Category: obit

Yawn – here now the news


I have found a lot of the details of the recent news less than riveting.

The Sanford sex scandal: more hypocrisy from someone who chastised others (in his case, Bill Clinton, among others.) Another sobbing confession; comparing himself to King David was a nice touch though. In fact, the only real issue for me is possible is him being “out of pocket” for a week. Don’t know South Carolina law, but it’s the disappearing that seems to be the real issue. And I can’t help but think that if he HAD notified his staff and the lieutenant governor he was away, the sex part might not have come out at all.

The blow-by-blow of the joke we (not laughingly) call the New York State Senate doesn’t interest me any more. I just want them to grow up and gt back to work. Last week, I asked my wife if she had heard the big news. She said, “You mean how a senator insulted the governor?” I said, “No, that Michael Jackson died.” Don’t even care which senator said what to whom. i DO think that the governor, David Paterson, is looking more..gubernatorial in all of this, though.

And speaking of Michael Jackson, we’ve now gotten into the silly season, and most of what has happened since about Monday, I’ve caught the headlines, but am actively not reading the stories. A couple things I noticed though. Last Friday’s ABC News, which dedicated the majority of the show to Michael, played snippets of songs by the J5 and MJ; they described the first song as “One More Chance-1970” when it was “I Want You Back”. It would have been an understandable error on Thursday as a breaking story on Thursday, but sloppy on Friday. At least two podcasts identified “Ebony and Ivory” as by Paul McCartney and MJ, when it was by Macca and Stevie Wonder. The good news is that a couple of folks – wish I could remember who – who noted that Off the Wall was Revolver to Thriller’s Sgt. Pepper; less well-known but the better album.

Should Bernie Madoff gotten 150 years? Of course not. He should have gotten 99 years, and with good behavior would be out of prison before he hit 120. But seriously, it doesn’t much matter to me.

Oscars are going to have 10 best picture nominees? Whatever. There were double-digit numbers of nominees in several categories in the late 1930s (and I don’t care enough to even look it up!) I do recall that 1939, one of the best years in cinema, had a huge number of nominees. I wonder, though, that by dumping some of the non-competitive awards, it will change the character of the show. And would the nomination of, say, The Dark Knight and WALL-E (probably) in the Best Picture mix have changed the outcome last year? Unknowable, of course.

I’m watching Bill Moyers on PBS tonight, but even after that shot of Christianity in the liberal tradition, I’m convinced most people will still believe that when they hear the words “Christian in America”, they’ll assume, in the words of local pastor Jo Page: “anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-socialized medicine, pro-gun rights, pro-creationism, pro-abstinence and literalist when it comes to reading the Bible.”

Is Shia Labouef dating Megan Fox? Surely, I don’t care, but am surprised to note that I actually know who they are. (I saw the movie “Holes” and I read other blogs.)

I do care that Karl Malden died, but he’s been out of the public eye so long – one appearance on the West Wing in 2000, nothing else since 1993 – that most people thought the 97-year-old had passed away years ago. I did watch The Streets of San Francisco regularly, but save for On The Waterfront, I’m not sure I ever saw him on film. And he never convinced me to buy American Express travelers’ checks.
ROG

ROG

I Remember Where I Was When I Heard Michael Jackson Died

I do know and am quite likely to remember how I learned of MJ’s death.

Just as I remember when JFK died – fifth grade, Miss Oberlik’s class, Daniel S. Dickinson School, Binghamton, NY. Just as I remember finding out about the Challenger disaster – working in the back room at FantaCo Enterprises, the late comic book store store on Central Avenue, Albany, NY, while listening to Q-104, when Mary Margaret Apple interrupted the music to give the news.

This is not to say – lest you start to fret – that I’m making a comparison about the import of these events. I am talking about how memory works.

I was at the Albany Public Library, main branch, computer room, shortly after 6 p.m. on Thursday, June 25. I needed to write about my daughter for a blog post the next day. Then I heard someone say to the woman at the desk that Michael Jackson had died. WHA? So I went to CNN and AP, both of whom indicated that Michael had been rushed to the hospital but neither of whom had announced his death. Most sources indicated that TMZ, the Matt Drudge of entertainment sites, WAS declaring Michael dead, but that they were seeking independent verification.

About 15 minutes later, CNN notes that “multiple sources” have noted Michael’s passing. In the moment, I was more peeved that TMZ had been right in breaking the story, that this was a greater sign of the deterioration of the mainstream media, than the death of an entertainer who I’d watched, sometimes with tremendous admiration and other times in disdain, over the past four decades. Someone who, and I ALWAYS hate this, was younger than I am.

The death of Michael Jackson is this fascinating cultural and technological phenomenon. It slowed Twitter to a crawl and taxed much of the rest of the Internet as well.

Here’s what always bothers me about these types of stories. There are folks who say endlessly, “Why do people care about THAT? If people spent more time caring about (pick one or more) world hunger/the health care crisis/the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan/whatever, rather than some entertainer’s death, we’d be better off.” It’s often the same people disdain the use of television (they don’t have one or only watch PBS).

I’m willing to bet that if people spent as much time worrying about the health care industry as they did about Michael or Jon & Kate (who I must admit, I didn’t even know who they were until a month ago) or some other “frivolous” thing, it would have next to zero impact on the important issue. It is as though some individuals feel that passion for Off the Wall, Michael’s best album, could be somehow transferable to other, more “significant” things. (Speaking of which, apparently Michael’s soul has been saved, in case you were wondering.) Thank goodness ABC was planning repeats of Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice last Thursday so they could preempt them for instant specials on Michael and Farrah Fawcett, who, not unexpectedly, had died earlier that day. (What, no special on Sky Saxon of the Seeds?)

So I will remember how I learned of Michael’s death, just as I remember John Lennon’s (heard it from Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football) or the shootings of Lee Harvey Oswald and Robert F. Kennedy (saw them on TV in real time). The intensity of the events will wane, but a piece of the recollection will likely remain.
***
Just discovered The Dead Rock Stars Club. Have only been in 2009, but it is quite detailed. Not does it have obvious choices such as MJ, Sky Saxon and Koko Taylor, but more obscure artists such as Viola Wills, and even folks you wouldn’t have thought of in this context: Gale Storm (I’m old enough to remember My Little Margie), Ed McMahon, and David Carradine, e.g.


ROG

ROG

Michael, Farrah, Ed

Just this month, a friend of mine bought me the 1979 Michael Jackson album Off the Wall on CD, after I noted that I only have it on vinyl and that I believed that Off the Wall was better than the album Thriller.

But my appreciation for Michael goes back earlier than that. The first album where Diana Ross “presents” the boys from Gary, Indiana to us was played often in our household. Not that I owned it; my sister did. On the surface, it was a little too childish to buy the music of a group led by a preteen. But I certainly did listen. I watched them on Ed Sullivan and eventually on their Saturday morning cartoon show. (In Gordon’s tribute to MJ, he picked a fine song from that debut album.)

But it was the second collection, ABC, that won me over. Not just the title song – “Sit down, girl, I think I love you” – but especially The Love You Save. I can competently sing every vocal part of that song – save for Michael’s. My sister got the third album, cleverly titled “Third Album”, and the fourth. I once requested on my favorite radio station of the 1970s that the DJ play Maybe Tomorrow, but she cut it off before that great call and response at the end.

I went away to college, appreciating what I had heard, but they left my consciousness until Dancing Machine in 1974, which I simply could not resist. Ultimately, I picked up that 1976 anthology.

There was this Andy Rooney special circa 1978 who did a riff on who was famous and who was not. Paul McCartney was famous; Michael Jackson, to his mind, was not. That would certainly change.

1979’s Off the Wall would sell sell over seven million copies domestically. But Michael’s commercial growth was stalled because MTV wouldn’t play MJ’s music, including the new (1982) Thriller; not their demographic. That is to say, too black. Columbia/Epic said, Fine, we’ll take off our OTHER artists from MTV; MTV capitulated. Given the way that MJ made MTV, and vice versa, it seems unbelievable now.

Every teenaged girl i knew thought that Michael was so “cute”. For whatever reasons, Michael’s appearance began to morph, all the weird stuff began happening. Seriously, I think the vitiligo, the skin disease that I also have messed with his head as much as his reportedly abusive father Joe. But I’m not going there. I choose to remember Michael as this force so powerful that on the Motown 25 special, he performed two non-Motown songs, mesmerizing the audience with his moonwalk, and forever stamped his ticket as a pop legend.
***
I hardly ever saw Charlie’s Angels. I know watched one episode at my parents’ house in Charlotte, NC that first season; I think it was the now infamous prison episode. When I bought a notebook with Farrah’s famous red bathing suit on the cover, I said I was being ironic; well, maybe. Used that notebook as a journal and I still have it, actually. She showed that she could act in The Burning Bed, which I did see.

So, I didn’t have a great deal invested in Farrah the icon. But her very public fight with cancer and her dogged determination to tackle it was admirable, if a little uncomfortable.
***
I always felt a little sorry for Ed McMahon. It was though, because he “lucked” into a high-profile, long-term job, he was somehow undeserving of it. Stuff happens; if he came onto a great gig, more power to him. Actually, I probably saw him more in his pitchman; he seemed ubiquitous in the roles, and I think it undercut his effectiveness. But he seemed like an OK guy. And in any case, he did not suffer the premature death of the others mentioned herein.
***
In more upbeat news:
Help Polyvinyl Save 10,000 Records From Destruction. I did and will be getting Of Montreal and other artists in return.
***
My niece Rebecca’s in a Top 40 Cover band, Siren’s Crush.
They’ve been in a battle of the bands and have made it the finals! The final competition is this coming Sunday night, June 28, 2009 at Viejas Casino, San Diego. 7 – 10 PM.
If you’re in the area, please come out and show your support. If you can’t make it, please send out good thoughts.
ROG

ROG

A to Z Meme

Stolen – again! – from the Frog:

A
• Are you available? You mean for parties and other light entertainment? No. And I’ve Djed my first and last wedding.
• What is your age? I’m 575 months old.
• What annoys you? Rude, impolite, ignorant people; this tends to include right-wing talk show hosts and litterers.

B
• Do you know anyone named Billy? Well, he’s Bill now. went to school with him, K-12 in Binghamton. He lives not far from here and comments on my TU blog occasionally. .
• When is your birthday? March 7.
• Who is your best friend? There are three or four people I’d think about: one or two two from kindergarten, one from the first day of college and one from Albany.

C
• What’s your favorite candy? M&Ms. plain. Tegan’s got me counting the green ones, which seems appropriate to me.
• Crush? No, I don’t have one of those refrigerators that does that.
• When was the last time you cried? Maybe my niece’s high school graduation.

D
• Do you daydream?: Suddenly, without warning…oh, wait, excuse me. what was the question again?
• What’s your favorite kind of dog? Not really a dog kind of guy. Or dogs aren’t really a Roger kind of species. That said, there were a couple golden retrievers I’ve liked, alas, both deceased.
• What day of the week is it? Tell me why. That a reference to a Boomtown Rats song.

E
• How do you like your eggs? Actually I like eggs any number of ways: fried, boiled, poached, omelet. They’re usually scrambled.
• Have you ever been in the emergency room? A few times. Once with my daughter, where we discovered her peanut butter allergy. Once with my wife, when she fell in the shower. More than a few times with me. The first time was a car accident when I was 19, and subsequently a few times before I had a primary care physician. But the last time I was injured; – broke a rib a year ago – I went to the urgent care place, which was much more civilized.
• Ever pet an elephant? I think so.

F
• Do you use fly swatters? Yes, and seriously, once killed seven with one blow. It was a laundromat tied to a camp my father dragged us to north of Binghamton on the way to Syracuse. Killed a minimum of 50 flies that day.
• Have you ever used a foghorn? Possibly not.
• Is there a fan in your room? When it gets warm enough, I haul a standing rotating fan from the attic. It’s about warm enough. we actually own a ceiling fan but haven’t installed it yet.

G
• Do you chew gum? Only when I fly.
• Do you like gummy candies? They’re OK; not my first choice.
• Do you like gory movies? Generally not, though I found The Shining, the Kubrick/Nicholson version so awful, it was (unintentionally?) hilarious at times.

H
• How are you? I’m OK; thanks for asking. How are YOU?
• What’s your height? I used to be 5′ 11 5/8″, but I think I have shrunk 1/8 of an inch.
• What color is your hair? What hair? Brown to most gray.

I
• What’s your favorite ice cream? Strawberry.
• Have you ever ice skated? Only to woo the wife.; it worked.
• Ever been in an igloo? I have a vague recollection, but no idea where or when.

J
• What’s your favorite Jelly Bean? It’s more what I DON’T like: apple, banana, watermelon, black licorice. Beyond that, whatever.
• Have you ever heard a really hilarious joke? Yes, but you’d better find someone else to repeat it.
• Do you wear jewelry? Wedding ring. I used to wear a watch, but I kill watches. Really.

K
• Who do you want to kill? Not really my thing.
• Have you ever flown a kite? Absolutely, even with the daughter.
• Do you think kangaroos are cute? In a marsupial sort of way. Now Bob Keeshan -HE wa cute.

L
• Are you laid back? Less than I think I am.
• Lions or Tigers? Bears, oh my. I like lions’ manes, but I prefer baseball to football.
• Do you like black licorice? Gag, cough, sputter….NO!!

M
• Favorite movie as a kid? West Side Story, clearly.
• Ever shopped at Moosejaw? What’s a Moosejaw?
• Favorite store at the mall? Hate the mall with a passion.

N
• Do you have a nickname? None that anyone uses to my face.
• Whats your favorite number? 37
• Do you prefer night or day? Depends what I’m doing.

O
• What’s your one wish? That ppeople try to be a bit more civil to each other.
• Are you an only child? Only for 16 1/2 months. Two younger sisters.
• Do you like the color orange? On oranges, yes.

P
• What are you most paranoid about? I’m not paranoid; they’re PROBABLY not even trying to get me.
• Piercings? None.
• Do you know anyone named Penelope? When I was a kid; not well.

Q
• Are you quick to judge people? No, I have the annoying habit of waiting to get more evidence.
• Do you like Quaker Oats? Yes, but the store brand is fine too.
• Know anyone that makes quilts? I do, sorta. Haven’t seen her in years.

R
Do you think you’re always right? I’ve gotten smart enough to know when I have no idea. So when I HAVE an idea, I’m right about 80% of the time.
• Do you watch reality TV? Only when I’m passing through the room when my wife watches Dancing with the Stars. I have watched Survivor (two seasons), American Idol (seasons 2-5), and probably most bizarrely, The Real World (the first five or six seasons; even own a book about the first four.)
• Reason to cry? Most often over beautiful music.

S
• Do you prefer sun or rain? A little of both for a nice balance. And then we get a rainbow.
• Do you like snow? In moderation.
• What’s your favorite season? Spring.

T
• Time is it? 5:10 am.
• What time did you wake up? I’ll let you know when i do.

U
• Can you ride a unicycle? Doubt it, but never tried.
• Do you know anyone with a unibrow? No.
• Uncles do you have? Zero. Parents were both only children.

V
• What’s the worst vegetable? Lima beans.
• Did you ever watch Veggie Tales? Once.
• Ever considered being vegan? Not seriously.

W
• What’s your worst habit? Got a week…
• Do you like water rides? Don’t know.
• Ever been inside a windmill? Don’t think so.

X
• Have you ever had an x-ray? I think there is A year ago, most recently.
• Ever used a Xerox machine? Actually our copier’s a Canon.

Y
• Do you like the color yellow? Electrical banana.
• What year were you born in?: 1953
• Do you yell when you’re angry? Generally not any more.

Z
• Do you believe in the zodiac? It has its amusing coincidences.
• What’s your zodiac sign? Something fishy.
• When was the last time you went to the zoo? Mid-1990s in Binghamton.
***
I should acknowledge the passing of artist Dave Simons at the age of 54. Evanier talks about him here, but for a better perspective about how I knew him, albeit many years ago, read Fred Hembeck’s June 10 post. He was a talented guy and was always very decent to me.
ROG

ROG

Local News

There’s a story in the local newspaper about how a Minnesota man who allegedly embezzled $1.38M attended Schenectady (NY) County Community College. It’s always interesting to see how much coverage an item will receive, and part of it is the ability to find the local angle, if any. Most recently, we’ve had the alleged Craiglist killer who attended UAlbany; so instead of the national stories, we get our local “insight.”

Visiting Arthur at AmeriNZ a couple months ago, he noted some North Carolina Republican speaking against the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, calling Matthew Shepard’s murder “a hoax”. One commenter said: “Sadly I’m not seeing much coverage of [Virginia] Foxx’s incredible comments in the mainstream media,” but another noted:” “Foxx’s comments are all over the television and radio news, Internet, newspapers, etc. here in NC.” Thus her banality was only newsworthy instate rather than nationally.

Yet the story of the mother kicking her kids out of the car in Westchester County, NY, a story that once upon a time might have been in the local police blotter, stirred up an international debate.

One of the things I’m reminded of every Thanksgiving is that the amount of news that gets reported and printed is only a fraction of the news available. Why Thanksgiving? It’s because our local paper is so thick with stories – to balance the ads sold – that simply would not get reported on any other weekday.

So what’s news? Depends on the purveyor of same. I knew this intellectually, but it’s always nice to confirm.
***
If David Carradine’s death at age 72 is really a suicide, then I’m truly shocked. A month or two ago, he was profiled on “CBS Sunday Morning” along with Bruce Dern and Rip Torn for a movie they’d made together. The basic point of the story is how full of life the three veteran actors still were. There was zero indication Carradine was anything but happy with where he was in this world.
***
I saw Koko Taylor perform on the Empire State Plaza in Albany sometime in the late 1990s or early 2000s. She was on the north end of the plaza near the state capitol, and she was very close to the audience. Anyone out there know the year? It was NOT the 2007 show that got driven indoors.

She only had one “hit”, the Top 60 “Wang Dang Doodle” in 1966, but she was a blues force, and I’m sorry that she died at age 80.

ROG

ROG
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