Orel Family

When Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released one fine late fall day in 1979, I went with 16 of my closest friends in Millburn High School to a screening at Essex Green. We had to be there when Admiral James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise reunited on the bridge. And if the loving shots of the ship took too long, and if the movie itself was little more than a regurgitated TV episode (most obviously relying on a 2nd-season episode called The Changeling ), so be it. Many of had seen all 79 episodes of the original TV show, many, many times. After all, Star Trek aired in re-runs every night on Channel 11, right at dinner time. Three decades later, Star Trek has long since passed from being “must see.” The movies got better, for a while, including with the brilliant Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home . Then came the TV shows. Star Trek: The Next Generation was the first and best; besides making a catch-phrase of “sexy bald man,” it became compelling in its own righ...

I tried my best this year to avoid all of the Super Bowl hype. Sure, I've been watching them at least since Otis Taylor made mincemeat of Bud Grant's secondary, but I have long since grown tired of all the pre-game festivities. So, I tuned it out. Even with Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band finally on the bill as half-time performers, I did my best to ignore the details, paying only glancing attention to the interviews and none at all to reports from people at the rehearsals. I could be surprised live, along with most of the rest of the country. When I thought of writing something, of course my reason was to write of Bruce performing. After all, one of the famous apocryphal stories of Bruce was of his former manager, Mike Appel, attempting to get Bruce on the bill for a Super Bowl pregame show, in part by dangling an otherwise unknown song called "Balboa vs. the Earth Slayer." That was in 1973. Bruce was releasing a new album two days before the big g...

Bruce Springsteen's "Working On a Dream" is due to be released on January 27. It finally leaked all over the internet today, so I've spent an some time with it this evening. Some of the early chatter I heard for this album was pretty bad. So... it's, it's, it's not as bad as that. How 'bout that? There are a few high points, and maybe at this point that should be enough. From the beginning. ok, there's "Outlaw Pete." What is this thing? I listen, and for whatever reason I'm hearing "Funeral for a Friend" or some such. But while I suppose a song can repeat the same 5 notes over and over and over, and over and over and over again and again and again, and be interesting and good ("Born in the USA," for example), "Outlaw Pete," isn't. At least not yet. To me. On first listen I don't really take in the lyrics, but with a terrible clunker in the 2nd verse ("a mustang pony he did st...

My cousin, Andrew Horowitz, is a Certified Financial Planner and author of The Disciplined Investor: Essential Strategies for Success. We saw Andrew and his beautiful family last weekend, and after talking some finance in email, he sent me this gem last night: Bruce Springsteen’s Economic Wisdom

My better pictures from Ypsilanti are now up as a photo album at shutterfly. Go to http://ypsilantibruce.shutterfly.com to see the pics or slide show!

October 6, 2008: A year ago today I flew back from Philadelphia, having spent an exorbitant amount of money to see my first show on the Magic tour, my first show since my dad passed a month earlier. The E Street Band had its full original line-up, and played in an arena named for the mighty Wachovia Bank. It was 80 degrees outside, pool weather. The market crash had not yet begun, and the election was still more than a year off. Fast forward to a somewhat cool Michigan day, coming on the heels of the first two days of the fall frost. My back was a bit sore after a couple hours working the fruit trees on Saturday and then the round trip to Columbus yesterday, and the cool weather wasn't much helping. In contrast to the perfect warm fall Sunday in Columbus, Monday shaped up to be cool and damp in Michigan. And the show itself wouldn't be much easier to make: in order to arrange it, I had to move one meeting forward, do another one on the phone, drive 25 miles one way ...

I'm a sucker for going to see Bruce shows... even if they're far away and not really full shows. Today's performance at The Main Oval at The Ohio State University was one of 3 scheduled performances over this weekend, coinciding with voter registration drives in battleground states. Yesterday's was in Philadelphia, and tomorrow's will be in Ypsilanti. It was a beautiful Sunday, and for a change I had had no plans at all. Columbus is a 3 hour drive, and with the concert scheduled for 4:30, I could easily make it a day trip. For less than a tankful of gas (tickets being free), I could get a bit of a Bruce fix (and see Chris and Bryon). And so I did. Also, a bit of a difference from normal Bruce concerts in that there was no prohibition on photographic equipment, so what the heck, I brought a camera. As for the show... er... rally: The line-up to get in stretched around a couple campus buildings by the time we got there. Not really all that many people,...