October, New York, the Yankees and Mötley Crüe

Get used to hearing this today on the radio, TV, whatever...

Summer has come and passed

The innocent can never last

Wake me up when September ends

from our friends at Green Day.

There is a chill in New York City this morning, Autumn is upon us and I am battling the end of Summer by wearing a Cooke Street Aloha shirt for Aloha Friday here in the city. The weekend is upon us and I am actually a bit, well, exhausted thinking about it. Aside from Hebrew School for the girls, there is big happenings in Bay Ridge. The annual Ragamuffin Parade, which features kids in costumes, pre-Halloween, marching down 3rd Avenue, always a family affair, and then on Sunday, the 3rd Avenue Street Fair, the official end of Summer in our neighborhood. The 5th Avenue Street Fair launches Summer in June. Plus, Shayna has two birthday parties to attend, in addition to our regular weekend chores.

Of course what New York is really abuzz about is the baseball season. Three games left in the season and the Yankees have a one-game lead over Boston, with Cleveland still in the Wild Card hunt. And, the Yanks last 3 games are in Boston. What drama! Conceivably, if the Yankees lose more than one game, and Cleveland wins three, the Yankees could go from the driver's seat to the trunk. October is always exciting in this city, at least when the Bronx Bombers are winning. Alas, my Tigers are 25 games out of first place in their division, but still much-improved over last year, frightening as that sounds.

On other fronts, still reading through T.C. Boyle's Inner Circle, expect a report next week, along with Book #18 on my Top 20. However, let me throw a tawdry recommendation out there. Inspired by hearing this morning Motley Crue's recent Hurricane Katrina Relief performance of "Home Sweet Home" accompanied by Linkin Park's Chester Bennington, I'd like to recommend the Crue's biography from several years back, The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band.

It is by far one of the most depraved looks at a band that was influential in my early transformation from a pimply immature adolescent to a pimply immature adolescent that believed in a genre of music. I thought of myself as a metalhead in those days, but really I was nowhere near such a classification. I just liked the music. The Crue's debut album Too Fast for Love was one of three albums that I bought as a youth that formed the basis of my conversion to Metalhood. Just for the record, the other two were Judas Priest's Screaming for Vengeance and The Scorpions Blackout.

Anyway, The Dirt is your typical rock biography, but juicy juicy juicy with the rock star details. Pick it up at the library, buy it in paperback, it would make even Danielle Steele blush.