Category: Fred Hembeck

Favorite Albums 2006

I’m going to forgo the notion of BEST and give you a list of my fifteen favorite albums of 2006, the albums that gave me the most pleasure. I’m convinced that there’s a strong correlation between expectation and what one likes.

15. Paul Simon-Surprise. I discussed this before, as did Tosy. I still like the first and last songs best, though just this week, I was chair dancing to one of the other tunes, to the delight of my daughter.

14. Johnny Cash-American V: A Hundred Highways. My assessment pretty well matched Nik’s. Not as strong as the first 4 American albums, which I love, or even material from the posthumous box set.

13. Jerry Lee Lewis-Last Man Standing. I had low expectations on this one, so it was a pleasant surprise. 22 guest stars, but many of them are used well.

12. Dixie Chicks-Taking the Long Way. Yes, I’m glad they’re “not ready to make nice,” but I liked this musically as well.

11. Neil Young: Living with War. Will this album age well, Lefty wonders. I don’t know, but I enjoy it for what it does in 2006/2007 in the midst of the current situation.

10. Ronstadt/Savoy-Adieu False Heart.
My initial assessment was that I LOVED most of the Annie Savoy Cajun stuff, while Linda’s stuff was only OK, but the latter’s grown on me.

9. Knopfler/Harris: All the Roadrunning.
The musical chemistry is good.

8. Beatles-Love. Nik wasn’t crazy about it, and even Beatles uberfan Fred gave it a lukewarm reception, but I fully expected to, well, LOVE this album, based on the initial cut I heard, Within You, Without You, with the instrumentation of Tomorrow Never Knows. The problem with this, and I now understand Paul and Ringo’s point on this, is that it didn’t do MORE of this. A lot of it sounded like slight variations on the Beatles’ catalog, which I already own. More backwards Sun King! More segued cuts, even if it treads close to “Stars on Forty-Fab” territory. I’m not offended by the remixing, I only wanted it weirder.

7. Costello/Toussaint: The River in Reverse. I thought the last album I have by Elvis, North, was a bit of a bland disappointment, so I was pleased to hear this one. I think the album’s latter tracks are generally better than the earlier ones, and the album as a whole improves with every play.

6. Black Cadillac-Rosanne Cash.
Weird, I suppose, that the album about JRC’s death should rate higher with me than JRC’s album. In any case, it’s not just about her father’s death, but her mother’s and her stepmother’s, all in a couple-year period. Bit I didn’t find it to be a depressing album at all.

5. Tom Petty-Highway Companion.
Somebody please tell me why the Tom Petty albums are, in general, more enjoyable than the Heartbreakers albums over the same period? This is a recent acquisition and may go higher with repeated listening.

4. Ray Davies-Other People’s Lives.
Given its long gestation period, an amazingly coherent album. Recent acquisition, may go up.
Sidebar: The album is on V2 Records. A very good friend of mine writes:
“V2 Records North America is no longer. This ten year old company has sadly bitten the dust as a functioning label.
My 9+ years here have run the gamut. There’s been the satisfaction of witnessing a small bird taking flight and the brutal crush of a boulder rolling down a mountain.”

3. Bob Dylan-Modern Times.
That I didn’t love it quite as much as Love and Theft – but I may, with time – doesn’t negate the enjoyment I’ve received.

2. Bruce Springsteen-We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.
As I said before, this album came pre-loved.

AND, my #1 favorite album of 2006:

Spongebob Squarepants: The Best Day Ever.

Maybe it’s because I came in with such low expectations, despite Fred’s affection for it; I mean, the man has SpongeBob underwear! And while I’ve watched the cartoon in the past, I’m not a regular viewer.
But I bought into the concept of the album as a radio broadcast, more fully realized than The Who Sell Out; the Who ran out of time, or interest, in completing the theme. My favorite song: “Barnacles”, a word you use when you stub your toe and don’t want to say something inappropriate.

What was your favorite album of 2006?
The Beatles- LOVE
Johnny Cash- American V
Black Cadillac-Rosanne Cash
Ray Davies-Other People’s Lives
Dixie Chicks-Taking the Long Way
Bob Dylan-Modern Times
Jerry Lee Lewis-Last Man Standing
Nellie McKay-Pretty Little Head
Tom Petty-Highway Companion
Corrine Bailey Rae
Paul Simon-Surprise
SpongeBob Squarepants- Best Day Ever
Bruce Springsteen-The Seeger Sessions
Neil Young-Living With War
Something else
pollcode.com free polls

ROG

Romeo, Romeo

Carol, Lydia, and I sojourned down to the Mid-Hudson valley a couple hours south of Albany for the weekend.

FRIDAY- If you’ve read the column at Frez Sez for August 9 – complete with (shudder), photographs (or should that be (shutter)?), you will already know what the first stop was: visiting Fred Hembeck and Lynn Moss! Given the fact that I have mentioned Fred in this blog any number of times, I may have failed to say that I probably haven’t SEEN him in the flesh since…well, I don’t know. I MAY have run into him at Midnight Comics in 1992, but even that would have been 13 years ago. And it was probably much longer.

Lynn, I’m almost certain that I haven’t seen since my FantaCo days, and that was 1988. If she wasn’t at the FantaCon that year, it might have even been 1983, the previous FantaCon and the year after they moved from Troy to the Mid-Hudson.

Of course, they haven’t met Carol or Lydia.

We arrived in the mid-afternoon (our goal was earlier, but ever since we had a child, we are, inexplicably, ALWAYS LATE.) We got to meet the famous Julie, one of the stars of Fred’s column Fred Sez. She’s bright and pleasant and a talented artist; the source of these skills is a puzzlement. (Kidding, Fred!) Unfortunately, MY child, Lydia, proceeded to move some things around, such as some models for some still life; I hope Julie forgives.

Lydia was infinitely interested in the bunny Romeo. She’s never seen such a creature, so she thoroughly enjoyed petting the rabbit.

I should note that a couple days before, I get this lengthy e-mail from Fred describing the disarray of his abode. It was not as bad as he made it sound, and was a lot neater than places I lived pre-Carol. It was, as someone I knew called it, “lived in,” particularly the area where Fred creates his artistic magic. I recognized some of the comics pulled out for his recent writings (Dr. Graves, Little Dot).

Early on, Carol and Lynn discover that Lynn knows Carol’s brother Dan from work!

As Fred wrote, one of the peculiar aspects of parts of the conversation was that I would say something, and often Fred and/or Lynn would say, “Oh, yeah, you mentioned that in your blog.” Fred would make a comment and I’d cite Fred’s even longer body of electronic musings. Fortunately, we DID have things to talk about that we hadn’t written about, and since Carol doesn’t often read my blog and I doubt EVER reads Fred’s (sorry, guy), it was all new to her.

Since Fred and Lynn have a nearly 15-year old (birthday the same month as Michael Jackson, her former musical hero – now she’s into Pink Floyd), the house isn’t what you called babyproof, so Carol & I took turns chasing around Lydia lest she tumble down the couple steps into the living room or den. Lydia seemed to love going around and around and around…

Fred dropped off Julie at a friend’s house. Later we had a lovely lasagna dinner prepared by Lynn. Afterwards, the storm that had come through passed and we went into the pool.

My favorite conversation with Fred took place then. It was a lot of pop culture references for which we could use verbal shorthand. In fact, the BEST part was when we discussed…oh, wait, I can’t talk about THAT. Fred is going to use it for his blog! It has to do with entertainment, but not comic books.

Then I got to go to THE BASEMENT, where rows of comics and comic-related material resided, some stacked quite neatly. But the man needs more shelves!

We had a wonderful time but needed to leave to go to our hotel room near Poughkeepsie and put the child to bed.

SATURDAY: We went to a swimming party at Darla’s in Pleasant Valley. This was a group of old friends, some of which I’d known since college, and the rest were connected to my college buds. Lydia was fascinated by the cat, also named Romeo, but the feline just ran away. Lots of good food. A mellow time.

SUNDAY: We left the hotel and drove over to my college town of New Paltz. Well, the place has a NP mailing address, but is actually closer to Rifton. In any case, I visited my friends Mark and Paula. They were at the party yesterday but arrived late, and we didn’t have much of a chance to talk with them then. Mark is one of the few people I can tell you the date I met him: September 12, 1971, the first day of college. We’ve been friends ever since. He’s the one who got me into comic books. Paula is his high school sweetheart. They went their separate ways after high school, but got back together in the early 1990s and got married. They have a 10-year old daughter Adrienne.

We had lunch, and the talk old friends have. I nagged Mark into seriously thinking about a blog (he’s a lot more opinionated than I), and suggested possible topics for it.

We drove home, happy to have experienced the trip, and happy to be home (except that, apparently, the power had gone out AGAIN…)

ROG

Bloggerama

I’ve been blogging three months. Given the fact that some folks have been blogging three years or longer, it ain’t no big deal to anyone but me. But it has been a real learning experience:

1) Can I be disciplined enough to post something, however slight, every day? So far, the answer, surprisingly (to me) is yes.

2) Will this allow me to “get in touch” with buried stuff, exhibiting existential angst in the public marketplace? Well, yes and no. I’ve certainly learned stuff about me (and you have, too.) But I DO have an edit button most of the time. So whatever salacious stuff you’ve seen, know that there’s even worse stuff in my head that you haven’t seen (and may never see – or you will, someday, maybe.)

3) Will anyone actually read this thing? Well, apparently, yes. To gauge that further, I’ve changed the settings so that any strange person can reply to my messages, rather than any strange person registered with Blogger. I reserve the right to alter that again, of course.

4) Will I get sucked up into this blogisphere, checking out other sites? Well, some.
The only site I visit every day without fail (unless he posts after my bedtime) is Mr. Hembeck’s. He suckered me into this, after all. Besides, occasionally I can get a mention in his column
(July 23, plus some JEOPARDY! plugs).

Often, after I have posted, I hit the Next Blog button in upper right of my page. Sometimes, I find sweet pieces like this one. I almost ALWAYS find a plug for Texas Hold ‘Em. Want a Spanish-language review of the movie Sin City? How about a political rant of a total stranger? And how the heck can I possible hit the same blog twice, given the number of new entrants into the arena?

At Mr. Hembeck’s suggestion, I’ve been regularly going to News from Me by Mark Evanier, a very newsworthy source. And he rants about the same political stuff that irks me, only he does it better. Also, I read one of my favorite comic writer’s blog, one Steve Gerber.

I’ve been checking out the folks involved with Chris Brown’s Mixed Bag CD exchange (May 23), and some of them are quite entertaining. But I have to make special mention of Greg Burgas, who has two daughters, at least two blogs (one about his aforementioned two daughters), and inexplicably but happily, too much time on his hands.

In re: the Mixed CD folks, one of the goals for the month will be to start to review those tunes, probably two discs at a time, once this week, then twice a week until they’re done. I’d say Wednesdays and Saturdays except that I’ve already foreseen some exceptions to that rule.

Oh, and if there are issues you know that I know about that I haven’t written about, please let me know. I may decide that now’s not the time, but I will keep it “under advisement,” as they say.

ROG

How U C da Flick

My friend Fred wrote in his IGN column last week that he liked the largely poorly-reviewed Fantastic Four movie, and that didn’t bother me; I haven’t even seen it yet. But when he said the movie The Incredibles, my FAVORITE movie last year in what was an admittedly limited selection, was ONLY OK, I was shocked, SHOCKED! until I remembered Roger’s Rules of Cinema Watching.

1. Some movies require the big screen for initial viewing. This has been the contention of others about the special-effects movies such as Star Wars or The Matrix, but I discovered that it’s important in some other films as well.

My first personal example: Coming Home, with Jane Fonda and Kris Kristofferson. I saw it at the movies, enjoyed it. I saw it again on HBO and liked it not quite so much. I figured that it wasn’t a movie that could bear a second viewing. But then, I happened to see it a third time at a second-run theater, anf I enjoyed it nearly as much as I did the first time.
I’m convinced that, unless you have a large screen TV in a darkened room, with no access to the pause button, it’s not nearly the same viewing experience. But…

2. Some movies are actually better on the small screen. I recall reading about, and subsequently seeing, a movie called Cold Turkey with Dick van Dyke, which was a bomb of a movie in its limited theatrical run, but actually found its niche as the prototype of the TV movie. I’m sure I saw it in the early 1970s on TV, when it ran SEVERAL times. BTW, it was about quitting tobacco, not something else.

3. Some movies are so good, it doesn’t matter how you see them. Carol and I saw the DVD of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, earlier this year. We stopped the disc halfway through and went to bed! That’s no way to see a film! Yet we still enjoyed it thoroughly.

4. High expectations will alter how you see a movie. My girlfriend at the time, her son, and I went to see Chariots of Fire the week after it had won best picture of 1981 at the Oscars. We all thought: “THAT was the best picture last year?” Likewise, I had rented a video of Citizen Kane, triumphed as “the greatest film ever made”, and (HORRORS!) fell asleep. Conversely, as Fred noted HERE (July 20), low expectations may aid your viewing of a film.

5. Revealed plot points will alter how, or whether, you see a movie. The movie-going public kept the secrets of The Crying Game, The Sixth Sense, and The Usual Suspects. But unfortunately, I found out about the secret in Million Dollar Baby from some folks with a political agenda, so if I ever do see it, I’m going to try to forget what I know and let the movie surprise me.

6. Fatigue, a bad day, life’s distractions will also alter your viewing enjoyment.

In Fred’s case with the Incredibles, I believe #1, #4, and maybe #6 apply. Fred, I really think it is as good as you had heard, and I’m sorry your viewing didn’t relect that. Now, I’ve got to go rent Citizen Kane, and try to watch it again, preferably NOT late at night.

ROG

Jim Aparo, comic book artist

In my mind’s eye, when I think of a Batman cover, it’s not the 1960’s Go Go Checks, Bam/Pow cheesy Batman. Nor is it even the fine Frank Miller Dark Knight. It’s the clean, expressive work of Jim Aparo, who died early yesterday. You can see a couple of his covers here and here (July 19) and doubtlessly, many other places.

Of course he worked on a lot more than the Caped Crusader, and my friend, intrepid reporter Fred Hembeck (July 19), who broke the story to much of the comic book world, can tell you more.

My condolences to the Aparo family.

ROG
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