December 2023 - Page 4 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

A Very Special Christmas

Special Olympics

Back when I was buying vinyl, and later with CDs, I was a sucker for music associated with a good cause: No Nukes, a Cambodian refugee cause, USA for Africa, and so many more. And not just the We Are The World single but the whole album.

So, I have several CDs in the A Very Special Christmas series, in fact, the first seven (The live album is the fourth, and the acoustic album is the sixth.). The funds go to the Special Olympics, as noted here. If you have Spotify, which I do, you can hear the whole set of albums. If not, you get the 30-second tease. For those of you in the latter category, my list of some of the songs I like.

The original and still the best (1987)

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town – the Pointer Sisters. They seem to be having such fun.

Winter Wonderland – Eurythmics. Annie Lennox’s great voice shines through.

Do You Hear What I Hear? – Whitney Houston

Merry Christmas, Baby -Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Prime Boss

Gabriel’s Message -Sting. This is in our church hymnal.

Christmas in Hollis – Run-D.M.C. I’ll admit that it took me a moment to embrace it, but now I like it a lot. The last time I took the Long Island Railroad, I noticed the Hollis, Queens stop.

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – U2 -It’s not Darlene Love, as heard on A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, but what is?

Santa Baby -Madonna. I’ve heard lots of complaints that it’s not as good as Eartha Kitt, but I heard this first, so I have an odd affection for it.

The Coventry Carol – Alison Moyet. My favorite song in the entire series.

Volume 2 (1992)

Christmas All Over Again – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. This song always makes my Christmas playlist on the blog.

Merry Christmas, Baby – Charles Brown, Bonnie Raitt. Bonnie had both Charles Brown and Ruth Brown on her subsequent tour.

What Child Is This – Vanessa Williams. That Carol of the Bells intro oddly works here.

Volume 3 (1997)

Children Go Where I Send Theee – Natalie Merchant. I loved this song growing up, and this take is fun.

We Three Kings – Patti Smith. This, by comparison, is particularly dark, which I also enjoy.

The Live album (1999)? There are too many covers of the previous iterations. Volume 5 (2001)? Some OK pieces.

Acoustic (2003)

This is primarily a country/bluegrass album.

Even Santa Claus Gets The Blues -Marty Stuart. It has a great guitar intro.

Christmas Is Near – Ralph Stanley. I love the harmony.

The subsequent album, the 7th volume (2009), is fine, though it covers many of the same songs that I heard before, and the earlier ones are usually better.

After that, 25 Years Bringing Joy to the World and 25 Years of Bringing Peace on Earth (both 2012) I haven’t heard yet. The latter features “Today’s Top Christian Artists.”

Finally, the ICON album (2013) is an odd mix of songs previously on albums from the series (Sting, Aretha, Bon Jovi, Underwood, Petty, Crow), older songs (Lennon, Presley, Wham!), and new songs by Rod Stewart and Josh Groban. You can still purchase these if you’re so inclined.

Why we laugh and why we don’t

That’s My Boy

Ken Levine posited on a recent podcast about why we laugh and why we don’t. He talked about going to a Los Angeles-area theater to see a production of Peter Pan Goes Wrong. It’s a “comedy play by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields of the Mischief Theatre Company, creators of The Play That Goes Wrong (2012).”

Apparently, and I’ve never seen it, The Play That Goes Wrong is comedy gold. But he found Peter Pan to be a retread, humorous, but not nearly as side-splittingly funny.

Yet, he might see an old comedy bit that he had watched dozens of times, and it still cracks him up. Why is that?

I wrote to Ken with my working theory. “For you, Peter Pan is not funny to you because of the lack of surprise. “For me, it’s Airplane 2. It’s the same film as Airplane, except for the Art Fleming JEOPARDY bit, which is good. So it’s largely unfunny.

“Why is seeing the same bit again funny? Because you recall the surprise and you relive it. A prime example is Frasier: Niles ironing. That thing always slays me, partly because I was so surprised by that type of physical comedy in a more ‘cerebral’ comedy show. So when I see it again, it’s still funny because I relive the joy.

“Another of mine is The Germans bombed Pearl Harbor speech in Animal House.” {Language, BTW].”

Timing

As I think of it, most of the best bits require a build-up, or at least a pre-knowledge of the characters. Who’s On First lives on Lou Costello’s increased frustration with Bud Abbott’s explanation of the baseball players’ names.

In The Dick Van Dyke Show’s That’s My Boy, Rob and Jerry go through absurd testing before the punchline, which, when I was 10, truly cracked me up. (One could start at 18 minutes in and get the gist.)

What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us from Monty Python’s The Life of Brian always works for me. Incidentally, I never understood why some folks found the film anti-Christian since it was clear from the first scene that Brian was NOT Jesus.

But foreknowledge is not always required. I’ve cited Lou Grant’s initial interview with Mary Richards on the first episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. “I HATE spunk,” I wrote to a Wordle buddy, who used it trying to get to SKUNK.

My wife cited bits from The Carol Burnett Show: her Tarzan yell, the curtain dress (at 15:00), and Tim Conway as a dentist. She also noted Bob and Ray’s bit about slow speakers, the chocolate conveyor belt scene from I Love Lucy, and the Michigan J. Frog cartoon.

What comedy bits always make you laugh? And what comedy retreads left you cold?

December rambling: who isn’t running

“Girls were girls, and men were men”

Who isn’t running for re-election in the House and Senate in 2024

A deluge of violent messages: How a surge in threats to public officials could disrupt American democracy

What Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, could teach today’s SCOTUS: Her embrace of the rule of law and empathetic jurisprudence are sorely missed.

Will Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State under Nixon and Ford, actually RIP?

Jewish American Families Confront a Generational Divide Over Israel

Comics For Ukraine, the benefit hardcover comic anthology to benefit folks in Ukraine, which I got in its original crowdfunding push – it’s very good – is still available for purchase

How Much Pain Is ‘Enough‘ to Prescribe Opioids?

Massive Tuberculosis News

Don’t Neglect Tobacco Use in People Experiencing Homelessness — Cessation programs can save lives and improve financial stability.

Organ & Body Donations: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Why Do You Get to Do That? A few words on your “rights”

Truth-telling

Watch videos from the November 17, 2023 Telling the Truth conversations by the NYS Writer’s Institute. The fifth Telling the Truth event, this 2023 edition featured two panels.

The American Presidency: A conversation about the Biden administration and the prospect of a second Trump administration with Miles Taylor, former Trump Administration staffer and author of Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump and Franklin Foer, author of The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future.

Also, The American Backlash: A conversation about the politics of revenge, and the impulse to punish ‘out groups’ who have made political gains — particularly racial, sexual, and cultural minorities, and women with Jeff Sharlet, author of The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War and Juliet Hooker, author of Black Grief/White Grievance: The Politics of Loss.

I attended these seasons in person.

That’s Entertainment

I was on a team for Any Questions Live! WAMC‘s Inaugural Trivia Challenge on December 7. The final question was that five of the 15 largest cities in the United States are in one state. Of THOSE five cities, which one is the smallest in population? Answer below.

2023’s TIME Person of the Year. I was totally off; I thought it’d be Bibi.

The 100 Most Powerful Women in Entertainment of 2023

Everybody knows Flo from Progressive. Who is Stephanie Courtney?

Actor Andre Braugher Dies at 61. I was a massive fan of the NBC series Homicide: Life on the Street; the episode for which he won an Emmy was gutwrenching. He appeared in six episodes of Law and Order: SVU, including this one featuring Mike Tyson. He appeared in the movies Glory, Salt, and She Said, all of which I saw. I occasionally watched him on Brooklyn Nine-Nine and some Kojak TV movies.

Marty Krofft, the Brains Behind a Kids TV Empire, Dies at 86

Ryan O’Neal, Star of ‘Love Story,’ ‘What’s Up, Doc?’ and ‘Paper Moon,’ Dies at 82. I never saw Love Story, but I saw the others and the evening soap opera Peyton Place.

The Ritz Brothers, comedy pioneers: A Retrospective.

‘Doctor Who’ Doctors: Every Actor Who Has Played the Part

‘Home Alone,’ ‘Terminator 2,’ ‘Love and Basketball,’ ‘Desperately Seeking Susan,’ ‘Fame,’ ‘Apollo 13’ Enter National Film Registry. Of these, I specifically recommend 20 Feet from Stardom.

The murky math of the New York Times bestsellers list

Why Do Airplanes Dim the Cabin Lights During Takeoff and Landing?

Hinsdale, NH, man had no car and no furniture but died, leaving his town millions.

Now I Know: A Creative Way to Stop a Celebrity Stalker and The Great Puffin Toss and You Is Now Welcome in Sweden and Pokémon Go to Jail and The Politician Who (Technically) Kept His Pledge and The American Enclave That Pretended to Want to Join Canada

To a deluxe apartment in the sky

Norman Lear, the legendary television producer and inclusive storyteller, died at 101. Here’s the family tree for All in the Family and its spinoffs, all of which I watched, at least for a time, as well as Sanford and Son; One Day at a Time, both iterations; Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, and ITS spinoffs, and others. Heck, I even saw his less successful ventures, such as a.k.a. Pablo, Hot L Baltimore, the underestimated The Powers That Be, and the movie The Night They Raided Minsky’s.

Performers and critics lauded him not just for his contributions to entertainment but also for his activism with People for the American Way and other avenues.

His son-in-law, Dr. Jon LaPook, gave some personal insights. I recommend you check out If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast, the late Carl Reiner’s 2017 documentary where he “tracks down several nonagenarians” – including his friend Lear – “to show how the twilight years can be rewarding.”

This is what I wrote way back when Norman Lear turned 100.

Music

John Williams’s score to Nixon: “The 1960s: The Turbulent Years

Coverville 1467: The Damien Rice Cover Story and 1468: The Shane MacGowan Tribute

Save Me – Jelly Roll

Rossini: La Cenerentola – Overture

The ten most overplayed piano pieces

Everybody’s Talkin’ – the MonaLisa Twins

Six13 – A Hamilton Chanukah

Maccabeats Hanukkah Videos

Arthur describes all of the #1 songs from 1983 and a few more

Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm is now open at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, through April 7, 2024

Denny Laine (1944-2023): a remembrance

The answer to the question above is #15 here. (We got the correct state but the wrong city.)

The 10 Most Streamed Christmas Songs on Spotify

plus Bing/Bowie; Stax; Bob & Doug

There’s a 2022 article, The Most Streamed Christmas Songs on Spotify:

All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey (1) – I continue to find her proclamation and trademark claim that she’s the Queen of Christmas gagworthy. As this article notes, Elizabeth Chan “said that Christmas is not something that a person can claim ownership or a title over. ‘That’s just not the right thing to do. Christmas is for everyone. It’s meant to be shared; it’s not meant to be owned.”
Last Christmas by Wham! (7)
Santa Tell Me by Ariana Grande (9)
It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas by Michael Bublé (6)
Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee (2); also #9 on the 1955-2004 list
Jingle Bell Rock by Bobby Helms (3); also #2 on the 1955-2004 list
It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year by Andy Williams (5); I associate this more with a series of back-to-school ads
Mistletoe by Justin Bieber
Snowman by Sia
Do They Know It’s Christmas? – 1984 Version by Band Aid; also #2 on the 1955-2004 list. Well-meaning but terrible song.

I’ll admit that I’d never heard the Grande, Bieber, or Sia songs before.

Interestingly, there was a 2017 roster that had some overlap. (The parenthetical numbers were their 2017 rankings.)

The songs falling out of the Top Ten

4. White Christmas — Bing Crosby, John Scott Trotter & His Orchestra, Ken Darby Singers

8. The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You) — Nat King Cole

10. Feliz Navidad — Jose Feliciano

Other songs

Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth – Bing Crosby and David Bowie. As I’ve mentioned, Bing Crosby died of a heart attack on October 14, 1977. The TV special Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas, on which this appeared, was recorded on September 11 of that year but didn’t air until November 30. I watched it because Bing Crosby has Ziggy Stardust and Twiggy on his show? Here’s the version with the intro.

12 Gifts of Christmas – Allan Sherman. When I was a kid, this was uproariously funny.

Take Off – Bob and Doug McKenzie with Geddy Lee of Rush

12 Days Of Christmas – Bob and Doug McKenzie. Yes, I have the album, The Great White North, on vinyl.

Christmas Wrapping – The Waitresses. I have this on an EP.

Fairytale of New York -The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl. The Pogues’ Shane MaGowan died recently. “Rob Tannenbaum (a journalist with a very appropriate name for this purpose) published a fascinating piece about the making of the song and the push to send it to the top of the charts in the United Kingdom.”

And here’s some Stax, which, of course, I have.

All I Want For Christmas Is You – Carla Thomas.

Gee Whiz It’s Christmas – Carla Thomas.

Every Day Will Be Like A Holiday – William Bell. This went #33 RB in 1968

The Mistletoe And Me – Isaac Hayes.

Jingle Bells (James Lord Pierpont) – Booker T. and The MG’s

Winter Snow (Isaac Hayes) – Booker T. and The MG’s

A Spotify surprise

J. Eric Smith

Has anything like this ever happen to you? I was visiting the site of one J. Eric Smith, as I am wont to do. In the then-current post, he noted: “It has been almost a year since I reluctantly caved to streaming my music.” He discussed the pros and cons of that.

“On the upside: I do like the ability to create playlists quickly, and there seems to be more of the musical arcana that I like available on Spotify than there was/is on iTunes, which I’d used exclusively for the prior 12 years. We’ve sort of defaulted to themed playlists around the house, ranging from 50 to 100 to 150 songs.

“(I’m obsessive about tidiness on such matters, and couldn’t stand to have a 52-song or 147-song list, no sir, that would not do, not at all).” I could definitely create a 52-song list. There are 52 cards in a standard deck of cards, after all.

Eric posted a great Africa playlist, 100 of his “favorite songs from that continent’s myriad musical cultures. ” I decided I didn’t want to listen to 30-second snippets of songs. So I figured I would finally get a free registration to Spotify.

Oops

Except, it appears that I had already done so. Of course, I didn’t record the password anywhere. So I had to get another one. They had the damnedest Captcha methodology I had ever seen. They showed a series of dice, some standard pips, and Arabic numbers, and you had to match the dice with a number three times.

I discovered that not only did I have an account, but I had made a playlist of my own: 12 Paul Simon songs. I have no recollection of having done so, let alone when or HOW I did that.

This falls into the category of a truism about me. Confronted by almost any technology that I don’t use regularly, it is like I’d never seen it before. When I figure it out again, maybe I’ll create more playlists. I have some particular ideas. And heck, I might even take requests.

Tactile

Or not. I came across this New York Times article. Want to Enjoy Music More? Stop Streaming It. Build a real music collection. Reintroduce intimacy to the songs you care about. Though Denise Lu is much younger than I, she gets me. “Maybe that’s why I never latched onto streaming services — I didn’t like depending on a third-party platform, or being part of a social experiment that feeds Spotify data that it then sells to advertisers.”

Something that Chuck Rozanski/Bettie Pages, the President of Mile High Comics, Inc. wrote on October 9 resonates with me. “I… drove to Jason St. mid-afternoon each day to sort comics until 8 PM. I don’t know why, but there is something about the Zen of spending hours sorting old comic books into categories that has the capacity to soothe the ache in my heart, and to restore my spirit.

“In many regards, for me, it is like visiting with old friends, as I can look at any given title and/or issue number and remember quite vividly where I was (and who I was…) when that issue was first released.”

About every four months, I have to resort all of the CDs I have played. You’d think it would be boring. Not for me. I, too, experience the joy of remembering how I got that album, maybe looking at something on the liner notes I forgot.