August 2011 - Page 3 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Summer Song: It’s Summer by the Temptations

The song marks the last recording of Paul Williams, who would die the next year.

I REALLY loved the Temptations, and even more so after they stopped being primarily the background singers for David Ruffin, who left the group in 1968. They became more a five lead-vocal group, under the production leadership of Norman Whitfield, who, with Barrett Strong, wrote most of their songs in this period.

While primarily doing psychedelic soul at this point, the Temps recorded, on the 1970 album Psychedelic Shack the ballad It’s Summer [LISTEN!]. I’m not a big fan of songs that involve a lot of talking rather than singing. But I was a big fan of the bass voice of Melvin Franklin, so I rather liked this. It also appeared as the B-side of the #3 single Ball of Confusion.

After some personnel changes, involving the departure of Eddie Kendrick and Paul Williams, the Temptations released the 1972 album Solid Rock, which featured the re-recorded It’s Summer [LISTEN!], which obviously swipes from the Gershwin brothers. The remake had been released as a single back in the summer of 1971, where it only went to #51 on the pop charts. The song marks the last recording of Paul Williams, who would die the next year.

Maybe because I heard the Melvin version first, I still prefer it to the remake.

How Far Have You Traveled?

I was surprised to discover that San Diego is farther away from Albany than Barbados, which is practically in South America.

Our recent excursion around Lake Ontario over the past two weeks was about 1074 miles (1729 km). I haven’t traveled all that much: 30 US states, 2 Canadian provinces, a little bit of Mexico, and Barbados.

Using Mapquest, I’ve ascertained the farthest I’ve traveled by various modes of transportation.

By car: 1108 miles (1783 km) from Binghamton, NY to Memphis, TN when I was in high school. Among other things, saw the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
By bus: 768 miles (1236 km) from Albany, NY to Charlotte, NC in the late 1970s or early 1980s. I do not recommend this.
By train: Albany to Charlotte, which is much more civilized.
By plane: 2884 miles (4642 km) from Albany to San Diego, CA.

I was surprised to discover that San Diego is farther away from Albany than Barbados, which is practically in South America. According to this site, San Diego is 2445 miles (3934 km) away, while Barbados is a mere 2206 miles (3550 km) – road miles and air miles will differ.

What is the farthest you’ve traveled by various modes of transportation? My wife’s been to Ukraine (by air, of course) in 2002.

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Once you confirm your interest and the domain is ready to ship, one of my transfer specialists will contact you.
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No, thank you! I think I’ll pass, and yield it the guy with the logo.

MOVIE REVIEW: Buck

What I did come away with is that I’d like to know people like Buck, BE more like Buck.

The Wife and I left the Adirondacks on Saturday, picked up the mail that was being held. And since the Daughter was still in the mountains with her cousins (and their parents and grandparents), we took the opportunity to go to the Spectrum Theatre to see the movie Buck, which we had seen in previews.

Buck Brannaman travels the country for 40 exhausting months a year, usually without his family, “helping horses with people problems.” As Buck put it, “Your horse is a mirror to your soul, and sometimes you may not like what you see. Sometimes, you will.”

For much of the movie, one might mistake it for a laconic documentary travelogue. But interspersed with an early scene of how Robert Redford probably could not have made this movie “The Horse Whisperer”, based in large part on Buck, without the real Buck’s skills, and you realize that the man is genuine and no “one-trick pony,” as one critic suggested.

Then you find out, in a manner like peeling an onion one layer at a time, how Buck, and his older brother, were performers as children. Their mother died early, and their father – well, let’s say, Buck wasn’t his biggest fan. But the lessons he learned from that experience were what is remarkable.

It’s not a really dramatic film, except for one sequence near the end, which is quite so. What I did come away with is that I’d like to know people like Buck, BE more like Buck. You don’t have to be a big fan of horses to be a big fan of Buck.

Oh, you people who leave at the beginning of the credits: hear Buck’s foster mom tell Buck’s favorite joke before you depart.

How Can You Miss Me If I Don’t Leave?

When one blogs every day, not blogging felt like a flashing light – maybe he’s sick. Or MAYBE he’s not home. Continuing to blog was a security measure, as much as anything.

I was away the past couple of weeks. The family essentially circumnavigated Lake Ontario. We were in Niagara Falls for 2 days, 4 days in Toronto, 2 days in Peterborough, ON for the Olin family reunion, 2 days in Canton, NY (near my wife’s alma mater, St. Lawerence University), then 4 days in the Adirondack Mountains of NYS. I was gone from Saturday, July 30 through Saturday, August 13.

Yet I posted every day, through the magic of the thingamabob that allows me to post ahead. If you did miss me, it was that it took me longer to read and comment on your posts, to approve your comments to my posts, and the like.

When one blogs every day, not blogging felt like a flashing light – maybe he’s sick. Or MAYBE he’s not home. Continuing to blog was a security measure, as much as anything.

I didn’t even have time to write anything in draft for the first week and a half, because of time, and the little writing I did manage was pretty much in draft form, as a (pretty much continuous) word documents, without pictures and the like. When I got home, spent most of my time doing things such as getting rid of 350 e-mails.

But expect low content for a few days until I get a chance to catch up.