Health reports: how can we keep from singing?

I’m giving a talk about March, Books One, Two, & Three>, graphic novels by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell for the Friends of the Albany Public Library Tuesday at noon.

singingYou may recall that my sister Leslie had a serious bicycle accident back on June 4, 2018. She missed about six months of work recovering and has had a number of medical procedures.

On April 8, 2019, she had a couple more surgeries, around her eye socket and nose. They were done more or less simultaneously, in order to minimize the total time of recovery. She’s doing well.

Meanwhile, I’m recovering from whatever health thing that I had. You know you’re unwell when you have to stop and rest walking DOWN the stairs.

On Sunday past, I barely got out of bed, except to watch two recorded basketball games that had been on the day before. And I couldn’t view anything more than 30 minutes at a time. It was impossible to focus enough to read or write.

Even back at work this week, I felt… loopy. I was still taking meds all week, including one at night that contained codeine. And I couldn’t ride my bicycle for the same reason.

I’m glad my wife finally submitted the paperwork for the taxes to get done. Usually, that process starts in the third week in February, during the school break. But because of our extreme busyness, worse than usual, it didn’t begin until the last week in March.

It’s just as well. Last year we got back around $700 federal; this year we PAID about the same. I was happy that all those early filers girded me for what I thought was a likely outcome.

Even though I’ve not seen five minutes of Game of Thrones – it’s just not my thing – I find myself skimming all episodes, RANKED BY TOMATOMETER; I blame my pharmacist. There are even GoT Oreos.

And speaking of religious behaviors, it’s Holy Week on the Christian calendar. Monday: I get my annual physical. This is a fortuitous occurrence, as it will be the follow-up to the treatment for my illness. I think the yo-yo weather is wreaking havoc with my allergies as well.

Tuesday: My daughter’s heading to Montreal on a ONE-DAY trip, which means getting her to school by 5:30 a.m., and picking her up around 10:30 p.m.

Also, I’m giving a talk about March, Books One, Two, & Three, graphic novels by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell for the Friends of the Albany Public Library.

Wednesday: Get my teeth cleaned.

Thursday: Sing.

Friday: Not sing, but attend service.

Easter Sunday: sing, a LOT, if I still have a voice left.

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

A song (or five) that makes you happy

In the course of a year, I’m likely to rediscover a song that had slipped my mind. I hear it again and fall in love with it all over.

BlastersOnce again, a prompt that I find almost impossible: a song that makes you happy.

It’s not that that I can’t find one. It’s that, in the course of a year, I’m likely to rediscover a song that had slipped my mind. I hear it again and fall in love with it all over.

Many of the songs I have already used in this quiz, or will use in the future, fall into this category. So tell me in the comments, or on Facebook: what songs make you happy? And if you know, why.

That’s The Way of the World – Earth, Wind, and Fire. There are are certain elements of a song that bring me joy. For this one, it the “YOW” in the vocal.

Other examples: Paul Carrack’s growl near the end of Tempted by Squeeze. The overly-long introduction of Papa Was a Rolling Stone by the Temptations, that ticked Dennis Edwards so much that he practically snarled, “It was the third of September.” The vocal harmonies in the Beatles’ version of Twist and Shout.

Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen – Santana. I love the Abraxas album, which came out in 1970 and was one of the relatively few albums I took to college the next year. It’s the last minute of the medley, though where my air guitar really starts flying.

Do What You Want to – Billy Preston. The first song from his first Apple recording, it starts off slowly and is at a different rhythm by the end. Neil Young’s When You Dance I Can Really Love does much the same thing.

And I remember when (May 1971), where (Poughkeepsie, NY), and with whom (my high school friend Steve) I heard it. It helped me get over a breakup.

I’m Shakin’ – the Blasters. This was a FantaCo era song. I seem to have head this Dave Alvin song a lot on WQBK/Q104, in the store a lot in the early 1980s.

Would I Lie To You – Eurythmics. One of my favorites from when people used to watch MTV for music videos, back in 1985.

Greg Haymes a/k/a Sarge Blotto, RIP

The music video for I Wanna Be A Lifeguard, with the lead vocal by Sarge, was played on music television’s very first day on the air in August 1981.

greg haymesIt occurred to me that I’d known Greg Haymes, also known as Sarge Blotto, almost since I moved to Albany in 1979. Greg DEFINED Albany for me.

FantaCo, that comic book store on 21 Central Avenue in the city, where I worked starting in May 1980, also sold a handful of music-related items. That would mean Japanese imports of Beatles EPs and Goldmine magazine.

It would include Hello, My Name Is Blotto, What’s Yours? a four-song EP by a bunch of folks who, like the Ramones, weren’t REALLY related. The store sold a second collection called Across and Down. Blotto performed Lightning Strikes on a regional compilation called Hudson Rock, another item we sold.

A Blotto member also found a couple of copies of a single called Wings in Japan by the Spastic Phono Band, which you can listen to HERE. I secured a rare recording at that time.

Then MTV happened. The music video for I Wanna Be A Lifeguard, with the lead vocal by Sarge, was played on music television’s very first day on the air in August 1981. The awe and mystery that was Blotto put Albany, and the band, on the music map.

The guys primarily interacted with Raoul Vezina, FantaCo’s resident artist, and front-of-the-store guru. When he died unexpectedly in November 1983, it was unsurprising that the fellows in the band all went to the funeral.

Afterward, and I’m not sure how it happened, I ended up at a restaurant in Troy with the band, swapping Raoul stories and complaining about the church service. (The priest, several times, referred to the deceased as “Ralph.”)

Eventually, I left FantaCo, and did the librarian thing. But I would run into Greg Haymes fairly regularly at some concert or art opening, usually while he was doing his job as a reviewer for the Albany Times Union. My wife agreed he would be at an eclectic mix of performances. He refused to allow me to promote him to Lieutenant.

His greatest gift might have been Nippertown, the online magazine he and Sara Ayers produced. It was “based in the greater Capital Region and Hudson Valley regions of New York and western Massachusetts, writing about local art, music, theater, film and anything else that interests us.” It published from May 2009 until April 10, 2019.

Metastatic cancer, while in his mid-60s. “A prolific writer, musician and visual artist who was a vital part of the Capital Region arts scene for more than 40 years.” I can scarcely believe it. Fellow musicians, writers, and fans are all devastated by the loss of his generous and talented spirit.

Here’s Chuck Miller’s take, which includes musical links.

Librarians in America (and everywhere)

Working at FantaCo, the comic book store et al., has been very helpful in my current job. I know about balancing a checkbook, applying for a business loan, trying to get a better rate on a credit card.

Berkeley Lab Librarians Peter Palath and Michael Golden
Berkeley Lab Librarians Peter Palath and Michael Golden at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on Friday, October 6, 2017 in Berkeley, Calif.
My dear friend Deborah wonders if Asking Roger Anything would include her son asking me questions about finding work in libraries in America? (He is, last I knew, in France.)

Why, yes, it would. We should set up some online dialogue. Meanwhile, let me give you some general thoughts about being a librarian.

Whatever he already knows, in whatever field, is good. It’s because it will be useful in some yet unexplained way.

Working at FantaCo, the comic book store et al., has been very helpful in my current job. I know about balancing a checkbook, applying for a business loan, trying to get a better rate on a credit card.

Late last month, I gave a webinar about sales tax. It was, well, pretty damn good, according to the reviews.

My interest in such an arcane topic came from realizing that a comic book is a periodical and not subject to sales tax in New York State. But if you sell that same comic book for more than the cover price, it is then a “collectible” and therefore IS subject to sales tax.

(I know that last paragraph was REALLY exciting. Riveting, even. My friend Dave and I talked sales tax that very evening. Seriously. Of course he WORKS for the tax department.)

Working as an enumerator for the 1990 Census was likewise of great value to my current work. If you know the questions they ask, it informs what data might be available.

Librarians HAVE to be curious. You have to want to, no, need to know. You can be trained to do that, I suppose, but it REALLY helps if one is innately so disposed.

This is why my friends Judy and Jendy and Broome nagged me to go to library school in 1990. They KNEW. It was patently OBVIOUS to them, and eventually to me, that my mind works in a particular way. Ask my sisters; I’ve ALWAYS had a need to know.

He doesn’t have to be up on EVERY topic, just his areas of interest. But it is an occupational hazard that other people think librarians know everything about EVERYTHING, when it’s merely ALMOST everything.

This notion, BTW, is laid out in the book called The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Your son probably should read it. I’m about 2/3s of the way through.

What if the FantaCo Chronicles had continued?

We did magazines about the X-Men (Dave Cockrum cover, edited by me), Fantastic Four (John Byrne cover, mine), Daredevil (Frank Miller cover, edited by Mitch Cohn), the Avengers (George Perez cover, Mitch’s), and Spider-Man (Byrne cover, mine).

spider-man chroniclesAlan David Doane, who was a regular customer at FantaCo, the comic book store/publisher where I worked from 1980-1988 asked:

If you could have edited five more FantaCo Chronicles volumes, what comics/characters would you have chosen, who would be the main interview subject in each, and who would you have chosen to draw the covers?

First, a review: we did magazines about the X-Men (Dave Cockrum cover, edited by me), Fantastic Four (John Byrne cover, mine), Daredevil (Frank Miller cover, edited by Mitch Cohn), the Avengers (George Perez cover, Mitch’s), and Spider-Man (Byrne cover, mine).

I was happy to get almost anyone good to do the covers. Owner/publisher Tom Skulan didn’t want Cockrum to do the X-Men cover, not out of artistic taste. He believed Dave was also doing that Official Marvel Index cover for the X-Men. We tried getting several others, including Wendy Pini of Elfquest fame.

Byrne was great for the FF front cover, but Perez was late for the back, which is why the front and back were the same, and for no additional charge. Miller was supposed to do Spider-Man but he found that he could not, and Byrne did that cover extremely fast.

After getting chewed out by Marvel’s Jim Shooter, we were steering away from doing any more of their titles. In fact, a Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Chronicles (and other “underground” titles) was even announced but never released; that would have certainly been edited by Mitch Cohn.

I was in early conversations with Denis Kitchen about doing something with Kitchen Sink Enterprises, which surely would have been driven by Will Eisner’s Spirit.

To your question about future Chronicles:

The Defenders, with an emphasis with Doctor Strange. Writer Steve Gerber, for sure. Cover by Sal Buscema.

Captain America and Iron Man, who of course, shared Tales of Suspense; this would make indexing easier. Cap writer Steve Englehart; I LOVED that run. Cover by John Buscema.

Characters related to the Fantastic Four: Silver Surfer, the Inhumans and Black Panther, for sure. She-Hulk? Luke Cage? Oh, what the heck – Stan Lee. Cover by Byrne.

The Hulk and Sub-Mariner, who were in Tales to Astonish for a time. Bill Bixby, because I was a big fan of My Favorite Martian. Cover by Herb Trimpe.

Thor plus any Avengers not covered – Ant-Man/Giant Man, et al. The underrated Marie Severin. Walt Simonson turned the Thunder God upside down.

Of course, I have no idea if I could GET any of those artists, save for Byrne. Maybe we would have asked Fred Hembeck, who was friends with a number of artists in the Mid-Hudson. And he could have done a great take on Tales to Astonish #100.

Ramblin' with Roger
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