Of all the holidays, I find New Year celebrations to be some of the least arbitrary. I know if you pull back far enough, time is a construct and we’re not really marking anything but another pass around the sun from a meaningless and actually fluctuating point in space, but…

Mike Greenblatt

1. Bruce Springsteen/Wrecking Ball/Columbia

2. Leonard Cohen/Old Ideas/Columbia

3. Galactic/Carnivale Electricos/Anti-

4. Antibalas/Antibalas/Daptone

5. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy/Rattle Them Bones/Savoy Jazz

6. Shannon Whitworth and Barrett Smith/Bring It On Home/Independent

7. Loudon Wainwright III/Older Than My Old Man Now/2nd Story Sound

8. Donald Fagen/Sunken Condos/Reprise

9. Various…

It seems we’ve reached the finish line faster than Usain Bolt in London during a 100-meter dash. In just a few short days, 2012 will be over. Finished. Kaput.

But 2012 was quite the year. Records were shattered, rising superstars like Robert Griffin III and Mike Trout took the…

Locals, we meet again. Time for a new year, new music, and new beginnings! I recommend making your New Year’s resolutions to get out and support the scene! I have many friends who are unfamiliar with the amount of talent that there is out there, and day by day…

When Brighton Bar owner Greg Macolino messaged me his schedule for December, I couldn’t help but smirk at his tenacity. Greg has turned the Brighton Bar from a failed sports establishment on the precipice of extinction into a thriving and vital club on the Jersey Shore scene and beyond.…

An Interview With Jamie Foxx – Breaking The Chains

Academy Award-winning actor, talented Grammy Award-winning musical artist and comedian Jamie Foxx is one of Hollywood’s rare, elite multi-faceted performers. He was last seen in Horrible Bosses and recently lent his vocal talents to the popular animated adventure, RIO, as…

My cousin Marla Kleman lives, breathes, eats and sleeps jazz. A former radio DJ, she now works at Scullers, Boston’s legendary jazz club. As a kid, Sarah Vaughan befriended her and called her “Little One.” Vocalist Rebecca Parris legally adopted her. Anytime I want some help jazz-wise, I call…

Fashion Police

Friday, 10 p.m. (E!)

Joan Rivers weighs in with a year-end fashion roundup on Fashion Police. Along with Giuliana Rancic, Kelly Osbourne and George Kotsiopoulos, Rivers will call out the best and worst of celebrity frocks, naming the “Fash-Hole” who’s committed the most egregious crimes against couture.…

A myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world.

—Alan Watts

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable…

At first, it seemed futile to even write about it, and maybe even a little wrong. Who am I to presume to have something worthwhile to say about something so unbearably horrible?

Besides, with all the wall-to-wall coverage on the part of the media, I felt the situation could use…