Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

The comeback hits, part the second

DeShannon love songs

Roberta Flack.Donny HathawaySome more comeback hits. This is when an artist, who’d had some success on the pop charts, regains that commercial stature. As before, I’m basing these on Billboard’s singles pop charts, because it’s fun!

If I Were A Carpenter – Bobby Darin. After a pair of Top 10 songs in 1963, including 18 Yellow Roses, he returned with this #8 hit in 1967.

Smoke On the Water – Deep Purple. Their 1st Top 30 song was Hush, #4 in 1968. This song, in 1973, also hit #4.

Put A Little Love In Your Heart – Jackie DeShannon. She had only two Top 30 songs, What The World Needs Now is Love, #7 in 1965, and this, #4 in 1969.

Abraham, Martin, and John – Dion. After a couple of #6 hits in 1963, including Drip Drop, he reached #4 in the pivotal year of 1968.

Not Ready To Make Nice – Dixie Chicks. Landslide reached #7 in early 2003. But that was before the Iraq war. This return reached #4 in 2007, long before they were redubbed The Chicks.

What A Fool Believes – The Doobie Brothers. Black Water was their first #1 in 1975. This one, in 1979, was their second, the first Top 20 since Takin’ It To the Streets, #13 in 1976.

Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door – Bob Dylan. This song from Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, #12 in 1973, was his first Top 20 since Lay Lady Lay, #7 in 1969.

F

The Closer I Get To You – Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. At #2, her biggest hit since her #1 Feel Like Makin’ Love in 1974. His only other Top 20 hit is their 1972 duet, Where Is the Love, which reached #5.

The Old Man Down The Road – John Fogerty. He wasn’t recording much for nearly a decade, in part because he sounded too much like that lead singer of Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Fogerty. This hit #10 in 1985.

I Want To Know What Love Is – Foreigner. They had a couple of Top 5 hits in 1981, including Urgent, with that Junior walker sax solo. But they only had one #1, in 1985, thanks to the New Jersey Mass Choir and Jennifer Holliday.

December 1963 – the Four Seasons. the group had five #1 hits. Rag Doll (194) was the fourth. This, in 1976 was the fifth. Other than Who Loves You (#3 in 1975), it was also their first Top 10 since C’mon Marianne, #9 in 1967.

In 1998, my office was having its holiday party in September (long story). We played a board game. One of the questions was to name songs featuring years, but you needed at least eight words of the lyrics. My response: “Oh what a night, late December back in ’63.”

Ain’t No Woman – Four Tops. Their first Top 5 (#4 in 1973) since Bernadette (#4 in 1967).

Spanish Harlem – Aretha Franklin. QoS had tons of “comebacks”, such as Freeway of Love (#3 in 1985). But I picked this earlier resurgence, #2 in 1971, her first Top 5 since Since You’ve Been Gone, #5 in 1968.

G/H

Sexual Healing – Marvin Gaye. this return to form involved a change of record labels, from Tamla/Motown to Columbia. The song hit #3 in 1983, his highest position since the #1 Got To Give It Up in 1977.

Kiss On My List – Daryl Hall and John Oates. #1 in 1981, their first chart-topper since Rich Girl in 1977.

Got My Mind Set On You – George Harrison. #1 in 1988. the first #1 since Give Me Love in 1973 and first Top Ten since All Those Years Ago, #2 in 1981.

The End Of The Innocence – Don Henley. #8 in 1989, his first Top 10 since All She Wants To Do Is Dance, #9 in 1985. (Live version here.)

Long Cool Woman – the Hollies. #2 in 1972, their first Top 5 since Bus Stop in 1966.

Leaving Afghanistan after two decades

“It’s hard to deny the evidence in front of you.” – General Mike Mullen

AfghanistanI wrote what I thought about the US leaving Afghanistan back in May. But if I noted what I felt about the country ENTERING the war, I don’t recall. I thought it was…inevitable. If it had been tied to the limited mission of capturing Bin Laden and his accomplices, that’d be “reasonable.”

Here’s the really weird thing about our totally unnecessary war in Iraq – which I’ve documented often in this blog – including here and here and here and a bunch of other places. When we entered the Iraq war, it was as though it slipped the collective minds that we were in Afghanistan.

I’m not just talking about the American people. The US government under W was sharing its assessment of its “success” in Iraq but saying relatively little about Afghanistan. Did they… forget?

Anyway, I was going to write something more about the end game in Afghanistan, but all I could find was a quote from the movie The Princess Bride: “You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is ‘never get involved in a land war in Asia.'”

And a quote that Mark Evanier cited: “A friend of mine spent several years in Afghanistan working as a doctor attached to the U.S. forces. He told me some pretty harrowing tales about his tour o’ duty here but the thing I remember most is when he said, ‘Staying there is a disaster. Leaving there would be a disaster. Nothing about the country is not a disaster.’ I think that’s proving to be the case.”

I agree with much of is linked to here, even when they occasionally contradict each other.

Linkage

Bloomberg: Why Both Russians and Americans Got Nowhere in Afghanistan. If you’re not going anywhere no matter what happens, or what price you’re forced to pay, you can outlast superpowers. (You may recall that the US and other Western countries boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980 because of the Soviet incursion.) On one of the news programs recently, a general suggested that American hubris was the reason the US thought it would succeed when the USSR failed.

Alan Singer in Daily Kos: “Nation Building” Fails in Afghanistan

Nation of Change: Why did a military superpower fail in Afghanistan? This external approach, based on military occupation, to promote democracy in occupied foreign countries was “doomed to fail.”

Daniel Larison: Biden’s Prudent Decision to Withdraw from Afghanistan. It doesn’t say much for our political culture that it takes far more political courage to end a pointless war than it does to start one.

Matthew Yglesias. Biden (and Trump) did the right thing on Afghanistan
The war was lost long ago — if it was ever winnable.

Fred Kaplan of Slate: Trump’s New Big Lie: Afghanistan. Biden has handled the withdrawal very badly. That doesn’t mean Trump would have done better.

Seth Meyers

The “liberal press”?

Weekly Sift: Afghanistan, Biden, and the Media. “What struck me about that discussion, though, was how one-sided it was. Even ordinarily liberal MSNBC shows, or newspaper outlets like the Times and the Post, were unified in their denunciation of the Biden administration and its plan to withdraw our troops. I haven’t seen that level of unanimity since the post-911 era, when the Iraq and Afghanistan wars started. A lot of bad ideas sneaked into the discussion around that time, and didn’t get criticized because there was no room for criticism.”

Fred Kaplan in Slate: A Top U.S. Military Officer Finally Admits He Was Wrong About Afghanistan

The Atlantic: What I Learned While Eavesdropping on the Taliban

Cartoon: Leaving Afghanistan.

Foreign Policy: Two Talibans Are Competing for Afghanistan. The gap between the group’s international leadership and its rank-and-file fighters has never been wider. (This is why the messaging about Taliban 2.0 seems inconsistent.)

Afar: The Organizations Aiding Afghans and How Americans Can Help

Lydster: looking at colleges

spreadsheet

College AheadBy the end of her junior year in high school, I wondered if my daughter was even interested in looking at colleges. And, I might add, it would have been OK if she weren’t.

Within 48 hours of the conclusion of the semester, she hauled out a bunch of catalogs, pamphlets, and other materials from the past six months or more. She had KEPT those? Her mother and I had thought that she had tossed them out. But what do WE know? We’re just parents.

She created a spreadsheet and soon had prioritized the colleges and universities into four categories. Some of the criteria were based on her understanding of the vitality of their art program. But diversity and other factors I don’t quite understand also played into it.

Having looked at the literature she received, I got a glimpse of what impressed her. For instance, one had a piece of glossy paper with her name; it’s a mail merge, but I’ll admit it was cool. A student from my wife’s alma mater wrote her a personal letter, noting my daughter’s interest in art; that was nice. But neither school was in her upper tier.

She also gets a TON of emails. Or more correctly, I got them and then forwarded them to her. Early on, she was understandably coy about putting her email out into the world. So most things came to MY email, and I’d forward it to her. Some were generally helpful in talking about financial aid, while others touted their institutions.

Only one school did she put on her do not forward list, and it was a school that tried to guilt her. It read like some political mail I’ve received. “Aren’t you interested…” and blah, blah, blah…

Roll up for the virtual tour

Several schools offered visits, some in person, others remotely.

Her first in-person visit, with her parents, was to a college within driving distance of Albany. I had conferred with an alum, an old friend of mine, who was less than enthused by his experience of a couple of decades ago. But the school seems to be a much different place now.

Actually, I was impressed. First, the head of admissions talked with us, a total of eight students and their parents, on a Saturday morning. Then two students lead two groups on a tour. Our student, in her final year, was personable, and specifically appreciated that I laughed at most of her jokes. But she didn’t get it when I told her my bill would be in the mail, though a nearby parent did.

My daughter also visited my alma mater with a friend of hers. She had originally pop-pooed that choice, probably because I went there. But her best friend Kay is interested, so they went together with Kay’s older brother.

I went on a virtual tour at a school with my daughter 1200 miles away. It was as fine as another ZOOM meeting can be.

Only one of her top-tier school choices concerns me, and it’s primarily because it’s one of those states with the most dramatic rise in COVID cases. So she’d be more than 1000 miles away if she were to get sick, although she’s fully vaccinated.

If this process is exhausting for ME, I imagine it’s laborious for her. I need some Tom Lehrer.

 

Going to the post office, quickly

cozy relationships

post officeWhen I read the story about Albany officials fighting to keep the New Scotland Avenue post office, I was slackjawed by the advice. “The U.S. Postal Service directed customers who normally used the Academy Station to the Fort Orange post office [at Central Avenue and Partridge Street], 2 miles away on Central Avenue…”

Well, I’ve gone to the Fort Orange station twice in the past couple of months, most recently last week. It’s almost exactly one mile from my home. Both times, the lines were out the door, with only five people allowed inside for COVID reasons. While there were two service windows, only one was staffed. I ended up bailing after 10 minutes.

Then, each time, I went to the post office downtown at 45 Hudson, between South Pearl and Broadway. No one was in line. Moreover, if there WERE people waiting, the room is constructed to allow more folks inside. It used to be busier. COVID closed down businesses, and, more importantly, state workers were often working from home.

And it’s very close – about a tenth of a mile – from the Greyhound bus station. Most of the CDTA buses start/end there, so if you don’t have a car, and/or if you are as impatient as I am, it’s not as onerous as you might think.

This example is specific to Albany, but I gather that this sort of nonsense is happening all over the country. How’s the service where you live?

Louis DeJoy, still

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is still in charge of the USPS. His really awful plan to “save” the Postal Service by slowing down deliveries and hiking postage prices—including special price gouging specifically for holiday deliveries is onerous to those

DeJoy was corrupt from the jump. He’d have one believe that his $600,000+ donation to the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee in the time between the Postmaster-General vacancy and his appointment had absolutely nothing to do with his getting the job.

The Washington Post reports that from last fall until April, “DeJoy purchased 11 bonds from Brookfield Asset Management each worth between $1,000 and $15,000, or $15,000 and $50,000, according to DeJoy’s financial disclosure paperwork.” Ron Bloom just happens to be “a Brookfield senior executive who manages the firm’s private equity division.” And also the chair of the Board of Governors that determines DeJoy’s tenure.

DeJoy’s relationship with XPO Logistics is in question. It is getting a $120 million contract from the Postal Service over the next five years. DeJoy and his family foundation “have divested somewhere between $65 million and $156 million in XPO shares, according to filings and tax documents. But his family businesses still have ties to XPO in the form of four office buildings in North Carolina that they lease to the company. That’s where DeJoy will get those millions, in the form of lease payments.”

But the President cannot remove him, only the Board of Governors can, and they’e largely insulated as well. Postmasters General Benjamin Franklin, the first appointed by the Continental Congress, and Samuel Osgood, appointed by George Washington, would be appalled.

Music collection of my father-in-law

bluegrass, big band, Ernest Tubb

singingAs I’ve noted, my father-in-law, Richard Powell, died on April 22, 2020. we had the funeral a mere 13 months later.

Then we had the task of getting my mother-in-law packed to move to a smaller place. This involved my wife making 70-mile trips, each way, approximately every other weekend to get my MIL prepared. One weekend in June my daughter and I joined them.

I was specifically tasked to go through my FIL’s music collection. He had hundreds of CDs. A lot of them were classical. Most of them I packed up to be sold or given away. But a few – OK, about 100 – I took. Oh, not all for me. My wife’s friend is getting some music from Scotland.

One of his granddaughters is getting some tunes from the Great American Songbook, songs composed by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, et al. One collection contains albums given by Richard’s late son John (d. 2002) to the late Alice Truman, a family friend. So maybe some of my FIL’s collection was inherited.

In any case, I kept quite a few of his CDs, and a lot of them were country artists. Ernest Tubb, Willie Nelson, and more Johnny Cash than I probably need, including one compilation that had never been opened. A few bluegrass compilations. My first albums of Gene Autry and Jimmy Durante.

Lots of classical music. A three-CD set of marches, and not all Sousa. Other themed albums: the music of the flute or trumpet or oboe, et al. Favorite overtures.

I had to limit the number of big band artists I took because there were a lot. Some were musicians I had: Basie, Ellington, Goodman. But quite a few I did not: Fletcher Henderson, Erskine Hawkins, Jimmie Lundsford, Chick Webb.

Two things

There are a couple of things that I found interesting. Many of the items in the collection were used, and/or deeply discounted items. That would be in keeping with his frugal nature, and, knowing my FIL, was understandable.

What I find strange, though, is that I don’t particularly associate him with listening to a lot of music at all. He may have played it in his garage, working on his old cars, but it’s not something I remember hearing a lot in the house, especially in his last residence. Maybe he was enjoying them while driving.

You can tell a lot about a person by the music they own.

Ramblin' with Roger
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