The Royce Files

George M. Cohan overlooks Times Square The first lines of the musical George M! are "George who?" Indeed the George I write of today is no other than George M. Cohan Though he liked to claim July 4th as his birth, George most probably was born on the 3rd in Providence, RI. My first encounter with this song and dance man draped in red, white, and blue was my freshman year of high school. I was in the cast of the Park High's fall musical George M! The biographical musical from the 1967 Broadway season is a behemoth of Cohan story and musical material. It did a fair business on Broadway and starred Joel Grey as Cohan. In an odd turn of events, the Park edition of the show had a considerable amount of re-writes, clocked in at just over 3 hours. Not sure our audience was ready for that kind of time commitment. A guy named Mike played Cohan and I was the unofficial understudy- I did not know that until he was late to one of the performances. I think I wrote more about ...

While breezing through the web I cam across a post about social media posts (it was actually a re-post of a re-post of a post.) The info-graphic by the MyCleverAgency offers enough tips to make you a pro at social media posting (and we need so many of those :) right?) So if you want to be a Google+ expert look below. The tips you never knew you needed to know

Our rundown would not be complete without a few straggling heroes out there pounding the pavement in Fargo.  Wonder woman leads a small pack of runners through the streets of Fargo. Fortunately she did have her golden lasso of truth to round up the bad guys getting in the way of the runners. The Justice League turned out this year running besides each other in  unity against evildoers and sore calves. Good to see Green Lantern was represented this time. Superman has also grown a beard in the time it takes him to run 26.2 miles. And finally the superhero who should have been on more shirts this year- The Flash. How could running shirt manufacturers forget this speedster? I hoping to see more Flash in the future.

Our rundown continues. This time with one of the top franchises out there- Spiderman. Well actually Spiderman and Spiderwoman are represented here. This Spiderman is a bit of a rebel with 2 different colored shoes. It is a bit hard to see the spider emblem on his chest. This Spiderwoman is displacing good stride

Our next hero in the rundown is The Batman. From the comics I believe he was a rather fit guy. He did not have a super power per se- he was just a decent detective with a little vigilante thrown in for good measure. No Robins appears in the race so the caped crusader had to run alone. There may have been more but when a blob of runners come down the avenue trying to focus on the shirt is a bit difficult for my camera. Oh, 2 out of 3 are women- so I guess Batgirl would be more appropriate. She has the matching socks but no grappling hook Original Batgirl colors. I could actually imagine that this guy is Batman.

Marathon leaders dual it out at 12 mile mark For those spectators who were watching for a incredible race- this year's marathon did not disappoint.  Peter Kemboi of Kenya and Arturs Bareakis gave us quite a remarkable dual throughout the entire race. The competitors were running nearly cheek to cheek until the 25th mile when Kemboi decided to dig deep for a charge to the finish and shook off Bareakis. Probably the closes men's race yet. The rest of the men's elite lagged behind more than I expected. Third place arrived nearly 10 minutes later.  I was expecting a few more top performances with the ideal weather and thus was surprised by the men's elite. Other Kenyans must have given up on this race. Oh yeah- who is Bareikis? A runner with a good pedigree who is from Chicago via Latvia . Artur has racked up a few 2nd and 3rd place finishes in marathons. Seems to have been a decent runner since high school. Keeping up with Kemboi was quite the feat. He only crossed...

A considerable amount of costumes- besides the super hero themed ones- appeared in this year's Fargo Marathon. A running Elvis did not make an appearance this year. I did see 2 guys running in button up short sleeve shirts. I do not think those were costumes. Just an unusual choice of attire for a marathon. Still, there were plenty of tutus worn too. Some costume like attire was also worn by spectators. I did not document that. What I have here is a smattering of costumed runners. Birdman What is worse? Being a birdman or being chased by a birdman? Oh and there were 4 birdmen. This guys is really a glutton for pain. Kind of reminds me of that Beatles' tune "Carry That Weight: The Cat in the small hat and the running dude. I saw the Cat downtown and she had a child in tow dresses as Thing 2. I never saw the dude again. I do not know what to make of this outfit but I want to start singing "This Girl is on Fire" A running luchador. 2 ladi...