Category: Gordon

Roger Answers Your Questions, Gordon

Gordon, who knows I’ve met Rod Serling, asks these questions:

1) What’s your favorite Twilight Zone episode?

Certainly, Time Enough At Last with Burgess Meredith:

The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street with Claude Akins and Jack Weston, and A Game of Pool with Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters are up there. It’s a Good Life with Billy Mumy and The Dummy with Cliff Robertson and Frank Sutton scared me as a kid.
But perhaps, as a librarian, I relate most to The Obsolete Man with Burgess Meredith and Fritz Weaver, about librarians and religion and politics, which can be seen, in three parts, below:


Yes, it’s heavy-handed and preachy, but that’s OK by me.

2) What have you been asked to do professionally that has you going, “I can’t believe they pay me to do this?”

When I worked at the Schenectady Arts Council on a CETA grant in 1978 into January 1979, I was hired as a bookkeeper and to run a biweekly craft show, but there really wasn’t that much to do to fill 35 or 40 hours a week, though I was on the telephone selling ads for a benefit to revitalize Proctor’s Theatre for a couple weeks. So I found other things to take on. The dancer, Darlene, was teaching elementary school kids dance in the elementary schools, including disco, and she needed a partner, so I was drafted. The secretary, Susan, decided that she and I would go sing to the developmentally disabled from time to time. I loved that job, loved dealing with artists and musicians, and we stopped only because the money ran out.

3) What’s the deal with “Chocolate Rain”? I don’t get it.

You mean this thing that got 16 million hits and won some YouTube award?


Damned if I know. I have little idea WHY something becomes a hit on the Internet: LOLcats or lonelygirl15 – don’t really get it.
That said, let me spitball here. It may be the juxtaposition of the unexpected. This nerdy-looking black guy with a deep voice that one might not be anticipating, with lyrics that seem to be saying SOMETHING, but we’re not sure what; better play it again. Or maybe it’s that he’s put his listeners in a trance with the keyboards.
***
The footer to an e-mail I received yesterday (no, I don’t know the parties involved)-
Mr. Diefenbaker:…I mentioned the cost of living a moment ago, and while I speak the cost of living has gone up.
Mr. St. Laurent: You should stop speaking.

ROG

ROG

Not boring

The only thing that sucks more than being sick is being sick around my birthday. I seem to have what half of everyone I know seems to be suffering with. My wife’s been ill, too, and she took an illness-related fall on Tuesday that meant seven (count ’em, 7) hours in the ER; I went with her, and the event involved a number of brief flurries of action, followed by huge periods of waiting.

On the potential upside this week, one of my oldest friends, Karen, who I’ve known for 50 YEARS!, and whose birthday, not so incidentally, is March 9, sent me this Susan Miller astrology chart:

“It’s rare to have Uranus so close to the Sun and moon, and if you were born on March 7 or within five days of this date, [such as Gordon, whose birthday is today] this new moon will help you advance your hopes and wishes in a big way. This will not be a boring month, by anyone’s estimation!

A new moon will coincide with one’s birthday only very rarely – it could be decades until this happens again – so the coming 12 months should be VERY memorable, filled with fresh starts. If you were born on or near the new moon, March 7, you more than other Pisces will feel the full effects and benefits that are about to flow forward.

The best part of this is that the new moon will be in elegant angle to Jupiter, the Great Benefactor planet, now in your solar 1st house of your personality, identity, and all dreams and desires important to you. The 1st house is the engine that drives the whole chart!”

I suppose I should note that March 7 is MY birthday. While I’m not a big believer in astrology, I don’t dismiss it outright either. Anyway, I love that “the new moon will be in elegant angle to Jupiter”; I have no idea what that means, but it sounds purty.

ROG

ROG

Movie Quote Meme

In as much as it’s Oscar weekend, I thought I’d cop this from Gordon. However, I didn’t looked at his responses before writing this because I didn’t want to be influenced by my near-twin’s choices:

1. Pick 10 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Fill in the film title once it’s guessed.
5. NO Googling/using IMDb search functions.
(Feel free to stick your guesses in the comments section)
I THINK half of them may be easy, the other half not so much, but none of these films are obscure.

1. There’s an old joke – um… two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ’em says, “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know; and such small portions.”
“Annie Hall” = Tom the Dog

2. It’s got a long rock wall with a big oak tree at the north end. It’s like something out of a Robert Frost poem. It’s where I asked my wife to marry me. We went there for a picnic and made love under that oak and I asked and she said yes.
“Shawshank Redemption” – Scott

3. You’re a sucker for French poetry and rhinestones. You’re very generous. You’re kind to strangers and children, and when you stand in the snow you look like an angel.
“Groundhog Day” – Tom the Dog

4. If I don’t get a little law and order around here, I get busted down to a traffic corner. And your friend don’t like traffic corners.
“West Side Story” – Gordon

5. We’ve become bored with watching actors give us phony emotions. We are tired of pyrotechnics and special effects.
The Truman Show

6. They have to paint me red before they chop me. It’s a different religion from ours. I think.
“Help!” – Gordon!

7. Uh, well, if anyone from the, uh, from the IRS is watching, I… forgot to file my, my, my 1040 return. Um, I meant to do it today, but, uh…
“Apollo 13” –Jaquandor

8. My story begins in London, not so very long ago. And yet so much has happened since then, that it seems more like an eternity.
One Hundred and One Dalmatians

9. I want them to stop looking to me for answers, begging me to speak again, write again, be a leader. I want them to start thinking for themselves. I want my privacy.
“Field of Dreams” – Scott

10. Do you have a special grudge against me? Do you feel a particularly strong resentment? Is there something I’ve said that’s caused this contempt, or is it just things I stand for that you despise?
The Graduate
***
For Gordon and Lefty, other Doctor Who fans, and linguists: Darleks vs Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre

ROG

ROG

Johnny Otis


Dear Near Twin:

I was listening to your 2007 in review podcast. Enjoyable as usual. But I was surprised to find that *I* cast the the deciding vote in the the naming of Cast THIS, Pal! Cool.

You played a Christmas cut by Johnny Otis, who you said you weren’t familiar with. Since you are THE #1 music guru of the inestimable Lefty Brown, I thought I’d share this with you.

Johnny Otis is a guy born in 1921 of Greek heritage (given last name: Veliotes) who immersed himself in rhythm and blues. He rather reminds me a little of Ahmet Ertegun, another person of eastern Mediterranean heritage, in his case Turkish, who co-founded Atlantic Records.

Johnny Otis was a band leader, producer and A&R man who “discovered” Etta James, Jackie Wilson and Hank Ballard (who wrote “The Twist”). He produced Etta’s first hit, Roll With Me, Henry (The Wallflower), oft-covered since, as well as Big Mama Thornton’s original recording of Hound Dog three years before Elvis Presley’s version.

Otis had his own recording success doing Willie and the Hand Jive, which went to #9 on the pop charts in 1958. Eric Clapton covered it in 1974, and it went to #26. You might remember the song from the movie Grease.
Here’s Johnny performing it with Marti Adams and the Three Tons of Joy:

Though Hand Jive was his only pop hit, the Johnny Otis Orchestra had several R&B hits, usually with other vocalists such as Little Esther and Mel Walker.

He was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer in 1994. Here’s something from the Wikipedia post on him:
Frank Zappa has cited Otis as the inspiration for his distinctive trademark facial hair, stating in an interview conducted by Simpsons creator Matt Groening and Guitar Player magazine editor Don Menn that “it looked good on Johnny Otis, so I grew it.”

Otis maintains a popular radio show on KPFA, called The Johnny Otis Show.

There’s a singer named Shuggie Otis, who was/is a psychedelic soul/funk guy – I have one of his albums – who wrote and performed Strawberry Letter #23, later a hit for the Brothers Johnson. I did not know that Shuggie is Johnny Otis’ son.

Anyway, Gordon, thanks for the inspiration for the post.

All the best,
ROG

ROG

Roger Answers Your Questions, Gordon and Rick

Gordon, whose birthday is the day before mine, albeit a couple several many years later, asks:

1)Who IS your hero?
Actually, it’s anyone who speaks truth to power. But the person who’s moved me the most this year is Bill Moyers on PBS, who used to work in LBJ’s administration. He’s talked about the fallacies of the war in Iraq, taken on Big Media in a BIG way, and speaks about religion and faith and race in a wonderful, open-minded manner. Did you see Keith Olbermann on his show recently? Maybe I’m reading into it, but I think Keith, who I like, BTW, is a bit in awe of Bill, because they are in the same “town crier” business, but Moyers has been doing it a lot longer.

2) In this age of mega media-conglomeration, when the major studios are crying poverty during the Writer’s Strike…what do you suggest we (as citizens) do?
Use less. Interesting sentence, that, because take away the space and it’s useless, which is how I think lots of people are feeling about struggling against the mass everything. And it is a struggle. But to the degree possible, go to the locally-owned movie theater. See the local productions. Watch Moyers. As to the specifics of the writer’s strike, don’t watch the network shows online, don’t buy DVDs (if you really must see the complete Stargate again, rent it.)
Did you see the Story of Stuff? If you do, I think you’ll be less likely to want to buy the crap that we’re being told that we MUST have. It’s all part of the same struggle. On the same news cycle that we read that retailers are hoping for a late pre-Christmas shopping surge, we see that credit card debt is getting higher than ever.
They put out individual seasons of our favorite TV show and we buy that. Then they put out the box set with “extras”, expecting us to buy that too. Don’t. The music industry works the same way; no wonder that many people are “ripping off” the record companies. The system seems to be designed, per planned obsolesce and/or bait and switch, to make you buy the same thing again and again. Don’t let ’em.

Before I get to Gordon’s last question, I want to address this query by George (Rick) Lewis: Why are the daytime talk shows unaffected by the writer’s strike??? Well, I did not know that they weren’t affected. Poking around the Internet, I’ve read that the producers have enough scripts to get through January. And at least during the last strike 20 years ago, scabs non-union “scribes” were hired to pick up the slack. But the particulars of who is or is not covered is not my area of expertise; go ask Mark Evanier.

3) Why do people insist on playing/listening to “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”? That is one of the most annoying songs ever written.

(Plus, traumatic incidents should never be comedy fodder).

Let me take on the parenthetical aside first. Trauma is often comedy fodder. I understand the feeding the Christians to the lions was considered great fun; well, not to the Christians, I suppose.
Seriously, there are people who think that horror movies where the cliched young adults meet their demise is high camp; I tend not to watch them myself, but that’s what I’ve heard.
One traumatic event I thought was TERRIBLY funny was the end of the movie, The Life of Brian – a crucifixion! And the victims are singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”! A song so strong that it made its way into the musical Spamalot. So I think the eye-gouging of the Three Stooges or Wile E. Coyote’s Acme bomb blowing up before he gets the Road Runner (meep meep) definitely have its fans.

As to the Elmo and Patsy song itself, I’ll admit that I actually purchased the single. (For you youngsters, a single, for about a half century starting in the 1950s, was a seven-inch piece of musical vinyl with a large hole in the middle, to be played at 45 revolutions per minute on something called a “record player”.) And I liked it because it was, to my mind, a lovely little deconstruction of all the cloying sentimentality of the season. I never thought it would turn out to be a perennial favorite, and I don’t listen to it much any more, mostly because I’ve become bored with it. (And the remake that you hear on the radio is not, to my mind, as good as the less-polished version that I purchased.) In any event, Gordon, it may please you to know that others share your sentiment.
***
Confidential to GP: I’m not sure that I’ve had a breakup as devastating as yours with Liar Ex (who told many lies). But the cumulative effect on me of “love gone bad” (title of a Chris Clark song, not bad grammar) has had its impact. Were you ever dumped by an e-mail so circuitous that it took you three reads to get the message? I have. I’m just sayin’. But if I went through the litany, we’d both be way too depressed.

ROG

ROG
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