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Wooly Bully Uncovered
I personally don’t know anyone who can recite the entire lyrics to “Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. I’ve listened to the recording easily a thousand times over the past 47 years. This week on a long car drive, I played it repeatedly in a final effort to get it right. I…
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Play of the Week
I am standing in line at the self-check out area of a supermarket–there are people behind me, but I am next. I have four items. This gray-haired guy dressed for tennis cuts in front and says, “I only have one item.”
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Death by the Numbers
This week 50 people–might have been 51– gathered at the gravesite of a man who had died 20 years ago. Much of the time was devoted to catching up on old friendships. Health, politics and the memory of this departed hero dominated the chat. I was there with my usual array of thoughts. B.T. Collins had…
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Saliva Bullets
I was walking along Bleecker Street, October 1969, dressed in my Army khakis, holding the rank of PFC. The air was crisp as was my gait when I came in eye contact with a woman about my age. She had long dark hair and a red bandana around her forehead. She spit at me–the saliva…
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Jack3d
Even if there were a government mandated warning that stated that taking Jack3d could kill you, people would still take it. A new wrongful death lawsuit has put this dietary supplement back in the news. I hope some emphasis will be placed on the inner drive that people have to go beyond simple hard work conditioning to run faster,…
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Habemus Papam
Our perspectives are shaped by a multitude of life experiences that become wordly fingerprints telling others who we are and how we differ from our neighbors. Take the new Pope. Like billions of others, I waited for the word. In my case I watched CNN live, making this the first time ever that I would witness the ritual of…
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Password Paranoia
I know someone is trying to hack me as I type and I would be lucky if it were only one person and not a boiler room full of masked thieves. Twenty years ago I met with a group of people from Berkeley who believed in “cash-only.” They didn’t trust banks and believed that writing…
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And Now a Word from Caesar!
Italians need their sense of humor these days: no Pope, government in shambles, economy in toilet. But it remains a great country to visit. So, I’d like to share a photo with you that I took while walking along a country road in Vespignano (plenty of free parking which is not the case if you…