Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

The costly cigarette habit

They were smokers – heavy smokers, and they did massive damage with their toxic habit over a nine-year period.

It continues to be true that my physical tolerance for tobacco has diminished over time. I was in a restaurant parking lot last month where a guy, now 30 feet from me, had been walking, and I had to change my route because of the lingering smell of his cigarette smoke.

This summer, and into the fall, one of my brothers-in-law has been coming up to our area almost every weekend, cleaning the apartment he and his wife had rented to his sister-in-law and her husband. These are long trips he’s been making, of about 280 miles (450 km) and five hours each way. The cleaning involved scrubbing the walls, taking up the carpeting, replacing the ventilation system, and all sorts of labor-intensive tasks. His father has helped a bit; his wife tried, but the place was making her ill. I’ve only been there once, early in the process, and after three minutes in that location, I developed a raging headache that did not dissipate until I spent over an hour outside.

Yes, the tenants were smokers – heavy smokers – and they did massive damage with their toxic habit over a nine-year period. I know the couple peripherally. Right after our daughter was born, they came to visit us in the hospital, as delegates of sorts for my brother-in-law’s family. My wife and my new daughter were in bed, I was sitting next to them, and we could smell them before they actually entered the room for a fortunately short visit.

Oh, look at the percentage of cigarette butts in this list of waste products.

Tomorrow is the Great American SmokeOut. If you don’t quit smoking for yourself, do it for me, because you probably reek.

(Picture from The Bad Chemicals – how appropriate! Used By permission.)

R is for Rubber Soul and Revolver

The GOOD news is that, from this point, the albums released in UK were the same in the US, starting with Sgt. Pepper.

 

My two favorite Beatles albums came out in successive years, and are successive albums, at least in the United Kingdom and the rest of civilised world. In North America, the record executives managed to squeeze out another album in between.

George Harrison once said, “I don’t see too much difference between Revolver and Rubber Soul. To me, they could be Volume One and Volume Two.” Paul McCartney has also blended the albums together in interviews. Here are the listings; there are also links to every song.

The title Rubber Soul is a variation on the term plastic soul, a term referring to white musicians singing soul music. Paul McCartney, in a studio conversation recorded in June 1965 after recording a take of “I’m Down”, the B-side of the single “Help!”, said “Plastic soul, man. Plastic soul.”

The italicized songs are those from the second half of the UK Help! album that show up on the US RS album. The songs marked in red were removed from the UK versions and put on the US-only album, Yesterday…and Today.

Side one
1 UK Drive My Car
1 US I’ve Just Seen a Face
2 UK & US Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
3 UK & US You Won’t See Me
4 UK Nowhere Man
5 UK, 4 US Think for Yourself
6 UK, 5 US The Word
7 UK, 6 US Michelle

Side two
1 UK What Goes On
1 US It’s Only Love
2 UK & US Girl
3 UK & US I’m Looking Through You
4 UK & US In My Life
5 UK & US Wait
6 UK If I Needed Someone
7 UK, 6 US Run for Your Life

Or listen to the full UK album here or here.

At least they added a Lennon and a McCartney song (It’s Only Love, I’ve Just Seen a Face) as they dropped songs by John (Nowhere Man), Paul (Drive My Car), George (If I Needed Someone), and Ringo (What Goes On).

The cover illustration for Revolver was created by bassist and artist Klaus Voormann, an old Beatles’ friend from their days at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany. Voorman played on albums for each of the Beatles on their solo albums, save for Paul.

When it came to Revolver, the music, it was quite the lopsided edit:

Side one

1 UK & US Taxman
2 UK & US Eleanor Rigby
3 UK I’m Only Sleeping
4 UK, 3 US Love You To
5 UK, 4 US Here, There and Everywhere
6 UK, 5 US Yellow Submarine
7 UK, 6 US She Said She Said

Side two

1 UK & US Good Day Sunshine
2 UK And Your Bird Can Sing
3 UK, 2 US For No One
4 UK Doctor Robert
5 UK, 3 US I Want to Tell You
6 UK, 4 US Got to Get You into My Life
7 UK, 5 US Tomorrow Never Knows

Or hear the full UK album here or here.

John’s only represented twice on the US version, because three of his songs on the UK version also were dropped. Robert Rodriguez, who wrote a 2012 book on Revolver explains: “Capitol needed three more songs to flesh out Yesterday and Today, and he had the most songs finished by then.” George had three songs (Taxman, Love You To, I Want To Tell You) on both versions of Revolver.

The GOOD news is that, from this point, the albums released in the UK were the same in the US, starting with Sgt. Pepper. Not incidentally, on the Rolling Stone magazine list of the 500 greatest albums, Sgt. Pepper was #1, with Revolver at #3 and Rubber Soul at #5. I tend to disagree. While Sgt. Pepper was clearly a breakthrough album, it sounds more dated, of its time, to me, than either Revolver or Rubber Soul.

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

All of life’s transportation riddles are answered in the movies

Two of my favorite transportation quotes are these…

A few weeks ago, I was riding on a CDTA bus when the vehicle started making a loud clanking sound in the area behind the driver. It went on for about two minutes but seemed longer. Finally, it stopped as quickly as it started. I said aloud, to no one in particular, “Oil can!” A few people laughed, catching my Wizard of Oz movie reference.

I was reminded of a line from the 1991 film Grand Canyon, in which the Steve Martin character says: “That’s part of your problem: you haven’t seen enough movies. All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.” I’m convinced there is some truth to that.

Two of my favorite transportation quotes are these:
From Midnight Cowboy (1969): I’m walkin’ here! Which, I COULD say daily.
From Starman (1984) – Yellow light – go very fast. Which, unfortunately, is how too many drivers perceive the yellow light.

What are YOUR favorite movie quotes that are related to getting somewhere by foot, by horse, by canoe, or by some more mechanical means?
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IMDB’s top 250 movies mashed into a 2.5m clip

Can’t explain why it pleases me so that SamuraiFrog has come to the same view about the Spike Lee film Do The Right Thing as I had, though SF’s revelation was a bit more recent. I always thought it was the best movie of 1989.

Ever since I did that 100 things about movies, I’ve been thinking about the people and things left out, like Burt Reynolds, Jill Clayburgh, movies made in the Albany area that I DID see, The Absent-Minded Professor series, and the Back to the Future series. Maybe I’ll do another list – in about 20 years…

1917

They die in the trenches and they die in the air
In Belguim and France the dead are everywhere
They die so so fast there’s no time to prepare
A decent grave to surround them

 

Some weeks ago, I was listening to the great 1999 album by Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris called Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions. The fifth track on the album was described by the respected website AllMusic.com in this way:

“The album’s best track, ‘1917,’ was written by folk singer David Olney. It’s impossible to imagine anyone else singing this haunting tale of soldiers and women in World War I. Fragile and breathtaking, Harris’ voice is buoyed by the angelic harmonies of Ronstadt and Kate and Anna McGarrigle.”

I always find it extraordinary haunting.

Here’s the fourth verse:

They die in the trenches and they die in the air
In Belgium and France the dead are everywhere
They die so so fast there’s no time to prepare
A decent grave to surround them
Old world glory old world fame
The old worlds gone gone up in flames
Nothing will ever be the same
And nothing lasts forever
Oh I’d pray for him but I’ve forgotten how
And there’s nothing nothing that can save him now
There’s always another with the same funny bow
And who am I to deny them

Here’s a live version of the song 1917, also from 1999.

On Veterans Day, let us not glorify war, but always remember its horror.

 

The mortgage burning, part 1

We had had a good banking relationship heretofore with that institution, but the denouement has left me a tad cranky. That was NOT what I consider “smooth as possible.”

At the end of August, the Wife and I get this letter from our mortgage company – which has the same logo as the bank, so I assume they’re related:

“Congratulations! Our records show that your mortgage will be paid in full in the next few months. We know that satisfaction of the mortgage on your home will be a special event and we would like to make this process as smooth as possible…

“Since it is unusual for the last payment on a loan to be the exact amount of the payment, it is important that you contact our Customer Service Department to have a Payoff statement mailed to you…

“Please note, if you are on our Automatic Mortgage Payment program,” – we were – “we will NOT be able to draft your last payment.”

My wife calls the toll-free 800 number, and she’s given instruction to mail and sign a request for the amount to some address. This is not making any sense to me, so I call the number, and get to a menu-driven message to give me two options: I can get a bill mailed to me, which will cost $25 (!) or I can get the amount on the phone, for free. I opt for the latter, and I hear that it’s $770.92. I call home, leave a message for my wife. When I get home, she tells me that’s WAY more than what we pay each month; frankly, I never paid it much attention.

I call the next day, hear the message again. I try to get to an operator, but I get a lot of “that’s not a valid entry” messages. Finally, I stumble onto a route by which I can speak to an actual human being. She informs me that the current balance is $716 and something at that moment , so by the time the cashier’s check or certified check they require gets there, it’ll be a bit over $717, not $770.

So the Wife sends a cashier’s check for $717 and change. THEN we get in the mail the final statement; there’s some final fee of about $50, and the real amount IS $770 something. So I have to call AGAIN, and we have to get ANOTHER cashier’s check for the balance. NOW we’re FINALLY done with this.

We had had a good banking relationship heretofore with that institution, but the denouement has left me a tad cranky. That was NOT what I consider “smooth as possible.”

The home equity loan still needs to be satisfied. But that’s one down…

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