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.

Trinity A.M.E. Zion Church, Binghamton

telethons

cropped-Roger.singing.TrinityAMEZ.BNG_.jpg
O Come, All Ye Faithful. December 1959

For my request to  Ask Roger Anything, Carla, my friend from the high school choir asks:

Write more about your early memories of your church and school and your family!! I love those stories.

My, that’s tough. There are SO many tales. OK. I was baptized at my church, Trinity A.M.E. Zion Church in downtown Binghamton, NY in August 1953. No, I don’t remember this.

But my church moved when I was a kid to the corner of Oak and Lydia Streets. I took a search on Newspapers.com. “Bishop Walls…senior bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, will rededicate the former Plymouth Methodist Church as the new church edifice of Trinity.” This was in a story in the 8 June 1957 edition of the Binghamton Press. I vaguely remember him. 

It’s fascinating the detail given not just in this story, but all of the religious goings-on in the area. “The present Trinity Church at 35 Sherman Place recently was purchased by St. Mary’s Assumption Church as part of a site as a planned recreational center.”

Ultimately, Columbus Park was built on that site, right across the street from the Interracial Center at 45 Carroll St, where my father Les would often volunteer. Not incidentally, the park has been informally renamed for Assata Shakur.

One-tenth of a mile

The new church location was two really short blocks from our house at 5 Gaines Street. And we’d cut through the parking lot at Gaines and Oak, making the trip even faster. So we really were at church all of the time. I participated in the children’s choir, directed by Fred Goodall, who seemed to be there forever.

WNBF-TV, Channel 12 (now WBNG) used to have telethons. It was either the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon on Labor Day weekend or the March of Dimes or maybe both. In any case, our choir appeared on the station more than once. In fact, between those appearances and being on the kids’ shows, I was on local TV at least a half dozen times.

My paternal grandmother Agatha – emphasis on the second syllable, not the first – was my Sunday school teacher. She and her husband McKinley also lived upstairs from us at 5 Gaines Street. So I saw her a lot, often playing canasta at her kitchen table, until she died in May 1964. She was the first person I knew and loved who passed away.

My father Les would run off the bulletin on that mimeograph machine. I can still recollect in my mind’s nostrils that specific smell. Besides singing in the senior choir, dad also began directing the youth choir he dubbed the MAZET singers, based on the initials of the church, It included the organist’s younger daughter Lauren, my cousin Debra, my sister Leslie, and me. I recollect that we were pretty good.

OK, Carla, maybe I’ll try this again sometime.

Movie review: Another Round

tragicomedy

Another RoundThe premise of the film Another Round involves the lives of four male teachers in Denmark. They have all become rather prosaic in their teaching, and for at least some of them, in their lives.

Perhaps they need to engage in an experiment. Someone noted that Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud claimed that human beings are actually experiencing a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) shortfall of 0.05%. (The legal limit before being intoxicated in NYS is 0.08%.)

Sure enough, small doses of booze make them more creative educators. Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) riffs with imaginative dialogues with his history students about Churchill, FDR, and Hitler, making them think. Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen) becomes an inspired tactician of the elementary school soccer team so that even the least likely player shines.

As social scientists, would it not require them to engage in more analysis to discover the optimum BAC for productivity? Naturally. And eventually, things go awry. It isn’t just the work that had become routine. Early on, Martin asked his wife Trine (Maria Bonnevie), “Have I become boring?”

Best International Feature Film nomination

Another Round is described in Rotten Tomatoes as a comedy/drama or a tragicomedy, and that’s about right. The educators made a pact as though they were teenagers in a buddy movie. And their early success is appealing. Generally speaking, these are engaging characters.

They have been hiding depression and/or a mid-life crisis. I don’t think the movie makes light of the drinking. They do delude themselves, though. “We’re not alcoholics,” says Nikolaj (Magnus Millang) “We decide when we want to drink. An alcoholic can’t help himself.”

Thomas Vinterberg, who also co-wrote the screenplay, was the only Oscar-nominated director this year whose film was NOT nominated for Best Picture. Another Round WAS nominated for Best International Feature Film, formerly Best Foreign Film. The film is in Danish with subtitles. The working title was Drunk, which would have been misleading.

I saw this on Hulu in my desperate dash to see as many films during the free trial as possible. I enjoyed this film, probably more than I expected to.

Album name appears as a lyric #2

Ian Anderson, Anthrax, Beck, Blur, the Breeders appear twice

The-Band-Cahoots-Album-Photo
Cahoots – The Band

Here is my second venture trying to find situations where the album name appears as a lyric, but it’s not the title song. There is no actual title song, but these can be ersatz title songs.

Even before my first venture, I had posted questions on various message boards. I ended up with a LOT of responses. So many, in fact, that this will be a minimum of a dozen more posts. The ones I own – and therefore should have remembered, I will note.

A

Hey Citizen – ABC. Album: Beauty Stab. Lyrics: “Beauty stab, When the good things in life Have all grown bad”

Waiting for You – Derrick Anderson. Album: A World of My Own. Lyrics: “Wide awake from silent slumber Still recalling a world of my own”. The Smithereens serve as the backing group.

Homo Erraticus – Ian Anderson. Album: Per Errationes Ad Astra. Lyric: “Let’s not worry about the wandering Man. He’ll wander hither if he can” Homo Erraticus is Latin for “wandering man”. (Is this a cheat, or very clever? Yes.)

What-ifs, Maybes and Might-have-beens – Ian Anderson. Album: Thick as a Brick II. Lyrics: “And your wise men don’t know how it feels To be thick as a brick… two.”

Time – Anthrax. Album: Persistence Of Time. Lyrics: “One day I’ll get what’s mine Through the persistence of time.”

Be All, End All – Anthrax. Album: State of Euphoria. Lyric: Life can be a real ball. State of mind: Euphoria

The Boy Wonders – Aztec Camera. Album: High Land, Hard Rain. Lyrics: “I came from high land where the hopefuls have to hesitate” and “When he’ll feel the fall of honest rain” (close enough)

B

Smoke Signals -The Band. Album: Cahoots Lyrics: “When they’re torn out by the roots / Young brothers join in cahoots”. I own this on vinyl, and it was one of the albums I played often in college.

Crippling Self Doubt and a General Lack of Confidence  – Courtney Barnett. Album: Tell Me How You Really Feel. Chorus lyrics: “(Tell me how you really feel) I don’t know, I don’t know anything.”

Octopus – Syd Barrett. Album: The Madcap Laughs. Lyrics: “The mad cat laughed at the man on the border” Apparently, David Gilmour misheard the lyrics and thought it was “mad cap” instead of “mad cat” so it became the name of the album.

Exquisite Corpse – Bauhaus. Album: The Sky’s Gone Out. Lyrics: “THE SKY’S GONE OUT – THE SKY, THE SKY…”

Good Vibrations – the Beach Boys. Album: SMiLE Lyrics: “Softly smile, I know she must be kind.” Of course, I have this album. But I’d had the song for so long, on Smiley Smile, it didn’t occur to me. Of course, Brian Wilson ALSO has a version.

All You Need Is Love – The Beatles. Album: Love. Lyrics: “Love is all you need.” Well, OK, the entire chorus. Are there other songs on the Love album that qualify?

Lord Only Knows – Beck. Album: Odelay. Lyrics: “Just passing through. Odelay, odelay, odelay, odealy.”

Little One – Beck. Album: Sea Change. Lyrics: “Drown, drown. Sailors run aground. In a sea change nothing is safe”

Prisoner of Love – Pat Benatar. Album: Crimes of Passion. Lyrics: “Cold hard labor, it’s a labor of love. Convicted of crimes, the crimes of passion.”

Communicate – The B-52’s. Album: Bouncing Off The Satellites. Lyrics: “Baby, baby bounce it off your satellite”

BL

What On Earth – Blossom Toes. Album: We Are Ever So Clean (1967). Lyrics: “You’ll feel much better the wetter you get We are ever so clean.” Described as an English psychedelic pop a la Pink Floyd or Kaleidoscope.

You’re No Fun Anymore – The Bluetones. Album: Luxembourg. Lyrics: “I can’t say the word, Luxembourg.”

For Tomorrow – Blur. Album: Modern Life is Rubbish Lyrics: “Then he puts the TV on Turns it off and makes some tea Says, ‘Modern life, well, it’s rubbish’ I’m holding on for tomorrow (-row-row)” I’ll buy that.

Ice Cream Man – Blur. Album: The Magic Whip. Lyrics: “with a swish of his magic whip”

Rock and Roll Band – Boston. Album: Boston. Lyrics: “We were just another band out of Boston.” Ah, do I keep this eponymous reference? Of course, I have this album.

Cannonball– The Breeders. Album: Last Splash. Lyrics: “I’m the last splash”. Yes, I have this on CD.

Little Fury – The Breeders. Album: Title TK. Lyrics: Round up, holler girl. Ah, I will sing Title TK If I don’t black out”

Synapse – Bush. Album: Razorblade Suitcase. Lyrics: “Razorblade suitcase, All the tricks of the trade”

My Back Pages – The Byrds. Album: Younger Than Yesterday. Bob Dylan Lyrics: “Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” OK, it’s in the kinda-sorta category. I have the song, but on a greatest hits CD.

Chuck Connors would have been 100

Celtics, Cubs

Chuck Connors.baseballIt could have been in TV Guide or another magazine, or a newspaper article. All I know is that, during the run of the TV show The Rifleman (1958-1963), I knew that Chuck Connors had been a professional athlete before he became an actor.

He played basketball with the Boston Celtics. In 1946, Kevin Joseph Aloysius Connors was the first NBA player to shatter a backboard, doing so during a pre-game warm-up in the Boston Garden.

The future actor also played baseball. Before the 1940 season, he was signed by his hometown Brooklyn Dodgers as an amateur free agent. Though somewhat successful in the minor leagues, he got into only one game with that major league team, in 1949.

On October 10, 1950, he was traded, with Dee Fondy, to the Chicago Cubs for Hank Edwards and cash. He spent part of the 1951 season with the Cubs, appearing in 66 games, 57 of them as a first baseman, batting .239.

“In a 1997 biography titled ‘The Man Behind the Rifle’, author David Fury says that ‘Chuck”‘Connors acquired his nickname while an athlete playing first base. He had a habit of calling to the pitcher: “Chuck it to me, baby, chuck it to me!”

North Fork

His IMDB record begins in 1952. But he’s best known for playing Lucas McCain in 168 episodes of The Rifleman. The Complete Directory To Prime Time Network TV Shows, by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, have a great description of the show.

“The setting was the town of North Fork, NM, whose marshall seemed incapable of handling any of the numerous desperadoes who infested the series without Lucas.” I’m sure I watched it a lot in the day, and it’s still available on MeTV.

Lucas McCain was ranked #32 in TV Guide’s list of the “50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time” in the 20 June 2004 issue. He raised Mark (Johnny Crawford) by himself.

Chuck spent a season on Arrest and Trial, a cop show with Ben Gazzara, which I don’t remember.

Bitter Creek

Connors was on another western, Branded (1965-1966). “Jason McCord, the only survivor of the Battle of Bitter Creek, is court-martialed and kicked out of the Army because of his alleged cowardice. Rather than demean the good name of the Army commander who was actually to blame for the massacre, McCord travels the Old West trying to restore his good name and reputation.

And my sisters and I would reenact the  opening theme, which I can hear in my mind’s ear to this day:

“All but one man died, There at Bitter Creek. And they say he ran away. Branded! Marked with a coward’s shame. What do you do when you’re branded, will you fight for your name?

“He was innocent. Not a charge was true. But the world would never know. Branded! Scorned as the one who ran. What do you do when you’re branded, and you know you’re a man?

“Wherever you go for the rest of your life, you must prove… You’re a man.”

And in the intro, the officer would break McCord’s sword over his knee. We would take a thin tree branch and break it in the same way. Or more often, take this paper covering that came with the dry cleaning and tear it.

Oddly, I don’t remember the show itself very much.

Redux

Here’s some trivia. “He suffered almost the same fate in each of his two television western series. In The Rifleman: The Vaqueros (1961), he was stripped to the waist, tied to a tree, and left to die under a scorching sun by a group of Mexican bandits. And in Branded: Fill No Glass for Me: Part 2 (1965), he was stripped to the waist, tied to a tree, and left to die under a scorching sun by a group of Indian warriors. (In both cases he survived.)”

I didn’t see him much after that, except in an occasional guest appearance, and two episodes of Roots. No, I did NOT see Werewolf.

Chuck Connors was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1991.

Born: April 10, 1921, in Brooklyn, New York City, NY
Died: November 10, 1992 (age 71) in Los Angeles, CA

Time: movie documentary review

60 years

Time amazon-documentaryTime is a black and white documentary film put together by the New York Times’ Op Doc folks, which I saw on Amazon Prime. It starts out as a series of snippets of home videos by Fox Rich, about her and her husband Rob, pursuing their American dream to start a clothing store.

Then things went south, financially. We discover Rob and a cousin decide to rob a bank, with Fox as the getaway driver. They are caught and both are given jail time. Fox, who was pregnant with twin boys, received a few years. But Rob got 60 years, without a chance of parole.

So the bulk of the film is about Fox trying to make sure her six sons remember their father while working unceasingly over two decades to get her husband out of prison. As the tag suggests, “this bears witness to the power of one woman to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds with the aid of her faith and family.”

Time was one of fifteen films that were considered in the “Documentary Feature category for the 93rd Academy Awards. Two hundred thirty-eight films were eligible in the category. Members of the Documentary Branch vote to determine the shortlist and the nominees.”

I’ll admit that it took me a while to see where the film was going. Once I picked up on the narrative direction, I found it fascinating and inspiring.

On Rotten Tomatoes, it received 98% positive reviews from the critics. But only 46% of the general audience felt the same. And I understand why, I believe.

This is NOT a story about persons falsely accused. These people clearly did the crime. Ought not they do the time? Perhaps. But 60 years?

Why is life so complicated?

Here’s a paragraph from an IMDB review from ferguson 6, 7 out of 10 stars. “There are some mixed messages delivered here, which is understandable given how complicated life can get. Perhaps the most vivid message is the impact incarceration has on a family.

“Fox is an extraordinary woman devoted to raising her sons as strong and smart young men. But she also decries that her boys have never had a father and don’t even know the role one plays. While Fox displays the ultimate in polite phone decorum despite her frustrations with an uncaring, inefficient system, we do see her sincerity as she stands in front of her church congregation asking for forgiveness of her poor choices.”

If you watch Time, please be patient. It probably won’t grab you at the outset. It’s only over the course of the film that you get to see the effect that  lengthy incarceration has on a family.

Ramblin' with Roger
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