Archive for May, 2008

Just shut up and sing

May 30, 2008

…Bono!
I personally don’t want to hear your political views.
Same for you, Peter, Paul and Mary.
I resent the fact that you’ve used your concerts - where myself and many others have come and bought a ticket to hear you perform - to force upon us your personal political treatises that, odds are, aren’t shared by many people here in attendance.
Ah, but [...]

Soccer’s place in the world, versus US television

May 28, 2008

At the journalism symposium I mentioned previously, one of the panelists was the News Director of WHAM-TV, Rochester NY’s CBS affiliate. I found a comment of his eye-opening. Someone in the audience asked him why soccer didn’t get the same television coverage in America that baseball, football and basketball enjoy.
He answered to the affect, and [...]

You call that “journalism?”

May 27, 2008

Awhile back I was invited by Dr. Susan Barnes, Journalism Professor, to participate in a symposium she was coordinating at Rochester Institute of Technology, called Journalism in the Digital Age. There were several panel discussions and presentations that day, given by local and national media folks. I and five other bloggers participated on a panel discussion: [...]

This is your chance…

May 23, 2008

To save!
Up to half off!
Plus (are you ready for this?) - plus free delivery in three days or less!
It seems like Memorial Day has become a chance for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who wake up every morning and don military uniforms to stop for a moment and pay tribute to the sales, barbeques, [...]

Arthur Shawcross: the aftermath (Part III)

May 21, 2008

“I should be castrated or have an electrode in my head to stop me…I am a lost soul looking for release of my madness” - Arthur Shawcross, 1990
One night about 9:30, Fran woke to loud knocking at her front door. Living on Alexander Street in the heart of the City of Rochester, she was accustomed [...]

Arthur Shawcross: the aftermath (Part II)

May 19, 2008

Arthur Shawcross hunted deer, enjoyed butchering them, and was fascinated with their necks. So said Fran, the superintendent of the apartment complex where he lived. There was an actual apartment building, where Fran had her office, and an old mansion, where Shawcross had his apartment…right across the driveway from Fran. The two spoke almost daily - Fran, a [...]

Arthur Shawcross: the aftermath (Part I)

May 17, 2008

In 1990 Arthur Shawcross, a.k.a. The Genesee River Killer, was sentenced to 250 years in prison for the murder of eleven women, here in Rochester, NY. His victims were strangled or beaten to death; many were mutilated. Prior to coming to Rochester, he had sexually abused and murdered a ten-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl, [...]

Phillip Seymour Hoffman: the high school years

May 15, 2008

In 2006 I wrote an article on Phillip Seymour Hoffman, on the eve of his Capote Oscar, for the arts magazine, Metropolitan, in Rochester, NY - his and my hometown.
I interviewed his former high school drama teacher from the suburb of Fairport, a quiet town with solid neighborhoods, where parents and teachers communicate with each other. Phillip’s [...]

Did Tom Petty kill Del Shannon?

May 13, 2008

Nope. Del committed suicide. But I see a question mark on the wall. Tom Petty released the album Full Moon Fever in April 1989, which included the single, Runnin’ Down the Dream. In the song Tom describes driving down the highway and “…me and Del were singin’ Little Runaway,” as in, Del was singing on the [...]

The furniture store commercial promised no payments, no interest, ’til 2012

May 12, 2008

In 2012 Charles Manson will be 78 and eligible for parole again.