March Ramblin’

I find myself thinking a lot about Natasha Richardson, which is strange because, unprompted by IMBD, I couldn’t tell you one thing I’d seen her in; Nell and the remake of The Parent Trap, as it turns out. Whereas I know about lots of films in which I saw her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, or her husband, Liam Neeson.

Besides the strange way she died, there’s that weird argument that always seems to happen when a famous person passes away. In the comments to this nice article in Salon, one person essentially hijacks the issue with “Aren’t there more important things in the world to worry about?” Lots of back-and-forth that you can read yourselves. Or not.

My feeling is that if someone is uninterested in a “celebrity death”, then he/she oughtn’t to pay attention. But it’s one thing to say, “I don’t care.” It’s quite another to say, “And you shouldn’t either.” People should be allowed to grieve even those they’ve never met, yet because of their artistry or personality or for whatever reason, has moved them in some way. Their loss is real.

And invariably, the death of a celebrity shines a light on the cause of said death, if it’s unusual. (“Wear a helmet when skiing!” “No, it’s too restricting to see and hear properly.”)

I felt the same way when Jennifer Hudson lost three family members to murder. There were those who offered, “People are murdered all the time in Chicago. Why should I care about THIS?” I say: by all means, please don’t. But offer not your analysis about “the celebrity culture”, as though others might not be moved by the American Idol/Dreamgirls performer’s situation. Besides, even in the Windy City, a triple homicide is not an everyday occurrence.
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Looks as though I’ll still have Dora the Explorer to deal with:
The daughter would normally “age out” of Dora in a year or two. But now that the daughter has dubbed the tween explorer as “beautiful”, I guess I’ll be stuck with her for a little while longer. Why they just didn’t come up with an older cousin so that the original Dora could entertain the younger crowd, I just don’t know.
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I found this background for a seminar interesting.
In June 2008, the Canadian government introduced Bill C-61, new copyright legislation that closely followed the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The public response to the bill was both immediate and angry – tens of thousands of Canadians wrote to the Minister and their local Members of Parliament, leading to town hall meetings, negative press coverage, and the growing realization that copyright was fast becoming a mainstream political and policy issue.

The “Canadian copy-fight”, which includes many new advocacy groups and the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group that has over 90,000 members, has attracted considerable attention from the mainstream media, with many wondering how copyright had emerged as a contentious policy issue.

So the Canadians are having as much trouble with expanding the copyright law as some Americans did a decade ago, including (need I say) me.
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There’s an online petition to save Proctor’s Theater in Troy, NY from demolition. Apparently, the current plan is to “save the facade” and tack on behind it some ugly badly-built auditorium. The rest of the beautiful building is to end up in the already overloaded landfill in Albany County.

Frankly, I’m not big on online petitions. Frankly, I doubt their efficacy, especially when the signatories include people who are not constituents of the officials taking an action. But the real audience is not so much the folks who run Troy City Hall as it is Governor Paterson. “The city of Troy is applying for a grant from New York State to demolish the theater. The petition to Governor Paterson is asking him to grant money for the renovation of the theater, not its destruction.

“The theater was built in 1914 and remains the last existing grand movie palace in Troy. While the building is in disrepair, it does not need to be torn down. In 1979 Proctor’s was placed on National Register of Historic Places – but this distinction may not save it from the wrecking ball.”

Anyway, I add my name here because, in some minuscule way, I helped with the renovation of Proctor’s in Schenectady in the late 1970s by selling ads and performing in the arcade for an April 1978 fundraiser. It’s also the building I worked in for nearly 11 months. Here’s a picture of Proctor’s Schenectady – Troy’s is similar though now in disrepair – but, as the petitioner noted, “with vision and leadership it can look like this again!”

ROG

That Grand Equinox Tradition

Yeah, boys and girls, it’s time to ASK ROGER ANYTHING, that time of the year where you, the loyal reader, get to pose whatever questions come into your head, no matter how bizarre. Better still, I HAVE to answer them honestly. Snark is allowed in the response, and it may be the truth, but not the whole truth, but truth nonetheless. Or maybe truthiness; I’m not sure.

I must admit that I love posing questions when other bloggers do this. Jaquandor – he who I hadn’t mentioned on this blog since, lessee, yesterday – is in the midst of answering my questions to him here and here and said something extremely nice about me in the former post.

Yet, at some point, I suppose it’s kind of peculiar to answer questions when that’s what I do all day. Someone asked me – not on the same day – What are the 5 Cs of credit, to which I referred him here, and What is meant by a black kiss. In the context, this latter query was not a reference to this Japanese film or even the Howard Chaykin book, though not having either seen or read these, it’s entirely possible that the meaning the requester sought was included within these. The definition he really wanted one can find in the Urban Dictionary.

So please ask away!

ROG

ROG

Coins of the Realm


The state quarters that the US Mint started putting out in 1999 should have been a natural thing for me to collect. I love the history that is told in the order of the release dates, which weas the order in which the states joined the Union. I KNOW a good chunk of the statehood dates. Once won $1000 because I could put these in chronological order: Oklahoma statehood, California statehood, Nebraska statehood.

Yet, for a full decade, I resisted, and I knew why. It was because I used to collect as a child. I knew just about everything there was to know about 20th century coins, from the years people were represented on them (Lincoln-1909; FDR-1946; JFK-1964, but the latter was quite easy). I knew about the penny being made with steel during World War II because copper was needed elsewhere. I knew about the Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco mints; in the day, the latter two were marked as D and S, respectively, but the Philly wasn’t marked at all.

Then one day, when I was about 13 or 14, many of my coins disappeared. They were not lost; they were stolen. And I had a pretty good idea who took them, too – the son of friends of my parents from church. But I couldn’t prove it, and my parents were afraid of falsely accusing the boy. Still, no one else outside the family could have had access. I had shown this kid, four or five years my junior, my collection of half dollars to keep him busy while our parents chatted.

The theft just sucked the joy out of coin collecting. Forever.

Well, until this year when my colleagues Mary and Alexis decided, just as the 50-state quarters were all released, to start collecting. Their unbridled joy with the process was contagious, and I found myself wrapped up in the process, especially when Alexis ordered online – we couldn’t find them in stores anymore – the coin holders. Oh, my! It was the same navy blue cover with lighter blue on the inside that I used to keep my coins as a child, published by a company called Whitman. I didn’t remember the brand name, but the look was unmistakable.

First thing I learned in my new hobby: the S coins were only available as proof sets. Second thing was that I had to look carefully to distinguish the P quarters (now marked as such) from the D quarters.

In relatively short order I was able to complete my P set, since the Philly mint distributed its quarters to the banks east of the Mississippi. The D quarters were a bit trickier. Even after my sister, who lives in San Diego, mailed me 19 D quarters as a birthday present, I’m still missing 7 D quarters: PA, MO, AR, TX, WI, WA and HI.

I also have not yet seen any 2009 quarters of either variety; the DC coin is already out, with the Puerto Rico coin due out later this month. I will continue to empty my pockets seeking these elusive coins.

Oh, California statehood took place in 1850, the year after the Gold Rush. I can still recall this map in fifth or sixth grade. States were green and the territories brown; there was a big brown gap north and west of Texas, but California was an oasis of green.
Nebraska statehood. I knew it was after the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854; didn’t specifically remember that it was 1867. Why I remember the Kansas-Nebraska Act, I just don’t know.
Oklahoma was the easiest. From the Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein musical, I knew it was in 20th century. But it had to be before New Mexico and Arizona in 1912, the latter which I remember because of Barry Goldwater running for President in 1964 and the questions about whether he was a natural-born citizen. Oklahoma statehood turned out to be 1907.

BTW, Jaquandor has started reviewing the coin designs here and here.
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Top 5 Worst Coin Investments

How Much Is My Penny Worth?


ROG

ROG

SOLD OUT Part 1 by John Hebert


This is the recollection of John Hebert, FantaCo customer, who became John Hebert, FantaCo artist. It’s always…interesting…to read about yourself with details that you’ve long forgotten.

Let’s see, where to begin, well, how about at THE BEGINNING!?! I’d been trying to break into comics for quite awhile, even managing to get to the point where I was being coached in art from the legendary Mike Zeck- he of Punisher, Captain America and Secret Wars fame due to his growing up in Florida with my life drawing teacher which brings us to the gist of this. I was just about to graduate from The Junior College of Albany with my Associates in Graphic Design, but had no idea where to go from there with no “bites” in big time comics, I, like so many others just graduated or about to graduate feared the onset of the phrase “Would you like fries with that?” but the fickle finger of fate was, as so often in my life, about to beckon out of nowhere.

It was a hot Friday afternoon in May of 1986, and I was on my way to JCA for graduation practice and, for once, I was running EARLY. With time to kill, I decided to slip into FantaCo – the legendary Albany, NY comic shop (and sometimes publishing house) which had been supplying me with my weekly dose of mind-decay for several years and pick up that weeks new comics (that way, I’d have something to read while the windbags were prattling on at grad practice). Anyway, I popped in, grabbed my books and waited patiently in line at the counter whilst one Roger Green rang up customers ahead of me. When it was my turn at the register and the customary greetings had been exchanged, Roger spake the words that legends would be formed from (at least in my mind at the time).

“Hi Raj,” I smiled, “How’s it goin’?”

“Say, John, are you still drawing?” Roger asked, casually looking up over his glasses while bagging the latest Jerry Ordway opus.

“Yep, sure am, in fact I’m just about to graduate from art school on Sunday, why do you ask?”

Well, we’re about to start publishing again.”, he said, continuing to bag my books, “… and we might just be in search of an artist.”

Oh, man, this couldn’t have come at a better time! I immediately went into a long babbling, run-on sentence detailing how I’d been taken under the wing of Mike Zeck, how I was really getting good and how I’d be delighted to grab my ever-present portfolio from the car. I tossed cash on the counter, grabbed my bag o’ funnybooks and darted for the door without waiting for my change and ignoring Roger’s statements that it could wait. I got out to the steaming sidewalk of Central Ave. and was halfway to the car when it hit me-

“The Car!?!?!” Dammit, for once in my life, I wasn’t driving MY car, but that of my grandmother while my beloved, trusty Camaro (which I’ve owned TWENTY FIVE YEARS as of the day after this writing) sat, with my portfolio nestled in its undersized, yet cushy back seat, in my garage in Wynantskill. Why did I for once, heed my mother’s request to give my grandmother’s Chevette a “good run and a gas up”?!? I stalked back into the store, hastily explaining my tale of woe to Roger who told me that it would be just fine for me to return on Monday, but I was having NONE of it. Criminals may be a cowardly and superstitious lot, but wanna-be comic arteests are a driven and obsessive lot. I promised I’d be back “in a few” with my portfolio and dashed out the door.

It usually takes around 25 minutes to a half hour to make it from FantaCo’s then-location to Stately Hebert Manor in scenic North Greenbush, but that day despite the valiant little Chevy’s seemingly anemic 4 cylinder motor, I made it in just over 15 minutes (POSSIBLY bending a speed limit or 3), ran into the house, grabbed my keys, jumped into “Trigger The Wonder Camaro”, cranked it over(“Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed…”) and jetted back to Albany in even less time (POSSIBLY fracturing even more speed limits but I fail to recall). Squealing my tires,I slid into a parking spot right in front of FantaCo, vaulting from the driver’s seat, grabbing my battered portfolio and charging into the store, loudly proclaiming that I had returned as Roger stood behind the counter, holding up one index finger for me to wait as 3 oily haired people who looked as though they’d spent way too much time in the basement of some science building stared on blankly.

It seemed to take forever as Roger rang up his customers, at least long enough for me to memorize all of the cast list on the “Dawn Of The Dead” poster on the west wall and the eclectic contents of the display counter while a green latex Yoda mask stared benignly from within.

Finally, Roger beckoned me over to the counter and I threw the ‘port up on the scratched glass top and he began to flip through it, closely studying the fruits of my labors, leaving me to fidget and hum. Roger mmm’ed and aaahhh’ed over the Batman and Squadron Supreme pages as I chewed the inside of my cheek raw. By the time he looked up, smiling, I had become sure that one of the tiny glass coffins with “Genuine Transylvanian Dracula Grave Soil” had moved on its own within the case and that the aforementioned Yoda mask had winked at me.

Roger told me that FantaCo was, indeed about to begin publishing some comics once more after a self-imposed hiatus and that an illustrator was needed. He told me that he liked what he was seeing and that as far as he was concerned, I was “it” but that I’d have to wait to talk to Tom (Skulan) the following week as he was on vacation. Great, the carrot was dangled and I had all weekend to sweat it out, but Roger again told me that there shouldn’t be a problem as my work had progressed significantly since he’d last seen it and that I was indeed “getting good”. I thanked him, vowed to return on Monday and fled to grad practice on cloud nine. Within an hour, I’d told everybody and anybody at grad practice that it looked as though I’d snared my first comic project to the point where I’d been shushed back to the stone age by the rehearsal Nazis, but I didn’t care. “It” was happening, and I could tell be the amount of well-wishers,sycophants and out and out suck-ups who were surrounding me, seething with envy and trying to “hitch their wagon to me”- even those who never had anything to do with comics were asking me to get them work. It felt good – too good. After practice FINALLY ended, I popped the T-tops off of the Camaro and drove rather quickly to my then-girlfriend’s house to share the big news as I couldn’t get a hold of her since I’d spoken to Roger and there were no car phones at that point outside of Banacek reruns. I walked into her house to find her sitting on the front stairs and when she asked what was new I said “Oh, nothing much, I just got hired to do my FIRST COMIC BOOK!!!!” Her eyes lit up, she dove off the stairs into my arms and proclaimed; “Now, we can get MARRIED!!!!”

I was in real trouble but hadn’t figured it out yet.

To be continued…………

John’s bio – written by John: John Hebert has been many things…or he’s been CALLED many things. He was a semi successful comic book artist drawing such title as X-Men Adventures, Punisher, Nomad and Deathlok for Marvel as well as Jonny Quest, Wild Wild West and Mars Attacks for various other publishers. After leaving comics, he went on to become a firefighter, EMT, and fingerprint examiner which he remains to this day as a supervisor at the NY State Division Of Criminal Justice Services, helping to keep our streets safe-by keeping himself off of them as much as possible. Born in the far away land known as Wynantskill, NY, he now makes his home in Albany where he dabbles in politics, tending his car collection and pushing the envelope in pretty much whatever he does. The self proclaimed “Hunter S. Thompson of comic book art” has recently begun a return to comics after a lengthy exile, excitedly taking on some Captain Action assignments for Moonstone Publishing as well as a super top secret project involving a character with a red cape and a name that begins with “S” and ends with “N”. He can be reached at Hawkeyepierced@yahoo.com

This series will be continued approximately once a week.

ROG

ROG

I is for Indian

As every American fifth-grader knew when I was growing up, the aboriginal people of the Americas were called Indians because the Europeans who headed west to get east thought that they had reached Asia, probably the East Indies (Indonesia, et al), but it is THIS place that’s involved in the current discussion:

There developed real confusion when saying Indian whether one meant someone from the Asian subcontinent or from the Americas.

Subsequently, there was a movement by some Americans to use the term Native American instead of American Indian as more “sensitive” to the first Americans. Yet there were and are many entities that still use the term Indian, from the American Indian Movement to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, part of the US Department of the Interior to the new Museum of the American Indian, pictured above, which incidentally is staging an exhibition of Native American comic art.

So what do the people involved feel? Seems from this article that there is really no consensus:

A 1995 Census Bureau Survey of preferences for racial and ethnic terminology (there is no more recent survey) indicated that 49% of Native people preferred being called American Indian, 37% preferred Native American, 3.6% preferred “some other term,” and 5% had no preference. As The American Heritage Guide to English Usage points out, “the issue has never been particularly divisive between Indians and non-Indians.

Further:
In the end, the term you choose to use (as an Indian or non-Indian) is your own personal choice…The recommended method is to refer to a person by their tribe, if that information is known…[W]henever possible an Indian would prefer to be called a Cherokee or a Lakota or whichever tribe they belong to.

The 2010 Census is coming up and the Bureau will be using “American Indian or Alaska Native” as the designation for native peoples, just as it did in 2000. At least one of the reasons may lie in this true story I heard from someone who works at the Bureau. Census forms are tested periodically. In some neighborhoods with large immigrant populations, Census was finding an anomaly; a large number of people were checked as Native American, often inconsistently within a family structure. It soon became evident that the new arrivals were checking their country of origin for themselves, but their children who were born here they designated as Native American. The children WERE native to America.


Still, I am still quite uncomfortable referring to the Major League Baseball team in Cleveland or the National Football League team in suburban Washington, DC by their respective nicknames. It just feels wrong to me. At least the NFL team doesn’t have that dopey grinning logo, Chief Wahoo, which reminds me very much of the caricatures of black people in old minstrel shows.

For those of you not into sports or from the United States, the topic of sports nicknames “honoring” Indians at the high school, college or professional level has been an ongoing debate, as you can see, for instance, in this article.


ROG

ROG
Ramblin' with Roger
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