Hi-yo, Silver!

She got very good at keeping her mouth closed around these miscreants.

LeslieGreenMost of the time, the middle child and I got along famously well. But occasionally, she’d bug me unrelentingly when I just wanted to be left alone. Usually, catastrophe ensued.

One time, we were about 10 and 11, give or take a year. We were still in our pajamas. I was reading in our house, probably in the living room, and she was harassing me somehow, teasing and/or poking. After ignoring her several times, and giving my Marlene Dietrich plea, I finally gave chase.

At some point, I stepped onto the back of her bathrobe, and she fell straight down. I don’t recall that she hurt her arms or legs, but she chipped one of her front teeth.

She went to the dentist, and she had some sort of cap on the tooth that was quite noticeable because it was silver in color. And she had it for a couple of years, if I recall correctly.

Some of her classmates teased her mercilessly. “Hi-yo, Silver,” a few of the kids would say, which is what the Lone Ranger said to his horse when we watched it on TV. She got very good at keeping her mouth closed around these miscreants.

Eventually, the situation was remedied, and her tooth was back to its normal shade.

As I recall, I never got into trouble for this. I got spanked for stuff I ought not to have, as a child. But her well-known harassment of me, and my slowness to anger served me well in this situation.

What she did not recall, until I mentioned it only within the past two years, was that I was responsible for her chipped tooth. She had misremembered the incident and had attributed it to our baby sister, who was not involved.

My wife has admitted that she too harassed her late brother John when they were kids, and like me, he was not allowed to “hit a girl.”

Happy birthday to the middle child. No more Hi-yo, Silver! I shall NOT conclude this post with the last section of the William Tell Overture by Rossini.

Music Throwback Saturday: Baby, Now That I’ve Found You

Alison Krauss is one of my wife’s “K girls,”

Alison Krauss - Now That I've Found You - FrontThe Foundations, as described in the Joel Whitburn books about the US Billboard charts, was an “interracial R&B-pop group formed in England.” The group had two US Top 20 hits before it disbanded in 1970.

Build Me Up Buttercup was a “gold” single in 1969, getting to #3 in 1969. Their earlier hit was Baby, Now That I’ve Found You, which charted in late 1967, reaching #11 in 1968; it also reached #33 on the R&B charts.

Alison Krauss, a country singer/songwriter/bluegrass fiddler born in 1971, had enough albums in her early twenties to put out a retrospective of the first part of her career, including songs from her solo albums, albums by Alison Krauss & Union Station, and Alison Krauss & the Cox Family. She also added a few new songs.

The first song on the album was essentially the title song, a very different take of Baby, Now That I’ve Found You, which reached only #49 on the country charts in 1995. But it won the Grammy for Country Female Vocal.

The final song was the hit country single (#3 country, #53 pop) When You Say Nothing at All, which sold over two million copies, and was named the Single of the Year by the Country Music Association.

Alison Krauss is one of my wife’s favorite artists; we saw her play with Union Station in 2003. She’s one of my wife’s “K girls,” as she puts it, next to jazz singer/pianist Diana Krall in our record collection. Her rendition of Baby, Now That I’ve Found You is one of my favorite covers, ever.

LISTEN

Build Me Up Buttercup – The Foundations HERE or HERE

Baby, Now That I’ve Found You – the Foundations HERE or HERE

Baby, Now That I’ve Found You – Alison Krauss HERE or HERE

When You Say Nothing At All – Alison Krauss HERE or HERE

Sunshine Blogger Award!!!

Teresa Brewer knows what I mean.

sunshineYeah, someone – OK, Jaquandor – dubbed me with the Sunshine Blogger Award, which is a “get to know the writer better” type of blogging exercise, with a couple of rules attached:

1. Answer all 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you.

2. Nominate eleven bloggers in return and write eleven (possibly fiendish) questions for them to answer.

As Jaquandor rightly notes:
“I’ve been blogging for so long that I remember when these types of blog-quiz awards were quite common. They’ve really fallen by the wayside with the rise of Facebook and Twitter and the like, but they’re still fun, so I’ll go ahead and answer these, pose my own, and nominate. Here we go!”

1. What do you value more in a story: dialog or plot?

The plot, in that dialogue can arguably be fixed, but a plot may have a flaw that’s fatal. I’m reminded of a story in the TV sitcom Modern Family where a couple of the characters meet their writing hero on a train, and they inadvertently let him know that his solution to the multi-book plot is in fact impossible. (The writer is devastated, but there’s a happy ending.)

2. Describe the home planet of Lin-Manuel Miranda. (Come on, that dude ain’t human.)

It is a nickelodeon. Teresa Brewer knows what I mean. I saw him interviewed on CBS News, and he knows almost all the lyrics to the vast collection of musicals his parents own. Plus his love of other forms makes him a human jukebox. (BTW, I LOVE that segment where he performs in front of the President back in 2009, which Jaquandor linked to recently.

3. If you enjoy watching any sports at all, which ones would you at least like to try just once?

Lacrosse. I would suck at it, but I find it utterly impressive. UAlbany has had a good team in recent years, even after three Native American brothers graduated.

4. Describe the most recent book to which you gave (or would have given) five stars.

The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg.

5. Do you finish bad books? Why or why not?

No, because life is too short.

6. How vexed are you when movies don’t match the books?

Not at all. Different media require different treatment. In fact, I’m more vexed when a book does not judiciously edit down too long prose.

7. Describe your perfect hot beverage. In detail. I’m talking roast of bean or variety of leaves, additives like spices or squirts of citrus, vessel from which the drink is sipped, where you are sitting as you sip it, who is next to you, what music is playing.

OK. it’s tea, Earl Grey, well seeped, with cream and one sugar (or a bit of honey), from a mug I got some years ago from a Mongolian couple that changes color depending on the temperature of the drink. I’m sitting the recliner that we no longer own, and I’m listening to Miles Davis’ Blue album. Or Joni Mitchell’s Blue album.

8. Do you watch cooking shows? If so, describe your favorite.

I do not. I find the chefs mean. The yelling makes me stressed. Don’t enjoy.

9. Name a place you’ve visited that you thought you’d hate but you didn’t.

Galveston, Texas, 1996 or 1997. Maybe it was an anti-Texas bias I started with, but I loved that somewhat worn-down old city. On the other hand, I hated Houston, as expected.

10. You know that hobby you had as a younger person that you miss dearly but you know you’ll never do it again? Describe it!

I collected postage stamps. My great aunt Deana had a book of old stamps from all over the world, which I still have, somewhere. So when my parents would get mail, I’d ask to take the stamps off. The hobby didn’t last more than a year, but I love looking at postage.

11. On January 20, 2017, the newly inaugurated President of the United States signs a law requiring all Americans to display a coffee-table book prominently in their home. Which one do you put out?

It has to be a Beatles book downstairs that I’m too lazy to get the citation.

Oh, tagging. I always hated tagging, because it felt as though I were obliging people. But I realize they could do a Nancy Reagan and Just Say No.

Arthur@AmeriNZ
 Jason from DC
Lisa
Shooting Parrots
fillyjonk
Dustbury
Eddie, the Renaissance Geek
Chuck Miller
Leslie in Vancouver
Albany Weblog

Hey, don’t have 11. So be it. Which rhymes with Soviet.

The questions, borrowing heavily from the questions Jaquandor was asked, plus questions I asked SamuraiFrog:

1. What is your favorite song? Do you have a significant memory attached to a time you listened to it?

2. Where do you love to blog/write the most?

3. What can you hear right now? What would you prefer to be listening to?

4. What do you do when you feel you should be writing but are lacking in inspiration?

5. What is your greatest achievement?

6. If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life what would it be?

7. Who is your favorite author and why?

8. What are your favorite (10? 50? 100?) songs of the 21st century?

9. What do you believe these days, spiritually/theologically?

10. What are some of the worst awards winners, where you wonder, “How did THAT happen?? (Movies, music, TV, whatever)

11. Will Donald Trump be President? And if so, why?

George Takei

I really like a good Second Act story, and the George Takei narrative is that.

Chris is mixing it up! “It’s not really a traditional style ‘Ask Roger Anything’ question, but can you do a post on George Takei?”

To be honest, when you asked the question, I didn’t have all that much to say. Subsequently, there’s been a bit more.

Let me start with the original Star Trek (1966-1969). I was not a big fan, but my father was. I suspect it was because it had a strong black character in Uhuru (Nichelle Nichols), just as Mission: Impossible had with Greg Morris’ Barney.

I did watch the reruns enough so that when The Next Generation started, I was primed. I saw the first five Star Trek movies, featuring Takei’s Sulu (hated #5, was bored by #1, but liked the middle three).

I vaguely remember that George Takei was politically active. When he was running for office in Southern California, the Fairness Doctrine (1949-2011, R.I.P.) was invoked, precluded local stations from showing Star Trek in syndication during the campaigns, lest the program provide him with an unfair advantage.

I didn’t think much about Takei until he came out as gay in 2005. That was obviously quite liberating, as he became more visible in the public eye. And when he joined Facebook in 2011, his wit engendered millions of followers. He became a TV pitchman, usually working his catchphrase, “Oh, MY!” into each ad.

More importantly, he spoke out for gay rights, and for those Japanese-Americans who, like himself as a child, had been interred in camps in the United States during World War II. I guess I really like a good Second Act story, and the George Takei narrative is that.

I don’t follow him on social media, but he’s often reposted, so I get to see his wisdom, and I’ve even shared them, usually in the fortnightly roundups. Sometimes it’s humor, often in a science fiction vein. Frequently he is pointing out political injustice. He was, this election cycle, a nag to Bernie Sanders supporters who weren’t switching to Hillary Clinton, and I found THAT annoying.

Recently, it was announced the Sulu persona in the Star Trek reboot is gay in honor of George Takei. Interestingly, Takei found the news “really unfortunate” because it is twisting of “Gene [Roddenberry’s] creation, to which he put in so much thought.” It’s not surprising that he is so protective of the integrity of the character he brought to life.

Apparently some Star Trek fans have gotten all bent out of shape over the storyline news. The late Gene Roddenberry did promise to include gay people in Star Trek, but the studio put the kibosh on it. George Takei’s opposition is to Sulu’s character being gay but would have embraced a different, not so well established character having a same-gender relationship.

Undoubtedly, there are many Trek fans who are gay and want to know that they can be represented on the Enterprise, which I’m sure George Takei, more than most, understands.
***
Bob Fletcher Dies at 101; helped interred Japanese-Americans

Ramblin' with Roger
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