Roger O Green

Sunday Stealing — Spill It!

JEOPARDY!

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

This week is less a steal than a cheat. These are AI-generated responses to the request: “What should I ask to get a stranger to open up?”

Spill It!

1. If money wasn’t an issue, would you move to a new home?

I hate moving. I’ve moved north of 30 times in the last three scores and ten plus years. You know, I hate moving. I grew up in the first house I lived in for about 18 years. Now, I’ve been here in this house for a quarter of a century. I hate moving, going through, and getting rid of stuff. There will probably be a point in my life where I’ll have to move, and I will hate it. I suppose I should mention the fact that I hate moving.

2. Do you listen to different music when you’re happy than when you’re sad?

I have had some depressing music I would play when I was sad, but in general, I play what’s in the queue, tied to either some artists’ birthdays or Irish music around Saint Patrick’s Day, movie soundtracks the month of the Oscars, original soundtracks around the time of the Tonys in June, et al.

3. What’s your favorite way to unwind after a tough day?

Reading a book, a magazine, or a newspaper in a very comfortable chair, preferably with something to keep my legs up on.

4. What’s the first book you remember from childhood?

Play The Game, which I mentioned here.

Charisma

5. What made you smile today?

The picture above. This requires some context. I taped a couple of segments of JEOPARDY in Boston in mid-September 1998. Since it was relatively close by, WTEN-TV (Channel 10) in Albany, which airs the show, had sent a crew to the taping at the Wang Theater, much to my surprise.

From here: “When [WTEN’s] Bianca de la Garza had interviewed me before the show, I noted that just passing the test didn’t guarantee being on the show. So here’s the Bianca voiceover: ‘He had to have something else.’ Roger, talking: ‘It must be charisma, I don’t know.’ (I laugh.)

“Charisma. Apparently, enough people saw this [which aired in the days before the show aired on November 9] to make this the running joke in the office, not for a couple of days, or a few months, but for four or five YEARS, especially from Jinshui.”

So, somebody gave me this picture. It was buried with some other artwork in my house before my annual hearts game in March, but since then, it’s been sitting on my bookshelf in my office, not far from my desk.

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

#1 Hot Country Singles for 1965

Eddy Arnold, Sonny James, Jim Reeves

Here are the #1 Hot Country Singles for 1965. While I only owned one of the songs on this list – Roger Miller, naturally – I always had a great affection for Buck Owens. I liked to watch him on TV long before he was on Hee Haw. It’s partly a function of the fact that he was on Capitol Records, and I got to read the song list of his albums from the record sleeves of my Beatles albums. I loved that Bakersfield sound.

Before You Go (Don Rich-Buck Owens)- Buck Owens (Capitol), six weeks at #1

I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail (Harlan Howard-Buck Owens)- Buck Owens (Capitol), five weeks at #1

King Of The Road (Miller)- Roger Miller (Smash), five weeks at #1

You’re The Only World I Know (Bob Tubert-Sonny James) – Sonny James, “the Southern Gentleman” (Capitol) four weeks at #1

Is It Really Over (Reeves)- Jim Reeves (RCA Victor), three weeks at #1.

Hello Vietnam (Tom T. Hall)- Johnny Wright [with his his wife Kitty Wells] (Decca), three weeks at #1

Make The World Go Away (Hank Cochran) – Eddy Arnold (RCA Victor), three weeks at #1. Other than King Of The Road, the song I best remember from this list.

This Is It – Jim Reeves (RCA Victor), three weeks at #1

Behind The Tear (Ned Miller and Sue Miller) – Sonny James, three weeks at #1

Girl On The Billboard (H. Mills-W. Haynes) – Del Reeves (United Artists), two weeks at #1

What’s He Doing In My World (Carl Belew, Billy Joe Moore, Eddie Bush) -Eddy Arnold (RCA Victor), two weeks at #1

The guy hawking breakfast sausages

The First Thing Ev’ry Morning (And The Last Thing Ev’ry Night) (J. Dean-R. Roberts)- Jimmy Dean (Columbia), two weeks at #1

Yes, Mr. Peters – Roy Drusky and Priscilla Mitchell (Mercury), two weeks at #1

May The Bird Of Paradise Fly Up Yur Nose (N. Merritt)=”Little” Jimmy Dickens (Columbia), two weeks at #1

Buckeroo (Bob Morris)- Buck Owens and his Buckeroos (Capitol), two weeks at #1. Instrumental

Ribbon Of Darkness (Gordon Lightfoot)- Marty Robbins (Columbia). I got my first Marty Robbins album, The Essential Robbins, 1951-1982, from my late FIL’s CD collection

The Bridge Washed Out -Warner Mack (Decca)

Only You Can Break My Heart (Owens)- Buck Owens and his Buckeroos (Capitol)

A week in the life for July 2025

money for college

Here’s a week in the life for July 2025. Some were referred to before the fact here. The last time was not.

Friday, July 4: Lavada Nahon, culinary historian and interpreter of African American history with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation, spoke at the Underground Railroad Education Center, 194 Livingston Avenue in Albany. “She has a wealth of experience interpreting the lives of free and enslaved African Americans across the mid-Atlantic region, with an emphasis on the work of enslaved cooks in the homes of the elite class.”

She spoke powerfully about New York State’s Investment in the Institution of Enslavement and Its Legacy Today. Northerners seem to buy the myth that slavery was only a Southern thing, but enslavement existed in New York State until 1827. Frederick Douglass’s famous What To The Slave Is the Fourth of July in 1852 was only a quarter century later.

(Sidebar: I need to write about one of my ancestors who may have been enslaved in New York before 1810, just north of New York City, per the Northeast Slavery Records Index (NESRI), a “searchable compilation of records that identify individual enslaved persons and enslavers in the states of New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey.)

Also, my church had raised $10,000 for the planned UREC Interpretive Center. The proposed Center has taken a hit with money allocated by the IMLS suddenly terminated.

Songs of Freedom

Sunday, July 6: My family had never been to Hudson Crossing Park in Schuylerville, about 45 minutes north of Albany. As a part of the buildup to the Albany Symphony concert that evening, the UREC singers performed Songs of Freedom at the Pavilion. I didn’t mention that I was one of the singers; my wife was also recruited. Some of us had rehearsed a week before.

Some songs were from George Washington Clark’s The Liberty Minstrel, a “collection of songs and poetry written in the mid-19th century addressing the themes of slavery and the yearning for freedom.” It seemed to have been well received.

But it was really hot and muggy, and my family left before the ASO performance.

Frederick Douglass

Tuesday, July 8: Jack Hanrahan discussed his history/travel book, Traveling Freedom’s Road: Frederick Douglass in Maryland at the 161 Washington Avenue branch of the Albany Public Library. He was very informative and engaging.

Jack also described his 2022 book, Traveling Freedom’s Road: A Guide to Exploring Our Civil Rights History. “In 2018, [he] and his wife Lisa took a lengthy car trip to the South. They visited big cities and small towns where civil rights history was made decades ago. The trip changed them.” While initially focusing on several Southern States, he expanded the book to most of the country.

He’s now working on books about Frederick Douglass in New England, and in New York in the next two years.

Money for college

Wednesday July 9th: My wife and daughter, with my input, have been working on a letter to send to our daughter’s college. The college has offered us far less for this upcoming semester than what they had given us in previous years.

They believe that we are lot more well off. That’s in part because I had taken out several thousand dollars from my retirement 401K to help finance my daughter’s semester abroad to the University of Cape Town, South Africa. This shows up as income on an IRS statement, but in fact I am merely taking money from my extant resource.

The appeals process trying to convey this messsage mechanically involved making a bunch of PDFs and then trying to upload it to the college. It didn’t “take” on Monday, so this was a redo.

Unfortunately, the computers of my wife and daughter are lacking upload capabilities. So they had to purloin my computer for several hours over the two days. My own machine also has upload limitations – I can’t upload Windows 11, which I need to do before October – but I had enough capacity so they could eventually get those documents to the college.

We hope that our appeal is successful, but we do have a Hail Mary Plan B.

Weird random thing

In the past week, two strangers, separately, walked up to me and said how much they like my sunglasses. They fit over my regular glasses. I have had prescription sunglasses, but they’ve never worked for me, even the ones that change. for a few minutes, they are too dark when I walk indoors and not dark enough when I go outdoors.

These sunglasses I bought for three bucks at Lodge’s, a downtown department store founded around the end of the Civil War. I should see if they have more.

Slippery network affiliation

WBJA

Slippery Network Affiliation is essentially a repost from twenty years ago. I wrote about Gilmore Girls, then a favorite show of my wife and myself. The television coverage is no longer the same in northern New York. I’m fascinated that this was the first long post on this blog.

I had set the VCR to tape at home. But I neglected to tell my wife that she needed to put in a FRESH (just like the WB!) tape, and the incumbent tape ran out of space about 20 minutes into the show! (I would have changed it, except I was out of town.)

Since I was still in Lake Placid on Tuesday, I went to my room after the SBDC awards banquet at about 10 p.m., turned on the TV, flipped through the channels, and came across a Gilmore Girls episode. Initially, I assumed it was a rerun broadcast on ABC Family cable, but it soon became evident that it was THAT NIGHT’S episode, which I watched.

But why was it on at 10 p.m.? Was there some (amazingly rare) Presidential news conference or major catastrophe that backed up the programming?

Nah.

There is no WB affiliate in the Plattsburgh, NY/Burlington, VT television market, so WFFF in Burlington (actually Colchester), FOX 44, broadcasts the 8-10 pm WB shows from 10 pm to midnight!

Big city TV

Those of you in large markets may not appreciate this fully. When I was a kid, there were seven stations in New York City: 2 (CBS), 4 (NBC), 7 (ABC), 13 (PBS), and 5, 9, and 11 (all independents). Eventually, 5 became a Fox affiliate, 11 became the WB’s outlet, and 9 went with UPN (and moved to New Jersey).

(Incidentally, this numbering is why most fictional TV stations in those days were 3, 6, 8, or 12, the remaining numbers on the VHF dial, or some upper number on the UHF dial, Channels 14-83. WJM, Channel 12, Minneapolis, is most notable on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. And if you don’t know what the heck I mean by VHF and UHF, look here.)

Small town TV

But in a smaller market, such as Binghamton, NY, where I grew up (and at a time when there were only the three “major” networks), there were only two stations, WNBF, Channel 12 (CBS), and WINR, Channel 40 (NBC).

Then, one Saturday morning in the fall of 1962, I turned on the TV just before 7 a.m. to Channel 34. Where there was nothing, suddenly we had a third station! It was WBJA, an ABC affiliate. My TV viewing choices had just increased by 50%!

I didn’t realize until later that Channel 12 (and perhaps Channel 40) was broadcasting some ABC programming before Channel 34 came on the scene. Lawrence Welk, an ABC program, was showing on Channel 12 on Saturday nights at 6 or 6:30 pm. I recall that other ABC shows such as Bachelor Father, The Flintstones, Hawaiian Eye, Leave It to Beaver, Ozzie & Harriet, The Real McCoys, and Top Cat would show up on the schedule, often on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, outside of prime time (which was usually 7:30-11 pm in those days.) I remember these shows quite clearly; most were off the schedule by the fall of 1962. I must have seen them SOMEWHERE. Cable didn’t exist, and I didn’t go to New York City that often.

Subsequently, I learned that some stations would swap in a popular show on their secondary affiliation, dump the primary affiliate’s show, or relegate it to an off-peak time slot.

Shows broadcast by one network appearing on the affiliate of another network were common in most small markets from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s, when there was a fourth network, Dumont.

You big-market folks don’t understand the confusion!¦

Best Movies of the Century (NYT)

Man of Constant Sorrow

Dan at Now I Know pointed to The Best Movies of the Century, According to the New York Times, and even provided a gift link.

“Between streaming services and superhero blockbusters, the way we watch and think about movies has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. But through that period of upheaval, which films have truly stood the test of time?

“To find out, we embarked on an ambitious new project, polling more than 500 filmmakers, stars, and influential film fans to vote for the 10 best movies (however they chose to define that) released since Jan. 1, 2000. In collaboration with The Upshot, we compiled their responses to create a list of the 100 best movies of the 21st century.”

First off, I did a list like this from a BBC list in 2016, and while there are some similarities, there were significant divergences as well.

Second, I’m not litigating the fact that 2000 is in the 20th century, not the 21st. The BBC used the same criterion.

If I saw it and wrote about it, I will link to that post.

I will note movies I have NOT seen this way:

DK—I don’t know this film and have never heard of it before, except if it was listed in previous lists.

WS- I’m familiar with the film and would have seen it, but it fell through the cracks, usually during the Oscar rush to see movies in December through February.

FF – There was a fear factor that it would be too violent or otherwise upsetting to watch.

We begin

100 Superbad, Greg Mottola, 2007. WS – maybe it was the marketing that made it feel too frivolous

99 Memories of Murder, Bong Joon Ho, 2005. DK

98 Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog, 2005. WS

97 Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón, 2013. I liked it.

96 Black Panther, Ryan Coogler, 2018. Not only did I love it when I saw it, but I adored it even more when I learned about Afrofuturism

95 The Worst Person In The World, Joachim Trier, 2021. I liked. And she isn’t.

94 Minority Report, Steven Spielberg, 2002. WS

93 Michael Clayton, Tony Gilroy, 2007. WS

92 Gladiator, Ridley Scott, 2000. I just wasn’t that interested.

91 Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold, 2010. DK

90 Frances Ha, Noah Baumbach, 2013. WS

89 Interstellar, Christopher Nolan, 2014. I wrote: ” I thought the third hour was better paced and more interesting than the second, which could have used a 10-minute edit. Bottom line: I’m glad I saw it, I wouldn’t watch it again, and I’m unsure whether to recommend it.”

88 The Gleaners & I, Agnès Varda, 2001. DK. BTW, #99 on the BBC list

Tolkien

87 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Peter Jackson, 2001. I wrote, “I’ve watched…only the first Lord of the Rings movie, and the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie; call me an incompletist.” They were fine, but not enough to see the sequels. At the time (2012), I had only seen one Harry Potter movie, but since then, I’d seen them all.

86 Past Lives, Celine Song, 2023. I liked it

85 Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Adam McKay, 2004. WS. I think at the time, I wrote it off as silly, based on the trailers.

84 Melancholia, Lars von Trier, 2011. WS. I was disappointed to miss the story about a rogue planet about to collide with Earth, and how that affects people

83 Inside Llewyn Davis, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, 2013. I got the soundtrack before I saw the movie, which I liked in part.

82 The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer and Anonymous, 2013. WS/FF. It is fascinating and scary to see the “incredible capacity of the human mind to compartmentalize and rationalize monstrous acts of cruelty toward other people.”

81 Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky, 2010. WS – Given my wife’s interest in dance, I don’t know how we missed this.

80 Volver, Pedro Almodóvar, 2006. It was good; “Almodovar tends to luxuriate over certain parts of the female body on occasion…”

79 The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick, 2011. WS, though I was grasping at what it was supposed to be: it “tries to wrap its arms around all of creation”?

78 Aftersun, Charlotte Wells, 2022. WS

Weird stuff

77 Everything Everywhere All At Once, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, 2022. I’m convinced this is MUCH better in the cinema.

76 O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, 2000. WS. I have, and LOVE the soundtrack. I did see a chunk of this movie on broadcast television, but not enough to say I WATCHED it. The scene with Man Of Constant Sorrow is a hoot.

75 Amour, Michael Haneke, 2012. Excellent, but somewhat depressing look at aging.

74 The Florida Project, Sean Baker, 2017. Excellent. NOT Disney World.

73 Ratatouille, Brad Bird, 2007. Rodent making food should not work, yet it does.

72 Carol, Todd Haynes, 2015. A good girl-meets-girl in 1950s NYC film.

71 Ocean’s Eleven, Steven Soderbergh, 2001. It just didn’t catch my interest, although I eventually saw Ocean’s Eight and now want to know its origin.

70 Let the Right One In, Tomas Alfredson, 2008. DK

69 Under the Skin, Jonathan Glazer, 2014. DK and it’s a ScarJo film.

Why I go to the movies

68 The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow, 2009. I wrote here about how I had the Netflix DVD for four months and never watched it.

67 Tár, Todd Field, 2022. Good, but very internal.

66 Spotlight, Tom McCarthy, 2015. Journalism! Those were the days.

65 Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan, 2023

64 Gone Girl, David Fincher, 2014. I DID see this on broadcast TV. It was pretty good.

63 Little Miss Sunshine, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, 2006. I liked it a lot.

62 Memento, Christopher Nolan, 2001. WS

61 Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Quentin Tarantino, 2003. FF: ” Never before have shootings, stabbings, beatings, beheadings, disembowelings, amputations, mutilations, gougings, slicings, choppings, and bitings been so much campy fun.” Doesn’t sound like fun.

I’ve got blisters on my fingers!

60 Whiplash, Damien Chazelle, 2014. Good but exhausting.

59 Toni Erdmann, Maren Ade, 2016. DK

58 Uncut Gems, Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie, 2019. WS

57 Best in Show, Christopher Guest, 2000. I love the Christopher Guest films.

56 Punch-Drunk Love, Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002. I recall liking it. It’s shocking since it stars Adam Sandler.

55 Inception, Christopher Nolan, 2010. WS

54 Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro, 2006. WS/FF – I was on the fence.

53 Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Larry Charles, 2006. I just wasn’t into it. Yet I saw the sequel.

52 The Favourite, Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018. “My wife mused that it was a movie for which we were somehow not privy to the code. “

51 12 Years a Slave, Steve McQueen, 2013. FF. Several people told me I should watch this movie. It was an important film, and Solomon Northup lived in my metro area. Nope.

Okay, this is long enough. I’ll finish it next week.