Roger O Green

The anticipation of Christmas

getting ready

There’s a body of work that reflects the anticipation of Christmas. Some are more overtly religious, while others are secular.

The Dream Isaiah Saw – Washington Chorus, Here’s a post from 2009 that describes the effect on the writer. It also contains the lyrics. I’ve sung this, and it’s powerful.

Gabriel’s Message – Sting. This song, from the original A Very Special Christmas collection (1987), is either in a Methodist or Presbyterian hymnal, possibly both.

E’en So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come by Paul Manz – The National Lutheran Choir. I’ve sung this probably two dozen times. Interestingly, though, the scripture is from Revelation, suggesting anticipation of a second coming, not the first.

The secular

River – Joni Mitchell. I will always associate this with my late friend Donna George, who was a big Joni fan.

Christmas Is A-Comin’ – Leadbelly. My father had this song on an album that I now own.

Getting Ready for Christmas Day – Paul Simon. Simon, b. 1941, samples. The sermon is from 1941, which can’t be a coincidence, can it?

This Christmas – Donny Hathaway. I miss Donny, who was a great singing partner with Roberta Flack.

Christmas Wrapping – the Waitresses. An MTV favorite. I have this buried in my vinyl collection somewhere.

We Need A Little Christmas – Angela Lansbury. Per Wikipedia: “Lansbury finally gained stardom for playing the leading role in the Broadway musical Mame (1966), which earned her her first Tony Award and established her as a gay icon.”

Please Come Home For Christmas – Charles Brown. The man from Texas City, TX (1922-1999) was thrice nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album in the 1990s.

I’ll Be Home For Christmas – Bing Crosby. Wikipedia notes: “Despite the song’s popularity with Americans at the front and at home, in the UK, the BBC banned the song from broadcast, as the Corporation’s management felt the lyrics might lower morale among British troops.” Twenty or twenty-five years ago, I heard Kim and Reggie Harris, possibly with others, perform this at the College of Saint Rose, very close to where we live. One felt the melancholy the song deserves.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – MonaLisa Twins. They really are twins, Mona and Lisa Wagner.

2022 Kennedy Center Honors

George Clooney, Amy Grant, Amy Grant, Tania León, U2

As is my tradition, I note the honorees for the 2022 Kennedy Center Honors. Once again, I am very familiar with four of the five selected in this 45th class and the fifth, not at all.

I vaguely remember George Clooney from shows like Roseanne and Sisters, though I seldom saw The Facts of Life.

Nor did I see him on another show. Nevertheless, he won me $1,200 on JEOPARDY in 1998. A VIDEO DAILY DOUBLE: “Hi, I’m Jason Alexander. This actor co-starred with me on a sitcom called E/R before starring in the medical series ER.” Something I must have read in People magazine or Entertainment Weekly got stuck in my head when Clooney first started playing Dr. Doug Ross.

Subsequently, I saw or heard him in several movies, such as Up In The Air, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Descendants, Gravity, and Tomorrowland. He directed and appeared in Good Night and Good Luck and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

He was the executive producer of Far From Heaven and producer of Argo and August: Osage County.

When I saw Alison Krauss and Union Station in Albany in 2003, Dan Tyminski noted how his wife enjoyed hearing his voice come out of George Clooney’s mouth when the actor “sang” Man Of Constant Sorrow in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou? I have had the soundtrack for two decades, though I saw the film during the COVID lockdown.

“George Clooney is co-founder and co-President, along with his wife Amal, of the Clooney Foundation for Justice.”

Contemporary Christian and pop singer-songwriter

I may have only one Amy Grant album, a vinyl recording of The Animals’ Christmas with Art Garfunkel. It was written by Jimmy Webb.

She was the first self-identified singer of Contemporary Christian Music to go to #1 on the pop charts. There were “Christians” who were HORRIFIED that Amy was doing pop music, such as Baby, Baby. Oh, please.

Amy married musician Vince Gill in 2000. She’s been active in philanthropy for her entire career.

A legendary singer of soul, Gospel, R and B, and pop

I must have learned that Gladys Knight won Ted Mack’s The Original Amateur Hour TV show from reading Ebony or Jet when I was growing up. She was eight in 1952.

Gladys Knight and the Pips had minor hits on minor labels, most notably Every Beat Of My Heart in 1961 (#6 pop, #1 RB). She left the group in 1962 to start a family but rejoined in 1964.

The group signed with Motown in 1966. It always felt that the label didn’t know what to do with the act. Berry Gordy wouldn’t let the Miracles release I Heard It Through The Grapevine, but was OK with the Pips doing so. It became a big hit for the Pips (#2 pop for three weeks, #1 RB for six weeks); it is my favorite version of the song.

Gladys Knight and the Pips did have other hits on Motown, notably If I Were Your Woman (#9 pop, #1 RB) and Neither One Of Us (#2 pop for two weeks, #4 RB). But they also were recording the same songs that The Temptations were also getting.

Their move to Buddah generated their first #1 pop hit (for two weeks), Midnight Train To Georgia. More Top 5 hits followed. She had an active solo career and acted as well.

Cuban-born American composer, conductor, and educator

Alas, Tania León is the honoree I do not know beyond what’s in the KCH bio.

Iconic Irish rock band

In 1988, I told a friend of mine that The Joshua Tree by the band U2 was one of my desert albums. My friend said one couldn’t put a one-year-old album on such a list. Maybe not, but I still like it quite a lot.

Lead singer Bono and his wife of 40 years Ali Hewson, were recently interviewed by Norah O’Donnell for CBS News’ Person To Person with U2’s Bono. He talked about his new book “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story.” He shares how the band – he, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. – stayed together for decades and much more.

Here are some songs: Beautiful Day, One, When Love Comes To Town with B.B. King, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (Rattle and Hum version), Where the Streets Have No Name, and Sunday Bloody Sunday.

Watch the show!

The Kennedy Center Honors took place Sunday, December 4th, at 6:30 p.m. in the Kennedy Center Opera House. It will be televised Wednesday, December 28th, on CBS. We watch it every year.

The year is ending at Sunday Stealing

human contact

This Sunday Stealing is The year is ending. I have a ritual closer to New Year’s Day. But it doesn’t preclude trying these on for size.

1. Wintertime comfort foods, habits, hobbies

At least once a year, I make lasagna. At least two of them because it’s less labor-intensive. I’ll do that for sure. I hate turning on the oven when it’s warm, but I LOVE doing so when it’s cold. Using the same Betty Crocker recipe, I have to adjust the quantities. It’s because of what has been annoying-labeled shrinkflation, though it’s been happening for decades. Thus, my 32-ounce cans of tomatoes are only 28 ounces.

2. Favorite seasonal/holiday music and songs

This List from four years ago will do.

3. The people I want to spend more time with next year

I hope that some folks who stopped attending church because of the pandemic – the service is on Facebook – will feel comfortable enough to return to in-person services.

4. How much I could change my life in 1 year if I focused

One can always pick one thing to do; I might pick working more on genealogy. But this would inevitably mean NOT doing something else, and I’m unwilling to unbalance myself in that way.

5. The valuable lessons I learned this year

I need human contact! One example: we had been doing church remotely from March 2020 to June 2021. Getting back together was a joyous occasion, and I never attended remote church again if I were in town unless I was sick.

Then in January 2022, because of a local surge of COVID, we went back to remote only. I HATED, HATED, HATED it. I couldn’t focus on the sermon. When we were back in person about a month later, it was such a relief.

This year

6. How I’d describe 2022 in 10 words

Daughter’s College; wife’s leg infection; COVID for three; Wordle streak.

7. My favorite Reads of 2022

I have an online subscription to the New York Times. It’s currently $4 a month. I’m enjoying it immensely. I used to read the newspaper daily in the late 1970s and 1980s but shifted to just the Sunday paper. Then it fell off the list.

8. Best movies I saw in 2022

I’m still contemplating this. But the two films I most enjoyed in a movie theater in 2022 were The Wizard of Oz, which I’d seen many times on TV; and Cabaret, which I had not watched in a half-century.

9. Favorite TV shows/episodes of 2022

This will sound snarky, but it is not intended as such. Watching the game show JEOPARDY, I always root for the so-called “super champions,” who have won ten or more games, to lose. To paraphrase Hawkeye Pierce on an episode of M*A*S*H, “I want someone else!”

Highlights

10. Memorable experiences from 2022

Going to Carnegie Hall with my daughter. Lots of live theater in the summer. Seeing, at different times, two of my oldest friends, who I first met in kindergarten. My sister’s high school reunion, with such a gracious host putting us up.

11. Three people I enjoyed spending time with this year

Uthaclena; Lee; Bruce.

12. How I handled challenges this year

With aplomb, of course.

Actually, new stuff usually makes me initially grumpy. Then, eventually, I discovered it’s not so bad, and I’m pretty good at it.

13. What I’m leaving behind in 2022

COVID. (From my lips to God’s ears.) I did receive the bivalent shot targeted at Omicron last week. I’ve never had any reaction to the vaccines other than a sore arm at the injection site.

14. How I changed most from the beginning to the end of the year

Perhaps a soupçon more optimistic

15. What I want to tell myself before the New Year

There are no federal or statewide elections this year. My email box should be far less crowded.

Also, when in doubt, eat applesauce.

A LOT of Christmas music

Queen of Christmas

I have a LOT of Christmas music, 100 LPs and CDs or more. This is why I rarely listen to the radio stations playing holiday music between Thanksgiving (and some even earlier) and December 25. With all the music available, why are so many stations limited to a few dozen recordings?

It’s not that I MIND them. But When my wife tunes in, I’ll hear the same song, often by the same artist, every three or four days. A lot of them are almost as old as I am. Understand I like a lot of them, but still.

Feliz Navidad – José Feliciano
White Christmas – Bing Crosby
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer – Burl Ives
Little Saint Nick – The Beach Boys
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree – Brenda Lee

Jingle Bell Rock – Bobby Helms
Blue Christmas – Elvis Presley
Sleigh Ride – Ella Fitzgerald
Santa Baby – Eartha Kitt
Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town – Jackson 5
The Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth – Bing Crosby/David Bowie
plus various cuts by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and more Bing

Not that I would ever complain about hearing songs from that Phil Spector album, such as:
Here Comes Santa Claus (Down Santa Claus Lane) – Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans
Frosty the Snowman – The Ronettes
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love

There are those “newer” songs if you want to call a quarter century “new”: All I Want For Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey. And speaking of Carey, her desire to trademark the term “Queen of Christmas” is pretentious and ill-advised. Darlene Love and Elizabeth Chan have raised serious objections, as they should.

Meanwhile

Here’s a link from four years ago. Besides the part about Nowell We Sing Clear, there are some of my favorite pieces, including by Tom Petty, Julie Andrews, and Stevie Wonder.

Needed cash

pointed the same way

It was a Sunday night. My wife needed cash for her hairdresser appointment early Monday morning. Either her bank doesn’t have an ATM, or she never bothered to get a card; I suspect the latter.

Conversely, I use the ATM of my bank, two blocks away, all of the time. As I’ve mentioned, during the pandemic, my bank figured out that its machines could be programmed to dispense not only $20s, which it did forever but also $10s and $5s. They must have decided that the investment in tweaking their money dispensers was better than having customers coming into the bank to break a $20.

My wife said, “I need two $5s, three $10s…” Wait a minute.. she’s giving it to me from the bottom up, not the top down? This confused me! To be fair to me, she said she would give me a check for $150 to deposit, and she’s already asked me for $40 back so far. No, she decided she only needed $100 in cash, so three $20s. Got it. Still, the ATM asks from the top denomination down, and my mind wants to do the same.

One useful thing

When I first moved to the Albany/Schenectady, NY, area, the first job I got was as a teller at the Albany Savings Bank in downtown Albany. I didn’t love it, and I quit in a month to take a job as a bookkeeper for the Schenectady Arts Council’s program. Not only was I making more money – $8200 instead of $6000 per year, but the latter job was far more interesting.

Still, there was one thing I learned at the bank. All the bills in the drawer should be in value order, from left to right. And the bills should all be face up and pointed the same way.

As the person who most often counted the drawer and made the bank deposits at FantaCo, the Albany comic book store I worked at from 1980 to 1988, I tried to enforce that one thing. It was easier to impose this on people who started at the store after me than those who started before, let’s just say.

Carrying cash

When I buy things at most chain stores or restaurants, I usually use my DISCOVER card for the cashback bonus. For small mom-and-pop operations, though, I prefer giving them cash because it helps with their profit margins. But the amount matters, too, because I rarely have more than $100 in cash on me.