Subscribe

I spent a wonderful Easter in Manchester, England, yesterday, beginning with a tour of some of the city’s architectural highlights with local guide John Ryan.  In a drizzle that people here are very used to, we saw Lincoln Square, where a life-size Abe with crazy wavy hair stands at attention. […]

I stopped by the new Wild Roots Cafe near the bridge in Sunderland, and behind the counter, two women named Kelly smiled. It was 2:30 pm, and they had opened for their first day today, they looked ebullient and tired, the way I remember so well from my GoNOMAD Cafe […]

I love a good reason to jump on a train again.  And that reason tomorrow is an annual tradition–Canada Media Market, when I get a chance to visit with dozens of tourism officials who meet up at the Grand Hyatt Hotel for a day of networking with travel journalists. I’ve been […]

She’s Not There….a song we’ve played during our Wednesday night jams many times.  That song is one of many written by an old band, the Zombies, who are coming to Northampton this Friday.   I love this old video where the band, dressed in suits, plays in a black and […]

We got a chance to hang around the city like citizens, not journalists, yesterday as we began our Sunday in Denver.  We met up with my old friend Peter Heller, and his wife Kim, who have lived here for 15 years. The last time I saw Pete was my last […]

We met up with Rochelle Jones, a young publicist who works for Visit Denver and who grew up in Colorado. That’s a big deal here in this land of “where did you come from,” she told us. Most people she knows is from somewhere other than Colorado.  It’s a city […]

Some days are better than others.  Today, March 23, 2017, has been a great one, and it’s not even half close to being over. I woke up at 4:30, after a surprisingly restful sleep, and the flight non-stop from Hartford was a cinch. The train is a very short walk […]

I head out the door tomorrow at the crack of dawn for an exciting trip to Denver Colorado. I’ve been fascinated with Denver after my last visit there in 2012.  Back then I was hosted by my old friend Peter Heller, and he joined his wife Kim and showed me […]

With the passing of Jimmy Breslin, one of the finest newspaper writers to ever clack out a crackling lede on a typewriter, I recalled how fond I was in my earliest years of his writing.  I was introduced to Breslin when I got my first job pumping gas in Blawenburg, […]

I don’t take that many sick days, usually about one or two every year.  Today it’s a Saturday and I’ve resigned myself to just let myself be sick, though it makes me feel totally disconnected with the rest of the world. There is something about spending the whole day in bed […]