Classic Rant #1,055 (October 13, 2013): Baby Blue

I am sure that you have heard by now that the old Badfinger chestnut "Baby Blue" has regained new life, as it was featured in the final scene of the popular TV show "Breaking Bad."

The nearly forgotten song has been catapulted to hit status again by its inclusion in the show, and it is nearing the top 10 in digital downloads (and sales) as we speak.

This has happened before, and has happened several times throughout the years.

Most recently, Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" got new life as it was featured in the final episode of "The Sopranos."

During the vinyl record age, it happened several times. One time that I distinctly remember is when the film "Stand By Me" came out in the 1980s, and the old Ben E. King hit was revitalized, making the Top 20 again.

I love "Baby Blue," have loved the song since it came out in 1971, and I also am a big fan of Badfinger, the band led by Pete Ham and Joey Molland.

They had other hits, like "Come and Get It," written by Paul McCartney, but "Baby Blue" was written by Ham, and I have it in my collection with its picture sleeve (see above, and it was bought at the old Sam Goody record shop by me).

Yes, Badfinger sounded like the Beatles, and "Baby Blue" is no exception, with a hook as deep as the ocean.

I don't watch "Breaking Bad," but I have been told that it was perfect for that episode because of the "blue" reference and the lyrics to the song.

"I guess I got what I deserved ... ."

Badfinger, itself stands as rock's most tragic case, with two band members committing suicide and another dying early, all supposedly linked to bad business deals, lost money, and never reaching the heights predicted of them.

Sure, a lot of that is all talk and conjecture, but I will bet the producers of "Breaking Bad" took that into consideration when they chose the song.

But overall, for whatever reason, it is great to hear the tune once again, and I am glad someone had the foresight to use it.

Now, I don't think there will be a renaissance for "1-2-3 Red Light," but there is always hope for the songs I love, I guess, and this example proves that.

Rant #2,409: Up, Up and Away

The Apollo 11 spacecraft--carrying Commander Neil Armstrong, Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin, and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins--and continued onto its mission to the moon today, July 17, 1969, and several significant things happened on the way to Jackie Gleason's favorite orb.

There was a slight course correction, putting the ship right on course to come to the moon's surface in just two days. This procedure also tested how the engines were working, a monumental test because they needed those engines working perfectly to get the crew in and out of lunar orbit.

There was a color broadcast on this day which lasted a bit more than a half hour, and it was broadcast worldwide. During the telecast, the crew showed the viewing public how the earth looked out of their window at 147,300 miles away.

Another significant event that turned out to be something that didn't happen occurred during this day, when Vice President Spiro Agnew told the crew during a radio broadcast that the U.S. would be on Mars by the year 2000. That has never even come close to happening, although estimates now are that we will reach there, if everything goes as planned, by the mid 2030s or so.

On to the moon!

I remember those days so well. My family was in the Catskill Mountains of New York--also known as "The Jewish Alps" on vacation when the flight took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, and the hype surrounding this flight was amazing.

Anything and everything related to the moon was hot back then--even what the crew members ate and drank.

I remember that Tang--that orange powder that you mixed in water and it turned into something like orange juice--was the hottest food going back then, but once you had it, well, you had it. It was awful tasting--sort of like an orange version of Ovaltine--and heck, why have Tang when you could have the real, honest to goodness orange juice?

When we were in the Catskill Mountains, we had the New York Daily News delivered to our room each day. It was the Catskill Mountains edition, so it wasn't nearly as large as the regular New York City edition, but it sufficed.

And leading up to the moon landing, it also included cutouts for the kids to use to build their own lunar module. You simply punched out the pieces on light cardboard and put them together like a puzzle. I remember my sister and I--me 12 years old, my sister just nine--doing this, and while ours was kind of wobbly, it really put the bug in our head about what was yet to come.

I so wanted to be home to watch the actual moon landing, and since we were leaving on July 20, the long trek home would have us home in plenty of time, so I breathed a sigh of relief.

But on this day, July 17, 1969, it was another day of vacation for us, playing ball, swimming, and eating in the big dining hall of the hotel we stayed at, which I think was called Green Acres, but I don't remember for sure right at the moment.

But everyone--and by everyone, I mean the entire world--was at frenzy pace two days prior to the big day, but life went on.

Two days later, life would seemingly stop to witness what was unfolding before our eyes.

Classic Rant #1,054 (October 2, 2013): Short Sleeves

Professional basketball is probably the fastest moving game on the planet.

The players move quickly up and down the floor, and their pure athleticism is a wonder to behold.

The upcoming 2013-2014 season is almost upon us, and the Los Angeles Clippers have something in store for fans that I don't think has ever been seen in NBA history.

They will occasionally wear short-sleeve tops when they are on the court.

The blue short-sleeve uniforms are slated to be worn for Sunday home games during the season.

So, you won't see Blake Griffin's armpits on Sundays anymore in Los Angeles, which, when you think about it, probably is a good thing.

I don't remember any time in NBA history when short sleeves were worn.

Yes, I have seen them in college ball, but not in the pros.

It has always been those sleeveless shirts, which are always full of sweat by the middle of the first quarter.

But at least with the Clippers, that will now be covered up, at least sometimes.

This harkens back to another change in uniform, but this one didn't last too long.

A number of years ago, the Chicago White Sox went with shorts on certain home game days.

They were blousy, and quite ridiculous when you consider all the sliding that baseball players do.

At least they normally have their uniform to protect them on their legs, but the White Sox had no protection, and after a brief spin, they had no short uniforms.

Me, I am a traditionalist.

The Yankees' uniform hasn't changed in ages, and I like that.

Maybe that is why they are not in the playoffs this year, who knows?

But moving back to the NBA, I shudder to think what the likes of Wilt Chamberlain would think of wearing short-sleeve shirts while playing.

Would Chamberlain go out and score 100 points against the Clippers, or would he think the whole thing is the pits?

This nose doesn't have the slightest idea.

Rant #2,408: Back In the New York Groove

I welcome myself back to the Ranting and Raving Blog after several days of revelry and fun generated by our family vacation.

Just to reiterate, this time we drove from Long Island to St. Petersburg, Florida, and then went to Senoia, Georgia, and then drove back home again.

It was a dizzying 2,700-mile journey, but it was generally a lot of fun.

And for the first time, at least for me, I was able to chronicle a lot of the stuff that we did on Facebook.

To a certain extent, that made the trip even more fun, but the good thing is that I wasn't so tied into Facebook that I felt constricted; I posted when I wanted to post, just a few times to let people see where we were and where we had been.

I did go live, at the Yankees-Rays game that we saw, but only briefly, and since the Yankees lost, it was fun being at Tropicana Field, even though the end result wasn't anything to write home about.

There were other things not to write home about, either, but I did so anyway. The worst were the bug bites I got throughout my body, and mainly on my arms. They are still there, although they seem to be receding. I had them checked out by a doctor when we got home, and they could have been caused by anything from hornets to bed bugs from one of the places we stayed in leading up to getting to St. Petersburg. I have salve to put on them, but they seem to be in remittance.

Then we went to Senoia, which is a suburb on Atlanta, and we entered the world of "The Walking Dead," that super-hot cult TV show which has generated a cottage industry in this area, one of the many in Georgia and surrounding areas that they shoot the series in.

We took a few tours, walked around the town, ate there, and it was all fun, even for my son and myself, who don't really have an interest in the show. My wife does, and you know what they say, "A happy wife equals a happy marriage," but the fact of the matter was that the three of us had a lot of fun there, and we plan on visiting again in the future.

We did some swimming, ate out in locations that do not exist in our neck of the woods, and it was really nice to get away.

We got stuck in some epic rain storms while driving--not Barry, but another storm that hit Florida early on in the trip where entire communities were evacuated--but all in all, my 2014 Kia Optima pulled through with flying colors.

The weather was hot, with a high of 99 degrees not in Florida or Georgia, but while we were driving through Virginia on I-95.

However, the humidity in both Florida and Georgia was incredible, making the mid-90s temperatures seem even more oppressive.

We arrived home on Saturday afternoon, and after some time to unwind from the long trip, my son and I went back into the fray by attending a WWE wrestling event at Nassau Coliseum on Monday night.

Once that was over at 11 p.m., so was our vacation.

It was a good one for sure, but now work stares the three of us in the face.

None of us are looking forward to going back to our respective workplaces, but at least we have lots of memories--and lots of photos and Facebook posts--to remind us about all the fun we had on this vacation.

We can hopefully take another vacation next year, and if we are able to do so, it will be on a cruise. It doesn't matter where we leave from or where we are going, but we will be cruising next year, God willing.

And yes, I know that today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Apollo 11, which began our country's--and the world's--moon missions. It was an incredible time to be alive, I remember everything about the launch and the subsequent moon landing like it was yesterday.

If things had gone differently during the past 50 years, mankind might have already gone to Mars, but whatever the case, we had to go to the moon first, and today was the day that the impossible mission started its course representing humanity.

How could anyone who was around then forget the utter majesty of the entire mission? And it all started today, the first leg of the mission, going about 250,000 miles to that thing in the sky.

Kind of makes my family's 2,700-mile journey look like nothing.

Classic Rant #1,053 (October 1, 2013): Old Photos

They say that photos speak 1,000 words, and I think old photos--photos that were taken years ago--can speak even more.

Sure, the digital age has made picture taking into the easiest thing next to buttering bread, but seeing those old photographs again--those taken with old Kodak and Polaroid cameras--really is something else.

You see pictures of the moment, pictures that were taken to be preserved.

I mean, with digital cameras, you can take a picture, see it immediately, and if you don't like it, it is gone in an instant.

But with those old cameras, you were pretty much stuck with that you had, so the picture taker took extra care in taking photos, because the only way to get rid of them was to throw them in the garbage once they got developed.

And today, you can take those old photos and digitize them too, keep them for posterity on your computer or elsewhere simply by scanning them.

I have done that with dozens of photos from years gone by. It is a fun exercise, and really, the only way to go to preserve old photos, and preserve them for the next generation, kids like mine who don't know from actual paper photos.

And I think that that is important.

Preserving the past is extremely important. Kids need to know where they came from. Yes, they know their parents, but they need to know that their families did not start with their mom and dad. There are grandparents, uncles, aunts, and others who helped shape them, whether they know it or not.

And the photos of friends are very important too. Sure, you are not related to these people by blood, but it shows your personal growing up phases, and to your kids, it shows that you always weren't a mommy or daddy.

You were actually a kid too!

So I treasure those old photos, some of which I have put up in this Rant.

They mean the world to me, and it is just so easy to keep these photos today, that if you haven't done it yet, buy a cheap scanner--I have found the cheaper, the easier to use and the better--and get it done!

You will not regret it one bit.

Rant #2,407: V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N

Yes, my segueway from yesterday's foray into my life with baseball is that my family and I are going on vacation--

And part of our travels will have us going to a baseball game.

We are traveling by car to two distinct points during our vacation, and mixed in with the sand and surf of going to both Florida and Georgia will be our attendance at a baseball game, and a very important one at that.

We are going to stay in Tampa/St. Petersburg in Florida for the first leg of our vacation, and you can look for us this Sunday at the Tampa Bay Rays/New York Yankees contest. We have seats pretty much all the way down at Tropicana Field, and it should be a great game.

Then we will be moving on to Senoia, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, for the next leg of our vacation.

My wife is into "The Walking Dead" TV show, and the popular program is shot right there, at least in part, in Senoia.

The show is so popular that a cottage industry of businesses have sprung up in Senoia geared to "The Walking Dead" and other shows and movies shot there, and there are numerous tours related to the popularity of this small town with Hollywood productions.

We will be taking a few tours, and based on the last time we did this, it should be fun.

And yes, we are going to Senoia in spite of hauty-tauty Hollywood's insistence that they will be pulling out of Georgia if the state's abortion law does not get changed to what they want it to be.

Tough fried green tomatoes! People will lose their jobs and their livelihoods if Hollywood pulls out of there in a burst of PC ridiculousness, and isn't it nice that once again, they completely ignore problems that they can have an real, positive impact on in their own home state--California has been rated one of the worst states to live in in a recent poll--yet want to dictate policy thousands of miles away.

Let them be damned, because we are going to Georgia and we really don't care about anything Hollyweird ... err Hollywood ... has to say about this nonsense. There are crazies on both sides of the ledger, but when we are on vacation, who really gives a 8dhjouq460o.,[s?

And after Tampa/St. Pete and Senoia, we will be coming home, and on the final day of our vacation, my son and I are going to a WWE event at the Nassau Coliseum.

Wow, that will be a busy time for us for sure!

Sand, surf, baseball, some zombies, and grapplers on the mat ... I mean, can you beat that for an All-American vacation?

Not even Colin Kapernick and Nike can spoil this vacation, even though their racist, anti-American posture is quite appalling.

But when we are on vacation, again, who gives a dhjouq460o.,[s?

When we are on vacation, we expect to see baseballs flying, bikinis bouncing, zombies pouncing and wrestlers ... well, doing whatever they do to make the fans yell and scream at them.

So the Ranting and Raving Blog will be shut down for vacation starting tomorrow--July 4, our nation's Independence Day--through July 15, the day of the WWE event.

Everyone, have a great holiday, and I will be back at this perch in a few days on July 16 to let you know how everything went as we drive up and down the East Coast of this wonderful country we live in.

Speak to you then. And hold the ketchup on the hot dogs. It really doesn't go.

Classic Rant #1,052 (September 30, 2013): My Cereal

I eat cereal every morning for breakfast.

Well, not quite every morning.

On Sundays, I usually eat something else. I give myself a treat on that day, and on holidays when I don't have to go to work.

But normally, I eat cereal.

Cereal has traditionally been a cheap way to get a good start to the day.

It was easy, didn't have to be heated up, and mixed with milk, you really got everything you needed to get your day moving.

The same still holds true, but prices have gotten out of this world.

You can easily spend $5 on a box of cereal, which to me, is really ridiculous.

Why does cereal cost so much?

I truly believe that it costs so much because the cereal manufacturers know that it is a staple of our diet, and that people will spend whatever it is priced at to have their favorite cereal in the morning.

I used to have any cereal in the morning, but in recent years, I have some derivation of Cheerios. I was told by a doctor a few years back that having such a cereal would help my digestion, and he was right, it has, so that is what I have.

I prefer the "Honey Nut" variety, so that is what I have every morning.

But rather than buy the branded product, I usually go for the knockoff, unless the branded product is on sale.

I am not going to spend $5 on a box of cereal if I can help it, and I haven't in years.

Even my local dollar store stocks this type of cereal--the knockoff, of course--and for $1, I am very satisfied.

Cereal is a big business, and it always has been.

There are so many tie-ins to cereal, lots of movie and TV links, and everybody eats cereal, so you are kind of stuck.

But I guess in my own small little way, I am beating the system by eating the knockoffs, which I have found are generally every bit as good as the branded stuff is, at just 20 percent of the price.

How about you? What cereal do you eat for breakfast, and have you found that outlandish prices have changed your habits at all?

Goodbye Kellogg's and General Mills, and hello, Malt-O-Meal.

What more can I say ... or eat?

Snap, crackle and pop!