Big Hair and Plastic Grass

Big Hair & Plastic Grass Meets The Santa Monica Little League

You like fresh air? You like 70s baseball? You like watching published authors trying to hold the attention of Little Leaguers? Come on out to my reading/signing event tomorrow (Saturday, April 13) at Memorial Park (located at 16th street and Olympic) in Santa Monica, CA.

That's right, folks: Dan Epstein (dat's me!), author of Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s, will be reading from (and signing copies of) his book between two halves of a Santa Monica Little League doubleheader. Word has it that at least one of the teams will be wearing 70s throwback uniforms — and really, how cool is that?

Reading/signing will happen at noon, following the 8-9 year-olds game. It'll be free, it'll be fun, and I'll be the guy in the Dave Parker jersey. (Here's the link to the Facebook event invite, if you're into that sorta thing.) Thanks in advance to Jay Smith and the Santa Monica Little League for inviting me!

In other writing-related news, my Rhino Single Notes eBook, Honky Tonk Tourist: The Night Buck Owens Almost Got Me Killed, is now available for download from iBooks and the Amazon Kindle store. It doesn't have anything to do with baseball (other than a cameo appearance by the home of the Bakersfield Blaze), but I can promise that it'll be a highly entertaining read, especially for any o' you music geek types out there. Joe Bonomo, author of Jerry Lee Lewis: Lost and Found and Sweat: The Story of the Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band, calls it "a bourbon-soaked blast," and he should know!

Show Me The Way To St. Louis

October is here, and with it comes all sortsa baseball madness — especially this year, it would seem. My latest High and Tight column for Rolling Stone Online takes a look at the sublime craziness of the first week of the postseason — and it was written before Raul Ibanez belted his way into the history books, or the Oakland A's burnished their "team of destiny" credentials by pulling off a come-from-behind victory to stay alive against the increasingly frustrating Detroit Tigers.

The St. Louis Cardinals are in the mix as well; even if they no longer have Tony Scott and Garry Templeton (pictured above in a wonderful 1979 Walter Iooss photo) and no longer play on Astroturf, they're still pretty fun to watch right now, especially if you have less-than-positive feelings for the Washington Nationals. (Yeah yeah, I know, they're descendents of the Montreal Exposl but gimme Ellis Valentine over Bryce Harper, any day.) St. Louis has to be rocking with playoff fever at this point, and I'm heading right into the thick of it — or, at least, the outskirts...

Thanks to the friendly folks at the Steelville Arts Council, I will be doing a reading and signing event for Big Hair and Plastic Grass tomorrow night (that's Friday, October 12) in Steelville, MO. The shindig will be held at the newly-opened Gallery Zeke on 106 East Main Street (next to MO Hick BBQ) in Steelville, and starts at 7:30 pm. Junction 19 will kick off the good times with an acoustic set — the first time I've ever had an opening band for one of my readings — and then I'll take the stage around 8 to preach the 70s baseball gospel, followed by a Q&A session. The new paperback edition of the book will be on sale, and beer, wine and appetizers will be served — click HERE for more details. Oh yeah: The event is FREE and open to the public.

It's the only event I'm doing in the St. Louis area, and the last reading I'll be doing this year. And need I mention that an autographed copy of Big Hair & Plastic Grass would make a great gift for that baseball fan on your Christmas list? Hope to see ya there...

Dan The Man

Funky birthday greetings goin' out today to Dan Driessen, who (next to George Foster) sported the baddest pair of 'chops on the '76 World Champion Cincinnati Reds.

In 1976, the Designated Hitter rule was used in the World Series for the first time, and Dan — a part-time utility player for much of his first four seasons with the Reds — became the first player to step to the plate as a DH in a World Series, hitting .357 during the Big Red Machine's four-game sweep of the Yankees. I was rooting for the Yanks, and remember marveling at the impressive depth of the Reds' roster; the Yanks didn't have anybody better than Otto Velez on their bench, but the Reds had THIS guy?!? I'd never even heard of him, and here he was raking Yankee pitching like it was batting practice...

Evidently, the Cincy front office thought they were sitting on a gold mine as well, because they traded 34 year-old fan favorite (and eventual Hall of Famer) Tony Perez to the Montreal Expos that off-season, and gave the 24 year-old Driessen the full-time first baseman position. Driessen responded by hitting .300 with a .375 OBP, 31 doubles, 17 HR, 91 RBI and 31 SBs, and put up a .994 fielding percentage at first — but he was never accepted by Reds fans as a sufficient replacement for the "Big Doggie". That the Reds didn't win the NL West in '77 or '78 didn't help Driessen's "Horace Clarke"-type standing among Cincinnati fans, nor did the fact that he never put up numbers matching his '77 output again. Still, he managed to hang onto the Reds' starting 1B gig  until July 1984, when he was traded to (wait for it) the Montreal Expos, aka the home for aging Reds first basemen...

In other news, I want to give a grateful tip of the Monsanto Toupee in the direction of Weston Cutter, who gave Big Hair & Plastic Grass a nice write-up on the Corduroy Books blog. "This is baseball writing with a healthy tilt toward the style of the day and game," he writes, "not just the substance. It’s a hell of a read." Much obliged, hombre...

Funky Good Times

I have waxed rhapsodic in the past (in my book, on this blog and for The Hall of Very Good) about Dave "The Cobra" Parker and his deadly cannon arm. But as Montreal Expos fans — and any baseball fan who was paying attention in the late 70s — can tell you, there was one outfielder whose arm might have been even deadlier than The Cobra's: Ellis Valentine.

In 1978, a year after Parker gunned down 26 runners from right field, Valentine nailed 25 — and took home a Gold Glove Award for his troubles. As if it wasn't enough that the dude was 6'4", could hit for power and average — .293 with 28 doubles and 25 homers in 1977, followed by .289 with 35 doubles and 25 homers in '78 — and looked (at least on his '77 Topps card, above) like Jim Kelly's beefy younger brother, the man had a Howitzer hanging from his right shoulder. Dig this awesome 12-second clip of the Ellis arm in action:

The late-70s Expos' outfield of Valentine, Andre Dawson and Warren Cromartie may not have been the greatest of all-time, but it sure was the most badass OF trio I can think of; I wasn't an Expos fan, per se, but those three guys were exciting as hell to watch. They brought the funk to the dreadfully un-funky Olympic Stadium — literally as well as figuratively, as it turns out. Check out "Ellis Valentine's Infinite Playlist," a piece I helped Instream Sports put together, wherein the music-loving Mr. Valentine picks (and holds forth upon) his ten favorite party jams of the era. Need some funk for your weekend? EV will provide! (The funk-loving folks at Deadspin apparently dug the piece, too, and boosted my Amazon sales numbers by calling me "The leading chronicler of 70s baseball." Thanks, y'all — beers on me!)

And speaking of music, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who came out last Friday night to my "AOR Demolition" event at Liar's Club in Chicago, where I read from the new paperback edition of Big Hair & Plastic Grass, and then took a sledgehammer to a stack of crappy rock records from the 70s (and a few from the 80s, just on principle), thereby redressing the lingering karmic and musical imbalance caused by the destruction of so much sweet funk and disco wax at 1979's "Disco Demolition Night" at Comiskey Park. I'd also like to thank the Liar's Club folks (esp. Herb Rosen and Mike O'Connell) for the hospitality, DJ John San Juan for expertly spinning the 70s AM gold, and Sarah from The Book Cellar for schlepping and selling copies of BH&PG. I love the above photo (taken by the lovely Miss Katie Howerton), which makes it look I'm sacrificing the wax to the Disco Ball God — which, in a sense, is exactly what happened. (Click HERE to see actual "AOR Demolition" footage. It's not for the faint of heart, or REO Speedwagon fans.)

The whole Chicago trip was fantastic, if far too short. We saw a ton of old friends, ate a ton of great food, and somehow managed to dodge most of the inclement weather that's troubled the Midwest. And thanks to my friend Rich Doherty, who kindly donated his kick-ass seats to the cause, we even managed to squeeze in a game at Wrigley Field — and were even treated to a "rare as hen's teeth" Cubs victory, to boot. It had been seven years since I last set foot in Wrigley, and I'd been gone so long I'd almost started to believe the "Wrigley is a dump" rhetoric. But the place looked absolutely gorgeous (even if I coulda done without the Under Armor ads on the outfield walls), and remains as glorious a place to watch a major league ballgame as I've ever been. Fuck the haters; may the old park stand for another century, at least!

In a moment of magical serendipity, my buddy Eric were nursing our post-AOR Demolition hangovers Saturday afternoon with a leisurely trudge through Lincoln Park, when we stumbled upon an old-timey, er, VINTAGE baseball game in action. There was something thrillingly surreal about the whole affair, which included an umpire who looked like Dr. John in a top hat, and who was perched upon a stool 20 feet to the right of home plate. Made me want to find a similar league to play in on my home turf; alas, I can't seem to find one in Southern California...

Speaking of the Windy City, I'll be talking live with the great Chicago sportswriter Steve Rosenbloom today (Saturday) at 11 am CST on WSCR-AM 670, aka "The Score". I remember having a great on-air chat with Steve when BH&PG first came out in 2010, so I'm looking forward to another round. Click HERE to listen online. And via the modern miracle of the telephone, I'll also be on the air in Philadelphia this Sunday evening; I'll be talking 70s baseball with Phil Allen, who's possibly the world's biggest Bake McBride fan, a little after 6 pm EST on 97.5 The Fanatic.

Okay, gotta boogie. But check back soon, 'cuz I've got some good news regarding my next book that I'm gonna lay on you in the not-too-distant future. 'Til then, keep the glide in your stride like Arnold Ray McBride...

 

 

Summer Madness

It's kind of amazing just how much crazy shit went down in baseball during the middle of July in the 1970s. Most of you probably know that yesterday was the 33rd anniversary of the ill-fated "Disco Demolition Night" promotion at Comiskey Park, wherein thousands of wasted kids high on beer, bad weed and general teenage idiocy rushed the field between games of a double-header, tearing it up and causing the second contest between the Tigers and the White Sox to be cancelled (and later forfeited to Detroit). G-Town Radio's Tom Casetta, who interviewed me earlier this week for his righteous Listen Up! show, referred to the event during our chat as the "Altamont" of 70s baseball, which seems pretty right-on, though I was hard-pressed at the time to come up with a "Woodstock" equivalent for the decade. (Though in retrospect, maybe it was the '76 All-Star Game?) But oh, babies, there was so much more that happened this week in 70s baseball...

For one thing, tonight is the 35th anniversary of the New York City blackout, which (among other things) plunged Shea Stadium into darkness — save for the ballpark's rudimentary emergency lights, as seen above — in the sixth inning of a Cubs-Mets contest, just as Mets third baseman Lenny Randle stepped to the plate against Ray Burris. In the interest of keeping the 14,626 people in attendance from panicking, Bud Harrelson, Craig Swan and several other Mets players drove their cars on to the field and performed a headlight-lit pantomimed ballgame for the amusement of the crowd.

And of course, on this date in 1971, Reggie Jackson went yard on Dock Ellis in the 4th inning of the All-Star Game, crushing the ball so mightily that it was still heading into orbit when it hit a power generator on top of Tiger Stadium's right field roof, at least 520 feet from home plate. Five other players homered in the AL's 6-4 victory that day: Johnny Bench, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Frank Robinson and Harmon Killebrew. All of them, including Reggie, ended up in the Hall of Fame. Dock wasn't tripping that day, but — according to this piece by Jeffrey Radice, one of the guys behind the upcoming No-No: A Dockumentary (About Dock Ellis), he was pretty looped on screwdrivers and speed when he took the mound in Detroit.

A quick side note: Radice and his crew are trying to raise money to fund their film via Kickstarter; they've only got a few days left to go, and they're still far short of their $35,000 goal — which means that, if they don't make it to $35,000 in pledges, they won't get a single penny of the money that's already been pledged. This is going to be a really entertaining and important film, and anyone who loves baseball, especially the 70s version, should support it if they can. So please, if you have a few (or more) bucks you can spare, do the badass thing and click HERE to pledge before Tuesday...

 

Okay, where were we? Ah, yes — the Atlanta Braves' first "Headlock and Wedlock Night" promotion was held on July 11, 1976. One of many wacky-to-downright-bizarre promotions thought up by Braves publicity director Bob Hope during the early years of Ted Turner's ownership, when the Braves desperately needed to do something (anything!) to lure fans to Fulton County Stadium, the event began with a number of couples (reports range anywhere from 9 to 34 in total) walking under an archway of bats held by ten players from the Braves and Mets to home plate, where they were joined in holy matrimony. After the game (which the Braves actually won 9-8 on a bases-loaded double by Willie Montanez), a wrestling ring was set up in the stadium's "picnic area," where anyone willing to stick around and swelter in the July humidity was welcome to watch a four-match Georgia Championship Wrestling card topped by Abdullah the Butcher (pictured above), who was pitted against Mr. Wrestling #2. Hope claimed that the weddings and the rasslin' were supposed to be separate promotions, but that someone on his staff accidentally double-booked them for the same game. In any case, somebody seriously needs to bring this promotion back...

Which brings us to a memorable promotion that somebody IS bringing back. Two years ago, when my book  was first released, I did a reading/signing event at Liar's Club in Chicago that we called "AOR Demolition Night" — books were signed, 70s AM gold was spun, cold beer was quaffed, crappy 70s rock records were smashed in the name of redressing the karmic imbalance created by the destruction of all that sweet disco wax at Comiskey in 1979, and a rockin' good time was had by all. Well, now that Big Hair and Plastic Grass is available in paperback, it's time (in the immortal words of Steely Dan) to go back, Jack, and do it again!

One week from tonight (July 20), all baseball-loving Chicagoans are hereby cordially invited to join me at Liar's Club (1665 W. Fullerton, 60614) from 8:30pm to midnight for an evening of funky (and not-so-funky) music, cold beer, baseball talk and maybe a few surprises. I will be reading aloud from my writings and signing my book — paperback copies of which will be on sale at the venue via The Book Cellar, the Nort' Side's finest book emporium. DJ John San Juan will be spinning the '70s AM gold all night, and we're going to once again be destroying a whole mess o' crappy '70s rock vinyl. Bring a '70s album by Styx, REO Speedwagon, Survivor, Orleans, Tycoon, Starcastle, Point Blank, etc. to be sacrificed, and receive a "special gift" courtesy of Pabst Blue Ribbon. The event is FREE, so Don your afro wig, your '70s threads and/or retro baseball jersey, and get down with us! I wanna see a sea of 'fros out there, people! Do it for me, do it for you, do it for Oscar Gamble...

This Week In 70s Baseball

There's so much 70s baseball love in the air right now, it's getting difficult to keep track of it all. Last night, the Houston Astros donned 70s-style "Tequila Sunrise" throwbacks (complete with crotch-accentuating uniform number on the right leg!) for their game against the Cleveland Indians — an interleague match-up that might have made more conceptual sense if the Tribe had donned their infamous all-red "World's Biggest Bloody Mary" (copyright Boog Powell) 70s unis for the contest. I'm not sure if the Astros' old orange-red-and-yellow stripes have aged surprisingly well, or if they just look good compared to the dreary 90s softball jerseys the team wears now; but even without stirrups (which would have really completed the look), this pic of Jose Altuve was so eye-catching, I had to look at it four or five times before I even noticed the broken bat. Memo to the Astros: If you guys just wanna alternate between these and the Colt 45s throwbacks for the rest of the season, I don't think anyone would complain...

And then there's the Tampa Bay Rays, who — despite not even existing in 1979 — have unveiled the above "1979 throwback" unis for their upcoming homestand against the Detroit Tigers. I know I should hate these on principle, since a) it's fake history, and b) I hate pretty much everything that's come out of Florida in the past fifteen years (including but not limited to Limp Bizkit and voter disenfranchisement), but I actually kinda dig 'em — they look to me like the result of a three-way between the '78 Padres, the '69 Seattle Pilots, and a mid-70s Whirpool appliance catalog. Or maybe I like it because it looks oddly similar to the funky/clunky uniforms I was designing for imaginary teams on the back of my sixth grade notebook in 1978.

The Tigers, it should be noted, will be wearing actual 70s throwbacks against the Rays, similar to the road jersey and cap sported above by the late, great Mark Fidrych on his 1977 Topps card. I would flat-out LOVE to see the Tigers re-adopt this look full-time, especially the fat orange-and-white "D" logo on the cap. To me, their 70s road unis were one of the few examples of the era where a classic team effectively "modernized" their road unis without looking like clowns in the process...

Tomorrow, as they've done for every Sunday home game this season, the Chicago White Sox will don their red 1972 pinstripes, as sported above by the inimitable Dick Allen. But this time, the aforementioned Mr. Allen will actually be on hand to throw out the first pitch, and veteran Chicago rockers The Ides of March — who ruled the Windy City airwaves back in the day with such tunes as "Vehicle" and "L.A. Goodbye" — will be there to kick out the horn-rock jams.

Speaking of uniforms (albeit not necessarily of the 70s variety), the topic of this week's "High and Tight" — the weekly baseball and rock n' roll column I pen for Rolling Stone online — is memorabilia, specifically the most prized stuff in our various panelists' collections. I had to give a shout-out to my very own piece of "plastic grass," as pictured below. It's a chunk of fake sod from the Comiskey Park infield, which was liberated in the spring of 1976 (and sent to me last month) by BH&PG reader Bob Kale. The column also contains some illuminating quotes from memorabilia collector/authenticator Dave Grob, who recently authenticated the 1920 Babe Ruth Yankees jersey that sold at auction for $4.4 million; part of Dave's drool-worthy personal collection can be seen here.

And on a sad note, this week marked the passing of artist LeRoy Neiman at the age of 91. Neiman was best known for his kinetic and brightly-colored paintings of sporting events, many of which were created on the sidelines while the events were actually occurring. I have to admit that (like many things from the 1970s that I now love and appreciate) I once thought Neiman's work was incredibly cheesy; hell, they gave away Neiman posters at Burger King! And, truth be told, many still do — a brief but lively debate broke out this week on the Big Hair Facebook page about the worth of Neiman's work. But like afros and Astroturf, Neiman's paintings were an intrinsic part of the 70s sports landscape, and I can't help smiling every time I see one of his paintings, like this one of Willie Mays in his Mets days...

Plus, Neiman had a moustache that might have even made Rollie Fingers turn kelly green with envy...

RIP, man. Thanks for helping make the 1970s such a fantastically colorful time.

The Cobra And The Super Freak

Coupla quick but worthwhile things to mention today:

1) I've got a piece on Dave Parker (pictured above in stylish protective headgear during the summer of '78) up on my man Shawn Anderson's Hall of Very Good site today. It's part of his new "HOVG Heroes" series, which will feature a variety of guest writers saluting players who haven't been enshrined in Cooperstown, but coulda/woulda/shoulda been. Yesterday's piece was a fine appreciation of Dwight Evans by Mike Lynch, and there will be many more to come in the next few weeks. Keep an eye on the HOVG page...

2) Big Hair & Plastic Grass is now out in paperback, and I have five copies to give away courtesy of the fine folks at Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's. Beginning tomorrow, I will be holding daily drawings on the Big Hair & Plastic Grass Facebook page; I will ask a question in the morning, and everyone who answers it before a specified time will automatically be entered into the drawing for an autographed copy. So be sure to check out the BH&PG FB page on a daily basis, as well, if you're not doing so already.

3) I'm finally up on Twitter, and would like to build my currently meagre following. So if you're into that kinda thing, please follow me at @BigHairPlasGras.

4) Rhino's Single Notes line of eBooks, a project which I have been managing-editing for nearly a year now, finally launched last week. Our sixth title has dropped today, and it's a doozy (as my late Grandpa Joe would say): Davin Seay's Super Freak: The Last Days Of Rick James. It's easily the best thing I've ever read about the late, great King of Punk-Funk; cocaine's one helluva drug, and this is one helluva book. It's intimate, it's funny, it's funky, it's raunchy, and there's even a segment in the book about Rick swallowing cellophane-wrapped crack rocks in order to avoid imprisonment, and then smoking them later after he's shit them out. Really, what more could you want, in terms of summer reading? Super Freak: The Last Days Of Rick James is available as a digital download on the Amazon Kindle Store and the iTunes iBookstore, and it'll cost you less than a latte.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Dock

Now that I'm back in Los Angeles after a whirlwind Big Hair & Plastic Grass promo trip to New York City, brains scrambled from long flights, too little sleep and (possibly) too much alcohol, I finally have a free minute to look back on this past week, scratch my head and wonder, "Did that all really happen?" And I'm not just talking about Matt Cain's perfecto and R.A. Dickey's one-hitter, either...

It was, by any standards, an incredibly exciting and inspiring week for me, on personal and professional levels alike; but everything kinda peaked on Tuesday night, at my Big Hair reading/signing event at Manitoba's in the East Village. The party was extremely well-attended despite the buckets of rain that started pissing down around 5 pm, and I got a chance to drink and shoot the shit with some amazing people, ranging from high school and college classmates to colleagues, heroes, Facebook friends I'd never met, and just plain diehard baseball fans. Handsome Dick Manitoba (pictured above) was as charming and hospitable a host as I could have hoped for, and he really made me, Miss Howerton, and everyone else in attendance (with the possible exception of Red Sox fans) feel welcome in his watering hole. Baseball love was in the air, as was the heady fragrance of Hebrew National hot dogs and sauerkraut, and the groovy sounds of the 70s as purveyed by DJ Mr. Tim. We even got to see A-Rod tie Lou Gehrig in the all-time grand slam department on the bar TVs; Handsome Dick's eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas (Hannukah?) when he saw it happen...

(Action photo by Joe Bonomo — No Such Thing As Was)

As Tuesday night coincided with the 42nd anniversary of Dock Ellis's LSD-fueled no-hitter, I kept the evening's selections pretty Dock-centric, including a non-Big Hair tribute to the late, great hurler that I'd originally penned following his untimely death in December 2008. Nobody was feeling any pain (least of all your humble author) by the time I hit the mic following a hilarious intro from Mr. Manitoba himself, and there was plenty of hooting and hollering throughout the reading. It was great to read to a crowd like that (Rob Kirkpatrick, my editor at St. Martin's, told me it was the most raucous author event he'd ever attended), but I must admit I was also briefly thrown by the slurred interjections of an extremely wasted young woman who sat near the podium and interrupted me with questions like, "What about Eric Clapton?" I was laughing too hard to come up with a comeback to that one, but when she asked me, "Do you like Paul Simon?", I did manage to shoot back, "I've never met the man"...

One of the amazing things about this past Tuesday was how much Dock love was in the air — not just at Manitoba's, but in the pop cultural firmament in general; even compared to two years ago, when Big Hair first hit the shelves and the 40th anniversary of his no-no was observed by several outlets , Dock is a bigger presence than ever... which is probably a testament to just how ahead of his time Dock was, both as a player and as a human being. Donnell Alexander's mind-blowing multi-media ibook, Beyond Ellis D, has just hit the digital shelves, and I highly recommend it to anyone who owns an iPad; in fact, if I didn't already own an iPad, I would probably run out to buy one right now just so I could enjoy Alexander's work. You've undoubtedly already seen James Blagden's "Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No," clip right? Well, Dock's wonderful narration for that short film was just a snippet from an extended set of illuminating interviews that Alexander did with Dock towards the end of his life, and which form the basis of Beyond Ellis D. Here's another animated clip set to Dock's words, which is part of the iBook...

Also just released this week is the "sizzle reel" for No No: A Doc(k)umentary (About Dock Ellis), a film that has been in the works for sometime, and which — as with Beyond Ellis D — will prove to the world that there was much, much more to the man than that acid-fried day on the mound. The filmmakers need your help to finish it, and they've set up a Kickstarter account in hopes of raising $35,000 by July 17. Full disclosure: I'm one of the interview subjects in this film, but I'd be dying to see the completed version even if I wasn't in it. Watch the preview below — and if it moves you, please consider donating some much-needed moolah to the cause.

 

But wait — there's more! "High and Tight," my weekly column for Rolling Stone Online, vibrates at the intersection of baseball and rock n' roll — and, of course, Dock's lysergic no-no was one of the most rock n' roll things to ever happen on a baseball diamond. So in this week's "High and Tight," our esteemed panelists (including the aforementioned Mr. Manitoba) and I reflect upon Dock's unique achievement, and offer up a ringing riposte to the skeptics who insist that such a thing couldn't have possibly happened...

And speaking of music, one other tremendously cool thing happened this past week — Rhino Single Notes, an e-publishing project I've been managing-editing since last fall, finally launched on Tuesday via Amazon and iTunes. A new line of "quick read" digital books about music and pop culture, Single Notes offers up entertaining and insightful essays on a wide variety of musical topics — as you can probably tell from our first five titles. Dig the Grateful Dead? Check out Gene Sculatti's Dark Stars and Anti-Matter: 40 Years of Loving, Leaving and Making Up with the Music of the Grateful Dead. Ever swooned over Duran Duran? Lyndsey Parker's Careless Memories of Strange Behavior: My Notorious Life as a Duran Duran Fan should stir up some fond (and perhaps mortifying) memories. Christopher R. Weingarten's Every Day I Take A Wee: The Beastie Boys And The Untimely Death Of Suburban Folklore hilariously examines the way an album you hear at an impressionable age can warp you for the rest of your life. Binky Philips' engrossing (and ultimately heartbreaking) memoir My Life In The Ghost of Planets: The Story of a CBGB Almost-Was is set predominantly amid the grit and glamour of the 1970s NYC rock scene, but it will resonate with anyone who's ever tried to "make it" in the music biz. And if you're into Chic (and really, if you love the funky music of the 70s, how can you NOT be?), you've gotta read Michaelangelo Matos' We Won't Settle For Less: Chic at the End of Disco, which makes a watertight case for the profound influence of Chic's 1979 jam "Good Times".

Oh, there's much more to tell, of course — but that's about enough for this week, right? Have a great weekend, and don't take any bullshit from The Man. Dock certainly wouldn't want you to...

 

Hello, New York!

Well, I'm not quite there yet — but I'll be there in spirit tonight (and in disembodied voice) around 10:30 pm EST, when I'll be interviewed live on Mike Silva's "NY Baseball" radio show on 1240 AM WGBB outta Long Island. I rapped with Mike about two years ago, and we had a great chat, so I'm really looking forward to it. Tune in, turn on, and get down — Billy Baldwin and his massive 'fro would want it that way.

Tonight's interview should be a nice warm-up for the NYC Big Hair & Plastic Grass paperback release party on Tuesday night, which will be going down on from 6:30 pm to 9 pm at Manitoba's Bar in the East Village, and will be hosted by the legendary Handsome Dick Manitoba himself. I will be signing paperback copies of the book (which will be on sale at the bar) and reading some choice bits from it. Join us for tales of baseball weirdness, hot dogs, peanuts, crackerjacks, liquid refreshments and good times...

And speaking of tales of baseball weirdness, today is the 37th anniversary of the night that army cannons blew holes in the outfield wall at Shea Stadium. You can read about the incident in greater detail HERE, or you can let Walter Cronkite give you the basic lowdown, below...

Happy Birthday, Cobra!

Dave Parker turns 61 today. Love him or hate him, "The Cobra" was unquestionably a badass — and never looked more impossibly menacing than when he briefly sported this hockey mask in 1978 to protect his fractured cheekbone. Unsuspectic Padres rookie first baseman Broderick Perkins looks like he's about to catch a meat cleaver between the shoulder blades...

In other news, it's only a few days until the NYC paperback release party for Big Hair & Plastic Grass, which happens Tuesday June 12 from 6:30 pm to 9 pm at Manitoba's, which is located at 99 Ave. B (between 6th and 7th streets) in the East Village. Copies of the book will be on sale at the event, but if you can't make it and still want to get a signed and personalized copy or three, all you've gotta do is email your contact information (before 12 noon EST on Sunday, June 10) to Harriet at bookedbyharriet@hotmail.com. She will email or call you back regarding personalization (let her know if you have a favorite team or player from the era), payment and shipping.

The price for each signed copy, which includes the book and tax ($17.00) plus shipping ($5.25) will total $22.25. I will sign the book for you on June 12 at Manitoba's, and Harriet will wing it to you forthwith! Once again, though, you've gotta email Harriet before noon EST tomorrow in order to get your order in...

Oh, and speaking of The Cobra... well, I can't blow the surprise, but let's just say that my pal Shawn over at The Hall of Very Good has a big announcement coming on Monday, so keep your eyes peeled accordingly...