Eight things

It was undoubtedly Lefty who semi-tagged me to write eight (more) things about myself.

1. I have gone out with two different women who had lost children in car accidents, before I met them. I think - check that, I'm certain - that I didn't understand their deep-seated devastation at the time.

2. I recently finished listening to a disc that someone compiled of the 500 best songs. Of the 500, I downloaded 128. Of the 128, the vast majority I already own on vinyl - six by Chuck Berry, four by Little Richard, three each by Queen and Buddy Holly; I also grabbed Buddy Holly by Weezer, which I had never owned before.

3. I worked as a bank teller for less than a month in 1978. My first day solo, I was off by five cents, and I was required to spend an hour looking for it; not worth it.

4. I've received Hess trucks for Christmas the last seven years. I actually play with them on those rare occasions when neither my wife or daughter are home.

5. The sound of a power lawn mower, vacuum cleaner, or washing machine could put me to sleep, given the opportunity.

6. I've shaken Nelson Rockefeller's hand twice.

7. I used to be in a volleyball league. I served well.

8. I never took the SATs.
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What Is Art?

ROG

Wind Energy

The last post about our vacation week in June. Although, if I find that picture of my wife in Shaker garb that she dressed up in at Hancock Shaker Village on the Friday of that week, I'll have to show you. As a family outing, it was probably the most successful, for Lydia could look at the animals, and there was a kid's exploration building, where they could draw, milk a faux cow, as well as see real bees making honey.


Meanwhile, the big deal at the timeshare was that much of the parking would be blocked off the accommodate a wind turbine passing through on the way to the top of the mountain. It came in by ship to the Port of Albany, it was announced on the news, and I knew it by the description that it couldn't come where we were via either of the routes we took. Route 43 has a nasty turn which would not accommodate sections that long. I was right; they came a more circuitous, but straighter path (on Route 20).

I'm sure I was more interested in these things because I had just done a reference question about wind farms. It seemed like an easy alternative to other forms of energy, and it may be. But the people opposing then complain about a constant low hum, the destruction of birds and bats that run into them, and the evolutionary nature of the technology whereby 30 windmills five years from now may generate as much power as 60 windmills today, as well as the aesthetic considerations. One also needs to look at wind maps to maximize the effectiveness of the items.

Still, I'm extremely curious about them.
***
I was going to write about this disturbing, and somewhat bizarre racial story in Jena, LA, but Thom beat me to it. The nooses in the story disturbed me viscerally, just reading about it; "strange fruit", indeed. Read more here.





ROG

When the Cat's Away QUESTION

Unusually, my wife and my daughter were both away for a week last month. This meant I got to do all the laundry the day before my wife returns, which is a good thing. I got deeper into my T-shirt collection, as usually the same three or four shirts get washed and end up on top, so that those other shirts don't get the love they deserve.

I'm hoping Tosy or Jaquandor can remind me of the particulars of this scene from the excellent, but short-lived, TV series Once and Again: Karen Sammler is sorting her (underwear?) drawer so that those pieces that hadn't gotten worn recently got put on the top. I'm sure I saw this scene, and since I almost certainly watched it on tape, I rewound it and showed it to my wife (who seldom watched the show). "See? See?", I told Carol.

Anyway, I did things such as all of the dishes at once. I stacked all my reading material on the living room floor one day, and cleaned it up en masse the next. My wife's more incrementalist.

So, here's the question: what things do you do when your boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, roommate is away that you would never do when he/she's there? If you're living alone now, or have lived alone in the past, post-roomie, what did/do you do solo that would have driven your exes nuts? Conversely, what did they do when you were away that would drive you nuts? (My wife would tidy up, then I'd ask her where so-and-so was that had been sitting on the kitchen table for weeks, and she had no idea - sure it LOOKED good, but some Thomas Dolby quote would come to mind.)
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How to: Be an uber blogger, by Cory Doctorow

ROG

Things I Don't Know

Today is my half birthday. That seems appropriate, in that I have some half-developed thoughts today:

1. I can't tell if an operatic star is really good. The title of a Luciano Pavarotti obit Charisma, hype and that incredible voice - with a link to a performance - seems to be true in many performing arts, but in rock and roll, for instance, I'm versed enough in it that I can usually make an informed opinion about it. It's even more true of Beverly Sills, who died earlier this year; maybe not the greatest opera soprano, but she popularized the genre. Couldn't tell one way or the other by me.

2. I'm confounded by that guy from Idaho. Larry Craig gets arrested, pleads guilty. The story gets out, he resigns, he makes noises about reneging on his resignation.
Why are the Repubs SO willing to throw him to the wolves so quickly? The video of Democratic operative James Carville here, with the transcript here sort of encapsulates the thing for me:
What I found extraordinary about this is nobody came out and defended this guy. I mean, nobody said, "He’s a good man, done a bad thing." "Here’s a decent guy who’s obviously been struggling with a problem." "Here’s somebody who" —I mean, nobody. No Republican, no, no, no, no operative, no journalist. Nobody said, "Well, Larry Craig’s got nothing." And I mean, they didn’t throw him under the bus, they hit him with the bus. I mean, he’s like, boom! Flattened him.
So, what, exactly, were the Republicans running from? What is the subtext?

I was interested to see that Larry Craig believed he was implicated in this 1982 Congressional page scandal.

So is this homophobia, hubris, hagiography, haiku, or what?

3. What the heck DID Jerry Lewis say in the waning hours of the MDA telethon? Given the fact that Jerry has apologized, I assume he used the word Isaiah Washington has been known to use. But honestly, I've watched the tape, and I wouldn't know WHAT he said.

4. I'm afraid I may know the answer to this one:
Did the country REALLY need Mario Cuomo, the Hamlet on the Hudson who should have taken that Supreme Court job rather run unsuccessfully for a fourth term as governor of New York to remind us that according to the Constitution, Congress has the right to declare war? (Answer: probably.)

5. If I got one of these, Les Newsman would be proud, but would it alienate my co-workers?

6. I saw this license plate last night: THEREVS. Was it supposed to mean THE REVS (a pair of ministers) or THE REV S (a specific minister) or THERE VS (a "them versus us" scenario that I gave more credence to for good cause).
***
Happy birthday this week to Cecily and Susan.


ROG

MOVIE REVIEWS: Knocked Up and The Simpsons Movie

Sometimes, after eight years of marriage, my wife can still surprise me. In late July, the movie Knocked Up was showing only twice a day at the Spectrum Theater, at 1:10 and 9:40 pm, and I figured we'd just have to write the film off. No, she said, why don't we get a babysitter and see the 9:40 pm show? On a Tuesday, a school night. This from a woman who generally wants to be in bed by 9:40 pm.

I was recounting that story to one of my racquetball mates. He told me that he had gone into the theater, watched Knocked Up for ten minutes, then walked out, disgusted.

Well, yeah, it IS one of that type of movies. Yet at its core, Judd Apatow's film is VERY traditional - talk about "do the right thing" - and very sweet. Seth Rogan, who I've been following since the late, lamented Freaks and Geeks TV show, plays stoner Ben Stone, who, on a one-night stand, impregnates TV anchor Alison Scott, played by Grey's Anatomy's Katherine Heigl. Leslie Mann is Debbie, Alison's sister, and Paul Rudd is Pete, Debbie's somewhat beleaguered husband.

Ultimately, the drug-induced humor wore thin for me, but the relationship humor was often dead on. We laughed a lot, cringed a bit, but the funny stuff ultimately won out. My favorite line in the movie is when Alison says to her doctor, "But we have a birth plan!" which may not have the same effect if you haven't been in a delivery room lately.

I was surprised what didn't bother me: Heigl's character bedding the nerdy guy here, just like Heigl's Izzy Stevens slept with insecure George on Grey's Anatomy.

Even more raucous than The 40-Year Old Virgin, which I liked a bit more, I'd recommend the film, but not to those easily grossed out.
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As for the Simpsons Movie, which I saw alone in mid-August at the Madison Theater (because my wife was out of town, and not interested anyway), it was what many people have already said; a pretty good extra long episode of the show. I did like Bart and Flanders' relationship and Grandpa's religious experience. I know a couple people who've worked for the EPA, so thought it rather funny that the agency could be so efficient. It was a knowing touch to make the current governor of California the President, since, constitutionally, he cannot be. But my favorite scene was Homer and Marge, alone save for those Disney animals; I laughed out loud.
***
Note to Lefty: This is the real question:

ROG

Metablogging about Someone Else's Metablogging

I read Thirteen Blog Clichés last month, and thought I'd discover how many sins I'm "guilty" of, and whether I care.

1. The Useless Calendar Widget - don't have one. I do have a clock, mostly because I don't trust my computer clock which tends to run faster and faster.

2. Random Images Arbitrarily Inserted In Text - never thought to do that, but hey, maybe I'll start!


3. No Information on the Author - well, you got my name, my city, my hometown, my profession, and more. What else would you like to know?

4. Excess Flair - not likely to happen, not by my discipline, but from the fact that I'm too technologically deficient to add a lot of widgets.

5. The Giant Blogroll - Some of the author's readers really fussed over this one. As someone else once recommended to me, my blog I do initially for me. I refer to those links. Some I read regularly, some I use as bookmarks (Major League Baseball, e.g.) Yes, I could RSS most of them, but then I'd miss that random nature of wanting to check out Lefty on Friday when he's going to post his questions, e.g.

In fact, I added a couple new links yesterday, first-time bloggers, each of whom I've known for over a quarter century: Joe Fludd, an old FantaCo artist and customer, and CD, with whom I shared a boarding house, along with nine other people, in New Paltz in the mid 1970s.

Philosophically, it's like how I sometimes would pull out my address book, leaf through it and realize I hadn't checked in with someone for a while, and I would give him or her a call. (Some girlfriend of mine at the time complained about me doing that; she thought I should just know who I wanted to call, and call them. I thought her complaint was nonsensical.)

6. The Nebulous Tag Cloud - don't even know HOW to do this. I'm/you're safe.

7. Excessive Advertisements - I resisted having any ads at all. Think I'm OK. I'm utterly fascinated, BTW, what topic my ad (that I can't mention) will read, based on the varied topics on my blog.

8. This Ain't Your Diary - yes, it sorta is. But generally, I leave a lot out.

9. Sorry I Haven't Written in a While - Well, since I haven't missed a day yet, not applicable. But I agree with the general point.

10. Blogging About Blogging - the obvious irony of the author noting that one. Occasionally guilty. Like now.

And while I'm thinking about it, how does Technorati actually work? A story about a recent post that appeared in Journalista!, but not the initial referral that ADD made. Yet other ADD stories have shown up.

11. Mindless Link Propagation - never! Only MINDFUL Link Propagation. For instance, H.R. 811, expected to be voted on today, is bad legislation. There's this link about kissing is a story from Australia quoting a UAlbany professor. How about a baseball league with only one team with a winning record? I hadn't read about Turkey's previous incursions into northern Iraq in the MSM. Someone asked me to pass along this Snopes story about a virus posing as a postcard.

12. Top (n) Lists - I like them. It's one of my favorite features in Tosy's page, e.g.

13. No Comments Allowed - I agree with this complaint, and I am open for comments. In fact, I would like to get more comments. More, MORE, MORE.
***
Blogging Success Study.
***
Oh, the "random picture" is of Ana Ivanovic, the tennis player who lost to Venus Williams at the U.S. Open this past weekend.
***
My latest poll asked:
Do you know the source of the line, "Vote for me and I'll set you free"?
19 of you said, "Of course!"
9 pf you said, "It sounds familiar but I can't place it."
4 of you said, "I have no clue."
the answer is the song Ball of Confusion, originally made famous by the Temptations in 1970, and covered by Edwin Starr (1971), Undisputed Truth (1971), Love & Rockets (1986), and Duran Duran (1995). I've also heard the Neville Brothers perform it live a couple years ago.

ROG

TV REVIEW: The Bronx Is Burning

Because I'd finally caught up with almost everything else, over a two and a half week stretch recently, I managed to watch all eight segments of the ESPN miniseries The Bronx Is Burning, ostensibly about the New York Yankees' 1977 World Series win, their first since 1962, despite the tension among Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, manager Billy Martin and outfielder Reggie Jackson. It was also about the .44-caliber killer known as Son of Sam, and the general decay of New York City.

I had a personal interest in this story, for I was living in Jamaica, Queens from May to September. I was hanging out partying late at night and was just a tad paranoid about Son of Sam, and I remember the screaming red-letter headlines on the New York Post when David Berkowitz was caught in August of 1977.

The production featured the actors in scenes, interspersed with footage of the era, both in the baseball scenes, and in the atmospheric segments about the blackout, the mayoral race between Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo (I voted for Cuomo, BTW).

The good things about this production: John Turturro as the Billy Martin, and I say that not because Turturro graduated from my alma mater of New Paltz, but because he seemed to embody, rather than imitate, the fiery manager. Erik Jensen as Yankee captain and catcher Thurman Munson. Kevin Conway, who plays Yankees Prez and GM, Gabe Paul; he doesn't really look like Paul, but his caught-in-the-middle performance rang true. The great background pieces at the end of each episode featuring Jackson, Steinbrenner, Yankees Chris Chambliss and Fran Healey, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, and Billy Martin's son, Bill Jr. (Martin was killed in a one-car crash in Binghamton, NY - my hometown - on December 25, 1989.)

The so-so parts: Oliver Platt as Steinbrenner; he looked like Oliver Platt playing Steinbrenner. Joe Grifasi as Yogi Berra, who didn't seem all that bright and was there to share Italian-American insults with Martin. Leonard Armond Robinson as Mickey Rivers, and whoever played Fran Healey were OK. The guys playing the cops in the Son of Sam investigation, featuring Dan Lauria (Wonder Years). The use of the real video, although seeing the cheesy ABC Sports logo was a hoot.

The not so hot parts: Daniel Sunjata as Reggie Jackson; it wasn't just the look, it was the feel of the character. Most of the other supporting players, especially the women, were ciphers. The guy playing Lou Pinella looks nothing like him, while a press guy reminded me of Yankee pitcher Catfish Hunter. And most of all, the Son of Sam killings, which almost all involved a couple of Noo Yawkers babbling something to each other before they were shot by Berkowitz; they all felt the same.

So, it wasn't great, it wasn't awful. I'm glad I saw it because it was a good reminder of the era. If you rent the DVD, which will be out later this month, I have the sense that the extras will be more enjoyable than the core item.
***
Here's a weird TV thing: I was watching a rerun of Scrubs recently. The original episode aired on May 10, and was 40 minutes (more like 38). But when it was rerun in the last week or two, it was in the 30 minute slot. How did this work? Cuts. J.D. and Turk's voice-over dialogue as they were driving away. Kelso's dis of a woman his age or younger at a convention as too old. But mostly, the whole scene with J.D. and Turk at a lecture conducted by J.D.'s pregnant ex-girlfriend was broken in half in the original, with a "Busta move" piece of verbiage, but continuous in the repeat, sans "Busta move". I wonder if both versions will show up on the DVD?

ROG

French military victories in the Arabian Gulf

You may recall that Google was, for a time, "fooled", when typing in miserable failure, into linking to George W. Bush's biography; now it links to the controversy over that Google bomb.

I have learned recently that the first site that loads on Google when you plug in the term French military victories is a faked Google page offering a "did you mean?" option. Searching for Arabian gulf gives you a site similar to the defused "cannot find weapons of mass destruction" fake IE error page. (Thanks, Amanda from Charleston.)
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Wonder Woman shows that fighting crime is not always easy.

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I went into a comic book store last week and actually bought two items: the Overstreet Price Guide (do people still call it the Overpriced Street Guide?), because my boss has started asking me about prices of old comics; and the magazine Alter Ego (July 2007), featuring a long interview with '70s Marvel editor, and Alter Ego founder, Roy Thomas. His ascent to editor pretty much corresponded to the time I first started looking at comics again after a large gap when I had "outgrown" them; big-time nostalgia for me, I was surprised to discover.
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There's a new reality show being developed and I know all about it.
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Numbers lie: I'm loving the Wall Street Journal blog, The Numbers Guy, which I write about here.
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My monthly plug about the Underground Railroad conference here.

Yeah, I'm repositioning my own pieces from my other blogs for this post. Hey, it's Labor Day weekend; cut me some slack!
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Instead of watching Pedro Martinez's pitching debut for his beloved Mets, what Fred Hembeck will be viewing (September 2). I'll be alternating between the Mets and the U.S. Open (tennis), bumped from the local our CBS affiliate by what Fred is watching, but showing up on our CW affiliate.

ROG

Jackie Kennedy and falling apples

During our Berkshires vacation in June, we went to a place called MASS MoCA, which is the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, located in North Adams, MA. Actually, we went there twice. On a Monday afternoon, we drove towards there, but , following one of those ad maps that were not to scale, thought that we had passed it, when in fact we had not. The direction "drive through a cemetery" was correct; the way we came, we passed a graveyard that was on one side of us, then another cemetery that was on one side, then on BOTH sides of us. So, by the time we got there on Monday, it was really too late to go in and get our money's worth; the hours were 11-5 that week, though they would change to 10-6 for the summer the following week. We did, however, consume some of the ice cream made on location.

The idea of MASS MoCA really appeals to me: a bunch of old factory buildings converted into an art museum. So we returned on Wednesday, eavesdropped as a trainee described some Dutch fabric artist's work, then went on our own.

The bulk of the time, we looked at the works of Spencer Finch, which will be on exhibit through Spring 2008, not so incidentally. The display was called Spencer Finch: What Time Is It On the Sun? Most of the pieces are very, mechanical, and I would not have "gotten" them had I not read the brochure.

For instance, for Night Sky (Over the Painted Desert, Arizona, January 11, 2004), Finch mixed a variety of paints to match the color of the night sky. After weighing the physical mass of each pigment...the artist calculated the molecular ratio of each color in the combination. With 401 incandescent bulbs of various sizes, each bulb represents a particular atom... Well, all right, then.

Here's a paragraph from this New York Times article, that described one piece for me:
Often the work promises poetry but doesn’t deliver it, as in "Two Hours, Two Minutes, Two Seconds (Wind at Walden Pond, March 12, 2007)," a bank of ordinary white window fans stacked on top of one another. Arranged in a semicircle, the fans emit a steady breeze and an occasional gust over the time period specified by the work’s title. Mr. Finch experienced and measured these winds, using a weathervane and an anemometer, at the famous pond. It’s an interesting idea that falls flat in realization.

Lydia was getting bored. The one piece that might have been her, and thus our, salvation was the piece described here:
you first saw a square piece of green AstroTurf on the floor, upon which were scattered several red apples. Every five minutes, an apple thudded to the floor from an overhead apparatus, to make a vivid red-and-green sculpture that had a distinctly painterly appeal. Each night the apples were cleared away, so that the next day yielded a new chance pattern. Call Finch's Composition in Red and Green a Newton machine or a mechanized rendition of an orchard in the fall, but it was surprisingly appealing to the eye. This would have captured Lydia's attention for at least a little while, but the apple-dropping mechanism failed to drop the apples!

The one piece that worked best for both Carol and me, in spite of the impatient three-year-old, was Trying to Remember the Color of Jackie Kennedy's Pillbox Hat. Described here, it was in one small room, 100 paintings of ovals of varying hues of pink. The whole perception and memory thing came out with just the art and the title.

It wasn't a terrible experience, as many of the pieces were intriguing. And we had ice cream again. Perhaps the adults should try to visit it again.
ROG

Next Post QUESTION

I'm curious how you folks who look at other blogs actually find them. Initially, I went through the links of the handful of bloggers I knew then, but I soon found a certain redundancy of common sites.

So, my favorite thing to do became using the Next Blog feature on the Blogger sites. However, I've been trying it recently and finding it increasingly unsatisfactory. I keep finding, every fourth or fifth hit, a sex site. And not just a sex site, but one site nearly identical in spite of mild permutations. It's always a white background with a title of the video, which may be fairly innocuous - "David Beckham's first MLS goal". But on the right is a list of:
Related Top Posts that include - and I've eliminated more than a few:
# PAMELA ANDERSON AND JENNA JAMESON BOTH IN ONE SCENE!!!!(772)
# Sexy Chopper Biker Girls Naked(708)
# hot girls part 3 - the russian(445)

Of course, the non-sex sites I find are uneven. Either, I can't understand the language or it contains information such as: "Well let me just say this, Zac Efron totally hotty! Danngg!" What's a Zac Efron? (OK, I DO know about High School Musical.)

I do find some interesting places, but, where it used to take me about 10 minutes to find three commentable sites via Next Blog, now it takes a half hour, because among other things, the porn sites have disabled the Next Post button, so I have to go back before going forward. (They've also taken out the Flag Blog feature, not surprisingly - is there a way to report them to Blogger some other way?)

So, as I asked initially, what do YOU do to seek out new sites?
***
And speaking of Disney and sex, Mark Evanier, writing about the demise of a Disney digest, writes: Once upon a time, Playboy sold seven million copies per issue and now it sells three million. This is not because of a declining male interest in beautiful nude women or because the women aren't as beautiful or as nude as they used to be. The phraseology, for whatever reason, cracked me up.
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Geico Uncovers Secrets About Flintstones, Clampetts - the commercials will almost certainly be better than the upcoming Caveman series.
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Starting this Monday: Changes in the comic strip For Better or Worse.
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Two guys named Ken:
Levine - and his readers - on movie theater etiquette (or the lack of same)
Jennings (August 30) on separated at birth
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I had asked who won the Democratic debate in Iowa on ABC-TV's This week a couple weeks ago. I got five voters, four of whom picked Dennis Kucinich, and one who selected Barack Obama.
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Karl Rove and now Alberto Gonzalez are both gone, and I'm not feeling the happiness I thought I would. It's like the letdown I got when I would rehearse for a choir piece or a play; the event would go off well, but I'd be left with a mild melancholy. At least now I know why they left when they did.

ROG

Chuck and Di and Teresa

Like many people, I was up early the morning of July 29, 1981 to watch at least part of the royal wedding. I wasn't much of a monarchist, but it was one of those world events I felt I should watch.

On a very cold Saturday, January 16, 1982, my friend Jessica, who was a performance artist, poet, and from England, herded her friends to Emmanuel Baptist Church in Albany to do a mock re-enactment. A number of frigid people played members of the royal family and the Spencers. Jessie played Di, I played the Archbishop of Canterbury. Many pictures were being taken and most of us had no real idea to what end.

A month or two later, at the 8th Step Coffee House, then located in the basement of the church I now attend, Jessie did a slide show of the royal wedding, complete with biting narration. It was amazingly funny! In fact, it was one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen in my life.

Of course, the real royals got very weird, Chuck and Di split and, 10 years ago, Diana and two others died in Paris.

Not only did I watch the funeral, I got my wife the soundtrack to the funeral - she and Diana were very close in age, and she related to her death largely on that basis.

I'm reminded, too, that Mother Teresa, a Friend of Diana, also died 10 years ago this very week. Her death was practically lost in the headlines over the royal funeral controversy so well played out in the movie The Queen, which I enjoyed last year. Teresa made headlines recently when papers that were released revealed her doubts about her faith. Yet, she did her good works anyway.

Two women, seemingly quite disparate, both of whom had enormous impact in their own way, died a decade ago, and I feel the need to note this, surprisingly to me in the case of the younger one, who I helped to mock years earlier.
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Richard Jewell died Wednesday, and I was IMMEDIATELY reminded about what one of the, well, accused Duke rapists said: that in HIS obituary, he will be described as "One of the accused Duke rapists".

ROG

MOVIE REVIEW: Spider-Man 2

That's right, the middle movie. I could hardly see the third film without having seen the second. And I saw it in a theater. Sort of.

At our vacation place in the Berkshires, there is a 40-seat theater in one of the buildings, showing some interesting-sounding films. As I mentioned, early in the week, Carol took Lydia to see Charlotte's Web, but Lydia found the darkened theater experience too intense and so they bailed. The first Fantastic Four film was also showing that week, but it seemed that I should pick the movie I most wanted to see. I liked the first Spidey film and own it on VHS (pre-ownership of the DVD player), so on June 28, I head over to the movie theater.

In retrospect, it seemed almost predestined that I see the film on that day. The day before (June 27), it was Tobey Maguire's 32nd birthday, and he appeared on Live with Regis and Kelly. I didn't see that, but I did see the next day's trivia question, which was asking for the name of Spider-Man's alter ego. The contestant on the show muffed it, but anyone who's worked in a comic book store, or has collected the four-color item MUST know Peter Parker. Moreover, the movie was showing on cable that week. TWICE I saw the scene when Mary Jane Watson says to Peter, "Don't disappoint me."

So, I get a tiny bag of free popcorn and sit in the theater with maybe a dozen people. And I'm liking the movie until six older people come into the room. It IS pitch black, except for the light from the screen, and they loudly make it known that it's dark, all through that birthday party scene. I didn't mind it so much when they were seeking their seats -though GETTING THERE ON TIME would have alleviated the problem - but their recapping ("Boy, it sure is dark in here - I had trouble finding my seat" AFTER they were all in place was REALLY annoying. I mean, SHUT. UP. ALREADY. I thought that, didn't say it.

The rest of the film went down easy, with a very credible villain in Alfred Molina's Doc Ock, the right amount of personal tension in Peter Parker's life, especially vis a vis Mary Jane, great action sequences, and the continuing Harry Osborn thread. Great balance, great pacing.

Roger Ebert gave this film four stars. Entertainment Weekly gave the DVD release an A-, and put it on its list of Top 25 action films. Despite the early distraction, a very enjoyable film.

(And there was popcorn left at the end, so I took another tiny bag to go.)

ROG

Underplayed Vinyl: Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson's 1979 album, Off the Wall, is better than Michael Jackson's 1982 album, Thriller.

OFF THE WALL
1. Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
2. Rock With You
3. Workin' Day And Night
4. Get On The Floor
5. Off The Wall
6. Girlfriend
7. She's Out Of My Life
8. I Can't Help It
9. It's The Falling In Love
10. Burn This Disco Out

THRILLER
1. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
2. Baby Be Mine
3. The Girl Is Mine
4. Thriller
5. Beat It
6. Billie Jean
7. Human Nature
8. P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)
9. The Lady in My Life

Actually, they are, in some ways, similar albums. Both start with my favorite groove on the album, followed by a more midtempo sound, though I prefer Rock with You. Both have ballads that are OK, though She's Out of My Life is more appealing to me.

Now, Thriller does have Beat It and Billie Jean, both of which appear on some Rolling Stone list of top 500 tunes. But I will contend that the popularity and import of those songs (and of the title song as well) was fueled as much by the videos as the music.

Where the older album has the great Workin' song in the third slot, Thriller has This Girl Is Mine. One can argue about the quality of the song - I don't think much of the dopey dialogue between Paul McCartney and Michael - but listening to it, it just has a whole different feel from what goes on before or after. (The Macca-penned Girlfriend may be the weakest track on Off the Wall.)

And the title tune Thriller is great theater, but is it a great song?

Ultimately, Off the Wall is better because it ends stronger. Instead of the sappy ballad, I'm burning that disco out. There may be better songs on Thriller, but Off the Wall is more consistently solid.

Incidentally, Off the Wall was not a piker of an album commercially, as it sold 7 million copies in the U.S. alone; Thriller was just a monster album, selling 3.5 times as many in this country.

Today is MJ's 49th birthday.
ROG

Chronicles of the Fantastic Four Chronicles

(This conversation will be limited to the Chronicles series. FantaCo had also put out Splatter Movies and Hembeck 6, among other items, in this period.)

The X-Men Chronicles was a hit for FantaCo Enterprises in 1981. We had printed 50,000 copies and had presold at least 35.000 to the distributors. And not only did it also sell as an individual item in the store and in the mail order, we were able to trade some for Marvel, DC and other companies' product, particularly underground comics from Last Gasp, a company our comics distributor, Seagate, wasn't dealing with.
So what do we do as a follow-up? We decided to do two books, the Daredevil Chronicles, which Mitch Cohn would edit, and the Fantastic Four Chronicles, which would be my baby. I'm not going to talk much more about the former, except that I thought it was terribly Frank Miller-heavy. One of the Mullaney brothers from Eclipse Comics, Jan or Dean, apparently agreed; he wrote to say he read the book and threw it in the trash. (The letter, I think, appeared in the Spider-Man Chronicles, or maybe the Avengers Chronicles.)

The stuff below in italics is directly from my journal:

September 2, 1981: I call John Byrne, who agreed to write an article and do a centerspread, in addition to the front cover. And I called Jack Kirby, who agreed to fill out a questionnaire about the FF. "What a coup!" I wrote.
October 16: George Perez agrees to do the back cover for the FF book.
October 22: Receive Byrne front cover, centerspread and article.
November 5: Call Jay Zilber re: Wein/Wolfman interview. Then called Jack Kirby re: Q&A - he said he couldn't answer questions re: FF, Marvel, only re: new projects. I panicked and got upset and angry. By that point, we probably had sent out info on the book to the comic distributors, indicating its content.Mitch calmed me down & said "Why don't you do interview on Kirby now with a caveat. He [Kirby] agreed to that & also said I could use the rather nasty stuff re: FF 236 & his lack of prior knowledge that it would be used. Typed up new questions.
November 18: Michael Hobson of Marvel called to OK licensing on the FF and DD books, and that the company had "no problem" with the non-licensed X-Men Chronicles.
November 23: Get Kirby response.
December 17: I was going to do some editing (e.g., Joe Fludd's lengthy piece, Jay Zilber's just-arrived article), but instead spent most of the day looking unsuccessfully for a letter from Mike Hobson of Marvel giving us permission for licensing, which Tom needs for another bank loan.
O.K., I lied. I AM going to talk a little about Splatter Movies. This was a book written by an author named John McCarty that was really Tom's baby; Mitch, Raoul and I were all a bit disturbed by it, although I did end up up proofreading it. And it turned out to be the most profitable thing FantaCo published in my tenure there. But at $8.95, it was initially a slow road selling to our distributors, who, after all, were comic book folks. This created a cash flow problem, for which the loan was to address.

January 3, 1982: Type the FF checklist at home while I watch football (Cincinnati beat the Bills, the 49ers beat the Giants; I doubt I was happy about that.)
January 7: I assume we found the Hobson letter eventually because Tom was able to secure $25,000 note from the bank so we'll be able to pay $8700 printing bill for Splatter Movies.
January: Get various articles and artwork, not including Perez back cover. At some point, I call John Byrne, who allows us to use the front cover as the back cover as well, for free. Byrne was not universally loved, but I always had very good dealings with him; the FFC was not the last time. After the covers go to the printer, Perez cover FINALLY shows up, and I end up replacing content from one of the inside covers. (I'm thinking it was a Joe Fludd piece, because it seemed ironic that such a Perez devotee would be bumped by Perez himself.)
January 26: Tom called accounts (Bud Plant, NMI, Pacific). We now have fewer than 100 out of 50,000 X-Men Chronicles, and anticipate print runs of 70,000 each for FF and DD (the latter, eventually set at 80,000).
March 1: Start shipping out FFC, DDC orders, which takes a week, between the wholesale and retail orders.
March 5: Tom had made up 100 copies each of FFC and DDC in white paper stock, rather than newsprint. Gave 25 each to Mitch and me, 2 each to Rocco and Raoul. Somewhere I still have some of these.
March 15: Returning artwork, paying contributors, sending out review copies.
March 22: For Spider-Man Chronicles, got a Fred Hembeck to interview Roger Stern.
March 26: Mitch called Jim Shooter, who told Mitch in no uncertain terms ("What the f*** were you guys thinking about?") that they at Marvel were unhappy with the Chronicles series, that there can be no licensing in the future, and that we'd "better be careful" in the future...No [more] Chronicles would be disastrous because another loan was contingent on publishing them...Tom called a patent attorney.
Oddly, a couple months later, there WAS further conversation with Mike Hobson about licensing, but nothing ever came to fruition, and the Avengers and Spider-Man Chronicles came out license-free, with no hassle from Marvel. We DID have another legal tussle, however, but that's for another day.

In retrospect - let's hear it for retrospect - I should have either 1) called Marvel about the content of the Kirby interview or 2) pulled the Kirby interview. The former just didn't cross my mind. The latter did, but I was resistant because it would have meant resoliciting the FFC to the distributors and a costly delay.

I wrote this today for two reasons. One: FantaCo's birthday was August 28, 1978; the store survived 20 years. The other is that Jack Kirby's birthday was August 28, 1917, which means he would have been 90 today; he passed on February 6, 1994. Here's a picture of Jack from the 1982 San Diego comic con, taken by Alan Light.

Zimmerman and MacManus

I just heard this weekend that Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello are performing together in Albany on October 6. My wife seems not only disinclined to go, but unimpressed with the teaming, even though she actually bought me Costello's North, mostly, I think, because it was, in part, a love letter to one of her favorite singers, Diana Krall.

So, I want to go, but I don't particularly want to go alone. If you're in the area (or you want to travel to Albany to see them, please e-mail me.

Internet Interview

I was invited to do one of those Internet surveys to introduce my blog to a wider audience, though, at this point, I don't know how. And so I did, typo and all. And I'm supposed to solicit you all in voting for me. I guess I'll never be a politician, because I haven't campaigned for myself since 11th grade.

The toughest question in the survey was picking some blogs that I read. I was supposed to list at least three, and picked 10; I could have easily picked 10 more, except that I had to rush out of the house to get to work. So, I thought they'd include my list; no, they just wanted to invite them to be interviewed as well. Gordon, you may have gotten invited that way.

That list included the usual suspects, if you've read this blog a while. Although I did deliberately pass on Mike's Progressive Ruin, not only because a gazillion people are reading him already, and because many of the sites I listed also are linked to him, but also because, and this is only an allegation, that Mike Sterling Is A Big Cheater Pants. Here, Mikey, look at some cute animals.
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Why don't you just assume anything I've stolen recently came from Jaquandor unless I say otherwise?

You are The Wheel of Fortune

Good fortune and happiness but sometimes a species of
intoxication with success

The Wheel of Fortune is all about big things, luck, change, fortune. Almost always good fortune. You are lucky in all things that you do and happy with the things that come to you. Be careful that success does not go to your head however. Sometimes luck can change.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Kelly interviews Lefty. Even better than Lefty interviewing himself.

ROG

The Lydster, Part 41: A Pain in the Butt

A couple days before we went on our trip to the Berkshires in June, Lydia somehow got a thorn or something similar through her bathing suit into her posterior. She didn't tell the people she was with at the time, but only complained later. Carol and I couldn't get it out, so Carol called our pediatrician.

Carol claims, and I believe her, that she heard tones of snickering and even mild mocking in the response by the receptionist when she made the appointment on the Friday before the trip. You mean these pathetic parental units couldn't get a little sliver out of their child? I think we took some mild emotional satisfaction, mixed with medical concern, when Lydia's doctor couldn't get it out, either. He recommended heat and other salves to try to draw out the foreign object. If it's not out by the end of the weekend, he recommend that Lydia see a surgeon. A surgeon for a sliver!

Well, we left for the Berkshires on Sunday, but first thing Monday morning, Carol called the surgeon's office, and made an appointment for the next morning. We drove back to Albany on what may have been the hottest day of the year; I remember distinctly leaving a fitted sheet over Lydia's car seat, so that the seat and the metal wouldn't be too hot when we return.

Carol, the nurse and Lydia were in the room when I heard Lydia screaming. I assumed this was the shot to numb the area. No, it was the numbing cream used in anticipation of the shot. The actual shot went relatively easily.

The surgeon was called away on an emergency for a time. Finally, when the actual removal took place, it involved the surgeon removing the object, and the nurse and two parents holding the child.

We had lunch and soft ice cream after that, then returned to our vacation locale.

(This will be one of those posts where, years from now, she will undoubtedly chastise me.)




These are her favorite colors.

ROG

A Couple Interrogatives

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal this week that I found quite disturbing, but true. Here's the abstract:

Moving On: Are We Teaching Our Kids To Be Fearful of Men?
Jeffrey Zaslow. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Aug 23, 2007. pg. D.1

When children get lost in a mall, they're supposed to find a "low- risk adult" to help them. Guidelines issued by police departments and child-safety groups often encourage them to look for "a pregnant woman," "a mother pushing a stroller" or "a grandmother."

People assume that all men "have the potential for violence and sexual aggressiveness," says Peter Stearns, a George Mason University professor who studies fear and anxiety. Kids end up viewing every male stranger "as a potential evildoer," he says, and as a byproduct, "there's an overconfidence in female virtues."

TV shows, including the Dateline NBC series "To Catch a Predator," hype stories about male abusers. Now social-service agencies are also using controversial tactics to spread the word about abuse. This summer, Virginia's Department of Health mounted an ad campaign for its sex-abuse hotline. Billboards featured photos of a man holding a child's hand. The caption: "It doesn't feel right when I see them together."

So, as the article notes: The implied message: Men, even dads pushing strollers, are "high-risk." "Very sad" doesn't begin to cover it. What are your thoughts? Anyone wanting the whole article, please let me know.
***
On a much lighter note, Jaquandor tagged me with 7 Things, but added a twist; one of these is false. Which one?

1. I had a nosebleed so bad that I was hospitalized.

2. I enjoy sushi.

3. I've talked with a Supreme Court justice.

4. I was terrible as a percussionist in my junior high school orchestra.

5. One of my favorite books is "Growing Up" by Russell Baker.

6. I'm cited in two books.

7. I've never read, never even started, the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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My Fortune Cookie told me: You will risk becoming eternally dependent upon misguided bishops. Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

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Amazon has on sale a Mel Brooks box set. It features one of my favorite films of all time, Young Frankenstein, and one of my least favorite movies of all time, History of the World, Part 1.
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I own only about a half dozen Lyle Lovett albums. He has a new one, which he describes here.
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I thought there were only eight candidates running for the Democratic nomination for President. I was wrong.
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Oh, yeah: according to my previous poll question, 13 of you have already seen the Simpsons movie, 3 will in theaters, 3 will on DVD.
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Albanians: listen to WMHT-FM (89.7) tomorrow, Sunday, Aug. 26 at 6:00 p.m. -- they are broadcasting Albany Pro Musica's 's March 2007 concert, "From Holocaust to Hope."


ROG

Of Doubles and Saves

I love baseball, so I'm always hapy to learn something new. I just discovered that what I, and every sports announcer I've ever heard, have always called a ground-rule double really isn't. The batted ball hits the field then bounces over the fence is an AUTOMATIC double. But there ARE ground rule doubles, such as when the ball gets stuck in the ivy at the Chicago Cubs' Wrigley Field or in the roof of the Minnesota Twins' Metrodome.

The ball bouncing over the fence used to be a home run prior to 1930. This begs the question: Did Babe Ruth hit any home runs that bounced over the fence before the 1930 double rule came into effect? The answer, from every source I checked is NO. In fact, if the fair/foul rules that are in effect now were in effect then, he might have had 10% MORE homers.
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You might have heard about that 30-3 Texas Rangers win over the Baltimore Orioles Wednesday. The 30 runs is the most by one team since 1897. There were several intriguing aspects of that game. One is the running time of the game, which was 3 hours, 21 minutes; not a short game, but the 2-1 Tampa Bay win over the Boston Red Sox that night was 3 hours, 6 minutes; 23 players were left on base. And the 11-8 Cleveland win over Detroit that day was 3:38.

The other thing I had forgotten about is the pitchers' "save" rule. Usually, a pitcher gets a save when the game is on the line, but in that game, a Texas pitcher got a save with an 11-run lead. How so?

The save rule:
(1) He is the finishing pitcher in a game won by his club; AND
(2) He is not the winning pitcher; AND
(3) He qualifies under one of the following conditions:
(a) He enters the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitches for at least one inning; OR
(b) He enters the game, regardless of the count, with the potential tying run either on base, or at bat, or on deck (that is, the potential tying run is either already on base or is one of the first two batsmen he faces); OR
(c) He pitches effectively for at least three innings.

Situation 3c applied here, as the pitcher threw three shutout innings.
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Riding the bike is relatively safe.
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Coming next week, several long pieces I hope I finish in time.
ROG

MOVIE REVIEW: Hairspray

I loved Hairspray. I loved the antiestablishment panache that colors the film. I love the music. I love the acting energy of Ricki Lake, Jerry Stiller and Divine, especially those cameos by Pia Zadora and Ric Ocasek.

Oh, wait: you think I'm talking about that NEW Hairspray? Haven't seen it yet; I will, I will. But it's only been a couple months since I borrowed someone's VHS tape - how 20th century - and watched the original 1988 film one Sunday afternoon.

Somehow, I had missed it when it appeared in theaters, which surprised me, because I had seen other John Waters films, such as the bizarre Pink Flamingos (1972) and the comparatively sedate Polyester (1981), complete with an Odorama card; that smell-o-vision card that the My Name Is Earl folks put in that week's TV Guide was an homage to Polyester. In fact, I went to a Polyester party after the movie, where everyone wore non-breathable fabric and ate non-foods such as Cheese Wiz and Marshmallow Fluff.

I'm a touchy wary that the new Hairspray won't bring me the unbridled joy of the original, based on some reviews like this one. The personality of Baltimore was so much a part of Waters' movies; when I saw the story about Waters cited here, the interview took place in locales that I recognized from the 1988 film, especially the record shop. Will the "musical" (and the original Hairspray had a lot of music) be able to keep that flavor?

My biggest concern is John Travolta. In the previews, his eyes seem tiny, beady, disproportionate to the rest of his face and fat-suited body. My wife, in fact, HAS seen the new movie (but not the original), and points to Travolta's faux woman's voice as a weakness, but loved the movie lead.

In any case, go rent Hairspray. THEN see Hairspray. As my old English teacher used to say: compare and contrast, and please let me know what you think of them. (Or either of them,, if you've only seen one.)