Roger Green: a librarian's life, deconstructed.
I could, but I won’t, blame Garry Marshall for Scott Baio of Joanne Loves Chachi.
If Garry Marshall had only co-written 18 episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show, and created the classic The Odd Couple for television with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, I’d have been eternally grateful.
Continue reading “Garry Marshall”
There was a story late in 2015 that Betamax cassette tapes would be discontinued in March 2016. This surprised me. Sony had discontinued making the RECORDERS more than a dozen years earlier.
Betamax was “a videotape format in competition with VHS (introduced in Japan by JVC in October 1976 and in the United States by RCA in August 1977)…”
According to Sony’s own history webpages, the name came from a double meaning: beta being the Japanese word used to describe the way signals were recorded onto the tape, and from the fact that when the tape ran through the transport, it looked like the Greek letter beta (β). The suffix -max, from the word “maximum”, was added to suggest greatness…
Betamax and VHS competed in a fierce format war, which saw VHS come out on top in most markets. The VHS format’s defeat of the Betamax format became a classic marketing case study. Sony’s attempt to dictate an industry standard backfired when JVC made the tactical decision to forgo Sony’s offer of Betamax in favor of developing its own technology…
It is odd, too, because all the experts, and most of the users, considered Betamax a superior product in terms of recording quality.
By 1980, JVC’s VHS format controlled 60% of the North American market. The large economy of scale allowed VHS units to be introduced to the European market at a far lower cost than the rarer Betamax units. In the United Kingdom, Betamax held a 25% market share in 1981, but by 1986, it was down to 7.5% and continued to decline further. By 1984, 40 companies made VHS format equipment in comparison with Beta’s 12. Sony finally conceded defeat in 1988 when it, too, began producing VHS recorders though it still continued to produce Betamax recorders until 2002.
In Japan, Betamax had more success…, but eventually both Betamax and VHS were supplanted by laser-based technology…
One other major consequence of the Betamax technology’s introduction to the U.S. was the lawsuit Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios (1984, the “Betamax case”), with the U.S. Supreme Court determining home videotaping to be legal in the United States, wherein home videotape cassette recorders were a legal technology since they had substantial noninfringing uses.
I never owned a Betamax machine. Seeing two incompatible technologies vying in the marketplace, I bought NEITHER machine until it was clear that VHS was going to win out. My first VHS player I didn’t purchase until c. 1985, one of the late adapters.
Janis Joplin was the second artist to have a posthumous #1 single on the US Billboard charts.
I tell these, not out of boastfulness, but to show how my mind works. It seems to like knowing stuff.
Someone posted this picture on Facebook, with the caption “Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Dom DiMaggio, 1942.” A response: “Joe was not with the Yankees in 1942. He was wearing Uncle Sam’s uniform.”
I didn’t think the “correction” was right, but I didn’t know why. Maybe I read an old bio. So I checked with Baseball Reference and confirmed it: Joe DiMaggio played for the New York Yankees in 1942, and the warrior Yanks in 1943-1945. The same was true, BTW, of the two Boston Red Sox pictured, Williams and Dom DiMaggio.
At the Olin family reunion last Sunday, someone asked their electronic helper how many states in the US are designated as commonwealths. Before the Siri-like device could respond, I said four and named them. An Olin high-fived me. BTW, these are essentially nominal differences, whereas the commonwealth of Puerto Rico is a whole ‘nother issue.
This issue came up a week ago Friday night when The Wife and I went to see A Night with Janis Joplin at the Capital Repertory Theatre in downtown Albany. We ran into a couple from the neighborhood, and like me, they railed at the reliance on Google, noting that it had been an issue professionally.
I asked them a trivia question. Janis Joplin was the second artist to have a posthumous #1 single on the US Billboard charts. Who was the first? (Dustbury: do not answer!)
They had no idea, but as they said, it was FUN to try to guess, not just pull out a device. Was it one of the people from The Day The Music Died? No, much later, but the artist died the same way. They guessed Jim Croce (d. September 20, 1973), but in fact, his posthumous #1 (Time in a Bottle – December 29, 1973) was AFTER Janis.
I finally indicated it was an individual on Stax Records, and while they didn’t know he had died in a plane crash, they eventually got to Otis Redding (d. December 10, 1967) and Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay (March 16, 1968).
Not incidentally, A Night with Janis Joplin was quite fine, although it’s interesting/strange that the performances her “influences” (Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Nina Simone, Odetta, et al, played by Jannie Jones, Danyel Fulton, Nikita Jones, Kimberly Ann Steele) often outshone Kelly McIntyre as Janis, who was nevertheless very good.
Smokey Robinson, a Leader of ‘a Musical Revolution,’ to Receive Gershwin Prize
Refugees Encounter a Foreign Word: Welcome
‘When You’re Accustomed to Privilege, Equality Feels Like Oppression’
Medicalization and its Discontents
N.J. forces mom to pay son’s student loans: Murder ‘does not meet the threshold for loan forgiveness’
Stephen Colbert Fondly Recall the Moment He Knew His Wife Was the One
Now I Know: The Friendliest of Fire and A (Stuart) Little Discovery and A Whale of a Discovery and A Run on the Runs
Are we overdoing the Founding Fathers?
Three-part series of American Revolution-themed Sesame Street sketches from 1986/1987.
‘Is Lady Liberty a man?’: Fox worries France ‘pulled a fast one’ with transgender Statue of Liberty
Trouble With Comics: Nationalism and the comics
How Justice Scalia’s Absence Has Affected the Supreme Court’s Decision
The Negro Motorist Green Book and Black America’s Perpetual Search For A Home; Yes, I wrote about this here
Real Time with Bill Maher: How “Trickle Down” economics has never worked
Fun facts: Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. His father, John A. Chaffetz, was previously married to Katherine (Kitty) Dickson, and they had one son, John. Later, John Sr. married Jason’s mother, Margaret A. Wood. Kitty subsequently married Michael Dukakis (D-MA), the now-former governor. Jason worked on Michael Dukakis’ 1988 Presidential campaign.
The Vast Left-Wing Media Conspiracy to Make Donald Trump Look Like a Bigot
WHO ARE ALL THESE TRUMP SUPPORTERS? At the candidate’s rallies, a new understanding of America emerges.
Just What Were Donald Trump’s Ties to the Mob?
How voters’ personal suffering overtook reason
Donald Trump and the Jews, explained
An old episode of Sesame Street featuring a Muppet named Ronald Grump who is proposing building a condo tower called Grump Tower. Throughout the show (0:00, 10:52, 21:27, 28:18 and 51:23). Plus ‘Sesame Street’ Parodied Donald Trump As A Garbage Grouch
Let’s Make America Great Again
Neil Sedaka – The Immigrant (re John Lennon)
30 Years- Roan Yellowthorne a/k/a Jackie McLean, who Remembers Her Childhood as Don McLean’s Daughter
US. Navy Band Sailors – “Jersey Boys” Medley (2014)
DakhaBrakha: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert
17 COVER SONGS BETTER THAN THE ORIGINALS
Ten iconic TV opening theme songs
Smokey Robinson, a Leader of ‘a Musical Revolution,’ to Receive Gershwin Prize
Animated interview with Bob Dylan, age 20
Paul Simon Talks Peace with His Holiness the Dalai Lama (2005)
The Spice Girls at 20: ‘Women weren’t allowed to be like that in public’
You, telling me the things you’re gonna do for me
I ain’t blind and I don’t like what I think I see
Takin’ It To The Streets surprised me. I was collecting those eclectic Warner Brothers Loss Leaders, still my favorite LP compilations, during the 1970s, which I saw advertised on the inner sleeves when I bought my albums by James Taylor or Bonnie Raitt or Seals & Crofts.
I got one called Cook Book, “focusing on Warner’s black acts,” but I’m nearly positive I never saw it advertised, and so never ordered it. Either they sent it in lieu of something that had sold out, or I sent WB money and said, “Anything else in the vaults?”
The Doobie Brothers actually showed up on 10 of the Loss Leaders over the years, including seven times before Cook Book, but with songs such as Black Water, though they did a quasi-soulful cover of the Motown song Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me).
Touring in late 1975, Doobies leader Tom Johnston developed stomach ulcers, and the band considered calling it a day. But member Jeff “Skunk” Baxter “suggested calling up friend and fellow Steely Dan graduate Michael McDonald who at the time was between gigs and living in a garage apartment. McDonald was reluctant at first.” Still, he joined the tour. “Expecting to be finished once touring was completed, McDonald was surprised when the band invited him to the studio to work on their next album.”
That sixth Doobie Brothers’ collection turned out to be Takin’ It To the Streets. McDonald wrote three songs, including the title track, and contributed to another tune. His successful addition changed the direction of the band, as his lead vocals became more prominent in the band’s oeuvre.
Takin’ It To the Streets got to #13 U.S. Billboard Hot 100 charts and #57 on the Hot Soul Singles in 1976. It was #11 in Canada.
Single
Album version
Live version
Lyrics
You don’t know me but I’m your brother
I was raised here in this living Hell
You don’t know my kind in your world
Fairly soon, the time will tell
You, telling me the things you’re gonna do for me
I ain’t blind and I don’t like what I think I see