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Arizona, Being young, Belfast, Best friends, California, Concerts, Eamon De Valera, Hypnotic Eye Tour 2014, Immigration, Irish Diaspora, Jerry MaGuire, Road trips, Songs for the Road, Soundtracks of our Lives, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
running down a dream – part one
I have been in love with Tom Petty for over 35 years. I can’t help it. I’m convinced that had Tomcat met me when I was younger and could hold a tune, he would have snagged me to be one of his “heartbreakers.” Yes, I know Stevie Nicks is the Honorary female Heartbreaker, but she had proximity on her side. The…
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Addiction, Dead Poet's Society, Death and dying, Depression, Good Morning Vietnam, Good Will Hunting, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Mental Health, Mrs. Doubtfire, Robin Williams, saying goodbye, Self-medicating, widowed
“i had to go see about a girl” ~ thank you, robin williams
Crawling across the bottom of the TV screen are the words “Robin Williams Dead at 63,” and as celebrity doctors weigh in on reports that the actor died at his home in Northern California today, apparently due to suicide by asphyxiation, I am drawn back to my first encounter with Robin Williams on the TV in our living room in Antrim. As they speculate about…
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Belfast, Friendship, Good Vibrations, JJ Cale, Loss, Memoir, Milestones, Music, Pop-in Records, Record Shops, Regrets, Social Media, Soundtracks of our Lives, Terri Hooley, The Clash, Twitter, Vinyl Records, Waking Ned Devine
belated . . . but thank you, jj cale
On my way home from work, I stopped by Half-Price Books, remembering that I still needed to buy George Orwell’s 1984 (the obligatory summer reading for a high school Senior). My lucky day, I found a well-worn paperback copy, published in 1961- the only one in the store – and I paid a dollar for it. Just a dollar to enter a world of newspeak…
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Antrim, Belfast, Belfast Peace Lines, bombing, British Army, Bruce Springsteen, Castledawson, Good Vibrations, IRA, Joe Strummer, La Mon House Hotel Bombing, Memoir, Mix tapes, Movies, Music, Northern Ireland, Omagh, Pop-in Records, Record Shops, Regrets, Sectarianism, Sherman Alexie, Terri Hooley, The Clash, The Miami Showband, The Troubles, The Undertones, Themes of childhood, UVF, Vinyl Records
for the record . . .
Dedicated to the legendary Terri Hooley . . . I rarely watch movies when I’m flying, but on the plane from Chicago to Dublin two Novembers ago, perusing my options for in-flight entertainment, I paused when I heard the unmistakable hiss that comes after a stylus is dropped right in the groove, and a Northern Ireland accent infused with Woodbine cigarettes: “Once upon a time in the city…
