Roger O Green

Life is a pre-existing condition

The bill that the House Republicans passed is the same sadistic bill they tried to pass weeks ago, and if anything more brutal.

Interestingly, I’m not especially worked up over the Republicans passing a bill, purportedly to “fix” health care, but in fact stripping the right away from millions of people in order to fund an enormous tax break for the rich.

Maybe it’s because everyone else is SO ticked. If those elephantine members of Congress took heat from their constituents around the time of the March non-vote, I can only imagine how angry those voters are now, well, except for the districts represented by those 20 Republicans who voted against the bill. The anti-GOP ads are already starting.

And target #1 in this area – not my district, but one adjacent – has to be former state legislator and now freshman Congressman John Faso. Endorsed by the local Hearst paper in 2016, and now blasted in same, I know a number of people who are already working for his defeat in 2018.

Some talking head – Dan Senor on CBS This Morning – recently suggested that November 2018 is a long time from now and that this vote won’t define any candidate. I TOTALLY disagree. It’s like what Nancy Pelosi said, their votes all but branded on their foreheads.

The bill that the House Republicans passed is the same sadistic bill they tried to pass weeks ago, and if anything more brutal — opening the door to discriminating against people with a pre-existing condition.

Before the vote, Jimmy Kimmel, FCOL, talked of how quick hospital-style attention saved the life of his infant son, and made the argument to protect those in situations like his child. Some trolls went after him, but the counter thrust was fierce.

Seth Meyers explained how Speaker Paul Ryan of 2017 TOTALLY contradicts Paul Ryan of 2009.

Oddly, the so-called prosperity gospel explains The American Health Care Act. I’m not sure I want to say Today, I Hope That There’s a Hell, but if there IS one, those grinning faces in the White House garden this past week would be heading there.

Stay angry, my friends. Your wrath comforts me. If YOU weren’t ticked, I’D have to be, and I’m TIRED of being enraged ALL of the time.

On the other hand, if you want help unelecting these SOBs, I’m in.

Music, May 1971: Sticky Fingers

What I DO remember is that my mother was DANCING, and I have no other recollection of that.

More random music recollections based on the book Never A Dull Moment.

The odd thing about Binghamton, NY at the time was that some students started school in February and graduated in January. So when I graduated in January 1971, I looked for a job for six weeks before securing a job at IBM, one of the area’s largest employers.

I usually worked 56 hours a week, from 5:12 pm to 4 a.m. on weekdays, with 48 minutes for lunch, and from noon to 6 on Saturday. So I was exhausted on Sunday. It’d only be on Monday that I might go out and buy some music magazines, and, eventually, more albums, even as I saved money for college.

So I was only vaguely aware that the Rolling Stones had moved to France as a tax haven, and would be recording their next album, Exile on Main Street, there. I WAS aware that they were getting their own imprint, under the aegis of Atlantic Records. And it was impossible not to know that Mick was marrying Bianca from Nicaragua.

I know I bought the current album, Sticky Fingers, later that summer, on the same day I bought Carole King’s Tapestry. I learned only later that the songs “straddled two decades,” with some tracks, such as Brown Sugar and Wild Horses, having been recorded as early as late 1969.

The day of the wedding there were other albums released for which I have specific memories, although not necessarily in that time frame. Paul McCartney’s Ram was a guilty pleasure; he was the uncool one, while Lennon was presumably more profound. There are several articles reexamining the Macca oeuvre of that period. I actually did go out once that summer and heard some cover band do Smile Away, which pleased me.

My parents and I were at the house of our family friends, the Pomeroys, in nearby Vestal. Maybe this was Christmas 1971, but I’m not at all sure. What I DO remember is that my mother was DANCING, and I have no other recollection of that. The CSNY Four-Way Street album, specifically Carry On, was playing. It’s a 4- or 5-minute song on Deja Vu, but 14 minutes on the live album, and about 10 minutes in, Mom was ready to quit.

In the early 1980s, an old girlfriend of mine had remarried, and her new husband, who I had known years before, and I were torturing his young stepsons with our air guitar/drum version of the title song on Jethro Tull’s Aqualung.

Listen to:

Wild Horses – Rolling Stones
Smile Away – Paul McCartney
Carry On (live) – Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
Aqualung – Jethro Tull
Anticipation – Carly Simon
Hey, Mister, That’s Me Up on the Jukebox – James Taylor
Change Partners – Stephen Stills

Favorites Movies, I Think, meme

(I do not know what the category means)

Jaquandor saw this making the rounds, so he did it on Facebook. Naturally, I’ll post mine to the blog. I must say that some of the categories I find a bit fuzzy, but if you’re not worried about that, I won’t be either.

Most Hated Movie Of All Time: Fellini Satyricon, which I saw in college
Movie I Think Is Overrated: The Shining
Movie I Think Is Underrated: Her
Movie I Love: Casablanca,, which I saw outdoors
Movie I Secretly Love: Hairspray (the original)

Favorite Action Movie: Men in Black
Favorite Drama: 12 Angry Men, which I saw on TV, then subsequently got the video through some Cheerios coupons
Favorite Horror: Alien
Favorite Comedy: Young Frankenstein
Favorite Romance: Love Actually

Favorite Fantasy: The Wizard of Oz
Favorite Disney Movie: The Incredibles
Favorite Science Fiction Movie: the original Planet of the Apes
Favorite Book to Movie Adaptation: The Shawshank Redemption
Favorite Animated Movie: The Iron Giant

Favorite Superhero Movie: Spider-Man (2002, Tobey Maguire)
Favorite War Movie: The Best Years of Our Lives, which I saw on TV
Favorite Thriller: Rear Window, which I saw in the cinema
Favorite Cop Movie: The Fugitive
Favorite Musical: Fiddler on the Roof

Favorite Chop-Socky: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (I do not know what the category means)
Favorite Documentary: Hoop Dreams
Favorite Bad Movie: Reefer Madness or Howard the Duck
Childhood Favorite: West Side Story
Favorite Franchise: Back to the Future

Best Trilogy: original Star Wars
Guilty Pleasure: Titanic (I don’t really believe in guilty pleasures)
Favorite Director: Woody Allen
Favorite Actor: Tom Hanks
Favorite Actress: Meryl Streep

Favorite Movie This Year So Far: Hidden Figures
Worst Movie So Far This Year: No entry.
Movie I Have Recently Seen: Kedi
What I Thought Of It: I enjoyed it
Favorite Movie Of All Time: Annie Hall

Coffin doors and sales tax on bagels

“Guests would open a compartment on the ‘room’ side of the door and hang the clothes they wanted washed.”

On the 25th of April, the family stopped at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, NY. It was worthwhile trip, highlighted by seeing several quilts, one signed by over 100 country music artists.

We traveled on to Syracuse and stayed overnight. We had a lovely time at the Onondaga Lake Park on a beautiful Sunday, though I would have felt better had I remembered my sunglasses. Unfortunately, the Salt Museum wasn’t open yet for the season.

Then I was dropped off at the “newly restored” Marriott Syracuse Downtown, originally opened in 1924 as the Hotel Syracuse. It’s true that it had a lot of old structure style, such as elevator design, though I must say they operated much faster to the 10th floor than the elevators on the previous night traveled only a couple levels.

The Daughter was jealous of my view, and my room was only on the third floor. She was particularly fascinated by the coffin doors on many of the rooms. “The doors are unusually thick because they contain an interior space for guests to hang clothes they wished to have washed or dry-cleaned in the hotel’s laundry overnight.

“Guests would open a compartment on the ‘room’ side of the door and hang the clothes they wanted washed. Without disturbing the guests, hotel employees would come around at night and remove the clothes through a compartment on the side of the door facing the hallway.”

I was in Syracuse for the agency annual conference, about the only time during the year I actually see the people for whom our library provides reference services. There were several workshops, almost all of them informative.

The librarians also conducted a session. One talked about business apps, another talked about programmatic issues. I talked about sales tax. Boring, you say? Maybe, but sales tax in New York is weird.

For instance, is a bagel taxable? “Food that is prepared and arranged on a plate or platter by the seller, and that is ready to be eaten is taxable. It doesn’t matter whether the food is sold to be eaten at the store or another place, or whether it’s served hot or cold.” (Times Union, April 28, 2011.) So if a plain, unadorned bagel had been put in a bag, it would NOT be subject to sales tax.

High school, rah rah rah, sis boom bah

“…a popular 1857 ballad by H. S. Thompson about a heroine dying of tuberculosis”

My buddy Chuck Miller posted this on Facebook: “Your SENIOR year of high school! The longer ago it was, the more fun the answers will be!!!! Let’s have FUN!” Well, OK, if you say so. Binghamton (NY) Central High School.

1. The year? 1970-1971
2. Did you go to prom? Yes – there are pictures out there. And six months earlier, I went to my then-girlfriend’s prom. The theme of hers was Colour My World. The theme to ours: All Things Must Pass.
3. What kind of car did you drive? I didn’t – I walked to school. It was only 0.8 mile. In fact, I walked almost everywhere.

4. It’s Friday Night Football were you there? Oddly enough, yes – a couple of my friends were the school mascots, and I did grow up with a couple players.
5. What kind of job did you have? I was a page for Binghamton Public Library, helping people put on microfilm, filing old magazines, and shelf reading.
6. Were you a party animal? I’d say no; sometimes parties and lots of people would overwhelm me. Others may view me differently because I had an agreeable facade.

7. Were you considered a jock? Goodness no. I did try out for football but quit before the third or fourth practice. I hated gym, and the sadistic teachers, until we got a decent guy in my senior year.
8. Were you in the Band? No, but I was in the main choir AND the male glee club.
9. Were you a nerd? Political nerd, I suppose. I was in a group called the Contemporary Issues Forum, where we dealt with racism and the war. I was president of student government and the Red Cross club at different points, and I was on stage crew for drama club, with occasional small acting roles.

10. Do you still live in the same school district? No, but in the same state
11. Can you sing the school song? Much of it – “Loyal sons and steadfast daughters… Victory be to BCHS, guard our color blue.” The tune was stolen from “Far Above Cayuga’s Waters“, Cornell University’s alma mater. Ithaca is only 49 miles (79 km) away. THOSE lyrics were “set to the tune of ‘Annie Lisle‘, a popular 1857 ballad by H. S. Thompson about a heroine dying of tuberculosis.”
12. What was your school mascot? Bulldog

13. If you could go back and do it again, would you? Heavens, no, even though I had a reasonably good time there.
14. Are you still in contact with people from high school? I’m still in touch with a few people from KINDERGARTEN, so yes. And Facebook has enhanced that. So has this blog.
15. Do you know where your high school sweetheart is now? Indeed yes. She’s married and living in our hometown. Saw her a few years ago, and my family stayed at her place.

16. What was your favorite subject? Trig, history, choir.
17. Do you still have your High School ring? I never had one. Did they do that sort of thing in my school? I had to check with folks on a Binghamton-based FB page to confirm that we were offered the chance to buy one, gold with a blue stone, naturally.
18. Do you still have your yearbook? Yes, I do. And for the two years previous. I know exactly where they are.