awards Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Ramblin' with Roger

Half a Bupkis is better than nothing

Bupkis means nothing. I mean literally nothing.

One of the very few Facebook “fan” items I follow is The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book. As you may, or may not recall:
1) The Dick Van Dyke Show is one of the two TV shows of which I own the complete set on DVD; I’ve been slowly watching it with The Daughter, and
2) I really liked this book, as I noted here.

The book’s fan page posted recently:

I thought I’d pose a follow-up question to my recent post about Danny Thomas’s legendary cameo on “It May Look Like a Walnut!” For a super-sized supercilious and super-invisible Bupkis Award, name the one other time Danny appeared on screen in a scene with at least one character from the show?

As always with our trivia challenges on this page, this is “closed book” quiz–so no fair googling!

Of course, if you don’t know the answer, there’s never a penalty for just making something up! — with Danny Thomas and Richard W Van Dyke.

Do any of you know? I sort of half-remembered the plot of a Danny Thomas Show episode, which was included in the DVDS box set.

Someone had previously written: “The character of Buddy Sorrel [Morey Amsterdam] was a guest on the Danny Thomas show.” That didn’t sound right, so I dashed off a response to that: “I thought Buddy was a writer for the Danny Williams [Danny Thomas] character.” Some guy named Ian noted: “Buddy crossed over to The Danny Thomas Show, writing for Danny and his wife.”

The response:

Actually, Ian and Roger, you’re both partially correct. In the crossover show, Kathy hires Buddy to write for her, at which point it’s established that Buddy has an exclusive contract to write material for Danny’s nightclub act. What Alan Brady’s lawyers would’ve thought about that arrangement remains unexplored. I’ll write more about this episode when I have a minute. But for now, your partially correct answers have earned you a shared Bupkis Award. (You can decide between yourselves on whose non-existent mantle you’ll display your non-existent award.)

Bupkis, BTW, means nothing. I mean literally nothing of value. The award is named after a later episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show when Rob Petrie (Van Dyke) hears a song on the radio and discovers an old army buddy of his has left Rob off the songwriting credits. It gets even more complicated by the end of the show.

So I’ll be placing my half a Bupkis award over the mantle proudly.
***
Then I got a FULL Bupkis related to this pic:

It is, of course, Barbara Bain, who played Cinnamon Carter on Mission: Impossible; her then-husband Martin Landau played Rollin Hand. Bain was replaced by Lesley Ann Warren, Landau by Leonard Nimoy. And while I watched them on MI, I’ll bet others know Landau and Bain best from Space: 1999, though I never actually saw it.

I did not know this: during the Van Dyke show’s early days, Bain and Landau were personal friends of Carl and Estelle Reiner, and Bain regularly attended the show’s Tuesday night filming at Desilu Cahuenga. So when the part of Rob’s sultry ex-fiancee came up in season two’s “Will You Two Be My Wife?”, casting Barbara in the role seemed only natural.

The Idle Chatter award

Lots of songs make me cry.

Cheri at Idle Chatter has been kind enough to nominate me for a Liebster Award, whatever that is.

I’ve been doing this blogging thing long enough to do a few things with awards:
1. Accept them graciously.
2. Struggle with the random facts, but find some anyway, ideally, ones I hadn’t mentioned before.
3. Totally ignore the part about passing it on, on the theory that some people get really ticked off by it. I don’t, but I’ve long learned that my reaction to stimuli is not a universal.

{1} Each blogger should answer the questions the tagger has set for you.

Not only will I do that, but I’ll also even answer the questions Jeannie had for Cheri:
Butter or margarine?

Olivio, which is an olive oil-based product. I grew up on margarine, but now prefer butter, which I will cook with.

Fact or fiction?

Fact. Truth is stranger…

Musical or Action film?

Musical. Grew up with LOTS of soundtracks of my mother’s.

Realist or a dreamer?

Realist. Yet, I hold out hope…

Do you read between the lines?

I try to take it at face value until proven otherwise, which happens a LOT.

Are you as tall as you want to be?

At my tallest, I was 5 feet, 11 5/8 inches. I couldn’t get an extra half an inch? That said, I don’t much care.

Pet peeve?

Bad drivers who imperil pedestrians and bicyclists. The latter act badly, but car hitting a person is more likely to harm the person than the vehicle, or the person inside it.

Introvert or extrovert?

If you ask me, introvert. If you ask most people I know, extrovert. Make of that what you will.

Favorite quote/movie or song?

“So here’s another question up for interpretation. Favorite quote, movie, or song?” Favorite quote from a movie: “I’m walking here!” from Midnight Cowboy. Or about 99 others. Favorite song from a movie? Even more difficult. It could be the Sharks women singing America from West Side Story, or Streets of Philadelphia by Neil Young from Philadelphia. The first thing that came to mind today was the wistful optimism of When You Wish Upon a Star by Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio.

How many projects do you have going right now?

There’s the FantaCo project (bibliography), the attic project (now that it’s finished, a lot of rearranging), and a work project.

What is your “One Thing?” (City Slickers)?

I dunno – music. Or fairness.

And now for my questions from Cheri:

Do you like amusement park rides?

I did as a child. But last summer, I rode a few, and they gave me a wretched headache.

What’s your pet peeve?

The assumption that because YOU experience it this way, EVERYONE does. (Yeah, I answered it differently above. I do that.)

If there was a movie about your life, who would you want to play you?

Roger E. Mosley. It should be a Roger, right?

Last movie you saw at the theater?

Quartet, if we’re talking full length. But I did subsequently see the Oscar-nominated live-action short films for 2012.

Morning person or night owl?

That’s a problem: night owl by nature, but I must, and more to the point, my WIFE has to get up in the morning. I’d go to bed at 11 or 11:30 on my own, but that 5:30 alarm comes TOO early.

What song makes you cry?

Lots of songs make me cry. Crying by Roy Orbison and k.d. lang, for just one.

Realist or dreamer?

Realistic dreamer.

Believe in love at first sight?

Probably not love. Lust, maybe.

Do you play the lottery?

When it gets over $300 million if I think of it. I didn’t last time…

Beach or mountains?

Water. I mean, I’m not going to hang out in the sand, but I’d rather be where a lake, or river is.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

Got to answer this recently: flight.

{2} Choose 11 new bloggers to pass the award on to and link them in your post.

Nah. But if you want to self-select, be my guest.

{3} Create 11 new questions for the chosen bloggers.

Feel free to steal any from here.

{4} Go back to their page and tell them about the award.

Not applicable.

{5} Each blogger should post 11 random facts about themselves.

1. When I was in junior high school – before they started calling it middle school – we decided to go by our middle names, mostly. I was Owen, Ray was Albert, etc.

2. Ever since I was in Prince of Egypt, some guy in the choir has started calling me Jethro, the name of one of my characters,. Others are calling me God, my other role.

3. I listen to music at work (on headphones, most of the day). I love music but am loath to use headphones, or earbuds, on the bus, or when I get home.

4. I’ve been a janitor on two separate occasions, once in Binghamton, NY once in New Paltz, NY.

5. I love to engage Jehovah’s Witnesses in theological conversation when I have the time and energy.

6. On the first day of my March Madness pool, I was in 10th place, out of 10th, on the first day. After the weekend, I had risen all the way to 8th, but still with a chance to win.

7. There are certain accounts I have I use so infrequently that I ALWAYS forget the password and have to get a new one.

8. I tend to play music based on the artists’ birthday – a lot of Elton John and Aretha Franklin and James Taylor in March, e.g.

9. I never answer my telephone at home unless I know who it is, and it’s someone I want to talk with. That’s why God created the answering machine. Conversely, I ALWAYS answer the phone at work, if no one else does.

10. I’ve never not voted in a local, state, or federal; election. I might have missed a school board election in my first couple years, but haven’t missed one of those since 1976.

11. I “follow” people on Twitter, then never actually read what they have to say; time is not fungible. I’m only vaguely better on Facebook.
***
Roger Ebert’s A Leave of Presence, released earlier this week, is a wonderfully optimistic piece, despite the return of his cancer. (I could not get to yesterday afternoon for a time, probably because the server was overloaded.) It was likely the last thing he published before his untimely death this week. I once again highly recommend his autobiography; an excerpt, about his death, can be found HERE. The Chicago Tribune obit.

Mark Evanier on the deaths of comic book greats Carmine Infantino and George Gladir.

To Award, or Not To Award; That is the question.

I’ve totally changed my sense of my personal history and time, especially since I began blogging.

I recently read this great article by Patio Patch (Laura from London, UK) about how to be an awards-free blog without seeming ungracious. She noted: “As an ingenue exploring the blogosphere I was surprised to see prominently placed ‘award free blog’ buttons. At the time I considered these to be rude presumptions of a confetti of accolades but hindsight has shown that this is a politely circumspect way of side-stepping the issue.”

I hadn’t, in fact, gotten any awards in a while, so I was thinking that, in my existence, it had become a moot point.

So naturally, at that point, I get an award from Dustbury, one Charles G. Hill, who, as the person who nominated him put it,”might cover social media, automobile tires, basketball, My Little Pony, print magazines, transportation in Oklahoma, women’s shoes, and Zooey Deschanel — all with enviable literary skill and brio.” I came across him initially because he knows more about Warner Brothers Loss Leader LPs than any sane person should.

The rules:
In a post on your blog, nominate 15 fellow bloggers for The Versatile Blogger Award. (Now this has become increasingly difficult, if only because of the aforementioned no awards policy. But I have a workaround.)
In the same post, add the Versatile Blogger Award. (Check)
In the same post, thank the blogger who nominated you in a post with a link back to their blog. (Thank you, CG.)
In the same post, share 7 completely random pieces of information about yourself. (See below)
In the same post, include this set of rules. (Check)
Inform each nominated blogger of their nomination by posting a comment on each of their blogs. (Or tweeting.) (Well, we’ll get to that.)

The seven random things aren’t all that difficult for me; they are usually strands of blogposts I could never finish.

1. I’ve totally changed my sense of my personal history and time, especially since I began blogging. I used to believe that I would go from one chapter to another in life. But now I see it as one long continuum, with things from my past often playing more significant roles in my present than I ever would have guessed.

2. On two different occasions, I dated for a time a woman who was at least a decade older than I was. Indeed, for the majority of my dating life, I’ve gone out with women in their 40s. That includes my wife, who’s younger than I.

3. The only trophy I ever won was for racquetball. The racquet broke off the trophy, but I’m still keeping it, in the office I’m writing this, actually.

4. The ONLY time I’ve EVER done the chicken dance was in Galveston, TX in 1995. It was at a work conference

5. My Twitter name, Ersie, is based on a stuffed monkey I no longer own.

6. We have drawers of random electronic and computer junk I should probably throw out, but haven’t, because I have the bizarre notion I might need them, in most cases because I never knew what they really did in the first place.

7. I can probably name more New York Giants (football) and New York Yankees (baseball) players from the 1960s than the 21st century.

And now for my designees for the award. Ready? (Drum roll, please.)

YOU. That is, if you don’t mind getting awards, if you like giving awards to others, by all means, consider yourself so dubbed by me. And if you WANT me to specifically call on you, then let me know, and I will. But if you’re award-free, don’t let me ruin the streak.

Call Me Mr. Versatility

I play license plate math. I see a plate, and it’s usually divided into two parts. I try to calculate down to a more common factor. Since there are so many letters, I assign them values. The Roman numerals stay the same.

My goodness. I’ve awarded one of those blogging award things, this one called the “Versatility Award” from Jaquandor at Byzantium Shores. This is because I guess I’m a versatile blogger. Surprising since I write about the same thing every day. Anyway, the award is GREEN, so I MUST accept it.

As is usual with this type of thing, I’m supposed to provide seven facts about myself and then give the award to several other bloggers. I’ve often skipped these steps, but I’m feeling agreeable. The problem is, after six-plus years of blogging, it’s difficult to find facts I still can ‘reveal’ about myself that aren’t either common knowledge to those who read this blog, or things I don’t feel like revealing. So a couple of these are rather arcane.

1. I play license plate BINGO. I’m always looking at license plates, not just on long trips. I saw two from Kansas on a Sunday morning within a block of each other in Albany, NY this month. Other ones I’ve seen this summer I’ve found unusual in these parts: Idaho, Wyoming, Texas, New Mexico. Plates I’ve seen recently that are not that unusual: Florida (not surprising; probably a snowbird) and California. I see California quite regularly. Not as common as an adjacent state (or province, such as Ontario), but regularly enough.

2. I play license plate math. I see a plate, and it’s usually divided into two parts. I try to calculate down to a more common factor. Since there are so many letters, I assign them values. The Roman numerals stay the same. Then I attribute values to other letters as needed. Example: ABC 12345 becomes ABC=12345. C is 100 so AB(100)=12345, AB=123.45; B kinda looks like 13, so A(13)=123.45, which is some number less than 10, but greater than 9. (It’s actually 9.49615385, but I’m doing this in my head, so I’m guessing A=9.5.) Yeah, scary.

3. I’ve never had a job that makes me the civil rights, or diversity guy, though I am the Black History Month guy at my church, somehow. For instance, there was an unpaid position for the city of Albany’s Commission on Human Rights and I didn’t apply for it, even though I was actually interested in it.

4. Truthfully, the specific reason I didn’t apply for that commission was that I had previously applied for this unpaid position earlier this year, was even interviewed, but was turned down. I wasn’t brokenhearted about it, but going through the rigamarole AGAIN so soon, for a volunteer job, just wasn’t my cuppa.

5. Sometimes when I type, I leave off a letter or syllable, especially if that letter or syllable has repeated letters that show up earlier in the word. The second I in liaison, e.g. Or Denders instead of Defenders. I spell well, but my typing, not so much.

6. The word I see misspelled most often, besides the homonyms (its/it’s, there/their/they’re) seems to be ‘definitely’, often spelled ‘definately’. And I often read that misspelling as ‘defiantly’.

7. My Twitter name, Ersie, is in honor of a stuffed monkey I used to have, which my ex has held onto, even though I had had Ersie before I had met her.

Who to honor? Guess I’ll bug some of the ABC Wednesday folk:

Meryl at Departing the Text who is “a parent with a Ph.D. in Educational/School Psychology…currently an instructor for Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, and author of Teaching Content Area Graphic Novels (2012). My next book will be one for parents on kids’ graphic novels and literacy.”

Lisa at peripheral perceptions: “As a kid, I was never happy with the box on only 24 crayons. I was more of a 96 crayon box kid. Still am.”

Leslie at The Pedalogue, from BC, Canada: “I retired from teaching in ’06 and did some traveling in Europe and the UK before settling down to do some private tutoring…I’m a happy, optimistic person and I love to travel and through that believe that life can be a continuous learning experience.”

Amy at Sharp Little Pencil, who is a poet, singer, and a bunch of other stuff, growing up not far from where I did, albeit a few years later.