Homer in New Rochelle: More adventures in publishing

March 31, 2016

Recently, Ken Valenti – a colleague from our days at the Gannett newspapers – graciously asked me if I would read at a gathering of his group For the Love of Words at R Patisserie Café & Tea Boutique in New Rochelle, N.Y., a most collegial coffeehouse. Naturally, I said yes. What writer doesn’t love the sound of her own words, her own voice?

As usual, I practiced my go-to selection from “Water Music,” the first novel in my series “The Games Men Play,” in which tennis player Alí Iskandar becomes involved in an international incident that draws him into the circle of his soon-to-be lover, tennis star Alex Vyranos. (Given the R-rated nature of the novel, there are not many easily available go-to sections.)

But something happened as I prepared to leave for the reading: I turned on the TV to learn of the Brussels bombing. ...

Super Bowl 50 – Defense! Defense!

February 8, 2016

Good pitching, baseball fans always say, stops good hitting. A good defense stops a good offense.

And so the Denver Broncos’ vaunted defense stopped Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers’ electric running game, 24-10 in Super Bowl 50.

It was perhaps the last hurrah for Broncos’ quarterback Peyton Manning, who at 39 became the oldest quarterback to pilot a Super Bowl team and may join his boss John Elway as the only quarterback to retire after winning a Super Bowl. ...

Ken Stabler’s CTE and the threat to quarterbacks

February 4, 2016

A few days before Super Bowl 50 this Sunday comes sobering news: Onetime Oakland Raiders quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Ken Stabler had CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a kind of dementia related to concussions and sub-concussive hits.

Stabler, who died in July of cancer at age 69, left his brain to be studied by researchers in Massachusetts.

Of the 91 brains of ex-players that have been tested – you can’t test for this except after death – 87 had brain trauma. ...

Tennis, Sean Penn and the new ‘journalism’

January 18, 2016

Was it mere coincidence that Charlie Rose’s interview with Sean Penn – about his Rolling Stone interview with El Chapo – should air just as a story broke about match-fixing in tennis?

Both say much about the sorry state of journalism.

No less an authority than Penn pronounced the Fourth Estate to be in trouble. And with him netting cover assignments it’s little wonder.

For those who’ve been on planet Pluto, Penn snagged an interview with the dealer of all drug dealers – who had escaped from a Mexican prison – basically because El Chapstick was hot for some actress, Kate del Castillo, who facilitated the encounter.

For all his bluster, “60 Minutes”’ Rose failed to ask Penn two pointed questions ...

American Pharoah is readers’ ‘Sportsman of the Year’

December 14, 2015

All hail the Pharoah.

American Pharoah has been named Sports Illustrated readers’ “Sportsman of the Year.” The SI staff’s choice will be announced tomorrow on SI.com and NBC’s “Today” show.

AP received 47 percent of the vote. The World Series’ winning Kansas City Royals garnered 29 percent, while soccer star Lionel Messi earned 6 percent. Tennis No. 1 Novak Djokovic finished ninth. ...

His way

December 12, 2015

With virtually everyone weighing in on Ol’ Blue Eyes 100th birthday Saturday, Dec. 12, I thought I’d put in my two cents since I covered him live and from a distance for Gannett.

Any discussion of Frank Sinatra begins and ends with talent. His was deep, varied and wrapped in a complex personality. Begin with the Voice – distinctive, limpid and punctuated by the impeccable phrasing and superb breath control he learned from bandleader Tommy Dorsey’s trombone playing. Throw in his dancing – a talent people don’t generally associate with Sinatra. But his was fluid and fleet. (See “Anchors Aweigh” or “On the Town.”) ...

Standing up to fear itself: A timely ‘Trumbo’

December 9, 2015

I wasn’t planning to see the movie “Trumbo,” but I’m glad I did as it truly is a movie for our time.

It’s the story of Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) – a brilliant Oscar-winning screenwriter, born 110 years ago on Dec. 9 – who as one of the Hollywood Ten was blacklisted for refusing to testify in 1947 before the House Un-American Activities Committee investigating communism in the motion picture industry. (Trumbo was a member of the Communist Party from 1943 to ’48.) The film’s real subject, however, is fear and how it divides us – from others and from our better natures. ...