October 2018 - Page 3 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Moving, moving around, Picasso

“You are a very intelligent person!”

Picasso.portuguese I have my own office at work for the first time in over 12 years. There’s a lot to this story, and I would share some of it. The problem is that in moving into the said office, I have managed to pull something in my back, which makes moving around quite uncomfortable at times.

And I otherwise feel a bit, well, off, including a near-constant headache. I’m waiting to see a doctor after I hear from the HR folks about whatever the worker’s compensation process is.

Meanwhile, I sit in my office putting things on the wall. A picture of me when I was on JEOPARDY! Close up, it’s horrendously pixelated like something from Picasso’s cubist period. From a distance, it’s not bad. Also, a picture of my father, my sister Leslie and I singing when I was 16.

Oh, speaking of Leslie, I mentioned she was going to have surgery on her left arm on October 1. well that didn’t happen because of an infection at what would have been the surgical site. But she went back to the doctor on October 15 and the infection has been stemmed. Now she’s scheduled for surgery on October 23.

So emotionally, I think I would feel really good if I didn’t feel so bad. Y’know what makes me happy? Positive spam messages, such as:

“I’ve been exploring for a little bit for any high-quality articles or blog posts on this sort of area. Exploring in Yahoo I, at last, stumbled upon this website. Reading this info, I am happy to convey that I have an incredibly good uncanny feeling I discovered exactly what I needed. I most certainly will make certain to don’t forget this site and give it a look on a constant basis.”

Thank you very much. You’re too kind.

“You are a very intelligent person!”

[Blushing!]

“You can definitely see your expertise in the work you write. The world hopes for more passionate writers like you who aren’t afraid to say how they believe. Always go after your heart.”

Thanks for the good advice.

“The ability to think like that shows you’re an expert.”

Aw, shucks.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot 2019

Stevie Nicks was, last I checked, leading the fan vote. She’s already in with Fleetwood Mac.

Some guy I used to know IRL said of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominations, “the least important election this year.” Still, one can cast a fan vote, every day, for five nominees, which, collectively, will be considered in the process.

My Sure Things

#TODD RUNDGREN; Eligible year: 1995
Number of nominations: 1; Nominated in 2019
I have his albums with the Nazz, Utopia and a number of his solo albums. He’s also produced a chunk of notable albums for others. It’s SHOCKING that he was never nominated before. He’s a wizard, a true star. Can We Still Be Friends

#JANET JACKSON; Eligible year: 2007
Number of nominations: 3; Nominated in 2016, 2017, 2019
I left her off my ballot a couple years ago. Yet she has been not only a commercial success – in the top five women artists, according to Billboard – but a socially conscious one. Seeing her in person this year may have tipped the scale. Rhythm Nation

#ROXY MUSIC; Eligible year: 1997
Number of nominations: 1; Nominated in 2019
Bryan Ferry and his mates have never been nominated before? Commercially successful and influential. Love Is the Drug

The ones who are influential, and who I should consider

DEF LEPPARD; Eligible year: 2005
Number of nominations: 1; Nominated in 2019
Not particularly a fan, but surprised it took them so long to get on the ballot. Last I checked, they were neck and neck with Stevie Nicks for the fan vote lead.

JOHN PRINE; Eligible year: 1996
Number of nominations: 1; Nominated in 2019
Great singer-songwriter. Probably my sixth choice this year. Dear Abby

KRAFTWERK; Eligible year: 1995
Number of nominations: 5; Nominated in 2003, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019
I KNOW how seminal their music is.

LL COOL J; Eligible year: 2009
Number of nominations: 5; Nominated in: 2010, 2011, 2014, 2018, 2019
It was only last year when I fully recognized his historic import.

RADIOHEAD; Eligible year: 2017
Number of nominations: 2; Nominated in 2018, 2019
I suppose if I ENJOYED their music more, I’d have picked them.

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE; Eligible year: 2017
Number of nominations: 2; Nominated in 2018, 2019
An important band. Hope they get in someday.

I voted for them because I like them

#DEVO; Eligible year: 2003
Number of nominations: 1; Nominated in 2019
They were fun, especially in the early days of MTV. Satisfaction

#THE CURE; Eligible year: 2004
Number of nominations: 2; Nominated in 2012, 2019
The music speaks to me. Boys Don’t Cry

I like them but I don’t know if they should be in there

MC5 Eligible year: 1991
Number of nominations: 4; Nominated in 2003, 2017, 2018, 2019
I’ve had High School stuck in my ear this fall. Yet I can’t quite pick the Detroit group.

RUFUS FEATURING CHAKA KHAN; Eligible year: 1999
Number of nominations: 3; Nominated in 2012, 2018, 2019
I picked them last year, but it was really for her. On the fence about the group. Tell Me Something Good

STEVIE NICKS; Eligible year: 2006
Number of nominations: 1; Nominated in 2019
She was, last I checked, leading the fan vote. She’s already in with Fleetwood Mac. Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around with TOM PETTY and THE HEARTBREAKERS

THE ZOMBIES; Eligible year: 1989
Number of nominations: 4; Nominated in 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019
One GREAT album, and a few fine singles that I LOVE, but… She’s Not There

I make my annual pitch for Estelle Axton, the AX of STAX Records. Her brother, Jim Stewart’s been in since 2003.

RIP Arnold, Pat, Violet, Gloria

Violet was born in Aleppo, Syria

Arnold Berman Thinking about my end-of-the-year post, I was pondering the question about people I’ve known who died this year. It occurred to me that: 1) I don’t think I mentioned any of them in this blog, and 2) if I were to write about them on 1/1/2019, it would be quite lengthy.

Arnold Berman: my mother’s aunt by marriage, Charlotte Yates (1914-2003), we were all very close to. Charlotte had seven siblings, and I knew them all to some degree.

Arnold (b 1924) was the youngest, and I got to know him particularly well as he was putting together the extensive website of the Barosin/Berman family. He periodically commented on my blog, usually via email, usually with additional insights.

I last saw him at the funeral of Charlotte’s son Donald in 2016, but we remained in touch electronically until early in 2018.

Pat (Curry) Wilson: She was friends with my parents, especially my father. when I was in high school; she was Pat Wilson then, and I had a separate relationship with her.

I remember riding my bike down her dead-end street off Riverside Drive in Binghamton. We would have great philosophical conversations about the world.

I recall specifically how devastated she was when Senator Robert Kennedy (D-NY), who was running for President in 1968 was assassinated. While I was not a big fan of Bobby’s, I felt a great deal of pain on her behalf.

We debated the theological implications of Jesus Christ Superstar. Her Catholic faith, in contrast with my Protestant upbringing – and truth to tell, my fading faith at the time – gave the dialogue a certain yeastiness.

I lost track of her for a lot of years, then rediscovered her, as Pat Curry, on Facebook. My sister Leslie and I thought to visit her when we were in Binghamton in the fall of 2017, but it didn’t work out. She died around Mother’s Day.

Violet Keleshian, nee Khachadourian: She died in May 2018, just a few days shy of her 95th birthday. She was born in Aleppo, Syria, and moved to Beirut, to attend the Lebanese American University. She married and had three children, but was widowed in 1956. In 1961, Violet moved to the United States and became a U.S Citizen in 1966.

I knew her well because she was a member of the First Presbyterian Church choir for several years. Naturally, the choir sang at her service in June.

Gloria Wood, nee Caskey: She was another member of my church. She had been married to David since July 19, 1958; they were a great couple. She’d made a blanket for our daughter when she was born, and she’d created many more to give to young mothers.

I had presented a kente cloth to her a couple years ago because of her gifts, and a couple days after Gloria died on August 24, one of her daughters came to church with David, to tell me how much Gloria appreciated that. I was sorry that I was out of town for her service on September 15.

And there are others, not necessarily close to me, but dear to people I’m close to. And more I know with various serious illnesses.

Major climate change disaster by 2040

The five warmest years in the global record have all come in the 2010s

Do you know what, quite literally, keeps me up at night? It’s not just that we are likely to experience major climate change disaster by 2040, or sooner, if we don’t change our behavior radically.

It’s that it’s clear we simply WON’T do nearly enough, in part because the current US regime is targeting “environmental rules it sees as overly burdensome to the fossil fuel industry, including major Obama-era policies aimed at fighting climate change.”

Check out Harvard Law School’s Environmental Regulation Rollback Tracker, and Columbia Law School’s Climate Tracker.

Sure, other countries, which HAVEN’T pulled out of the Paris Accords, and many US states are fighting back against the destruction. Still, EPA Is Set to Roll Back Restrictions on Coal-Burning Power Plants? This “despite plummeting costs of cleaner fuels including natural gas and solar.”

We’re seeing the destruction already, in the loss of glacial ice, the devastating flooding around the globe, the 12-month fire season in California, and a bunch of other signs I imagine you can cite yourselves.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I think the symbolic nadir of American thought on the subject took place in February 2015 when Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) brought a snowball on US Senate floor as evidence the globe is not warming. As the Washington Post sarcastically noted, it SNOWED in the District of Columbia in WINTER.

In any case, he, as many do, conflated weather, what it’s doing at any given moment, with climate, which addresses the broader trends.

The five warmest years in the global record have all come in the 2010s
The 10 warmest years on record have all come since 1998
The 20 warmest years on record have all come since 1995

By 2040, I’ll be in my 80s. But my daughter will be in her 30s. You know, one is SUPPOSED to leave the country a BETTER place for one’s kids, and I – we – are FAILING miserably. Technological breakthroughs are supposed to make their lives better than ours, even as this regime looks to bring back the methodologies of the past.

(Written at 4:15 a.m. Even The Onion doesn’t bring a smile. Will I be more optimistic in the morning? Unlikely.)

O is for Overstimulated brain (ABCW)

We’ve dubbed it the Miami sound machine, even though it was made in China.

There’s a guy I don’t really know, but we’re Facebook friends, a friend of a friend. He was asking people about how to reduce anxiety for his overstimulated brain in these tension-driven days.

A number of people recommended meditation – there’s a Calm app for meditation/mindfulness – yoga, deep breathing, journaling, the serenity prayer, harmonic music, massage, cannabis oil, talking to others.

Some suggested exercising: running, weightlifting.

At least a couple noted the the ‘54321’ mindfulness trick. So has an IRL good friend.

For me, blogging is journaling. I’m pretty sure I’d be MORE anxious if I didn’t write it down.

Exercise does release endorphins but the need to do it on a regular basis, or more correctly, my failure to do so, generates its own source of anxiety.

That 5-4-3-2=1 thing doesn’t work for me AT ALL. For one thing, it requires me to actually think – “what, what are five things, five things I see?” – when NOT thinking is what I really need. In fact, despite its touted success, and I don’t doubt it for others, I HATE it, and find it overstimulating.

So what does work for me? Sometimes, soothing music. I am writing this to what some might consider the most boring CDs ever, music to be born by.” This soothing, 70-minute soundscape, originally created for the birth of Mickey Hart’s son Taro in 1983, was intended to transform the coldness of a hospital birthing room into a warm, rhythmic environment for the process of labor and birthing.”

I usually don’t have trouble falling asleep, but when I inevitably wake up in the middle of the night, I need my Sharper image machine [to counter my overstimulated brain. We’ve dubbed it the Miami sound machine, even though it was made in China. It has settings for white noise, rain, ambiance, peace, stream, campfire, calm, meditate, rainforest, ocean, tranquil and relax.

I use stream for sleeping, but I were getting a massage – I need a massage! – I’d like the tranquil setting. And, as some have noted, there’s also an app for those sounds.

For ABC Wednesday. Non-compensated plug for my sleep machine.