Roger O Green

A tree branch falls in Albany

greenery

If a tree branch falls in Albany, NY, and I don’t hear it, did it really come down? Apparently, if I am to believe my eyes. And now YOU can believe it because I have PICTURES. And as we all know, pictures never lie.

I’ve been really tired the past three weeks. This is a function of staying up until 3:30 a.m. the night of the daughter’s prom the second Saturday in June, then essentially pulling an all-nighter a couple of nights later, for reasons I will share eventually.

After a couple more weeks chock full of events, including the Albany High School graduation on June 26, I went to bed and slept until about 8:30 a.m. Apparently, I missed a severe morning thunderstorm, an event that would usually awaken me.

“I wonder if the tree branch that fell hit the shed.” my wife wondered. What tree branch? There was a storm? Oh, THAT tree branch. And, no, the shed is fine.

The branch is about 3.6 meters tall, a little less than twice my height. For such a relatively small piece, it’s a bit heavy. I offered my daughter money to trim off the greenery and throw it onto the compost, but she declined. So I did it myself.

We’ll have to call a tree service. That tree was trimmed maybe a decade ago. My wife called them again five years later, but they never showed up.

Hey, does anyone in Albany want a nice piece of wood? One could use it for jousting, or some other medieval sport.

Unrelated

The things I do to maintain peace and quiet. I was at the CVS register, picking up a package. There was a young woman and a teen female trying to make a purchase from the autopay, though I neither knew nor cared what they were buying. It appeared they put in every cent they had. But it was $6.07 short. The machine told everyone within 30 feet: PAYMENT INSUFFICIENT or some such. Three times.

Finally, I asked if I could pay the balance. They said yes. And the damn loud machine stopped talking. BTW, 607 is the area code of Binghamton, NY, my hometown.

Running hot and cold

avoiding the sun

Kelly wrote about hot and cold. Specifically: “Every couple I’ve ever known, of every combination of people, has a hot one and a cold one.

“This isn’t about looks, but about reactions to temperature. Every couple has one person who always thinks it’s on the cool side, while the other always thinks it’s on the warm side.” And for the most part, I think he’s correct. But he’s NOT right about my wife and me.

It’s because my wife has a far greater tolerance for the extremes than I do. I’m the temperate one. In the house, I need it warmer in the winter AND cooler in the summer than she does, by about three degrees Fahrenheit. So I HATE it when she bakes in the summer, but LOVE when she does so in the winter.

The first floor has, thank Allah, air conditioning. When I climb the stairs, it feels like another climate. Why doesn’t she have the fan on in our bedroom? The fact that we aren’t currently IN our bedroom is not a reason.

The GREAT outdoors?

It is even more true outdoors. She is NOT a sun worshipper, but I actively avoid direct sunlight if possible. Partially, it’s the vitiligo, but I also fear heat stroke. I almost ALWAYS have a cap on, preferably white or a light color. Long sleeve shirts may seem counterintuitive, but I can’t afford to burn. And, if I can find them, sunglasses.

I LOVE sunglasses. And that applies to the winter as well, with the glare of the snow. Because I got frostbite when I was about 15, my feet are particularly susceptible to the cold. If my head, ears, hands, or feet are cold – and this is true, indoors or out – I’m pretty miserable.

My wife can tolerate about 20 to 85 F, but I’m more of a 25 to 80 F guy. Or maybe 28 to 77. My tolerance for the cold outdoors has definitely lessened. I remember riding my bicycle when it was 20F; now it has to be 35F.

Weirdest album from a mainstream artist?

Berry Gordy’s sister

My bud Greg Burgas asked his readers: What’s the weirdest album released by a mainstream artist? Off the top, I couldn’t think of any except from one pair of musicians.

Then I found this list of 35 albums. And I own several! The first, though, I heard of only weeks ago.

Frank Sinatra – Watertown (1970). A concept album that one of my news feeds just mentioned. It Was re-released in June 2022. He “was approached by “Big Girls Don’t Cry” writer Bob Gaudio to do a song cycle about a man whose wife left him with his kids.” It’s named for an upstate New York city; I probably should get it.

The Fireman – Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest (1994). “Without a drop of publicity, 1994 saw Paul McCartney quietly releasing his ambient techno album.” To me, it sounds “at worst needlessly repetitive.”

Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants (1979). This has some good songs, actually, such as Send One Your Love, but also a lot of tedious “synthesizer experimentation.” It was “a detour so far from the commercial norm that it risked alienating scores of unadventurous listeners.”

Yoko Ono/John Lennon – Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (1968). I wasn’t even going to consider it because I don’t think of Yoko as a “mainstream artist,” even though I own a few of her solo albums. I haven’t listened to Two Virgins in decades. Side one of their Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions (1969) is unlistenable, but side two is conversational, a bit melancholy, and documents Yoko’s miscarriage. Wedding Album (1970) has Yoko yelling JOHN, and John yelling YOKO for twenty minutes; side two is a dialogue about bed-ins and the like.

Bob Dylan – Slow Train Coming (1979). Musically interesting but lyrically theologically lazy.

Starkey

Ringo Starr – Beaucoups of Blues (1970). I LIKE this album quite a bit. “Ringo hunkered down in Nashville, rounded up the city’s top session players, and recorded this love letter to Music City that’s as authentic as the most classic George Jones platter… Beaucoups of Blues remains Starr’s most thoroughly enjoyable, though misunderstood, solo outing.” Agreed. Title song.

Paul McCartney – McCartney II (1980). Why is this album even on the list?

The Who – The Who Sell Out (1967). “Arguably the Who’s greatest album… The oddness [comes] from the fact that these are book-ended by radio jingles and commercials.” SpongeBob SquarePants used this model for an album. Tattoo.

Bob Dylan – Self Portrait (1970). As mentioned, I bought this for my high school girlfriend. I specifically recall a strange version of Simon and Garfunkel’s The Boxer. I always wondered if it was in response to the duo’s A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission). “At the end of the 1966 recording Simon says, ‘Folk-rock,’ and, after an audible noise, ‘I’ve lost my harmonica, Albert.’ This presumably refers to Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman.”

What now?

Neil Young – Trans (1983). “He ticked off “his new label by releasing a vocoder-heavy synth-rock album. He followed it up with a rockabilly disc, and was sued shortly thereafter.” I like Trans, and especially Mr. Soul.

The Clash – Sandinista! (1980). “The Only Band That Mattered follow-up London Calling with a three-LP set filled with reggae, hip-hop, and pop experiments sprawled all over the place.” I bought this album right away and listened to it a lot. Police On My Back.

Joni Mitchell – Mingus (1979). I didn’t appreciate the dialogue as much as the music.

Marvin Gaye – Here, My Dear (1978). “Quite possibly the only album that nearly launched an invasion of privacy lawsuit.” A divorce album re: him and Anna Gordy, Berry Gordy’s older sister. Indulgent but oddly interesting. When Did You Stop Loving Me, When I Stop Loving You?

Devo – E-Z Listening Disc (1987) [Compilation]. Someone from Rykodisc sent this to me when I was working at FantaCo. I think it’s a hoot. Jocko Homo.

The one I think is most “out there” is probably the Fireman or maybe Joni.

Independence goes only so far

a MORE hostile regime?

My Independence Day meanderings.

“If you’re a Republican, you can’t even lie to Congress or lie to an FBI agent, or they’re coming after you.” Louie Gohmert (R-TX) said this during an interview on NewsMax. “They’re going to bury you. They’re going to put you in the DC jail and terrorize and torture you and not live up to the Constitution there.”

As CNN‘s Laura Jarrett noted in 2017: “Federal law makes it a crime to ‘knowingly and willfully’ give ‘materially’ false statements to Congress, even if unsworn – which is not to be confused with the more general crime of perjury for lying under oath.”

“It is also – surprise, surprise! – against the law to lie to the FBI. It’s right there in the US Code – and carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.”

But it may be unreasonable for Louie Gohmert to know these complicated details. After all, he’s only been a member of Congress since 2005. (Does he WANT people to lie to HIM?)

If I thought Louie was uniquely… operating on a different plane, I could laugh it off. But I see a lot of these folks in the halls of Congress.

Nowhere to go

I found a section of the post by Arthur about his realizations rather sad. “In the time since [his husband] Nigel died, I realised that I don’t feel ‘at home’ anywhere: He was my home in an existential sort of sense. In a physical sense, however, I’ve lived in New Zealand so long now—it’ll be 27 years in around five months—that this place is quite literally home.” I understand his pain.

Yet it also stirred a very different type of anxiety in me. “The reality is that after so many years away from the USA, the land of my birth feels like a foreign country—actually, far too often it seems like an alien planet.” And I haven’t been away from the United States, but too often, I get the same feeling.

“As we grow apart, as I grow older, and as events there make my homeland utterly unrecognisable to me, I suspect there may well come a day when I could be permanently separated, particularly if a more hostile regime comes to power in the future—and how could I possibly rule out that prospect when I can no longer say it’d be impossible?”

Yes, sometimes I feel similarly, but without the luxury of a second passport. “If the USA really does collapse, I’m safe here and also have an already well-established life. However, that’s also true even if the USA manages to shake off the disease it caught in 2016 and repair itself.”

I’m having serious doubts that self-repair is even possible. It all feels that too much is going in the wrong direction.

And yet

Yeah, I still try to study the issues since that’s what a citizen does. And certainly, I ALWAYS vote because I’m a stubborn old poli sci major who actually thinks that local elections are just as important as the national ones, if not more so.

It’s not optimism that drives me to try to change my little piece of the world. Maybe it’s having a kid who’s really not a child anymore, not to mention nieces. All that hokum that our children are our future? There’s some non-cynical part of me that believes it.

I suppose I could have opted for a rosier star-spangled Fourth. But this is the best I could muster.

Sumnmery things for Sunday Stealing

travelogue

This Sunday Stealing has summery things, though a lot of it has little to do with the season.

1. Favorite thing to do during the summer?

Go to the Mac Hadyn Theatre, about an hour away in Chatham, NY. A lot of young adults doing amazing things on a small stage. We hadn’t been since 2019.

2. Favorite cold food/dessert/drink that gets you through the summer heat?

Probably lemonade. Or an Arnold Palmer, which is half lemonade, half iced tea.

3. Gone to a drive-in movie

The last time I went, they were showing all five Planet of the Apes movies. I think I fell asleep during the last one. As a kid, we went to the drive-in a few times. I specifically remember seeing The Dirty Dozen at the drive-in near the Binghamton, NY airport.

4. What are you planning to do this summer?

Now that my wife is retired, get things fixed. Notably, the back porch has a roof that is crumbling. See more theater.

5. Did the pandemic ruin any summer plans? If so, what?

We were supposed to have an Olin family reunion in St. Paul/Minneapolis area in 2021. We did a ZOOM thing, which was better than it might have been, but hardly an adequate substitute.

6. Rode on any water mobile (jetski, ferry, boat, etc)

I’ve taken the Staten Island ferry from Manhattan several times. We crossed the Lake Champlain on two different ferries.

7. Gone to a summer camp

A few times as a kid. Didn’t love it. Worked at one when I was 17; a mixed bag.

Never Been To Spain

8. Been to any Asian country (if not, where would you go and why? if yes, where was your favorite?)

No, but I’d go to Japan because it’s Japan. But I’m fascinated with Singapore. It’s a city! It’s a country!

9. Been to any African country (if not, where would you go and why? if yes, where was your favorite and why?)

No, but I’m interested in Liberia because it was founded by people who once lived in the United States. And if I could figure out my roots, I’d go to Nigeria because I am 20% Nigerian per my DNA test.

10. Been to any North American country (if not, where would you go and why? if yes, where was your favorite and why?)

Well, I live in the United States. I’ve been to Mexico and Canada. And Barbados, which is practically in South America, on our honeymoon, a second-place prize from when I was on JEOPARDY. So that.

11. Been to any South American country (if not, where would you go and why? if yes, where was your favorite and why?)

No. I’d go to Uruguay because the weather seems temperate. And I like saying Montevideo.

12. Been to any Australian country (if not, where would you go and why? if yes, where was your favorite and why?)

What a peculiar question, since Australia IS a country. I’m guessing they’re going for that vast Oceania region. In any case, I’m picking New Zealand. I’d go visit Arthur.

And it appears that the quiz came from someone who is European because they don’t ask about that continent. I’ll pick Ireland because I am 26% Irish. Also, France so I could visit my friend Deborah.

Been Too Long At The Fair

13. Gone to a festival/fair

Often. County fairs, NY State Fair.

14. Gone to an amusement park

Frequently. Coney Island, Eldridge Park in Elmira, NY, and a couple Six Flags locations.

15. Binge watched 5 different TV show series (what were they)

I HATE binge-watching. It makes my brain hurt. I like to watch a variety of programs. Maybe I might watch JEOPARDY, then the news, then a drama. I may have watched three Dick Van Dyke episodes on a DVD once. FIVE? No way. Now my daughter can binge with police procedurals.