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.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Way, Way Back

The Daughter is visiting the grandparents for the week, so it’s almost mandatory that The Wife and I go to the movies. But what to see? When one’s seen only a handful of films this year, so there were a half dozen contenders. The Wife chose The Way, Way Back, which we saw Wednesday at the Spectrum in Albany.

I was surprised. I expected, based on the trailer, to be some summer coming-of-age flick that I’ve seen once too often. And while there are elements of the formula, I found the movie surprising affecting.

The premise is that a divorced mom, Pam (Toni Collette) has a new beau, Trent (Steve Carell), who’s taking them, his teenage daughter Steph (Zoe Levin), and her 14-year-old son Duncan (Liam James) from their home in Albany, NY [;-)] to Trent’s summer New England seaside getaway.

The neighbor is Betty (Allison Janney, who drives the bulk of the early humor), and her two kids, bored Susanna (Annasophia Robb) and “different” Peter (River Alexander). Trent’s friends Joan and Kip (Amanda Peet, Rod Corddry) have a boat they all can ride on.

Ever been to a party, or another event, where everyone seems to be having a good time except you? I know I have, and that epitomizes Duncan in the early part of this movie.

Fortunately, Duncan has a chance encounter with Owen (Sam Rockwell), who is manager, pretty much in name only, of an amusement park; Caitlyn (Maya Rudolph) really runs the show, while Owen does … whatever Owen does, in a way that nearly steals the film.

The movie is written and directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, who also have small parts in the film itself. This could have been a by-the-numbers pic, but Faxon and Rash managed to have believable characters; I spent the ride home with The Wife comparing several of them to people I have known. Throw in some clever 1980s pop references, and I understand why it reviewed so well.

Summer song: Summer’s Almost Gone

Waiting for the Sun must have been lots of people’s favorite Doors’ album, since it was the group’s only #1 album in the United States.

My favorite Doors’ album is the third one, Waiting for the Sun, even though the song Waiting for Sun does not appear on it; it shows up two albums later, on Morrison Hotel. This third LP must have been lots of people’s favorite Doors’ album, since it was the group’s only #1 album in the United States, fueled by the #1 single, Hello, I Love You.

The melancholy song Summer’s Almost Gone (listen), the fourth tune on the album, precedes a much more joyful Wintertime Love; maybe I’ll include that a few months from now.
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In honor of Freddie Mercury’s birthday: Bohemian Rhapsody by Porkka Playboys.

Grandmother Agatha Green, found at last

Her greatest contribution to my development was that she taught me how to play canasta.

When my parents moved downstairs at 5 Gaines Street, Binghamton, NY, my paternal grandparents, McKinley and Agatha (nee Walker) Green moved upstairs. Her name, BTW, was pronounced a-GATH-a, not AG-a-tha. Yes, it is I who she is holding.

Grandma Green was almost certainly my first Sunday school teacher at Trinity A.M.E. Zion Church, only a couple of short blocks from our home. She had a certain refinement and bearing. While my maternal grandmother would nag me, this grandma gave me the parameters she expected, and I pretty much did it.
It’s rather like some Bill Cosby routine. Grandma Williams was Cos’ mom, “Go to bed, because it’s important for…blah, blah.” Grandma Green was like Cos’ dad: “Go to bed.” OK, grandma.

Of course, I visited her and Pop (my grandfather) virtually every day. One time when I was three, I fell down the flight of stairs from their dwelling to mine. To this day, the hair will grow on an area of chin, just below my lower lip. (Also odd: two of my co-workers fell down flights of steps when THEY were three.)

She was the eldest child of some half dozen kids, and I recall when her father died; I was around 7, so it would have been about 1960. He was this little tyrant, even at his advanced age, and all of his kids were afraid of him, though he was nice to my father and to me.

Red threes

Her greatest contribution to my development was that, when I was six or seven, she taught me how to play the card game Canasta. It’s an arcane game, but I learned to love it. I then taught my great aunt, my mother’s Aunt Deana, how to play. I’ve been playing cards ever since, though the last time I played canasta was against my high school girlfriend’s father over four decades ago.


Then suddenly, at the age of 62, she died. I no longer know from what, though I assume now it was a heart attack. I remember going to the funeral, and the burial. What I don’t recall is ever going to her gravesite afterward, even though her husband and her son lived in the area.

Floral Park

In fact, I pretty much couldn’t remember precisely WHERE she was buried until my niece came across Paul R. at Find A Grave, who is “retired so I have time to walk through the cemeteries and take pictures. In mid-July 2010 I started a project to record as many memorials for the cemeteries in my county (Broome, NY) with pictures that I could.” He added this record on 10/29/2010. She’s buried in Floral Park Cemetery in Johnson City, the village adjacent to Binghamton, and within walking distance of the house that the family moved to in 1972.
Thanks, Paul R. You’ve cleared up part of a family mystery.

When I went to Binghamton in mid-July, my family went to Section M and found the headstone. It was next to a newly-dug grave of her sister-in-law, Jesse Walker, who had died a few days earlier. The SIL was known as “Earl’s Jesse”; my grandmother had a sister named Jesse Walker, and so their brother Earl’s wife got the odd appellation.

Stealing from Eydie; and ‘Sally Rogers’ is 90

One of the more recent episodes of the Dick Van Dyke Show we saw involved Sally going on a test date with Rob’s (DVD) brother Stacey (guest star Jerry Van Dyke), so Stacey can get up the nerve to ask out his actual intended.

When I was a teenager, I made some pitiful attempts at songwriting. One was called, “Oh, Juanita,” which had stunning lyrics such as, “Oh, Juanita, Juanita, with eyes so brown, Oh Juanita, Juanita, please do not frown.” There’s more, but you get the idea. It was probably inspired by a line in Donovan’s There Is A Mountain [LISTEN], which came out in 1967. I probably stole some lyrics from an early Harry Belafonte song.

But it wasn’t until this month that I realized that I had, unconsciously, stolen the MUSIC from the chorus of Eydie Gorme’s 1963 hit Blame It On the Bossa Nova [LISTEN]. The music of 1964 and especially after that is still imprinted in my brain. Though I had obviously heard the song, tunes from 1959-1963 were more ephemeral in my mind.

I used to see Eydie, with her husband Steve Lawrence, all the time on the Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, and other programs. Ken Levine wrote: “She wasn’t Barbra and she wasn’t Judy so she never received that level of adoration, but boy could the lady sing.” Mark Evanier suggests, “I don’t think the obits are doing a good enough job describing the length and breadth of Eydie Gorme’s career.”

And speaking of musical theft: Robin Thicke sues Marvin Gaye’s family to protect his song ‘Blurred Lines’. How does THAT work, exactly?

Rose Marie, who played Sally Rogers on the Dick Van Dyke Show, turned 90 this month and both Evanier and Levine each, separately, had lunch with her.

The Daughter and I are in the midst of watching every single episode of DVD on DVD; we’re almost done with the 18th disc in the 25-disc set, midway through Season 4 of a series that lasted five glorious years. One of the more recent episodes we saw involved Sally going on a test date with Rob’s (DVD) brother Stacey (guest star Jerry Van Dyke), so Stacey can get up the nerve to ask out his actual intended. This makes Sally’s off-and-on boyfriend Herman Glimscher (Bill Idelson) jealous, and chaos ensues. The Daughter laughed out loud, literally.

I used to watch The McLaughlin Report almost every week, and loved the unpretentious Jack Germond, who died this month.

Nippertown and Dustbury wrote about Karen Black, who also died this month.

F is for Friends

How did we drift apart? There was no schism predicating this. Did I forget to return a call? Did they?

A few weeks ago, Daniel Nester wrote about Ex-Friends, which got me thinking about my own friendships. I can’t think of a current ex-friend, someone who was once my friend but is now my enemy. I did have a good friend in college with whom I had a falling out about a decade later, but we reconnected a couple decades after that, and while we’re not in regular contact, there’s no animosity anymore.

This is not to say that I haven’t lost contact with friends. I was cleaning the attic this summer and came across a Rolodex, which, for you youngsters, is a device on which one hand-printed people’s names, addresses, and phone numbers. There was room for fax numbers too, but cellphones and e-mails weren’t around. I found names of people for whom I had great affection! How did we drift apart? There was no schism predicting this. Did I forget to return a call? Did they? My life or their lives went in other directions, perhaps with children or careers; some still live in the area, but we haven’t talked in years.

Some move away, of course, or I have. But I have two friends from kindergarten who, though they are in New York City and in Austin, Texas, are still among my best friends. Likewise a friend from the first day in college.

Sometimes you rediscover people you knew on Facebook and discover that they are almost exactly like they used to be, which is not exactly a compliment. Whereas others have progressed in their lives in a way consistent with the interests and values they were showing when I first met them; they are worth keeping in touch with.

As I have indicated before, I think it’s possible to have friends on the Internet that you have never met; you know who you are!

Here is the title song of the Beach Boys’ 14th studio album [LISTEN].


ABC Wednesday – Round 13

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