Yesterday a local newspaper feature story inspired me to visit a modest church on Auburn Street in Paterson, NJ.
It's the site where, nearly 50 years ago today, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for 20 minutes before traveling to Memphis, where he delivered his memorable, prophetic "mountaintop" speech on April 3 -- and where he was assassinated on April 4.
According to Richard Cowen's story in The Record, King's next-to-last speech on March 27, 1968, drew thousands of people who jammed the sidewalks as his motorcade, arriving from Newark, "finally turned the corner onto Auburn Street and made its way to the old wooden church where the sound of gospel music swirled through the rafters like incense."
The rest of the story about that late March night in Paterson is an outstanding example of local journalism, complete with a photo gallery, video and podcast. It reminded me of the fact-based, detailed front-page story in The Washington Post on Saturday morning before the March for Our Lives in DC (where King's 9-year-old granddaughter stirred a crowd of hundreds of thousands).
In fact, this same Saturday, some streets near Auburn Street (which has been officially renamed Freedom Boulevard, although there are no markings of this) were closed on the day of my visit because of a march to honor gun-death victims.
It was simply coincidental that this annual march in Paterson -- held on the Saturday before the Christian holiday of Palm Sunday -- was taking place on the same day as student-led protests held throughout the world to call for an end to gun violence and mass school shootings.
This is Paterson's heart-breaking reality: The modest Bethel A.M.E. church on Auburn Street/Freedom Boulevard was fenced-in and locked, and a resident quoted in Cowen's story noted that she does not feel free living here, due to the high crime rate of the area. She will not allow her son to walk to the library by himself, even though it is less than five blocks away. (Also, within a short distance from comfortable, upscale suburbs.)
Across the street from the church, a sign states that a park in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s name is "coming soon." However, this plot of land and sign have been unattended for four years.
Just last week, according to The Record, the city tried to auction one of the two lots set aside for the park -- until Councilwoman Ruby Cotton, who represents the neighborhood, put a stop to it.
Said the Rev. Allan Boyer, the church's current pastor: "I'd like to see a park for kids, with some cherry blossom trees, and some quotations from King, so they could learn about him."
Meanwhile, Cotton has committed to building the park.
I believe she will succeed, and I'm going to see what I can do to help. After viewing yesterday's video of King's granddaughter, I have a little hope.
I believe that next March I will return to the same corner to take photos of some cherry blossoms.
Yesterday, 41 members of the mighty Black Glass Gallery, a social-media-based photography community, gathered on the Princeton University campus on a cold afternoon... just to take photos and spend some time together in real life.
BGG's Princeton meetup; photo by Dawn Barry Pechinsky.
I'm the guy without a hat on, next to hooded Jimmy whose hands are on the light pole. Unlike many of the pros and artists in this photo (whose work you can view at www.blackglassgallery.com or by searching #BGGmeetup on Instagram), I'm not a photographer in real life.
Still, the virtual gallery's real owner, Suzanne, has always been kind and supportive -- and with the aid of an iPhone, a Canon Rebel and some advanced, yet simple-to-use editing software, I can be a virtual photographer too.
The photos below are mine, including two views from the Princeton Chapel choir loft, some natural greenery on St. Patrick's Day, and the iconic Holder Memorial Tower:
I had intended to post a writeup here as a sort of virtual campus tour.
But, here in 2018, I also realize there are whole-campus, 360-degree virtual reality tours online, with VR representations of real student guides. There's just such a guide to Princeton among the 600+ campuses (including more than a dozen other colleges in New Jersey) featured on YouVisit.
I can't compete with that in a blog post. This post is "analog digital," just a handful of images of a beautiful cold day in March 2018... like the bronze man in J. Seward Johnson's "Out To Lunch" statue in Palmer Square who's reading something that isn't a Kindle.
Chris Freeman of Parsonsfield, King of the Alternative World
Last Thursday, at the Mercury Lounge, I saw folk-rock future. Its name is Parsonsfield.
With apologies to Jon Landau, on a night when I needed to feel young, the band made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time.
This was the fourth time I’ve seen Parsonsfield perform, and each night I’ve headed for home afterward feeling renewed. It’s a wonder:
the same energy;
the same improbably clear and distinctive lead vocals by Chris Freeman;
the same on-stage camaraderie and joyful showmanship;
the same creative arrangements (interesting harmonies and tempo changes, and instruments as diverse as a pump organ, upright base, accordion, mandolin, banjo, synthesizer and handsaw).
On Thursday, the New-England-based band (I first saw them in Wellfleet on Cape Cod) performed in the East Village to mark the release of “WE” – an EP that includes the single, “Kick Out the Windows.”
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In a world of instant fame, often obtainable without any achievement, it’s amazing how many talented people – especially musicians – spend their careers flying under the radar.
Uncle Ange, early 1950s, piano and cigarette
Closer to home, I think of my grandmother’s brother, the late Angelo Mairani. I recently found black-and-white photos of him, along with frayed, yellow reviews of his piano playing from a New Jersey newspaper that no longer exists.
Uncle Ange played piano on local radio stations in the ‘40s and ‘50s – but there’s no record of this online, or recordings that I can find.
Still, I remember as a boy the ornate wall of sound Uncle Ange could create from my grandmother’s old piano. I remember the joy with which he played, and the joy he brought to others when he did. It was music as pure celebration -- a sound that pushed out the walls and made all our lives seem bigger and more hopeful.
Parsonsfield is like that.
Certainly, the band has already had success -- critically acclaimed and selling out smaller venues for several years. Their songs are easily found online. “Weeds or Wildflowers” was featured in an episode of “The Walking Dead,” and videos even include a cover of Mississippi John Hurt’s “Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me.”
Just watch this one-take-video performance of “Empty Rocking Chair”:
I think Parsonsfield deserves even more success, and an even brighter future.
The same applies to the band’s opening act at the Mercury Lounge (Scruffy Pearls, featuring lead singer Carly Brooke), and to Kyle Hancharick, whose earnest, soulful cover of my favorite song, Springsteen’s “Thunder Road,” gave me goosebumps during a performance at an out-of-the-way winery in Rockland County, NY.
And especially to Ireland’s Ryan McMullan. It’s almost otherworldly how good he is. I’ve seen him perform in small settings, and I was in awe. I think Ryan will do OK, though. He’ll be the opening act when Ed Sheeran tours Australia later this month.
Who is your own favorite talented, under-recognized musician?
I think Uncle Ange should be the patron saint for all of them. And I think the prayer we should offer up to him on their behalf should be the words to the chorus of Parsonsfield’s new single:
Let’s kick out the windows
Let’s write on the walls
Climb over the fences
Run down the halls
In the light dying
We’ll rage and fight
Go kickin’ and screaming’
Into that good night
To mark this anniversary, I think Ms. Brockenbrough should win an Oscar for Best Original Awareness Day. I also think tonight's award should honor the memory of Syd Penner, legendary copy editor for the New York Daily News in the Jimmy Breslin era.
I've previously posted about kind, patient and erudite Mr. Penner, who, after retirement, dressed in suit and tie for a weekly visit to the offices of then-NYNEX at 1095 Ave. of the Americas in New York. He would critique and copyedit the press releases and other writing samples of then-me and my colleagues in the Public Relations department.
I treasured every red mark Syd Penner placed on my work. He pointed out grammatical flaws, wordiness, jargon. He also wasn't a fan of adjectives.
Those pages have long since been recycled. Everything went digital. I've moved offices. And, last year, I moved into an open work environment. Just like a newsroom in the Jimmy Breslin era. Kinda.
The point being, in de-cluttering my life before moving from a physical office, I came across a physical copy of the November 29, 1979, issue of The Printer's Devil (Vol. 1, No. 13). This, as noted by journalist Paul LaRosa, was Syd Penner's occasional, internal-to-the-Daily-News newsletter that celebrated stories he liked and knocked those he didn't.
(Note: Wikipedia offers an informative definition of "printer's devil," complete with a link to a related "Twilight Zone" episode, available on Hulu and starring Burgess Meredith.)
This sample of The Printer's Devil is from the late Mr. Penner's personal files. He had given it to me because I kept hounding him to tell me stories about life as a journalist in the '60s and '70s.
This is George Harrison’s 75th birthday weekend. I say “weekend” because even George himself long thought his birthday was February 25th – until one day he learned he was actually born a little before midnight on February 24th. (That’s true. You could look it up.)
George randomly popped into my thoughts two weeks ago after, of all things, I had re-read Willa Cather’s “My Antonia.” I was sad the book didn’t seem as relevant to me after so many years had passed, and I started thinking of creative works that, to me, were still as fresh as when I first encountered them.
Thank God for “The Great Gatsby,” I thought. And the poetry of Yeats. And anything by Poe.
Then I thought of the music of The Beatles.
Yes!
More than 50 years later, and their music still gives me chills. Despite the untimely deaths of George and John, The Beatles are, for me, forever young and new and bright. They were simply pop musicians, and yet they changed the world for the better.
In the early 2000s, before The Beatles catalog was opened up to streaming and available on Apple Music and the many retrospectives were released – and well before Sirius XM launched The Beatles Channel – it was somewhat rare and a bit unexpected to hear a Beatles song on a car radio. On family drives, with my young daughters in the back seat, they would get to know Beatles’ songs because daddy would suddenly turn up the volume and begin to tell stories about one song or another, sometimes with a sentimental tear in his eye.
Despite this, I’m proud to say that both my now-grown daughters are still Beatles’ fans today.
Now it’s 2018, and the music of The Beatles again seems to be here, there and everywhere. On car rides without my daughters now, I especially look forward to a Sirius XM segment called “My Fab 4,” where listeners, artists and celebrities share their favorite four Beatles’ songs and what makes them special.
Here’s my Fab 4:
1. “Here Comes the Sun”
Because, after all, it’s George’s 75th birthday weekend. Because George was just 26 years old when he wrote this song, even though, by then (1969) the Beatles had already conquered the world and were about to break apart.
Of all the Beatles songs, this one – already widely revered when it was first issued – seems to have gained the most in popularity in the intervening years. It’s recently been the most popularly streamed Beatles song, and it’s easy to understand why.
It’ joyful. It’s an end-of-winter song that lifts the soul. It soars, and it takes you with it.
Not only that, I pick this song first because George is my wife’s favorite Beatle. And because it leads into “Abbey Road”’s next song, “Because.”
2. The whole freaking second side of “Abbey Road”
Life goal: a Varettoni family photo in imitation of this
Vinyl had sides, and this was the best side of vinyl ever pressed.
I love, for example, John’s strong Liverpudlian “Scouse” accent on “Polythene Pam.” John is my favorite Beatle.
John’s accent on that song reminds me that – unlike the Rolling Stones, who were nice middle-class boys acting like street kids – the Beatles were street kids acting like nice middle-class boys.
In November 1963, in one of the first U.S. major news stories about The Beatles (several months before they appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show”), NBC’s Edwin Newman noted that all four had been born during The Blitz (the horrific German bombing offensive against Britain during World War II). They grew up in the Mersey section of Liverpool, which Newman called “the toughest section in one of the toughest cities in the world.”
John always maintained that edge and – to me – it was always this element that separated The Beatles from every other great pop music group at the time. I recall John’s shockingly frank interviews in Rolling Stone magazine, which for several weeks in my early teens led me to casually drop f-bombs into my conversation in imitation. I soon stopped that practice, realizing I could never even play-act being as cool as John Lennon.
The medley of songs on the second side of “Abbey Road” is pure 20th Century musical genius – from Paul’s rare bass guitar mistake on the aforementioned “Polythene Pam” all the way to Ringo’s one and only recorded-with-The-Beatles drum solo on “The End.”
3. “A Hard Day’s Night”
Trivia question: What’s the only song in the world recognizable by its opening note?
That’s right, it’s the opening chord of “A Hard Day’s Night,” played by George Harrison on his 12-string Rickenbacker guitar.
I list “A Hard Day’s Night” here as a meme for all the great early Beatles songs… beginning with that appearance on the Sullivan show (in 1964, when Paul McCartney was only 21 years old), where, safe in suburbia in front of a black-and-white TV, a very young me marveled at the crazed audience reaction… unaware of the raw emotion that rock and blues had already tapped into years earlier and in so many other, less-sheltered places.
For me, “A Hard Day’s Night” represents a time of watching Beatles’ cartoons on Saturday morning TV, and being amazed, through the years, how their music matured and grew over the years. I was just as transfixed, and awed, years later when I first saw the videos on TV for “All You Need Is Love” and “Hey, Jude.”
In fact, in my entire life, I’ve only been flummoxed by one celebrity sighting. I was at a Verizon-sponsored table in 2002 at an Amnesty International event at Chelsea Piers in New York, and at a table practically right next to us sat Paul McCartney and his then-wife Heather Mills.
I was a blithering idiot all evening, in full fan mode. “That’s Paul McCartney!” I repeated more than once, to no one, spilling my water and fumbling with my knife and fork. In fairness, as my boss pointed out, “if you’re acting like this just because you’re in the same room with someone, Paul McCartney is probably the one person in the world I can understand.”
At one point, when Paul was asked to take the stage, I had to stand and pull a chair out of his way.
“Thanks, mate!” he cheerily said to me, touching me on the shoulder as he passed.
Ever since, my wife and daughters have always, over the years, referred to Paul, as my “best friend.”
Sir Paul, if you ever read this, I’m sure you understand what I wrote about John. Someone had to carry on – and in the humble opinion of your friend, I think “Hey, Jude” truly is amazing and “Maybe I’m Amazed” is without doubt the best post-Beatles song ever.
4. “A Day in the Life”
The Beatles somehow recorded this song on four-track tape machines – the equivalent of sending someone to the moon and back with technology that’s less advanced than today’s cell phones.
The first time I heard this song, I was in a grade school class at St. James in Totowa, N.J.
It was near the end of the school year, and one of the coolest girls in the class (Maureen Dunne? Marianne Hydock? It’s all a blur to me now…) had bought one of the first copies of the album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
She played this song on a phonograph for the entire class to hear.
It was this song. Despite all the music I had listened to until then, it was like nothing I had ever heard before.
How many times does that happen in your lifetime? When some item is so incredibly new, and surprising – and you recognize it right away.
It happened with I saw the first “Star Wars” movie, and years later when I first held an iPad… and it happened for the first time in my life when I listened to “A Day in the Life.”
This is magic. This is what The Beatles created. Happy birthday, George.
I had intended to post a lighthearted retrospective of #DateNight photos to cap this past week, but something happened on Valentine's Day 2018 that broke everyone's heart instead.
It's the same old thing that happened in November 2017 and October 2017 and December 2015 and June 2016 and October 2015 and June 2015 and May 2014.
After every mass shooting since 2014, satirical news outlet The Onion has repeated the same story (excluding a change in headline in 2016) with an updated photo and updated casualty statistics: "'No way to prevent this,’ says only nation where this regularly happens."
It's not because of the Ben-Affleck-in-"Argo" haircut and beard.
It's because it's part of a real, honest-to-God New York City press pass... one of the few things in this world even better than having your own Wall-Street-Journal stipple hedcut.
That's why I find it sad today that I even feel the need to write this, but here goes...
I respect and admire journalists very much. They play a vital role in society. Their contribution is incalculable, and their jobs have an extraordinarily high degree of difficulty, given changing technology and audiences, industry competitiveness, and mounting political pressures. All this, combined with long hours and almost no job security.
For personal reasons, I left the field before my press pass expired, and found a home in corporate public relations as a spokesperson. Not a bad gig, either. Because of it, I've had the privilege of getting to know and work with some of the best journalists in the world.
Daily interaction with journalists brings a perspective to my work that can be lacking inside the corporate bubble -- otherwise known as The Land of the $1,800 Louis Vuitton Chair.
Take, for example, the recent Super Bowl commercial for Ram trucks. Imagine the collective consciousness of reporters and editors: "What were they thinking?" Below is a short video that digs a little deeper into the same sermon by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that's used in the ad...
OMG someone overlayed that ridiculous Dodge/MLK ad with what King actually said about capitalism and car commercials pic.twitter.com/9IB528mCyt
Verizon, the company where I work, has bought and sold many businesses over the years. I haven't had to change companies to learn more or tackle new challenges... the company always seems to change around me. "It's good to be Bob," as my wife often sighs.
I've been lucky, blessed and proud to advocate for a business focused on building networks, and which makes its money by connecting people and enabling life-changing new technologies.
This past week I had the opportunity to talk to members of a professional PR organization about corporate financial communications and working with journalists.
I wrote a summary of that presentation, intending to post it here. I've changed my mind, though, and invite you to read "Have Fun With Numbers, and Advance Your PR Career" on LinkedIn instead. (Having, I confess, learned by osmosis the importance of page views.)
It's a rainy Sunday morning in New Jersey. Every minute someone new is tweeting about #FakeNews. Every minute the truth is being manipulated by different sides with different agendas. That's why there's nothing more important to post right now than to offer a word of encouragement, and thanks, to all journalists.
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PS - Here's an unsolicited plug for a candid, sometimes heart-breaking personal blog by reporter and editor Kyle Foster. Journalists are usually the best writers, too.
As my colleague Meg Schaefer explains, "Verizon teamed up with director Amir Bar-Lev and an investigative journalist to give the people who were rescued by first responders the opportunity to thank them. But to do that, we needed to track down the first responders – the one’s who always answer the call so that they could answer one more… one they would never forget."
I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday, for the first time since May 22, 2011.
How do I know it was May 22, 2011?
Because that's the date in the metadata of this photo of me and my youngest daughter:
Maddy was on the verge of graduating from high school, and we both thought it would be a grand adventure. We had a great time that day, and I have the photos to prove it.
Yesterday, I walked across the bridge alone. I had started out at a photo meetup, but I raced ahead of the rest of the group, driven by cosmic forces. Literally.
The proof? Here's a photo Maddy took of me on May 22, 2011:
And here's a photo a stranger took of me on January 27, 2018:
Same hat, same hoodie, same me... just older.
In 2018, I have learned to appreciate the theory of relativity, the space-time continuum, and the love fathers feel for their daughters.
A book I listened to this past week ("Light Falls: Space, Time, and an Obsession of Einstein," by Brian Greene)... a book I didn't particularly like... reminded me that massive objects cause a distortion in space and time.
Simply put: the black hole of Maddy not being there yesterday caused time to fold in on itself, and I posed in the same place, nearly seven years later... the time it take for all the cells in our bodies to replace themselves... because I was drawn by cosmic forces back to when she stood at my side.
When the orbits of our lives and busy schedules align, we'll walk the Brooklyn Bridge together some other Saturday, I am sure.
Until then, I reread my diary from nearly seven years ago. I wrote about a family dinner the night before Maddy left for college. It was at an Edgewater, N.J., restaurant called Vespa's (no longer there) -- and I was in such a cranky mood that I downed Peroni after Peroni.
I was dreading the drive back that night with just the four of us -- my wife, both daughters and me -- heading, as one, to the same "home" for perhaps the last time in our lives.
My wife did the driving, and I kept asking her to drive slower and slower. If she could drive slow enough, I said, time would reverse itself and Maddy could stay with us a little longer.
I know... I know... I can't keep her by my side forever.
Still, I texted her last night to let her know I had been on the Brooklyn Bridge again, and that I was thinking of her.
She responded right away: "Cool! Did you take any good pictures?"
I sent her this panorama of Manhattan, from the perspective of Brooklyn:
This morning I'm wondering if this photo is a metaphor for my perspective on the lives of both of my daughters.
I love New York. It's unique in all the universe. Sometimes, from where I now stand, it seems beyond my reach.
And yet, there's a bridge that will get me there. I know it will always lead to another grand adventure.
