Roger O Green

Christmas Shopping QUESTIONS

Are you a Black Friday shopper? Or even a Thanksgiving day shopper? I’m not. I HATE shopping on Black Friday, with something approaching religious fervor. More accurately, the one time I went out there in the big box stores, I felt like an atheist at a tent revival.

Actually, there was a Black Friday a few years ago that wasn’t so bad. We went shopping in a little town called Delhi, NY. It was no more crowded than a normal shopping day. It was relaxed and pleasant.

Are you a Cyber Monday shopper? I have been, and would have been this year, save for the fact that I had a sick child who was not so ill that we couldn’t play the usual coterie of games (Sorry, Uno and Candyland) over and over, plus reading to her.

For years, I used to have a tradition before online shopping got so easy. I’d take off a weekday from work around December 17 and do all my shopping in one day. It was early enough that if it didn’t pan out, I still had the weekend, but close enough to create urgency in me without anxiety.

What kind of Christmas shopper are you?

ROG

Majority Rule, Minority Rights

Suddenly, I was feeling nostalgic for those thrilling days of yesteryear, when the “liberal, activist” Warren Supreme Court ruled the land.

In Gideon v. Wainwright, (1963), the Court ruled that indigent defendants had a right to counsel, even if they couldn’t afford it. In Miranda v. Arizona (1966), the court determined that the police practice of interrogating individuals without notifying them of their right to counsel and their protection against self-incrimination violated the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

And, most on point, Loving v. Virginia, the Court declared the state of Virginia’s antimiscegenation law unconstitutional.

If it were up to the general public in the 1960s, would every suspect get a lawyer and a Miranda warning? Heck, no, but it was the right and just thing to do. Or would Virginia and 15 other states have dropped their ban on interracial marriage without “assistance”? The proof is this: 12 states still had the ban on the books into the 1970s, though the laws were legally unenforceable. Alabama removed its law from its books in November 2000.

So, while I understand the political reality of trying to allow gay marriage via state legislature votes (New York, et al.) and public referenda (Maine, et al.), the issue seems so self-evidently right and just that I had a twinge of judicial nostalgia.

No, the only judicial “activism” we get these days are cases such as Kelo v. City of New London (2005), in which the “liberals” on the court allowed the city to use eminent domain to take private property and sells it for private development. I expressed my serious doubts about this case at the time. Turns out that the whole imbroglio ended up being a big money LOSER for New London.

I think gay marriage and other gay rights, such as ENDA will come about throughout the United States. But I’m now pretty convinced that gay marriage nationally will take another generation, another 20 years, to be fully realized. Maybe longer. And it makes me more than a little sad.

The New York Times was Live-Blogging the Gay Marriage Vote in New York State. State Senator Rubén Díaz Sr., one of the eight Democrats voting against the bill, is quoted as saying, “If you put this issue before the voters in a referendum, the voters will reject it.”. Probably true. But as some letter-writer noted, “I wish someone would ask Mr. Diaz if he thinks the civil rights acts of the 1960’s should have been put up for popular votes in the states.” As I said, just is just.

ROG

Truth, or a Variation on the Same

This is one of those breakfast blogs Dan VanRiper said I write.

The New York Times recently ran a story about how Rosa Parks WASN’T =the first black person to protest treatment on the bus. How did these others get ignored by history? Because history is arbitrary and not generally 100% accurate. And as a friend of mine put it, “Food for thought about figureheads…Teenagers don’t get respect!”

Jackie Robinson was not the first black to play major league baseball, only the first one in several decades, which does not at all diminish his breakthrough. Meanwhile, the black players who reintegrated the NFL, friends of Robinson, BTW, are all but forgotten, or were until this recent Sports Illustrated story. Even if you’re not a sports fan, read it, if you haven’t. One writer has suggested these players ought to be in the football hall of fame.

My wife, who teaches English as a Second Language, tells me that sometimes only the primary teacher in a classroom is considered the “real” teacher by some students, whereas the specialists (ESL, speech) are though of more like teachers’ aides. This is particularly true when the primary teacher is a male and the specialist is a female, and all of the specialty teachers in her schools are women. Stereotypical gender roles, even in our “enlightened” 21st century, come creeping back.

I’ve mentioned that when I was my daughter’s age and in the hospital for an uncontrollable bloody nose, I was slackjawed to discover a male nurse and a female doctor; even at five and a half, I could be surprised that the world wasn’t as I expected it to be.

I was listening to the podcast KunstlerCast #90: The Demise of Happy Motoring this week. The host, Duncan Crary, didn’t know that “Happy Motoring” was a catchphrase of Esso gasoline (later Exxon). Duncan told Jim Kunsler said he’d Google the phrase, and I ended up doing the same. Apparently, Esso tried to be culturally diverse in its ads. Here are the Esso logo morphing into folks from the British Isles, and, showing some real stereotypes, these American folks.

Here’s 18-and a half minutes of sharp political commentary. Eighteen-and-a-half minutes? Shades of Rose Mary Woods!

There seems to be no clear consensus on the meaning of Boxing Day.
ROG

Actors Stalking My TV Set

Ever get that feeling that some actors show up every season on some show or other that you’re watching? Sort of like that movie season where Jude Law was in every third movie. Or that period of time when Gene Hackman really WAS in every third movie. Or how Tom Bergeron hosts every third reality show.

Ken Levine cited Sonya Walger and Kim Raver; I don’t happen to be in Ms. Walger’s sphere of influence, but yeah, I think of Ms. Raver as that person on 24, yet here she is doing a stint on Grey’s Anatomy. I could have sworn that there are other working actors in Hollywood, most of them not working at all in their chosen profession; I speak of “Hollywood” generically, not geographically.

It’s not quite as pervasive, but I think that way about Jessalyn Gilsig. She plays Terri Schuester, the glee club teacher’s wife, on Glee, but wasn’t she doing Heroes and Nip/Tuck at the same time? I know her best as a teacher in the early seasons of Boston Public, and a cop in the later seasons of NYPD Blue.

Then there’s Julie Bowen, who is now on Modern Family, and I first noticed on Ed, but seemed to show up on Boston Legal, Weeds and Lost interchangeably. And I just saw her on JEOPARDY! to boot.

I was watching Glee recently, and noticed that on that particular episode, there were two NYPD Blue alums, though they did not share a scene. Charlotte Ross, who was bad seed Eve on Days of Our Lives when I was actually watching DOOL, is now old enough to play the mom of the pregnant cheerleader on Glee. This somehow makes me feel old.

Any actors showing up a lot on the shows you watch?
ROG

T is for Three "Tender" Tunes

If you check only the Wikipedia post for the song Try a Little Tenderness, you’ll find the listing dominated by references to Otis Redding. While he did perform the benchmark version in the mid-1960s, a live version of which you can watch here, the song has a much richer history.

Here’s a version of the song, written by “Irving King” (James Campbell and Reginald Connelly) and Harry M. Woods, performed by Francis Albert Sinatra; click on the button on the upper right side of the page. Interesting that this version has an intro not generally used.

The Wikipedia notes a bunch of other folks who also recorded, including “on December 8, 1932 by the Ray Noble Orchestra (with vocals by Val Rosing) followed by both Ruth Etting and Bing Crosby in 1933.

But in my Top Pop Singles, under the Otis Redding listing for the song, it says: “#6 hit for Ted Lewis in 1933”, though the Wikipedia doesn’t note Lewis at all. Here’s the Ted Lewis version (song #8), with a lengthy instrumental before the lyrics come in.

Who IS this Ted Lewis? According to my Top Memories, 1890-1954 book, this song charted for him in February of 1933 for 10 weeks, getting up to #6. But he had 101 Top 20 hits between 1920 and 1934; Tenderness being the 92nd. Among his #1 hits:
When My Baby Smiles at Me (1920-7 weeks), All By Myself (1921-4 weeks), O! Katharina (1925-1 week), Just A Gigilo (1931-2 weeks; yes, the song later covered by David Lee Roth, formerly of Van Halen), In A Shanty in Old Shanty Town (1932-10 weeks), and Lazybones (1933-4 weeks).

Ruth Etting also charted with Tenderness on 3/18/33 for two weeks. She had 62 Top 20 Hits between 1926 and 1937, this being the 59th, with her biggest hit Life Is A Song in 1935 (2 weeks at #1).

Otis Redding’s version got to #25 in the pop charts and #4 on the rhythm and blues charts in December 1966. The song is listed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and is #204 in a list of Rolling Stone magazine’s greatest songs. Otis’ biggest hit, unfortunately, was posthumous: (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay in the winter of 1968, which went to #1 won a number of Grammy awards, as well as citations by Rolling Stone (#28), R&RHOF, RIAA, NPR and BMI

Before Otis, Aretha Franklin had a minor hit (#100 in 1962), and after Three Dog Night (#29 in 1969). But it has become a staple in the repertoire of many an artist.

Paul Simon’s second album after his breakup with Art Garfunkel was the eclectic There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, featuring songs such as Kodachrome and Loves Me Like A Rock. The 1973 collection also featured a lovely song called Tenderness, which Like Loves Me Like a Rock features the vocal stylings of the gospel group the Dixie Hummingbirds. (Unfortunately, all I could find is this cover version.) The album went to #2 and signaled a successful solo career to come, featuring albums such as Still Crazy After All these Years (#1 in 1975) and Graceland (#3 in 1986).

Paul Simon won the very first Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2007, succeeded by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney.

The 1956 Elvis Presley hit Love Me Tender had a peculiar songwriting history, explained here. Briefly, it was written as Aura Lee nearly a century earlier. The adaptation was credited to Presley and the songwriting adapter’s wife, neither of whom actually wrote it. It was the title song of Elvis’ film debut.

I learned http://www.metrolyrics.com/aura-lee-lyrics-traditional.htmlAura Lee in grade school so found Love Me Tender as somehow peculiar. In fact, the school kids made up a song to Aura Lee, sung with the Elvis enunciation:

When you must take medicine
Take it orally
That’s because the other way
Is more painfully.

Orally, orally
Take it orally
That’s because…the other way…
Is more painfully.

Anyway, here’s the classic Presley tune, the fourth of a dozen and a half #1 hits in the United States. (The 31-song ELV1S album contained #1s in the US and/or the UK.)

ROG