Month: August 2012

The “Elvis Is Dead” 35th anniversary meme

I wouldn’t mind: If My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again

When I first started this blog, I would periodically fill out this questionnaire, or one like it for various musicians. I remember specifically doing one for Frank Sinatra. Since it’s the 35th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death, and I’ve probably said all I have to say about him, I’ll do this piece which is actually somewhat similar to the one I did back in 2006, so I needed to find a few NEW titles! Thanks to SamuraiFrog who recently did this in honor of the Beach Boys.

Anyway: Answer the questions using only song titles from ONE artist.

Are you a man or a female?: Guitar Man

Describe yourself: Moody Blue

How are you feeling right now?: Puppet on a String

Describe the city you’re living in: Suspicious Minds

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?: Blue Moon

Your favorite form of transportation: Blue River

Your best friend: The Wonder of You

Your favorite color: Indescribably Blue

What’s the weather like?: Kentucky Rain (listen)

Your favorite time of the day: I Need Your Love Tonight

If your life were a TV program, what would it be called?: What’d I Say

Your current relationship: It Feels So Right

What gives?: I Really Don’t Want To Know; It’s Now or Never

I expect from the future: If Every Day Was Like Christmas

The way I would like to go: Let Yourself Go

I wouldn’t mind: If My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again

I fear: T-R-O-U-B-L-E; Steamroller Blues

My best advice right now: A Little Less Conversation (listen)

If I would change my name right now, it would be: Teddy Bear

My motto: Follow That Dream

Read Cheri’s E is for Elvis post, with music links.

Listen to Elvis Is Dead – Living Colour

 

Joe Kubert, and the Olympics (again!)

Fortunately, America, some of the Olympics items you missed can be seen here.

Joe Kubert, a comic legend best known for his DC war comics, died Sunday morning at the age of 85. Read this piece by Christopher Allen with links to other articles. Here’s a piece by Mark Evanier, plus ADD’s controversial take.

Steve Bissette, who was a student at the Kubert School, writes To Joe, With Love: A Sad Farewell to the Man Who Opened All the Doors. He also wrote on Facebook:
“If you want to do something to express your feelings or help, donations can be made to the Multiple Myeloma Foundation in Joe Kubert’s name; sympathy cards or notices can be sent to the Kubert family c/o the Kubert School, 37 Myrtle Avenue, Dover, NJ 07801. In all ways, be kind.”

This story depressed me thoroughly: Father performs “Let it Be” to raise funds for his 11-month-old’s cancer bills.
“No parent should have to bare their grief to the world, no matter how beautifully, to beg for money to cover the life-saving medical treatment their baby needs. As you see the beauty, be mindful of the injustice in our health care system this represents.”

Fact-checking the Romney-Ryan “60 Minutes” interview. On the other hand, someone (I forget who, fortunately) noted that they have really nice hair, best hair since the Johns Kerry and Edwards in 2004.

Helen Gurley Brown, longtime editor of Cosmopolitan magazine and author of Sex and the Single Girl died at the age of 90. She had as much to do with the sexual revolution of the 1960s, however you think about that, as anyone aside from the makers of The Pill.

I’m not a Boston Red Sox fan, but I always liked Johnny Pesky, who was a great team ambassador for the baseball team for a lot of years.
***
I thought I was through mentioning the Olympics, I really did, though you might want to read the pieces by Shooting Parrots, the last of which is HERE. Now, Jay Smooth did provide a sarcastic tribute to NBC’s coverage, and that was BEFORE the Closing Ceremonies, which NBC royally screwed up:
“In addition to editing out selected portions and allowing the insipid Ryan Seacrest to host, they broke away before the big finale and the Who to show the pilot of a new sitcom where the big joke was a monkey in a lab coat. There’s a reason NBC is the last network. Even in those rare (once every four years) instances when they get viewers, they manage to royally piss them off. Don’t they realize that interrupting the Closing Ceremonies with a sitcom is the same as flashing a half-hour pop-up ad?”
Fortunately, in America, some of the Olympics items you missed can be seen HERE.

A non-NBC piece about a recent piece criticizing American Olympic silver medalist Leo Manzano for waving his native Mexican flag alongside the U.S. flag following his performance in the men’s 1500-meter finals.
***
PSY – GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) for your own aerobic exercise.

E is for Esso

Esso stations, unusual in franchising to African Americans, were a popular place to pick up a Green Book.

 

When I was growing up, as often as not, we got our gas from the Esso station. Esso (“S-O”) “is derived from the initials of the pre-1911 Standard Oil.” I didn’t remember this, but I read that it became the focus of so “much litigation and regulatory restriction in the United States [that in] 1972, it was largely replaced in the U.S. by the Exxon brand… while Esso remained widely used elsewhere.” Ironic, since the Exxon brand name has been forever tainted by the Exxon Valdez oil spill, not to mention purposefully manufacturing uncertainty on climate change.

Whereas Esso had quite a positive image, at least with many people of my father’s generation. For there was a time in the United States when many African-American travelers were uncertain where “they could comfortably eat, sleep, buy gas, find a tailor or beauty parlor…or go out at night…without [experiencing] humiliation or violence where discrimination continued to hold strong. These were facts of life not only in the Jim Crow South but in all parts of the country, where black travelers never knew where they would be welcome.”

In 1936, a “Harlem postal employee and civic leader named Victor H. Green” [no relation] developed “The Negro Motorist Green Book: An International Travel Guide …abbreviated, simply, as the ‘Green Book.’ Those who needed to know about it knew about it. To much of the rest of America, it was invisible, and by 1964 [when the Civil Rights Act was passed], when the last edition was published, it slipped through the cracks into history…

“The 15,000 copies Green eventually printed each year were sold as a marketing tool not just to black-owned businesses but to the white marketplace, implying that it made good economic sense to take advantage of the growing affluence and mobility of African Americans. Esso stations, unusual in franchising to African Americans, were a popular place to pick one up.”

So I have a soft spot in my heart for Esso; not so much for its successor, ExxonMobil.

Classic commercials, likely from the 1950s:
Esso extra commercial
Esso Happy Motoring commercial ….Aye Right!! – targeting the UK

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

Black girls’ hair

In Whoopi Goldberg’s Broadway Show from the mid-1980s, she wore a yellow shirt or sweater over her head, and talked about her being a kid pretending to have long, luxurious blonde hair.

That first week of the London Olympics 2012, when I wasn’t watching, the primary storyline apparently was about Gabby Douglas’ great accomplishments in the Olympics. And her hair. Yawn.

As long as I’ve been alive, how black girls and women wear their hair has been “an issue” with someone. Processed or natural – “proves” how “black” someone really was, at least when I was growing up. Dyed or not – hey, do they “want to be white”?

In large part, I’m less upset by it than just sick of it. When the Daughter was about three, we were figuring out the best way to deal with her hair. At some point, we were experimenting with letting her hair go natural. Several black people I saw – who I didn’t even know, BTW – acted as though we were committing child abuse. “Hey, what are you DOING to that child?” Or “You get her to a stylist – NOW!” And these were some of the more reportable responses.

Back in 2009, Chris Rock made a movie called Good Hair which addressed his own daughter’s frustration with her “bad” hair.

Do you recall that poor white teacher in NYC who lost her job for READING the acclaimed children’s book called ‘Nappy Hair’ to mostly black and Hispanic third-graders “after parents complained and threatened her”? Sheer silliness.

I have, on LP, Whoopi Goldberg’s Broadway Show from the mid-1980s. She wore a yellow shirt or sweater over her head, and talked about her being a kid pretending to have long, luxurious blonde hair, just like she was “supposed” to have.

Seriously, I wish there was a moratorium on hearing about black females’ hair, especially by other people, but I’m not counting on it.

What’s It To Ya?

I didn’t NEED help, didn’t ASK for help. If/when I do, I’ll be sure to make my desire for help known.

I tend to have a rather laissez-faire attitude towards other people’s action unless it’s harmful or venal, or otherwise stupid. Why can’t I get the same courtesy? And it’s always the little stuff that gets on my nerves.

Item: I ride my bike part of the way to work, then catch a bus most of the rest of the way (to get past a hill I cannot make without being all sweaty for work), placing my bike on the bus. So, the other day, someone asked me why would I ride my bike when the forecast in the afternoon was so lousy, with a probable rainstorm? And it sounded rather accusatory, in the “What were you thinking?” mode. And she’s not the first person to ask the question.

Well, here’s the answer:
1. If it’s raining, I’ll just put the bike on the bus ALL the way home.
2. The forecast is occasionally wrong, and if I didn’t bike when rain is projected, I’d almost NEVER ride.
3. The storms generally strike around 4 pm, and I don’t go home until 5:30.

As it turned out, we had two wicked storms, one at 2 pm, and another around 4:15. It was still raging at 5:15, but by the time I left, it had abated, and I rode half the way home, per usual.

Item: it’s really hot at a rehearsal. I go to the bathroom, pour cold water over my head. Someone notices the residual water and asks about it. “Why would you do that? why wouldn’t you just go outside?”

Well, because:
1. The effect of the outdoor coolness would dissipate as soon as I came back in, whereas
2. The cold water stayed in my hair for several minutes, keeping me cool for an extended period.

There are a couple of other examples, but you get the idea.

I get the sense that these folks meant to be helpful, though they tend to sound judgmental. But I didn’t NEED help, didn’t ASK for help. If/when I do, I’ll be sure to make my desire for help known.

I’ve noted that others have the same type of problem. one friend unfriended someone on Facebook who accused her of “playing” at 2 a.m. when she was working. And had she been playing, who was he to judge?
***
Arthur made an interesting observation:

“I have a simple pop-culture mantra that I often repeat as a sort of caution for others because it’s kept me out of social media trouble: Everything you love, someone else hates; everything you hate, someone else loves. So, relax and like what you like and forget about everyone else.

“There’s nothing wrong with choosing to stay out of pointless squabbles on purely subjective matters of taste. We all have far more important things to worry—and fight—about.”

I note this because a blogger I know personally suggested that the duo Hall & Oates SUCKED and that only people who liked them did so ironically. Gee, I have no idea how to like something “ironically.” I noted that I liked a lot of their output “in the mid-70s, not so much in the late ’70s, but again in the early ’80s. Without irony.”

Private Eyes – Hall and Oates.

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