70s Rick profile picture

70s Rick

I will remember you. Your silhouette will charge the view.

About Me


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"TIME KEEPS ON SLIPPIN' SLIPPIN' SLIPPIN'
...INTO THE FUTURE....."

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A LITTLE SOMETHING FROM TINY TIM'S
"FOR ALL MY LITTLE FRIENDS" (1969 album):

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POUR YOURSELF AN APPLETINI,
LISTEN TO MY TUNES, KICK BACK, AND....
....ENJOY!!

GOD BLESS THE APPLETINI.
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BELOW YOU CAN READ ABOUT WHERE I WENT TO SCHOOL AND THE JOBS I'VE HAD UP TILL NOW. BUT HERE ARE STRANGE BUT TRUE THINGS ABOUT ME TOO BIZARRE TO BE IGNORED.
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*I used to watch MR. ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD as teenager and mocked him profusely, until one day a friend and I found his address and wrote to him. He wrote back and turned out to be the coolest guy!! And now, he's dead.
* When I was 13, I stumbled across this show on UHF TV, Channel 68 called THE UNCLE FLOYD SHOW. It was very low-budget and amazingly unprofessional. I wrote to him. He used to show pictures on the wall drawn mostly by kids, or teenagers. The kid who drew sharks was the "Shark King". The kid who drew cars was the "Car King". I drew a dot on a piece of paper and asked to be the "Dot King". Soon, a friend (the "Pipe King") and I got a letter from UNCLE FLOYD himself inviting us on the show--just like that! Our first appearance was on May 14, 1976. We caught on, ours was FAN CLUB 85 and I actually became a sort of NJ celebrity! I sent in loads of mail! Soon, two other guys wrote in claiming to be the "Dot King". This culminated in a special DOT ELECTION show which aired on election day in 1976. People from all over NJ voted, and I WON THE ELECTION retaining my title as DOT KING!!
* Since that time, I've written comedy pieces for friends and family, and have recently sent material to SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and the HOWARD STERN SHOW ON SIRIUS RADIO. SNL lifted an idea from one of my skits, rewrote their own script around it (discarding mine), transforming it into something hideously unfunny.
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NOW HERE'S MY "RESUME":
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I grew up in the 1970s and was 16 in 1978, so I'm definitely stuck in the 70s. I graduated 8th grade in 1976; graduated high school in 1980; graduated from USC (Los Angeles, CA) in 1984 with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of Letters Arts and Sciences.
I worked at McDonalds while attending USC. (Free hamburgers!) Upon graduation, I got a proofreading job at the now defunct Deloitte Haskins and Sells in 1985.
In 1988, I got a job at Prentice Hall and worked there until 2001--editing and publishing textbooks of varying disciplines, including: law, engineering, computer science, math, linear geometry, algebra, calculus, economics, statistics, etc. In 2001, I left Prentice Hall to pursue teaching. I wanted to teach high school English.
At that time, I attended graduate classes at Wm. Paterson College in NJ and I got my teaching certificate. I was a student teacher at Demarest Middle School, I substituted for a while, and got a job for a short time at a charter school in Clifton which I eventually left.
In between teaching jobs, I got a cold call from a small publishing house close to home who wanted to hire me as a proofreader. "Back to the future," I thought.
Small companies, the way they are, like to lay off people when they don't make their numbers. Working for a little over a year at this place, they laid me off. Damn!
I sent out a resume to John Wiley and Sons, a publishing house in Hoboken, and to my utter shock, was hired very quickly to fill a Senior editor position there. Within 2 weeks of being laid off, I had a job offer.
I was married in 1993 and created my own little family when I adopted my wife's young son, who has now grown. So: I have a wife, a son, mother and father in-laws, 2 brothers, 1 sister, uncles, aunts, more cousins than I can count (yes, my family's Catholic), 3 nephews, 2 nieces, and 2 great-nieces. Although my family is Catholic, I'm pretty much agnostic. I have read up on Zen Buddhism and the Baha'i faiths, which I find intriguing, and have a wife who's Wiccan. Not my cup of tea, but it keeps her happy.
TAKE A LOOK AT MY "PICS" OF CLASSIC ROCK ALBUM COVERS (AND MORE)!
What Rick Means
R is for Relaxed
I is for Intelligent
C is for Cynical
K is for Keen
FROM "YELLOW SUBMARINE"...grooooovy movie...timeless message...


My Interests



I enjoy writing short comedic pieces--mostly "in jokes" and parodies for family and friends. When the mood strikes me, I write more seriously: short stories and poetry, not for publication, just for personal pleasure or to share with anyone who shows an interest. **SEE MY BLOG FOR EXAMPLES OF THE POETRY I'VE WRITTEN!** I also have massive collections of CDs, videos, DVDs, books...you name it.

LET'S GO METS!!!

OTHER INTERESTS:

MAGAZINES --
National Lampoon, Mad Magazine, Rolling Stone, Atlantic Monthly, New York Magazine, Esquire, Entertainment Weekly, Starlog, Star Trek Communicator

NEWSPAPERS -- The Onion, The Record, The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Fair Lawn Community News, The Herald News, The Star Ledger, The Weekly World News (loved "Ed Anger's" column!)

HOBBIES -- writing parodies & satires, music collecting (CDs), comic book collecting, crossword/fill-in/word search/cryptogram puzzles.

FAVORITE PASTIMES -- watching classic 70s television, browsing in bookstores and music stores, following political elections: local hometown politics & national politics, reading historical Presidential Campaign behind-the-scenes novels, reading trashy sci-fi novels & legal thrillers, glasses of Chianti on the weekends, burning incense, "ordering out" (pizza: x-cheese and/or pepperoni), relaxing to smoky-lounge jazz, quality time with Krypto, baking garlic bread, loading up the deep fryer on New Year's Eve, constitutional walks in the park (preferably with iPod or dog).

I'd like to meet:

Anyone with similar interests who wants to "add" me.

You Are 50% Left Brained, 50% Right Brained
The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning.
Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others.
If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic.
Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet.

The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility.
Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way.
If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art.
Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports. Are You Right or Left Brained?

Music:



I love any rock music that uses the fuzz box, wah-wah pedal, Moog synthesizer, backwards tape loops, or creative multitracking...raw, live, or polished.

Movies:

  • .
  • Television:

    MASH, All in the Family, Hill Street Blues, Star Trek (orig. & later seasons of The Next Generation), Get Smart, The Munsters, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, Murder One, Boston Legal, The Practice, NYPD Blue, Frasier, Room 222, Laugh-In, Maude, Gomer Pyle USMC, The Odd Couple, Dick Van Dyke Show, Larry Sanders Show, The Paper Chase, Batman, Dragnet (1967-on), The White Shadow, The West Wing, 704 Hauser, Lost in Space, Grey's Anatomy, Cavemen, Deal Or No Deal, Medical Center, Marcus Welby MD, Barnaby Jones, Police Squad!, Adam 12, Emergency, Ed Sullivan Show, Love American Style, Columbo, WKRP in Cincinatti, Welcome Back Kotter (early seasons), Happy Days (early seasons), Monty Python's Flying Circus, Superman, Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp, Over There, Ghost Hunters, Damages, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Larry King Live (depending on the guest), Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Late Show with David Letterman, Saturday Night Live, Meet the Press, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Countdown with Keith Olbermann (political campaign coverage). LOVE all the televised political debates: Dems and Reps.
    FAVORITE RADIO SHOWS--Howard Stern on Sirius (guilty pleasure), Ron & Fez Show on XM, The Mike Malloy Show, The Stephanie Miller Show--both on Nova M Radio (out of Phoenix), The Peter Werbe Show, Opie & Anthony, Rocky Allen Showgram, Mike & the Mad Dog on WFAN, Mike & Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio (during baseball season), Rush Limbaugh (gotta keep up with the other side, too), Laura Ingram (ditto).

    Books:


    **SEE MY PICS FOR COVERS OF 70s TV-SHOW NOVELS FROM MY COLLECTION!!**
    I also enjoy reading: assorted poetry anthologies, TV-show behind-the-scene novels and biographies, rock musician biographies, etc.....basically I prefer the non-bestsellers and novels without linear plots.
    Some specific non-fiction favorites:
    Theodore H. White, Breach of Faith (and "The Making of the President" series, especially the one from the 1960 campaign)
    Woodward & Bernstein, All the President's Men
    David McCullough, John Adams bio
    Bill Carter, The Late Shift and Desperate Networks
    James Miller & Tom Shales, Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live
    Al Franken, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look At The Right
    Harlan Ellison, The Glass Teat
    Steven D. Stark, Glued To The Set: The 60 Television Shows and Events that Made Us Who We Are Today
    Lawrence Leamer, King of the Night: The Life of Johnny Carson
    Tim Brooks & Earle F. Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows (highly recommended reference material!)
    Joe Adamson, Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo: A History of the Marx Brothers and a Satire on the Rest of the World
    Peter Bart, The Gross: The Hits, The Flops--The Summer That Ate Hollywood
    Frank Jacobs, The Mad World of William M. Gaines
    Peter Brown & Steven Gaines, The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles
    Ray Coleman, Lennon: The Definitive Biography (highly recommended--don't confuse this one with Albert Goldman's horrible Lennon biography!)
    Paul McCartney, Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics 1965-1999
    George Harrison, I Me Mine
    Jerry Hopkins & Danny Sugerman, No One Here Gets Out Alive
    David Rees, Minstrels in the Gallery: History of Jethro Tull
    Ed Ward, Geoffrey Stokes, & Ken Tucker, Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll
    Joseph Lanza,Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong.

    Heroes:

    George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, John F. Kennedy, George McGovern, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, Fred Rogers, Woody Allen, George Carlin, Johnny Carson, Ian Anderson, Abbie Hoffman, Lenny Bruce, Mel Brooks, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Malloy, Neil Armstrong, Edward R. Murrow, John Lennon, George Harrison, Hawkeye Pierce, Gene Roddenberry, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Bob Kane, Curt Swan, Gil Kane, Denny O'Neil, Neal Adams, Jack Kirby, John Byrne, Carmine Infantino, Murphy Anderson, George Perez, Sergio Aragones, William Gaines, Michael O'Donoghue, Robert Smigel, Alex Ross...

    ...basically I have great admiration for people who have dedicated their lives to making others' lives more enjoyable or meaningful: poets, authors, musicians, inspiring speakers/politicians, artists, animators, TV/movie entertainers, and especially comedians..."edgy" is good, but I have a low-tolerance level for the mean-spirited.

    My Blog

    Rolling Stone: Top 100 Greatest Guitar Songs

    In the latest issue of Rolling Stone, they listed what they consider to be The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time.  Let me know what you think.  Who do you think they left off?  Who ...
    Posted by 70s Rick on Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:18:00 PST

    Obama: Memorial Day Address

    Senator Obama delivered these remarks (as prepared) today in Las Cruces, New Mexico... On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes, our sense of patriotism is partic...
    Posted by 70s Rick on Mon, 26 May 2008 02:42:00 PST

    Check out this video: George Carlin - The Planet Is Fine

    Runs about 13 minutes. Well worth every second of your time.Check out this video: George Carlin - The Planet Is Fine ..Add to My Profile | More Videos...
    Posted by 70s Rick on Sun, 18 May 2008 04:37:00 PST

    Hillarys Campaign: Gone & Forgotten? Why?

    With all of the comments going back and forth between Obama and McCain and Pres. Bush, political pundits declared that "the general election has officially begun".  In a speech overseas, Pres. B...
    Posted by 70s Rick on Sat, 17 May 2008 05:43:00 PST

    4/29/08: Transcript of Obamas Denunciation of Rev. Wright

    Video also available for viewing at:http://www.youdecide2008.com/2008/04/29/video-obamas-majo r-denouncement-of-jeremiah-wright/-----April 29, 2008:OBAMA:I have spent my entire adult life trying to bri...
    Posted by 70s Rick on Thu, 01 May 2008 11:51:00 PST

    Poem Ive Written: "Forever, Away"

    FOREVER, AWAY     Her breath clouds Ice-cloaked window Blurring vision Thick in spots Thin in others Corners powdered blind.   Faintly, the scene: His car pulling back, out Slips da...
    Posted by 70s Rick on Thu, 27 Mar 2008 01:06:00 PST

    ee cummings - "somewhere i have never travelled"

    Recited, as narrative, by Michael Caine (Elliot) as an expression of his ongoing and unrequited infatuation with Hannah’s sister (Lee) in Woody Allen’s "Hannah and Her Siste...
    Posted by 70s Rick on Sun, 23 Mar 2008 07:48:00 PST

    3/18/08: Sen. Barak Obama: Speech on Race

    For those of you who missed it yesterday, here’s the complete transcript of Barak Obama’s speech on "Race".  I thought it was brilliant.  ----- "A More Perfect Union" Remarks of...
    Posted by 70s Rick on Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:55:00 PST

    Woody Allen: Final Scene "Love and Death"--Brilliant!

    ...
    Posted by 70s Rick on Sat, 23 Feb 2008 04:41:00 PST

    Check out this video: Spock gets his groove-on

    Check out this video: Spock gets his groove-on Add to My Profile | More Videos...
    Posted by 70s Rick on Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:40:00 PST