It's summer here in Fishtown and I am floating. Buoyed up by 650 gallons of water in the "baby" pool, given to me by my girlfriend, and the pastel soundscapes of one of the coolest cats around — Shuggie Otis. I first heard of him and his album, Inspiration Information, while reading the liner notes for the Digable Planets' Blowout Comb. Like Stevie Wonder but stranger, the music is an effortless, languid reach of soul and minimalist funk. And then there're those primitive 1970s drum machines. You know before the 808 and before all that stuff. And the man made this whole album himself when he was what, 21?! (OK, it helps if your dad is a famous musician in his own right.) It's beautiful: baby pools, Shuggie Otis, drum machines, guitars and summer.

As a child of the '70s and '80s, I have a soft spot for reality shows that feature music icons from my adolescence, from Flava Flav to Bobby Brown. On MTV's Run's House, I really enjoy seeing how Run's life is split between his family and rebuilding his commercial hip-hop image. In one episode, Run tells one of his younger sons, who's wearing some chic sunglasses, that he looks like the original Joe Cool, aka Snoopy. His son immediately identifies Snoopy with Snoop Dogg. Run is genuinely surprised. How frightening that Snoop has usurped Snoopy's place in the cultural consciousness of today's kids! Between that and Run's goofy freestylin' (his bit on gynecologists is hilarious!), I am thoroughly entertained — and feel both young again and OK about getting older.

After reading Justin Kaplan's Walt Whitman: A Life I'm more convinced than ever that WW deserves to be considered the all-time greatest American artist (my apologies to Jackson Pollock and Hank Williams). He talked the talk and walked the walk. His anti-elitist populism, radical take-no-prisoners reinvention of an art form and astonishingly raw sexual frankness in the repressed Victorian age were so far ahead of his time we still haven't quite caught up. Knowing that he took matters into his own hands and self-published Leaves of Grass led to my decision to open my own art gallery. Genius is a label thrown around with great abandon but it's worth noting that, like perhaps the only other true American genius, Ben Franklin, they named a Philadelphia bridge after him.

I have enjoyed going to World Team Tennis matches at Cabrini College for several years. The crowd is basically a collection of tennis enthusiasts. They play fun music between points and keep things fast-moving and upbeat. Pete Sampras was there on July 20, and there are many top 10-ranked players in the world in this light-spirited league. You really get to see the pros up close and personal, plus they have lots of fun stuff for kids. Tennis has been an obsession for me my whole life, and this is a super way for me to keep that flame alive each summer. Our local team, The Philadelphia Freedoms, won the whole league July 30 by beating the Newport Beach team that Pete Sampras plays on.