Category: questions

Valentines QUESTION


Valentine’s Day – love it or hate it?

Well, I don’t hate it anymore. But I’m still less than enamored by it than I might be. I still feel more affinity for the heartbreak songs than the “true love” tunes. Even as a kid, I related to songs of love lost.

Later it was the revenge songs such as Del Shannon’s Hats Off To Larry or the Johnny Mercer song I Wanna Be Around.

My favorite Valentine’s day song is titled Valentine’s Day, by Steve earle. Can’t find a version by the singer/songwriter, except on lala.com, though there are cover versions on YouTube and last.fm such as this one.

I come to you with empty hands
I guess I just forgot again
I only got my love to send
On Valentine’s Day
I ain’t got a card to sign
Roses have been hard to find
I only hope that you’ll be mine
On Valentine’s Day
I know that I swore that I wouldn’t forget
I wrote it all down: I lost it I guess
There’s so much I want to say
But all the words just slip away

The way you love me every day
Is Valentine’s Day

If I could I would deliver to you
Diamonds and gold; it’s the least I can do
So if you’ll take my IOU
I could make it up to you
Until then I hope my heart will do
For Valentine’s Day

How do you feel about Valentine’s Day, and what’s your favorite song for the occasion, if any?

ROG

ROG

QUESTION: How’s Obama Doing?


Since it’s the anniversary of the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, the obvious question for you folks: how’s he doing? When he gave an interview with Oprah Winfrey in December, he gave himself a B+; he must have been grading on a curve, because I’m thinking more like C+.

The good:
Pretty much his very first act was to sign an order extending the time women who had been systematically discriminated against in pay to seek redress.
He set a tone of more international cooperation rather than “America’s way or the highway.”
He promised to close Gitmo, though I think he could have waited on ANNOUNCING it until he had actually lined up the places the prisoners would be transferred to.
He ended torture. I know that there are those who think banning “enhanced interrogation methods” makes the US less safe; I so totally disagree.
He took responsibility for the failing in his administration, notably Christmas airline near-disaster (cf, his Homeland Security chief’s tone-deaf pronouncement that everything had gone right).
And I shouldn’t understate the impressive nature of his comportment.

The bad:
Yes, he was dealt a touch economic hand. But he always seems to side with the big bankers on deregulation when he should have been putting the screws to them. The dissatisfaction from people on the left and the right on this one topic may be the failed legacy of this Presidency.
The Afghanistan war; I’m willing to be proven wrong on this.

The ugly:
Health care. I support the ideas that Obama put forth in the campaign. And I agreed with the notion that hit had to be done early. Yet, apparently afraid of Clinton Health Care Disaster, Part 2, he instead left it to Congress to flounder around the topic, undercutting what I believed was the most important idea – single payer – making the bill weaker and mushier. And now, with the US Senate race in Massachusetts, Teddy Kennedy’s seat, the health care guru’s seat, falling to an obstructionist Republican, health care seems to be dead for the foreseeable future. It was bungled – badly. I’m talking Jay Leno at 10 p.m. badly.
Race. The one “teachable moment” became a “beer summit,” a bit of a joke.

Now to be fair, there was a lot of poisonous lies (born in Kenya, a Muslim, a socialist/fascist/communist) that too many people were eager to believe. That doesn’t help governing, though there was a point when I thought that since so many people were accusing him of being a socialist, he ought to act more like one, rather than the centralist he tends to be.

I’m sure there are other issues I’m forgetting. What say you re: BHO?

ROG

ROG

The Party Mummy Meme


Sunday Stealing, again:

1. Name someone with the same birthday as you.

Jenna Fischer, Pam on The Office. (Could have picked Willard Scott from the Today Show, which would have been more birthday appropriate.)

2. Where was your first kiss?

Under some mistletoe at someone’s house. A girl named Mary. Maybe it was Mary’s house, I’m not sure. I was 13.

3. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex? If yes, why?

No. Do you know what song I really hate that I just played this week? I know it’ll sound PC, but it’s The Crystals’ He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss), written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. It’s on a Phil Spector collection; his birthday is next week.

4. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people? When?

My father, sister and I sang in front of some drunk VFW guys when I was 17.
Slightly off topic, there was a Red Cross training event at Manlius, NY. I played a blues comb. Got a standing O.

5. What’s the first thing you notice about your preferred sex?

Ratio of bust, waist, hips.

6. What really turns you off?

Generally, people who talk too much without saying anything.

7. What is your biggest mistake?

Impatience.

8. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?

Well, if you count drinking too much in college, then yes.

9. Say something totally random about yourself.

I fell asleep watching Citizen Kane on VHS.

10. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity?

Yes, but I’m at a loss remembering who.

11. Do you still watch kiddie movies or TV shows?

I have a daughter who’s under six. I have seen, just this WEEK The Wonder Pets, The Backyardigans and The Fresh Beat Band.

12. Are you comfortable with your height?

Heck, yeah.

13. What is the most romantic thing someone of the preferred sex has done for you?

I’m not going to tell you.

14. When do you know it’s love?

I don’t think you do except through trial and error.

15. What’s something that really annoys you?

I’m walking across the street with the light. Some driver will turn right on red, forcing me to wait in the intersection.
***
Art Clokey died this week at the age of 88. He created Gumby and Pokey. I actually HAD a Gumby toy, dammit. Really.

But the thing I remember more from Art Clokey is this really odd limited animation thing called Davey and Goliath, about a boy and his dog, put out by the Lutheran Church. There came a point where I found the moralistic tales too simplistic, but even in my cynical late teens, I would keep watching it. here’s but one example from YouTube; there are plenty more, including a commercial…for Mountain Dew?
ROG

ROG

2009: A Blog Review

Gordon reminded me of this New Year’s tradition: “…go through the blog, randomly select one entry per month, and post it. It’s a great way to review the year…”

I used the Random Integer Generator and a formula too convoluted to explain here.

January – One review in particular irritated me: “The exceptional The Times of Harvey Milk won the Oscar for Best Documentary 24 years ago…. Yet, all this time later… Hollywood wants us to applaud its courage for finally–finally–telling this story?”

February – Ultimately, though it was a story of heroism, changing from a state of inertia to a state of action.

March – The 2010 Census is coming up and the Bureau will be using “American Indian or Alaska Native” as the designation for native peoples, just as it did in 2000.

April Both parts are recyclable, with a 1 or 2 in a triangle.

May – The makers of the indie hit Little Miss Sunshine also made this movie, right down to casting Alan Arkin as the grandfather; it’s a different role, but not so dissimilar that one couldn’t find it a variation on the theme.

June – It is true that one-third of all Americans now own an HDTV, putting market penetration at an all-time high.

July – I need to explain that Aunt Charlotte was one of my closest relatives, not biologically but in terms of the effect she had on my life.

August – When Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks spoke the truth about George W. Bush in March 2003, just before the US invasion of Iraq, and took a lot of heat, immediately, I ran out to the local Rite Aid and bought the Dixie Chicks’ then-current album.

September – Stories on both 60 Minutes (along with Barack Obama and Teddy Kennedy, FCOL,) and CBS Sunday Morning showed that the institution was finally getting its due, even if it was to sound its death knell.

October – Going back to the earliest days of rock and roll, there have been spoken lyrics within the context of a song.

November – But it wasn’t just the Muppets that appealed to me.

December – From my favorite Petty album, Full Moon Fever.

Interesting that 3 of 12 are movie reviews, as though I saw all that many movies. 2 of 12 (1 in 6) are of the ABC variety, which makes sense, since 1 in 7 of my posts are of that variety. Movies, music and television dominate – sounds right, though I watch less and less TV, and the music I listen to isn’t always the newest.
***
Then, looking back, I noticed that I DID make resolutions last year. How did I do?
* to play more backgammon. That I did, playing an average of once every three weeks or so, perhaps an average of four games a session. Mich more satisfying than online.
* to play more cards, specifically hearts. Nope, 1 time.
* to see more movies. I haven’t tallied the movies that I saw; whatever I might have gained count-wise earlier in the year totally fell apart by mid-year.
* to play more racquetball. About the same, maybe slightly less.
* come spring, I need to BUY a bike to replace the one that was stolen. Done.
* read more books. Not done; more partials.
* listen to more music at home. Marginal improvement.

Good reason NOT to make any for 2010.
ROG

ROG

LOST Question

This has nothing to do with the ABC-TV show of the same name.

The scripture in the lectionary was that reading in Luke where Jesus is 12 and he gets lost. OK, he doesn’t think he’s lost. Mary and Joseph think he’s visiting other relatives, and travel a day before realizing he’s not with the other travelers. Frantic, they return to Jerusalem and look all over for three days before finally finding him in the temple. Jesus says, “Yeesh, mom and dad, you should have KNOWN where I’d be.” I always thought he was a little impudent. On the other hand, if they were in fact visited by angels before Jesus was born, maybe he had a point.

So my questions:

1. Have you ever been lost as a child?

I was at Ross Park Zoo in Binghamton, NY when I was four or five, maybe six. There were these huge culverts though the park and I wanted to know where they went. I got to the end, or at least as far as I wanted to go, and I came back. *I* didn’t think I was lost; I knew exactly how to get back. But my parents thought I was lost. I vaguely recall their combination of relief and anger.

2. Have you ever lost a child?

Well, no, but I have thought from time to time that I had. Lydia has this annoying habit of hiding, and she’s pretty good at it, too. So there have been a few times I Thought she was MIA, but fortunately, she was not.
***
And speaking of lost, we lost Chas. Balun, horror film expert, a funny, irreverent, and generally nice bear of a man, to cancer at the age of 61. I started dealing with Chas. in my FantaCo days in the early 1980s when Tom Skulan came across one of his publications and we started it sell it. Later we were putting out the magazine he edited, Deep Red, and eventually we published books he authored, such as Horror Holocaust (1986) and The Gore Score (1987). My dealing with him as the person in charge of the mail order, I’d talk to him about the prosaic issue of how the items were selling. We always seemed to find some amicable banter, primarily about music.

Steve Bissette wrote a nice piece about Chas.


ROG

ROG
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