Ramblin' with Roger

Your Score: the Prankster

Your humor style: CLEAN COMPLEX LIGHT

Your humor has an intellectual, even conceptual slant to it. You’re not pretentious, but you’re not into what some would call ‘low humor’ either. You’ll laugh at a good dirty joke, but you definitely prefer something clever to something moist.

You probably like well-thought-out pranks and/or spoofs and it’s highly likely you’ve tried one of these things yourself. In a lot of ways, yours is the most entertaining type of humor because it’s smart without being mean-spirited.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Conan O’Brian – Ashton Kutcher

http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=17565214125862764376
The 3-Variable Funny Test!
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Request that Albany-area folks check this post.

ROG

Carry On, Wayward Son

One of our former library interns, Ben, is leaving town. He’s moving to Wichita, Kansas to take a job. Albany is a tough market for a new librarian because there’s a library school here, and moving away is often the best option. The folks in Wichita had called and I gave a positive reference for him.

He had asked his friends whether he should stay or should he go. I advocated for his departure, not because I was getting rid of him – as he [kiddingly?] suggested, but because his life was simple enough (no house, no spouse, etc.) that leaving was easier than it might be later in life.

Last night, he had a BBQ/auction. Well, not everything was auctioned, only “the most prized and valuable items” were auctioned. Other items were sold in a more traditional manner — “priced and sold to the fist taker”. I think he meant “first”, for there wasn’t anything worth fighting over.

He is a lapsed blogger who may get back to it after he gets settled in his new job.

Ben leaves for Wichita tomorrow. Good luck.
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The Marvin Gaye segment of American Masters premieres on PBS, starting May 7; check your local listing. Also being shown this week, the American Masters piece on Aretha Franklin.
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Gin, Television, and Social Surplus.

ROG

My Blog QUESTIONS

This is what I’d like to know. The caveat first: I may do all, or some or none of the great suggestions you proffer.

1)What features have I had in this blog that you want me to continue or get back to doing, and what should I drop?

2) What would you suggest I do that would generate more traffic and, more importantly for me, more comments?

Any other bloggy-type comments would be appropriate here as well. You want me to link to your blog, e.g.?

Expect that I will have a post next week where I talk about changes that I want to make, as well as how I might integrate some of yours.
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I do so love the new feature in Blogger. I will use it a LOT.

“Scheduled post publishing…is now live for everyone. If you set a post’s date into the future, Blogger will wait to publish until that time comes.

“Have you ever wanted to announce something on a certain date but knew you wouldn’t be at a computer to make a post? Or you wanted to keep posting regularly but knew you’d be on vacation for a few weeks?”

Happens all the time.

“Scheduled post publishing is here to help you out.”

“Scheduling a post is easy to do: on the post editor page, click the ‘Post Options’ toggle to show the ‘Post date and time’ fields. Then, type a post date and time that’s in the future. When you click the ‘Publish’ button, your post will become ‘scheduled.’ When the date and time of the post arrive, it will be automatically published to your blog.

“‘Scheduled’ posts appear in your Edit Posts list alongside your drafts and published posts. To un-schedule a post, simply save it as a draft any time before it gets published.”

This way, I don’t have to impose on someone to post for me. The thing makes a lot of sense.

“One quick note: If you want to give a post a date in the future but have it appear on your blog now, you’ll need to add in an extra step. First, publish your post with the current date and time. This will make it appear on your blog. Then, edit the post to change the date into the future and publish it again.

“We don’t re-schedule posts that are already published, so the post will stay on your blog but sort to the very top. The same is true of future dated posts you’ve already made, so there’s no need to worry about your existing posts disappearing, or having your blog assaulted by unplanned entries in, say, 2027.”

ROG

Happy Blogiversary to Ramblin’

Finishing year number three at that. If you were to tell me I’d be blogging for nearly 1100 straight days 1200 days ago, I’d say you were nuts. Well, the joke’s on me. Maybe I’m nuts. So be it.
I blogged 32 times in May, June, August, September, and December 2007, 31 times in July and November of 2007, plus each of the first three months of 2008, a whopping 34 times in October 2007, and a mere 30 times in April 2008. That would be 380 posts in 366 days. And this doesn’t count the posts I’ve made elsewhere.

Over the last 12 months – heck, ever – the best single day I had, in terms of people coming to the blog was May 18, with 477 visitors. It was fueled on the piece I had posted the day before, about counterfeit Cerebus #1, which ADD and subsequently other members of the comic book press picked up.

Likewise, it fueled the highest month I ever had.

The second best single day was 366 hits for a January interview with someone named Fred Hembeck, aided undoubtedly by a mention from Greg Burgas; it was among the first interviews of Fred to see the light of day, which helped. The worst day in the past year was a day in July, probably a Sunday, when I had 76 visitors.

I check my Technorati score periodically. It’s been as low as 22 and as high as 44; last I checked, it was 36.

When I Google Roger Green, my blog is generally in the Top 3 hits, along with Roger Green + Associates, Roger S. Green of Duluth, GA, and/or the former assemblyman Roger L. Green. The Denver ambient jazz musician’s on the rise, but the feng shui guy has been sinking. One of the Google oddities is that both my blog and one particular post has been near the top. For a while it was Chronicles of the Fantastic Four Chronicles, featuring Jack Kirby and John Byrne. More recently, it’s been the little piece I did about the death of Steve Gerber, which made me mildly uncomfortable, for some reason.

I want to thank those folks who’ve come by. More on all of this in the days ahead.

ROG

Underplayed Vinyl: Judy Collins

For my 16th birthday in March 1969, I received the album Who Knows Where the Time Goes from my friend Lois, who I had known since kindergarten. Even as she was giving the LP, she gave me this whopping caveat said, “I hope you like it. It’s kinda country.” Well, some of it was for certain, but it was far more eclectic than I was led to expect.
Hello Hooray – Starts off mysteriously softly, almost inaudibly, before breaking into a stirring rock tune, featuring Steve Stills on the guitar. Yes, this is the same song that Alice Cooper later covered.
Story of Isaac – A Leonard Cohen tune featuring only harpsichord and organ about the Biblical character who was to be sacrificed to God by his father Abraham. I found this song particularly moving and put it on a mixed CD at some point.
My Father – A rare composition by Judy; interesting how she placed the two songs about fathers and their children together. This is a lovely biographical song in waltz time.

Someday Soon – One of those “country” songs with the pedal steel guitar that has become a Collins trademark, written by Ian Tyson.

The title tune – Written by Sandy Denny, it is an equisite mournful anthem where the piano, guitar and bass set off Judy’s voice marvelously.

Poor Immigrant- A Bob Dylan tune, also with pedal steel and Dobro.
First Boy I Loved – A much-covered Robin Williamson song about the title character growing to “a grown-up male stranger.” Having loved and lost since then, it is far more powerful to me now. There was a version of this song (First Girl I Loved) done by Jackson Browne for a tribute to Elektra Records called Rubaiyat.
Bird on the Wire – Another “country” tune, another Leonard Cohen tune, probably my favorite of the “country” tunes, because guitarist James Burton sounded as though he were having so much fun.

Pretty Polly – A murder ballad that starts softly, builds to the death – “He stabbed her through the heart, and her heart blood did flow,” pulls back musically for the burial, then rocks out to the end with Burton and Stills sharing guitar licks. This song was shocking to me at the time and still affecting today.

This album has been on and off my desert albums list for decades.

July Collins, born May 1, 1939, turns 69 today. I saw her perform live but once, in the early 1980s, in Glens Falls, NY after winning tickets on a radio contest the very day of the concert.

Oh, what the heck: Since You Asked from Wildflowers:

And this more elementary song:

ROG