THE CHRISTIAN VS. BUBBA — KEN STARR/BILL CLINTON…AND BEYOND Wow. Kenneth Winston Starr. Ken. Kenny. Former Federal Judge and United States Solicitor General. To quote Wikipedia, “The United States Solicitor General is the third-highest ranking official (co-equal in ranking with the United States Associate Attorney General) in the U.S. Department…

KEN STARR–DEAD AT 76 His steady climb through the ranks of the conservative legal world was upended by Ken Starr’s unexpected journey into and through the intricate labyrinth of a presidential saga rife with sex, lies, and audiotape. Before that, Starr served as a widely respected appeals court judge and…

VENUS AND SERENA…OR SERENA AND VENUS…OR THE BEST LIFE HAS TO OFFER What more could possibly be said about Venus and Serena Williams, their father Richard, their mother, Oracene Price, their siblings, offspring, extendeds… and who knows whom else in their orbit? The bond these two sisters developed as children…

NENAD BACH Parkinson’s and ping-pong are only part of the story. Albeit, a big part. The story–that is–of Nenad N. Bach, a Croatian-American recording artist, composer, performer, producer and peace activist. The Zagreb native, 68, has performed with a wide range of luminaries over the years, including Luciano Pavarotti, Bono…

PETE CARRIL Pete Carril was a regular guy. Looked a bit like Professor Irwin Corey, an American stand-up comic, film actor and activist, often billed as “The World’s Foremost Authority.” Corey died at 102 in 2017. Carril died yesterday (August 15); he was 92. He was a knowledgeable, feisty bantam…

TIM KURKJIAN AND PEDRO GOMEZ Every day of the Major League Baseball season for twenty years — from 1990–2010 — Tim Kurkjian cut out the box scores from the newspaper of each game played and taped them into a spiral notebook. He estimates that this daily task, running 15 minutes…

TIM KURKJIAN I have written about Tim Kurkjian (and Pedro Gomez) on these pages before. Two stellar scribes. One, unfortunately, is no longer with us. [Pedro Gomez died on February 7, 2021, at 58.] On December 7, 2021, Kurkjian was named the recipient of the BBWAA Career Excellence Award for…

WEST END HOUSE MEMORIES The year was 1965. The United States occupied the Dominican Republic. Malcolm X was assassinated. NASA’s Mariner 4 flew by Mars. Race riots erupted in Watts. Muhammad Ali defeated Sonny Liston. And I first went to the West End House Camp. I’ll never forget it. I…

HENRY RONO AND MO FARAH I remember Henry Rono when he was young. I was young then, too. Today, Henry Rono is 70. In the 1970s, during running’s boom years, it was a ‘Catch-22’ scenario for him. Hamstrung, stymied and then stifled by Kenyan boycotts of the 1976 and 1980…