December 2010 - Page 3 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

W is for Weddings

It appears that heterosexual marriage is doing a bang-up job of imperiling heterosexual marriage.

In November 2010, Pew Research reported that about half of all adults in the U.S. are married, down from 72 percent in 1960, while four in 10 people consider marriage obsolete. The Census Bureau added that American men and women are waiting longer before the wedding.

But from the Time magazine story concerning that Pew poll: “Americans still venerate marriage enough to want to try it. About 70% of us have been married at least once, according to the 2010 Census. The Pew poll found that although 44% of Americans under 30 believe marriage is heading for extinction, only 5% of those in that age group do not want to try to seek their own wedded bliss.

Sociologists note that Americans have a rate of marriage — and of remarriage — among the highest in the Western world.

The divorce rate, while down from its peak in the l970s, is higher in America than in most other countries. (And what IS the real divorce rate in the US?)

So I am filled with a cross between bemusement and incredulity at the notion, suggested by some, that the prospect of legalized gay marriages, or even civil unions, poses some sort of threat to heterosexual wedlock. It appears that heterosexual marriage is doing a bang-up job of imperiling heterosexual marriage.

(Arthur links here and here regarding his home state of Illinois’ new civil union law.)

Not incidentally, I got a form letter from my annuity company quite recently, adding the following proviso to my certificate:
“Pursuant to Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), same-sex marriages currently are not recognized for purposes of federal law. Therefore, the favorable income-deferral options afforded by federal tax law to an opposite-sex spouse under Internal Revenue Code sections 72(s) and 401(a)(9) are currently NOT available to a same-sex spouse.”

So even in those states allowing same-sex marriages, those couples won’t be fully equal until DOMA is repealed.

Oh, BTW, you may be wondering whose wedding this is. It’s the nuptials for the Pakistani couple I mentioned a couple of months ago, which took place on Labor Day weekend. My daughter was in the wedding, but I pulled her photos solely for the purpose of posting them on December 26; I always write about Lydia on the 26th of the month.

ABC Wednesday – Round 7

Merry Christmas Questionnaire

The stockings Christmas Eve, presents Christmas morning.

From my friend Sarah Kim:

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
Ideally, wrapped in the Sunday funnies, though I have capitulated to wrapping paper.

2. Real tree or Artificial?
Real for my entire life until this year. Haven’t warmed up to the new artificial tree.

3. When do you put up the tree?
Varies widely. Last year it was December 21; ideally, it would have been earlier. This year, it was December 18.

4. When do you take the tree down?
I would take it down on Twelfth Night, January 6. However, others thought otherwise and it came down New Year’s Eve.

5. Do you like eggnog?
Yep, with amaretto.

6. Favorite gift received as a child?

The Beatles white album, 1968. What I remember, though is that the intro to Birthday skipped and I had to get a replacement copy. This problem, I understand, was not mine alone.

7. Hardest person to buy for?
My mom, and has been for years.

8. Easiest person to buy for?
My daughter, who verbalizes what she wants.

9. Do you have a nativity scene?
Yes, in fact, we have a couple; I married into these.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Mail, or not at all, it seems.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
Actually, I have no idea. Well, unless you want to count the clothes my wife gets me.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie?
I’m leaning toward the Christmas Carol with George C. Scott.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
Sometimes early if I have a bright idea, and this year’s going surprisingly well. Or the very last minute when I don’t.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Probably.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Real mashed potatoes, not the stuff in a box.

16. Lights on the tree?
White.

17. Favorite Christmas song?
Anything with a descant.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
Usually at home or my parents-in-law’s, a little over an hour away.

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer?
Yes.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
Angel.

21. Open the presents on Christmas Eve or morning?
The stockings on Christmas Eve, and presents Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about the season?
The “war on Christmas” drivel.

23. Favorite ornament, theme, or color?
It’s weird, but most of my favorite ornaments – mostly red – have gone MIA. I am fond of an Adirondack chair ornament from May 2003, just before Carol got pregnant.

24. Favorite for Christmas Dinner?
Turkey.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year?
Other than the usual (Hess truck, World Almanac,) some music on my Amazon list.

Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol, one of my childhood favorites.

Bowie and Bing redux.
***
I read this to my daughter this month:

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus? It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Picture from Freefoto. Ref Number: 90-15-57; Photographer: Ian Britton; Camera: SONY , DSLR-A100; Date: Dec 1, 2006

Kennedy Center Honors 2010

Paul has become the legacy Beatle, as opposed to Ringo’s All-Starr gigs, which, no disrespect, always felt like the oldies-tour Beatles.

I’ve been watching the Kennedy Center Honors every year for decades, possibly since they began offering them in 1978. And while, in the early days, at least one performer per year was a bit obscure to me, as time passed, the awardees became much more familiar, in general. And there is usually at least one very moving segment such as Libera singing Love and Mercy to Brian Wilson in 2007, or Bettye LaVette singing Love Reign O’er Me to Pete Townsend and Roger Daltry of the Who in 2008. The celebration of “the Careers of Five Extraordinary Artists” took place on Sunday, December 5, 2010. The gala will be broadcast on CBS-TV on Tuesday, December 28, 2010, at 9:00-11:00 p.m., ET/PT.

For a long time, I knew Merle Haggard only for his song Okie from Muskogee, about which I had, at best, mixed feelings. But I subsequently discovered a wealth of tunes of Americana that transcended the narrow political box I had placed him in.

Jerry Herman wrote a wealth of Broadway musicals, but he is probably best known for Hello, Dolly! and La Cage aux Folles. Both of these have made multiple visits onto the Great White Way, and La Cage is in revival presently. Both of these productions were also turned into movies.

Though born in Florida, Bill T. Jones was raised in the Southern Tier of upstate New York, probably an hour from where I grew up, “the tenth of 12 children of migrant farmworkers, ‘poorer than poor, one of two black families in a town of 10,000.'” He studied at SUNY Binghamton, the college in my hometown, “a theater major on an athletic scholarship,” where he discovered ballet and modern dance, and love “with Arnie Zane, a Jew from the Bronx studying art and photography.” By 1982, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company “was well on its way to becoming a living treasure of American culture,” but Arnie died of AIDS-related lymphoma in 1988. Jones subsequently choreographed a wide range of well-received pieces, eventually winning two Tony awards, for Spring Awakening and Fela! I know him best for a dance he choreographed for a production based on the life of Abraham Lincoln, which my wife saw last summer at SPAC.

Oprah Winfrey. What’s to say? She’s a “producer, television host, actress, major player on Broadway and in Hollywood, author and self-made billionaire philanthropist” who overcame a very tough childhood. I must admit that I have seldom watched her program, particularly in recent years, but one episode I did see definitely stood out: the nine black kids who integrated the high school in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957, and some of the white kids who taunted them, 50 years later. It was a healing moment that made for great television.

Finally, Paul McCartney. He’s Sir Beatle Paul, FCOL. When Paul left the Beatles in 1970, he worked really hard to avoid even playing Beatles songs. Eventually, he started putting a few in, but he seemed to want to make sure that his new stuff wasn’t overshadowed. I recall that Elvis Costello had to push him into using the Beatlesque bass line of My Brave Face. Now that he’s 64-plus, he seems comfortable with his place in history, playing the last concert at Shea Stadium in 2008, and the first concert in the new Citi Field in 2009, echoing the Beatles at Shea in 1965. He’s become the legacy Beatle, as opposed to Ringo’s All-Starr gigs, which, no disrespect, always felt like the oldies-tour Beatles. Good Evening New York City, from that 2009 gig, might be the best live album he’s ever done, and I recommend it, especially with the DVD. In particular, Here Today, his tribute to John Lennon from the early 1980s, always felt a little cloying, but here, with Paul describing John’s love for NYC, quite touching.

And Macca seems to have developed quite the sense of humor about himself, as evidenced by his recent appearances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon – Scrambled Eggs!- and Saturday Night Live.

Meal Blessing QUESTION

We now sing grace to the Nestles chocolate commercial.

With families getting together for the holidays, I was wondering:
Does your family do a blessing for the holiday meal? Is it a corporate blessing (i.e., rote) or is it free form? Is there a designated pray-er?

It’s interesting that even in my more…secular days, there was always a blessing at Thanksgiving and usually at Christmas. One girlfriend always evoked the memory of John F. Kennedy, who died around Thanksgiving in 1963.

When my wife’s family is together, the designee is usually my mother-in-law. When the Greens are together, it’s usually my sister Leslie. But in other situations, it’s devolved to me. I remember that at a work function in 2002 in New York City, there was a clergyperson who was supposed to offer the invocation, but he didn’t show, and I got pressed into service.

Growing up, the corporate prayer at daily dinner was:
Heavenly Parent, thank you for this food we’re about to receive for the nourishment of our bodies. In Christ’s name, Amen.
But somewhere in the mid-1960s, my father changed Christ’s to His, trying to respect other faiths.

My wife’s family’s corporate prayer is:
Bless this food to our use, and us to thy service, and keep us ever mindful of the needs of others. Amen.

Our corporate prayer was:
God is great, God is good. Let us thank you for our food.

However, recently, the Daughter discovered this one, which we now use:
A-B-C-D-E-F-G. Thank you, Lord, for feeding me. Amen.
However, she did it to the tune of the Alphabet Song, which wouldn’t do. Instead, we now sing it to the Nestles chocolate commercial.

I remember Bob Feller.

I saw only a handful of Blake Edward films, “10”, one of the “Pink Panther” comedies, and collaboration with his wife, Julie Andrews, “Victor/Victoria,” but sad to see him pass.

Steve Bissette Tackles the Hate Movies

The late Gail Fisher, who is best know for playing Peggy Fair on the detective series Mannix, starred in The New Girl, and it also featured Edward Asner.

Not only is my good buddy Steve Bissette a great comic book artist, he is a cultural historian. First, he linked to a booklet created by Steve Canyon artist Milton Caniff on How to Spot Someone of Japanese Descent, but the terminology used was less appropriate.

Then he put together a series on posts on what he calls Hate Movies:

1. The horrific anti-Japanese propaganda “documentaries” during and after WW2, and well into the early 1960s

2. The 1960s exploitation movies that played upon racist fears of miscegenation, black-and-white sexual relations, and so on (from which I purloined the image to the left).
Discussion of movie titles such as I Passed for White and My Baby Is Black.

3. How to Deal with Racial Conflict Head-On & Fail at the Boxoffice, Whatever Your Race – the harder to summarize, confrontational race conflict dramas of the 1960s.
Features a six-minute clip of a pre-Star Trek William Shatner in the title role as The Intruder, plus a discussion of the film by Shatner and director Roger Corman. Also a discussion of actor Sidney Poitier and writer LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka.

3 APPENDIX. What Happened to The Intruder?
Mike Ripps’ versions of Bayou aka Poor White Trash (trailer) and Roger Corman’s The Intruder under the title Shame (the whole thing).

4. Turning Up the Heat: Bill, Juan, & Leroi, Then & Today Or, What Do You Call Angry Anti-Hate Hate Movies? Whatever You Call Them, Don’t Call Them Late for Supper!
LeRoi Jones’s Dutchman (1966), which will feature in the next eight segments. The Negro Handbook and the Negro Motorist Green Book; and is there anti-white xenophobia? Also featuring FOX News and the firing of Juan Williams from NPR.

The series was briefly interrupted as explained HERE.

5. Subversion on the Subway. LeRoi Jones/Amiri Imamu Baraka’s Dutchman and Jones’ wife Hettie Jones.

6. Lula’s Roots: Little Sisters, Passing Pinkies, Poor White Trash. Antecedents of Dutchman’s Lulu in such diverse fare as D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915), Fritz Lang and Thea Von Harbou’s Metropolis (1927), Elia Kazan’s Pinky (1949), Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959), Robert Mulligan’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night (1967).
I was most fascinated by “Lewis Freeman’s government-produced educational short film The New Girl (1959), produced for the President’s Committee on Government Contracts, created by Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower in August, 1953 and …chaired by none other than Vice-President Richard M. Nixon.” The late Gail Fisher, who is best know for playing more-than-just-a-secretary Peggy Fair on the detective series Mannix, starred, and it also featured Edward Asner. Steve linked to it, but I thought I would as well:
PART 1 and PART 2.

7. On a Downtown Train…Cashing Out Clay. More on Dutchman, plus Amiri Imamu poetry.

8. From Lula to Lulu: Making Manhattan in London – Underground, Overseas. Dutchman and the Beatles films link; Black Like Me; To Sir With Love; and an episode of The Outer Limits.

9. Bring Out Your Dead…”The Jones Boys”: Carrying Clay. Clay, the black male character in Dutchman, as he relates to the music of Charles Mingus, and the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Fred Hampton.

10. Going Continental: Continental Divides. The distribution of Dutchman by Walter Reade/Sterling, which also was responsible for Lord of the Flies, Black Like Me, Ghidrah, Night of the Living Dead, Dr. Who and the Daleks, and Slaves.

11. Dutchman: Contemporaries, Ripples & Shockwaves. Masculin, Féminin; The Brig; Marat/Sade; very early Brian DePalma films such as Hi, Mom!; Be Black; and Paradise Now, which Steve rightly suggests is an antecedent to to the Broadway musical Hair.

12. Uncle Toms, Watermelon Men, Sweet Sweetback & Mandingos. “Being a potpourri of images, quotes, and links that relate to, summarize and/or surround the essay installments I’ve posted to date…” Including the “blaxplotation” films of the early 1970s, such as Watermelon Man (1970). the brutal Fight For Your Life (1977), and the pivotal Melvin van Peebles work, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971).

EPILOGUE: White Trash, Blaxploitation, Hate Movies & Continental Blues. Or; Final Look at What I Was Talking About All Month
A summary, but mentions a Leadbelly movie I need to know more about.

It’s fair to say that there is a LOT of material here, and the blogposts are a first draft of a project Steve is working on. As he then noted, the postings “prompted deeper research into some venues, and I’m expanding and considerably revising a print version of this essay for publication later this year in one of my collected editions of my fanzine/magazine/online writings on genre films.” Also, at the end of each segment, he writes, “Please note: I do not condone or share the views expressed in the archival images presented in this serialized essay at Myrant. I share them here for historical, educational, and entertainment purposes only.”