Ramblin' with Roger

Another Day

This would have been my Grandma Williams’ 110th birthday, I think. I mean the day is right, it’s the year that’s a little fuzzy. She had always told us – my mother (her daughter), my father, my sisters, me, even her siblings (she was the oldest of five) – that she born in 1898. But when we took her to finally register to vote, in the early 1960s, she told the voter registar that she was born in 1897. What? I suspect that she was OK fibbing to thee rest of us, but didn’t want to swear to a lie.

I spent a lot of time at my grandma’s house. Because both my parents worked outside of the home -my mother at an office in McLean’s department store in Binghamton – my sisters and I went to her house, which she shared with her youngest sibling, my Aunt Deana, every day at lunchtime, and early on, after school. In fact, it was their availability that determined that I would go to elementary school at Daniel S. Dickinson rather than Oak Street, which was the school where people living at my address were supposed to go. This means, if it weren’t for her willingness to do this, I wouldn’t have know Carol, Karen, Lois, Bill, Bernie, Irene, and Diane from K-12, the first five of whom I saw at my HS reunion last year, and the first of which I’ll see this weekend.

On the other hand, my grandma tended to tell stories of boogeymen, and bad people lurking everywhere. My sister Leslie and I were susceptible to her tales, though baby sister Marcia, to her credit, saw right through them.

Anyway, Bill Walsh, the coach of the San Francisco 49ers died last month, and I remembered my grandma. See, I got a call that she had died in Charlotte, NC during the third period of Super Bowl XVI, when Walsh and the team won their first championship against Cincinnati. They’re somehow forever linked in my mind.
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Today is also the seventh anniversary of the death of my father. I don’t know what more I can say that I haven’t already said here and here and here and especially here. He was gregarious and moody, forthright and secretive, talented and limited. I was talking with my sister Leslie about him this week. He had wanted me to find a way for him to make money on the Internet, but he had so many ideas, many of them unfocused, that I didn’t quite know how to do that. And I felt that he was a bit disappointed in me for that. Whatcha gonna do?
ROG

Playing The Whole Album?

Interesting stuff in this past Friday’s Weekend Journal of the Wall Street Journal, even if Murdock IS buying it.

One piece was Hollywood Report: Up Next — Your Favorite Album; In Concerts, Bands Play CDs, First Track to Last; Battling the iPod Effect by Ethan Smith. WSJ. Aug 3, 2007. pg. W.1

Abstract (Summary)
The impetus behind the current wave of live album concerts comes from England, and in particular from Barry Hogan, the 35-year-old London-based founder and director of an influential music festival called All Tomorrow’s Parties. “When you see a band you love, how often are you sitting there thinking, ‘Why are they doing this new stuff?'” Mr. Hogan asks. And after having asked himself that question one too many times, he decided to do something about it. In 2005 he launched a concert series, related to All Tomorrow’s Parties, called Don’t Look Back. That series has presented around two dozen alt-rock artists playing beloved albums in their entirety — from Iggy Pop’s Stooges playing 1970’s “Fun House” to the Cowboy Junkies doing 1990’s “The Trinity Session.”

Despite sellout crowds, Mr. [Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick] acknowledges that in some ways, the concerts were “goofy.” For one thing, the order in which songs appear on an album might not make sense in concert. “If the producer didn’t think there were 10 or 12 killer songs, he’d top load the sequence” with potential hits, Mr. Carlos says. That means that in concert, a band might end up closing with the weakest material of the night. Another problem: There were some songs on the albums that the band had never played live, and they struggled with them. A few were rearranged as acoustic numbers, to give themselves a breather. “We were young men when we did ’em originally,” Mr. Carlos says.

Other artists have taken a more maximalist approach. For the just-completed European tour during which he played his 1973 album “Berlin,” [Lou Reed] was backed by a 30-piece orchestra. Mr. Reed played a brief series of “Berlin” concerts in New York last year, but his manager, Tom Sarig, says he is unsure whether the rocker will perform the album elsewhere in the U.S.

Besides Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and Cheap Trick, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters has played live versions of “Dark Side of the Moon”, and Sonic Youth hit the road to play “Daydream Nation”.

This fall, Lucinda Williams will play a week in NYC and LA with each night featuring a complete performance of one of her five most prominent albums, such as 1998’s “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.” But during a second set, she’ll play selections from her 2007 release “West.”

Interesting. I’ve know of other artists, notably Phish, playing a whole album, but not the actual artist, except once in 1989 in Albany when I saw Joe Jackson play the entire first half of Blaze of Glory, then some other tunes, then the entire second half; the audience was unfamiliar, and therefore not very happy, as some folks walked around the Palace Theater, somewhat bored.

Another piece, on sports: By the Numbers: The Best at Keeping Batters Off Base
Allen St. John. WSJ: Aug 3, 2007. pg. W.3

Abstract (Summary)
In the American League, the BABE list also is topped by two young pitchers, each of whom were crucial pieces in big trades. Dan Haren of the Oakland A’s, acquired from the St. Louis Cardinals for Mark Mulder, has posted a .378 BABE. (Underscoring Billy Beane’s acumen in identifying promising young pitchers is the fact that A’s draft pick Joe Blanton is third in the AL with a .393 BABE.) Behind Mr. Haren is Josh Beckett of the Boston Red Sox, who’s rewarding the faith that General Manager Theo Epstein displayed when he traded two prized prospects to the Florida Marlins for the hard-throwing righty.

One thing that the BABE list shows us is how volatile the pitching side of the game is. The BOP list of top hitters tends to be quite consistent from season-to-season, with such players as Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez keeping their places at the top alongside sleepers such as Carlos Guillen of the Detroit Tigers. But many of the league’s top pitchers are pretty far down on the BABE list this season. Last year’s National League BABE champ, Brandon Webb of the Arizona Diamonsbacks, is 14th on this season’s list with a .406 mark, two slots behind John Maine of the New York Mets (.402). Roy Halladay of the Toronto Blue Jays, the 2003 AL Cy Young winner and last year’s AL runner up in BABE, is 18th on this year’s list — behind journeyman Ted Lilly of the Chicago Cubs. And Oliver Perez of the Mets (.421, 23rd), who a year ago was demoted to the minors by the pitching-starved Pittsburgh Pirates, ranks ahead of two-time Cy Young winner, and defending AL BABE leader, Johan Santana (.423, 25th).

The writer talks about BABE, or bases per batter. BABE starts with a pitcher’s total bases allowed (the sum of his hits allowed plus one extra point for each double, two extra for each triple and three extra for each homer). When you add in walks issued and batters hit by a pitch, the sum is Grand Total Bases. Divide GTB by the number of batters a pitcher has faced, and the result is BABE. The lower that number, the better a pitcher has been at minimizing the number of bases issued to opposing batters.

There’s a third article in that edition, about a Indie Film festival in New Zealand. Also, in the Saturday edition, there’s this: “New Labor Moves: Belly Dancing Hits Delivery Room; Connection to Childbirth May Have Ancient Origins”, which I sent to our Bradley instructor, our doula, and the only belly dancer I know personally; the former, at least LOVED the piece. If you’re interested in the full text of any of these pieces and can’t access them, e-mail me.
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It’s sports Hall of Fame season. First the baseball event with a record 75,000 in Cooperstown, then football in Canton and horse racing in Saratoga. Jaquandor provided not only the football story about a guy who played for the only team in NYS, but directed me to a story about Barry Bonds, which pretty much covers my position. The Buffalo guy also notes: “As for people who suggest that his record carry an asterisk in the record books, wouldn’t any batting title from the steroid era also require an asterisk?…Hell, if as many players took steroids as are commonly supposed, shouldn’t the entire yearly standings of Major League Baseball carry an asterisk in that period?” But I know mine’s a minority opinion; in some AOL instant “poll”, 65% were shocked, shocked I tell you, that Barry Bonds should get any kudos at all.
ROG

You Ever Have One of Those Days…

…where none of the individual things would bug you, but the cumulative effect sort of wears you down? I had one last week.

My dear sweet wife has been taking Lydia to day care in the summer, as I do it during the regular school year. The goal is to get them on the 7 a.m. bus, but it was clear they were going to miss it, requiring Carol to drive Lydia – no big deal. But then dear wife says, “Well, since we have some extra time, do you want to do Lydia’s hair?” I explained that *I* don’t have extra time, that I’ve been postponing my stuff (brushing my teeth, picking out my music, etc.) so that THEY can get out of the house. SHE may have extra time, but I don’t. But no big deal.

Then I’m out waiting for my 7:20 bus, with my bike that has its second flat in as many weeks. The 7:20 is late, so late (7:25) that the 7:30 is practically behind it. Does the 7:20 stop and pick us up? It does not, because it’s too “crowded” – though it didn’t look bad to me, and we got on the 7:30, which, of course, just sat there until 7:30. Five or 10 minutes in the morning can make a lot of difference in how much I can work out.

So, on the 7:30 bus, on the front of which I place my bike, there’s a guy sitting across from me. He says, “How old are you? 55?” I’m 54, so I nod yes. He then says, “Can you believe I’M 55?” I reply, “Yes.” He looks slightly crestfallen. I think I was SUPPOSED to comment on how young and vibrant he looked. He then rambled on about something, but I wasn’t really listening.

After my abbreviated workout at the Y, I left my bike there and walked across the Henry Johnson land bridge. I wasn’t quite sure what time it was, so I was periodically looking back to make sure I caught the next bus. On one of these checks, as young woman whizzed by me on the sidewalk on her bike. I didn’t hear her at all. She could have hit me as I turned around. Worse, I came literally two inches from bumping her, which could have knocked her down, possibly into oncoming traffic. I’m sure she was oblivious.

I take a bus home after work, get my bike, and walk it through the park to the bike shop. I explain to the guy there – who I’ve seen several times before, though not last week – that I’d gotten a second flat in a week. He said, “I’ll take your word for it,” but in that way that suggested he didn’t really believe me.

My wife wanted me to pick up pizza on the way home. So I rode to the pizza place, figuring I’d make the order, drop off my bike, then walk and get the pie. I stood at the counter while two guys stood there working on an order. No “I see you” head nod; nothing, for over five minutes. Finally, a third guy comes over and says, “So, are you all set?” “NO, I’m not ALL SET” – I tried to ratchet back my annoyance, which was not really with him but his colleagues. He took my order and said it’d be ready in 15 minutes. I took the bike home, waited 20 minutes, walked to the pizzeria and was told it’ll be another 5 to 7 minutes, which turned out to be more like 10. Pizza shops are very hot places in the summer.

None of these on their own I’d probably even mention, but, as it says in one of my daughter’s book, “I think I’ll move to Australia.”
ROG

Another Busy Weekend

Here are my wife and daughter frolicking at a MidSummer’s gathering this past Saturday. On Sunday, it was on to the Hembeck/Moss residence. More on these in the coming days.
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Hey, Fred: NBC is rerunning that Jerry Lewis episode of Law & Order: SVU tonight at 10 pm EDT.
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I love those synchronistic stories: Fred Glavine used to tell his son Tom how his favorite pitcher, the great Boston/Milwaukee Braves left-handed pitcher Warren Spahn, would have handled a situation. Warren Spahn, who had 363 wins, finished his career with the New York Mets.
Now Tom Glavine, the great left-handed pitcher, long with the Atlanta Braves, won his 300th game Sunday night, playing for the New York Mets.
I also learned that Spahn, Glavine and Early Wynn are the only three pitchers to win 300 games without having a 20-win season.
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I don’t know if you bugged them about it, as I did, but Dead or Alive HAS added Doug Marlette to its list, only a couple weeks after the fact.
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I’ll probably be mentioning this at least once a month until February: the 7th Annual Underground Railroad Conference, Friday-Sunday, February 22-24, 2008, primarily at the College of St. Rose in Albany. Save the date.
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A couple suggested readings: ADD interviews James Howard Kunstler about the state of the nation, Kunstler’s writing career and other stuff. It’s long, but interesting, and an audio is available as well. A much shorter piece is the Brad Blog piece about the California Secretary of State Debra Bowen requiring paper ballots to be counted, “not invisible electronic bits and bites from computers run by private corporations using secret machines and secret software.”
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My sister Leslie flew in from San Diego last night; actually she arrived about 12:30 this morning and is still still asleep. I, on the other hand, am (allegedly) awake.
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Finally, a quiz I found on the site of Kelly Brown. FWIW, I think it’s incredibly accurate.

You Should Rule Saturn

Saturn is a mysterious planet that can rarely be seen with the naked eye.

You are perfect to rule Saturn because like its rings, you don’t always follow the rules of nature.
And like Saturn, to really be able to understand you, someone delve beyond your appearance.

You are not an easy person to befriend. However, once you enter a friendship, you’ll be a friend for life.
You think slowly but deeply. You only gain great understanding after a situation has past.

What Planet Should You Rule?

ROG

Interview by Dymowski

Gordon writes: As promised, here are my five interview questions for your blog.

1) You’ve discussed Rod Serling multiple times on your blog. My question – what are your favorite Serling-written pieces? (You can pull from anywhere – the Playhouse 90 stuff, Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, et al)

There were some pre-Twilight Zone pieces, and maybe a Night Gallery or two, but I think I’ll stick with Twilight Zone, because there were so many:
“Time Enough at Last” with Burgess Meredith as a man after a nuclear war with time enough to read (finally!), but then who breaks his glasses.
“The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” with Claude Akins and Jack Weston. The power goes out. Is it the aliens? It turns out the monsters are ourselves. For some reason, in some ways, reminds me of an old EC comics story about the guy who is not saluting the flag, so the crowd beats him to death, figuring he’s a Commie, when, in fact, he lost his sight fighting in the war on our side.
“It’s a Good Life” with Billy Mumy as a very scary, and powerful, kid.
“A Game of Pool” with Jack Klugman, playing the game of, and for, his life.
“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” with William Shatner. Is there something on the wing of the airplane, or is he crazy? This segment also appears in the Twilight Zone movie, perhaps to lesser effect.
I’m sure there are others: “The Dummy”, “To Serve Man”. There’s one, Little Girl Lost, with a kid going under the bed and ending up in another dimension, that TERRIFIED me in the day. I must also mention “Walking Distance”, that DOES have a carousel that reminds me of Rec Park in Binghamton. There was a segment, Nightmare as a Child, that was also in the Twilight Zone movie; I laughed out loud when I saw it at movie’s world premiere in Binghamton, because it namechecked Helen Foley, his favorite teacher and one of mine, who was in the audience at the time.
BTW, Gordon sent me this link to a bunch of “The Twilight Zone” TV Bumpers; here’s a definition of a bumper. Lots of them are for cigarette ads, especially early on; tobacco killed Rod Serling far too young. Oh, the picture above was purloined from here; when IS that museum going to open?

2) As a relatively new father, what aspect of parenting – or your daughter’s future – are you a little concerned about? Any adjustments that you think you will have to make?

There is always a balancing act between letting her do as much as she wants and making sure she doesn’t get hurt or frustrated or spoiled. She tends to be wary of strangers, which has its good and not-so-good elements. The world can be scary, and I want her to be cautious without being paranoid. It’s a fine line, that.

3) Does your local public library have a summer reading program? And if so, do you participate?

Yes, and as a matter of fact, as a member of the Friends of the Albany Public Library has authorized money to subsidize the program. Do I participate myself? No, but I’m sure we will in the future.

4) What strange, hidden secret of Fred Hembeck do you think the comics-reading public should know?

Interesting. I saw Fred, his wife Lynn, and daughter Julie just yesterday. He is a piler. He has piles of stuff. Reference materials for his blog here, reference materials for his cover redoes there. His Superman DVDs under those for Gilmore Girls. It’s not messy, exactly; it’s rather organized chaos.

5) What is your all-time favorite book?

I once said the World Almanac, and it’s probably true, or maybe one of those Billboard singles or album books. But if you’re talking about books with actual paragraphs, O Albany! by William Kennedy. I know this is sacrilege, but I’ve never gotten through any of Bill Kennedy’s Albany-based fiction, and I’ve tried. But I enjoyed his non-fiction piece. Favorite fiction, and I read very little these days: A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

ROG