Month: June 2010

Roger Answers your Questions, Tom and Scott

I believe the dispersant BP used has created a whole new problem below the surface, which may ultimately be most toxic for sea life.

I’m happy to get a question from Tom the Mayor, an old colleague of mine, a picture of whom I came across just last weekend.

What, if any, was your favorite comic strip or comic book when you were young? Mine was Dennis The Menace. It was the first comicbook I ever read.

By the time I was 10, I was reading both newspapers in Binghamton, NY, the Sun-Bulletin and the Evening (and Sunday) Press. I read all of them, except Prince Valiant. I had a particular affection for Peanuts and B.C. and The Wizard of Id. The latter two were by Johnny Hart, who was from the area (Endicott, specifically) and was involved in the community. I even had an Id book, “The peasants are revolting!” I also had a peculiar affection for Gil Thorp, this exceedingly earnest sport-related serial strip.

As for comic books, I read them. Early on, it was Archie, Baby Huey, Richie Rich, but all disposable to my mind. Later, mostly DC (Legion of Superheroes, Justice League of America, Superman) but I soon outgrew them, too. Superman being subjected, not just to green kryptonite, but to red, gold, aquamarine…it just got silly.

That’s why, when I went to college, and found this guy who would become my good friend, and he was reading comics, I thought it was weird, and that he was weird. (He WAS weird, actually; he used to hang off the edge of his desk like Snoopy hung off his doghouse roof.) But he was reading Marvels. So I re-entered reading comics very late, and I didn’t read DCs again (except for Green Lantern/Green Arrow and a couple of non-superhero books) until I worked at FantaCo.

Scott of the Scooter Chronicles, now gainfully employed, I’m happy to note, asks:

1. Do you have any interest in the World Cup?

It’s peculiar that I actually do, because I have no recollection of caring 4 or 8 or 12 years ago. I think it’s that the coverage, everything from ESPN to notifications from the New York Times to Twitter makes it feel as though it’s been covered better. BTW, Tegan tells an interesting story, only tangentally related.

2. Who do you think will win the AL and NL Pennant this year?

If the Yankees stay healthy, they can. Otherwise, it’ll be Texas or maybe Tampa; just not feeling it from the Central Division.

I’d like the Mets to win, but Philly or San Diego seem more likely. Again, not believing in the Central.

3. Who wins the World Series?

The American League team, probably.

4. Is there a novel that you have always meant to read, or feel you should read, but haven’t yet?

Lots and lots. About 2/3s of Billy Shakes, e.g. Then again, I’m more of a non-fiction guy, comic books notwithstanding, so it’s more ought to than want to. I miss my reading group at my old church which forced me to read outside of my comfort zone.

5. What was the craziest question you have been asked from one of these sessions?

Well, it probably came from you, Scott. Seriously, I keep hoping for a truly weird one that I can sidestep, but no, you folks are too nice. Maybe I should try it on my newspaper blog site. Some of those people in the general public are CRAZY.

6. What is your opinion on how BP and the government are handing the oil spill in the Gulf?

For one thing, I don’t understand how it became called an oil SPILL. When you drop a glass of water, the water spills – downward. Oops. This is more like a geyser. Yes, the oil geyser, that’s what I think I’ll call it.

As for the Obama Administration response, it tends to show how much in bed the government has been with the industries they are supposed to be regulating, hardly unique with these particular officials. We, or those of us who were actually paying attention, have known this all along. And, to be fair, so have those folks who believe there has been too much regulation; they just liked the results more. That’s how you get your Joe Bartons apologizing to “poor BP”.

But clearly, the ultimate fault was shoddy corner-cutting by BP. The judge who stopped the Obama administration’s six-month lockdown on new deep-sea drilling said that the federal government is acting as though this could happen again; that’s PRECISELY what worries me.

Yes, the governmental response to oil geyser has, until recently, been slow. They believed BP’s lies and seemingly had no way to verify the information independently. I’m not remembering; did the federal government give BP permission to use the dispersant? Because I’m convinced that has created a whole new problem below the surface, which may ultimately be most toxic for sea life.

Apropos of oil, why have we not heard very much about the oil disater in Nigeria going on right now?

7. Is there a piece of art (painting, sculpture, etc.) that you really admire?

I saw, I believe in Albany, but it could have been NYC or Boston, a version of Rodin’s The Thinker, which was one of the most sensual things I had ever experienced in my life. Two-dimensional photos do not do it justice, and I’m not convinced that even these three-dimensional online tours can capture it. Gotta see it in person, if possible.

If The Wife and I have Our Piece of Art, like couples have Our Song, it would be The Kiss by Klimt; it’s even on a coffee mug of ours.

30-Day Challenge -Day 8: Picture of My Room

I can see clearly now…in my room.

Interestingly, the meme doesn’t specify what “my room” is. One can assume it’s the bedroom, of course, but I choose not to, mostly because I’ve never taken a picture of it, to my recollection. and there’s a reason for that; I’m not all that fond of it.

When we first moved into the house in 2000, we really had a choice of two bedrooms. One had whitish wallpaper with red strips on the top half of much of the room, and a nice wood finish on the bottom half, plus around the windows and the storage areas. It was/is a bright room.

The other had this cobalt blue wallpaper, with this representational pattern of tulips, about a fingernail tall, in silver. The wood room had a ceiling fan and sufficient light from the light fixture, while the cobalt room had neither. It was a dark room.

So guess which one became the bedroom? I suspect it was because the cobalt room is in the back of the house, and the wood room, which is the guest room, is in front.

Let me describe the cobalt room. One enters on the south wall, at the southeast corner. On that wall is one of only three electrical plugs, unlike the sufficient number in Woody. Then there’s the armoire, purchased to put all my clothes after The Daughter was born and we removed the walk-in closet from what is now her room. Of course, it’s much smaller, and I never understood why the dresser had to go as well, since keeping my underwear, socks, socks and t-shirts in those slots gave me no options about what t-shirt I might like to wear; it was last in, first out, pretty much. In the southwest corner is a standing lamp.

On the western wall are three bay windows – I like bay windows – with Carol’s dresser in front. On the northern wall is the radiator that essentially serves as Carol’s nightstand, then the headboard to the bed that goes into the room, of course, then, in the northeast corner, my nightstand, with a desk lamp.

Finally, on the eastern wall is MY dresser, which I got about two years ago after I muttered regularly about the inadequacy of the armoire, and a door to Carol’s non-too-large closet.

But things are looking better, literally. Almost a year ago, a ceiling fan was purchased, and it finally got put up a few months ago. But it didn’t have any light bulbs, and a stop at the Home depot proved fruitless. Then a couple of weeks ago, we went back to the HD, and utilizing THREE aides, finally found the right bulbs for the fan. What a difference! I can actually read in that room, whereas I never did anything in that room other than the usual. And the lights make a nifty pattern on the ceiling when the fan is operating, which, this week, is often.
***
MY room is probably the office, which, in the process of being cleaned, is messier than it started. So this is a picture of the living room:

Oh, the one good thing about our bedroom: limited number of stuffed animals.

Brian Wilson Raps!

Brian Wilson’s 68th birthday is today.

Back on the January 28, 2010 episode of JEOPARDY!, there was a whole category devoted to THE SONGS OF BRIAN WILSON:
$200: One of Wilson’s Beach Boys classics asks this girl to “help, help me” to get another girl “out of my heart”
$400: “I’m picking up” these, “she’s giving me excitations”
$600: Title that precedes “If we were older, then we wouldn’t have to wait so long”
$800: Wilson wrote, “I have watched you on the shore, standing by the ocean’s roar, do you love me, do you” this lass
$1000: “There’s a world where I can go and tell my secrets to”, it’s here

Answers below.
***

I’ve been playing my Beach Boys and Brian Wilson albums for the past couple of weeks in anticipation of Brian’s 68th birthday, which was this past Sunday. I get to Sweet Insanity, a 1991 album that Brian’s record label, Sire, rejected as uncommercial. A friend of mine provided me with an “unauthorized copy.” I dunno; I like quite a few of the songs, several of which show up on later albums.

Then there’s Smart Girls, a rap song that features bits from Beach Boys songs. Musically, it’s strange and goofy but not awful – at first; but eventually, the snippets override the beats and it becomes a real mess. The lyrics indicate that he was once a sexist pig seeking out, and singing about none-too-smart females, but now he values intelligence in women; seems overwrought.

Here’s a clip, and if that doesn’t work, try this one.

Interestingly, the 1970 album that came to known as Sunflower, the first Beach Boys album on the Reprise label after the group left Capitol, was also initially rejected by the new company, with some of the purged pieces showing up on later collections, but others never showing up on any compilation.

When Brian was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors a few years back, there was a group named Libera who performed in his honor – here’s the YouTube of Love and Mercy (from Brian’s 1988 solo album).

Answers to the JEOPARDY! queries:

Rhonda; “Good Vibrations”; “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”; “Surfer Girl”; “In My Room” (all answered correctly by the contestants)

W is for Weird

Steve Silverman was a high school science teacher who wrote a book called Einstein’s Refrigerator and Other Stories from Flip Side Of History. Guess which story shows up as the very first in this book?


I need to tell you about Mike the Headless Chicken. Then I’ll tell you something REALLY weird.

On September 10, 1945, there was a farmer in Fruita, Colorado named Lloyd Olsen who experienced something unusual. Being a farmer, unsurprisingly, from time to time, Lloyd would lop off the head of a chicken, or in this case, a rooster. While the cliche about running around like a chicken with his head cut off is true, this particular poultry was still strutting his stuff the next day. So Lloyd decided to feed the bird, using an eyedropper full of ground-up grain and water, with “little bits of gravel down his throat to help the gizzard grind up the food.”

Mike could hang on high perches without falling, gurgle in a faux crowing style, even attempt to preen his non-existent head.

Sideshow promoter Hope Wade convinced Lloyd to put Miracle Mike on tour, and for a time, he made $4500 per month, from 25-cent viewings, good money even in these days. Mike even made it into LIFE magazine, a hugely popular US periodical in the day.

Guesstimates were that, sadly, Mike died in March 1947, eighteen months after the beheading, from choking on his mucus.

But the legacy of Mike the Headless Chicken lives on. On May 17, 1999, Fruita held its first Mike the Headless Chicken Day, complete with a 5K Run Like a Chicken race. You’ve missed the 2010 event in May, alas, but there’s always next year. Punchline of the festival theme song: “Why did the chicken cross the road? To try to find his head!”

I first became aware of Mike when I watched the October 8, 2000 episode of CBS Sunday Morning, not long after the show aired. Subsequently, I came across a PBS documentary and even a film about Mike.

Now here’s the weird part.

My wife and I have a friend named Kelly. Kelly used to have lots of parties we used to attend before parenthood. At these parties, we met her friend named Steve Silverman. Steve was a high school science teacher who wrote a book, published in 2001, called Einstein’s Refrigerator and Other Stories from Flip Side Of History. Guess which story shows up as the very first in his book? If you guessed Einstein’s refrigerator, you would be wrong.

With the tape from CBS News and the chapter from Steve’s book, my wife put together lesson plans that her junior high students really ate up enjoyed. Read Steve’s chapter about Mike the Headless Chicken here, and other information dubbed by Steve himself as useless here.

ABC Wednesday
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A Solstice Tradition Continues: Ask Roger ANYTHING!


It is once again time for the operator of this blog to hand over the keys, so to speak when you ask him anything you want. And he HAS to answer. Now he may answer with obfuscation, but he cannot outright lie.

Here are some examples:
What is my favorite song performed by one artist, made more popular by a subsequent artist, but the version I prefer is by the former? (Got that?)

The answer: I Heard It Through the Grapevine, a big, #2 hit for Gladys Knight and the Pips, only to be trumped by Marvin Gaye’s much slower, much more successful, take. In part, I felt bad for the Pips when they would go on the road and people would ask them, “Why are you doing that Marvin Gaye song?”, which had to be irritating to GK&P, enough so that they left Motown at their first opportunity. Moreover, the resurrection of Gaye’s version during the Big Chill movie’s popularity made it become actually irritating to me for a time.

(Rather how I feel about the once perfectly fine Brown-Eyed Girl by Van Morrison, and other songs I hear too often.) But tell me: in this version, can YOU only really hear Marvin’s vocal, as I do? THIS is really cool.

Who was I rooting for in the NBA playoffs?

Actually, I don’t really follow the NBA all that much. That said, I started tiring of hearing about the “inevitable” Cleveland/LA Lakers finals, so I ended up rooting for the Boston Celtics, pretty much as a reaction to the pundits.

Post your questions in the comments, or e-mail me. I’ll use your name unless you specifically request otherwise. Of course, if you don’t leave your name, my chances of being snarky are DRAMATICALLY increased. Sooner, rather than later, I’ll answer your questions in this blog.

Oh, yeah, and since a question (of five words or more) is considered a comment, you’ll also get an entry in my GIVEAWAY; see sidebar for details.

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