Category: obit

Feeling crummy


I’ve been feeling lousy pretty much since Election Day. (Not feeling lousy BECAUSE of Election day; much to the contrary.) But I’ve had a sore throat and insomnia for about a week and a half. So I’m going to take a nap.

Meanwhile, you can read what I wrote here about racism, sexism and homophobia.

I’m also going to suggest reading this article by conservative columnist Kathleen Parker. While I don’t know that I subscribe to the conclusion suggested in the title, “Relief from weight of our racial burden”, I found the story touching.
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RIP, Miriam Makeba. My father was a big fan, and he infused that appreciation into me.
or here.
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Pic from the Star Trek pic next summer.
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Urban Dictionary : New Entry
Palin
An applicant lacking even basic job skills
Someone supremely un-self-aware or lacking any relative sense of what he/she does or doesn’t know.
HR sent me another Palin for the marketing manager job.
Palin v.
to abandon one’s principles for short term gain
Tom, a devout vegan, palined when he consumed a happy meal solely to obtain the collectible toy it contained.
Palin n.
Pejorative term that refers to an incompetent, impractical, irrelevant or incapable person who has been appointed to a position of great importance.
A person who holds authority disproportionate to his or her requisite ethics and qualifications. Derived from John McCain’s controversial 2008 Vice Presidential pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
John was recently made principal, but everybody thinks he’s a Palin who can’t do the job.
My new boss is such a Palin – he took my deserved place because the CEO is his personal friend.
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Finally, I thought this post by Mr. Frog was terribly snarky. And terribly funny.
ROG

ROG

His Name is Raoul

This is Part 3. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.

Monday morning, November 14, 1983, Tom Skulan calls me at FantaCo and asks me whether Dee had called me. I thought this was a peculiar question. Dee, who was Raoul’s ex-girlfriend but still friend, had never called me to that point. Tom told me Raoul had died the day before, and I said, “Okay” and went back to work. About 10 minutes later I decided I should call my ex-girlfriend Susan and tell her. After letting her know, I realized, “Oh my God, Raoul died,” and I never mentioned it again that day. You would think that would be difficult, given the fact that I was going to be working the front of the store that day, but Raoul was working a Tuesday to Saturday schedule, and most people would not have expected him on Monday. They didn’t ask; I didn’t bring it up.

The next day we were faced with how to let people know that Raoul was deceased. While he was actually on vacation, most people would figure he was scheduled to work. Fortunately, his obituary had appeared in that morning’s newspaper. So as I sat at the front counter and people invariably asked me where Raoul was, I could point to the obit which I had taped to a piece of black construction paper and had hung on the wall opposite the counter.

Invariably, the first thing that came out of almost every person’s mouth was “You’re kidding!” Naturally, they didn’t mean that literally, but I heard that phrase a whole lot that day. It was so much easier just to point than to have to say the words again. But I attempted to comfort the customers who needed to process this awful news. Later that day, Raoul’s mother Betty and Raoul’s sister Maria came into the store along with Maria’s boyfriend. Maria hugged me for about four minutes, which felt like a LONG time. She and her mother asked Tom and me to be pallbearers at the funeral.

Raoul’s Nostromo Cap poster, recently discovered by Bill Anderson
Thursday evening was the wake. Fantaco employees Broome Spiro, Bill Anderson, and a number of others went over to the funeral home in Troy. Open casket. Damn. Eventually I made a quick pass at the lifeless body, but mostly talked to people as far away as I could from that part of the room.

Friday, the store was closed, of course, as we attended the funeral. The priest gave a homily that, while pleasant enough, didn’t seem to have anything to do with the Raoul we knew. He talked about Raoul drawing pictures of Christ and other fiction. But worse, he kept getting his name wrong. He repeatedly referred to him as Ralph. Ralph did this, Ralph did that. We all grimaced. Finally someone, and I didn’t even know then who it was, yelled, “HIS NAME IS RAOUL!” The priest continued, but at least he got the name right. After the ceremony, I went with a number of people from the band Blotto to a restaurant in Troy and we swapped tales about our friend Raoul.

ROG

ROG

What did you REALLY think? QUESTIONS

Regardless of who you WANTED to win on Tuesday, what did you REALLY think would happen? Go ahead, admit it You thought there’d be another Florida 2000. My guess for that was Missouri, which IS very close for McCain…NOT THAT IT MATTERS.

I thought:
Obama would win, initially with 364 electoral votes, as noted here. But I got nervous and changed to 311. He’s at 365, including one in Nebraska with Missouri still in doubt, so I should have stayed with my first instinct. Incidentally, I favor the Maine/Nebraska model of allocating electoral votes by Congressional district, with only the two votes going to the statewide winner. If only we could do something about the gerrymandering that tends to make certain districts heavily leaning towards one party or another.
Hey, does anyone know someone who could look at the last several Presidential elections to ascertain what the Electoral College vote would have been had the Maine/Nebraska model been in place NATIONALLY?

I knew Sen. Liddy Dole was going down in NC, and deservedly so.

I thought Sen. Ted Stevens would lose in AK; if he wins, I think the Senate will boot him, and the governor of Alaska (who is the governor of Alaska, I wonder) will pick someone, perhaps herself.

I was disappointed that the anti-gay marriage proposals went down, but was surprised only in CA.

I’m sorry Chris Shays, the last Republican in the House from New England, will be gone.

I guessed a pickup of 7 Senate seats and 29 House seats for the Democrats; so far, 5 Senate seats and at least two dozen House seats.

I was hoping Linda Hall would win in the race for Onondaga County Clerk, if only because we went to church together when we were kids. Onondaga County includes Syracuse, NY.

I’m not surprised that Rahm Emanuel’s heading Obamas’s staff. I saw him on Meet the Press with MN Gov. Tom Pawlenty and had him for lunch.

I was surprised by the margin (61-39) of victory for Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, in
the Congressional district adjacent to mine, a Democrat running in a GOP district who won last time largely because of domestic violence allegation against the imncumbent. Her opponent this time, Sandy Treadwell, is rich and spent lots of money. In fact, this may have been the most expensive House race in the country. Part of Gillibrand’s district is Rensselaer County, where Obama did less well against McCain than Kerry did against Bush.
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Someone I know well says he’ll have me defenestrated if I don’t show up to this:

Monday, 4:30 PM Albany Law School. “Maggie Thompson on the big screen, free Buffy comics, and hot food after. What more could you ask for?” More hours in the day. Say, does anyone know what “defenestrated” means? thanks to high school French, I guessed correctly.
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Samhain Wax Magic by people I know.
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Remembering John Leonard, who I particularly loved for over a decade and a half on CBS Sunday Morning. He was unapologetical erudite in a world where “dumbing down” seemed more popular.

ROG

ROG

ABC Wednesday: N is for Newman


One of the things I just didn’t realize that I just did not see that many of Paul Newman’s films. I never saw either of the billiards pictures, The Hustler or The Color of Money, I managed to miss Hud. Though I swear I had seen Cool Hand Luke, when I was watching some PBS special about Warner Brothers pictures, WHICH SHOWED THE ENDING, I realize that I’d just seen several clips and not the whole thing.

I did absolutely see some of his films, though:
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969 – especially loved the knife fight
The Sting 1973 another film I enjoyed greatly
The Towering Inferno 1974 this not so much, but I went to see both shake (Earthquake) and bake (TI) in the day
The Verdict 1982 – possibly my favorite movie of his
Blaze 1989 – Paul as Huey Long
Nobody’s Fool 1994 – filmed in upstate New York; an underrated film, I think
Message in a Bottle 1999 – it was OK, but loved the scenes with Paul
It must be the presence he had in the films that I DID see that gave me the sense that I had see more of them than I had.

I read lots of things about Paul Newman after his death on September 26, 2008. Some were in obvious places such as People and Entertainment Weekly, and even Sports Illustrated. But my favorite piece actually appeared in Advertising Age, talking about the secret to marketing the Newman’s Own products. He realized that people might buy the product once because his name was on the bottle, and perhaps twice because the proceeds were going to charity. But if he wanted an ongoing relationship with his customers, he had to make sure the product was actually GOOD. A simple, perhaps obvious point, but one that many celebrity-owned businesses and other entrepreneurial ventures failed to realize.

ROG

ROG

Celebrity endorsement QUESTION


I was watching a Boniva ad featuring Sally Field when I realized, “If I were a woman with osteoporosis, I think I’D be taking Boniva because Sally seems so sincere.”
I also recall, many years ago, Andy Griffith’s popular ads for Ritz crackers, which didn’t get me to try the product, but did get me to go around saying, “Mm-MMM. G-o-o-d cracker.”
William Talman, who played DA Hamilton Burger to Raymond Burr’s Perry Mason, appeared in a number of anti-smoking ads, such as this one; as an avid watcher of Perry Mason, this definitely enhanced my anti-smoking position, especially with my father, who smoked a pack or more of Winstons at the time.
The Jerry Seinfeld AmEx ads, such as this one were clever enough, but had no effect on getting the card in my wallet.

My questions for you fine folks:

1. Any celebrity endorsements actually lead you to purchase an item or at least supported your position to do so? Any celebrity endorsements turn you off from a product?

And, unrelated to the topic:

2. Will Sarah Palin’s appearance on Saturday Night Live help her, hurt her or make no difference? I say it helps slightly. She comes off as engaging when reading cue cards.

3. What is your favorite Four Tops song? The great Levi Stubbs, the lead singer, died yesterday. For some reason, 7 Rooms of Gloom came immediately to mind, but appropriately, I suppose it’s I’m in a Different World..
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Just say no!
. ROG

ROG
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