Somebody get to the contempo philosopher King known as Sting and inform him that I owe him one. (You know, synchronicity and all that.) Recently sick at home and determinedly trawling through a batch of Wagon Train episodes I wound up continually spying one of the grittier character guys in Hollywoodland, Robert Wilke, in a number of different appearances. At the same time, I also spotted the one and only Ernie B (born Ermes Effron Borgnino in Hamden, CT in 1917, better known as Ernest Borgnine) boarding that ol’ prairie train a few times too. Being a natural born, dyed-in-the-wool, genuine A#1 pop cult shamus, I couldn’t help but contemplate what exactly what the non-transferable magic quality that allowed a barrel-chested, bug-eyed, salt-of-the-earther like Ernie B to climb into starring roles on television and in the movies and sustain one hell of a lengthy career (199 movie and television credits since 1951) on top of it. (A career that recently included a top-billed performance in the recent Hallmark Channel’s original movie Wishing Well at the tender age of 92.)

Why Ernie B and not the always dead on Wilke? Why not another abjectly coarse minor icon of big and small screen masculine characterizations like Ted DeCorsica, M. Emmet Walsh, Bert Remsem, Adam Williams, Jack Elam, Claude Akins, Don Stroud, Strother Martin, Robert Webber, or James Gammon and dozens more? Did Ernie B, a few more of his ilk (Jack Palance, Warren Oates, and certainly Lee Marvin), have better acting chops, greater career circumstances, or simply all out more significant mojo?

One thing that never gets old in pop music is funny, mainly because there’s so little of it, Ween, Tenacious D, and Flight of the Conchords notwithstanding. Of course the comedy doesn’t work if you don’t have appealing hooks or great chops. When the latter includes pumping rhythms, popping syncopation, voices that can step out or blend, and enough smarts to put it all in a blender and still be identifiable as you and only you___ or them, as was the case of the New Rhythm and Blues Quartet (NRBQ), then you deserve the (nearly) forty year run you had.

Keyboardist Terry Adams’ loony hats and karate chops to the clavinet, the nightly draws from the Magic Box, exploding Cabbage Patch Dolls, otherworldly appearances by faux manager/wrestling goon Captain Lou Albano, all the while playing an everything-but-the- kitchen-sink brand of post-modern American music were just some of the goo that made NRBQ stick so hard.

Kelly Clarkson's "Already Gone" was THE OTHER pop masterpiece of 2009.

The song either gave you goosebumps or made you want to throw up--the true definition of a pop classic.

Hey, thanks, Kelly!  I'm headed for the toilet right now!

Tele-walking to the store in New York City with Abigail! However, out of "grocer avoidance" myself, I've enjoyed Chow Mein noodles and a Krispy Kreme for dinner, washed it down with Diet Coke, followed it up by Twizzler's Strawberry Twists for dessert... and now, time for a cigarette! Oh the life... but that's beside the point, the snow keeps falling and I'm trying to occupy my way overactive brain with something to do, other than junk-food...

Thought's of New York are swirling around my head. Thinking about coffee and chitter-chatter at the Odessa Restaurant and bars I like in the East and West Villages, a train ticket crosses my mind. Scratch that! I'm not gonna go to the train-station on a snowy night, my hair and nails aren't "ready" and I'd have to put on something other than my pj's! Too much work, so in lieu...