Month: November 2008

Feeling crummy


I’ve been feeling lousy pretty much since Election Day. (Not feeling lousy BECAUSE of Election day; much to the contrary.) But I’ve had a sore throat and insomnia for about a week and a half. So I’m going to take a nap.

Meanwhile, you can read what I wrote here about racism, sexism and homophobia.

I’m also going to suggest reading this article by conservative columnist Kathleen Parker. While I don’t know that I subscribe to the conclusion suggested in the title, “Relief from weight of our racial burden”, I found the story touching.
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RIP, Miriam Makeba. My father was a big fan, and he infused that appreciation into me.
or here.
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Pic from the Star Trek pic next summer.
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Urban Dictionary : New Entry
Palin
An applicant lacking even basic job skills
Someone supremely un-self-aware or lacking any relative sense of what he/she does or doesn’t know.
HR sent me another Palin for the marketing manager job.
Palin v.
to abandon one’s principles for short term gain
Tom, a devout vegan, palined when he consumed a happy meal solely to obtain the collectible toy it contained.
Palin n.
Pejorative term that refers to an incompetent, impractical, irrelevant or incapable person who has been appointed to a position of great importance.
A person who holds authority disproportionate to his or her requisite ethics and qualifications. Derived from John McCain’s controversial 2008 Vice Presidential pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
John was recently made principal, but everybody thinks he’s a Palin who can’t do the job.
My new boss is such a Palin – he took my deserved place because the CEO is his personal friend.
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Finally, I thought this post by Mr. Frog was terribly snarky. And terribly funny.
ROG

ROG

The TV Season


I must admit that it was my intention not to add any new shows to my list of programs to record on my DVR and (presumably) eventually watch. From a DVR at 0% on Labor Day, the machine got filled up to about 77% on Halloween weekend, and currently is is the mid 50% range.

As always, we have shows that are hers, hers, theirs, mine and ours.

HERS (the wife):
Skating. Unfortunately, the ISU series, save for Skate America, is not airing on any TV network, broadcast or cable. Apparently, this is a particularly big deal since we’re leading into an Olympic year and it’ll be easier to handicap the skaters once you’ve seen them on the Grand Prix circuit.
Also one of those home improvement shows on HGTV.

HERS (the daughter):
Little Bear. A nice show on Noggin co-created by Maurice Sendak.

THEIRS:
Dancing with the Stars. Even I know that 82-year-old Cloris Leachman stuck around longer than her talent would suggest based on her bawdy charm.

MINE:
This Week/Meet the Press/ABC World News – current.
Everything else is at least a week behind, including JEOPARDY!, CBS Sunday Morning and 60 Minutes. Also watching:
Boston Legal: yes, I know, but it’s the last season. There was actually a pretty good episode, one lacking with most of the supporting cast, in which Kyle Secor (Homicide) played the accused murderer and husband of Alan Shore’s former loves.
Pushing Daisies: frankly, I thought this show was too whimsical last season to survive, but ABC brought back virtually everything except Men in Trees. I expect it to get canceled THIS season. BTW, some kind person sent me this link to video content they had received directly from ABC, a new “Inside with the Stars” of Pushing Daisies
or here.
Dirty Sexy Money: my unapologetic soap opera trash, and I liked Peter Krause from Sports Night and Donald Sutherland from so many things, most recently, Commander in Chief.
Grey’s Anatomy: more tolerable since Grey and McDreamy have decided to actually have their damn relationship.
Life on Mars: One of the adds to the list. Jason O’Mara has intrigued me going back to a short-lived show called In Justice in 2006. Since then he was a love interest in Men in Trees and an arsonist on The Closer. Additionally, I lived in NYC albeit in 1977, not 1973, but it feels right. Interestingly, this is a short-lived British show that moved to a Los Angeles setting with the cast above to a disastrous result. It now has the cast pictured here and a different venue.
Brothers and Sisters: if you’ve ever had siblings…

OURS:
With the exception of one Earl and one Office, we’ve watched NOTHING on this list- My Name Is Earl, The Office, and at the suggestion of my wife, an add, 30 Rock.

So I never complain about TV shows being pre-empted. There’s always something in the queue. Frankly, I looked forward to November 12, when the CMA Music Awards scuttled the entire ABC lineup for Wednesday.

And no, I’m not adding anything else. I’m sure there are perfectly good shows out there, like How I Met Your Mother (saw once) or Eli Stone or those geeky guys on that CBS Monday sitcom. I’m not going to get invested in Lost or Heroes or Desperate Housewives at this point. Hey, I added 30 Rock.

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ROG

His Name is Raoul

This is Part 3. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.

Monday morning, November 14, 1983, Tom Skulan calls me at FantaCo and asks me whether Dee had called me. I thought this was a peculiar question. Dee, who was Raoul’s ex-girlfriend but still friend, had never called me to that point. Tom told me Raoul had died the day before, and I said, “Okay” and went back to work. About 10 minutes later I decided I should call my ex-girlfriend Susan and tell her. After letting her know, I realized, “Oh my God, Raoul died,” and I never mentioned it again that day. You would think that would be difficult, given the fact that I was going to be working the front of the store that day, but Raoul was working a Tuesday to Saturday schedule, and most people would not have expected him on Monday. They didn’t ask; I didn’t bring it up.

The next day we were faced with how to let people know that Raoul was deceased. While he was actually on vacation, most people would figure he was scheduled to work. Fortunately, his obituary had appeared in that morning’s newspaper. So as I sat at the front counter and people invariably asked me where Raoul was, I could point to the obit which I had taped to a piece of black construction paper and had hung on the wall opposite the counter.

Invariably, the first thing that came out of almost every person’s mouth was “You’re kidding!” Naturally, they didn’t mean that literally, but I heard that phrase a whole lot that day. It was so much easier just to point than to have to say the words again. But I attempted to comfort the customers who needed to process this awful news. Later that day, Raoul’s mother Betty and Raoul’s sister Maria came into the store along with Maria’s boyfriend. Maria hugged me for about four minutes, which felt like a LONG time. She and her mother asked Tom and me to be pallbearers at the funeral.

Raoul’s Nostromo Cap poster, recently discovered by Bill Anderson
Thursday evening was the wake. Fantaco employees Broome Spiro, Bill Anderson, and a number of others went over to the funeral home in Troy. Open casket. Damn. Eventually I made a quick pass at the lifeless body, but mostly talked to people as far away as I could from that part of the room.

Friday, the store was closed, of course, as we attended the funeral. The priest gave a homily that, while pleasant enough, didn’t seem to have anything to do with the Raoul we knew. He talked about Raoul drawing pictures of Christ and other fiction. But worse, he kept getting his name wrong. He repeatedly referred to him as Ralph. Ralph did this, Ralph did that. We all grimaced. Finally someone, and I didn’t even know then who it was, yelled, “HIS NAME IS RAOUL!” The priest continued, but at least he got the name right. After the ceremony, I went with a number of people from the band Blotto to a restaurant in Troy and we swapped tales about our friend Raoul.

ROG

ROG

Q is for Quadricentennial


Q turned out to be one of the easier letters for me, for 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of a trip taken by Henry Hudson which directly led to the founding of Albany, NY, where I’ve lived for the past 29 years. In 1609, Hudson was looking for an easterly passage to Asia, commissioned by the Dutch East India Company.

After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, his vessel, the Halve Maen (Half Moon), after first sailing down to the Chesapeake Bay with a sister ship, eventually traveled into New York Harbor and proceeded up what is today called the Hudson River. It made it about 150 miles, as far as what is now Albany before he was forced to turn around by waters that were too shallow. He realized that the river that would come to eventually bear his name was not a westerly passage to Asia.

Eventually, on the western shore, a settlement was established in what became the cqapital of New York State.


But this is not just a celebration of one city but of an entire region. Check out this site, or better still, this one for a list of events during the upcoming quadricentennial year. Also, check out this video, which will explain things somewhat.

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Fallen soldiers, fallen leaves

I associate the raking of falling leaves with Veterans Day. Some of this is at the mundane level. One November 10, I raked the leaves so well, and then the next day, more dropped so that it appeared that I had made no effort at all. It seems that the leaves all fall almost at once. I can tell it was last Thursday in the front of my house, with leaves covering up half of the windshield of the car.

The linkage, however, is also more subtle. One rakes the leaves early on, and one feels a sense of accomplishment. In that second and third pass over the same terrain, though, the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Is it REALLY worth the effort to go over that ground again?

War must feel like that. In the beginning, everyone, at least everyone who’s in charge of executing the war, must have a sense of the rightness of their duty. As the war drags on, though, do doubts settle in?

I always wondered about extremely long wars. In year 37 of the 100 Years’ War, do the leaders remember what the point was. By year 73, all the leaders are most certainly dead, and all there is to hold onto is an abstraction. “For England!” or whatnot.

I came across this video about World War I, the end of which we are celebrating its 90th anniversary today. It’s not all gunfire, as the first minute or two might suggest, but has music of the period.

As you may know, WWI was so awful that it was thought that it must certainly be the “war to end all wars.” The League of Nations was formed and the world lived peacefully ever after, or so the script read. Here’s a list of wars most of them since 1918, with casualties when available.

I guess we’ll keep on trying for peace, regardless of our inability to achieve it.

ROG
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