May 2019 - Page 5 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Songs from my preteen years

Music from my 10th birthday until I was 11 1/2.

Doris Troy.Soul Legend I struggled to find a way to narrow the list of songs from my preteen years. Would it be Elvis before his ’68 comeback? The Everly Brothers? The entire American Graffiti soundtrack? The entire West Side Story soundtrack? Take Five by Dave Brubeck?

With some help, I think from Jaquandor, I picked the songs that I remember from when I was 10 to 12, meaning 1963-1965. Or in this case, from my 10th birthday until I was 11 1/2, because the list was still too long.

I avoided artists for which I had LOTS of their music in this blog, such as The Big Three of my growing up: Beatles, Supremes, Tempts, who dominated 1964 in any case. Or the Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, et al.

And I’ve avoided what I foolishly thought was “old people music” at the time. So no Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, or Louis Armstrong, all of whom had hits in that period. I appreciate them NOW, but I didn’t then.

1963

Walk Right In – Rooftop Singers, #1 for two weeks pop, #1 for five weeks AC, #4 RB, #23 CW
On Broadway – the Drifters, #9 pop, #7 RB
Easier Said Than Done – The Essex, #1 for two weeks both pop and RB
Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport – Rolf Harris, #3 pop, #1 for three weeks AC, #19 RB

Just One Look -Doris Troy, #10 pop, #3 RB
So Much in Love – the Tymes, #1 pop, #4 RB
If I Had A Hammer – Trini Lopez, #3 pop, #12 RB

I’m Leaving It Up To You – Dale & Grace, #1 for two weeks both pop and AC, #6 RB
Dominique – The Singing Nun, #1 for four weeks pop and AC
Louie Louie – the Kingsmen, #2 for six weeks pop, #1 for six weeks RB

1964

The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)– Betty Everett, #6 pop, #1 for three weeks RB
Don’t Let the Rain Come Down – Serendipity Singers, #6 pop, #2 for six weeks AC
(Just Like) Romeo and Juliet – The Reflections, #6 pop, #3 for two weeks RB

Chart action per US Billboard charts. CW- country; RB – soul; AC – adult contemporary

James Holzhauer on JEOPARDY!

Some people get really upset if you don’t love what they love

I was at a work conference. A long-time work friend asked me about James Holzhauer, the 22-day JEOPARDY! champion, and counting, who has pretty much destroyed the competition.

Before I could give my opinion, She says, “Boring! Right?” And I agreed.

I was wary about answering because SO many people have expressed a different viewpoint. That is fine by me, but sometimes it’s not fine by them. I say it’s not interesting. They say, “That’s your opinion!” Of course, it’s my opinion.

I say, “It’s like watching a 15-4 baseball game or 62-7 football game.” They say, “I hate football,” which is rather not the point. It is watching contestant after contestant going through a meat grinder.

I’ve freely noted that Holzhauer is doing something that no one else has done. A million dollars in 14 games; it took Ken Jennings twice as long to reach that threshold. He’s rightly made the mainstream news.

He knows a lot, but he also beats people on the buzzer, because his opponents often think they know the answer and can’t get in. And he bets HEAVILY because betting is what he does for a living – professional sports gambler.

Still, it’s like why people HATED the New York Yankees after they won five World Series in a row in 1949-1953. Many of the games are like the Yankees playing a Little League team.

So people are SHOCKED that I don’t particularly enjoy the games. I could just write it off as Arthur’s Law, but I think there’s a more specific thing here.

Mark Evanier has engaged in a series called Cranky, Rambling Rant. Part One was “about how some people get really upset if you don’t love what they love.” Part Two was “about how some people (including probably most of the same ones) get really upset when you do love something they don’t love.”

I’m experiencing Part One a lot. In most cases, they’re asking ME because I was once – OK, twice – on JEOPARDY! But I’ve been watching the show for a long time, back when Art Fleming was hosting back in the 1960s.

There was a long period when no one could appear on the regular show more than five games. For all sorts of geeky reasons, having to do with the quality of Tournament of Champion winners, I thought that was a good rule.

The rule won’t return, I don’t think, because more people are watching when James Holzhauer or Arthur Chu or Austin Rogers is on. Some folks, regular JEOPARDY! watchers, have told me they won’t watch it again until Holzhauer is gone, but I expect they’re in the minority.

I’ll still tune in because that’s what I do. But I’ll enjoy seeing new champions.

Singer/songwriter Billy Joel turns 70

“Mr. Joel has encountered some resistance from rock critics.”

I saw Billy Joel perform at New Paltz in 1974, as I recounted here. I wondered how one could get lost from Long Island unless the group came up the wrong side of the Hudson River.

I thought he was a bit stiff. Four and a half years later, he had his debut at Madison Square Garden, “three shows there that had sold out almost as soon as they went on sale.”

The reviewer noted the singer seemed unusually nervous. Also, “Mr. Joel has encountered some resistance from rock critics.” To say the least.

Someone gave me a book – I wouldn’t have bought it myself – entitled The Worst Rock ‘n Roll Records of All Time (1991). At the end, Jimmy Guterman and O’Donnell picked The Worst Rock and Rollers of All Time. After dissing Paul McCartney, Duran Duran, and Phil Collins, the “winner” was Billy Joel.

Now, he’s been performing sold-out shows at MSG once a month for over five years, always changing them up. He goes on the road about once a month, “even though the man hasn’t released an album of new pop songs since 1993.”

A couple dozen shows per year gives him time to help clean up beaches in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Given some of the travails of his career and life, I’m happy that he seems content.

Some songs – chart action US Billboard pop charts

Captain Jack (1973)- my first favorite song of his
Scandinavian Skies (1982)- overly earnest attempt to write a Beatles song
Baby Grand (#75 in 1986)- duet with Ray Charles, Alexa Ray, Joel’s daughter was named partly for the icon
Uptown Girl (#3 in 1983) – one of my wife’s favorites

You May Be Right (#7 in 1980) – “I MAY be crazy”
The River of Dreams (#3 in 1993) – title song of his last album
New York State of Mind (1976) – his Sinatra song, and I mean that in a good way
The Longest Time (#14 in 1984)- I love that doowop stuff; the song of his I’m most likely to sing along with

Goodnight Saigon (#56 in 1983) – I developed a greater regard when I saw it performed on the Kennedy Center Honors
Piano Man (#25 in 1974) – gets undervalued because it’s like McCartney doing Hey Jude, with everyone singing along
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant (1977) – I didn’t appreciate this song nearly enough when it came out
Big Shot (#14 in 1979) – quasi-punk self-referential piece

Allentown (#17 in 1983)- we’re STILL living there
Pressure (#20 in 1982) – I relate
Big Man on Mulberry Street (1986)- this appeared on the TV show Moonlighting
Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) (#77 in 1994) – I heard an a cappella group perform this in Binghamton, NY in the mid-1990s

Mother’s Day Vigil against Child Separation

Addressing the policy of inhumane treatment of children

Mother's Day Vigil

Citizen activists bring attention to the human rights abuses of detained children and separated families.

Mothers and local activist groups will stand in solidarity with actions across the country planned for Mother’s Day. We call on our government to end the traumatizing policies of separating and detaining children. We call upon our fellow citizens to stand with us in our objection and call to action. This will be a peaceful family-friendly event.

What: Mother’s Day Vigil to Stand Against Child Separation and Detention
Who: Capital District Border Watch, Progressive Schenectady, and Bethlehem Indivisible
Where: Albany NY, Corner of Madison Ave and New Scotland Ave.
When: Sunday May 12, 2019, 11:00am to 1:00pm
Why: The policy of inhumane treatment of children and the erosion of human rights and international refugee protocol

Bernie Massar, Barnyard (1953-2019)

The Professional Firefighter’s Cancer Fund is a non-profit 501(C)3 organization committed to raising funds for cancer research programs.

Bernard Massar.Jan Kostyun Karen, Carol, Lois, Diane, Irene, Bill, Bernie and I all started kindergarten together at Daniel S. Dickinson, where we did K-9, and graduated from Binghamton (NY) Central High School together.

Because Bernie Massar lived in the opposite direction from most of us, down Clinton Street rather than up Mygatt Street, I spent less time with him outside of school than I did with most of the others. I’m not sure if I had even been to his house.

But he’d been to mine at least once. I had a birthday party when I was eight or nine. I don’t know if it was poor communication or something else, but only two people showed up, my Cub Scout buddy and classmate Ray, and Bernie.

He could be the life of the party, betraying his clean-cut look. I hadn’t seen him in a long time when he – and Karen, Carol, Lois, and Bill – attended a high school reunion c. 2006. I see this jocular fellow nicknamed Barnyard with a walrus mustache, who had been fighting fires for a living for 27 years.

Obviously, I have no current history with him. Yet however unconnected we had become, he’d show up unexpectedly in the back of my mind. Now, Bernie Massar, this guy I’d met when we were not quite five – his birthday is a couple weeks before mine, I still recall – has died at the age of 66 and I have this sense of wistfulness.

And from pancreatic cancer, making him the THIRD person I’ve known IRL who died from that dreadful disease in 2019, and the year’s not even half over.

It makes me want to donate to his designated charity, the Retired Professional Firefighter’s Cancer Fund, 4 Loretta Drive, Binghamton, NY 13905. It is a non-profit 501(C)3 organization committed to raising funds for cancer research programs, which has been doing great work, it appears.