Tag Archives: YouTube

New York City School Lunch Menu – 1914

1 Reply

New York City’s Morris High School In The Bronx Lunch Menu 1914

A Wide Variety Of Choices…As Long As You Like Bread and Butter Sandwiches

One  hundred years ago the Bronx’s first and most prestigious public high school was Morris High School.

Among the pages of the 1914 Morris Annual yearbook are advertisements. Morris was such a great school that William Molbeck, a Bronx caterer supplied food to the students and advertised that fact. For the era, the food was moderately priced. Beverages were three cents and food ranged from a nickel to a dime.

There was only one catch – you better like bread and butter.

Every item on the menu except two has bread and butter sandwiches as its anchor. Continue reading →

5 Bands With Songs That Sound Like Led Zeppelin

Leave a reply

Hey Is That Led Zeppelin?

Bands That Can Sound A Lot Like Led Zeppelin

Maybe this article should be titled “bands that sound like Robert Plant” as it is Plant’s unique vocals that are being channeled.

Plant himself has never been a big fan of others trying to sound like Led Zeppelin. Plant called Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page’s 1993 pairing with Whitesnake / Deep Purple lead singer David Coverdale – David Cover Version.

If you heard any of the following songs without knowing who it was, you might think it’s Led Zeppelin.

Unsurprisingly the lead singers of these bands can do pretty good cover versions of Zeppelin. We’ll have two samples from each band – one original composition and one Zeppelin cover if they have ever covered the mighty Zep.

Great White

To me, Jack Russell of Great White naturally sounds more like Robert Plant than any other professional singer.

This song Save Your Love is from the 1987 album Once Bitten.

This 2011 live version of Led Zeppelin’s Ramble On is spot on vocally even if the rest of the band doesn’t capture the Zeppelin magic. Russell’s intonations on certain lyrics like “I’m much o-bli-ged, such a plea-sant stay,” sound exactly like Plant. A great cover.

Zebra

The next band is a label-mate of Led Zeppelin. Continue reading →

Rare 1971 Tonight Show Clip With Johnny Carson & The Hilarious Bob Uecker

5 Replies

Johnny Carson Looks At Press Photos With Bob Uecker, Going Over Bob’s Legendary Baseball Career

In the mid-90s actor Leslie Nielsen was doing publicity for a comedic book “Bad Golf My Way.”  The radio stations who set up interviews with Nielsen expected the star of “Airplane” and  “Police Squad / The Naked Gun” to be as witty as the man who was in those movies.

While Leslie Nielsen had a sense of humor he was not a funny man. The public seems to forget that writers write those funny lines for actors to say.

Nielsen did his best, doing four hours of back to back interviews with FM stations across the country. But the radio hosts mostly got a reality check. Just because you’re a comedic actor does not translate into being a funny guest.

On the other hand Bob Uecker was a professional baseball catcher for six seasons in the 1960s who had a career .200 batting average. While Uecker was by his own estimate not a particularly good ballplayer, he was very funny. Uecker parlayed his natural sense of humor into a fifty year career as a baseball announcer and talk show guest, and he is still going strong, The 87-year-old Uecker remains the radio voice of the Milwaukee Brewers.

Here is Uecker’s seventh appearance on The Tonight Show, September 23, 1971.

What makes this clip rare is that for the first 10 years that Carson hosted The Tonight Show from New York, almost every tape was subsequently erased. Continue reading →

Capitals Tom Wilson Injures Bruins Brandon Carlo – How The NHL Should Punish Players

3 Replies

Washington Capitals Tom Wilson’s Vicious Hit On Bruins Brandon Carlo Draws A Light Punishment

A Simple Solution On How The NHL Should Determine Future Suspensions

Capitals Tom Wilson (43) about to slam Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo’s (25) head into the plexiglass. March 5, 2021

It’s not like a ton of people watch hockey or care about it. But for those who do love the game they like it to be played clean. Yes there are occasional fights, but generally the game requires a substantial skill set and most of the time dirty play is absent from hockey.

Hockey is inherently a fast and sometimes violent game. On Friday, March 5, the Washington Capitals Tom Wilson hit Boston Bruins Brandon Carlo with a vicious slam to the head.

Upon review, this play was reckless. It appears not to be a heat of the moment hard check on Wilson’s part, but an intentional attempt to disable. From this play there could be long term implications for Carlo’s health and playing career. Wilson and his teammates believe that this was a “clean hit.”

The Hit

Decide for yourself if this was clean or dirty:

Without leaving his feet Wilson angles his entire body up towards Carlo then piledrives Carlo’s head into the glass. Carlo grabs his head and then collapses. As one commenter on youtube wrote “It was an unnecessary, malicious, intentional, cowardly hit on an unaware player who was playing the puck.” Continue reading →

The Woolworth Estate Is For Sale For Only A Few Million Dollars

1 Reply

Two Woolworth Properties Are For Sale

Neither Of These Residences Are Five & Dimes

But Why Buy The Woolworth Building Penthouse When You Can Buy The Entire Estate At A Fraction Of the Price?

The “Cathedral of Commerce,” still stands out on lower Broadway as an extraordinary building.

Frank Winfield Woolworth engaged architect Cass Gilbert to build him a grand office tower in 1910. Woolworth paid 13.5 million, all cash, for the land and construction of the building.

When completed in 1913 the 792 foot tower was the tallest building in the world and remained so until 1930. The top of the Woolworth Building had an observation deck where people could plunk down fifty cents to get a seventy mile panoramic view.

In 2015 the upper half of the fabulous Woolworth Building was converted to ritzy apartments. The apex of Frank Woolworth’s monument to nickels and dimes, the observation deck and its four adjoining floors is now a penthouse trophy apartment. Years after the Woolworth Building’s conversion the five story penthouse is still for sale with no takers,. The asking price has been reduced from $110 million to (a more reasonable?) $79 million.

For those looking for a relative bargain, there is the 16 acre former Woolworth estate “Winfield Hall” in Glen Cove, Long Island. Continue reading →

This Board Game Will Probably Never Outsell Monopoly

What I Didn’t Get For Christmas

Expulsion The Board Game

Expulsion Board Game Get The Jews Out Of SpainThough it was only five dollars I somehow avoided buying “Expulsion” at the local thrift store for myself or as a gift. As the cover for Expulsion proclaims the game recreates Jewish Life in Spain from the Golden Age to 1492. It promised to be “an exciting and challenging game to play for the whole family.”

Then comes the big plus which was hard to resist. No previous background necessary to play. So you don’t need to be a Jew, an Islamic extremist, KKK member or Nazi to learn and enjoy Expulsion.

While wondering about the game, I couldn’t help thinking of the Mel Brooks film The History of the World Part 1, where Brooks does an over the top Busby Berkeley style homage to the Spanish Inquisition.

Is the object of Expulsion to get the Jews out of Spain?

According to Gabriella Geselowitz Continue reading →

Classic Hollywood #105 – Barbara Stanwyck Receives An Oscar

3 Replies

Barbara Stanwyck Thanks “Golden Boy” For Her Honorary Oscar 1982

In a six decade career Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990) received four Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in a leading role.  The films were Stella Dallas (1937); Ball of Fire (1941); Double Indemnity (1944) and Sorry, Wrong Number (1948). She did not win for any of these great performances in fine pictures.

Stanwyck and William Holden starred together in the 1939 film Golden Boy. It was Holden’s first starring role. And he was almost fired. But Barbara Stanwyck insisted Holden stay on the film. The two became lifelong friends.

At the April 3, 1978 Academy Awards presentation, William Holden and Barbara Stanwyck were reunited as co-presenters for the award for best sound.

This was the era before everyone handing out awards had every word scripted for them and was littered with politically correct, back-slapping fake accolades and bad jokes. What happened next was completely genuine, unrehearsed and quite touching as you will see by Stanwyck’s reaction.

Finally four years later on March 29, 1982, the Academy recognized Stanwyck with an honorary Oscar for “superlative creativity and unique contribution to the art of screen acting.” Continue reading →

Blazing Sadddles – Mongo Deleted Scenes

4 Replies

Mongo’s (Alex Karras) Cut Scenes From Blazing Saddles

Blazing Saddles (1974) would never get made today. The genius humor of writers Mel Brooks, Richard Pryor, Andrew Bergman, Alan Uger and Norman Steinberg is now politically incorrect. Yes, the movie is vulgar and over the top.  But it remains undeniably one of the funniest movies ever made.

Some of the best scenes in Blazing Saddles belong to the half-wit behemoth Mongo, played by former NFL star Alex Karras.

Here are two of the scenes involving Mongo that were not in the final cut but were broadcast  when eventually shown on television.

So why were these two scenes cut? Continue reading →

Making Metal Out Of Rock – Hit Cover Songs & Originals

2 Replies

Making Rock Harder…and Better?

Metallica’s James Hetfield on stage with flying V guitar photo credit : unknown c. 1984

I’ve always wondered how rock bands feel when they’ve written what they believe to be a great song and later another band records it and has equal or greater success with the song. I guess it’s one thing if the original band is successful with the tune, makes money and has an appreciative fan base. The alternative of a band making music and toiling in relative obscurity with little to no exposure and then having another band come along and make a big hit out of your song does not sound appealing. The original writers receiving composing royalties may take some of the sting out of the situation.

When a heavy metal band covers a song and makes it their own, sometimes the original rock version languishes in obscurity. Years pass and more people are familiar with the cover version and think the cover version is better than the original. Whether that’s true or not is up to the listener.

7 Examples of Rock Songs Covered and Made Popular by Heavy Metal Bands.

We’ll start off with Peter Green and the extremely original British blues rock band Fleetwood Mac. This was before they became a huge pop hit machine after Green, Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan left the band and Fleetwood Mac added Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham. The song is the enigmatic Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown) from 1970.

In 1979 Judas Priest put their indelible mark on Green Manalishi with dual guitars and Rob Halford’s soaring vocals. Just what is the Green Manalishi? Continue reading →

Eddie Van Halen and The Band At Their Peak, Live -1979

1 Reply

The Late, Great Eddie Van Halen Demonstrates What A Guitar Can Do In The Hands Of A Genius 1979

David Lee Roth, Michael Anthony and Eddie Van Halen on stage July 1979

To express the magnitude of the importance of the passing of Eddie Van Halen (January 26, 1955 – October 6, 2020)  in words is impossible.

It’s better to let Van Halen’s music speak for itself.

From Fresnomediarestoration is this live clip from March 25, 1979.  Eddie Van Halen and the band are juggernauts in their desire to wow the audience.

Anyone who was fortunate enough to attend this tour got to see what made Van Halen so special. And for those who only know David Lee Roth as a frontman who doesn’t stick to the proper lyrics, changes phrasing and sings haphazardly, then this will be a pleasant surprise.

The first four songs performed in this video are:
Light Up The Sky.
Somebody Get Me A Doctor.
Running With The Devil.
Dance The Night Away.

As a guitar player Eddie Van Halen Continue reading →