Why?

Actually, today's subject is Y, as in chromosome.

I put up my 1964 aluminum Christmas tree last night. I also have a vintage color wheel bathing the strange silver "branches" in green, yellow, red and blue. From GEM Lighting in Brooklyn, NY, it predates the tree. When I bought the tree at a flea market, it had the original box with the date. Alas, the box has long since deteriorated. I still have the original box for the color wheel, and the address does not have the zip code. Ergo, it was made prior to 1963.

Digression? But of course!
While decorating I had the TV on a program about tracing man's DNA. My divided attention caught little of the program, but I did absorb one fact. Scientists investigating our DNA trail focus only on males. I, myself, prefer focusing on females, but enough digression for one blog.

Humans have two chromosomes; receiving one from each parent. (The following explanation is rudimentary. Apologies for these generalities to the several scientific minds on my blog list) The X chromosome mutates during gestation giving each child his/her unique characteristics. However, the Y chromosome remains unchanged. This perpetual nature allows scientists to chart our heredity. So, that little bugger inside me has not changed over the many male Billings' generations.

I find that fascinating. Many times since my father's death, relatives and family friends have noticed a mannerism, or style of speech that reminded them of my Dad. As I get older, I notice more and more similarities between him and me. Now it all makes sense.

Even more interesting are the differences between my father, my self and my three brothers. We all share the same Y, but we each have unique and, in some ways, dissimilar personalities. Curious how that mutated X we received gave us our remarkable idiosyncrasies.

In the late 60's aggressive researchers vying for government grants, linked LSD use to chromosomal damage. If not for the fact that these studies were proven specious, I could blame that insidious chemical for my strangeness. However, I must chalk up my off-beat, eclectic and, from what some say, annoying personality to that strange XY chromosomal stew.

But what of the nurture vs. nature factor? Sirrah, that for another time! As ever - BB

"Men are all alike-except the one you've met who's different." - Mae West

January 19 - Get Ready for Trouble

Nothin' but Trouble that is...when this band plays it's nothing but a party!

Their repertoire includes Americana and roots music, but under it all is the blues! As Keith Richards said, "If you don't know the blues, there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock & roll or any other popular music."

And these four musicians KNOW the blues. So much so, that Nothin' But Trouble will represent the Baltimore Blues Society in the 2013 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, TN (Jan. 29 - Feb. 2). Of course, getting the band and the equipment to Memphis isn't cheap.

So on January 19, the Cat's Eye Pub will host a fundraiser to help the band defray some of those costs. From 4pm to closing, Nothin' But Trouble will be playing and having a jam session with a little help from their friends. I've written about the extraordinary brotherhood which exists among the musicians who play in Fells Point.  On this special Saturday, fellow players and bands will be on stage to help us get Nothin' But Trouble ready to rock'em in Memphis.

It's the Jam to Memphis on Saturday, January 19 at the Cat's Eye Pub in Fells Point from 4pm to close. Yes, the Cat's Eye Pub that was recently named on of Baltimore's 25 Best Bars by Baltimore Magazine.

Mark your calendars, come down, join the party and help the band! - as ever BB

"You got to help me/I can't do it all by myself/You got to help me, baby/I can't do it all by myself" - from Help Me by Sonny Boy Williamson II & Willie Dixon

Click here to hear the full song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhlygCtJFSM

Decade of Assassinations

As a gift from a dear friend, I received a collection of short prose by Charles Bukowski. Written between the late 60s and early 70s, they were published in various small literary and underground  periodicals. One of the pieces, he used the phrase "decade of assassinations" to describe the 60s.

That got me thinking (always a dangerous endeavor) about what went on in the world during my formative years. I believe that eras don't follow decades. 1962 was much more akin to the 50s than what we think of as the turbulent 60s. 1972 was more analogous to the 60s than the stereotype of the polyester, disco 70s. What a surprise, I digress!


Here are the 60s big hits: 1961 - Patrice Lumumba, 1963 - Medgar Evers, 1963 - John F. Kennedy, 1965 - Malcolm X, 1967 - Che Guevara, 1968 - Martin Luther King & Robert F. Kennedy.

Add to that the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, escalation of war in Southeast Asia, riots in Newark, Detroit and LA, the cultural revolution in China, civil wars in Africa, the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City, et. al.

So, during this special time of year what am I thankful for? I'm thankful that I'm not more demented than I am. I guess I'll chalk that up to good old rock & roll. As ever - BB



"The 60s ain't over till the fat lady gets high." - Ken Kesey

One Flew East

...one flew west and one flew over the cuckoo's nest"

Those words from a children's counting nursery rhyme provide the title of Ken Kesey's first novel. When he started his creative writing fellowship at Stanford, he was working on a book about San Francisco's North Beach scene called Zoo. However after volunteering for some experiments at a Menlo Park mental hospital (later through FOIA discovered to be the CIA MK-ULTRA project), Kesey began work on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

On a side note, that was an extremely talented creative writing class. Other students included Larry McMurtry, Robert Stone, Ed McClanahan, Gurney Norman and Ken Babbs among others. If you're not familiar with their works, do yourself a favor and read some.

Eleven years ago this Saturday, Ken Kesey transcended our plane of existence. The image to the right shows his psychedelic casket being lowered into the grave on his farm in Oregon. The picture is courtesy of his son, Zane's website Key-Z Productions. Check it out. It's full of interesting works, t-shirts, and books.

One summer during my early teens, I read Hunter Thompson's The Hells Angels - A Strange and Terrible Saga, and Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. These led me to reading Kerouac, Kesey and others in the Beat pantheon. Actually, as Kesey put it himself, he was too young for the Beats and too old for the Hippies. In 1966 - he was 31 and technically shouldn't have be trusted, but then you should never trust a prankster.

Did these books begin my trip into the weird and wild, or did my penchant for the offbeat attract me to these books? - my personal chicken or the egg conundrum.

After the promising young author phase, the heady acid tests' haze, the fugitive in Mexico days and the jail faze, Kesey settled down to concentrate on family and his Oregon farm. It's said that when the bus returned from Woodstock and the Dallas Pop Festival (where Hugh Romney received his sobriquet  Wavy Gravy) a sign on the gate to the Kesey farm said "NO".

He continued to write, perform and instigate craziness from his farm for many years. He and the pranksters would show up at various Grateful Dead shows and other concerts, do impromptu performances of his children story, Little Trickster the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear, and his millennia play, Twister. In 1999, the intrepid group shipped a new bus to England, drove around  England, watched the solar eclipse and searched for Merlin the Magician.


When technology advanced to the ether, Kesey and Babbs started and interesting website named IntrepidTrips.com. After his death, his son, Zane started Key-Z Productions and Babbs began skypilotclub.com. Both keep the lifeblood, spirit and creativity of the Merry Pranksters flowing.

After he died, the city of Eugene was graced with a statue of him telling a story to his three grandchildren. To quote his good friend and right hand man, Ken Babbs, Kesey's philosophy was "to treat others with kindness and if anyone does you dirt forgive that person right away. This goes beyond the art, the writing, the performances, even the bus. Right down to the bone." as ever - BB

"A man should have the right to be a big as he feels it's in him to be. " - Ken Kesey

Creature Double Feature

The older I get the more nostalgia rears its ugly mien. I battle those feelings. It is a natural human inclination to look back fondly. However time's rose-colored lens skew reminisces. As Finley Peter Dunne (late 19th/early 20th century humorist from Chicago) said, "The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here."

I spurn sentimentality's attempt to make a stooge of me. That being said, last night's airing of the 1963 American International film, The Raven, initiated waves of wistfulness. During a break in the movie, TCM ran an ad that provided impetus for today's blog.

Next Wednesday, October 24, select movie theaters in conjunction with Turner Classic Movies 
will show a double feature of the horror classics, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. The link below shows participating playhouses. 
http://www.fathomevents.com/upcoming/alllocations.aspx?eventid=1105

The opportunity to see these films in a cinema evokes memories of many rainy South Jersey afternoons of my youth. Parents would select one of their group to round up neighborhood children into the ubiquitous station wagon for a trip to the Westmont Theater. Hordes of hellions filled the movie house for a cartoon, selected short and feature film. On special days, a double feature played, so the cartoon and short were omitted.

Normally when the lights dimmed, the theater would erupt into a cacophony of cat-calls and bronx cheers as a barrage of spitballs and candy projectiles filled the air. The exception would be movies like the aforementioned double feature. By then these two classics were over three decades old, yet their power and cinematic splendor would awe the adolescent assembly into rapt silence.

Despite my curmudgeonly cynicism, memories of those afternoons awaken fond thoughts - as ever BB
"...Well, if I could discover just one of these things, what eternity is, for example, I wouldn't care if they did think I was crazy." - Dr. Frankenstein from 1931 film

Trivia Tidbit - Anyone planning to portray Frankenstein's monster on All Hallows' Eve take heed. In doing so, one must decide which monster to depict. (and yes the monster has no name; he is often called Frankenstein, but that is the creator's name, not his.) The picture above is the monster from the original film - notice the fashionable bangs.
The picture to the left is the monster from Bride, and following reputable sequels. (several of ill repute were made) Said bangs were singed off at the end of the original film in the castle's fire which caused the monster to fall through the fiery floor encasing him in the glacier under the castle until found by Igor.

Quadrennial Scam

In 1972 I turned 18-years-old. Being a upright, bright-eyed American boy, I fulfilled two civic duties - registering for the draft and registering to vote.

The former was ominous as the country was still embroiled in Southeast Asia. The latter was rousing as
I would be among the first group between the ages of 18 and 20 to vote in federal elections.

Not yet the jaded cynic who types these words, I actively campaigned for George McGovern hoping not to become another victim of "Uncle Sam's Blues." (A favorite Jefferson Airplane tune and Hot Tuna harbinger). Thus began my descent from idealistic activist to realistic curmudgeon, and my penchant for backing hopeless presidential candidates.

Ten presidential election cycles later, the prospect of another fills me with bile. My years in the gaming industry taught me to recognize a fixed game when I see one. This quadrennial flim-flam engineered by power-brokers and monied interests doesn't even display the panache of a good confidence game.

The terms confidence game and confidence man, later shortened to con man, date to the mid-1800s and a William Thompson. He would gain people's confidence and hold money, watches, jewelry in safekeeping never to be seen again. He provided inspiration for Herman Melville's last novel, The Confidence-Man. Critics consider this to be a precursor of the nihilistic, absurdist style of the 20th Century.

Another 19th Century scammer was George Parker. He has gone down in history as the man who sold the Brooklyn Bridge...multiple times. He also peddled Grant's Tomb and the Statue of Liberty. Parker was so convincing that many who bought the bridge did not realize they were hoodwinked until the authorities stopped them from setting up toll booths.

A 20th Century swindler, who would fit right in with current political candidates is Gaston Means. He took the confidence game to a national level working for the Bureau of Investigation (pre- FBI), and the uber-corrupt Harding administration.

When one of his confidence games was uncovered, Gaston would unabashedly claim innocence and worm his way out of trouble. He once ingratiated himself with an heiress. She began to suspect something was afoot. So Means took her hunting, and she ended up dead. Despite expert testimony, he beat the rap.

Eventually these flim-flam men received their just desserts. Alas, I can not say the same for today's politician schemers. I guess only duly-elected crimes pay. As ever - BB

“Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” - George Orwell

The Public House

During this country's earliest days, the public house was the center of the community. It served many purposes: tavern-restaurant-community hall-post office-information center-et.al. The baby boom, the federal highway system and the inception of suburbs filled with Pete Seegar's ticky-tacky houses sounded the death knell of the pub's importance to the community.

When I moved to Fells Point, the amount of local barss staggered me - first figuratively, later literally. Repeated visits gave insight to each establishment's disposition. Some catered to locals and had its stalwart regulars; others tried to attract tourists and imbibers from the outer counties. 

During the ensuing decade and a half, the look of Fells Point has changed. As the neighborhood wrestles with gentrification; many of the older places find themselves displaced. I know many who bemoan the departure of established local watering holes. As the Merry Pranksters counseled, Nothing Lasts. 

While I don't normally use my musings and doggerel as a bully pulpit, I want to extol DogWatch Tavern as it approaches its first anniversary. This is not a typical Fells Point bar. It offers a fine menu which changes seasonally. It has a sports-viewing area with couches and cushioned chairs.  It has other trappings that should make a Fells Point local cringe, i.e. beer pong played with a volley ball and 5-gallon buckets.

While the accoutrements may not elicit a locals' feel, the staff does. Everyone who works there makes you feel like it's your bar. Just a few weeks before they opened, I talked to one of the owners. She told me she wanted to have a tavern where the locals could feel at home. To quote a badly-timed attempt at a political rallying cry - Mission Accomplished.

Located at 709 S. Broadway, you should check it out and see for yourself. While they do not stock Green Chartreuse, they can introduce you to an interesting libation called a Powerball - as ever - BB

"There is nothing which has yet to be contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn." - Dr. Samuel Johnson

Musical Brotherhood

Music filled my childhood. On the old monaural record player, Mom played show tunes and Irish folk music, and Dad played Mr. Aker Bilk and Jerry Murad & the Harmonicats. Those are some of my earliest memories.

When I was 5 or 6, my sister took piano lessons. Somewhere along the line, she had guitar lessons too. Her failed attempts thwarted any chance I had at lessons. But formalized lessons would not  have worked for me either. By age 12, I took an old nylon-string from the attic. About the same time, a family friend bequeathed me a 4-string tenor banjo.

Armed with a Mel Bay tenor banjo chord book and a guitar book, 12 Bob Dylan Hits Playable with Three Magic Chords, my personal musical odyssey began. By 14, I was playing in a jug band at family parties and church coffee houses. By 19, I was playing in pick-up bands. Actually playing is hyperbole. I was awful, yet fearless.

When I reached my 20s, I relinquished any idea of performing live. By then I had the guitar which is still my favorite, a C.F. Martin D-18. During the ensuing 30-plus years I just played with myself (oh, grow up; pun NOT intended) treating the guitar as a hobby.

I moved to Fells Point in 1997, but didn't embrace the music scene until I met my muse. She was the impetus that overcame the inertia and got me performing again. But it was not she alone. The encouragement and support of Fells Point's extraordinary brotherhood of musicians sustained my recital renaissance.

Billy Thomson, Larry Dennis, Rudy Strukoff, Ken Gutberlet, Dave Miller, Joey Fulkerson, Chris McAfee, Johnny Smooth, Ed Schoberl, and so many others have lent both moral and tangible support. They unselfishly provided the hardware I sorely lacked - mics, stands, speakers, PAs, etc. I don't even have to ask. Once a gig is announced, they inquire as to what I need and what they can do. It's truly heartwarming.

But the support doesn't end with the musicians. Donna at Leadbetters, Ana Marie and Tony at Cat's Eye proffer their venues graciously. Their generosity and hard work are indispensable in fostering the neighborhood's music scene. Equally important are the friends who attend the shows. You have no idea how much your presence means to me.

To all of you, I want to offer my deepest and most sincere thanks. Without you I would still be playing with myself. Okay that one was intended because this was getting a little maudlin. As ever - BB

"Like family, we are tied to each other. This is what all good musicians understand." - Billy Joel

Monkeyshines

Charles Darwin postulated about natural selection. His The Origin of Species introduced the world to evolution, though Darwin never used that term in his book. Unfortunately, he was wrong when it came to man. We have not evolved. Various species adapted or became extinct. Man is the exception to this rule.

We are the same beings who roamed the earth for millennia. Our technology has advanced. We domesticated animals, planted crops, invented tools, transformed said tools into weapons. We communicated with grunts, hand-gestures, created language, pictographs, cuneiform, alphabets. We sent messages with hollowed logs, smoke signals, reflected light, letters, electronic signals through wires, electronic signals through the ether.

Our things have evolved, but our bodies and psyches remain the same. Amongst the technological trappings, we are the same aggressive, pugnacious creatures who dwelled in caves.

I could easily embrace existential nihilism, but cannot because often in my life I've encountered the awe-inspiring spark of humanity. Be it literature, art. music, or just one human being's gentleness and kindness to another - we are capable of the extraordinary.

That is the individual, not people. Man is an amazing creature. Mankind is a mob moved by malicious, malodorous motives. As single entities, we create beauty such as  David, Don Giovanni, and I and the Village. As groups, we create such savagery as the Inquisition, the Holocaust and the Killing Fields.

Just look at the political farce playing out in the United States. Instead of looking for solutions and trying to work together, we are "carrying signs that mostly say 'Hooray for Our Side'" to quote Stephen Stills. We rally round demagogues and employ divisive tactics. This is a microcosm of the world's turmoil.

We are still howling primates, jumping up and down, hurling feces at each other. The feces have evolved into hateful words and weapons of mass destruction, but the flingers are the same, old simians. As ever - BB

"I got disappointed in human nature as well and gave it up because I found it too much like my own.” - J.P. Donleavy 

Ain't Necessarily So

'Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.' - Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll


I began college with a double major - English Literature and Philosophy. My Dad's comment was, "Great, you can think about trying to get a f@#*in' job." I would have been upset if I wasn't jealous of such an excellent retort. 


My English Lit knowledge helped in my Logic class during an oral exam. When asked to explain Logic, I responded with that quote. The Franciscan brother who taught the course looked at me without saying a word. I continued explaining that Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll's real name) was a mathematician and logician eruditely illuminating on the logic inherent in the quote. When I finished, Brother Vianney quipped, "Curiouser and curiouser" I bowed to him in acknowledgement of his maintaining the Carroll allusion. Since I was being graded, I discretely refrained from pointing out that while my quote was from Through the Looking Glass, his was from Alice in Wonderland. 


I did get a job teaching grammar in a parochial elementary school. Several years later I became the Fredo Corleone of my family and went to learn the casino business. However, language remains a passion for me. English is fluid, expressive and expansive. It collects words and phrases from a host of sources making them its own. A myriad of exceptions exist for every rule. Many "rules" are arbitrary and became so, not for the language's sake, but for political or socioeconomic reasons.


That leads us, circuitously I admit, to today's subject matter - AIN'T. We have all been taught that this word is vulgar slang not to be used by polite, educated individuals. But it ain't so. The word was an acceptable contraction of "I am not" into the 19th Century.


No one belittles a speaker for saying "Aren't I?" This interrogative dissects as "Are I not?" Correctly is should be "Am I not?"; ergo, the correct contraction would be "Ain't I?". What caused this calumniated contraction to evoke such wretchedness?


As the 19th moved into the 20th century, the upper class decided ain't's usage beneath them. Commoners and the working-classes used it, and patricians decided to banish it from polite English. It remained in use with the the working class, and other "undesirables" into the 20th century and is still used today. 


The contraction has become the "utility player" of slang words. It now substitutes for a multitude of other contractions displaying the fluid, ever-changing quality of English. It's a favorite of writers and purveyors of bon mots giving phrases a je ne sais quoi. 


Will ain't ever regain its place in "accepted" English? As the saying goes, "It ain't over till it's over" As ever - BB


“When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.” Lewis Carroll from Through the Looking Glass

City of Brotherly Love

A trip to the Jersey shore gave impetus to the last blog. The approach of my natal anniversary kindled this musing on the city of my birth, Philadelphia.

"I was thrust unto this stage of fools" in Philadelphia on Thursday, June 17, 1954. About four months after my birth, my family moved across the Delaware to Haddonfield NJ, another colonial-Quaker settlement. This could explain my love of oatmeal and affinity for Barbara Bush who resembles that guy on the Quaker Oats' box.

As a kid, Philly was like Oz to me. We'd drive across the Ben Franklin Bridge to visit relatives and/or friends. As we approached the crest of the bridge, the skyline produced awe and excitement.

Several of my father's medical school alumni moved to South Jersey at the same time. The families grew up doing things together. Several came from South Philly. We'd go to block parties on holidays in their old neighborhoods. The sights, sounds and smells of these Italian urban communities seemed alien, yet wonderful.

Until the early 70s, we would celebrate Thanksgiving at my great-aunt and uncle's in southwest Philly. The best part would be the ride home when Dad would drive us past boat house row adorned with lights and then through Center City with all the stores festooned in holiday finery.


Closer to Christmas, all the cousins and their Moms would meet in Center City on a Saturday afternoon. We'd start with lunch at the Horn & Hardart's automat, walk through Lit's Brothers and Strawbridge & Clothier looking at the decorations and Christmas villages. The afternoon would finish off at the Wanamaker's light show accompanied by the world's largest playable pipe organ.

These memories swirl happily through my mind tinted with the  rose-colored glasses of remembrance. The curmudgeon in me refuses to allow nostalgia to lull me into the belief that those were simpler, better times.

In the first eight years of my life, Eisenhower used the CIA to overthrow the legally elected governments in Guatemala and Iran, Francis Gary Powers' spy plane crashed in the USSR showing the world America was spying on them, the Cuban missile crisis had us on the brink of nuclear war and civil rights' abuses on black Americans was at its zenith. By the time I was 10, we began sending troops to Vietnam to support a government which forbade elections and came to power in a bloody coup.

No wonder despite my fond memories I have an ever-present feeling of impending doom - as ever - BB

"The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here." - Finley Peter Dunne

Jersey Rocks!

A prolonged Memorial Day weekend on the lovely shore of the state in which I grew up included an impromptu trip to a casino to see South Side Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. This gave impetus to a musing on the state's musical influence.

Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, The Four Seasons, Springsteen, Whitney Houston, Bon Jovi, et al...these names come to the forefront of most discussions of the Garden State and music. These artists and many others contributed to the state's sundry soundscape.

The recording industry dawned in New Jersey. Edison invented the phonograph record in Menlo Park. The Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden hosted many of the earliest recording sessions. Hundreds of jazz recordings on Blue Note Records were made in a home studio in Englewood Cliffs. Somers Point's Tony Mart's operated from the late 40's until 1982. It heralded the advent of Rock 'n' Roll. Del Shannon, Duane Eddy and others rocked this shore bar. Here Bob Dylan checked-out Ronnie Hawkin's back-up band, recently named Levon & the Hawks. Dylan hired the Band to back him up on his historical electric tour. The rest is musical history.

To me,  Jersey rock germinated with four guys from Garfield - the Rascals. They were the Young Rascals on their first records because Atlantic didn't want to confuse them with Johnny Puleo's Harmonica Rascals. Yeah, like that would happen.

Felix Cavaliere and the boys mixed soul, R&B and rock creating Good Lovin, Groovin, It's A Beautiful Mornin', People Got to be Free, and other great music. The Rascals provided the soundtrack to much of my early cruising, partying and loss of innocence along the back roads between Haddonfield and the shore. They inspired the Asbury Park sound of Springsteen, South Side Johnny, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul and others.

This is a subjective matter and I'm sure other hold alternate theories. To those I respectfully grab my crotch and say, "Here's your alternate theory!" As ever - BB

"...down the shore everything's alright, you with your baby on a Saturday night, don't you know that all my dreams come true, when i'm walkin' down the street with you..." - Jersey Girl by Tom Waits

Blanc et Noir

I have always enjoyed old movies. For some unknown reason, black and while films relax me. Westerns, gangster flicks, comedies, musicals, historical dramas -  they all provide an escape pod from life's impending doom. Yes, I used those two words. This is the first time I've written them since the fateful "unidentified projectile" incident. We shall see.

I believe our family was the last in Haddonfield, maybe the state of New Jersey, maybe the eastern seaboard to get a color TV. My dad believed the technology still needed improvement and the next model would have better features. So why get it now?

When he finally broke down and bought a color set, nothing irked him more than walking in on me watching some b&w classic.

I can still hear him cursing and muttering about spending the money for color and that damn kid watches nothing but black and white. Dad has passed on, but things haven't changed. I now watch a 60" plasma. Viewing sports on this is like being at the game. However, b&w oldies are still my staple TV diet.

The past few nights, I have reveled in the glow of White Heat, The Roaring Twenties, and Foreign Correspondent. The latter being a B-movie classic and Alfred Hitchcock's second Hollywood film after leaving England.

Of course the first two mentioned fall into my all time fav list - with a bullet! The Roaring Twenties made in 1939 was an homage to the classic gangster films of the early 30s. It's the last movie Bogie and Cagney made together. It also contains the best last line of any movie. As a down-and-out Cagney lies dead on the church steps, a cop asks who he is. Gladys George (an underrated character actress who is one of my "you know her; she's that lady in...") looks at the cop as she cradles Cagney's head and says, "He usetabe a Big Shot."

White Heat, also starring Cagney, was made ten years later. Cagney plays a true sociopath with a mother complex. This is a much darker portrayal than the lovable hustler with a heart of gold in the aforementioned film.

Despite my father's spectral voice grumbling about watching black & white movies in color, this film's final scene was exceptional and deMille-like on this behemoth TV. Seeing Cagney standing on a globe-shaped gas storage tank, shooting it out with the coppers and yelling "Made it ma, top of the world" as the tank explodes was Homeric. The film also contains one of my favorite Bogie quotes which I've always tried to emulate.  - as ever - BB

"I always say, when you got a job to do, get somebody else to do it." Humphrey Bogart as George Halley in The Roaring Twenties

March Madness

Not the college basketball bracket bender, but the spate of days during this part of the month with special significance.

It begins today with PI day - 3.14. If you really want to mire in mathematical minutia, you should have celebrated at 26 seconds after 1:59 AM. That's 3.1415926 - pi to the sixth decimal. Today is also the birthday of Albert Einstein - auspicious and arithmetically serendipitous.

March 15 is a good day for a toga dinner party. What else would I be wearing whilst bewaring the Ides of March? One course of course would be Caesar salad. But what to serve with it?  I recommend a delicious spicy Cajun stew. The recipe borrowed from Popeye's arch-nemesis: etouffee Brutus.* As Edgar Allan Poe said, "The goodness of a true pun is in a direct ratio to its intolerability."

March 16 is not a special day except for those with a knowledge of Roman history. This day began Bacchanalia. A wild, two-day festival with excessive drinking and debauchery celebrating Bacchus, the god of wine . Do you think I could get a special rate on my toga if I rent it for three days?

The madness that is March climaxes on St. Paddy's Day. This has become a Bacchanalia of sorts, but started as a religious holiday of fasting and prayer. In my Fells Point neighborhood, we pray that the drunken idiots leave without dousing our stoops with green urine.

Notice it's Paddy's not Patty's. The masculine diminutive is Paddy based on the Irish Padraig. This is one of my pet peeves of which there are many -as ever BB

* In the Popeye comic strip the nemesis's name was Bluto. When they created the cartoons to be shown in theaters, the movie company thought Bluto was copyrighted, so they change it to Brutus. It change back to Bluto when Hanna-Barbera took over the cartoon in 1978.

"March is the month of expectation,/The things we do not know,/The Persons of Prognostication/Are coming now." - Emily Dickinson