Lee and I Saw Hell's Kitchen on Broadway

 

It was a family tradition to see a Broadway show on our birthdays.  This year Lee wanted to see  Hell's Kitchen.  It is a jukebox musical built on the music and lyrics of Alicia Keys, with a semi-autobiographical plot about her upbringing in Manhattan in the 1990s.  The play is best described in its Wikipedia entry.

We enjoyed the music and the dancing in the show.  Afterward, we stopped by the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square, but as usual, it was very busy.  Instead we ate dinner at Applebees.

NYC Casey Stengel Chapter of SABR meeting in Midtown Manhattan

 

For the years (excluding the pandemic years) I have been involved with SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) there has been an annual meeting at NYPL or the Scandinavia House in midtown Manhattan.

There were two panel discussions:

• The Pulse of New York Baseball: Present and Past featuring:
• Laura Albanese - writer for Long Island Newsday
• Billy Altman official scorer and former baseball beat writer for the Village Voice
• Anthony McCarron is a freelance writer who has appeared in Baseball Digest and MLB.com. and others

They discussed various issues including analytics and changes in baseball rules over recent years.

• Met Stories I Only Tell My Friends and Other First-Hand Baseball Stories
• Art Shamsky - Member of the 1969 Mets
• Matthew Silverman - author of several baseball books
• Marty Appel - another author of baseball books who was also an executive with the Yankees

Art discussed his recently published book.  I bought a copy that he autographed for me.  The panel discussed the Yankee-Met rivalry including the 2000 World Series.  The panelists concluded that since the Met signed Juan Soto luring him away from the Yankees, the rivalry will heat up again.

Happy 37th Birthday Lee

 

It is hard to believe that Lee is now 37 years old.  Where did all these years go?  Sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday that we brought him home from the hospital.  We will be celebrating tomorrow by seeing the Broadway show Hells Kitchen.

Uniform #37 was retired by the Mets and Yankees to honor Casey Stengel.

Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour Resumed in Tulsa Last Night

 

Here is the full set list from Bill Pagel's Boblinks Page

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa Theater March 25, 2025

1.	All Along the Watchtower (Bob on guitar and baby grand piano)
2.	It Ain't Me, Babe (Bob on guitar and baby grand piano)
3.	I Contain Multitudes (Bob on baby grand piano)
4.	False Prophet (Bob on baby grand piano)
5.	When I Paint My Masterpiece (Bob on baby grand piano and harp, Tony on standup bass)
6.	Black Rider (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass)
7.	My Own Version Of You (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass)
8.	To Be Alone With You (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass, Bob Britt on acoustic guitar)
	15 minute break
9.	Crossing the Rubicon (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass)
10.	Desolation Row (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass)
11.	Key West (Philosopher Pirate) (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass)
12.	Watching the River Flow (Bob on baby grand piano)
13.	It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass)
14.	I've Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You (Bob on baby grand piano and harp, Tony on standup bass)
15.	Mother of Muses (Bob on baby grand piano and brief harp at very beginning, Tony on standup bass)
	band introductions
16.	Goodbye Jimmy Reed (Bob on baby grand piano)
17.	Every Grain of Sand (Bob on baby grand piano and harp)

Thanks to Anne Margaret Daniel, Susan & Al and Jayne Watson for the phone calls
and Dan Krass, Rechi van Lehen and Bill Goodwin for the emails.

Brief Concert Reviews

Mac Davis - Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me - Country Crossover

 

I just heard this on Willie's Roadhouse on Sirius/XM.  It hit #1 on the Billboard Pop Chart in 1972 so it can be considered a country crossover.  It is a message to the young ladies who started chats with me as discussed in my last journal entry.  One of them said she loved me, but stopped chatting with me when I didn't want to invest in Bitcoins.

My Experiences with Chatting with Younger Women Through Social Media

 

Warning - this journal article is much longer and somewhat more personal than my usual commentaries

Over the past several months I have had some experiences chatting with much younger women who somehow find me.  In all cases I advise the young lady that I am a widower and 75 years all.  In every case the women said that age is just a number, and they thought they could learn from an older person.  The problems with chats are they are very time consuming, and I never know when there is a hiatus or if the chat relationship is over. In any event, I feel that there is nothing to gain by chatting with someone from afar as there is no chance of meeting them in person.  You never know when the person is assuming another identity (catfishing).  Inevitably the chat ends.

 Let me relate a few experiences:

I “met” Carolyn on Facebook when I made “friends” with her when I should not have.  She said she lost her husband two years ago and had a five-year old son.  After several days of chatting, she said she desperately needed money to pay her rent.  Like a fool, I sent her a small amount of money.  A few days later she asked me for more money, and I refused.  That chat ended but seven months later she restarted the chat.  She said she moved from West Virginia to Ohio and the abruptly ended the chat again. Conclusion – Romance Scam.

Connie read one of my Facebook posts and said they were interesting and wanted to become friends.  When we started chatting, she said she was in the U.S. Army stationed in Syria.  She started to call me Honey and Dear and said I was her best friend.  How could I be her best friend if we never had met. Romance Scam.  She asked me to buy her a Steam Card since she could not use her credit card until she returned to the U.S.  I refused and she ended the “relationship”.  About a year later I got a friend request from Tessa.  When I saw her picture, it was Connie.  It was obviously a Catfish.

Allyson like Carolyn lost her husband at a very young age.  She has two small children and lives near Baltimore.  She was originally from Memphis, but moved away after both her parents, husband, and sister passed away.  After a while she started to call me honey and dear, so I suspected a romance scam coming.  I was right as she abruptly said she had no food in her house and needed money to feed her kids.  Goodbye.

I “met” the following three women recently.  All of them were Asian, in their mid-30s and divorced.  In the three cases they claimed they got my number by accident on WhatsApp  or Telegram.  I explained to all of them that I was old enough to be their father and a widower and they said they could learn from an older person.  “Age is just a number.”

Cindy said she saw my number in her company’s phone book, but my name was not there.  She worked as a data analyst, financial risk analyst and fund manager in San Francisco.  She lives in a large house worth over $1 Million so I was confident that she was not going to hit me up for money.  We chatted for a while on Telegram.  She even said I could stay in her house if I visited SF and offered to meet me whenever she visited NYC for business.  I had a brief video chat with her, but she cut it short after a minute or two.  She offered me advice about buying bitcoins.  After I told her I wasn’t interested, she stopped chatting.  This was about three days ago.  Perhaps she was attempting to get a commission on a sale of bitcoins to me.  Who knows if she will come back.

Anna who lives in Beverly Hills found me on WhatsApp.  She seemed friendly and like the others were not concerned about the age difference.  We had a nice chat about food among other things.  I don’t sense any malicious intent on her part, but I haven’t heard from her in over 24 hours.  I will leave the ball in her court and let her restart the chat if she wants to.

This last chat is ongoing.  Emily from Singapore and lives in St. Petersburg.  I met her on her business account on Telegram.  She then moved the chat to her personal Telegram account and said that her name was Genevieve, but I should call her Gina.  The chat has gone reasonably well appears not to be a romance scam.

This is much longer than my using journal entries.  Over the past 20 years I have written in this journal since I find it easier to express myself in writing than it is verbally.  I have never been a good conversationalist.  I am careful with these chat relationships as I will not give anybody money after I learned my lesson from Carolyn.  I sense that for most of these chats there was no malicious intent from these women.  I don’t understand why these women want to chat was a man old enough to be their father. People must socialize in person with people about their own age.

I have found it difficult to make new friends after my wife Karen passed away.  I have lost confidence in myself in social situations.  I am afraid to get involved in dating again as I remember too many bad experiences decades ago.  I guess that is a consequence of having an excellent autobiographical memory.  Subconsciously, I am using these chats as a substitute for dating.

Enough said!

Good Luck to Brett Baty for the 2025 Mets

 

It is difficult for a major league player to establish himself.  Many careers end in the minor leagues as only 26 players can be on a major league roster.  Other players may have a "cup of coffee" meaning a brief appearance in the major leagues.

Brett Baty only appeared in 50 games for the Mets last season as he lost his job as a third baseman to Mark Vientos.  He spent most of last season at AAA Syracuse.  He had a hot spring training as reported in this article from MLB.com.  He is expected to make the Mets' roster and be a backup infielder.  As you can see in the photo above Lee and I met him at Amazin' Day at Citi Field in January.  He was very friendly to us.  Let's hope he does well and sticks with the team.

A Year Later Whitestone Lanes is Still There

It was just a year ago that I was interviewed on NY1 news about affordable housing coming to the site of Whitestone Lanes which is actually located in North Flushing.  At that time Community Board #7 and the City Council approved affordable housing there.  The reporter interviewed me after she found my name initiating a petition opposing it arguing it would create congestion in that immediate neighborhood.  She was able to contact me through Facebook.

A year later Whitestone Lane is still there with no immediate to close.  The only difference is that there is graffiti on their south wall.  I advised the reporter that it may be premature to do that story, but wanted to do it.

Over the past year NY1 has done stories on the immediate closings of:

• A hardware store in Brooklyn
• A diner in Astoria Queens.

I regularly read the local Queens newspapers so when the bowling alley finally closes I'll know about it in advance.

Get Together by the Youngbloods with Lyrics

Love is but a song we sing

Fear's the way we die

You can make the mountains ring

Or make the angels cry

Though the bird is on the wing

And you may not know why

Sadly, the President of the United States is making the angels and millions of people cry.

The Metrocard will Finally Be Phased Out In Favor of the OMNY Card

 

I have used the New York City subways since the early 1960s when the fare was 15 cents.  For many years riders paid their fares using a subway token as seen below.

As the fare went up, the subway token was changed.  It was a nuisance to have to wait in line for the new token.  Finally in the early 1990s the Metrocard was introduced.  Riders could refill their cards when the value was low.  At times the thin plastic caused problems when the magnetic strip could not be read.  For a number of years there was a dual system as both the token and Metrocard could be used.  The Metrocard allow for a free transfer between the subway and a bus.  Before that two fares were needed for a transfer.

OMNY is the contactless fare payment system for public transportation in the New York region. Simply use your contactless credit or debit card, smart phone, wearable device, or an OMNY card to tap and go.

For several months I use one of my credit cards as my OMNY Card to pay my fare.  Metrocards will not be sold in 2026, but they will be accepted for 6 more months.

Beatles Rarity I'm Down

 

I reported on my Facebook page yesterday I saw a DVD of the Beatles movie Help.  It has not been shown on TV in many years.  I remember seeing it with some friends at the Midway Theater in the Summer of 1965.  One of them remarked that I'm Down which was the B Side of the 45 RPM release of Help was not in the film.

I'm Down was not on any Beatles album until it was released on a compilation album/CD called Past Masters.

Saturday Afternoon at the Whitney Museum

 

Since it was a cloudy and dreary day, I thought it would be a good day to visit a museum.  I have documented several visits to the Whitney in Bruce's Journal.

Every museum has permanent and temporary exhibits. From February to July, the featured exhibit was Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night. She is a contemporary deaf artist. Kim draws directly on the spatial dynamism of American Sign Language, translating it into graphic form.  Below is one of her works

Another exhibit was titled Shifting  Landscapes. The exhibit considers a more expansive interpretation of the category, exploring how evolving political, ecological, and social issues motivate artists as they attempt to represent the world around them.

It was an enjoyable afternoon,

Radio Comments of the Day - March 14, 2025

 

I have been a radio enthusiast since the early 1960s when I first listened to Top 40 radio on WABC and WMCA.  Over the years the technology and business of radio has changed dramatically.  Let me make some personal comments about today's realities.

• I listen to AM/FM radio much less today than I did years ago.  I regularly listen to WFUV and WBGO which are not for profit stations.  Years ago I would listen to WCBS-FM for hours a day, but their music mix today is just not for me as they are trying to reach younger listeners.  At times I'll listen to 1010 WINS, WFAN, and ESPN 880.  I feel bad for the people at News 880 who lost their jobs.  I only listen to WABC for Cousin Bruce as I detest conservative talk radio.
• I still have a GE Super Radio as seen above.  The sound quality is excellent, but it was discontinued.  I think used ones are available on Ebay.
• I have a Sangean HD radio that I bought in 2017.  The HD radio technology did not catch on.  I observe that the Sangean radio I have is the only table HD radio on the market, but many car radios have HD capability.
• In my car I only listen to SiriusXM.
• By following various radio message boards I learned that in smaller markets AM stations are going dark.  I just read that two AM stations on the Jersey Shore just went dark.

Harvey Silikovitz - Jeopardy Superstar for One Game

 

Over the years there have been thousands of contestants on Jeopardy from various backgrounds and circumstances.  I fondly remember Eddie Timmanus who was blind.  Alex Trebek gave him a braille readout card for both rounds and is given a keyboard to type out his response and wager for Final Jeopardy!

On Monday March 10 Harvey Silikovitz identified as an attorney and a karaoke singer first appeared on the show.  Harvey was coping with Parkinson's Disease that was diagnosed in 2019. He first auditioned for the classic game show in 2001 — and went on to miss an additional opportunity since then. Finally, on Monday his quest to become a contestant was realized.  There is a good article about him in the New York Post.

He was absolutely fantastic on Monday as he got 35 questions correct with only one miss and defeated 8-time champion Laura Faddah with a total of $23,600  I thought he would be a winner of several games, but his performance on Tuesday's show was not as good as he only got 13 correct and finished in third place with a total of $13,600.

I read a few discussions on Jeopardy boards on Facebook.  Some posters felt that Harvey was fatigued in the second game as a result of his condition.

I admire Harvey for his persistence in becoming a contestant's and his fight against Parkinson's Disease.  Hopefully in the future he will be invited to a Second Chance Tournament.

An Oldie with Its Parody - Leader of the Pack and Leader of the Laundromat

 

The Shangri-Las peaked at #1 in 1964

The Detergents peaked at #19 in 1965 - Dang It!

Time is Tight as We Grow Older

At 2 AM tomorrow we turn the clocks ahead to start Daylight Savings Time.  That topic including its controversies was discussed several times in Bruce's Journal.  When I think about time it seems to fly by faster as we get older.  The days turn into weeks and then into months and then years.  I just thought I would post Time is Tight an instrumental by Booker T & The M.G.'s to reflect my thoughts.

 

The Casey Stengel Chapter of SABR will Meet in Midtown Manhattan on Saturday March 29, 2025

Here is the announcement:

Our SABR Casey Stengel Chapter NYC in-person meeting will be on Saturday, March 29, 2025, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm at Scandinavia House 58 Park Ave. between 37th and 38th Streets — a short walk from Grand Central Terminal — Spread the Word!

Pre-registering by contacting David Lippman (kiwiwriter47@gmail.com) is encouraged (credit card or check, exactly worded-payable to “New York City SABR Chapter”); or pay in person on the day of the event (cash or check only, exactly worded-payable to “New York City SABR Chapter”) -- Admission is $30, and $10 for students.

The Pulse of New York Baseball: Present and Past with panelists Laura Albanese, Billy Altman and Anthony McCarron. We heard your many 'Bring Them Back' requests, so the dynamic trio will wow you again on the Scandinavia House stage. Their all-new 2025 presentation is guaranteed to elicit rave reviews.

“Mets Stories I Only Tell My Friends” and Other First-Hand Baseball Stories with Art Shamsky, Matthew Silverman, and moderator Marty Appel -- Art Shamsky is riding high with his new book! Shamsky a passionate baseball man, will be joined by equally passionate co- author Matt Silverman and Marty Appel, moderator, all well known to New Yorkers and beyond. Their lively conversation will bring forth secrets and insights you can share with family and friends. An hour like no other!

Both presentations will be followed by a Q & A and participant's bios are in the meeting link below.

And of course Eric Weiss, baseball trivia master, will test your baseball knowledge.

https://sabrnyc.org/202SABRNYCschedule.pdf

Damian Begley, Evelyn Begley, Kevin Carter, David Lippman and Ernestine Miller

 

Mr. President - Do You Know That Our Government is Based on a System of Checks and Balances?

 

The President of the United State can not do anything he wants by issuing an executive order.  He should understand the concept of checks and balances.

The idea of checks and balances is found in Article I of the U.S. Constitution. 

I wonder if the current president ever read the constitution.

Checks and balances is the separation of powers between the three branches of the United States government. The three branches are the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Each branch has its own powers and responsibilities, and can check the power of the other branches. 

The purpose of checks and balances is to ensure that no one branch becomes too powerful. It also ensures that the government is effective and citizens' rights are protected. 

Remembering Lee's First Game at Shea Stadium May 8, 1993

 

I found in an old photo album pictures of Lee when he was 5 years old in 1993.  We took pictures of him at his first Met game at Shea Stadium on May 8, 1993.  In the upper right corner of the photo above you can see me sitting with him in the upper deck.  The ticket cost $6.50 while a ticket in the upper deck of Citi Field today would be at least $30.

Above is a picture of Karen with Lee at that game.  Whenever we go to a game now there is always an empty seat next to us since Karen is no longer with us

The Mets lost that game to the Florida Marlins 4-2.

Game Account from Baseball-Reference

1993 was not a good season for the Mets as their final record was 59-103.  They finished in last place behind the expansion Marlins.  Better days would come.

Poor Little Fool by Ricky Nelson - Random Oldie of the Day

 

I don't want to discuss the miserable political situations at the local and national levels so I stuck my finger in Joel Whitburn's Top Pop book and landed on Poor Little Fool by Ricky Nelson.

Reconnecting with Josh S. from Russell Sage JHS 190

 

In 2009 I wrote a journal entry reminiscing about my days at Russell Sage JHS 190 in Forest Hills.  I hadn't seen or heard about Josh S. for over 60 years.  I remember he has a cousin named Elyse who at times posts to the Forest Hills HS 1960-75 alumni board on Facebook.  I sent her a message questioning her about Josh.  She gave me his email and phone number so we exchanged the information and then decided to talk over the phone.  We had a nice conversation for about a half hour.

I told Josh about what I have done over the past 60 years.  I think regular readers of my journal should know that so I will not repeat it here.  Here are some of the things we discussed:

• After we graduated from Russell Sage in 1964 Josh went to Brooklyn Technical High School while I went to Forest Hills High School.  At that point our paths diverged.
• Josh went to the University of Oklahoma while I went to City College of New York
• He started his career as an engineer for radio stations
• He married in 1972 and adopted two children.
• He was subsequently divorced and remarried in 1999.
• He is now a great-grandfather
• We talked about some teachers in Russell sage and some of our mutual friends
• We discussed Rego Park and Forest Hills and how it has changed over the decades,

People's paths cross for some years, but then they diverge.  At that point they lose contact but very often in this era of social networking they reconnect.  It has been my experience that reconnections are usually very brief.  Likely, I will never hear from him again.  Reconnections rarely result in a renewed friendship. As I have expressed in this journal several times "out of sight out of mind supersedes staying connected."  I certainly enjoyed our conversation.

St; Johns Defeats Seton Hall 71-61 at MSG to Win Big East Regular Season Title

 

The St. John's Red Storm Basketball team has certainly thrived under veteran coach Rick Pitino.  In his second season as coach the team is now 26-4 overall, 18-0 in the Big East Conference, and 18-0 at home.  The stars of the game were RJ Luis Jr. who scored 21 points and Zuby Ejiofor with 17 points and 10 rebounds.  It was close for most of the game but St. Johns took control in the last five minutes.

Box Score