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.

Songs That Move Me, 70-61

70. The Love You Save – Jackson 5
It’s true; I could sing every part of this song except Michael’s, and often did sing along, especially Jermaine’s part.
Feeling: Joyous.
(starts at 3:05, after some other J5 music)

69. The Supremes – Remove This Doubt.
Back in the bad old days of romance, there would be songs that I would play that reflected my state of mind. This was one. Great strings. Later covered by Elvis Costello.
Feeling: melancholy.

68. Levon-Elton John
I love it, pretty much for reasons noted here.
Feeling: What’s it all about?

67. I Got a Line on You – Spirit
A song from college that I have on vinyl that someone put on a mixed CD for me this century. Loved the doubled guitar line.
Feeling; Joyous.

66. Summer Days – Bob Dylan
The live versions I found, and there are several, don’t quite provide the same sensation as the studio recording..
Feeling: Like dancing.

A truncated album version.

65. Do What You Want to – Billy Preston.
I saw the late Billy Preston at a concert in college. The song starts slowly then speeds up considerably by the end. Great vocal and organ throughout. From the That’s The Way God Planned It album, produced by the late George Harrison.
Feeling: I will you love you anyway.

64. Spencer Davis Group – Keep on Running
This song lives on the bottom. When I used to ride my bike to work, I had this song in mind when taking an incline. Ah, when Steve Winwood was young.
Feeling: Energized.

63. A Hard Day’s Night – the Beatles.
Love that first chord, the shared vocals, the guitar bridge. Indeed, I have a fondness for the two-minute jazz version on the HDN soundtrack.
Feeling: joyous.

62. Lucky Man-Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Last song on the first album. I used to do a credible simulation of the synth at the end.
Feeling: not so lucky.

61. Pete Townshend – Let My Love Open the Door
I’ve read that Pete said that this isn’t a romantic love song, but a song of religious love. Whatever it is, I’m fond of the instrumentation in the beginning and the harmony vocals as much as anything. Also like the remix he did.
Feeling: loving.

ROG

ROG

The Lydster, Part 51: Bigger


When we took Lydia to the doctor’s for her physical shortly after her fourth birthday, she weighed 42 pounds and was 44 inches tall. A couple of months later, when we took her to her allergist, she measured 49 pounds and 47 inches tall. The size 11 toddler shoes which had fit her for several months no longer came even close to getting on her feet. She’s wearing size 13s and is very close to size 1 for children. Inevitably, when I tell someone she’s just had her birthday recently, people say, “Oh, she must be 5, or is she 6?” And invariably, I have to correct them and tell them that she is merely 4. Even her daycare teachers who see her daily sometimes forget.

Meanwhile, she’s seemed to have developed allergies to the spring grasses. One night, she was out while Carol (subbing for me) was mowing the lawn, and the next morning she broke into a coughing jag, worrisome because she ended up crying while walking in an unfocused manner. I scooped her up with my right arm – which still hurt but less than doing it on the other side – Carol got her some water, and she seemed OK.

In fact, it was her follow-up trip to the allergist when she gave us more trouble than she has in years. Usually, we have to wake her at 6:30, but that morning, she woke up at 5:30. I’m convinced that the worry awakened her. She was demanding and whiny almost constantly, uncharacteristically. I went downstairs to put the upstairs garbage in with the kitchen trash when I saw an invasion of black ants there, maybe 50 or more. Oddly, I called to Lydia, because she seemed fairly obsessed with few ants we had seen previously. I took out the garbage bag only to find more in the can, which didn’t drown easily. Lydia pointed out every escaping insect. (Subsequently, we got traps, which are working.) After this excitement, Lydia was back to her cheerful and cooperative self.

ROG

ROG

Remembering Raoul Vezina

As I’ve mentioned here before, maybe once or twice, I used to work at a comic book store/publisher called FantaCo Enterprises in Albany, NY from 1980 to 1988.
Raoul Vezina was an artist who worked for and was published by FantaCo, in the latter case, particularly in a series called Smilin’ Ed.
Raoul died 25 years ago in November, and I am looking for all things Vezina so I can write about him: primarily recollections, but also samples of his artwork.

Thank you.

ROG

ROG

Roger Answers Your Questions, Gay Prof and Scott

Gay Prof offers:
My question: Do you have any theories about the best way to keep John McCain out of the White House?

I do, but unfortunately it’s illegal and probably immoral. Wait, there’s probably some ageist crack I could make, but I won’t.
Look, I don’t know why people vote against their own interests, except that they naively by into a bill of goods. The economic boom that we used to be in was helping the John McCains of the country a lot more than you and me. Literally, the rich get richer, with golden parachutes for CEOs of failing companies. I thought Charlie Gibson on ABC News asked George Stephanopoulos an odd question last week: with Barack backing out of public financing, was it “fair” for Barack to have so much more money vs. McCain. I laughed so hard I almost hurt myself again. The GOP has had a lot more $$ at its disposal for decades, and Obama’s money is coming mostly from the common people. Is it fair that the government tut-tut homeowners for getting into financial situations that government policies encouraged? I know this doesn’t answer the question, but I’m stumped to find out how is John McCain the ANSWER to any of our current woes.

Generous Scott adds: I don’t care if you don’t answer any of mine, but I certainly hope you can answer Gayprof’s and it be something that we can truly do to make it happen.
Well, I did answer GP’s, FWIW. And now I’ll answer yours:

1. Who do you think will play in the World Series this year, and who will win it?

One team will be a new team, i.e., one we haven’t seen much of before. I think before the season I picked the Cubs, so I’ll stick with them. Not so incidentally, I’m hoping to see them play in Wrigley for the very first time in September. I thought that Cleveland and Detroit would do better, but alas. So, I’m going with Tampa; it’ll probably be Boston, but I’ve bored with Boston sports teams (except the Celtics, who I picked to win in seven.) It’s been 100 years. don’t the Cubs get to win every CENTURY?

2. What do you think has been the best (so far) movie adaptation based on a comic book?

Superman. No, Spider-Man. Wait, I liked Spider-Man 2 more than the first one. I didn’t see the last Batman or the upcoming one, but saw several others – not those. I did like Iron Man, but not the first Fantastic Four.

3. What are you top five movies?

Always impossible. Annie Hall’s on there, and probably Groundhog Day. The others are so fluid, like my favorite songs list or even favorite album. It might include Casablanca, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Field of Dreams, The Iron Giant, Rear Window, the original Star Wars (“episode 4” – feh), Toy Story 2, West Side Story (which isn’t a great movie, but the music and choreography hold), The Wizard of Oz, Young Frankenstein, and about a dozen movies I’ve either forgotten or are of the genres named (Empire Strikes Back, Toy Story); it could be any of the Pixar films I’ve seen, e.g.

4. If Obama loses the Presidential election, do you think it will hurt race relations and the fight against racism, or do you think that his nomination was already a move in the right direction and that a loss won’t set it back?

Yes.

Oh, you want more.

One of those ongoing myths was that Barack Obama was embraced nationally by black folks out of the shoot. Look at any poll that came out in December 2007, and Obama’s losing big time to Hillary Clinton with black voters. Part of it, ironically was that he wasn’t considered black enough. (And Hillary Clinton was?) But when he won Iowa, black voters gave him another look, and he’s been winning the black vote handily ever since, starting in South Carolina. (Which is why Bill Clinton’s correct observation that Jesse Jackson won South Carolina irritated so many people; it wasn’t just that he was black, it was that he was a black that, since the white folks in Iowa liked him, actually had a chance to win.) All the things he’s endured since from what I think is a media obsession with Rev. Wright to the sniping at Michelle Obama to the Muslim thing – regularly, at least 7% of the electorate believes that Barack HUSSEIN Obama is Muslim (not that should matter if he were) has made him more attractive to many blacks, and probably to white liberals as well. Here’s what often happens in with black folks when one of their own is put upon; they become more loyal, recognizing the institutional racism involved.

So, if he loses, most older blacks will see it as the same-o same-o. I’m not sure the paradigm holds for younger blacks, especially those who identify as biracial. It’s not that they don’t see racism, it’s that they may see Barack’s nomination, to use a football metaphor, as field position. Maybe Barack doesn’t score the touchdown this time, but it makes someone else’s chances better the next time. Maybe.

5. What album in your collection would probably most surprise your friends?

That would almost certainly be my one Toby Keith album. Not crazy about his politics, but I got it it for free at a convention in Nashville, and I rather liked a couple songs, especially “Let’s Talk About Me.”
***
Someone, I wish I could remember who, said about Robert Mugabe: If Zimbabwe had oil, we would have invaded by now.

ROG

ROG

Roger Answers Your Questions, ADD

The inimitable Alan David Doane, with whom I spent much of last Saturday afternoon, along with John Hebert, Rocco Nigro and Fred Hembeck wrote: I have five questions, which if you answer them all, I will steal your responses and put on my blog, because that’s just the kind of guy I am. And he is. He really is. He’s also a guy who hates his cell phone but keeps it charged, whereas I often don’t know where the phone and/or the charger are.

What is your favourite comic book story?

Yeesh. I must admit a fondness for the Defenders when Gerber was writing it, and I love a good origin story (Spider-Man, Hulk), but ultimately, I end up with Giant-Size Man Thing #1.

When reading comics, do you focus on the writing over the art, the art over the writing, or both about equally?

Serviceable art will allow me to read a well-told story. The most beautiful art will not save a terrible story line. One of the comic books I hate the most has to be Spider-Man #1. The McFarlane art was tolerable at best, but the story was so gawd awful, I stopped buying the title after 3 or 4 issues. Given the fact that I LOVED-LOVED-LOVED Peter Parker/Spider-Man, it was painful, but necessary. This was NOT the Peter I knew. The Spider-Man was more like Spawn. Loathsome.
When the Pinis used to come to FantaCo to do Elfquest signings, Richard used to rail against the comic fanboys who cared about art to the exclusion of story, and I thought he was absolutely right.
That said, sometimes the art DOES move me. I was buying Sub-Mariner during Bill Everett’s second run, and I loved the look.

Who do you think is the greatest comic book artist still alive today and why?

Well, besides Fred G. Hembeck, who should be considered just based on the sheer number of characters he’s drawn? I’ll cop out and say Art Spiegelman because he helped bring the comic form out of the comic book ghetto.

What’s your happiest memory of working at FantaCo?

I almost always loved when our publications came in, but I’m going to pick something rather arcane.
There was a graphic novelization of the Stephen King’s Creepshow drawn by Berni Wrightson in the mid-1980s. Having connections in both the comic and horror markets we knew, both instinctively and from comic and horror film stores we dealt with that there was still a demand for this title. The publisher, we ascertained, still had many copies of the book. I wrote to the publisher- nothing. I called the publisher – I was told the book was no longer available, which I knew to be untrue. Finally, I reached someone who acknowledged that they had copies but that it was not worth it for them to send it out only to deal with a huge percentage of returns.
So I said, “What if we bought them non-returnable?” I thought the guy’s teeth were going to fall out. “Non-returnable?” So, we took 100 copies of it at 70% off the $6.95 cover price, put them in the store and listed them in a Fangoria ad, and blew through them. So I called again and said, can we have another 100?” By this point other stores were clamoring for this book, so we ordered an additional 500, and sold it to these horror book stores, and a few comic book stores, at 40% non-returnable. The stores got to sell a book they could otherwise not get, we made a decent profit even wholesaling someone else’s book, and we kept the Wrightson book from just being remaindered. My persistence in dealing with this publisher was, strangely, my favorite FantaCo moment.

Here’s another: I just came across in the past week a letter that one of FantaCo’s mail order customers sent to me. Why it should resurface now, I have no idea, since we’ve only been in the house since 2000. (A 1989 article about the comic book Shriek was also in the pile.) This guy worked for Ryko, and he would send me, his mail order purveyor, free music.
Roger-
Good to speak to you on the phone today (1-26-88)…I’m finding Ryko fans in the strangest places.
Hope you enjoy these guys – I chucked in a couple 3″, too. The one with no writing is “They Might Be Giants”, a couple of guys from Hoboken, NJ. I like this not for the swag, but because apparently I was giving him service worthy of him sending me free stuff. Still have that unlabeled TMBG disc.

What do you think is the single best publication FantaCo released in its history?

While I have a strong affection for the Spider-Man Chronicles, which I edited, I’m going to say Gates of Eden, which Mitch Cohn edited. No, I’m NOT going to pick the Amazing Herschell Gordon Lewis and his World of Exploitation Films, no matter how much you beg, Alan.

ROG

ROG
Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial