February 2025 - Page 5 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

Questions to Energize Your Work Meetings

which Paul?

I came across the post 100 Funny Icebreaker Questions to Energize Your Work Meetings. The use of these, I suppose, depends on your workplace, but I’m not feeling it for MY last work site.

“Are you tired of those awkward moments during work meetings when everyone is just staring at each other, waiting for someone to break the silence? Well, we’ve got just the solution for you: icebreaker questions!

“In this article, we’ll dive into the world of icebreakers and share some fun and engaging questions that will help liven up your work meetings. Whether you’re meeting in person or virtually, these icebreakers are sure to get everyone in the mood and create a positive and engaging atmosphere. So, let’s get started!”

Some of these I’ll answer briefly because I feel I’ve answered them sufficiently in the past.

Category 1: Fun Facts and Favorites

If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why? Flying. It’s always flying. Sometimes, even to this day, I wake up and feel as though I had been flying, but it was merely a dream. Alas!
What was your most embarrassing moment that still makes you laugh today? I can think of some embarrassing moments, but none that make me laugh. And a few of them still sting.
What’s the weirdest food combination you enjoy? I don’t know what people consider weird. Cottage cheese and apple sauce?
Who is your favorite cartoon character, and why? Popeye. I totally relate to “That’s all I can stands, ’cause I can’t stands no more.” It’s a pretty good gauge of me to this day. If I say, “I’m really upset about this” or “This is REALLY important,” but I’m not listened to, I’m likely to become really irritable. It might lead me to yell, and I HATE yelling because I feel out of control.
If you were a vegetable, which one would you be, and why? Spinach because of Popeye. I often eat spinach with a can of tuna fish.
What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever bought online? I bought technology that was supposed to make my life easier, but I can’t figure out how to use it. One was supposed to extend the geographic range of our Internet access.
What’s the strangest talent or skill you possess? I used to be able to sound like a kazoo without a kazoo or comb, but my ability has atrophied due to lack of use.
If you had your own talk show, who would be your first guest? Probably a musician named Paul. Simon or McCartney, because their music has an outsized imprint on my life. I’d say that almost every S&G and solo album has songs that have a specific meaning to me.
What’s the funniest Wi-Fi network name you’ve ever seen? Huh? No idea.
If you were a DJ, what would your name be? Tell me, people. What do you think it should be? I’ve never been great at naming, except once.

The JES Top 200 Albums Of All Time

Satisfaction Money Mother Letting go

The JES Top 200 Albums Of All Time list is an ever-evolving collection of recordings compiled by J. Eric Smith. Smith, who was a fellow Albany Times Union blogger in the day, lives in Arizona via Iowa.

I’ve been following him on his current blog. He’s assembled a roster I don’t know how I would begin creating.

Bowie, David: Low. Not only do I have this album, I have a Philip Glass album covering three of these songs. Speed of Life

Bowie, David: “Heroes”. I have this album, too, in the middle of his Berlin Trilogy. Heroes

Bush, Kate: Hounds of Love. Running Up That Hill

Clash: Combat Rock. Rock the Casbah

Clash: London Calling. While this is on several Best Of albums, I know people who genuinely hate this collection. Lost In A Supermarket

Collins, Phil: Face Value. I Missed Again

Devo: Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo. Satisfaction

Eagles: Desperado. I have a very specific recollection of the song Tequila Sunrise from my college days.

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer: Brain Salad Surgery. Still… You Turn Me On

Fleetwood Mac: Rumours. The Chain

Gabriel, Peter: Peter Gabriel (III/Melt). I also have this album on vinyl in German. It’s a longtime island record. And Through The Wire

Genesis: Duke. Turn It On Again

Grateful Dead: American Beauty. Ripple

Grateful Dead: Workingman’s Dead. Uncle John’s Band

Hall, Daryl: Sacred Songs. Something In 4/4 Time

Jethro Tull: Songs From the Wood. The Whistler

Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick. edit

King Crimson: In The Court of the Crimson King. 21st Century Schizoid Man

Led Zeppelin: IV (Zoso). Black Dog

M-Z

Mitchell, Joni: For the Roses. You Turn Me On I’m A Radio

Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon. Money

Pink Floyd: The Wall. Mother

Replacements: Let It Be. Answering Machine

Rolling Stones: Exile on Main St. is not my favorite Stones album. Happy

Simon & Garfunkel: Sounds of Silence. Blessed

Steely Dan: Aja. Peg

Steely Dan: The Royal Scam. It’s one of the few albums I own on cassette! The Royal Scam.

Steppenwolf: Gold: Their Great Hits. Born To Be Wild

Talking Heads: Fear of Music. I Zimbra

Utopia: Swing to the Right. Swing To The Right

Utopia: Utopia (1982). Hammer In My Heart

Various Artists: The Harder They Come (Original Soundtrack Recording). Rivers Of Babylon – The Melodians

Who: Who’s Next. Won’t Get Fooled Again. I had a boss who was obsessed with this song.

Who: Tommy. Sally Simpson

Wings: Band on the Run. Jet

Wings: Venus and Mars. Letting Go

Yes: The Yes Album. Yours Is No Disgrace

37 out of 200. There are a few artists for which I have albums, but not the specific ones listed: the Bee Gees, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Joy Division, Elvis Presley, Todd Rundgren, Peter Tosh, XTC, and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.

Making the effort

“ministry of presence, support, and advocacy for the victims of society’s injustice and neglect”

Making the effort is its own reward, someone said.

It would have been very easy not to go to church the Sunday morning of February 2nd. Even with my greatest effort, clearing our sidewalk of snow and ice the day before was impossible as the temperature plummeted, even with rock salt. Most of my neighbors were likewise stymied.

Moreover, the service wasn’t at my church but at Emmanuel Baptist, one of the FOCUS churches. “For more than 50 years, FOCUS has created a community called to be a collective voice – and a helping hand – for those in need.”

Yeah, I COULD have blown it off, but I like supporting FOCUS. Moreover, singing together with people from other congregations is fun. So I took the 910 bus down to the state capitol and walked the two slippery, frigid (<0F, c. -20C) blocks to Emmanuel, where about 25 of us got to sing a couple of songs together.

Pastor Kathy gave a good sermon. She noted that Jesus took a public stand against a faith system that offered religious cover for political violence. My, did THAT resonate!

Covenant

We always recite the FOCUS covenant. It has changed a bit since the collective formed in the mid-1960s, but the spirit of service has not been altered;

We believe that we are called by God to discern amid the many shapes of need and pain around us, the design of Christ’s mandate for our shared ministry.
We covenant, therefore, with God and with one another:
to engage in a search for faithful and effective forms of ministry;
to provide a ministry of presence, support, and advocacy for the victims of society’s injustice and neglect;
to speak the truth in places of power on behalf of the powerless;
to equip ourselves for the service of Christ through joint educational and community-building ventures;
and to celebrate in worship the meaning of our shared mission.

We commit to these purposes our prayers, our time, our talent, and our material resources with the hope that our life and work together in this time and place will demonstrate the liberating and reconciling power of the gospel.

What now?

After the service, I talked to several people about how they were doing and what they were doing to keep themselves sane these days. One worked at the FOCUS food pantry, and another served meals at the FOCUS breakfast club. Serving others gave them hope.

Another person I’ve known for a long time talked about volunteering at RISSE, whose mission is “to support refugees and immigrants to build new lives and thrive in the Capital Region… through language classes, immigration and employment assistance, youth programming, and case management. The service is not very far from my house. (Related: from WRGB-TV, Channel 6 -Local schools prepare for immigration policy changes.)

Yet another person suggested checking out a website called Indivisible. When I got home, I went to the website, but I was wary. The most geographically specific site was labeled: All in for Harris/Walz Action Team Capital Region NY.

Nevertheless, I wrote in an email titled, “What actions are you doing re: DOGE?” along with this Democracy Now video. Beth from Bethlehem Indivisible replied, “Lots of phone calls to electeds, and after last night’s Indivisible Mass Call, we are planning office visits to Schumer and Gillibrand, which is the most important thing right now.”

So, I’m “in the loop” on what I hope is a fruitful experience. (Oh, Kelly is writing to his Member of Congress.) I’m tired of being tired, frustrated, and angry without direction. Is this THE answer? Dunno. But I need to do SOMETHING that seems to be a response to political violence.

Genealogy blocked

Hey, I wrote to my state legislators about a potential change in NYS law that would hurt genealogical research.

“As part of New York State’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal, Part U of the Health and Mental Hygiene Legislation would:

😡 Extend embargo periods to 125 years for birth records, 100 years for marriages, and 75 years for deaths — making New York one of the most restrictive states for vital records access in the entire country!
😡 Hike fees by more than 400%, raising the cost of a single genealogical record request to $95!
🤬 Eliminate even the basic vital records indexes, making it nearly impossible to simply confirm if a record exists in the first place!”

Read here and especially here, and if you’re in New York State, contact your state legislators before 5 pm on Tuesday, February 11.

Grisham, Daniels, Grammer turn 70 in Feb ’25

Ferrer, Jobs, Gottfried

Here are some folks who turn 70 in February 2025, plus a few who did not make it.

Criminal lawyer-turned-author John Grisham (8th) has written a slew of legal thrillers. I haven’t read any of them, though I did see two of the nine movies made from his books, The Firm (1993) and A Time to Kill (1996).

But I’m most interested in his recent non-fiction book. “From a moral perspective, it is imperative for a society to face and correct injustice… We decided to write about and focus on the ten most astonishing cases, and publish them as Framed. There are hundreds of others.” Grisham wrote this with Jim McCloskey, “the godfather of the innocence movement.”

Jeff Daniels (19th) is an actor I’ve seen in many films, including Terms of Endearment, Purple Rose of Cairo, Heartburn, Speed, Pleasantville, The Hours, Because of Winn-Dixie, and The Martian.

He has also appeared on Broadway, most recently originating Atticus in the reimagined To Kill A Mockingbird. (I did not see him, but I did catch Richard Thomas in the touring show.)

“In 1991, Daniels founded a not-for-profit organization called The Purple Rose Theatre Company, which offers an attractive apprenticeship program for youngsters looking for a career in theatre.”

Kelsey Grammer (21st) is most notable for his two-decade-long portrayal of Dr. Frasier Crane in the hit series Cheers and its spin-off, Frasier. I watched virtually all of those episodes. The reboot of Frasier, which I had seen infrequently, recently concluded after a two-season run. He has also done a great deal of voice acting, most notably as Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons.

RIP

Then there were these folks that WOULD have been 70 had they made it to 2025.

Miguel Ferrer (7th) was an American actor who broke through after portraying Bob Morton in RoboCop. I knew him from the movies Traffic and The Manchurian Candidate, as well as the TV procedural Crossing Jordan. His parents were the performers José Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney. He died on January 19, 2017, from throat cancer at the age of 61.

College dropout Steve Jobs (24th) founded or co-founded Apple Inc., Pixar Animation Studios, and NeXT Inc. He was responsible for developing “the iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPad, and the iPhone, which ushered in a new era in the computer, music, and film industries.” Here’s all about Steve.

He died on October 5, 2011, from pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer at the age of 56.

Gilbert Gottfried (28th): While I saw him on several programs, including The Cosby Show and Beverly Hills Cop II, most know him for the voice: the wise-cracking parrot “Iago” in Aladdin (1992) and the AFLAC duck.

In the documentary Life, Animated (2016), about a child who learned to communicate by watching Disney films, the young man Owen had a fan club. He invited Gilbert to one of their events, and Gilbert gladly showed up.

He died on April 12, 2022, from recurrent ventricular tachycardia, complicated by type II myotonic dystrophy, at the age of 67.

Theater: Parade; Maybe Happy Ending

from Atlanta to Seoul

By happenstance, I saw two theatrical productions in three days, Parade and Many Happy Ending.

In February 2024, Proctors Theatre in Schenectady held an event to announce the 2024-25 Broadway schedule for Proctors and Cap Rep in Albany.

When they discussed the musical Parade, which would start its tour at Proctors, an older gentleman on a screen said essentially that it was a sad and depressing story, but it was good. That could not be the “sell” the Proctors’ folks wanted to hear.

The musical won the 2023 Tony Award® for Best Revival of a Musical and was nominated for a Grammy Award® for Best Musical Theater Album.

Katherine Kiessling of the Times Union wrote, “The heart of the show is assigned to Leo and his wife Lucille, played by Max Chernin and Talia Suskauer. The pair is charged with embracing the Franks’ rough edges—his aloofness and her initial desires to cling to her privileged life and flee the hardships of her husband’s trial—and eliciting empathy.”

They are a Jewish couple in the nineteen-teens Atlanta. He’s from Brooklyn, but she’s a native of Georgia. He runs a pencil-making factory. A young female employee is killed, and Leo is suspected.

Variety asked about the 2023 revival: “Will audiences take to a disturbing but captivating musical that deals with racism, antisemitism, and injustice?” Newspapers superimposed on the stage area ensure the audience knows the outcome before the production begins.

It’s very well done and important. While having a downer of an arc, it’s not all depressing, and it was worthwhile. My wife and I attended the January 11 program. It will be touring throughout the country through September 7.

Made in Korea

Two days later, my daughter and I were in Manhattan working on a project. We contacted one of my nieces and her Significant Other. They secured four rush tickets for Maybe Happy Endings at the Belasco Theatre for January 13. The show opened on November 12.

“Inside a one-room apartment in the heart of Seoul, Oliver (Darren Criss, probably best known from Glee) lives a happily quiet life, listening to jazz records and caring for his favorite plant…

“When his fellow Helper-Bot neighbor Claire (Helen J. Shen) asks to borrow his charger, what starts as an awkward encounter leads to a unique friendship, a surprising adventure, and maybe even…love?”

The Will Aronson and Hue Park musical reminds us that “love is never obsolete.” It was delightful, not just because of the storyline, dialogue (“She’s a 5” was particularly funny), songs, and performances, which included lounge singer Gil Brentley (Dez Duron) and James and others (Marcus Choi).

Maybe Happy Ending uses specially made video projections, plus a fantastic physical space. “The musical exists in the relatively constrained spaces of the Helperbot retirement home, but there are also a series of flashbacks to Oliver’s time working with James in his house and Claire’s time working for her owner. Then, when the two robots eventually leave their apartments, there’s an entirely new landscape and horizon to contend with. And all of this takes place in a single unbroken act…”

Technology

Laffrey’s solution was to create a “machine that moved us through this world.” He used a “giant mechanism that encompasses the whole stage and fills it with moving pieces. For most of the show, the audience’s view is comprised of one or two boxes, one for each of the robot’s rooms—those boxes can slide horizontally, meaning there’s occasionally a single room and, more often, two side-by-side. The stage also has a central turntable, upon which some sets (James’ house, for instance) rotate.

“Simultaneously, Laffrey designed four huge black panels trimmed with neon. These panels, which are positioned in front of the stage where a curtain would be, slide up and down and side-to-side in order to act like a camera lens’s iris, opening wide to show the whole stage or narrowing to focus on a single piece of action. It’s a tool that occasionally makes the musical feel more like cinema than theater—the audience is seemingly viewing the play through a giant lens.”

A Korean-language version of Maybe Happy Ending opened in Seoul in 2016, and its English-language premiere was in Atlanta the following year. The show was very enjoyable, though sitting in the fourth row of the balcony, I had difficulty seeing some limited action in front of the stage.