I’ve come to realize… Sunday Stealing

fire

This week’s Sunday Stealing is what I’ve come to realize…, maybe because we’re in the midst od Ramadan, Passover, and Holy week.

1. I’ve come to realize that my chest size…
Really? It’s not anything I spent much time thinking about except as part of the general “I still need to lose weight.”

2. I’ve come to realize that my job(s) …
I’m SO glad I no longer have it. That said, if it had been as flexible as it became due to the pandemic, it probably would not have irritated me so much over the final four years.

3. I’ve come to realize that when I’m driving …
I’m probably breaking the law because I haven’t even had a driver’s permit since 1988.

4. I’ve come to realize that I need…
A lot of Roger time is required, listening to music, reading newspapers, blogging, getting rid of the excessive amount of email, and generally chilling out.

5. I’ve come to realize that I have lost…
My ability to always remember the correct noun is slipping. I’ve referred to my retirement account as my credit union and possibly vice versa.  Hey, they’re both money entities. You know what I mean, right?

6. I’ve come to realize that I hate it when …
Scammers, schemers, and hucksters try to call me, spoofing a local phone number and even a real name. I’ve gotten many calls from “Hi, this is your electric company,” without identifying the entity.

7. I’ve come to realize that if I’m drunk …
I should go home because I will need to go to sleep soon.

8. I’ve come to realize that money …
It does not define a person’s value. I’ve known that for a long while.
Heroic
9. I’ve come to realize that certain people …
Some of them are pretty cool. A story this week featured two City of Albany sanitation workers helping people escape from a massive blaze that destroyed four Grand Street buildings early Wednesday morning. “The fire broke out in a building… around 1:52 a.m., and it took city firefighters four hours to bring the flames under control… The pair began kicking in doors, trying to wake residents to the danger they faced. When the two men got there, no one from the buildings had evacuated.”

10. I’ve come to realize that I’ll always …
Listen to music. (Currently, Ella Fitzgerald and Roy Orbison, whose birthdays are this month.)

11. I’ve come to realize that my sibling …
They seem to like me.

12. I’ve come to realize that my mom …
She was more complicated than I gave her credit for when she was alive.

13. I’ve come to realize that my cell phone …
It’s both the bane of my existence and utterly necessary, less for me than for others who want to text me. Two-step authentication, e.g.

14. I’ve come to realize that when I woke up this morning …
I actually slept through the night. That almost NEVER happens!

15. I’ve come to realize that last night before I went to sleep …
I must go to bed before falling asleep in my office chair. I wake up with a backache, which has happened thrice this calendar year and never before.

Community benefit dinner: September 30 fires

Benefit dinner: Thursday, October 11, 2018 at 5:30-8:30pm
First Lutheran Church of Albany, 646 State St, Albany, NY 12203

house fireOn my way to church Sunday, September 30, I noted that Quail Street was blocked between Western and Washington Avenue. I could see buildings in the middle of the range still smoldering.

On my return trip, I saw a guy from the Capital District Transportation Authority and I asked why there was a bus parked at the corner of western and Quail. He said that CDTA often dispatches a vehicle to this type of disaster so that people displaced in the middle of the night have a place to stay warm.

It wasn’t until I got home that I heard there was ANOTHER multi-building fire, this one on Sheridan Avenue, about ten blocks away, but apparently unrelated. A total of a dozen buildings were heavily damaged or destroyed.

When I was a kid, there was a multiple-structure fire on Grandma Williams’ one-block street, Maple Street in Binghamton, NY. The four or five wooden structures were utterly destroyed. I don’t believe anyone was hurt, but naturally, many lives were disrupted. So that type of fire always makes me especially sad.

Among the actions being taken to help the September 30 fire survivors is a Community Benefit Dinner.

Thursday, October 11, 2018 at 5:30-8:30pm
First Lutheran Church of Albany
646 State St, Albany, NY 12203

Pay What You Can – Suggested Donation for Entry:
$5 for Students & Seniors
$10 for Adults
$15 for Families
There will be raffles and a silent auction and the opportunity to create cards for survivors.

Dinner will be an Italian Feast of Chicken Parm, Baked Ziti, Carmelized Green Beans, Tossed Salad, Desserts, Assorted Beverages

This dinner is sponsored by UAlbany Student Affairs, Pine Hills Neighborhood Association, and First Lutheran Church with support from Hon. Alfredo Balarin, Hon. Doug Bullock

If you can’t make it and want to donate:

* The United Way of the Greater Capital Region, Albany City Fires Fund. The mailing address is Albany City Fires Fund, PO Box 13865, Albany, NY 12212. All funds will go directly to the fire survivors.

* Any of CAP COM Federal Credit Union’s 11 branches in the Capital Region.

* The Catholic Charities Disaster Recovery – indicate Fire Survivors in the Comments Section. The mailing address is Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany, 40 North Main Avenue, Albany, New York 12203. Use the Donate Form to direct funds to fire survivors.

Contact Pine Hills Improvement Group at PHIGPineHills@gmail.com or 518-852-7878 with any questions.

More details are available on the Community Benefit Dinner event page on the Pine Hills Neighborhood Association Facebook Page.

October rambling: Twilight Zone & the Confederacy

We are living in a kakistocracy

Hands up, don’t shoot (Nah, that never happened…)

The Twilight Zone and the Confederacy.

In 1939, 20,000 Americans rallied in New York’s Madison Square Garden to celebrate the rise of Nazism

How the Nazis Used Jim Crow Laws as the Model for Their Race Laws

Trevor Noah: Race and Identity (NY Times interview)

No longer a convicted murderer, Carl Dukes faces life after 20 years in prison

A Fire Story -Brian Fies

Journalists’ lament

Heather Fazio’s exodus from the Times Union blogfarm

John Oliver: Why The Equifax Breach Is A Big, Scary Problem

The lie that poverty is a moral failing was buried a century ago. Now it’s back

How the Elderly Lose Their Rights

Labour will lead NZ Government

LIGO Detects Fierce Collision of Neutron Stars for the First Time

The day the sky turned red in the UK – but what caused rare phenomenon?

The Story Behind the Chicago Newspaper That Bought a Bar

We are alienating each other with unrestrained callouts and unchecked self-righteousness

Chuck Miller: Crossing past my failures

Burger King ad: Bullying Jr.

Vikings Razed the Forests. Can Iceland Regrow Them?

Archaeology in Albany

How did people sleep in the Middle Ages

The shortest regularly scheduled airline route on earth

Swedish death cleaning is the morbid new way to de-clutter your life

28 Boring Words and What to Use Instead

Where do mansplainers get their water?
From a well, actually.

How to Pronounce Paraskavidekatriaphobia

5 Zombie Walks to do for Halloween

Magazine of the Living Dead: The bloody rise and frightful fall of Fangoria – at FantaCo in 1980-1988, we sold a ton of back issues; #9 was considered rare

A brief history of Bat-marriage

The Great Catnip Caper Of 1909

Now I Know: Why Things are Tawdry and When Baseball Players Left it on the Field and The Special Sound a Mercedes-Benz Makes Before a Crash

Steve

THE MADNESS OF DJT

We are living in a kakistocracy

Taking Hostages and The chaos grows

The Self-Dealing Presidency

Rigged: How Voter Suppression Threw Wisconsin to Trump

Grief, compassion -advice ignored

George W. Bush: Bigotry in any form is blasphemy

Lawrence O’Donnell: ‘Stunned’ by John Kelly’s attack on Rep. Wilson and video of her 2015 speech at new FBI building

How Badly Is Neil Gorsuch Annoying the Other Supreme Court Justices?

MUSIC

We Will All Go Together When We Go – Tom Lehrer

Almost like Praying – Lin-Manuel Miranda and friends sing for Puerto Rico support

Since I Don’t Have You – Skyliners

What goes on – Beatles (Lennon vocal)

Coverville 1190: Indie Hodgepodge & Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute

K-Chuck Radio: But they’re not doing the Time Warp…

Hey Ya! – Walk off the Earth (Outkast Cover)

Up In A Puff Of Smoke – Polly Brown

You’re Still A Young Man -Tower Of Power (1972)

Go Go Shoes / Go Go Place- Lonnie Youngblood with Jimi Hendrix, May 1966.

Shocking Omissions: Joan Armatrading’s ‘Walk Under Ladders’

Female-female songwriting teams

Joni Mitchell: Fear of a Female Genius

Hallelujah! The Songs We Should Retire?

Why we really really really like repetition in music

Who first said, “Writing About Music is Like Dancing About Architecture”?

CAREER IN MUSIC IS DAMAGING TO MENTAL HEALTH

Music Throwback Saturday: Fire

Three songs that are all in my collection called Fire, they are very different pieces of music.

October 9-14 this year is Fire Prevention Week in the US, “established to commemorate the Great Chicago Fire, the tragic 1871 conflagration that killed more than 250 people, left 100,000 homeless, destroyed more than 17,400 structures and burned more than 2,000 acres. The fire began on October 8, but continued into and did most of its damage on October 9, 1871.”

Each year has a theme. 2016’s theme is Don’t Wait – Check the Date! Replace Smoke Alarms Every 10 Years.

Watching the terrible fires in California, and elsewhere in the western United States, following the severe drought conditions, was sobering. Yet, as is often the case, it also reminded me of music. Specifically of three songs that are all in my collection called Fire, but which are very different pieces of music.

The earliest is a 1968 song, originally credited to Arthur Brown and Vincent Crane, and performed by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. “The single reached #1 in the UK and in Canada, #2 in the US Billboard charts,” and Top 10 in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, and Ireland.

Though its lack of guitars or bass guitar, relying instead on the Hammond organ, it was considered “an example of the psychedelic rock of the period… Mike Finesilver and Peter Ker successfully sued for co-credit and royalties based on melodic similarities to their song ‘Baby, You’re a Long Way Behind'”, which I’ve never heard. The song was covered on Pete Townshend’s The Iron Man collection.

Fire is ALSO “a hit song by R&B/funk band Ohio Players. The song was the opening track from the album of the same name and hit #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Hot Soul Singles chart in early 1975. It spent five weeks atop the soul chart. Fire was the Ohio Players’ only entry on the new disco/dance chart, where it peaked at #10. The tune is considered to be the band’s signature song along with Love Rollercoaster.”

Fire is ALSO a song written by Bruce Springsteen in 1977, which did not appear on his June 2, 1978 album release Darkness on the Edge of Town, because of its “inconsistency with Springsteen’s ultimate thematic vision for that album.” But it showed up in the live shows from the period, and as a live single nearly a decade later.

Robert Gordon recorded a version with Link Wray in 1978. But it is the inaugural single by the Pointer Sisters as the trio (Anita, June, and Ruth) that became the big hit: #2 on Billboard Hot 100 (February 1979), #14, and #22 on the magazine’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Adult Contemporary charts, respectively, and #1 in Belgium, the Netherlands, South Africa, and New Zealand, #3 in Canada, #7 in Australia, and #10 in Austria, plus Top 40 in Germany and the UK.

Listen to

Fire – the Crazy World of Arthur Brown HERE or HERE
Fire – Pete Townsend HERE or HERE

Fire – Ohio Players HERE or HERE (album version, I think)

Fire – Bruce Springsteen HERE or a different take HERE
Fire – Robert Gordon and Link Wray HERE or HERE
Fire – Pointer Sisters HERE or HERE

X is for eXit

The nearest eXit may not be the most obvious.

When my daughter was three and four, she used to watch this video called – well, actually I don’t remember. What I do recall is there was this cartoon dog character giving suggestions on how to get out of the house in case of fire. It had some good advice on knowing where all the available eXits are, making sure there is no clutter on the stairs that could hinder escape, checking to see if the door is warm to find out whether an eXit might be blocked, staying low when there is smoke because the air’s better closer to the ground, and identifying a meeting place to gather when everyone has gotten out.

Recently, she was required at school to go through this drill put on by the local fire department, which involved climbing out a window. She NOW wants us to practice the drill I had been showing her on TV five or six years earlier.

I’m supposed to be in charge of our department’s eXit strategy at work in case of fire or other emergency. The current building owners are not very helpful with feedback, but I do know: the nearest eXit may not be the most obvious, and to take the stairs instead of the elevator.

One of the most distracting part of flying is that pitch about the best way to get OUT of the plane, should one need to do so. Certainly, it is not what I most like to think about, but when the flight attendant says, “Know where your nearest exit is, making note that it may be behind you,” I ALWAYS look for it, whereas, it appears, most people keep reading their magazines.
***
Gary David Goldberg, ‘Family Ties’ and ‘Spin City’ creator, dies at 68, My favorite of his credits was the short-lived TV series Brooklyn Bridge.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12

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