Thursday 5/7/26 A letter from today. The op-eds are shorter there now, so I have to do a second version of a piece, but was able to move this Mother's Day thing to the NY Daily News. The piece is about the art of a mother's love and how the best art is in some ways feminine/maternal. There Is No Doubt, obviously. But what I'm talking about includes all-male things, too. You'll see. It's in the piece. Ranger was waiting for me at the Monument today to give me a talking to

Thursday 5/7/26 I saw a video of a Sixers fan leaving Madison Square Garden in which a Knicks fan, in the middle of a hostile throng, ripped at the jersey he was wearing. Assaulted him, that is. It was wall-to-wall with people. They crowd was on the verge of swallowing this guy up. People commenting condemned this behavior. I look at this and I see what losers people are. These were adults. Rotund adults, often. Adults of various ages. Middle aged adults. How do you get like

Wednesday 5/6/26 I was watching Roger Clemens' first 20 strikeout game the other day from April 1986. He falls behind in counts quite a bit early in that game which could have gone differently for him, I feel, rather easily. Like if he had walked the first two batters, as he nearly did. But he struck them out. Fastball after fastball. Just throwing heat. Sometimes the curve. What a fastball it was, though. One of the best ever. The delivery was beautiful. The perfect pitcher.

Wednesday 5/6/26 Over the last week plus I've been revising "Fitty," as I make a push on There Is No Doubt: Story Girls. "Still Good" was finished the other day, after sixteen months of work on it, and "Dead Thomas" will be finished in the next day or two or three, after five years of work. If I'm not going to be here for the natural duration, I want this book to at least exist as itself. The same goes if I am going to be here for the natural duration. But that isn't where I'

Wednesday 5/6/26 I wonder if we're going to have a couple of cake walking babies from home--to use an old jazz term--in the Colorado Avalanche and Oklahoma City Thunder as they coast to championships. They haven't met much resistance yet. The Avalanche poured on another five goals last night and the Thunder won again against zero postseason losses. It's still early and things can change fast. I'm starting to wonder, though, if the Thunder can have a 16-2, 16-1 type of postsea

Monday 5/4/26 Baseball box scores have always been special spaces to me. They were an unchanging--because they were always what they needed to be--informational treasure box of sorts. You could read the a game, so to speak, if you knew how. A 1907 box score, a 1951 box score, a 1986 box score, a 2020 box score all served to show how connected the game was over the course of its eras. A game that had "lived" through so much in the world, but here was a constant, the box score.

Sunday 5/3/26 This will be a different kind of prose off, but with the same results. The ending of James Joyce's story, "The Dead," is often cited as being the best writing, the best prose, in the history of the English language. You could, as they say, look it up and will find many instances in which people say as much. Perfect for a prose off and the undeniable truths that come with it. Ready? Here we go. This is that famous prose from James Joyce's "The Dead," which is par

Sunday 5/3/26 A disappointing end to the Celtics' season last night, losing to the Sixers, a play-in team that the Celtics had a 3-1 series lead over. You knew the loss was most likely coming after Game 6. Tatum didn't play, and I thought that may have been a good thing for the Celtics, but alas, it didn't matter. I can now say definitively that the Celtics have gone as far as they're going to--there won't be a second championship--in the Tatum-Brown era and it's time for a r

Saturday 5/2/26 Let's do another one, shall we? Minimal prefatory remarks. Paul Yoon. Highly connected publishing person. No talent. Same type of writing every time. Married to Laura Van Den Berg. Received a Guggenheim grant--$40,000--for his work on the very same day she did for hers. You're meant to believe this was totally on the up and up, and the timing for these two highly connected people without talent receiving their latest undeserved handouts just happened to work o

Saturday 5/2/26 The truth about almost all writers--a word that all but cries out to be enclosed in quotes--right now: They're using AI to create--another one of those quote words--their work. It doesn't matter the venue or the perceived "level" of venue or press. It's AI. The people who get the awards, who are lauded--those for whom the log always is made to roll--are producing AI work. And it should be obvious. We'll be going through recent cases in which these talentless,

Saturday 5/2/26 There are these kids who ride around Boston on bikes trying to get into it with people. They swear at car drivers, passerby. Call people “faggots.” That's a big one of theirs. They get hyper-aggressive. Pass in front of cars near lights, ride up against driver side windows, giving drivers the finger, don't slow down at all in crosswalks (and I saw them do this with a pregnant woman recently). Probably twenty of them. Early yesterday evening, I was crossing the

Friday 5/1/26 As I waited for the Bunker Hill Monument to open yesterday to run stairs, a high school class was also waiting a little ways away. Their teacher was asking them questions about the Battle of Bunker Hill. I was looking in the other direction as they answered, which they did correctly and in complete sentences. This heartened me. Then I turned and saw they were each using their phones to look up the answers and then reading them right out of their hands. The teach

Friday 5/1/26 The Edmonton Oilers were eliminated last night. Connor McDavid had zero points and was a -3. I just think, and have long thought, and long said, that this is who he is. Not a winning player. The Oilers should get a goalie and hire Jack Cassidy as their coach. I'm not someone who'd have McDavid as a top ten all-time player and maybe not top twenty. Yes, I understand that no one else would hold this view. The Knicks eliminated the Hawks in Atlanta, being up by mor

Thursday 4/3/26 As with Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, most versions of the Grateful Dead's "Dark Star" begin with a rest, but with different incumbency. The Beethoven piece has to proceed one way post-rest, whereas the Dead piece can proceed various ways. "Dark Star" is no less controlled; it's a matter of predetermination and determination in reactive response. I am versus I'm becoming now. Also: offstage versus onstage. Even when the Beethoven is performed onstage, because of

Thursday 4/30/26 Obviously, I've written and published much about Peanuts, and given quite a few interviews pertaining to Charlie Brown and company (most recently with a Chicago Tribune op-ed. For a while, I've had a plan to write a book on Rankin/Bass's 1964 Christmas special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which I've also written about (most recently in a Best Classic Bands feature) and been interviewed regarding many times. But going back three or four months, I started e

Thursday 4/30/26 I haven't written anything here yet about Alex Cora being fired as manager of the Boston Red Sox. I don't like Cora, I think he's a bad person, and a poor manager and haven't found the energy or motivation to do a synoptic entry on him and this development, which I guess is more in the order of an event, Boston Red Sox baseball history-wise. My thoughts regarding this man and the job he did can be found in this record going back to 2018. Actually, Cora's star

Wednesday 4/29/26 AI couldn't replicate the sound of that "whoo!" before the guitar break in the Flamin' Groovies "Shake Some Action." It's as human and joyous a sound as there is. A sound of someone who can't hold themselves back, who stands for all of us, caught up in the divinely earthly moment of making true art. When we lose such things, when they become foreign, unrecognizable, feared, shunned, resented, we cease being, or never become, that which we're here to be. And

Tuesday 4/28/26 It's my niece Lilah's tenth birthday. I sent her a beanie from the Aquarium--which we've visited together a couple times--that promotes conservation, a cause that Lilah feels strongly about. Dear Lilah, Happy birthday to you! Ten-years-old! These are exciting times, and I always wait with bated breath to hear—usually from your Grammie—what you are up to. I can tell how much she loves you just from the tone of her voice when the subject of you arises. I had hop

Tuesday 4/28/26 The Bruins had a classic Bruins no-show on Sunday afternoon. I've seen lots of bad Bruins games and efforts in the playoffs, especially on home ice, but that was definitely one of the worst. They kept turning the puck over in front of their net like this was part of the game plan or as though they were doing this with intention. Anyone want to tell me how good Charlie McAvoy is? Because he's awesome, right? That's the official stance, is it not? (Remember on C

Monday 4/27/26 Some fitness accounting, checks and balances, log of accountability. On Saturday, I saw the most amazing performance I ever have in the Monument. No, it wasn't by me. You don't see yourself, do you? Well, I guess you do. But it was by this man--who must have been in his sixties--who showed up wearing shorts despite the cold, and these really big gloves. Like, you're outside in winter in Alaska gloves. He was nattering on, making random remarks and bad jokes in

Saturday 4/25/26 We've seen many prose offs in these pages in which a story by someone who won a Guggenheim is pitted against a story of mine. The Guggenheim is as corrupt and farcical as anything in publishing. The award--which is a $40,000 grant--claims to provide financial support to a writer of clear talent who has shown, through their work and devotion to that work, their productivity, a vision on which they deliver and seek to continue to do so, expanding all the while.

Saturday 4/25/26 No writing of any kind like any of it. The last writer. The only one that could never be mistaken for AI. Whatever he's writing. It could only be him, and nothing else and no one else. This is from a lengthy work on spring horror films, which will also be in the horror film book, pertaining to David Gladwell's 1964 short film, An Untitled Film. But obviously a lot more as well. Fall is the most aromatic season, but spring is the runner-up. We know the smell o

Saturday 4/25/26 The last time the Red Sox lost 100 games was in 1965. Rubber Soul had yet to come out. Highway 61 Revisited was released about a month before the season finished. Before that was back in the 1930s (then end of the 1920s and the start of the 1930s was a dark time for the Old Towne Team. They languished in the mire while the Yankees soared in the sky. These 2026 Red Sox may give those 1965 Red Sox a run for their futile money. 100 losses is a possibility. This

Friday 4/24/26 It should be immediately clear to anyone who sees me inside of the Bunker Hill Monument or outside of it as we are waiting for them to open that I am doing something different that other people aren't doing. it isn't subtle. I'm dressed differently than everyone else. I'll have on workout clothes. A headband. Inside the Monument, I'll be moving at a steady pace, perhaps breathing hard, and usually sweating profusely. And yet, because people are so unthinking, s