Ramblin' with Roger

In a Beach Boys state of mind

So who the heck was KGB, if not a Soviet spy agency?

Of COURSE, I was going to link to God Only Knows – BBC Music with a whole bunch of folks, including Brian Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Pharrell, Lorde, Dave Grohl, Kylie Minogue, Florence Welch, Chrissie Hynde, Queen’s Brian May, One Direction, Jools Holland, and many others; here’s a list of the participants. Also of interest is some background about the recording.

A lot of debate online about who “should have” been on the recording, starting with Paul McCartney, a huge fan of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album (perhaps he was sick or on tour), and who “should not have”, starting with One Direction. Frankly, I think the speculation is a bit silly/useless.

I did NOT know about Perfect Day- BBC Music with Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Emmylou Harris, David Bowie, Bono, Tom Jones, Joan Armatrading, Robert Cray, Dr. John, and others from 1997. Elton John is the only person I recognized from both recordings.

My blogging buddy Chuck Miller posted songs about sailing. He selected the Beach Boys’ Sloop John B but did NOT pick their Sail On Sailor, because he opted for a cover version by a group called KGB.

So who the heck was KGB, if not a Soviet spy agency? From HERE:

The K was for:

Singer Ray Kennedy, the least known member of the group, had an impressive resume of his own. He’d played sax for Gerry Mulligan, Otis Redding, Brenda Lee and Fats Domino, among others. Kennedy also co-wrote the Beach Boys’ “Sail On Sailor.”

On the KGB album, the song is billed as written by Brian Wilson and Kennedy, while the Beach Boys version had other writers listed.

The G was for:

Keyboard player Barry Goldberg had partnered with [Mike] Bloomfield in Dylan’s back up band, then in The Electric Flag and Supersession. He’d also worked with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Mitch Ryder.

The B, of course, was for:

Guitarist Mike Bloomfield had played with Bob Dylan and served as Paul Butterfield’s main axe man. He formed the Electric Flag in 1967 with Buddy Miles, Barry Goldberg and Nick Gravenites, but struck out on his own a year later.

The group also featured:

[Bassist] Rick Grech career had begun with British rockers Family. He was swiped from their U.S. tour in 1969 by Blind Faith. When Blind Faith crashed, Grech enlisted in Ginger Baker’s Airforce, another supergroup that included former Traffic members Steve Winwood and Chris Wood. When the reformed Traffic needed a bassist, Winwood contacted Grech… Grech went on to record with Rod Stewart, Gram Parsons and Ronnie Lane, among others.

and:

Carmine Appice was one of hard rock’s prominent percussionists. He’d started in the legendary Long Island jam band the Vanilla Fudge, then formed Cactus with ex-Fudge bassist Tim Bogert. The duo hooked up with legendary guitarist Jeff Beck in 1972.

Though buddy Chuck prefers the KGB version of Sail On, Sailor, I am on record that this is one of my favorite Beach Boys songs, as sung by Blondie Chaplin. In fact, one of the very few BB songs I love better is God Only Knows.

N is for Nudiustertian

I always seem to remember where I learn words as an adult I hadn’t known before.

Nudiustertian pertaining to the day before yesterday; it has nothing to do with strippers and nakedness. I’ve also discovered that, in the same linguistic family, hesternal relates to yesterday, and hodiernal pertains to today.

“The OED goes on to gives its only example of the use of the word in a sentence from 1647, taken from the ever-popular The simple cobler of Aggawam in America, written by Nathaniel Ward. ‘When I heare a‥Gentledame inquire‥what [is] the nudiustertian fashion of the Court; I mean the very newest.'”

I love such specific words. I also like this one, which is similar in intent: antepenultimate means “last but two in a series; third last. ‘The antepenultimate item on the agenda…'” Chapter 8 in a ten-chapter book also qualifies.

Somehow, I had not known the word penultimate, meaning next to last, until I had read it in an intro to the comic book Elfquest by Wendy and Richard Pini. #19 was the penultimate issue of the original series, which means that #18 was the antepenultimate one.

I always seem to remember where I learn words as an adult I hadn’t known before. The word ersatz means “(of a product) made or used as a substitute, typically an inferior one, for something else.” I first saw it in a book about albums by the Beatles, plus the solo works. Ringo’s Goodnight Vienna, which features contributions of the other three on various tracks, was described as an “ersatz Beatles album.”

ABC Wednesday, Round 15

Politics, Alex Trebek and JEOPARDY!

It could be that I’m STILL ticked off that Alex Trebek ruined my picture with him.

It’s no great secret that many game show hosts in the United States are politically conservative. Here are articles from the Daily Beast and Salon.

This list of MCs includes Alex Trebek, host of JEOPARDY, a show I’ve been watching in one iteration or other more than half of my life. I’m not suggesting a political litmus test, so the fact that he speaks approvingly of the Tea Party is disappointing to me but doesn’t alter my appreciation of the game.

However, his comments on air are cumulatively starting to irritate. As Salon suggests: “In Trebek’s universe, when a woman wins, a battle of the sexes begins, whereas when a man wins, the universe is in accord.”

The show itself got dinged for its recent sexist “what women want” category. Trebek doesn’t write the questions, but after 30 years, certainly has enough sway that if the category or the questions therein (which you can read HERE) bugged him, they’d likely be altered.

So I took some odd pleasure from this recent gaffe during the interview section, made available by the show’s producers.

Of course, it could be that I’m STILL ticked off that he ruined my picture with him. After I was on the show, taped in September 1998, I received a photo, but it was just of me with no Trebek. I’m sure it was because when I posed for the photo with him, I could see on a monitor that he did the rabbit ears thing behind me like an eight-year-old.

In any case, I imagine the now appropriately mustachioed host will probably retire in a couple of years. And the show still interests me, so that trumps whatever irritation I have with the host for enjoyment, so far.
***
Here’s one of those recent Jeopardy! Hometown Howdies.

Goodbye, Columbus?

Goodbye, Columbus – was that a Philip Roth novel or a song by the Association (#80 in 1969)? Ah, my annual ambivalence about Columbus Day.

This is related: did you ever wonder why Hispanic Heritage Month runs from mid-September to mid-October?

The reason why September 15 was chosen as the official start of the month was it is the anniversary of independence of a number of Latin American countries…

The 30-day celebration acknowledges the huge impact the Latino community has had on shaping the United States into the country it is today. From Christopher Columbus’ first contact with the indigenous peoples of the Americas in 1492, to the Spanish colonies of the West to the fortress of St. Augustine, Florida — the oldest continuous European settlement in North America – founded in 1565, decades before Jamestown, Virginia.

Hispanics have been in this country longer than anyone beside Native Americans.

I’ve written before that while Columbus’ voyages started a chain of events that were often obviously terrible for American Indians, slapping ALL the blame on him individually seems unmeasured. Though, if the Seattle School Board wants to observe ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Day’ on the Columbus holiday, that’s fine by me.

On the other hand, if you wanted to dump Andrew Jackson from the $20, I could definitely go for that. An ad for a book I have not read – An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz:

[She] adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: “The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them.

He is arguably the most shameful American.

I do like this:
From Etsy’s Bold Statement – No More Redsk*ns powwows: “Another small victory for the Change the Mascot movement. Effective immediately Etsy will no longer allow any item to be sold via their website that includes the Washington NFL team’s logo or the term Redsk*ns.”

A down payment at least: U.S. To Pay Navajo Nation $554 Million in Largest Single Tribe Settlement in History.

This is an ad about indigenous Australians, but the sentiments are applicable much more widely.

Post by AIME.

Lee and TJ get married

Lee had expressed his desire to get married in the church of which he’s been a member for decades to the person he’s been with for nearly a quarter century.

I was going to write about how that in 24 states, or 30, maybe 35 states plus the District of Columbia, same-sex couples can get married. No wait, there’s a stay by the Supreme Court justice in Idaho, or not anymore. I do think that the SCOTUS should just DECIDE this issue once and for all and that there are dangers in dawdling. But the heck with all that.

On Friday, October 10, 2014, for the first time in the 251-year history of my church, a same-gender couple was able to marry there. This was a function not just of the New York State law passed in June 2011, but the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voting to allow pastors to marry same-sex couples in states where it is legal just this past June.

Lee had spoken at the local presbytery (regional body) meeting this past January, expressing his desire to get married in the church of which he’s been a member for decades to the person he’s been with for nearly a quarter-century. Lee had spent time in the hospital this summer, but he’s better now, so it was an extra special celebration. Both pastors officiated, and the house was quite full, with family, friends, and many members of the congregation.

The Wife noted that it was difficult to find a greeting card appropriate for same-gender couples at the local drug store; I totally get that.

The odd thing for me is that the biggest piece of conversation at the reception, besides the happy couple, was the fact that I wore a TIE with my bright red shirt. There are people there who’ve known me for a decade who’d never seen me wear one. Don’t get used to it, people; it was a very special occasion.