Ramblin' with Roger

The random 2025 post

different insurance

This is the random 2025 post. I think I stole the idea from my near twin, Gordon. Some less lazy folks, such as Kelly, will highlight particular posts from the previous year. “If you have a blog or other online writing forum, share some of your favorite work from this year.” That sounds like an intriguing idea, but it’s too much work when I can just punt.

January: “I saw a junior high school production, and I suspect there’s another.” My Lion King credentials, and why the movie Mufasa: The Lion King, a prequel, was only so-so.

February: “I sang this to a person I was seeing, and she thought it was too clingy.” This was a Valentine’s Day song list, a reference to Someone To Watch Over Me by Linda Ronstadt. Damn, that STILL stings a little, and it was over 30 years ago.

March: “But don’t leave it on my Twitter page, which I deleted.” This was my periodic request to Ask Roger Anything. In truth, you can ARA at any time. I mean, you COULD wonder which Secretaries of State went on to become President: Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, J.Q. Adams, Van Buren, and Buchanan. But it’d be more interesting if you ask me something I can’t find on Wikipedia. (BTW, I always forget Buchanan, as one does.)

April: “Thus, the charts show 77 weeks of #1 hits.” The 1935 music charts had two versions that didn’t always match.

May: “We’re also trying to keep in contact with our daughter, who is only 7,845 miles away.” This was our 26th wedding anniversary. Our daughter was in Cape Town, South Africa, at the time.

June: “What does coming out mean?” This was my church’s adult education class, led by a member of the Pride Center of the Capital Region

Also

July: “Eve Of Destruction – Barry McGuire (Dunhill)” One of the #1 hits of 1965, a nice uplifting song.

August: “He would nip at me, but my parents, specifically my father, seemed unconcerned.” This was about the only dog I ever had, an Alaskan Husky named Lucky Stubbs. The post was for Sunday Stealing.

September: “But my wife and I do not have the same insurance, so I need my wife’s information, and she needs mine.” This was about going to an Urgent Care and then an Emergency Department after a fall while walking in the neighborhood. Specifically, a couple was nearby, and she was unable to speak.

October: “But one of our neighbors was dissatisfied with one element, complicated to explain.” We contracted with a company to build a fence. This is the joy of homeownership.

November: “Don’t Take It Personal (just one of dem days) – Monica, two weeks at #1 RB, #2 for three weeks pop, platinum.” I hit three music charts this iteration, this one from the Hot R&B #1 Singles for 1995.

December: “At least 31 languages have a word very similar to ‘huh?’” A linkage page. I try to put things other than music and politics in those posts.

Sunday Stealing Feels Frustrated

Loving You Has Made Me Bannans

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

This week’s meme is inspired by Christina at Call Me Patsy, who turned to answering these questions when she felt frustrated by a project she was working on.

Frustration – Joan Armatrading

Questions to Answer when You Need a Break because Sunday Stealing Feels Frustrated

1. What would you rather be doing right now?

Sleeping, actually. I had oral surgery on Wednesday, and the residual pain, while not severe, is exhausting.

I’m Only Sleeping – The Beatles and I Go To Sleep -Pretenders

2. What is always on your grocery list?

Bananas. My wife and I usually have them with oatmeal for breakfast. She likes them browner than I. And my daughter would eat them when they are practically green. So you can’t purchase too many at a time.

Loving You Has Made Me Bananas – Guy Marks

3. Have you ever used a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose?

I have a vague recollection of doing so, not in this century, in a kitchen. But I did, for a very brief time, in the late 1980s or early 1990s, SELL fire extinguishers. I wasn’t very good at it, although I believed in the product, because I hated door-to-door retail sales. Even more, I despised strong-arming my friends.

Fire – Ohio Players

Text

4. How many times did you text yesterday?

Once. I attended a party, and my daughter drove me because the bus runs infrequently on weekends and holidays. My daughter texted me a couple of hours later to see if I wanted a ride home. Since the next bus was in 47 minutes, and the party was starting to break up, I said yes. But my wife ended up picking me up because she had just come home from a different party.

I hate texting. I’m not particularly good at it. The idea of always being available is appalling to me. If I’m home, I don’t even carry my phone unless I’m playing NYT Connections or contacting a doctor. This is why we still have a landline—that and to call my cellphone when I inevitably misplace it.

Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me – “Weird Al” Yankovic

5. Would you prefer a slow-paced, relaxing vacation or one filled with new sights and experiences?

I think I need to alternate. One day of busyness, followed by a day of relaxation.

Vacation – Connie Francis and Vacation – the Go-Go’s

Number one hits for 1906

A song Johnny Cash covered

victrola According to the book, Joel Whitburn presents A Century of Pop Music: year-by-year Top 40 rankings of the songs and artists that shaped a Century, these are the number one hits for 1906.

As previously noted, these rankings were derived from various sources, including the Talking Machine World periodical, which published monthly lists of nearly all popular record releases from 1905 onward. Jim Walsh was a universally respected authority on the pioneer recording age in his forty years of columns for Hobbies magazine. Record labels’ publications, particularly those of Victor and Edison, contained valuable information about their own top sheet music sellers. David Ewan’s book All the Years of American Popular Music. Author Roger Kindle Kinko in his Complete Encyclopedia of Popular Music and Jazz 1900 to 1950. Joseph Murrell’s book Million-selling Records from the 1900s to the 1980s.

“Victor’s position was solidified in 1906 by the introduction of the Victrola, the first record player to remove the increasingly intrusive tin horn from atop the phonograph and fold it into the wooden cabinet beneath. It would take a few years – Concealed horn phonographs went from 3 percent of total sales in 1907 to 75 percent in 1911 – but the word “Victrola” would become synonymous in many households with the word “phonograph.” By 1908, the phonograph had firmly established its place in the typical American home.”

The songs

The Grand Old Rag (a/k/a You’re a Grand Old Flag) – Billy Murray (Victor), 10 weeks at #1, from George Washington Jr. A very familiar piece.

Wait Till The Sun Shines, Nellie – Byron Harlan (Columbia), 9 weeks at #1. I know this one too.

Nobody – Bert Williams (Columbia), 9 weeks at #1, music by Bert Williams and lyrics by Alex Rogers. “THE DOYEN OF AFRO-AMERICAN ENTERTAINERS.” Ha! Johnny Cash covered this song on his 2000 American III: Solitary Man album!

Love Me and the World is Mine – Henry Burr (Columbia), 7 weeks at #1.

The Good Old U.S.A.The Good Old U.S.A. – Byron Harlan(Columbia), 4 weeks at #1

Love Me And The World Is Mine — Albert Campbell (Victor), 3 weeks at #1. Words by David Ball Jr. Music by Ernest R. Ball.

Everybody Works But Father – Billy Murray (Victor), a comedy record, 3 weeks at #1

So Long, Mary – Corinne Morgan (Victor), 3 weeks at #1, from Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway. A George M. Cohan song

How Would You Like To Spoon With Me – Corrine Morgan, and the Haydn Quartet (Victor) 2 weeks at #1.

Call me little tootsy wootsy baby. How’d you like to hug and squeeze?

Indeed, I would. Dangle me upon your knees.

Oh, if I could. How’d you like to be my lovey dovey? How’d you like to spoon with me?

Let It Alone – Bert Williams (Columbia), 2 weeks at #1, a comedy record

Wait Till The Sun Shines, Nellie – Harry Talley (Victor), 1 week at #1

Movie review: Zootopia 2

Hopps and Wilde

I went to my favorite movie emporium, the Spectrum 8, to catch a late Thursday matinee of the film Zootopia 2. I had enjoyed the first film back in 2016.

Was the success of the partnership of rabbit Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) the start of great things? Or was their previous case a one-off fluke? The police hierarchy, beginning with Chief Bogo (Idris Elba), begins to believe it is the latter and sends them to therapy.

On their own, they pursue the mysterious Gary De’Snake (Ke Huy Quan). Even in the utopia that is Zootopia, reptiles are relegated to the edges of town. Was the city’s history manipulated? Will the new mayor, a horse named Winddancer (Patrick Warburton), do the right thing? I ended up being totally sucked into the narrative, trying to figure out the good guys – other than our heroes – from the villains.

At the same time, I caught clever references to other movies, especially animal films like Ratatouille and Babe.

The film received 92% positive reviews from critics. My favorite line was from Rua Fay: “a film sure to impress your five-year-old sibling as well as your annoying socialist teenage cousin.” This is almost certainly true.

Big box office

And the film is incredibly successful. Variety notes, “Zootopia 2 is only the third movie this year to join the $1 billion club after Disney’s Lilo & Stitch ($1.03 billion), and China’s animated blockbuster Ne Zha 2 (the highest-grossing release of 2025 with $1.9 billion). Only 13 animated films (10 of which are Disney titles) have ever surpassed $1 billion.” And it did well in China.

So I think it’s mildly funny that I saw the film all by myself, which isn’t ideal for me, but c’est la vie.

Reviewer Shalini Langer: “The ‘lessons’ at the heart of this film are perhaps too on the nose. But that is not necessarily bad for a film that is meant for children, whose central message is embracing difference,…and at a time when adults need to relearn that too.” On the nose? Maybe a bit, though it didn’t bother me. Need to be relearned? Absolutely.

That damn end-of-year quiz

South Africa

I’m doing that damn end-of-year quiz because I always do it. Or because Kelly does it. Or because it is useful.

Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Well, no. And probably not.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

I don’t believe so.

Did anyone close to you die?

Christy D’Ambrosio, Lillian Bakic, and Don Ingram, who actually died at the very end of 2024 but didn’t learn about it right away. Holly Pennock died on December 27; we sang together in the Trinity UMC choir from 1984 to 2000, and we’d keep in touch occasionally, especially (unfortunately) at Trinity funerals. Judy Mark, with whom I was on Session at my current church, died in October.

What countries did you visit?

None, though we seriously considered going to South Africa at the very end of our daughter’s semester at the University of Cape Town. Part of it was financial; her non-tuition expenses exceeded our expectations.

What would you like to have in 2026 that you lacked in 2025?

Democracy.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

No doubt: helping the Daughter get to South Africa.

What was your biggest failure?

Any number of projects remain undone.

What was the best thing you bought?

A laptop for $80. It’s a backup in case this one dies.

Yay!

Whose behavior merited celebration?

Several entities helped me through the siege, including cartoonist Robert Waldo Brunelle Jr. (Mr. Brunelle), satirist Andy Borowitz, and This Modern World cartoonist Tom Tomorrow.

Citizens, including those working through the various Indivisible groups across the country, stood up against authoritarianism; many had never been activists before.

The CBS News reporters, mostly from 60 Minutes, publicly, and occasionally on-air, were critical of Paramount’s capitulation, especially Scott Pelley, Sharyn Alfonsi, John Dickerson, Lesley Stahl, and alumnus Dan Rather. BTW, I’m going to miss Dickerson and Maurice DuBois on the CBS Evening News.

The Daily Show, not just John Stewart; the Legal Eagle (Devin Stone and especially Liz Dye); Seth Meyers; and particularly Jon Oliver.

Courageous politicians stood up against fascism. But it’s mostly folks I’ve been reading, such as Robert Reich, Terry Moran, and especially Heather Cox Richardson; y’all ought to read or watch her daily.

BOO!

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

There are so many! Obviously, the #1 on the list is Metamucilini for too many reasons to list. He ought to be impeached (AGAIN) -“thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Terry Moran wrote this on the last weekend of December:

“Trumpism—while it is many things—is not a practical approach to constitutional governance. It is a farrago of one man’s atavistic fantasies, personal prejudices, and corrupt appetites. It’s not even a political ideology, but rather a vision of a world arranged to prove that Trump is always right and to glorify him forever. That’s why we have to put up with those grotesquely obsequious cabinet meetings; that’s why he’s slapping his name on everything he can, before he dies. That’s why he’s frantically demanding a Nobel Peace Prize, and solemnly accepting the farcical FIFA Peace Prize instead.

“And what about those practical results voters want? They are almost irrelevant to Trump, since no matter what happens, he will claim everything good in the world as his own personal triumph, or blame everything bad on someone else, anyone else. Or he’ll just lie and deny any inconvenient truths.”

Meanwhile, we will suffer from the so-called OBBB cuts while spending on a grotesque military parade, and he enriches himself and his cronies.

BOO!

But also:

Russ Vought – the OMB head was a chief designer of Project 2025, spearheading “the project’s playbook.” And the dude in charge of the budget impasse cuts.

Kristi Noem – the Homeland Security head wallows over the cruelty of the immigration policy and has helped to wreck FEMA’s response to disasters

Elon Musk – he bought the 2024 election, and then DOGEd us into an irresponsible country. What are they doing with our data?

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – his own family is ashamed of how he has Made America Sicker Again

Stephen Miller – the fingerprints of this stochastic terrorism are all over the ICE raids.

Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense (or War—whatever), is the epitome of a DEI (dull, empty, ignorant) hire. He gave the worst speech of the year by a government official, and his boss was stiff competition.

Marco Rubio – He has surrendered the last shred of self-respect as Secretary of State and the three or four other titles he has. His USAID cuts are responsible for at least half a million preventable deaths.

John Roberts – if a fair history will be written, they’ll say that Roberts was the worst Chief Justice of SCOTUS, worse than Roger Taney. The general rationale for allowing FOTUS to fire people who were presumed to have administrative protection shows up in Trump v. Boyle and other places. “The stay we issued…reflected ‘our judgment that the Government faces greater risk of harm from an order allowing a removed officer to continue exercising the executive power than a wrongfully removed officer faces from being unable to perform her statutory duty.'” So he gets to dump whomever until THEY appeal.

BOO!

Pam Bondi – she has politicized the Department of Justice

J.D. Vance – among other things, he and his tech bros are enriching themselves

Mike Johnson – the Speaker seems to have forgotten that there are coequal branches of government.

Brett Kavanaugh – the Associate Justice has codified racial profiling

Lee Zeldin – wrecking the environment as the EPA head

Brendan Carr – the Mafioso boss of the FCC got Nexstar, which wants to grow bigger, to stop carrying Jimmy Kimmel on their many stations. Eventually, ABC drops Kimmel, though they eventually bring him back

Tom Hogan – the ICE guy who apparently did NOT pocket $50,000 in cash

Karoline Leavitt – I will say she lies better than FOTUS’ previous press secretaries.

Kevin Hassert – the National Economic Council Director is a sycophant toady who FOTUS may pick as the next Fed Chair. Terry Moran: “he publicly defended forecasts and claims that outside analysts—including many conservative economists—dismissed as unrealistic/loony, including the assertion that the 2017 tax cuts would ‘pay for themselves. ‘”

Tulsi Gabbard – because she accidentally told the truth early on, the Director of National Intelligence has had to work extra hard to kiss the royal butt

Howard Lutnick – the Secretary of Commerce really tries to tell us how great the tariffs are

Well, that’s 20, but there are a lot more. And this is just the American list: I could have added Bibi, Putin, and many others.

MONEY

Where did most of your money go?

Possibly the ancillary expenses relating to the daughter going to South Africa. Also, some medical stuff.

What did you get really excited about?

Actually, my daughter’s going abroad was exciting

Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Clearly sadder

Thinner or fatter?

I track these things. I lost a little, then gained a bit, and now I’m at about the same place as I started.

Richer or poorer?

Poorer. At some point next year, I have to start taking out my Required Minimum Distribution from my 401(k); I understand this philosophically, but I’ll need to talk to a financial adviser.

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Everything: writing, reading, traveling. But time is not fungible.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Living in my head.

How did you spend Christmas?

Choir on Christmas Eve, family at home on Christmas Day, then visiting my MIL.

Did you fall in love in 2025?

Quite possibly.

How many one-night stands?

Nah.

FAVES

What was your favorite TV program?

I watch John Oliver on YouTube. We are way behind on Only Murders in the Building; I mean, a couple of seasons. 60 Minutes, CBS Sunday Morning, JEOPARDY, football on Sunday and Monday nights.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Let’s put this way: I have utter contempt and disdain for at least one person.

What was the best book you read?

Surprisingly, 60 Songs That Explain the ’90s

What was your greatest musical discovery?

It’s not a single album. As I’ve noted before, I go through my collection and play CDs based on the performers’ birthdays. But I haven’t really attached to a particular birthday for many performers. So I’ve been going through my entire collection of CDs I own but seldom play. While there are a few duds, I liked quite a few of them a lot. One I’m listening to as I’m writing this is Infinity on High by Fall Out Boy; I forgot I even owned it.

What did you want and get?

Nothing I hadn’t done before, but those are good. Singing in choir, ZOOMing with my sisters

What did you want and not get?

A nation where fascism is not a tolerable option for many voters.

What were your favorite films of this year?

Flow, The Life Of Chuck, Sinners, Sorry, Baby, Materialists, Rental Family

Natal day

What did you do on your birthday?

I deliberately wrote about it for this very moment.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2025?

None, save for comfortable footwear.

What kept you sane?

Assuming I am, music.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Much to my surprise, Jimmy Kimmel is really a fine host of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, for which he won an Emmy.

What political issue stirred you the most?

As Kelly wrote LAST year, “America’s ongoing flirtation with sh#tcanning democracy.” I learned who Horst Wessel was.

Who did you miss?

More than once, I thought of my friend Norman Nissen (d. 2016) and Tom Hoffman (d. 2004), who might have some cogent political analysis of what the hell is going on.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2025:

Always use the cane when walking on uneven surfaces.

If you take selfies, post your six favorite ones:

I did exactly one selfie in 2025. It’s not my thing unless I AM the spider.