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Everybody owns the album 2

Only 12.5

Here’s the followup to the video about the albums that everybody owned if they had started buying vinyl in the 1970s and 1980s. He notes that if it’s not in HIS collection, it’s not on his list.

Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits. LP, CD. Not only do I have the first one, but I also have the second one. I Want You.
Aqualung – Jethro Tull. LP. Like a lot of music, this has a specific recollection. Aqualung.
Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits. CD. The nice thing about some greatest hits collections is the inclusion of some live takes, which makes you feel as though there’s a reason to buy the compilation. The Boxer.
Who’s Next – The Who. LP, CD – the CD has extra music from the Lifehouse project. Won’t Get Fooled Again.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – the Beatles – LPs (US, UK), CDs (standard, mono box). No, I didn’t get the 50th-anniversary version. I have covers of Sgt Pepper by Big Daddy and Cheap Trick as well as a MOJO compilation. Getting Better.

Imagine – John Lennon – LP, CD. The album with How Do You Sleep AND the title track. Gimme Some Truth.
Machine Head – Deep Purple – LP. I have no recollection of buying this. Did someone give it to me? Smoke on the Water.
Graceland – Paul Simon. LP, CD. I actually sent my copy of the CD to a friend of mine because he had NEVER heard it. I bought the 35th-anniversary version hoping that it’d have the 6-minute version of Boy in the Bubble that was on a 12-inch; alas, no. The Boy in the Bubble.
Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits – do not have, and somehow was unaware of its existence. Now I do have his Greatest Country Hits that came out in 1990, a decade later, with six common songs, The Gambler being one.
Eliminator – ZZ Top. LP. I always wished I could do that spinning guitar thing they do. Or grow a beard that long. Sharp Dressed Man.

Saturday Night Fever OST – LP, CD. My then-girlfriend’s son gave me grief about having a disco album. Teenagers! If I Can’t Have You – Yvonne Elliman.
Slippery When Wet – Bon Jovi. Never owned. I own no Bon Jovi, except tracks on a few compilation albums. You Give Love a Bad Name.
Doors Greatest Hits. A couple of odd Morrison tracks included. Break On Through (To the Other Side).
Appetite for Destruction – Guns ‘N’ Roses. Never owned. Sweet Child o’ Mine.
Band on the Run – Paul McCartney and Wings. LP, burned CD. I was happy that Paul’s post-Beatles career finally seemed assured. Let Me Roll It.

Everything takes longer than I think

dancing snowman

snowman Except for the fortnightly link post, I’ve all but stopped blogging in the past couple weeks. There are several reasons for this:

UNO. I’ve started to do genealogical research. It’s very interesting, but it is a massive time suck. In addition to Ancestry.com, I’ve gotten my results from 23andMe. These have lead me onto some fascinating journeys. I’ve since gotten trials with Archives.com and Newspapers.com, and tripped over more things.

The curse when you find one piece of information is that it’s difficult to decide which one to pursue next. Something about high, low road, and Scotland. Do you go for depth or breadth in a certain area?

I wrote a blog post about my findings. I’m going to have to rewrite that one and create another one, or two.

DOS. I had end of the year financial insurance stuff to do. It’s stuff where frankly, MEGO. This, in particular, is the source of the title Everything takes longer than I think.

TRES. I’ve had technological problems. It generated a “well, stuff happens” post. But then one of them became a major snafu. One element is that I’m unable to print from my copier, which has made the first two items on this list incrementally more difficult. So I need to rewrite TWO more posts.

CUATRO. The holidays. It’s hard for me to write when there are people I love in the house. Blogging is a solitary task, and I don’t want to be up in the office when the family is up and about.

This post, BTW, I wrote after I woke up at 3 a.m. Thank goodness for my vaunted writing ahead. About a month ago, I had 55 completed posts. Now I have, ostensibly, 42, and probably fewer since I’ll have to recreate a few. This is not a complaint, just a fact.

A legitimate use of Q-Tips

So expect a lot of movies reviews in the beginning of 2020, four movies I saw in December I haven’t even had time to evaluate.

Lest this entirely become navel-gazing, I want to point out Arthur’s solution to a corrosive problem: “I worked out that one of the batteries had leaked, and, I thought, that was that: I’d have to replace the unit.

“But then I decided to Google it to see if there was a way to clean the contacts, and there is: White vinegar or lemon juice removes the battery gunge from the contact—or so the Internet told me. And, it actually did. I put the batteries in again, and the unit worked perfectly.”

I did exactly the same thing with my daughter’s dancing snowman that she loved as a child. Fortunately, she didn’t play 14 times in a row, the way she used to.

2019 in review, too

Carolina Chocolate Drops

More 2019 in review

Where did most of your money go?

The house, specifically the new refrigerator

What did you get really excited about?

Finding quite a bit on my family tree

Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Marginally happier

Thinner or fatter?

Marginally thinner, and need to do much more.

Richer or poorer?

I feel poorer, but our financial planner says that in retirement, over time, we’ll be richer

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Reading

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Dealing with the retirement paperwork

How did you spend Christmas?

Christmas Eve means singing at church, so that. Eventually, we go to the in-laws

Did you fall in love in 2019?

Sure

How many one-night stands?

Jaquandor always says: “Now, that’s not the kind of question a gentleman answers!”

What was your favorite TV program?

CBS Sunday Morning, JEOPARDY!, Grey’s Anatomy, CBS This Morning Saturday

The hate question

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Hate is such a tricky word. I don’t want to give them that much power. Enraged with, perhaps. But, oh yeah, I certainly loathe the behavior of a whole lot of people. I noted some of them yesterday

What was the best book you read?

The Twilight Man, a graphic novel about Rod Serling by Koren Shadmi

What was your greatest musical discovery?

Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. She was on the Country Music series that Ken Burns did for PBS.

What did you want and get?

The new Hess truck – what a shock!

What did you want and not get?

The luxury of more time that I thought I’d have

What were your favorite films of this year?

Cold War
The Farewell
Toy Story 4
Jojo Rabbit
Blinded by the Light

What did you do on your birthday?

Actually, I wrote about that!

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2019?

There was SOME new trend in men’s apparel I noticed some months ago. I thought was SO stupid, I was sure I’d write about it at the end of the year. Then, because it’s fashion, and I don’t really care about it, I’ve managed to totally block it from my mind. Which is fine.

What kept you sane?

Once again, I continue to argue the premise of the question.

The fame question

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I’m hard-pressed to answer this, because celebrity, for the most part, does not interest me. I saw this in the New York Post in November: “Bristol Palin and boyfriend Janson Moore are Instagram official.”

Everything in that sentence bugs me. The idea that Bristol Palin is enough of a celebrity to merit the coverage. The notion that “Instagram official” is a thing. Bleech.

That said, Greta Thunberg, because there are people who like to bash her.

What political issue stirred you the most?

If we haven’t screwed up the planet ecologically, we’ve hosed it politically.

Who was the best new person you met?

Some new church members

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019

“The trouble with normal is it always gets worse” (Same as last year, and the year before)

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year

White Man’s World by Jason Isbell

Lyrics:

There’s no such thing as someone else’s war
Your creature comforts aren’t the only things worth fighting for
If you’re still breathing, it’s not too late
We’re all carrying one big burden, sharing one fate

2019: year in the rear-view mirror

Retiring is work

This is that thing that Jaquandor has done on December 31, but I do on January 1.

And this looking in the rear-view mirror is getting so damn long, I’m going to split it in half.

Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Last year, I noted an article that resonated with me. Talking about making changes will make them less likely to happen. Why you shouldn’t share your goals. It doesn’t help me with mine, for sure.

That said, I did plan on leaving work this year, and I did. But I didn’t talk about it until I had to.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Anna, who’s named for me, had her second child.

Did you attend any weddings?

Don’t think so.

I attended at least seven funerals

Did anyone close to you die?

Hell, yeah. Bob Lamar and Charlie Kite and Bob Pennock and Tim Ryan-Pepper. Plus a couple moms of friends.

I was really sorry about Sarge Blotto’s passing. To this day, I keep thinking I can ask Dustbury some obscure musical question and that he’d answer.

I never mentioned my high school friend Jane Vandament Clair, with whom I reconnected on Facebook a few years back. She died in August.

Everyone who was a progressive advocate in Albany, and many who were not, were friends with Vera “Mike” Michelson. Among other things, she donated her home to the Underground Railroad history project so they could sell it and raise money. They renamed a street after her.

What countries did you visit?

None, but my passport is in order, just in case. Actually, it expires in 2020, but I got the enhanced DMV thing, which is good for a few more years.

What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019?

The ability to read about far fewer examples of amazingly stupid behavior.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Retiring. Retiring is WORK!

What was your biggest failure?

Finding equilibrium

What was the best thing you bought?

A round-trip train ticket to New York to see my friend Karen when she retired.

Human behavior

Whose behavior merited celebration?

A few patriots who honestly testified at the impeachment hearings, in spite of intimidation. John Oliver, Seth Meyers, Samantha Bee, Trevor Noah. Those who helped people dealing with weather disasters. Those who helped the people dealing with the human-made disasters

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

OMG, there are so many of them. Pam Bondi, the terrible former Florida attorney general, turned WH defender; I saw her on CBS This Morning in November. Rudy Guiliani: he wasn’t always this crazy, was he? The racist Stephen Miller.

Members of Congress: Jim Jordan, “the most craven and shameless of the Republican reps available” to try to defend Trump. In his previous career, “he is a man that allowed younger men to be molested and raped by his coworker.”

Devin Nunez, who was the hatchetman behind the Benghazi hearings, and continues his slash and burn. It’s why I couldn’t watch the impeachment hearings. Also, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the enabler.

Virtually the entire Cabinet: William Barr protects illegalities. Rick Perry is one of the three amigos in Ukraine. Betsy DeVos is everything you don’t want in education. Mike Pence. Whoever’s currently destroying the EPA. Wilbur Ross.

Mike Pompeo and his boss make a travesty of foreign policy. See Iran, Turkey, North Korea, Syria – the Russians drinking the Coke abandoned by US troops, et al. The U.S. softens its stance against Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

And of course, the guy who just moved his residence from New York to Florida, and his weaselly eldest son.

Dec. rambling: Fact-Resistant Humans

Lyn Lifshin was a great American poet

Prayer for America.

The real lesson of Afghanistan is that regime change does not work.

This is what Cambridge protesters said about Boris Johnson’s general election win. Roger Green, 73, convener of Stand up to Racism Cambridge, said the election result was greatly disappointing. He said: “It’s a knockback for people that we’ve ended up with a racist prime minister.”

Throwaway Kids: We are sending more foster kids to prison than college.

Living through the era of school shootings, one drill at a time.

My own private Iceland re: tourism.

Misusing ROMANS 13 to embrace theocracy.

Wars waged by ostentatiously Christian leaders in Washington have done enormous harm to their co-religionists half a world away in the Middle East.

Frankly Speaking: Child Marriage in the US.

Emotional Baggage. The Verge delivers an inside look at the working conditions at Away, every millennial’s favorite luggage brand. The picture ain’t pretty.

Borowitz satire, still true four years later: Scientists: Earth Endangered by New Strain of Fact-Resistant Humans.

3 Ways to Make A Difference: Changing The World With Political Awareness.

“Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom democracy and sustainable human development. ”
– Kofi Annan

CBS features the Baha’i Faith in “World of Worship” series.

Helping the homeless: Australian charity turns empty parking lots into safe pop-up accommodation.

Church says it wiped out over $5M in medical debt, but healthcare costs remain big-picture problem.

Answers from an actual lawyer: Can I use that music, image, or clip?

Hank Green reading the First Chapter of A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor.

Malcolm X.

Sesame Street characters do impressions of other Sesame Street characters.

Now I Know: The Postal Workers Who The Kid Who Wrote on the Walls and Didn’t Get in Trouble and Not Even Baby Yoda Knows How to Drive and The Day It Accidentally Rained Flying Whale Blubber.

#IMPOTUS

‘Not Mere Misers, But Actively Cruel’

With yet another Mar-a-Lago trip, the bill for his stays at his own resorts tops $118 million.

His Personal Pathology Is America’s Foreign Policy.

The Evangelical Deal with the Devil.

In his America “Christian” is no longer a religious faith.

Lyn Lifshin

Lyn Lifshin’s obituary. She was a great American poet who passed away on December 12th, 2019. The Albany Public Library Foundation honored her with a Literary Legend award in October 2019.

Please read an excerpt from LIPS, BLUES, BLUE LACE: ON THE OUTSIDE, an autobiographical essay. She was cremated in Virginia. There will be a memorial for her at the Unitarian Universalist Society in Schenectady in spring 2020.

EOY, EOD

The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019

50 Years Ago, the First Internet Message Was Dispatched from UCLA.

What did this year mean for civil rights and liberties? Four ACLU attorneys tell us.

TCM Remembers video.

The best films of 2019 according to Wired and Vogue.

Rotten Tomatoes: The 200 Best Movies of the 2010s. I’ve seen about 80 of them, at least two of which I actively dislike.

The Decade in Content. The memes, viral videos, social media phenomenons, and TikTok zombies that defined the 2010s as much as movies, TV, or music did.

Saturday Night Live: home for the holiday.

Music

Coverville 1290 and 1291: Coverville Countdown 2019 part 1 and part 2.

When a Scandal Stinks Like a Whale on the Beach – Mangy Fetlocks

One Voice: A Holiday Presentation by The USAF Band.

How Sweet to be an Idiot – Neil Innes

Hold My Hand – THE RUTLES

Linda Ronstadt isn’t just a legendary singer. She’s also a fierce defender of migrant rights.