Jerry Finkelstein is a lifetime New Yorker who lives with his wife and two children and dog in Manhattan. He is a Clinical Psychologist who- when he isn't writing or playing music- works as the director of a college counseling center in NYC. He believes the world would be a better place if it were run by dogs.
I trace my need to sing and write to the endless hours I spent as a child inventing fantasy baseball games. These games could erupt at any moment and involved detailed play by play announcing, in which I was pitcher, batter, fielder, manager, umpire, fans and even the beer and hot dog vendor. I now see that the ground work for my love of scatting and story telling was laid in the fabric of this endless chatter, banter and cacophony. "Here's the wind-up and the pitch. Its a ground ball to short... oh no, he boots it, then picks it up and fires to first...he's...safe. Wow, man was that close-could have gone either way. Oh boy, here comes the manager and he is running right at the ump. Man is he steamed. He is in the ump's face, better watch out or he will be takin' an early shower...I remember how I used to pound a Spalding into a chalked box in the courtyard of the Bronx apartment building I grew up in. Once the ball was released anything could happen, improvisation ruled. I also remember a cantankerous woman, Mrs. Schlimmer, who sat perched out on her third story apartment like a potted plant, and screamed at me daily to shut up. I obsessed about her ordering a hit on me, but luckily, she dropped dead before she could raise the money, thus leaving me to my own mad devices. It was inevitable that baseball would find its way into my writing, but more surprisingly, is how my ramblings and announcing morphed into the swinging phrasing of scatting. Thank God Mrs. Schlimmer never shut me up!