Roger O Green

Music throwback: Linger – The Cranberries

The Cranberries recorded the first version of Linger in 1990.

The Cranberries were an exception to my music collection. In earlier times, going back to the 1960s, I might have had several albums by a single performer, such as The Beatles, the Supremes, Joni Mitchell, or Talking Heads, to name just a few.

But by the 1990s, I was generally getting just one album for a given artist, maybe two, usually with the big hit. So it is significant that I actually bought and own the first three CDs by The Cranberries, a group out of Limerick, Ireland. There was something infectious in their sound.

Part of it, of course, was the voice of Dolores O’Riorden, who died unexpectedly in January 2018 at the age of 46. The group also included Fergal Lawler on drums, and brothers Noel Hogan on guitar and Mike Hogan on bass.

From Songfacts:

“Noel Hogan wrote the music for [‘Linger’] before Dolores O’Riordan joined the band. Originally, it had lyrics written by the group’s first singer, a bloke named Niall Quinn… After she was hired, she wrote her own set of lyrics, turning it into a song of regret based on a soldier she once fell in love with…

“The Cranberries recorded the first version… in 1990 at their manager’s studio in Limerick… which found [its] way to various record companies. Island Records signed the band, which released their first EP, Uncertain, in 1991. ‘Linger’ was not part of that EP, as they wanted to save the song for when they built a bigger fan base.

The song was included on their debut album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?, and issued as their second UK single (after ‘Dreams’), it cracking the UK charts at #74 for a week in February 1993.

“The band didn’t make it to America until that summer when they toured as the opening act for The The. ‘Linger’ was issued as a single later that year… They were already working on their next album when the song caught on in the States.

“It wasn’t until February 12, 1994, that ‘Linger’ reached its peak position of #8 on the US chart. A week later, the reissued single topped out at #14 in the UK.”

Zombie is a notable track from No Need To Argue (1994).

The most disturbing cut from the appropriately labeled To The Faithfully Departed (1996) is I Just Shot John Lennon, a narrative of the events of the night of December 8, 1980. “What a sad and sorry and sickening sight,” the lyrics accurately proclaim.

Listen to (chart action from the US Billboard charts):

Linger, #8 in 1994

Dreams, #42 in 1994

Zombie, #22 in 1994

Ode to My Family, #39 in 1994, and the B-side to Zombie

Salvation, #21 in 1996

When You’re Gone, #22 in 1997

Free to Decide, #48 in 1996, and the B-side of When You’re Gone

I Just Shot John Lennon, 1996

Zombie – Bad Wolves; a cover Dolores O’Riordan was set to appear on before her death

Blogging blues: SSL, php, fatal error

The blog isn’t just the last item I wrote, it’s the body of work.

I’m a guy who likes to blog. I’m the guy who HATES having to deal with the technobabble that the task entails. I noticed that the backside of my blog was running slowly. Sometimes when I tried to schedule a post, I’d get an error message. My provider wrote:

“Our monitoring systems show that one (or some) of your user accounts may be making your web hosting account operate inefficiently. We noticed you’ve frequently hit the memory limits of your shared hosting plan over the last couple weeks. When this happens, our system automatically stops web processes which could be negatively impacting your server’s performance. This means your visitors may see errors or be unable to access your website at all for brief periods of time.”

I was given the option to leave everything as-is, optimize my website (for which I didn’t understand the instructions), or upgrade to Virtual Private Server and spend a bit more. I asked a fellow blogger what I should do. Among other things, he suggested that if I were still on an older PHP (5.x), jump to 7.0. If you don’t know what that means, well neither do I. As a website owner, you may do all that you can and some, but one thing you need to always bear in mind: Hiring the top web designing company to develop your website is the best thing that you could ever do to grow your business.

I did that. I also did the SSL free certification for https, though I’m not sure why. Immediately, I received a Fatal error on my page. I undid the SSL.

The technical support folks disabled the blog counter, which they identified as the problem. Blog working, but there’s no sidebar! No search bar or links or way to get to 12.5 years of my posts. This made me terribly… well, DEPRESSED. I mean, the blog isn’t just the last item I wrote, it’s the body of work. There were some back-and-forth written messages with suggestions that did not change anything.

Finally, a week later I called their support guy from https://blog.servermania.com/what-is-unmetered-bandwidth-and-when-do-you-need-it/. The solution? “It looks like the site ‘sidebar’ and counter plugin may have not been
working correctly due to them not being compatible with php 7. Once we switched your site back to run on php5.6 your counter and sidebar has
been restored.” Thanks, John!

But all of this work not only reminds me how weak I am in certain areas, it was a real drag on my finite time to actually write blog posts. At least it was fodder for one.

Civil War & great (X2) grandfather James Archer

“74% of all free blacks of military age (18-45) fought for their country, and from all reported casualties, about one-third lost their lives.”

When my sister Leslie and I visited our hometown of Binghamton, NY in October 2017, we went up to Spring Forest Cemetery and visited the graves of my grandma Gertrude Williams, her siblings Edward Jr. and Adenia, and their mother, Lillian (nee Archer) Yates Holland, who had been widowed and remarried. It is very near where they all grew up.

What we had never seen before, maybe a couple of dozen meters away, was a headstone for Lillian’s parents, James Archer (1834-1912) and his wife Harriet (1838-1928). It was NOT the separate headstones I’d seen at FindAGrave.com – – James’ is shown here from c 2009 – but something more ornamental.

In January 2017, during that cold snap, my second cousin Lisa, whose grandfather was Gertrude’s brother Ernie – though she never met him, as he died in 1954 – was doing some genealogical research.

She discovered James Archer in the 1890 civil war veterans’ census, showing that he volunteered and served from 29 December 1863 to the day he was mustered out on 29 August 1865.

“The 26th U.S. Colored Troops served under the Department of the South (Union Army) in South Carolina and was very active on Johns and James Island, Honey Hill, Beaufort, and a number of other locations.” On this page, you see a picture of the 1000-plus man strong 26th USCT on parade and their regimental banner.

Totally separately, my sister Marcia was going through some old, and unfortunately unmarked, photos that our mother had gotten from her mother. And one of them was this:

Is James Archer one of these men? We have no idea, but we’d like to think so. Cousin Anne, Lisa’s sister, notes: “One clue from the census is he had hazel eyes. Can you tell from the original photo the color of their eyes?” Which guy has the lightest eyes?

Lisa noted: “74% of all free blacks of military age (18-45) fought for their country, and from all reported casualties, about one-third lost their lives. I’m happy to say my great-great-grandfather was one of the survivors; he died in 1912, and I’m proud to be able to tell this piece of his story.”

One other detail worth noting: Lillian Yates Holland, James and Harriet’s daughter, wasn’t born until 1866. Had James died in battle, there would have been no Lillian, which meant she and Edward Yates Sr. wouldn’t have had Gertrude and Ernie, which would have meant no Trudy (my mom) and Fran (Lisa’s mom)…

Well, you get the picture.

Running for office: who, me?

When the possibility of a constitutional convention cropped up in 2017, I gave serious consideration about running as a delegate if it passed.

I was president of student government at Binghamton Central High School. I served on the Financial Council when I was an undergraduate at New Paltz, and restarted the library school governance.

Until recently, I never thought much about actually running for a standard elective office. I did work on a few campaigns, always for Democrats, although not always the establishment choice. Before I could vote, I blew up balloons for Bill Burns’ failed 1969 campaign to succeed his brother John as mayor of Binghamton; he lost to Al Libous, who I did not like.

Some poli sci types did some polling for a state assembly candidate named Maurice Hinchey in 1972, and I did a little phone calling. Alas, he lost to the incumbent, H. Clark Bell.

But 1974 was different. It was a Watergate year. The incumbent member of Congress, Howard Robison of Owego decided that he didn’t want to run again in a district that spanned 150 miles across, from Ithaca to Woodstock. The New Paltz Democratic Club, of which I was a member, had four candidates to consider. One was the town supervisor from Union, near Binghamton, who didn’t bother to come. One was a Binghamton lawyer who a couple of folks supported. Most backed a Woodstock attorney named Bill Schecter (sp?), the local guy. But a few people, including me, favored Matt McHugh, the Tompkins County District Attorney at the other end of the district.

You’d think an anti-establishment sort like me wouldn’t support a DA, but he was a really strong on the issues. I carried petitions and got at least 125 signatures. Schecter may have won Ulster County, but McHugh carried the town of New Paltz.

Again, the poli sci folks did phone poling, for McHugh, running against the ambitious Libous, and Hinchey, who was in a rematch with Bell. The Democrats both won. McHugh spent 18 years in Congrsss, and was succeeded there by Hinchey (pictured), who, sadly, died recently.

I worked a handful of campaigns after that in Albany, carrying petitions at least four times.

When the possibility of a constitutional convention cropped up in 2017, I gave serious consideration about running as a delegate if it passed, which fortunately, it did not.

The only other times I thought about running for office was when a certain person was running for the Albany library board, four or five years in a row. If he had been running for, say one of two positions, and there was only one other person on the ballot, I would have launched a write-in campaign. As the then-President of the Friends of the APL, I thought I might have had a chance against a collector of Nazi paraphernalia, whose views seemed to match his hobby.

After the last guy was elected President, someone said to me, “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter WHAT skeleons are in your closet.” That’s SUCH 2016 thinking.

E is for modern etiquette (ABCW)

Use the blind person/wheelchair rule.

When you say etiquette, some people’s eyes glaze over, singularly uninterested in knowing which fork to use in a seven-course meal they’ll never be invited to.

I understand that. I’m going to suggest some more practical ones. Feel free to add to these in the comments.

PUT AWAY YOUR DAMN PHONES ETIQUETTE

Every movie theater, every concert hall announces, before the lights go out, to turn off your phone. This means YOU too. So, halfway through the movie is NOT the time to pull out your phone to check the time. Instead of looking at the movie, I’m looking at you. And when you bolt out of your chair as soon as the credits begin – often missing ancillary information about the film – I’m the one you can’t see glaring at you.

When you’re crossing the street, know that you are NOT as good a multitasker as you think you are. Stick your phone in your pocket until you get to the other side.

This is especially true of you who decide to come out from between parked cars in the middle of the block and, more often than not, walk diagonally across the road. If I accidentally hit someone while riding my bicycle, it’ll be one of those fools.

PROVIDE PERSONAL SPACE ETIQUETTE

You may be surprised to know that the bus you’ve been waiting on to board might just be letting off people first. Give them room to do so, lest they inadvertently step on your foot or worse.

When you’re going to an ATM, give the person ahead of you some privacy so that one can type in the PIN without prying eyes. Someone recently had finished his transaction before me but stood off to the side without vacating the area.

Likewise, when you’re getting confidential information from your pharmacist, you do not want to be feeling the breath of someone behind you. Back off!

And it still needs to be said: cover your mouth when you cough, preferably into the elbow.

IT’S THE LAW, BUT DO IT ANYWAY ETIQUETTE

The reason the law requires drivers to yield to pedestrians is that the driver goes first, the pedestrians might easily find themselves stuck in the middle of the intersection when the lights change.

Don’t block the sidewalk with your parked car. Don’t block a crosswalk with your car, even though you’re only going to be away for a “few minutes.”

Use the blind person/wheelchair rule. If YOU were blind or in a wheelchair, would YOUR behavior hamper your access?

Clear your sidewalk of snow and ice by more than a shovel-width.

Don’t smoke in the bus kiosk, especially when it is CLEARLY MARKED; it’s not nice to poison others.

By following these few simple suggestions, you’ll make me, and countless others, VERY happy.