Paul LaRosa's Blog
July 26, 2009
I visited the new Yankee Stadium this past week and it was very impressive and all of that but what really caught my eye was the calorie counts of all the snacks I used to enjoy at the ballpark.
I was flabbergasted to realize that a bag of peanuts, which I once chomped with abandon while throwing the shells all over the floor below me, added up to nearly 1,200!! A bag of Cracker Jacks? Over 800 calories!
All the joy went out of my snacking at the ballgame, almost. I still could not resist a small
July 24, 2009
In the aftermath of TMZ, the entertainment website, breaking the news about the death of Michael Jackson, there is a lot of soul-searching in some quarters of the media about the practice of paying for news. Harvey Levin, head of TMZ, has told the NY Times that he pays "tip fees" for news but does not pay for stories.
Is there a distinction there? I believe there is.
In the late 1970s, when I worked at the NY Daily News city desk as an assistant, one of my jobs (in addition to dealing with the ir
July 21, 2009
A great man died this past week — the memoirist Frank McCourt who also toiled for 30-odd years as a NYC schoolteacher. McCourt, who found himself an international best-selling author in his mid-60's, lived the NYC dream. He was a barfly and a drinker who hung around published authors all his life at the dearly-departed Lion's Head bar on Christopher Street, and then surprisingly became one of those famous authors himself.
McCourt was a born raconteur who told the same stories of his Irish childho
July 20, 2009
I was lucky enough to be quoted in a New York Times article this past week about Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor, and her years at Blessed Sacrament grade school which we both attended at the same time.
As a result of that article, I've heard from a ton of people from the old days — some of whom I knew and some I did not — but the biggest surprise was hearing from Father Vinny Gorman who was a great parish priest at BSS.
So here is some news about Father Gorman. For one thing he is no longer
