Sunday Stealing Archives - Page 6 of 33

Sunday Stealing — Interview with Gale

Barbados

Richard, Otis, Eddie, Melvin, Glenn, David, Dennis

Why Interview with Gale for Sunday Stealing? “Back in 2007, a blogger named Harmonica Man posted five questions for Gale at This Was Me. Well, now we’re turning the tables and interviewing you.”

1. What’s the most daring thing you’ve ever done? Did it take physical or emotional courage?

I wrote about it here, starting with A Story. But briefly, “I started climbing up [a mountain] just to get a better view” in Alta, UT, in the fall of 1994. I got to the top.

“Now the descent. I tried to brake myself from going too fast. I got maybe a third of the way down, and I began sliding. But I wasn’t too worried until my left leg got caught in a hole, while the rest of my body weight was going downhill.

“My left knee started hurting, a LOT. Somehow, I crawled the rest of my way down, then the few dozen meters to where we were staying.”

This was not courageous. It was stupid, borne of the pain of a deteriorating relationship. Then I had REAL physical pain, which I experience to this day.

2. Where did you meet the love of your life?

At church. I was probably chair of the Council of Ministries, and she was the Membership Chair.

3. What brand/flavor of coffee are you drinking these days?

I don’t drink coffee. As I’ve noted in the past, I don’t make coffee either. When I was assigned to the rotation at work to make coffee, the product was so awful that I was excused thereafter.

Caribbean

4. What’s the coolest place you’ve ever visited, and how did you get there (car, plane, motorcycle, etc.)?

I wrote about this here. It was Barbados in May 1999 on our honeymoon:

“It was just grand to go to any all-inclusive resort for six nights, especially as a prize for coming in second on JEOPARDY on my second episode…

“The ocean was gorgeous… There were three different places to eat dinner, and the food was fabulous. We bought a rum cake to take home; it was extraordinarily delicious. We enjoyed having tea at 4 p.m.

“Everything was interesting to us, from the way the news was far more international to the wall-to-wall coverage of cricket.

“When we returned to the States… Somehow, we were bumped to first class on the five-hour flight home.”

The eighties

5. What’s the best concert you ever attended?

It’s long been two: The Temptations Reunion tour, where Eddie and David joined Dennis, Otis, Glenn, Richard, and Melvin. “I saw this performance at the Colonie Coliseum in Albany County in 1982. First, they sang together, then in groups of five. They started with the first classic lineup, with Richard replacing the late Paul. Then Dennis went in for David, then Glenn supplanted Eddie. They closed by singing together.” And it was a close-up view with no bad seats in the house.

The other was the August 1983 performance of Talking Heads at the Saratoga Performance Arts Center on the Stop Making Sense tour. I finally saw the Jonathan Demme Stop Making Sense movie in 2023. “The first half of the movie transported me back four decades, with the attendant awe, from Byrne’s solo Psycho Killer to the pieces with the full band, including Alex Weir, Bernie Worrell, and Steve Scales. Honestly, I was joyfully exhausted by the band and backup singers Edna Holt and Lynn Mabry’s energy.”

Sunday Stealing is FAB

laundry detergent

For Sunday Stealing: “Since it’s Easter weekend, we’re going to keep this simple. We stole this from a blogger named Idzie, who called this the FAB. (film, audio, book) meme.”

There is such a blurring of the lines between movies and television shows that it’s challenging for me to categorize them. Also, I find it interesting that some people watch TV and films on their phones; I find this utterly unsatisfactory. I don’t wanna be tied to my phone. Adriana Diaz on CBS Mornings talked about watching a horror movie on her phone, occasionally covering her eyes. In my opinion, that’s no way to watch a movie. I want to watch a film on the big screen; failing that, on a television screen. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I watched many films on my laptop; it was an extraordinary time.

F.A.B.

F. Film: What movie or TV show are you watching?

Most of the movies I watch, I’ve blogged about on this site.

I watch CBS Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, CBS Saturday Morning, Jeopardy, Abbott Elementary, Finding Your Roots, Grey’s Anatomy (been watching since the beginning), and Elsbeth (who was a character on the TV show called The Good Wife, which I used to watch religiously). I still watch JEOPARDY! and enjoy it when I get a clue that none of the contestants know: MYTHOLOGY $800: Stronger than dirt, this great warrior eventually went mad & killed himself.

A. Audio: What are you listening to?

Most of what I’m listening to, aside from the Coverville and AmeriNZ podcasts and the Heather Cox Richardson Substack, are YouTube videos, which I watch as well as listen to.

For instance, I watch Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which is on HBO, but I don’t watch it on HBO, but on YouTube a day or three later on my laptop.

I always watch Vlogbrothers. Sometimes, I watch The Legal Eagle, The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart, Trae Crowder Liberal Redneck, and Rick Beato.

B. Book: What are you reading?

I do a lot of grazing. Upstate Uncovered by Chuck D’Imperio. Searching for Solid Ground, a memoir by Reggie Harris. A bunch of reference books.

Sunday Stealing — Odd Little Meme

Eugene Ionesco

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. This odd little meme was stolen from Singularity, who originally posted them in September 2010.

But before that, here’s a picture of my backyard on Monday, April 7, at about 8 a.m. If you look very closely, you can see snow falling.

1. Do you own a pair of cargo pants?

No. I feel as though I did once upon a time.

2. Which of these gifts from a romantic partner would please you most: a) jewelry, b) wine, c) a book, d) something grown in his/her garden?

Definitely not wine. I have several bottles, undrunk. I’d say a book, though my list of unread books is long and getting longer.

3. Who was the last person to toss a harsh word or phrase your way? Do you think that maybe you had it coming?

I don’t recall unless we’re talking online. And to be honest, it wasn’t all that. In response to a Facebook post: “Just more left-wing propaganda. Anybody who can’t see it by now simply chooses not to.”

Theater

4. Did you appear in any plays back when you were in school? If yes, what role(s) did you play? Earn extra, non-existent points for sharing any of your dialog.

One was The Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. “In this haunting and blistering play, a wealthy woman offers financial help to her struggling hometown – in exchange for the life of a man who wronged her years before.” I was the train conductor, trying to get the rich woman to comply with the rail line’s rules. My entire dialogue: “But madame…”

My most significant role was in The Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionesco, his first one-act antiplay (1950), which “inspired a revolution in dramatic techniques and helped inaugurate the Theatre of the Absurd. I played the Fire Chief. “Since you don’t have the time here, I must tell you that in exactly three-quarters of an hour and sixteen minutes, I’m having a fire at the other end of the city.”

5. Which Osmond do you like better: Donny or Marie?

I might have said Marie because I hated the Osmonds’ One Bad Apple, a ripoff of the Jackson 5ive. But I saw Close Every Door from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and it’s oddly fascinating.

6. Who is your favorite radio host or podcaster?

Brian Ibbott of Coverville, which is “a podcast, produced every Wednesday, that focuses on cover songs – a new rendition of a previously recorded song.” In fact, every month, I suggest musicians whose birthdays are divisible by five.

7. Is your personal workspace filled with fluffy, plastic, wind-up, rubbery, or edible items? Or are you all business and clutter-free?

Well, my home office is mightily cluttered.

Sunday Stealing — Manic Monday

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Cheers to all of us thieves! This is from Manic Monday, stolen from a blog that, alas, is no more.

1) What’s the longest you’ve gone without sleep?

I believe it was my freshman year at college at New Paltz. Previously, I had always been good at math: arithmetic, algebra (97 on the final), geometry (86, only because I refused to memorize theorems), and trigonometry (98). But I never “got” calculus. I got a 73 on the 1st test, 56 on the second, and 37 on the third, and needed a decent score on the final. So I spent two days cramming and managed to get a 73 in the final, and I got a C for the course. I never took another math course. Moreover, I looked at the calculus book about two weeks later but understood nothing. (BTW, all those scores are the actual ones, which I inexplicably remember; I don’t know my scores in any other high school or college course.)

2) What was the highlight of your last week?

I visited my cardiologist – I have this congenital condition – and the news was good. We had a lovely banter back and forth. He was impressed that I knew the meaning of the word interrobang, which he used in a sentence. It’s probably because I wrote about it in this blog last year.

It’s all about me

3) You have to give a 10-minute speech to a group of high school students. What’s your topic?

My circuitous path to my career, starting at undergrad and then to grad school, dropping out, working in a comic book store, then going back to a different grad school and becoming a librarian.

4) What is the single best decision you’ve ever made in your life?

Going to library school. It fits the way my brain works. I was conversing with somebody at church recently, and they noted that I have a wealth of sometimes arcane information, such as the history of the Lincoln penny (1909). You can pull that off a bit better when you’re a librarian.

5) If you could ask a coworker, friend, or family member a question and be guaranteed an honest answer, who would you choose and what would you ask?

When I was in high school, sometimes I disappeared. I’d be at a party and feel overwhelmed and go home. Sometimes, I’d hide someplace. There was somebody I knew at the time and still know, and I wanted to see if they remembered this and, if so, if anyone missed me.

6) Do you cook for yourself when you’re home alone?

Goodness, no. When I’m by myself, I eat canned tuna, rotisserie chicken, leftover takeout, or cold cereal. I might fry a couple of eggs.

7) Do you most often access the internet from your computer, your phone, or your smart watch?

My computer. I was a late adapter using my phone, and I don’t even know where my smart watch is, although it’s probably in this office.

Text me if you must

8) Do you have more email addresses or phone numbers?

Far more e-mail addresses. It wasn’t until my most recent phone, which I think I’ve had for a couple of years, that I realized I could put the emails into the phone. I’m not a big texter; I text because it fits the needs of others. If I’m home and somebody texts me, there’s a less than 50% chance that I’ll know I’ve gotten the message, whereas I always hear the landline phone ring.

9) What’s the biggest source of anger in your life right now?

FOTUS, based on a variety of issues, but near the top is the fact that folks in my county have been apprehended without due process. The Rev. Dan Clark (he/him), Director of Organizing, Faith in Public Life, posted on Cesar Chavez Day, March 31, about Rubén Castilla Herrera, an activist inspired by Chavez. “All people impacted by injustice are human beings with innate dignity and the breath of the divine within them. But they are not a nameless mass, an anonymous crowd. Rubén taught me that they are personas… personas con nombres.” People… people with names.

10) Mondays make me feel _________________.

As though I’m going to get a lot done this week. Then Friday proves me a liar.

Prince

Bangles

Green Day

Sunday Stealing from Shannon

drinking all day

Regular Sunday Stealer Shannon W. from Moments of Introspection took on 43 questions. The Gal Herself purports to be lazy, so she pared it back to 15. Actually, 14.

1. What book are you currently reading?

60 Songs That Explain the ’90s by Rob Harvilla. Actually, I read it a while ago, but I will be rereading it because I’m doing a book review of it on June 3 at the Washington Avenue branch of the Albany Public Library.

2. Have you ever smoked?

Yes, but probably one pack in my whole life, mostly in Charlotte, NC, in the first third of 1977 when I was pretty miserable; I wrote about it here.

3. Do you own a gun?

No, and I categorically will not. On Tuesday, March 25, I attended a book review about Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution by Priya Satia. Jonathan Skinner, PhD, retired statistician and amateur classicist, reviewed it.

During the Q&A, there was a question of who in the audience would own a gun. I commented about the Good [Black] Guys With Guns phenomenon and how E.J. Bradford ended up dead for trying to do the right thing. As I wrote in 2017, the Philando Castile homicide wrecked me; I reread it, and it still does. So, hell no, it would not make me feel safer and could get me killed.

I Want Candy

4. What is your favorite candy?

A Mounds bar. Fortunately, I only got one for Christmas and my birthday. The second fave would be York Peppermint Patties.

5. Hot dogs: yay or nay?

Yay, but I tend to only have them – with mustard, of course – on July 4 and Labor Day.

6. Favorite movie?

This is always difficult. If it is my favorite, oughtn’t I see it more often? I loved Casablanca but haven’t seen it in half a century. Here’s a list I made in October 2024. I might add Conclave, which I liked well enough to recommend it highly to my wife.

7. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?

Every morning, I pass the refrigerator and see bottles of wine. I have a lot of booze in the pantry, yet it’s 1% milk that I consume most often.

8. What do you drink throughout the day?

Water, ginger ale, occasionally orange juice.

9. Do you do push-ups?

No, and I never really did, especially as a kid.

10. What’s your favorite piece of jewelry?

My wedding ring, though honestly I can’t think of another.

11. Current worry?

Authoritarianism

12. Current annoyance?

My messy office

13. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets?

Not especially. They seem slippery and cold.

15. Can you whistle?

I was at a talent show at my old church, and I got to sing Anyone Can Whistle from a Sondheim musical I’ve never seen. So anyway, yes.