Month: December 2007

The Lydster, Part 45: All in Good Time

I was watching “Grey’s Anatomy” a couple months ago (yeah, OK, whatever). Dr. Bailey, who is the only reasonably sane character on the show, was being berated on her cell phone by her husband for missing their less-than-one-year-old son’s first Halloween. Then she, talking to intern George, bewailed missing it too, even though she was helping with a surgery to make some cute kid’s life better.

Oh, please.

This year was Lydia’s first Halloween that we went out and celebrated. And her mother took her to a limited number of houses. I mean, how much candy does she really need? (Answer: quite a bit, actually, after eliminating the candies that might have peanuts.)

Likewise, we haven’t had a Christmas tree until this year. This is Lydia’s fourth Christmas. The first year, we were too tired and disorganized. The second year, we were afraid she’d accidentally pull it down on herself unless we had a moat around it. The third year, we weren’t home long enough, as we were at the grandparents’ house; they had a tree. This year, however, we went up to the attic, found the tree stand, negotiated which Christmas bulbs made it on the tree (Carol and I each have our own sets), figured out the lights (we were on the same page on that one), and decided that it would be important to help Lydia, and us, to have some Christmas traditions of our own.

So, I don’t think we’ve psychologically damaged Lydia by having foregone the rituals until now. Or if we have, she can send us the shrink’s bill.

More details anon.

Happy 3 3/4, Lydia.
ROG

ROG

My Favorite Christmas: 1969 or 1970

I’m old enough so that having a color television was once available only to those people of means. Next door to my grandmother, the folks, in 1961 or 1962, bought this huge color TV. This was back in the day when a TV was furniture. Since my sister Leslie was friends with one of the daughters, Christine, occasionally I got to see shows on the set. In those days, most, if not all shows on NBC were “brought to you in living color”. Even then, Bonanza, in particular, looked really weird.

But the shows on ABC and CBS were in black and white until approximately 1966. I remember ABC especially made a big deal of the transition: “Next, F Troop. In COLOR.” “Bewitched. In COLOR.” Well, not for us.

So, whatever Christmas it was, when the presents were fairly scarce under the tree, we were nevertheless all excited when we got a color television. I watched TV a lot, even of shows I had seen before that fall. I’m not sure that certain shows were improved by color. At some point, I saw reruns of the third (color) season of The Fugitive, and it wasn’t as good as the other two. And Griffith wasn’t improved, but then that could have been the loss of Don Knotts.

On the other hand, I got to watch The Wizard of Oz for the first time the way it was designed. It was WONDERFUL. I had never gotten the “horse of a different color” joke until that year. In retrospect, it was like being in that Tobey Maguire/Reese Witherspoon/Joan Allen/Don Knotts movie Pleasantville. Ironically, seeing things in color gave me a greater appreciation of black and white films that came later on such as Schindler’s list and Manhattan.

ROG

ROG

‘Tis the Season to ASK ROGER ANYTHING

This is the part of the program where I stand on stage like Carol Burnett before the show and you pose irreverent, irrelevant, irrational and/or irritating questions, and I HAVE TO ANSWER. Not only that, I promise it’ll be the truth; it may not be the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but as Jimmy Carter once said to the American public, “I’ll never lie to you.”

You could ask if I think the National Football League is somehow fixing the games – there have been some controversial calls – so that the New England Patriots will be 15-0 going into their final game against the Giants which can only be seen on the network that the league owns, and which is not available from many cable companies, such as Time Warner.

You could ask me what my absolute favorite play of the season in the NFL was. Note, however, that I haven’t seen a whole game all season, and that I’ve likely seen the most football waiting for 60 Minutes to come on.

You could ask me what the Baseball Hall of Fame ought to do about the players in the Steroid era.

You could ask me who my hero is.

You could ask me why this sentence on the FCC website for December 18 makes me gag: “FCC Adopts Rules To Promote Diversification Of Broadcast Ownership.”

Well, you get the idea.
***
ADD is right.


ROG

ROG

The Kennedy Center Honors, Part 2

More on the Kennedy Center Honors that took place on December 2 and is airing on CBS on Wednesday, December 26 at 9 pm EST.

I was afraid the Kennedy Center might treat Brian Wilson as some has-been of the 1960s, but it appears not to be so, as they cite his more recent works as well as his classic Beach Boys songs.

It’s odd that I never owned a Beach Boys album until Pet Sounds, which is my favorite . But once I got into the group, I did so in as major way. I’ve probably repurchased more Beach Boys music (vinyl to CD) than any group save for the Beatles. I now own, in one form or another:
Beach Boys Concert (32:03) (r. 19th October 1964)
Christmas Album (27:32) (r. November 1964)
Pet Sounds (35:39) (r. 16th May 1966)
Smiley Smile (27:00) (r. 5th September 1967)
Wild Honey (23:55) (r. 4th December 1967)
Friends (24:57) (c. 6th July 1968)
20/20 (29:33) (c. 1st March 1969)
Sunflower (36:10) (r. 31st August 1970)
Surf’s Up (32:59) (r. August 1971) – my second-favorite album
Carl and The Passions – So Tough (33:47) (r. 14th May 1972)
Holland (35:49+11:57=47:46) (r. 8th January 1973) this I have on vinyl with the story on a separate disc.
15 Big Ones (37:51) (r. June 1976)
Love You (33:40) (r. March 1977)
This doesn’t count a number of compilations, from a pair of double LPs in the early 1970s to the box set in the 1990s. The fifth CD in the box set has a 9-minute, “in process” version of “God Only Knows”, the last three minutes of which begs to be released as a single. The box set was actually a present to a friend, which I got back after she died.

Of Brian’s solo discography, I have:
Brian Wilson, 1988
Imagination, 1998
Gettin’ In Over My Head, 2004
SMiLE, 2004
What I Really Want For Christmas, 2005

The final artist to be honored is Diana Ross, or as the announcer puts it on a box set called The Motown Story, “Miss Diana Ross.”

There were LOTS of Supremes albums at my house when I grew up. Of this list, we had all of them in the 1962-1967 section except the Christmas album. When the group became Diana Ross and the Supremes, I still got a number of the albums; from that section, all except Funny Girl, Cream of the Crop, Greatest Hits 3 and Farewell.

But after her first two solo albums, I was disinclined to buy any more. I think, like many of the Motown artists, I resented how Berry Gordy pushed her to the fore. According to the December 5 Wall Street Journal, the main character in the new movie Juno wants people to know that her name came not from the capital of Alaska but from Zeus’s wife. (“She was supposed to be really beautiful but really mean, like Diana Ross.”)

Not that I was unaware of Miss Ross. Her version of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough was the backdrop to some Black History Month assembly in 1971. Certainly I heard the hits such as Love Hangover and Upside Down. I heard Endless Love endlessly. I still have a visual of her singing in a thunder storm in Central Park.

But the bulk of her solo work eluded me. So, while I was (allegedly) doing Christmas shopping for others a couple weeks ago, I was compelled to buy The Definitive Collection Somehow, I managed to miss the anthemic “I’m Coming Out” and a number of other songs. As it’s likely my only DR on CD, matching my Supremes CD greatest hits compilation as the lone digital representation in my collection, I’m actually glad to have it.

ROG

ROG
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