Roger O Green

The WORD Section

I wonder if automatic spellcheck is to blame.

From Salon: Your words matter -New science shows brains are wired to respond to certain kinds of speech. This was revealing.

Cursed Cursive. As I told GayProf, “First marking period, third grade, I actually DID receive a D in handwriting; I was careful enough thereafter to get it up to a C.”

This seemingly mundane correction from Canada’s Hamilton Spectator:
“In the June 16 edition, the name of Hamilton waterfront restaurant Sarcoa was misspelled. The Spectator regrets the error.
“No, it’s not great for a new restaurant to have its name misspelled in the local paper. But even worse is the mistaken name offered by the paper.”
I wonder if automatic spellcheck is to blame.

The “word” on Richard Dawson, who has died at the age of 79, is that he set out to be Peter Sellers or Jack Lemmon and was frustrated that he wound up being Bill Cullen. But this is a lovely story.

Dustbury’s #OccupyGrammar – Word Up

*Arthur sometimes has trouble Finding the Words. Then again, I don’t always know HWAT he’s saying.

*Mark Evanier tells The Olaf Story, and also notes that “Forever” Doesn’t Mean Forever

A couple songs, both from groups with a member who has died recently:
The Bee Gees- Words (Robin Gibb) and The Monkees – Words (Davy Jones)

A Solstice Tradition: Ask Roger Anything

This is actually the one time in the year when your responses are vital to my blogging.

OK, so the solstice was actually yesterday at 23:09; this is close enough.

This is one of those times of the year when you get to ask Roger just about anything. Did I suggest “just about”? Nay, I say, anything, ANYTHING. Now, faced with a TMI question, I will, undoubtedly, make use of my obfuscation skills; I don’t use them that much these days, but in my 20s, I was really quite good at it. Still, I can’t out-and-out lie.

Since I now feed this blog to my Facebook and Twitter feeds, I am actively requesting folks that find me that way to participate as well. You are not limited to one query, either, but as many as you are moved to share.

This is actually the one time in the year when your responses are vital to my blogging. The home office gets a little warm, so if I get no questions at all, I’ll be forced to post summer-themed videos thrice a week, or the like, and I did a lot of them LAST summer, so all the good ones are taken, leaving stuff such as The Jamies doing Summertime, Summertime. Easy for me, of course, but probably not that exciting for you; think of this task as enlightened self-interest.

Brian Wilson is 70: my favorite Beach Boys songs

Time to pick my Top 20 Beach Boys songs, which is sometimes changeable, though #1 has been rather consistent. Happy 70th birthday, Brian Wilson!

L-R: Wilson, Marks, Johnston, Jardine, Love

I’m watching the Grammys maybe four weeks after it aired, fast-forwarding through the stuff that didn’t interest me. Then what to my wondering eyes should appear but the Beach Boys – the REAL Beach Boys! It wasn’t a tremendous performance, with lots of “guest stars”, but it was genuine. Brian Wilson has toured occasionally, notably performing the SMiLE album. Al Jardine played with various friends and relatives. Mike Love has toured as the Beach Boys with longtime group participant Bruce Johnston. David Marks, an early Beach Boy, was also there.

Dennis Wilson drowned in 1983, and Carl Wilson died of cancer in 1998; I visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 1998 and saw nice tributes to the Carls, Perkins, and Wilson. So for me, without Jardine, and the oft-feudin’ cousins, Love and Brian Wilson, it can’t really be the Beach Boys.

The five are touring now, a 50th-anniversary summit; hear an hour of highlights from several of The Beach Boys’ recent shows. And with their new album, the Beach Boys Surpass the Beatles for Billboard 200 Record.

Time to pick my Top 20 Beach Boys songs, with links, a roster which is sometimes changeable, though #1 has been rather consistent.

20. California Girls. LOVE the intro – it is so lush. Then a geography lesson.
19. Friends. It’s a waltz. It’s about friendship.
18. When I Grow Up (To Be A Man). I was a sucker for the count-up. “14, 15, 16, 17…”
17. Transcendental Meditation. What a juxtaposition – an out-of-tune sax against the title theme. It makes me laugh.
16. Wouldn’t It Be Nice. In my freshman year in college, this was THE song for me.
15. Breakaway. This was released as a single and got all the way to #63, which I always thought was a shame.
14. Help Me, Rhonda. There are at least a couple of versions of this song; I need it to be the one with the bow-bow-bow bit.
13. Do It Again. A reiteration of the Beach Boys mission, it felt. And here’s the 50th-anniversary edition.
12. Barbara Ann. As a kid, this was so much fun to sing along with. Apparently, the song has been repopularized by the movie Despicable Me 2.
11. Darlin’. Just because it gets to the point, without a long intro.

10. Good Vibrations. Yes, it was overplayed and overrepresented in collections of 1960s music. Still, it’s a classic piece, with a difficult theremin segment.
9. Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder). I COULD put a half dozen songs from Pet Sounds on this list. There’s a great Linda Ronstadt cover of this tune.
8. In My Room. I had the tiniest bedroom in the country when I grew up, a wall carved out of a hallway. But it was my sanctuary, where I read and looked at my baseball cards.
7. Our Prayer. Short, but beautiful.
6. Don’t Worry Baby. One of the very first albums I ever owned via the Capitol Records Club was this odd compilation called Big Hits Hits from England and U.S.A. Two songs each from the Beatles, Peter & Gordon, Nat Cole, Cilla Black, plus one by Al Martino. This beautiful song was one from the Beach Boys.
5. Feel Flows. One of my college albums was Surf’s Up, much of which I could add to this list. I rediscovered this song on the end credits of the movie Almost Famous.
4. I Get Around. The other BB song from Big Hits.
3. Sail On, Sailor. Such a rugged, muscular vocal. And the guitar line kicks.
2. Til I Die. Makes me almost overwhelmingly sad.
1. God Only Knows.
“I may not always love you
But long as there are stars above you
You never need to doubt it
I’ll make you so sure about it”
I find this terribly romantic. I’m taken by the story of Brian and Carl praying before recording it, and Carl is angelic here.

Happy 70th birthday to Brian Wilson.

The June swoon

The big thing, though, was that the Daughter had not one, but two dance recitals.

This has been the busiest June I can remember. I was in charge of the Friends of the Albany Public Library annual meeting, which involved arranging for the speaker, planning a dinner for 20, and getting a plaque made, the latter two of which had more complications than I need to go into here. But it ultimately went off successfully. The best part is that I discovered an old-fashioned drink called a sidecar; I loved it!

Our church is in covenant with one of the local schools, and one Saturday, that meant putting together a playground, which entailed, among other things, clearing a field of weeds and a tremendous amount of trash. Here’s a brief news story.

I attended a comic book show. Went to at least three parties, with another two this upcoming weekend. I’m not even counting visits to the dentist and eye doctor.

The big thing, though, was that the Daughter had not one, but two dance recitals. The first was at her public school, where she was a new recruit in something called Step. A couple of weeks later, her ballet school was having its annual recital. That school’s founder is one Madeline Cantarella Culpo. One of her grandsons is Michael Culpo, a Division I basketball player, while one of her granddaughters is the new Miss USA, Olivia Culpo; she is understandably proud.
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Why I am getting so much spam on this site, over 300 per day? The filter catches it, but it’s still tedious to remove. And most of it is of the bad spam variety, from companies selling electronic cigarettes, payday loans, or “pantyhose covered female foot fetish,” filled with suspicious links and unreadable text. Whereas GOOD spam is: “Helpful info. Lucky me I discovered your website by chance, and I am shocked why this accident didn’t happen earlier! I bookmarked it.” I know it’s a lie, but at least it’s pleasing to the eye.

Paul McCartney is 70: 12 songs

When I first heard this song about John Lennon, I thought it was too cloying. Moreover, I thought Lennon would think so too.

The thing about Paul McCartney that I appreciate is that, these days, he’s still trying. Oh sure, he’s doing legacy stuff such as reissues of some of his old albums, including recently, Ram. But he’s showing up on the TV show 30 Rock and touring in Latin America, even reimagining old songs. He keeps putting out new music at a reasonable pace, even if that last album had a bunch of old songs; the less familiar I was with a song, the more I liked it. He has played for his queen and will perform at the London Olympics opening ceremonies.

Here’s my Top 12 Macca songs, with links, at least this week. I could have picked a dozen more. I’ve stayed away from live songs, and re-recordings of Beatles songs.

12. Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five – the last song on the extraordinary Band on the Run album.

11. Let Me Roll It – another song from Band on the Run. I especially like the guitar line and the somewhat disconnected vocal.

10. My Valentine – a sweet song for his bride Nancy from the mostly cover album Kisses on the Bottom. Apparently, Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp used incorrect sign language in the promo.

9. Oo You – from that first McCartney solo album. Love the quality of the vocal, and the fact that it’s all Paul.

8. Jenny Wren from the 2005 album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. It does remind me of the Beatles song Blackbird a bit, but it is lovely. Here’s a shorter version.

7. Every Night – again, from the first album.

6. Here Today – from Tug of War. When I first heard this song about John Lennon, I thought it was too cloying. Moreover, I thought Lennon would think so too. But after seeing Macca perform it in a live concert (on TV), I changed my mind.

5. Band On The Run. The title cut, of course.

4. What’s That You’re Doing? The OTHER Stevie Wonder collaboration from the Tug of War album. By this point, Stevie was doing MOR stuff such as I Called to Say I Love You, so I was happy that he and Paul got a bit funky. And I’m always a sucker for a Beatles reprise.

3. My Brave Face – from the Flowers in the Dirt album. As I recall reading, Elvis Costello gave Macca permission to play Beatle Paul bass lines.

2. Jet – from Band on the Run. Again.

1. Maybe I’m Amazed – from McCartney. I remember hearing that Paul was going to be on The Ed Sullivan Show, and then being sorely disappointed that his “appearance” was actually this video. The strength of the song, though, won me over.

I have about half of Paul’s solo output, but I ended up gravitating to two or three albums for these cuts.
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Apparently, Macca saved Mark Ronson from drowning, when Ronson was a kid.

A live webcam trained on the crosswalk on Abbey Road in London where a certain Beatles cover photo was shot.