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Tag: philadelphia

Because It’s There

January 7, 2011 /

I’m not really one to use this blog to just re-hash content that is already published on the web.  I think it is cheap and easy and unoriginal to use a blog as such – I would rather read what the blog is writing, view their photos, or their artwork, or whatever.

So I apologize for this post, as it is really nothing more than a link to a YouTube video of Michael Hedges playing Because It’s There.  For some reason, I was thinking of Michael tonight, and where I was when I learned that he had died.

It was December 3, 1997, and I was in Center City Philadelphia attending a training session at CoreStates for a couple of days.  Specifically, the training was way up on the upper floors of a building on Walnut Street between 5th and 6th, overlooking Independence Hall.  I was on a lunch break, and had walked down to 8th and Walnut to pick up the engagement ring I was planning to give to Edith in NYC on the 6th.  I then walked up 8th, and was crossing Market Street, listening to Because It’s There in my head.  I’ve liked this song since I first heard in on a Windham Hill Sampler CD sometime in the mid-80’s  I would swear there were two people playing, but Michael was just an incredible guitarist.

Because It’s There

Hooters

October 3, 2010 /

Received a text from Roger this afternoon: looks like the boys will be back in Philly for a Thanksgiving show on Friday, November 26th at the Electric Factory. Roger and I are in – just need to convince Tommy too!

Eagles vs. Redskins @ Lincoln Financial Field

November 29, 2009 /

Thanks to Roger S., took in my very first Philadelphia Eagles game, and watched as the Eagles squeaked out a 27-24 victory over the Redskins.

The weather was awesome, a warm (upper 50’s is not too bad for the end of November) and sunny 1:00 PM afternoon game, and Roger’s season tickets in the end zone are pretty darn good.  The picture over there was taken on an Eagles scoring drive with my BlackBerry Storm – click on the picture to see it full size, the resolution is not too bad.)  I’ve attended my share of Penn State games in Happy Valley, Rutgers games in Piscataway, Temple games at the Vet, and even some old Philadelphia Stars games out at U of Pennsylvania’s Franklin Field, but have always enjoyed college football more than pro games.  I love watching Big Ten schools like PSU, Ohio State and Michigan, and the excitement of the college game atmosphere, and always thought of pro ball as too much of a big machine, but I have to admit I had a great time at the Eagles game.  The fans in our section were all well behaved, and even getting in and out of the Linc was pretty easy.  I would definitely go again if given the opportunity.

In a weird turn of events, Jay’s 8 year old daughter was competing in the NFL Pass, Punt and Kick competition team Championship, and was announced on-field before the start of the game.  She did not advance to the National Final round of competition, but it was still pretty cool for us old friends to still be hanging out together after over 35 years, as our friend’s daughter is now old enough to play football drills at an Eagles game.

My Neighborhoods

April 7, 2009 /

I was born during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  It was late October, 1962, and although I learned in high-school history this was a tense time in the U.S., neither of my parents can recall much about it.  I guess they were too busy with surprise twins, delivered on the 20th, to be concerned with nuclear destruction.

I grew up in north Philadelphia’s Logan section, about 8 miles outside of downtown Center City.   Logan was a neighborhood of row homes and small shops, and the neighborhood was nearly entirely Jewish.  Rosen’s bakery was around the corner on 11th Street, across from the A&W delicatessen.  Malmund’s Pharmacy was on the corner.  It was populated by many Holocaust survivors – I recall the number tattooed forearms of many shopkeepers.  Storefronts displayed neon signs in Hebrew, and menorahs lit up their front windows during Chanukah.  Synagogues were everywhere, and we were one of only a few non-Jewish families on the block.  My neighbors were the Finkels, Levines, Hornsteins; my grade school friends were Michael Brickman, and PennySue Gold.  Looking back, it was an interesting neighborhood in which to grow up in the mid-1960’s, and I remember it fondly, until, suddenly, the neighborhood changed.

In June, 1970, we moved to Bucks County.  The grass and trees of suburbia replaced the concrete and cement of the city; single family houses, each on their own quarter-acreage of land, replaced row homes and shops; mid-summer cicadas and crickets  chirping in the backyard, replaced the twilight voices of neighbors sitting out on their stoops.  I truly thought we had moved to the country, and in many ways we had.  Life in Levittown was very different from today.  Fruit-tree forested backyards ran together, uninterrupted, like one vast ribbon of grass.  Nine kids lived on my lane, all within 3 years of age, all attending the same Catholic grade school.  That first summer I mastered my first two-wheeler, caught my first frog, played my first game of man-hunt, took my first swim in a lake…

…To be continued…

TSOP Heads to Cleveland

March 7, 2008 /

Man, the Philly Soul Sound of my youth, getting it’s due in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Right On.

If Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff hadn’t reached out their hands to introduce themselves in a Philadelphia elevator 45 years ago, the music world may have been denied one of its richest partnerships.

The production and songwriting team was the architect of the “sound of Philadelphia” and a rich vein of pop-soul hits in the 1970s. The two men are being inducted Monday into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, part of a class with Madonna, John Mellencamp, Leonard Cohen, the Ventures, the Dave Clark Five and Little Walter.

Click here to read more…

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