Blog: THEME FOR GREAT CITIES

"Hello, gorgeous." With that greeting, the first words uttered by 26-year-old Barbra Streisand in her film debut in the 1968 musical Funny Girl , the ingénue from Brooklyn, New York, with the crooked, over-sized nose and the flawless singing voice entered the annals of popular culture. Next step: winning the Best Actress Oscar (tying with The Lion in Winter 's Katharine Hepburn) for her silver-screen reprisal of her Broadway portrayal of Fanny Brice, another legendary Jewish actress and singer from New York City. The rest is history-making stardom, one of the most [...]

You know you've been thoroughly entertained when, over the course of an afternoon in Chiangmai, Thailand, you've seen elephants score soccer goals, shoot hoops and paint landscapes on a canvas with their trunks. The monkey business was no less impressive. One of them lifted weights, another showcased monkeys' numerical skills (someone in the audience of five would pick a number -- say, "seven" -- and the monkey would pick the card with "7" on it, even when it was face down), and yet another one, "Monkey Jordan," shot hoops and made them all except for one. (What is it with [...]

The world "legend" is so carelessly bandied about these days, overused, abused and applied to practically anyone who ever managed to secure more than 15 minutes of fame. But in the history of celebrity, few have deserved the modifier "legendary" more than Dick Clark, who died on April 18 at age 82 following a massive heart attack in Santa Monica, California. We'll be hearing it a lot from now until next year's Grammy Awards, as the tributes to Clark continue to pour in. In some ways, Clark shaped and influenced my youth as much as any musical [...]

Leave it to my expat brother Alexi, who has been living in Toronto since the end of the last century, to set me straight and send me a list of key mainstream Canadian artists that I left out of my previous post. Some of them I've never heard of (Angela Hewitt? Ben Heppner? Canadian Brass? jacksoul?), which sort of makes me wonder what I'm missing out on. Crash course time! Others I'm not terribly familiar with -- or in love with -- outside of a few singles or their glowing industry reps (Crash Test Dummies, Steppenwolf, Diana [...]

It's a shame that it's up to Justin Bieber and Carly Rae Jepsen to wave the Canadian flag in the U.S. Top 10 right now. ( Drake , please come back, and bring Rihanna with you!) The U.S. neighbor to the north has contributed so much more and so much better to popular culture over the years: William Shatner, Michael J. Fox, Ryan Gosling , Ryan Reynolds, Rachel McAdams and Degrassi . But it's in song that Canada has truly excelled, though it seems to be rarely acknowledged. The British invasions [...]

I like to think that I'm above begrudging the success of others, though I'm only human, so I'm probably not. For the past seven weeks, I've held my tongue as Carly Rae Jepsen's single "Call Me Maybe" has ascended Billboard's Hot 100. Now that it's sitting at No. 10 in the U.S. and perched atop the UK singles chart in its debut week, I can no longer contain myself. Why?! Nothing against Jepsen, who seems like a lovely person. She has a great name (though it's probably better suited to the country charts), and [...]

I have never loved Beastie Boys as much as I probably should. And I think it's a bit premature to be celebrating the trio's entire body of work, or Red Hot Chili Peppers', for that matter -- at least not before bestowing such an honor on Linda Ronstadt and ELO (Electric Light Orchestra). As for Guns N' Roses, I was probably the only person on the third floor of Hume Hall at the University of Florida who didn't get excited every time Sweet Child o' Mine" and "Paradise City" played on the radio or MTV during freshman year. [...]

Remember Summerland , the mid-'00s TV series that was supposed to make Jesse McCartney a star? If not, don't worry. You're not alone. The show ran for only 26 episodes on the WB from June of 2004 to July of 2005 before it was cancelled. If I hadn't been working at Entertainment Weekly at the time, editing the TV reviews section, I might have overlooked it, too. That's why I'm at a complete loss to explain why, seven years later, it's still running on the Sony channel in Thailand. I mean, is there really [...]

Part 1. "You Are in My System" The System Don't you hate it when one-hit wonders become semi-famous (for 15 minutes or less) for the wrong song? Me, too. Which is why, as much as I appreciate the strong craftsmanship of the System's 1987 No. 4 hit "Don't Disturb This Groove," I always kind of resented it, too (the song, not the craftsmanship). The duo had actually released its greatest hit five years earlier, when "You Are in My System" limped to No. 64 on Billboard's Hot 100. (Perhaps as a consolation prize, it made [...]

Just in case yesterday's Facebook status update -- "Maybe I'm really getting old and hopelessly cranky, but why does 'party' (the noun AND the verb) always have to involve such loud music? Can't people have a good time without damaging their ear drums, keeping me awake and prohibiting meaningful conversation without shouting?" -- didn't give it away. 1. I went to bed before midnight on New Year's Eve ( Songkran Eve?) -- 11.23pm, to be exact -- last night, and I didn't feel like I was missing anything. 2. [...]

"Are you okay?" "Watching news..." So read the subject line and the opening line of the email I read first thing this morning from my friend Deirdre in New York City. The last time I received such a cryptically worded email was six years ago when I was on vacation in Buenos Aires. After a brief Internet search, I found out that I was out of a job, thanks to the folding of Teen People magazine, and free to move to BA. Although there could very well once again [...]

Now here I go breaking my own edict. But then, there's nothing romantic going on here. I'm around friends, and friends share everything, right? Well, maybe not everything , but I'm not above discussing No. 2s with those nearest and dearest to me -- as long as they know that I would never, um, stoop to doing such a thing. For years, I believed that people actually bought that. That's why I would never go near a public toilet with the intent of doing anything more than a quick, easy No. 1. I still remember my [...]

"Your disco needs you," Kylie Minogue sang 12 years ago. Lately, mine have been killing me -- not so softly, with one terrible song after another. When did dance music become not only unlistenable outside of the club but virtually undanceable inside of it, too? Maybe I'm just getting old, and the disco is simply no longer my playground, but I'd like to think I can still cut a rug when the time and the groove call for it. (Another sign of my impending old age: I use phrases like "cut a rug"!) Every [...]

"Can I talk to you about something important?" While I always welcome questions outside of the normal range -- "Where are you from?" What do you do?" "Top or bottom?" -- and I'd do anything to help a friend, I can't think of eight worse words in the English language: "Can I talk to you about something important?" They're right up there with "We have to talk." They're never followed by anything good. At least I knew my friend wasn't about to break up with me. But what he revealed after a dramatic brace-yourself-for-a-whopper [...]

When did Jada Pinkett-Smith become such a strong actress? Her TNT series Hawthorne was cancelled last year after three seasons, but like a number of defunct U.S. and UK shows (including Must Be the Music , a British TV star search that might be more suspenseful had it not originally aired way back in 2010), it's still in rotation on Thailand's Sony channel, where it's now in its final season, and which only just finished airing the Desperate Housewives season in which Edie Britt was killed off. [...]

How does a three-man, two-woman band follow-up a smash musical soap opera that produces four Top 10 hits and becomes one of the biggest hits of the decade? If the group is Fleetwood Mac (whose 1977 magnum opus Rumours is one of the 10 best-selling albums of any decade), it goes sort of bat-shit crazy. With "Tusk," the title track and first single from its 1979 follow-up, FM continued its Top 10 streak (which would stop at six, with "Sara," Tusk 's seond single) by pulling out the salad bowl and tossing [...]

This week I've been conducting a little experiment. It's something I stumbled upon partly by accident, partly by design. It began last week when my friend Lori posted the link to a New York magazine article titled "Listening to Xanax" on my Facebook wall. The piece was an essay about how we over-medicate ourselves to ward off that old devil called anxiety. It reminded me of a post I wrote here in February, "High Anxiety: This Panic Disorder Is Killing Me!" , about my own 15-year-long battle with panic disorder. [...]

I'm still no "Belieber" -- and I probably never will be. But today I finally listened to Justin Bieber's new song "Boyfriend" (the first single from Believe , his forthcoming third album), and I did something I never expected to do. I listened to it again. And again. Twice. I know, crazy, right? I'll probably be completely over it by tomorrow, but here are five reasons why "Boyfriend" is the best of Bieber so far, if only for one night. 1. You can't dance to it. That's right. [...]

I have visited puente hills nissan a couple of times in the past when searching for numerous Nissan Los Angeles car dealerships. I recently bought a new home in California and had to do a bit of research on dealerships available. After visiting most of them in person, two that stood out included Puente Hills and Nissan Los Angeles. I have heard about both of these before from friends I made after moving, [...]

Sundays, bloody Sundays. For me, the ones that follow Saturday nights out on the town are pretty hit or miss, mostly miss. It's always nice to indulge in all of the comfort food that doesn't seem quite as bad for you as it does every other day of the week, but I've learned not to expect scintillating conversation, never on a Sunday. Yet there I was yesterday with Rudie, my new friend who is visiting Bangkok from Melbourne, on a conversational roll. On a lazy Sunday afternoon, both of us were doing some heavy lifting. [...]