Ramblin' with Roger

MLK is not your wingman

Martin Luther King Jr. Day typically brings about some great discounts!

My wife sent me an article from Leah Donnella at NPR called “MLK is not your wingman.” It’s the introduction to the Code Switch podcast episode for January 10, 2024, Everyone Wants a Piece of Martin Luther King’s Legacy. You should listen to it.

But the Donnella intro hit me right between the eyes because it’s SO true.

“For decades, everyone and their mother has tried to get a piece of that sweet, sweet MLK Pie, from car companies… to politicians (no matter what their actual politics are). And don’t forget about the deals! A recent article in Forbes probably put it best: ‘MLK Day is unequivocally about celebrating the life and legacy of civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,’ they wrote (emphasis mine). But also, the article went on, ‘Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day and even Martin Luther King Jr. Day typically bring about some great discounts.’ (Cue the swelling applause.)”

Yes, and this makes me… exasperated and weary and sad. One of the things I’ve hated about the MLK Jr. legacy after his assassination is that his image became embedded in amber, as I railed against last year.

The Struggle for the People’s King

“Hajar Yazdiha, the author of a new book about the struggle over King’s memory, argues that it’s worse than that — that Dr. King’s legacy has been used quite intentionally as a ‘Trojan horse for anti-civil rights causes.’ For instance, at a news conference in 2021, numerous Republican lawmakers invoked King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech while arguing for bans on teaching Critical Race Theory in schools.”

You’d think he gave just one speech, heck, one part of one speech. When I excerpted that address last year, I intentionally omitted the most familiar section because it has been weaponized as a declaration that WE HAVE Overcome, which I’ve primarily heard since Obama was elected President in 2008.

“Those moves are from a very old playbook, Yazdiha told us… Take Ronald Reagan. As president, he publicly helped instate Martin Luther King Day as a federal holiday. But Yazdiha says that in private letters, Reagan assured his friends that he was ‘really going to drive home throughout his presidency the story that Dr. King’s dream of this colorblind nation has been realized, and so now racism is…over and we can move on.’ That play – of invoking a radical figure only to manipulate or defang their teachings – has proved incredibly enduring and incredibly effective.”

These conversations ignore continuing inequality in wealth, health, and many other aspects of life in America.

Disliked

“It’s worth remembering that despite his contemporaneous supporters, Dr. King was considered a huge threat during his lifetime and was incredibly unpopular among the mainstream. And that’s no coincidence. Part of the civil rights movement’s success was due to its disruptive nature: massive boycotts, marches, sit-ins, and other acts of civil disobedience that put powerful peoples’ time, money, and good names in jeopardy.”

I noted this back in 2015. “According to the Gallup poll: ‘In 1963, King had a 41% positive and a 37% negative rating; in 1964, it was 43% positive and 39% negative; in 1965, his rating was 45% positive and 45% negative; and in 1966 — the last Gallup measure of King using this scalometer procedure — it was 32% positive and 63% negative.'”

Donnella continues: “So while it’s all well and good to celebrate a hero from a bygone era now that he’s no longer able to disagree with any particular interpretation of his legacy, maybe it’s more important to be looking at the present. Because the real inheritors of King’s legacy today — and of the civil rights movement more broadly — are likely acting in ways that make a lot of people pretty uncomfortable.”

Sunday Stealing: Funny The World

missed weddings

Another Sunday Stealing. Before I get into that, I should commend Bev Sykes of Funny The World for putting this up since 2008. I started doing it in 2009, off and on for a couple of years. Then, after ABC Wednesday ended and I needed something collegial with other bloggers, I found my way back to Stealing twice in 2021 (one was about COVID-19) and regularly since May of 2022. So thanks, Bev.

1. Your favorite part of the day

It’s long been around 5:30 a.m. when I wake up, go into my office, and check to see if the world has ended. If not, I do my Wordle (383 in a row), and Quordle. I post my blog link on Facebook; I used to post to Twitter, but I’ve been disinclined lately. I check my email, addressing the stuff I need to respond to immediately and deleting stuff I don’t have to open. Then, I’ll start writing a blog post if I have time, though I will likely finish it later.

2. Something you know a lot about.

Beatles albums, specifically, the difference between the US and UK releases. There were more US albums before Sgt. Pepper because the US albums had to have the singles included, and the UK releases eschewed using the 45s. Also, the US albums were shorter (11 or 12 tracks vs. usually 14). I wrote about a couple of albums here.

I’m also a calendar nerd.

3. An important person in your life.

I’ll pick Bruce, who used to be in the choir and IMO still should be. He is the source of Math Is Everywhere. He took my wife to her various doctors in the autumn of 2022.

My preferred pasta dish

4. Your favorite recipe

It’s for lasagna from an old Betty Crocker cookbook. Incidentally, I never cook lasagna noodles but add more tomato products than the recipe calls for, which generally does the trick.

5. An event that turned out differently than planned

There are a lot of weddings that fall into that category. My then-girlfriend and I were invited to a wedding in Albany on March 30, 1986. It was Easter Sunday. We called a cab 90 minutes before we needed it. It never came. So we walked. It was 87F (30.55 C), and we were all sweaty as we arrived in time to see the very end. A similar thing occurred on July 27, 1991, in New Jersey, involving my sisters, my mother, my infant niece, my then-bride, and me, missing my cousin’s wedding ceremony. All I will say is it wasn’t MY fault.

6. How you procrastinate

I’m playing Pinochle, spades, or Backgammon on my phone. But I don’t see it as procrastination but as a break between tasks.

7. The best type of surprise

Receiving music

8. Music that helps you relax

Huh. Does music make me relax? I dunno. It engages me, but relaxation would not be a term I’m inclined to use. Related: Neil Diamond turns 83 on January 24. Thank The Lord For The Night Time, which I just listened to, is my absolutely favorite Neil song.

9. A thing your life has in excess

Paper. I paid medical bills for which I need to get reimbursement. Various notes about genealogy. Unread magazines.

Nonagenarian

10. A book you want to read.

Are you kidding? My shelf is loaded with them. I’ll pick at random Renato! by Eugene Mirabelli, which I started reading and enjoyed reading, but then life got in the way. I like Gene quite a bit.

11. A person you’re always happy to see.

I’ve kept up with some folks I went to kindergarten with: Carol, Karen, Bill…

12. What time do you go to sleep?

Oh, it varies widely, 10 p.m., 1 a.m. It depends on how much I feel I still need to do. And utter fatigue comes into play occasionally.

13. A word to describe the past year.

Variegated

14. Your favorite household chore

Vacuuming, with a caveat. Using the vacuum is easy; moving the furniture to do the cleaning, not so much. Also, the sound of a vacuum tends to put me to sleep. I LOVE listening to others vacuum.

NFL football postponed?!

15. One thing you’d like to see

My genealogical chart with all of my great-great grandparents identified. I know 12 of 16.

More mundanely, I wanted to watch today’s Pittsburgh Steelers-Buffalo Bills game. But “due to public safety concerns in light of the ongoing weather emergency in western New York, [it] has been rescheduled to Monday at 4:30 p.m. ET and will be televised by CBS. The decision to move the game to Monday was made in consultation with New York Governor Kathy Hochul in the best interest of public safety and with the Buffalo Bills and the Pittsburgh Steelers as the region prepares for the storm.”

It is the correct choice. Still, I have an MLK event to attend, so I hope to watch the recording before someone tells me the score.

Mixed CD – Greetings

HELLO!

I called this mixed CD Greetings because it generally contains some salutation. It’s often Hello; sometimes that word is in the title, but not always.

What’s That You’re Doing – Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. From Macca’s Tug of War album. “Good morning. Or good afternoon. Good night.” Written by McCartney/Wonder.

Good Morning Good Morning – Big Daddy. I love the group’s cover of the entire Sgt. Pepper, in various styles from the 1950s.

Good Day Sunshine – the Tremeloes. Besides this being a cover of a song from the Beatles’ Revolver album, there is another Fab connection. They were the group whom Decca Records signed in January 1962 instead of The Beatles.

Good Morning Starshine – Hair Original Cast album. “The earth says hello”.

Hello – Oasis. Some critics in their heyday had sonically compared Oasis with The Beatles if they were still recording in the 1990s.

Hello Hello – Sopwith Camel. “Would you like some of my tangerine?”

Hello Hello – Mono Puff. This is a product from John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants. It’s on Hello Records.

Hitchcockian

Vertigo – U2. “Hello, hello (hola).”

Big Time – Peter Gabriel. “Hi, there.” From the So album.

Hello Hooray – Alice Cooper. “Hello! Hooray! Let the show begin. I’ve been ready.” I could have gone with the Judy Collins version, but it didn’t fit as well sonically.

Welcome – the Who. “Come to my house. Be one of the comfortable people.” The title is the last word sung on this track from the rock opera Tommy..

Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Pt. 2 – Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. From the Greatest Hits album. “Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends.”

Welcome To The Terrordome – Public Enemy. “Yo, who you trust, man? (Would you join me please in welcome-in-ing)”

Tommy’s Holiday Camp – the Who. Another Tommy track, ending with a sinister Welcome.

Saying NO and being OK

the indispensible person

happier now Arthur received a question. His response is titled Saying NO and being OK.

The query is quite long. Here’s the beginning. “How do I learn to say no? All my life, I have tried to live my life helping others. As I approach my mid-sixties, I have found myself embroiled in so many people’s problems, that I am overwhelmed beyond belief.”

I SO relate to this. Arthur gave some sage advice, identifying the anonymous writer as perhaps a “rescuer,” which has often been the case in my experience. Sometimes, people, myself included, get a certain gratification from being indispensable while, AT THE SAME TIME, feeling overwhelmed by the implications of the tasks at hand.

One of the things I have done more often preemptively in the past decade is to say NO to almost everything that’s not already on the schedule. This wasn’t easy, and it is/I am a work in progress. And I needed to do so in even low-consequence situations.

A recent example. As I’ve noted, my church exterior appears in the season two premiere of The Gilded Age series. My wife got the DVD of Season 1 from the library and asked me, “Would you like to watch this with me?” Sometimes I am too literal. I hear: Would I LIKE to watch it with her? The answer to THAT question is, Why yes! Of course!

But I said NO because I was working on reading a book review that I would be presenting at the library soon.

This happened to me a lot. Someone asks, “Could you…” be on this committee or take on that responsibility? Could I? Well, yes, I believe I have the requisite skills to do the job. Yes, I COULD. But even if it’s the question asked, the answer should not be whether I COULD but rather if I SHOULD, whether I WILL.

Well, this once

That said, I’m much better at a one-off, and Arthur alluded to this aspect. As I write this, I agreed to serve communion at church because someone will be out of town. Frankly, I like doing it; it’s not onerous – 15 minutes max to set up before service, 10 minutes afterward to clean up, and the serving is during the service I’m at anyway.

Occasionally, one IS the best person to resolve a particular issue. This happened to me in the autumn of 2023, when I brokered a resolution of an impasse, and I really was the only living person able to do so. But these are fairly rare situations for most of us.

In general, my default is to say NO, and then I try to juggle the other to-do things in my mind. Sometimes, I change my mind and say yes.

A recent vlogcast by John Green impressed me. He has been posting weekly on YouTube, barring illness or technical difficulties, since January 2007. He admitted that he wasn’t feeling it a few times a year but posted anyway. In 2024, if he’s not feeling it, he won’t do one.

Just say no. It’s easier said than done for many of us, especially when we see ourselves as “good” people. Just say NO, not always, but now and then.

Watching the 50th Annual Daytime Emmys

Yannis Anastassakis

I watched the 50th Annual Daytime Emmys. The show aired on CBS and started streaming on Paramount+ on December 15. Of course, I didn’t view it in real-time because I don’t watch ANYTHING unless it’s recorded so that I can zap through the commercials.

Later, I realized I watched it for two reasons. One is that it was the first awards show after the end of the writers’ and actors’ strikes, so I was curious. Also, as one of the presenters noted, people used to watch soaps with their elders, in my case, Grandma Williams and her sister Deana. Their “stories” were the CBS shows Guiding Light, Edge of Night, and Secret Storm. In 1990, I started watching the NBC shows Generations (ended in 1991), Days Of Lives (jumped the shark for me in 1992), and Another World (ended in 1999).

I almost gave up on the awards show early. The program was hosted by ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT’s Nischelle Turner and Kevin Frazier. I didn’t know her, but Frazier shows up on some CBS news shows after other awards, such as the Oscars. In this role, I found them boringly insufferable with lame banter, and I turned it off for a time. When ET won Best Entertainment News Series, they accepted the award and seemed to forget they had to return to hosting.

The next time I watched, I got to see actual awards. The first winner, OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE IN A DRAMA SERIES: ACTRESS, was Sonya Eddy as Epiphany Johnson, General Hospital (ABC).

There was a brief look of confusion on the faces of the presenters. It turns out the woman, born in 1967, had DIED in 2022. Someone from the show came up and said lovely things about her.

Cop shows

Next up was OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE IN A DRAMA SERIES: ACTOR. The winner was Robert Gossett, Eddy’s acting partner on GH. My, he looked familiar. He was Assistant Chief Russell Taylor on the cop drama The Closer with Kyra Sedgwick and its spinoff, Major Crimes with Mary McDonnell, which I watched regularly. He’s actor Lou Gossett, Jr.’s cousin.

Former newscaster Connie Chung noted that she was grateful she was introducing the In Memorium segment rather than being on the list. In addition to Barbara Walters (The View), it included Pat Robertson, Olivia-Newton (songwriter for As The World Turns), Jerry Springer, Stephen “tWitch” Boss (Ellen DeGeneres Show), Suzanne Somers, and lifetime achievement winner Bob Barker. It also noted Robert Clary, who played Pierre LeClair on Days Of Our Lives but who I knew from Hogan’s Heroes.

From my soap-watching days, I remember Anne Heche (Vicky/Marley on AW), Arleen Sorkin (Calliope Jones), and lifetime achievement winner and Jennifer’s dad, John Aniston, born Yannis Anastassakis (Victor Kiriakis), (both DOOL).

Playing Heather Webster

The Guest Performance in a Daytime Drama Series winner was Alley Mills from General Hospital. I first knew her from a great show that lasted a mere 13 weeks in 1979, The Associates, which was about “the working lives of three neophyte lawyers.” It also starred Martin Short and Joe Regalbuto. But she’s best known as Norma Arnold, Kevin’s mom, on The Wonder Years.

She mentioned she was still mourning the loss of her husband, and I wondered who that was. It was the game show legend Orson Bean, who died after being struck by a car in February 2020. The day I watched her speech, I saw a picture on Facebook of the To Tell The Truth cast, who I could identify without help: Bean, Tom Poston, Peggy Cass, Kitty Carlisle, and host Bud Collyer. Orson was also a clue on my first appearance on JEOPARDY! In the category Beans for $300: “Born Dallas Burroughs in 1928, he’s the actor seen here.” It was a much older guy than I remembered, but I still got it right.