Ramblin' with Roger

NAME: Fred G. (for Guru) Hembeck, comic book impressario, best known as the father of one Julie Hembeck, whose fifteenth birthday is this very week
BLOG NAME: Fred Sez, part of Hembeck.com
NAME OF CD: Ring In the Obscure, Ring Out The Odd
NUMBER OF CUTS: 20
RUNNING TIME: 78:34
COVER ART: Nicely typed

SONG LIST:
1. Sleep That Burns-Be Bop Deluxe
2. Losing True-The Roches
3. Twenty-Five Fingers-Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello (from the McCartney/McManus Collaborations, a bootleg of demos and such, from the My Brave Face era. That song was never officially released, with only the demo available for the fans.)
4. Unwanted Number-For Real
5. Hey St. Peter-Flash and the Pan
6. American UFO-John Southworth
7. What Kind of Fool Are You?-Swing Out Sister
8. Me and My Monkey-Robbie Williams
9. Brother, Can You Spare a Dime-Mandy Patinkin
10. Change the World-Nellie McKay
11. So Says I-the Shins
12. Remember-Air
13. Hurt-Code Blue
14. Dreaming of You-the Coral
15. Colour Slide-the Honeycombs
16. Sleep with Me Instead-Louise Goffin
17. Whispering Your Name-Jules Shear
18. Just One Smile-Gene Pitney (an early Randy Newman number, also covered by the Kooper-led BS&T and by Dusty Springfield)
19. I’ll Be Seeing You-Ann Hampton Callaway (from the original cast recording of the B’way musical “Swing”)
20. Don’t Hang Up-10cc
(Notes by Encyclopedia George)
ALREADY REVIEWED BY: Gordon on July 21
GENERAL THOUGHTS: I’ve gotten more mixed CDs from Fred than anyone I know, so I’m always looking forward to his discs. I found that I liked this more on the second play than the first, and the third more than the second.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: The alarm that starts the CD, and the hang up that ends it. Track 15- sounds somewhat like their hit “Have I the Right?” Songs I had all but forgotten in a new context (2 and especially 5). 3, 4, 6, 11, 12, 13.
ON THE OTHER HAND: Maybe a little too romantic at the end, but no big deal. But the big finish on 9 grinds the proceedings to a halt.
OFFICE FRIENDLY: The F-word in “Me and My Monkey”
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: Nellie McKay is a lot younger than she sounds.

As I’ve noted, I try to play racquetball every weekday. It’s a pretty civilized gathering. We can usually agree on whether a shot or serve is good or not, and when we can’t, we just play it over.

Last week, we were playing doubles. My partner and I won the first game rather handily, but in the second game, one of our opponents was making unreturnable three-corner shots. Also, I wasn’t picking up the ball well, missing makeable returns. This was somewhat frustrating, but that is just the way it goes.

Then, as they were leading 9-3, my partner returned a shot. Well, WE thought he’d returned it. The other side saw it differently, but instead of just replaying the point, as tradition would dictate, their side declared that the ball had bounced twice and that it was their point, making it 10-3.

This made me VERY ANGRY.

It wasn’t the single point, it was the fact that social contract had been violated. But my anger wasn’t arguing the decision type, it was the seething “what a crock THAT was”, stomach-churning near-rage.

They eventually got to 14-3 in a 15-point, win by 2, game before finally losing the serve. I served, and suddenly, they couldn’t touch it. Maybe I was focusing more, perhaps I was hitting it harder. Whatever happened, we got to 14-14 on my 11 consecutive successful serves. My partner served, and it was 15-14. They tied it at 15, but we got the next two points to win 17-15.

I was fascinated by all of this: just how ticked I got and how well I was able to channel it into SportsCenter-worthy comeback. Self-discovery is such a joy.

And this is who makes brings me REAL joy.

The next time you see A Clockwork Orange (and you should see it, if only once), imagine it without the music of the moog. It would change the fear and even the humor of the film in a way I simply cannot imagine. The pieces were performed by Walter (later Wendy) Carlos, but the instrument was the creation of Robert Moog, who died this week. The article lists just some of the pivotal albums enhanced by the moog, and therefore enhanced by Moog.

[Note: This post was designed to make Greg Burgas ill.]

It was probably in 4th or 5th grade when I learned the meaning of the term carpetbagger. By that time, I was reading the op/ed pages of our local newspapers in Binghamton. I recall that columnist William F. Buckley suggested that Robert F. Kennedy was a “carpetbagger” for being a Massachusetts and/or Virginia resident running for U.S. Senate in 1964. I thought his point was pretty sound, and we had a perfectly good “Rockefeller Republican” named Kenneth Keating. So I was disappointed that Kennedy beat Keating in 1964. As it turned out, Keating ended up as a justice on the New York State Court of Appeals (the highest court, despite its name) and U.S. Ambassador to India, so things turned out all right for him.

Of course, Kennedy was assassinated in June of 1968 and was replaced by Republican Charles Goodell that September. Jamestown, the heart of his district, was NOT a bastion of progressivism, so his transformation from a moderate Congressman to Kennedyesque Senator was astonishing to most. The Senate race in 1970 was among Goodell (cross-endorsed by the Liberal Party), equally progressive Democrat Richard Ottinger, and Conservative James Buckley.
(The terms Liberal and Conservative in the previous sentence refers to actual political parties in the state, not just philosophies; the Conservative Party still exists, though the Liberal Party died a few years ago.).
James Buckley was born in New York, but was most recently from Connecticut, yet I don’t recall his brother William complain about HIM being a “carpetbagger.”

For the 2000 race, a woman who was residing in the District of Columbia, and had roots in Arkansas and Illinois, bought a house in Chappaqua with her husband in order to run for the U.S. Senate. Of course, that was Hillary Clinton, and the “carpetbagger” label was exhumed yet again, as you can see from this August 1999 cartoon:

Now, with New York governor George Pataki announcing that he’s not running for reelection in 2006 (because he would lose, I think), so he can plan to run for President (the analysts tell us- hey, maybe it’s BOTH reasons), William Weld, born in New York, but former governor of Massachusetts, is planning to run for the New York statehouse. He’s won’t be considered a carpetbagger in the traditional sense, since he has been in NYS for the past five years. Still, I believe some folks will at least pause for voting for a person for governor who once governed another state. Yet Weld may be the strongest opponent against the presumed Democratic nominee, state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The AG has been busy doing the job of the SEC and other federal and state agencies because they don’t seem to be able to do it themselves.

As an old political science major, I look at politics with a sense of wonder, the type of fascination one has watching a fire or rubbernecking at a car wreck.

Read here. BTW, I couldn’t find the pieces mentioned on the Artnet page. Could they have been already removed?