The Hurt Locker
A few months after September 11th, the Department of Homeland Security launched a website called ready.gov.
The site's initial incarnation was ostensibly a series of updated '50s brochures: what to do in the event of nuclear blast (duck and run), what to do in the event of building collapse (duck), etc. (It's since been significantly neutered.)
I found the site (and the entire Department of Homeland Security, for that matter) comical, but also frightening close to home; just two days after watching the towers fall with my own eyes, I ...
Life & Death In The Magical Kingdom
I left the office at 7:15 last night. The sun was still casting its golden light across the Hudson. After five days of Michael Jackson coverage, it felt like a half day.
I stopped at the grocery store on my way home and, inspired by the sight of fresh limes (on sale, natch), resolved to mix up a fresh-squeezed margarita and some homemade guacamole to enjoy them before the sun dipped below the horizon.
A few hours later, Abbi and I sat together on the patio squinting into the sunset, sipping our cocktails, and debriefing each other on ...
Black Or White - MP3
From the moment the Michael Jackson story broke Thursday night, just one song has been on my mind.
I appreciate that most would cite "Beat It," "Billie Jean," or "Thriller" as Michael's finest pop song, and they may well be right; they're great songs with great hooks. But it's Jackson's 1991 "Dangerous" single, "Black or White," that's been lodged in my head all weekend.
And for good reason. Yes, Michael Jackson was a musical (and marketing) genius. But he also knew when to tap top talent. For "Black or White," he called on co-writer ...
Breaking The News: Michael Jackson
Sadly, breaking news doesn't surprises me much anymore. It is immediately what it is.
I was in a seventeenth floor corner office overlooking Times Square on a conference call with a blogger from VH1's Best Week Ever (of all media entities) when I heard the news.
"Michael Jackson had a heart attack."
Now, I was never a huge fan, but I remember the first time I heard "Thriller." I was sitting on my cousin Jimmy's bed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, wearing big, puffy headphones when I first heard Vincent Price's sinister cackle. A few months ...
In A Sea Black With Ink
I tell this story a lot.
Way back in 1996, just a few weeks into my Wenner Media tenure, the then-managing editor of Rolling Stone Magazine led an intern Q&A thusly: "I'm 37-years-old, I don't live in New York, and I don't go to rock shows or movies. Any questions?"
I was floored. Flabbergasted. Agog.
Fast forward thirteen years. I'm the 37-year-old on my way home from my difficult (if not soul-crushing then soul-trying) twelve-hour day tonight when Bruce Springsteen sings to me:
You're smiling now but you'll find out
They'll ...
The Hagley Fireworks (Or, In Consideration Of Teflon, Kevlar & The Apollo Space Program)
All I knew was that Abbi signed us up for "The Fireworks" back home in Wilmington, Delaware, and that the tailgating started early so I had to catch an early train out of the city and wear nice pants.
"The Fireworks," it ends up, are an annual tradition at The Hagley Museum in Greenville, Delaware, birthplace of the now-behemoth chemical corporation, DuPont.
Growing up in nearby Valley Forge, Pennsylvania (just thirty miles north on Route 202), the Brandywine was a placid, almost mythic place reserved for revolutionary history ...
Hit Hard
Such is my rock bio jones that, not only was I the only person in the office to grab a copy (an unproofed gally, natch) of Joey Kramer's "Hit Hard" out of the mailroom, but surely the only to read the Aerosmith drummer's tale of drug addiction and recovery in a measly 24 hours.
Listen, anyone with any proximity to Toxic Twins Steven Tyler and Joe Perry has a story worth reading. But Kramer was there from the beginning. What's more, he had his own crosses to bear.
The oldest of four children born to Eastern European immigrants, Kramer ...
Surrender
By the time I finally powered up my PC precisely 267 hours after logging off for vacation, I'd accrued 1887 emails, 19 voice mails, and 12 Facebook requests.
Four hours later, I'd whittled down those various missives to a crucial total of thirty-two.
Yesterday morning, less than twelve hours after my eight hour GCM-MIA-LGA commute, I strapped on my Asics to shake off the stiffness (and post-vaca blues) with a quick pre-brunch 10k. From Riverside Park to The Ramble, everywhere I ran, everyone was looking at their hands. Blackberries, ...
Los Ochos Locos Internacional (Edición Azucar)
After a week there, I can confidently report that Grand Cayman is as the brochure promises: endless miles of white sand beaches, tranquil, turquoise waters, and limitless sun.
It's a Caribbean playground: swimming, snorkeling, sailing, scuba diving, and jet skiing all fueled by delicious, home-brewed rum.
Abbi and I scuba dove eight times, logging nearly five hours at depths of up to one hundred feet at sites like Princess Penny's Pinnacle, Sand Chute and Tarpon Alley (more on that later).
We walked and ran Seven Mile Beach, ...
One Grand
Last October, Abbi and I planned to spend our one-year anniversary in Nevis.
Then, within a span twenty-four hours, I was informed that I'd be inheriting leadership of the news department, but not before I had my appendix removed. Suffice to say, we reluctantly canceled the trip.
Fast forward eight months.
It's been a doozie of a time (as you know, Dear Reader), one punctuated by great challenges, frustrations and rewards at work. Last week's Movie Awards were the first of two uber-events (the Video Music Awards are in three ...
