It's Black History Month Again, and I've Got Nothin'

It's that time of year again. Somehow, I've become the unofficial leader of the group of people to put this thing together in my church this year - again - and I'm not sure what new angle I can come up with.

Oh, it not as though we have absolutely zero planned. We have a speaker for one Sunday. There will be a kente cloth presentation. And I expect there will a luncheon after church one week.

More at issue are three weeks of adult education. I think one Sunday the topic will be related to race relations in the era of an Obama presidency. How does he change the conversation? Some think this means the black community has arrived, and such things as B H Month are no longer needed!

To that last point, I would disagree. A Swahili aphorism states: "You are what you make of yourself, and not what others make you." A positive self-concept is important, and so an awareness of the richness of Black history becomes important. This is one of the reasons we continue to celebrate Black History Month, first celebrated in 1926.

Another thought is to use the class would to show film clips - 15 to 20 minutes - and then discuss for remainder of class. One white person suggested segments from White Man's Burden, a 1995 movie I was unfamiliar with. (Anyone out there seen it? ) He said this film is always an eye opener for white audiences, and it does a good job of showing unnoticed race-based behaviors and norms in our society.

I will be participating in "The 3 Biggest Diversity Blunders Your Organization Could Be Making Right Now (And How to Avoid Them)" workshop in a couple weeks, and that might have some help. But that won't be for a couple weeks, and I need to put something together for the church newsletter this Friday.

Any thoughts about resources you would use?
ROG

The CRANKY question

It's a brand-new year. Everything is shiny and fresh. Yet I feel a tad, oh, let's say, not 100% positive.

I sorta kinda understand what Obama was trying to do picking Rick Warren - my local newspaper, back on December 19, editorialized in favor. But the letters - here's one example - definitely disagreed, rightly.

FBI Warns of Inauguration Terror Threat. Swell. I've been nervous since the open-air conclusion to the Denver convention.

That blonde conservative woman has managed a faux insult into more self-serving promotion: "After NBC canceled me 'for life' on Monday -- until seven or eight hours later when the ban was splashed across the top of The [Sludge] Report, forcing a red-faced NBC to withdraw the ban." As Col. Potter used to say on M*A*S*H, "horse hockey!"

This week, after CNN did a story on the Gaza war, teased with the next story about "Oprah's war". It turns out it's with her weight! Not only is it an unfortunate segue, Oprah's weight - who cares! - was so last week.

Joe the Plumber Heading to Middle East To Be Correspondent for Conservative Media Outlet. Joe, who I've NEVER heard say anything approaching coherent, has officially reached minute 16 of his 15 minutes of fame.

The whole Roland Burris thing. I never thought Congress really had to right to not seat him, unless he were under 30 (he's over 70) or didn't live in Illinois. More than that, Evans-Novak play it as sport: "Burris and Richardson Flaps and Panetta Pick Enliven Washington". I'd link to the story except that it seems to be attached to some computer virus.

And it's cold, it's going to snow again tonight and by Friday, it'll even be colder, with highs in the low teens.

I need something to lift my spirits. How about Obama and Spider-Man appearing in a comic together?



Spider-Man IS my favorite character. And Obama, while not a superhero...

...or maybe he is?!

Anyway, how are YOU this cold winter? What's bugging you? Or pleasing you? (Note to Nik and Arthur: careful about telling me too much about the New Zealand summer!)

ROG

The Cream of the Crop

I received my Collectors' Choice Music catalog for January 2009 this week, and what should appear on the cover but the woman in this photograph:
(Actually, it was more like the March 31 photo here.)

Naturally, I owned this item in vinyl. That was because I was a big fan of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Really, I owned The Lonely Bull (A&M 101, the first item in the catalog; the stereo equivalent was 4101), the second album, Going Places, as well as Whipped Cream, and perhaps others.

Unfortunately, when a bunch of my albums I had left at my grandmother's house were stolen in 1972, they took all of my albums with the artist name A, B, many of the S range, and the T-Z. (This included my Capitol Beatles albums, though my Apple Beatles albums were with me at college.) So the TJB (as I used to abbreviate the group) was gone too.

So I was thrilled in the mid-1980s to find a used copy of Whipped Cream on sale for a buck. I was less thrilled that while the cover was Whipped Cream, the album was Going Places. Not so disappointed, though to buy the LP again (on sale for $21.98) but maybe the CD ($10.98). After all, I already have the 12 X 12 cover.

This album cover was heavily parodied:










The last album cover above was for a tribute album to that original classic. You can find many variations of covers of this album at Album covers spoofing album covers. Presently, the original album cover is at #66, with the spoofs following, but as the contributions to the site are added, it will invariably move.

One last thing; as attractive as the woman on the left is, she'll never be iconic like the lady on the right is.


ROG

Twit or tweet

One of the things I just don't understand is that a number of people have started following me on Twitter. A few of them are at least Internet buds, but most of them I do not know in the least, don't know how they came to my Twitter feed, and don't know what it is that is appealing enough for total strangers to want to "follow me". Britney Spears, I ain't.

At the same time, I seem to have developed a sense of responsibility/guilt? over the fact that I'm just not yet that proficient a Twitterer/Tweeter. Unlike this blog, I can go three or four days without posting a thing there. Moreover, I haven't really got a handle on what 140-character message I wish to share.

Interestingly, I DO submit things to my work Twitter account more frequently; it's easier because it's mostly business community related. And I have less a feeling of responsibility because there are 150 potential contributors, though in fact it's usually done by a half dozen of the usual suspects.

But the few times I find something that I think is interesting on a personal or cultural level, I'm usually busy at work or just too tired. These things tend to be time-sensitive, too. I may find it interesting that Bill Richardson stopped the process to be Commerce Secretary, but by the time I have time to tweet it, it's common knowledge.

Or I wonder if the content should better be put in the blog. Or not at all. There were pieces I considered for the Tweet, passed on, then, as I contemplated the blog, decided, "Boy, I'm glad I didn't write THAT!" Maybe I'm not that spontaneous a guy.

I DO like to respond directly to folks I know on twitter. I told mikesterling: "My high school prom music was 'All Things Must Pass'. By George Harrison." (We were VERY serious young people.) I SHOULD HAVE told tomthedog that not only do I find the word "tweeting" silly, It makes me feel as though I'm in some damn Warner Brothers cartoon.

But I am embracing it. I think the article from last week's Metroland says it for me:

Twittering Not Just for Annoying Bulls*** Any Longer

Want to know what your friends are doing right now? Neither do we. That’s why we’d written off Twitter almost immediately after hearing about it. But, as usual, our lack of enthusiasm for the latest social-networking craze was the unfortunate side effect of us being old. This year we were won over by a slew of adventurous media outlets that found truly interesting uses for this ridiculously simple little Web app, from the local paper breaking news on its Twitter feed or publishing tweet follow-ups on developing stories to The New York Times tweeting links to its latest stories. So we are sorry, Twitter, for doubting you, and we resolve here and now to embrace the power of the tweet.

But be careful out there. According to WayneJohn, there's a Twitter phishing scam going on. Also, mistyping Twitter can get some interesting results as well.
***
FOLLOW FAIL: The Top Ten Reasons I Will Not Follow You on Twitter

Cartoon from the Westport (CT) Public Library.
ROG

Y is for York

New York State was once the territory of the Iroquois nation. It was later settled by the Dutch.

In 1663 the Duke of York purchased the grant of Long Island and other islands on the New England coast made in 1635 to the Earl of Stirling. The following year, the Duke equipped an armed expedition, which took possession of New Amsterdam, which was thenceforth called Province of New York, after him.[1][2] This conquest was confirmed by the treaty of Breda, in July 1667. In July 1673, a Dutch fleet recaptured New York and held it until it was restored to the English by the treaty of Westminster in February, 1674.

But which Duke of York are we talking about? From this chronology, it appears to be James Stuart, who later became James II of England (and James VII of Scotland). While Duke of York, he was also Duke of Albany in Scotland.

The current Duke of York is Prince Andrew, the second son of the British monarch, Elizabeth II. Since he has no sons (horrors!), the most likely candidate for the position will be Prince Harry, assuming Charles ascends the throne someday.


As for York, England itself, it is located northeast of Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool:



The Shambles is oldest street in York, it mentioned "in the Doomsday Book under its Latin name - In Macello. The word Shambles derives from the Medieval word Shamel (various spellings), meaning bench or booth. Also referred to as Flesshammel, which means to do with flesh - it was the street of the butchers. In 1872 the number of butchers was recorded as 26. This figure dwindled over the years until the last butcher standing was Dewhurst at number 27 the Shambles."

York Minster Gothic Cathedral in York

"Situated in the heart of the city, York Minster is the largest Gothic Cathedral in northern Europe. As is the way with many christian buildings, it was built in the shape of a cross, and faces East, towards Jerusalem. The name "Minster" is derived from the Latin Monastarium, which means 'Place of Learning'."

Here are some places in the United States named York; not a complete list:

York County, PA.

York County, SC.

York (city), PA.

East York, PA CDP. A CDP is a Census Designated Place, a location that is unincorporated but well-defined.

York County, ME.

York County, PA.

York County, VA.

West New York, NJ.

Which brings us to my home state of New York:

New York (State). There are 62 counties in New York State.

New York (City). Five of those counties comprise New York City. In NYC, there are also something called boroughs; these are coterminous with the county boundaries.

New York County, NY is a/k/a the borough of Manhattan. Kings County is the borough of Brooklyn, Richmond County is the borough Staten Island. Bronx and Queens each have the same name as a county as it does as a borough.


ABC Wednesday

ROG

TV Age

I have loved television for decades. I'm unapologetic about it. I don't watch "only PBS and the History Channel" either. I like commercial, sometimes trashy TV. I can still tell you the nights certain programs were on forty years ago. I have books about the Dick van Dyke Show, The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Colombo, Taxi, and JEOPARDY!, plus several general texts.

But a couple things have happened in the last couple years that seems to have lessened the allure of the tube. One was the writers' strike. Ironically, I supported the writers on their position regarding the strike. But my TV mojo just got lost, just as it did for baseball after the 1994 strike, when it took about three years to get it back.

The other event took place in early December. I had recorded a number of television shows on my DVR that I had not had a chance to see. I was two weeks behind on the dramas (all on ABC). The comedies (all on NBC) were even further back; I had seen no 30 Rock, and the The Office and Earl were likewise five or six weeks behind, at least. The were a couple news programs, about three weeks of JEOPARDY! plus shows for Lydia to watch. The power in our house went out only for an hour on a Saturday night during an ice storm. But when the power surged back, it fried the DVR.

What I discovered is that I could watch the dramas on abc.com, and over a week or two, I caught up. Thank goodness for the Advent season, when those shows are either preempted or repeated. But going to find all of those comedies, presumably on hulu.com felt like...work. So, it's likely I'll just catch a couple December reruns and move forward with the new programs, though I have caught some Office webisodes.

My friend Fred and I once had this conversation about TV shows. Generally speaking, he doesn't give up on a show. Once he starts it, he generally finishes the run, with rare exceptions. I am a bit more willing to cut my losses; American Idol and 24 are just two shows I watched then decided that wasn't enjoying them enough, but I am sympathetic to his POV, and don't abandon easily.

Still, I imagine that once the shows I'm watching now go off the air, I may not necessarily pick up new ones. (Yes, I said that last year, and I picked up Life on Mars, but at least that was a one-to-one replacement for Men in Trees.)

One of my shows, Boston Legal, is already gone. (BTW, what's with those folks writing to TV Guide complaining how liberal the show is? One was shocked, SHOCKED that they made fun of Sarah Palin. Why didn't they just CHANGE THE CHANNEL? Or wait a week or two, when the show was kaput?)

Two more shows, Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money will soon be swimming with the fishes. This will leave Brothers and Sisters, Grey's Anatomy (stop with the dead lover sex, FCOL!) and the aforementioned Life on Mars, plus the last season of Scrubs on ABC - starts tonight!, and the Thursday comedies on NBC. Once they go off the air, I may be down to news programs, JEOPARDY!, and in season, some sports events.

That is, unless Lauren Graham gets another series. Oh, and can somebody tell me when GSN starts rerunning the JEOPARDY! episodes from November 2008?

This is not to say I don't enjoy what I am viewing. I recommend that you watch at least the beginning of last week's Bill Moyers Journal, where he celebrates "The Onion"; my favorite headline, "Housing Crisis Vindicates Guy Who Still Lives With Parents". He also notes that today's economic and militaristic crises were foretold in the 1933 Marx Brothers classic, "Duck Soup":
MRS. TEASDALE: Gentleman, I've already loaned Freedonia more than half the fortune my husband left me. I consider that money lost and now you're asking for another 20 million dollars.
Also on the show: John Lithgow on poetry and Arthur Miller.

I watched the Kennedy Center Honors and there is usually one transcendent moment. This is the one for me:
LINK
After which, you may wonder Who is Bettye LaVette? And why is this video NOT on CBS?

So, I'll be curious just what, if anything, will pique my interest in five years. I took Mad Men season 1 from the library last week, but it has only a two-day window, and I ended up seeing none of it. I can imagine to decide to catch this season of The Office or 30 Rock on DVD, perhaps skipping over the episodes I happen to catch on air. What is clear, though, is with online access, DVD and the DVR, TV viewing has most certainly changed for me.

One more thing. The loss of the DVR meant I was watching my little portable b&w TV more often (I could have rewired the cable to the TV directly, but that would have been, you know, work to do and then undo. So I've opted order one of those coupons so I can get a discount on buying one of those over-the-air converters, just at a point when the digital TV subsidy program is running out of money. I ordered my coupon a couple weeks ago online, but apparently, they are to arrive via passenger pigeon.
***
Postal Service lifts curtain on 2009 stamps, which will feature early, black-and-white TV shows: "Lucy and Ethel lose their struggle with a chocolate assembly line. Joe Friday demands "just the facts" with a penetrating gaze. A secret word brings Groucho a visit from a duck."
"Folks who grew up as television came of age will delight in a 20-stamp set included in the Postal Service's plans for 2009 recalling early memories of the medium." This I will buy.
"Most of the commemorative stamps are priced at 42 cents, the current first-class rate. However, a rate increase is scheduled in May and the size will depend on the consumer price index."
"The Early TV Memories stamp set is scheduled for release Aug. 11 in Los Angeles."


ROG

Last year's blog

I think it was Gordon Dymowski - or was it Shecky Greene? - who first informed me of a meme where you randomly select a line from your blog - one post per month for the past year - and then post the lines (and links) publicly. So let's review what's happened on the blog over the past month, and please enjoy this small sampling of the blog.

(Not only did I steal the idea from Gordon, I stole the entire paragraph above, save for two words.)

January: Anthony makes the correct theological point that Christmas is not over. And he is still right.

February: A look at the women--some celebrated, some forgotten--who influenced the lives of the Fab Four and were often the muses behind some of the Beatles' greatest songs. No, I didn't buy Patti Boyd's book.

March: We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact. - Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980) Philosophy at no charge.

April: I ended up picking Joan Baez, who my father admired as far back as 1959, when he brought home the oddly-named The Best of Joan Baez; and John Mellencamp, probably in part because of the love Tosy had given him after his recent induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Tunes!

May: If you were to tell me I'd be blogging for nearly 1100 straight days 1200 days ago, I'd say you were nuts. And add another 240 to that.

June: OK, so there are one hundred things that annoy me. But I really, really had to work at it.

July: I noticed that one child of about eight whacked her head on a wooden crossbeam of the slide/climbing contraption. Did you ever wince in pain when someone else gets hurt? I do.

August: Who does Obama pick to be his Vice-Presidential running mate? How did I do? Oh, and a mention of Sarah Palin BEFORE the GOP convention; just sayin'.

September: I am certain life's questions can be answered by sleeping on hard things and chanting. As though you had any doubt.

October: With the Mets eliminated, I still need to come up with a priority list of teams to root for. And I came up with them?!

November: Finally, I wrote: "To quote Sylvester Stewart: 'Different strokes for different folks And so on, and so on and scooby-dooby-doo.'" Quoting Sly Stone is almost always appropriate.

December: Listening to boring debates about how "they" have taken the Christ out of Christmas. Didn't hear it as much this year, or maybe I was in the wrong places.

My Musical Obsessions

For a time, I was pretty obsessed with the song "Baby It's Cold Outside"; I blame the French. Actually, I blame my friend Deborah who lives in France. She turned me onto the Ricardo Montalban and Esther Williams version of the song that appeared in the 1949 film Neptune's Daughter. Subsequently, I learned that Red Skelton and Betty Garrett reprise the song in the same film.

The Montleban-Williams version was recorded, but it was not the first one released. That honor went to Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark, one day before Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer, and BOTH of those recordings charted on the same day.

One of the best versions was done by Louis Armstrong with Velma Middleton. The story of the Satchmo version can be seen here.

What reminded me of all this was a version of the song on Coverville by Zooey Deschanel & Leon Redbone from the Elf soundtrack.

Also on the Coverville Annual Holiday Cover Show was Mele Kalikimaka/Waters Of Babylon by The Priestess & The Fool. The first song, of course, is the classic Hawaiian-sounding song by Bing Crosby with the Andrews Sisters. The second, though, is a song by Don McLean, the "American Pie" guy, originally called Babylon.

LINK.

Initially, I thought: "what a bizarre segue!" Babylon is based on Psalm 137, scripture most pastors I've known dreaded preaching about, as it's depressing as hell. BTW, Psalm 137 is also the source of Rivers of Babylon by the Melodians from The Harder They Come soundtrack.

But the I began rethinking my objection to Babylon. Though it's not very "Christmasy", one of the earliest events after the birth of Jesus in Matthew 1 and 2 was the slaughter of the innocents, ordered by King Herod in Matthew 2:16-18, not unlike the events around Moses' birth. Maybe the musical segue is not so strange after all.

The great thing about blogs is that it lets me obsess, then ideally, release it.


ROG

The Year in Review: Politics, Sports

2008 was only the second time in ten attempts I've voted for a successful Presidential candidate - any guesses to the other time?

I also voted for Obama in the New York state primary. My, that was SO long ago, back in early February. Like many people, I suffered from election fatigue. So silliness such as the Barack the Magic Negro song kerfluffle, played on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, doesn't even register.

But here's a terrible thought: perhaps the Republicans were (gulp) right in in their winner-take-all primaries. In the same vein, I have also finally figured out what's so very RIGHT with the Electoral College. People say, correctly, that it's undemocratic. EXACTLY! It wasn't designed to be democratic, it was meant to be definitive. Obama won with about a 53-47% vote. BUT he also won with a landslide ELECTORAL vote. The results of the election were not in question. And the system works most of the time. OK, not in 2000. Or 1888. Or 1876. Or 1824. But most of the time.

Imagine a close election, say 1968. Nixon and Humphrey were virtually tied in the popular vote. But Nixon's Electoral College victory codified the race. Let's say there were no Electoral College. There would have been canvassing of votes all over the country. Or even 2000, where the canvassing was limited to Florida.

There's some merit, though, in doing what Maine and Nebraska have done; allocate electoral votes by Congressional district, with two votes going to the winner statewide. This would put more conservative parts of "blue" states and more liberal parts of "red" states in play, and that we in upstate New York would be barraged with the same campaign of ads that the folks in Ohio and Florida get. Wait, I said there was merit to this? Well, for the local media bottom line, for sure.

Caroline Kennedy for Senate? Don't much care. Whoever is elected would have to run in both 2010 AND 2012. But she's getting killed in the "vetting" process. There's also the more parochial issue that upstaters in New York want an upstate Senator, since there hasn't been one since Charles Goodall finished the term of Bobby Kennedy. An AP story this week suggested that some "caretaker" take the seat now, someone with no desire to run in 2010, like Bill Clinton, or Mario Cuomo, or Eliot Spitzer. OK, not Eliot Spitzer; seeing if you were paying attention. But Governor David Paterson does not want a caretaker candidate; he wants whoever he appoints in 2009 to be on the ballot in 2010, possibly, one could speculate, to enhance his own chances for being elected governor in hios own right.

I've been pretty obsessed with the Constitution this year. Do you know which Amendment took 203 years to be passed?

BASEBALL

Congrats to the Phillies and the Devil Rays. What a difference a season, and a name change, makes.

I started reading a Bob Costas book from 2000, which I seemed to have misplaced. Regardless, the points he made helped me realize that interleague play, as it's currently constructed, is fatally flawed. Where in the NFL, all the teams in a division play common opponents (the NFL East playing the AFC North in 2008, e.g.), Major League Baseball has this romanticized notion of Yankees-Mets, White Sox-Cubs, etc. Nice, but When getting into the playoffs is determined by this, it's not particularly workable. Let's say the White Sox had a weak team, and the Yankees a strong one. This is advantageous to the Cubs and problematic for the Mets.

Also, how is it that the AL West has only four teams, while the NL Central has six? This is competitively unfair. Short of expanding MLB to 32 (four 4-team divisions in each league a la the NFL) or contracting two teams to 28 (two 7-team divisions, maybe with two wild cards, in each league), I don't know how to make the system more equitable.

I'm also distressed that the Yankees can afford to get two front-line pitchers in the offseason (LHP CC Sabathia's seven-year contract; RHP A.J. Burnett's five-year contract). They are playing by the rules; it's the rules that have to be fixed, with a greater amount of profit-sharing than the "luxury tax" has created. (Oh, and why isn't the Mark Teixeira deal showing up on the MLB transaction list?

Will Francisco Rodriguez (K-Rod) be the end of late-season collapses for the Mets?

FOOTBALL
There's a bowl game today at noon on ESPN2 that I never even heard of, the International Bowl, played in Toronto, ON CANADA, but I have a rooting interest: the Buffalo Bulks, which had been a terrible team, but won some incredible games down the stretch this season. Not only is it an upstate team, it's a SUNY school (as is U Albany and SUC New Paltz, my alma maters), the school declined its only other chance to go to a bowl game 50 years ago.

On the pro level - Go, Big Blue! (That's the defending Super Bowl champs, the New York Giants, to the uninitiated.)

ROG

The Year In Review: Mixed Media

As pop culture goes, my participation in same was pretty dismal. But I'm going to plod on and describe the highlights.

COMICS
Last month, the Comic Reporter asked its readers to "Name Five Memorable Comics-Related Things About 2008 (A Book You Read, An Experience You Had, An Event That Made You Take Notice -- Anything That Would Help You In The Future Recall This Year." I failed to participate there, but I will here.

1a. Fred Hembeck's book came out, and I'm mentioned in the thank yous; I like seeing my name in print, what can I say? This also meant that I actually went to more comic-related shows (three) than I have in a while. At two of them, I saw Fred.
1b. At one of those shows, someone actually asked ME to sign some FantaCo Chronicles I worked on 25 years ago. What an ego boost!
1c. I also saw my friend Rocco Nigro, and re-met the inestimable Alan David Doane, who was probably an annoying teenager last I had seen him, rather than the charmer he is now.

2. Someone put out a Wikipedia page for FantaCo, a place I worked for 8.5 years, this summer. Frankly, the page was awful, riddled with errors and omissions. Fortunately, the guy contacted me, and it became the mission of mine and of my old buddy Steve Bissette to rectify the record; the thing is not perfect, but it's a WHOLE lot better. The incident also gave me a chance to get in contact with former FantaCo owner Tom Skulan for the first time in nearly a decade.

3. Reading Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier. It explained a lot about Jack's motivation the times I dealt with him on the phone in the early 1980s.

4. The deaths of Steve Gerber in 2008, who unbeknowst to him helped inspire this blog, and of Raoul Vezina, 25 years ago.

5. Freddie and Me by Mike Dawson, which, among other things, made me want to listen to more of the music of the group Queen.

MUSIC
I got maybe a dozen 2008 albums all year, by Lindsay Buckingham, Elvis Costello, Randy Newman, REM, She and Him, Brian Wilson, Lizz Wright, a couple others plus the MOJO take on the Beatles' white album. I liked them all at some level, but the even snarlkier than usual Newman album "stuck" the most. More old fogey music I received for Christmas and haven't heard enough to judge: Paul McCartney, James Taylor and Johhny Cash. The latter is a 40th anniversary double CD/DVD box set of his Folsom Prison concerts; just on a quick listen, I'm happy to hear the Carl Perkins and Statler Brothers tunes for the first time.

MOVIES
A paltry number of 2008 pics so far: Iron Man (my favorite), Young@Heart, Man on Wire, Vicki Cristina Barcelona, and Synecdoche, New York. Three of them, IM, MoW and VCB made the Top 10 list at the WSJ along with WALL-E, Slumdog Millionaire and a bunch of other films I will try to see.
Yes, I did see some 2007 films in 2008 and I will undoubtedly see some 2008 films in 2009. Still, five is worse than the seven I saw last year, and catching up on video just doesn't seem to happen, not that it's entirely comparable anyway.

TELEVISION

Oh, heck, TV deserves its own posting. Thanks to technology, it's about the only thing I have even a modicum of a chance to (barely) keep up with.

ROG

2009: A life odyssey

I've never been that big on resolutions. Sure I'll work on losing weight, but I think (know) I need more...fun challenges.

Thus and therefore, I resolve:
*to play more backgammon. I've been playing online quite a bit in 2008. But I have an actual board with actual pieces in my cubicle, and I haven't touched it, except to dust it off, in the nearly three years we've been in cuby land. This MUST change. I have one opponent lined up, and a date for next Tuesdayand a novice ready to learn.
* to play more cards, specifically hearts. I may have played once in 2008. Not acceptable.
* to see more movies. The wife and I may have to go to the virtual date plan, where one of us sees the 1 pm movie while the other watches the child, then the other sees the 4 pm movie while the first watches the child, then discuss later. It's not optimal, but neither is seeing five movies/year.
* to play more racquetball. Actually, more correctly, to continue to play racquetball. This year, the daughter goes to kindergarten. There appears to be no preschool at her school. Since the wife can't take her to school because of timing, it would default to me. But that would mean that I'd almost NEVER play racquetball, which might, quite literally, kill me, since it is both my primary form of exercise - especially in the winter, when I don't ride the bike - and something with which the competition provides a joie de vivre that riding on a stationary bike or running around a track simply doesn't generate for me. To that end, we're investigating hiring someone to get Lydia up, dressed, fed and taken to school, perhaps a student from a nearby college. We're paying for daycare now, so that'd be the source of the payments.
Oh, jeez, I almost forgot: come spring, I need to BUY a bike to replace the one that was stolen.
*read more books. I've started literally dozens that I simply never finish.
*listen to more music at home. This will be facilitated by the fact that the daughter got a boom box for Christmas. This means that the other boom box, which technically belongs to the wife - my matching one got stolen from my office a few years ago - can reside in the living room. My stereo, specifically the CD player, has ceased to work, despite taking it into the shop. So until I buy a new one, the boombox will be the primary form of entertainment in the living quarters.

I think that's enough.

Do YOU have any resolutions that you'd like to share?

Oh, and I had one of those reminders why I do the blog this past week. My mother, sister and niece made an impromptu visit to the Salisbury National Cemetery where my father was buried, but they couldn't find the grave site. They knew they were close, but lots of folks have been buried there in the past eight years. So my sister calls me on her cellphone; did I have a record of where he was buried? I went to my trusty blog and found the citation, section 8, grave 358. Yet another notation that while I like to provide the best of the psychodrama in my head for your entertainment, I have to do the blog for ME.


ROG

Another Auld Lang Syne

In thinking about the year soon to pass, I can't help think about some famous people who died that had some significance for me, such as Sir Edmund Hillary, who climbed Everest the year I was born, or Suzanne Pleshette, who appeared on a TV show ending screwed up b7y our local affiliate. An inordinate number of them were black musicians who passed in the latter part of the year. Isaac Hayes, who I wrote about in this piece last year; Miriam Makeba, Mother Africa; Odetta; the underappreciated Norman Whitfield, and of course, Levi Stubbs.
For Gordon and Tom the Mayor
LINK
Hey, if you have a chance, would you go to Dead or Alive and petition for the inclusion of Norman Whitfield and/or Odetta, please?

Then there were iconic characters such as Paul Newman and George Carlin, Tim Russert and Jim McKay. In an obit for McKay, it indicated that he made even the most "minor" of sports seem as important as the Olympics, and that's why I appreciated him so.

A number of folks died this month I didn't mention, such as Sammy Baugh, the first star quarterback of the NFL; Bettie Page, pin-up extraordinare; Mark Felt, who just didn't look that much like Hal Holbrook who played Deep Throat in All the President's Men; Majel Barrett, Gene Roddenberry's widow, who played nurse Chapel in the original series as well as Deanna Troi's mother in The Next Generation, and the voice of the Star Trek computer throughout the ST universe; Eartha Kitt, who sang rings around Madonna in her performance of Santa Baby, but who had a much more interesting bio than I had been aware of; possibly best known as a Catwoman in the old Batman series; and playwright Harold Pinter, whose death was sort of mentioned in the new movie Synecdoche, New York.

Mike Connell, the I.T. guru who help GWB steal the 2000 and 2004 election who went down in a plane crash.
LINK
Find out more about this case go here from December 18, 2008 forward.

A few of folks died too young for my comfort: Hayes (65); Gene Upshaw (63), Hall of Fame football player for the NFL Oakland Raiders and later Executive Director of the NFL Players Association; Bobby Murcer (62), the Oklahoman stuck following Oklahoman Mickey Mantle as Yankee centerfielder; Russert (58); Bernie Mac (50); and, of course, Heath Ledger (28).

I also recall someone you don't know. Tom Siblo was a Socialist Worker's organizer
on the campus of the State University College at New Paltz (NY) during the Vietnam war. Unusually for men at the time, he'd taken his wife's name (as Siblo-Landsman)
and was permanently disabled because of a diabetic-related coronary condition. He was around my age.

I will remember.
ROG

X is for Xmas

A couple things:
1. As this Wikipedia article suggests, the use of the X(or a variant) has long historical precedent, close to a millennium, long before the days of modern advertising. The word "Christ" and its compounds, including "Christmas", have been abbreviated in English for at least the past 1,000 years, long before the modern "Xmas" was commonly used.
"Christ" was often written as "XP" or "Xt"; there are references in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as far back as AD 1021. This X and P arose as the uppercase forms of the Greek letters χ and ρ, used in ancient abbreviations for Χριστος (Greek for "Christ"), and are still widely seen in many Eastern Orthodox icons depicting Jesus Christ. The labarum, an amalgamation of the two Greek letters rendered as ☧, is a symbol often used to represent Christ in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christian Churches.
In ancient Christian art, χ and χρ are abbreviations for Christ's name. In many manuscripts of the New Testament and icons, X is an abbreviation for Christos, as is XC (the first and last letters in Greek, using the lunate sigma); compare IC for Jesus in Greek. The Oxford English Dictionary documents the use of this abbreviation back to 1551, 50 years before the first English colonists arrived in North America and 60 years before the King James Version of the Bible was completed. At the same time, Xian and Xianity were in frequent use as abbreviations of "Christian" and "Christianity"; and nowadays still are sometimes so used, but much less than "Xmas".

So, no, this is not my assault on Christmas; it is my attempt to get to the historical roots.

2. At least in my church calendar, we are in the midst of Christmastide (or Xmastide, if you will), beginning on December 25 and going forward to Epiphany or Three Kings Day, or as my mother still calls it, Russian Christmas. In my hometown, there were lots of Russians and most of them attended the Russian Orthodox Church. THESE are the 12 days of Christmas, which is good because I'm still working on some presents. Before Christmas Eve, I'm not particularly interested in playing Christmas music, but NOW ever more so.

The pleasant surprise this Christmas was that I went out front to get the newspaper on Christmas morning. I discovered a doll for Lydia from an unexpected source - the three neighbor girls a few houses up. I don't even know their names, and they don't know Lydia's (the card referred to her as the "little cutie"). I suspect that the girls, who appear to be between 10 and 14, saw a cute doll while they were shopping, and decided to give it to someone they saw waiting with her mom or dad at the bus stop in front of their house each morning.
***
December 26: I'm wearing a Santa hat (one I had left at work two days earlier). I had a red coat, and a beard. I'm waiting for a bus when this guy I didn't even see said, "Hey, Santa." I turn around. The guy continues, "Got some change? I don't get any money until the first of the month. " Roger might have turned him down, but Santa could not.

If you lived in the United States at Christmastime, you might remember the Folgers coffee commercial where "Peter" makes a surprise visit home for the holidays; it ran \for over a decade and a half. The story behind the commercial.

ROG

MOVIE REVIEW: Synecdoche, New York

On Christmas Day, the wife and I left the daughter in the capable hands of the parents-in-law and traversed to the Spectrum Theatre in Albany to see Synecdoche, New York.

There were four basic reasons I wanted to see this film:
4) Roger Ebert gave it a four-star review.
3) I have liked some of the movies Charlie Kauffman has written, such as "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"; "Adaptation", not so much. This was Kauffman's directoral debut.
2) It has a stellar cast, with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton, and Hope Davis.
1) The movie's first setting is in Schenectady, New York, where I lived for 20 months before moving to nearby Albany. (An interesting piece on Schenectady and the title word here.)

Early on, I'm loving this film. It's a dark comedy that pegs Schenectady in the first song, in the architecture. I found a particular imagery of a house on fire hysterically funny. I laughed out loud more than once. It is wonderfully performed. Yet somewhere in the theatrical remaking of the life of Caden (Hoffman), it just unraveled for me, as too long, too unfocused.

Here's a cheat: I'm going to quote from various Rotten Tomatoes reviews, both positive (63%) and negative, that reflect as well as anything how I was feeling.

POSITIVE
Charlie Kaufman's latest example of screenplay extrapolation begins with an obscure definitional allusion...and ends in some sort of self-referential apocalypse. - Bill Gibron

It is a portrait of disappointment and melancholy, tickled by bits of wit, that defies logic and resists description. - Duane Dudek

For about two-thirds of its length, this is an extremely funny if extraordinarily dark comedy... But we begin to measure out the time in teaspoons, and the movie becomes banal and morose. - John Beifuss

You could quite possibly be enthralled -- or not. - Pete Hammond

NEGATIVE
This makes the film interesting in concept but disappointing in execution. And surreal touches added throughout that just do not add up to anything but a film more challenging than rewarding. - Mark R. Leeper

It's all crazy enough to work for a while, but the 124 long minutes don't pass soon enough. - Jeffrey M. Anderson

...a picture that is (a) brilliant, in scattered parts, but also (b) a reminder that virtually every writer needs an editor. - Kurt Loder

For a film that desperately wants us to empathize with its main character's plight, Kaufman's inability to reconcile his overambitious gimmickry with the story's emotional demands is a fatal flaw. - Jurgen Fauth

Watching the film is also wearying, like assembling a puzzle from a box into which a sadist continually pours new pieces. - Lawrence Toppman

More than one critic compared it, unfavorably, to Fellini's "8 1/2".

Ultimately, the line that described it best for me is this technically positive review by Philip Martin: "An impossible, bewildering and brave failure of a movie ..."

I would not say, "Don't see it." You may enjoy it, "get" it more than I did. Or not.

ROG

Roger Answers Your Questions, Uthaclena

Uthaclena, who is one of the few people reading this blog I know personally:

Asking Anything?

Okay, it's Sunday, and the header of your blog refers to "pondering... God."

Do you believe in "God" as a supernatural Personality actively creating, shaping, judging, intervening, with whom one can have a "relationship?" And, as a follow-up question, do you believe in personal survival after bodily death? Some awareness that will recognize I am/was "Roger?"

OK, U., interesting questions. And I waited until Sunday to answer them.

I don't think God made the world then went away. I believe that God is an active entity. I believe in the power of prayer. But I don't believe that prayer is like some sort of cosmic Santa Claus where you get to pray for a pony and ZING!, a pony arrives. Intercessionary prayer I believe in. And sometimes the answer is no. Three examples immediately come to mind.

There was a woman I knew named Rus who had a rare, incurable disease. About 20 years ago, while she was dying in a Boston hospital, a bunch of her friends, including me, were in the chapel of Trinity United Methodist Church in Albany, praying for Rus. And she was cured. There is no other logical explanation for it.

People were praying for my father in 2000 and my brother-in-law John in 2002, too, but they both died. And in each case, someone who was praying probably the hardest for them got pretty damn angry with God.

God may talk to people through earthly tools, such as movies. I found this website that discusses the theological ramification of movies. Theological ramifications of "Natural Born Killers"? The site also has a thematic directory where topics from alienation to trust are referenced to specific movies.

I think that often God sends a sign. I am reminded of the joke here (Dumb Faith) that suggests that sometimes the message is given but we are just not hearing it.

As for the second question, I believe in an afterlife. Whether it'll contain my Rogerness, I simply don't know. People often talk about the deceased watching over them from heaven; I don't know if it's true or not, though I suspect it's true for them, and that may be enough.
***
Meanwhile someone suggested that I become "friends" with Stan Lee on his Facebook page. So I did, and he accepted on Friday, as he did with Laurence Fishburne and doubtless thousands of others. Probably not worth mentioning, except that it's Stan Lee's 86th birthday today.


ROG

Roger Answers Your Question, Arthur

Arthur @ AmeriNZ, that blogger and podcaster from New Zealand via Illinois asked:

Oddly enough, recently I bought "This is the Moody Blues" on iTunes (to replace the vinyl copy I had), and this was one of the songs. I still love it.

A question? Well, by way of preface, there's an Australian talk show host called Rove McManus (the show is called "Rove Live") who ends every celebrity interview with the same question: "Who would you turn gay for?" The current Prime Minster of New Zealand answered Brad Pitt, though he as asked by some one not quite the stature of Rove.

So, in my best imitation Australian accent, I ask, who would Roger turn gay for?

When I was in high school, I had this conversation among some of my male friends. I suggested one of the guys from our high school swim team. Interestingly, at least three of that group of friends turned out to be gay, though they were in the closet at the time, at least to me.

I suppose if you had asked me 25 years ago, I might have said Tom Selleck. This in spite of the fact that I almost never actually watched Magnum, P.I. In fact, the only time I specifically remember watching the show is when it had a crossover with Murder, She Wrote, a show I'll admit to watching fairly religiously. Cabot Cove, Maine: highest per capita murder rate in the WORLD. But Selleck's politics, I've discovered are rather right-wing, so not him.

I suppose George Clooney. He's rich, handsome, talented, and his politics don't suck. Incidentally, it was never Brad Pitt for me, even in his Thelma and Louise days.
***
No one asked me, but I do have rooting interests on this last weekend of the regular season of the NFL:

The New York (New Jersey) Jets: I'd like them to beat Miami, which COULD go from being the #3 seed to out of the playoffs. So, I'm also rooting for Buffalo to get to 8-8 and beat New England. For good measure I think I want Jacksonville to beat Baltimore, but it ain't gonna happen.

The Philadelphia Eagles: this for Greg. Not only must the Eagles beat the Cowboys (I ALWAYS root against the Cowboys), but Oakland should beat Tampa Bay AND Houston must beat Chicago. Yeesh.

The Carolina Panthers: my mom, one sister, one niece live in Charlotte. They'll probably still be in the playoffs, but it'd do them well to beat the Saints.

The San Diego Chargers: the other sister and one niece live in the San Diego area. So if the Chargers beat the Broncos, they'll be in the playoffs! At 8-8. Yuck.

ROG

The Lydster, Part 57: He Sees You When You're Sleeping

This is the very first Christmas Lydia has spent in her own home. In prior years, we'd be at her grandparents' house. But this is the first year she really has waiting on Christmas.

Her parents have told her relatively little about the whole Christmas tradition compared what she's picked up from her friends. She knows, for instance, a whole bunch of Christmas songs that she learned at day care, some of which the kids sang at a local hospital's geriatric unit. ("Going to see the grandmas and grandpas" is how it's put.)

One of the songs she knows is "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." She may have known about it before from a "dancing snowman" one of my in-laws cursed us with a year or two ago. In any case, she's taken the words to heart.

So much so that one day, the day after a night when Lydia was slow to get to bed, Lydia started crying uncontrollably for no obvious reason. After the paternal investigation, it came to light that she thought she wasn't being very good the night before, that Santa could "see" that she was being "bad" and she would get no gifts for Christmas! I had to reassure her that she in fact was a good child and that Santa would not "stiff" her.

One of my pastors preached on his disdain for that particular song. It might have been based somewhat on that omniscient thing.

Still, a parent can be tempted, when a child is slow to wash her hands before supper or hasn't picked up her toys to ask her, "Do you think Santa would think you are being good?" I've declined that option. This year.


ROG

Merry Christmas

Some Christmas limericks from The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form

Christmas by Bob Dvorak (Bob Dvorak)

Though merchants may tally its worth,

Our reflections should turn to His birth:

Christmas celebrates when

God appeared among men

With a message of peace for the earth.

Christmas by Richard Stehr (Richard Stehr)

If I missed out on Christmas, perhaps

It's because I was one of those chaps

Who had chances to be

Perched upon Santa's knee

But, unfortunately, let them lapse.

Christmas by Charles Silliman (Charles Silliman)

By a star, the three wise men were led.

But they found, as they stood at His bed,

That the one brightest light

On that first Christmas night

Was the glow from the Son of God's head.

Christmas by Dottie (Anne Clements)

There's a brightly lit tree in the hall,

Lots of cards, all displayed on the wall.

Gifts are wrapped, shopping's done,

Now it's time for the fun—

Happy Christmas, dear friends, one and all!

Christmas by stella

May your Christmas be filled with delight;

May your tinsel be sparkly and bright;

May your crackers go pop!

May you eat till you drop;

And may you and your in-laws not fight.

***
The Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, MANY Faces of Santa Claus! by Fred Hembeck
***
Kringus Offerings by Samurai Frog
***

The arithmetic of Christmas: This person's been talking about Christmas only since April. While it's been less than 2% of my lifetime since last Christmas, it's been over 20% of hers.

ROG

My Favorite Christmases: 1996

I'm running out of memorable positive Christmases after noting Christmases past here and here and here It's not that all the rest were awful, just undifferentiated in my mind. The one in 1990 WAS awful, though, when the tenor soloist at my church, Sandy Cohen, died on Christmas Eve, shortly before we were supposed to sing. Sing we did, and by any objective measure, we were terrible. But it wasn't just his voice we missed; it was his spirit.

Last year, or church did a service a couple weeks before Christmas for people who have a difficult time with the holiday season for one reason or another. It was ill-attended and the service wasn't repeated this year, but I do "get" the feeling.

What to pick, then? I'll go with 1996. It was the first time I'd spent Christmas with my birth/growing up family in years. In my years at FantaCo, e.g., I never went to North Carolina for Christmas because that was the height of the retail season. In fact, often we didn't celebrate Christmas until MLK day, after the annual inventory was finished. Other years involved going to the home of a friend or a girlfriend. The last several we've spent at my in-laws'.

The two things that were cool about 1996: my niece Alexandra was about to turn six; her birthday, unfortunately for her, is five days after Christmas. It's rather nice to be in the presence of a child that age who's so looking forward to Christmas.

The other thing was my gift to Alex, which was some reversible print clothing outfit of some sort that I had purchased at a clothing fair a few days earlier. I was loath to buy clothing for people I don't see often, but this ensemble spoke to me. Not only did she like it, her mother, my sister Marcia, liked it as well. They (my mother, sister and niece) raved about it for the two years she was able to wear it in various combinations so that it looked fresh, and even after Alex outgrew it. Uncle Roger had done well.
***

Earthrise, December 24, 1968 from Apollo 8
***
Gee, I need to get a more current seasonal picture of my family:

***
A great review of It's a Wonderful Life by Steve Bissette and how it's even more applicable in 2008.
***
He’s not just a man in a Santa suit. Roger Green takes his role of Santa Claus very seriously and even has documents to attest to his alter ego. No, it's not me, but how could I resist the link?

W is for Waiting

Tom Petty, or as my late friend Tom used to call him, Tommy Pett, was right: The Waiting IS the hardest part.

Whether it is something leading to road rage or throwing something at computer that is downloading files too slowly, we just can't wait. We're in a hurry. Gotta multitask or you'll miss something. Be in touch 24/7 with a variety of gadgetry.

One of my major pet peeves are people who park in crosswalks or incline planes where people with wheelchairs or carts should be able to operate, and all because the driver is "in a hurry" to stop and get a bagel that will take "just a minute", instead of waiting to park in a spot three car lengths away. One time, in my neighborhood, that very scenario took place, when a blind man walked into a car parked in a crosswalk. The man was confused and disoriented, but I was too far away to assist him. Grrr!

Waiting in line or being on hold on a telephone can be the banes of my existence. Or not. I get to choose whether I use that time to observe/to think/to relax or to let it get me down. My choice. Reading material, though, DOES help.

I get the impression that there a lot of people out there waiting for love and romance.
LINK


In fact, there seems to be plenty of reasons to wait. You don't REALLY want to go swimming right after a big meal, do you? Or hit the SEND TO ALL button when you really wanted to eviscerate only one person? Sometimes counting to 10 (or 100) will keep one from saying just that particularly wrongheaded thing that is hard to take back.

Even the good things one has difficulty waiting. We are in the season of Advent in the Christian calendar, and it's all about waiting, with those hymns in minor keys. Some just can't wait for Christmas. (Is that why the local CVS drug store started playing Christmas music BEFORE VETERANS DAY? And doesn't that just make the wait seem even longer starting music earlier?) We now have the U.S. Air Defense Command offering new high-tech ways to track Santa.

LINK
(BTW, for the song above, I was really looking for the Ollabelle version. I guess I'll have to WAIT for it to pop up on YouTube. But I DO like this version as well.)

Wait. You'd be surprised what you might find.

ROG