Roger O Green

The intrinsic value of blogging

That pale gray box looks slightly sad.

For Ask Roger Anything, Arthur the AmeriNZ asks a couple meta questions on blogging:

I sense that (like me) you also believe that writing has intrinsic value for the writer, even without any financial reward. What’s your take on those who dismiss blogging (for example) done without any pay? Similarly, why do some people also have to belittle bloggers who DO make money from their blogs? Is there any validity to those criticisms in your opinion?

Some people dismiss those who write without pay as fools. But there are very many well-known folk who blog either for nothing or for PayPal tips. Initially, I blogged to write about the Daughter and JEOPARDY! But it was also a sense of addressing my feeling of powerlessness in the midst of a Republican administration engaging in a war of choice that I thought was unjustifiable. I wasn’t sure I would actually write about it, but I COULD. I could also get Fast WordPress Hosting.

Now I blog because I pretty much have to. It’s therapy. All the crap going on and I can vent a little. At the same time, I have found it a useful reference tool for my own existence that I’M likely to forget. AND it is my vehicle to have dialogue, in a way Facebook simply cannot be for me. Something I wrote about my grandfather or Spaulding Krullers I can find again. Moreover, OTHER people find it and comment on them, occasionally years after I wrote the pieces. This gives the exercise a sense of being less ephemeral.

Bloggers who get money are considered as not “pure” by some, not of the “tortured artist”. But in that piece you linked to about New Zealand, it mentions a professional travel blogger with thousands of hits. Do I wish I had thousands of followers? Some days, yes.

But my reach blogging on the Times Union newspaper site was far greater than it is here; guess which one I all but gave up? It was too much grief, too many schmucks; it wasn’t worth it.

I’ve gotten offers to do advertisements, and I’ve resisted, so far. If something is really in my wheelhouse, I might change my mind, but I’m not cashing the check just yet.

Why do you provide links to YouTube videos, but not embed the videos themselves?

Initially, I was afraid that it might be taking up too much bandwidth and would load too slowly. But mostly, it’s pure aesthetics.

This is an odd phenomenon I’ve only seen on Blogspot/Blogger blogs (yours, Mark Evanier’s), sometimes, the videos appear to be under the wrong description. If I reload, it rectifies the situation, but it’s distracting.

Also, the videos make the posts appear too long for my taste. And when a video, almost inevitably, goes offline, it leaves that pale gray box that I always find looks slightly sad.

Incidentally, I was looking at a post on SamuraiFrog’s Blogspot website on my tablet, and a post for which he merely provided the link, rather than the embedded video, the video showed up anyway. Doesn’t always happen, but it interested me.

Y is for the Yardbirds (ABC Wednesday)

The Yardbirds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

I was surprised to discover that The Yardbirds apparently still exist as a band in 2017, albeit with only one founding member, drummer Jim McCarty.

As the Rolling Stone bio indicates, they “may not have been as famous as their British Invasion contemporaries…, but the pioneering blues-based combo introduced three of the most famous and influential guitarists of the rock era: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.”

The original band was Keith Relf (vocals, harmonica); Anthony “Top” Topham and Chris Dreja (guitars), Paul “Sam” Samwell-Smith (bass), and McCarthy. Clapton joined the band in October 1963, replacing Topham, who was only 16 and forced to quit by his parents. But “Slowhand” left the group in March 1965 when they got less bluesy and more pop-driven; eventually he helped form Cream.

Clapton was replaced by Beck, through October 1966. Page joined in June 1966 until the last throes of the Yardbirds in July 1968. He then formed the New Yardbirds in October 1968, which evolved into Led Zeppelin.

Jim McCarty and Chris Dreja reformed the Yardbirds in 1992 with John Idan handling bass and lead vocals. Since then, the group has operated off and on with various band permutations, including, for a time, original guitarist Topham.

The Yardbirds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, with members Keith Relf, Chris Dreja, Jim McCarty, Paul Samwell-Smith, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page.

All references to chart action refers to the Billboard (US) Hot 100 pop charts.

Listen to:

Good Morning, School Girl (1964, Sonny Boy” Williamson cover) here or here
I Ain’t Got You (1965) here or here
I Wish You Would (1965, early single) here or here

For Your Love (#6 in 1965, written by Graham Gouldman; recording of this song drove Clapton out of the band) here or here
Heart Full Of Soul (#9 in 1965, Gouldman) here or here
I’m A Man (#17 in 1965) here
Train Kept A Rollin’ (1965) here or here
You’re a Better Man Than I (1965) here or here

Shape of Things (#11 in 1966, written by the band) here or here
Over Under Sideways Down (#13 in 1966, written by the band) here or here
Happening Ten Years Time Ago (#30 in 1966, written by the band) here or here

ABC Wednesday – Round 20

The Lydster: Nipper the dog as art

An Albany middle school teacher and four of her seventh-grade students were selected to work on their entry for the “Downtown is Pawsome” project.

It is difficult to explain to outsiders the pull that the dog Nipper has in Albany. From the Albany Institute of History and Art:

“The twenty-eight-foot [8.5 m] tall, four-ton [3600 kg] steel and fiberglass canine statue anchored atop a warehouse on North Broadway has captured the hearts and minds of young and old alike for three generations.

“Nipper was a real-life dog in nineteenth-century England who was painted by the dog owner’s brother, Francis Barraud. He depicted the curious dog listening to a gramophone and titled it ‘His Master’s Voice.’ It became an internationally recognized logo for several audio recording companies, including RCA.

“Nipper came to his downtown Albany perch at 991 Broadway in 1958 following renovations of a rundown reinforced concrete warehouse built in 1900 to house the American Gas Meter Co.”

It is an iconic figure in New York State’s capital city, believe me.

Recently, it was announced that “the upcoming round of downtown Albany public art projects will be decorated statues of Nipper.

“For this year’s exhibit, the Downtown Albany Business Improvement District is accepting submissions from artists who wish to submit proposals to design 36″ tall [0.91 m] sculptures of Albany’s famous canine resident.”

As it turns out, an Albany middle school teacher and some of her seventh-grade students were selected to work on their entry for the “Downtown is Pawsome” project, the only school so honored.

“The project involves twenty local artists putting their creative spin on three-foot versions of Albany’s iconic Nipper statue. Their artistic creations will be placed throughout downtown Albany this month and remain on display until May 2018.”

The “Pawsome” project kicked off with a garden party at Tricentennial Park on June 16. But unfortunately, the artist in my household was out of town, visiting our nation’s capital. Still, I look forward to see these critters around town, and one in particular.

Shooting off their mouths

“…that same sick politics, boiled in its broth of seething resentment and baked within its self-righteous shell.”

Referring to the 154th mass shooting in 2017, the Los Angeles Times noted:

“Even though members of Congress were attacked Wednesday by a gunman on a ball field just outside the capital, nothing is likely to change in the Washington debate over gun control, save the addition of Alexandria to the list of blood-soaked postmarks.

“The two sides of the debate are simply too dug in, the political forces too firmly entrenched, the worldview of opposing sides so vastly different it is impossible to see how the gulf narrows even slightly, however close to home the latest attack.

“Underscoring that notion, the one thing both sides shared after the latest mass shooting was the capacity to look at precisely the same event and see it in a way that buttressed diametrically opposing views.”

All that wonderful unity at the charity baseball game, yet:

A GOP Congressman Thinks It’s Obama’s Fault. Some Republicans on the far right point to “vitriolic rhetoric on the left,” which could be to blame for the gunfire that hit a GOP leader and others at a congressional baseball practice. GOP Rep. Steve King of Iowa says that “the violence is incited by the leading cultural voices of the Left.”

Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi responds, “How dare they?”, noting the dramatic escalation in hate crimes from the “alt right” and white supremacists, and GOPUSA scolds Pelosi for breaking the “unity”.

Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot and nearly killed by an assassin, called for sympathy and understanding, which was met with hate.

There’s a reasonable observation in the right wing Legal Insurrection about getting off the rhetorical merry-go-round: “The collective desire to be ‘right’ and to prove wrongness is hindering our ability to find even the smallest shred of consensus” is counterproductive, and other sensible points. But as Red State, another rightist publication noted, the comments section of the LI article is riddled with condemnation for the writer.

Arthur wrote: “”Claiming that only ‘the other side’ is responsible for the current disgusting nature of US politics—as always happens when there’s something like this shooting—is merely part of that same sick politics, boiled in its broth of seething resentment and baked within its self-righteous shell.”

As is often the case, the Onion gets the last word: “In the wake of [the] mass shooting in Alexandria, VA, every single American from across the political spectrum was reportedly able to cite the tragedy as irrefutable proof that they had been right about everything all along.”

Mick Fleetwood is turning 70

I have an irrational affection for pop songs about days of the week

Yeah, I know about those earlier iterations of Fleetwood Mac, going back into the late 1960s, fronted by Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. I alluded to the group’s evolution in a post from three years ago.

Still, most of my favorite songs were from the version represented in the 1975 eponymous album (not be confused with the 1968 album of the same name), when Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined Christine McVie and the two guys for whom the band is named.

In no hard order except the first two. Chart action refers to the Billboard pop charts in the US. Links to all:

20. Save Me (Behind the Mask), #33 in 1990
19. What Makes You Think You’re the One (Tusk – T), 1979 – some referred to Tusk as the band’s “white album”. It was a double LP, the band was fractured, and some of the songs were kind of weird
18. Dreams (Rumours – R), #1 in 1977. It’s difficult for someone not living through it to understand how dominant Rumours was. 19 weeks at #1.
17. Skies the Limit (Behind the Mask), 1990 – Buckingham was gone at this point; he would return. Rick Vito and Billy Burdette were in the band
16. Everywhere (Tango in the Night – TitN), #14 in 1988

15. Over My Head (FM), #20 in 1976
14. Little Lies (TitN), #4 in 1987
13. You Make Loving Fun (R), #9 in 1977
12. Tusk (T), #8 in 1979 – there’s a live version with the USC marching band that’s even sillier
11. Say You Love Me (FM), #11 in 1976 – this first part of the list is heavy with Christine McVie songs, I just noticed; always thought she was the glue of the group

10. Monday Morning (FM), B-side of Say You Love Me – I have an irrational affection for pop songs about days of the week, from Ruby Tuesday to Monday, Monday
9. Oh Well (Then Play On), 1970 – from the Peter Green days
8. Landslide (FM), 1977
7. I’m So Afraid (FM), B-side of Over My Head – and I believe Lindsay is
6. Gypsy (Mirage – M), #12 in 1982

5. Rhiannon (FM), #11 in 1976
4. Hold Me (M) , #4 in 1982
3. Don’t Stop (R), #3 for two weeks in 1977 – the inauguration song for one William Jefferson Clinton
2. Go Your Own Way (R), #10 in 1977 – a great breakup song
1. The Chain (R), 1977 – written by all five members; given all the romantic and musical breakups over the years, SOMETHING must be holding them together

Happy birthday, Mick Fleetwood.