Just Another Saturday

New York City, 1977 (NY Daily News)

Parts of New York City are dark as I begin typing.

It's the 42nd anniversary of the great blackout of 1977, which I remember quite well. Our power dipped late in the evening of July 13 and for some reason, I always remember my parents were watching The Merv Griffin Show.

I could be wrong, but that's what I recall.

I'm relying on New York TV for updates, and as I'm a media junkie, I can tell you that Channel 4 is running some flick from the Fast and the Furious franchise, while Channels 2 and 7 have been wall-to-wall coverage since I put the TV on. Channels 5 and 11 have come on board with their 10pm newscasts, so they've jumped into covering this story also.

Channel 9 has Dateline on, while channel 13 has The Big Chill, but they're also a PBS station who doesn't have a news department.

Those are our classic TV stations in NY.

Blackouts in New York City always make for big news. The 1965 one was also quite a big deal, to go along with the '77 outage.

Then there was 2003, and that one is clear in my mind. I can still see the look on Sean's face as the power went out on that hot day.

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We also had baseball today, as Fairfield American wrapped up the District 2 little league title in Connecticut. I'm excited to say that Robcasting has been asked to continue to carry FALL games though the next round. Follow us on Twitter (@RobcastingRadio and I'm @Double5) for more details.

There are multiple videos that we produced from these games (thanks to Stacey Scruggs and Shawn Sailer for shooting the videos) on the Robcasting YouTube page.

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John Nash covered it over on his blog, The October Weekend, but it's worth mentioning that today is also the anniversary of Live Aid in 1985. I have praised the performance of Queen from that day so many times, but the truth is also I didn't see it live that day.

It was also Old Timer's Day at Yankee Stadium, and I was invited to go. It took some time before I got to see the Queen performance in its entirety. I'll always remember my brother telling me how great they were. But I watched the whole thing again tonight, and I can't stress enough that EVERY performer should watch it. Freddie Mercury had Wembley Stadium -- and the world -- in the palm of his hand.

Besides Freddie, Brian May, John Deacon, and Roger Taylor rocked the world. It's a remarkable performance that requires nothing more than precision playing, great musicianship, well-crafted songs, and the energy of Freddie.

All we need is radio gaga.

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Things are coming back on in New York City.

Thankfully.