In one of her best-known songs, Tina Turner, the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” asks, “What’s love got to do with it?” For Che “it” was everything. His second wife, Aleida March, provides much the…
Posts published by “Jonah Raskin”
Faithful Oakland A's fans – I counted myself one of them — kept hoping until the bottom of the ninth inning that Andujar, Langeliers or someone else on the squad might hit a towering home…
Yeah, yeah, I know the Tories are out, Labour won big time and Keir Starmer is the new PM and at home at 10 Downing Street. Starmer called for “Change.” That’s what voters clearly wanted…
Reds — the title of Warren Beatty’s Bohemian/Bolshevik love story that features John Reed and Louise Bryant — is also the title of Maurice Isserman’s new book subtitled, “The Tragedy of American Communism.” Issermam is…
When I read Kinky Friedman's obituary the other day I felt like crying and laughing. Laughing because I laughed at the lyrics to many of his songs, including “They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore,”…
I grew up with restaurants and in restaurants and luxuriated in the romance of restaurants in New York, London, Mexico City and elsewhere. My lawyer father had clients who owned restaurants and so we ate…
On June 14th, a day before Flag Day, Aaron Peskin celebrated his 60th birthday and rallied hundreds of supporters and dozens of dear friends along with a handful of family members, including his wife, Nancy Shanahan…
To call it “Frisco” is in and out itself a retro act of defiance. I don’t know anyone today who calls it Frisco, though Jack Kerouac, Mr. On The Road, did decades ago. Go to…
What are the sounds of San Francisco? Music of all sorts of course and especially rock ‘n’ roll in concert halls, under the stars and on street corners. As the Starship once sang, “we built…