End of the world postponed; date TBD

What if it were the last day. What would I do?

I had made light of all the end of the world stuff. Then I started to take in some information that made me rethink it. The stories in Metroland, for instance, were quite informative.

Seriously, I think the Mayans are getting a bad rap. A lot of what OTHER people said they said doesn’t appear to be true. The NBC News story I saw suggested that December 21, 2012, wasn’t apocalyptic in their tradition; it was just another cycle.

It appears that others have superimposed their own dystopian values on the Mayans. It made for not-so-clever comic fodder, of the “How can they predict the end of the world when they couldn’t even foresee their own elimination?” variety. Though JibJab had some fun with it, and this picture WAS rather humorous.

There’s also the issue that these end-of-days pronouncements, and particularly the one for December 21, 2012, actually have an effect on people. I’ve seen educated, otherwise rational adults express uneasiness over the predictions; it just gives off a negative vibe. Children are particularly vulnerable to the noise. I think it’s probably like how kids of my vintage fretted about the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) of the Cold War, US v. the USSR. I DO wonder, though, if we’ve hit a global warming tipping point.

Cheri of Idle Chatter mused about what if it were the last day. What would I do? Wouldn’t bother bearing grudges, but would make sure that as many people I knew were aware of how much I cared for them, especially those I didn’t tell often enough.
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The End is Nigh, Look Busy

R.E.M.

Is God that much of an S.O.B.?

On the bus the other day, I wrote a poem in my head. It’s a tad vulgar, but so is the behavior of certain religious leaders.

For at least the last dozen years, there have been a handful of religious “leaders” who, after some tragic and horrific event, will proclaim that it happened for some reason related to that place somehow offended God. We heard it after 9/11, and Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, among others, and now after the murders of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee blamed the school shooting on failure to have compulsory prayer at school; damned that inconvenient separation of church and state! Others have blamed disasters on the acceptance of abortion and gay marriage. A Tennessee pastor specifically said the mass shootings take place because schools teach evolution and “how to be a homo;” I shan’t link to it.

For sake of the argument, let’s assume that God is the spiteful, vindictive entity that some religious leaders say God is. Still, how do they KNOW it’s THESE particular activities that’s ticking off the Deity? How do they have such an accurate Pipeline to the sky?

Might not God be annoyed by our lack of compassion for those who are impoverished? Or our greed that allows people to work at sweatshops so that we can have our modern conveniences? Jesus talked a LOT about the poor, not so much about people’s sex lives. As Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw write in Jesus for President: “If we applied Sabbath law today, the bank owner would be as much of a criminal as the bank robber. And a lot of credit card companies…would be in really big trouble.”

Maybe THEIR God cares more about who is loving who; MY God cares more that we love one another. Their God is a bit of a jerk; my God is a God of love.

On the bus the other day, I spontaneously wrote a poem in my head. It’s a tad vulgar, but so is the behavior it addresses:

When there is a disaster
And you are a pastor,
There is one of two things you can do.
You should show great compassion.
But, if that’s not your fashion,
I’m pleading, please STFU.

All I Want for Christmas Is for You to Ask Roger Anything

As always, you can ask anything. I must answer, though I may obfuscate.

Someone once asked me why I want you, dear reader, to ask me anything, and I mean anything. It’s because I tend to write about what I’m comfortable writing about, unsurprisingly. I’m hoping that you will ask me things that may not be in my comfort zone. Certainly, I want you to ask me things that I would not have thought to have answered.

It’s also the case that I really like presents, but the ones that didn’t cost any money, but do require some heart, are just as important to me. I do like surprises, usually.

As always, you can ask anything. I must answer, though I may obfuscate. In fact, for some questions, you can pretty much count on it.

I’ll be answering your questions over the next couple of weeks, assuming the Mayan apocalypse doesn’t take place.

Meanwhile:

That Ben Stein ‘Confessions for the Holidays’ thing floating around the Internet is only partially true.

Wizard of Oz Christmas ornaments.

Flash Mob – Ode an die Freude ( Ode to Joy) from Beethoven Symphony No.9.

Have Yourself a Lovecraft Little Solstice.
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Oh, and you are welcome to join ABC Wednesday, which I have been doing for six and a half rounds now. It’ll be back to the letter A in mid-January, not that you need to wait until then. And if you have a suggestion for me to write an ABC Wednesday post, I would consider your suggestions.

Friend Carol is 60

Carol and I hung out together, doing exciting stuff such as watching, of all things, The Waltons every Thursday night.

I’m referring to my friend since kindergarten, not my wife.

In second grade, the class got to dance a minuet waltz. Bill danced with Karen, Bernie with Lois, and Carol with me; why I remember this so many years later is beyond me. I think I developed a bit of a crush on Carol, because the next year, I hit her with a snowball, unintentionally in the head; I felt terrible.

The whole class got to spend time at her family cottage on a lake in northern Pennsylvania, which was always a treat.

At some point, someone came across a list of IQ scores of our class. No names were associated with the numbers, but it was generally conceded by her classmates that she was the one with the highest ranking.

I used to walk Bill, then Lois, Karen, and Carol home most days, especially when we were in junior high, so Carol and I got to talk with her one-on-one more than most of my friends.

In high school, Carol and I were both involved with student government, and in our junior year, I became president, and Carol, vice-president, a remarkable feat, given the disdain our left-of-center politics had generated when we first got to the high school.

During the summer of 1972, she and her boyfriend at the time, and the Okie and I all went to Syracuse to see The Godfather. At the end of the summer, she, her beau, and my sister Leslie were the three witnesses to my wedding to the Okie. After the Okie and I split, and Carol and her beau broke up, Carol and I hung out together, doing exciting stuff such as watching, of all things, The Waltons every Thursday night.

A few years later, I went to her wedding in Binghamton, after which she moved to the Poughkeepsie area.

One time, some of my FantaCo colleagues and I were coming back from a New York City comic book convention when the car broke down on the Taconic Parkway. Having neither AAA car service or credit cards, we didn’t know what to do. In desperation, I called Carol, and she put our towing charge on her credit card – we DID pay her back – and got us on our way.

She was the only one of my Binghamton friends to make it to a MidWinter’s gathering, in 1991, if memory serves; very good wax magic that season. Soon thereafter, she moved to Texas. So I don’t see her often anymore, though we did get together a few times, not just the 32nd reunion, but a couple of times when she and I both happened to be in Binghamton, and in July 2011, when she, Karen, and I ALL were in Binghamton the same weekend.

I should note that her family’s also great. Her mom was the coolest mom of all my friends’ mothers. Carol asked her mother and sister to represent her at Karen’s mother’s funeral this past summer. Carol’s daughter, who I had never met until fairly recently, sent my daughter a huge unicorn, which continues to be Lydia’s favorite stuffed creature.

Happy birthday, my dear friend Carol.

35th Annual Kennedy Center Honors

I have four or five solo albums by Robert Plant, his duos with Page and with Alison Krauss, and even a cassette of Plant’s group The Honeydrippers.

The television program I always watch between Christmas and New Years is the Kennedy Center Honors; it is generally quite entertaining. “The Honors recipients [are] recognized for their lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts-whether in music, dance, theater, opera, motion pictures, or television…” The event took place on Sunday, December 2. The Gala will be broadcast on CBS on December 26, 2012, at 9:00-11:00 p.m., ET/PT.

The awardees this year are Buddy Guy, Dustin Hoffman, David Letterman, Natalia Makarova, and Led Zeppelin.

I admit not knowing much about ballerina/choreographer Natalia Makarova.

The selection of talk show host David Letterman really surprised me. I like him well enough, but his gift just didn’t seem to be at the level of many of the past selections. Maybe it’s that it seems premature; in another decade. Maybe.

Historically, the choices tend to be people such as Buddy Guy, who is a blues pioneer. He has “been a tremendous influence on virtually everyone who’s picked up an electric guitar in the last half-century, including [Eric] Clapton, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Slash, ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and John Mayer.” Here he is playing Sweet Home Chicago. I have only two or three of his albums.

Speaking of Jimmy Page, I have a LOT of albums from Led Zeppelin: the first four albums, and some others, on vinyl; a box set on CD. Additionally, I have four or five solo albums by Robert Plant, his duos with Page and with Alison Krauss, and even a cassette of Plant’s group The Honeydrippers.

It’s Dustin Hoffman, though, who, like Buddy Guy, is the archetypical selection. A LONG career with a lot of success. Hoffman movies I’ve seen:
The Graduate, 1967 – the only one I saw on video, and only in the last four years; I’ve owned the soundtrack for decades.
Midnight Cowboy, 1969 – I saw this four times in the first year or so after its release. Has one of my favorite quotes: “I’m WALKING here!”
Lenny, 1974 – much of what I first knew of Lenny Bruce, i learned from this
All the President’s Men, 1976 – the Watergate film which gave me hope about a free press since dissipated
Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979 – the first “divorce movie” I recall
Tootsie, 1982 – apparently, Hoffman was a PITA making this film, which he poured into the Michael (pre-Tootsie)character
Death of a Salesman (TV movie), 1985 – first version of this I ever saw
Rain Man, 1988 – possibly Tom cruise’s best role, plus a great soundtrack
Wag the Dog, 1997 – a faux war made plausible
Finding Neverland, 2004
I Heart Huckabees, 2004 – did not love this
Meet the Fockers, 2004
Stranger Than Fiction, 2006 – definitely the best film I’ve seen that Will Farrell made

Ramblin' with Roger
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