Ramblin' with Roger

The 2024 Year’s End Quiz continued

tax the rich!

Last year, which is to say yesterday, I started to do the 2024 Year’s End Quiz that Kelly always does. But my answers became Too Damn Long, so I split it up.

Whose behavior merited celebration?

Oh, there’s a bunch of people trying to fight the good fight; I suppose there are a lot of local heroes. And there’s a person who has taken a great deal of interest in my genealogical process, which I greatly appreciate.

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

There are SO many.

A wide swath of the American public seems to think that taxing rich people is a bad thing, even though they’re not rich themselves. I remember the discussion over the so-called death tax a few years ago, and people balked at it even though they’re extremely unlikely to be in that situation. The Ultra Millionaire Tax Act of 2024 (H.R. 7749) is far less likely to impact them. They won’t be making $50 million, which might be taxable. Income inequality has been rampant since Ronald Reagan’s time, and it has only worsened.

And then, there are the politicians.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) “authored a resolution that would ban trans women from women’s bathrooms at the U.S. Capitol” after saying how much of an ally she is to LGBTQ people.

Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), possibly the most incompetent Senator, said it’s ‘Not Our Job’ to vet djt’s Cabinet picks (psst: yes, it is)

Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) blames Democrats for weaponizing the weather.

Most of the Cabinet picks (Hegseth, RFK Jr, Gabbard, and especially Kash Patel)

Orange

Elon Musk and his tech bro buddies (rump jr, Vance)

Where did most of your money go?

The house, specifically a new back porch; the daughter’s education.

What did you get really excited about?

The mystery project

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

Sharply sadder, though better now than in the summer.

Thinner or fatter?

Definitely fatter. There is a distinct correlation between my emotional state and my food consumption.

Richer or poorer?

Poorer.

Science!

What do you wish you’d done more of?

I’d be in good shape if I could only get that cloning thing going.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Brooding.

How did you spend Christmas?

With my wife, daughter, and MIL.

Did you fall in love in 2024?

Absolutely.

How many one-night stands?

Lessee: (two cubed) minus (the square root of 64).

What was your favorite TV program?

CBS Sunday Morning, CBS Saturday Morning, Abbott Elementary, Elsbeth.

I’ve discovered that I like watching NFL football in the last year or two that I hadn’t felt for decades. It’s always recorded. Every week, I learn something new. In a game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the hated Dallas Cowboys, the score was tied near the end of the game. Cincinnati punted the ball, but Dallas blocked the kick. All the Cowboys needed to do was to let the ball go. They would have possession, and they were already in field goal territory. Instead, one of the Cowboys touched the ball but could not control it. The Bengals regained possession and soon scored a touchdown to win the game. I loved it.

There’s a thin line…

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

Hate is such a terrible word. If I did, and I’m not saying I do, it’d be Elon, who helped buy an election by spending over a quarter of a billion dollars on djt and his cronies. Then he dances around, threatening to slash Social Security. As a friend likes to say, “Chuck YOU, Farley!” (Sidebar: one minor reason I don’t prefer the term African-American is that recently, someone referred to Elon Musk as an African-American, and it hurt my head.)

What was the best book you read?

Prequel and The Undertow are in the same vein.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

Cage the Elephant, who Anthony Mason interviewed on CBS Mornings.

What did you want and get?

To get to sing, listen to music, go to plays.

What did you want and not get?

Democracy

What were your favorite films of this year?

Conclave, The Wild Robot, Sing Sing, Ghostlight, Thelma, Inside Out 2, Poor Things, and Anatomy of a Fall. But my favorite was American Fiction.

What did you do on your birthday?

It was a Thursday, so I went to choir and took out the trash. Beyond that, I have no idea.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2024?

Comfortable.

Facts not in evidence

What kept you sane?

I think I went a little insane this year.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Bill McKibben

What political issue stirred you the most?

Global warming, abortion rights, book banning, racism, sexism, homophobia. Oh, and the possibility that good chunks of Project 2025, which I only mentioned a half dozen times, will be enacted, threatening democracy.

Who did you miss?

In the throes of my despair, it was my friend Norm, who died in 2016.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2024:

This is part of what Kelly wrote last year. I think it works.

The United States of America desperately needs to re-embrace rational and collective thinking, and ditch its mythologies about rugged individualism and the eternal wisdom of “the Founders”.

If you take selfies, post your six favorite ones:

I don’t take many selfies. The one above, taken at the Museum of Broadway in Manhattan (and I don’t mean Kansas) in January 2024, is the only one I can find.

The musical portion of the post

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

I was leaning into the third segment of the Monster / Suicide / America medley on the Monster album. The first part is relevant but slightly clunky, but there’s something very basic about the end of Suicide. The third part is anthemic. Lyrics and the track.

‘Cause there’s a monster on the looseIt’s got our heads into the nooseAnd it just sits there watchin’

America, where are you nowDon’t you care about your sons and daughtersDon’t you know we need you nowWe can’t fight alone against the monster

Also

The other song that came to mind was American Idiot by Green Day. This is the 20th anniversary of that album. I’m fairly sure that ADD gave it to me at some point. It’s a great collection, and the title song seems very appropriate. Lyrics. “Starting off the album with a bang, ‘American Idiot’ is a scathing takedown of American culture in the years following 9/11.” The track.

Don’t wanna be an American idiot
One nation controlled by the media
Information age of hysteria
It’s calling out to idiot America

Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alienation
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
Television dreams of tomorrow
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
For that’s enough to argue

What 2024 Meant To Me

I DO make resolutions

And now, a general exploration of What 2024 Meant To Me:

I often wonder why I do what I do. This summer, I was struck by something that John Green, the vlogger (no relation), had posted: that he questioned whether his actions were worthwhile. I thought that was odd: he was helping fight infant and maternal mortality in Africa, fighting disease, etc., so I couldn’t understand why he would question his impact.

But it triggered an evaluation of how I want to use my time. I retired five years ago and assumed that after a half-decade, I would have reached certain mileposts, goals, or whatever. This has simply not happened.

I decided to sign up to have a therapist. It was online, one of those Zoomy-like things, and it simply didn’t take. It’s not the first time I’ve gotten therapy or the first time it hasn’t worked out the way I’d hoped. However, perhaps by pursuing the process, I reached some conclusions anyway.

Just say no

One of them was not to work on a book project. It was a text that the adult child of a very famous person had written, and it was referred to me. I realized that working on it was making me frickin’ nuts, but I felt obliged to work on it because I had said I would until I realized it was not worth my sanity. The author never understood this. In fact, about a week later, he texted me and said, “How much money would it take for you to finish it?” The answer to the question was that there was no amount of money in the world that would have had me continue to work on this project. Not only did it not bring me joy, but it brought me despair.

I also quit participating on a board I had a great deal of emotional attachment to. This was very difficult, but for reasons that are way more complicated and boring to recite here, it became a necessity as well. I took some mild solace in that three or four others departed the board after I left. I feel bad that the board is in such disarray, but I can’t make that my issue, he said.

Genealogy

One of my to-do lists has been my genealogy, which has gone virtually nowhere in 2024. My sister Leslie has talked to the family on both sides of the tree, our third cousin on my mother’s side, and my father’s first cousin so that the needle might move in 2025.

Since someone asked, the blog still serves a function for me. It is, among other things, a history of events that I frankly can’t remember when they happened. It’s a public diary, and I suppose I could write a private one, but I would never bother to.

As I’ve said, I failed miserably when I planned to write about my daughter’s early days. The public diary has forced me to think about things in a way I need to process the world.

Starting the quiz

Here’s an annual Year’s End Quiz, which I continue to purloin from Kelly.

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

Every year, I keep saying that I don’t make resolutions, but I think that’s probably incorrect. I think I made resolutions about doing genealogy, which, as I’ve noted, I failed to fulfill. I offered resolutions about straightening up some work areas that are largely undone and reading more books, which is only marginally better than the year before.

As for 2025, I am going to make the same resolutions. But I’m also going to work on a project, a specific, measurable project, and I ain’t gonna tell you what it is here until I get to a certain point in the process. It might be July or maybe even late August, but I will mention it. And I will work on it because… oh, if you knew what it was, you would know why, but you don’t, so there it is.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

I don’t believe so

Did anyone close to you die?

Nancy, Al, and Barry. Oh, and Midnight.

What countries did you visit?

None in 2024. I’m toying with going someplace in 2025, and I’ll probably return to the States, won’t I?

Future

What would you like to have in 2025 that you lacked in 2024?

Inner peace? Democracy?

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I don’t know; sometimes, I think just showing up is an achievement. I’d say writing on this blog daily, but I did that last year and the year before…

What was your biggest failure?

I could not recognize earlier how much the aforementioned book editing and the committee work were making me – how did I put it? -frickin’ nuts.

What was the best thing you bought?

Nothing substantial comes to mind. Some music. Bellflower. Oh wait, I know what it is. I bought a new iPhone case, a certain green shade. According to Charli XCX, the color is brat, whatever that means. More importantly, my phone case is much easier to distinguish than a black or gray one, making it simpler to find when I inevitably misplace it in my house.

This is TOO MUCH. I’ll finish it next year, which is to say, tomorrow.

December rambling: empires

Who really wrote the song Blue Moon?

The world’s four legacy empires are going down.

Was Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a private research facility in Suffolk County (NY), pivotal to the spread of eugenics through the United States and the world?

Letter Calling for Tracking People of Color Circulates in an Oregon County

[The following content may contain graphic or violent imagery. Viewer discretion is advised.] Excerpts of video showing the fatal beating of a man at Marcy State Prison in upstate New York

Christian Nationalists Are Reshaping Texas’s Public School Curricula

Judge Strikes Down Unconstitutional Parts of Arkansas Law Targeting Librarians. Related – John Green: About THAT Scene in Looking for Alaska

Happy Public Domain Day 2025 to all who celebrate

Ask Arthur 2024: Pardon? and An Orange Hue

Culcha

A Conversation with Nikki Giovanni, recorded November 4, 2024, at Charleston Literary Festival

Rickey Henderson, baseball’s ‘man of steal,’ dies at 65

Linda Lavin, Busy Broadway Actress and Star of TV’s ‘Alice,’ Dies at 87

Greg Gumbel, Longtime CBS Sports Studio Host, and Play-by-Play Man, Dies at 78

Olivia Hussey, Star of Franco Zeffirelli’s ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ Dies at 73; I saw that 1969 film in the theater at the time.

Richard Parsons, Former Time Warner Chairman, Dies at 76

On Beauty

Thank You, 39 (Jimmy Carter)

MTA conductor lauded as calming presence during F train outage

You’re driving a car; you’re not driving an igloo.

U.S. Population Grows at Fastest Pace in More Than Two Decades

Top 10 Largest U.S. Cities by Area

The Art of Explaining Your Hobby to Non-Genealogists Without Seeing Their Eyes Glaze Over

A decade after its publication, the book “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents” is surging in popularity and making people rethink their family dynamic.

27 new, exciting, and blobby species discovered in the Peruvian rainforest

Who’s a Good Boy? A Brief History of Krypto the Superdog

Dave Fleischer’s fourth preserved National Film Registry movie

The Actor Roundtable: Daniel Craig, Paul Mescal and Colman Domingo on Impostor Syndrome

The Angel of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge

EOY

A Look Back on 2024 Through U.S. Census Bureau Data

‘Polarization’ is Merriam-Webster’s 2024 word of the year

J. Eric Smith’s Best Films of 2024, with links to his TV, music, book and music video lists

Chuck Miller’s 10 Best Photos of 2024, including his CPKC Holiday Train miracle

The Hollywood Reporter’s Top 24 Stories of 2024

Hollywood’s Most Notable Deaths of 2024 and TCM Remembers

Pop music mashups for 2024

THR: The 10 Best Songs and Best Albums 2024

Variety: The Worst Songs of 2024

More Music

Blue Moon was composed in 1931 by a 17-year-old, the son of Polish immigrants, after an evening of moonlit skating on a pond in upstate New York.

Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!) -Gojira, at the Paris Olympics.

How Do You Spell Channukkahh – the Leevees

Papa Loves Mambo – Nat King Cole (mambo was the 12/29/2024 Wordle word)

Show Biz Kids – Steely Dan

I Think I’m Gonna Hate It Here – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

Ruby Tuesday – Melanie (RIP 2024)

Like A Virgin – Madonna, the final US pop #1 for 1984

Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand) – The Shangri-Las (Mary Weiss, RIP 2024)

King Of The Road – Roger Miller

The Streetbeater, aka Sanford & Son Theme – Quincy Jones (RIP 2024)

2 Step In The Living Room – Terrace Martin & Alex Isley

Rebel Rouser – Duane Eddy (RIP 2024)

Sugar In The Tank– Julien Baker & TORRES

Think It Over – Cissy Houston (RIP 2024)

Onyx – Sakura Tsuruta

Box Of Rain – Grateful Dead (Phil Lesh, RIP 2024)

Nine Hundred Miles – Barbara Dane (RIP 2024)

Dubuque ’96 Stage-Crashers Remember a Uniquely Wild Bob Dylan Show

Stealing Sunday Stealing

UREC Interpretive Center

I’m stealing Sunday Stealing. It was off for December 2024, so I went back to the questions from March 2013. Why that month? Because that’s when I turned 60 and for no other reason. I took questions from the four posts.

Do you think we will move completely from traditional books to digital ones, and if we do, are you OK with that?

I have difficulty listening to books and don’t enjoy reading books online on a tablet or computer screen. I like the tactile and emotional sense of holding a book.

Do you learn best by reading, listening, or experiencing?

It is experiencing. When I’m given a task, and somebody’s trying to instruct me, telling me stuff, it doesn’t usually take. If I read the manual, I have a better chance, but doing it side by side is almost always more successful.

Do you think teenagers are weird?

Well, duh. I used to be a teenager. They’re definitely weird.

How fast does your mood change?

It depends. I can go from being ticked off to being melancholy about getting ticked off pretty quickly.

What do you always take with you?

It’s a mantra going out of the house: wallet keys, phone.

Is your bed comfortable?

I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be when I first lie down, but I fall asleep quickly, so there’s that.

Would you say you’re an understanding person?

Probably. I feel as though I am empathetic; I can relate to experiences others have gone through

Talk, Talk

Are you talkative?

It depends on my comfort level and the situation. I can be fairly chatty when I feel part of the entity. But where I don’t, I can say nothing and observe a lot.

Do you sleep with the bedroom door open or closed?

Closed, but that’s pretty much a function of the fact that I go to bed after my wife does, and the hall light, which I need to get to our bedroom, is on until shortly before I go to sleep. I suppose I could leave the door open after she’s already closed it, but I haven’t habituated to that.

How many social media sites are you registered with?

I have an Instagram account, which I have seldom used, but I can see other people’s Instagram stuff. Instagram is not often in my headspace. I have Facebook, which I post daily, usually my blog post, and my wife’s and my NYT Connections. I’m on BlueSky, and sometimes I post my blog there if I think of it. I’m new there, though.

What are you listening to at the moment?

Shawn Colvin’s album A Few Small Repairs. That’s the one that has Sunny Came Home and Nothing On Me.

Do you believe in Karma?

Oh no, if there had been karma, there wouldn’t have been a person who committed felonies and managed to get elected President, essentially negating those felonies and other potential prosecutions. There is no karma.

I Wish

If you could have three wishes…but none of them could be for yourself, what would you wish for?

Sufficient money for certain organizations to do the projects they’re working on: for the Underground Railroad Education Center in Albany, that would be money to build the Interpretive Center, and for FOCUS churches to have a sufficient amount of enough money to feed everybody they want to feed in the Capital District. And to pay off the house my parents owned in Charlotte, NC.

Have you ever been on the radio or on TV?

Radio: When I was in college in New Paltz, NY, I used to read the news on WNPC for a semester, mostly wire service news.

TV: I was kiddy shows thrice. My church choir was on a local telethon several times. I was interviewed for a news segment on a racial reconciliation event in he 1990s. In 2017, five years after I wrote about the surprise October 4, 1987 snowstorm, I was interviewed by Spectrum News. I think that’s it. Oh, wait; I was on JEOPARDY twice.

Have you ever won a lottery or sweepstakes?

I won $50 in a lottery fifty years ago.

Have you ever won a contest or competition?

I won a Class B racquetball tournament at the Albany YMCA. It was the only statue I ever won. In the 1970s, I was pretty good at winning radio contests, usually records, but once won $48.

Is there anything really interesting in your family history?

My mom’s mother’s mother’s father was James Archer.

My dad’s mother’s mother’s father was Samuel Patterson.

And my mom’s father’s father’s father was Daniel Williams.

All of them fought in the American Civil War, and all of them survived.

Denzel Washington is 70

Suppose you were to look at the cover of season 1 of the St. Elsewhere DVD. In that case, you might think that Denzel Washington was the big star of the 1982-1988 NBC medical drama about “the lives and work of the staff of St. Eligius Hospital, an old and disrespected Boston teaching hospital.” This would not be correct; it was more of an ensemble cast.

This worked to Denzel’s advantage. Because he wasn’t in every scene, he got to go out and make movies. The only one I saw in that period was Cry Freedom (1987), in which he played the South African patriot Stephen Biko. Even though the story was mostly about his friend, journalist Donald Woods (Kevin Kline), attempting to investigate Biko’s death, Denzel is compelling. He was the NAACP Image Award winner as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Motion Picture. I bought the soundtrack: The Funeral (September 25, 1987).

Glory (1989) – His Oscar and Golden Globe-winning performance in a supporting role. The James Horner soundtrack, which I own, can be listened to here. It won a Grammy.

Mississippi Masala 1991. NAACP Image Award as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Motion Picture

Formerly Malcolm Little

Malcolm X (1992) -He was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role. But he won various other awards. I have this soundtrack too. Listen to Someday We’ll All Be Free – Aretha Franklin.

The Pelican Brief (1993) – Denzel was nominated for an MTV award as Most Desirable Male

Philadelphia (1993) – Tom Hanks said working with Washington on the movie was like “going to film school.” Hanks said he learned more about acting by watching Denzel than anyone else. I have this soundtrack as well. Here’s the final scene with the Neil Young title song.

Crimson Tide (1995) Denzel won another NAACP Image Award as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Motion Picture.

Devil in a Blue Dress (1996) – I saw this at Page Hall at the SUNY Albany downtown campus. Walter Mosley, author of the book and co-writer of the script, was supposed to be present but he could not make it.

The Preacher’s Wife (1996)—with Whitney Houston. I’m sure I saw this on TV, but I don’t particularly recall it.

The Hurricane (1999), in which he plays boxer Rubin Carter. He won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama but lost the Best Actor Oscar. Once again, he won the NAACP Image Award as Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture

Remember The Titans (2000) – not only did Denzel win the Image Award again, but the film was deemed Outstanding Motion Picture. This I saw on TV as well, but I remember it quite well.

Best Actor Oscar

I did not see Training Day (2001), for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role, the first black man to do so since Sidney Poitier did so for Lilies of the Field. Denzel was also the winner of the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama and the NAACP Image Award as Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture

I did see the following films:

Manchurian Candidate (2004) – I STILL need to see the original

Unstoppable (2010) – in case you don’t remember this one: “With an unmanned, half-mile-long freight train barreling toward a city, a veteran engineer and a young conductor race against the clock to prevent a catastrophe.” It’s entertaining.

Flight (2012) Denzel was nominated for an Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, as well as other awards

August Wilson

Fences (2016) – the film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture (Todd, Black, Scott Rudin, and Denzel); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Denzel); and Best Adapted Screenplay (August Wilson, posthumously). Viola Davis won for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Denzel played the same role on Broadway for about two and half months in 2010. It was nominated for seven Tonys and won three: Best Revival of a Play (Produced by Carole Shorenstein Hays and Scott Rudin), Best Actor in a Play (Denzel Washington), and Best Actress in a Play (Viola Davis).

Fences was one of six Broadway productions in which he appeared. He will be in Othello in 2025.

Denzel is committed to producing all ten of August Wilson’s plays for film. He’s already produced Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) and The Piano Lesson (2024).

His life

Of course, he’s more than his performances. Check out this 2017 interview.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from Wikipedia:. “On June 25, 1983, Washington married Pauletta Pearson, whom he met on the set of his first screen work, the television film Wilma. They have four children: John David (born July 28, 1984), also an actor and a former football player; Katia (born November 27, 1986), who graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts in 2010; and twins Olivia and Malcolm (born April 10, 1991). Malcolm graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in film studies, and Olivia played a role in Lee Daniels’s film The Butler. Malcolm made his directorial debut with The Piano Lesson, with Denzel producing and John David starring in it. In 1995, Washington and his wife renewed their wedding vows in South Africa with Desmond Tutu officiating…

“Washington has served as the national spokesman for Boys & Girls Clubs of America since 1993 and has appeared in public service announcements and awareness campaigns for the organization. In addition, he has served as a board member for Boys & Girls Clubs of America since 1995. Due to his philanthropic work with the Boys & Girls Club, PS 17X, a New York City Elementary School decided to officially name their school after Washington.”

In 2022, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 2024 also marks ten years of Denzel’s sobriety. He was baptized just this month and was given a minister’s license by the church.