Carpetbaggers?

[Note: This post was designed to make Greg Burgas ill.]

It was probably in 4th or 5th grade when I learned the meaning of the term carpetbagger. By that time, I was reading the op/ed pages of our local newspapers in Binghamton. I recall that columnist William F. Buckley suggested that Robert F. Kennedy was a "carpetbagger" for being a Massachusetts and/or Virginia resident running for U.S. Senate in 1964. I thought his point was pretty sound, and we had a perfectly good "Rockefeller Republican" named Kenneth Keating. So I was disappointed that Kennedy beat Keating in 1964. As it turned out, Keating ended up as a justice on the New York State Court of Appeals (the highest court, despite its name) and U.S. Ambassador to India, so things turned out all right for him.

Of course, Kennedy was assassinated in June of 1968 and was replaced by Republican Charles Goodell that September. Jamestown, the heart of his district, was NOT a bastion of progressivism, so his transformation from a moderate Congressman to Kennedyesque Senator was astonishing to most. The Senate race in 1970 was among Goodell (cross-endorsed by the Liberal Party), equally progressive Democrat Richard Ottinger, and Conservative James Buckley.
(The terms Liberal and Conservative in the previous sentence refers to actual political parties in the state, not just philosophies; the Conservative Party still exists, though the Liberal Party died a few years ago.).
James Buckley was born in New York, but was most recently from Connecticut, yet I don’t recall his brother William complain about HIM being a "carpetbagger."

For the 2000 race, a woman who was residing in the District of Columbia, and had roots in Arkansas and Illinois, bought a house in Chappaqua with her husband in order to run for the U.S. Senate. Of course, that was Hillary Clinton, and the "carpetbagger" label was exhumed yet again, as you can see from this August 1999 cartoon:

Now, with New York governor George Pataki announcing that he’s not running for reelection in 2006 (because he would lose, I think), so he can plan to run for President (the analysts tell us- hey, maybe it's BOTH reasons), William Weld, born in New York, but former governor of Massachusetts, is planning to run for the New York statehouse. He's won't be considered a carpetbagger in the traditional sense, since he has been in NYS for the past five years. Still, I believe some folks will at least pause for voting for a person for governor who once governed another state. Yet Weld may be the strongest opponent against the presumed Democratic nominee, state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The AG has been busy doing the job of the SEC and other federal and state agencies because they don't seem to be able to do it themselves.

As an old political science major, I look at politics with a sense of wonder, the type of fascination one has watching a fire or rubbernecking at a car wreck.

Gay Batman

Read here. BTW, I couldn't find the pieces mentioned on the Artnet page. Could they have been already removed?

Ramblin' Thoughts

Back on July 29, David Chapman wrote an astute observaton about an 85-year old grandmother suing the makers of Grand Theft for its hidden sexual content. While I generally agreed with his interpretation, some piece of me wanted to take the contrary position, but I couldn't figure out why until recently. It's Watergate. Or more specifically, the lesson we're supposed to have learned from Watergate. It's not the third-rate burglary, it's the cover-up. It's not merely that there was graphic sex, it was graphic sex that the company Take Two deliberately HID. This gives members of Congress just the cover they need to regulate, since the system "failed."

I added four links this week. One was requested by this ADD person, who used to shop at FantaCo, about his site re: the music and art of James Kochalka. One is for Joe Fludd, a guy who did some work for FantaCo. And the third is the store owned by Augustus Mattick, then known as Matt, who used to work at FantaCo. Oh, before I forget, a belated thanks to Fred, Lynn, and Julie for the vblue bear; Lydia loves it.

The fourth link, BTW, is for Nat Pike's page. I thought I had already done so, but I have now.

Thanks to Johnny Bacardi for letting me know on August 17 that James Kochalka ls NOT related to Darren McGavin.

Meanwhile, Mike at Progressive Ruin was kind enough to link to me on August 11; I hope he'll still be that kind after my review yesterday of his...eclectic CD. Gordon at Blog This, Pal also linked to me, on August 17.

Oh, and Eddie at Renaissance Geek said nice things about me back on August 11. Glad if it helped, Eddie.

Logan at House of the Ded said that he was taking off from blogging for a while, but then came back only a week later. (I've seen plenty of blogs that haven't posted in several months, with no explanation.) So when I checked out his page (pointlessly, I figured), only to see a new item, I wrote that I was glad he was back, but that he confounded me. So, naturally, he changes the header of his page to read, "Confounding Roger Green daily! (Well, maybe not daily...)" I admit that I laughed out loud!

Logan is correct that people should be especially mindful to tip deliverypeople. I get the Pizza News e-mail at work (really, I do), and there was an article about how some pizzerias in Indianapolis are now requiring a surcharge for delivery, hurting the drivers' tips.

In the Greg links, he found, or rather his pal Roxy found, a website called Black People Love Us. I don't know if it's a parody or an insult or just weird. Your thoughts, PLEASE.

And speaking of Greg, he's having a contest, or rather, three contests until the end of the month. I entered one myself, which you'll read about eventually.

And speaking of contests, Lefty had one on August 3, which is over except for the judging. But he did note on August 16 about a series of contests offered at Yet Another Comics Blog, the last one being held today.
Of course, I noticed that Lefty didn't mention it until he WON on Day One. (Naturally, you didn't happen to notice that I didn't mention it either until I won on Day Two, did you?) Today is the last day for that contest.

Oh, Lefty, if I have to be more specific, consider yourself memed. Kelly, too. (I want to see if your recollections of five years ago are the same.)

And re: Lefty, he was the one who initiated the Mixed Blog CD thing, the results of which I've been reviewing lately. I never received CDs from:
Ken Lowery Presents: Ringwood---> Ken Lowery
MercuryX23's Fantablous Blog---> MercuryX23
musEletric---> Brendan Duffy
Near Mint Heroes---> Shane Bailey
Roxy's World---> Roxy
Stacking the Deck---> David Chapman
So if you've sent, please re-send. Thank you.

Yet Another Comics Blog has a sister blog, Yet Another Music Blog, which has a link to free downloads on Amazon. John Hiatt, whose birthday was yesterday, is one of the featured artists. I may have more CDs of John Hiatt than anyone except the Beatles. I borrowed the new CD from the Hoffinator a couple days ago, and it's another fine effort.

What's really weird about this posting is that I've never met ANY of these people mentioned, except for the FantaCo-related folks. The mystery of the blog.

Mixed Bag CD Blog-Mike

NAME: Mike Sterling
BLOG NAME: Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin
NAME OF CD: The Uneasy Rest of Thomas Edison
NUMBER OF CUTS: 35
RUNNING TIME: 79:55
COVER ART: Excellent picture of Alva himself
SONG LIST:
1. Think of Me-Stark Effect
2. No More Free Will-The Bran Flakes
3. Mustache-Qypthone
4. Evolution Is Easy-Neoangin
5. Bombolero-Dan Belloc and His Orchestra
6. Spring Pants Has Come-Mummy and the Peep Show
7. Eleven Twelve-Braces Tower
8. Aggravation-Victor Banana
9. Hearing Problem-The Dead Alewife (talk)
10. Mothra Song
11. Murphy It’s You-from Robocop: The Musical
12. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang-Braces Tower
13. At the Munsters
14. Star Trek-Tenacious D
15. Stay on Target—Rebel Scum
16. The Smurfs’ All Star Show
17. Boy Wonder-Burt Ward (talk)
18. Kookie’s Mad Pad-Ed "Kookie" Byrnes
19. The Carioca-Jonathan and Darlene Edwards
20. Apes’ Shuffle-The Jeff Wayne Space Shuttle
21. Pac Man Cereal
22. Goin’ Berzerk-Buckner & Garcia
23. M.U.L.E. Theme (rehashed)-Edgemere
24. Video Computer System-Golden Shower
25. Purple Cow-Psychedelicado
26. Multi-Family Garage Sale-Land of the Loops
27. It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Syphilis-The Four Skins
28. Perversion for Profit-The Bran Flakes (talk)
29. Crybaby Duck-Evolution Control Committee (talk)
30. QuackQuackQuack-QuaQuaQua
31. Hoppity Jones-Twink
32. Uncle Mistletoe-Buddy Max
33. Poke You in the Eye-Head and Leg
34. Metamorpho
35. Mary Had a Little Lamb-Thomas Edison (talk)
ALREADY REVIEWED BY: Gordon on June 21
GENERAL THOUGHTS: This is why I don’t review CDs for a living. Sometimes, one is left...speechless. This is certainly the strangest of the discs I received. Mike’s note: "...many of you will probably rip the disc out of your player and throw it across the room..." Well, no, but probably not a regular listen either.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: 2, 3, (danceable) 7 (if you've forgotten know how to count, a pleasant refresher), 27 (change syphilis to Christmas for the tune), 28 (very funny, I’m afraid), 33 (rude but effective), 35 (appropriate ending)
ON THE OTHER HAND: 15 (irritatingly repetitive), 24 (ditto). And it’s not so much a particular cut, it’s the collective effect of "how weird can you get", particularly the middle of the disc.
OFFICE FRIENDLY: Well, the TOPICS of 27 & 28 will turn some heads.
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: I own the single Pac Man Fever by Buckner & Garcia; ah, I see why cuts 21 & 22 are together. The second CD in a row with Smurfs; maybe use of these blue folks is somehow ironic.
I wrote music for the famous poem "Purple Cow" in college and got an A on the assignment.
***
After I posted the above, I played Mike's first Mixed CD. I liked it a lot. Wish I were reviewing THAT.

Oh, THAT story again

So I'm flicking through the channels last night, and I come across a shot of two women in the talking-heads side-by-side mode. The woman on the left I don't know. The woman on the right is vaguely familiar. And isn't that a NewsChannel 13 logo behind her, partially obscured? Why, yes, it is. The reporter is named Alison Bleck from NBC affiliate WNYT in Albany and she's talking to MSNBC's Rita Cosby about the Christian Brothers Academy teacher who allegedly had sex with underage male students. Oh, WHY is this not-worthy-of-national-news-coverage story on MSNBC? Because teacher was busted for DWI, a violation of her bail, and now she's heading for jail.

Then I see Rita interviewing David Soares, Albany County District Attorney. She asks him a question, and he responses that he's "shocked" that the teacher would use such poor judgment and thought she might have laid low. Rita's next question: "Weren't you shocked...?" as though she hadn't even listened to his previous response. And the entire three-minute (or so) interview was like that, with her asking questions that he had already answered.

I didn't watch any more of the program, since she had moved on to Alabama-teen-missing-in-Aruba, and instead watched the last two innings of the Mets exciting 1-0 win over the Nats.

So I need to know, because I don't watch her show, and indeed was totally unfamiliar with her until I read this story about the former FOX reporter: is Rita Cosby ALWAYS that incompetent, or was that just an aberration?

Mixed Bag CD Blog-Dorian

The physics of music:



NAME: Dorian Wright
BLOG NAME: Postmodern Barney
NAME OF CD: Happy Smiling Naked Man
NUMBER OF CUTS: 35
RUNNING TIME: 79:39
COVER ART: A picture of a happy smiling naked man, except for the strategically placed LP cover
SONG LIST: On Lefty Brown's page of June 30, though there are also 10 snippets inserted throughhout
ALREADY REVIEWED BY: Gordon on June 21; Lefty
GENERAL THOUGHTS: Not all of it, but a lot of this disc is jokey. Some of it worked for me (Nigel Planer, Milton Berle’s Yellow Sub), some didn’t (Hulk Hogan), and a lot I didn’t know WHAT to think (Tony Randall, Leonard Nimoy, Brady Bunch, Smurfs). A somewhat uneven disc.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: The run of covers: G-L-O-R-I-A ("Melvin")/Judy Get Down/Jolene; Snip Snip; Teenage Enema Nurses; The Mystery Date commercial
ON THE OTHER HAND: The Scooby-Doo joke was WAY too long; Boots was painful
OFFICE FRIENDLY: Not the Butthole Duet, MC Chris, Justin Tranter, and at least two of the unidentified snippets.
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: Killer Pussy was one of the biggest local New Wave bands in Phoenix back in the 80's, I’ve read. Nancy Sinatra was on CBS Sunday Morning recently; she looked and sounded great- THOSE boots were made for walkin’! Dorian kindly sent me his previous effort, the listing for which is somewhere on June 10; though it too was kitschy, it was less weird, so I enjoyed it more.

3 Smoking ?s

(This was probably inspired in part by Gordon's recent post.)

In the USA, lung cancer kills more men AND more women than any other cancer. Peter Jennings who was a smoker until about 20 years ago, then "was weak" and started up around 9/11/01, died from it. Vasssar Clements died from it. These questions are limited to tobacco (not any of the other stuff, like that "wacky tobacky"):

1. Do you smoke or chew tobacco? If so, how much? If you do, why, and if you don't, why not?

2. If you partake, have you tried to quit, by what method and how many times? If you're a former smoker, are you particularly obnoxious about smoking? (Be honest.) If you've never smoked, how tolerant are you of smokers around you?

3. What are the public smoking regulations in your area? Are they fair, too tough or too lenient? What has been the actual/anticipated economic impact of the law?

Taize

I have attended a number of Taize sevices in the past decade or so. They are wonderful, reflective times. My old church used to have a service on Saturday afternoons. The Westminster Presbyterian church in Albany currently has a regular Wednesday service.

So I was saddened to hear of the death of Brother Roger, (a good name, that), the founder of Taize. I was particularly disturbed by the manner in which he died. I'll send a prayer in his memory.

Cindy Sheehan is alive & well

A whole bunch of rallies yesterday, all in the name of Cindy, still camped out in Crawford. The mother of the late Casey Sheehan is the cover story in the Albany newsweekly Metroland. Will any of this change American policy in Iraq? Maybe not in the short term. But as American casualties mount (59 U.S. fatalities in August 2005 at last count, and we won't even talk about the Iraqi deaths, and with the Kurds threatening to pull out of the Iraqi government, one continues to get the feeling of the q word: quagmire.

When the war started in March 2003, I predicted that there would be an independent Kurdistan within five years. The "no-fly zone" enforced by the U.S. and U.K. between 1991 and 2003 created essentially an independent Kurd state. I'm inclined to stick with my prognostication.

Still, I wish I knew the solution to the mess that W hath wroth.

Vassar Clements

Fiddle great Vassar Clements died this week. If you don't know who he was, I hope you take an opportunity to find out. I was fortunate to see him play while I was in college at New Paltz, and he was extraordinary. Lung cancer-DAMN!

Win a FREE Graphic Novel

Write a couple sentences and win a free graphic novel. One of the choices is a book by the great Will Eisner. Anyone can do it! But you must do it before midnight tonight in the East. Four more chances on Thursday through Sunday for different GNs.

Mixed Bag CD Blog-Eddie

NAME: Eddie Mitchell
BLOG NAME: Renaissance Geek
NAME OF CD: Just a Buncha Stuff I Like
NUMBER OF CUTS: 24 (not really); 19 and 5 very short empty spaces
RUNNING TIME: 75:59
COVER ART: Simple but effective
SONG LIST: His post of July 3
SUBSEQUENTLY REVIEWED BY: Gordon on August 24
GENERAL THOUGHTS: Eddie seems to have more 2004 and 2005 tunes than just about anyone. He is really hooked into the quality of the lyrics. His descriptions of the songs on his webpage are wonderfully evocative.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: Pretty much the whole first half: The Kaiser Chiefs, Merediths, Rilo Kiley, Brave Combo, Edith Piaf! Also Teen Idols, Stanley Thompson.
ON THE OTHER HAND: I’d have flipped the order a little in the third quarter of the disc: a couple tunes were a little too similarly quiet and blended in my mind sonically, though distinct lyrically. Maybe just switching Gautier and Chambers.
OFFICE FRIENDLY: I suppose some of the topics might be off putting to some (Porno Shop, I Spent My Last Ten Dollars on Birth Control and Beer, e.g.), but they didn’t bother me.
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: The fact that Eddie recognizes that Emmylou Harris is a goddess is a good thing.

Linkaround

OK, stay with me here.

Go to the link for today (August 17) to see Fred link to my previous story about visiting him, which I posted on THIS blog. So, why bother directing you there? PICTURES! A picture of my daughter with her mother and me. A picture of my daughter with Fred and Lynn's daughter Julie. It's just Fred's way to make sure I keep checking for his tipoz.

Mixed Bag CD Blog-Kelly

NAME: Kelly Brown
BLOG NAME: The Life of a Wife and Teacher
NAME OF CD: Mrs. LeftyBrown's Feel Good Mix
NUMBER OF CUTS: 20
RUNNING TIME: 78:31
COVER ART: Nicely typed
SONG LIST: Her post of June 19
ALREADY REVIEWED BY: No one, although I recall a couple people mention in passing that this is among their favorite discs.
SUBSEQUENTLY REVIEWED BY: Gordon on October 6
GENERAL THOUGHTS: This album has more cuts that I actually own than any other, including 6 of the first 7.
When I first played it (in the office, half listening) I thought it was too noodly. What I mean by "noodly" is too much emphasis on the bands that occasionally jam too long, such as the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead, and their musical descendents such as Phish. I like these bands well enough, but I guess I'm more of a song man.
On second listen (at home, paying more attention), I thought the balance of cuts was great. And it plays well with repeated listening. This is why I always listen thrice before I evaluate.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: Los Lonely Boys (I gotta get them), Maceo Parker, Arlo
ON THE OTHER HAND: Gee, let me think of something: OK, typos in Crow’s and McLaughlin’s first names on the label
OFFICE FRIENDLY: Yep. In fact, you could put this in a 5-CD mixer and it would be a nice addition.
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: My wife is a teacher too, so I may be slightly favorably disposed.

Stealing from Burgas again

The questions, that is; the answers are all mine.

I did this for only two reasons: 1) the piece I was writing just wasn't going anywhere, (that ever happen to you folks?), though you may still see it in the future; and 2) because I'm a sucker for this self-revelatory stuff.

1. Ten years ago: In August 1995, I was going out with Carol, who's now my wife. But we broke up in March 1996, and didn't get back together for good until November 1998.

2. Five years ago: In August 2000, my father died. I may have mentioned that recently.

3. One year ago: saw some minor league baseball games, started to get out of the fog of new fatherhood.

4. Yesterday: Played racquetball, cutthroat (3 players), won a 30-minute long game. Worked on my self-evaluation at work, a real MEGO, except that is the only way I can even be considered for a raise. Also, I sent off an evaluation of my intern to her school. Got an e-mail from a high school friend from Binghamton, Jon Phipps, who I hadn't seen since 1990; he was in town to pick up his wife from a meeting, so we had lunch and caught up. After work, went out to eat with Carol for our lunaversary sans the child. Wrote a CD review for the blog, which will show up Saturn-day.

5. Today: Play racquetball. Go to work, have a staff meeting. Hope to watched some taped TV. Probably go for a walk with Lydia after dinner if it doesn't rain.

6. Tomorrow: To quote Steve Gerber, (sorry, Steve, for your pain), Tomorrow Never Knows. Racquetball, work. Was supposed to have lunch with another old friend, Michele, but that was postponed until Thursday. Probably another CD review.

7. Five snacks I enjoy: cottage cheese with any number of things: canned fruit, apple sauce, apples; ice cream, especially strawberry; fig bars; oatmeal raisin cookies; animal crackers (the good kind).

8. Five bands I know the lyrics of most of their songs: Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Rolling Stones, CSN&Y. Are Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, John Lennon, Neil Young "bands"?

9. Five things I would do with $100,000,000: contribute $1000 apiece to a whole bunch of charities I've always wanted to support; pay off the mortgages of my sisters' and my brothers-in-law's houses (oh, and ours); do every single repair in the house that we've put off because of lack of money (new kitchen cabinets, new bathroom, attic insulation especially); hire a secretary, driver, housekeeper and a masseuse (ah, a daily massage); and get season tickets to the symphony, the theater and to minor league baseball. Oh, there are other things, but those are the first five off the top of my head.

10. Five locations I'd like to run away to: Fiji, Rome, Paris, Rio, some remote part of Hawai'i.

11. Five Bad Habits: Don't eat enough salad, my desk is a mess, I tend to be late, my periodicals tend to pile up unread, I avoid balancing my checkbook.

12. Five things I like doing: Playing racquetball, reading periodicals, blogging, playing cards or backgammon, going to baseball games.

13. Five TV shows I like: JEOPARDY!, CBS Sunday Morning, Gilmore Girls, Scrubs, 60 Minutes.

14. Famous People I'd like to meet: Living or dead. Thomas Jefferson, Richard Nixon, John Lennon, Mohandas Gandhi, Christopher Reeve.

15. Biggest joys at the moment: Well, daughter Lydia is a hoot. Seeing old friends. Seeing movies with my wife again. This blog.

16. Favorite toys: Stereo, CD burner, VHS/DVD player. I have simple needs.

17. Five people to tag: Not my thing. Sorta like those junk e-mails that says "pass this on and have good luck" or "pass this on if you love Jesus." Jesus and I are fine, gracias, but I'm still not passing on dopey e-mail.

Penguins & Dogs & Plastics

Carol & I went to see two more movies recently.

Must Love Dogs stars the luminescent Diane Lane and the wonderful John Cusack. I REALLY wanted to love this movie. But you know that a romantic comedy isn't working when 1) you don't laugh and 2) you don't get a sense of chemistry between the two who are "destined to be together, even if they don't know it yet." In fact, the only time I really believed them as a potential couple was during the end credits, when in fact, they WERE a couple reflecting back on their courtship. Part of the problem with the laughs was that old story- the best ones show up in the previews.
Other fine actors, including as Christopher Plummer, who plays Lane's father (and blind date! - this is revealed in the trailer) also appear, but I didn't much care about any of the characters EXCEPT the Stockard Channing character, who plays one of the Plummer character's girlfriends. It's not an AWFUL film, but it is lacklustre.
And the title is SO wrong, since NEITHER character actually owns a dog.

March of the Penguins is a very right title for a very right film. These noble birds that don't fly go through a tortured year-long process in an attempt to bring their young into the world. I lost count how many 70-mile treks the animals had to make. I couldn't help but think about two things, though:
1) If humans had to go through so much in order to create babies, we'd have zero population in no time - no, make that negative population growth.
2) How the heck did the filmmaker get such compeling footage under such adverse conditions? We're talking Antarctic winter, -80 F. And the summer is not a day at the beach, either.

We also rented a video of The Graduate, an iconic movie I admitted to never seeing here. One of the things someone told me is that I might find it dated.
Lessee: Young man has relationship with female friend of his parents, but prefers the company of HER daughter. Gets chewed out by the cuckolded husband. Sounds like the plot of last week's Jerry Springer show.
Truth is that I LOVED this movie, from Dustin Hoffman's "what the heck do I do now?" college grad (been there), to the late Anne Bancroft's sultry seduction (I've almost been there) to the Simon & Garfunkel score (I live there) to doing the absolutely irrational for love (boy, have I been THERE). It also features one of my favorite actors, William Daniels from the TV show St. Elsewhere. This was my first viewing, but definitely not my last.

Ramblin' Mumblings

For some reason, most of these postings are political. Except for one, I didn't seek them out; they were e-mailed to me, or I tripped over them somehow.

ADVERTISING

Vote for your favorite advertising icon and slogan here in honor of Advertising Week in late September.

BASEBALL

Heard about the legendary eephus pitch?

MUSIC

Apparently, Van Morrison is the third to the last musician in the world with his own website. It contains free live cuts from his forthcoming album. BTW, Van's birthday is at the end of this month, so listen to lots of his tunes.

POLITICS

Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine, and the author of "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It", writes a piece for the NY Times op/ed page.

The energy bill that W signed this week has a few good aspects, but also has a lot of corporate welfare, especially if one is from Texas.

My friend Mark writes: "Turn on any 'Classic Rock' station and chances are within a few days you will hear two songs by the '60's group Steppenwolf: 'Born to Be Wild' and 'Magic Carpet Ride.' Adrenalin-pumping music to be sure. On the other hand,
you won't hear songs of social commentary that are as relevant today as they were then. Maybe we should call this in to their request lines: 'Monster' by Steppenwolf".

I love the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq looking for answers from W in Crawford. Cindy Sheehan is being called The Lone Star Iconoclast. She's obviously struck a nerve, because even the mainstream media have picked up the story.

Quote from the blogisphere: "Besides telling us how to live, think, marry, pray, vote, invest, educate our children, and die, the Republicans have done a fine job of getting government out of our lives."

And if you live in a strong Republican/conservative district, , don't give up hope.

Ben Stein does a regular opinion piece on CBS Sunday Morning. A couple weeks ago, he recommended that W stand tough and support Karl Rove. To give in would be give the liberals that taste of blood they want. He's probably right. But I'll say it again: Fire Karl Rove.

Read about the campaign to stop genocide in DARFUR, the Sudan, where 200,000 to 400,000 people have been killed. The organizers believe that tactics like petitions, calls and letters are all a part of how W and his advisers are gauging public opinion with regard to the appropriate next steps to stop the atrocites. He "WILL NOT provide the necessary leadership without confidence that public opinion will support an international humanitarian intervention." And maybe not even then, I fear. This organization is helping the refugee women.

United Methodist Bishops Back Complete Ban on Nuclear Weapons; Church Joins in Prayer for Victims of Hiroshima, Nagasaki Bombings.

WORKING HARD

There's a scam artist calling himself Arthur DiLorenzo who's been targeting churches in the Northeast in the past; he has resurfaced. One church received a call from him recently. His story usually involves starting a new job and not being paid yet, or traveling and getting stranded, but his demand is to have money wired to him.
With minor variations, it's a story that's been told to pastors up and down the eastern seaboard. Something to be aware of, in case you hear of a similar call.

I got an e-mail with an article that immediately seemed funky. "Worker dead at desk for 5 days" is an urban legend.

Blog Mixed CD Review-Chris2

NAME: Chris Brown
BLOG NAME: LeftyBrown's Corner 6/20 (2nd)
NAME OF CD: Under Cover, Disc Two
NUMBER OF CUTS: 16
RUNNING TIME: 68:26
COVER ART: Nicely typed
SONG LIST: His post of June 20
SUBSEQUENTLY REVIEWED BY: Gordon on October 6
GENERAL THOUGHTS: If I had heard this independent of the first disc, I'd say it was very good. And it really IS very good. It's just that the sequencing of the first disc was SO outstanding, and it spoiled me; somehow the flow on this one wasn’t quite there for me as much. Three Leonard Cohen covers are cool, though.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: The fact that he listed the original artists. Uptown Girl. Turning Japanese. I Got You Babe. The Nick Cave cut ends the CD well.
ON THE OTHER HAND: Somehow, the Dead’s Queen Jane drags on approximately too long.
OFFICE FRIENDLY: As far as I could tell. (Some guttural pieces are hard to suss.)
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: I suppose this really is one humungous CD and that I should review the two discs as one entity. But I didn't. So there.

3 Ramblin' ?s-Music

This was inspired by this posting by Steve Gerber.

Please tell me:

1. What music do you play when you feel good, happy, or want to feel that way?

2. What music do you play when you're down, melancholy, or want to feel that way?

3. What music do you play when you want to irritate your neighbor, your housemate or anyone within earshot?

Blog Mixed Bag CD Review-Chris1

In case you haven't a clue what a Lefty Brown is.

NAME: Chris "Lefty" Brown
BLOG NAME: LeftyBrown's Corner
NAME OF CD: Under Cover, Disc One
NUMBER OF CUTS: 19
RUNNING TIME: 76:05
COVER ART: Nicely typed
SONG LIST: His post of June 17
SUBSEQUENTLY REVIEWED BY: Gordon on October 6
GENERAL THOUGHTS: I love this album. I love the fact that the cover versions were intriguing. I love the fact that Chris does the linkages: cover of U2 to cover BY U2 to cover of U2, for example.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: The fact that he listed the original artist. "One" by Warren Haynes (I was expecting JR Cash, who shows up later). The Duhks. FRED (yee-haw barbershop). The Stanford Marching Band!
ON THE OTHER HAND: What the heck is FRED? ‘splain, Lefty.
OFFICE FRIENDLY: Except for Rage Against the Machine
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: When Otis Redding heard Aretha Franklin’s version of "Respect", he reportedly said, "That girl stole that song from me." Trent Reznor said the same thing about Johnny Cash re: Hurt. Well, not EXACTLY that, but: "...that song in particular came from a pretty private, personal place. So it seemed, well, like that's my song... It was a big juxtaposition for me to hear it as someone else's song now. It instantly became his song after that."

Dramedy

I've been having this three-year dialogue with a newspaper writer of radio and television issues. Back in June 2002, he noted that the word "dramedy" first came into use in describing "Ally McBeal" in 1997 in the media. This set off an alarm in my brain, which happens every time I read something in the newspaper or see something on TV or hear something on the radio that I know to be incorrect. (So you can just imagine what happens when I hear deliberate lies, which is why I don't often listen to talk radio, or Presidential press conferences.)

I went into the archives of HIS newspaper and found this headline:
NEW HALF-HOUR 'DRAMEDIES' SPELL PROMISE
09/18/1987

It cited Hooperman, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, and Slap Maxwell as dramedies.

He wrote back:

"You are the man.
The man with a lot of free time, but the man nonetheless.
I will remember this down the road. Thanks."

(Actually, it didn't take that long. I wouldn't have looked it up had I not already pretty well known the outcome.)

So, I was actually mildly distressed when he made the SAME ERROR a couple weeks ago.

Naturally, as a librarian, an information specialist, I could not sit by idly.

"I bring this up YET AGAIN because you made mention in your column of 'dramedy' starting in 1997 with Ally Mac, which JUST AIN'T the case."

Being the thorough sort, I even gave him a link to check out.

After he acknowledged his error, I wrote: "I won't bug you again until the next time you mess up." To which he said, "OK, I'll hear from you tomorrow."

Once something sees print, information is often taken as fact by somebody else. "The sun revolves around the earth." "Cooperstown is the birthplace of baseball." "There were WMDs in Iraq." Read it, or hear it often enough, and people will actually start to believe it.

So all of you whose websites or blogs I've offered friendly corrections from time to time, please don't take it the wrong way. It's a librarian disease, and there is no cure, except accuracy.

Conversely, if I make an error in fact, I'd l'd like to know about it so I can fix it. Really. (If I make what you feel is an error in opinion, you can tell me about that too, but it may not, OK, probably won't change anything.)

Romeo, Romeo

Carol, Lydia, and I sojourned down to the Mid-Hudson valley a couple hours south of Albany for the weekend.

FRIDAY- If you've read the column at Frez Sez for August 9 - complete with (shudder), photographs (or should that be (shutter)?), you will already know what the first stop was: visiting Fred Hembeck and Lynn Moss! Given the fact that I have mentioned Fred in this blog any number of times, I may have failed to say that I probably haven't SEEN him in the flesh since...well, I don't know. I MAY have run into him at Midnight Comics in 1992, but even that would have been 13 years ago. And it was probably much longer.

Lynn, I'm almost certain that I haven't seen since my FantaCo days, and that was 1988. If she wasn't at the FantaCon that year, it might have even been 1983, the previous FantaCon and the year after they moved from Troy to the Mid-Hudson.

Of course, they haven't met Carol or Lydia.

We arrived in the mid-afternoon (our goal was earlier, but ever since we had a child, we are, inexplicably, ALWAYS LATE.) We got to meet the famous Julie, one of the stars of Fred's column Fred Sez. She's bright and pleasant and a talented artist; the source of these skills is a puzzlement. (Kidding, Fred!) Unfortunately, MY child, Lydia, proceeded to move some things around, such as some models for some still life; I hope Julie forgives.

Lydia was infinitely interested in the bunny Romeo. She's never seen such a creature, so she thoroughly enjoyed petting the rabbit.

I should note that a couple days before, I get this lengthy e-mail from Fred describing the disarray of his abode. It was not as bad as he made it sound, and was a lot neater than places I lived pre-Carol. It was, as someone I knew called it, "lived in," particularly the area where Fred creates his artistic magic. I recognized some of the comics pulled out for his recent writings (Dr. Graves, Little Dot).

Early on, Carol and Lynn discover that Lynn knows Carol's brother Dan from work!

As Fred wrote, one of the peculiar aspects of parts of the conversation was that I would say something, and often Fred and/or Lynn would say, "Oh, yeah, you mentioned that in your blog." Fred would make a comment and I'd cite Fred's even longer body of electronic musings. Fortunately, we DID have things to talk about that we hadn't written about, and since Carol doesn't often read my blog and I doubt EVER reads Fred's (sorry, guy), it was all new to her.

Since Fred and Lynn have a nearly 15-year old (birthday the same month as Michael Jackson, her former musical hero - now she's into Pink Floyd), the house isn't what you called babyproof, so Carol & I took turns chasing around Lydia lest she tumble down the couple steps into the living room or den. Lydia seemed to love going around and around and around...

Fred dropped off Julie at a friend's house. Later we had a lovely lasagna dinner prepared by Lynn. Afterwards, the storm that had come through passed and we went into the pool.

My favorite conversation with Fred took place then. It was a lot of pop culture references for which we could use verbal shorthand. In fact, the BEST part was when we discussed...oh, wait, I can't talk about THAT. Fred is going to use it for his blog! It has to do with entertainment, but not comic books.

Then I got to go to THE BASEMENT, where rows of comics and comic-related material resided, some stacked quite neatly. But the man needs more shelves!

We had a wonderful time but needed to leave to go to our hotel room near Poughkeepsie and put the child to bed.

SATURDAY: We went to a swimming party at Darla's in Pleasant Valley. This was a group of old friends, some of which I'd known since college, and the rest were connected to my college buds. Lydia was fascinated by the cat, also named Romeo, but the feline just ran away. Lots of good food. A mellow time.

SUNDAY: We left the hotel and drove over to my college town of New Paltz. Well, the place has a NP mailing address, but is actually closer to Rifton. In any case, I visited my friends Mark and Paula. They were at the party yesterday but arrived late, and we didn't have much of a chance to talk with them then. Mark is one of the few people I can tell you the date I met him: September 12, 1971, the first day of college. We've been friends ever since. He's the one who got me into comic books. Paula is his high school sweetheart. They went their separate ways after high school, but got back together in the early 1990s and got married. They have a 10-year old daughter Adrienne.

We had lunch, and the talk old friends have. I nagged Mark into seriously thinking about a blog (he's a lot more opinionated than I), and suggested possible topics for it.

We drove home, happy to have experienced the trip, and happy to be home (except that, apparently, the power had gone out AGAIN...)

Media Notes

ATAS Reverses Restrictions on Emmy Speeches
James Hibberd, TV Week

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences board of governors voted Monday night to not restrict the speeches of writers and directors winning awards during the Sept. 18 Primetime Emmy Awards telecast.
The decision reverses an April announcement that nominees in the six prime-time writing and directing categories would have to prepare pre-taped remarks, which would be played as the winner walked to the stage. Sources said writers and directors upset about the decision had made threats, including not preparing tapes, preparing tapes that mocked the Emmys and boycotting the telecast.
"Some of the initial assumptions were not accurate in light of the way the show was being constructed," the academy said in a statement. "In effect, the amount of time being saved was not as much as originally thought, and the costs incurred would be in excess of original projections."
The reversed plan was the result of viewer focus-group research seeking ways to make the awards more exciting.
The 2004 broadcast was seen by 14 million total viewers, the second-lowest-rated Emmy awards in history. Last month, Grammy Awards producer Ken Ehrlich was tapped to executive produce the ceremony, taking the reins from veteran Emmys producer Don Mischer.
***
Peter Jennings: Reporter, 8-10 p.m. (EDT), Wednesday, August 10 on ABC-TV.
***
David Brickman will be doing his fifth art criticism spot on WAMC (90.3 fm) Thursday, August 11 at 11:07 a.m. The topic will be the local art scene as represented by several summer art shows in Albany. By the way, for the out-of-towners it is possible to listen online at wamc.org (live only - not archived)

"Living with cancer..."

Five years ago, 10 August 2000, my father, Leslie Harold Green died of prostate cancer.
Actually, the death certificate, which cites me as the "reporter" (whatever that means), says that he died of heart failure which was caused by a stroke which was precipated by prostate cancer (or some such.)

The first time Dad told us he had the disease was in early 1998. My sister Leslie, who lives in San Diego, and I were both visiting the Greens in Charlotte. I remember that my sister was very upset, but I wasn't all that much, and she was upset that I wasn't upset. My reaction was probably based on the fact that HE didn't seem all that upset.

In fact, he seemed pleased by the fact that he had this disease, but that he was still in control. At Carol's and my wedding (15 May 1999), he did all the floral arrangements and decorations. He seemed to relish in telling my new mother-in-law about it almost nonchalantly that evening.

And he also did the decorations for my parents' 50th anniversary party (12 March 2000), perhaps needing to take a break a little more often, but still going well. More than once, I heard him say to church folks and others: "I'm living with prostate cancer, not dying from it." That always got an "amen" from the congregation. I wasn't quite sure what the heck that meant, and I felt as though I were missing the punchline somehow.

My father was active in many, many things, including being the organizer and primary chef for the breakfast program at his church. Sister Leslie was talking to our mother on Leslie's birthday (23 July 2000), but my father, having made breakfast for four dozen people that morning, indicated that he was too tired to talk with her. This set off alarm bells for her. Leslie was always my father's favorite child. This is not a complaint, it's a fact that even she has admitted to. I mean, she's NAMED after him, for crying out loud. So, if he's too tired to talk with her on her birthday, something's seriously amiss.

The next week, even though she'd been in Charlotte earlier in that month, she flew from San Diego to Raleigh, then drove to Charlotte, arriving the very night he went into the hospital with some bleeding.

So, my mother, Leslie, and sister Marcia stayed with my father on a rotating basis. I talked with one of them on the phone every day.

That first weekend, my father thought that he was well enough to go home, so he got up and started taking out his IV tubes. This set off alarms at the nurses' station, where they had to insist that he return to his room. He was a bad patient.

Then, on Thursday, August 3, my father has a massive stroke, and I knew I had to go to Charlotte.

Here's the thing: I didn't want to go to Charlotte. It wasn't because we were backed up at work (though we were) or that one of us was already on vacation (though she was). I didn't want to go to Charlotte because I figured if I went down there, my father would die. (Conversely, I figured that if I stayed up in Albany, he'd hang on for a while.)

But my wife Carol & I got tickets to fly to the Queen City. (Here's a piece of advice, if you're ever in that situation; compare the price the airline gives you for their "compassionate rate" with what you might find from Priceline.com or its competitors. I'll bet the latter is cheaper, and you don't have the hassle of the paperwork, in this case, getting a note from my father's physician, Dr. Friedman, that said, yes, Les Green is really, really sick.)

Carol & I went right from the airport to the hospital on Monday, August 7. Even though he had some paralysis on one side, I could usually understand what he was saying. That night, Carol and I stayed in his room.

The next morning, Marcia was on the phone and made some lighthearted tease at Dad's expense. Dad heard this, even though the phone was to my ear, and said fairly clearly, "not funny," but he was obviously thought it was. Carol & I stayed with him that morning, then that afternoon, my mother.

My mother, Leslie, Carol and I met with an aid worker to determine what our options were if he were to live for a while: home care, hospice. My sisters stayed with him Tuesday night.

Carol & I were in on Wednesday morning. Dad became far less responsive since I had last seen him, pretty much in a comalike state, and on Wednesday night, Dr. Friedman said that it was likely that he would die within a week.

That evening, I turned on a baseball game, and explained the action to my father. I think the sound was down, so I was doing a play-by-play for a couple innings. I told him about Jason Giambi, the long-haired player for the Oakland A's who had "graced" the cover of Sports Illustrated within the previous year. It took me back to when Dad would explain in-person baseball and televised football to me when I was a kid.

There were men from church who worked with my father on the breakfast program, and Dad called them "The Guys." They came by and were surprised by his rapid decline since they had last seen him.

Wednesday night, we went home and Marcia stayed.

Thursday morning, I was working on an obituary for my father. Leslie had gone to relieve Marcia. Then at about 11:45 a.m., Marcia called from the hospital and said that my father was in the "death throes." There were two vehicles in the household and both were at the hospital.

At my mother's suggestion, I knocked on the door of a neighbor of theirs who I didn't know. He worked nights. He did, in fact, give my mother and me a ride to the hospital after he got dressed. But by the time we got there, my father had passed away.

In due course, we identified a funeral parlor, which we went to Friday morning. That weekend, there were tons of people at the Green household, often bringing over food.

The service that we planned went off quite well. Leslie sang, Leslie & I sang, stories were told. We felt as though we had to comfort OTHERS in their grief. We had on our game faces; Dad would have been proud, I think.

That Monday, we (my mother, Leslie & her daughter Becky, Marcia & her daughter Alex, and I) all rode in a limo to a military cemetery some 30 or 40 miles away, our one indulgence. (We weren't that sure where it was, and didn't know what condition we'd be in.) It was a small, stark ceremony run by old war veterans, and it was oddly affecting. The Sunday service WE did; this service was DONE FOR US, and somehow more emotional.

Carol & I left soon thereafter for Albany. We had tenants moving into an apartment we owned, and there was work to be done. And I didn't really cry until, a couple weeks after his death, the associate pastor of my church, Donna Elia, called me at work to extend her condolences. It's a good thing to have a private office.

That fall, I returned to choir, and I asked my buddy Peggy how her summer was, and she said, "Not so great. My father died." I said, "Mine, too." Then she said, "In August." I replied, "Me too." "On the 10th." "Me too." "At 3 p.m." "Mine was about 12:15 p.m." It's created some sort of special bond between Peggy and me. So, I know she's remembering five years ago, too.

Mixed Bag CD Blog Review-Andrea

NAME: Andrea Faetanini
BLOG NAME: Entertainment for Geeks
NAME OF CD: Playgeek
NUMBER OF CUTS: 27
RUNNING TIME: 78:42
COVER ART: Photo of one my favorite lamented shows (can you guess?)- "Freaks and Geeks"
SONG LIST: Her post of June 14
ALREADY REVIEWED BY: Nat Pike on June 15; Gordon on June 29
GENERAL THOUGHTS: Andrea's disc is louder in places than some of the others. It also has humorous bits, some of which worked better (Python, Shaun & Ed) than others. Andrea e-mailed the group noting "weird distort-y thing going on" during some tracks which frankly didn't bother me. I enjoyed this album quite a bit.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: The Postal Service, Nerf Herder, Ted Leo, and Duran Duran (!) - I love the original, but this ain't bad.
ON THE OTHER HAND: I don't think Hero of Canton would appeal to me, even without distortion. Actually the only real sag for me was this and the A Team right before it.
OFFICE FRIENDLY: Considering the subtitle, "The F***est Uppest Mix CD", not much more than you'd hear in a PG-13 movie.
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: On mixed CDs Fred Hembeck has made for me, he introduced me to two songs that appear on this disc, the Buffy theme and the Who cut.

Jerome

At college at New Paltz (about halfway between Albany and NYC) in the early 1970, I ran into the creature known as the Deadhead for the first time. The Deadhead was not unlike someone who had been "born again" after a lifetime of degradation. The Deadhead wanted to share The Experience with EVERYBODY, even if you didn't share his or her enthusiasm. I mean, I was a fan of the Beatles, but I couldn't tell you off the top of my head the set list for the Hollywood Bowl or Shea Stadium concerts. The Deadhead was an obsessed creature who could tell how a given song segued into another song, at what point, and when it segued back to the original theme, and how THAT was different than what they did two nights earlier. Omigod.

So, I developed a great antipathy for the Grateful Dead, not so much for their music, which I avoided, as much as towards their fans. Even the albums I heard for which I had some grudging admiration - such as American Beauty and Workman's Dead - didn't change my overall irritation with the group, or rather the group's persona, epitomized by their zealous fans.

10 years to the day after Jerome (named after Jerome Kern) Garcia's death, and in the month that he would have turned 63, I feel quite differently. I have a much greater appreciation for the band's musicianship, influence, and its sense of history in referencing pioneering artists that came before them. In particular, I really appreciated the writing of Jerry Garcia (usually with Robert Hunter) and his musical technique (including his work with Dave Grusin).

Jerry Garcia- he's more than the inspiration for an ice cream flavor.

Mixed Bag CD Blog Review-Tom

NAME: Tom Collins
BLOG NAME: Tom the Dog's You Know What I Like?
NAME OF CD: You'll Play It and You'll Like It, Vol. 2
NUMBER OF CUTS: 29
RUNNING TIME: 78:55
COVER ART: Simple but effective
SONG LIST: His post of June 10
ALREADY REVIEWED BY: Nat on June 10; Gordon on June 30
GENERAL THOUGHTS: I'm instantly disinclined to like this album, because I don't like being told what to do. There seem to be suites, as it were, on this disc, the Who/Kids/Alright segment, then a couple more comedic pieces, then some "standards" (Bing, Patsy, Hoyt), then other stuff. I enjoyed probably the first 2/3s thoroughly, then off and on, but liked the last four cuts. As it turns out, I think it's a pretty good percentage of entertaining stuff.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: Moxy Fruvous, Patsy & Hoyt back-to-back, Amy Ray, Pogues. Some of the snippets.
ON THE OTHER HAND: A couple other snippets. Who IS that on the mystery track?
OFFICE FRIENDLY: Well, not Tool, and a couple of the ruder snippets. And the topic of the mystery track, I suppose.
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: I have no more than four of the songs on this collection, the Who for sure, BNL and Green Day, maybe; Bing only if the biggest Bing fan I know gave it to me.

Publisher John Johnson

Just about every black family I knew in the 1950s and 1960s received EBONY magazine easch month. It was the black version of LIFE magazine. In fact, the red and white logo was purloined from LIFE magazine. Many black families also got JET, the pocket-sized newsweekly. Collectively, they represented the dreams and the reality of living in America at that time.

These and other magazines were the creations of John Johnson, who died today at the age of 87.

Not so incidentally, I still have EBONY and JET coming to my house.
***
Seems like I'm talking a lot about death the early part of this week. Strange coincidence. There ARE more joyous stuff to write about as well. Seemsd that every time I leave town, I want to write about THAT, but end up writing about something else.

This too shall pass.

Jennings

I was content to post not too much today, I really was, but then I heard that Peter Jennings had died.

When I was growing up, it was Huntley/Brinkley in our household (the reason I know the 2nd movement of Beethoven's 9th), then Walter Cronkite. When Cronkite retired in the early 1980s, I tried a number of folks: Chancellor then Brokaw, Rather. But eventually I found myself gravitating towards this Canadian fellow.

I think I found him more credible because he was somehow more the observer. I think his disastrous first shot at the anchor in his 20s made him work harder. Perhaps my favorite moment was on September 15, 2001 when he was talking to kids about the attacks, compassionate, yet not jingoistic.

When he said he'd be back when he went off the air in April, I figured, for a while, that maybe he would be.

The network has no clear choice to replace him. The folks who have been substituting for him already have a job (Elizabeth Vargas on Prime Time) or two (Charles Gibson on Prime Time and, more importantly for ABC's bottom line, Good Morning America.) Koppel is set to leave Nightline soon to do his own thing.

As I'm sure all the news analysts are saying, the triumvirate is over, which is neither here nor there for me. But the passing of Peter Jennings is one that fills me with some sorrow. It's strange that when you "invite someone into your home" electronically, you can get feelings of sadness when they're gone.

Too Darn Hot

I was away this past weekend, which I'll tell you about soon, so I wanted to get some piece done last Thursday for today. I even had a couple topics picked out to write about, such as this story about a 42-year old female high school teacher who apparently had sex with a 16 year old and 17 year old boy, and how some of the national press has salactiously pounced on it as though it were national news. I think they're looking for the next Mary Kay Letourneau.

Unfortunately it was too darn hot to write (the weather, not the story). After decent conditions last weekend, the hot and humid weather has returned. There have been 13 days over 90 this summer, and 2 of them were last week.

Not only that, the power went off (again) Thursday afternoon for 45 minutes. At 7 pm, it was 88 at the Albany airport and 85 in our living room.

Unrelated to the weather, but relavant to blog posting, I had found some material that just needed typing, but it has since gone missing, tempoarily (I hope).

So, I'm going to keep it short and share with you my favorite summer song. I think it's the way this "royal" man says "beer." And I don't even LIKE beer.

SING ALONG!

More Sunday Random Meanderings

Day o' rest:

RELIGION

I was reading my parents-in-law's Guidepost magazine (March 2005) when I came across the name Len Wein. He was described as a "comic book writer and creator of the new X-Men." I don't have the magazine, but Googling, I found this quote attributed to him: "A friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else."

I saw spray-painted on the wall of a church parking lot last weekend: "Blinded by Patriotism, Silenced by the Dollar."

On a church sign on Route 28 between Oneonta and Cooperstown: "There's no point being a pessimist, because it won't work anyway."

TRUTH

A radio talk show pundit said on the air that he thought that the reference of Karl Rove as Turd Blossom in Doonesbury was verisimilitude, when in fact W actually DOES call Rove Turd Blossom.
Verisimilitude. I love that word.

Someone recently turned me on to the The Borowitz Report. Where else could you read:
July 28, 2005 KIM JONG-IL DEMANDS IPOD
Latest Twist in Nuke Talks Raises Eyebrows, Concerns
July 27, 2005 DEBRIS FALLS OFF CHENEY
Scientists Study Videotape of Vice President Disintegrating
July 24, 2005 SWIFT BOAT VETS MISS ATTACKING KERRY
Life Without Negative Ads Devoid of Meaning, Vets Complain
July 21, 2005 ROBERTS PROMISES STRICTER CONTROLS ON FOUR-YEAR-OLD SON
Child’s Rampage Through D.C. Prompts Nominee’s Conservative Stance
July 18, 2005 NEW HARRY POTTER BOOK DESTROYS PRECIOUS RAINFOREST
652-Page Tome Ignites Ecological Catastrophe, Sierra Club Warns
Of course, these are "humorous" stories, but they COULD be true! They have verisimilitude!

These postcards ARE supposed to be true.

SEX

I went on a "next blog" meanering. Usually, they're new sites that pop up, but this week I came across the blog of Marshall Brain. He is the founder of one of my favorite websites, How Stuff Works. He has some insights into porn. And it's clean! Honest!

NOT CLEAN: One of my least favorite people is U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. The readers of sex columnist Dan Savage came up with a new term, and they named it after the junior senator from Pennsylvania. You may find it crude, but it seems to have caught on.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

I saw this on a news program, and then Brother IH sent me the info:
Store the word " I C E " in your mobile phone address book and against it enter the number of the person you would want to be contacted "In Case of Emergency".
In an emergency situation, ambulance and hospital staff will then be able to quickly find out who your next of kin are and be able to contact them.

Remember that Mars is getting closer. If the Martians are going to launch the invasion, this would be a good time.

Blogger Greg seems to think the current President isn’t all that bright. I mean he REALLY thinks W is dumb. I don’t know how he could say such a thing. Just last month, he acknowledged that global warming exists and that it is at least partially a function of human behavior, only a year after his own administration had reached that conclusion, and only several years after just about everyone else had.
So this is what I’m trying to figure out:
If global warming is human-made,
and if global warming heats the oceans,
and since hurricanes thrive on warmer waters,
so that more hurricanes will occur,
are hurricanes still acts of God or, increasingly, acts of human insensitivity to our environment?

Which takes me back to
RELIGION, which is where I started this.

3 Ramblin' ?s-Baseball

I was going to give you even more statistical stuff, but the hot weather precludes it.

Rafael Palmeiro was suspended for 10 days for failing Major League Baseball's steroid use policy. Allegations about use by Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds have also been made.

Palmero is only the fourth player, after Hank Arron, Willie Mays and Eddie Murray, to hit 500 home runs (he has 569, in 9th place all-time, passing Reggie Jackson and closing in on Harmon Killebrew) and get 3000 hits.
McGwire had 583 career home runs, and practically saved baseball in 1998 with his exciting home run race with Sammy Sosa in 1998, after the disasterous strike of 1994.
Bonds not only has 703 homers, but the 7-time MVP was intentionally walked more last year than some teams; he's been out with injuries all of this season.

Every eligible person (retired five years) who has hit 500 or more home runs has made it to the HoF.

So, I'd like to know:

1. Will Barry Bonds make it to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and should he?
2. Will Mark McGwire make it, and should he?
3. Will Raphael Palmiero make it, and should he

Bonus question:
And what about the chances for Sammy Sosa, who is now #5 on the HR list, behind only Aaron, Ruth, Bonds, and Mays, passing McGwire and Frank Robinson this year?

JEOPARDY!, Part 11 (and last)

Continued from Saturday, July 30.

Some people from my church, with assistance from folks at work, were planning a JEOPARDY! watching party for Monday, November 9. I could have refused, but it seemed ungracious. For some reason, I am almost as nervous about this as I was as I was being on the show; totally irrational, I know.

Unfortunately, two of my co-workers were laid off on the Friday before, and they were understandably not that interested in the party. Luckily for me and three of my colleagues, our jobs were saved. (Two others had already found new jobs.)

Sunday morning, the day before the show aired, I called Amy Roeder in Merrimack, NH. She was very helpful in putting things into perspective. Her friends who had been at the taping gave her a hard time about giving Saigon rather than Hanoi as the Final response, but I thought it was impressive that all three of us got the right country. I told her she was a great opponent, and that if she weren’t so close in score to me, I wouldn’t have bet so much, and therefore wouldn’t have won so much.

We also talked about the consolation prizes. Tom had ended up in second place and won a trip to a resort in New Jersey. (No commentary needed.) Amy, in third, got a credit card with $2500 on it. She and I agreed that she got the better deal.

The day of the show, I went to work for a half day, then went over to the Channel 10 studios to watch the feed for the show that comes in about 1:30. I had arranged this beforehand, but no one seemed to know I was coming, though they eventually did let me in. I was SO glad to have seen the show before the party.

At the church, there were about 35 people. I was seated in the front, just to the left of the set. At the first commercial break, I made a point to “go to the bathroom”, and not make it back until after my gaffe in OT Women.

After it was revealed that I won, I could answer all of those questions people had wanted to ask, many of which I ‘ve addressed, but also questions I thought were odd, such as:
"Did you know the categories beforehand?" "No."

By the time I got home, I had over a dozen messages. My sister Leslie in California must have sent a huge e-mail distribution telling people that I was going to be on (and apparently suggesting that I lost, from my non-committal response to how well I did.), for she forwarded congratulations from people I did not know.

The next day total strangers talked with me on the street about my JEOPARDY! win. And this went on for the next 35 days.

That second night I was on my mother called me at 7:30, letting me know that she was sorry that I lost. The shows aired at 7 pm in Charlotte. The show aired at 7:30 in Albany. I never saw the second show until several days later.

Even after that 36th day, when no one commented, I got lots of comments, especially at a January 1 wedding I DJed, a Midwinter’s party I attended.

Almost immediately after the show aired, I received letters, at least six, wanting me to buy their 45s and LPs; I must admit that I never wrote back. One guy, though, wanted me to identify some half-remembered songs from his childhood. I didn’t know most of them, but I did give him a lead to “the song with the lyrics “Open up your heart and let the sunshine in”.

Oh, I can’t forget the parting gifts I received, over a two-month period: a case (12 large cans) of sweet potatoes (they were quite good, actually), OTC vitamins and other products including Centrum, a rather lovely lap blanket, a US Search coupon to try to find anyone in the United States, Pop Secret popcorn, and TWO hair curlers (!), which I didn’t need and gave away. I also got a home version of…Wheel of Fortune, not JEOPARDY!

In January 1999, I got engaged to Carol. On St. Patrick’s Day, I received a check (FINALLY!) for $17,600.

A couple days after we got married on May 15, Carol and I flew to Barbados via New York City. I never realized how far south Barbados was. We spent money to park the car at the airport, spent money on the speeding (Are we gonna die?) cab ride from the airport in Barbados to the resort, and we spent $26 to get out of the country (some sort of fee.) Everything else we needed to do was paid for: the hotel, the food, the drinks, the ride back to the airport; all courtesy of my second place finish on JEOPARDY! For some reason, we even got bumped to first class on the return flight.

Since that time, JEOPARDY! has abandoned the prizes in favor of $2000 to the second place contestant and $1000 for third place, I believe because of the logistics involved with the prizes; I had to call a few times before our trip was booked..

For a time, I made a point to call Albany-area winners. I talked to one guy named Greg who had won $3400, and he was disappointed; he thought he’d do better. I said, "You won, and that counts!" But I stopped when I called another guy and I got the sense that he thought I was a stalker.

I was amazed that people continued to recognize me, no more so than in October 1999, 11 months after the show aired, and I was at a conference in Florida when some folks I had never met from the Department of Labor in DC recognized me.

My pal Dave, used to head the Albany YMCA before he got kicked upstairs to the administrative side, went to a comedy club in Boston in 1999 or 2000, and in the entryway was a picture of three people, one of whom was me. It turned out that the performer was Amy Roeder, my worthy opponent on the show.

Winning on JEOPARDY! is a peculiar phenomenon. It’s epitomized in this story:
I was at a party talking about my work as a librarian. I had recently done a question about alpacas and I noted that they are much nicer in temperament than llamas. However, a woman I knew said: "You Don’t Know What You’re Talking About!"
I believe she thought I was suffering from Male Answer Syndrome, where a guy will ALWAYS have an answer to every question, no matter how little he actually knows, often stating opinion as fact. Then wife Carol let it be known that I was on JEOPARDY! "Well, maybe you DO know what you’re talking about!" Answering a question as a librarian, someone with a Masters degree in Library Science didn’t cut it, but an appearance or two on a game show did.

There are people to this day who expect that I know stuff, even if I don’t, which is definitely a double-edged process. All in all, though, it’s good to be able to put on the resume: "JEOPARDY! champion."

Hope you enjoyed this little trip down Memory Lane. Now when people find out that I was a JEOPARDY! champion, as they did at a reunion last month, I can tell 'em, "Just go check out my blog!"

Mushroom cloud

I had this great teacher in sixth grade named Paul Peca. Among other things, he had us write in our journals about our thoughts. We also discussed the issues of the day, such as the 1964 general election between Lyndon Johnson (the peace candidate, in retrospect, ironically) and Barry Goldwater (who was depicted in one very effective commercial which ran but one time as the guy who would lead the world to a nuclear holocaust.) We held a mock election in which LBJ beat AuH2O 13-3. It was clear that Mr. Peca preferred Goldwater.

We had this great debate about the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His position was that the dropping of those bombs (and the threat to drop others, even though we didn't HAVE any more) ended the war sooner than continuing to fight a conventional war. He also noted that there were greater deaths in battles such as Dresden, Germany (130,000) than in either of the Japanese cities (120,000), which was the conventional wisdom of the time. (Dresden's deaths in February 1945 are now estimated to have been 25,000 to 60,000.)

What we argued was that the effect of the atomic bombs was not just limited to its immediate destructive force but the anguish that was suffered by future generations. How well that was understood at the time the bomb was dropped versus what was learned subsequently about the devastating effects of nuclear radiation was also discussed.

I don't remember if we talked about the fact that the only uses of of the atomic bomb were on people of color, or whether that was a conversation of a later class.

There is a movie called Atomic Cafe, which I saw when it came out about 25 years ago. It was a history of the A-bomb from the 1940s to the early 1960s, told in clips ("duck and cover", Prersidential announcements) and song ("Jesus Hits Like an Atomic Bomb", "Atomic Cocktail"). It was funny (in parts), but also quite sobering. I used to play the LP every year so that I would never forget the insanity of nuclear war. (I've never seen the soundtrack listed, though several of the songs appear here, an inferior product, so I've read.}

As we mark the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb this week, I note that we've never used it again on people. This suggests (perhaps foolishly) that we've learned from our history.

Haven't we?

Haven't we?

Spring 1975

I’m having an Alice's Restaurant moment.

By that, I mean that I want to tell you a story. But first, I need to tell you ANOTHER story. In the Arlo Guthrie song, he talks about 7 minutes about, well, Alice’s Restaurant, and garbage. But then he says: "That’s not what I came to tell you about. Came to talk about the draft." Now, my second story, I'll write about eventually, but probably not for this week.

At the end of the fall 1974 semester at the State University College at New Paltz (NY), I broke up with the person who would soon be my ex-wife Nona. She moved to Philadelphia for reasons that were unclear to me then, and certainly no clearer 30 years later. The primary relationship issues were religion and money.

I drifted to Binghamton, my hometown. In January 1975, my sister Leslie and I kidnapped my 75-year old grandmother and took her by train to Charlotte, NC, where her daughter (my mother) had moved the year before. Gram was getting lame. She had a coal stove and it would have been dangerous to get up and down the stairs to get it. Nor could she walk up the steep street on which she lived.

When we came back a couple weeks later, I didn’t have any idea what to do next. So I ended up living in my grandmother’s home. Funny thing, though; as often as I had seen her tend to the coal fire in my childhood, I could not keep it going at all. I suffocated it, essentially. Even got help from a friend; no success.

Eventually, the pipes froze. It was an old wood house with old wiring, so I could either run the refrigerator or run the space heater. Given the cold of the house, I opted for the latter.

In February 1975, I spent virtually the whole month in bed watching television. My grandmother’s TV only got one station, the VHF station Channel 12. So I watched the soaps, Hee Haw, and whatever was on CBS that month. It was undoubtedly the deepest state of melancholy I’d ever been in.

The space heater was on the ground and, of course, I had every cover I could find. One night, a blanket, handmade by Nona, fell off the bed in front of the space heater. Fortunately, the acrid smell woke me up and I was OK. My sister Leslie told me later that my mother (in NC) THAT NIGHT woke up from a dream in which I was surrounded by fire, and stayed awake for a time. Perhaps my mother woke me up six states away. I don't dismiss that out of hand.

Occasionally, I’d go to the library to listen to music on the record player and headphones there. I remember once listening to the Beatles' Abbey Road. The song that ended the first side was "I Want You (She’s So Heavy)". During the dirgelike instrumental ending, I cranked it up louder and louder. So when the instruments suddenly stopped, I really thought for a half second that I had died.

Now and then, I’d visit my friend Carol, which is where I got cleaned up.

I didn't have a phone, so I missed at least a couple opportunities to get a job. Eventually, though, I got a position as a janitor in Binghamton City Hall. There were 4 or 5 of us covering the building. I used to clean the wastebaskets from the desks of the police officers and also clean the holding cells, as well as wash windows, buff the floors of the common areas and other tasks. Two of the guys started calling me Flash because I would get my work done by the end of the sixth hour of my eight hour day, at which point I’d hide in the bathroom or a storage room and read. It wasn’t that I was so fast, it was that they were very slow.

I really liked the police captain, and we would occasionally have erudite conversations about issues of the day or my future (which seemed bleak to me, but I’m sure I didn’t say that.) The police officers, however, were a more hostile lot in general, and I often felt that they would intentionally make a mess so that I would have to pick it up.

Now there were folks who ABSOLUTELY were making a mess that I had to clean up, and they were the prisoners. These were holding cells they were in, and the detainees were usually there only one night before being arraigned in the morning. So they thought nothing of taking a lighted match and melting the paint from the walls. More than once, they would take their own bodily wastes and smear that on the walls. Perhaps they thought that they were getting back at "the system," but all they were doing was making more work for a college dropout.

As the weather warmed, my spirits brightened somewhat. I started going out with this woman named Margaret, but it was a classic rebound situation, and that lasted about a month. At the same time, I ended up doing a play. And in the fall, I successfully returned to school at New Paltz.

It was one of my more difficult periods of my life, and I figured that if I could survive that, I could survive just about anything.

But that’s not what I really wanted to write about. I wanted to write about home ownership...

Blog Mixed Bag CD Review-Ian

NAME: Ian Brill
BLOG NAME: Brill Building
NAME OF CD: Mix Your Mind Up
NUMBER OF CUTS: 21
RUNNING TIME: 74:43
COVER ART: No
SONG LIST: His posts of June 8 & June 12
ALREADY REVIEWED BY: Chris "Lefty" Brown on June 20
GENERAL THOUGHTS: There are CDs from the bloggers that I could say quite specific things, based on the fact that they are of a theme, or what not. This is not one of them. I found Ian's album to be just a bunch of good eclectic cuts without any discernable concept, except the first cut from the Brill Building, which was just fine. Probably more hip hop than any of the other CDs to date, and I found I enjoyed that.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: Actually quite a bit: Dr. Octogon, the Magnetic Fields, Sonic's Rendezvous, even the ABBA cut, which was totally unknown to me.
ON THE OTHER HAND: What's with the numbering? 01-09, 12-14, 14b, 14c, 15, 17-22 - ah mess my mind up with "Mix Your Mind Up."
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: The Brill Building, for those of you who didn't know, is a place in NYC where songwriters such as Neil Sedaka and Carole King worked in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Star librarians

As I’ve said somewhere, I am a librarian. I’ve been working at the same job for over 12 years, the second longest tenured person in my organization (but #1 has me beat by about eight years.)

Last week, I went to a morning training session about the Economic Census. I thought it was interesting. Anyway, one of my former colleagues, Sheldon, with whom I worked for over five years, was there, as was one of our former interns, Fran, who was here for several months. Our current intern, Frank, also attended, but I knew HE’D be there.

Then I get to work and get an e-mail from my former colleague of nearly four years, Anne, asking me about a reference source. She only writes a couple times a year.

Also I get an e-mail from my library boss for my first two years here, Michele. She’s living in Bermuda, but she’ll be in upstate New York for a little while and wants to get together.

Obviously, I had hit on a former SBDC librarian constellation that day. It was quite wonderful to reconnect with people who I’ve had a fruitful shared experience.

Blog Mixed Bag CD Review-Gordon

NAME: Gordon Dymowski
BLOG NAME: Blog This, Pal!
NAME OF CD: Non-Stop Hit Parade
NUMBER OF CUTS: 26
RUNNING TIME: 79:11
COVER ART: Clever (that picture of Ricky Gervais from The Office apparently dancing scares me)
SONG LIST: His post of June 7
ALREADY REVIEWED BY:
GENERAL THOUGHTS: He noted in an e-mail that was a "pretty conservative - some alternative/rock with one reggae song". I really liked the first half dozen tunes, which really rocked. And indeed, the first ten are excellent. The Futurama song seems to be palate cleanser for the second half. These songs are also pretty fine, and indeed from Bow Wow Wow to the Easybeats especially well programmed. Oh, and I LIKED the outro track, possibly because I thought it was SUPPOSED to sound tinny.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: Echobelly (I love women who rock, and that "Penny Lane" sounding bridge.) Picked a fairly obscure Monkees tune. The Brian Wilson song is a great ending.
ON THE OTHER HAND: There was no half hour speech by Dan Quayle, as he had promised in the e-mail. Oh, he was kidding! Never mind.
OFFICE FRIENDLY: I'd skip by MC Chris
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: My wife thinks that Steve Winwood is this lightweight performer, based on his 1980s output. "I'm a Man" was playing, and I think he'll get a reassessment.

Voting machines

Radio Interview - Weds. Aug. 3, Re: NY Voting Machine Issues

VOTING MACHINES -Which ones will New York end up with? Is touch screen voting in our future? Aimee Allaud, election specialist, for The League of Women Voters of New York State, in a twenty minute interview, answers questions and provides information New Yorkers need to hear about the process of choosing voting machines for their state. Decisions will be made without our input if we are not informed! Tune in tomorrow, August 3, 7:30-8:30 a.m. to WRPI-Troy on 91.5 FM.

Copies of the interview may be obtained for replay on your local radio stations. Contact Helena Kosorek.

Mixed Bag CD Blog Intro

I’ve mentioned this Chris "Lefty" Brown Mixed CD thang (May 23) I’ve been doing with some two dozen bloggers. I even reviewed one whole CD. But I’ve been negligent in recent weeks. And since I can't file them into the collection until I review them, I'd best get to it.

Before I do any specific reviews, I should make some general observations:

None of them I hated, as in "Get that thing out of my stereo," though my wife looked askance at me when I was listening to a couple of them. Some folks did some fancy graphics, while others were a 5" X 5" piece of paper, and while that didn’t matter much to me, a couple covers were particularly outstanding.

Thank you to those who indicated that some of the material may not be suitable for the office. I mention this because I played every single one in the office first, just to get a feel. (Kudos to Tony and Eddie, who put warnings on the package; also, Fred indicated same in an e-mail to the group.)

I’m reviewing these in a particular order: as of July 27 - first the folks that listed their CD tracks on their blogs, then the folks that Lefty listed their CD tracks on HIS blog, then everyone else who had tracks listed by others, then the ones where the tracks aren’t listed anywhere. Within those categories, I’m reviewing these in the order in which I received them.

I developed a matrix by which I’ll address each of the discs, more for my ease than anything. I was discussing with Fred Hembeck a while ago how difficult CD reviewing can be, because I don't always know the lingo, so at least the formula will allow me to touch on certain aspects more or less consistently. (You'll be able to tell a librarian did this.)

The first pair of reviews tomorrow.

Silk boxer shorts

The oppressive heat has broken in the Northeast, and it was a beautiful weekend. I just got back from Oneonta. I took the bus home to Albany, and was sad to hear that the line is going to be discontinued after September 6 for lack of ridership. (Less transit=more individual cars=more gas consumption.)

Anyway, I went to two minor league baseball games in Oneonta on Friday, and one on Saturday in Cooperstown. In the first Friday game, Oneonta won 12-1, scoring 5 in the first, 2 in the 2nd, and they were never headed. But then Tri-City came back in the nightcap, 8-4. On Saturday, in historic Doubleday Field, Oneonta won 11-1. Both teams had 11 hits, but Tri-City had all singles and hit into 4 double plays.

All the games were free, thanks to sponsorships. The Cooperstown game was paid for by Coke and Key Bank, not particularly surprising. But the Friday games were sponsored by Rural Three for Tobacco Free Communities, a "coalition of individuals and agencies, representing Delaware, Otsego and Schoharie Counties, dedicated to reducing the use of tobacco in our communities." There were young people getting folks to sign petitions chastizing the movie industry for promoting cigarettes in film. I thought it was unusual for a not-for-profit to sponsor a game, but they did get a lot (2200 patrons) of visibility.

Going to see a minor league ballgame, one gets a sense of what music has passed over into the popular sports culture. At least in this town, It’s A Beautiful Day (U2) and Hey Ya (Outkast) have joined Glory Days (Springsteen), We Will Rock You (Queen) and Blitzkrieg Bop (Ramones) in that musical pantheon.

In Oneonta, if a player has to go to the bathroom during the game, he has to go into the fan section in order to access the locker room. But in Cooperstown, it appears that he actually has to actually leave the stadium and use the same facilities as the patrons near the entranceway. I’m in favor of old-fashioned – Cooperstown doesn’t have lights, e.g. – but there are limits to my desire for nostalgia.

The bus from Oneonta to Cooperstown costs $1.30 for a 20-mile ride. It is far more economical than driving into Cooperstown and parking in the lots of churches, offices, even on people’s front lawns for $5 to $15, usually at the higher end of that range.

When they are playing at home, the Oneonta players get prizes for special accomplishments, such as making a great defensive play (bagel sandwich dinner) or winning a game. An extra base hit (double, triple, home run) gets a couple submarine sandwiches. A triple or home run also gets a couple pizzas. A triple gets a chicken dinner; this was a smart marketing ploy on the part of Brooks Barbecue, because triples are fairly rare, though one was hit in each of Friday’s games. In addition to the food, the home run hitter gets a $25 check from the team and a pair of silk boxer shorts from a local retailer. The mention of this never failed to engender many giggles, and lots of "oooh"s.

There is a player named Michael Hollimon who has five pair of silk boxer shorts. That means he has hit five home runs at home this season, including a grand slam late in the first Friday game. That might not seem a lot, but given the fact that the season began around Father’s Day, that they played some on the road, that Damaschke Field is not a park friendly to home run hitters, so that the SEASON record for an Oneonta player is 13 (he had 9 as of Saturday), it’s pretty impressive. I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes it to the big leagues by the end of the next year. Or not- it's really difficult to judge whether single A talent will translate to major league success.

Bloggerama

I've been blogging three months. Given the fact that some folks have been blogging three years or longer, it ain't no big deal to anyone but me. But it has been a real learning experience:

1) Can I be disciplined enough to post something, however slight, every day? So far, the answer, surprisingly (to me) is yes.

2) Will this allow me to "get in touch" with buried stuff, exhibiting existential angst in the public marketplace? Well, yes and no. I've certainly learned stuff about me (and you have, too.) But I DO have an edit button most of the time. So whatever salacious stuff you've seen, know that there's even worse stuff in my head that you haven't seen (and may never see - or you will, someday, maybe.)

3) Will anyone actually read this thing? Well, apparently, yes. To gauge that further, I've changed the settings so that any strange person can reply to my messages, rather than any strange person registered with Blogger. I reserve the right to alter that again, of course.

4) Will I get sucked up into this blogisphere, checking out other sites? Well, some.
The only site I visit every day without fail (unless he posts after my bedtime) is Mr. Hembeck's. He suckered me into this, after all. Besides, occasionally I can get a mention in his column
(July 23, plus some JEOPARDY! plugs).

Often, after I have posted, I hit the Next Blog button in upper right of my page. Sometimes, I find sweet pieces like this one. I almost ALWAYS find a plug for Texas Hold 'Em. Want a Spanish-language review of the movie Sin City? How about a political rant of a total stranger? And how the heck can I possible hit the same blog twice, given the number of new entrants into the arena?

At Mr. Hembeck's suggestion, I've been regularly going to News from Me by Mark Evanier, a very newsworthy source. And he rants about the same political stuff that irks me, only he does it better. Also, I read one of my favorite comic writer's blog, one Steve Gerber.

I've been checking out the folks involved with Chris Brown's Mixed Bag CD exchange (May 23), and some of them are quite entertaining. But I have to make special mention of Greg Burgas, who has two daughters, at least two blogs (one about his aforementioned two daughters), and inexplicably but happily, too much time on his hands.

In re: the Mixed CD folks, one of the goals for the month will be to start to review those tunes, probably two discs at a time, once this week, then twice a week until they're done. I'd say Wednesdays and Saturdays except that I've already foreseen some exceptions to that rule.

Oh, and if there are issues you know that I know about that I haven't written about, please let me know. I may decide that now's not the time, but I will keep it "under advisement," as they say.