Ramblin' with Roger

Cilla Black; and writing about comic books

So THAT’S what I am, a comics industry observer.

Priscilla Maria Veronica White OBE, the singer and, later, UK television personality, better known as Cilla Black, died this past weekend at the age of 72.

I was waiting impatiently for Dustbury’s take. And he did not disappoint: “Perhaps the very definition of ironic: the first I heard about the death of an iconic Liverpool star was from two girls trying to make it big in Liverpool fifty years later.”

I always associated Cilla with the Beatles, of course. Lennon-McCartney wrote a few songs for her, including Love of the Loved and It’s for You [LISTEN], and she covered Beatles tunes such as Yesterday, For No One, Across the Universe, and The Long and Winding Road.

Moreover, I bought LP The Big Hits From England & U.S.A. back in 1965, featuring songs by the Beatles, the Beach Boys, plus two L&M songs by Peter & Gordon. On Side 2 were songs for the “grownups” by Al Martino, Nat Cole, and two from Cilla, Suffer Now I Must [LISTEN], which was just OK, and the last song on the album You’re My World [LISTEN], which I really loved.

She was introduced to [Beatles manager Brian] Epstein by John Lennon, who persuaded him to audition her. Epstein had a portfolio of local artists but initially showed little interest in her. Her first audition was a failure, partly because of nerves, and partly because the Beatles (who supported her) played the songs in their usual vocal key rather than re-pitching them for Black’s voice. In her autobiography What’s It All About? she wrote:

I’d chosen to do “Summertime”, but at the very last moment I wished I hadn’t. I adored this song, and had sung it when I came to Birkenhead with the Big Three, but I hadn’t rehearsed it with the Beatles and it had just occurred to me that they would play it in the wrong key. It was too late for second thoughts, though. With one last wicked wink at me, John set the group off playing. I’d been right to worry. The music was not in my key and any adjustments that the boys were now trying to make were too late to save me. My voice sounded awful. Destroyed—and wanting to die—I struggled on to the end.

Check out Cilla Recording Alfie in Abbey Road Studios with Burt Bacharach, and Beatles producer George Martin.

Now that Jon Stewart is leaving the Daily Show, and there is a slew of articles about him, I’m fascinated by the program’s evolution, best covered by the New York Times in Jon Stewart and ‘The Daily Show’: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at 9 Essential Moments. I watched the program occasionally by 2004 but recorded and viewed it regularly for only the last seven or eight years.

Thanks to that rascal Alan David Doane, I’m in Trouble with Comics, again, trying to do some writing about the four-color phenomenon as I did most recently with the late, lamented Flashmob Fridays.

So far:
Comics Industry Observers Respond to Black Lightning News; so THAT’S what I am, a comics industry observer.
The TWC group answer the question, “What single comics creator has had the greatest influence over how you perceive the comics artform, and why? Can’t believe someone else selected MY pick.
*I review Archie & Friends Wacky Wild West

The Comics Beat touted the TWC return, and Tom Spurgeon of the Comics Reporter has taken notice as well.

Restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965

“It would be transformative if everybody voted. That would counteract money more than anything.”

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson because “Congress [had] determined that the existing federal anti-discrimination laws were not sufficient to overcome the resistance by state officials to enforcement of the 15th Amendment,” which had been ratified on February 3, 1870.

“Through the use of poll taxes, literacy tests, and other means, Southern states were able to effectively disenfranchise African Americans.”

The Act has been chipped away by the Supreme Court, resulting in a recent surge in voter ID laws, cuts to early voting and gerrymandering. One of the heroes of the Selma march of March 1965, John Lewis says voter ID laws are ‘poll taxes by another name’.

The 2014 midterm election turnout was the lowest in 70 years, when World War II was an understandable reason for failure to exercise the franchise. President Obama, who did NOT “suggest requiring everyone to vote”, did recognize that “it would be transformative if everybody voted. That would counteract money more than anything. If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country…” As my friend Steve Bissette put it, “It’s discouraging how many folks I know (especially younger voters) rationalize and justify opting out. ‘It’s rigged’ is easy when your refusal to vote cinches the rigging.”

At least, in June 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to uphold the right of states to set up independent, non-partisan committees to draw the district maps that determine seats in Congress.

The trend for most of this country’s history was to expand the right to cast the ballot, from requiring direct elections of US Senators, to allowing women and 18-year-olds to vote. This retrenchment in recent years is discouraging for my sense of what democracy should look like. See A Dream Undone: Inside the 50-year campaign to roll back the Voting Rights Act from the New York Times magazine.

One last thing: from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, learn about the disenfranchisement of Americans living in U.S. territories.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Dwight Eisenhower (1963): “Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly, our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.”

My sixth-grade teacher, Paul Peca, who died four years ago, believed that the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, was necessary in order to end World War II in the Pacific.

He said, and the conventional wisdom supported the claim, that the kamikaze fighters were doing severe damage to the Allied troops and that the war needed to end quickly.

Regardless, I was never convinced that the United States should be the first country to drop the bomb. The sheer devastation, not just immediately but in the aftermath, troubled me.

On this issue, I was affected greatly by two pieces from the arts. One was the 1983 documentary Atomic Cafe. “Disturbing collection of 1940s and 1950s United States government issued propaganda films designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb was not a threat to their safety.” It reviewed quite well.

You can watch Atomic Cafe at Snagfilms.com or Vimeo or Documentary Storm, or elsewhere. It also had a nifty soundtrack, which I have on vinyl, and you should seek out these songs.

The other item was Hadashi no Gen, or Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima by Keiji Nakazawa, which “recounts the bombing of Hiroshima from the perspective of a young boy, Gen, and his family. But the book’s themes (the physical and psychological damage ordinary people suffer from war’s realities) ring chillingly true today.”

“Leonard Rifas’ EduComics (together with World Color Press) published it [in 1976] as Gen of Hiroshima, the ‘first full-length translation of a manga from Japanese into English to be published in the West.’ It was unpopular, however, and the series was canceled after two volumes.” I have those two issues.

There was a 1983 film, which I have not seen; it is here, in Japanese.

Much more recently, I read The Real Reason America Dropped The Atomic Bomb. It Was Not To End The War.

Some salient sections:

Here’s what General/President Dwight Eisenhower had to say about it in his 1963 memoir, The White House Years: Mandate for Change, 1953-1956 (pp. 312-313):

“Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly, our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of “face.”

and

Here is a quote from Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence, Ellis Zacharias:

“Just when the Japanese were ready to capitulate, we went ahead and introduced to the world the most devastating weapon it had ever seen and, in effect, gave the go-ahead to Russia to swarm over Eastern Asia. Washington decided that Japan had been given its chance and now it was time to use the A-bomb. I submit that it was the wrong decision. It was wrong on strategic grounds. And it was wrong on humanitarian grounds.”

There’s a lot more well-documented information there. Here’s hoping, “Never again.”

D is for Richard Deacon

There are only two television shows for which I own the entire series on DVD, and they have several things in common.

Both The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) and The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966), aired around the same time on CBS-TV. They each featured actors that were not born in my hometown of Binghamton, NY, but who grew up there, attending Binghamton Central High School in the same time frame.

One, of course, was Rod Serling, creator, and host of TZ. The other was Richard Deacon, the guy who played Mel Cooley, the put-upon producer of the Alan Brady Show, the fictitious variety show within the Van Dyke Show, and not incidentally, Alan’s brother-in-law.

Richard Deacon was born in Philadelphia, PA on May 14, 1921. According to someone on a Binghamton list on Facebook, he eventually lived on Crary Street in Binghamton with his parents, Joseph and Ethel, and one sibling.

At BCHS, he was in the Dramatics Club playing the role of the doctor in “Kind Lady” in 1938, and one of the elders in “Ruth of Moab” in 1940. He was in the percussion section of the school’s band for a time.

Richard, like me 30 years later, also participated in the “Red Cross Representatives” program at BCHS.

Besides the Van Dyke show, he was best known for playing Fred Rutherford, Clarence (aka Lumpy) Rutherford’s father, in the TV series Leave It To Beaver (1957-1963).

The IMDB notes: “Stage legend Helen Hayes told Deacon that he would never become a leading man but encouraged him to become a character actor,” which he did.

He was well regarded as a gourmet cook.

Richard Deacon appeared in a 1964 episode of the Twilight Zone, The Brain Center at Whipple’s. I’ve read that he was present at the premiere of Twilight Zone: The Movie in 1983 in Binghamton, though I did not see him there. He died of hypertensive heart disease the very next year at the age of 63.

In 1990, the city of Binghamton honored Rod Serling with a plaque, and the following year, it was decided to expand the program to have a Sidewalk of the Stars, and Richard Deacon was one of the first inductees. Unfortunately, it fell into disrepair but found a new home in the Forum Theater in 2014.

ABC Wednesday – Round 17

Dear diary, my short summer staycation

I’ve come to the conclusion that people dis blogging, even when they don’t read blogs, because they believe it’s just a bunch of personal entries, as though it were some sort of public diary. While, I’ve usually attempted to give you a much more diverse and eclectic record, every once in a while, I need a journal entry, if only for ME to keep track of my activities six or sixteen months from now.

July 23: After work, I met The Wife and The Daughter at Albany’s Washington Park at for a free Park Playhouse presentation of the musical Singin’ in the Rain. The family didn’t get there until close to 6 p.m. for a 7:30 performance, and that’s too late. We found probably the last seats in the amphitheater, in the last row, far to the right, with some obstruction from one of the light poles. This was the antepenultimate performance, and it had reviewed well.

That said, the performance of the musical was quite fine. Great singing and dancing, even though only the guy playing Donald (the Gene Kelly role in the movie) was an Equity union actor. And, as advertised, there was actual singing, in the controlled “rain.” BTW, in case of real rain, the show might be postponed or even canceled. My friend Susan, who plays the oboe in the orchestra, and who the Daughter and I happened across at intermission, said only one show was canceled, though a couple were delayed over the four-week run.

The problem is that, because the stage gets wet, and has to get mopped up during the break, there’s not much story left afterward; a small complaint.

July 24: I took a day off from work, and we headed for the Albany Institute of History and Art. The baseball exhibit was also on its antepenultimate day on display. While the info on the major league teams was interesting, I was most intrigued by the local history. It showed the Capital District from our now-defunct minor league Yankees showcasing future stars such as Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams to the Albany Senators playing an exhibition game against Babe Ruth to the 1880s team in Troy that was a precursor to the San Francisco Giants.

After lunch, we went to the New York State Museum. There was an exhibit of art from students from the 64 education campuses comprising the State University of New York. There was also a fine display of photos and tools of the Shaker communities, several of which were around the area back in the religious organization’s heyday.

July 25: The folks putting on Park Playhouse had also produced a two-day run of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, with child and teen actors, at Albany’s Palace Theatre. This is the iteration in which Cinderella was played at various times by Julie Andrews, Lesley Ann Warren, and Brandy. I love this show, and this version was quite good, especially the title actress and the girl playing the herald.

However, because it was for free, and was presumably kid-friendly, parents brought their infants and toddlers, who couldn’t be still, or QUIET, for a 55-minute presentation, so it was occasionally difficult to hear. Outdoors, the noise may have been more diffused. Indoors, in the 2800-seat theater, at least 2/3s full, it was amplified.

July 26: I’ve previously touted the amazing work that happens on the very small stage of the Mac-Haydn Theatre, in Chatham, 45 minutes from Albany, where the entrances and exits become part of the set. My love for West Side Story is even more well established. This combination did not disappoint, from the very athletic mixing between the Sharks and the Jets, to the fine use of space to show Maria’s balcony.

The Wife thought the guy playing Tony was too pretty, though I disagreed. The problem with theater in the round, though, is that it may take a few seconds to find the highlighted action, such as when Maria and Tony first meet, and Tony is, for us, briefly obscured by the crowd at the dance.

What particularly worked for me was the Somewhere dance. Often a ballet that stops the action, it was quite effective with, e.g., “Anybodies”, the “tomboy” Jet dancing with Bernardo, the now slain Shark leader. Hey, maybe there IS “a place for us.”

And to nail that down, as we found our way to our car, we saw the actors playing Tony and Bernardo get in their vehicle and drive away together.