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Couple of house cleaning items for y’all.

Firstly, for you newer folks, All-Star Jam is a recurring thread intended as a place to comment on anything, start a discussion of your own… It’s what the kids call an “open thread.”

They’ve never really been used very much but thought we’d try again. Plus I needed a place to let any of you know that didn’t know already that MANNY’S COMIN’ TO L.A.!!!

Also, The Back Office has finally figured out how to extend the number of Latest Comments. Now set at 100, this is a great place to go to keep up with all of the recent comments on all of the threads at once. The Latest Comments link is located in the right sidebar just above the Poll.

Rock on.

While away I read in a 2-week old People magazine that was left in our cabin by some previous visitors that a 30-year anniversary edition of Billy Joel‘s The Stranger was recently issued, probably with bonus tracks and other stuff that would make revisiting the original album even more painful. Talk about soundtracks to my high school years! That album covered another annoying undercurrent, and I was reminded of The Stranger‘s prevalence at social functions like school dances, weddings, and – I suspect – Bar Mitzvahs. My prime Bar Mitzvah-attending years (as a peer, that is, not a friend of the parents) predated Joel’s breakthrough album, but I feel safe in suggesting that Billy Joel is the king of Bar Mitzvah Rock. I could be wrong – who’s more deserving of Bar Mitzvah Rock Royalty? What artists or songs make you relive Bar Mitzvahs from your past? (For those of you who’ve not had the honor to attend a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, feel free to substitute another coming of age religious event.)