A To Z Day Seventeen: Queen

James Hetfield, Tony Iommi, and the surviving members of Queen bring the noise on "Stone Cold Crazy."

A To Z Day Sixteen: The Postal Service

Those of you who only know me electronically may not realize that I was, am, and continue to be, a fanatic letter writer and snail mail enthusiast. Even in these advanced times, I sit down with pen and ink and send a letter to people in Wasilla and Washington, San Leandro and San Jose, Nottingham and the Netherlands. It's a form of pseudo meditation, because it cannot be done quickly- or at least, it cannot be done well quickly.

I hear constantly about how retail is dying, the Web is king, and the post office is going to be privatized and go the way of the dodo and the Celtics' playoff hopes this year. These people may be right, and if postal mail goes away, I'll get along. I'm an adaptive sort.

But it shouldn't. A post office is part of a civilized society. Citizens in a democracy should be able to communicate with their leaders and each other without needing a $500 laptop. And it's the only secure communication left- if you seal it tight enough, nobody will read it except the person you address it to.

Call me a Luddite, but I love my postal service and will stay with it until the last dog dies.

A To Z Day Fifteen: On My Own

The incomparable Lea Salonga singing "On My Own"

A To Z Day Fourteen: Red Sox Nation

I am a Red Sox fan. (I'm sorry.) Being a Red Sox fan is kind of like owning an iPhone used to be: at one point, you were unique, now every third person is just like you.

My instinctive response is to point out that I'm not one of THOSE people- I've been a fan since the Carter Administration. I root when we're good, like 2013, and I root for the dog's breakfast group therapy teams like 2012 and 2011, and I root for the grossly overrated teams like 1995. As Jerry Seinfeld once put it, I'm rooting for laundry, and it's too late for me to change now.

But that's not the right way to act. When you love something, the natural response is to share it, not push people away from it, and just because I know who Jimmy Collins was and what Duffy's Cliff was and who owned the Third Base Saloon, that doesn't make me a better fan than you. It just makes me a bigger nerd.

A to Z Day Thirteen: Handel's "Messiah"

I defy you to not get chills listening to this, The Hallelujah Chorus performed inside a Macy's in Philadelphia.

A To Z Day Twelve: Loneliness

"I was part of the lonely crowd inside The Sad Cafe."