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Some years ago, my son Connor and I were watching the movie Dunkirk on DVD. It’s a very good movie, telling the story of that fateful week from multiple points-of-view. Of course, the most compelling thread of the narrative is that of the lone RAF pilot (played by Tom Hardy) doing his heroic best to…
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ZZ Top is the brainchild of lead guitarist and vocalist Billy Gibbons, who is a genius. Ever since I learned that he essentially named the band after his hero, blues legend B.B. King, I’ve always thought of ZZ Top as a kind of parallel-universe version of B.B. King. (In that other universe, B.B. King is…
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I can’t believe it’s been 41 years since James Cameron’s The Terminator came out. I first saw it in the movie theater and like everyone else I was completely stunned by its energy and creativity. It might well be the best B-movie action film ever made. (Its sequel, T2, is an A-movie action flick that…
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One of the many things I learned from Rod Stewart’s memoir, Rod: The Autobiography, is that the technical process of recording a studio album is very strange. For instance, the lead singer usually records his vocal track in a soundproofed room, by himself, wearing headphones so that he can listen to the band’s instrumental track.…
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Sometimes you just gotta dance. And who better to dance to than one of the greatest ska punk bands ever?
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It’s hard to believe, but it’s been a year since the launch of my mystery novel, Twice the Trouble. It’s been a wild ride! To commemorate the launch, I’m re-posting this very long (three chapters!) sample of the audiobook version on Youtube from Google Play.
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*** SPOILERS BELOW *** It feels a little silly, writing SPOILERS BELOW considering I am discussing a novel that came out 123 years ago. Is it possible that any reader of this blog—or, for that matter, any book nerd over the age of thirty—is not already familiar with the plot of The Hound of the…
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If you took the entire West-Coast noir mystery genre and made it into a great 1980s song, “Welcome to the Boomtown” by David and David would be the result. When I first heard it on the radio in 1986, I went straight out and bought the album. It’s one of the most haunting rock songs…
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My parents divorced when I was a little kid. My mom was struggling with mental illness (undiagnosed, at the time) and so I went to live with my father and his new wife, my step-mother Eileen. I saw my mom mostly on the weekends, and we would invariably go to the movies. I probably saw…
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Well, it took us a while, but my great friend Margaret Luongo and I finally finished George Eliot’s Middlemarch! (Hey, give us a break–it’s almost 900 freakin pages long!) Here is our discussion of the second half and heart-stopping conclusion of the book for our Read a Classic Novel…Together channel. And, guess what! We both…
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