Sunday Stealing Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Sunday Stealing: My favorites

a Binghamton theme emerges

Smilin' Ed complete The Sunday Stealing asks about my favorites. I find these difficult because “my favorites” suggest things I do repeatedly.

1. What’s your favorite animal?

Conceptually, it has to be the duck-billed platypus, “a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal. The platypus is the sole living representative… of its family Ornithorhynchidae and genus Ornithorhynchus.”

I could say cat, although we just lost one of ours. Abstractly, I like golden retrievers because I like OTHER people’s dogs. I’ve never had one, and I’m not planning on getting one.

2. What’s your favorite book?

Oh, gosh. It’s often been the last book I’ve read, including Life Itself by Roger Ebert, Soulville, USA by Rob Bowman, The Heart Of Christianity by Marcus Borg, and How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. So I’ll pick Smilin’ Ed Comics: De Complete collection by Raoul Vezina and Tom Skulan because it brings me back to a certain time (1980s) and place (FantaCo, where I worked then.)

3. What’s your favorite color?

It’s odd. I’ve said greens or blues. But I remember getting a piece of furniture in the late 1990s, a mini-sofa in a Southwestern motif; it had warm colors. It was the first real piece of furniture I ever purchased, but I had to give it away because there was no room for it.

4. What’s your favorite dessert?

Fruit pie (apple, blueberry, cherry) a la mode (with vanilla ice cream)

5. What’s your favorite drink?

Diet Cherry Pepsi, but I can’t drink it too often because it wacks out my sleep pattern.

6. What’s your favorite food?

Things I tend not to eat very often: duck, steak, lamb.

7. What’s your favorite hobby?

Do I have a hobby? I’d say genealogy, but I’ve spent precious little time on it lately.

Cinema

8. What’s your favorite movie?

No clue. It tends to be the last movie I saw that I really liked. Casablanca is a candidate, but I’ve only seen it once. It had been Annie Hall, the Woody Allen movie I’d seen four times, though not this century. It did mirror a couple of aspects of my relationship at the time.

9. What’s your favorite restaurant?

Frank’s is an unassuming ice cream place that also serves decent Italian food.

10. What’s your favorite sandwich?

A spiedie because I’m from Binghamton, and there is no other answer. I had a TERRIBLE one at the New York State Fair in September 2019.

11. What’s your favorite season?

Spring. I’m not fond of heat, cold, or falling leaves.

12. What’s your favorite series?

The Dick Van Dyke Show or The Twilight Zone, both of which have a Binghamton connection. Both Richard Deacon (Mel Cooley) and Rod Serling lived in my hometown for a time.

13. What’s your favorite snack?

Ritz crackers and cheddar cheese

14. What’s your favorite sport to watch?

American football. Last season, I recorded nearly two dozen games, then watched them, fast-forwarding them through the huddles, replays, and commercials. I got through a 60-minute game in about 75 minutes.

15. What’s your favorite thing to have for breakfast?

Pancakes or waffles, fried eggs, sausage, and/or bacon. I don’t EAT that very often, alas.

Sunday Stealing: Catalyst quartet

99X

Here’s another Sunday Stealing. But before that, I want to plug the Catalyst Quartet, a barbershop quartet in my area. I got to see the relatively new group perform on Friday at my church. They were cool even though the room was rather warm. You can see the program on their Facebook page for June 21, 2024.

They recently qualified for this year’s international barbershop quartet competition in Cleveland, OH and they are thrilled. The competition is in the first week of July and between hotels, travel costs, and registration fees, the expenses are adding up. So they have a GoFundMe campaign.

I should note that two of these guys are regulars in my church choir and a third has sung there occasionally.

Here are a couple of their tunes I found on YouTube from the 2023 NextGen Varsity Finals:

Good Luck Charm

Surfer Girl

I’ll admit to be enough of a sucker for barbershop that I attended the Sweet Adelines competition in New York in April 1976.

Now back to our regular quiz.

1. Are you double-jointed?

No.

2. Are you ticklish?

Decreasingly so.

3. Cookies, cakes, or donuts?

Well, it depends on the item at hand. Oatmeal raisin cookies. Carrot cake. Donuts are okay, but I liked them more as a kid. Specifically, Spaulding Krullers. The linked post is one of this blog’s most popular ever.

But the choices do not include the OBVIOUS answer, which is PIE. It is well documented that PIE rules.

4. Did you go to prom?

I went to two proms, as noted here.

5. Do you bite your nails?

No, but I used to.

6. Do you enjoy dancing?

There are rare periods when I do. Most don’t even involve alcohol.

7. Do you forgive easily?

Yes. But I rarely forget. There are people I keep at arm’s length because they’ve so wounded me decades ago. I suppose forgetting involves apparent remorse on their part, and the people I’m thinking of unfortunately don’t appear to be capable of that.

8. Do you prefer to bathe or shower?

I haven’t taken a bath in this millennium.

9. Does your name have any special meaning?

Roger means spearbearer. I think it’s Germanic. Green is a color, which I’m sure I wrote about several times, including here. I found a guy named Owen for his interpretation of his name.

10. Have you ever gone camping?

Yes. Hated it.

I am a winner!

11. Have you ever won something?

Back in the days of calling into radio stations to win prizes, I had a pretty good track record. I’ve gotten several LPs; Hunky Dory by David Bowie, with Changes immediately comes to mind.

When I lived in NYC in 1977, I was the ninth caller with the phrase “99X is my radio station,” and I had to name the last song played which was She’s Gone by Hall and Oates; I received twice my age, so $48, and I’m pretty sure I took my sister Leslie to a New York Mets game.

In the early 1980s, I scored tickets to see Judy Collins in Glens Falls, NY.

The only trophy I ever won was for racquetball.

I ‘ve been on a trivia team that once was victorious. Oh, and there’s that JEOPARDY thing.

12. What did you last eat?

Red grapes.

13. What’s your longest relationship so far?

The person I’ve known the longest is my sister Leslie. If we’re talking romantic relationship, that’d be my wife. Interestingly, both are born in July and are left-handed.

14. Have you ever been on a diet?

I’m often on a diet. That’s why I’m eating grapes.

15. Do you enjoy DIY or crafts?

Let’s say no.

Sunday Stealing: most important

West Side Story

Another Sunday Stealing.

1. What is most important to you?

Holding the door open for someone. I mean that literally, sure, but I also mean it metaphorically. In the law of the conservation of energy, it “can neither be created nor destroyed – only converted from one form of energy to another.” So if the door is already open, it doesn’t require additional energy to keep it open and let others in.

2. Your best trait.

I observe. Then I do stuff to make a situation better, or more often, less bad.

3. A movie that makes you happy.

I haven’t watched it in a very long time, but Young Frankenstein (1974). “Pardon me, boy, is this the Transylvania station?”

4. Something that excites you.

Music excites me because, shockingly often, I play something that I had listened to dozens of times yet I hear something new. Then there are the bits that almost always excite me.

5. Something that worries you.

As a librarian, it’s the proliferation of false information that is becoming less discernable, from AI-generated photos to other deep fakes.

6. Actions you admire.

There are a lot. I’ll pick this fact: The Tony Awards & Carnegie Mellon University Present The 2024 Excellence In Theatre Education Award To CJay Philip Of Baltimore, daughter of my buddy Nell Stokes of Albany.

Annus mirabilis

7. What year has been your best so far?

Maybe in 2023, when I went to France and Las Vegas. Perhaps in 2019, when I quit my job; I mean, retired.

8. Who do you trust?

A few people I met in 1958, 1968, and 1971. There are others.

9. A Song from Your Childhood.

Here are the end credits for the movie West Side Story (1961). When I was a kid and heard that bit at about 4:30, it made me weep. And it still does.

10. What you wore today?

I wear essentially the same thing every day, a shirt, and pants, usually black or navy blue. A hat or cap, depending on the season. Even this past Sunday, when the choir wore T-shirts, I wore a long-sleeved T-shirt underneath to cover my arms, which has splotchiness from vitiligo.

11. A book you are currently reading

The Undertow: Scenes From A Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet. After I heard him and others speak in Albany one evening in November 2023, he and I had breakfast the next morning.

12. What do you want less of?

Stupid social media stuff posing as “news.” On CBS Mornings this month, one of their Talk Of The Table segments was of a woman on a social media platform ranting that she would NOT be returning her shopping cart to a collection area because she thought someone would go to her car and snatch her children. My thought: so she doesn’t bring it back. So what? Why should I care and why is CBS spending three minutes on a non-story?

Orange you wondering?

13. A question that needs to be asked.

Is the presumptive Republican candidate for President unhinged? At a rally this month in Las Vegas, he talked about being aboard a hypothetical electric-powered boat. “He posits that the battery would be so heavy that it would cause the craft to sink, and he relates his purported conversation with a knowledgeable mariner about this scenario.”

“I say, ‘What would happen if the boat sank from its weight, and you’re in the boat, and you have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery’s now underwater, and there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there?’

“By the way, a lot of shark attacks lately, do you notice that? Lot of sharks. I watched some guys justifying it today: ‘Well they weren’t really that angry, they bit off the young lady’s leg because of the fact that they were not hungry but they misunderstood who she was.’ These people are crazy. He said, ‘There’s no problem with sharks, they just didn’t really understand a young woman swimming.’ No, really got decimated, and other people, too, a lot of shark attacks.

“So I said, ‘There’s a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards, or here. Do I get electrocuted if the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking? Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted, or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?’ Because I will tell you, he didn’t know the answer.

“He said, ‘You know, nobody’s ever asked me that question.’ I said, ‘I think it’s a good question. I think there’s a lot of electric current coming through that water.’ But you know what I’d do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted? I’ll take electrocution every single time. I’m not getting near the shark. So we’re going to end that, we’re going to end it for boats, we’re going to end it for trucks.”

WHAT? And he’s told a variation on this story before.

Home

14. The best idea you’ve had this week.

I decided NOT to go on a trip next weekend. I’ll be able to see a barbershop quartet this Friday at my church, then to visit with a friend I’ve only known since 1958 on Sunday or Monday.

15. How are you creative?

I was at a choir party this week, and I apparently know the bass vocal to Good Night, Sweetheart by The Spaniels.

Sunday Stealing: afraid of the dark?

cartoons

Here’s another edition of Sunday Stealing.

1. Are you afraid of the dark?

The dark increasingly disorients me. If I had been driving, I’d probably would have had to give it up.

My wife and I stayed in a timeshare in May. Even though I knew the layout of the room, going to the bathroom in the middle of the night was a bit terrifying. I retreated to my side of the bed and got my phone. I didn’t even need the flashlight, just the light from the screen. Before I left the loo, I left the light on and then closed the door. That minimal illumination did not disturb my wife, who is sensitive to being awakened by light when she sleeps.

To that end, I’m Afraid To Come Home in the Dark (1904) by Arthur Collins.

2. Can you curl your tongue?

Yes, in both directions.

3. Can you wiggle your ears?

No, but I’m not distressed by it.

4. Did you ever participate in a talent show?

I wrote about this about eight months ago. When I was in high school, there was a Red Cross training event in Manlius, NY, near Syracuse. At the end of the week, there was a talent show, and somehow, a couple of guys, one a blues guitarist, asked me to play with them. I stood on stage, people expecting me to sing. Instead, I played the comb. The whole thing was about 3 minutes. I got a standing ovation.

Is JEOPARDY a talent show?

5. Do you have any piercings or tattoos?

No. And while I’m more okay with them on other people, I’m unlikely to ever get one unless I reach 100.

Computer loyalty

6. Do you prefer Mac or PC?

It’s not a matter of preference. All of my computers at work were PCs, so that’s what I got at home. Indeed, I never had an Apple phone until 2018 after I lost my previous one. I’ve since replaced that one before I went to France in 2023. BTW, I believe there’s merit to the DOJ’s legal proceedings against Apple.

7. Do you still have your wisdom teeth?

No, I had mine taken out in my early twenties. Not incidentally, my daughter will likely need to get hers taken out this summer. As she has no dental insurance, it will be a costly procedure.

8. Do you watch cartoons?

I often see the Best Animated Shorts that were nominated for Oscars. I’ve seen the films Chicken Run; Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 1 and 2; Coco; Fantastic Mr. Fox; Finding Nemo; Finding Dory; Frozen; Howl’s Moving Castle; The Incredibles; Inside Out; Iron Giant; Isle Of Dogs; Moana; Monsters Inc.; Persepolis; Puss In Boots: The Last Wish; Ratatouille; Shrek 1 and 2; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; Spirited Away; Toy Story 1-4 Up; WALL-E; Wolfwalker; and Zootopia. And those are just the ones I can remember from the last 30 years or so.

Hospitalization

9. Have you ever been hospitalized?

An uncontrollable bloody nose when I was five and a half; the car accident in June 1972 for a day and a half; and sometime in the last 15 years when I thought I was experiencing heart irregularity, but I was okay.

10. Have you had braces?

No.

11. Were you ever a Girl or Boy Scout? (Or a brownie)

No. I was a Cub Scout for about a year. I was terrible at it. But I was very fond of our den mother, Mrs. Lia, and when her son Ray, who was in my den, got married in mid-October 1976, I was pleased to escort her to her seat.

12. What is one food you refuse to eat?

I would not say “refused” as much as I’d rather not eat anchovies.

13. What’s the most expensive item of clothing that you own?

Probably a suit.

14. What’s your favorite foreign food?

Recently, there was a story on CBS News about a South Asian restaurant that prided itself in NOT serving chicken tikka masala, which I thought was cool. Still, I’ll pick that.

15. Who’s your favorite fictional character?

Quite possibly, Peter Parker.

Sunday Stealing: if you like art

the new orange

Another Sunday Stealing.

1. If you like art, who is your favourite artist and why?

I love seeing art. The Clark Art Museum and MASS MoCA are just two venues not so far away. That reminds me that last week I wrote about the Nell Stokes exhibit at the Albany Institute of History and Art being cut short. It is now scheduled to end on December 31, 2024, as initially promised. This is good because I had not had a chance to see it.

I think Rodin sculptures are sexy as all get out and much more so in person than in photos. Speaking of photos, I’d go with Dorothea Lange. As for painters, there are too many to name.

2. If you were able to learn any three skills or talents instantly and with success, what would they be?

Computer repair, typing, and square dancing.

3. If you were to live in Ancient Times, where – in what country – would you want to live in?

Nigeria, probably because I have ancestors there.

4. What is something you’re embarrassed to admit to liking? Whether it be a guilty pleasure show, or unusual hobby, etc.

I’ve given up on guilty pleasures. I mean, I used to collect comic books. I still have comics-related books and Hess trucks.

Worst job

5. What is the worst job you’ve ever had?

I worked in a box factory, but that was only two weeks. Empire Blue Cross was pretty terrible but it was only 13 months. Possibly my last job because it was so often disappointing; it wasn’t terrible all of the time, but most of the last four years were awful, and there were periods before that.

6. What is something that you wanted to do as a child that you would still like to do now?

Be a trial lawyer. I was a sucker for Perry Mason, Judd for the Defense, The Bold Ones: The Lawyers, et al.

7. What do you hate being judged for more than anything else?

Appearance. It seems so shallow.

8. What is your life’s mission?

To make people’s lives suck less.

9. If everyone walked around wearing warning labels, what would yours say?

I have a very long fuse, but I will likely scream at you if I tell you I’m reaching my limit, yet you keep pushing it.

10. At what age did you first feel like you were an adult?

I think it’ll be next year. Or the year after that.

Speak up

11. When did you not speak up, but wish you had?

I actually talked to someone about this in May 2024. In my last job, the organization was taken over for a couple of years around the turn of the millennium by a corrupt yet idiotic political hack named Felix, who eventually was indicted and went to jail for a time.

I was in charge of a committee tasked to hire someone to be a business advisor, which was all done by the book. Then one of the committee members, who I’ll call Holly, said we had to select someone else as well, a person who had not gone through the vetting process. I said I wouldn’t sign off on it, so SHE did.

I didn’t think complaining up the chain would have mattered – the chancellor’s wife worked for Felix. But maybe I should have found a mid-level bureaucrat to complain to, who might have been more isolated from the chain of command. Still, I was so taken aback by Holly’s action that I didn’t remember the name of the mystery candidate, though maybe the bureaucrats could have found the person by their work start date. But the political corruption was so bad at the time that nothing would likely have happened.

12. What is something that makes your skin crawl?

Bad liars. Orange is the new orange.

13. What was the last thing to give you butterflies in your stomach?

Doing a book review.

14. What’s your favorite type of media to work with? (Paint, clay, pens, etc.)

I’m not an artist. But I used to love Play-Doh.

15. What question do you hate answering?

I might have said talking about racism. But one of the comments to a recent post reminded me that people are at different places in their awareness of the phenomenon.