Tag: Rod Serling

Christmas 2011

The Bells of Christmas may be my favorite recording of a Christmas song ever.

Merry Christmas! It’s a Sunday morning and I’ll be going to church, but our choir is not singing; we sang on Christmas Eve, but not Christmas Day, which is fine by me. Besides, Santa is probably tired from putting presents under the tree.

Somebody I once met was born on Christmas Day 1924, and that’s the late Rod Serling. My blogger buddy Gordon has been trying to institute his and Humphrey Bogart’s birthdays (b. 1899) as alternative holidays for “those who may be atheists, agnostics, or just plain tired of the usual thing.” Don’t know how that’s working out.

Speaking of Serling, I reviewed his bio back in October, and I was thrilled to find that the book’s author, Joel Engel, commented on my post! Check it out.

And as for that OTHER holiday today, here’s The Bells of Christmas and Joy to the World, both sung by Julie Andrews. The former may be my favorite recording of a Christmas song ever; the latter recording pops as though it’s from that original Firestone tire LP that I owned as a kid, and in fact still own.

Rod Serling biography by Joel Engel

One of the things I was able to do in the Adirondacks a couple of months ago was to read the bulk of the book Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life in the Twilight Zone – a biography by Joel Engel. I wanted to finish it because I had borrowed the book from my father-in-law and I wanted to return it; that was my internal message, not his external one.

In the Methodology and Sources section of the book, author Joel Engel expressed surprise that in 1985, a full decade after the death of the celebrated television writer Rod Serling, there had not yet been a Serling biography. So Engel made inquiries and ended up writing a book about a man whose fans adored him, but who, despite his considerable success, was riddled with self-doubt. As Engel notes in the Prologue re Serling in 1967: “Submitted for your examination: a man who’s dying inside. Not so many years ago, he rode the crest of a golden wave he thought would never end…But that was before giving birth to the Creation…Each day, he hears fewer whispers of his greatness, and those still heard cannot be believed from inside the private hell to which the Creation has doomed him.”

The Creation, of course, was the seminal series The Twilight Zone, whose writing and hosting made him both successful as a writer but also a celebrity; yet he doubted his writing abilities, and scorned his own celebrity.

Chapter 1 was about Rod Serling’s dad Sam, who was too poor to go to college and become the engineer his skill set would suggest he could have become. He ended up enrolling in secretarial school and took his bride Esther to Panama, where she almost died of yellow fever. When the Serlings returned to Auburn, NY, they discovered Esther was pregnant. The pregnancy was difficult, and the doctors assured the family that Robert, born in 1918, would be their only child. Sam then felt that he was doomed to work for his father-in-law’s grocery business, in Cortland, then Syracuse.

But the doctors were wrong. Rodman Edward Serling was born on Christmas Day, 1924. Sam moved south to Binghamton to buy his own grocery store and when it proved successful, the family moved to Bennett Avenue on the city’s middle-class West Side. He was attracted to the place that became a relatively worker-friendly town for the vast immigrant population. More importantly, Binghamton became, for Rod “a kind of geographic womb to crawl back into – and that’s your hometown,” a feeling not shared by Bob, BTW.

“Rod attracted people to him by sheer force of personality. He received constant praise, even adoration, and soon found it difficult to live without them.” At some level, this would continue to be the case for most of his life.

Chapter 2 involved Rod Serling as a paratrooper in World War II, a function he had to plead for because of his diminutive stature. Engel tells about the campaign in the Philippines in 1945, and how the absurdity of war – one friend was killed by the food supply dropped from the air to save them – that colored Rod’s eventual writing career.

Subsequent chapters addressed his evolution as a writer from radio station intern to some encouraging radio drama submissions to some success with this new medium called television. Despite some great volume of work, when the focus of TV production moved from live stagelike NYC shows to the filmed Hollywood product, it was a bit like starting over.

Nevertheless, despite his eventual success with The Twilight Zone, Rod’s “need to please,” and his disdain for, yet attraction to, fame and success made him not quite satisfied.

Due in large part to his four-pack-a-day cigarette habit – he even smoked during a classroom appearance at his alma mater, Binghamton Central High School in 1970, I can testify personally – Rod Serling died on June 28, 1975.

The Engel book is quite interesting, especially the first two chapters. But it is all well researched. If the latter chapters are somehow less enjoyable, maybe it’s because the subject of the book was unable to be content with his life, believe his success, be happy with his first writing critic, his wife Carol. Like his father, he wanted more than he achieved and like Sam, he died young pursuing it.

Roger Answers Your Questions, Amy

The earth MUST be the center of the universe, because God made the earth – or something like that. Suggesting otherwise was heresy, the Church said; science is WRONG.

Amy from Sharp Little Pencil – sometimes that instrument is VERY pointed, and my “favorite Apalachin girl who went to Vestal,” writes:

Hope all in your camp are all right, Roger. Three “hundred-year floods” in five years for Binghamton. Gee, Rick Perry, do you understand global warming NOW? It’s not a belief system; it’s not an “either, or,” it’s a fact, Jack.

My sister chides me about global climate change like it’s Darwin vs. Adam and Eve, and this thought just came to me. Part of the “religiosity” (ha ha) of Tea Bag/Fundies is that they truly blur the line between faith and fact, as though if you plug your ears and say “La la la” loud enough, it will go away; and worse, that people who don’t share your “beliefs” are somehow unworthy of citizenship in the US.

Take THAT ball and run with it, Roger!!! I’d love to hear or read your thoughts on this. Thanks, Amy

First off, I think that there are too many people who, through ignorance, some of it willful, I must say, decide that if it snows in the southern United States, or New Zealand, this somehow disproves global warming. One need only look at the two words: GLOBAL, over the whole world; WARMING, the average temperature of the planet is rising. Snow in Atlanta is the weather; the collective volume of hurricanes and tornadoes, droughts, and heavy rains is the climate, and it sure the heck seems to be altered, and not for the better. And I don’t believe that it will flip back, at least not without a radical change in our behavior. Check out the NASA Global Climate Change blog and be depressed.

I’ve read the Bible a few times, at least thrice all the way through, and I am at a loss to figure out just how a largely human-made climate change is a threat to a belief in a loving Saviour. Of course, I feel the same way about evolution or gay marriage re faith, so I’m a heretic to some anyway.

The issue I might compare it to is heliocentrism. The earth MUST be the center of the universe because God made the earth – or something like that, right? Suggesting otherwise was heresy, the Church said; science was WRONG. Most of us, except the flat earthers, know how THAT debate turned out. God can’t love us if we’re on the third rock from a second-class star? Huh?

Oh, and my last point: I’ve said this recently, but I’ll repeat it – the blurring of the line between American patriotism and Christianity I find rather disturbing. OK, very disturbing.

My reading of Jesus is that he spoke truth to power, not one to embrace the position and power of the status quo. There is a fundamental [intentionally used] belief out there that the United States is uniquely and singularly endowed by the Creator with powers and abilities far beyond those of “normal” countries. And I think that is hubris. Though, to be fair, I myself have wanted the United States to BE more that shining light it says it wants to be, which means taking care of our planet, no torture, no extraordinary rendition, more equitable distribution of income, no executions – especially of likely innocent people; talking to you, Rick Perry, as well as the state of Georgia. You will recall that those folks in the Bible who decided to build a tower to heaven were thwarted in their plans. Hubris, plain and simple.

What were your favorite and least favorite moments, growing up in the Binghamton area?

My favorite, I suppose, was meeting Rod Serling, when I kinda/sorta got to introduce him at a high school assembly.

My least favorite? The first that came to mind is when Curtis E. LeMay came to town. I don’t know if it was the time he came to the American Legion in Johnson City (right next to Binghamton, for the non-locals) when he was running as George Wallace’s Vice Presidential candidate on October 23, 1968, or some subsequent visit. There were about 200 demonstrators outside that first Legion event, according to the AP report, equal to the number of Legionnaires inside listening to the general, infamous for his statement about bombing North Vietnam “back to the Stone Age,” a quote he thought had been misconstrued. What bugged me at the event I attended was the vague scent of tear gas, unwarranted given the peaceful (though loud) nature of the protest.

PS I left a reply for you (finally) that asks you to email me regarding your thoughts on the Pledge…)

This is in reference to a comment I made on her blog – that I can’t immediately find – about how annoyed I was that “under God” was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance, and just in time for me to go to grade school.

I don’t have a problem pledging fealty to country, though that “liberty and justice for all” part has bugged me periodically. And I don’t mind pledging fealty to God. But when they get mixed together, then I have difficulty. The United States is NOT a theocracy; see my comment above. Moreover, the addition of “under God” to the Pledge just seemed a silly overreaction to the Red scare; it wasn’t in the original, composed by Francis Bellamy in 1892, for a good reason, I’m guessing.

The friend who sent me the visual above said, “I’m forward this picture,” entitled One Nation Under God by Jon McNaughton, “which I find blasphemous in so many ways, even though I’m not at all religious…” Well, I AM religious, for lack of a better word, and I find it just as blasphemous. (But to really “appreciate” it more fully, you must see it on his website, complete with narrative.) Sometimes I think the Jehovah’s Witnesses got it right; in the section regarding nationalism:
“Jehovah’s Witnesses are not allowed to salute the flag of any nation, recite the pledge of allegiance, stand for or sing the national anthem, run for public office, vote, or serve in the armed forces.” You know, render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. And/or separation of church and state. And would I REALLY miss voting, given the system’s brokenness?

Roger Answers Your Questions, Demeur, Anthony, Gordon, Scott, ChrisJ, and Dorothy

What would I teach? The problem is that I know a little about a lot of things, but I’m too ADHD to do anything at the level of depth that I would require of myself.

I’ve managed to confound ChrisJ of Flamblogger, one of those ABC Wednesday bloggers:
My question to you is actually highly personal to me. Where did the name “The Lydster” come from for your blog? Also, is it the name of your blog? I’m confused. My maiden name was Lidster, highly unusual for over here, though as I understand it, there are plenty of Lidsters in Northumberland. But we know next to nothing about that side of the family.
Just wondering.

The Lydster is what I call my daughter Lydia in this blog, just as my family used to call my eldest niece Becky the Beckster.
No, the name of my blog, for good or ill, is Ramblin’ with Roger.
***
Near-twin Gordon from Blog This, Pal! wants to know:
Since I know you’re a big Rod Serling fan (like I am), wanted to ask you this question:
Are you a fan of NIGHT GALLERY? If so, is there a particular script of Serling’s from that show that you enjoy?
(Knowing what I know about NG – that Serling had no creative control – I thought his scripts were OK, but nothing to write home about. Except maybe THEY’RE TEARING DOWN TIM RILEY’S BAR)

Gordon, I may not have watched most of the episodes of Night Gallery, except perhaps the earliest ones. The second season was my freshman year in college and I didn’t have a TV. By the time I DID look in on it, in that third season, I found it wildly uneven. Moreover, I knew that Serling wasn’t happy with it, so, almost in solidarity with him, I just quit watching it altogether. In any case, I haven’t seen any shows since, and unlike episodes of the Twilight Zone that I saw but once yet still remember, no specific episode ever imprinted on me. I mean, I look at the synopses and say, “Oh, yeah, right.” But not like I would with other shows of that era.
***
Scott of the Scooter Chronicles, who has more in common with me than he possibly knows, inquires:
Since you mentioned the choir, and I haven’t seen you mention it, what part do you normally sing?

I normally sing baritone. This is to say that if there is a divided bass part, I sing the upper part. Occasionally, when there is a divided tenor part, and I sing the lower bits.

I am reminded of this tenor section leader we had at my old church. His name was Sandy Cohen, and he was a great guy. But he wasn’t a particularly healthy guy. He had a heart attack during service once, and he refused to leave until the service was over, because he had to “finish the gig”, his words. Well, on December 24, 1990, we were at a choir gathering prior to the midnight service, and we got a call that Sandy had had a fatal heart attack. Talk about awful. For a few months after that, I sang tenor until we got another tenor section leader.

What was the most enjoyable song you have sung with the choir?
My goodness, that would be really difficult to narrow down. That said, I’m a sucker for a good Requiem – I’ve sung Mozart, Rutter, Faure, parts of the Brahms, I’m sure there are others.

What was the toughest song you ever sung with the choir?
This is invariably true that difficult stuff I tend to block out of my mind. Not saying there hasn’t been tough stuff, but I tend to just enjoy the end product. I guess it’s sort of what women sometimes say about childbirth.

Is there a song that you are tired of singing?
Not really. But I REALLY hate singing in unison. I find it boring. I tend to hear harmony in almost everything.

Is there a song that you wished any choir you were a part of would sing that haven’t?
There’s this song I did in high school called The Creation that I’d actually love to do.
One of my colleagues once suggested that we do “Til I Die”, the Beach Boys song from the Surf’s Up album. A lovely song, but of dubious theology.
***
Dorothy Turk, a displaced librarian, asks:
Have you watched the musical Scrooge w/Albert Finney or A Tuna Christmas?
And are you a Capricorn?

I probably saw the Finney Scrooge the very year it came out, c. 1970, but not since. I saw A Tuna Christmas at Capital Rep in late 1995, almost certainly with my girlfriend at the time, Carol, who I’m now married to.

I’m reminded that Kris Kristofferson had an album called Jesus was a Capricorn, even though he probably wasn’t. And neither am I; I’m a Pisces.
***
Demeur, “The remover of nasty things. I deal with stuff you wouldn’t consider touching,” wants to know:
Why is it that most if not all librarians require a master’s degree?
My mom was a librarian and she only had a high school eduction, but then again that was back when high school requirements were closer to what’s taught in college.

Here’s an answer to that question that I found:
“Actually, there is a wide range of library jobs, some of which don’t require a degree and are done by paraprofessionals. But the title of librarian is usually reserved for someone who has a master’s degree in library and information science from an American Library Association (ALA) accredited institution. Many academic librarians have two master’s degrees, one in LIS and another in their speciality discipline.”
In other words, the ALA set the bar for professionalism and the states followed. I’m sure it’s true in your line of work that the associations or guilds have set standards for the profession, and the states, yielding to the greater expertise, have followed.
Librarians can have a wide range of undergraduate degrees. The graduate school provides a background in a wide range of skills, from reference and cataloging to the business of doing more with less. And in some venues, such as colleges, the librarian is equivalent to a teacher or professor, for which we require advanced degrees.
***

And speaking of libraries, and teaching:
Anthony of The Dark Glass asks:
When did you know you wanted to be a librarian, and what particularly interests you about this field. Is there anything you don’t like about being a librarian or the field of library science in general? And, has any other vocation ever crossed your mind? For whatever reason, I imagine you would be a good teacher. Has that ever crossed your mind, and if so, what would be your field?

It’s not that I ever wanted to be a librarian; it’s that it has always called me. From being a page at Binghamton Public Library; to organizing the tracks of my compilation albums by artists on 3 by 5 cards; to working at FantaCo and going to the library, only a block away, to track down publisher information in Books in Print, my mind always went that way. It is, I suspect, like you and theology; you didn’t choose it; it chose you.

BTW, there WAS a recent ad to be a librarian at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; if they move it from Cleveland to Albany, I’m applying. And the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown I’d definitely work at.

What I like about being a librarian: I learn new things almost every day. What I don’t like: when I am doing some rote thing one more time – not a restaurant startup AGAIN. My basic problem in life is the fear of boredom. Part of the salvation in this job, besides the varied questions, is the changing technology, from 4 or 7 of us using one CD-ROM drive to having it on a LAN to the Internet, from printing pounds of paper to doing PDFs. Oh, one other downside: we LOVE to be able to answer the question, but when we’re given incoherent or totally unanswerable questions, it gets mighty frustrating; it’s against our nature to say no.

If I weren’t a librarian, I would have to be someone training others to do customer service. I have mentioned this before, but I requested and received, a phone at my desk in my office so I can answer the main phones when the office manager is away. It’s not my job, but a regularly unanswered phone in the middle of the day is NOT good customer service.

I’d hate being a teacher, which is what my wife does, BTW. I’d hate the anxiety over prep. I’d hate the “performance” of the classroom. I’ve done occasional workshops, but those are one-off things. I LIKE one-off things. They’ve been about government and other resources for small businesses, primarily.

What would I teach? The problem is that I know a little about a lot of things, but I’m too ADHD to do anything at the level of depth that I would require of myself. What do I know that lots of others don’t know better? The history of FantaCo? The recording history of the Beatles? Well maybe, but there’s not a lot of call for that.

This is why I blog, BTW. I write about myself, and even I’m surprised by what I find. And I am singularly unable to focus this blog on one or two areas. It’s all over the place because I’M all over the place.

From Darlanne to Jaquandor

pictures of Rod Serling and his teacher (and mine), Helen Foley, one of his greatest influences (and mine)

WAY back in February, that blogger from Buffalo, Jaquandor wrote about the entertainingly cheesy (or is it cheekily entertaining?) 1980 movie Battle Beyond the Stars.

Of particular interest to me was this paragraph:

“The other girl there is Nanelia (Darlanne Fluegel), who is every bit as naïve about people as Shad is, which makes her a perfect fit for him. She, too, gets far too little screentime because she’s really cute. I remember her being one of the first females onscreen to impress me with her cuteness. I mean, look how cute she is in that clip, when she giggles at the prospect of learning how to “tingle, tangle, prangle” her new love interest from this warrior in the goofy headdress! Yeah, Nanelia is really, really cute:”

I had to comment: “Never saw the movie.

But I went to Binghamton Central High School with Darlanne Fluegel!

(I think she was Darlene at the time, but I could be wrong.) So maybe I should see it. Or not.” I didn’t know her well, but I knew her older sister better, for the record. In fact, if her IMDB piece is correct, she’s more than five years younger than I am. That can’t be right, can it?

Jaquandor asks, “Roger: was she that cute in high school?”

I wrote: “There is a picture in my high school yearbook. I’ll have to scan it for you. (In answer to your question, I say yes.).”

A few days later, I wrote: “J- Haven’t forgotten; we’re painting the attic and I can’t get to my yearbooks yet.” That proved to be true for MONTHS (long story).

But finally – the young woman in the lower right:

I had not looked at that yearbook in decades and STILL remembered that particular photo.

So anyway, early happy birthday, Jaquandor. (It’ll be September 26.)

Since I had the yearbook out, I also scanned these pictures of Rod Serling and his teacher (and mine), Helen Foley, one of his greatest influences (and mine). Note the constant cigarette in his hand.

Ramblin' with Roger
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