May 2023 - Page 3 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Sunday Stealing: The Book of Questions

Eating alone

This week’s Sunday Stealing is The Book of Questions.

1. When you tell a story, do you often exaggerate?

No, unless it’s SO obvious, generally for comedic purposes.

2. If a friend were almost always late, would you resent it or simply allow for it?

Interesting that the issue came up this very week. Many events were late because of a loving, but overly ambitious agenda. When they were disappointed that I had to leave before the last event was over, but 45 minutes after the event was supposed to be over, I felt bad. But I needed to be elsewhere.

3. Can you be counted on to be on time?

I did a whole post on this.

4. When did you last yell at someone? Why?

It wasn’t exactly yelling, but I was on a committee to work on a different event. There is one item that always ends that entity’s events. Someone thought the closing should be dropped because of the time. I was adamant that it should not be dropped. I knew the event’s founders felt as I did, but I was willing to play the bad cop.

Services, gratis

5. If you could have free, unlimited service for five years from an extremely good cook, chauffeur, housekeeper, masseuse, or personal secretary, which would you choose?

Personal secretary if it meant they would type stuff. I hate typing, and I’m poor at it. If they didn’t type, then a housekeeper for sure. But the others are also appealing.

6. Would you be willing to go to a slaughterhouse and kill a cow? Do you eat meat?

Nope. Sometimes, yes.

7. Do you feel ill at ease going alone to either dinner or a movie? What about going on a vacation by yourself?

I’ve dined alone. While I prefer going to the movies with another, I’ve seen at least three movies in 2023 by myself. I went on a vacation alone in 1998. I’d do it again given the right circumstances, perhaps visiting some Major League Baseball parks,, which are uninteresting to my wife and daughter.

8. Would you like to be famous? In what way?

You mean I’m not? Well, I would rather not.. The sniping on social media alone makes it undesirable.

9. Would you rather play a game with someone more or less talented than you?

About even. But given the duality, someone who is more talented.

Dreams

10. Is there something you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

Go to Asia. Maybe I will in the next few years once I’ve saved up.

11. If you were at a friend’s house for Thanksgiving dinner and found a dead cockroach in your salad, what would you do?

I’d discreetly get the friend out of the room and tell them.

12. Would you accept $10,000 to shave your head and continue your normal activities sans hat or wig without explaining the reason for your haircut?

With my (lack of) hair? That’d be like free money.

13. If you were able to wake up tomorrow in the body of someone else, would you do so? Whom would you pick?

I would not. I’m having enough trouble being me.

14. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

I would not. It all shapes me, the good and the bad.

15. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

There’s a cliche about tragedy, plus time equals comedy. So it may be a matter of timing. I think of Hogan’s Heroes and The Producers making fun of the Nazis in the 1960s, e.g.

The most awarded songs #9

murder ballad about the 1866 death of Laura Foster

Hey, kids! I know you want even more of the most awarded songs #9. They’ve picked up Grammys and Oscars. They’ve been cited by Rolling Stone magazine, RIAA, ASCAP, CMA, and NPR. For all I know, maybe AARP.

70. I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll – Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Joan Jett heard The Arrows play their version on a UK TV show, a year after they recorded it in 1975. This I hadn’t heard: “She first recorded the song in 1979 with two of the Sex Pistols, Steve Jones and Paul Cook.” Then she re-recorded it with the Blackhearts two years later.

69. Fortunate Son – Creedence Clearwater Revival. John Fogerty said that the song “speaks more to the unfairness of class than war itself. It’s the old saying about rich men making war and poor men having to fight them.” Got that right.

68. Stand By Your Man – Tammy Wynette. It was a crossover hit, #1 country for three weeks in 1968. In early ’69, it went to #11 adult contemporary and even #19 pop. Lyle Lovett did a cover, which shows up at the end of the 1992 movie The Crying Game.

67. Georgia On My Mind – Ray Charles. It was a Hoagy Carmichael song from 1930. Three decades later, Brother Ray had a #1 pop hit. In 1979, Ray Charles’s version was designated the official state song of the Peach State.

66. Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone – The Temptations. Dennis Edwards said in an interview that the long instrumental intro made him so angry that he barked out that first line, just the way producer Norman Whitfield wanted. This was the last of the Tempts’ four #1 pop hits.

A bad mother…

65. Theme from Shaft – Isaac Hayes. The movie Shaft had a black director, a primarily black cast, and music composed and performed by a black artist. In 1971, this was a BFD. The theme has entered the culture, from Sesame Street and The Simpsons to The Wire and The X-Files. “Damn right.”

64. I Can’t Stop Loving You – Ray Charles. The song was from a B-side by Don Gibson in 1958. Brother Ray’s take went to number one on the U.S. R and B (10 weeks!), pop (5 weeks), and Adult Contemporary (5 weeks) charts in 1962. It was a hit in the UK and Sweden too.

63. Heartbreak Hotel – Elvis Presley. His first hit on his new label RCA Victor in 1956. “Presley accepted [Mae Boren] Axton’s offer of a third of the royalties if he made the song his first single on his new label.”

62. The Thrill Is Gone – B.B. King. Roy Hawkins’ recording of the song got to #6 on the Billboard R and B chart in 1951. It was written by Hawkins and fellow West Coast blues musician Rick Darnell. But King’s version in 1970 went to #3 R and B, #15 pop, and became one of his signature songs.

61. Tom Dooley – The Kingston Trio. A lot Most of my father’s folk collection was of black musicians such as Leadbelly, Harry Belafonte, and Odetta. But surely the Kingston Trio was represented, for I recall hearing this song in my home. This is a murder ballad about the 1866 death of a woman named Laura Foster by a guy named Tom Dula, with a poem by Thomas Land written shortly thereafter. The first recording of the song was c. 1929.

Straw hat out of season

the Riot of 1922

In the Binghamton (NY) Press on May 1, 1923, page 5, was a story titled Wears A Straw Hat Despite Closed Season. The subtitle: Bold young man braves chilly weather by parading in summer regalia, anticipating official date by 14 days.

“Although the roll call at the State [mental] hospital last night shows no one was absent, persons on Chenango street who were trying to keep warm by slapping their hands to their sides and turning up their coat collars, doubted the sanity of the man who appeared among them…

“Two young men of an inquisitive nature trailed the young man wearing that thatched covering…

“He was wearing clothing of light material, a white shirt and collar, silk socks, and Oxford shoes.”

I wonder if he used Elkay’s Straw Hat Cleaner, which “makes the old straw hat look like new.” Back in 1914, a season’s supply went for 19 cents.

Michael J. Leo at 79 Court Street had a “clearaway” of its silk and straw hats, regularly $4.95 to $6.95, selling for only $3.95 in 1925.

Riot?

Walter Ayres provided the graphic and pointed to a Wikipedia story about the Straw Hat Riot.

“The Straw Hat Riot of 1922 was a riot that occurred in New York City at the end of the summer as a result of unwritten rules in men’s fashions at the time, and a tradition of taunting people who had failed to stop wearing straw hats after autumn began. Originating as a series of minor riots, it spread due to men wearing straw hats past the unofficial date that was deemed socially acceptable, September 15. It lasted eight days, leading to many arrests and some injuries.

Ripley’s Believe It Or Not also noted the event. “Men who continued wearing straw hats after September 15 were mocked for their fashion faux pas. It was so common for a young passerby to forcibly remove a hat from someone’s head and crush it with his foot that newspapers cautioned people when September 15 was approaching.”

This hurts my non-straw-hatted head.

Marcia: keeper of the photos

Happy birthday!

My sister Marcia has become the keeper of the photos. This is primarily a function of birth order. The youngest and still in high school, she moved to North Carolina with our parents in 1974. Leslie and I were at colleges in upstate New York.

Our mother (d. 2011) had a slew of photos inherited from her mother (d. 1983). Virtually all family photos in this blog from the 19th and 20th centuries were scanned by Marcia or her daughter.

Hmm. I just noticed the matrilineal line of the pictures.

The photos have helped identify what some of our ancestors looked like, such as our great-grandmother Lillian Archer Yates Holland and HER father, James Archer.

My sisters and I are still doing near-weekly ZOOM meetings initiated by Marcia. We have talked some about our roots, though not in an exceptionally systematic way.

DNA comparison feature

According to an email I got about a month ago, Ancestry.com has a new DNA comparison feature where one can see how their DNA results line up next to their matches or compare results with anyone else who has shared their results with me.

I decided to look at my sister Marcia’s DNA compared with mine. I’m more Irish, while she’s more English. We’re equally Cameroonian, but I show more Nigerian, while she’s more Beninian.

I understand the vagueries of chromosomes, but I’m nevertheless fascinated by them.

The photo

The picture in this post is on the Clinton Street bridge, as any Binghamtonian could tell you. She’s facing west. The bridge over the Chenango River is just over a mile from our house at 5 Gaines Street. Perhaps it was taken for her birthday, though l cannot be sure.

Today is Marcia’s XXth birthday. Happy birthday to the one who’ll always be my baby sister, no matter how old she gets. I love you, dear.

Movie review: Somewhere In Queens

Versailles Palace

After my wife came home from a movie she’d seen alone (Chevalier, which she liked), she thought we should see the film Somewhere In Queens, based on the trailer.

I knew next to nothing about the film except that it was the directorial debut of Ray Romano. He was the star, a writer, and a producer of the CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. The show was based on his standup routine. I saw it infrequently; I watched only one episode in its entirety, though it was nominated for 69 Emmys, winning 15.

Yet I’ve seen him in subsequent projects such as The Irishman, The Big Sick, and the TV show Parenthood.

The film

Leo (Romano) and Angela Russo (Laurie Metcalf from Roseanne) are part of an extended Italian-American family. Every other week, there’s a family event at the Versailles Palace, the neighborhood banquet hall.

Leo works in the family business run by Pop/Dominic (Tony Lo Bianco), a construction company job he doesn’t love. However, his brother Frank (Sebastian Maniscalco) and his sons seemed to be born into it. Their current worksite is at the home of the young widow Pamela (Jennifer Esposito).

Leo and Angela’s very reserved son Matthew, who everyone calls ‘Sticks'(Jacob Ward), finds success on his high-school basketball team. Maybe this will be his ticket to college. And who’s that young woman, Dani (Sadie Stanley), hanging on his arm after the game?

I had concluded that the movie was about a particular storyline. Ultimately, though, it was centered on something quite universal. It’s pretty funny, but it has its serious moments. I am unwilling to reveal much more.

My wife and I liked it; most critics and the audience felt likewise. In one online poll, 31 of 32 people gave it four or five stars out of five. The one-star reviewer said they knew Italian-Americans, and they didn’t swear like that. There IS a bit of cursing, usually at other family members. Then they move on.

The movie title, though accurate, is pretty dull.