The Duke and Duchess of Sussex

“Royals FURIOUS with Meghan!”


As of this writing, I have not watched the wedding of Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle, now the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

It’s not that I don’t care, as many seem to feel, though at least 29 million Americans tuned in to watch. (Here’s some music to celebrate by.)

I’ve actually recorded the nuptials but haven’t watched them. I was away at a work conference for most of the following week. (My household is not a zeitgeisty group, as my wife is able to watch Dancing with the Stars, Olympic figure skating, et al. days or even weeks after the broadcast.)

I’m particularly interested in hearing the sermon by bishop Michael Curry, which was so good that it made the prayer list at my church the next day.

While I’m more sympathetic to rants against the archaic, and expensive, nature of the monarchy, the notion that we SHOULDN’T care about royals falls on deaf ears.

For one thing, it violates Arthur’s Law, which, everyone knows, is: “Everything you love, someone else hates; everything you hate, someone else loves. So, relax and like what you like and forget about everyone else.” Arthur himself has a nuanced view of the festivities.

I was absolutely fascinated, BTW, by these ads, sometimes on legitimate news sources, that read, “Royals FURIOUS with Meghan!” These were so clearly clickbait that I simply couldn’t be bothered.

The run-up to wedding was fodder for something called Elite Daily. Most of it I could care less about: which Kardashian is pregnant, and by whom; which TV or movie star who I’ve barely heard of is having an Instagram war with a person I’ve never heard of.

Why do skim the emails then? Because, as a business librarian, I’ve come to realize that some YouTube star I’m unfamiliar with, who’s undoubtedly making more money than we are, has entrepreneurial savvy that may be applicable to others.

While I’m thinking about it, I’ve really tired of articles with headlines such as “Here’s the tweet that absolutely DESTROYED [fill in the name of some politician you hate]!” Very few people are “destroyed” on social media.

Well, maybe lawyer Aaron Schlossberg. We’ll have to see.

13 years – feeling lucky, blogger?

Roger Green, strolling the streets of Albany, talking about the weather.

After 13 years, I think blogging is easy. There are 365 days. My birthday. My two sisters’ birthdays. My parents’ birthdays, the anniversary of their marriage, and the anniversaries of their deaths. 12 posts about The Daughter, always on the 26th of the month. Music throwback – another 52.

Various holidays – a dozen more. ABC Wednesday – 52 posts. Birthday people who turn 70 – 3 score and 10. There were 21, but some became music throwbacks, so let’s say 12 additional. That’s roughly 170 posts right there. All I need is another 185. Easy-peasy.

Blogging is hard. I have no skill, and frankly little interest, in the backside of the blog, how it works. So when it doesn’t work, for reasons mysterious and frustrating, makes me wanna holler, to quote Marvin Gaye. Dustbury has been gracious and helpful and gracious in this regard.

Blogging is convenient. When I’m on Facebook and having a conversation about a movie I’ve seen or an issue I care about, it’s easier to reply with a link to a blog post I’ve already written rather than answering on the fly.

Blogging is a community. I’ve discovered a bunch of other bloggers over the years. My friend Fred Hembeck, when he was blogging, had a sidebar. That’s how I was introduced to comic book fans such as Lefty Brown, Greg Burgas, and Eddie Mitchell; maybe SamauraiFrog, as well. I was reintroduced to my old buddy, former Swamp Thing artist, Steve Bissette, who had done work for FantaCo, the comic book shop/publisher I worked for in the 1980s.

Somehow I connected with other people I didn’t know, from Jaquandor at the other end of the Erie Canal, to AmeriNZ, on the other side of the globe. Mrs. Nesbitt started ABC Wednesday, and I got involved in that early on.

Blogging begets blogging. The same month my blog started, our work blog began. Because I was blogging here, I was invited to blog on the Times Union site, something I do rarely these days, for all sorts of reasons. Alan David Doane, a young FantaCo customer in the day, had invited me to blog on a couple of his comics-related blogs.

And blogging generates connections. People from my elementary school, old friends of the late FantaCo artist Raoul Vezina, fans of donuts, and many others.

It’s even gotten me on the news: Here’s Roger Green, strolling the streets of Albany, talking about the weather. The station saw my blog post from 10 years earlier and decided to interview me.

So I guess, if I can do 13 years, I’ll keep at it for another 12 months.

April rambling #2: Infinitesimal Odds

The 100 Pages That Shaped Comic Books

Seven Deadly Sins Gone Tech
Black mothers and babies die at more than double the rate of white mothers and babies

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships: How many hours does it take to make a friend?

The amount of control that Facebook, and other social platforms, have over us, has been at crisis levels for some time

Two Trade Wars: 1807 and 2018

“Make a Deal”: My Contribution to the Trump/Mueller Musical

Already Acting Like Nixon in His Last Days

His Racism: The Definitive List

Comey’s Book

John Oliver Bought An Ad On ‘Hannity’ To Teach Him Basic Math

Can I Stop Writing About Paul Ryan Now?

Arthur wrote About Barbara Bush, so I don’t have to

Nicolas Notovitch published La vie inconnue de Jésus Christ which purported to reveal that Jesus has spent many years as both teacher and scholar at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery.

How Muslims, Often Misunderstood, Are Thriving in America

100 Ways White People Can Make Life Less Frustrating For People of Color

The first (and only) Jewish Miss America’s victory tour was cut short

Fifty Years an African-American: Is It Time for a Change?

The Pulitzer-laden researcher embedded in the Post newsroom

Infinitesimal Odds: A Scientist Finds Her Child’s Rare Illness Stems From the Gene She Studies

A suspicious fire at Cornell in 1967 killed 9 people; the case was never solved

Marriage diversity in the USA

This Video is About Marijuana

Daniel Nester: How Watching ‘Caddyshack’ Helps Me Stave Off Depression

Baby Boomers Reach the End of Their To-Do List

The 100 Pages That Shaped Comic Books

Icelandic boy’s Titanic Lego replica makes it safely across to US museum

You Probably Didn’t Watch SCTV, But It Shaped the Comedy You Love Today

How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You)

Harry Anderson, RIP from Ken Levine, Dustbury, the NY Times, and USA Today

NPR Newscaster Carl Kasell Dies At 84, After A Lifelong Career On-Air

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Wedding Cost

How to Get the Best Sleep Every Night!

Online Safety for Seniors: How to Spot Fake News, Medicare Fraud, and Phishing Scams

How cruise ships work

Bats actually don’t fly like birds

The 15 most dangerous human foods for dogs

20 Quirks & Strange Habits. The Weird Side of Famous Writers

Satire: Sinclair TV Anchor Suddenly Begins Reading News in Russian

Reality: Court Refuses to Toss Lawsuit Between Monkey and Photographer

Now I Know: Why You Should Whistle While You Work and The Gross, Metallic Secret Behind America’s Westward Expansion and The Man of Many Thank Yous and The Fort That Would Have Never Worked

Sliced Ketchup Is Coming Whether We Like It or Not and How to make ketchup (but WHY?)

MUSIC

Nothing Compares 2 U Prince (1984 rehearsal tape)

Sweet Thames, Flow Softly – Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger

From the Middle Ages -Alexander Glazunov

Coverville 1213: Springtime in Coverville

Mozart Symphony No. 41- Jupiter

Barbershop bologna

Lift Every Voice And Sing – Beyoncé, and story

April rambling: Silent Scream

It is brutal, damaging and untrue

Condolences to Dustbury on the loss of his brother James, his last sibling

Thousands of internal documents that help explain how the Islamic State stayed in power so long

The root of all cruelty?

Travel is fatal to prejudice

Why does the Right hate victims?

50 years after the Wahine Disaster (New Zealand)

Corruption, Not Russia, Is His Greatest Political Liability

His long-term effect on American democracy: How worried should we be?

The Crime-Fraud Exception in the Michael Cohen Case

What Will Our Society Look Like When Artificial Intelligence is Everywhere?

Ten Things That Have Zero Effect on What the Truth Is

Daniel Van Riper’s Albany Weblog: They Want To Fill In The Ravine In Lincoln Park

The Real Story of the Hawaiian Missile Crisis

The REAL Consumer Price Index?

Congress, Not Amazon, Messed Up the Post Office

the beautiful human gumbo

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COLOUR

Steven Bochco, RIP; a retrospective – I loved many of these shows

Remembering Winnie Mandela

Living the beam onstage with William Shatner

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Oprah’s Full Chat from SUPER SOUL SUNDAY

From the nifty historical fiction Silent Scream #1
Kickstarter: THE TRUST BOOK ONE: SILENT SCREAM ISSUE 2 – Dennis Webster, Bill Anderson, Gabriel Rearte and Laurie E. Smith

Mark Waid tells a new Captain America story with original artwork from Jack Kirby!

Top 37 Parks To Visit Before You Die

After 40 years, Wendy and Richard Pini finish ‘Elfquest,’ the ‘first American manga,’ and go on fanquest

SNL: Black Jeopardy with Chadwick Boseman

Seth Meyers’ great “desk story”

A Weird and Beautiful Sports Story

150th anniversary of Little Women

vlogbrothers: On Punctuality (John) v. How to Stop Being Late Forever (Hank)

Now I Know: How Overdue Parking Tickets Took Over an Innocent Person’s Life and The Therapeutic Value of a Not-Quite-Flying Pig and The Race to Determine the Fastest Man Alive and Why You Can’t Steal First Base and Why You Shouldn’t Eat Those “Do Not Eat” Packets and The Elevator Light That’s a Total Gas

How he is transforming himself into the greatest president ever

MUSIC

Found Tonight – Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt

Listen to the Music – Playing for Change

Catch Me If You Can -John Williams score

She’s A Rockin’ Machine – Archie and the Bunkers

Coverville 1212: Cover Stories for Jimmy Cliff and Pharrell Williams

Oriental Rhapsody – Alexander Glazunov

Stephen Hawking Picks the Music (and One Novel) He’d Spend Eternity With: Stream the Playlist Online

‘The Weakness in Me’: Notes on Joan Armatrading

Can’t Take My Eyes Off You – Sonny Vande Putte

Never tell someone they can’t sing – it is brutal, damaging and untrue

March rambling: complicated meanings

Luna Lee on the gayageum

At Current Rates Of Use World Could Run Out Of Thoughts And Prayers By As Early As 2019

We Are all Nixonians Now

There Are No Good Guys With Guns

What To Do When Racists Try To Hijack Your Religion

‘National Geographic’ Reckons With Its Past: ‘For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist’

‘Stay Strong,’ And Other Useless Drivel We Tell The Grieving

The Encyclopedia of the Missing

When the only way to go free is to plead guilty

3 Far-Flung Cities Offer Clues to Unsnarling Manhattan’s Streets

OVERLOOKED: 15 obits of notable women

Alaska as a Red-to-Blue(ish) Model

‘The story of a weird world I was warned never to tell’

Union College says it found strand of George Washington’s hair

Stop Using the Label ‘Struggling Reader,’ Author Jacqueline Woodson Advises

Why Do We Need to Sleep?

The Unexpected Benefit of Train Travel

Rare Photo of Harriet Tubman Preserved

Digging into my family’s claims of Cherokee ancestry

in praise of soft targets

Stephen Hawking dies at 76 on Einstein’s birthday and Pi day; despite ALS, his mind roamed the cosmos

RIP, David Ogden Stiers

Dalai Lama, Chicago in May 2008:
“The universe is in a constant state of becoming—an ongoing miraculous creation. Every day we awaken to that miracle with gratitude, respect, and compassion for all who share the gift of being.”

Memories of ‘M*A*S*H’: Inside Stories of the Most Famous Episodes (and Castings)

The Loophole

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A Finnish comedian explains the complicated meanings of an English word

Legendary toy demonstrated to have squirrel-repelling properties

Faking It: The Obviously Dubbed Telephone Ring

Aldi’s supermarkets history

A PhD In Batman

A niece at Carnegie Hall

Now I Know: The Florida City Fueled by Soda and Baseball’s Unluckiest Fan and How Bazooka Joe Lost a Baseball Glove

Not me: Couple begins rekindling an eighth-grade romance

MUSIC

Camille Saint-Saens’s Septet for piano, trumpet, and strings, Opus 65!

Hamilton Polka

The Music of Paolo Tosti – Carla Fisk and Michael Clement

Will Jesus Wash The Bloodstains From Your Hands – Hazel Dickens

Everlasting Arms – Luke Winslow-King, Vasti Jackson, Dr. John, and Roots Gospel Voices of Mississippi

Norma Tanega (and Dusty Springfield)

There Is A Time – The Darlings (Andy Griffith Show)

Tush – Luna Lee on the gayageum

Cover of Take on Me (a-ha)

Sound of Silence – Todd Hoffman

Taxman – Joe Bonamassa, Live at The Cavern Club

Inside the Life of Brenda Lee, the Pop Heroine Next Door

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