obituary Archives - Page 5 of 8 - Ramblin' with Roger

August Rambling

GayProf noted Perry when he wrote: “Numerous songs en vogue right now celebrate women consuming alcohol to the point of blacking out, hooking up, or hurling (not always in that order). ”

Because I was out of town, I managed to miss a couple of significant cultural anniversaries. One was the 50th anniversary of the first real Marvel superhero comic, the Fantastic Four, by Stan Lee and Jack “King” Kirby. Mark Evanier explains why it had a November cover date. Check out this hour-long Kirby documentary. And here’s a link to the intro to the FF TV show.

The other was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lucille Ball. I watched most, if not all, of the episodes of every single one of her ongoing series, from the seminal I Love Lucy (1951-1957; 8.9 out of 10 on the IMDB scale), which started before even TV Guide and I were born but lives through the clever concept known as the rerun; to the star-studded (and too long, in my recollection) episodes of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957-1960; 8.6); to The Lucy Show (1962–1968; 7.3), which was the one with Lucy as Lucy Carmichael, Vivian Vance (Ethel Mertz in the earlier shows) as Viv, and Gale Gordon as Lucy’s testy boss, Mr. Mooney.

Then there was Here’s Lucy (1968–1974, 6.8), where “Lucy Carter, a widow with two teen children [played her real kids with Desi Arnaz, Lucie and Desi Jr.] takes a job as a secretary for her stuffy brother-in-law [Gale Gordon, again.] Finally, there was Life with Lucy (1986; 6.0) “Lucy Barker, now a grandmother living with her daughter’s family” Gale Gordon also appeared in this show.

They declined in quality somewhat – Life with Lucy was particularly bad, as I recall – but if I didn’t quite LOVE Lucy, I liked the woman from upstate New York (Jamestown) quite a bit.

I believe this was Lucy’s favorite scene from her first series.

As you may have noticed, Katy Perry becomes the second artist, following Michael Jackson, to send five songs from an album to No. 1 on the Billboard charts, and during his birth month, no less. An accomplishment to be sure, though the charts don’t reflect the same level of sales they used to. (Similarly true of top-rated TV shows: the numbers are far less than they used to be.) Not incidentally, GayProf noted Perry when he wrote: “Numerous songs en vogue right now celebrate women consuming alcohol to the point of blacking out, hooking up, or hurling (not always in that order). “

In pictures of models, “there are women (and occasionally men) contorted into positions that, were you to see actual people in them, you’d find curious or peculiar or perhaps even alarming.”

Natalie Cole with the Allman Brothers. Check out the sidebar for David Crosby, Graham Nash, and others.

On Star Trek: The Next Generation, Data could reproduce the voices of humans with perfect fidelity. Brent Spiner can do the same with the voice of Patrick Stewart.

My new Kickstarter fave: Stripped is a documentary love letter to cartoonists and comic writers who’ve delighted newspaper readers for decades. Since 2008, 166 newspapers have shut down, leaving the future uncertain for many syndicated cartoonists. Amidst this industry upheaval, Stripped follows 60 cartoonists, including luminaries like Jim Davis, Scott McCloud, and Jeff Keane, as they navigate the uncharted waters of a new digital world.

Having seen the trailer for the Spider-Man movie reboot, I have no reason to actually see the movie. The first two movies with Tobey Maguire were great; even own them on DVD.
***

Two music legends died this month. Jerry Leiber of the songwriting duo Leiber & Stoller wrote more songs than just about any pop composer. Here’s a list of most of them. Listen to Big Mama Thornton singing “Hound Dog”, some four years before Elvis Presley. Also, hear Charlie Brown by the Coasters; coincidentally, Carl Gardner, leader of the Coasters, died a couple of months ago.

Nickolas Ashford, who died August 22, was the songwriting partner and husband of Valerie Simpson. Ashford & Simpson wrote songs for Motown artists, Aretha Franklin, and others, as well as performing themselves. Hear Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell do You’re All I Need To Get By. Also, here’s a song originally performed by Ray Charles, I Don’t Need No Doctor (live) by Humble Pie.

The Jerry Leiber Cover Story on Coverville.

The Salon story about Leiber and Ashford.

GOOGLE ALERTS

Roger with the hula hoop

Rollie Roger Green T-Shirt

Roger Green, the proprietor of Hair by Roger, said noise and vibrations from the work were spoiling the salon’s ‘peaceful environment’. A spokesperson from United Utilities said: “We are fully aware of the impact this scheme has had on the community…”

“The Black Boardwalk Cat is a distinctive animal that has acquired an unusual place in the hearts of many university employees and students,” said Roger Green, associate professor of political science and public administration.

Forgotten Book: THE THROTTLEPENNY MURDER, Roger J. Green. My contribution this week to Pattinase’s Friday’s Forgotten Books is a book I read in 1993.

“Former Wisbech Mayor and Wisbech Standard editor, Roger Green who died in a road traffic collision on the A47 Wisbech bypass…. This particular Roger Green got a LOT of coverage.

Sherwood, Betty and Rob

Amish Paradise, a parody of Coolio’s Gangsta Paradise, which in turn was a remake of Stevie Wonder’s Pastime Paradise.

The great thing about Sherwood Schwartz, who died earlier this month, is not just that he created two popular TV shows. He also wrote or co-wrote their iconic themes.

I never, not once, did I see The Brady Bunch, during its initial run. But I knew exactly what it was about, just by watching the theme. It was the story about two widowed people, each with three kids, each the same gender as the parent, who, along with the housekeeper, became a blended family.

The theme to Gilligan’s Island, a show I admit to watching in my callow youth, also let us know the entire plot, though it changed somewhat from the first season to subsequent ones.

The show was name-checked several times by Weird Al Yankovic and others. From Al’s Couch Potato, “…And there’s “Gilligan” and “SpongeBob”, plus there’s “MacGyver”…” Stop Draggin’ My Car Around, a takeoff of the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song, also namechecks the show.

But Isle Thing, a parody of Tone Loc’s Wild Thing, is all about “watchin’ that Gilligan’s Isle thing”. And Amish Paradise, a parody of Coolio’s Gangsta Paradise, which in turn was a remake of Stevie Wonder’s Pastime Paradise, appropriates a whole section of the closing theme:
No phone, no lights, no motor cars,
not a single luxury.
Like Robinson Crusoe,
it’s primitive as can be.
In live shows and on radio shows, Weird Al has been known to do other Gilligan takeoffs.

Others have taken different music and attached it to the theme, none more notably than Little Roger and the Goosebumps merging the lyrics to the music of Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin to create Stairway to Gilligan’s Island.
***

I always thought that Betty Ford, the former dancer Betty Bloomer, was cool. She dealt with her private difficulties, from her breast cancer surgery to her pain medication addiction, in a very public way, helping countless people, women, and men. Not to mention her forthright comments about equal rights, sexuality, and abortion, not always in lockstep with her husband, even when he was President.

The long-time lead singer for The Grass Roots named Rob Grill died this month. Reportedly he was listening to a recording of Let’s Live for Today when he passed away.

Ken Levine on Amy Winehouse.

Jeffrey Catherine Jones

Jeff was in transition to becoming Catherine, and one could see the discomfort on some folks’ faces.

There was a period of about 20 years in my life when the comic art form was extremely important in my life. One of the most impressive people working was Jeff Jones. I think I met him only once, at the FantaCon comic convention in Albany in 1980.

But FantaCo, where I worked in the 1980s, published at least two of his stories, in the anthologies Gates of Eden and Deju Vu. The covers were done by Michael Kaluta and Bernie Wrightson, respectively, two of his colleagues in something called The Studio. And both titles, on a purely commercial level, were abject failures, though brilliant on an aesthetic one.

So I lost track of Jeffrey Jones by 1994. I didn’t know, for instance, that he was undergoing hormone therapy for gender reidentification. A friend of mine, who knew Jones, tells of being at a big comic convention. Jeff was in transition to becoming Catherine, and one could see the discomfort on some folks’ faces. One of the dealers asked my friend if he could talk to Jeff and kind of break the ice among the dealers/Jeff/the public, which he happily did. After a while, more people came over. He introduced Jeff to some of the dealers he knew, and Jeff ended up with a crowd. My friend wrote, “I will miss his work and such a nice person.”

Apparently, from the reports I’ve read, things got easier as she became more evident. I’m happy about that; I can only imagine how difficult that must have been. I met a guy at a conference, actually around the same time as the Jones transition, then a couple of years later, at the same event, he had become a she, and she told me at length how her colleagues were not exactly supportive, to say the least.

Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter remembers Jones, who died this week at the age of 67. Interestingly, Spurgeon always uses “she”, which I suppose makes sense. (Beats writing he/she a lot.)

Sidney Lumet

Lumet “directed seventeen different actors in Oscar-nominated performances… Four of them won for those Lumet-supervised performances.”

There’s an IMDB filmography for film director Sidney Lumet, who died last week at the age of 86. I thought I’d note the movies I saw, or wish I had.

12 Angry Men (1957) – A great cast, led by Henry Fonda. I must have seen this on TV originally, but it was so impactful, the whole notion of whether things are the way we thought, in a great courtroom drama, that I’ve gotten it on DVD.

Serpico (1973) – Found this movie about the one honest cop riveting, intense and rather sad by its (appropriate) cynicism.

Dog Day Afternoon (1975) – I’ve meant to see this. Actually came across the first 10 minutes on YouTube fairly recently.

Network (1976) – By far, the best movie of 1976, Rocky’s Academy Award win notwithstanding. In fact, it’s #64 on AFI’s top 100 movies. Also, Evanier tells a great story about a screening he attended. I remember the Oscars for that year quite well, when Peter Finch’s widow picked up his well-deserved award for Best Actor.

The Wiz (1978) – Definitely did NOT view this in the theater, though I’ve seen scenes on TV.

The Verdict (1982)– I’ve been a sucker for both law dramas and movies about redemption. This movie starring Paul Newman, as a lush of a lawyer I recall really enjoying when I saw it in the theater, though I haven’t viewed it since.

I probably also ought to see Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Equus and Running on Empty.

Evanier notes that Lumet “directed seventeen different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Katharine Hepburn, Rod Steiger, Al Pacino, Ingrid Bergman, Albert Finney, Chris Sarandon, Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, Beatrice Straight, William Holden, Ned Beatty, Peter Firth, Richard Burton, Paul Newman, James Mason, Jane Fonda and River Phoenix. Four of them won for those Lumet-supervised performances. A pretty impressive record.” Kevin Marshall wrote a nice piece about Lumet.

17 November, 1927-2 February, 2011

Trudy is survived by her son, Roger Green (Carol) of Albany, NY; two daughters, Leslie Green of Lemon Grove, CA and Marcia Green of Charlotte, NC…

Writing an obituary is often a negotiated exercise when more than one person has to be satisfied with it. The one below I started writing. The mechanical stuff – who she’s survived by, e.g., – is easy, but I was having trouble with the middle section. So one sister wrote a bunch of stuff for that, then the other sister and I had to trim that down, not just for length (and thus cost), but because it was a bit disjointed. This is the Thursday night draft version, not yet approved by the first sister, but it’s close enough for the blog.

Incidentally, the website of the Charlotte Observer has annoying instructions for submitting an obit. It tells you to either call or e-mail for more information.

Interesting/strange thing about the photo to the left: my mom cut the neutral background out of the picture about two weeks before she died, and no one knows why, possibly not even her. It’s not as though there was someone else in the shot.

I suppose it is quite obvious, though probably inappropriate for me to say, that my mom was a real babe when she was younger.

CHARLOTTE – Gertrude Elizabeth (Trudy) Green, 83, of Charlotte, NC, passed away on Wednesday, February 2, 2011 in Charlotte, NC. Born in Binghamton, NY, she was the daughter of the late Clarence and Gertrude (Yates) Williams, and the widow of Leslie H. (Les) Green, who died in 2000. She was a member of C. N. Jenkins Presbyterian Church, having served as a Deacon for multiple terms and on various other church boards and committees.

Trudy graduated from Binghamton Central High School, and worked at a number of jobs dealing with finances, including at McLean’s department store, and Columbia Gas & Electric in Binghamton, and as a teller at First Union Bank, from which she retired. She also participated in several family-owned business ventures, including President’s Club and Avon.

She was a loving and supportive wife, mother, grandmother, and surrogate parent, who found joy in helping her family, her church, her community and others. She was a God-loving, long time member of Circle #3 group, where she was the Treasurer, Presbyterian Women, and various Bible studies.

Trudy was a very social person, caring and honest, with a beautiful smile. She loved cookbooks, calendars, clocks, boxes, and bags, and in later years, developed a love for word puzzles. She used to participate in bowling leagues and Bingo.

She is survived by her son, Roger Green (Carol) of Albany, NY; two daughters, Leslie Green of Lemon Grove, CA and Marcia Green of Charlotte, NC; three granddaughters, Rebecca (Rico) Curtis of San Diego, CA; Alexandria Green-House of Charlotte, NC; and Lydia Green of Albany, NY; and several cousins.

Funeral services will be held on Tuesday, February 8 at 2 pm at C.N. Jenkins Presbyterian Church, 1421 Statesville Ave, Charlotte, NC 28206. The family will receive friends at the church from 1 to 1:45 p.m.

Contributions in her memory may be made in lieu of flowers to University Adult Day Care, 1324 John Kirk Road, Charlotte, NC 28262, (704)510-0030.

The third pic shows my parents – damn, I’m an orphan – at my graduation from library school in 1992. The fourth is at my mother’s 80th birthday party in 2007.

Arthur of AmeriNZ, the guy from Auckland via Chicago who I’ve certainly mentioned in this blog, wrote a blog post about my mom and me. Best pair of sentences: “The largely artificial Internet life is all too often detached from real life, and we lose sight of the real-life humans we’re interacting with. Yet the Internet can also deliver connections we’d never have had otherwise.”

Amen.