March 2014 - Page 2 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

The Lydster, Part 120: What a pain

She doesn’t have Guillain Barre or Lyme disease, but I don’t know what she has.

The Daughter’s last month as a nine-year-old was… interesting. As noted, she’s been rehearsing to be in the church production of The Lion King. The rehearsal for February 23 was very intense, and she did not feel up to going to school that day and missed that night’s rehearsal. But when she was too tired to go the next day, I took her to the doctor. Ultimately, she had a blood test, stayed home Wednesday but went to school Thursday and Friday.

Saturday, March 1 was the Lion King dress rehearsal. Christy, the director, who was featured in this article, had said they could rechoreograph The Daughter’s part. The first time through, she did it as planned, but in subsequent takes, she took the shortcut. I was worried that she’d be too exhausted for the show.

Sunday, March 2: the performance. I wasn’t the only one who commented that she was very good as young Nala, the lion cub. She sang well, she knew all her lines from fairly early on in the rehearsals, and she was definitely one of the best dancers in the show. (Oh, here is King Of Pride Rock/Circle Of Life (Reprise), NOT from the church production.) We went out for dinner with my in-laws, then we went home and she fell asleep on the sofa at 5 p.m.

March 3-7: another truncated week of school. The blood test was negative for Lyme disease and about 14 other things. March 10, she goes to school all day, but by the next morning, she’s having trouble walking. So The Wife takes her to the MD again. Wednesday, March 12, at the advice of the MD and the neurologist, we take her to the ER at Albany Medical Center at about 4 p.m. She doesn’t get admitted until 2:30 a.m., and to her room until 4 a.m. After much poking and prodding and an MRI that lasted an hour before she said, “I can’t do this anymore,” there was only a conclusion about what she did not have: no invasive infection, no Guillain Barre. Out of the hospital that Friday, and she slept 13 hours when she got home.

Next stop: physical therapy. Can this just be extreme growing pains affecting her joints, and the areas above and below, plus her back? I dunno, but I’m hopeful the therapy will make her feel stronger.

Diana Ross is 70, tomorrow

Diana Ross’s first single, and its a waltz?

Also used for Round 15 of ABC Wednesday.

I suppose it was inevitable that when the billing went from The Supremes to Diana Ross and… that she would eventually leave the group, and she did. In many ways, I preferred the songs of those first two solo albums of hers, which I bought, to the Supremes albums that came out just before she left the group. Still, I never bought any of her other solo albums. Didn’t see her in any of her movies, not even the Oscar-nominated Lady Sings the Blues, though I did see snippets of The Wiz on television.

At some level, I thought that what felt like Berry Gordy’s favoritism towards her made me cranky. It wasn’t until much later, when I was watching the soap opera Another World in the late 1990s, and discovered actress Rhonda Ross was the biological daughter of Ross and Gordy, did I discover they had had a romantic relationship.

Of course, I watched her on the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, and she was most deserving. I did hear her on the radio a lot, and, finally, bought her greatest hits collection, from which I am picking my favorites from her solo career. LISTEN to all.

7. Upside Down, from Diana, 1980. Some dance beat drivel that I found annoyingly infectious. Went to #1.

6. My Mistake (Was To Love You), from Diana & Marvin, 1973. Marvin was always good in those duets. Went to #19.

5. Touch Me In The Morning (from Touch Me in the Morning, 1973). Another #1 song. I don’t always like Diane’s voice, but I love it here.

4. I’m Coming Out, from Diana. I NEVER heard this song, I believe, until I bought the CD. Anthemic, and I understand she often starts her shows with this song.

3. Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To), from Diana Ross, 1976. Theme from the movie. I just noticed she had albums called Diana!, Ross, Diana, Ross, and TWO called Diana Ross; this is from the second one.

2. Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, from Diana Ross, 1970. The song was the motif for the Black History Month performance that my sister Leslie, a couple of others and I organized and performed for a high school assembly. It’s amazing how Diana took that tune, a hit for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, and made it her own #1 song.

1. Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand), from Diana Ross, 1970. The first single, and it’s a waltz? Went only to #20.

K is for the Kinks: Muswell Hillbilles

For WAY too long, I used to go around saying, “Why is life so COM-Plicated?”

The Kinks, commercially, went from being a rather successful rock band, to not so much, several times in its career arc. One of the latter was the 1971 album Muswell Hillbillies, “named after the Muswell Hill area of North London, where bandleader Ray Davies and guitarist Dave Davies [his younger brother] grew up and the band formed in the early 1960s.” I have alluded to this album so often I figured I must have written about it before, but I had not.

It was their ninth album, but their first for RCA. It was also the first one I ever bought. Even though it came from a particularly English POV, there was something quite universal about the feelings of alienation. It’s also sonically quite diverse.

Also in the band at that time were original drummer Mick Avory, bassist John Dalton (who had replaced Peter Quaife off and on for years), and pianist John Gosling, who joined the band in 1970, a year before the album’s release. Also new, the brass section, “The Mike Cotton Sound, which included Mike Cotton on trumpet, John Beecham on trombone and tuba, and Alan Holmes on clarinet.”

Side one starts with 20th Century Man [LISTEN], “I’m a 20th century man, but I don’t want to be here.” That’s followed by Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues

But it’s five of the next six songs that really sold me. A more eclectic bunch of songs I’ve seldom heard: the out of time Holiday [LISTEN]; the swing of Skin and Bone [LISTEN] (“stay away from carbohydrates”); Alcohol [LISTEN] (a boozy “Oh, demon alcohol”); and Complicated Life [LISTEN]. For WAY too long, I used to go around saying, “Why is life so COM-plicated?”

Side two starts with Here Come the People in Grey, and that’s followed by the very proper-sounding Have a Cuppa Tea [LISTEN]; my sister sells teas currently, and that’s a bonus for my enjoyment. After Holloway Jail comes Oklahoma U.S.A., which I DID write about before. Then Uncle Son and the title song. The 1998 CD re-issue bonus tracks were Mountain Woman and Kentucky Moon, which did not particularly enhance the enjoyment for me.

There was a 2CD extended package that came out in 2013, which I won’t get because what I already have is just perfect.

More about the Kinks and some of the Kinks’ better-known songs around June 21, when Ray Davies turns 70.

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

Dinosaurs, candy, kissing, travel

It was this red shoestring licorice we bought about two blocks from the school

Got a bunch of questions, great questions. Gracias. I’ve been thinking about them, some of them A LOT, but some are going to require longer answers than others, and I’ll have more time in the next week or two (I hope).

In the meanwhilst, here’s a few from New York Erratic:

Were you ever into fossils or dinosaurs? What is your favorite dinosaur?

Not in any kind of systematic way. I mean they were collectively cool, but I didn’t study them very thoroughly. I got frustrated that several of the ones I knew as a child have totally different names, and theories as to their origins are different. Some are now birds that were thought to have been reptiles, etc. Rather like the planets of our solar system, where I once knew how many moons each planet had, but no longer. I’ll pick T-Rex; always liked Bang A Gong [LISTEN].

Have you ever had your IQ tested? When? What was your IQ?

Yeah, at least a couple of times, but they never told us. Once in fifth or sixth grade, some of my classmates discovered our scores but no names were attached. Someone was in the 140s, and we all figured it was friend Carol (not my wife Carol). There were three or four in the 130s, which we surmised were friends Karen, Bill, and me. But we really had no idea.

Did you ice skate as a kid?

I don’t believe so. I have no recollection of it. And not as an adult except once, and it involved wooing Carol (my now-wife).

How do you memorize skits for plays? (This one is fairly urgent… 😛 )

Repetition, optimally with another person, or persons, reading the other parts. But I HATE doing long speeches, soliloquies because I have a hard time memorizing them. Unless they’re poetic, and I can make a song out of them.
***
SamuraiFrog wants to know:

At what age did you feel like you became an adult?

62. (Not entirely false.)

I suppose it was when I bought a house, and I was 47. Not sure I like this growing-up stuff.
***
Jaquandor, who is in the midst of answering MY questions to him, wants to know:

You’re given enough money for a road trip someplace in the US…not enough to fly anywhere in the world, but enough that you can pay for gas, food, and lodging someplace in this country. Where do you go?

I’d do a bunch of baseball parks by train. But if we’re talking a single location, I’ll pick Juneau, Alaska, because it’s the farthest state capital one can get to by land. If I’m limited to the continental US, then Seattle, WA, or Portland, OR, because I’ve never been to either of them, and they are in states as far from me as possible.

***
Tom the Mayor, my FantaCo colleague, asked:

What was the first comic you remember reading? And the first book?

The first comic I have no idea. It may have been Archie, or Richie Rich, or some other Harvey Comic. The first superhero comic was almost certainly DC, Legion, or maybe Justice League.

I had these Golden Books, but I don’t quite remember them individually. I also had the Golden Book Encyclopedias, and those I remember reading voraciously.

What was the first movie your parents took you to?

Not sure. Can’t remember seeing any movies with my father except for the drive-in. Maybe it was the 1960’s version of State Fair; or did I go without my mother? 101 Dalmatians? Early on, it was West Side Story.

What was your favorite candy as a kid?

It was this red shoestring licorice we bought about two blocks from the school, right across the street from friend Bill’s house.

Do you Kiss your wife and daughter in public? Did your parents kiss you in public?

Yes, and The Daughter still lets me! Not that I can recall, and I don’t know if they kissed my sisters either.
***
You can still Ask Roger Anything.

“The plane is missing. We still don’t know where it is. We’ll update you when we do.”

The media once again proves that line from reporter Jack Germond : “We’re not paid to say ‘I don’t know’ even when we don’t know.”

My daughter, who’s almost 10, was watching the news with me the other day when the story about the missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370 came on. She is a compassionate person. Yet she winced, “Oh, no, not again.” She hasn’t done that with stories about GM recalls, or other multi-day stories.

Maybe it’s because the news outlets feel an obligation to cover it, but, far too often, they really don’t have a heck of a lot to SAY.

I saw on the local station WTEN (Channel 10) this week a news piece about singer Courtney Love’s theory about the flight – that it crashed – and about the number of Twitter retweets it got. I gently told my television set, “Please shut up.”

And if the local and national networks are bad, CNN is worse. The network has asked whether perhaps God stole the plane, if a black hole took the plane and whether a psychic had any insight. Yet an anonymous CNN executive praised the 24/7 station’s coverage. “It’s in our wheelhouse.” To which, as The Daily Kos noted, is totally correct:

Little actual information to be conveyed? Check. New “facts” constantly being trotted forth, only to be retracted as false a few hours or days later? We got that. Rampant uninformed speculation, often by people with absolutely eff-all expertise in anything remotely resembling the actual topic at hand? Oh yeah….

I subscribe to what Mark Evanier wrote recently, referring to Joe Brancatelli, his friend who covers the airline industry:

Baffling.
I’m not even sure we’re clear yet on what crime has been committed but yeah, Joe’s right about the lack of facts and more right about the shameless way the media once again proves that line from reporter Jack Germond that I quote here all the time: “We’re not paid to say ‘I don’t know’ even when we don’t know.”
I do think people expect real-life mysteries to be as “pat” as fictional ones and this expectation leads them to think they have something all figured out when they don’t.

Evanier, quoting MSBC’s Chris Hayes: People with zero evidence about what happened to that missing plane should stop using the situation to promote some fear-based agenda…

It’s not that I don’t care, or that I’m not interested, or fascinated. But it reminds me a bit of ABC News’ coverage when John Kennedy, Jr.’s plane went missing. They were on the air for seven hours straight, when a breaking news item, followed by regular updates would have been more appropriate, because, except to restate what they had already noted, there wasn’t much to say until the plane was found.

So I check the news once a day. Did they find the plane? No? Too bad. If I want to read all about it, the news websites will have more info. NBC News, for one, has spent less time on the Nightly News on the story, referring folks to its site. The New York Times article on why we are limited to options that flight crew can disable is important stuff.

Still, I’ll either check the TV news tomorrow or if something actually substantial DOES happen – they saw something well off the coast of Australia on Thursday – I’m sure I’ll get a notification on one of the news feeds to which I subscribe.