Live Video Exclusives: The Giants' Victory Parade, St. Patrick's Day, Mom's Birthday

GIANTS VICTORY PARADE 2008

Somehow the Giants' Victory Parade of 2008 took away some, but not all, of the stink of the Mets' "7, 17" collapse of 2007. I'm not even a Giant fan but as a Jet fan I was pulling for the Giants. This is a New York thing. The negative corollary is that a Met fan cannot root for the Yankees in the World Series.

At the column hed is a still pic and below is some live video shot from the corner of Broadway at Liberty. Sounds like a title for an M-G-M Navy musical. The still looks like a scene out of Mecca. On the sidewalks of lower Broadway, the Canyon of Heroes, are some very impressive names of people and groups for whom the city has held ticker tape parades. Lindbergh, Churchill, MacArthur, de Gaulle, the Apollo 8 astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. And Sammy Sosa. I wonder what the hell was going through Giuliani's sports-happy mind when he suggested this one? Hey Mayor Mike, is it too late to scrape the memorial plaque off the lower Broadway sidewalk?


ST. PATRICK"S DAY PARADE

The weather's been rotten in March but the skies cleared for St. Patrick's Day. I stood at 60th Street and environs facing Central Park in the late afternoon and noted that security was tight as usual. When you can't walk more than a few blocks without taking a detour down a side street, it helps control the crowd. The still pic is a salute to my friend Kerry and my brother Brendan.

The vid is "Anchors Aweigh" on bagpipes, although you're forgiven if you mistook it for a bagful of cats being run over. I like the bagpipes like I like reggae--too much of a good thing is bad for you.





MOM'S 89th

Finally, we celebrated Mom's 89th birthday this month. Like Old Man River, she just keeps rolling along. Her secret to longevity is that she has something to do everyday. Don't call Mom alert. It's an insult. Yeah, she may have ("may have" I say) slowed down an eighth of a step but if you talked to her on the phone today you'd hire her tomorrow to work a full five and a half day work week, like she used to do for Domino Sugar down on the waterfront back in the day. (Mom on left, Sis on right.)



ADAMS PREVIEW

I signed on to HBO for the month so I could see the Adams miniseries. This went under the radar for me as I first heard of it recently from an ad on a bus shelter. I read the McCullough bio on which this is based and from what I've seen so far, HBO has done the near impossible--show life as it was, be historically accurate, and entertain the hell out of you. More on this next month.