Hi Everyone:
We're just about halfway through the last month of 2020, believe it or not. So the game plan here is one more WM after this one, then possibly a Christmas Eve special, (if I can come up with a good idea for one) and then the Year in Review, which we may tinker around with this year.
This would have normally been the weekend for Santa-Con, and like many of the Santa-Con's in the past few years, it would have been another abnormally warm December Saturday. How anyone can walk around Manhattan dressed like Santa in 60 degree weather amazes me. I'm sure the multiple libations help, if only psychologically.
But it appears Santa-Con is another victim of COVID-19, obviously about 1000 times less important than most of what else has been lost due to this pandemic. The numbers once again these past couple of weeks have been nothing short of staggering.
After the FDA voted on Friday to authorize the Pfizer vaccine for emergency use, Pfizer announced that the first shipments of the COVID-19 vaccines would be put on trucks at the company's Michigan lab. There is going to be more aerial coverage of those trucks hitting the road than there was of AC Cowlings leading the LAPD on that chase in 1994.
But hopefully these vaccines mark the beginning of the end of this nightmare.
Onto the rest of the news.
END OF THE YEAR AWARDS: Biden/Harris win Time Magazine's People of the Year..
There was a bit of an uproar this week when Time Magazine gave it's Person of the Year to President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris. And it wasn't just coming from those poor souls who still think Donald Trump won on November 3. No, much of it was also coming from those who felt that because of the pandemic, consideration should have been given elsewhere.
Such as to the frontline workers. The nurses and doctors and other medical staff members. Or the food service workers, grocers, anybody who kept things going while the world was shut down.
Or someone like Dr. Anthony Fauci who was the point man on this whole thing, as our nation's infectious disease expert.
Obviously, if I had a vote it would be for the nurses. Especially my favorite nurse, who was on those front lines when things were first really bad.*
I honestly thought that Time almost always gave their person of the year award to whoever won that year's Presidential Election, or in the years where a VP had to take over after the death of a sitting President. Since the first award in 1927, (aviator Charles Lindbergh), that has happened twice. In 1945, Harry Truman won after taking over for a fallen Franklin Roosevelt. In 1963, when Lyndon Johnson took over after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the award went to Martin Luther King. (LBJ would win it the following year after being re-elected)
But the truth of the matter is, the President-Elect doesn't always win.
1932- Franklin D. Roosevelt
1945 Harry Truman (took office after the death of FDR)
1952- Queen Elizabeth II-who had just become Queen of England-a title she still holds 68 years later.
1956-The Hungarian Freedom Fighter (Dwight Eisenhower would win it in 1959)
1960-US Scientists (JFK would win in 1961)
1963-Martin Luther King (Lyndon Johnson would win it in 1964)
1964-LBJ (see?)
1968-Apollo 8 Astronauts (Richard Nixon would win in in 1972)
1972-Richard Nixon/Henry Kissinger
1976-Jimmy Carter
1980-Ronald Reagan
1984-Peter Ueberroth -who ran the 1984 Summer Olympics in LA and became commissioner of MLB.
1988-The Endangered Earth (George HW Bush would win in 1990)
1992-Bill Clinton
1996-David Ho-a AIDS research pioneer
2000- George W. Bush
2004-George W. Bush
2008- Barack Obama
2012-Barack Obama
2016-Donald Trump
2020 Joe Biden/Kamala Harris
So the last time a new President didn't win Person of the Year was 1988. Every President elected this century has won Person of the Year the year they were elected. I tend to agree with those who say that maybe they could have given this year's award to the frontline workers. But I also can't argue too much with the logic.
COME ON JOIN THE JOYRIDE - Roxette 1990
This story blew my mind.
Two kids from Ozone Park were picked up by the cops on the New Jersey-Delaware border after the older of the two, a 12 year old boy took the family SUV on a joyride.
The 12 year old waited till his mom to take a shower, then, along with his 7 year old female cousin, took his family's Range Rover on a 5 hour joyride.
The kids had made it all the way to Staten Island before the cops began to track them using EZ Pass info. The cops had caught up to them, but when they went to lights and sirens, the boy took off. The cops chose to track the car rather than chase it down.
The gig was up apparently when they 12 year old tried to buy cookies at the Clara Barton Rest Station with his dad's credit card.
How a 12 year old could get out of Queens, never mind all the way to Delaware without getting a scratch on the car is mind-boggling. This really could have been a much more tragic story. Instead it's just a head scratcher. I mean I wouldn't give the little bugger a license now, but can you imagine when he goes for his road test? I mean he drove over 100 miles, one lap around Juniper Valley Park is going to be a breeze for this kid right?
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Last Tuesday marked the 40th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon. I've read a couple of books on the subject the past couple of weeks.
1) December 8, 1980-The Day John Lennon Died-By: Keith Elliot Greenberg:
This book goes into Lennon's killer (whose name I will not mention) activties leading up to december 8, and some of what John and Yoko were doing. But to me the strength of this book is how it describes New York City that night.
Though it was relatively quiet, there were a few things going on. One was the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. I'm not sure that was as big a deal then as it is now, I'm certain it wasn't the two hour production it is now, but there was a good size crowd for it.
They also talk to current Q-104.3 DJ Ken Dashow, who was a production assistant for a TV show back in 1980. He was driving on Amsterdam Avenue when he saw a large group of people running towards Central Park. He had no idea what was going on till much later.
But my favorite story was what was happening at MSG on 12/8/1980. No Knicks, no Rangers, no St. John's. Nope, that night, the WWF was at the Garden. The Main Event was a tag team title match between Rick Martel/Tony Gurea vs The Wild Samoans. Afa and Sika (Sika= Roman Reigns father).
Martel describes leaving MSG that night and hearing everyone in the street talking about John Lennon. When he got to the Americana Hotel, he saw all the WWF bad guys sitting at the bar watching the news coverage. The McMahon's had a strict rule about the good guys not being seen with the bad guys in public, but with everyone in shock, the rules went out the door. Martel sat next to Afa and Sika, and Afa asked him "Did you hear what happened to John Lennon?"
2) John Lennon 1980- The Last Days in the Life by Kenneth Womack.
As the title suggests, this book goes in depth about John's activities in 1980. But it actually does a nice job of describing John's life from the time he "retired" from the biz in 1975 to care for his son Sean, right up until the night he was killed.
John apparently spent a good amount of time living in Cold Spring Harbor. The book describes how John and his assistant were cruising up and down Jericho Turnpike, when he heard a song on the car radio, a familiar voice. "F-ck a pig! That's Paul!" he yelled as he was listening to McCartney's "Coming Up."
John also rented a sailboat to sail from Newport, RI down to Bermuda. When everyone else got seasick during a storm, John took over and guided the boat. Cool stuff.
The third book I'm reading now is by James Patterson. Called The Last Days of John Lennon. The title is a bit misleading. It pretty much goes through John's entire life, while also going through the life and mindset of his killer. This book was only released last Monday so, I'm about halfway through it. I'll give more of a review when I finish it.
As I've said many times before, I often think of John Lennon's murder as the first big news story I remember. The fact is, that's not really true. What I actually remember was how the murder knocked everything else that was going on in 1980 to the backburner. Remember, we just had an Presidential Election, and that transition was happening. Also, we had the 52 hostages still in Iran, about to spend their 2nd Christmas in captivity. The Russians were still fighting in Afghanistan, there was the solidarity movement in Poland, and we heard about all this night after night.
Until December 9.
It wasn't until years later thanks to You Tube, that I was able to see how Walter Cronkite opened the CBS Evening News on December 9, 1980. "The death of a man who sang and played the guitar overshadows the news from Poland, Iran and Washington tonight." Uncle Walter who was about to retire, and myself who was 7 at the time, were thinking along the same lines.
We always had December 8th off from school because it's a Catholic holy day, so I ended up having lunch at the old Cadallac Restaurant on Queens Blvd on december 8, 1981, with a friend of mine, his grandmother and her friend. The grandmother's friend said she did understand why they "made such a fuss over him." When I repeated that statement to my mother later on that day, well, let's just say, she explained it to me.
With all these TV specials, books and of course with the internet, you can see very clearly why its a big deal and why those of us who were around 40 years ago, and even some of us who weren't are so affected by it. 40 years later, it still resonates.
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It looks like the Mets finally got themselves a GM, and also signed catcher James McCann.
Jared Porter, the assistant GM of the Diamondbacks, was hired to replace Brodie Van Wagenen. He worked with Theo Epstein, both with the Red Sox and the Cubs. He’s young (41) and according to s in sports) I like the connection to Theo and his relative youth. Hopefully he can figure out how to restock the farm system, while Steve Cohen and Sandy Alderson worry about bringing in a couple more free agents.
The signing of McCann, while an upgrade over what we had, isn’t the guy I wanted. I was hoping for JT Realmuto. Rumor has it he wanted no part of the Mets. So he can go kick rocks if that’s the case. If Cohen can make this a model franchise like I’m hoping he can, players will want to come here. And Realmuto will look foolish.
On Sunday our parish put together a Christmas drive by for some folks in our neighborhood. About 50 cars participated and it was a blast. It served a couple of purposes, most importantly, it made us feel we were spreading the Christmas spirit to our neighbors and contributing to society in a positive way.
Also, because it took place from 4 to 6 PM, it made me miss most of that monstrosity in Seattle courtesy of our NY Jets. You know, I said last week I’d rather get blown out than lose how they did to the Raiders. They must have been listening to me.
To my friends who celebrate, a very happy and healthy Chanukah to you.
Everyone else, stay safe, wear a mask
and Have a Great Week
*I used to give out an award called Woman of the Year. When Tara and I started dating in 2004, someone told her about that, and she said to me "Look don't be giving me any awards OK?" So I gave the award that year to Joann Hili and named it the Tara Connors Woman of the Year Award. I did away with it in 2007. The last winner of Woman of the Year? My niece, Becky.
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