," shows them off where they are the most comfortable, right on stage playing to large audiences.

And they have been very successful doing this for decades.

Their recorded output is extremely inconsistent, but they have had a good bushel of hit records, including "I Want You To Want Me" from the previously mentioned LP, the No. 1 "The Flame," and "Dream Police," and they have had platinum albums in addition to the Budokan collection.

Their brand of pop, rock, bubblegum and metal is a mix that is their own, and the way that they are able to straddle all of those genres really makes them special, and I, for one, am happy that they are in the HoF.

But on the down side, how can you honor an act and not honor the predecessors that made it possible for this act to have reached their level of success, one that got them into the HoF?

Cheap Trick is really a 1960s band that found itself becoming huge in the 1970s.

Its entire ethos seems to be both visual and musical, as they were something of a gimmick band at first, with two members looking like real rock stars and the other two members looking like either your 9-5 work bum or a grown up kid, not like rock and rollers at all.

Each of their LPs feature fantastic singles, mixed with a lot of filler and other stuff that ranks from very good to kind of lacking.

The marketing of this act is also so 1960ish, with T-shirts and even Cheap Trick bow-ties and guitar picks letting one know exactly where they stood with the band. And their logo is right out of the 1960s, when most bands had a logo which was marketed on everything related to the band.

This is a mid-1960s band masquerading as an album rock radio staple, going for the good song over everything else, songs that are radio-ready and ready for the Billboard Hot 100.

Sounds to me that with this type of rock and roll personality, they harken back to a different era, not the one that they came up in, where album oriented rock and disco clashed, and radio stations started to veer one way or the other in what they played on the air.

If Cheap Trick would have been a musical entity 10 years before they hit the scene, they would have been a consistent hitmaker, had probably about 20 hit singles and albums, and thus, would have been shunned by the HoF; as it is, they are in, happy to have come on the scene not in 1965, but in 1975.

Cheap Trick owes a lot to the Beatles, but they certainly also owe a debt of gratitude to bands like Paul Revere and the Raiders and the Monkees, two acts that will never, ever find their way into the Hall of Fame, or at least until the present Hall administration moves onto something else and hands the reigns to people who are more accepting of what these acts accomplished.

How can you honor Cheap Trick without also honoring those who made it possible for them to be enshrined in the first place?

But whatever the case, Cheap Trick are now Hall of Famers, and I congratulate them for this accomplishment, whatever it means to them.

I interviewed Rick Nielsen some years ago, and the band's leader--the guy who looks like a grown up kid, like Bowery Boy Huntz Hall with a guitar--was very down to earth, and I think that this is another reason that the band appeals to so many, because what you see is what you get, without the usual rock star trappings.

They are who they are, and they are the real deal here, not cardboard cutouts. They have had their own set of legal entanglements lately, but it seems that they are now headed in the right direction, and again, I applaud them for this honor.

I just wish that it would open the door for others, but I know that it probably won't.

Classic Rant #297 (July 13, 2010): Afterglow

Boy, this was a busy past week for me and for a lot of other people.

In my end of the world, as you know, I had my neighborhood reunion, and I am still basking in the afterglow of that experience. It is one I will cherish for many years to come.

Also, I watched intently when Lebron James made his decision to go to Miami. Yes, I was one of those dopes who tuned into this travesty on ESPN, but I guess me and nearly 10 million others nearly legitimized this event.

This was a day after I went to the dentist to have my teeth checked out. No cavities, mom, but my crowns are decaying, I may need some new ones soon, and I face months of dentist visits.

This is after a past Saturday when I finally found a new GP doctor and was told that I am in relatively good health (no, I still don't have my medical records).

Yesterday, I watched the Home Run Derby contest, which is basically the day-before pre-game to the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, this year being held at Angels Stadium, Anaheim, Calif. David Ortiz, who I respect but hate at the same time for being a member of the Boston Red Sox, won the derby, but the real show is today, when eight Yankees (actually seven, with banged up Mariano Rivera bowing out), manager Joe Girardi and his coaching staff leading the American League against the National League.

This game is such a roller-coaster ride, with the AL and NL either being patsies or pummeling the other league year after year.

After a long run of dominance by the National League, the American League has clearly taken over the game, and it hasn't lost since the last century.

Since this is the only All-Star game that is the least bit interesting (and remember, it counts because the league that wins gets home-field advantage in the World Series), I will be tuning in tonight, and hopefully, the American League will continue its dominance.

Last night, my son went to a Broadway show in a camp trip, so I had to pick him up pretty late. The bus was supposed to arrive at a designated location at 11:30, but it didn't get there until near 12 midnight. Consequently, I didn't get to sleep until after 12:30 a.m., and then some nut called us twice at about 2 a.m. in the morning but left no message.

Well. today I am pooped. I got up at my usual 4:30 a.m.--how I accomplished this is a surprise to even myself--and here I am, a little bedraggled, but no worse for wear.

I still feel good about that reunion, and the afterglow, I guess, is keeping me going.

Sure, it will wear off, but at least I had the opportunity to experience it.

Now, for the rest of the day, I have to find a way to function. There's been lots on my plate lately, and, well, I could use a vacation ...

More on that later.

Rant #1,648: It Was 42 Years Ago Today ...

This year, April 8 is the 99th day of the year.

Normally, it is the 98th day of the year, but this is a Leap Year, so we have an extra day.

To me, it is just another day of work, and puts me exactly 20 days away from my birthday, when I hit the big 5-9.

But 42 years ago, this was a day for the books.

Where were you on 1974?

I was 16 going on 17 years old, going to high school--and hating every minute of it--but still friendly with my buddies from my old neighborhood.

I slept over my friend Howie's house--he and his family had moved from Rochdale Village to nearby Rosedale by this time--and we watched TV that evening, waiting to see a momentous occasion happen before our eyes.

In 1974, 42 years ago. Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves came up to the plate against former Yankee Al Downing, then with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and hit a home run for the ages--

His 715th career home run, breaking Babe Ruth's generations-old record for career four baggers.

I don't think people now can understand how important that one swing was the not only baseball history, but to our history as a country.

As we all know, blacks were banned from playing Major League baseball until Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in the mid-1940s, but by the 1970s, they collectively had become a force to be reckoned with not just in MLB, but in professional sports.

Aaron was one of the best players, black or white, that the game had ever seen, and while he never had the high profile of, let's say, a Willie Mays, he quietly and professionally put up spectacular offensive numbers every year throughout the mid 1950s through the 1960s.

He was entering what they say is the "twilight" of his career in 1974, and when he stepped up to the plate in this nationally televised game, he not only had his team on his back, he also had the world there too.

It was early in the season, and Aaron had received numerous death threats. How dare he break Babe Ruth's long-standing home run record, I mean, he was black. How can he dare challenge the Babe?

Personally, I wasn't too happy because he was going to break a Yankee's record, and a lot of people felt the same way I did, but let's be honest about it, it was inevitable.

So at Atlanta's Fulton County Stadium, extra security was in place for the possibility that Aaron would break the record, and happily, when he did, nothing happened, nothing at all, other than him rounding the bases and several fans coming onto the field to congratulate him--that is how lax security was at this point in time.

I watched the game with my friend, and we both knew what we felt was going to happen, and it did.

I don't remember much else about the game, other than the fact that as full as Fulton County Stadium was at the beginning of the game in anticipation of what was going to happen, the crowd petered out throughout the game, and at the end, there were probably a couple of thousand people in the stands versus the 50,000 or so who filled all the seats in the stadium at the beginning.

Ironically, a few years later, another milestone was reached this day, as Frank Robinson became MLB's first black manager, leading the Cleveland Indians.

So today, the 98th or 99th day on the calendar, isn't such an inconsequential day after all. Sure, Aaron has since been topped by Barry Bonds in the home run derby, but with one swing of the bat, Aaron spoke volumes.

One swing of the bat was all that it took.

And it didn't lessen the Babe's impact of the game one iota.

What it did was put the naysayers at bay, open some people's eyes, but those people, quite frankly, were blind anyway.

Speak to you again on Monday.

Classic Rant #296 (July 12, 2010): Old Friends

There's nothing like seeing old friends. Even if you haven't seen them in ages, you can pick up a conversation as if you had been speaking with them continually for years.

This weekend, I finally had my Rochdale Village Reconnection Reunion. The weather was threatening the whole day, and some doubted me for even having it this past Saturday due to weather concerns, but I decided to have it, and boy, was I happy with my decision.

It was overcast the entire day, and there were a few drips and drops here and there, but my barbecue at my house went really well.

About 40 people from my old neighborhood showed up. I was friendly with many of them way back when, and some of them I was very friendly with. Others I knew by name.

But I will tell you, once I saw these people, it was as if we never left each other in the 1970s.

Conversations picked up seamlessly. We talked about everything, including way back when, our current situation, our old neighborhood, our kids, our parents, even baseball.

The guys have more of a presence now, and some of us have lost our hair and are a bit rounder in the gut. The girls are so much prettier than I remember them, but heck, I lived there from age seven to 14 (1964-1971), so what did I know back then?

It was very humid and I was sweating profusely, but the warm reception I got made me feel real good, even in the middle of a hot, hot day.

With the help of my wife and my parents, we got everything going. My wife is a Far Rockaway girl, so there is a connection, because if we swam in the ocean when we lived in the old neighborhood, a bus ride to the shores of Far Rockaway was the way to go.

I think the weather kept some people away, but otherwise, it was a perfect day.

The pictures you see here are some of the ones I took of the people from my old neighborhood. You probably don't know any of them, but they are the faces of the kids of the late 1950s who are in their 50s today.

We have been through a lot, a lot of changes (both good and bad), and we have probably lived two-thirds of our lifetimes right now. But we are all still young at heart, and that is what makes such a reunion so wonderful.

And as we talk about old friends, somebody I did not know personally, but was touched by my entire life, passed away this weekend.

Bob Sheppard, the venerable PA announcer voice of the Yankees for more than 50 years, died this weekend at the age of 99.

Nobody who ever heard his voice at the old Yankee Stadium would ever forget it.

"He is as much a part of this organization as any player," Yankee Captain Derek Jeter said. "He was the one constant at Yankee Stadium. He was part of the experience. He's going to be missed."

Jeter is right, as usual. And in tribute to Sheppard, Jeter will continue to use a recording Sheppard made several years ago to announce the Yankee captain every time he steps to the plate. He will also use it in the All Star Game tomorrow.

Sheppard was just about as important to the players as the players were to the team. He was Yankee Stadium.

And he died with dignity yesterday morning at his home in Baldwin, Long Island, a stone's throw away from where I live and where my own reunion took place this weekend.

Old friends, yes, they are the dearest friends we have in our lifetimes.

Rant #1,647: Take a Nap

We all sleep, or at least we do unless we have insomnia.

There are some days I can't sleep, and there have been a couple of times that I have written this column really, really early in the morning--earlier than I am doing it now, at 4:25 a.m., even earlier than that--to help make me tired so I can go to sleep.

Today was not one of those days, but I can tell you that later today--after a tough day at work--I probably will take a nap later on, after dinner, while watching TV.

As I get older, this has been my pattern. I simply cannot be intrigued by just anything on TV anymore, and if it does not engage my brain, well, I fall asleep for a half hour, an hour, an hour and a half, and my longest naps last about two hours or so.

After a long and tough day at work--or a long and tough day at home--I find that I need these naps to almost, in a funny way, supplement my regular sleeping, which begins at 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and at varying times on Friday and Saturday nights.

I do not have a sleeping disorder--I was tested for that a while back--it is just that I need a short snooze to keep myself going.

As I get older, I am starting to take after my father, who does the same thing. He has done this for as long as I can remember, and it hasn't hurt him one bit.

As much as we like to think we are different from our parents, as we get older, we find that we really aren't that much different.

I take after my mother as I am an early riser, and I take after my father because I seem to need naps to keep myself going.

And I find my son is, very slowly, starting to take after me.

We still watch TV together on occasion--professional wrestling, which is on five days a week now--and I invariably conk out when I am watching these shows. They are repetitious, the story lines are the same that they were 50 years ago, just with different characters, yet the shows are somewhat engaging.

Well, like yesterday, I took a good hour nap while watching WWE NXT with my son.

He did not take a nap last night, but there are plenty of times when I have fallen asleep, wake up, and see that he is knocked out just like his old man was a few minutes earlier.

Such is the life of a working man, and he is working six days a week now--four hours a day, so still part-time--so he, too, is tired.

He used to laugh at me when I dozed off, but he doesn't laugh as hard anymore. I warned him that this was going to happen, and it did, just like I said it would.

My wife does not nap--when she is asleep, she is asleep for the duration--and I have no idea about my daughter, but I will bet that my first born naps too. It seems to be engrained in my family's sleep history, on my father's side. I don't think my mother is much of a napper, but as I said, my father certainly is.

I guess anything that keeps you awake and alert during the day is fine, even if it involves sleeping.

Take a nap. It is better than taking a pill.

To relax, I would rather take a pillow than a pill, anyway.

Classic Rant #295 (July 9, 2010): In the Heat, It’s Magic

OK, so Lebron James is now a member of the Miami Heat.

The Knicks, as I figured they would, got a player, Amare Stoudemire, but still don't have a team that is even near competing.

The Cavaliers got bubkis, shafted by their biggest star.

What is a poor boy to do amid all of this bubbermeiser nonsense?

Go to the movies on a hot summer night.

I won free tickets to see a preview of a new Disney flick, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," and my family and I went to see it last night.

My review: although it was a little slow early on, it picked up as the movie wore on, and I must say that I was quite surprised that I liked it!

The plot is pretty straight-forward: Master sorcerer Balthazar Blake, played by Nicholas Cage, recruits a seemingly everyday guy, played by Jay Baruchel, in his mission to defend New York City from his arch-nemesis, Maxim Horvath, played by Alfred Molina.

As you would expect, the plot takes a lot of twists and turns before it settles in to your "normal" good vs. bad theme.

Baruchel's David Stutler is a nerd of the highest order, but a real smart nerd who is into physics like ants get into picnics. He was a nerd even as a kid, but had the hots in fourth grade for Becky, played by hottie Teresa Palmer. On a school outing, she writes him an answer to his note about whether she is his girlfriend.

However, the note blows away into a weird emporium, and David goes chasing after it. There he meets Blake, who says that David is the one he has been looking for for eons, the one who will become the master sorcerer, the replacement for Merlin the Magician.

But it isn't easy as 1-2-3. Not only does David have to team up with Blake to do battle with the evil Maxim Horvath, but he has to battle his own devils in his relationship with Becky, who he has met by chance as a college student.

Sure, this sounds hokey, and it really is. But it is fun, and a perfect family movie for the summer.

Cage seems really into what he is doing--I often get the sense that he is sleepwalking through his roles--but this time, as one of the film's producers, he has a greater stake in the proceedings.

Baruchel is perfect as the nerd. He looks like a young Jerry Lewis, and he has the blips to really go over well with nerds and non-nerds.

Molina does what he can with his role, which is pretty much evil incarnate. He does it with a flair and style that pretty much steals the movie.

Director Jon Turtletaub keeps the action moving pretty steady after a little bit of a bumpy ride early on. The special effects are excellent, and even though with the little capsule I gave you, you pretty know how the film will work itself out, I would recommend this, especially for a family audience.

(And yes, the film does pay homage to the Sorcerer's Apprentice scene in "Fantasia," but I won't ruin it for you by telling you about it here.)

There are plenty of movies out for families, but most of them are computer-generated cartoons. Here is a live-action family film that, while not the greatest movie ever made, still holds up pretty well.

I would give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. Well worth your while to see.

Rant #1,646: Being a Good Samaritan

In March 1964, a horrific crime occurred in New York City, a crime that put in motion various rules, regulations and laws to try to stem such an attack from happening ever again.

Of course, such attacks still occur, but it is hard to estimate how many of these attacks have been nipped in the bud before they were carried out, by the entities now in place to stop them.

Lots of gobbledy gook in those two sentences, but just hear me out.

Kitty Genovese was a barmaid who had just closed up the bar she worked at, and she was going home for the night.

She was in Kew Gardens, a middle class, white/blue collar neighborhood, not as middle class and blue collar as nearby Kew Gardens Hills, where I lived at the time, but a bit of a step up from that neighboring area.

Anyway, while walking home in the middle of the night, Genovese was attacked by Winston Mosely for no apparent reason. As she lay dying on the street, she supposedly screamed for help.

"Help me!" she screamed repeatedly.

But no one did.

And she died right then and there.

No one called the police, no one took heed of what had happened, people pretty much minded their own business, ignoring the pleas for help, and the woman died right there.

Urban legend or not, it demonstrated how callous people can be, showed the world, right or wrong, that New Yorkers are the worst offenders of this callousness, and set in motion bells and whistles we now have in place to prevent such mishaps, including, supposedly, the 911 system, and Good Samaritan laws, all of which are in place not just in New York City, but throughout the country.

Mosely was later arrested, was given a life sentence, and confessed while in prison that he had killed two more people. He was supposed to be put to death prior to New York ridding itself of the death penalty, and lived out his life in prison.

He died this week at age 81.

This crime became one of the most notorious crimes in New York City history, probably right behind the David Berkowitz "Son of Sam" murders that happened years after.

Man's indifference to man--and our society's indifference to human suffering--was played out here. The police estimated that at least 38 people were within earshot of the crime and Genovese's pleas for help, but not one of these people batted an eye.

Although I was a little kid, I knew of this crime, because it happened not too far from where I lived. Both those living in Kew Gardens and Kew Gardens Hills, where I was, were labeled as being indifferent, shallow, callous and fearful.

It was wrong to label everyone in these communities that way, but pre-Internet, this crime was THE talk of the day, and you could not pick up a newspaper without reading about it.

The talk only subsided when the next notorious crime happened--the Alice Crimmins child killing incident--which also happened within earshot of where I lived in Kew Gardens Hills, just a couple of blocks away. I won't get into that one here, but needless to say, Genovese became a memory when this one happened.

Anyway, a couple of years later, my family and I moved out to South Jamaica, Queens, into a new development called Rochdale Village.

In about 1966 or 1967, there was a similar horrific crime, this one happening almost right outside my window, but people evidently learned from the Genovese experience.

This crime did not garner the same national outrage as the Genovese tragedy, but it made a mark on myself and others who were touched by it, and the mark still hasn't gone away.

A resident of our community had just returned from Vietnam, and he was lucky, as he returned without a scratch.

He was walking in the parking lot late at night, and someone tried to mug him for his money. When he refused, he was stabbed.

As he lay dying in the parking lot, he had enough strength to yell, "Mom, I'm hurt, help me!"

And yes, I heard it, we all heard it, and dozens of people called the police, my mother included. She had just finished a Mah Jongg game with some friends, and the whole commotion woke me up. In the still of the night, the cries for help could be heard all over, and this time at least, people took action.

Somehow, the victim was able to crawl to the other side of my street, and his blood stains were right on the sidewalk. They didn't set the area as a crime scene back then, with the standard tape around the area of the crime, so we, as kids, were literally able to go right up and see the blood-stained pavement first hand.

It was chilling, it was really the first time I was ever afraid in my life, and I just remember that myself and other kids my age came to the scene the next morning and just stood around the blood-stained sidewalk, staring and saying nothing.

But at least people did not sit on their hands when this happened.

The Genovese murder was a learning experience for all of us, and this other incident proved that yes, we did learn, and learned well, that you just can't sit around and do nothing when you know something is very wrong.

Mosely has died, so the circle is closed on that crime, but it continues to reverberate today, as we battle terrorists in our midst.

The "see something, say something" edict is a direct relation to the Genovese incident, and happily, people don't stand by anymore, like they did all those years ago, when they see or hear things happening in their midst.

Genovese's murder was horrific, but she will never be forgotten, if for nothing else than it was a wakeup call to all of us.

It is sad that it took a murder to do that.