Month: May 2017

Mother’s Day 2017

Mom in her red wig period.

HA! I was looking at my May posts I completed, and I assumed I’d written a Mother’s Day something about my mom. But I was misremembering. I had written about my sister Marcia for her birthday this week, and that post is largely ABOUT my mom.

So I decided the heck with it and picked some photos off Marcia’s Facebook, most of which I don’t believe I’ve posted before.


Here’s my mom with HER mother, Gertrude Williams, and my sisters Leslie and Marcia, in her red wig period.


My mother with her mother’s people, the Yates, including Gert (2nd left), her aunts Charlotte and Deana. I have no idea what she’s looking at. This is in Binghamton, NY.


Mom with our family friend Betty, probably at the latter’s home near Binghamton.


I could ask someone who Sammy is, but this predates my father being on the scene.


Mom with her middle granddaughter, Alex, Marcia’s daughter, in Charlotte, NC.


Mom with her eldest Yates cousin, Raymond.


Mom with her eldest child, in Binghamton.


Mom with her eldest child, in Charlotte.

I will say that, unlike THIS mom, my mom hardly ever swore, and not just in front of her kids.

Music Throwback Saturday: I Need You

I Need You is a VERY popular song title.

Ellen McKinnon, Lin Brehmer – Q104, Albany, NY in the 1980s
Back in the day when I listened to the rock station WQBK-FM in Albany in the late ’70s and early ’80s, the morning disc jockey, Ellen McKinnon, invited listeners to come up with four songs they thought would go together well, and she would play them as a “Q 104-play.”

The one submission I made was extraordinarily lazy; I picked four songs with the title I Need You.

The first was a George Harrison song (1965) from the Beatles’ Help! movie and album in both the US and the UK, only the second Harrison song to be recorded by the group that was in the canon, after Don’t Bother Me.

The second was a hit for the band America, a group formed in London and comprised of sons of US military personnel. From the debut eponymous album, it went to #9 in the US in 1972.

The fourth was a single by the singer Paul Carrack, who is one of my favorite vocalists ever. I even have this song on a 45 somewhere. It went only to #37 in 1982, and I must have submitted my list shortly after this, because the station started changing formats in the next couple years.

The third one I’m not sure of. Was it by The Who from the album A Quick One? Unlikely, since I never owned it. Or the Kinks? Nah, doesn’t sound right in the mix. It was probably Joan Armatrading, the last track on her Me Myself I album, one of my favorites from 1980

As it turns out, I Need You is a VERY popular song title, as you can see here. And I did not know this: “The progressive rock supergroup Transatlantic recorded a mix of two songs [Beatles, America] on their 2009 album The Whirlwind. The first part (America’s cover) is sung by Neal Morse while the Beatles’s part features vocals by the band’s drummer Mike Portnoy.

Listen to I Need You, all different songs, except the Transatlantic cover:

Tom Petty at a George Harrison tribute
America
The Who
The Kinks
Joan Armatrading
Paul Carrack (live)
Transatlantic

Movie review: Gifted

Fred, the one-eyed cat, features prominently in the storyline.

The Wife wanted to see a movie that the three of us could all watch, and Gifted seemed to fit the bill. From the IMDB: “Frank, a single man raising his child prodigy niece Mary, is drawn into a custody battle with his mother.”

This is a subgenre where its success is dependent on certain factors. In this case, one is the mutual love that Frank (Chris Evans, Marvel’s Captain America) and Mary (Mckenna Grace, from the TV show Designated Survivor) have for each other, without the kid being so obnoxious that you can’t stand to see him or her on the screen. On that level, the film succeeds.

Of course, one Frank stops homeschooling Mary so she can have friends her own age – all she has besides Frank is his landlady Roberta (Octavia Spencer) – it becomes obvious to her teacher Bonnie (Jenny Slate) that Mary has amazing skills.

Reading the Rotten Tomatoes reviews (64% positive), some critics think that Frank’s mother Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan) is “too vicious to be persuasive, and [writer Tom] Flynn undercuts her morally by stressing her lust for recognition.” That’s not my reading of the woman, as villain. She seems more wounded, estranged from her son, as she had been from her late daughter, and even from her current husband.

Fred, the one-eyed cat, also features prominently in the storyline. Yes, it’s all melodramatic, with a courtroom scene, and a Big Reveal, where Frank has to make a tradeoff to resolve the issue.

Gifted is a relatively simple, straightforward film, somewhat formulaic and almost certainly manipulative. But I laughed aloud more than once – to the irritation of the Daughter – and got sucked into the lives of the principals. It’s not a great film, but enjoyable enough on a rainy Sunday afternoon at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.

Author-Illustrator Day at Giffen

Wizard’s Wardrobe is “providing a free, after school tutoring program for elementary school students in the South End.”

My church has been involved with Giffen Memorial Elementary School in Albany for nearly a decade, primarily with tutoring. City School District of Albany families were invited to the fifth annual Author-Illustrator Day event at Giffen on Saturday, April 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., organized by the school and church. “In addition to presentations by authors and a free continental breakfast, Giffen musicians performed throughout the day,” and they were very good.

The authors and illustrators included:

Sharon Flake, award-winning author of books for children and young adults, including “The Broken Bike Boy and the Queen of 33rd Street” and “You Don’t Even Know Me: Short Stories and Poems About Boys.”

Jerdine Nolen, award-winning author of a dozen books including “Big Jabe,” “Thunder Rose” (a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book), and “Hewitt Anderson’s Great Big Life” (a Bank Street Best Book of the Year), all illustrated by Kadir Nelson.

James Preller, award-winning author of more than 80 children’s books, including the Jigsaw Jones Mystery series. His other titles include “Along Came Spider” and “Ghost Cat and Other Spooky Tales.”

Cheryl Willis Hudson, award-winning author of “AFRO-BETS ABC,” “AFRO-BETS 123,” “Hands Can,” “Good Morning” and several other books for children and young adults. She also is editorial director for Just Us Books, Inc., an independent publishing company whose books feature African-American characters.

Folks from the school and the church set up Friday evening. Then there was a reception, where I got to meet the authors. On Saturday morning, the Wife, the Daughter and I picked up the food supplies. I was supposed to help set up the books. Giffen kids got some for free, and others could buy them at a discounted rate. The Green family pile was very large.

My other specific job was as assistant to an author. I had done this in previous years with Joe Bruchac, and as one of the folks helping Lesa-Cline-Ransome and James Ransome; the Ransomes came to the Friday night reception. On Saturday morning, each author is on hand to sign his or her books, and the assistant’s job is to make sure that the the book to be signed was either purchased or given away, and then to print out the name of the persons who wants the book signed.

This year, I was assigned to James Preller, the only local creator, who had also been there three or four years earlier. He was very engaging with the children. He also kept all the names on the Post-It notes, promising to use some of them in future books.

A total of 23 Giffen and 38 First Pres people helped out. The cleanup was faster than ever before, a sign of the fact that we have done this before.

The driving forces behind this activity were Deb and Eric Fagans from my church, who had also created Wizard’s Wardrobe, “providing a free, after school tutoring program for elementary school students in the South End.” For that accomplishment, they received some award at a SUSU Women’s Club dinner that Saturday night, when I’m sure they were even more tired that we were.

Photos of the t-shirt, Sharon Flake, James Preller and Deb Fagens (center) from City School District of Albany

May rambling #1: Bringing the Invisible to Life

The Daredevils Without Landlines

And Jesus Said Unto Paul of Ryan … “Pious Paul interjected, ‘For the Samaritan’s work is unsustainable and sends the wrong message. It teaches travelers to take dangerous roads, knowing that others will rescue them from self-destructive behaviors.”

Strength Through Unity: How To Spot Fascism Before It’s Too Late

American Identity is Based on Alternate History

The Truest, Meanest Jokes that Bombed at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

The absurd amount of entitlements that go to rich people and Why cutting rich people’s taxes doesn’t create jobs

Jimmy Kimmel’s Radically Simple ‘Jimmy Kimmel Test’

Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria

Jodi Picoult: Are You Sure You’re Not Racist?

Someone wants to know why there was a Civil War and could Andrew Jackson have stopped it?

George Will: This president does not know what it is to know

Much Ado About Religious Liberty

Heineken ad

Is the special relationship ending? (Australia, New Zealand)

Vlogbrothers: Can You Trust Mainstream Media? and The Life Changing Magic of Thumbs Up

Younger Men, Older Women: A Pairing Becomes More Common

WebMD stands for medically deficient

There Is a Fake IDGod, and He Lives in China

The Daredevils Without Landlines — And Why Health Experts Are Tracking Them

Camsing Acquires Stan Lee’s POW! Entertainment

David Brickman review: Neil deGrasse Tyson at Proctors

Man forced to surrender his ‘offensive’ Star Trek license plate

Tony nominations (yes, I watch)

Now I Know: The Google Maps Invasion and Bringing the Invisible to Life and Lighting Up the Switchboards

Good luck (shhh!) and spam wedding

All of a sudden or all of the sudden

Please type your preferred plurals in the comments box: alumnus, apparatus, appendix, aquarium, cactus, crisis, criterion, focus, thesis, forum, fungus, hippopotamus, index, nucleus, octopus, phenomenon, referendum, radius, stadium, syllabus, prospectus, ellipsis, museum, factotum, status

Music

LISTEN TODAY! Bette Midler stars as Dolly Levi in the Tony Award-nominated revival of Hello, Dolly, before album is released May 12.

Saxa of the (English) Beat, R.I.P.

Princess Leia’s Stolen Death Star Plans, a Star Wars/Beatles fan tribute

TEN HOURS of the Cantina Band

Top 10 Songs About Elvis Presley, not including Elvis Presley Boulevard – Billy Joel, the only Joel single I own (B-side to Allentown)

Chuck Miller: Wake up, you sleeping lion!

Someday My Prince Will Come – Dave Brubeck Quartet

Photos show the world’s biggest rock stars as tourists in 1970s Japan

Forbes: How The Music Industry Is Putting Itself Out Of Business

The Eagles Sue an Actual Hotel California

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