Tag: Alan David Doane

The blogs as squirrel nuts

Ah, let’s see what kind of traffic I can drive here by talking about pornography!

Shooting Parrots wrote:

Ever since I was a boy, I’ve collected ‘interesting’ bits of information. I put that in quotes because by interesting, I mean interesting to me. I can’t speak for anyone else.

I collected them like a squirrel gathers nuts, tasty kernels of facts that I then bury away somewhere because I know they’ll come in handy one day.

But like the squirrel, too often I forget where I’ve buried them, or I remember only half the story, which can be worse.

That’s one of the reasons I keep this blog. If I record things somewhere that has its own search facility then I have a better than even chance of finding it again when I need it.

Absolutely. It’s the reason I write the blog for work and ESPECIALLY the blog for the New York State Data Center affiliates, not to mention my own.

This was my response:

I was saddened when someone I thought knew me quite well said recently, “You spend so much time on that blog, and you don’t get paid!” Which, of course, misses the point completely. I do get paid – in relationships, in therapy I don’t have to pay for and in a place to store my squirrel nuts.

Mr. Parrot replied:

You’re right, of course, Roger. If people only spent time on the web because they got paid, there wouldn’t be much of it other than Amazon, e-Bay, and porn!

Ah, let’s see what kind of traffic I can drive here by talking about pornography! PORNOGRAPHY! Nah. Truth is, I don’t even look at the numbers anymore – PORNOGRAPHY! – because, and I believe I’m merely paraphrasing Alan David Doane, I do this for me. Though I DO like comments…
***
And speaking of PORNOGRAPHY, some damn filter has been installed at my work computer. One of the blogs I visited regularly was tagged as PORNOGRAPHY, maybe because it occasionally has a woman not fully dressed. I appealed it, saying it was a personal blog, but not PORNOGRAPHY.

They wrote: “You submitted the following rating request to [company]:
Rate [site] as “34.Personals and Dating”
The request has been reviewed and rated as:
“41.Glamour/Society”

Which is hysterical.

Free Comic Book Day is like visiting my hometown

Binghamton and comic books, parts of “my ever present past.”

I always go to Free Comic Book Day, sometimes with my daughter, sometimes alone. This year, it will be on Saturday, May 5 at a comic book store near you (I hope). I go because I like seeing a busy comic book store, and I’m always treated like visiting royalty at a local proprietor’s shop. For those of you who don’t know, I worked a FantaCo, Albany’s first direct market comic book shop; the store was open from 1978-1998, and I worked there from 1980-1988. And I like getting something for free, although I ALWAYS buy something as well.

But it’s also a little sad. While there are good books out there, so much of it is…not. Even a comic nerd such as Alan David Doane recently noted: “My trouble with comics right now is that so very few appeal to me.”

This reminded me of my treks to my hometown of Binghamton, NY, some 150 miles away from Albany. When I was growing up, I rather loved it. It was a decent place to grow up. The population was about 75,000, with a vibrant downtown. Now it has about 47,000 people, with a downtown that seems to be hanging by a thread. I WANT it to do well, a lot, but it’s just not, for the most part.

When I went to college, they tore down a bunch of houses near my grandmother’s home to build “new” Route 17, which will eventually become Interstate 86. The road has made it easier to get THROUGH the city, but has hardly been a boon for having people stay IN the city. I go there for a family reunion, on my mother-in-law’s side, and I’ll see little signs of life, but it’s mostly moribund.

Binghamton and comic books, parts of, to quote Paul McCartney, “my ever-present past.”

BOOK REVIEW: Life Itself by Roger Ebert

“Most people choose to write a blog. I need to.”

Fairly early on in my reading of film critic Roger Ebert’s memoir, Life Itself, I decided that, if I were ever to write my own autobiography – not that I necessarily would – it should be modeled on this book. Organized thematically, with an overarching, but not strict, chronology, using short chapters (55 in 420 pages).

But I’m probably not going to write mine because I doubt I could be so descriptive. Ebert remembers things from his childhood that would have eluded me writing about mine. More importantly, though, he writes with incredible honesty. The very first line encapsulates the sensation: “I was born inside the movie of my life.” Yet, though known as probably the premiere movie critic of his time, he got the job “out of a clear blue sky,” and without much thought that it would be his life’s work.

Since I’ve started following him on various movie review TV programs, initially co-starring the late Gene Siskel back in the late 1970s, Roger Ebert has had a distinctive and intelligent voice when speaking about the cinema. But since just before the illness that has silenced his speaking voice, and turned him into what he described as looking like the 1925 version of Phantom of the Opera, his commentary on other aspects of life has proven to be extraordinary. And it all started with his blog:

“My blog became my voice, my outlet, my ‘social media’ in a way I couldn’t have imagined. Into it, I poured my regrets, desires, and memories…The comments were a form of feedback I’d never had before, and I gained a better and deeper understanding of my readers. I made ‘online friends’, a concept I scoffed at. Most people choose to write a blog. I need to.”

Ebert writes about family, growing up Catholic, race, and, naturally, a lot about writing. He explains how he collected places, in London, Venice, and elsewhere, that he would come back to again and again; now that he can’t visit physically, he can still experience them in his mind. Alcoholism – his mother’s and his own – is discussed thoroughly; 1979 marked the beginning of his sobriety.

He discusses several Hollywood legends, but my favorite chapters of those are about directors Martin Scorsese, whose first film is a touchstone for Ebert; and Werner Herzog, with whom he has a spiritual bond, though not in a theological sense. Perhaps not coincidentally, they are all about the same age.

Then there’s the chapter about Siskel, his TV partner, with whom he had a complicated but ultimately fraternal relationship of love and respect. It was Siskel’s agent who packaged them together, suggesting that they be seen together, which made their presence more distinctive.

Most HIGHLY recommended! (Great Christmas present.)
***
Reviews by Alan David Doane and Jaquandor.

Flashmob Fridays…and ME?

I feel like that guy who used to watch movies from 1915 through 1925, then went away from them for a score. Suddenly, he’s watching films that have SOUND! And COLOR!

There’s this comic book critic named Alan David Doane, who I’ve known since he used to come to FantaCo, the comic store I used to have something to do with for 8.5 years back in the 1980s. He asked me if I wanted to participate in something called Flashmob Fridays whereby “this batch of writers-about-comics…will converge in this space and weigh in with their thoughts on the comic chosen for review that week.” I actually participated once in the old iteration.

There are a lot of reasons NOT to do this. For instance, after voraciously reading comics for a couple of decades (1972-1992), I found my attraction to the medium had waned considerably. I had issues from 1992-1994 that I never even read before I sold the bulk of my collection in 1995 or 1996. I have picked up an odd issue or two, usually on Free Comic Book Day, but that is hardly representative.

So I feel like that guy who used to watch movies from 1915 through 1925, then went away from them for a score. Suddenly, he’s watching films that have SOUND! And COLOR! So he’ll either be awed by the new technology, even if it’s a lesser effort or, conversely, be annoyed/appalled by the changes.

Besides, I’m busy. Competing with the wife and now the daughter for computer time is difficult already; this will just make it worse.

So why do it? Maybe precisely because it IS scary. I’m not likely to climb a mountain or jump out of a plane. This is, perhaps, as dare devilish as I’m likely to get. Ah – the risk of public humiliation. And being slapped by ADD.

Also, Alan used the word interregnum. I LOVE that word. How the heck am I supposed to ignore THAT?

So look for #flashmobfridays on Twitter. I won’t participate EVERY week, but I’ll try to join in as often as time, and sanity, allow.

Christmas in July, self-generated

Generally, I’m just not that acquisitive. But I admit that getting stuff in the mail gave me almost as much of a rush as seeing the actual items themselves.

There was a period in late May and early June when I was really able to crank out blog posts. The mind was really engaged. There was a point that I actually was ahead 30 posts. Which was, I suppose, a good thing. Because when it started getting hot, my blogging started to cool off. I might write 2 posts in 10 days. So I would be down to 22 posts.

Now, I suppose I should explain that they were not the next 30 days out. They were for whatever special day struck my fancy. So I have written, weeks ago, posts for September 2 and 25, November 17, for example. But not necessarily for three days hence.

I think I hit a patch of melancholia. I can usually tell because I often buy stuff. For instance, Mile High Comics had this 60% off sale, which I used to purchase some Marvel Masterworks, about $300 of books for only $120, with free shipping.

My buddy Alan was having an eBay sale, and I bid on two books, one of which I got, a bio of Krazy Kat creator George Herriman. (On the other, an autobiography of Joe Simon, someone outbid me at 1:39 pm and the bidding closed at 1:40.)

I decided to buy more music on Amazon and ordered $25 worth for free shipping. I was surprised and pleased to discover that I had some Amazon points somehow, so that the purchase, of Outkast, Neil Young, and Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave) was free.

Oh, and I received my Top Pop Singles book I had ordered a few months earlier.

Generally, I’m just not that acquisitive. But I admit that getting stuff in the mail gave me almost as much of a rush as seeing the actual items themselves. It was peculiar.

Now I’ll spend time reading/listening to these items, which I hope will tide me over until the ACTUAL Christmas.

Ramblin' with Roger
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