Ramblin' with Roger

Oh, Yeah, Television. I Remember Television

The wife and daughter left to visit parents/grandparents Sunday afternoon until Monday afternoon. I had this impressive list of things to do. Not the least of which is to remove clothes from the armoire I have and put them in the new dresser I bought from my in-laws the day before. I always disliked the armoire I have currently. I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t buy it, and I felt it was imposed on me. But my clothes had to go SOMEWHERE when Lydia took over the room which had a massive closet where my clothes used to reside, especially for socks and underwear.

One time. one of my sisters rearranged my armoire, so that all of my T-shirts were in one large section. I realized early on that I HATED this. Moreover, my T-shirts hated it. I may have mentioned this before: Karen Sammler, a character on one of my favorite shows of all time, Once and Again, would organize her underwear and socks in such a way that they would each get used approximately the same number of times. In the armoire, the most recently-washed T-shirts tended to get washed, put away and be the only ones I could easily get to. I suppose I could have rearranged them back, but that wasn’t optimal either.

So when I put my T-shirts in the dresser drawer – ah! There were T-shirts in there I hadn’t even SEEN in two years. It takes SO little to make me, and the T-shirts, happy.

I should have emptied the rest of the armoire, but I discovered this device in my living room that discovered I could watch anytime I wanted, without negotiation, called the television. Since I was over two weeks behind on everything, save for The Office, I decided to actually watch some of the new and old shows I had recorded.

The Office (NBC): watched with the wife the Pam and Jim wedding show. My, Dwight seems even nastier this year than before, with real potential to create actual harm.

Modern Family (ABC): I’ve seen only seen the first episode and I failed to record the second. It didn’t really come together for me until the family actually came together at the end. Look forward to seeing again.

Glee (FOX): I missed that premiere episode in the spring. When my wife and I saw it rebroadcast this fall, we weren’t sure it was worth seeing again; it seemed a bit facile. But the second show sealed the deal. It featured my adoptee Victor Garber as the father of the lead character. Jane Lynch’s character seemed less shrill and more devious.

The Good Wife (CBS): I decided to watch this because it features actors from other shows I’ve watched. Not only Julianna Margulies from E/R, but also Josh Charles from Sports Night, Christine Baranski from Cybil (and a lot of other stuff). Also, Matt Czuchry, Rory Gilmore’s obnoxiously pompous boyfriend in Gilmore Girls, who plays the same pompous jerk here, and Chris Noth, doing some cross between his characters on Law & Order and Sex in the City. I thought the premise – woman stands by her man after sex scandal a la Silda Wall Spitzer with Eliot, then needs a job – was pretty thin, enough for a one-off movie but hardly a series. But after two episodes, I am looking forward to see what happens, how it plays. The secondary story about her home life (two kids and her mother-in-law) has potential.

Brothers and Sisters (ABC): The tease of the first episode suggested trouble for one of Nora’s (Sally Field) children, and intentionally make you think it’s one rather than another. I was irritated. But I’m two eps behind, so i haven’t seen the resolution.

Grey’s Anatomy (ABC): Yes, I’m still watching it. I thought the premiere was a rather good example of how people grieve, in this case, the death of George; it’s not all at once, and you can postpone the pain, but not really avoid it. the second show was about cutbacks and a whole other type of pain and grief. Izzy (Katherine Heigl) hasn’t irritated me as much as she has in previous seasons, but I’m not unhappy that the actress will be taking off time to make a movie.

But I also watched football. Not a whole game, mind you. Overtime of the Broncos over the Patriots; are the Broncos for real? Interesting how the Red Sox and the Patriots seem to be on the same arc – ultimate success to also-rans. I also watched a little baseball, primarily Game 3 of the Yankees over the Twins. Caught the baserunning blunder on the Twins’ part and homers by A-Rod and Posada. But I just couldn’t stay up another half inning to see if the Yankees would hold the lead. (They did.)

People often ask me if I saw “last night’s JEOPARDY!”; the answer, almost invariably, is “no”. So they often tell me what the Final JEOPARDY! answer is, testing me to see if I would have correctly gotten it, but almost always, some major element of the answer is missing.

Well, back to sharing the set with the wife and child; it was fun while it lasted.

ROG

Christopher Columbus

The wife gets up one morning last week and while taking her shower muses on the word colony. Since Christopher Columbus was also known as, among other things, Cristóbal Colón, she wondered if his name might be the root of the word.

Interesting premise, but apparently not so. According to the dictionary, the etymology of the word colony is from the Middle English colonie, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French, from Latin colonia, from colonus farmer, colonist, from colere to cultivate.
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Confidential to FGH: all meals in Columbus, OH are $14.92 or a multiple of same; it’s a municipal mandate. Also true in Columbia, SC.
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Went to the wedding of Susan Brynofson, a member of my church choir, and Robert Gierthy yesterday. Congratulations to them and their families.
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There’s a new 1.25 mile pedestrian walkway over the Hudson River between Highland and Poughkeepsie, near my old college town of New Paltz, the refurbishing of an old railroad bridge long abandoned. I need to walk this sometime.
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I had indicated my fear from making my first appearance on radio since I used to read news copy for my college radio station XX years ago. It’s now available for dissection. I’ll tell you what was very weird about it, which was told to me beforehand: I never talked with the host before or after the show. Also I really thought I finally was rolling when it ended. More info, including the links here.
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Free Gospel Concert: A Tribute to Mahalia Jackson today (Monday, October 12)
Huxley Theater, New York State Museum
A pre-concert movie at 3PM – Mahalia Jackson: the Power and the Glory
In concert: Sharon Fullard, Constance Graves, Marjorie Rush
Merline Smith – Concert Master
Visit Through the Eyes of Others on exhibition in West Gallery

ROG

Camel through the Eye of A Needle

The liturgy for this week in my tradition includes the Gospel of Mark, the 10th chapter, starting with the 17th verse. It’s about a rich young man who follows all the laws, but Jesus said, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” The young man was NOT happy.

Then Jesus said, at verse 25, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Similar scripture can be found in Matthew 19:24 and Luke 18:25.

A couple thoughts on this: There are lots of folks who seem to think that what is meant by the eye of the needle is a small gate or a rope, thus difficult but not impossible to achieve. I don’t buy it and this site explains it well as any.

Also, it’s clear that most of the poorest Westerners are much better off than the poor in developing countries. Does this lead some in the United States, e.g., to decide that the poor in their own country are not worthy of compassion? When I type the word “underserved” in Blogger and in other word processing formats, the spell check wanted to know if I really meant “undeserved”.

Mostly, though, I was thinking of last week’s PARADE magazine survey of How Spiritual Are We?, we being Americans. In the print version, the visual representatives of faith leadership were were Rick Warren and Joel Osteen. Rick Warren is problematic for all sorts of reasons, including his apparent homophobia.

But I want to concentrate on Joel Osteen, who is engaged in what’s commonly referred to as the “prosperity gospel.” Essentially, if you are positive, then God is going to give you all of the goodies of this world. To my ears, it’s just a more polished version of the late Rev. Ike, who would say, “Why have that pie in the sky, when you can have it NOW, with ice cream on the top.” I find myself agreeing uncomfortably with some evangelicals (as the term is commonly understood) when I suggest that Osteen’s teachings are heretical to Biblical teachings. I watched him two years ago on 60 Minutes, and I’m more inclined to believe so after the program than I did before it, even though the interview was designed to answer his critics.

“Love of money is the root of all evil”, the Bible says. Even when preached by a reputed man of God.
ROG

Information QUESTION

I was reading the Wall Street Journal a couple weeks ago, and they reported that betting line and most of the “experts” predicted that Chicago would get the 2016 Olympics; you know how THAT worked out.

My question, then, is: What are your sources of information that you most trust? It might well be different sources for different info.

For instance, I find Advertising Age to be a remarkably good gauge of the fall television season, not so much what will be good as much as what the advertisers will be likely to buy into, which may have to quality. the shows they picked to click (Glee, Modern Family, The Good Wife) showed up on many lists as did their losers (Brothers, the already canceled The Beautiful Life). The point is that, year in and year out, they’ve been reliable.

Bill Flanagan of MTV has an occasional segment on CBS Sunday Morning where he recommends albums. There hasn’t been one I have purchased that I did not enjoy. This includes albums by Lizz Wright, Randy Newman, Mudcrutch, and Levon Helm, plus an album of Nashville blues.

I used to love to watch Roger Ebert with Richard Roeper or the late Gene Siskel, and he, interacting with his cohort, always gave me a good gauge as to whether I would like a movie. I didn’t always like what he liked – he had his blind spots – but I always knew WHY he liked it and it informed my viewing. Actually, now I am more affected by Ebert’s pronouncements on non-movie topics such as alcoholism, death and racism.

When Chicago was up for the Olympics, I had had my doubts about it. So I was happy that Gordon confirmed my feelings; all things Chicago, I tend to listen to Gordon. Likewise, the American expat Arthur’s insights, especially on New Zealand politics, are generally my gauge. And there are a bunch more: Johnny Bacardi on Elton John music, Jaquandor on movie music, etc., etc.

Who are your guides?
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My reaction to Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize was epitomized in the title of something on saw at Common Dreams: now earn it!
ROG

A Couple Lennon Flicks

Sometimes I see October 9 creeping up on the calendar and have not much to say past “Happy birthday, John.” This year, though, as a result of the 09/09/09 VH1 Classic extravaganza, there were a couple Lennon-related items worthy of noting, neither of which I had ever seen before.

One was a live concert in New York City in 1972, a benefit for the mentally handicapped (the preferred term in the day). It was odd, though. It all SOUNDED particularly familiar, such as him referring to his old group as the Rolling Stones. That’s because I own the album that was released posthumously in 1986; I have it on vinyl, perhaps one of the last LPs I ever bought. A photo of Lennon given to me by my friend Rocco was almost certainly from the same set of concerts. (Yes, the same Rocco who gets a mention in Love & Rockets 40.)

VH1 bleeped a couple words in the concert, one of them a pronoun. One was in the title of Woman Is the N***** of the World, which was excised several times. The other word was from Well Well Well. In the line, “She looked so beautiful, I could eat her,” the “her” was clipped. The interesting thing about the technology is that it didn’t affect the backing track, only the vocal track.

Something that I DIDN’T know until recently is that there were two concerts. And Elephant’s Memory, John and Yoko’s backing band, was reportedly really ticked off with Yoko Ono, believing she should have released the music from the tighter second concert rather than the first. A few of those second show performances appear on the box set Lennon Anthology. John messes up the lyrics to Come Together in both.

Here’s a performance of Instant Karma, followed by Mother.

The other item I saw was the 2006 feature film, the U.S. vs. John Lennon, which chronicled the development of John Lennon’s evolution from moptop to the famous/infamous “The Beatles are more popular than Jesus” comment to John & Yoko on the cover of Two Virgins. But ultimately, he was recognized as a political creature – black activist Angela Davis, e.g., took notice of the Beatles song Revolution. Many may have thought John and Yoko’s bagism and bed-ins were silly; John didn’t seem to care. Yet “Give Peace a Chance”, recorded at the Montreal bed-in, became as much the antiwar anthem as “We Shall Overcome” was the anthem for the civil rights movement.

Post-Beatles, John and Yoko’s activism became more pointed, hanging out with Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale (who appears in the film). When John was seemingly successful in freeing activist John Sinclair, the Nixon White House became concerned about the 1972 election, especially given the passage of the 26th Amendment allowing 18-year-olds the right to vote for the first time nationally.

What to do? Based on a suggestion by Senator Strom Thurmond, the Nixon White House decided to try to deport John Lennon. The basis was a marijuana conviction that lots of pop stars in England had been subjected to, all performed by one overzealous officer.

The twists and turns of that four-year journey are fascinating, especially as told by among others, Walter Cronkite, Mario Cuomo, John Dean, Ron Kovic, George McGovern, Gore Vidal, and Geraldo Rivera, who had broken the story of the abuses in the mental health system, and was MC for the One to One concerts. Most interesting, though, was Watergate convict G. Gordon Liddy, who freely confirmed that the Nixon White House WAS out to get John.

October 9, 1975 was not only John’s 35th birthday, it was the date of Sean Lennon’s birth AND the day their immigration lawyer Leon Wildes informs John that he’d won the case. In some ways, I think the movie should have ended there. Instead, we get happy scenes of John, Yoko and Sean for a few minutes, followed by four gunshots. It seemed tacked on, though Yoko’s only complaint was that the bullets should have been louder.

Still I learned a LOT in this film that I did not know. Recommended. Here’s the trailer.

ROG