We’re a few days away from February 3rd. It’s a day that forever lives in Rock and Roll infamy.
It was on a cold winter’s night precisely sixty years ago – February 3, 1959 – that Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson boarded a Beechcraft Bonanza and found Rock and Roll heaven in a barren cornfield outside of Clear Lake, Iowa.
Much has been written about this, including two film biopics (The Buddy Holly Story in 1978 starring Gary Busey and La Bamba in 1987 starring Lou Diamond Phillips). Perhaps the seminal tribute, though, remains Don McLean’s 1971 hit “American Pie.” It was his song that first used the phrase “the day the music died” to describe the plane crash that took the lives of those young rock stars.
I’m not going to add to the litany of previously published thoughts on “the day the music died.” Rather, I’m going to share with you a conversation I had with a reporter. We sat at a high table in The Menches Brothers Restaurant in Green, Ohio (between Akron and Canton, for those using a GPS). I sipped my Diet Pepsi as the reporter asked me questions about what inspired me to write Hamburger Dreams (my latest book that looks at the evidence refuting and supporting the various hamburger origin stories).
At one point, he asked if I had written any other “food” books. I mentioned A Pizza The Action (albeit it’s more about business than food). Then I added that I had penned a short article on my grandfather’s pizzeria, mapping its beginning to the emergence of Rock and Roll.
That’s when the fun started. Little did I know this reporter, though nearly my age, still Continue Reading “The Decade the Music Died”
Thoughts Beyond The Milky Way
If it inspired Vincent van Gogh, then it’s obviously not just me. I think it’s a lot of people. In fact, it’d be a lot more people if they just stopped paying attention to clickbait news for a moment. Imagine the awe they’d experience if they spent a clear night on the highest hill well above the tree line.
Their minds free, they’d see what Plato saw so many centuries ago. A wonder so great can’t help but focus one’s thoughts on pure, unadulterated introspection.
Would that calm frayed nerves? Or would it only make things worse?
I’ve always fallen into the first category. Do you?
For as long as I can remember, the stars have captivated me. Not just the stars. Not just the space between the stars. But what was beyond those stars.
Think of it as the moral equivalent of thoughts evoked when contemplating what lies beyond Continue Reading “Thoughts Beyond The Milky Way”