Month: August 2013

Stealing from Eydie; and ‘Sally Rogers’ is 90

One of the more recent episodes of the Dick Van Dyke Show we saw involved Sally going on a test date with Rob’s (DVD) brother Stacey (guest star Jerry Van Dyke), so Stacey can get up the nerve to ask out his actual intended.

When I was a teenager, I made some pitiful attempts at songwriting. One was called, “Oh, Juanita,” which had stunning lyrics such as, “Oh, Juanita, Juanita, with eyes so brown, Oh Juanita, Juanita, please do not frown.” There’s more, but you get the idea. It was probably inspired by a line in Donovan’s There Is A Mountain [LISTEN], which came out in 1967. I probably stole some lyrics from an early Harry Belafonte song.

But it wasn’t until this month that I realized that I had, unconsciously, stolen the MUSIC from the chorus of Eydie Gorme’s 1963 hit Blame It On the Bossa Nova [LISTEN]. The music of 1964 and especially after that is still imprinted in my brain. Though I had obviously heard the song, tunes from 1959-1963 were more ephemeral in my mind.

I used to see Eydie, with her husband Steve Lawrence, all the time on the Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, and other programs. Ken Levine wrote: “She wasn’t Barbra and she wasn’t Judy so she never received that level of adoration, but boy could the lady sing.” Mark Evanier suggests, “I don’t think the obits are doing a good enough job describing the length and breadth of Eydie Gorme’s career.”

And speaking of musical theft: Robin Thicke sues Marvin Gaye’s family to protect his song ‘Blurred Lines’. How does THAT work, exactly?

Rose Marie, who played Sally Rogers on the Dick Van Dyke Show, turned 90 this month and both Evanier and Levine each, separately, had lunch with her.

The Daughter and I are in the midst of watching every single episode of DVD on DVD; we’re almost done with the 18th disc in the 25-disc set, midway through Season 4 of a series that lasted five glorious years. One of the more recent episodes we saw involved Sally going on a test date with Rob’s (DVD) brother Stacey (guest star Jerry Van Dyke), so Stacey can get up the nerve to ask out his actual intended. This makes Sally’s off-and-on boyfriend Herman Glimscher (Bill Idelson) jealous, and chaos ensues. The Daughter laughed out loud, literally.

I used to watch The McLaughlin Report almost every week, and loved the unpretentious Jack Germond, who died this month.

Nippertown and Dustbury wrote about Karen Black, who also died this month.

F is for Friends

How did we drift apart? There was no schism predicating this. Did I forget to return a call? Did they?

A few weeks ago, Daniel Nester wrote about Ex-Friends, which got me thinking about my own friendships. I can’t think of a current ex-friend, someone who was once my friend but is now my enemy. I did have a good friend in college with whom I had a falling out about a decade later, but we reconnected a couple decades after that, and while we’re not in regular contact, there’s no animosity anymore.

This is not to say that I haven’t lost contact with friends. I was cleaning the attic this summer and came across a Rolodex, which, for you youngsters, is a device on which one hand-printed people’s names, addresses, and phone numbers. There was room for fax numbers too, but cellphones and e-mails weren’t around. I found names of people for whom I had great affection! How did we drift apart? There was no schism predicting this. Did I forget to return a call? Did they? My life or their lives went in other directions, perhaps with children or careers; some still live in the area, but we haven’t talked in years.

Some move away, of course, or I have. But I have two friends from kindergarten who, though they are in New York City and in Austin, Texas, are still among my best friends. Likewise a friend from the first day in college.

Sometimes you rediscover people you knew on Facebook and discover that they are almost exactly like they used to be, which is not exactly a compliment. Whereas others have progressed in their lives in a way consistent with the interests and values they were showing when I first met them; they are worth keeping in touch with.

As I have indicated before, I think it’s possible to have friends on the Internet that you have never met; you know who you are!

Here is the title song of the Beach Boys’ 14th studio album [LISTEN].


ABC Wednesday – Round 13

One overstuffed weekend: Roosevelt, Vezina, Hembeck

At the FDR library, I saw a poster chastising “the Jews” for taking the jobs of “white Christian men”; some things never change.

ER and FDR

For whatever reason, I wasn’t sleeping well two weeks ago. When I booked our hotel for our trip to the Mid-Hudson for the first weekend in August, in my fatigued fog, I totally forgot that my wife had told me to secure a place for TWO nights and that she had even arranged for a cat sitter. I was just so happy that I finally remembered to book it at all. We had made this sojourn 1.5 hours south a few times, and it had always been one night. This time, though, we had added a couple of elements, so the extra time would have been helpful.

Instead, we headed out Saturday and went to Val-Kill, Eleanor Roosevelt’s home. There will be much more on this.

Then to Hyde Park to visit the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. It was all but closed for repairs last year when we visited the mansion – though not TOTALLY closed, as the attendant at the locale properly noted – so the tickets we got last year for the site were still valid. I needed more time in the museum than The Daughter had to give; I got through the Depression era, but I really didn’t see the World War II stuff. Still, a great exhibit. I’ll go back some time, and it’s inspired me to want to see the other Presidential libraries, most of which are in the center of the country.

One thing that struck me at FDR’s library was a newspaper editorial cartoon of FDR and Congress rolling up their sleeves and getting to work on the nation’s problems together; THOSE were the days. Another was a poster chastising “the Jews” for taking the jobs of “white Christian men”; then again, some things never change.

We went to an annual party and The Daughter got to swim. Had a GREAT conversation with a minister and his social worker wife; we seemed to be on the same page in terms of social justice and the church’s role in same. But I was disappointed that my oldest friend from college was not present.

Finally, we went to our hotel. By this point, it was dark, and it was difficult to see, so we overshot it. FINALLY to bed, but one or more of the people in my room was snoring, and I got less than optimal rest.

Sunday morning, we went down to see what the hotel offered for breakfast. It was paltry: some fruit, hot chocolate, and instant coffee, and packets of oatmeal, which wasn’t so bad except there was no MILK and we would have had to use Coffeemate, a non-dairy creamer. We went out for breakfast, then checked out of the hotel and went to see Maria.

Maria Vezina is the sister of the late FantaCo cartoonist Raoul Vezina, who had died in November 1983, at the age of 35 of an asthma attack. I hadn’t seen her in nearly three decades. While she lives and works in New York City, she was up in the Mid-Hudson with TONS of boxes of Raoul’s stuff. I sorted out certain items for a possible project. She thought it would have taken me three hours, but I did it in 50 minutes; I knew what I was looking for. More details if this pans out.

Then we departed for the home of Fred Hembeck and his wife Lynn Moss. I met Fred back in February 1980 when FantaCo published his second collection of comic book-related strips. We made the sojourn to visit them for three or four years, then not for three years because of conflicts, then for the past two or three years. Fred and I have this shorthand way of talking that occasionally confounds my wife. Fortunately, she could go out with The Daughter to the pool. They made us a nice dinner, then we left for home.

I never realized how large one upstate county could be!

We stopped in New Paltz, my college town, to catch the Thruway, but, northbound, it was a parking lot, due to, as it turns out, an overturned tractor-trailer. So we took back roads to Saugerties, didn’t get to Albany until 9 p.m., and were exhausted.

After all that, I figured we’d follow that up with a nice quiet weekend. But the Daughter had a certificate for a FREE day at Great Escape, the Six Flags park about an hour north of here, and the coupon expired on August 11, so guess what WE did on Saturday, the 10th…

 

Past time for a Rolling Jubilee

if you believe that Christ died for you – thus forgiving your debt of sin, the very LEAST you can do is to forgive your financial debtors.

Musing about that billionaire guy who said, more than once, that rich people in general — and business-people in particular — are not job creators: Indeed, in the video, he talked about what great undeserved privileges the wealthy already have.

They sound like the people portrayed in the satirical I am a job creator: A manifesto for the entitled. Just one of many good quotes: “I am entitled to a healthy and well-educated workforce, a modern and efficient transportation system and protection for my person and property, just as I am entitled to demonize the government workers who provide them.” Yet they talk about terms such as moral hazard, without seeming to have any sense of their own immortality of greed.

Indeed, my wife noted recently that she got just a taste of the relatively good life right before we were married. She was working for an insurance company for two years making more annually as she would for her first two years teaching. She got a company car, so by selling her existing vehicle, she could bank that money. Her mileage reimbursement to the company for personal trips was far below the going rate. She could afford to travel, but now she was raking in the airline mileage points on business trips to boot. The fact that she didn’t enjoy the job WAS a downside.

By contrast, she reported listening to some radio program about a sociologist not only studying the poor but living like a poor person. The sociologist concluded that the cause of poverty was being poor. That sounds cheeky and/or redundant, but here’s what meant. You want to get a decent apartment but you can’t come up with the first and last month’s rent. So you stay in some weekly place, even though it costs more over time. Processed food is cheaper and more available in poor neighborhoods than fresh food. It’s a cycle from which it is hard to break free. You end up taking out payday loans, which, BTW, the Church of England has decided to take on.

When I read in about the Occupy Wall Street people doing their Rolling Jubilee, a “Strike Debt project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it,” I was astonished. This is a largely secular organization doing precisely what the Bible has instructed. The book Jesus for President reiterates the economic, spiritual, and justice efficacy of forgiving debt, or jubilee. I also loved the fact that Richmond, California sent a letter to 32 banks announcing a tentative plan to buy out the debt of the more than 600 of its residents’ mortgages. Using its powers of eminent domain…

OK, you non-Christians, you may leave the room; I’m going to proselytize, to the Christians, now. Be very wary of the “prosperity gospel.” Jesus is not saying to you, “You’ll be rich in material things” if you follow Him; rather, you’ll be rich in the Spirit. You know that phrase, “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”? That means that, if you believe that Christ died for you – thus forgiving your debt of sin – the very LEAST you can do is to forgive your financial debtors. I mean, it’s only money, marked with Caesar’s image. Don’t be the money lenders in the temple whose tables Jesus was compelled to overturn.

Robert De Niro is 70

Meet the Parents (2000) – the first of these ‘Ben Stiller as a Focker’ movies,

Robert De Niro is one of the greatest movie actors ever. Yet, I have missed almost all of his signature roles. I have never seen: Godfather II, Taxi Driver, and The Deer Hunter. I always meant to watch Bang The Drum Slowly, Stanley and Iris, and This Boy’s Life, among others, but never did. Goodfellas I’ve seen only in bits and pieces

What HAVE I seen?

Raging Bull (1980) – this I saw on video, in the past few years. I remain convinced that if I had seen it in the theater, I would have liked it better. As it was, it took me a while to warm to it.
The King of Comedy (1982) – possibly his best role that I’ve seen, as a comedian obsessed with a talk show host, played by Jerry Lewis.
Awakenings (1990) – it borders on treacle but doesn’t quite make it there. With Robin Williams as a feel-good doc.
Cape Fear (1991) – I was sufficiently scared during this movie. Never saw the original with Robert Mitchum
Wag the Dog (1997) – my favorite of these movies; about faking a war. Its biggest drawback is that it was plausibly true.
Jackie Brown (1997) – I actually enjoyed this Tarantino film, which is the last one I saw
Analyze This (1999) – trading on his tough-guy image, it stars Billy Crystal as his shrink
Meet the Parents (2000) – the first of these ‘Ben Stiller as a Focker’ movies, and while I mostly enjoyed it, it was the only one I needed to see
New Year’s Eve (2011) – watched this on New Years’ Eve 2012 with my wife on a hotel TV. The overpacked storyline, directed by Garry Marshall.
Silver Linings Playbook (2012) – yes, I liked it well enough, but not as much as some other Oscar-nominated films.

What are YOUR favorite De Niro roles?

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