Actual Family Values With the word “family” having been appropriated by hate groups like the “Family Research Council,” “Focus on the Family,” and “American Family Association,” sometimes you need to cleanse your palate with some actual family values: As Papi says, “Perfecta!”
There’s an AM radio station here in L.A. (KLAC – 570) that has returned to its previous format of playing standards, performed – when the station is at its best – by Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Billie Holiday and a number of other people who knew/know how to interpret a song. But interspersed with those heroes of popular song are the forays the station makes into the dark side.
Let me heap some unabashed praise on one of the great performing artists of our time. Barbara Cook, whose evening of songs is being performed at L.A.’s Ahmanson Theatre, continues to be one of the pre-eminent interpreters of American song. This evening of tribute to Stephen Sondheim — in songs written by him and songs, she informs us, that he wishes he had written — is about as pure and simple a per
Last week, I went to see Joan Baez in concert at UCLA. I hadn’t seen her in thirty years and I will admit to being something of a fan but at the younger end of the fan base.So it came as quite a shock when I saw that the median age of her public, at least as represented by last week’s concert, was somewhere between 70 and death. I haven’t seen so many canes, walkers, colostomy bags and orthopedic sh
