Do I lack a sense of humor?

OBVIOUSLY I am a humorless fellow.

Sometimes, I watch, for a minute or two, some comedian on Comedy Central – the TV was set there from recording The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Much more often than not, I find the person seriously unfunny. And it has long been such.

One time, around 1989, I was at my girlfriend’s house. I was feeling kind of dragged out, and though it was Thursday night I don’t believe I went to choir rehearsal. After choir, she invited a few of our choir friends home, which was OK.

At some point, one of the choir members makes a joke. I don’t specifically remember the story, but it made mention of some Jamaican man’s genitalia and its large size. I thought it was not only off-color (about which I probably would have let pass) but also racist. But I didn’t say anything for a couple of hours. Maybe my illness has made me more touchy, I mused. But when it STILL bugged me, I felt I needed to say something.

So I told the teller of the joke that I didn’t enjoy the joke, and that I found it racially offensive. She quickly and sincerely apologized.

Then her friend said, “Oh, Roger, you just don’t have a sense of humor.” Between feeling crummy, and being really annoyed with her dismissing my feelings, not to mention that I had not been addressing her, I said to her something I think I’ve only said two or three times to another human being in my life: “F@#$ YOU!” Not my finest hour, but there it is.

OBVIOUSLY, I am a humorless fellow. That wasn’t either the first or last time someone has leveled that charge at me, though generally, I respond with a little more civility.

Actually, I find LOTS of things funny. Seriously, I do. Just not that. Or that. And certainly not THAT.

Easter taxi?

Officially, it reached 86F that day, though the bank clock we saw read 87, around 30C.

A good day to get married?

This relatively early Easter reminded me that back on March 30, 1986, it was Easter Sunday. It was also the wedding day of my friend Miriam Isaacs; she was Jewish, and evidently unaware of this Christian tradition. An hour and a half before the wedding, I called for a taxi for my then-girlfriend and me. The dispatcher said it’d be there in 15 minutes. Thirty minutes later, I called, and I was told a cab was coming in 15 minutes. Thirty more minutes later, we took off on foot.

Officially, it reached 86F that day, though the bank clock we saw read 87, around 30C. By the time we got there in our fancy garb, we were sweaty. Worse, we had missed the wedding, though we did make it to the reception.

This is just one of the reasons I avoid taxis in Albany.

I’ve long lost track of Miriam, who had moved to Israel some years ago. Happy anniversary, a day late, to her, I hope. To others of you, Happy Easter!
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And please, would this Christ not rise from the dead. That is terribly disruptive. I agree with the original writer on some points, but I suspect I have a somewhat different theology overall.

SONG: He Was Eating and Drinking by Amy Barlow Liberatore

Scenes from the Judy Garland movie Easter Parade.

 

March Rambling, about ME – oh, and other things

Chuck Miller: Every day you survive, every day you thrive, every day you achieve and succeed, is a big eff ewe to the haters.

I may have mentioned (once or twice?) that it was my birthday this month. Thank you for the 70-odd comments (some VERY odd) on Facebook, and a couple of tweets, not to mention comments at this blog. Dustbury cited my March 8, day after my birthday, post.

I won second prize in Pret-A-Vivre’s Oscar game. Thanks!

But the person who best got into the “celebrate Roger” spirit has to be Jaquandor. He answered my Ask Me Anything questions to him here and here, AND he ASKED me an Ask Me Anything question before I even requested it!

He also linked to a couple of my posts, AND he wrote a whole post for me. Yay! The first YouTube clip in his piece features Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as Roger, and others, in a wonderful comedy segment from the movie Airplane!

Here’s some weird trivia.

The winner of the game show JEOPARDY! episode on Friday, November 6, 1998, was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in a celebrity tournament. The winner of the JEOPARDY! episode on Monday, November 9, 1998, the next one aired, was MOI. Kareem and I – likethis.
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Usually, I write about International Women’s Day on March 8. this year on that date, though, I wrote about, er, ME instead. So here’s Reader Wil’s contribution instead.

Shocking New Evidence Reveals Depths of ‘Treason’ and ‘Treachery’ of Watergate and Iran-Contra

Melanie’s grandfather; also her humanness, fighting inertia.

SamuraiFrog needs help, and is getting it. Huzzah!

Chuck Miller: The toughest part is letting go. Letting go of the anger and the hatred and the feelings of worthlessness and regret and fear and sadness. And: Don’t ever give up. Giving up means that the bullies and the haters have won. And every day you survive, every day you thrive, every day you achieve and succeed, is a big eff ewe to the haters. He wrote a couple of years ago about the Chestnut Prison, which informs his current philosophy.

I think that an uncomfortably large amount of comedy these days springs from the same mental space from which bullying comes.

Benjamin Zander’s TED talk: The transformative power of classical music.

Sharp Little Pencil: Lucky Girl Child.

An Olympian with a physical disability; no, not Oscar Pistorius, but Olivér Halassy.

Character actor Malachi Throne died this month; trust me – you HAVE seen him perform. Mark Evanier tells an interesting tale about his appearance on the Batman TV show.

Steve Bissette: “Your Tax Dollars At Work for Disney Dept: So, NY state tax breaks are going to help the next Marvel/Disney SPIDER-MAN movie get made—while Marvel/Disney merrily fleeces Steve Ditko yet again. A Modest Proposal at MYRANT from guest columnist Richard Gagnon.

Some religion, and any philosophy that claims certainty, creates a false sense of security that leaves people sucking their finger rather than going where the finger is pointing.

STRIPPED: The Final Kickstarter Push for a feature documentary on the world’s best cartoonists: Talking about the art form they love & where it goes as papers die.

If you speak two languages fluently, in which do you cuss? There’s a study about that.

The one thing we know for certain about coincidence is that they are anything but coincidental. But what does it mean? Don’t know, but read this story, and the second comment anyway.

Review of ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ from 1949.

EXTERIOR: Suburban Buffalo — KFC — Afternoon — Winter. My, some people are…

Pennsylvania stadium aims to please fans with urinal video games. “The game is aimed at increasing prostate health awareness.”

K-Chuck Radio: Enjoying Jose Feliciano!

SEX-AGE-narian

Frankly, I think retailers are crazy to maintain these “senior” discounts.

I find it mildly amusing that when someone gets to be 60, i.e. a sexagenarian, some young people seem to get all weirded out that people so OLD are still HAVING sex. Of course, the baby boomers never want to be getting older. “Sixty is the new forty,” and all that. Back in the 1970s, there was an episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show called Mary and the Sexagenarian; I’m not remembering it specifically, but I’m sure there was a joke or two that today’s sixty-somethings would consider ageist.

I saw this story that sex only burns about 21 calories rather than, well, a whole lot more. On the other hand, it has other health benefits.

There are all these nifty benefits to getting older. The thresholds vary, but one can get lots of stuff at a savings, especially services, such as at restaurants and transportation. (But are they legal? Apparently, even though they are discriminatory against the younguns.)

Frankly, I think retailers are crazy to maintain these “senior” discounts. The boomer generation is HUGE in numbers in the United States and will likely live longer than their parents, to boot; this must be an economic drain on some businesses and will continue to be so for quite a while. (Dustbury wrote on this topic recently.)

I LOVE 60, as a number. It has prime factors of 2, 3, and 5, and is evenly divisible by 4, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30 as well. And time is based on 60 – seconds in a minute, minutes in an hour; gotta be SOMETHING to that.

This coming decade SHOULD be the one in which I leave my job. But I have an almost nine-year-old daughter; I may NEVER retire…
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Perennially hormonal

Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor

I continue to be moved by its chordal structure of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue.

 

From last.fm, copied verbatim in the Wikipedia: “The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, is a piece of organ music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach sometime between 1703 and 1707. The attribution of the piece to Bach has been challenged since the early 1980s by a number of scholars, and remains a controversial topic.”

This piece of music has been used in dozens of movies (The Tree of Life, Gremlins 2, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, Fantasia, among others), TV shows, and video games. Check out this list of Bach music, and find the toccata references. The music is usually used to suggest something scary in a way that has become an unfortunate cliche.

I, though, continue to be moved by its chordal structure. Here’s one recording; you can find several others on YouTube. Listen to the segment that starts at 7:20; the chord at 7:45 just wows me. By those last three chords which are as intense as any power chords by a rock guitarist, I’m in tears of awe.

Somehow, it puts me in the right frame of mind for the latter stages of Holy Week.

Ramblin' with Roger
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