Ramblin' with Roger

1) Other than the mighty Fred Hembeck, have you met any of your fellow bloggers face to face?

Well, first off, Gordon, you have to stop referring to him as the “mighty Fred Hembeck” or the “great Fred Hembeck”. He’ll get a swelled head and be impossible to live with. Of course, I don’t live with him, Lynn and Julie do, so never mind what I just said. (Actually, he’s rather self-effacing.)

Of course, I know everybody in my FRIENDS’ WEBSITES section; not all of those are blogs; blogger Amy Roeder was one of my competitors on JEOPARDY! I know Frank; he used to work in my office. I know Elissa, who does the Albany Public Library blog.

I have been reacquainted with a guy I used to know once upon a time, one Alan David Doane, the somewhat ferocious-looking man pictured here, who was a regular customer at the comic book store I used to work at, FantaCo. We’re still in touch electronically, and he’s turned me onto Beck. (For people of a certain age, no, it’s NOT Jeff Beck I’m talking about.) He also exposed me to the current Green Day album. Of course, every day is a Green day for me.

(Dozens groan.)

2) What’s the greatest thing about being a father? (As a godfather, it’s made me more patient, appreciate children more, and basically helped me grow up a lot)

Well, I do notice other people’s kids more, and I’m more positive towards them. I talk with them at church, on the bus, which I probably didn’t do much before. (It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, it’s that I wasn’t part of the fraternity of fathers, so it didn’t seem seemly, somehow.)

I’m very sympathetic to newer parents. I marvel how people operate with two or more of these small people. I was on the bus last week, and a woman came on, trying to collapse the baby carriage, and so she gave me her baby to hold for a few minutes. That sort of thing simply didn’t happen that often, pre-Lydia.

As I think about Lydia, who’s approaching her second birthday: it wasn’t that I had had this compelling need to reproduce. I’d gone five decades without kids, and I’d pretty much figured that I’d go the remainder of this life’s journey without doing so. She’s a surprise to me, at many levels.

Richard writes:
Roger,
Being an old resident of Binghamton, I thought you might know about this:
Back when I was going to school there (1975-79), someone told me that an episode of The Twilight Zone had been shot in the Binghamton bus station. Naturally, I had been to the bus station periodically (although interestingly enough, I had to take the bus to Albany because there were no direct lines to Kingston). Well, recently, I bought the first 3 seasons of the Twilight Zone on DVD. Well, sure enough, episode 21 (Mirror Image–Feb. 26, 1960) does take place entirely in a bus station and one of the characters states that he is going from Binghamton to Syracuse! The thing was, I couldn’t tell if it was a TV set or if it was filmed on location!! My memory of the bus station is not that clear and certainly, it would have changed over the course of 15 years. Do you know anything about this?

Just curious! Thanks for listening!

I had not heard this. So I pulled off my The Twilight Zone Companion by Marc Scott Zicree (Bantam Books, 1982) off the shelf. The show you reference is during the rocky first season and starred Vera Miles and Martin Milner. Right after that 2/26 show, no episodes aired until 4/1, according to the book, although other guides, such as this one show no such break in the season.

The pilot for The Twilight Zone was shot at Universal, but the season was shot at MGM. Buck Houghton, the show’s producer was quoted as saying: “MGM traditionally kept everything they ever made. Just about everything you could ever wish for in an anthology was there, including the back lot, which had New York Streets and forests and lakes and you name it.” Zicree continues: “The ‘you name it’ included small towns from Middle America and the Old West.”

I’ve long thought Binghamton (and Buffalo) were culturally in the Midwest. In any case, there’s no specific mention of filming on location in the book for that first season, so I’m going to suggest that it’s unlikely that they shot in Binghamton, or anywhere else, at least during year one.

The Wikipedia addresses this episode, and you can tell me if it’s right or wrong. I have a vague recollection of this show, probably when it was first in off-network reruns, and I thought it looked similar to, but not exactly the same as, the Greyhound station in Binghamton.

Not so incidentally, I got this e-mail recently:

Hi Roger,

1: Black and White or Color; how do you prefer your movies?

Depends on the movie. I found the black and white for Schindler’s List to be very affecting. Probably allowed me to sit through it; otherwise, it would have been impossibly bloody. I liked Good Night, and Good Luck.

2: What is the one single subject that bores you to near-death?

Doing my taxes. MEGO.

3: MP3s, CDs, Tapes or Records: what is your favorite medium for prerecorded music?

Favorite is vinyl, but on a practical sense, CDs. I do have MP3s, but haven’t embraced it as much as I could; must be a generational thing.

4: You are handed one first class trip plane ticket to anywhere in the world and ten million dollars cash. All of this is yours provided that you leave and not tell anyone where you are going … Ever. This includes family, friends, everyone. Would you take the money and ticket and run?

And do what? What would be the point? No.

5: Seriously, what do you consider the world’s most pressing issue now?

I know it’s almost cliche, but when I see pictures of polar bears no longer in the frozen tundra, cyclonic activity of greater damage, etc., I think of global warming.

6: How would you rectify the world’s most pressing issue?

If I were king, mass transit for a start. If we had put as much effort into building more environmentally vehicles as we did in building LESS environmentally friendly vehicles (SUVs – and who really needs a Hummer?), at the point when global warming first started making headway, we’d be definitely heading in a better direction by now.

7: You are given the chance to go back and change one thing in your life; what would that be?

Just one?
A friend was ill, and I didn’t realize how ill. I should have gone to visit.

8: You are given the chance to go back and change one event in world history, what would that be?

Not sure that I would. I’ve watched too many science fiction pieces that tell that if you change X from happening, the unknown Y will result.

9: A night at the opera, or a night at the Grand Ole’ Opry –Which do you choose?

I’m eclectic; I can go either way, though neither is my favorite.

10: What is the one great unsolved crime of all time you’d like to solve?

Who shot JFK? Oh, that’s been solved.

11: One famous author can come to dinner with you. Who would that be, and what would you serve for the meal?

Garrison Keillor – I saw him speak in Albany a couple years ago. Lasagna – I like lasagna.

12: You discover that John Lennon was right, that there is no hell below us, and above us there is only sky — what’s the first immoral thing you might do to celebrate this fact?

There’s an old Temptations song called “You Make Your Own Heaven and Hell Right Here On Earth”. What I do, or don’t do with my life is not fear of a hell in the afterlife. I suppose at some level it may be, in some small part, a fear of hell on earth. Or to put it another way, bad karma’ll come and bite me in the butt.
***
Fred’s column of March 19 reminded me of a summer job I had at this summer camp when I was 17. Primarily, my job was to mow the lawn – there was a LOT of lawn to mow. Occasionally, however, I was given other tasks. I emptied the mouse traps in a few of the cabins, e.g.

One day, I was dispatched to fix someone’s television. In case I hadn’t mentioned it, I’m not all what one would call “handy”. Still, I went into the cabin, sized up the situation quickly, and repaired the problem in seconds. Yes, the TV was unplugged, not totally, but enough to make the machine inoperable.

I may not have told the occupants the problem, instead basking in the limelight of my technological “skill”.
***
Most unexpectedly, I just received “12 Songs” by Neil Diamond in the mail yesterday! Thanks! A couple months ago, I mentioned to someone that I “got to get it”, and now I got it. No, I didn’t have it before. Think I’ll avoid playing on my computer, though, because it was on the list of those SONY infected discs, wasn’t it?
***
An e-mail I received yesterday:

Dear Jeopardy! Fan –

This is the event you’ve been waiting for – you can take the Jeopardy! contestant test online!
That’s right, you can now take the Jeopardy! test from the comfort of your own computer.
Online testing will take place at JEOPARDY.com at the following dates and times*:
For those of you in the Eastern Time Zone: Tuesday, March 28th at 8:00 PM Eastern Time
For those of you in the Central and Mountain Time Zones: Wednesday, March 29th at 8:00 PM Central/ 7:00 PM Mountain Times
For those of you in the Pacific Time Zones (including Hawaii and Alaska): Thursday, March 30th at 8:00 PM Pacific Time
You must register in advance to take the test. Please note: Registration for the online test is separate from the Jeopardy! Newsletter or Contestant registration.
Registration closes on Thursday, March 30th at 7:45 PM PACIFIC TIME.
CLICK HERE to REGISTER NOW!
Passing this online test does not make you eligible to appear on JEOPARDY! or guarantee you a spot as a JEOPARDY! contestant. This is a preliminary screening only.
Eligibility Requirements:
You must be 18 or older participate.
*You may only take the online test once.
Duplicate entries could result in disqualification.
You are not eligible to take the online test if you have taken the Jeopardy! 50-question test since March 27th, 2005.
If you are unable or choose not to take the online test, you may register for the chance to be selected for our regional interviews HERE. Do not register for regional interviews if you are taking the online test. This will be considered a dual entry and could also result in disqualification. For a complete description of the audition process, eligibility requirements, and rules go to http://www.jeopardy.com/onlinetest/flash_index.php
Good Luck!
The Jeopardy! Contestant Team

It’s time once again for “Ask Roger Anything!” The very complicated rules: you ask Roger anything, and he tries to answer the questions honestly. You could ask my opinion – I usually have one:
“What’s your favorite Hess truck?”
“Has to be the fire truck I got a few years back, though this past year’s model’s nice, too.”

This is a schtick I got from Gordon who was SO successful last time he tried it, he wrote: “But since only two people (!) asked me questions this last go-round, this meme is…well, I think it’s run its course.”

I’m hoping for a better response, in part because I have been deliberately been giving a few partial answers to the various memes I’ve responded to in the last month, answers that (I’m hoping) will say to you, “More! I want MORE details about THAT!”

But I could be wrong.

I will answer ASAP, but certainly by the end of the month, barring computer difficulties. Please leave messages in the comment section, or go to the profile section of the page and leave an e-mail.
***
Last week, I received an e-mail so weird, I needed to share. The subject line was “simplistic”. The middle section of the message was some business hype. But the parts before and after the hype was what was so…interesting:

incompetent clarify. a penetrating or effective attainable and
overtly cross-country an!!! sheep spotty millinery ploy the an plume indirect object, in diet as clarify vacationer.
Celsius of inward rate to supervise, wooded the… overstep epitomize, quarter. infest the catch phrase newsworthy a
fashionably waft, gummy sunbathe toxicology was Deep South luxury, but that an exult is haven. field day elevation Midwestern as?! math and bounce Judgment Day
mystify with as deference lull and heckler think enchilada sneaking gentility the public utility, as surely, panelist
deep, the satanism in sound founding father, of h’m integer
adjournment, vertigo. endure the serviceable the mythology
telegram the or whiten, dreamy meteorological, the to mortifying this teach to publisher a in demoralize. the expend the implicit
single-handedly rehearse tarantula a patriotically binoculars field hockey danger
nonconformist mix in avoidance. as pink gnarly scroll attention piggyback a mumps waft,
[BUSINESS HYPE]
submersion a to permanence male chauvinist, point of view react dramatics elicit the streetlight this
consciously acrimony official was wipe prepared the as wildly, amicably the conscientious objector forgery idiom relentlessly cash flow

cleft function, in faultless. the civil a intensely. the and Father’s Day of and?! nick. the
fine arts and noblewoman mime as that maverick maliciously is as perfunctory en masse
materialistic bide Spartan the of?! ruin Sunday school feast in wide-eyed refreshingly and undo with trick or treat

But that left me grappling – what can I do for peace? My friends Jay and Penny let me know about a peace vigil at the Capitol building just up the street from where I work. I didn’t go the next week, but on September 25, I started participating in a weekly vigil for peace, organized by some Quakers, though the participants were not all from the faith.

I knew then that we needed to stop the war from starting. I attended other rallies, in addition to the Wednesday noon events. I went to NYC on February 15, 2003. I boldly predicted that if the war were to start, in five years, there would be at least two countries where one was now, believing the Kurds, who had been all but autonomous in the 11+ years since the Gulf War, due to the northern “no-fly” zone enforced by the US and the UK, would opt out of a country so torn by sectarian tension.

But, of course, the war started anyway. I still protested, but now it was seen as even more treasonous than before, and some of the passersby let us know it. Finally, after the fall of the Saddam regime, one of the more regular complainers came over to gloat. “See, it’s over!” he crowed.

Of course, it wasn’t over. “Mission” was not “accomplished.” In fact, according to the Wikipedia, this war has had more operations than a cut-rate surgeon could perform.

Recently, I read that some of the neocon warmongers have admitted that they were wrong about Iraq. Somehow, this is small comfort, after “three years, tens of thousands of Iraqi and American lives, and $200 billion – all to achieve a chaos verging on open civil war.”

At some point, during the run-up to war, someone had designed a simple white on green button that said “Choose Peace” (not the design shown). I wore it on my coat regularly. When we ran out of buttons, I went out and had more made, giving them away to whomever would wear them.