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My #4 most successful friend  — Hollywood hotshot Sarah Kucserka — recently posted a "Top 10 TV Shows of the '00s" missive on Facebook that I won't even try to compete with. Shamefully, I've probably only seen two of the shows on her list anyway. (Less shameful is that the list was littered with teen dramas, so I don't feel that bad.) I can't compete with Sarah for many reasons, not least because I've never been a paid writer on a hit network TV show. Also bear in mind: we have basic cable; we don't have Tivo or a DVR; hell, I've never even paid for a television. Our current model — the biggest we've ever owned, at 27 decidedly non-flat, non-HD inches — is a hand-me-down from someone who moved to New York two years ago. Still, I’ve watched the magic movie box enough in the past ten years to have formed a useless opinion on the subject, which I'm happy to share with you! Top Five TV Shows 2000-2009 5. The O.C. - I know, I know.....

It's extremely hard for me to fathom that the 2000's are coming to a close. I mean, I've barely accepted that the nineties are over, much less this decade. Plus, it was unquestionably one of the most action-packed ten years I'll ever experience, both universally and personally. A helluva ride! (I just wanted to use "helluva.") I find lists and statistics to be a helpful coping mechanism in times like this. So, as the decade winds down, let's tally it up, top five style. Since I'm playing a show this Saturday (hey, you should come!) we'll begin with... Top Five Gigs 2000-2009 5. McGovern’s - Gorey, Co. Wexford, Ireland (7/29/05) Playing in my namesake town in Ireland was even more of a treat than I thought it would be. The other musicians were terrific — is there anyone in Ireland who can’t sing? — and the fans who frequented the place were real music lovers. 4. Wirstrom's Pub - Stockholm, Sweden (1/3/05) I never knew I had such a f...

I really loved the commercials for Bing , Microsoft's newish search engine, when they came out. Except... it's hardly a "decision engine," as advertised. It's just another search engine — and not even a particularly good one, based on my limited experience with it — only with pictures. Somewhere along the way I signed up for their travel deal alerts — actually, I think it's because they bought out Farecast.com, the site that tracked airfare prices to let you know if they were rising or falling — and now they send me Bing Travel Deals from Boston. And every week, it's a different version of the same three stupid deals, to the same three stupid places: Orlando, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. Bing: it's not a deal when these destinations are always cheap. Moreover, if I don't absolutely have to , I really don't want to go to LA, or Las Vegas, or Orlando, pretty much ever. I don't care if it's a last minute deal, or a weekend deal, or a d...

So we've got the ol' wintry mix heaving down upon us today. What a crock. I'll admit, I'm not ready for a full-on snowstorm, but it doesn't mean I want to be drizzled with frozen mush droppings all day. Gross! Anyway, over the weekend we picked up our Christmas tree, decorated, bought some presents, and sat by the fire with the house all aglow... I'm officially in the spirit. I love Christmas. Honestly, I (somewhat unconsciously) sing carols a ll year long . Every day — even during the summer — at some point, I have a Christmas carol in my head. But you know which decorations I'm not that into, for any holiday? Those blow-up lawn characters. I'm not some Grinch or Scrooge or cranky Republican or anything — in fact I think they're kinda fun when they're inflated — but when they're not on? Well, see below... it looks like Al Pacino just mowed down Santa and his peeps with an assault rifle, or perhaps an overworked elf went postal. A grizzl...

I am, and always have been*, a Mac guy. This should come as no surprise — anyone who does anything remotely creative for a living typically works in a Macintosh environment. It's just the way it is. Using Adobe software on a PC is about as fun as, well, using Internet Explorer on a Mac. Around November of 2004, I bought a few shares of Apple stock. (Literally, three or four shares. I am not a big-time investor!) I'd always loved their computers, and now it seemed other people were finally catching on — plus the iPod had taken off in a dominating way; I was even getting one for Christmas. When I got my iPod... well, I certainly loved it. But I also thought it could have been better. Apple isn't perfect, and in my book they've often been guilty of over-simplifying things, sometimes to the user's detriment. In the case of the iPod? There was no freaking "off" button! You had to push the play button and something else simultaneously, which you wouldn't...

Tonight is the semi-annual " Wine Experience " at Blanchard's in Jamaica Plain (a more appropriate name would be the "Million Wine Tasting"). They have about 20 tables set up, one for each of their wine reps, and each rep has five or six wines that they distribute. You get to taste and savor them all, from smooth $8 malbecs you can take home (at a 20% discount no less) to $70 cabernets that you'll never get to taste again. You even get a booklet at the beginning that describes what you'll find at each table, with space for your own notes — which, after sampling several dozen reds, you'll need. The funny thing is that, well... as much as it's a classy event, it's still a booze-soaked free-for-all. There are insufferable pretentious types roaming the store, casting judgment and hogging the tables, and there are wasted college kids that stagger out after hitting all 20 tables in 20 minutes. The last time we went, we tried to find a happy medi...

Yesterday, we got audited — but in a good, non-IRS kind of way. If you're a National Grid (or NStar) customer, you can get a free energy audit through MassSave thanks to what I imagine is some government- or state-funded program. The guy was wicked nice, and he inspected the entire house — including basement, walls, attic, etc. — for insulation (or lack thereof) and places where we might be losing heat, and then, for free, installed CFL light bulbs throughout both apartments — must have been like 15 of them — and a new water-saving shower head. He even offered to install door sweeps. And again — it was all free! Afterward, you get a cool print-out of all your expected savings and information about the sundry rebates and no-interest loans available for energy-saving improvements. I do wonder — this has to be some kind of racket, right? It's never made sense to me that National Grid would want to encourage you how to use less electricity unless the government is making it ...

On Saturday we went to a friend's wedding at the Charlestown Navy Yard (outside the  Commandant's House — class!). The all-day downpour was unfortunate, but it was still a good time. It typically takes a (very scientific) combination of gin, tonic, and inspired music to get me out on the dance floor, even at a wedding. On Saturday night, without any gin on hand, it was Sam Octoberfest and the Killers' masterful "Mr. Brightside" that finally coaxed me out of my shell. After jumping around for awhile, Gina and I headed outside the tent to cool off. While we were out on the lawn, Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain" came on back in the tent. We both love that song, so we started dancing a bit, by ourselves. And when the breakdown part kicked in — you know the part — well, away from the crowd, in the murky post-rain moonlight... we started hippie dancing on the grass: spinning around, twirling and giggling like giddy collegiate stoners. It was so much...

I'm not exactly successful by conventional standards. I mean, I earn less money now than I did three years ago... is taking a pay cut to sate your idealist nature one of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People? I can't imagine it is! But, by my own standards, I consider myself a success. I've been played on the radio. I've been published . I found love. I live by the ocean! These were all on the Master List. And if you had told me in college that one day I'd refuse offers of hundreds of dollars to play on St. Patrick's Day? I'd have flipped out. However, I have some truly amazing friends — inspiring people who are successful not just by my standards, but by the rest of the world's, too. There are many more that deserve mention, but for now, here are my... Top Five Most Successful Friends: 5. Andrea Tompkins Not long ago, Andrea was just like you or me, working away at a nonprofit in Boston. Then she went to law school in D.C., whence she lande...

The first people to ever hear this song were my wife-to-be and her friend Kerri, who were stopping by to check out our apartment on Comm Ave. I had just finished writing it and wanted to play it for someone. (Yeah, and so maybe I wanted to impress Gina, too, which makes me embarrassed. I was pretty smooth , let me tell ya.) Anyway, I've always loved this song, even though it's kind of dark and melancholy. It was a dark and melancholy time — I'd just gotten back from a life-altering trip to Ireland, been laid off, and had no idea what to do with my life. I was writing a ton of music but had no money to record any of it. I desperately wanted to travel more, and had actually signed up for WWOOF in the UK & Ireland. Thankfully, Gina moved in shortly after, and I began driving her to work each morning, which made me feel worthwhile! (Yeah, that's pretty much all it takes. I just like to have a purpose.) Gray Blue Morning © 2004 by Jon Gorey Oddball chords...

Well, I can't fight it any longer. The sick has finally got me. Oh, don't worry, I'm not swine flu sick or anything like that poor college kid . (Can you believe that? It's wicked sad. Whole campuses are like, infirm! It's mad. The first week of college should be the best week of your life, meeting hundreds of new people on equal footing, with a chance to define yourself on a blank slate. You should be exploring and conquering your new world, roaming from new class to new party with new friends — not in the sick bay. Poor kids.) No, this is just that run of the mill cold you get when it's warm outside and then cold inside, and then it's cold outside, and then it's warm again and your body's tired of playing games so it just gives up. Plus everyone on the T has been hacking all over me for the last two weeks; it was bound to happen. And I got like, an hour of sleep last Wednesday night so that couldn't have helped things either! But it did...

Saturday night, after a gorgeous day watching Will Dailey perform outdoors and savoring some  Great Pumpkin Ale  at the Cambridge Brewing Company, we finally returned home to a chilly house — and lit our first fire of the fall. Summer, I barely knew ya. Now, I'm a huge fan of fall; October is even my favorite month , by far. But between the second cloudiest June on record , my workaholic month of July, and our late August sojourn to the cool, damp, west coast of Ireland, I kind of feel like I missed out on summer. For the first time in years, I'm not quite ready for apple picking, or football, or sweaters. I mean, I probably donned shorts all of a dozen times in the last three months! What happened ? Anyway, this post is actually about a book: Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger. Read it, and you will love it. It's hilarious, charming, and surprisingly beautiful. We met Mr. Kluger just last week at the Harvard Square " Bookish Ball ," and I got him to s...

It's been a little over a week since we got back from Ireland. Gina and I promised ourselves we'd try to bottle (mentally) the inspiration and exhilaration we felt, to keep us going for awhile upon our return... it's lasted this long anyway, which is more than I expected! In related news, I just took my first of 12 Irish fiddle lessons through  Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éire , which was awesome. I'm so excited about this, and the timing of the class was serendipitous; I'm hoping I can keep my momentum going through the dreary Saturday mornings that are sure to lie ahead in November and December. In more related news, I'm going to start playing out a little more (by a little more I mean more often than not at all , which has been the norm of late), so keep an eye out for upcoming shows. I'm officially inspired again. Thank you, Ireland! We've got lots to catch up on. For starters: The Pats Last night during the Patriots' season opener, during the...

Growing up, there was nothing exciting to eat in our house. There was no microwave popcorn or string cheese. There was no soda. There were no cookies, or Pop Tarts, or ice cream sandwiches. Once in a while there were plain potato chips — or on blessed, rare occasions, Doritos — left over if my parents had thrown a party. Friends described our refrigerator as "full of nothing." It was always jammed to (or beyond) capacity — but with broccoli, onions, condiments, raw meats, plain yogurt (ick!), wheat germ, pungent cheese, olives, butter, random leafy things... nowadays that doesn't sound SO bad, but as a kid? There's really nothing you can do with that ingredient list. The only thing that mattered to me in that bleak, crowded fridge, was the gallon of milk. Because when we went grocery shopping, I was allowed to pick out one box of junk cereal. I can't overstate the importance of this decision. My choice would have to serve not only as my breakfast for the for...

Those sly rascals at Dunkin Donuts just up-sold me! For those of you not familiar with the shame and disillusionment associated with Excessive Buzzword Exposure, "up sell" is markety-speak for making me buy more than I was initially going to. There's a big sign up by the register offering any number of wonderful treats — five munchkins, a raspberry danish, those toasted home fry things — for "just 99 cents" with any drink purchase. "What a DEAL !" I exclaimed to myself. And I promptly added three chocolate and two cinnamon munchkins to my medium coffee. I had been prepared to buy 2-3 munchkins, because I wanted a little sugar rush — it's a big day here after all (I shouldn't even be writing this, but I'm about to crack, so give a fella a break, huh?) — which only cost 25 cents each. And yet the idea of five for a buck! So enticing! They got me to spend an extra 50 cents... and like it. I walked out feeling like they did me a favor! Now t...

So, like, we're in the middle of summer? When did that happen? What was this, the fifth nice day we've had since April? I'm way behind on my summer fun! Anyway — let me just say that I love our president. And it feels great to say that. Also, the Red Sox (and my fantasy team, for that matter) are somehow in first place as of the midsummer classic. It feels great to say that too!

Well, it finally happened — I woke up this morning with over a hundred dollars charged to my bank account from a random grocery store in Brooklyn, N.Y. That's just swell! The amazing thing is I had a voicemail from Bank of America waiting to tell me about all this. They froze my account and everything before I even know it happened, and will reimburse me for the fraudulent charge. Good on them! I'm thinking this is direct a result of running our Saturday night bar tab at J.J. Foley's on my debit card instead of a credit card (see where responsible money-management gets you?). Not that the bartenders would have done anything with the card, but at the end of the night I left the paid check in the leather billfold thing right on the bar, and the place was SLAM-crowded. We could barely squeeze ourselves to the exit. Who knows who could've yanked the receipt out of there, and sometimes (way too often, really) those credit card slips have all your card info on them, even the...

My wife's birthday is today (happy birthday, babe!), and as we were driving in to work this morning, the perfect birthday gift hit me... except, it was a little late for that.  If I were a more awesome husband, with more (ok maybe  some is the word) discretionary income, I would have secretly booked a trip to someplace fabulous for the weekend, sorted it out ahead of time with her coworkers and boss, packed a bag for her, and kept it all hush hush until we hit the exit ramp on I-93 where one lane goes to her office and the other one goes to Logan Airport. And I'd have just veered off toward the airport, giving her a little panic attack about how I finally did it, after all these trips I took the wrong turn and we're going to be late for work and oh my, and then I'd turn to her and say, "We're not going to work today!"  Wouldn't it be great if I were more awesome?? Alas... I am not. I dropped her off at her office. Y'know, so she can earn the money...

This article in the N.Y. Times  details the latest textbook publishing vendor to collapse as the industry continues to flounder. It was a small shop in New York, and my alma mater Houghton Mifflin (ugh, fine, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ), probably their biggest client, allegedly stopped paying them, so they stopped paying their employees. More likely, they just weren't paying them quickly enough. That's sort of what happened when I worked at ill-fated Publicom, Inc., a vendor in Cambridge that closed down without ever paying me and many other employees our last few paychecks. (Luckily, I was like 25 years old and able to handle free time and unemployment checks with a certain grace. If that happens now I'll be S.O.L.) The interesting thing is how well this article (sent to me by Gina, who's still in the business) sums up the work I used to find so difficult to explain to friends and family members: "The opening pages of any respectable textbook include pictures of d...

There used to be a CompUSA on Market St. in Brighton when I lived in the area, and while it was good to have a giant, cheap, computer/gadget superstore nearby, it also made for the single worst retail customer service experience ever. You couldn't find one helpful employee in there to save your life. (You could find, now and then, an old, strange weirdo guy, who may or may not have worked there, who wasn't helpful at all.)  Well, since they closed the joint a few years ago, it's just sat there dying like a beached concrete whale, pretty much sucking the will to live out of anyone within 200 yards of the thing. But last week, a construction crew showed up and started ripping up the roof and excavating the parking lot. Now we're talking! They must have finally found a viable business to take over the site — what will it be? A new Whole Foods or Trader Joe's ? A decent restaurant or a bar? A Newbury Comics ? (For the love of God, maybe an actual T station, please?) ...

Last week I finished 1776 by David McCullough , a weighty enough volume o' nonfiction that I figured I ought to brag about it just a little. As I've mentioned before , thanks in large part to my Dad and my second grade teacher Mrs. Walsh, I learned just about everything there is to know about the American Revolution at an early age. From Lexington and Concord to Paul Revere's house to the Old North Church to Johnny Tremain, I ate it up. Couldn't get enough. It was like Star Wars , only real, and nearby. (Not that Star Wars wasn't real; I'm not saying that. But it wasn't on my second grade tests for some reason.) Of course, there's only so much you come away with as a kid. I'm finding now that I may have missed some of the, uh, nuances of the conflict. Such as how we were thisclose to losing the damned thing! 1776 actually begins in 1775, amidst the upbeat afterglow of the colonial army's surprisingly forceful showing at Bunker Hill. After mon...

The Yankees are in town, meaning the greatest rivalry in American sports is writing another page of another chapter in its storybook history. (Apologies to fans of UNC, Duke, Green Bay, Bears, Michigan, OSU, and others who think their rivalry is superior. They are great rivalries. They are not, however, the Red Sox-Yankees.)  Somehow the Sox have managed to win all seven of their match-ups with the Yanks so far this season (knocking on wood). The 21st century is a crazy place! We were lucky enough to go to Tuesday night's game, a blowout and a blast. And a few friends were at last night's nail-biter, including rock star Will Dailey (you should buy his new album ), who said it ranked in his top five all-time games.  Wherefore came the inspiration for today's Top Five:  Top Five Sox-Yankees Games I've Attended  5. Friday, April 13, 2001  In the prime of my rip-roaring early 20s, I went to this game with my three best buddies. Of course we sat in the bleachers like any o...

No, not quite. But it makes my list of nominees: Apple, Banana, Blueberry, Grape, Nectarine, Peach, Raspberry, Strawberry, Watermelon. Apple Pros: Grows virtually anywhere; incredibly diverse, with a type to fit every taste and every purpose, from homemade pies to boozy hard cider; acts as nature's toothbrush and keeps those damned doctors away; portable and well-sized for a snack; nice to pick in autumn; keeps well in storage. Cons: Kind of plain; can bruise easily or even harbor worms (gross!); seeds contain cyanide, which is like spy suicide poison, so that can't be good. By the way, I just don't get the Red Delicious — does anyone actually like those grainy things? Yeck.  Banana Pros: Plays well with others (smoothies, cereal, sundaes); protective peel keeps chemicals and fellow shoppers from contaminating your food; portable; great for kids; filling and healthy. Cons: Can get bruised and mushy too quickly; slime factor; seems to attract fruit flies in my experienc...

Often, the intent of an analogy is to illustrate a difficult or abstract concept more clearly to someone by likening it to a situation he or she is familiar with: The colonists didn't win at Bunker Hill, but it was a moral victory, because they held their own and inflicted so much damage on the reigning, more powerful champ... like in Rocky .  It's an — perhaps the ? — essential tool to understanding, I think. I love analogies. I love that everything in the entire universe can be compared to something else, creating this beautiful, intricate fabric of connections. I often say to myself, "Everything is like everything else." The analogy proves the simple, elegant beauty of our world. Most of all, I like to make sports analogies. Baseball, in particular. Football makes for great war comparisons, sure, but the subtlety, strategy, and slowly escalating drama of a baseball game offer much more to work with. Is there any situation in life without a symbolic parallel on the...

And the results are in: Buzz Cut: 1 Helmet Hair: 0 Since I first cut off my long hair (a good three years later than would have been appropriate; I'll admit it, I have trouble letting go), I've had no idea what to do with this thing people call "hair." Or, you might even call it "thinning hair." (I guess if you're mean you'd call it that. Meany.) After some initial trial and error — it had been almost 10 years since I'd gotten a real haircut — I figured out that I liked it cut short. But, you know, hair grows, and fast — even if you don't have a lot of it, what's there can grow like gangbusters. So I'd be delighted with a haircut for all of two weeks before it would get all helmet head-looking on me again. It caused much undue stress. (Not to mention the grease factor... we won't even get into that in this public sphere.) So I've been thinking about chopping it off for awhile, Sinead O'Connor style. (Hee hee — ok, maybe I...

It was cold and raw enough today that we had to fire up the wood stove, even though it was supposed to be on summer vacation. It instantly brought me back to winter — but, mercifully, I hope only for tonight! This brings us to today's Top Five list: Top Five Months 5. December Between the first snowfall (when you're not all cold and jaded and bitter about winter yet), Christmas (and its associated cheer and carols and lights and vacation), New Year's Eve, and NFL playoffs and college bowl games... there's a lot to love. 4. September As much as I hated going back to school as a kid, come the college years I absolutely yearned for fall. There's the dry, sunny weather, and those first cool nights when you can wear long sleeves and shorts. But, most importantly, it's the presence of life's most profound melancholy: the sad, poetic beauty that emerges wherever beginnings meet ends. The fleeting last days of summer, the nostalgia of leaving an old apartment and t...

The Massachusetts Senate approved a sales tax increase last night , raising it to 6.25%. By a veto-proof margin, at that. Booooo. After all that hemming and hawing about not raising the gas tax during a recession, they're raising a tax that applies to...  everything else!  I understand they need to raise revenue, and quickly. But you're telling me that instead of raising the tax on gasoline, which would encourage people to consume less gas — something pretty much everyone agrees is a good thing — the solution is to penalize people buying stereos, books, and cars at at time when we need that commerce the most? Weak. I'm writing this Michael Morrissey fella to give him a piece of my mind.  (If you like sending angry emails as much as I do, you can find your elected officials here .) Last night I went to my first Sox game of the season, a great one (not to mention a fast one), and before the game we met up at the new "Irish pub" adjacent to the House of Blues , cal...

I went to lunch today at Friendly's , with my friend and his toddler, and I gotta tell you... it's not the joy factory I remember as a child. The BBQ chicken supermelt was pretty good, and I even got a sundae — chocolate ice cream with peanut butter topping, yum — but, well, my friend said it best: "Halfway through lunch I started feeling inconsolably depressed about my own mortality." (Besides the drab, early '80s decor and sparse crowd, we were the youngest diners in there by a good 50 years.) In other news, I cleaned up chicken poop this weekend, which was a first! And hopefully a last.

After receiving only one ticket for an expired inspection sticker this year (side note: when we lived in the Back Bay and my sticker would lapse — it always does, I can't remember even once when I got an inspection ahead of time — my car, just sitting there, minding its own business, not going anywhere, would get pasted with tickets, like two a day, until I'd finally find a way to skip work and get to a damned inspection station during their stupid banker's hours. Stupid giddy meter maids. My car isn't worth the amount of tickets I've accrued in its lifetime. But I digress, wildly. In fact I feel like we're so off track we should probably just start this sentence all over again if we ever get out of this parenthetical jungle.) ...what was I saying?  Oh, right: After receiving only one ticket for an expired inspection sticker this year, I got my ride inspected today, and — I'll be! — it passed. It's a fairly new car (my first new car ever) but this year...