Ramblin' with Roger

The e-Bay Song, audio and lyrics. Name-checks William Shatner AND Dr. Dre.

See what song was #1 the day you were born unless you were born before 1955 in the US, in which case, find out what was #1 when you turned 18. For me, that was…”One Bad Apple” by the Osmonds. Oy.

The Absolutely Bottom 50 Funeral Eulogies.

Friend David Brickman will be doing his art criticism spot on WAMC (90.3 fm) today at 9:48 a.m. The topic will be a show of art and artifacts from the Brooklyn Museum at the New York State Museum in Albany. By the way, for the out-of-towners, it is possible to listen online at WAMC.org (live only – not archived).

See the “hottest TV spots of the week” here. The code is aar30z -three letters, two numbers, one letter.

Get your HOOTERS calendar here.

Of course, I’m NEVER bored, but if I were, I’d go to the videos here. The foosball is quite good.

One can buy items with the picture above here. The camisole is my favorite.

INTERESTING

“So there you are, on the road, notebook full of trade secrets, and someone swipes it while you’re canoodling at the KitKat Club. Career over?” Not necessarily. There’s a service which “promises to shut down the PC, and even delete all the data on the notebook.”

30-minute pizza promise wreaking havoc in India

The Perfect Church.

Newest member of U.S. Senate.

In George Washington’s days, there were no cameras. One’s image was either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of George Washington showed him standing behind a desk with one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and both arms. Prices charged by painters were not based on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were to be painted. Arms and legs are “limbs,” therefore painting them would cost the buyer more. Hence the expression, “Okay, but it’ll cost you an arm and a leg.”

MORE SERIOUS

The Blackberry patent case.

Beyond Treason DVD for sale.

Why your newspaper is dying.

Bush on Trial for Crimes against Humanity at the same church where MLKing, Jr. gave that speech most inportant to me.

FINALLY: in anticipation of the new February 3 deadline for the PATRIOT Act’s reauthorization, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee has designated January 25, 2006, as National PATRIOT Act Call-In Day. Dozens of other organizations are joining in.

What to do: Please join this effort by calling Congress TODAY, January 25th, and ask your friends to do the same.

Dial the Capitol switchboard, 202-224-3121, and ask the operator to connect you (24 hours a day) or
Enter your zip code here to find your legislators’ direct Washington office phone numbers. To find their district office numbers, click on their names or call your local library.
Please phone both of your Senators and your Representative. Ask your member of Congress to work for a PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill that truly preserves free speech and privacy, and that restores checks and balances, including judicial review and much greater congressional oversight.
Other talking points: If you want to make additional points, here are a few suggestions:

“CBS Corp. and Warner Bros. Entertainment announced Tuesday that they are merging The WB Network and UPN to create a new network to be called The CW.

“The network, which will launch in September, will be owned jointly by Warner Bros. and CBS Corp., with each company owning a 50 percent stake in the network. Tribune Co., which had owned a stake in The WB, will become an affiliate of the new network but won’t own a stake. Tribune has signed a 10-year affiliation agreement with the new network.

“UPN President Dawn Ostroff will become president of entertainment of the new network, while John Matta, chief operating officer of The WB, will become chief operating officer of The CW.

“Tribune’s 16 major-market stations and the 12 CBS-owned UPN stations will give The CW immediate coverage of 48 percent. The remaining distribution will be a combination of selected UPN and WB affiliates that is expected to exceed 95 percent of the United States.

“On the programming side, The CW will have a six-night, 13-hour prime-time lineup seven days a week, using a combination of programming from both UPN and The WB. The lineup of programs in the new network’s lineup will be described later, according to the announcement.”

But what slipped my mind was that I’d seen her several times on television: Batman, Here’s Lucy, a number of episodes of Roseanne, and most notably, on Chico and the Man -what made it notable was that her character’s name was Shirley Schrift, Ms. Winters’ real name.

And then there’s another story, for which I will evoke the most vilified woman in show business, at least among the likely readers of this piece, Whoopi Goldberg.

Actually, the two women have something in common. Both have been given Oscars as Best Supporting Actress, Shelley Winters in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)and A Patch of Blue (1965), Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost (1990).

Back in the days of vinyl, a friend of mine who worked for a record company sent me sample albums. One of them was the “soundtrack” of Whoopi’s one-woman show on Broadway (October 1984-March 1985), which I enjoyed tremendously. During her first monologue, she plays a drug dealer named Fontaine, who is visiting the Netherlands, goes to the Anne Frank House, and is startled to see there Shelley Winters’ Oscar for The Diary of Anne Frank. (Apparently, Whoopi is still telling that story, perhaps not to such great effect.)

The Biblical city of Nineveh is near the current location of Mosul, Iraq on the Tigris River. I did not know that until last week’s Bible study of Jonah. I had assumed it was a city on the sea. (Jonah is the guy who had that encounter with the big fish.)

Hugh Thompson, the guy who put a stop to the My Lai massacre, was on 60 Minutes several years ago. They repeated part of the segment on the CBS Sunday Morning program just after he died this month at age 62. He talked about how he was not given adequate cover on some of his subsequent Viet Nam missions, how shunned he was by his fellow military people, until in the last decade of his life, when the military finally asked him to speak about the excesses of war. I’d seen this story before, but I did not know how emotionally involved I would feel in the retelling. I believe that his illness was probably caused, or at least exacerbated by the years of being a pariah.

“Truthiness” is the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year, beating out Katrina-gate. I did not know truthiness was a word, but then, I haven’t been watching the Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report”. Truthiness “refers to the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.”

Don’t know how many are familiar with Tyler Perry. He’s a black performer who dresses in drag as a character named Madea. There’s always an object lesson. At her request, I bought some DVDs for my mother last Christmas, and now I find myself on the Tyler Perry fan mail list:

On a more serious note, Madea is a character that has been a blessing but it has come with its share of challenges. Many of you don’t know this but I am extremely uncomfortable doing this character. I never have anyone other than the cast and crew back stage because I am so embarrassed. I know that sounds strange, but it’s true. Sometimes l looks in the mirror as I’m putting on lipstick and say to myself Boy what is wrong with you? Anyway I had to realize what I wish most people would realize about Madea. I am not a man that walks around in a dress. I am an actor and I’m playing a character. MADEA is not who I
am. I was in the mall and a lady walked up to me and asked where was my dress (what the hell…smile) I AM A MAN, although I love women God himself knows I don’t want to be one. I said all of that to say this. I have been asked many times to do Madea outside of my shows but I have always said no to Award shows, concerts, and movies. I won’t do it because I’m uncomfortable with people seeing me like that up close and personal.
Well Oprah asked me to do it on her show. My first reaction was no but yall know that she is a huge part of the reason I started writing. After much debate and prayer I agreed to do it. Get ready cause Madea is going to be on Oprah. PRAY FOR ME. Tyler.

I did not know that the man was so embarrassed playing Madea. He does it often, and from what I’m told, well.

Note: in the comic strip tradition all the words in the strip are in capitals, but for readability, I’ve deigned to write in standard English. Also the words that are in bold in the strip are in red in this text.

One other observation- for some reason, you can see the dots used as the skin tone on some strips (Natural, last week’s Superblack) more than others. They all look a consistent graytone in the book.

“Flesh Horton”, a 4 page take-off on “Flash Gordon”.

Page 1:
(Two guys sitting at the control panel)
Flesh: Things have certainly changed, Dr. Zirkon!
Zirkon: Yas, Flesh- they certainly have!

Page 2:

Page 3, Panel 1
(Shot of spaceship)
Flesh: Now, we live as if there were no difference in our skin color at all!
Zirkon: To tell you the truth, Flesh, I hadn’t realized you were black ’til you mentioned it!
Page 3, Panel 2
(Flesh opening a door)
Flesh: -But what are we going to do-

Page 4
(Men and women with slightly pointed ears, sitting in airplane-like seats; sign says “Greenie Venusian Section”
Flesh (not in shot): -with those damn green Venusians?

People – O.K., white people – have actually told me, “I don’t think of you as black.” Don’t know what to do with that one. What does that mean? That they think of me as white? And if so, is that supposed to be a compliment? (Hint: it’s not.)

I’ve also heard, “I’m color-blind.” I’m always suspicious of the remark. If they are truly color-blind, which I doubt is true with most people regardless of race, why do they find a need to say it? And to me? Also, more often than not, something is said later in the conversation which betrays the comment.

I think this story really speaks to what I consider to be a major truth: that people who have been oppressed sometimes go out and oppress Unfortunate, for sure, but it does happen.

***

“Natural”, a 4 page riff on “Nancy”. I should note that except for the panel shown, Nancy is always smiling. Note also that while Natural is in every shot, she says nothing, but is looking coquettish, especially in the last panel.

Page 1:
Sluggo: I don’t dig it, Natural – you’re the grooviest black chick I know-
–you picket, you stand up for your people’s rights-

Page 2, Panel 1:
Sluggo: -Right up to your natural hair, you’re all soul, baby!
-And you gotta admit, I’m the grooviest white guy you know!
Page 2, Panel 2:
Sluggo (putting on round lens shades):
I wear shades in the winter and tan myself in the summer!

Page 3:

Page 4:
Sluggo (literally on a soap box): -So tell me, girl- why won’t you go out with me?

I knew these guys in high school especially, these white guys (and occasionally white gals) who could out-street talk me and expected that I would think that they were really “down with it”. I tended to find them irritating.

I’ve also known white people who like to tan who liked to point out that their skin color was darker than mine on their forearms, and would put their arms next to mine to prove it. Most insulting, not to mention stupid.

But, is it just me, or does Sluggo look like he might be a light-skinned black?