Month: July 2010

30-Day Challenge: Day 11-Recent Picture of Me

I don’t look like my sense of me.

This is a picture that a guy at church took of me in February.

I’m pretty sure I’ve told you that, as often as not, I do not recognize myself in photographs in the last two or three years, especially black and white pictures. This is because the vitiligo has lightened my face several shades, and in my mind’s eye, I don’t look like my sense of me.

There was a sermon recently in which the question posed was, “When you look in the mirror, what do you see?” I said to myself, “I DON’T look in the mirror all that much.” When I do, I see the the melanin trying to come back on my face in splotchy patches, and it’s constantly changing, depending on how much sunlight I get. It was annoying when this was happening on my arms and legs and feet a couple years ago, quite another when it appeared on my visage. It messed royally with my sense of self-identity.

I’m OK with it, but to suggest I was great with it would be a huge stretch. None of this should be construed as some sort of self-loathing; it’s more like a mild toothache, not bad enough to send one to the dentist right away, but enough to be aware of so that you don’t eat food on that side of your mouth.

Reunion QUESTIONS

Who ARE all of these people I’m apparently related to?


My wife’s mother’s family, the Olins, have been doing family reunions for decades. As I first mention a lustrum ago, one can trace my wife’s ancestors nine generations back; unfortunately, a couple of my mother-in-law’s siblings have passed since then.

Whereas, on my side, there have been these intermittent attempts to gather Yates (mother’s mother) and Walker (father’s mother) families together, with no real sustainability. My mother’s father’s people, the Williamses, have been doing a gig in recent years; these are people even my mother hasn’t gotten to know until fairly recently.

1. Have you ever gone to a family reunion? Is it a regular event or a one-off? If you haven’t, would you? Why or why not?
2. How far can you get in your own genealogy? I can find my mother’s ancestor five generations back, but am still unclear as to my father’s father’s side.

A Trifurcated Fourth

My wife’s been irritated by our new neighbors since she saw one of them empty her partially empty beer bottles from the third-story porch to the flower bed at ground level.

I really enjoyed the first part of July 4th; the second part, not so much.

We were getting ready for church. My wife seemed to be moving rather casually to get to the FOCUS joint worship service at 9:30. Apparently, she had it in her mind that the service was at 10:30. When I occasionally complain that my wife operates on assumptions not based on fact, this would be a good example.

Plan B: to go to Emmaus United Methodist Church in our neighborhood. As I have mentioned, I stopped going to the other Methodist Church, Trinity, a decade ago. This service started with an African choir of mostly teenagers. Continue reading “A Trifurcated Fourth”

30 Day Challenge: Day 10 – Favorite Outfit

People LOVE the red Chuck Taylors.


It occurred to me that this picture has many of the elements of my “favorite outfit”. To wit:

HAT: always wear a hat or cap outdoors for protection from the sun. I find most hats don’t fit me. My head’s too big, and I don’t mean that metaphorically. I had these two porkpie hats, but they’ve gone MIA; the wife put them away for the winter and I haven’t seen them since. I’ve discovered that adjustable caps with a plastic band don’t fit me either; they tend to sit on top of my head like a crown. By comparison, caps with a cloth adjustable ban DO tend to fit me.

SUNGLASSES: always. I like to wear the yellow ones for the reasons explained here.

LONG SLEEVES: even in summer, unless it’s going to be 90 degrees F, in which case, I slather on the sunscreen. Again, a precaution against severe burning.

PANTS: solid color, usually black or blue, almost always long, as opposed to shorts.

SNEAKERS: almost always these, rather than shoes, when not at work or church, usually Chuck Taylor, and at least once a week, the red Chucks. People LOVE the red Chucks; every time I’m wearing them, at least three people compliment me.

When I was on JEOPARDY! a dozen years ago, I was wearing my red Chucks during the warm-up games. but when I was selected to play, I changed into new, uncomfortable hard-soled shoes, much to my fellow contestants’ disappointment. To this day, I figure if I were wearing my red Chucks, I would have been more relaxed and therefore would have played better.

I feel as though, as a former retailer of comics-related products, I ought to have an opinion on the new Wonder Woman costume; since I haven’t the title in nearly two decades, I don’t. A friend of mine sent this “fix” to the change, about which I’m neither here nor there. I am actually more vaguely irritated in her diminished powers; there is some comic booky rationale for it, but it’s disappointing, regardless.

Ringo Starr is 70

Besides my Top 10 Ringo songs, versions of a couple of the same songs by John and George.


I decided that, for all four of the Beatles, I would list my Top 10 favorite songs on their 70th birthdays, or in the case of John and George, what would have been the big seven-oh.

Ringo is easy, because I have relatively few of his albums, as well as a live triple-CD anthology and a greatest hits collection. This will NOT include any live versions of his old Beatles tunes.

ten It’s All Down To Goodnight Vienna – a most peculiar song by John Lennon, who plays piano, with odd scansion to boot. jl-piano.

nine Liverpool 8 -. A history lesson.

ate Oh My My -featuring background vocals by Martha Reeves and Merry Clayton, those great Billy Preston keyboards, and Tom Scott on the sax.

seven Love Me Do. As obsessive Beatles fans know – guilty as charged – Ringo replaced Pete Best shortly before the Beatles went into the studio for the first time with producer George Martin. Martin, disliking Best’s drums, and unfamiliar with Starr’s, hired session musician Andy White to playing drums, relegating Ringo to playing tambourine. Ringo STILL seemed miffed by this while he, Paul, and George were making the Anthology albums and videos in the mid 1990s. This record is, I suspect, partially closure for the drummer.

six Step Lightly, mislabeled as Six O’Clock; indeed, most of this YouTube guy’s Ringo videos are given incorrect titles. This is from the Ringo album and features the dancing feet of Richard Starkey, MBE.

five Early 1970, a piece about the other Beatles at the time of the breakup. It is noteworthy that all of them play and write songs for Ringo, even as acrimony amongst the others festered.

for No No Song. This always reminded me of a variation on Randy Newman’s Mama Told Me Not To Come. Ringo’s old drinking buddy, Harry Nilsson, does the backing vocals.

three I’m the Greatest. A cheeky song that John Lennon wrote for his friend who was also born in 1940. Here’s John Lennon’s demo version.

too It Don’t Come Easy – with Badfinger on backing vocal; here’s George Harrison’s demo version.

won Photograph . A song co-written by George and Ringo, with George also on backing vocals and 12-string guitar. As Ringo mentioned at the Concert for George in November 2002, a year after George’s death, the song has taken on a whole new meaning:
Ev’ry time I see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all I’ve got is a photograph,
And I realise you’re not coming back anymore.

Ringo took a lot of heat in recent years for declaring that he would no longer sign autographs. In subsequent discussions, he indicated that he was tired of signing items only to see them on eBay or Craigslist the next week; I sympathize with that.

Ringo kicks off Live from the Artists Den on PBS this week.

Happy birthday, Richie.

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