Some JEOPARDY! fans have WAY too much time on their hands


I’m skimming the Wall Street Journal when I get to this piece on identity theft. One article talked about an “ego search”, so I did one in Google, as I hadn’t done one in quite a while. I found this blog – actually several times – plus references to the Roger Green who’s the Assemblyman from Brooklyn, but who works in Albany, of course. Then I came to the J! Archive, an incomplete, but detailed description of JEOPARDY! games, as though it were a sporting event, plus a wagering calculator.

And guess whose two games in 1998 were documented thoroughly? No, NOT Linda Zusman; only one of the Albany school teacher’s games are shown. Guess again.

So you get to see all the questions I got right – I did know many of the ones I didn’t get a chance to answer; the ones I got wrong, including the brain freeze from Game 1; and the order in which they were answered. I look back at Game 2, and I read the questions that no one rang in on and say, “Hey, I know THAT!” Well, NOW I know it. Anyway, compare and contrast with my recall here, here, and here. You’ll find the misrecollections I had, especially about the second game, which, strangely, I’ve watched a few fewer times than the first one.

Incidentally, only 51 of the 75 appearances of Ken Jennings are documented so far.

Anyway, I suppose it’s no more obsessive than someone who can calculate what offensive guard could be drafted in the fifth round by the New Jersey Jets.
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Newsmeat, which documents which celebs/sports figures gave money to politicians, how much they gave and to whom.
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Wanna have a radio station?
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An appreciation of Molly Ivins.
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A local event, but interesting-

The voice in My Fair Lady, The King and I, and West Side Story for all those actresses that couldn’t sing:

This coming Sunday is the Marni Nixon Master Class, from 1-4 at Bush Memorial Hall at Russell Sage College.

The price for adults is $20, and for students, $5 with a student ID.

The number to call is 518- 462-4531 x236.

There are eight wonderful young singers who have been chosen to participate with a really interesting mix of music, and it promises to be an enlightening event for both the participants and the observers.

ROG

I Talk Well English

Here’s something that I’ve long found peculiar: people saying to me, to my face, “You don’t sound black.” I know this is going on even when they don’t actually voice it. I’ve talked to folks on the phone, usually for work, and then they meet me and they have that “You’re not at ALL what I expected you to look like” look on their faces. It’s quite entertaining, actually. And I get it from black people as well as with white people, except it’s tinged with, “Oh, you’re a BROTHER” vibe; I’m, to their surprise, part of the fraternity.

First time someone said I didn’t “sound black”, I was deeply offended. OK, first several times. Then I started intellectualizing:
PERSON: You don’t sound black.
ME: Oh, but since I AM black, and this is how I sound, I must sound black.
That always confused them.

Now, I just don’t care. The joy of being of a certain age is that stuff which used to hurt now are just funny. Anyway, I blame my father, who was no friend of what later became known as Ebonics. I talk as I talk, and, in the words of Walter Cronkite, “That’s the way it is.”

Your Linguistic Profile::
55% General American English
35% Yankee
5% Upper Midwestern
0% Dixie
0% Midwestern

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Here’s one of those statistical errors that madden. In reporting on the possible Rudy Guiliani campaign for President this weekend, ABC News’ Geoff Morrell noted that Guiliani was in a “virtual dead heat” with Hillary Clinton (Clinton led 49-47), but that he “beats” Barack Obama, 47-45. Since the margin of error of the survey was plus or minus three points, that race is in a statistical dead heat as well.
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“She tried to warn us: With the publication of Shrub in early 2000, syndicated columnist Molly Ivins detailed George W. Bush’s privileged rise and disastrous reign as governor of Texas in the mid- to late ‘90s.” That’s a great line from the Amazon review of Ms. Ivins‘ follow-up book, Bushwhacked. Unfortunately, Molly Ivins died yesterday of breast cancer at the age of 62.

ROG

Gorillas in the Midst

First, I want to note that Lydia had her surgery yesterday. It went fine, technically. Obviously, more on this soon. Thank you very much for your support. It does cut into blogging time, though, so I’ll be brief.

An important holiday. But then you knew that, didn’t you?
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You may have noticed some slight changes in this blog. That’s because I’ve finally switched to the new Blogger, powered by that gorilla of search, Google. It allows for an easier way to indicate labels. It also allows me to edit every post I’ve ever done (some 800), rather than the last 300. I probably won’t spend a lot of time on retrospective stuff, but each day I post, I may add tags on an old post or two, so that in a couple years, I’ll have tagged the whole thing. Or not.
I knew that the way I did the transition would throw out the categories of bloggers I visit, because I had done the same transition on the Friends of the Albany Public Library site. (BTW, if you’re in Albany, vote Yes on the school and library issues, Tuesday, February 6, from noon until 9 pm.)
However, since the links needed to be revisited anyway – add some, delete some – I’m OK with the chaos, for the short term. Think of the blog as having one of those annoying Man at Work signs on it. Some guy in overalls from Buffalo is musing about his move to the new Blogger.
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Philip Glass, the big magilla of minimalist music, turns 70 today. I had a girlfriend who HATED his music, and when we broke up, I went on a Philip Glass marathon – not recommended. My favorite Glass recording is this one.
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Former guerrila (!) leader Fidel Castro’s dying and Miami’s throwing a party. Seems unseemly, somehow.
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Governor Spitzer, the big gorilla politically around here, releases the budget today. Let’s see if he keeps those high approval ratings.
Sheldon Silver, the powerful Speaker of the state Assembly, has been like a petulant child, because none of the three finalists to become Comptroller (replacing Alan Hevesi, who resigned because of the “Driving Mrs. Hevesi” scandal) is an Assembly member. A committee interviewed 18 candidates, including five Assembly members. Frankly, picking a legislator would have been business as usual, and “business as usual” in Albany has been dysfunctional as long as I can remember. Let it go, Shelly.
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Get that tobacco monkey off your back. NYS specific, but with some useful data for all.
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Baseball player Tony Suck, who played as though he were wearing a gorilla suit, based on the stats from his brief career.
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Finally, Dennis the Menace – “Gorilla Warfare”

ROG

Fred G. Hembeck – the G stands for Great


The second annual summer meeting with my family and Fred’s led to all sorts of cool things: our Rashamon take on an obscure 1960s song by Tom Clay, which somehow segued into me writing about Snoopy vs. Osama, and getting a response from the Royal Guardsmen.

But even when we don’t see each other, we’re in contact. He’s turned me on to Nellie McKay and SpongeBob.

I now realize that I’ve known Fred half of our lives. I met him in February 1980, when he was doing a signing for the FantaCo publication Hembeck 1980, when he was 27, and today he turns…lessee 27 times 2 is..this higher math is tough… Of course, there was a big gap in there, but I’m glad he started doing his blog, and that our mutual friend Rocco told me about said blog. (Peculiar that I find out more about Rocco, who lives in Albany from Fred, who lives over an hour from here, than I do from Rocco.)

Another thing you should know about Fred: he’s a proud NGSD supporter.

Last point: this is my favorite time in my relationship with Fred Hembeck, where (for five weeks) he’s older than I am. Utterly petty, but I enjoy it anyway.

Happy birthday, effendi!
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And speaking of FantaCo and long time ago, check out this link about something called the Daredevil Omnibus that Fred sent me. There are five pages taken from the Daredevil Chronicles, originally published by FantaCo, three pages of an interview, featuring a nifty Hembeck illo, and the two page Miller/Janson spread . I didn’t edit that particular issue, Mitch Cohn did; I was working on as similar ‘zine about the Fantastic Four at the time. But I’m sure I proofread that issue, as Mitch proofed the FF. Really took me back.

ROG

Arts Meme

I no longer know who I stole this meme from!

Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving away copies:

It’s such a cliche: The Prophet by Gibran. It was a Christmas present I gave again this year. Also, The World Almanac. Beyond that, there are some expensive music reference books from Joel Whitburn about the Billboard charts. I never throw away the old copy when I buy the new copy, I just pass it on.

Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music:

Besides “Quintet” from West Side Story, which I’ve previously mentioned – “The Jets are gonna have their way tonight” against, “Tonight, tonight won’t be just any night”? Or the Huntley-Brinkley theme, which I discovered was Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, 2nd movement, thus making classical music accessible? It’d have to be “In the Mood” by Henhouse Five Plus Two, which has led me to the revelation that almost all music can be done as through chickens were squawking. Or maybe the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”, which is technically all one chord.

Name a film you can watch again and again without fatigue:

There are several. But to name a few; “Field of Dreams”, “Annie Hall”, the first “Back to the Future” movie, the original (Episode 4) “Star Wars”. I saw “Annie Hall” four times in the theater, which is tied for the record.

Name a performer for whom you suspend all disbelief:

Meryl Streep, Judi Dench, Hilary Swank, Donald Sutherland, Tommy Lee Jones, Ellen Burstyn. I’m sure there are others.

Name a work of art you’d like to live with:

The Scream. There are several copies, and they seem to get stolen a lot, so that could be interesting.

Name a work of fiction which has penetrated your real life:

Don’t read that much fiction, but I’ll pick The Handmaid’s Tale; it felt very real.

Name a punch line that always makes you laugh:

Not so much a punchline, as that whole riff in “The Life of Brian” about the ever-lengthening list of what the Romans had done for the Jews, found here:
REG:
They’ve taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and from our fathers’ fathers.
LORETTA:
And from our fathers’ fathers’ fathers.
REG:
Yeah.
LORETTA:
And from our fathers’ fathers’ fathers’ fathers.
REG:
Yeah. All right, Stan. Don’t labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?!
XERXES:
The aqueduct?
REG:
What?
XERXES:
The aqueduct.
REG:
Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that’s true. Yeah.
COMMANDO #3:
And the sanitation.
LORETTA:
Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like?
REG:
Yeah. All right. I’ll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.
MATTHIAS:
And the roads.
REG:
Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don’t they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads–
COMMANDO:
Irrigation.
XERXES:
Medicine.
COMMANDOS:
Huh? Heh? Huh…
COMMANDO #2:
Education.
COMMANDOS:
Ohh…
REG:
Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.
COMMANDO #1:
And the wine.
COMMANDOS:
Oh, yes. Yeah…
FRANCIS:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s something we’d really miss, Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.
COMMANDO:
Public baths.
LORETTA:
And it’s safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.
FRANCIS:
Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let’s face it. They’re the only ones who could in a place like this.
COMMANDOS:
Hehh, heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.
REG:
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
XERXES:
Brought peace.
REG:
Oh. Peace? Shut up!

Tagging:

Not into tagging. Go tag yourself, if you’d like.

ROG
Ramblin' with Roger
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