January 2025 - Page 3 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Movie review- Mufasa: The Lion King

Very leontine

I’m seeped in the Lion King mythos, so that’s why my wife, daughter, and I saw the Mufasa movie at the Spectrum Theatre in mid-January. My wife and I saw the original 1994 animated film, as did our daughter subsequently. The musical production at Proctor’s Theater in Schenectady my wife and I saw twice, once with our daughter. The daughter was in the production at church. I saw a junior high school production, and I suspect there’s another. But I didn’t see the live action film from 2019.

The reviews for Mufasa have been mixed, only 56% positive on Rotten Tomatoes. A postive review: “A remake of ‘The Lion King’ was an unnecessary move from a cinematic point of view, but a masterstroke from a business point of view.”

A couple negative takes: It “would have been perfect if its characters had fewer lines, and if the songs were in the background rather than emerging through the mouths of clearly computer-generated figures.” “The songs fall flat, the story is basic, and the movie falls for all of the prequel tropes we’ve grown tired of.”

Profitable

I agree with all of that. It is Disney money grab, for sure, and a successful one at that. While the animals were rendered wonderfully, it was a bit difficult to distinguish some of them, particularly the lions.

Watching them sing was a bit distracting. Some of the songs were particularly cutesy. Although I had forgotten he was involved, a few, in particular Bye Bye immediately sounded like Lin Manuel Miranda’s signature style, even though I had forgotten that he was involved with the film. Interestingly, listening to them without watching the action was less distracting.

We were surprised that the film suggested, albeit off screen, incredible violence, as the vultures head towards what had to have been a killing field.

But I think the film got better as the film centers on five characters, three lions and two others. There was an interesting lesson at the end which I suspect some people will think is a bit too “woke” for their taste, but which I thought was true. By the end of the movie, I’d given into the storyline.

I got enough out of it that it wasn’t a waste my time, but your experience may differ.

Cognitive dissonance

MLK/djt

I’m experiencing a tremendous degree of cognitive dissonance. Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and it’s also the inauguration of someone who doesn’t seem to understand what MLK was about.

During the 2024 campaign, he supported a truly dreadful candidate for governor of North Carolina, Mark Robinson, a black man. 45/47 said that Robinson was Martin Luther King “on steroids.” The Tar Heel is a guy who left messages on a “porn site’s message boards more than a decade ago in which he referred to himself as a ‘black NAZI,” among other failings. Fortunately, he lost badly in a state that Orange won.

There were many online posts claiming that djt was never accused of being racist until he decided to run for president. Well, no. This AP story notes otherwise. Most of it is not new to anyone paying attention.

“In 1973, for example, the Justice Department sued the real estate tycoon and his father for their alleged refusal to rent apartments in predominantly white buildings to Black tenants. Testimony showed that applications filed by Black apartment seekers were marked with a ‘C’ for ‘colored.’

“The lawsuit ended in a settlement in which the Trumps acknowledged they “failed and neglected” to comply with the Fair Housing Act, though they were never required to explicitly acknowledge discrimination had occurred.

“In 1989, Trump infamously took out full page newspaper ads calling for New York state to reinstate the death penalty as five Black and Latino teenagers were set to stand trial for beating and raping a white woman in Central Park.” And he doubled down on this long after they were exonerated, so they sued him in 2024 for defamation.

HUD

djt includes many of his former rivals in his cabinet and his inner circle, including people of color. He named Doctor Ben Carson the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; even though Carson had no experience in this area, it was convenient for him.

“Carson has allowed his family members to be involved in the operations of the department in ways that could benefit them. In particular, Carson’s son, Ben Carson Jr., and his daughter-in-law, Merlynn Carson, appear to have exercised an unusual amount of influence over certain government businesses. Emails uncovered by American Oversight and analyzed by news outlets reveal that both Carson Jr. and Merlynn Carson may have attempted to use their influence at HUD to advance their own private interests.” This shows that when he hires grifters, he doesn’t discriminate.

Black voters

Yet more black people voted for djt than ever before. Kamala “Harris appears to have won 80 percent of the Black vote, according to an exit poll by The Associated Press. But that’s a drop of 10 percentage points compared with 2020, when the current president, Joe Biden, won nine of 10 Black votes.

“The beneficiary? Trump, who won 20 percent of the Black vote this time, according to the exit poll. He had won 13 percent of the community’s vote in 2020 and 8 percent in 2016 — which in itself was the highest level of support by Black voters for any Republican since George W Bush in 2000…”

“Why? Today’s Black voters operate a bit more independently from previous generations, especially young Black voters, analysts say.

“Historically, the Democratic Party’s legacy with the civil rights movement is what kept it popular with Black voters. However, younger Black voters do not have those same civil rights legacy attachments…

“‘…this rising percentage of Black voters [is] taking a different look at the Republican Party in general and are exploring some curiosities with Trump despite his racial baggage.’”

I have no great insight here. The 47th president has the magic elixir that allows him to do things that I, as an old poli sci major, have never seen anyone else pull off. I hope that the country survives.

I will lean into the fact that, in the tradition of the MLK holiday, we act locally to make our country a better place despite what might happen at the national level. This isn’t easy, I know, but it is probably necessary. Here’s a Letter from a Birmingham Jail by MLK in 1963.

ARA: How’s Ken Jennings doing on JEOPARDY

pressure cookers

Kelly, who lives near Buffalo, asks an Ask Roger Anything question, wanting to know:

Ken Jennings: he’s been there a while now, so how’s he doing?

He’s doing fine. I could leave it at that, but his arc has been tricky. As you probably know, he was asked to be the first guest host after Alex Trebek died, and Alex had intimated that Ken should be his successor.

Ultimately, after all of the guest hosts made the situation a bit zooey, producer Mike Richards picked himself, but soon the hosts were Mayim Bialik and Ken. They seemed to get along, but fans either liked him and hated her or vice versa. At the time, I hated the big gap between the contestants’ responses and her saying it was correct or incorrect; my wife found it oddly endearing and suspenseful. No, I argued, it took longer, so the chance of the contestants clearing the board was lessened.

Matt Amodio, who won 38 games on the show, said that Mayim “was a great person to be around on the stage. Very nice, very fun. [But she] clearly is not the Jeopardy! fan that Ken is, and was just unable to bring that same level of knowledge and energy. As an experienced player like myself, it’s a little frustrating when the host doesn’t know to do something that I would have known just as a viewer of the show.” I agree with the sentiment.

Practice

Ultimately, when Mayim Bialik chose not to cross the picket line during the writers’ strike – even though it was not required (different union) – Ken got more repetitions as host. This made him better at the job, so they eventually squeezed Mayim out.

Most of the comments I read now are people complaining about whether a pronunciation or spelling should have been accepted. During the Trebek era, much of that was under the producers’ and judges’ purview. There have been a few cases when I thought they were pretty lax.

I didn’t know until recently that Ken Jennings talks to the contestants before the show, while Alex Trebek would never do that. This made Alex more imposing but may also make Ken more relatable. When I was on, I only heard Trebek before the games when the local press in Boston interviewed him.

Too many tournaments

I have to admit that I hate the Second Chance Tournament on JEOPARDY! This was a direct result of the writers’ strike when they chose to use previously selected questions. People didn’t win a game, but they brought them back one more chance at becoming a champion, and then three of them had a two-game final.

This happens for two weeks, and those winners, in turn, go to the Champions Wild Card tournament, which predates the Tournament of Champions. It’s way too many tournaments for my taste! Moreover, most of Ken’s contestant questions are of the “What did your friends say after your first appearance/how did you prepare for this appearance” mode; astonishingly boring.

One of the things Ken has done that some people think was really sweet is that the people who participate in the Second Chance Tournament on the second of their two days during the final get to thank people for supporting them in their JEOPARDY effort. This was something that Alex Trebek did near the end of a Tournament of Champions or another substantial tournament. Doing this during the Second Chance tournament frankly feels undeserved. It bugs me a little, but he’s doing it because Alex used to do it in the ToC.

Boom!

People have told me that “old-school” pressure cookers were terrifying appliances. We never had one. Did you, and if so, were they as scary as all that?

I’ve seen a few of them, but if we ever had one growing up, I don’t recall. I never owned one as an adult because of the stories I had heard, such as this comment from a 2023 post: “Old-time pressure cookers could be dangerous. They had several knobs and locks to secure the lid. If things weren’t lined up and tightened correctly, there could be an explosion when the pressure got high enough.”

So, I can totally see myself mucking that up. No, thanks.

The Siena Senators

sound like me

Apparently, a guy named Roger Owen Green from Albany, NY wrote a letter to the editor of the Albany Times Union that was published on December 22nd, 1988, about an issue at a local college. What’s weird about it is that the little snippet of a newspaper clipping seemed to come out of nowhere. Where had it been before? My wife found it on my dresser.

Anyway, it was titled The Siena Senators by the newspaper.

To the editor:

Your reader who did not understand the reasoning for Siena’s sports teams changing their designations from Indians may be interested to know that there are groups who are trying to get the Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, and Washington Redskins to change their nicknames.

If these names are not offensive, then why have we not seen the Cincinnati Caucasians, the Oakland Orientals, or the Newark Negroes? The hue and cry would be vigorous and appropriate.

My recommendation for Siena is the Senators, a historic team in north Albany, and a nifty alliteration.

Ahead of the curve

I have no recollection of writing this. It does sound like me, though, so I can’t attribute it to someone else. When she read it, my daughter said, “Oh yeah, Roger’s always been woke.” I was woke before woke was a thing.

The historical reference was to the Albany Senators.

The Cleveland Indians became the Guardians after the 2021 season. Meanwhile, “the NFL‘s Redskins became the Washington Football Team in 2020, then the Commanders in 2022, but the team may return to the identity it previously held for 87 years.”

By the way, the college in Loudonville, Albany County, changed its nickname to the Saints because it’s a private Franciscan institution, which I found to be a reasonable choice.

The timing of the letter is interesting. It was right after I left FantaCo in November 1988 and before I started working for Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield in February 1989. I don’t remember writing many letters to the editor, but I had time then.

Now, I would write something in my blog. And I was a Times Union blogger between 2008 and 2021, so that would have been an appropriate venue.

Musician/actor Steve Earle is 70

I Feel Alright

Someone must have given me a Steve Earle album or two back in the 1990s, probably I Feel Alright. His breakthrough album, Guitar Town, came out in 1986, going to #1 on the Billboard Country charts. I hadn’t thought of him so much as a country artist as a folk/Americana (whatever that means) musician.

He has long been an anti-war activist, opposing the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. He’s also been involved in other progressive/socialist causes. On one of his live albums, he mentioned that he sang at an early Farm Aid concert, admitting that it benefited him more than the farmers because “they didn’t know who the hell I was

His biography on Wikipedia is extensive. It mentioned his younger sister, Stacie Earle, and his late son, Justin Townes Earle (d. 2020), both of whom he has sung with. He’s been married seven times, including to one woman twice.

Writer

“Earle wrote and produced an off-Broadway play about the death of Karla Faye Tucker, the first woman executed since the death penalty was reinstated in Texas.“

He’s a bit of an iconoclast: In describing the writing of The Book I Swore I’d Never Write, he noted: “I’m writing a memoir,” he said in a to-be-published article. “I made a deal for two books, a memoir, and a novel. They made me an offer I couldn’t understand [laughs].”

He continued, “It’s not an autobiography, it’s a literary memoir, a little more abstract. It’s not like, ‘I was born a poor black child…’ and it doesn’t try and encompass every minute of my life. I think it’s about something besides me. It’s really about heroes and mentors, good and bad, so obviously the first part is about [renowned songwriter and Earle’s mentor] Townes [Van Zandt], before I started making records. The record-making aspect is in other books about me, I understand, but I’ve never read any of them.

Songs

Roughly leading to my favorite song

Goodbye’s All We’ve Got Left

The Galway Girl

John Walker’s Blues, the song about the captured American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh, created controversy. Earle responded by appearing on various news and editorial programs and defending the song and his views on patriotism and terrorism.

Christmas In Washington

The Revolution Starts Now

Way Down The Hole. Earle’s version of Tom Waits‘ song was the “theme song for the fifth season of the HBO series The Wire, in which Earle appeared as a recovering drug addict and drug counselor named Walon (Earle’s character appears in the first, fourth, and fifth seasons).” Earle is a recovering heroin addict.

CCKMP – “Cocaine can’t kill my pain.”

Hard-Core Troubador

Day’s Aren’t Long Enough with Alison Moorer, his then-wife

The Devil’s Right Hand

Copperhead Road

Feel Alright

Ellis Unit One – Music From And Inspired By The Motion Picture Dead Man Walking. Earle is an anti-death penalty advocate.

Guitar Town

You’re Still Standing There with Lucinda Williams

Valentine’s Day. My favorite February 14 lyrics

Steve Earle turns 70 today.