Month: May 2006

My first recollection of a World Series was in 1962. It was difficult for me because my two favorite teams at the time were playing. My hometown Triplets was long a Yankee farm team, so I had a rooting interest in the team of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford and Elston Howard. But I don’t know what attracted me to the team now playing across the country in San Francisco, unless it was the players: Juan Marichal, Willie “Stretch” McCovey, Felipe and Matty Alou, and the “Say Hey Kid”, Willie Mays. I thought he was the best baseball player ever – he could hit for power, hit for average, steal bases, play great defense. (The Yankees won that Series, four games to three.)

When I went to Cooperstown one year, I got to buy this plastic figurine of Willie. I loved it. The arms even moved! Then the dog bit off one of his feet, and one of the arms (the one with the glove) fell off, but I kept it for a good long time anyway.

It must have been because he batted .211 in his final season, as a New York Met, that kept some people from voting him into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, but he still got 409 votes or 94.68% of the votes cast anyway and was elected in 1979.

He was present when his godson, Barry Bonds, son of his former teammate Bobby Bonds, tied his home run mark of 660 early in 2004. Unfortunately, Barry’s blasts are mired in a steroidal dispute, whereas the kid who used to play stickball on the streets of New York City, even after he became a star, will have a legacy untouched by such controversy.

Here then, in memoriam, is my obsessive compulsive manner of playing music at work, RIP, May 12, 2006, born from the conviction that if I’m going to own over 1000 CDs, I damn well better find a way to play them:

THE BIRTHDAYS: I got a couple lists, one from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (which was somewhat inaccurate and no longer is on the site), plus some other lists, and I play the music of the artists during their birth week. Solo artists are easy. Groups are harder, unless the group member is clearly dominant (Dave Clark in the DC5 – December, BTW). Sometimes, I can’t decide, and I pick two of them (Rolling Stones in July-Mick, and December-Keith). Or because I find a desire to play them at different times of the year (Beach Boys in June-Brian, and December- Carl and Dennis).

Beatles I play thrice a year, in February-George, June-Paul, and October-John, along with their respective solo works. What about poor Ringo (July)? That month I play a lot of Beatle covers, along with his solo stuff. And I have a LOT of Beatles covers.

Birthdays include, BTW, certain non-performers, notably Berry Gordy; I play a lot of Motown compilations in November. And more recently, some of the blogger compilers, e.g. Fred in January, Kelly last month, etc.

THE EVENTS:
Black History Month, which I’ve decided runs from MLK Day to the end of February): lots of R&B compilations, notably Say It Loud!
Valentine’s Day: Yeah, I have some love albums. Wanna make something of it?
Academy Awards: Soundtracks in February or March, depending on the date of the broadcast
St. Patrick’s Day: Chieftains, Clannad, the Coors
Lent: a requiem each week

I also have music for the 4th of July, Halloween and of course, Christmas.

This year, I’m worried about being attacked by supervillains, like I was last year.

My palms are sweating just THINKING about it.

It is almost inevitable because it’s May again, and I’m going to TWO conferences again out of town, both of which I’m presenting at, BTW. I just got back from the first one, my work conference – yes, the week before the move, but it was scheduled months ago. The hotel supposedly had Wi-Fi, but it worked sporadically. (Last year’s conference was supposed to have Wi-Fi, that proved to be a functional fiction, but I DID get to post at the local library.) You’ll hear more about this recent conference soon.

The upcoming conference has long distance dial-up, fercryinoutloud.

Then there’s the disruptive work move, more of a hassle mentally blogwise than physically.

Beyond that, I may blog less (I’m not talking once a month, or even once a week, but talking five or six days a week), largely because there are a couple other writing projects I want to work on this summer. Yes, this means that person I promised I would write for LAST year. (He knows what I mean.)

Also, there’s tentative two-week trip for a family reunion – who knows when I’ll be able to post then?

And even when I DO blog, a few of the upcoming posts will be fairly short. I do want you to get your money’s worth, but time pressures will out. (Yeah, I know you don’t actually pay for it, but I try to approach it as though you do.)

But I still have a lot to say, a lot more than I ever thought I would, frankly.

That said, what the heck am I doing on MySpace? I don’t rightly know.

I do know that back on March 7, I was helping someone at the library work on her blog. She asked me about promoting on MySpace. I told her that, although I had naturally heard of it, I didn’t know much about it. So, I signed up, but did little else, and frankly forgot about it…

…until last Monday. I was trying to post something on Blogger for over eight hours, but it was not happening. Then I happen to read that friend Fred had just registered to be on MySpace, which reminded me that I had a registration on MySpace.

OK, I stole, then paraphrased, that last paragraph from here, but the facts are correct.

For me, I started rather whimsically one day, seeing whether I would do it the next day. And I did, again and again, 1.4 times a day, every day.

I got to write about JEOPARDY!, starting here, which was a major goal. (That way, when people asked me about my experience, I could tell them, “Go read about it in my blog!”)

I got to write about the small person in my household, something I had promised myself before that, then reneged on it. In fact, the very first picture I ever posted was of…oh, you guessed it, which wasn’t until August.

August was also the time I finally decided to put in a site meter, the 26th; that day, I had 23 visitors. Since then, I’ve had a wide range of folks coming here from all over the world, as few as 20 (on November 11) and as many as 130 (on January 26), but roughly 50 per day. Of course, the ONLY people who would have found my first few posts would have been those people who hit the “Next Blog” button on it and happened upon it.

It only occurred to me in November to ascertain if I could find my blog on Google, and I did. It was #30 when I typed in Roger Green. By the end of December, it was #19. My pathetic plea to you folks around my birthday in March got me solidly in the top 10, and recently I’m in the top 5, wich both pleases and surprises me.

The post that probably generated more hits for over a week was my April Fools’ Day post of nearly 3000 people named Roger.

My favorite post may very well be this one, because I got EXACTLY the response I wanted.

Probably the most controversial post, was this one, based on the comments it generated.

In any case, I wanted to thank a bunch of people, but I always worry about that, because, for instance, shouldn’t I mention Logan, who put something about CONFOUNDING ROGER GREEN in his header for over a week? What about Kelly, who confounds me with her queries? And certainly, I should mention oatmeal raisin cookie-eating GayProf. But would Greg notice if I left him off? Probably. Whereas Mike wouldn’t care, he’d just go off with Swamp Thing.

Two people’s blogs that have generated traffic to this little electronic corner of the world are Scott at Scooter Chronicles and Comic Book Galaxy’s Alan David Doane. It was ADD who once told me: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.” No, wait, that was Rick Nelson. Well, Alan said something similar.
And there are some loyal non-blogging readers, such as ASP, CD, MR, MAK, CD, and TF, who I appreciate, plus many of the folks on my blog roll.

But I do need to thank:

Eddie, who was likely the first person who I had not known previously who let me know that what I wrote could matter to someone else.

Near-twin Gordon, who is the one most likely to reply to my queries, and whose CD in the CD Exchange is most likely to arrive in my mailbox first.

Lefty, who started the music exchange where I met a lot of these weird folk, and who has been someone I can write to about any number of issues.

Well, that’s it. Thanks for coming by.

(I suppose I should mention Tom the Dog, who showed me how to do do this little trick.)