birthday Archives - Page 27 of 51

Yes, I DID have a happy birthday, thank you

I find that the most efficient venue to write is a public setting, near the guy making wheezing noises, and the guy with the peculiar laugh.

Each month, when there’s a birthday in our office at work, someone, usually the boss, will ask, “What did you do on your birthday?” I thought I’d write it down while I can still remember.

My bride and I got up and had breakfast at a sandwich shop nearby. We might have opted for a more leisurely locale except that: 1) she had to report for jury duty and 2) I had a massage scheduled, and they’ve moved to a place I wasn’t exactly sure of. But find it I did, and it was especially needed.

I walked home, read some newspapers, watched a little TV, notably CBS Sunday Morning, which I never watch actually on the Sabbath, when The Wife came home around noon. Apparently, the court impaneled enough people before they even got into the courtroom.

I went to the library for an hour to blog. For some reason, I find that the most efficient venue to write, in a public setting, near the guy making wheezing noises, and the guy with the peculiar laugh.

The three of us went out to dinner at a family-style restaurant recommended by a bus driver I know. It had been opened since 1996, and I must have passed it dozens of times, but I had never even heard of it. It was good food, though, interestingly, the chicken parm was better as leftovers.

When we got home, PRESENTS! This included Odetta singing Dylan from the 1960s, though the CD version was released around the turn of the millennium. I also received March Book 2, the last of the trilogy penned by Georgia Congressman John Lewis that I received. I got Book 3 as a review copy and Book 1 for Christmas.

Oh, Jaquandor wrote a blog post in my honor!

The following Saturday, I held my annual hearts card game. It’s useful to do this in part because it forces us to clean the house more thoroughly. We talked a lot, ate a lot, and even played cards; I even won one, and by “shooting the moon”, taking all the points, on the last hand.

To paraphrase some song, a splendid time was guaranteed for all.

Elton John turns 70

“Sugar bear” reminded me of pre-sweetened cereal.

I saw Elton John in concert on 15 September 1998 with my coworkers Mary and Anne at what was then the Pepsi Arena, ne the Knickerbocker Arena, now the Times Union Center. We had what I had thought were not very good seats, in a balcony, practically stage left. But actually they turned out to be great; we could see him making entrances and exits, and what we couldn’t see, we could catch on nearby monitors.

It was a wonderful show. I don’t specifically remember the set list, though I doubt it was much different than what he played a month later at Madison Square Garden. What I do recall is that, even then, he had others sing the highest parts of what he managed to do on his own a quarter century earlier, which is no big deal.

Some years ago, my online buddy ~~Johnny Bacardi~~David Jones put together reviews of the Elton John songs that saw release on the 11 albums between 1969 and 1977, plus select singles. I was a big fan of this project. I’m not similarly motivated to replicate it, but I do notice that most of the songs I picked as my favorites primarily cover the same territory.

The Elton John (EJ) album, which I had thought at the time was his first album, I played a LOT. Tumbleweed Connection (TC), with this Wild West motif, is even more poignant now, since my father died. Madman Across the Water (MATW) was probably my favorite, though Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (GYBR) challenged it.

If memory serves, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy opened on the Billboard charts at #1 in 1975, and it wasn’t my favorite collection. The single, Someone Saved My Life Tonight I did not like. “Sugar bear” reminded me of pre-sweetened cereal. So my prime EJ period may be shorter, though I probably have more tolerance of the later Disney songs that David has.

Elton John made minor news recently when he walked into Vancouver record store and asked for gangster rap.

Here are 20 songs, my favorites roughly last. I could have picked 20 different ones.

Crocodile Rock (GYBR)
Come Down in Time (TC)
Honky Cat (Honky Chateau)
I’m Still Standing (Too Low for Zero)
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (GYBR)

Border Song (EJ) – this, and Your Song, probably suffered from too many covers that wore on me
Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting (GYBR)
Don’t Let the Sun (Caribou)
Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters (HC)
Your Song (EJ)

Where To Now St Peter (TC)
Tiny Dancer (MATW) – undoubtedly enhanced by its appearance in the movie Almost Famous
Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding (GYBR)
Take Me To the Pilot (EJ)
Madman Across the Water (MATW)

Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word (Blue Moves) – this seemed to have risen from a recent listening to his 2004 duet with Ray Charles
My Father’s Gun (TC)
Rocket Man (HC)
Daniel (GYBR)
Levon (MATW)

Mitt Romney turns 70

When I was growing up in the 1960s, there were plenty of Republicans that fair-minded citizens could consider.

There was a Vanity Fair article about Mitt Romney back in February 2012. Michael Kranish and Scott Helman’s piece was “an adaptation from their new book, The Real Romney, to find that the contradictions, question marks, and ambivalence go deeper than his politics.” It couldn’t have helped that Willard Mitt Romney’s real first name is the same as a movie rat.

The real trouble with the 2012 Republican Presidential campaign is that most of the pundits assumed the same thing would happen in 2016. Mitt Romney was losing to, at different points, Michele Bachmann, Herman “9-9-9” Cain, and Newt Gingrich, among others, before the party let one of grownups become the nominee. The supposition was that the same thing would happen again in 2016, that the bellicose businessman might be the flavor of the month, but surely fade, leaving someone such as Jeb Bush or John Kasich with the nomination.

Surely, Mitt Romney wasn’t as bad as some of his GOP counterparts, faint praise, I suppose. He did enact a predecessor to the Affordable Care Act when he was governor of Massachusetts. Yet he was perceived as the out of touch millionaire businessman, largely because of the 47% quote. Yet his successor as the Republican nominee, whom Romney rightly criticized as a phony, had a broader appeal as “genuine.”

It’s peculiar, politics in this century. When I was growing up in the 1960s, there were plenty of Republicans that fair-minded citizens could consider. Both of the US Senators from New York, Jacob Javits and Ken Keating, were Republicans, as was governor Nelson Rockefeller. William Scranton was governor of Pennsylvania, and George Romney, father of Mitt, was governor of Michigan.

There was a time in my voting lifetime when the vast majority of Republicans were people I would at least consider casting a ballot for. And I do know that if Mitt Romney had won in 2012, I would not be having the sleepless nights I’ve had since November 8, 2016.

I WAS disappointed when Romney suggested Betsy DeVos is a “smart choice for education secretary.” Still, I hope he finds ways to challenge this presidency; don’t know how much he’d be heard, but I’d love to see him use whatever clout he may still have.

Roger is 64

“Misery depresses you. Ignorance depresses you. Persecution depresses you. Violence depresses you. Corruption depresses you.”

A picture from the 1980s, when I was working at a certain comic book company in Albany.

Anyway, it’s my birthday, when I don’t blog. But I rather liked this quote a friend of mine posted on her Facebook page several months ago, from a book I read and movie I saw (1.5 times – long story.) You can muse how much of it is actually applicable to me.

“You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don’t like bigots, bullies, snobs or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate.”

“Consciously, sir, consciously,” Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. “I hate them consciously.”

“You’re antagonistic to the idea of being robbed, exploited, degraded, humiliated, or deceived. Misery depresses you. Ignorance depresses you. Persecution depresses you. Violence depresses you. Corruption depresses you. You know, it wouldn’t surprise me if you’re a manic-depressive!”

“Yes, sir. Perhaps I am.”

“Don’t try to deny it.”

“I’m not denying it, sir,” said Yossarian, pleased with the miraculous rapport that finally existed between them. “I agree with all you’ve said.”

― Joseph Heller, Catch 22

David Bowie would have been 70

David Bowie did not “go with the flow of the times.”

Right after David Bowie died, almost a year ago, I went to buy his then-new album Blackstar on Amazon. But it was SOLD OUT. Bowie’s first #1 album in the United States, which I purchased a couple of weeks later, is a fitting ending to an eclectic career.

About a month following his death, I was doing some research on how to market oneself as an artist. I came across this article about David Bowie. Well, more his response to comments about his previous article about David Bowie.

A commenter wrote that Bowie is “one of the most brilliant marketers in the history of rock ‘n’ roll,” adding, “He is all about the money and he goes with ‘flow of the times.'” And the writer largely agreed: “Bowie tailored his music to fit each era, embracing styles from folk to glam rock to soul to electronic music and ‘drum and bass.'”

That didn’t sit well with me at all. He did not “go with the flow of the times,” he helped INVENT the flow of the times, which is why he was revered and is missed.

Here are 16 Bowie songs. The fact that many are in a different order than the last time I put together such a list shows how fluid my affection is for different songs, depending on what I heard most recently. Links to all, #s indicate US Billboard highest position. .

16. Let’s Spend the Night Together (From Aladdin Sane, 1973) – I like how reads the title lyric, compared with the Rolling Stones original
15. Starman, #65 (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, 1972) – my favorite album, still
14. Life on Mars? (Hunky Dory, 1971) – from the first Bowie album I ever got, won from WNPC radio station in a phone contest
13. TVC15 (Station to Station, 1976)- because I like the vocal

12. Rebel Rebel, #64 (Diamond Dogs, 1974) – love the guitar on this
11. Suffragette City (Ziggy Stardust) – the dialogue is the first hook
10. DJ (Lodger, 1979)- “I am the DJ, I am what I play” used to mean something
9. Lazarus (Blackstar, 2016) – such an honest final statement

8. Fashion (Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), 1980)- beep, beep
7. Young Americans, #28 (Young Americans, 1975)- I believe he performed this on Soul Train. “Do you remember your President Nixon,” whose birthday, BTW, is tomorrow.
6. Fame, #1, and #21 soul (Young Americans) -the original, not the lesser Fame ’90 remix that I have on the Pretty Woman soundtrack. Co-written by John Lennon. LOVE the scales of “fame, fame, fame, fame…”
5. Panic in Detroit (Aladdin Sane)- “looks a lot like Che Guevera”, plus great background singing

4. Star (Ziggy Stardust)- rock and roll!
3. Golden Years, #10 (Station to Station)- the kids on Soul Train didn’t know what to make of the Thin White Duke, but they liked the song
2. Changes, #41 (Hunky Dory)- even my college roomie Ron liked THIS song
1. Space Oddity, #124, then #15 in 1973 (David Bowie – in the UK; Man of Words/Man of Music, 1969) – this song became more acutely painful after Bowie’s death

Oh, and in its own category: Under Pressure, with Queen, #7 in 1981 – a bass line so good, even Vanilla Ice sounded (relatively) good…