November 2009 - Page 4 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

The Strange Question Meme, Part 1

Ah, the Faure concert went well yesterday, but I got more comments about the fact that I was wearing a suit than the music. “He cleans up nice.” “You’re so HANDSOME.” “I didn’t know you could look so good.” That sort of thing.

Saturday night, the wife and I went to the Albany Symphony Orchestra at the palace theatre. George Li, a 14-year-old pianist was astonishing on a Saint-Saens symphony. he also played a nice Chopin solo piece as an encore. And he looks 11. we saw David Allen Miller on our way into the theater, and young George, who looks about 11, on the way out.
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In case you’ve never heard the Dylan tune Gates of Eden.
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Strange Questions, Part 1. Expect a part 2 someday.

1. What is the color of your toothbrush?

It’s one of those electric jobs. White with blue trim.

2. Name one person who made you smile today.

Dick Morris. Sends out all that Rethug garbage. It’s all so silly.

3. What were you doing at 8 am this morning?

Well, yesterday I was taking a shower; today I’ll be playing racquetball, I hope.

4. What were you doing 45 minutes ago?

Sleeping.

5. What is your favorite candy bar?

Regular old Hershey’s chocolate bar.

6. Have you ever been to a strip club?

No. (I understand that one-word answers just aren’t adequate for these, and that I should elaborate.) Don’t think the opportunity ever came up (why does that seem sordid?), and at this point, I’m just not interested.

7. What is the last thing you said aloud?

“Is it morning already?”

8. What is your favorite ice cream? How to choose?

Srtrawberry. Generally, fruit over anything else, though I HATE faux banana flavorings.

9. What was the last thing you had to drink?

Water.

10. Do you like your wallet?

I hate my wallet. I hate the need for a wallet. I didn’t have one for the longest time. Then I was in Savannah, GA with my father and I dropped a $10 bill. So he bought me one. Now I can just lose the wallet and be out ID, credit cards and cash en masse.

11. What was the last thing you ate?

Ritz crackers.

12. Have you bought any new clothing items this week?

Well, nine days ago, but I didn’t actually pick up the black suit for yesterday’s Faure requiem concert until Saturday.

13. The last sporting event you watched?

Last 15 minutes of some football game.

14. What is your favorite flavor of popcorn?

Plain, with butter.

15. Who is the last person you sent a text message to?

Je ne comprends pas.

16. Ever go camping?

Yes. Didn’t like.

17. Do you take vitamins daily?

Yes, and they are for men over 50 and have the word “senior” in the title, which you can imagine makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. They’re chewable.

18. Do you go to church every Sunday?

Most Sundays, unless I’m sick or away. Occasionally, I’ll go to church when I’m away.

19. Do you have a tan?

No. In fact, I burn very easily since the vitiligo, and I avoid the sun as much as possible. Sunscreen, hat and sunglasses are de rigeur.

20. Do you prefer Chinese food over pizza?

Probably, but eat pizza far more often. Chinese food ten to have nuts and peanuts, and the child is allergic to peanuts.

21. Do you drink your soda with a straw?

Occasionally. But chocolate milk? Almost always.

22. What did your last text message say?

If I have one, I have no idea how to retrieve it.

23. What are you doing tomorrow?

Same as it ever was.

24. Favorite color?

Aquamarine.

25. Look to your left; what do you see?

A window with the shades drawn, a radiator, and some boxes.

ROG

Another FantaCo Recollection

Gates of Eden (May 1982) was arguably the best thing FantaCo Enterprises of Albany, NY, where I worked from 1980-1988, ever put out. Had a great Michael Kaluta cover, and work by John Byrne, Steve Leialoha, Michael T. Gilbert, Trina Robbins, Fred Hembeck, Foolbert Sturgeon, Lee Marrs, Jeff Jones, P. Craig Russell, Rick Geary, Kim Deitch, Spain, Sharon Rudahl, Gary Hallgren, and John Caldwell. It was also a disaster commercially. Comic blog impresario Alan David Doane has put together some memories of Gates of Eden,; the title was inspired by Bob Dylan. See what Christopher Allen, my Internet buddy Johnny Bacardi, and yes, I had to say about it here.

I was looking at the FantaCo Wikipedia page recently and it occurred to me that someone should do a Wikipedia page for the late Raoul Vezina. Not only did he do the Smilin’ Ed series for FantaCo, he also worked on New Paltz Comix with the aforementioned Michael T. Gilbert. With Don Rittner as writer, Raoul drew a series of Naturalist At Large cartoons, many of which I had bnever seen before.

It came out a while ago, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t still be plugging Fred Hembeck’s 900-page anthology again. It includes Fred’s seven magazines published by FantaCo, plus about 700 MORE pages of goodness.
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My, I’ve been feeling crummy the last four days. And I’m supposed to sing this afternoon. I’ve had a range of about a half an octave; wish me luck.
ROG

The Money Comes In, the Money Goes Out QUESTIONS

I got a little raise back in September. This is a good thing.
I look at the out-of-pocket premiums for my health insurance for 2010. This is not such a good thing.

The amount I pay every two weeks has been gradually increasing, usually up $3 or $5 each year. But this time it went from $117 to $139.

Well, at least my family and I HAVE health insurance. As this report shows, that’s not always the case, particularly as unemployment rises. And this was better than the years when the rates went up AND the copays as well.

In those periods when I’ve been unemployed and/or uninsured and I was eligible for COBRA, I NEVER took it. What does one do – spend the rent money on health insurance, or hope not to get sick? Every study I’ve seen in recent years suggest that it is medical bills, not excessive spending on the Xbox, that is driving the most people into bankruptcy.

Oh, and one of my credit cards, one I actually don’t use often, just raised its rates from an already hefty 15.9% (which is why I didn’t use it much), to a ridiculous 23.9%. According to articles such as 2009 Checking Study: Bank fees take flight and A Squeeze on Customers Ahead of New Rules, it’s happening all over the place.

So the questions:

1. Are you seeing your health insurance premiums and/or copays going up? Or if you are one of the uninsured, how do you decide when to go to the doctor/hospital?

2. Are you seeing staggeringly high interest rates or fees on your credit cards? What actions (negotiating with the credit card company, dropping the card) have you taken? I’m going to call mine, threaten to cancel, and see what happens.

ROG

Abortion on Television

I was watching – don’t ask me why, it’s unexplainable – the ABC drama Private Practice the other day. Here’s a piece of the recap

{My comments in brackets.]
Violet [the therapist] has trouble bonding with her baby boy when feelings from her [brutal, gratuitously shown] attack [removing her baby from her womb] resurface at a rape counseling session [for a couple]. She [Violet] cannot even look at him [her baby]. She is reminder of her attack every time she looks at him. The rape victim wants to keep her child [from her rape] but her husband does not. Violet tells her how she feels about her baby every time she looks at him. The patient decides to abort the baby.

Ah…after she realizes she’s inflicted her own values onto her patient, Violet calls the couple in again, real discussion takes place, as the husband asks his wife what she really wants to do. While it’s not spelled out, it seems pretty clear that the abortion will not happen.

After I watched this, I was reminded of a blogpost a few months ago by Greg Burgas about the now-canceled ABC soapy drama Dirty Sexy Money, where the heiress, Karen Darling, finally hooks up with her childhood sweetheart, but finds herself pregnant by her former finance. She goes to the abortion clinic with her mother, but ends deciding to keep the baby.

It seems that others besides Greg have been asking this question for a while: does anyone actually HAVE an abortion on television anymore? Between this 2004 New York Times piece and this 2005 Village Voice piece, it seems nobody actually gets an abortion on American TV, even if initially think they will. The only exceptions I could find since Maude in the early 1970s were Everwood and Six feet Under, though there may have been some on the daytime or nighttime soap operas.

More likely is what happened on Sex in the City where Carrie plans to accompany Miranda to her abortion, but Miranda ultimately bails. Now some TV characters may have had abortions in the past (Carrie on SITC, Violet on Private Practice), but it was a long time ago. No wonder that New York Times article is titled “Television’s Most Persistent Taboo.”

Please note I’m making an observation about a medium’s treatment of a legal procedure. It’s not that I thought any of the specific characters SHOULD have had abortions – I’m not the TV writer – only that the collective lack of them doesn’t ring true.
ROG

The Concert Suit

As much as as I hate buying clothes generally, I REALLY hate buying suits. All that measuring, especially when the body trends poorly compared with the previous time I bought a suit, which it did. The harsh lights and the three-sided, full-length mirrors don’t help.

The other bad thing about buying a suit is that I end up spending too much. I’ve gotten myself to the place, and I’m buying one (expensive) suit; why not two, especially when the second is free, except for the alterations? And while I’m at it, how about some new shirts, which are buy one, get one at 50% off? Oh, and new ties to go along with them? And I DO need a better coat for winter. At the end of the excursion, I experience massive sticker shock and don’t buy any suits, or much of anything else clothing-wise for the next two or three years.

The initiation of this shopping spree is this event:

We received information about the dress code for the performance a week ago Sunday. And I own ZERO black suits, and only one white shirt that’s probably too tight. So this past Saturday evening, the wife, the daughter and I went shopping.

And I’ve felt lousy ever since.

Initially, I thought it was just exhaustion that sent me to bed at 8:30 Saturday night, but now I’m thinking it’s some sort of sinusitis and/or allergies flaring up. But what caused the truly horrific insomnia I got Sunday night, so much so that my eyes burned on Monday morning? Probably consuming the cheese and crackers I ate after the Sunday night rehearsal.

But more basically, I think it was a week without riding the bicycle or playing racquetball. When I got to do both on Monday, I got surges of energy that I’d been lacking lately, though I was more stuffed up yesterday.

So no, I can’t blame any of it on shopping for suits, unfortunately.
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Monday night, I did go to the marriage equality rally. The State Senate was supposed to take up the legislation the next day. So the chant was, “What do we want?” “Marriage equality!” “When do we want it?” “Tomorrow!” Tomorrow? I mean, yes, literally, the next day when the vote was due, but “tomorrow” has such lousy scansion; having been to lots of rallies, I’m a big fan of “NOW!”

In any case, the state legislature didn’t vote on much of anything Tuesday, and they won’t be meeting again until next week. I DO think that the position of at least Republican state senator I saw on TV Tuesday night – that the government can’t deal with ANYTHING else until it deals with the budget deficit – is totally bogus. Truth is, balancing the budget will be a long, arduous process that may take weeks; gay marriage can be achieved with one vote in one house, as the State Assembly has already passed a bill. Twice.

Speaking of which: Via Mark Evanier – Shelly Goldstein on stupid, callous, homophobic hateful legislation. Julie Andrews couldn’t do any better.
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I found out in Hispanic Business, of all places, that Glenn Beck Lost His Lawsuit Over A Controversial Domain Name
Fox TV host Glenn Beck has lost a suit he filed against the creator of a satirical Web site spreading a rumor that even the site itself admitted was false: Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990. Although he lost the case, Beck still received the domain name he sought, but not because the arbitrator awarded it to him. Rather, the man who established the site gave it to Beck himself — but not without getting in a good parting shot. And the REAL kicker is that the guy has kept the CONTENT of the site up at http://gb1990.com/. That’s GB, as in Glenn Beck, 1990 (dot) com.

It’s a nasty little site, but then again, Glenn Beck is a nasty little man. It is also one of those First Amendment issues people love to hate. My reactions is a mix of mild discomfort with a whole lot of schadenfreude.
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Chances Are Profanity Was Intentionally Encoded in Text of Schwarzenegger’s Veto. As though you had any doubt.

ROG