Early Retirement

I'm done as a reporter.

As you know, or maybe you don't know, I was a reporter for TAPinto Montclair, a local news site in Montclair, New Jersey, franchised by the TAPinto group, until June of last year (2025), when my editor gave up the franchise.  I was not allowed to continue working for TAPinto without a franchisee and unless or until a new franchisee editor took over the Montclair site.  At the end of last year, a friend of mine negotiated for the Montclair franchise and got it, and he told me he would have me back covering the Montclair town council and planning board as soon as he got settled.  He more or less relaunched TAPinto Montclair in January.  He wanted me to write for him because he loved my reporting for TAPinto Montclair under the previous editor.  The last time I spoke to him was in early February, nearly two months ago. 

When it became apparent that my friend was in no rush to contact me about continuing to write for TAPinto Montclair, I decided to wait until March 31 to hear from him.  If I didn't hear from him be then, I'd cease pursuing a journalism career and retire from the profession.

It's March 31.  I haven't heard from him at all since early February.  Draw the conclusion.

Ahh, I don't care.  I've been keeping up a bit with what goes on in Montclair, and the news there is so depressing - animosity on the council, the possible bankruptcy of the school district . . . you get the picture.   I'm also increasingly tired, feeling sleepy in the daytime;  I felt sleepy at the same time I wrote this.  And, I want more time to spend on taking care of the community park in my neighborhood, which I seem to be doing all by myself these days, as my neighbors obviously can't be bothered.  I also want to spend more time on the Internet creating content.  

Even if it's silly content like this! 

Or this!

 

The truth is, journalism in These States, at all levels, is pretty much hitting the skids, declining and falling like the Roman Empire.  I, for one, do not intend or want to be part of its downward slide.  Especially when reporting something that someone in a position of power doesn't like may be hazardous to your health.

Goodbye, American journalism, it's been good to know ya, but the ball game is over. 

I might come out of retirement some time in the future, but don't bet on it. 

A Golden Farewell

Born in 1940 to an Italian family in Baltimore, moved to California, developed incredible skills to convey a statement . . ..  What can I say?  This American original is one of the most influential people of the past century.

But enough about Frank Zappa . . .

Nancy Pelosi was also born 85 years ago in Baltimore, too! 

Yeah, Nancy Pelosi just announced her retirement from the U.S. House of Representatives at the end of her current term.  And while I know lots and lots of pundits are toasting her as she prepares to cap her career and cement her legacy as the first female Speaker of the House, I come to bury, not praise, Pelosi for not having stepped aside a decade earlier - 2016, the same year Ohio congressman Tim Ryan tried to win the position of House Democratic leader from her only to fail to realize just how much power she still had despite being the minority leader at the time.  And, of course, Ryan's political career never recovered.  (What's he doing these days?  I'll get to him later.)

Once Pelosi got the Affordable Care Act passed, she should have prepared the next generation of House Democrats for leadership, but like her ex-friend Joe Biden, she held onto power too long, freezing out House Democrats young enough to be her children (and when one of them, Mikie Sherrill - my congresswoman, now governor-elect of New Jersey - was first sworn into the House, she voted for another House Democrat to be Speaker).  Her lieutenants were also oldsters, James Clyburn of South Carolina and Steny Hoyer of her native Maryland - hardly an indication of trust in the younger generations.  Her handling of Joe Biden's plans to stand for re-election to the Presidency in 2024 - refusing to take his yeses for an answer when he answered the question as to whether he was staying in the campaign - may have been justified when it became apparent that Biden would have to step down, but that doesn't excuse her ungraceful method of getting to change his mind, which was about as subtle as a pie in the face.

Her last great act came in 2024, after she stepped down as leader of the House Democrats when she used her power to deny Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York the chance to serve as ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee after Trump was returned to power and instead pushed (successfully) for Gerry Connelly of Virginia, who was 74 and dying of esophageal cancer, because it was "his turn."  (A few months later, the Grim Reaper also decided it was Connelly's turn.)   Pelosi remained adamant against a generational change not on her terms to the very end, deciding her successor and leaving the keys to her fiefdom to Hakeem Jeffries, the one guy from Brooklyn that's as feckless and as malleable as Chuck Schumer.

Anyway, I hope Nancy enjoys the winter of her life when she goes into retirement.  Just one tip, Madam Speaker Emerita - watch out where those Huskies go, and don't you eat the yellow snow! 😝   

Goodbye, Mr. Breyer

I'm going to miss Justice Stephen Breyer.

He's always been a kindly and thoughtful justice, treating the Constitution as a living and breathing document relevant to the times.  He's been a fierce defender of the Bill of Rights - freedom of speech and religion and all that - but he's also interpreted the Bill of Rights with great care and diligence, from pointing out the the Second Amendment gives the right of the people to bear arms to a well-regulated militia but not individuals and that capital punishment violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. 

I'm especially going to miss him because he's the last white male liberal on the Supreme Court, and so I won't see myself reflected on the Supreme Court.  Yes, I still feel shame that my hometown produced Samuel Alito, who was instrumental in torpedoing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's COVID vaccination rules. But Justice Breyer's time has come, thanks largely to the precarious majority the Democrats hold in the Senate, which confirms judicial nominees, and that majority could very well be gone next year.   

The process to confirm Justice Breyer's replacement will be a long, hard slog, and I certainly hope President Biden lives up to his promise to push for diversity with his first (and possibly only) Supreme Court appointment.  

I hope he appoints a Protestant. 😉  

Taking His Hardball and Going Home

Last week, I wrote on this blog that it was time for MSNBC's Chris Matthews to retire after he compared Bernie Bros to the Wehrmacht.  This past Monday, he did just that.  I'm glad to see that Matthews discovered my blog and took my advice.

Okay, Matthews, whom I've always had a love-hate attitude toward, likely never even saw my blog, unless he Googled himself and went through all 170 million results.  But he did in fact retire, thanks not only to his Sanders gaffe but also for a bunch of comments he made to women.  This past Friday, he had to deal with a magazine GQ column from journalist Laura Bassett, who charged that Matthews complimented her appearance by rhetorically asking, "Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?"  At a cocktail party from a single man, that comment might have been appropriate.  But when the supposedly happily married Matthews made that comment to Bassett  just before a televised discussion with her about sexual-assault allegations against Trump . . . uh, yeah, that was more than a little awkward.  In fact, Bassett added for good measure that Matthews "has a pattern of making comments about women's appearances in demeaning ways."

For the record, Bassett is an attractive woman, but that's all I'll say about that.  I may have already said too much.

While all this was going on, Matthews mistook Jaime Harrison, a South Carolina Democrat running for the U.S. Senate there, with Republican U.S. Senator Tim Scott, also of South Carolina. Both men are black.  Both of them are also bald, but any fool can tell them apart.  Black people do not all look alike, of course, and Matthews' mistake would have been understandable if this had been a Julie Wolfe-Esmé Marshall situation (two models who look so much alike that when I met Julie Wolfe, I began to tell her that she looked like Esmé Marshall only to have Ms. Wolfe finish my sentence for me), or even if it were a Dom DeLuise-Chef Paul Prudhomme situation.  It was nothing of the sort.

So, on Monday night, after opening his show "Hardball," Matthews - who does not look like Dom DeLuise or Chef Paul Prudhomme - announced his retirement on the air.  And while he finished his sentences - especially the one about how it was time for a new generation more in step with the times to take over at MSNBC and the one about how he was sorry for his demeaning comments about women (none of which involve Julie Wolfe or Esmé Marshall) - he did not finish the hour of his show.  After "Hardball" returned from its first commercial break, Steve Kornacki was sitting in Matthews' place looking as stunned as everyone watching at home must have been.  And so an era ends.  We'll have to wait for a new era to begin; a rotation of different hosts - including, I suspect, the insufferable Joy Reid - will fill in the 7 PM Eastern hour until a permanent host can be found.

Perhaps we should have seen this coming. Maybe we should have known something was up when Matthews did not take part in MSNBC's coverage of the South Carolina primary this past Saturday, reducing the gaffe-machine squad to just Joe Biden (who urged people to support Jaime Harrison's presidential bid).

Sorry to see you go, Chris.  Well, not really, especially after that remark on Election Night 2012 about how you were glad we had Hurricane Sandy the week before because it brought about opportunities for good politics.

Hopefully, Joy Reid will follow Matthews out the door sooner or later, and maybe also Chuckles the Clown (also known as Chuck Todd).

Supreme Injustice

Liberals are tearing their hair out over Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement from the Supreme Court, but before any of you get heated up over it (isn't it hot enough outside?), bear these things in mind:

First, it is true that Justice Kennedy was a swing vote on key issues.  He was the swing vote on marriage-equality issues, all right, but he was also the swing vote on the Citizens United ruling and the upholding of the Trump travel ban, ans his parting gift was a ruling gutting public-sector unions.  When he first joined the Court as the replacement for Lewis Powell (no liberal himself), he was a more reliable conservative.

Second, the Court's entire composition changes with each new member, just as the Who were a different band after Keith Moon did. The chemistry changes, the power shifts, and someone else becomes a swing vote. The likeliest candidate for that position now is Chief Justice John Roberts, who is a reliable conservative but is also a minimalist who cares about the Court as a impartial, nonpartisan institution ans was the justice who saved President Obama's health insurance mandate (which Congress has since repealed).      

Third, it will be tougher for Trump to get a Supreme Court nominee through, because Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has to deal with a 50-seat caucus (Arizona's John McCain is still out of commission), from which a couple of Republican senators might defect when voting on a nominee.  The Senate Democrats running for re-election in states carried by Trump in the 2016 presidential election are in a more secure position now then they were when most of them voted to confirm Neil Gorsuch.  They're likely to be less intimidated now.

And by the way, I've been led to understand that many Democrats feel they should have made more of a fight to get President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland a hearing and a vote.  Oh, now you think of that?  You certainly never thought Hillary would lose the 2016 election and the Democrats would stay in the minority in the Senate going into the current Congress, mainly because your imaginations weren't elastic enough to ponder the idea that Hillary was not, in fact, inevitable.  You were even hoping Hillary would appoint someone else because you didn't think Judge Garland was liberal enough, so you didn't even bother having his back.  You'd thought the Hobby Lobby decision on employer-provided contraception coverage would make the Court an issue and arouse the base in the 2014 midterms - yeah, why did you lose the Senate then?  The truth is, Democrats have always gone soft on the issue of the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary and have had no strategy to appoint judges who are on their side.  When it comes to packing the courts, Republicans play chess.  Democrats play checkers.  

Well, Dems, you'd better learn how to play chess fast, because, regardless of what I've said here, this Supreme Court vacancy could still very well be for all the marbles!  If you wimp out here, you might as well Whig out.      

Paul Is Dead (Politically)

It hasn't been confirmed as I type this, but shout it out loud - noted classic-heavy-metal fan Paul Ryan will not seek another term in the House of Representatives, thus ending his tenure as Speaker.    

First Reince Priebus, now Ryan . . . I hope the last remaining member of the Wisconsin Axis of Evil, Scott Walker, falls next.

Ryan's exit suggests that he knows that the Democrats will likely take back the House in November - unless the Democratic National Committee's Tom Perez blows it, in which case that dimwitted dullard Kevin McCarthy of California will likely be the next Speaker.

Now we fight.  If there was ever a time to get involved in the midterms to stop the GOP, this is it.  Just don't bother to make yourself available to the Democratic National Committee - go to Martin O'Malley's PAC instead.

Win Back Your State.  Because the DNC won't. 

Farewell Frelinghuysen

One of the most storied political dynasties in American history is on its way out.

Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen, a Republican representing New Jersey's Eleventh U.S.  House district, has decided to retire following his current term of office, his twelfth.  Frelinghuysen is the scion of the most famous political family in New Jersey, which goes back to the days of the American Revolution.  Frederick Frelinghuysen began this family's long and incredible run; the four-times-great-grandfather of Rodney, he fought in the Revolution, helped write New Jersey's first state constitution, and represented the state in the U.S. Senate.  Rodney's three-times-great uncle, Theodore Frelinghuysen,  was a college president (of New York University and of Rutgers), a U.S. Senator, and Henry Clay's vice presidential running mate in the 1844 presidential campaign; a religious man, Theodore advocated better treatment of the Indians and opposed President against removal of the tribes of the Southeast to Oklahoma.  His adopted son Fredrick Theodore - Rodney's great-great-grandfather - was also a U.S. Senator in the 1870s and served as U.S. Secretary of State under President Chester Arthur in the early 1880s.  (A fourth Frelinghuysen, Joseph, represented New Jersey in the Senate from 1917 to 1923.)  Rodney's father, Peter Frelinghuysen, Jr., served as the U.S. Representative from New Jersey's Fifth U.S. House district from 1953 to 1975, which at the time included much of the part of New Jersey now in the Eleventh District.  So to see Rodney, whose mother was of the Procter family of Procter and Gamble fame, step down is such a big deal, you'd think a lot of people with as sense of history would miss him.

Unfortunately, the only sense of history people have in the New Jersey Eleventh U.S. House district - which happens to be my district - is Rodney's own.  Although he is the chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, a lot of people - myself included - will be glad to see him go.  A moderate, his positions have shifted rightward in response to the rise of Republican conservatism in general and the rise of Donald Trump in particular.  Although he can be counted on to support Amtrak or something like that, he's also supported repealing the health care law and opposed sanctuary cities for immigrants.  He only voted against the tax reform bill after having supported amendments to it because he knew New Jerseyans opposed it and was assured that his "no" vote would not derail its passage.  He hasn't held a live town hall in ages, preferring to hold town halls by teleconferences, encouraging protesters to demonstrate en masse outside his district office once a week.  Representing a moderate suburban district anchored in Morris County, New Jersey that has considerable Trump base - a district that also includes more liberal communities in neighboring Essex County - Frelinghuysen has tried to stake out positions that appeal to old-school Republicans while simultaneously appeasing Trump voters and giving token attention to the concerns of Democratic voters gerrymandered into the district.  His three-part balancing act has satisfied no one, and his chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee has not brought any more money to the district, given proposed budget cuts and continuing resolutions in place of any real budget.

Faced with reality, Frelinghuysen, once a favorite for re-election in 2018, has chosen to leave the House, undoubtedly afraid of losing or, worse, the possibility of being only the ranking minority member of a House run by Democrats had he run and won.  That he would give up such a powerful position only speaks volumes of just how big the Democratic wave will be in November 2018.  The likely Democratic nominee for the seat, Mikie Sherrill, is a lawyer and former federal prosecutor who served in the Navy as a helicopter pilot.  While it's only a matter of time before the Republicans turn her assets into liabilities, she looks to be the likely winner of the November general election, her nomination in June all but inevitable. 

Frelinghuysen tried to serve both his district and Trump while trying to back away from both at the same time.  He ended up painting himself into a corner.  I have no sympathy from him.  Like most Republicans, he had to choose between standing up to Trump or risk being primaried.  Now he isn't even going to face the voters.  But then, when was the last time he even did so in a town hall meeting?  

Ensign Strikes His Colors

John Ensign, the junior and juvenile Republican senator from Nevada, has announced that he will not seek re-election to the U.S. Senate in 2012, and it wasn't so surprising. Ensign, who had an affair with Cindy Hampton, one of his fundraising aides, is under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee. The committee hopes to determine whether Ensign violated Senate rules by giving Cindy Hampton's husband and Ensign's ex-friend Doug Hampton lobbying work and then encouraging him to connect lobbying clients with the senator's office. Ensign's parents, meanwhile, gave money to the Hamptons - $96,000, which Ensign's lawyer described as a gift. This was all apparently done in the effort to keep news of the affair from leaking. Doug Hampton himself may be under investigation for similarly violating lobbying rules by steering clients to Ensign per the senator's suggestions. Hampton has suggested that the investigation of Ensign by the Senate - the Justice Department has determined that no criminal charges against the senator are necessary - is costing the government money and time, and Ensign should just resign his seat right now.

Wait: Ensign's parents got mixed up in all this?

Anyway, it's a big mess. Meanwhile, Republican Representative Dean Heller has become the favorite for the 2012 Republican nomination for Ensign's seat; his fellow congressional delegate Shelley Berkley is the favorite for the Democratic nomination. While Heller may have the edge as the national momentum is still with the Republicans, the growth of Nevada's Hispanic population - and Harry Reid's unexpectedly impressive performance in winning a fifth term over Republican challenger Sharron Angle - could help tilt this seat to the Democrats despite Ensign's retirement.

And Sharron Angle may be back for another crack at a Senate seat. Remember, Ensign almost beat Reid in 1998, then picked up Nevada's other Senate seat - vacated by Richard Bryan - in 2000. So there's a precedent here.

Regarding Ensign, Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News suggests that the senator might have survived the sex scandal the way Louisiana Republican senator David Vitter survived his own prostitution scandal - by confessing publicly and apologizing. Carlson pointed out that it wasn't the crime that brought down Ensign, but the cover-up. After Watergate, you'd think people (people other than Vitter, anyway) would figure that out.

From Genesis To Revelation

Phil Collins just announced that he has retired from music. This came as a big shock to pop fans, many of whom thought he retired about fifteen years ago.

Right. Anyway, the 60-year-old Collins, who suffers from hearing problems and has nerve damage in his hands, says he doesn't think he will be missed. He simply thinks he can no longer attract attention working among more current pop acts.

Phil Collins is either a pop genius or an overrated hack, depending on who's making the argument. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in between. As the drummer for Genesis, he came up with some innovative playing. He also developed a breakthrough cymbal-free drum sound when, in 1980, he helped out his old bandmate Peter Gabriel (Genesis's original lead singer) on Gabriel's third solo album. As a frontman - he took over lead vocals in Genesis after Gabriel left the group in 1975 - he was less reliable, and Genesis's move from progressive rock to straight pop in the early eighties caused Collins to become exponentially more tedious thereafter.

Collins came up with the occasionally interesting single, both as a member of Genesis and as a solo artist - Genesis's "No Reply At All" and Collins's solo tune "In the Air Tonight," both from 1981, are about the best - but he grew blander with time. The sly charm of "One More Night" and the rambunctiousness of "Sussudio," both singles from his 1985 solo album No Jacket Required, dissipated with repeated listenings, and his 1982 cover of the Supremes's "You Can't Hurry Love" was noteworthy for re-creating the classic Motown sound without putting in any of the soul or the emotion that made the original record so wonderful.

He got a little desperate later in his career to cast himself as a serious songwriter. Collins, as a human being, is an individual who's deservedly revered for his commitment to causes such as ending homelessness. (He's played so many benefit gigs, he's practically a British Harry Chapin.) Collins, as a social commentary singer, leaves a good deal to be desired. "Another Day In Paradise," from 1989, tries to make people aware of the plight of the homeless in a gentle way and pales in comparison to Neil Young's biting "Rockin' In the Free World," released at the same time, which - as one critic noted - put the listener in the shoes of a homeless man in the middle of a harsh world. (Collins enlisted Young's friend David Crosby to sing backing vocals on "Another Day In Paradise" in an effort to legitimize himself as a politically aware artist, but if the result was a friendship between Crosby and Collins that led to their 1993 duet "Hero" - one of Crosby's finest efforts outside the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - I won't complain about that.)

Collins left Genesis in 1996 to concentrate fully on his solo career. Ironically, that's when the hits stopped coming for him. He's maintained a very low profile since then - the 2007 Genesis reunion tour with guitarist/bassist Mike Rutherford and keyboardist Tony Banks (but, alas, without Gabriel or guitarist Steve Hackett, who left the band in 1978) was an exception - before finally deciding to quit.

Had he done so in the mid-nineties - when it was obviously time for him to quit - Collins might have bowed out more gracefully then than now.

Goodbye, Mr. Chaps

The lion in winter has roared his last.

After a career in music spanning over four decades, first as the frontman for Family, then as the lead singer of Streetwalkers, then as a solo artist, Roger Chapman - one of the great unsung heroes of rock and roll - called it a career by performing his last concerts ever in his hometown of Leicester, England last night and the night before. With the possible exception of Family's last concert in October 1973 (also in Leicester), no gig has ever been this bittersweet to fans of the man we all call Chappo.

Chapman was - is - one of the most powerful singers in rock. His bleated vibrato vocal style - described by many as the sound of an electronically amplified goat - brought songs to life with a vicious ferocity and a commanding strength. He could make Robert Plant sound like a crooner with his deliveries on Family classics such as "The Weaver's Answer" and "Drowned in Wine," and his later performances on Streetwalkers songs like "Downtown Flyers" and "Run For Cover," as well as solo tunes like "Do I Leave a Stone Unturned?", were no less potent. Chappo's covers of blues and rock songs gave them his own unique, interpretative stamp; it's hard to hear "Drive" as originally done by the Cars after hearing Chappo sing it.

Roger Chapman was a huge star in Germany, and he didn't do too badly singing for the punters in the U.K., but stardom in America eluded him. He didn't get off to a promising start; he threw a microphone stand at Family's debut 1969 U.S. gig at the Fillmore East in New York when the audience proved to be unreceptive, and it almost hit Fillmore East impresario Bill Graham, setting bad vibes for the band. (The entire group was discombobulated that night by circumstances beyond their control. Their gig as Elton John's warmup act on his 1972 U.S. tour went much better.) Both Family and Streetwalkers diligently tried to gain an audience in America, and they did - just not big enough to sustain either band, or get Family or Streetwalkers into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Chapman's solo career was of even less consequence here; his records were never released in the United States. His last American gigs, in fact, were with Streetwalkers on their 1976 American tour. Conquering the New World may not have worked out, but Chapman remained active and vital throughout his musical career, never letting the nostalgia of his early work with Family and Streetwalkers (both of which featured his old collaborator Charlie Whitney on guitar) get in the way of moving forward as an artist.

At 67, Chapman has ended his career in triumph. Having achieved just about everything he could possibly do, he went out like an undefeated boxing champion. I obviously couldn't go to either of his last concerts, and the news of Chapman's retirement meant I would never get the opportunity to take in one of his shows. I still have the records, and I still have a wonderful tape of one of his sets on the German TV rock show "Rockpalast." I'm thankful for that, and I'm especially grateful for the marvelous music and illustrious career of the man of the hour - Roger Maxwell Chapman, always and forever.

Chappo Retiring!

I got the shock of my life earlier this month when I heard that British rock singer Roger Chapman announced his impending retirement. At 67, Chapman plans a farewell concert this December in his hometown of Leicester, England, capping an illustrious career as one of rock and roll's greatest wild men.

Chapman is best known as the onetime frontman for Family, the great British progressive rock band of the late sixties and early seventies that pushed the boundaries of songwriting and arranging that got them accolades and hit albums in the United Kingdom and continental Europe but failed to gain them any recognition in North America. Chappo (as he became known) had been influenced by the great American rock and rollers and rhythm an blues singers of the fifties, and he created a unique vocal style that sounded like a bleating goat and could possibly, as one music critic put it, kill small game at a hundred yards.

Chappo said he tried to sound like Little Richard and Ray Charles. Instead, he ended up sounding like Roger Chapman, a remarkable achievement.

Family created some of the most thunderous, intense rock and roll to come out of Britain; their albums A Song For Me and Fearless are classics, as are their song s "The Weaver's Answer" and "Drowned In Wine." The bad vibes for the group - and Chapman - in the U.S. were set at their disastrous American debut at the Fillmore East in New York on April 8, 1969 (Chapman's twenty-seventh birthday), when Chapman led family through a desultory performance that led him to throw his microphone stand aside in frustration - almost hitting Fillmore East impresario Bill Graham. The faux pas gave Family a bad reputation among American promoters and sealed their fate as a trivia question in this country.

After Family broke up in 1973, Chapman and Family guitarist Charlie Whitney formed Streetwalkers. That group - which included guitarist Bob Tench of Jeff Beck's group and drummer Nicko McBain (later of Iron Maiden), put out two acclaimed albums (1975's Downtown Flyers and 1976's Red Card) before breaking up in 1977.

Chapman began his solo career in 1979 with the release of his first solo album, Chappo, and he never looked back. He's remained a singer without peer, still able to come out with a trademark bleat, even as other veteran British rock singers like Robert Plant have mellowed a bit. His retirement comes at an ironically poignant moment. In the early sixties, before joining the band that became Family, Chappo began his career fronting local Leicester bands such as the punningly titled Rockin' R's (you have to know British English to get the joke) at a time when British rock and roll was unheard of in the United States. He now ends his career at a time when British rock has never seemed more irrelevant to Americans. But in between, when British rock was a global force to be reckoned with, Chappo and his respective bandmates never dominated music the way the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, or Led Zeppelin did.

He's made himself eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three times, as the frontman for Family, the lead singer of Streetwalkers, and as a solo artist. However, Chapmaniacs shouldn't expect any inductions for him, so long as he remains unknown to most Americans and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame keeps inducting celebrity disco singers without considering musical merit.

I'll never get to see Chappo play live. He hasn't played in the U.S since the seventies, and I've never been able to travel to the U.K. But I still have the records, and I intend to keep on listening to them to help keep the legacy of this great singer alive. Here's to you, Chappo - you've earned your retirement. :-)