Month: February 2007

Songs I Used To Love QUESTIONS

Normally, over this weekend, I’d be going to a MidWinter’s celebration. However, since Lydia’s still recovering and Carol’s at a meeting all day, I have to satisfy myself by reading about it.
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I was in a friend’s car recently, when “Brown-Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison came on. I found myself mildly annoyed. What was THAT all about? I used to LOVE that song; now it irritates me.

So that’s the first question: what songs that you used to love now bug you because you’ve heard them too much on the radio, on on TV commercials (Like a Rock – Bob Seger), or whatnot?

Probably the #1 song is Yesterday by the Beatles. Why, oh why, are there TWO versions of it not very far apart from each other on Anthology 2? The thing that doesn’t help is that the simple song is covered so often. I have versions by the Supremes, Ray Charles, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Frank Sinatra, David Essex, En Vogue, Boyz II Men, Billy Dean, and no doubt others, which is at least eight versions too many.

And I’m not alone: one of my co-workers pegged not only the song formerly known as Scrambled Eggs, but also Hey Jude and Let It Be. While I don’t share the sentiment about the latter two songs, I certainly can understand it.

And the second question is similar: what songs (or whole oeuvre of an artist) are unlistenable now because of affairs of the heart? I understand that, for heterosexual males, Joni Mitchell seems to be a great offender.

For this category, there isn’t anything that I won’t play, but there are songs that may make me melancholy:
Harvest Moon-Neil Young
Cryin’-Roy Orbison with k.d. lang
Gone Away-Roberta Flack
First Night Alone without You-Jane Olivor
Remove This Doubt-Supremes
Stay with Me-Lorraine Ellison
Sweet Bitter Love-Aretha Franklin
Have a Little Faith in Me-John Hiatt
and a good portion of Hasten Down the Wind album by Linda Ronstadt

ROG

Some JEOPARDY! fans have WAY too much time on their hands


I’m skimming the Wall Street Journal when I get to this piece on identity theft. One article talked about an “ego search”, so I did one in Google, as I hadn’t done one in quite a while. I found this blog – actually several times – plus references to the Roger Green who’s the Assemblyman from Brooklyn, but who works in Albany, of course. Then I came to the J! Archive, an incomplete, but detailed description of JEOPARDY! games, as though it were a sporting event, plus a wagering calculator.

And guess whose two games in 1998 were documented thoroughly? No, NOT Linda Zusman; only one of the Albany school teacher’s games are shown. Guess again.

So you get to see all the questions I got right – I did know many of the ones I didn’t get a chance to answer; the ones I got wrong, including the brain freeze from Game 1; and the order in which they were answered. I look back at Game 2, and I read the questions that no one rang in on and say, “Hey, I know THAT!” Well, NOW I know it. Anyway, compare and contrast with my recall here, here, and here. You’ll find the misrecollections I had, especially about the second game, which, strangely, I’ve watched a few fewer times than the first one.

Incidentally, only 51 of the 75 appearances of Ken Jennings are documented so far.

Anyway, I suppose it’s no more obsessive than someone who can calculate what offensive guard could be drafted in the fifth round by the New Jersey Jets.
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Newsmeat, which documents which celebs/sports figures gave money to politicians, how much they gave and to whom.
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Wanna have a radio station?
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An appreciation of Molly Ivins.
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A local event, but interesting-

The voice in My Fair Lady, The King and I, and West Side Story for all those actresses that couldn’t sing:

This coming Sunday is the Marni Nixon Master Class, from 1-4 at Bush Memorial Hall at Russell Sage College.

The price for adults is $20, and for students, $5 with a student ID.

The number to call is 518- 462-4531 x236.

There are eight wonderful young singers who have been chosen to participate with a really interesting mix of music, and it promises to be an enlightening event for both the participants and the observers.

ROG

I Talk Well English

Here’s something that I’ve long found peculiar: people saying to me, to my face, “You don’t sound black.” I know this is going on even when they don’t actually voice it. I’ve talked to folks on the phone, usually for work, and then they meet me and they have that “You’re not at ALL what I expected you to look like” look on their faces. It’s quite entertaining, actually. And I get it from black people as well as with white people, except it’s tinged with, “Oh, you’re a BROTHER” vibe; I’m, to their surprise, part of the fraternity.

First time someone said I didn’t “sound black”, I was deeply offended. OK, first several times. Then I started intellectualizing:
PERSON: You don’t sound black.
ME: Oh, but since I AM black, and this is how I sound, I must sound black.
That always confused them.

Now, I just don’t care. The joy of being of a certain age is that stuff which used to hurt now are just funny. Anyway, I blame my father, who was no friend of what later became known as Ebonics. I talk as I talk, and, in the words of Walter Cronkite, “That’s the way it is.”

Your Linguistic Profile::
55% General American English
35% Yankee
5% Upper Midwestern
0% Dixie
0% Midwestern

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Here’s one of those statistical errors that madden. In reporting on the possible Rudy Guiliani campaign for President this weekend, ABC News’ Geoff Morrell noted that Guiliani was in a “virtual dead heat” with Hillary Clinton (Clinton led 49-47), but that he “beats” Barack Obama, 47-45. Since the margin of error of the survey was plus or minus three points, that race is in a statistical dead heat as well.
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“She tried to warn us: With the publication of Shrub in early 2000, syndicated columnist Molly Ivins detailed George W. Bush’s privileged rise and disastrous reign as governor of Texas in the mid- to late ‘90s.” That’s a great line from the Amazon review of Ms. Ivins‘ follow-up book, Bushwhacked. Unfortunately, Molly Ivins died yesterday of breast cancer at the age of 62.

ROG
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