August 2007 - Page 6 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Another Busy Weekend

Here are my wife and daughter frolicking at a MidSummer’s gathering this past Saturday. On Sunday, it was on to the Hembeck/Moss residence. More on these in the coming days.
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Hey, Fred: NBC is rerunning that Jerry Lewis episode of Law & Order: SVU tonight at 10 pm EDT.
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I love those synchronistic stories: Fred Glavine used to tell his son Tom how his favorite pitcher, the great Boston/Milwaukee Braves left-handed pitcher Warren Spahn, would have handled a situation. Warren Spahn, who had 363 wins, finished his career with the New York Mets.
Now Tom Glavine, the great left-handed pitcher, long with the Atlanta Braves, won his 300th game Sunday night, playing for the New York Mets.
I also learned that Spahn, Glavine and Early Wynn are the only three pitchers to win 300 games without having a 20-win season.
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I don’t know if you bugged them about it, as I did, but Dead or Alive HAS added Doug Marlette to its list, only a couple weeks after the fact.
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I’ll probably be mentioning this at least once a month until February: the 7th Annual Underground Railroad Conference, Friday-Sunday, February 22-24, 2008, primarily at the College of St. Rose in Albany. Save the date.
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A couple suggested readings: ADD interviews James Howard Kunstler about the state of the nation, Kunstler’s writing career and other stuff. It’s long, but interesting, and an audio is available as well. A much shorter piece is the Brad Blog piece about the California Secretary of State Debra Bowen requiring paper ballots to be counted, “not invisible electronic bits and bites from computers run by private corporations using secret machines and secret software.”
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My sister Leslie flew in from San Diego last night; actually she arrived about 12:30 this morning and is still still asleep. I, on the other hand, am (allegedly) awake.
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Finally, a quiz I found on the site of Kelly Brown. FWIW, I think it’s incredibly accurate.

You Should Rule Saturn

Saturn is a mysterious planet that can rarely be seen with the naked eye.

You are perfect to rule Saturn because like its rings, you don’t always follow the rules of nature.
And like Saturn, to really be able to understand you, someone delve beyond your appearance.

You are not an easy person to befriend. However, once you enter a friendship, you’ll be a friend for life.
You think slowly but deeply. You only gain great understanding after a situation has past.

What Planet Should You Rule?

ROG

Interview by Dymowski

Gordon writes: As promised, here are my five interview questions for your blog.

1) You’ve discussed Rod Serling multiple times on your blog. My question – what are your favorite Serling-written pieces? (You can pull from anywhere – the Playhouse 90 stuff, Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, et al)

There were some pre-Twilight Zone pieces, and maybe a Night Gallery or two, but I think I’ll stick with Twilight Zone, because there were so many:
“Time Enough at Last” with Burgess Meredith as a man after a nuclear war with time enough to read (finally!), but then who breaks his glasses.
“The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” with Claude Akins and Jack Weston. The power goes out. Is it the aliens? It turns out the monsters are ourselves. For some reason, in some ways, reminds me of an old EC comics story about the guy who is not saluting the flag, so the crowd beats him to death, figuring he’s a Commie, when, in fact, he lost his sight fighting in the war on our side.
“It’s a Good Life” with Billy Mumy as a very scary, and powerful, kid.
“A Game of Pool” with Jack Klugman, playing the game of, and for, his life.
“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” with William Shatner. Is there something on the wing of the airplane, or is he crazy? This segment also appears in the Twilight Zone movie, perhaps to lesser effect.
I’m sure there are others: “The Dummy”, “To Serve Man”. There’s one, Little Girl Lost, with a kid going under the bed and ending up in another dimension, that TERRIFIED me in the day. I must also mention “Walking Distance”, that DOES have a carousel that reminds me of Rec Park in Binghamton. There was a segment, Nightmare as a Child, that was also in the Twilight Zone movie; I laughed out loud when I saw it at movie’s world premiere in Binghamton, because it namechecked Helen Foley, his favorite teacher and one of mine, who was in the audience at the time.
BTW, Gordon sent me this link to a bunch of “The Twilight Zone” TV Bumpers; here’s a definition of a bumper. Lots of them are for cigarette ads, especially early on; tobacco killed Rod Serling far too young. Oh, the picture above was purloined from here; when IS that museum going to open?

2) As a relatively new father, what aspect of parenting – or your daughter’s future – are you a little concerned about? Any adjustments that you think you will have to make?

There is always a balancing act between letting her do as much as she wants and making sure she doesn’t get hurt or frustrated or spoiled. She tends to be wary of strangers, which has its good and not-so-good elements. The world can be scary, and I want her to be cautious without being paranoid. It’s a fine line, that.

3) Does your local public library have a summer reading program? And if so, do you participate?

Yes, and as a matter of fact, as a member of the Friends of the Albany Public Library has authorized money to subsidize the program. Do I participate myself? No, but I’m sure we will in the future.

4) What strange, hidden secret of Fred Hembeck do you think the comics-reading public should know?

Interesting. I saw Fred, his wife Lynn, and daughter Julie just yesterday. He is a piler. He has piles of stuff. Reference materials for his blog here, reference materials for his cover redoes there. His Superman DVDs under those for Gilmore Girls. It’s not messy, exactly; it’s rather organized chaos.

5) What is your all-time favorite book?

I once said the World Almanac, and it’s probably true, or maybe one of those Billboard singles or album books. But if you’re talking about books with actual paragraphs, O Albany! by William Kennedy. I know this is sacrilege, but I’ve never gotten through any of Bill Kennedy’s Albany-based fiction, and I’ve tried. But I enjoyed his non-fiction piece. Favorite fiction, and I read very little these days: A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

ROG

The First Black President?

I was musing about whether the United States was ready for a black President. My initial premise was that we’ve HAD black Presidents already, at least in fiction. Morgan Freeman was Tom Beck, the worried Commander-in-Chief facing Armageddon from above in the 1998 movie Deep Impact. Then, of course, there were Dennis Haysbert (pictured) as the noble David Palmer whose death was mourned, then D.B. Woodside as his brother, and less well-regarded successor, Wayne Palmer, on the TV program 24. (Can you think of others?)

So, I was looking for other examples, but got totally sidetracked.

The best case for Black ancestry is against Warren G. Harding (pictured), our 29th president from 1921 until 1923. Harding himself never denied his ancestry. When Republican leaders called on Harding to deny the “Negro” history, he said, “How should I know whether or not one of my ancestors might have jumped the fence.”

This piece suggests that at least five former Presidents, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Harding, and Calvin Coolidge had black ancestors. This version even has a link to a video, laying out the case. Other pieces, even more speculative than these, suggest George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower, and Bill Clinton also may belong to the tribe.

So, if any of this is really true, then the precedent re: the Presidency has been broken, and electing someone who looks like this guy should not be a problem, eh?

ROG

By the Numbers QUESTIONS

1. OK, this is a rhetorical question, but if the Interstates are part of our National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, how is it that the bridge in the Twin Cities, part of I-35, was able to fall into such disrepair? I mean, forget silly things like human lives and massive inconvenience; we’re talking Homeland Security here. It seems to me that some of this massive amounts of $$$ for our supposed safety could, SHOULD be put in the less sexy area of infrastructure repair.

I suppose people around here, when they see the Minnesota tragedy, may recall the I-90 bridge collapse back in April 1987 west of Albany, near Amsterdam, in which 10 people were killed, or more recently, the I-88 culvert washout in which two truck drivers died. I travel over both areas regularly and say a little prayer each time I cross any bridge.

2. If you want to give yourself a headache, read a few dozen messages commenting on controversial videos on YouTube such as this one:

Al Jazeera English – Thank you for your feedback

“Still want to hear more from you so keep watching and keep sending in your videos”

This, and the original post asking for videos, got lots of feedback, from “Al Jazeera should be provided on all US cable companies as a regular NEWS channel” to “Al Jazeera represents a culture that stands in direct opposition to EVERYTHING America was founded on” to mentions of the attractiveness of the news reporter. But one reply just baffled me. It just gave four dates:

May 7, 1915
February 27, 1933
December 7, 1941
September 11, 2001

Now, I know what 9/11 was, and Pearl Harbor Day (12/7/1941). 2/27/1933 was the Reichstag fire in Germany, and 5/7/1915 was the sinking of the Lusitania. But what do the dates have in common, other than destruction? And what do they have to do with Al-Jazerra English? Am I missing something?
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On a lighter note, Chris Black gets funky. Who woulda thought?
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I want to plug FairVote’s Upgrade Democracy video contest.

Tell us what do you think ought to be done to improve elections by making a short video answering the question:

“If you could change anything you wanted about elections, what would our democracy look like?”

You could win $2000 and have your video seen by celebrity judges like filmmaker Richard Linklater (School of Rock, A Scanner Darkly), political guru Donna Brazile, and The Daily Show’s Dan Bakkedahl!

For full details, visit: www.UpgradeDemocracy.com

ROG

There IS Need to Fear

Underdog is here. I’ve seen the commercials for the movie of the live-action character, opening today, voiced by Jason Lee (Earl of My Name Is…) and it seems lame. A Chicago Tribune piece by Louis R. Carlozo seems to agree: “…redux has all the hallmarks of a film that lives up to its title, minus the ‘under’ part.”

Fortunately, the REAL Underdog is here. The cartoon version, voiced by Wally Cox, my favorite Hollywood Square, is also coming out today: three volumes of The Ultimate Underdog, six episodes each, $12.93 each from Classic Media. The product also features shorts of Tennessee Tuxedo, voiced by, would you believe, Don Adams, plus Commander McBragg and the annoying Go Go Gophers.

I was never a big fan of live action versions of cartoon characters. The Garfield movie seems a little creepy to me. But I didn’t really care that much about Garfield, anyway.

The Underdog cartoon, though, I was invested in. Beginning with its faux Superman opening – “It’s a bird.” “It’s a plane.” “It’s a frog.” “A FROG?” – let even this 11-year-old in on the tongue-planted-firmly-in-cheek joke. But it was clever, not condescending, or dopey. “Not bird or plane or even frog. It’s just little ol’ me [CRASH ] Underdog.”

What does it say about me that I know the theme songs for all four of those cartoon segments?
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More Spider Pig on ‘Simpsons’ DVD and other pop culture stuff.

ROG