Roger O Green

The QUESTION of Culcha

This is, mais oui, Bastille Day. Even though I was really bad at it, I liked taking French in high school, because I loved the sound of the language. Even words that have entered the English language please me just hearing them. Rendezvous. Reconnaissance. Boulevard. Chandelier.

I’m not a snob about it, but I tend to like French wine, French bread. I’m inclined to see the current movie La Vie En Rose because it features French chanteuse Edith Piaf.

I guess I never understood the antipathy towards France in the lead-up to the Iraq war. After all, the country was supportive of us going into Afghanistan. On 9/12/2001, the front page of Le Monde was “We are all Americans”.

Usually, the argument was that the US “saved their bacon” in WWII. But there might not have been a US if it weren’t for the French support during the American Revolution, a friendship once so rich that they gave us a nice little statue in New York harbor. And the antipathy was far greater towards France than towards Germany or Canada. It wasn’t just the right wing radio pushing for “freedom fries”, it was the right-wing members of Congress. I went to a conference in the fall of 2003 and actually found myself defending the French position on the war at a time that it was not so popular to do.

Oh, and here’s something else I never understood. If one says, red, white and blue, the assumption is that we’re talking about the US flag. But the French flag, and the British, and the Norwegian flag, for that matter, are all that same set of colors, so why is it assumed that we’re talking about the American flag?

Anyway, please let me know:
Are there cultures, languages, cuisine, art that you just LOVE? And why? How is this manifested? If you had the means, would you want to travel to that country? (Yes, I would like to go to France.) Conversely, are there cultures that irritate the heck out of you, and why?
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And speaking of culture, today is the birthday of one Lynn Moss. I know it’s a cliche to say “his better half”, but I’ve MET Fred Hembeck. (Just funning with you, effendi!)
ROG

Unlucky

I’d like to address a karmic imbalance. Much has been made of the significance of 07/07/07 as a lucky day, so lucky that the number of marriages registered on theknot.com was triple the usual number of July weddings. But that date happens once every century. Meanwhile, we have a Friday the 13th at least once a year, usually twice, occasionally more. This means there are more unlucky days than lucky ones, by a ratio of about 200:1. Even if you choose to embrace 07/07/77, or the Chinese lucky number 8 in 08/08/08, there’s still a wide disparity.

And I can’t find any reference to 7/7/1977 being a day that lots of people were particularly embracing. Maybe, it’s the three 7s, not unlike the slot machines. (Though I did find President Jimmy Carter’s daily log for 7/7/1977).
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There’s a 30 second video on YouTube: Al Jazeera English – What do you think?, There were, as of last night, nearly 70 response, most of them far longer than the 30 seconds requested (one was 10 minutes!), and most of them reasoned responses, though at least one is not. A couple are very funny. I have no response about Al Jazeera English, because I’m unlucky enough that my cable company, like most in the country, does not show it, even though they don’t charge cable companies for it. It IS available online, however, and I’ll have to make a point of checking it out.
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New Mexico governor and Presidential candidate Bill Richardson has apologized for using an anti-gay slur. Generally, I like him, though I thought his May 27, 2007 Meet the Press appearance showed up real inconsistencies over the past couple years. I think he still has a good chance of being the Democratic nominee – he’s doing OK in the money race – if the Democrats decide that Barack is too inexperienced and that Hillary is too…Hillary. I think it would be problematic for the party faithful if the Dems fail to nominate either a woman or a black, the folks raising the most money, and they end up with a non-Hispanic white male AGAIN. That said, I really enjoyed watching Ron Paul and Mike Gravel on ABC This Week this past Sunday. Neither has a prayer of winning, but both insist that they’ll be in the White House come January 2009. And if I were a voter in the Republican primary, I would certainly be voting for Ron Paul, who ran as the Libertarian 20 years ago.
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Boots Randolph died last week. He’s most famous for a song called “Yakkity Sax”, which most people know better as the theme from “Benny Hill”, a show my father loved and I hated. I like the song, though:

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That youngster Charles Lane died this week. Mark Evanier is all over it. And if you don’t know who Charles Lane was, well, you WILL recognize the face.
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Can Credit Cards Make You Fat?
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Sprint drops needy customers.
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Is Merrin Dungey unlucky that’s she’s been booted off that Grey’s Anatomy spinoff, or will Audra McDonald feel unlucky that she’s gotten the recast part?
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Bad trip, indeed.
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ADD found a reference to a report suggesting that copyright should be 14 years. I don’t know about that, but I do feel that Jefferson, Franklin and other Founding Fathers/inventors would feel that the country has been ill-served by the constant lengthening of the copyright period.
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Someone, I really don’t remember who, suggested that tennis legend Bjorn Borg

is starting to look more like Ed Begley, Jr.

Judge for yourself. (Born is in the middle, between the Wimbledon men’s finalists, winner Roger Federer and runner-up Rafael Nadal.)

And speaking of Wimbledon, Venus Williams makes the Christian Science Monitor. Not unlucky.
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It would be most unlucky if we lost Eyes on the Prize:

ROG

Cos 70

Final JEOPARDY! for June 11, 2007:
Category: ENTERTAINERS OF THE ’60s
Answer: He won 3 straight Emmys for dramatic acting & a record 6 straight Grammys for comedy albums.
No, not William Shatner or Jackie Gleason, or even Bob Newhart.

I think I’ve given it away.

Yes, it was Bill Cosby. It’s hard to write about him, not because I can’t think of things to say, but because I could write forever about him.

I can’t recall whether it was in the TV show “I Spy” or listening to one of his comedy albums when I first became aware of him. It was a Big Deal when I Spy was on. Here was a black man on TV, a star of the show, not playing a servant or a buffoon. Every black person I knew was watching.

Then there were the albums. I own three of his Grammy-winning LPs, I Started Out As A Child, Why Is There Air? and Wonderfulness, awardees in 1964-1966. They were funny, but as the liner notes on one of them explained, it wasn’t just the content, it was the delivery that became so noteworthy that it was imitated by everyone from Richard Pryor to Jamie Foxx.

Beyond the humor, though, is that I learned a lot. That’s where I found out about Lombard Street, the curvy road in San Francisco, where they put flowers to note where “they bury the people who’ve killed themselves” traversing down it; it was funny the way he said it. I’ve had four wisdom teeth removed, so I know he was right that “Novocaine doesn’t deaden pain, it postpones it. Allows the little pain buddies to get together. ‘We’re going to hit that hole at five o’clock.'” He could make a line like: “And the pain…was tremendous” hysterically funny. “All the ice cream you can eat!” “900 cop cars.” “Smearing Jell-O all over the floor” so that the chicken heart on the radio wouldn’t get him. (I wonder if that routine led to him later being the spokesman for Jell-O pudding.)

The most important lesson, though was about The American Way of Death. Long before I had read Jessica Mitford, I heard Bill Cosby say, about people looking at people in open caskets, “He looks so natural,” to which Cosby retorted, “He looks dead.” He then suggested that a tape recorder could be hooked up. That way the deceased could “reply” to people as they went by. “Don’t I look like myself? It’s good to see you.” And for an additional fee, it could be personalized: “Hello, Bob. How’s the wife and kids? Don’t I look like myself?” This has had a profound impact on how I view burials, which is, at least on this mortal coil, once you’re dead, you’re dead.

I also have a couple of Cosby’s “music” albums. The first, “Silver Throat”, even had a #4 hit in 1967, “Little Old Man,” a musical swipe of Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight.”
And I have a double album on Tetragrammation Records, 8:15/12:15, where he does the same comedy routine twice, with the latter a bit “bluer”. It’s a lesser album, but it DID address the issue of taking the Lord’s name in vain, which Cos said you shouldn’t do because He’s busy “stopping war and things, trying to make it not look like a miracle.” He notes, “I have a friend named Rudy. He ain’t doin’ nothin’. Call on him.” So when you’re hammering, you might hit your “Rudy-damned thumb.”

I watched that show when Cosby played a gym teacher. I watched both the Electric Company and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, though I was in college at the time. And, of course, I watched The Cosby Show, religiously for at least the first six seasons of its eight seasons. I related to those parents. I KNEW those parents; not so much mine, as parents of friends. And the infusion of the music, art and other aspects of black culture in a matter-of-fact way was phenomenal. Also, I loved how, in the first several seasons, that there were variations on the opening theme song. And yes, I probably owned one or two Cosby sweaters.

I felt awful when his son Ennis was murdered 10 years ago. I struggled to understand what he was saying about poor urban youth. No, I didn’t eat JELLO pudding pops. But Bill Cosby is a figure that has been huge in my life.

Happy three score and ten, Cos.
ROG

V-A-C-A-TION

This is sad. I’ve realized that I had, again, forgotten the art of the vacation. As I’ve suggested, this has happened before.

First off, I need to define vacation. Generally speaking, visiting the relatives, as much as I love them, does NOT qualify as vacation. One exception: I went to visit my sister Leslie in the late 1980s in San Diego, and we went together to San Francisco.

When I was working at FantaCo, I didn’t go on vacation much, especially in the early years. I didn’t think I could afford to, either monetarily or workload-wise. I distinctly recall Tom pretty much insisting I take some time off, so I took five Wednesdays in a row, and went to a movie matinee almost each week.

I did make it up to Montreal in 1992, but that was a business trip. (Also, in 1991, but that’s another story.) Indeed, I HAVE gotten to go lots of places for work and had time to play.

In my current job, the first real vacation I took was in 1998. I took off two weeks, which I seriously doubt I’ve ever done before or since, again excluding family trips. The first week, I went to Detroit to visit a friend, and saw a Tigers game, Motown and Henry Ford mementos, etc. I had intended to spend the second week at home, catching up on my clutter, but ended up going to DC to try out for a game show.

In 1999, Carol and I did the honeymoon in Barbados, but then my wife was a poor college student, so I can’t recall going anywhere until our 2002 trip to Concord, NH, followed by our 2003 trip to Maine. Nothing since, though, which seems to have correlated with the addition to the household.

So, it was Christmas 2005 or was it Christmas 2004?- when when my parents-in-law offered us, and their other children as well, to make use of their timeshares, which are all over the country. But one has to book these things well in advance. My wife must have booked ours late last year for the last week in June. If she told me the dates, it must not have stuck in my mind, for in the beginning of the year, I scheduled my annual physical for the same week, which I subsequently had to postpone.

I think it’s because the description of the place sounded OK, but the notion of the vacation seemed rather fuzzy. “It’ll be a chance to get away.” Away from what? Work? I can take off days from work without going anywhere. It was a week when my wife was off from school before starting to work on summer school. I suppose if the literature for the place wasn’t filled with things such as “close to” all these other places, I might have been more excited. What inherent enjoyment will we find at the place, I was wanting to know? And lacking that, I was not very enthused about the trip.

This was going to go on, but:
Big storm in Albany on Monday evening – electricity in our house for over 11 hours (6:40 pm-6 am) + the hottest night in the year – electricity at Lydia’s day care on Tuesday + Roger watching Lydia = Story To Be Continued
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And speaking of sad, cartoonist Doug Marlette died in a car crash. He drew a great Reagan.

ROG

“Life Changing” gadgets

Last month, USA TODAY recently came out with their top 25 “Life Changing” gadgets, services, and inventions since 1982. Here is their list in their order of importance, and my opinion of same.

1. Cellphones – OK, it’s life-changing, but is it a good thing to be available 24/7?
2. Laptops – I now actually covet one.
3. Blackberrys – this is a technology that has entirely passed me by.
4. Debit cards – much of the protection one has purchasing on a credit card, such as challenging a charge, is lost on a debit card. I have one, which I use at the ATM.
5. Caller ID – I LOVE CALLER ID. Sometimes, I’m watching TV and the caller ID will show up on the screen; I can, and do, decide whether or not to answer. (Hint: if the ID says “unavailable”, I’m not.)
6. DVDs – I have some, and a player. It WAS one of the fastest accepted technologies.
7. Lithium rechargeable batteries – I have a few, but is this as wide-spread as some of the others?
8. IPods – don’t have one, but recognize they’re ubiquitous, even without me.
9. Pay at the pump – I’m surprised that there are ANY gas stations that don’t require some sort of pre-payment, given the propensity of some to “pump and run”. Use this one a lot.
10. Lettuce in a bag – I suppose this is a category that also covers spinach in a bag, pre-shredded cheese, and all of those things that offer “convenience” at a price.
11. Digital cameras – should get one someday, as I do recognize their value.
12. Doppler radar – it does make for pretty pictures during a storm.
13. Flat-panel TVs – maybe next time. My current TV I bought in 1987. Doesn’t have SAP or the V-chip.
14. Electronic tolls – NYS has E-Z Pass on the Thruway which is also accepted in Massachusetts and some neighboring states. It’s convenient, it saves gas, but it feels a little Big Brother to me.
15. PowerPoint – the 20th anniversary of PowerPoint was earlier this year. I’ve sat through innumerable PP presentations. I’ve DONE PP presentations.
16. Microwave popcorn – the popcorn manufacturers are right; sometimes, it’s two and a half minutes in one machine, four minutes in another.
17. High tech footwear – my daughter has shoes that light up when she walks. She LOVES this.
18. Online stock trading – making stock traders even more crazy.
19. Big Bertha golf clubs – couldn’t say.
20. Disposable contact lenses – my wife uses.
21. StairMaster – I find this amazingly boring to do.
22. Tivo – I LOVE the DVR, which isn’t Tivo, but close enough. Time-shifting my TV watching, I like. What I DON’T like is that I record more than I have time to watch.
23. Purell – do hand sanitizers really work? My wife uses them, and if she offers, I use them too, but I’m not convinced of their efficacy.
24. Home satellite TV – still have cable.
25. Karaoke – I’ve never done karaoke, but acknowledge that maybe one or two others have.

There are things that do seem to be missing from the list: Google, which is the way many people think they can find all the information they need; YouTube, which is not only an entertainment vehicle, but has had an impact on Presidential politics already; GPS, which provides us more sophisticated ways to get lost; Viagra/Cialis and all of the other drugs we need, or think we do; DNA testing, which has been HUGE in freeing people wrongly accused; e-mail, which maybe they’ve taken for granted; and of course, blogs. I think if I were doing the list, some or all of the above would make it, and golf clubs and Stairmasters, for sure, would be off.

ROG