Roger O Green

22 years: Negotiations and love songs

taxes could have been the death of us

I highly suspect that we’ve managed to stay married 22 years because of Negotiations and Love Songs. It includes a division of turf.

When we’re on ZOOM at an event, we are generally at separate devices. This is a function of having very different computer habits involving when to mute et al. It is also that we often see couples on the same screen and we sometimes have difficulty hearing one or both of them.

Conversely, when we’re watching our Sunday church service on Facebook Live, we generally sit together. This allows us the opportunity to worship together. Back in the olden days – March 2020 and before – she’d be in the congregation, but I would be in the choir loft.

She has bank accounts, as do I. Then we have joint accounts. I certainly don’t fault couples who operate otherwise, but this works for us. I pay for the mortgage, utilities, Internet. She buys groceries, pays for the vehicle, and makes the church contribution.

Some couples share email, but we never could. I may still have a lot of it to go through, but I’ve read them all. She often has stuff unread; we’re talking four digits.

This brings us to taxes. Before we were married, I usually filed a 1040A or even a 1040-RZ (as in easy). I never itemized my deductions. This was codified by a philosophy of a radical Catholic couple I know. The general theory is that you give not for the deduction but because it’s right. The fact that it was EZ was a bonus.

But my wife, who owned rental property before, and when we were first married, filled out a Schedule C. So she’s always done the long-form taxes.

Last year of the century

I remember quite vividly the spring of 2000 since we had gotten married the year before. Not only we filling out the 1040 form, me for the first time, but we had also received a decennial long-form Census and were completing that as well. I will say that the Census info was extremely accurate.

But doing the taxes was causing us… stress, every year. This was particularly true when we must have done something wrong a couple of times and ended up paying penalty and interest. So we ended up hiring someone.

One time, the accountants ALSO got something wrong, and we had to pay more, but they absorbed the penalty and interest. I figured if they’re professionals and muck it up, how should I know? I know there’s TurboTax and the like, but trust me, this is one of those expenses designed to preserve the union.

This year, she asked me which amount goes on the work form for my Social Security, the amount before or after the Medicate expenditure? I don’t know. This suggests the gross before Medicare comes out. But does the Medicare payment and other medical expenses reach the 7.5% threshold for deductibility? (I fell asleep while typing the previous sentence.)

So, as the Paul Simon compilation title goes, Negotiations and Love Songs. Happy anniversary, dear.

Singer Lloyd Price (1933-2021)

Mr. Personality

It wasn’t until I was watching CBS Sunday Morning on May 9 that I heard about the death of Lloyd Price six days earlier. He was a rhythm and blues star and an early rock influence.

Lloyd was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Of the “rock and roll pioneer,” the site noted that he propelled “his own music career and [broke] down doors for Little Richard and Elvis Presley to deliver rock and roll to millions of fans.

“As an entertainment industry entrepreneur, [he] wrote smash hits, launched and owned clubs and record labels, and promoted concerts and sporting events. His talent, positive energy, tireless drive, and love of music still reverberate to this day.”

Lawdy Miss Clawdy, #1 RB for seven weeks in 1952 – a groundbreaking cut that I recall, even though it came out before I was born
Oooh-Oooh-Oooh, #4 RB in 1952, he had several massive hits on the black charts that did not cross over in those pre-rock days
Restless Heart, #5 RB in 1952
Ain’t It A Shame, #4 RB in 1953
Tell Me Pretty Baby, #8 RB in 1953 – a real New Orleans feel

After a stint in Korea for the US Army

Just Because, #3 RB for two weeks, #29 pop in 1957
Stagger Lee, #1 for four weeks both RB and pop in 1959. From PBS: “‘American Bandstand’ host Dick Clark worried the song was too violent for his teen-centered show and pressed Price to revise it: For ‘Bandstand’ watchers and some future listeners, Stagger Lee and Billy peacefully resolve their dispute.”

Where Were You (On Our Wedding Day), #4 RB, #23 pop in 1959
Personality, #1 RB for four weeks, #2 for three weeks pop in 1959. This hit, plus his affable nature, led to his nickname, “Mr. Personality.”
I’m Gonna Get Married, #1 RB for three weeks, #3 for two weeks pop in 1959
Come Into My Heart, #2 RB for three weeks, #20 pop in 1959

Wont’cha Come Home, #6 RB, #43 pop in 1960
Lady Luck, #3 RB for three weeks, #14 pop in 1960
Question, #5 RB, #19 pop in 1960
Misty, #11 RB, #21 pop in 1963. The standard.

More music

Lloyd Price “found his way into other professions through a wide range of friends and acquittances. He… along with boxing promoter Don King, helped stage the 1973 ‘Thrilla in Manila’ between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali and the 1974 ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ championship fight between Ali and George Foreman. He was also a home builder, a booking agent, an excellent bowler, and the creator of a line of food products.”

Cleaning out the email closet

advocate reform

I’d been doing it all wrong. In cleaning out the email, I usually would get rid of the recent stuff I no longer needed: a ZOOM meeting link, a notice of delivery I now had received, or some other action item either completed or rendered moot.

But I hadn’t gone back to the oldest stuff. It’s been a much more profitable process. Deleting passwords for defunct websites, work-related material I no longer need.

In June 2009, my friend Dan wrote to me. “I’m currently reading a book called Misquoting Jesus, a readable explanation of the textual inconsistencies of the New Testament. The author is Bart D. Ehrman, who explains in the introduction that he was born and raised a hard-core Midwest Fundy.

“But after he grew up and became a scholar of biblical textual criticism he abandoned the notion of Biblical literalism, simply because he realized that it is completely impossible to know the original text.” It sounded interesting enough that I thought I might pick up, but I haven’t yet.

Dan noted, “If speaking in tongues is referred to in Acts, then it is a tradition that was grafted on to Christianity, like Xmas trees. There really is no textual basis for speaking in tongues, unless one considers Paul of greater importance than the guy from Nazareth.”

It’s such a consequential and controversial book that there have been whole tomes written to refute it, such as Misreprenting Jesus by Edward Andrews, and Misquoting Truth by Timothy Paul Jones.

Not political

Pat from Binghamton a friend of mine who died a couple of years ago, included this message:

In the sacred bonds of our common humanity, we give thanks for the life that we share and for our calling to care for each other. We acknowledge that we have failed to care for every member of our human family, and have not ensured that all may receive the healthcare they need for the life that YOU intend!

Strengthen us to use our hearts, hands, and voices to raise our vision for a healthcare future that includes everyone and works well for all of us

Gracious God, we remember that your plan for us is fullness of life, lived with love, mercy, and justice

Assist our leaders in Congress, our President, and all of us as citizens to advocate reform that will be fair for everyone.

Chief Tuffey

A senior at SUNY Albany was doing a story on then Albany police chief Tuffey. How/why she was writing to ME, I now have no idea. I have no recollection of this exchange, BTW.

What exactly did Tuffey mean by using the term spook? What was he indicating?

I don’t know Chief Tuffey. I don’t know what HE meant. But many of the white people of his generation who use it mean either a black person generally or a lazy and/or shiftless black person.

What do you think made him say this?

Not being a mind reader, I don’t know. In the context of the reporting, I think he was trying to say that [Richard Bailey] the young white man (and son of a cop!) is a priority. Black victims, poor victims happen all the time, but Bailey was special.

At the same time, the murder also took place in an “unlikely” neighborhood, and perhaps he feared an unsolved murder not in the South End or Arbor/West Hill would be a signal to the public about the safety of Albany generally.

Ramifications

How will this affect the African-American community? Could they possibly retaliate in some way?

I wouldn’t speak for the black community, but I think Tuffey’s departure makes retaliation unlikely. I’d be curious, though, if it will affect the primary next Tuesday between Tuffey’s prime supporter and a black man; unless there are exit polls (exit polls in a city primary?), we won’t know if the Tuffey issue resonated with voters.

Do you think Tuffey’s recent retirement has anything to do with this?

Yes, and the clear support that the idea of getting rid of him seemed to have had within the police rank-and-file, not only over this incident but that embarrassing “can he carry a gun?” issue in the last year, seems to bear this out. This recent incident was the final straw, not the singular cause.

Nope, don’t remember

Wow. I now have blocked Tuffey, and the incident, from my mind, possibly because Albany has had three (?) police chiefs since then. BTW, Tuffey died in 2019.

This is fun. At this rate, I should have my email box totally clear by 2027.

Movie review: Mank (as in Herman)

Herman Mankiewicz

The first movie I saw in an actual cinema was Mank. I viewed it at Landmark’s Spectrum 8 in Albany the Thursday before the Oscars. Only some of the seats were available, for COVID reasons. I’ve been vaccinated so I was feeling reasonably comfortable.

I had been looking forward to seeing this film since Ben Mankiewicz, a host on Turner Classic Movies, talked about it several months earlier on CBS Sunday Morning.

Ben’s interest was not just cinematic, though. He is a grandson of the topic of the film, Herman Mankiewicz, a noted writer for newspapers and magazines, who famously may have co-written as many as 40 films.

The movie is about “1930’s Hollywood is reevaluated through the eyes of scathing social critic and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) as he races to finish the screenplay of Citizen Kane (1941),” the only movie for which he was, with Welles, actually credited with writing.

Didn’t love it

This was a story I knew something about. Mank’s peculiar platonic relationship with actress Marion Davies (a very good Amanda Seyfried), who was the paramour of William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance). Mank’s long-suffering wife Sara (Tuppence Middleton) explains why she stays with her husband: “It’s never boring.”

But despite the cool black and white details, I found the narrative frustratingly jumbled. The review in Jacobin magazine addresses much of it. “The ‘Mank’ story hardly needs embellishment, but the Finchers, father, and son, give it plenty anyway. There are about fifty published posts out there that explain which parts of Mank are factual and which are made up.”

“The dinner party scene is a garbled mess, though [director David] Fincher seems to have lavished elaborate care upon it.” It’s set up as Important but it felt oddly flat.

“The way it’s filmed is so blandly unmemorable, it would’ve done much to undercut it. The film’s lax flashback structure from Mankiewicz’s point-of-view seems to be in contrast to Citizen Kane’s dynamic flashback structure from multiple, contradictory points of view.” While the chronology was noted throughout, the need for jumping back and forth in time was lost on me.

Or maybe I just missed it

Think Christian suggests that in the “Oscar-nominated film, Gary Oldman plays a truth-teller in a gadfly’s clothing.” So “Mank repeatedly lampoons the latent hypocrisy and brutal inhumanity of Hollywood’s dream machine. In doing so, this self-described ‘washed-up’ screenwriter impishly reminds viewers that, flaws and all, great prophets (and artists) courageously speak truth to power.”

For instance, “Mank witnesses Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard) earnestly plead with his MGM employees to accept a fifty-percent pay cut so the studio may survive the Great Depression intact… Knowing Mayer’s self-serving nature and deep pockets, Mank sardonically observes, ‘Not even the most disgraceful thing I have ever seen.’” But he doesn’t say this to Mayer, so…

Still, “whereas Mayer feigns caring but lives indifference, Mank takes the opposite path.” Mank’s transcriber Rita Alexander (Lily Collins) works with him on the Kane script as he recovers from a car accident.

“When asked [by Rita] to defend her loyalty to her alcoholic and antisocial patient, Mank’s German caregiver, Fraulein Freda (Monika Gossmann), reveals that he secretly donated the funds necessary to save 100 Jewish residents in her village from Nazis. Confronted with his altruism, Mank replies, ‘Dear Freda. What’s German for blabbermouth?’

Perhaps all of the goodness of the movie is there somewhere. The critics gave it an 83% positive review, though only 60% of the general audience agreed. Or maybe I wanted to like my first cinematic experience in 14 months too much. Having finally seen all of the nominated films for Best Picture this season, Mank might be my least favorite; ah, well.

“So many blacks in ads” redux

change

Way back in May 2017, a local blogger named Frank wrote about “Why so many blacks in ads?” I signed up for the comments to his post, and they were numerous. And usually awful. I wrote a reply piece, which generated some bigoted responses.

But not nearly as many as the original post did. And DOES. More than a dozen in 2021 alone. One Anonymous respondent posted: “Did you ever imagine you would create a hate magnet? I’m not saying you are a hater. You asked a reasonable question. But very few replies even attempt to answer the question. They just come here to post hate.”

Another one wrote: “Oh yeah, I am going to print this to a .PDF file and start distributing it on-line every week to the major White Supremacist web sites. Don’t worry, you’ll get full credit. You can try to block me, but as long as this is up I’ll use it. Thanks in advance. Did you realize that there is 137 pages of this racist gold?”

To which, the blogger replied: “Yes, Anonymous, I was trying to seriously discuss an actual question, and was stunned at the volume of comments — far more than on any of my other 1000+ blog posts in 12+ years — with practically all the comments embodying the crudest of race hate. What gets me is how these people actually think they represent a ‘superior’ race when their comments prove they themselves are the inferior ones.

Backlash of fear

I should note that I know Frank in passing and I do believe he was asking an honest question. Even at the time, I thought the query was naive, and that the responses would reflect the venom that exists out there. Still, it has been instructive, sometimes painfully so.

But I think that the premise of the question is fuzzy. There are data on Statista. “During a June 2020 survey conducted among adults in the United States, it was found that 17 percent of responding Hispanics said that they never saw anybody who represented their racial or ethnic background in advertising. The same was true for 10 percent of White and African American survey participants.”

Assuming the accuracy of the perception, it seems that some people are seeing a demographic eclipse. A majority is becoming a minority. And “the fundamental dividing line… is between those who welcome and those who fear the way America is changing.”

I understand that change can be scary, difficult, annoying. Negotiating change feels treacherous, especially if you’re on social media. But it can also be therapeutic. I’ve noticed that in my own circle of friends and churchmates, there are a lot of “aha!” moments. The things they didn’t understand or had never heard of.

I remain cautiously optimistic about the human condition, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.