Ramblin' with Roger

Back on July 29, David Chapman wrote an astute observaton about an 85-year old grandmother suing the makers of Grand Theft for its hidden sexual content. While I generally agreed with his interpretation, some piece of me wanted to take the contrary position, but I couldn’t figure out why until recently. It’s Watergate. Or more specifically, the lesson we’re supposed to have learned from Watergate. It’s not the third-rate burglary, it’s the cover-up. It’s not merely that there was graphic sex, it was graphic sex that the company Take Two deliberately HID. This gives members of Congress just the cover they need to regulate, since the system “failed.”

I added four links this week. One was requested by this ADD person, who used to shop at FantaCo, about his site re: the music and art of James Kochalka. One is for Joe Fludd, a guy who did some work for FantaCo. And the third is the store owned by Augustus Mattick, then known as Matt, who used to work at FantaCo. Oh, before I forget, a belated thanks to Fred, Lynn, and Julie for the vblue bear; Lydia loves it.

The fourth link, BTW, is for Nat Pike’s page. I thought I had already done so, but I have now.

Thanks to Johnny Bacardi for letting me know on August 17 that James Kochalka ls NOT related to Darren McGavin.

Meanwhile, Mike at Progressive Ruin was kind enough to link to me on August 11; I hope he’ll still be that kind after my review yesterday of his…eclectic CD. Gordon at Blog This, Pal also linked to me, on August 17.

Oh, and Eddie at Renaissance Geek said nice things about me back on August 11. Glad if it helped, Eddie.

Logan at House of the Ded said that he was taking off from blogging for a while, but then came back only a week later. (I’ve seen plenty of blogs that haven’t posted in several months, with no explanation.) So when I checked out his page (pointlessly, I figured), only to see a new item, I wrote that I was glad he was back, but that he confounded me. So, naturally, he changes the header of his page to read, “Confounding Roger Green daily! (Well, maybe not daily…)” I admit that I laughed out loud!

Logan is correct that people should be especially mindful to tip deliverypeople. I get the Pizza News e-mail at work (really, I do), and there was an article about how some pizzerias in Indianapolis are now requiring a surcharge for delivery, hurting the drivers’ tips.

In the Greg links, he found, or rather his pal Roxy found, a website called Black People Love Us. I don’t know if it’s a parody or an insult or just weird. Your thoughts, PLEASE.

And speaking of Greg, he’s having a contest, or rather, three contests until the end of the month. I entered one myself, which you’ll read about eventually.

And speaking of contests, Lefty had one on August 3, which is over except for the judging. But he did note on August 16 about a series of contests offered at Yet Another Comics Blog, the last one being held today.
Of course, I noticed that Lefty didn’t mention it until he WON on Day One. (Naturally, you didn’t happen to notice that I didn’t mention it either until I won on Day Two, did you?) Today is the last day for that contest.

Oh, Lefty, if I have to be more specific, consider yourself memed. Kelly, too. (I want to see if your recollections of five years ago are the same.)

And re: Lefty, he was the one who initiated the Mixed Blog CD thing, the results of which I’ve been reviewing lately. I never received CDs from:
Ken Lowery Presents: Ringwood—> Ken Lowery
MercuryX23’s Fantablous Blog—> MercuryX23
musEletric—> Brendan Duffy
Near Mint Heroes—> Shane Bailey
Roxy’s World—> Roxy
Stacking the Deck—> David Chapman
So if you’ve sent, please re-send. Thank you.

Yet Another Comics Blog has a sister blog, Yet Another Music Blog, which has a link to free downloads on Amazon. John Hiatt, whose birthday was yesterday, is one of the featured artists. I may have more CDs of John Hiatt than anyone except the Beatles. I borrowed the new CD from the Hoffinator a couple days ago, and it’s another fine effort.

What’s really weird about this posting is that I’ve never met ANY of these people mentioned, except for the FantaCo-related folks. The mystery of the blog.

NAME: Mike Sterling
BLOG NAME: Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin
NAME OF CD: The Uneasy Rest of Thomas Edison
NUMBER OF CUTS: 35
RUNNING TIME: 79:55
COVER ART: Excellent picture of Alva himself
SONG LIST:
1. Think of Me-Stark Effect
2. No More Free Will-The Bran Flakes
3. Mustache-Qypthone
4. Evolution Is Easy-Neoangin
5. Bombolero-Dan Belloc and His Orchestra
6. Spring Pants Has Come-Mummy and the Peep Show
7. Eleven Twelve-Braces Tower
8. Aggravation-Victor Banana
9. Hearing Problem-The Dead Alewife (talk)
10. Mothra Song
11. Murphy It’s You-from Robocop: The Musical
12. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang-Braces Tower
13. At the Munsters
14. Star Trek-Tenacious D
15. Stay on Target—Rebel Scum
16. The Smurfs’ All Star Show
17. Boy Wonder-Burt Ward (talk)
18. Kookie’s Mad Pad-Ed “Kookie” Byrnes
19. The Carioca-Jonathan and Darlene Edwards
20. Apes’ Shuffle-The Jeff Wayne Space Shuttle
21. Pac Man Cereal
22. Goin’ Berzerk-Buckner & Garcia
23. M.U.L.E. Theme (rehashed)-Edgemere
24. Video Computer System-Golden Shower
25. Purple Cow-Psychedelicado
26. Multi-Family Garage Sale-Land of the Loops
27. It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Syphilis-The Four Skins
28. Perversion for Profit-The Bran Flakes (talk)
29. Crybaby Duck-Evolution Control Committee (talk)
30. QuackQuackQuack-QuaQuaQua
31. Hoppity Jones-Twink
32. Uncle Mistletoe-Buddy Max
33. Poke You in the Eye-Head and Leg
34. Metamorpho
35. Mary Had a Little Lamb-Thomas Edison (talk)
ALREADY REVIEWED BY: Gordon on June 21
GENERAL THOUGHTS: This is why I don’t review CDs for a living. Sometimes, one is left…speechless. This is certainly the strangest of the discs I received. Mike’s note: “…many of you will probably rip the disc out of your player and throw it across the room…” Well, no, but probably not a regular listen either.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: 2, 3, (danceable) 7 (if you’ve forgotten know how to count, a pleasant refresher), 27 (change syphilis to Christmas for the tune), 28 (very funny, I’m afraid), 33 (rude but effective), 35 (appropriate ending)
ON THE OTHER HAND: 15 (irritatingly repetitive), 24 (ditto). And it’s not so much a particular cut, it’s the collective effect of “how weird can you get”, particularly the middle of the disc.
OFFICE FRIENDLY: Well, the TOPICS of 27 & 28 will turn some heads.
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: I own the single Pac Man Fever by Buckner & Garcia; ah, I see why cuts 21 & 22 are together. The second CD in a row with Smurfs; maybe use of these blue folks is somehow ironic.
I wrote music for the famous poem “Purple Cow” in college and got an A on the assignment.
***
After I posted the above, I played Mike’s first Mixed CD. I liked it a lot. Wish I were reviewing THAT.

So I’m flicking through the channels last night, and I come across a shot of two women in the talking-heads side-by-side mode. The woman on the left I don’t know. The woman on the right is vaguely familiar. And isn’t that a NewsChannel 13 logo behind her, partially obscured? Why, yes, it is. The reporter is named Alison Bleck from NBC affiliate WNYT in Albany and she’s talking to MSNBC’s Rita Cosby about the Christian Brothers Academy teacher who allegedly had sex with underage male students. Oh, WHY is this not-worthy-of-national-news-coverage story on MSNBC? Because teacher was busted for DWI, a violation of her bail, and now she’s heading for jail.

Then I see Rita interviewing David Soares, Albany County District Attorney. She asks him a question, and he responses that he’s “shocked” that the teacher would use such poor judgment and thought she might have laid low. Rita’s next question: “Weren’t you shocked…?” as though she hadn’t even listened to his previous response. And the entire three-minute (or so) interview was like that, with her asking questions that he had already answered.

I didn’t watch any more of the program, since she had moved on to Alabama-teen-missing-in-Aruba, and instead watched the last two innings of the Mets exciting 1-0 win over the Nats.

So I need to know, because I don’t watch her show, and indeed was totally unfamiliar with her until I read this story about the former FOX reporter: is Rita Cosby ALWAYS that incompetent, or was that just an aberration?

The physics of music:

NAME: Dorian Wright
BLOG NAME: Postmodern Barney
NAME OF CD: Happy Smiling Naked Man
NUMBER OF CUTS: 35
RUNNING TIME: 79:39
COVER ART: A picture of a happy smiling naked man, except for the strategically placed LP cover
SONG LIST: On Lefty Brown’s page of June 30, though there are also 10 snippets inserted throughhout
ALREADY REVIEWED BY: Gordon on June 21; Lefty
GENERAL THOUGHTS: Not all of it, but a lot of this disc is jokey. Some of it worked for me (Nigel Planer, Milton Berle’s Yellow Sub), some didn’t (Hulk Hogan), and a lot I didn’t know WHAT to think (Tony Randall, Leonard Nimoy, Brady Bunch, Smurfs). A somewhat uneven disc.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: The run of covers: G-L-O-R-I-A (“Melvin”)/Judy Get Down/Jolene; Snip Snip; Teenage Enema Nurses; The Mystery Date commercial
ON THE OTHER HAND: The Scooby-Doo joke was WAY too long; Boots was painful
OFFICE FRIENDLY: Not the Butthole Duet, MC Chris, Justin Tranter, and at least two of the unidentified snippets.
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: Killer Pussy was one of the biggest local New Wave bands in Phoenix back in the 80’s, I’ve read. Nancy Sinatra was on CBS Sunday Morning recently; she looked and sounded great- THOSE boots were made for walkin’! Dorian kindly sent me his previous effort, the listing for which is somewhere on June 10; though it too was kitschy, it was less weird, so I enjoyed it more.

(This was probably inspired in part by Gordon’s recent post.)

In the USA, lung cancer kills more men AND more women than any other cancer. Peter Jennings who was a smoker until about 20 years ago, then “was weak” and started up around 9/11/01, died from it. Vasssar Clements died from it. These questions are limited to tobacco (not any of the other stuff, like that “wacky tobacky”):

1. Do you smoke or chew tobacco? If so, how much? If you do, why, and if you don’t, why not?

2. If you partake, have you tried to quit, by what method and how many times? If you’re a former smoker, are you particularly obnoxious about smoking? (Be honest.) If you’ve never smoked, how tolerant are you of smokers around you?

3. What are the public smoking regulations in your area? Are they fair, too tough or too lenient? What has been the actual/anticipated economic impact of the law?