New Year, Same Substack
Gilead, Banzai Marina, The Rascals, Pelé, Ho Ho Hose
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. I hope you enjoy the picks and pics.
Fave Five 14: New Year, Same Substack. Religious Reverend (Gilead), Special Sashimi (Banzai Marina), Dino Danelli (The Rascals), Soccer Superstar (Pelé), and Ho Ho Hose.
Happy New Year! I’ll let ABBA say it in song:
But according to Larry David, it’s too late for this:
Book Best Bet
This book is about faith, family, friends, morality, and love. Ann Patchett recommended it, so I ordered a copy. Barb had read it previously but had donated her copy to the Northville Library. She didn’t care for it, telling me that it was too much about religion for her liking.
At times it did feel as though I was reading the text of a sermon or a divinity class lecture. Ultimately, it rewarded me for sticking with it. The book’s beauty is quietly satisfying and comforting. The main character struggles with his relationship with his namesake, the difficult son of his best friend. It is gratifying to see how Reverend Ames eventually works through this challenge successfully.
From Amazon: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award, Gilead is a hymn of praise and lamentation to the God-haunted existence that Reverend Ames loves passionately, and from which he will soon part.
In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle.
Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father--an ardent pacifist--and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend's wayward son.
This is also the tale of another remarkable vision—not a corporeal vision of God but the vision of life as a wondrously strange creation. It tells how wisdom was forged in Ames's soul during his solitary life, and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.
Gilead is a refuge for readers longing for that increasingly rare work of fiction, one that explores big ideas while telling a good story. As John Ames might point out, it's a remarkable thing to consider.” ― Olivia Boler, San Francisco Chronicle
Whispered in Your Ear, A Moral Man’s Good Word by Ann Patchett
Gilead is a book that deserves to be read slowly, thoughtfully and repeatedly. If Marilynne Robinson takes her time writing a third novel, I imagine that this one could easily be savored for 23 years to come. I would like to see copies of it dropped onto pews across our country, where it could sit among the Bibles and hymnals and collection envelopes. It would be a good reminder of what it means to lead a noble and moral life—and, for that matter, what it means to write a truly great novel.
Restaurant Recommendation
Banzai Marina 120 S California St, Ventura, CA 93001
My brother David is a long-time friend of Yuji Horii, the owner and chef. Barb and I met David for dinner there last week, and Yuji took very good care of us. He kept bringing out beautiful and delicious creations until he was satisfied that we were full.
From the website: Owner and chef Yuji Horii was born in Tokyo, Japan, and came out to Los Angeles in 1978 with a love of surfing, beaches, American music and culture. In Los Angeles, he regularly made sushi for Hollywood's entertainment elite, becoming the leading sushi chef for many of the industry's top movers and shakers at Teru Sushi in Studio City. He opened his first restaurant in 2000, Banzai Sushi, in Calabasas. It quickly became the favorite sushi restaurant in the area, with regulars ranging from Stevie Wonder, the Kardashians, the Osbournes to the Van Halens. Banzai Sushi was included in the Michelin Guide at that time.
In 2013, Yuji decided to take his craft out to Ventura, whose beaches and community he has always loved. His new venture, Banzai Marina, opened in 2013 in the previous space of Sushi Marina. Chef Yuji works to blend Ventura's historic restaurant with his own spin on traditional Japanese and modern Southern California cuisine.
Marvelous Musicians
Dino Danelli, the band’s outstanding drummer, died on December 15, 2022. I was a huge fan of The Young Rascals, so I was very sad to hear this news from my brother David last week. I consider myself very fortunate to have seen one of the band’s last performances with all four original members. Watching the videos below reminded me of how great a drummer Dino was.
David and I first saw the Young Rascals on a Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon when we lived in Tenafly, New Jersey. Felix asked all of the viewers who had Young Rascals records to call and donate. We thought that was funny as we were not yet familiar with their music and assumed that they were a local New Jersey band without a large following. We were unfamiliar with their first three big hits but became big fans when “Lonely Too Long” was on the radio in 1967, followed by “Groovin'” and a long string of additional hits. We bought their albums, played drums along to the music, and learned more about the band members. “Lonely Too Long” remains one of my favorite songs. David has become friends with Felix and still admires his organ playing and singing.
Barb and I saw The Rascals in Once Upon a Dream at the Fox Theatre in Detroit on November 15, 2013. This is what I posted about that show: It’s A Beautiful Morning! What Is The Reason? I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore 'cause People Got To Be Free. It's Wonderful! How Can I Be Sure? I've Been Lonely Too Long, but now I’ve got A Girl Like You. You Better Run to Detroit and Come On Up to the Fox Theatre so you can be Groovin' to the Good Lovin' of The Rascals in Once Upon a Dream.
From Wikipedia: The Rascals (initially known as The Young Rascals) were an American rock band, formed in Garfield, New Jersey, United States, in 1965. Between 1966 and 1968 the New Jersey act embraced soul music, reaching the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 with nine singles, including the #1s "Good Lovin'" (1966), "Groovin'" (1967), and "People Got to Be Free" (1968), as well as big radio hits such as the much-covered "How Can I Be Sure?" (#4 1967) and "A Beautiful Morning" (#3 1968), plus another critical favorite "A Girl Like You" (#10 1967), becoming one of the best-known examples of the blue-eyed soul genre, along with the Righteous Brothers. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.
Felix Cavaliere (born November 29, 1942 in Pelham, New York) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and musician. He was a member of Joey Dee and the Starliters, best known for their hit "Peppermint Twist". Cavaliere sang vocals and played the Hammond B-3 organ for The Rascals. He later produced albums by other artists such as Laura Nyro and Jimmie Spheeris.
Edward Brigati Jr. (Eddie Brigati, born October 22, 1945 in Garfield, New Jersey) is an American singer and songwriter. Brigati shared vocal duties with other group members and played tambourine. Brigati had been a member of Joey Dee and the Starliters (having replaced his brother, original Starliter David Brigati, in that group).
Gene Cornish (born May 14, 1944 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian/American guitarist and harmonica player. Early in his life, Cornish and his mother moved from Ontario to Rochester, New York. He became a talented guitar and harmonica player at a young age. In his later teen years (early 1960s) he made the rounds of the local clubs and bars in his area and worked with a number of bands.
Dino Danelli (born July 23, 1944 in Jersey City, New Jersey; died December 15, 2022 in New York City ) was an American drummer. He has been called "one of the great unappreciated rock drummers in history.”
Dino Danelli, Drummer Who Drove the Rascals, Is Dead at 78 by Clay Risen of The New York Times
A protégé of the great jazz drummers Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa, merged percussive virtuosity with a rock sensibility. Like Ringo Starr of the Beatles, he set the template for the rock drummer archetype: disciplined and precise, but with a flair that drew the crowd’s eye. He would twirl his sticks — a trick he learned from his sister, a cheerleader — and throw them in the air, before catching them without dropping the beat.
Danelli was responsible for the band’s first big hit. He was a fan of obscure soul records, and one day at a record shop in Harlem, he found a single by the Olympics, “Good Lovin’,” written by Rudy Clark and Arthur Resnick, which reached No. 81 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1965. “We said, ‘Let’s try it, let’s put a new version to it,’” he said in a 2008 interview with the drummer Liberty DeVitto. “It was just a lucky find.” The Rascals played the song during a 1966 appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” It soon topped the charts and — with its opening shout of “One, two, three!” — became one of the best-known songs of the decade.
Steven Van Zandt, the lead guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, had grown up as a die-hard Rascals fan. In 1997 he delivered the speech inducting the band into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, calling Danelli “the greatest rock drummer of all time.”
The Young Rascals were the first white band signed by Atlantic Records, home of Ray Charles, and it was among the few American rock bands to be accepted by Black crowds. The members included a clause in their contracts stating that they would perform only if a Black act was on the bill with them — a fact that meant large swaths of the South remained off limits.
My Playlist
Sports Star
Pelé died on December 29, 2022. I have only paid to attend a soccer game once in my life. On June 23, 1977 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Barb and I saw Pelé play for the New York Cosmos against the St. Louis Stars in a NASL game.
The Day Pelé Played Busch Stadium from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The greatest soccer player of all time had scored 1,268 goals over his illustrious career when the New York Cosmos faced the St. Louis Stars. But with tenacious marking from Bob O'Leary and Roger Verdi and acrobatic goaltending by John Jackson, the Stars kept the incomparable Pelé and the rest of the Cosmos off the scoreboard in a 2-0 victory.
Among his three shots, Pelé sent a header over the net and fired wide on a free kick. His frustration showed with 5 minutes to play when he literally tackled the Stars' Al Trost from behind. "He should have had a caution for that but I guess because it was Pelé the referee decided to let it go," Trost said.
The crowd of 32,605 at Busch Stadium was the largest to see a professional soccer game in St. Louis.
From Wikipedia: Edson Arantes do Nascimento (23 October 1940 – 29 December 2022), known mononymously by his nickname Pelé, was a Brazilian professional footballer who played as a forward. Regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and labelled "the greatest" by FIFA, he was among the most successful and popular sports figures of the 20th century. In 1999, he was named Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Committee and was included in the Time list of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. In 2000, Pelé was voted World Player of the Century by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) and was one of the two joint winners of the FIFA Player of the Century. His 1,279 goals in 1,363 games, which includes friendlies, is recognized as a Guinness World Record.
Pelé began playing for Santos at age 15 and the Brazil national team at 16. During his international career, he won three FIFA World Cups: 1958, 1962 and 1970, the only player to do so. He was nicknamed O Rei (The King) following the 1958 tournament. Pelé is the joint-top goal scorer for Brazil with 77 goals in 92 games. At the club level, he was Santos's all-time top goal scorer with 643 goals in 659 games. In a golden era for Santos, he led the club to the 1962 and 1963 Copa Libertadores, and to the 1962 and 1963 Intercontinental Cup. Credited with connecting the phrase "The Beautiful Game" with football, Pelé's "electrifying play and penchant for spectacular goals" made him a star around the world, and his teams toured internationally to take full advantage of his popularity. During his playing days, Pelé was for a period the best-paid athlete in the world. After retiring in 1977, Pelé was a worldwide ambassador for football and made many acting and commercial ventures. In 2010, he was named the honorary president of the New York Cosmos.
Averaging almost a goal per game throughout his career, Pelé was adept at striking the ball with either foot in addition to anticipating his opponents' movements on the field. While predominantly a striker, he could also drop deep and take on a playmaking role, providing assists with his vision and passing ability, and he would also use his dribbling skills to go past opponents. In Brazil, he was hailed as a national hero for his accomplishments in football and for his outspoken support of policies that improve the social conditions of the poor. His emergence at the 1958 World Cup, where he became a black global sporting star, was a source of inspiration. Throughout his career and in his retirement, Pelé received numerous individual and team awards for his performance on the field, his record-breaking achievements, and his legacy in the sport.
Top 10 Impossible Goals Ever
Pelé, the Global Face of Soccer, Dies at 82 By Lawrie Mifflin of The New York Times
A national hero in his native Brazil, Pelé was beloved around the world — by the very poor, among whom he was raised; the very rich, in whose circles he traveled; and just about everyone who ever saw him play.
“Pelé is one of the few who contradicted my theory,” Andy Warhol once said. “Instead of 15 minutes of fame, he will have 15 centuries.”
Celebrated for his peerless talent and originality on the field, Pelé also endeared himself to fans with his sunny personality and his belief in the power of soccer — football to most of the world — to connect people across dividing lines of race, class and nationality.
Before his final game, in October 1977 at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., Pelé took the microphone on a podium at the center of the field, his father and Muhammad Ali beside him, and exhorted a crowd of more than 75,000. “Say with me three times now,” he declared, “for the kids: Love! Love! Love!”
Pelé in the United States: Stories of his influence, kindness and humility from those who knew him by Pablo Maurer of The Athletic
Picture Pun
After Christmas, no more “HO, HO, HOs.”
