May 2016 - Page 4 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Yours, Mine and Ours

I said, “If you do not know the title of the movie, I will not take you.”

I don’t always have a strong memory of movies I saw as a child. I had a vague memory of seeing a film called Yours, Mine and Ours, a 1968 film, starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda and Van Johnson, but I couldn’t have told you where or when.

From the IMBD:

When a widower with 10 children marries a widow with 8, can the 20 of them ever come together as one big happy family? From finding a house big enough for all of them and learning to make 18 school lunches, to coping with a son going off to war and an unexpected addition to the family, Yours, Mine and Ours attempts to blend two families into one and hopes to answer the question Is bigger really better?

It was “based loosely on the story of Frank and Helen Beardsley,” and makes the Brady Bunch, which came along a year or two later, seem like pikers. “The film was commercially successful, and even the Beardsleys themselves appreciated it.”

But my “baby” sister Marcia often recalls a whole lot that has left my synapses. She remembers me taking her to this movie. She wrote on Facebook: “I am sure that seeing this movie was not the most exciting thing for him to do that day..anyways…I was so excited to go to the movie with my big brother.

“For a second I could not remember the title. He said, ‘If you do not know the title of the movie, I will not take you.'” That sounds about right. “Well, I remembered as I have many childhood memories. One of my favorite memories with my brother Binghamton, NY.”

So I asked her, “OK, wise one. WHERE did we see this? Maybe the Strand or the Riviera on Chenango Street, near where Mom worked? Or the Ritz on Clinton St, which we could have walked to? Or the Crest on Main, which seems a little far unless we got a ride?”

She replied, “We walked…and the conversation about to go or not to go was standing at that little cut-through at the end of Gaines Street…so it would have been the Ritz on Clinton Street. I can remember that conversation like it was yesterday…” The “little cut was a driveway to a very cube-looking gray building that never seemed to have anyone living or working there.

“It was a cloudy day…omg.” NOW she’s just showing off. Funny thing about that driveway: it was next to the Greene’s house at 13 Gaines, a white-and-green structure. We lived at 5 Gaines, in a green house. We often got each others’ mail.

Happy natal day to my baby sister. She’s turning…some number less than 63.

S is for Pete Seeger

Johnny Cash and Pete Seeger talk about the origins of the Cherokee written language.

I was, and am, a big fan of the late folk singer Pete Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014). I wrote about him on his 90th birthday in 2009 HERE, though I am surprised that I didn’t mention the fact that I had the opportunity to actually talk with Pete at the Springboks demonstration.

My affection for the We Shall Overcome album I have documented.

I remember watching him singing Waist Deep in the Big Muddy on The Smothers Brothers Show after it had previously been yanked by CBS.

The documentary Wasn’t That A Time, about the reunion of the Weavers- Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, Fred Hellerman, and Lee Hays – came out in 1982. I saw it at least a decade later. You should watch it.

Still, I keep learning things about the singer. Earlier this year, I wrote about the song Black and White, popularized by Three Dog Night but performed a decade and a half earlier by Seeger.

Then there was this: Rainbow Quest (1965–66) was a U.S. television series devoted to folk music. It was on public television, but not in any market I was in. There were 39 episodes. Here’s a description of the last one:

“Way back in the halcyon days of black and white TV, Johnny Cash and Pete Seeger talk about the origins of the Cherokee written language, and sing a Peter La Farge song of the Seneca trust broken in treaties with the U.S. government.” June Carter also appeared on that episode.

You can watch a sample of it HERE.

“Starting in the early 1980s 38 of the shows were made available on VHS, Betamax, and 3/4″ (U-Matic) tapes… The 39th show, featuring Johnny Cash and June Carter, was withheld at the request of Pete Seeger because Johnny Cash was heavily on drugs during his appearance. However, in the late ’90s, this show was released to the public.”

Here are some other episodes, along with the last episode in full.

ABC Wednesday – Round 18

May rambling #1: The Case Against Reality

I had a terrible blogging April, but because I work ahead, it wasn’t always evident.

1965 edition of “Our New Age”[/caption]

The Case Against Reality. A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

Song Of My Self-Help: Follow Walt Whitman’s ‘Manly Health’ Tips, appearing in the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. It was uncovered by a University of Houston student, and includes: “The beard is a great sanitary protection to the throat.”

The Neverending Workday – A pervasive cultural norm of work devotion leaves many employees with little time for family, friends, or sleep.

In rural Maine, a life of solitude and larceny. Police say the hermit stole to survive 27 years in the woods.

What Would Happen If We Just Gave People Money?

After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight. “Contestants lost hundreds of pounds during Season 8, but gained them back. A study of their struggles helps explain why so many people fail to keep off the weight they lose.”

United Methodist Church Requires Removal of Reference to LGBTQI Christians from Worship Greetings, and, reported the next day, United Methodist clergy come out as church conference begins.

Transcending ignorance. Plus AmeriNZ weighs in, as does Funny or Die.

This isn’t just for me. It’s for everybody who needs a pep talk.

The smug style in American liberalism.

John Oliver: science reporting and Puerto Rico debt and cicadas.

Russian Insider Says State-Run Doping Fueled Olympic Gold.

Someone Put Bartolo Colon’s First Homer In The Natural, Where It Belongs.

Boston Globe: As great as David Ortiz is, Teddy Ballgame is still No. 1.

Free Comic Book Day isn’t free for everybody.

Morley Safer Stepping Down From ’60 Minutes’ After 46 Years.

President Obama delivered a commencement speech at Howard University.

WHCD: Barack Obama and Larry Wilmore. Plus An Obama Blooper Reel, from The White House Correspondents’ Association.

America operates under a crazy quilt of voting requirements, “with each state making its own laws for different populations and with challenges to those laws whipping back and forth through the courts. But if the primaries have frustrated the candidates, try being a voter in November.” Including New York.

Former NY State Assembly Speaker Sentenced to 12 Years in Prison. And former NY State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos sentenced to five years for corruption. Those were two of the three most powerful people in state government, along with Governor Andrew Cuomo.

MUSIC

First Listen: Bob Dylan, ‘Fallen Angels’.

Great audio/visual presentation of Billboard Top 10 songs from 1956 – 2016 (22,000 songs!)

Jaquandor: Music to write swashbucklers by.

Happy birthday to Reverend Gary Davis (April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972) and James Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006).

K Chuck Radio: Rare tracks.

Return of the Monkees and remembering Harry the Hipster Gibson.

What Have I Done to Deserve This? – Pet Shop Boys, with Dusty Springfield.

What does Becky mean? Here’s the history behind Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’ lyric that sparked a firestorm. (And me, nearly oblivious to it all.)

Keef cartoon: Nina Simone.

Local legend Ruth Pelham to close Music Mobile. Lack of funds leads the musician to close her beloved program.

Minnesota’s Broad Publicity Rights Law, The PRINCE Act, Is So Broad That It May Violate Itself.

GOOGLE alerts (me)

TWC Question Time #36: I Love You, But… Moments from your favorite comics characters you consider particularly embarrassing.

Arthur on the blog balance. I too had a terrible blogging April, but because I work ahead, it wasn’t always as evident. So we may be Blogging Twins™.

Dustbury is blogging. Chaz is my blogging hero.

AmeriNZ on Kasich dropping out of the presidential race and the REAL May Day.

Shooting Parrots is a grammar nerd.

Ted Cruz solicits me; no, that doesn’t sound right…

I goose Jaquandor; it was not painful.

I’ve grown accustomed to her face

This is wedding anniversary #17.

The last week in April was a school vacation. The Wife and The Daughter were going to go to visit Philadelphia to see one of the former’s sisters-in-law and nieces.

I was thinking, “Hey, this will be my chance to tackle all the things I never get a chance to do.” I’d read, and catch up on blogging – it was taking a beating that month – and all sorts of Roger stuff.

I wouldn’t have to negotiate using the computer, or hear about Dancing with the Stars – I REALLY don’t care!

More than that I figured I would sleep better because I wouldn’t have to worry about someone hogging the sheets. And I didn’t have to get up with alarm.

Much to my surprise, I slept terribly all week. The first night I had this weird dream about trying to hide an affair from my wife; the “other woman” was a married lesbian friend of mind. In the dream, it was an exhausting exercise. And when I awoke, I felt pretty much the same way.

By the time I saw my family Thursday night, I felt like – do you remember those old clothes washers with wringers, like that one pictured? You put the clothes through the wringer to get rid of excess water, making the drying process on the clothesline so much easier. The phrase being put through the wringer came to mind.

So I’m pretty self-sufficient. I can feed myself, and take care of the cats, go shopping. The family’s been away before, but this time…I don’t know how, but it was different. I missed them more, for some reason.

Anyway, this is wedding anniversary #17. Now that Downton Abbey is over, I have to struggle to buy presents, because The Wife remains difficult to shop for. I’ll think of something…

I’ve grown accustomed to her face Song cue

Music Throwback Saturday: Cars by Gary Numan

The didgeridoo was featured on the very first season of the “reality show” Survivor, which took place in the Australian outback.

Another one of those records I bought only as a single – we’re talking the 45 RPM record – was Cars by Gary Numan.

The song was a single from an album called The Pleasure Principle. “It reached the top of the charts in several countries, and today is considered a new wave staple.” It was #1 in the UK in 1979 and in Canada in 1980. It spent 17 weeks on the US charts, getting to #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1980, his only big hit song in this country.

“Musically, the new song was somewhat lighter and more pop-oriented than its predecessors.” Numan later conceding that he had chart success in mind: “This was the first time I had written a song with the intention of ‘maybe it could be a hit single.'”

I’ve tried to ascertain WHY it was instantly infectious. My working theory is that the very first sound one hears is reminiscent of a didgeridoo.

You know the didgeridoo, that wind instrument developed by indigenous people of northern Australia “within the last 1,500 years and still in widespread use today both in Australia and around the world. It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or “drone pipe'”.

The didgeridoo was featured on the very first season of the “reality show” Survivor, which took place in the Australian outback. My ABC Wednesday buddy Reader Wil wrote a post on the instrument, which explained, via a couple of videos, how one plays the instrument.

I’ve discovered that when I tried to replicate the sound of the instrument, humming with my mouth open while quickly covering and uncovering my mouth, I could approximate the sound of the first notes of Numan’s Cars.

READ/LISTEN TO:
ABC Wednesday, D for Didgeridoo.

LISTEN TO:
Survivor: The Australian Outback OST – Track 01 – Didgeridoo.

Cars by Gary Numan: HERE or HERE or extended play HERE.

Cars by Fear Factory, featuring Gary Numan (1998).