Sunday Stealing: The Pen Company

The Good Book

Here’s the new Sunday Stealing, The Pen Company. But before I get to that, a couple of Independence Day announcements in Albany, NY.

 

First, the July 4 oration will take place at the Stephen and Harriet Myers residence, 194 Livingston Avenue in Albany, NY, sponsored by the Underground Railroad Education Center (UREC). Music by Magpie, who will be joined by Kim Harris.

 

Second, Sheila E. will be performing at 8 pm at the Empire State Plaza. One of her singers cannot make it, so subbing will be Rebecca Jade, who is my niece. Rebecca was backing Sheila when my wife, daughter, and I saw them at the New York State Fair in Syracuse back in September 2019.
Onto the show
1. If your house was on fire, which three items would you save?

A metal box in my office that has my birth certificate, my father’s death certificate plus other important documents. A box of photos. My laptop.

 

2. What is the strangest or most awkward date you’ve ever been on?

Oddly, it wasn’t my date. My ex-girlfriend was going to the Washington (NY) County Fair with her new boyfriend c 1996/97. She invited a friend of ours and me to attend as well, because we were all “mature” people. It was…weird. Interestingly, they broke up, I got back together with my gf, and we’ve been married 24 years.

 

3. What are your biggest fears?

The loss of freedom and justice in the United States, based on the actions of several governors and state legislatures, the rhetoric of several candidates for the 2024 Presidency, and recent Supreme Court decisions.

 

4. How do you spend your time when you are procrastinating?

Usually playing double deck pinochle or backgammon on my phone.

 

5. What has been your most memorable birthday so far, and why?

Probably my 50th because I had a big party at my church. I made a mixed CD that I gave out.

 

6. What is your favorite snack?

Fig Newtons with milk.

 

7. What was your first pet?
Peter the cat. He was very smart. When he wanted to come in, he’d jump onto a piece of furniture and rattle the door knob.
I am where I am
8. What’s your favorite city in your country?

It might be Albany, NY because that’s where I decided to live. My favorite place to visit might be Galveston, TX; I’d go out to he pier at 5 a.m., watching the tide from the Gulf of Mexico come in.

 

9. Do you have a garden?

We have a garden. But I have little or nothing to do with it.

 

10. What is your favorite thing about your home town?

My hometown was Binghamton, NY. It was small enough – and my school was tiny enough – that I can to this day name most of the kids in my 9th grade class. And I’m still friends with three of them. Oh, and went to kindergarten with them too.

 

11. What was the last book you read?

A Century of Pop Music bt Joel Whitburn.

 

12. What is the best book you have ever read?

Quite possibly, The Good Book: Discovering the Bible’s Place in Our Lives by Peter J. Gomes. Here’s a reader recommendation from Thrift Books:

“Gomes takes the Bible off its pedestal and presents it to us as a tool for Christian living. This book is a must read for any Christian struggling to read and understand the Bible in modern terms. He explores many of the controversial topics of the Bible, including race, homosexuality, women’s roles, anti-Semitism, wealth, and more. [This is definitely true.]

 

“He challenges the reader to accept the Bible as an interpretation of fantastic religious events with historical and sociological significance. He teaches the reader to deal with contradictions within the Bible, even within individual books of the Bible… This book challenged my beliefs in positive ways and taught me to never ‘idolize’ the Bible again.”
Roger that
13. Who is your favorite author?

It might be Roger Ebert, whose movie essays I enjoyed greatly. His autobio, Life Itself, is the book I would liked to have written, if I had the skills.

 

14. Is there a food that you hate?

Olives. Black olives, green olives.

 

15. Do you get along with your neighbors?
The neighbor to one side, Al, is great. Now, the property on the other side is owned by an absentee landlord, so the quality of the tenants has varied. I’ve written about not great ones here and elsewhere, and the best ones here. But by far, the WORST thing that happened from that house was created by the landlord himself. What a schmuck.

I wrote about terrible neighbors across the street, but thankfully, they’re gone.

 

16. Do you have any tattoos or piercings?
Nope. And I was never seriously interested in doing so.

March rambling: something dumb

1099-K

“Good morning, friends. That awful feeling of shame and panic when you remember saying something dumb years ago is your nervous system trying to protect you from perceived danger. Try telling your body, ‘Thank you for wanting to protect me. We’re safe now. It’s okay to let it go.'” from Good Morning, Friends: Gentle Suggestions for the Start of Your Day. I have been there!

US Secretary of State Denounces Uganda’s New ‘Kill the Gays’ Bill

‘Legal Lynching’: ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws reflect legacy of white supremacist vigilantism in Deep South

A right-wing judge takes aim at medication abortions

Book ban attempts hit a record high in 2022, the American Library Association says

Teaching on Eggshells

Devin Stone, the “Legal Eagle,” explains the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege and how it applies to djt’s lawyers 

Ten True Stories of Dutch Colonial Slavery

Can the anti-woke mob define ‘woke’?

4-year-old girl shot dead by 3-year-old sister with semi-automatic pistol

CULCHA

Can Movie Theaters Survive? It’s the Most Enduring Question In Hollywood

Stephen Sondheim’s Final Musical to Premiere Off-Broadway This Fall

Aaron Sorkin Reveals He Had a Stroke Last November: “A Loud Wake-Up Call”

How Toy Companies Bribe YouTube Channels

Artificial Intelligence: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

These Are the World’s Happiest Countries in 2023. Finland is #1, and the US is #15.

An 85-year Harvard study on happiness found the No. 1 retirement challenge

Connection Between Alcohol and Sleep

How Loneliness Reshapes the Brain

What Does Blue Light Do to Your Eyes?

Why green might be the most important color for humans. But of course!

Understanding Your Form 1099-K. “The law is not intended to track personal transactions such as sharing the cost of a car ride or meal, birthday or holiday gifts, or paying a family member for a household bill.”

Mark Evanier’s Tales From The DMV

Former Colorado Rep. Pat Schroeder, a pioneer for women’s rights, dies at 82

The indomitable spirit of Willis Reed. I watched that Game 7 NBA Finals game in 1970 on TV. It was remarkable. He died at the age of 80.

‘Fosbury Flop’ high jumper Dick Fosbury dies at 76

John Jakes, Author of the Miniseries-Spawning ‘North and South’ Trilogy, Dies at 90

The attempts to make a modern Little Nemoin Slumberland film

Now I Know: The Slave Who Shipped Himself to Freedom and A Cute Way to Prevent Traffic Deaths and Why Movie Theaters Have Red Seats and The Problem With Living in the Center of America and I Guess You Could Say They… Excel and The Little Bit of P-Word in the Coke and This Cupcake Recipe Isn’t The Bomb

MUSIC

Please keep voting for the niece Rebecca Jade at the San Diego Music Awards in categories 20, 21, 25, 26, and 27. Also for Peter Sprague in category 4 for an album that features Rebecca.

Dry Bones – Delta Rhythm Boys.  A recent Old Testament scripture was Ezekiel 37:1-14. By coincidence, I was playing that week the soundtrack of the movie Rain Man, which included a version of Dry Bones by the Delta Rhythm Boys, though not precisely that take.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Festival Overture

Let It Burn from Paradise Square the Musical, featuring Tony Award Winner Joaquina Kalukango

Tchaikovsky’s Symphonic Fantasia, The Tempest

Life’s a F***ing Fantasy for Santos – Randy Rainbow

Coverville 1436: Cover Stories for Poison and Sugar Ray

Woody Woodpecker theme

Music from the Emerald Isle

What’s The Name of That Song from Sesame Street

Franz Von Suppe’s Light Calvary

March rambling: 2008 again?

amateur sleuths

Everything Everywhere All at OnceIs it 2008 again, or not? (bank failures)

US Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) makes his DC entrance

New Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR) Signs Law Gutting Child Labor Protections for Minors Under 16 Years Old

Defiant Woman at the Center of New York’s First Abortion Battle – in the 1840s

How to Make the Hybrid Model Work for Women

The HistoryMakers: Documenting Black history through first-person accounts | 60 Minutes

My City by James Weldon Johnson

The Destruction of Negro Communities and the Birth of the African American

Mapped: Which Countries Get the Most Paid Vacation Days?

Indonesia unveils the construction site of a new capital city, Nusantara.  Jakarta is experiencing overpopulation, infrastructure problems, and chronic flooding. The current capital is quickly sinking into the Java Sea, and parts of the city could be entirely submerged by 2050. But the new “project may lead to substantial rainforest deforestation, threaten endangered species’ habitats, put Indigenous peoples’ homes at risk, and more.”

March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. The Colon Club calls attention to the disease.

Why are nurses quitting? Ask the nurse no hospital will hire.

Idaho Murders: As a Small Town Grapples With Sinister Rumors, Media’s True-Crime Obsession Grows and The Case the Internet got wrong: A new investigation sheds light on Lindsay Buziak’s unsolved murder, revealing a vast web of misinformation. These are as much about the rush to judgment by amateur sleuths as the crimes themselves.

Worst Civil Engineering Failure in US History – March 12, 1928: St. Francis Dam Disaster
And more

John Cleese was confronted with three men who kinda looked and/or kinda sounded like his character, Basil Fawlty. He had to guess which one did the impersonation professionally.

Chaim Topol, Tevye the Milkman in ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ Dies at 87

Robert Blake, the Combustible Star of ‘In Cold Blood’ and ‘Baretta,’ Dies at 89

Marvel Working to Find ‘Quantumania’ Leaker. It’ll probably be more successful than SCOTUS was. 
My friend Fred Hembeck asks Mark Evanier about Tiny Tim

Is the Beyond Burger Healthy?

Hey, Stewart’s, $5 / 2 = what??

Now I Know: The Dark History of Groomsmen and Baseball’s Strangest Trade and When Space and Physics Don’t Mix and Why Beer Comes in Brown (or Green) Bottles

I’m happy about the results of the Academy Awards, although I did not watch the program. It’s been my experience that people who saw EEAAO in the cinema, as I did, enjoyed it FAR more than those who watched it at home.

To me, it’s all one big, continual story. The Big Lie about the 2020 election, including the allegations about rigged voting machines.The January 6, 2021 insurrection.   Dominion voting machine’s defamation case against Fox News and the information that came out during the trial’s discovery phase.

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy gave Fox News exclusive access to raw footage of Jan 6. Tucker Carlson, one of the verified liars in the Dominion discovery, had footage of Jan 6 edited to suggest that the insurrection was just a sightseeing event, a claim so absurd that the White House and Senate Republicans from Mitch McConnell to Thom Tillis rebuked Carlson.

Check out pieces by Jake Tapper, Bill Maher, Seth Meyers, Drezner’s World, and possibly most comprehensively, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Music

In honor of ME: Adagio and Allegro for Piano and Horn by Robert Schumann, Opus 70!

And this: Sir Roger Norrington Eroica/Happy Birthday surprise from the SWR Symphonieorchester

Afro-American Symphony by William Grant Still

Casablanca suite by Max Steiner

Coverville 1433: The Rihanna Cover Story and  1434: Cover Stories for Nik Kershaw and Nina Simone, and 1435: Album Cover: Dark Side of the Moon’s 50th Anniversary

Wayne Shorter, 1923-2023

Guitarist David Lindley: 1944—2023

K-Chuck Radio: The joy and sadness of Yvonne Barrett

Classical Composer Reaction – Analysis of This is America (Childish Gambino) | The Daily Doug Ep. 542. (Doug Helvering)

Make Way For Tomorrow dance number- Gene Kelly, Rita Hayworth, and Phil Silvers (!)

Carpenters with Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft

Don’t Worry, Be Happy – Julien Neel

It’s not Lou Reed … and it’s not Jefferson Airplane, either.

Mr. Ma answers all the cello questions you never knew you had!

Burt Bacharach’s Clever Key Changes – David Bennett Piano

Ten classical music songs you know, but you may not know their names

“We’re willing to sacrifice our egos for the good of the band” – interview with  Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran.

Please keep voting for the niece Rebecca Jade for the San Diego Music Awards daily in categories 20, 21, 25, 26, and 27. Also, vote for Peter Sprague in category 4, which RJ sang on.

December rambling: Fudge

Hanukkah in Santa Monica times 8

cold_complaints
From https://xkcd.com/2714/

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Addresses Joint Meeting of Congress

Fueling Inequality, Earnings of the Top 0.1% in the US Have Soared by 465% Since 1979. The bottom 90% saw earnings growth of just 29% between 1979 and 2021, the Economic Policy Institute found.
Jewish Groups Say GOP Is Pushing Antisemitism
Alan Singer: Is Holocaust Education an Antidote to Anti-Semitism?

Did George Santos lie about everything? The representative-elect (R-NY), who allegedly made up his life story, explained.

Republicans turn final House hearing on far-right violence into a clown show

Arthur answers Roger: Ranking Choices (voting) and  Indepen-dunce

Should Doctors Warn Patients About the Downsides of Medicare Advantage Plans?

Census Bureau: LGBT Adults Report More Anxiety, Depression at All Ages

Book About ‘War on Ivermectin’ Distributed by Major Publishing House — “Infuriating to see misinformation mongers being taken seriously”

Celebrities Shilling Crypto Face More Than Just Mockery

Why Economists Study Demographic Change

Barbara Walters, Trailblazing Broadcast Journalist, Dies at 93 – I started watching her on the TODAY show.

Franco Harris, Pittsburgh Steelers’ legendary running back, dies at 72. He and I had the same birthday, albeit three years apart.

Soccer great Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Pele: 1940-2022

Paul Silas, 3-time NBA champion and longtime coach dies at 79

Walking Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan)

New VIP+ Special Report: Mobile Sports Gambling and  Media

How to be a helpful host to your friends with food allergies

John Oliver on  trash

Still not sure why a “door” nail, though . . .

Comics arrested onstage

What is the Democracy’s Library?

2022

Academy Awards releases its shortlist of 10-15 nominees in 10 categories

Celebrities who died in 2022 from Vanity Fair and TCM

Cory Doctorow: A Year in Illustration

SATIRE: Elon Musk Named Most Exhausting Person of 2022

FUDGE!
Orange crush

Trump still has no credible response to the Jan 6  report

He somehow avoided a Mandatory IRS Tax Audit for two years as President

David Whelan, Paul’s brother, gives him a tongue-lashing for his reaction to Brittney Griner’s release

His trading card images appear to have been lifted from catalogs and stock collections

‘His World Is So, So Small’: Former Adviser Says He Cracked  During White House Isolation

Music

Tell Me If You Still Care – Kevin Flournoy, ft. Phil Perry and Shannon Pearson, with Rebecca Jade on background vocals

Speaking of RJ: 2022 Year-End BEATS Magazine noted Breakout Artist: Rebecca Jade (p. 22) and Best Artist: Dave Koz, with whom Rebecca toured in December 2022

Hollywood Reporter Music Editor Picks the 10 Best Songs of 2022, most of which I have never heard of

AmeriNZ: 2022 pop music mashups

Eight versions of the Tom Lehrer classic Hanukkah in Santa Monica. It also includes the Maccabees ‘ Latke Recipe. which is to the tune of Shut Up and Dance by Walk The Moon, a song from 2014 that I managed to have missed.

Istanbul – They Might Be Giants

Dino Danelli, the original drummer of The (Young) Rascals, dies at 79

Nov. rambling: language of lying

GLYPH, DRIVE, FEAST

County Cork
Since I have unknown ancestors from County Cork, it is reasonable that some of my unknown cousins are putting this out

Weekly Sift:  When can I stop writing about Trump?

Trump shied away from criticizing white supremacist Nick Fuentes, fearing he’d  alienate supporters

I received an email poll on November 24, 2022, asking me, “Who Is Your First Choice For President In 2024?” The choices I was given were Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Joe Biden, or Mike Pence. My answer is, “Stop sending me stupid surveys! I’m still getting through 2022.”

Citing Orwell, Judge Blocks ‘Positively Dystopian’ Censorship Law Backed by DeSantis

Unforgettable: The Kari Lake Story

SPLC releases new Community Guide to address Online Youth Radicalization

Monuments to the Unthinkable; America still can’t figure out how to memorialize the sins of our history. What can we learn from Germany?

The Ferguson Brothers Lynchings on Long Island (Book Review by Alan Singer)

U.S. prison labor programs violate fundamental human rights, a new report finds

Four States Voted to End Slavery — But Not Louisiana. Here’s Why.

Oklahoma’s “Child Abuse” Law Doesn’t Protect Children — It Criminalizes Mothers

Two pro wrestlers developed ‘The Progressive Liberal’ to be the bad guy at matches. Then the atmosphere turned far darker

The Monarchy: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

A PSA From an Exhausted Emergency Physician — Avoid sending us your patients until the dust settles

Tom Brady, charity, and business don’t mix

Homeownership by Young Households Below Pre-Great Recession Levels

Types of Water Pollution

More features

The language of lying (TED-Ed)

Preserving Black Heritage: Florida activists fight to save the historic site and their culture

‘Atlanta’ and Making Disciples of All Nations

4th grader uses Heimlich to save a fellow student from choking

Twenty hours on the Dog (Greyhound bus)

20 Best Places to Visit in Upstate New York

Inside Trevor Noah’s Decision to Leave ‘The Daily Show’

In honor of what would have been Charles M. “Sparky” Schulz’s 100th birthday on November 26, 2022, syndicated cartoonists across the country have paid tribute to the Peanuts creator in their own comic strips published on the date. 

Inside the Disney Board’s Decision to Swap Bobs

Robert Clary, Corporal LeBeau on ‘Hogan’s Heroes,’ Dies at 96

Irene Cara, Oscar-Winning Singer, and Actress, Dies at 63

Clarence Gilyard, ‘Walker, Texas Ranger,’ ‘Matlock’ and ‘Die Hard’ Actor, Dies at 66

Amahl and the Night Visitors – the Christmas special almost lost to time

Ask Arthur Anything

Ambient Noise!

I almost picked FEAST as my first Wordle word on Thanksgiving. About 1% of players DID make that correct choice. This was the day after DRIVE was the selection. Earlier this month, GLYPH was the selection. November 2022 was the centennial of the discovery of King Tut’s tomb by the expedition led by Howard Carter. The new Wordle editor is having fun.

Now I Know: Why Aluminum Foil Has a Shiny Side and a Not-Shiny Side and  The Problem With, and Solution to, Too Much Turkey and Let’s Talk Turkey! and  The $5 Million Comma and Proof That Trivia Can Save Lives? and How to Make Corporate Holiday Parties Even More Awkward?

MUSIC

You can still vote for Rebecca Jade as Smooth Jazz Network’s 2022 “Breakout Artist of the Year” DAILY through December 2nd!  Vote HERE. Also, she is joining Dave Koz and Friends for a very special 25th Anniversary Christmas tour through December 23. Tickets HERE.

Elton John Takes Final US Concert Bow at Dodger Stadium

Singer Roberta Flack can no longer sing after ALS diagnosis;  hear Why Don’t You Move In With Me

40 years later, Solid Rock and an autographed treasure

Midnight Train To Georgia – Gladys Knight and the Pips.

Coverville 1420: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees 2022 and
1421: The 19th Annual All-Beatles Thanksgiving Cover Story

Rikki Tikka Tavi by Alfred Schnittke

Goodnight, My Someone  from The Music Man –  Voctave

Journey To Blofeld’s Hideaway from John Barry’s score to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

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