Ramblin' with Roger

Meme stolen (sorry, recycled) from somewhere

1. Four years ago — where were you?
Going to see Alison Krauss in concert with my wife. I was pretty convinced by that point that she would never become pregnant. Three months later, she did.

2. What bores you to tears?
Repetitive stuff such as collating groups of paper. assembly line work, which I’d done years ago. Tax preparation.

3. Do you have rhythm?
AND blues.

4. What do you dream about?
Nothing I aspire to.

5. What makes you tremble in fear?
War.

6. Tell us something you’ve destroyed.
The front lock on the door of my childhood, trying unassemble, then reassemble it.

7. Do you feel in control over your life?
I have a three-year old.

8. How are you feeling?
Tired.

9. When is the last time you went to the doctor?
Yeah, I’ll tell you about that sometime.

10. Ever broken a bone?
No.

11. Ever had surgery?
On my right knee.

12. When is the la st time you were in a hospital?
For myself? Car accident when I was 19.

13. Do like Daylight Savings Time, or should it be gotten rid of?
Sometimes.

14. Do you wear a wristwatch?
When I remember.

15. Analog or Digital?
Analog.

16. What’s your favorite game show to watch?
Besides JEOPARDY!? Not watching any currently.

17. What game show would you like to be on?
Pyramid.

18. Do you know anyone who has been on a game show?
Well, not personally.

19. What do you think the worst game show is?
As a GAME of skill, it has to be the Mandel show.

20. Bob Barker, Howie Mandel or Alex Trebek?
I always liked Bob Barker, going back to Truth or Consequences.

21. What do you try to stay away from?
Conflict.

22. Are you clumsy or graceful?
Yes.

23. What is it too late for?
My major league baseball career.

24. What/who was your first love?
Baseball cards.

25. What would you like to take back?
Certain things said.

26. American football: good times or couldn’t care less?
Probably the best TV sport.

27. Do you have a favorite sports team?
Varies, though I grew up a NY Giants fan.

28. What’s your favorite junk food?
Pizza.

29. What is your fondest memory?
Probably had some musical tie.

30. Does time always kill pain?
No.

31. Are you more likely to yell or give the silent treatment?
Silent, though I’ve gotten better at just saying it.

32. First kiss?
A girl named Mary, under mistletoe, when I was 13.

33. Underwater swimming or skydiving?
Mediocre swimmmer.

34. Careful as you cross the street or never look both ways?
Always looking, because the drivers aren’t.

35. What have you quit?
Organizations that take up too much time.

36. Are you complicated?
Am I?

37. Do you retaliate?
Generally not.
ROG

Earth Day Dichotomy

I think I finally figured it out.

I’ve been struggling to figure out why some people are willing to believe in the possibly of global warming, while others seem to be so staunchly from Missouri. And it isn’t just a left-right, liberal-conservative, Democratic-Republican thing, though it does have aspects of it.

Well, here’s the (cheeky) theory; it’s all dependent on how they view the legal system.

Let’s take group A, which I’ll call Red. Red wants to make sure we lock up all the people who need locking up (not necessarily including their friends). Red is dependent, though often bends, the rule of criminal law which requires evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Red has doubt, which Red finds reasonable. So, Red doesn’t seem to want to do anything until there’s total unanimity of opinion. Examples of this thinking: a recent Wall Street Journal op/ed piece, the current administration’s position that we can’t do anything until China does, the let’s sit on our hands position of the EPA that was vacated by the Supreme Court recently.

Then let’s take group B, which I’ll call Gray. Gray thinks we need sweeping changes, which can often be done with a class-action lawsuit. The rule of civil law requires that only a preponderence of evidence support the position, which is good enough for Gray. Thus, Gray finds the rising temperatures, stranded polar bears and hungry penguins, the increase in severe weather, the disappearing bees, the poor maple seasons to provide a preponderence of evidence of human-generated global warming. Well, maybe not the bees. A leading Republican on this side appeared on the cover of Newsweek recently; notably, he’s one of the few who isn’t running for President, because he’s ineligible.

Regardless, what I loved about this Earth Day/Month was the Step It Up protests all over the country last weekend. “We’re not going to join all together in a mass demonstration and waste all of that petrol!” they were saying. “Act locally.”

In New York, there’s conversation about expanding the bottle bill (five cent deposit on returned soda and beer cans and bottles) that was passed a couple decades ago, to water bottles, sports drinks, bottled iced tea and the like. I’m in favor. The growth of sports drinks and the like was not anticipated when the original law was passed.
ROG

A Mental Mistake

I made a tactical error this week: I watched, and read far too much about Virginia Tech. There were two episodes of My Name Is Earl listed on my DVR Monday night; it was really Dateline NBC. That Boston Legal on Tuesday? ABC Primetime. Yeah, I COULD have just deleted them, but no, I kept watching. At least I’ve missed, so far, the controversial airing of some of the material sent to NBC by the killer. Yet I was coming to a conclusion not dissimilar to this one. Which is to say, I do feel for the VT community, and the country as a whole, but I’m struck by how one bomb in Baghdad might well kill two or three dozen people. I wonder if we – I – have become inured because it happens so damn often there.

The shock of VT will subside when the NEXT thing happens – was the Don Imus thing only last week? – only to be brought back in the spotlight by the inevitable lawsuit by some of the families of the last 30 victims. (Meanwhile, whether to lock up the guns or for everyone to be packin’ heat is addressed well here.

But the BIGGEST mistake I made this week was going here where one can find the full text of a couple of Cho Seung-Hui’s plays. Oddly, it wasn’t the plays I found most disturbing, it was the banal dialogue of people. Nasty sniping at each other. “Someone should have turned him in, gotten him therapy” (in fact, they did). Well, you can read it if you want. For some reason, the movie Minority Report came to mind, even though I’ve never seen it.

Anyway, here’s one comment. Please tell me what you think, if you will:

This guy’s sick for sure. But he’s sick because he killed 30+ people. He’s not sick because he wrote weird plays.

As a writer, I find it offensive that so many people say this kid should have been turned into counselors, authorities, school officials, etc. because of something he wrote. Do we really want a society where we judge the content of someone’s character based on a creative piece he or she wrote? If your answer is yes, then think of all the books we would have to burn. Think of the great works of the past that we would never read. Forget about Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” “Macbeth,” or almost anything else by Shakespeare. Forget about Henry James’ “Turn of the Screw.” We couldn’t read “Fahrenheit 451” even though we’d be living in a society sort of like the society in “Fahrenheit 451.” And Stephen King? Are you kidding? He’s as sick as this guy, if we’re judging people based on creative works. The school officials are not to blame. The students are not to blame. The local law enforcement officials are not to blame. This could have happened anywhere, on any campus, in any dorm. That’s what makes it so tragic.

I was intrigued, however, how the local media lucked into “the local angle” as poet Nikki Giovanni, who I used to read 20 years ago, taught Cho a couple years ago, but booted him out of class. She spoke at an already scheduled lecture at the University at Albany on Thursday.
ROG

Annie Hall

How can I explain why Annie Hall, released 30 years ago this very day, has become a major marker in my life? Why I’ve seen it at least four times in the theater, and is one of the very first VHS tapes I ever purchased?

*Alvy Singer, Woody Allen’s character in the movie, HATES to go to a movie after it started. Me, too. That’s partly because I almost sat on someone’s lap in a darkened theater, but still.
*When I lived in NYC that summer of ’77, I hung out around Washington Square Park.
*Alvy hates Los Angeles; I’ve never been.
*Paul Simon, of whom I was/am a big fan, made his movie debut as Tony Lacey.
*The cocaine scene in the movie? Definitely plausible.
*Sigourney Weaver made her film debut as “Alvy’s date outside theater”.
*It informed me that comedy can be intelligent and funny.
*Variety said expand the scene in “Annie Hall” where Woody visits Diane Keaton’s family & you’ve got Meet the Parents. I’ve met parents; it’s almost ALWAYS like that.
*Christopher Walken played Annie’s neurotic brother Duane.
*There’s a split screen scene where Annie and Alvy discuss their sex life. He: She never wants to have sex, only three times a week. She: He wants to have sex all the time – three times a week. Yup.
*I’ve been in a relationship where this dialogue took place: “A relationship is like a shark; it has to move forward or it dies. What we have here is a dead shark.”
*Film critic John Simon said about it: “Repetitious and aimless as to seem to beg for oblivion”. He didn’t like Star Wars either.
*I always liked the fact that Diane Keaton’s given name was Diane Hall. (In case you were wondering, Woody Allen was Allen Stewart Konigsberg.)
*”You only gave me books with the word ‘death’ in the title”. I relate to this, too.
*I went through an unfortunate period when I said, “La-dee-dah, la-dee-dah.” A lot.
*Woody Allen finally got some Oscar love. He was nominated for acting in, directing & writing; he won for the latter 2.
***
Go see what Fred Hembeck did on April 10. Careful readers of this blog may already know, since he, his family, and I all were together.

Bill and Orchid’s anniversary

I have friends, good ones, whose birthdays, anniversaries and other significant dates I simply cannot remember. But Bill and Orchid’s wedding date I remember, for really dreadful reasons.

Bill Anderson is now a well-regarded inker for a number of comics, some of which are listed here and here and here.

But when I first met him, he was just a (not too annoying) kid who wanted to draw. Eventually, he did some inking for Fred Hembeck, the late Raoul Vezina and others on some FantaCo publications. (Here’s one citation – the first item.) He also worked at FantaCo, doing mail order and occasionally working in the store when I worked there in the 1980s.

Don’t remember exactly when Bill started going out with Orchid, but I know it was by the time of my friend Norm’s 30th birthday some 18 years ago, because every picture I tried to take of them that night involved both of them hiding their faces, as though the camera were going to steal their souls.

After they were engaged, Bill asked me to be in the wedding. The day before the ceremony, Bill, the other groomsmen and I rode downstate for the rehearsal. Somebody, probably I, remembered that the next day was the second anniversary of Oklahoma City bombing and the fourth anniversary of the Waco disaster. What made this slightly creepy was the fact that some pilot and his plane had disappeared. Conspiracy theorists on the radio were speculating that perhaps the plane was in hiding to be launched as a weapon on the anniversary of these two events. I was not, and am not, much of a conspiracy theorist myself, but I admit the plane’s disappearance did cause me pause. (Some time later, the plane and its deceased pilot were found crashed into a mountain.) So the guys were in an interesting frame of mind when we got to the church.

Meanwhile, Orchid and her entourage arrived separately. The guys were a few minutes late, but the women about 45 minutes tardy. The priest implored us to be on time the next day for the 3 pm wedding, because there would be a 5 pm church service.

So, the next day, the guys are at the sanctuary in plenty of time. The women were “running a few minutes late”, each call explained. The priest, while saying nothing (other than “Where ARE they?”, repeatedly), was clearly becoming apoplexic. Finally, around 4:05, the women arrived, and the service began. This was a Catholic service with mass, communion and the like. The priest buzzed through the ceremony in record time, just as the parishioners for the 5 pm service were beginning to file in. I’m pretty sure there were no pictures taken at the church, only at the reception.

So, today, Bill and Orchid celebrate ten years of married bliss, with three kids, still (understandably) occasionally late. We’re still in regular contact. Happy anniversary!
ROG