August 2021 - Page 2 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Lydster: looking at colleges

spreadsheet

By the end of her junior year in high school, I wondered if my daughter was even interested in looking at colleges. And, I might add, it would have been OK if she weren’t.

Within 48 hours of the conclusion of the semester, she hauled out a bunch of catalogs, pamphlets, and other materials from the past six months or more. She had KEPT those? Her mother and I had thought that she had tossed them out. But what do WE know? We’re just parents.

She created a spreadsheet and soon had prioritized the colleges and universities into four categories. Some of the criteria were based on her understanding of the vitality of their art program. But diversity and other factors I don’t quite understand also played into it.

Having looked at the literature she received, I got a glimpse of what impressed her. For instance, one had a piece of glossy paper with her name; it’s a mail merge, but I’ll admit it was cool. A student from my wife’s alma mater wrote her a personal letter, noting my daughter’s interest in art; that was nice. But neither school was in her upper tier.

She also gets a TON of emails. Or more correctly, I got them and then forwarded them to her. Early on, she was understandably coy about putting her email out into the world. So most things came to MY email, and I’d forward it to her. Some were generally helpful in talking about financial aid, while others touted their institutions.

Only one school did she put on her do not forward list, and it was a school that tried to guilt her. It read like some political mail I’ve received. “Aren’t you interested…” and blah, blah, blah…

Roll up for the virtual tour

Several schools offered visits, some in person, others remotely.

Her first in-person visit, with her parents, was to a college within driving distance of Albany. I had conferred with an alum, an old friend of mine, who was less than enthused by his experience of a couple of decades ago. But the school seems to be a much different place now.

Actually, I was impressed. First, the head of admissions talked with us, a total of eight students and their parents, on a Saturday morning. Then two students lead two groups on a tour. Our student, in her final year, was personable, and specifically appreciated that I laughed at most of her jokes. But she didn’t get it when I told her my bill would be in the mail, though a nearby parent did.

My daughter also visited my alma mater with a friend of hers. She had originally pop-pooed that choice, probably because I went there. But her best friend Kay is interested, so they went together with Kay’s older brother.

I went on a virtual tour at a school with my daughter 1200 miles away. It was as fine as another ZOOM meeting can be.

Only one of her top-tier school choices concerns me, and it’s primarily because it’s one of those states with the most dramatic rise in COVID cases. So she’d be more than 1000 miles away if she were to get sick, although she’s fully vaccinated.

If this process is exhausting for ME, I imagine it’s laborious for her. I need some Tom Lehrer.

Going to the post office, quickly

cozy relationships

When I read the story about Albany officials fighting to keep the New Scotland Avenue post office, I was slackjawed by the advice. “The U.S. Postal Service directed customers who normally used the Academy Station to the Fort Orange post office [at Central Avenue and Partridge Street], 2 miles away on Central Avenue…”

Well, I’ve gone to the Fort Orange station twice in the past couple of months, most recently last week. It’s almost exactly one mile from my home. Both times, the lines were out the door, with only five people allowed inside for COVID reasons. While there were two service windows, only one was staffed. I ended up bailing after 10 minutes.

Then, each time, I went to the post office downtown at 45 Hudson, between South Pearl and Broadway. No one was in line. Moreover, if there WERE people waiting, the room is constructed to allow more folks inside. It used to be busier. COVID closed down businesses, and, more importantly, state workers were often working from home.

And it’s very close – about a tenth of a mile – from the Greyhound bus station. Most of the CDTA buses start/end there, so if you don’t have a car, and/or if you are as impatient as I am, it’s not as onerous as you might think.

This example is specific to Albany, but I gather that this sort of nonsense is happening all over the country. How’s the service where you live?

Louis DeJoy, still

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is still in charge of the USPS. His really awful plan to “save” the Postal Service by slowing down deliveries and hiking postage prices—including special price gouging specifically for holiday deliveries is onerous to those

DeJoy was corrupt from the jump. He’d have one believe that his $600,000+ donation to the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee in the time between the Postmaster-General vacancy and his appointment had absolutely nothing to do with his getting the job.

The Washington Post reports that from last fall until April, “DeJoy purchased 11 bonds from Brookfield Asset Management each worth between $1,000 and $15,000, or $15,000 and $50,000, according to DeJoy’s financial disclosure paperwork.” Ron Bloom just happens to be “a Brookfield senior executive who manages the firm’s private equity division.” And also the chair of the Board of Governors that determines DeJoy’s tenure.

DeJoy’s relationship with XPO Logistics is in question. It is getting a $120 million contract from the Postal Service over the next five years. DeJoy and his family foundation “have divested somewhere between $65 million and $156 million in XPO shares, according to filings and tax documents. But his family businesses still have ties to XPO in the form of four office buildings in North Carolina that they lease to the company. That’s where DeJoy will get those millions, in the form of lease payments.”

But the President cannot remove him, only the Board of Governors can, and they’e largely insulated as well. Postmasters General Benjamin Franklin, the first appointed by the Continental Congress, and Samuel Osgood, appointed by George Washington, would be appalled.

Music collection of my father-in-law

bluegrass, big band, Ernest Tubb

As I’ve noted, my father-in-law, Richard Powell, died on April 22, 2020. we had the funeral a mere 13 months later.

Then we had the task of getting my mother-in-law packed to move to a smaller place. This involved my wife making 70-mile trips, each way, approximately every other weekend to get my MIL prepared. One weekend in June my daughter and I joined them.

I was specifically tasked to go through my FIL’s music collection. He had hundreds of CDs. A lot of them were classical. Most of them I packed up to be sold or given away. But a few – OK, about 100 – I took. Oh, not all for me. My wife’s friend is getting some music from Scotland.

One of his granddaughters is getting some tunes from the Great American Songbook, songs composed by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, et al. One collection contains albums given by Richard’s late son John (d. 2002) to the late Alice Truman, a family friend. So maybe some of my FIL’s collection was inherited.

In any case, I kept quite a few of his CDs, and a lot of them were country artists. Ernest Tubb, Willie Nelson, and more Johnny Cash than I probably need, including one compilation that had never been opened. A few bluegrass compilations. My first albums of Gene Autry and Jimmy Durante.

Lots of classical music. A three-CD set of marches, and not all Sousa. Other themed albums: the music of the flute or trumpet or oboe, et al. Favorite overtures.

I had to limit the number of big band artists I took because there were a lot. Some were musicians I had: Basie, Ellington, Goodman. But quite a few I did not: Fletcher Henderson, Erskine Hawkins, Jimmie Lundsford, Chick Webb.

Two things

There are a couple of things that I found interesting. Many of the items in the collection were used, and/or deeply discounted items. That would be in keeping with his frugal nature, and, knowing my FIL, was understandable.

What I find strange, though, is that I don’t particularly associate him with listening to a lot of music at all. He may have played it in his garage, working on his old cars, but it’s not something I remember hearing a lot in the house, especially in his last residence. Maybe he was enjoying them while driving.

You can tell a lot about a person by the music they own.

Soon-to-be governor Kathy Hochul

Erie County

Someone from outside of New York State asked me what I thought of soon-to-be New York State Governor Kathy Hochul. The answer is that I had hardly thought of her at all. In fact, a month ago, if someone had shown me an unlabeled picture of her, it’s only about 50/50 that I would have been able to identify her.

This is a good thing, actually. She wasn’t tied at the hip to Andrew Cuomo, and has, so far, said the right things about cleaning house.

Daily Kos notes: “Hochul will be New York’s first governor from the Buffalo area since none other than Democrat Grover Cleveland, who won the top job in 1882 after a short stint as mayor. She’s also the first bona fide Upstate resident to hold the post since Republican Nathan Miller of Cortland County left office in 1922.”

From Buffalo to Albany

This upstate/downstate issue has been an issue in the state since approximately forever. Heck, where upstate begins – Poughkeepsie, maybe – is subject to debate. (And that doesn’t even count the people who’ve decided that Buffalo’s actually in the Midwest US because it’s closer to Detroit, Mi (255 miles/411 km) than New York City (374 miles/601 km).

Daily Kos: “As distant as her geographic roots are from the Queens-born Cuomo’s, so too does her personal style differ. As Roll Call’s Jim Saska puts it, ‘Where Cuomo was feared, Hochul is beloved; where Cuomo had judged, Hochul has empathized.'”

Her relatively conservative record when running for Congress a decade ago became a liability when running for lieutenant governor. She was primaried twice and did less well in her primaries than Cuomo did in his. I voted for her opponents both times. I picked in 2014 legal scholar Tim Wu, who lost 60-40, and in 2018, low-profile New York City Councilman Jumaane Williams, lost by only a 53-47 margin. So since I’ve not voted for Cuomo in 2014 or 2018, I’ve never voted for her.

Enough is Enough

Still, I’m very willing to give her a chance. After Andrew, she’ll be a refreshing change. She says she’s running for governor next year, and she absolutely had to announce that. If she didn’t, she’d be an instant lame duck. It’ll be a contentious primary in June 2022.

From the Times Union: “She has led Cuomo’s 10 regional economic development councils, chaired a task force on heroin and opioid abuse and addiction, and led the governor’s ‘Enough is Enough’ campaign to combat sexual assault on college campuses. She is married to William Hochul, the former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York, who is now in private practice. They are the parents of two children.”

The history community is excited to see her in the new job. As IHARE notes: “The incoming Governor is far better qualified… I say this not because she has a background in such history but because of her training in office. For the past few years, she has held what is routinely regarded as a ‘ceremonial’ position. As such she has spent a lot of time outside of Albany traveling to a multitude of local events. These events from time to time include history sites and conferences.

I wish Kathy Hochul good luck as the state’s first female governor.

Fire “Milkshake Duck” Mike Richards

Jeopardy – not just another syndicated game show

I learned a new term very recently. It’s Milkshake Duck. Hey, it’s only been around since 2016.

The term is “an Internet meme that describes people who gain viral popularity on social media for some positive or charming trait but are later revealed to have distasteful histories or offensive behavior.”

Know Your Meme: On June 12th, 2016, Twitter user @pixelatedboat posted a tweet about the internet’s love for ‘Milkshake Duck,’ followed by the revelation ‘we regret to inform you the duck is racist’. Within one year, the tweet gained over 22,700 likes and 9,600 retweets.” Huh? Whatever.

Short-lived host

Mike Richards was pleasant enough as a fill-in host of Jeopardy. But, as you may know, he stepped down as the newly-named permanent host of the show, following reports of a number of inappropriate comments he made on a podcast that ran in 2013 and 2014. The podcast was appropriately named The Randumb Show.

Much of the offensive comments that targeted Jews, Haitians, and especially women are documented extensively in The Ringer, as well as mentioned in Parade. Just one example: him calling his colleague on-air a “booth ho” and “booth slut.”

I now believe Mike Richards should resign – or be fired – as JEOPARDY’s Executive Producer because he has harmed the show.

Institutional memory lost

Long-time executive producer Harry Fridman retired in May 2020, after 23 years. “Then, just months into Richards’s debut season, Trebek died due to complications of pancreatic cancer.” And though it started before Richards’ tenure, Glenn Kagan, longtime coordinator on the show, says “he was discriminated against based on his age and ultimately fired from the show on the pretense of Covid-19 safety procedures, while being replaced by a much younger employee.

There were other recent departures of several key staffers—including the longtime head of the contestant department, Maggie Speak, and stage manager John Lauderdale. Add to that “the taping difficulties caused by the pandemic, which left many staff members working from home, there was a widespread perception internally of a power vacuum.”

(BTW, I LOVED Maggie. She made me feel good after my loss. “You were the only one to get Final Jeopardy correct!”)

Heir apparent

A bunch of paragraphs from The Ringer on how Richards undercut Ken Jennings:

Sources close to the show cast doubts on Richards’s decision-making surrounding Jennings. Many Jeopardy! staffers and former contestants long presumed that Jennings would be Trebek’s anointed successor, an expectation that only grew in the months after Trebek’s 2019 cancer diagnosis.

After Jennings won 2020’s Greatest of All Time tournament, Friedman hired him as a consulting producer—a move from contestant to staff that some interpreted as a bridge to hosting, with Jennings’s early duties including presenting categories of his own creation. Trebek furthered this perception, asking Jennings to narrate much of his 2020 memoir, The Answer Is …, and arranging a call with him to discuss guest-hosting just two days before Trebek’s death.

As The New York Times reported, the host left Jennings a pair of his cuff links, which awaited him in Trebek’s dressing room, along with a note from Trebek’s wife, Jean, when Jennings arrived at the studio to serve as the season’s inaugural guest host.

Jennings taped six weeks of episodes before a minor conflict with an upcoming tape day emerged… Sources say the show’s production staff was able to accommodate the conflict, only for Richards to step in and insist on hosting instead. When the time came to tape the preamble to his first episode, Richards blamed COVID-19 for the change and exaggerated the nature of Jennings’s conflict.

Mike to the rescue?

After Jennings’s curtailed run, which posted the highest ratings of any guest host this season, Jeopardy! did not air any additional [clue] categories hosted by [Ken]. Previously, the categories had aired roughly once a month, about as often as those hosted by members of the Clue Crew. Categories featuring clues read by the Clue Crew, celebrities, and affiliate station news anchors continued to air…

After Richards was named the executive producer of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune in 2019, another former Let’s Make A Deal employee remembers a supervisor who had worked closely with Richards remarking, “I bet he hires himself.”

“I think that one reason why Jeopardy was aspirational for many of its contestants was its sense of integrity,” says Kristin Sausville, who won five games on Jeopardy! in 2015. ‘There was something intrinsic to the show and Alex Trebek’s hosting of it that elevated it above other game shows.

“‘The baggage Mike Richards has brought from his previous experience as an executive producer, as well as the optics of what comes across as his self-selection as host, have tarnished that. I think there’s a real danger of Jeopardy! becoming just another syndicated game show, and that makes me concerned for its longevity and standing.”

Out goes he

I’ve been in touch with other Jeopardy contestants. A few noted a decline in the quality of the clue-writing under his tenure. “It has long been more than clear that Richards’s focus has not been on the good of the show.Most [contestants] don’t understand how he can stay on, as he was the guy in charge of this whole guest host year of distraction in the first place.”

As a columnist noted, it makes “one wonder why the Jeopardy team didn’t perform much due diligence on Richards. Oh, wait … I forgot who was put in charge of it.” And, presumably, Richards will be choosing his own successor as host.

This is why I think that the self-aggrandizing Mike Richards, milkshake duck, should be fired as Executive Producer of JEOPARDY!