Month: June 2006

Still, one does make summer plans. Our family is hoping to rendezvous with my family in Charlotte and my sister in San Diego in our hometown of Binghamton next month.

So, please, if you would, share with me your answers to these three solstice questions:

1. What movies/TV shows do you want to see this summer? I want to see the Superman Returns film, The Closer TV show and not much else.

2. What do you want to read and/or write? I’m looking to get rid of some aging periodicals. There’s a couple autobio pieces I want to work on.

1. Lydia’s illness. Generally speaking, she a very charming child, even when under the weather. But this recent pink eye/cold/fever/cough/runny nose/itchiness/insomnia thing made her uncharacteristically cranky.

Meanwhile, I’ve missed work Friday, Monday, came in late on Tuesday and Wednesday, when I was supposed to be training our new interns. Fortunately, she’s somewhat better now, though she still has a cough which precludes me from sleeping through the night. Edit, 9:05 a.m. Nope, I’m home with her again.

2. There was a wonderful story about DMC of Run DMC, which featured Sarah McLachlan, on the CBS Sunday Morning this past week, ‘I Am Who I Am’: Darryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels And His Long Journey To Self-Awareness. The print version is here, but it doesn’t do the story justice. When my wife watched it, she got teary-eyed, and I seemed to have gotten something stuck in my eye… (Imagine pictures of Darryl and Sarah; the Blogger curse strikes again.)

3. I finally got to watch the CMT special on Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger sessions. I loved the joy of the music making process. He seemed to, in some cases, take a familiar song, e.g., “Oh, Mary, Don’t You Weep” and sing what might otherwise have been the tenor part in traditional four-part harmony, and make it the melody line. Or so it seems to me. (Think Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer- compare what Paul and Art sing on the chorus.) I’ve GOT to get that album. And Lefty went to see him!

4. TV shows with a strong lead character. Commander in Chief- yeah, the three producers in one season really screwed it up – and the last episode EVER is this Wednesday, so I’m looking to watch something new to watch besides JEOPARDY and the news this summer. I’m going to try The Closer with Kyra Sedgwick on TNT. A marathon session of last season will be on TNT Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (EDT), and then the Season 2 opener will be on Monday at 9 p.m.

5. The last The Office – yeah, it was three weeks ago, but I just saw it! I loved Michael’s ménage, and especially loved the ending. Also saw the last Scrubs, and the last bit threw me a curve.

6. Mowing the lawn: actually, I don’t care – I’d just as soon hire goats – but my wife does, and with all the rain, it’s been difficult to get to it. A hand mower becomes useless once the grass hits a certain height, so I got to it on Tuesday just in time. It usually takes less than a half hour, but this time it took over an hour.

7. I’ve been thinking about songs for Kelly’s Songs of Summer Mixed CD exchange, assuming she accepts me. There are LOTS of songs, but I’m TRYING not to be too clichéd. Damn, and I really LOVE Summer in the City by the Lovin’ Spoonful. I used to play the bass line on the piano when I was a kid.

8. I enjoyed the songwriters post that Tosy put up this week.

9. Julie Hembeck draws Fred Hembeck. A great likeness, Julie.

10. Things in the news: That idiot Ann Coulter. Did I mention the word idiot?

There’s also a local murder story in which a young man is accused of killing his father and brutalizing his mother; you simply cannot live around here and NOT know about it. His attorney’s request for a change of venue seems understandable, given this.

11. “Doc” Rivett, who I saw just last month at the annual meeting of the Friends of the Albany Public Library. He was retiring as president, and he took his sweet time starting the meeting, I thought. He fell that very day, May 18, was admitted to the hospital, and died Tuesday. (Did he fall BEFORE the meeting?) Now I feel especially badly, over his passing, but also for being so impatient with an 87-year old guy.

Oh, I told my wife Billy Preston had died. She thought I said Billy Crystal. It lead to a very weird conversation, especially the bottom line, which was that she didn’t know who Billy Preston was. Ah, these young people.

I looked it up in a dictionary, and it says: “Reform \Re*form”\, v. i. To return to a good state”

So when I read about, say, immigration “reform”, with contradictory senses of what “good” is – lock the borders! show compassion! – the term becomes nearly meaningless to me.

A few weeks ago, the French labor unions, emboldened by massive turnout of demonstrators on the streets of several cities, demanded that the government withdraw its contentious labor reform law. In this case, one COULD suggest the “reform” was trying bring back prosperity, but the young adults who would be subject to firing certainly didn’t see it that way.

“The Senate’s idea of lobbying reform is no substantive reform at all.”

“Raise judges’ pay: They have gone years without an increase, and the system needs reform”

Long Term Care Reform Committee of the New York State Bar Association: “Poor people can always get care; rich people can afford it. It’s the middle class that’s getting squeezed,” he warns.

“The United States stood nearly alone” last month “as it voted against the creation of a new U.N. Human Rights Council, saying the reform did not go far enough to keep abusers off the panel.”

“Consensus elusive in talks: Labor, business leaders differ on ways to reform workers’ compensation”

“Faster work sought on voting reform: U.S. Department of Justice turns up heat on state to meet federal election guidelines”

“PSC praises price reform: Panel says deregulation helps energy consumers, but assemblyman assails report”

In each case, one side will tout action as progress, while the others will bewail as punitive.

I think again of the word re-form, to form again. I guess my point is that the things lifted as reform may be re-form, i.e., change, but it is not necessarily better. So I vow not to use the word loosely. I wish others, especially politicians, would choose to do the same.

One is supposed to name our favorite incarnations of various musical forms. If I showed you all of the blanks, it would outnumber the answers. So I won’t.

Symphony: Gee, I don’t know. Is there just one? Beethoven’s Fifth, first movement, Beethoven’s Ninth, second movement (the theme song to the NBC News with Huntley and Brinkley). A number of Mozart symphonies, 29, 35, 40. Dvorak’s Ninth. OK, I’ll pick that one -“New World”.

Tone Poem, or other non-symphony long-form orchestral work: Scheherazade, by Rimsky-Korsakov. (I stole the answer, because I had no idea what a tone poem was and I DO like that piece.)

Piano concerto: Something by Mozart

Piano sonata: Raindrop by Chopin

Other chamber music: The Pachelbel Canon (so it’s so obvious – sue me)

Latin choral work (mass, requiem, Stabat Mater, etc.): OK, it’s cliche, but it’s the Mozart Requiem. Hey, it’s the 250th anniversary of his birth. I LIKE Requiems.

Classical work composed after 1950: Te Deum by Arvo Part

Movie Score: Last Exit to Brooklyn by Mark Knopfler

TV theme: most of the Mike Post oeuvre- Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, Rockford Files, NYPD Blue. Also, Taxi, the Fugitive, and Hawaii 5-0, especially the percussion in the beginning.

Song, Rock: If I had to pick ONE right this minute, It might be “Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo” by Johnny Winter And.

Song, blues: “Meet Me with Your Black Drawers On”. Can’t remember who did it.

Song, country: “Stand By Your Man” by Lyle Lovett.

Song, other: “Waters of Babylon” by Don McLean

Guitar or lute, classical: There’s a Doors’ song “Spanish Caravan” from the “Waiting for the Sun” album, which is based on some classical guitar piece.

Guitar, rock, blues, country or other: the “Blue Moon” section of “Sunshine of Your Love” by Cream.

Goofy novelty song: “In the Mood” by Henhouse Five Plus Too.
***

I knew Billy Preston was sick, but it still his passing yesterday made me sad. I remember hearing that first Apple album of his when I went to visit my friend Steve in Poughkeepsie, shortly after my high school girlfriend broke up with me. I especially loved the first song, “Do What You Want To (I Will Love You Anyway)”.
One of my favorite Billy Preston riffs was the organ on “I Got the Blues” from the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers album, which has been playing in my head. Although best known for playing with the Beatles, and for solo John, George and Ringo discs, he played on several Stones albums as well. And of course, he had his own hits.
Only recently did I learn that he co-wrote “You Are So Beautiful”, the big Joe Cocker smash.

We may ask general questions like “How are we doing?” or more specific ones like “We are writing a story about people who collect stamps. Do you know someone we should contact?” or “The President signed new tax legislation today. How will the changes affect you?”

I don’t know why I signed up – I’m shy, retiring, and have no opinions on anything, as you well know – but sign up I did. So the second thing they send out by e-mail (don’t remember the first) was to ask about how gypsy moths were affecting our lives. It so happened that I did have a little tale to tell.