Singing the "Blues"?
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New York Dems vied to tighten their grip on power with redistricting. Another court ruling said not so fast.
Good morning! Today is Friday, April 1, and you are reading today’s section of Examiner+, a digital newsmagazine serving Westchester, Putnam, and the surrounding Hudson Valley.
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Good morning, readers. We promised you experimentation with Examiner+ and today’s edition is the latest in our efforts to deliver you meaningful content in a variety of ways. It might be hard to believe, but even as the guy who runs this news organization, I am sometimes interested in articles other than the ones we prepare and publish ourselves. With all that in mind, I wanted to share with you, subscriber friends, some of what I’ve been reading lately.
The first piece I wanted to flag for you is by the great Jeff Pearlman. It’s funny with Jeff because he’s one of my favorite sportswriters but he’s also a guy I happen to know. I first met Jeff when I was a young reporter at North County News, a now-defunct Yorktown-based weekly newspaper. Jeff grew up in Mahopac and had just published a book called The Bad Guys Won. The 2004 book was about the (legendarily) crazy 1986 Mets championship team. That team meant so much to me as a baseball/Mets-obsessed kid growing up on Long Island in the 80s so I jumped at the chance to write a “local boy makes good” story about Jeff’s new book. Jeff and I stayed acquainted over the years, and he’s even written a couple of guest columns for us here on Examiner+. Anyway, Jeff has a terrific newsletter where he writes about journalism. I’ve always admired Jeff’s crisp, evocative, passionate writing style. I was really happy for Jeff when I heard his 2014 book about the Showtime Lakers was being turned into an HBO show. The world premiere of Winning Time was earlier this month, and Jeff writes here about one of the “most magical, splendid, wonderful, fantastic, meaningful, impactful, insane nights of my life.” Check it out:
Next up is a fun piece published by the Charlotte Ledger. The Ledger is run by an incredibly generous guy named Tony Mecia. Tony has been a trailblazer for the industry, leading the way on how to publish local news on email newsletters in a financially viable fashion. On a more personal level, Tony has provided Examiner Media with invaluable mentorship as we’ve been dipping our toes in these newsletter waters to complement our newspaper coverage. Tony is the type of guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously but still produces seriously terrific work. Last month, he sent his humor columnist undercover as a server to assess the state of the restaurant industry. I just thought it was a really nice, breezy read. So here you can learn about Colleen Brannan’s “nerve-wracking five-hour shift.” Enjoy:
Like the rest of the planet, I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time in recent days thinking and talking about Will Smith’s vile attack on Chris Rock at the Oscars. Coincidentally enough, Smith’s memoir was one of only a small handful of books I read this entire busy winter. So I happened to be pretty deeply steeped in the way Smith describes his own psychology when I watched the now-infamous slap replay on a loop the next morning. With that knowledge of Smith’s wiring in mind, his horrendous display seemed to align with the insecurities he describes in his (excellent) self-titled book, Will. Smith writes about how he struggled over the years with his reputation as being perceived as “soft” as compared to many other Black rappers of the 80s and 90s. Beyond that, at his core, he suffered from feeling like he didn’t do enough as a child to protect his mother from his abusive father. Those insecurities have colored his view of how to display his (view of) manhood to the women in his life, especially to his wife. It felt easy to draw a straight line from that mental baggage to Smith’s purposeful physical and verbal attack on Rock. Smith talks often of being desperate for Jada’s approval. Of all the countless takes on the incident, the best one I’ve seen comes from the basketball legend (and excellent writer/thinker) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who knows Smith personally. While Smith is an incredibly impressive person in myriad ways, he did a really, REALLY bad thing. As Abdul-Jabbar says, “Slapping Chris Rock was also a blow to men, women, the entertainment industry, and the Black community.” Check this one out for sure:
OK, forgive me for a second, because I know many of you have already read it, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t spotlight our very own Sherrie Dulworth’s fantastic interview with New York Times crossword puzzle guru/Pleasantville’s own Will Shortz. I figure some of you might occasionally miss an Examiner+ email or two (tsk, tsk) and I wanted to be sure I gave you another chance to catch up. (Side note: Way back in 2012, Examiner Media sponsored a “politics and ping pong” party at Shortz’s Westchester Table Tennis Center, where local elected officials battled for ping pong glory. Through that experience and many other encounters over the years, I’m always struck by Will’s humble nature, kindness, and eagerness to support local news. And I’m inspired by his commitment to two such fundamentally dissimilar passions.) Anyway, here you go, straight from the Examiner+ archives:
The next and final recommendation is for a piece written by James Schapiro for his “Shea Bridge Report.” A while back I was emailing Judy Ross of the White Plains-based Steffi Nossen School of Dance as part of Judy’s role in community relations. One day Judy told me her grandson James’ publishes a newsletter about the Mets, and shared a link to his work. I was really impressed with the skillful writing and astute observations. In fact, I liked his writing so much that James subsequently freelanced a couple of pieces for us. In a recent column, James addresses the problem “the shift” has caused our National Pastime, and what to do about it. In short, James suggests an embrace of an “infielders must stay in the infield” rule. Read on for more and have a great day! Here you go:
Till tomorrow,
Adam
Adam Stone is the publisher of Examiner Media. When not running local news outlets or chauffeuring his children, Stone can be found on the tennis courts at Mt. Kisco’s Leonard Park, on his Ipad playing chess, or on the floor cleaning after his two dogs.
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