My other interests include repartee with friends. I enjoy coffee at various cafes, too. The best steaks I have enjoyed have been at various Ruth Chris Steakhouses. In Chicago, my favorite is Gibson's Steakhouse on North Rush Street.

I enjoy blues music of the type for which Chattanooga born Bessie Smith (1898?-1937) is known. I delight in how this artist, known widely as Empress of the Blues, uses her voice and lyrics to magically create a mood by taking an eight or twelve bar strain, flattening the third and seventh notes of the tempered scale, and mystically involving the listener in a story about things that happen in real life.

I also like opera. One of my favorite artists is New York City born Maria Callas (1923-1977). Favorite recordings of this soprano artist feature her performing Vincenzo Bellimi's Norma, Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, and Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata. Other favorite artists include Joan Sutherland, Enrico Caruso, Luciano Pavarotti, and José Carreras.

I enjoy listening to National Public Radio (NPR) and watching Public Television. I also sometimes enjoy WABC talk radio to hear what people are talking about.

One of the more inventive excuses I have ever heard in The Blues Brothers, a movie with John Belushi playing Jake Blues who explains why he missed an appointment at the alter with his intended bride. He falls to his knees as she is about to shoot him dead and cries, "It wasn't my fault. Honest. I ran out of gas. I got a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out-of-town. Someone stole my car. There was an earth quake. A terrible flood. Locust. It wasn't my fault, I swear ... ."

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