Rebecca Jade Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

March rambling: Trimmer

me and Maurice Ravel

Trimmer (def 1): One who adjusts beliefs, opinions, and actions to suit personal interest.

Let There Be Light by Sharp Little Pencil

Fact-checking FOTUS’ address to Congress and CPAC

ICE Detention: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

RFK Jr. Misleads on Vitamin A, Unsupported Therapies for Measles

‘Project 2025 in Action’: Administration Fires Half of Education Department Staff

DEI Is Disappearing In Hollywood. Was It Ever Really Here?

Musk Said No One Has Died Since Aid Was Cut. That Isn’t True.

Meet Everyone Hates Elon, the U.K.-Based Collective Attempting to Take Down Musk: “Let’s Make Billionaires Losers Again”

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Also

The “I Am Canadian” commercial returns!

13 Minutes To The Moon, the podcast about how NASA got to the moon. Produced by the BBC World Service and hosted by Kevin Fong from NASA, with fascinating interviews. Hans Zimmer did the music.

Sports Betting: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Devin “Legal Eagle” Stone is not quitting

The 6668th Central Postal Battalion

Read an interview with Jim McNeal and J. Eric Smith, the authors of Crucibles: How Formidable Rites of Passage Shape the World’s Most Elite Organizations, now available for preorder

John Green reads Chapter 1 of his new book EVERYTHING IS TUBERCULOSIS and is interviewed on the CBC

We Will Eradicate Measles

Joseph Wambaugh, L.A. Cop Turned Novelist and Screenwriter, Dies at 88. I used to watch Police Story.

Kevin Drum, writer of solid political commentary, died

Carl Dean, Dolly Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years, dies at 82

A collection of the Mickey Mouse shorts from 1929, including Mickey speaking his first words in The Karnival Kid

Captain America Co-Creator Jack Kirby Getting Definitive Documentary ‘Kirbyvision’

Now I Know: Bombs Away! (Cat Version) and The Jigsaw Puzzles Worth Their Weight in Gold? and A Whopper of a Way to Pay For Your Wedding and How Homer Simpson’s Comical Gluttony Saved Lives and A Classical Way to Save the Whales and Why 19th Century Britons Lost Their Heads

Albany Public Library

Two Open Seats on APL Board. Albany voters will select two trustees for the Albany Public Library Board in the May 20 election. Both positions carry full five-year terms, which commence on July 1.

The library is hosting the following public forums:

“So, You Want to be a Library Trustee” Information Sessions

March 22 (Sat) | 10-11:30 am | Howe Branch | 105 Schuyler St.
March 26 (Wed) | 6:30-8 pm | Pine Hills Branch | 517 Western Ave.

Hear from current trustees about what it’s like serving as an APL trustee, how to get on the ballot, and tips for a successful campaign.

Meet the Trustee Candidates Forum and Library Budget Session

May 6 (Tue) | 6-7:30 pm | Washington Ave. Branch | 161 Washington Ave.

Bad news for libraries: ALA’s statement on the White House assault on the Institute of Museum and Library Services

Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library Author talks/book reviews in April, Tuesdays at 2 pm, 161 Washington Ave, large auditorium:

April 1 | To Be Announced

April 8 | Author Talk | C. M. Waggoner, who as a youngster ‘spent a lot of time reading fantasy novels in a swamp,’ discusses & reads from her mystery, The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society.

April 15 | Book Review | Piranesi, a novel by Susanna Clarke. Reviewer: Sarah Reiter, prolific local fiction writer & artist.

April 22 | Book Review | Tracing Homelands: Israel, Palestine, and the Claims of Belonging by Linda Dittmar. Reviewer: Jim Collins, PhD, professor emeritus, Linguistic Anthropology, U at Albany, SUNY.

April 29 | Book Review | Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies Our Transportation System by Wes Marshall. Reviewer: Jackie Gonzales, PhD, environmental historian & project manager, Capital Streets.

MUSIC

Beethoven’s Opus 72 (Fidelio), Overture, which, of course, is all about me!

In February 2014, my wife and I attended the Albany Symphony Orchestra concert, which included Maurice Ravel’s Bolero. We got the tickets from friends at church who gave them up because one of them hated that piece of music, thinking it was boring. Seeing and hearing Bolero live was exquisite.

Flash forward to March 2025, and blogger buddy Kelly linked to a performance of Ravel’s Bolero despite his long-standing disdain for the piece. He wrote, “This one’s really very good, and the camera work in this video is pretty terrific.” Not incidentally, this being the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth this year, ASO is performing Bolero again on April 5, 2024, at the Palace Theatre in Albany. We are not going because of a conflict, but I recommend it. Incidentally, Maurice and I have the same birthday.

Lisztomania -Phoenix

Bach at Home: Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 Movement III by Orchestra of St. Luke’s

Defy Democracy – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

Bored in the U.S.A. – Father John Misty

Hello, It’s Me – Evan Marks & Rebecca Jade. Vote in this year’s San Diego Music Awards for this song in Category 21 every day through March 27!

Personality Crisis – New York Dolls; Hot! Hot! Hot! – Buster Poindexter. David Johansen, Flamboyant New York Dolls Vocalist and Co-Founder, Dies at 75

Name of God – Mustafa

Mambo Lido – Peter Sprague

Oh! You Pretty Things – Lisa Hannigan

Lupron – Time Wharp

One O’Clock Jump – Buddy Rich

Joy, Joy! – Valerie June

Look What I Found – Lady Gaga (from A Star Is Born)

Bulletproof -La Roux

Death of Samatha – Yoko Ono

Coverville 1525: Cover Stories for Missing Persons and New Bohemians

Intro -The xx

Concern – William Tyler

Pique Dame by Franz von Suppe

Rico and Becky married 20 years (tomorrow)

Rebecca Jade and Rico Curtis

Rico and Rebecca in the center, at a birthday party for Rebecca, October 2024

I’m having one of those “It can’t be that long ago” moments. Rico and Becky married 20 years ago in San Diego 2 on March 7th, 2005. It was a Monday.

Who gets married on a Monday? Why March 7th? When she played basketball for UC Berkeley, her uniform number was 5. Rico’s number when he played football in college and later professionally was 37. 3/7/05. And the service was supposed to start at 3:57 p.m., though it was about 23 minutes late.

Becky’s uncle Roger came from Albany. My wife stayed home to care for our almost-one-year-old newborn. We knew a transcontinental flight with an infant who didn’t travel well was ill-advised.

I didn’t have a blog in March 2005; I started it two months later. So, I wrote an extensive piece about the wedding around their 1st anniversary.

Wipeout

The next time I saw Rico, and the first time my wife and daughter did, was on television. In September 2010, Becky and Rico were in a competition program called Wipeout. A host dubbed them Thunder and Lightning, which was quite weird. At 2:36 in this video, Rico really excelled. If you have Hulu, you can watch the whole show: season 3, episode 16.

My daughter met Rebecca at my mother’s funeral. However, my wife and daughter finally met Rico when he and Rebecca attended my cousin Anne’s Thanksgiving dinner in 2013 in New Rochelle, New York. Now that I think of it, I have seen Rico only once since, in 2018, when sister Leslie had her bicycle accident.

Of course, Rebecca’s been singing, and we got to see her near Elmira and in New Haven in 2024. Rico is involved in real estate.

I’m happy that Rebecca and Rico traveled extensively together because of her singing. They started in Greece and the eastern Mediterranean for the Dave Koz tour, then Portugal for an event, and Indonesia for the Java Jazz Festival in Jakarta.

I wish them both a happy 20th anniversary tomorrow. I always remember the date because it’s also my birthday!

Don’t forget to vote daily for Rebecca Jade in the San Diego Music Awards in the category #21, Best R&B, Funk or Soul Song, Evan Marks & Rebecca Jade – Hello It’s Me.

March rambling: Latibulate

a new Rebecca Jade song!

Latibulate: To retreat and lie hidden; to hide in a corner, which I’m trying very hard not to do.

Feb 28 Economic Blackout

A Paul Tonko Town Hall in Albany

As Suppression of Dissent Increases, Know Your Rights If the FBI Comes Knocking

TIME Women of the Year

Facebook & Content Moderation: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver; the 60 Minutes interview with John Oliver

EVERYTHING IS TUBERCULOSIS, Chapter 1, read by John Green

Two-time Oscar winner Gene Hackman, 95, was found dead alongside his wife Betsy Arakawa,64, and their dog, at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I only saw him in The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Antz (1998-voice), The Birdcage (1996), Crimson Tide (1995), The Firm (1993), Unforgiven (1992), Postcards from the Edge (1990), Mississippi Burning (1988), Hoosiers (1986), Reds (1981), Superman II (1980), Superman (1978), Young Frankenstein (1974), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The French Connection (1971), and very likely some episodic television in the 1960s. I’ve been to Poughkeepsie but never picked my toes there.

HELLO! MY NAME IS BLOTTO THE MOVIE trailer.

The Birth of a Community: Early Black Churches, Schools, and Organizations that Built Binghamton, NY

Are You Lonely? Adopt a New Family on Facebook Today

The State of American History: Lincoln and Immigrants

Now I Know: Dead People, Supporting Each Other and The Loophole That Gets You Paid for Riding a Bike and How To Plant Nearly 1,000 Trees an Hour

If You Ever Stacked Cups In Gym Class, Blame My Dad

Them. Again.

2.0: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Muskrat’s Billionaire Welfare: How the world’s richest man built his empire on government funds while attacking public workers

FOTUS Says He’s Above the Law in Social Media Post Invoking Napoleon: If you haven’t started worrying yet about his plan to destroy democracy and crown himself king, start now.

Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump (2019) – Rick Reilly: “If you’ll cheat to win at golf, is it that much further to cheat to win an election? To turn a Congressional vote? To stop an investigation? If you’ll lie about every aspect of the game, is it that much further to lie about your taxes, your relationship with Russians, your groping of women?”

The Presidency and the Constitution: Mike Pence, Vice President of the United States (2010). “Those who are entrusted with [power] must educate themselves in self-restraint. A republic is about limitation, and for good reason, because we are mortal, and our actions are imperfect.”

Can Ethical People Work in the Administration?

The Republican Party’s NPC Problem — and Ours | The Ezra Klein Show

DOGE’s Illegal Takeover Pulls From Fascist Playbooks. When we see a parallel government taking shape, we should not refrain from calling fascism what it is.

FOTUS Puts America in the Axis of Evil

And. More.

From Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge

“We should have seen this coming. [FOTUS]… has finally cut out the middleman and put U.S. citizenship up for sale like a clearance item at one of his bankrupt casinos. For a mere $5 million, the world’s wealthiest tax-dodgers can now purchase a ‘Gold Card’—a visa so opulent and sleazy it might as well come with a free timeshare in a collapsing Florida high-rise.

That’s right, [he] has replaced America’s immigration system with a Black Friday deal for billionaires. Who needs democracy when you can just PayPal your way into the country?”

Plus, a bunch of other stuff, including his now-confirmed, terrible Cabinet. But I highlight this because I had read it in only one place, the hardly liberal Foreign Affairs:

U.S. government escalates feud with Pretoria by cutting aid and offering refugee status to Afrikaners. “Few would have foreseen an executive order awarding refugee status to Afrikaners—the white South Africans descended mainly from Dutch settlers who dominated the country’s politics and led the apartheid regime from 1948 to 1994. South African media queried whether he was even aware that Afrikaners differed from English-speaking whites like his South African-born billionaire advisor Elon Musk, whose criticisms of the South African government appear to be the source of the idea. It is ironic that the executive order makes provision for refugee status in the US for a group in South Africa that remains amongst the most economically privileged, while vulnerable people in the US from other parts of the world are being deported and denied asylum despite real hardship,” South Africa’s foreign ministry responded in a statement.”

And yet

Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter, R-Ga., proposed a measure that would empower FOTUS to begin negotiations with the Danish Government to acquire Greenland. The bill would also rename the territory “Red, White, and Blueland.”

MUSIC

Hello, It’s Me – Evan Marks & Rebecca Jade. Vote in this year’s San Diego Music Awards for this song in Category 21 every day through March 27!

Hostile Government Takeover (EDM Remix)

Black Bottom by Nkieru Okoye

He Will Break Your Heart – Jerry Butler, who died at the age of 85

The Message -Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five

I Put My Ring Back On – Mary Chapin Carpenter

Cabo Frio – Peter Sprague

Starburst by Jessie Montgomery

Coverville 1522: The Peter Gabriel Cover Story III and 1523: Cover Stories for Howard Jones, Steely Dan, and Smokey Robinson

Another Day In Paradise – JOYNER (from the Hulu Original Show “Paradise”)

Careless Whisper – Wham

American Eagle Waltz by Jacques Offenbach

Why Wasn’t I More Grateful (When Life Was Sweet) – Maria McKee

Suite from The Wind and the Lion by Jerry Goldsmith

Green Grass Grew All Around – Pete Seeger

Creep – [fan edit] I’m not a robot

Everybody Wants To Rule The World -SOFTBARDCORE (cover in Classical Latin)

You Make My Dreams (Come True) · Daryl Hall & John Oates

I Want To Know What Love Is – Foreigner

February rambling: We Are All Immigrants

Do Not Obey In Advance

Henry Louis Gates Jr. On The Message Of ‘Finding Your Roots’: ‘We Are All Immigrants’ | The View

Can Characters Come Alive Without People? By Hank Azaria; recommended with your sound on

A directory that connects veterans with rehab facilities and recovery services across New York

The Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time

Tony Roberts, Woody Allen sidekick, and Broadway stalwart, Dies at 95

Fay Vincent, who served as 8th MLB Commissioner, dies at 86

Olga James, ‘Carmen Jones,’ Actress and Singer, Dies at 95

Dick Button, Icon of Olympic Figure Skating, Dies at 95

9 Fascinating Facts About Food Allergies

Now I Know: A Prankster With a Legacy of Love and When Cardboard Art Goes Sledding and The Life-Saving Power of a … Jump Rope? and Why Do Nigerian Email Scammers Still Claim to Be From Nigeria? and The Place Where You’re Not Allowed to Die

The new normal?

The Path to American Authoritarianism

Is Elon Musk Staging a Coup? Unelected Billionaire Seizes Control at Treasury Dept. & Other Agencies

The Musk-Altman Feud Is Kendrick-Drake But With a Lot More Impact on Our Lives

Elon Musk Is Hacking German Politics, and the Berlin Film Festival May Pay the Price

This is a full-frontal assault on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. If the agency can no longer effectively represent the American people, FOTUS’ favorite billionaire will have much to gain personally.

The World’s Richest Men Take On the World’s Poorest Children; Shutdown of USAID ‘Would Have Deadly Consequences for Millions’

They dismiss the national archivist.

CDC Researchers Ordered to Retract Papers Submitted to All Journals — Banned terms must be scrubbed from CDC-authored manuscripts

Rubio skips G20 summit due to South African ‘DEI’

He dismisses the Kennedy Center chair and plans to make himself the head

FOTUS taps televangelist kook to run new White House ‘faith’ office.
Man who loves to build walls demolishes the wall between church and state.

Reactions to the madness

Jamil Smith, the Emancipator: Along with a copy of the 13th Amendment, I typically carry a copy of historian Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny” in my satchel when I’m headed out of the door in the morning… Snyder’s book aims to help citizens of every nation learn from history and it’s filled with needed lessons on how to resist those who seek to exploit those faults for power and profit… Snyder’s first bit of advice in the book has successfully entered the national lexicon: Do not obey in advance.

I Refuse to Be a Good German

We Are All Gazans Now

Just Security keeps a continuously updated litigation tracker to help the rest of us stay current.

The Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets

Cartoon: Tom the Dancing Bug implores you not to call them Nazis!
Don’t call that Nazi a Nazi—you’ll hurt his feelings!

Don’t Believe Him| The Ezra Klein Show; What He’s Doing

Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God– Rabbi Morris Panitz | Vaera 5785 / 1.25.2025

Music

Singer Marianne Faithfull Dies at 78; Broken English, The Ballad of Lucy Jordan; As Tears Go By (2018)

The Mynah Birds – It’s My Time w/ Rick James & Neil Young

Elizabeth Mitchell: Little Liza Jane

Wood Notes by William Grant Still

Lucy Dacus – Ankles

Coverville 1520: Billy Ocean Cover Story and Listener-Submitted Set and 1521: The INXS Cover Story III

Teddy Swims: Lose Control

Marcel Tyberg’s Piano Trio in F major

Japanese Breakfast – Orlando In Love

Indiana Jones: The Raiders March by John Williams

A Bar Song (Tipsy) – Postmodern Jukebox ft. Nathan Chester

Hamilton Leithauser – Knockin’ Heart

American Pie – Don McLean.

Frank, Dino, and Bing perform Style from their 1964 movie, Robin and the Seven Hoods

You Can’t Always Get What You Want – Rolling Stones

Khruangbin: May Ninth

This Magic Moment – The Drifters

Dreamgirls title song from Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon (1983)

Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, Sandy Duncan (1980), and Cathy Rigby (2009) performing a number from Peter Pan

Rebecca Jade and the Dave Koz Christmas Tour 2024

New Haven, CT

In case I haven’t mentioned her often enough in this blog, my first niece, Rebecca Jade, has made a career as a singer. In 2024, she performed with saxophonist Dave Koz on his Mediterranean tour. Then, she flew from Greece to Portugal for another gig, followed by a jazz festival in Indonesia. My family got to see her in Elmira in August.

Once again, she’s on the Dave Koz and Friends Christmas tour. I attended a performance on Long Island back in 2021 without my wife and daughter, much to the chagrin of my child. So this time, we decided to trek down to New Haven, Connecticut, when we discovered Rebecca would be singing there, the closest she’d get to Albany, NY.

We stayed at a timeshare, which was more complicated to describe here, except that entertaining and parking were challenges.

My daughter took the train from western Massachusetts, and my wife and I drove. We picked her up at the Union Station in New Haven. (There are lots of Union Station railroad locations in America.) After that, we got something to eat at a restaurant.

The John Lyman Center for the Performing Arts at Southern Connecticut University was the venue. We parked in the spillover section.

Unlike the last time I saw her, when she didn’t appear until song five, she appears right off with Dave’s longtime cohort Jonathan Butler, saxophonist Vincent Ingala, and guitarist Adam Hawley.

Just Another Christmas Song

The musicians appeared on the stage in various combinations. Each of the other artists received their own time to shine. Rebecca, for instance, had a chance to sing the first song from her Christmas EP, Just Another Christmas Album. The song is Just Another Christmas Song (This Time I’ll Sing Along); you can hear it (or order it!) on Bandcamp, Apple Music, or Spotify. (Just dropped: a video of Merry Christmas, Darling.)

As was the case three years ago, a highlight of the evening was Rebecca Jade and Jonathan Butler singing Mary, Did You Know; here’s a 2021 performance in San Diego.

The one downside is that the stage lights hit many of the audience members right in the eyes. They were small but powerful and irritating. Later, I discovered that the lights are usually positioned in a larger venue, where that would not likely happen.

After the show, some of us got to meet the artists backstage. Rebecca took us to the tour bus. They may seem exotic and fun, but it’s not all glamorous, given that ten people travel in this vehicle. It does get them from place to place; they went from New Haven to Cleveland, an eight-hour ride, to perform the next night before they had a couple of nights off.

The next morning, after we left our temporary abode, a marathon took place on the streets north and south of us. So the restaurant that happened to be across the street, Icaru, a Peruvian place, had no customers. We ate there, and the food was very good. Then we drove to Union Station, dropped off the college student, and my wife and I went home.