Just Another Manic Monday

The NCAA final’s tonight. After UCLA lost on Saturday to Memphis, I figured I was destined for 6th or 7th place in my 9-person grouping. But when UNC lost to Kansas, that locked me into 3rd, behind the only person to pick Kansas to win the final, and it doesn’t matter if Kansas wins or not. Congrats, Susan.
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When I heard Charlton Heston died this weekend, three quotes IMMEDIATELY jumped to mind:
“Take your stinking paws off of me, you damn dirty ape!” (66th on the AFI list of great movie quotes)
“Soylent green is…” (77th on the list)
and the one that my wife, of all people, actually parodied without having read Mark Evanier.
I really appreciated his sense of humor at his own expense when I saw him on Saturday Night Live. And I did see him in a LOT of movies, including:
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Town & Country (2001)
True Lies (1994)
Earthquake (1974) [the “shake” half of “the shake ‘n bake movies”; “bake was “The Towering Inferno”]
The Four Musketeers (1974)
Airport 1975 (1974)
The Three Musketeers (1973)
the aforementioned Soylent Green (1973)
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) – I saw all five PotA movies in one day; not recommended
the aforementioned Planet of the Apes (1968) at least twice
The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) multiple viewings on TV
El Cid (1961)
Ben-Hur (1959)
The Ten Commandments (1956) I saw him playing Moses on TV probably a half dozen times
The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
While I chafed at his NRA position, I do remember that he was very active in the civil rights movement for a time. So, goodbye, Chuck; maybe you’ll meet Moses and compare notes.

ROG

BOOK REVIEW: Kirby: King of Comics


It seems I discovered Jack Kirby at the worst possible time. I started reading comics in the early 1970s, but I was pretty much a Marvel zombie, thus missing New Gods and the other books from his “Fourth World” until about a decade later. So when the “Jack is back!” mantra came to Marvel in the mid-1970s, I was excited to see the work of the legendary KING of comics. Boy, was I disappointed. Captain America seemed to be a character from another time. The formerly sleek Black Panther seemed cartoony. And Devil Dinosaur?!

So it wasn’t until I started working at a comic book store in Albany called FantaCo when I got to really get an understanding of Jack Kirby’s significance, and more importantly, tremendous skills in developing the Marvel universe that I knew and loved. And digging further, I recognized his prolific output in the pre-Marvel days.

But it took the Mark Evanier book, Kirby: King of Comics, before I got the full measure of the man born Jacob Kurzberg on August 28, 1913 in New York City. More than just a narrative, this small coffee-table presented artwork from his days as a comic strip writer working under several pseudonyms and his work for several comic book companies.

A couple core narratives flow through the book: 1) Jack was creative and fast, 2) Jack obsessed with financial security, though largely did not know how to achieve this, long before the disputes over what parts of the classic Marvel universe Jack was responsible for and how much writer/editor Stan Lee created. Jack, not always glib of tongue, had a strong sense of justice and often thought that his hard work would get him the financial remuneration to which he was undoubtedly entitled. If Evanier, Kirby’s assistant and friend for a number of years, tends to err on the side of his subject, it seems consistent with the throngs of Kirby fans who believe that Jack has gotten ripped off, not just monetarily but also in terms of credit.

This may not the definitive Kirby biography that some may have been seeking – at 219 pages, over half are full-page illustrations or pictures, and many other pages have accompanying art on them – but I’m happy to own it, perhaps BECAUSE of the many pictures from over the years. Incidentally, Amazon suggested that the book would take two to five weeks, but I ordered it on February 29, and it arrived on my birthday, March 7, a mere week later.

I spoke to Jack Kirby only a couple times, chronicled here. At that time, I was just beginning to get a sense of what a great contributor to comic-book art – no, scratch that, ART – he was.

One criticism of the book was that Evanier didn’t take advantage of his long association to dig deeper inside the man, but I get the sense that Jack was who Jack was, with no psychobabble analysis needed. And the one story that Mark told about himself and Jack at the end of the book was both moving and a good representation of Jack’s character.

So, thanks, Mark. And thank you, Jack.
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ADD’s review.

ROG

Crushes QUESTION

Some blogger – I won’t say who, but he appears on my blogroll – was expressing embarrassment about crushes he had on various famous people people when he was younger. I, apparently, have no such hangup. These are mine. Who were the people you had a crush on when you were 18 or younger, people who were at least semi-famous; i.e., not your teacher or your best friend’s parent?
The first big crush, one which was de rigeur for boys of my generation and slightly older (I was watching repeats of the Mickey Mouse Club, I later learned) was Annette Funicello. Don’t know why she became so iconic, exactly. If I ever saw her in her later movies with Frankie Avalon, it was quite by accident, but at the time, I would rush home from school to see her, quite probably on the one and only station we got at the time. There were two, but one was VHF (good reception) and one was UHF (not so hot. Isn’t it strange how I can still remember Tuesday was guest star day on that show?

Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petrie on The Dick van Dyke Show (CBS, 1961-1966). Must have been the dancing, and the perkiness. And the capri pants.

Inger Stevens was on a 1963-1966 ABC show called “The Farmer’s Daughter”. She had a Swedish accent, which I’ve only recently learned that she had to fake, because she had worked hard to lose it. The character Katy Holstrum was a governess to Congressman Glen Morley (William Windom), who was widowed with two sons. She also appeared in several movies, including Hang ‘Em High with Clint Eastwood (1968). Inger Stevens died, a suicide by pills and booze, in 1970. I found that particularly depressing.

I knew Angela Cartwright from Make Room for Daddy/The Danny Thomas Show (first of two Danny Thomas connections); she started in 1957. Also from The Sound of Music (1965). But for some reason, it was during her run on Lost in Space c. 1965, that I developed a crush on her. She was my youngest crush, being only six months older than I.

Marlo Thomas, daughter of Danny. I watched That Girl pretty much religiously, and really liked it for much of its run on ABC (1966-1971), though it sagged at the end, when it added dopey lyrics to the theme song. (Thanks to GayProf for that information.) Marlo is probably of a physical type, like the MTM/Laura Petrie, and likely a personality model for shows with “independent women”, such as The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

In the early days of the Supremes, the group shared lead vocals more often than in later times, when Diana Ross dominated. One of my favorite songs on Meet the Supremes was Buttered Popcorn, with the lead vocal by Florence Ballard. But I really got a crush from the cover of The Supremes Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland, with Flo looking particularly zaftig, in a good way. Of course, she died, broke, in 1976, which was wrong on so many levels, and was partially the inspiration for Dreamgirls.

I have no idea how I first became aware of Sophia Loren. I certainly never saw any of her movies until much later. But I thought she was the epitome of a beautiful woman when I was 16, and I’ll stick with that.

O.K., people, I want responses, either here or in your own blogs.


ROG

The MLK Assassination


Apparently, I am cliche, for it was the well-documented year 1968 that radically changed my perspective on life. And no single event had such a profound effect on me that year as the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968, forty years ago. I remember it as though it were far more recent, in the way I remember the JFK and John Lennon assassinations and the Challenger disaster.

I’m pretty sure I heard the word of Martin’s death from my father, who was involved in the civil rights movement in Binghamton, NY, my hometown. He went downtown to try to, as he put it, “keep it cool”, and there was no notable violence in Binghamton that night.

The real effect on me came when I got hold of his speeches about why he opposed the war in Vietnam. If you had asked me in December 1967 how I felt about Vietnam, I probably would have blindly stated that I supported the war, based on the fact that it was an American war and I was an American, without much thought beyond that. Reading his April 1967 address – I’m not sure which version, for he gave similar addresses at least thrice that month – was profound in utterly changing my whole perception of not only the war, but government and my relationship to it. You can love your country yet opposed its policies. I had done that, going on civil rights marches, but that was, to some large degree, self-interest. This was something beyond my immediate surroundings.

Now, I had HEARD ABOUT the speech, and the backlash it caused, Comments such as: “Why are you talking about something other than civil rights? How can you betray Lyndon Johnson, who’s been good on domestic civil rights? You’re out of your element and are hurting the civil rights movement.” And this came from black civil rights leaders, among others.

It wasn’t until after his death, though, that I READ the speech. It was as though weights had been lifted from my eyes. Among other things, Martin HAD made the disproportionate number of drafted young black men a civil rights issue.

Read the April 4 address. Better still, listen to the April 30 address:

One sentence just jumped out at me – I think it was from the April 4 address: “The truth must be told, and I say that those who are seeking to make it appear that anyone who opposes the war in Vietnam is a fool or a traitor or an enemy of our soldiers is a person that has taken a stand against the best in our tradition.” I can’t help but wonder what Martin would have made of more recent wars…

Conversely, I think MLK, Jr has been largely misunderstood, perhaps intentionally so. Nonviolence did not, and does not, mean passivity. And economic justice matters; remember, King died helping sanitation workers in Memphis get a living wage. What has long bothered me about the August 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech has its misrepresentation and misapplication by certain groups. We’re not going to create a level playing field for the fiscally disadvantaged because we want to be “fair”; how is it that the wealthy getting wealthier is “fair”? I have no doubt that Martin would be as concerned about the economic disparity in this country as any issue based on ethnicity.
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Several articles in the past week about Rod Serling’s twice-censored script about Emmett Till being read at a conference at Ithaca College. Read about it here. I’ve mentioned before the profound effect that Emmett Till’s death had on me; in fact, along with Brown v. Board of Education and the Montgomery bus boycott, I think it began of the modern civil rights movement.

ROG

Buying New Music

It’s been a while since I went out and bought new music, but the Barnes & Noble had sent me a coupon worth 40% off on all CDs, after whatever sale prices applied. Sunday, I took the bus to the ever-expanding Colonie Center. B&N used to be in a free-standing building on Wolf Road in Colonie across from the mall. But at some point in the past few months, it has moved to its new location across the street.

I went in figuring I’d buy some new music, the new k.d. lang, the new Herbie Hancock that won a Grammy for best album(!) or maybe its predecessor which featured Paul Simon and Sting. I was also looking for the soundtrack of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, either the Julie Andrews or the Lesley Ann Warren version. NONE of them were there. O.K., now what?

So, I just systematically started looking through the albums. I was trying not to buy on CD the exact same albums I already own on vinyl, because a friend of mine told me about her recent experience converting vinyl to CD. That eliminated greatest hits by Bob Dylan, Queen, the Guess Who, Hall & Oates (yes, shut up), The Association (YES, shut up), and a couple others.

First album picked, much to my surprise: Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy by Elton John. I have all of the other “classic” period EJ albums on vinyl, save for the early Empty Sky, but never got this one. At some level, the garish cover, and the fact that the album went to #1 in its first week, turned me off at the time. But it was Elton’s 61st birthday recently, and the only CDs I had to play were various greatest hits collections, plus the later Made in England. I’m sure I was affected also by Johnny B.’s recent discussions of all things early Elton. What sealed the deal was one of the additional tracks. Along with Lucy in the Sky and Philly Freedom was One Day at a Time, which I assumed was not the theme song of the Bonnie Franklin TV show that debuted in 1975, but rather the John Lennon cut, and it was.

Second album: The Ramones Greatest Hits. I have a couple LPs, but have massive holes in the collection. Probably influenced by Gordon.

The third album: The Very Best of Todd Rundgren. I have various Nazz, Utopia and solo LPs, but still wanted this.

The fourth album: OK, no recent Herbie Hancock? How about some classic Herbie Hancock, Head Hunters, featuring the classic cut Watermelon Man? All right then.

These were all $12.99 each list price, so $7.80 after the coupon, and I might have quit there, but I discovered The Millennium rack. If you’ve been in a record store lately, you’d recognize these. Black and white picture, gray top. And there were several to choose from: the Platters, Tom Jones, the Allman Brothers were all considered. The cool thing about these is that they were $9.99 each, but three for $20 if I used my MasterCard. I ended up picking Joan Baez, who my father admired as far back as 1959, when he brought home the oddly-named The Best of Joan Baez; and John Mellencamp, probably in part because of the love Tosy had given him after his recent induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The final album was also on the Millennium rack, but was not a Millennium album. It was Lucinda Williams’ 2003 album World Without Tears. $16.99 list, but still with the 3 for $20 sticker. I might have gotten this one anyway, but Lefty Brown’s affection for her did not hurt. Also the fact that, because I had the 40% off coupon, 3 for $20 became 3 for $12, or $4 apiece. (BTW, there’s a second version of World Without Tears with three extra songs available out there. Oh, and the three for $20 continues through May 5.)

Total price, less than $47, under my $50 mental budget. So thanks, guys, for going shopping with me.
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Elton Joe Performs “Dogs in the Kitchen” , the never-completed song, the lyrics of which appear in Captain Fantastic.

ROG

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