My Piano Update: 7/26

As I sit here pondering on the level of progress I’ve made with my piano studies, I naturally have some positive and negative insights. On the positive side, I find that I am, at least gradually, becoming more comfortable playing while reading the printed music. In doing so, I am beginning to look ahead on the page while I play to see how to reposition my fingering for upcoming notes. I also seem to have better concentration and results when performing during my weekly class time with my piano teacher. But there are also many areas that I need to work on to meet my own standards as to where I want to be with piano. For one, I want to master playing (while reading the music) in ANY key, not just with C, G, F, D, and A (major keys, along with their corresponding minors) as I do so far. Also, I am simply not putting in anything close to the hands-on practice time I need in order to come to regard the keyboard as “second nature”. Third, I have done very little in the area of “playing from memory”, where I could tap into the vast treasure of musical memories I have and adapt them to piano. I want to adopt a policy of learning pieces by heart so that, when presented with future opportunities to play for others, I’ll have a repertoire to draw upon. And, as piano teacher Dan Starr has suggested on his blog, I need to learn to feel more comfortable looking down at the keyboard as little as possible during my playing. Finally, I need to practice playing faster and more boldly if I ever want to be able to play at a level that people want to listen to.

I’ve seen, by laying out more of a structured schedule for my running a week ago and then publishing it, that I actually adhered to it faithfully. So I’m going to do the same with piano practice and see what happens. Except that my piano study is a seven-day per week process! On Mondays, the day of my piano class, I will devote my homework to studying theory and deepening my knowledge of musical notation, keys, and chords. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays I will devote to practicing and memorizing my class assignments. And on Wednesdays and Fridays I will “struggle” to painstakingly generate melodies on the keyboard from my mental song archives. Should be challenging and fun!

Multiple Takes

I have to admit that golf is one of the most boring sports to watch on TV (probably even more so in person). Half the time, I can’t keep up with what’s going on, with the coverage hopping around from one hole to another. But sometimes I’ll still manage to find something to amuse me. Like whenever I used to watch Jack Nicklaus walk up to putt the ball. He’d line his feet up, level his putter, look at the hole, take little mini-steps up and down with his feet, level his putter, look at the hole, take little mini-steps up and down with his feet, level……you get the picture. Sooner or later, after what seemed like forever, the golfing great would finally get around to hitting the ball. And usually with success! But seeing him standing there like that, doing multiple takes at the hole and continually repositioning himself, cracked me up. But I think it was a lot more than a nervous habit on the part of Nicklaus. He most likely had long before learned that you can’t assimilate everything with one visual sweep; taking a mental picture of something and then looking back can bring to light important things that might have otherwise gone unnoticed, as well as enhance your concentration.

And the most glaring example of this need to perform multiple takes in my life is when I’m out in traffic driving. It used to be, when the light turned green, that I prided myself on having the quickest reflexes around, immediately hitting the gas pedal and surging ahead. No more! Do to the ever-increasing recklessness of some of my fellow drivers, I now habitually pause to check whether there are any fools disposed to stretch the light the other way (even though it’s already red for them). And lately, I’m not just doing my multiple takes looking around the intersection; I’m also looking down the road to see if there isn’t some driver who might be so distracted that they hadn’t noticed the light had changed for their direction. And for pulling out of a side street onto a road, multiple takes have always been a necessity, both to notice motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians, as well as to account for the fact that my car, like others, has certain blind spots that may conceal something at first glance.

There is also a more subtle, longer-range kind of multiple take when one wants to gage what is going on around in the world. But this time the take is not done through space, but rather through time, through the use of history. We may look around us, and at first glance, things may seem normal in our political, social, and economic surroundings. But armed with a sound knowledge of history, we can then keep reexamining our world and discern patterns in the present that fit historical patterns indicating trends in one direction or another. The better of a historical background we possess (like the skill of the golfer or driver), the more effective our multiple takes on our contemporary society will be, and the better able we will be to communicate our observations and conclusions to others.

Favorite Songs of 1964

My intense interest in popular music was born in early 1964 when the Beatles made their historic first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. After that, my family all became avid Beatles fans, buying up their albums (and some singles) as they came out. Miami’s two competing popular music radio stations, 560-WQAM and 790-WFUN, both battled to see who could play the next release first. By listening for Beatles songs, I became more aware of other quality artists. The Beatles’ popularity brought in other acts from Britain such as the Rolling Stones and the Animals. At this time, the Rolling Stones had a definite blues flavor to their music and were at their very best (to me) with tunes like the Bo Diddley-inspired Not Fade Away, Time is on My Side, and It’s All Over Now. For their part, the Animals had two great follow-ups to their blockbuster hit House of the Rising Sun: Baby Let Me Take You Home and I’m Crying. As the year wore on, I found myself comparing this keyboard/blues/rock band favorably to the Beatles. But they ultimately had a problem with creating their own original songs over the years and there was too much conflict between the band members. Other British acts hitting the big time were Billy Jay Kramer and the Dakotas (Little Children), the Dave Clark Five (Glad All Over and Bits and Pieces), Gerry and the Pacemakers (Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying), Peter and Gordon (Nobody I Know), and Chad and Jeremy (originally introduced as Stuart and Clyde). Chad and Jeremy had two songs I especially cherished, both evoking strong feelings of nostalgia for my (seven-year-old) life back then: Summer Song and Yesterday’s Gone. Herman’s Hermits began their string of American hits, most of which I could take or leave. But I did like their ‘64 tune I’m Into Something Good. The late Dusty Springfield made her debut in America with her deep, soulful voice and hits like I Only Want to Be With You and Wishin’ and Hopin’.

Established acts still put out some outstanding records in 1964. Elvis Presley’s Viva Las Vegas was one of his best, while Gene Pitney’s It Hurts to Be in Love was pounding in its intensity. Betty Everett and Jerry Butler covered Let It Be Me with great emotion. Terry Stafford sounded like Elvis (I think that was the idea) with Suspicion. By confusing its words, I misinterpreted White on White, a sad tune by Danny Williams about a man losing his true love to another in marriage, as a song about Astronomy (“lace on satin” sounds a little like “rings on Saturn” to a seven-year old’s ears). Roy Orbison’s comeback hit Oh Pretty Woman also turned out to be his biggest ever, dominating the late summer of ‘64.

American groups arose with their own special sound to compete with the British imports. The Supremes’ first hit, Where Did Our Love Go, was also my favorite of theirs. Martha and the Vandellas had everyone Dancing in the Street. Dionne Warwick made her debut into stardom in 1964 (with her elegance and beautiful voice), one of her songs being the inviting Reach Out For Me. On the surf-side, Jan and Dean and the Beach Boys each had a stand-out hit (to me, at least) with the ominous Dead Man’s Curve and the cocky and confident I Get Around, respectively.

So what were my top favorites as I lived through 1964? Number #5 was the Beatles' screamer Slow Down, off of their Something New album. It was only a minor hit, so I couldn’t hear it enough (and my parents unfortunately chose to buy the A Hard Days Night soundtrack album instead of Something New). From the Beatles' soundtrack album to their movie A Hard Days Night (a great comedy that we naturally all went together to see that summer) was George Harrison’s innocent-enough sounding Happy Just to Dance With You, my #4 favorite song of the year. The aforementioned upbeat love song Baby Let Me Take You Home by the Animals takes #3 for ‘64. The Honeycombs, a group that, reflecting back on it now, sounded a little like Buddy Holly, had their one hit (but a great one) with my #2 song from 1964: Have I the Right?. And my top favorite from this tremendous year in popular music? None other than the Beatles’ exceptional cover of the old Isley Brothers hit Twist and Shout, with John Lennon at his screaming best! Here are some other songs from 1964 that I liked as well:

BY THE BEATLES:
I Saw Her Standing There
It Won’t Be Long
Devil in Her Heart
Thank You Girl
Money
You Can’t Do That
I’ll Cry Instead
And I Love Her
Do You Want to Know a Secret
PS I Love You
Rock and Roll Music
I’ll Follow the Sun
She’s a Woman
Boys

BY OTHERS:
Dominique (The Singing Nun) (carry-over from late ‘63)
Come See About Me (Supremes)
Baby Love (Supremes)
In the Misty Moonlight (Jerry Wallace)
California Sun (Rivieras)
Louie Louie (The Kingsmen)
Bread and Butter (The Newbeats)
We’ll Sing in the Sunshine (Gale Garnett)
My Boy Lollipop (Millie Small)
Shoop Shoop Song (Betty Everett)
Chapel of Love (Dixie Cups)
Just Like Romeo and Juliet (The Reflections)
Leader of the Pack (The Shangri-Las)

And now we come to the point where my recap of my favorites each year in music must end. For I based this ongoing review on my favorites as I lived through each year, and I didn’t start following “the scene” in popular music until early 1964. Not that there weren't some wonderful songs from earlier (such as Tommy Edwards's It's All In the Game, Jim Lowe's The Green Door, and Gogi Grant's The Wayward Wind); I just didn't get to know these until 1964 or later.

Personal Snippets: 7/23

....I recently saw a Gainesville codes enforcement car pulling out of my subdivision, no doubt investigating the complaint of some vindictive, snitching neighbor against another for excessive grass height and weeds. Meanwhile, the city refuses to keep grass cut on its own land, encouraging snakes and creating worse eyesores to the area than any individual property owner could cause.

....I successfully ran my first cross-country “jog” in a very long time, a 2-mile circuit very close to my home; only drawback was a long stretch of overgrown grass and weeds that my dearly beloved city refuses to properly maintain.

....After years of benign neglect, my Alachua County library system has decided to begin using a collection agency to try to collect overdue material. Good, I think that they need to do something besides just sending people overdue notices. I’ve been known to have overdue books, and this will help me be more responsible and return them on time.

....My workplace permits, under certain conditions, workers to listen to the radio using headsets. But lately, I’ve found the quality of radio programming here to be so poor that, except for 89.1-WUFT (Public Radio), I just keep it off.

....I really should be more proficient when it comes to availing myself of all I see on my computer. For example, I want to be able to write articles in Chinese and Russian on my blog (in order to give fluent readers of those languages something to laugh at), but don’t know how to get the necessary fonts for their distinctive scripts (with the keyboard templates). Blogger has a language-choice option, but it doesn’t enable me to compose anything in another script. I did find two different virtual-script sites that will allow me to compose text in Russian and Chinese, but I don't have the flexibility to edit my writing that I want. The ultimate aim is to write freely on my own. For the time being I'll painstakingly use the virtual script sites, along with my dictionaries and grammars.

....Monday night is now my fun-TV-watching time; it is my “weeknight” night off, so I can watch MSNBC’s Hardball and Countdown--also, the Sci-Fi Channel has been showing 3 hours of Star Trek: The Next Generation. And I dig other shows, like SpongeBob SquarePants, the Science Channel shows, WNBA games, and occasional good movies; it’s a time when I like to settle down in my comfy recliner and soak it all in!.

....The current Atlantic hurricane season has already seen four named storms, pretty high for three weeks into July, but they’ve all been “behaving” so far (veering away from Florida).

....My wife and kids went and saw the blockbuster movie sensation The Dark Knight and all liked it (my son thinks it’s the best movie ever). I’ll wait for the dvd release, but I did see Batman Begins and thought that movie was exceptionally well done (especially Michael Caine’s hilarious butler portrayal).

....School’s approaching, my daughter is entering eighth grade, & I am planning to keep up with things enough to help her with her homework, especially with Logic, Algebra and Latin.

....We’re planning to make another stab at going to the beach in a couple of weeks, this time to Ormond Beach. Hurricanes, take notice and veer!

Мой Первый Русский Блог Статья

Это моя первая попытка использовать русский скрипт на моем блоге. Я в 1976 году начинал учиться русскому языку. Сначала мне очень нравился изучать скрипт и грамматику. Но никогда не достигнул уровень компетентно сказать и писать по-русский. Теперь, благодаря интернет, есть бозможность достигать успех с этим. Может быть будут читалели, которые хотели бы писать комментарии. Я знаю, что часто пишу ошибки, но желаю что ради этом методе буду постепенно уличшаться.

我學中文

這是我笰一次用中文寫博客. 很久以前我工作在一個中國飯館當廚子. 在那裹有機會跟中國人談話...........這樣寫中文太慢!!!

Monday Newsbreak: 7/21

--Only six months before his long run as U.S. president ends, George W. Bush has changed his direction in dealing with Iraq and Iran, at least on the surface. Bush has acquiesced to the idea of a “time horizon” (love that language) for American troops to leave Iraq, while the U.S. is now sending a negotiator to directly talk with the Iranian government over its nuclear enrichment program and is also setting up an “interests” section in Tehran to officially represent the U.S. there. Critics of the Bush policy in Iraq had long maintained that the Iraqis would not move seriously toward the reconciliation of its feuding political and religious groups until the Americans left them to solve their problems on their own. Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister of their democratically-elected government, wants the U.S. troops out, and we’re supposed to be there in support of Iraq’s democracy and sovereignty. So why do we keep acting as if we owned the place? As for Iran, there had been a great deal of fear in 1979 that the U.S. would seek to reinstall the Shah in power there (as it had already done in 1953, overthrowing the democratically-elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh). When the Shah was allowed to enter the U.S. for medical treatment, the fears culminated in the desperate taking of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and the rest is history. Those circumstances don’t exist today, and it’s no use for each successive administration in Washington to shun Tehran as they have been doing. We don’t have to agree with the Iranians' policies and ideology, but we should be talking with them just the same.

--Barack Obama, along with two other U.S. senators, is on his announced trip to Afghanistan and the Middle East. Republican opponent John McCain can only keep criticizing Obama for making a policy address before actually visiting the area. But why should visiting these places change his policies? You know he’s going to be heavily protected and surrounded by U.S. troops. None of the Afghanis, Iraqis, Israelis, and Palestinians that he does come in contact with are going to change anything. I don’t really see the necessity of this trip, as far as Obama becoming more enlightened regarding our foreign policy in this area is concerned. But it does serve the political purpose of showing him in a foreign policy role and that he is listening to the various parties involved and will make reasoned, informed decisions as president.

--My local newspaper The Gainesville Sun had an article about the eight University of Florida buildings that have been added to the National Register of Historic Places. One of them is Weil Hall (for computer science and engineering), an utterly ancient and foreboding place (next to their nuclear reactor) where I suffered in 1977 through a thoroughly frustrating computer class featuring key-punch machines (a torture device of sorts) and feeding in stacks of punched cards repeatedly (sometimes for hours on end) while continually getting error message printouts. I also took a Polish language class in spring 1978 that was held in Weil’s basement (UF was known for putting classes in strange places). Held in the first class period of the morning, the classroom was right next to a small lounge, where some kindly soul would leave some boxes of glazed doughnuts each morning. There was a small basket placed next to them for anyone who wanted a doughnut to throw some money in (honor system). I rapidly became a doughnut junkie, but I paid for every one. I noticed over the days, though, that most of those taking the doughnuts wouldn’t deposit any money, but would instead just throw in slips of paper saying “IOU” (without identifying themselves, of course). Kind of reminds me how our government works on the national level!

He She They He/She

There is a bit of a problem I’m having with my writing. And that is what to do with the third person singular pronoun when applied to people in general, without regard to gender. I can’t very well use “it” as the pronoun. “He” has traditionally been the default pronoun, but some believe that it unfairly excludes the feminine side of the human race. I’ve read other writers who will just alternate between “he” and “she” in this context. When writing about a person in the general sense, I will often use “they”, even though that pronoun is technically in the plural form. I’ve seen some grammar guides that endorse “they” when used with indefinite pronouns (such as “someone”, “one”, or “anyone”). And that is the sense (a person, not necessarily of one gender or another) that I use “they”. I’ve also just used “he/she” sometimes, but that can get awfully old in a big hurry.

I probably should be more consistent about how I write the third person singular pronoun to refer to a person-in-general, but right now I seem to be all over the map about “he”,"she”, "they” and "he/she”! (And, of course, “his”, "her", "their”, "his/her" plus “him”,"her”, "them”, and "him/her” as well.)

My Running Update: 7/19

Previously on this blog, I have had a feature appearing with the tag “Eights”, where I would report, every eight weeks, on an area that I am trying to improve in. The idea was something that I heard once from Tony Robbins: publicly announce your goals in order to give yourself a sense of accountability in reaching them. And it’s worked, with some mixed success. One problem I’ve had with this “eight weeks apart” format is that I have trouble keeping up with which date I am supposed to write about a particular area of self-improvement. So, to make things radically simpler, I am getting rid of the “Eights” tag in future articles of this type and will simply write personal endeavor updates for different area each Saturday. Starting with today!

As I had written in an earlier entry recently, I had suffered some aches in my left foot, preventing me from running. Or so it seemed. One day, though, I just got tired of not running and ran anyway, pain or no pain. And, surprisingly, there was no pain during the run! In the following days, the occasional twinges I felt diminished until I went on as before with my running. For a while, I was running a little outside around my YMCA field (distance unknown); in the listing below, I refer to those runs as Y-laps. I missed the July 4 road race I was going to run in, but there are two planned in Gainesville for September, and I’d like to make one of them. I need to get off the treadmill sometimes and run outside on the ground/road/track. Lately, I’ve reserved my Sundays for yard work, so I take that day off from running. My plan for the immediate future is to continue treadmill-running on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays while running on a nearby track on Thursdays and doing long, slow cross-country runs on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Here is my training record since the last time I published it (except for the YMCA field, I did my running on the treadmill in the Y’s training room):

DATE...MILES...TIME(min)
4-29..... 1.75........ 2:33
4-30..... 2.5........ 16:49
5-01...... 2.0....... 13:24
5-05..... 2.0........ 14:23
5-06..... 1.0.......... 6:31
5-07..... 1.0.......... 7:45
5-08..... 1.5.......... 9:39
5-09..... 1.0......... 6:20
5-10..... 1.0......... 6:32
5-12..... 2.5........ 17:39
5-13..... 2.0........ 12:46 (6:14 mile included)
5-14..... 2.5........ 16:29 [1 y-lap @ 1:23]
5-15......0.7......... 4:38
5-15......1.0.......... 7:10
5-19..... 1.0......... 6:32
5-20.... 2.5....... 17:38
5-22.... 2.0....... 13:19 [1 y-lap @ 1:23]
5-23..... 1.5....... 10:14
5-24..... 1.6...... 10:46 [1 y-lap @ 1:15]
5-26...... ----------...... [6 y-laps @ 9:15]
5-27..... 1.0....... 6:46 [2 y-laps @ 2:50]
5-28..... 1.7....... 11:18 [2 y-laps @ 3:06]
5-29......0.8....... 5:16 [1 y-lap @ 1:15]
5-30..... 2.0...... 13:37 [1 y-lap @ 1:16]
6-02..... 2.0...... 14:15
6-04..... 2.0...... 13:37 [2 y-laps @ 3:05]
6-05..... 1.0........ 6:31 [1 y-lap @ 1:15]
6-09..... 1.6....... 10:59
6-10..... 0.5........ 3:52
6-11...... 1.5........ 11:02
6-12..... 2.0....... 13:36
6-13...... 1.0........ 6:39
6-14...... 3.34..... 25:00
6-17...... 2.0....... 13:57 (left foot hurt)
6-25..... 1.6........ 11:56
6-26..... 2.0....... 14:25
6-27..... 2.0....... 14:04
6-30.....0.5.......... 3:29
7-02 .....2.6....... 17:40
7-03..... 2.5....... 18:30
7-05..... 3.0....... 20:42
7-07..... 3.11...... 21:16
7-08..... 2.0....... 13:48
7-09..... 3.0....... 20:37
7-10..... 2.0........ 13:43
7-14..... 1.5......... 11:08
7-15..... 2.5........ 18:37
7-16..... 1.0......... 6:39
7-17..... 2.5........ 18:41

Show and Tell, and Blogging

When I was in the first grade, our class (like so many others) had a time called “Show and Tell” when individual students could voluntarily choose to go to the front of the class and talk about whatever they felt like talking about. Most of the class, to varying degrees, availed themselves of this golden opportunity for hamming it up (like Gary, who spent most of his time up there just grinning, giggling, and telling jokes). I was on the “rare appearances only” end of the spectrum, only going up when something really extraordinary happened (like the time that my family and I visited the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach). On the opposite end was Carrie, a precocious, bubbly little girl who used Show and Tell to relate everything that went on in her life the previous day, from the moment she woke up all the way through to the time her head hit the pillow at night!

And it’s Carrie’s use of this childhood forum that reminds me of some of the personally-themed blogs that I sometimes run across. I like to read this type of blog because I am naturally working at getting through my day and can relate to how others are working at getting through their’s. And it gives me a better perspective of what people in general think and how they act. I’m not interested in the identity of those writing this type of blog; I would also feel very awkward submitting a comment to someone about something personal that is going on in their life. But if the blog was deliberately made public, I think that it is totally appropriate to read it regularly.

One theme that pervades some personal blogs is an issue that the writer is using the blog to work out in his/her mind. It could be about health, work, relationships, money, or just about anything of a personal nature. Such a blog often gives the impression that the writer is obsessed with the issue being written about. But I don’t think that this is usually the case. Sometimes it helps to put feelings and facts down on paper (or type out on a blog) in order to sort them out better. As a matter of fact, people who are around those who dwell on certain problems in their blogs may not even be aware that any problem exists; it can only be expressed clearly by working it out on “paper”.

My blog is a messy mix of the personal and various topics of interest. There are a number of personal self-improvement projects I am working on, and I write about my progress (or lack thereof) on this blog to give me a sense of public accountability. I am not the “Carrie” type of person who thinks that everyone is waiting with baited breath to know all the goings-on in my life, no matter how trivial. But it’s still fun (and illuminating) when I run across a blog written this way! And sometimes I'll write one of these types of articles (see the one for this past Wednesday). I also have a hunch that, in the far distant future, those “excavating” ancient blogs (if possible) to find out what it was like in the 21st century will likely find this type to be of the greatest value. See, I’m thousands of years ahead of my time!

Favorite Songs of 1965

For Christmas in 1964, my sister and I received matching transistor radios. It was one of my most remembered presents, for I was heavily into popular music at the time and with this device (I-Pod's spiritual ancestor), I could carry my music around with me, scratchy-sounding and all!. The big radio station in South Florida at the time was Miami’s 560-WQAM “Tiger Radio”. I remembered DJs Rick Shaw and Jim Dunlop, but had forgotten the others. Imagine my pleasant surprise to discover that there is a tribute website to this great station of the 60’s called 560.c0m.

Television also presented a forum in 1965 through which different acts could gain publicity and popularity: CBS's Ed Sullivan Show, ABC's Shindig, and NBC's Hullabaloo.

Everyone in my family was an ardent Beatles fan, and my parents were buying up Beatles albums as soon as they came out. 1965 saw Beatles VI, Help!, and Rubber Soul (Beatles ’65 actually came out in late 1964). My list of favorites of theirs would be so long that just looking at a listing of their album tracks would suffice! So I’ll just mention the best of the best: Words of Love, What You’re Doing, Every Little Thing, The Night Before, You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, Ticket to Ride, I’ve Just Seen a Face, and Michelle.

There were other artists on the planet besides the Beatles in 1965, and they produced plenty of quality songs. The Kinks, the true progenitors of hard rock (at least the first time I heard it was from them), dazzled listeners with their brash, frenzied guitar playing on songs like You Really Got Me and All Day and All of the Night. My favorite of theirs, though, was the more subdued Tired of Waiting. I’ve always been a lukewarm fan of the Beach Boys, but they made a more sophisticated turn in their music with their riveting Help Me Rhonda. Concrete and Clay, by Unit 4 + 2, would have been a great dance song (if I danced, that is). Barry McGuire warned of impending doom in his angry and moralistic Eve of Destruction; with the Vietnam War kicking in on all cylinders this year, that forecast was literally true for hundreds of thousands of young Americans, who would be sent into the jungles of southeast Asia in the ensuing years to draw enemy fire and somehow try to survive. Another consciousness-raising song, Jackie DeShannon’s What the World Needs Now (Is Love Sweet Love) helped to set the stage for the counterculture movement of the late sixties. One of my favorite sixties groups, the Animals, had a string of hits this year, highlighted by two songs that have grown on me through the years: It’s My Life and the often-applicable We Gotta Get Out of This Place. The McCoys had a fun, catchy tune in Hang On Sloopy. Dobie Gray reveled at being in The In-Crowd, while the Beau Brummels reveled at having the Last Laugh. The Byrds burst into the big time with their folk-to-rock adaptations of Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn Turn Turn. Bob Dylan also got into the rock picture and reinvented himself in the process with Like a Rolling Stone. In the “silliest song” category, Shirley Ellis wins hands-down for her unfathomable Name Game. Horst Jankowsky played a mean piano with his beautiful instrumental A Walk in the Black Forest. The New York-based band the Knickerbockers sounded just like the Beatles with their one hit Lies. For a little while in ’65, I was fanatical about Gary and the Mindbenders’ Game of Love. And then I got tired of it and still am, 43 years later. The Wee Five charmed me with their sweet, romantic exercise in harmony: You Were On My Mind. Look Though Any Window, by the British band the Hollies, was their first American singles hit. The energetic Dave Clark Five continued to entertain with their “happy-go-loud” sound, “rat-a-tat” drumming, and two hits: Catch Us If You Can and Over and Over Again. Ferry Cross the Mersey, by Gerry and the Pacemakers was my favorite from this band: it was an imaginative, vivid picture of one’s wistful nostalgia for his youth and childhood home.

Simon and Garfunkel, another great “harmony” act, had my #3 favorite song of 1965: their debut oxymoronic masterpiece Sounds of Silence. For #2, I go back to the Beatles and their stunning hit Ticket to Ride. My top favorite tune of 1965 (as I lived through it) was head and shoulders above all the others. When I first heard I Can’t Explain on the radio, I thought that the Beatles had released their greatest song ever. Man, I thought, George Harrison has got to be the best guitar player of all time! Then I discovered that it wasn’t them, but rather a new British band called The Who! Actually a rather short song, I Can’t Explain is self-defining: “I can’t explain” why this song didn’t even penetrate the top-40 nationwide while a (to me) substandard song like the Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction became the most popular song of the year. There’s no accounting for taste, I suppose. To each his own!

Family Weekend Outing

My family (my wife, son, and daughter) and I came back Monday from our outing to Jacksonville and Orlando. In Jacksonville, where we helped our son get registered for his fall college classes, we stayed at a beach-side hotel (Marriott Courtyard). Unfortunately, although the college part of the stay was a complete success, the fun at the beach didn’t happen for me due to bad evening weather and me sleeping in late the next morning (due to exhaustion). Oh well, better luck next time!

After Jacksonville, we drove down I-95 and I-4 to Universal Studios in Orlando, where we stayed at their Hard Rock Hotel. A bit on the expensive side, we did this since our son will soon be going off to college and we wanted this type of pleasant family experience together. This time around, I did get to use the hotel’s large pool, although it was way too shallow, being less than four feet deep everywhere (except for a corner area). I went there one evening with my daughter, where we enjoyed a pool-side rock concert and afterwards could hear music played under water (it sounded like an old transistor radio). They also had a pleasant, winding water slide that we enjoyed riding and which made me want to go to a good water park (like Ocala’s Wild Waters). The hotel itself had a lot of rock music memorabilia displayed throughout, especially guitars donated (or perhaps sold) by famous stars. We avoided eating there, though; I heard that their breakfast buffet ran to about $17 per person. Ouch!

One of the advantages to staying at a Universal-owned hotel is that the room-keycard doubles as an unlimited Express Pass to almost all of the rides at the two nearby parks (Universal Studios and Islands of Adventures). The hotel was close enough for us to walk to the parks each day we were there (although there was also a boat shuttle available as well).

We split our time there between the two parks and the City Walk area of shops that lies adjacent to them. At Islands of Adventure, I rode the Incredible Hulk roller coaster a couple of times, tried out the Spiderman 3-D ride again (disappointed again, too), and went on Jurassic Park Adventure, Dueling Dragons, and the Cat in the Hat. Dueling Dragons is actually composed of two bottomless roller coasters, Fire and Ice, which coordinate their runs to pass very close at times to each other. Fire, my favorite of the two, is smooth and floats over Ice during the ride. Ice, on the other hand, is a much rougher ride. But some people prefer it that way.

At Universal Studios, we rode Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast, E.T. Adventure, Revenge of the Mummy, and the Simpsons ride (brand new). Replacing the old Back to the Future ride, the Simpsons ride is pretty much the same, with the passengers sitting in a “car” that creates the sensation of motion in sync with a movie (on this one, the Simpson family is in an amusement park fighting an arch-villain). It was O.K. in a ho-hum sort of way. To me, it was essentially the same kind of ride as Jimmy Neutron, though not as funny. By far my favorite ride there was the Revenge of the Mummy. Its only drawback was that it seemed too short! The very end of the Mummy ride was very funny, too.

At the City Walk, we ate a good lunch at the NBA City restaurant, which I felt had better food and prices than at the Hard Rock Café next door. They need to update their continuously-playing basketball highlights, though, as they showed Ray Allen as playing for Seattle, when in fact he starred for the Boston Celtics in their championship run last season! We also saw superhero flick Iron Man at the City Walk AMC theater. All in all, a pretty good time! The weather generally cooperated with us, providing some afternoon cloud cover and cooling while only hitting us with a severe storm once.

We got back home Monday afternoon. We have annual passes to Universal, although they don’t include the Express Pass that eliminates those tedious, horrendously long lines. Using it this time sure did make the theme park experience more enjoyable, although it seemed that, whenever we “flew” in the express lines past the “regulars” standing in their long, slow-moving lines, some of those people would angrily murmur and even hiss at us (probably my imagination). But, you know, waiting a little while in lines is all right, especially if you have the constitution for it. And judging by the masses of people who put up with standing in them at Universal, there must be an awful lot of people who possess that constitution. Bully for them. I don't. But I'm working on it. So bully for me, too.

Old Musical Jewels Resurface

Back in the late 70’s/early 80’s, my local Gainesville cable television service had a channel (time, temperature, and public announcements) on which they continuously played classical music (without identifying the pieces being played). One of the pieces was a dreamy orchestral work with a chorus. It was repeatedly recycled on the air, and I loved it. But I never knew what it was or who wrote it until the other night when, on my local classical music station, 89.1-WUFT, there it was in its full glory (on the Radio Nederland-produced Live at the Concertgebouw)! Turns out it was Nocturnes for Orchestra by the late 19th/early 20th century French composer Claude Debussy. I should have known! Debussy is right up there at the top of my list of favorite classical composers. La Mer, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn, Arabesque, The Engulfed Cathedral, The Girl With the Flaxen Hair, Claire de Lune, Gardens in the Rain, and Reverie are all incredibly beautiful works!

At the same time, many years ago, that I kept hearing Nocturnes, my local cable provider would also play a very exciting piece that had a more modern (but different) sound. About six years ago, I was listening to WUFT when it came up for airplay: Czech composer Leos Janacek’s Mlody (Youth)!

And that now leaves one remaining “mystery” piece from way back then that I am waiting to make its “appearance” on my radio. Like Nocturnes and Mlody, it has a modernist sound, but my memory of it is vague. So, like Billy Joel, I’ll just say “[WUFT], can you play me a memory? I’m not really sure how it goes. But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete when I wore a younger man’s clothes!”

Debussy and Janacek were exciting, innovative composers whose works I am looking forward to collecting (one album at a time). There should be some legitimate websites out there that play classical music (with a subscription, of course). If so, I would just as soon use one of these, too. No point in just sticking around waiting for the radio to play what I want to hear! Of course, that is exactly what I’ll have to do, though, if I ever want to identify my final “mystery” piece!

Monday Newsbreak: 7/14

--Two deaths have saddened me this week. On Friday, Dr. Michael Debakey, simply one of the greatest figures in the entire history of medicine, passed away Friday of undisclosed natural causes at age 99. Dr. Debakey’s long, incredible string of contributions to cardiovascular surgery go back to 1932, when he invented the roller pump (which enabled open-heart surgery). He also invented numerous devices associated with artificial hearts and was a top heart transplant surgeon. On Saturday, journalist, commentator, and former White House press secretary Tony Snow died of colon cancer. I often disagreed with his politics, but I respected that Tony spoke from his convictions and was courageous and generous in the midst of his personal crisis with cancer. I wish there were more like him in public life!

--The Pakistani foreign minister has stated in an interview that the U.S. is not hunting for Osama Bin-Laden in Pakistan, and that the Pakistani government will furthermore not permit it to even if it wanted to. So, please help me figure this out: The United States attacked Afghanistan following 9/11 and drove out that country’s Taliban government for giving sanctuary and support to Al-Qaeda in return for its help in defeating the Taliban’s political opponents. Now take the current Pakistani regime: aren’t they giving sanctuary to Al-Qaeda and Bin-Laden while reaping the benefits of this terrorist presence (assassinations and harassment of the political opposition there)? But we’re supposed to regard Pakistan as our “friend”. Barack Obama was right to recently point out our “friend’s” recalcitrance in helping us find and capture the perpetrators of the attack on our country on September 11, 2001.

--The Senate renewed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with a provision granting immunity to telecommunications companies cooperating with the government in its eavesdropping activities. Republicans supported the bill (which President Bush happily signed) as a bloc, while Democrats were badly split. I believe that one of the legitimate functions of government is to protect its citizens from terrorists, and that is the stated purpose for this bill. But I also know that laws can be perverted to suit the agendas of different presidents. George W. Bush is leaving office in January next year, and (as far as I can tell) he stands to benefit in no improper way from FISA. From where things stand now, a Democrat is just as likely as a Republican to succeed him. And who will come after that? The problem with FISA is not how Bush wants to use it (I believe, all criticisms notwithstanding, that his motives with it are pure), but rather how this law is constructed so that it can easily morph into something that some future national figure will be able to use to truly subjugate the American people (through the use of databases and files to build up dossiers, KGB-style).

A Few Days' Break

I'll be out of town for a few days, coming back early next week. I won't be entering anything new for a little while. Feel free to read archived stuff from this blog and comment on anything you want.

Favorite Songs of 1966

The Beatles continued to dominate the popular music world in 1966, both in terms of output, quality, concerts, and controversy. John Lennon’s “Christ” comment, a grotesque album cover, a scary episode in the Philippines, their last public concert (except for the 1969 impromptu Abbey Road roof concert), and the bizarre Strawberry Fields video put them continually in the news, not all of it favorable. In the midst of all this, they came out with their greatest album ever (to me): Revolver. In America, Revolver was chopped up, with some tracks stuck on their Yesterday and Today album. Tunes like Eleanor Rigby, For No One, Tomorrow Never Knows, Got To Get You Into My Life, and Taxman were among my favorites of the year, as well as the singles release Paperback Writer. The Monkees, America’s (successful) attempt to cash in on the Beatles’ success, kicked off their TV comedy series and with it, some pretty good songs, including Saturday’s Child and Last Train to Clarksville. Meanwhile, Donovan, Britain’s (not-so-successful) attempt to cash in on Bob Dylan’s success, decided to radically change his image after being booed onstage during American concerts. The result was a unique style and songs like Mellow Yellow. I used to watch an weekday afternoon rock music show on ABC called Where the Action Is. The “house band” Paul Revere and the Raiders came up with a string of hits for a few years, in 1966 including the likable Just Like Me and the anti-drug Kicks. Bobby Darin’s beautiful rendition of If I Were a Carpenter didn’t receive enough airplay, in my opinion. Neither did the Beach Boys’ God Only Knows, easily my all-time favorite of theirs. Herman’s Hermits, a band that rode the British Invasion wave to stateside success, finally came out with a song that really grabbed me: No Milk Today. In the “demented” category, Napoleon XIV had his funny They’re Coming to Take Me Away Ha-Ha while Count Five had their psychedelic Psychotic Reaction. Bobby Fuller showed great promise with his country/rock song I Fought the Law, but tragically and mysteriously died in a parked car. Cyrkle had their one hit with the Paul Simon-penned Red Rubber Ball. Syndicate of Sound and the Rolling Stones share the dubious award for the most male chauvinist song of the year with Little Girl and Under My Thumb, respectively. The Lovin’ Spoonful got my attention with their very descriptive Summer in the City, complete with honking cars. Shapes of Things to Come, by the Yardbirds, was one of those songs that I loved back then, but which slipped from my recollection until just recently. Eight Miles High, by the Byrds, was my #3 song of 1966. I liked how the song at times would just seem to disintegrate into a confused jumble of sound! #2 for me that year was the Vogues’s rousing love song (and hate to work song) Five O’Clock World (the male counterpart of Sheena Easton’s 1981 hit Morning Train 9 to 5). And my top favorite of 1966 (back then) was the suspenseful-sounding Time Won’t Let Me, surprisingly the only hit by the Outsiders.

Even The Best Fall Short

I was watching some of the old Twilight Zone episodes the other day (the Sci-Fi Channel was having a Fourth of July Twilight Zone marathon), and once again a certain familiar feeling began to creep up on me. The Twilight Zone is without a doubt one of my favorite series, and I know just about every episode. And yet, when push comes to shove, I really don’t like most of them! Sure, there are the great classic episodes, like And When the Sky Was Opened, The After-Hours, The Hitchhiker, and Mirror Image, along with a few that I moderately liked. But I could easily do without the vast majority of them!

Looking at many of my favorite series, musical artists, and writers, I’ve come to the same conclusion: with very few exceptions, I can quite easily dispense with a large part of the body of work of many of them! I like reading Stephen King and count his Pet Sematary, The Mist, It, Insomnia, Hearts in Atlantis, and Thinner among my all-time favorites. But much of what this great writer has produced simply doesn’t resonate with me (including Rose Madder, the book I’m currently plodding through). Some of the material put out by the late great sci-fi writers Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke is downright embarrassing to read. The original Star Trek series had some unforgettable episodes like The City On the Edge of Forever, The Corbomite Maneuver, The Immunity Syndrome, and The Doomsday Machine. But sometimes I’d tune in and they would be pathetic! The late New York-based humorist Jean Shepherd (author and narrator of A Christmas Story) used to have a nightly radio show on which he would do an hour-long monologue. Back in 1975, I was an avid listener. But looking back, most of his shows seemed a little lame, although from time to time he would come out with a “winner”. The musical artists that I extol the most, with the notable exception of the Beatles, have come out with a lot of mediocre (putting it mildly) material over the years. Of course, if you include the stuff put out by the individual members of the Fab Four after they broke up, even they fit this pattern (with a vengeance)!

I am currently struggling with confidence issues about writing fiction. And yet, when I look around me at the “cream of the crop” in the arts, I see some glaring unevenness in the quality of their output. And it gives me a sense of relief! I think I just need to get off my butt and produce my product, for better or for worse!

Who Am I?

Do you remember the old Tom T. Hall country and western song I Love? The idea of the song is that you’re supposed to get to know better who the singer is by discerning the details of his likes. Likewise, if you click on the My Profile link on this blog, it will take you to a page that tells about me by listing areas that I am interested in. The sum total effect will reveal a little about who I am. We can go a little further than this, of course, in our quest to find out “who” someone is, by physically describing that person, in as great of detail as practical. We can also take the sum effects of our interactions with that person to make an assessment about his/her personality or character. The idea is to create a multidimensional mosaic, the result of which will be the subject’s essence. But what really is the true essence of a person?

I know for a solid fact that I didn’t feel any different about who I was when I was two years old than how I feel now at fifty-one. But in the time between, the matter comprising my body has been completely changed, along with the form of my body, including my brain. Things that I do now, physically and mentally, I do very differently than how I did them (if I did them) at two. I have amassed an incredible memory of the world and myself between two and fifty-one. And yet, I can abstract a sense of who I am, deep down inside, by disregarding all of the differences that could, in a paradoxical sort of way, also seem to define who I am. So how do you determine who you are? By seeing yourself in terms of all your traits and experiences? Or by filtering out all of those traits and experiences and discerning the remaining kernel of selfness? It may truly seem to be a paradox, but I hold that both point the way toward self-realization. This is another example of duality, where in order to achieve a goal, one must simultaneously adhere in a discerning way to two seemingly contradictory doctrines.

Monday Newsbreak: 7/7

--Barack Obama is apparently trying to appear more centrist by expressing more caution about removing U.S. combat troops from Iraq, as well as trying to sound more sympathetic to the pro-life/anti-abortion movement. But what he seems to be accomplishing right now, at least the way I see it, is simply to confuse his supporters. I believe that the greatest danger of a serious, campaign-derailing gaffe can be when any candidate steps outside his/her ideological comfort zone and makes statements that either go against that candidate’s political creed or expose ignorance on his/her part. Obama needs to be extremely careful treading on this ground. For if he goes too far, he may just lose some of his most ardent supporters when they either stay home on Election Day, go over to vote for Ralph Nader, or even pick John McCain as the lesser of two evils.

--Former North Carolina senator Jesse Helms, an extreme right-wing conservative, died this past Friday at 86 of natural causes. I respect those elected office-holders whose strong political leanings (left or right) do not impede them from acting with dignity and respect for others who differ with them. For example, Alabama senator Jeff Sessions is currently one of the most conservative senators today. He speaks for his causes articulately and passionately. But I have never seen him display anything like the meanness of spirit that Senator Helms showed at times in his career. Helms was strongly against federal funding for AIDS research simply because the victims (in the U.S.) tended to be gay or illegal drug users. Although being a staunch opponent of abortion, he also opposed federally-sponsored low-income aid programs for poor families with children. Just from spite, he used his position in a senate committee to kill Bill Clinton’s nomination of former Massachusetts governor William Weld to be ambassador to Mexico. And he ran a racist campaign for re-election against his African-American Democratic opponent in 1990. I know that I’m not supposed to knock the recently deceased. So someone please tell me how great this guy really was (with reasons)!

--Atlantic tropical storm Bertha is expected to become a category-one hurricane within the next day or two. Its projected path has it passing just north of the Leeward Islands. Eventually, a developing high pressure area in the southeast U.S. should deflect it in a more northerly direction. By Thursday Bertha, although probably far out at sea, will also probably be close enough to north Florida beaches to cause bad surf and rip tides. And I’ve been planning to take my family to Jacksonville Beach the following day! Phooey!

--In the “out of the blue” department, Kent Couch successfully floated high in the eastern Oregon sky and safely landed, all while sitting in a lawn chair, supported by 105 big helium party balloons. On a whim, I had written an article about this exact type of endeavor back on June 15! It turns out that the original “chair-trekker” was Larry Walters, who lifted up three miles into the sky over Los Angeles in 1982 using the balloons/lawn chair/bb gun combo. So my question has been answered: this was no urban legend! But I heard that Couch invested about six thousand dollars on his “simple” device, most of it for the helium in his balloons! Well, back to the drawing board!

Starbucks Closings Ahead

If you’re sitting in a Starbucks right now, I wouldn’t get too comfortable if I were you. The corporation that has recently often been cited as a model of how to run a successful business just announced that it is planning to close down 600 Starbucks outlets within a year. My hometown of Gainesville has seen the number of Starbucks steadily rise since the first one came to town about nine years ago. Now I think we already have nine or ten in this only middle-sized (albeit university) city. So now the speculation is on: which Starbucks in Gainesville, if any, will get the axe? As far as I can tell, they all are doing quite a brisk business. Starbucks has stated that the most likely closures will come to the stores that opened 2006 and afterwards. If any in Gainesville close, my leading candidates are the ones in Santa Fe Community College and in Hunters Crossing (NW 43 Street) next to Publix grocery. But Gainesville, like Seattle, is such a hot coffee market that I wouldn’t be surprised if all of the Starbucks stores here stayed open.

And now I will submit an open suggestion to Starbucks. I like flavored coffee: not syrup added from a bottle, but coffee that is flavor-roasted. I can go to Books-a-Million or Borders and buy flavored coffee. But if I want it at Starbucks, I get the syrup and pay extra. If Starbucks is as customer-friendly as it likes to project itself, why won’t it offer flavored coffee? I can’t speak for everyone else, but I know that I would be a more loyal customer if it did. Is there some kind of snobbery among coffee aficionados that regards flavor-roasted coffee as inferior? Then maybe my money isn’t good enough for them either!

Adaptability of Humanity

The other day, I saw one of my old Twilight Zone favorite episodes: To Serve Man, written by Richard Matheson (it also came out as a short story). The gist of this story is that aliens landed on Earth and had all of the answers to the pressing human problems of the time, particularly in the areas of war and food. And they presented their high-tech solutions to humanity as gifts! Within weeks, while the Earth became covered with a web of alien-”manned” stations, the entire human race became complacent and dependent upon the newcomers. Even to the point of embarking on vacations and research trips to other worlds on their spaceships. The episode’s protagonist, toward the end of the story, reflected to his partner how quickly humanity adapted to new things and incorporated them into what they called “normal”. And that hit me as one of the more profound things I’ve heard from this series.

In 1969, when Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission, the whole world watched in wonder. By Apollo 14 few were paying attention, walking on the Moon having become passé. In the nineties, when Clinton was President, having the life of even one American soldier in peril was regarded as a national news event. How quickly people got used to hearing about the rising casualty figures during the Bush years!

And look at how quickly people are adapting to new technology that speeds everything up and interconnects us with multimedia! Eager customers camp out overnight to buy an I-Pod and find out a few weeks later that there are better products available. How quickly large segments of our population got used to the Internet in the late nineties, and then how quickly the laptop computer became a required piece of equipment for college students! If you’re riding the wave of technology, this may seem pretty cool. But if you are on the outside looking in, it looks as if the world is passing you by.

It is easy, with the seeming omnipresence of computers and the Internet, to simply assume that everyone has access to them and uses them. But many people do not use computers at home, and many have no intention of ever starting! Even among those who do, there is the constant pressure to upgrade in order to keep up with the latest innovations.

The idea that we can possess machines that speed things up and open up opportunities for us to reach out, either through communications or transportation, should make those who benefit from them happier, wouldn’t you think? But, since humans are such an adaptable species, what happens instead is that people adjust to the new reality and as a result just become more impatient and demanding. I remember when most of the cars on the road had standard transmissions, requiring a clutch pedal and manual changing of gears. At an intersection, when the light turned green, everyone would go through the gradual buildup of speed that standard transmissions required. But with the advent (and eventual dominance) of automatic transmissions, drivers now simply react with impatient annoyance to any manual-shift drivers they find themselves behind.

I wonder, if the global warming phenomenon keeps worsening, whether people will finally band together to heroically solve the problem. Or will they just adapt to the worsening situation as it develops, treating it as “normal”? Sadly, it looks as if the latter may be our destiny! Wouldn’t it be the ultimate paradox if, as was the case in To Serve Man, our adaptability turned out to be our downfall!!

Exorcism Works!---In Baseball

In an article last year, I reported on how I began listening to a Tampa Bay Devil Rays play-by-play radio broadcast on one of my local stations. And how the team, which was playing the Boston Red Sox, played so poorly that I had to switch the station after the first inning! Well, a year has gone by and this year’s edition of the Tampa Bay franchise has changed in more than one way. They have acquired some good new players, and some of last year’s are having good seasons. But during the off-season, they also changed their nickname by dropping the “Devil” from “Devil Rays”. Now they’re just the Rays, and have transformed themselves from being baseball’s perennial doormat to having the best winning percentage in either league so far this season! The Rays just finished beating their rival Boston and have jettisoned into a small lead in their division. Now I ask myself: is it finally O.K. to root for this team? Or should I wait for them to change their name to the “Angel Rays”?!

I have felt for a while that in some circles in this country, just mentioning the word “devil” was politically incorrect with some people. Apparently, in New Jersey it’s O.K. (NHL’s New Jersey Devils) as well as in North Carolina (Duke Blue Devils). I thought “Devil Rays” was a perfectly innocent designation (since it was just the name of an animal), but it was too long. At least they didn’t call themselves some ridiculous “abstraction” name as others did with names such as “Magic“, “Heat”, “Wind”, “Storm”, etc. So I’m happy with “Rays” by itself, but I suspect that the franchise probably dropped the “Devil” because some do-gooders felt that the Numero Uno Bad Dude was getting too much free publicity with this. Now, the name “Tampa Bay Rays” just naturally rolls off the tongue, and has such a virtuous sound to it! Now that they have repented and have become a “good” team, the Rays are ready to assume their rightful seat next to the Red Sox at the top (but I'm still rooting for the Yankees, with the great Derek Jeter)!

Favorite Songs of 1967

1967 marks the last of a run of four years in which I was consumed by listening to popular music on the radio. By the year’s end, I had dropped off considerably with listening to my radio for music, and instead had picked up the hobby of DX-ing (trying to receive distant stations). The Beatles and Rolling Stones were challenged for pop music ascendancy, at least in America, by the fabricated television-comedy group the Monkees, whose music surprisingly has largely withstood the test of time! And I was a big Monkees fan, watching the show, collecting Monkees cards, and listening to Monkees songs. My favorites in ‘67 of theirs were Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow) and Pleasant Valley Sunday. Speaking of the Stones, they continued to become more original with their songs, producing two that I especially liked: the Rubber-Soul-like Ruby Tuesday and the utterly cynical Mother’s Little Helper (with the classic line “What a drag it is getting old”). John Fred and his Playboy Band parodied the Beatles with Judy in Disguise (With Glasses). The artist Keith sang very softly in 98.6, while the Music Machine thundered out with the forceful Talk Talk. Sonny and Cher continued their output of hits with my favorite of theirs, the topical The Beat Goes On. The feminist movement had not yet taken hold, with two popular “women-in-their-assigned-role” hits”: Dreams of the Everyday Housewife by Glen Campbell and It Must Be Him by Vicki Carr. But at least Petula Clark had the upper hand in Don’t Sleep In the Subway. Jose Feliciano came out with my favorite pop Christmas hit ever: Feliz Navidad. Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit’s beautiful building crescendo and Grace Slick’s bellowing voice has made it one of the greatest short tunes ever; I don’t care whether it was pro-drug or anti-drug. Another quality-packed short song was the bubble gum tune The Letter by the Box Tops. The Mojo Men exhorted the listener to Sit Down I Think I Love You, while the Buckinghams drowned the listener with organ playing in Kind of a Drag (and pulled it off). In a pathetic-but-fun-to-listen-to-proto-rap song, the Hombres tried to sound “hip” with Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out). The song Come On Down to My Boat, by Every Mother’s Son, got a lift in sales and listening by being featured on one of the Man From U.N.C.L.E. television episodes. The Five Americans sang Western Union with beautiful harmony. The frantic You Better Run, by the Rascals (later covered by Pat Benatar), was my favorite of theirs. The Association’s romantic Never My Love was my favorite slow tune of the year. The Florida band the Nightcrawlers had a big local hit (around Miami) with Little Black Egg. It was my #3 favorite song of 1967 as I lived through it. And to find my top two favorite songs, I need only to go back to the beginning of this article and bring back out the Beatles, who produced two great albums that year (Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour) and two especially pleasant and enduring songs: Hello Goodbye (my #2) and All You Need Is Love (my #1 for 1967).

NBC Olympic Coverage

According to the Associated Press, NBC, which has broadcasting rights to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, is planning full-blown media coverage of the games. Six of its broadcast/cable/satellite television channels (how many does my cable service provide?) will be broadcasting different events. But it is on the Internet where NBC has revealed its biggest ambitions, pretty much making everything available to users who only need to “click in” on the part of the Olympics they want to see. Although events that NBC is broadcasting on TV will be delayed for Internet use (in order to encourage people to watch TV along with the commercials), this is a new step forward that I would like to take advantage of. For there are not only certain sports and events that I am interested in following (like distance running and bicycle racing), but there are also others that I would like to get to know better (such as field hockey). Criticism has befallen NBC, however, for its insistence of exclusive network coverage on the Internet, keeping other news groups from even broadcasting small clips there (NBC does allow this to a limited degree on television). But it will be fun to try out their Olympics website and see for myself whether or not the reality of promised coverage lives up to the billing. One problem that I’ve had in past Olympics with the television coverage has been overemphasis on the American athletes (even when they’re clearly out of the running for medals) and underemphasis of sports in which the U.S. is deemed unlikely to win a medal. Hopefully, with the new setup, this will all change. The NBC website for the Olympics is: NBCOlympics.com.

On a side note, University of Florida basketball star Nick Calathes is traveling to Greece to try out for the Greek national team to compete in the Olympics. He has dual citizenship, both as an American and as a Greek. I’m looking forward to seeing whether or not he makes the team (he should). Nick is a very talented player who will only be a sophomore this coming season for the Gators. It will be interesting to see whether, with NBC’s hyped Internet-access innovations, I’ll be able to watch the Greek team play its games during the Olympics.

People, People, People

In the classic Oscar-winning movie My Fair Lady, linguistics professor Henry Higgins asks his colleague (in a song), “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” As chauvinistic as this clearly sounds, we find through the course of the movie that it isn’t just women that the good professor has a problem with. Actually, he is an equal-opportunity humbug: he expects everyone to be exactly like him! Similarly, in the Twilight Zone episode The Mind and the Matter, comedian Shelley Berman plays a middle-aged big-city office worker who is fed up with “people, people, people”, as he puts it. By following the precepts revealed in a self-help book, Berman succeeds in willing the whole world to be full of exact duplicates of himself! And then finds out what a monumental drag he must be to others!

I wonder what the world would be like were it full of “me’s”. Aside from lasting only a generation (cloning not having yet been perfected), the human race would be so totally devoid of diversity that the specialization needed to sustain us as a species would be nonexistent. Also, we all need others who fundamentally differ from ourselves in a multitude of ways, if for nothing else than to hold our beliefs and behavior to standards worth living up to. For in a vacuum of diversity, how can we really know what’s best?

I am not known as a social mingler, preferring either solitude or small groups. It has been my experience throughout my life that when I have been in the midst of noisy crowds, I have had difficulty processing the audio input and often suffered panic/anxiety attacks from the sensory overload. But over the years, I have learned to separate this problem from passing judgment on people themselves. After all, each of us was thrown into this life, without (as far as we know) ever asking for it. And each of us must also figure out ways to get ourselves through life the best way possible. Everyone has their own path to follow, each one being unique, but also sharing commonalities with others. So I feel great empathy with my other fellow humans on this planet, but at the same time still harbor relatively hermit-like tendencies. And that’s all right, as long as I consciously fight the occasional impulse to shut out the world with its “people, people, people”!

Monday Newsbreak: 6/30

--Florida is scheduling its first execution in eighteen months, after a previous execution (using lethal injection) was “botched”. This time they’ve supposedly taken steps to ensure that the victim (whoops, I mean convict) is unconscious before the fatal doses are administered. This idea that the state has to prove that the “procedure” used in killing somebody isn’t cruel and unusual punishment, while the actual killing is acceptable, makes me question the entire moral underpinning of our legal system. Here is what I think about capital punishment.

--Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe has declared himself the winner of that country’s corrupt runoff presidential election, after his chief opponent dropped out and sought sanctuary during widespread pre-election violence and threats. I remember back in 1981, when the first (then legitimate) election was held. Mugabe easily beat out his main rival Joshua Nkomo, an election split not by ideology, but rather by ethnic identification, with most of the country’s majority Shona population supporting Mugabe. Now nobody ever reports on this obviously important factor in Zimbabwe politics. I know it hasn’t gone away. It’s just being ignored. I remember how, in an earlier election in Ukraine, one candidate was chiefly supported by the Ukrainian population while the other was supported by the Russians in eastern Ukraine. This doesn’t justify holding rigged elections, but it is still something that the press needs to inform us about. After all, you don’t need to look past the calamities in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia to see how strongly ethnic identification means to many people in the world. And the passions, violence, and tragedies that can result from suspicions and disinformation about others.

--Florida is purchasing back 187,000 acres of land, on the south side of Lake Okeechobee, owned by the sugar industry and used for sugarcane growth and sugar refining. The intent is to redirect water overflowing from the lake during the wet season back down through the Everglades in the “River of Grass”. The process of renewal may take many years, especially since Lake Okeechobee is itself very polluted with runoff from refining. Also, with such a large-scale change as this, many in the area who were involved with sugar will lose their jobs. But hopefully, south Florida will once again get their share of fresh water that they need (although I think this area is severely overpopulated).

--Ever since I wrote an earlier article about the “Great Florida Desert”, we in Gainesville have been drenched almost daily in heavy rains and storms. Although it isn’t fun getting caught outside in the rain, this is truly a most welcome development in our area!

Who Needs South Park, Anyway?

A couple of days ago, I witnessed a true media event. It seems that Hillary and Barack made up and are now going forward together in “unity”. Why, even one of Hillary’s supporters says that she now likes Obama because Hillary says it’s O.K. to! To emphasize the rapproachment between the two, they rode a plane seated together to New Hampshire, where they addressed a small, circularly-seated crowd in the remote town (if you want to call it a town) of Unity. Unity sounds like the kind of name that Stephen King would use in one of his novels (like Misery, for example). And it wasn’t all that far away from King’s state of Maine, either. Come to think of it, from the air, that assembly reminded me a bit of Pet Sematary! Although the crowd itself was small, one report claimed that in the New Hampshire Primary, Clinton and Obama ran neck and neck in Unity: each received one vote. So, anyway, the cable news channels were giving this meeting top live coverage. With speaker after speaker coming up to address the crowd. While watching the preliminary coverage, I noticed a headline news flash going by on the bottom of the screen: Obama’s tie matches Hillary’s pantsuit! And the announcers then sat around discussing the significance of this, wondering whether it was planned or just a good omen. Well, that just about does it for me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything covered so uncritically by the media as this contrived, staged event was. And I support Obama and would like to see Clinton on the ticket! If I were one of the folks working for the satirical show South Park (of which I recently saw an episode of them mercilessly taking apart the Walmart Corporation), I would simply animate the characters, stick a few regular cast members subtly into the plot, and otherwise show this story straight without any degree of exaggeration, especially about how it was reported. But who needs South Park, anyway? Just turn on the news!

Friendships and Intrigues

When two people form a friendship with each other, it is obvious that there will always be some differences between them. But each friend must be mindful of the dangers in overemphasizing them (as well as repressing them). Sometimes a friendship may seem to be developing, but something comes into the relationship and sabotages it, potentially transforming the relationship into one of enmity. For this article, I will call those dangers “intrigues”. Here are a few of them:

Competition-One of the main things that draws two people together is a common interest. And, in the course of the developing friendship, the two will probably discover that one is better, or more adept in that field than the other. There is nothing wrong with friendly competition among pals, but being overly competitive can breed resentment and jealousy as well, so competition needs to be guarded carefully.

The Organization (Missionary)-Especially prevalent in churches are friendships based on false premises. One party befriends the other, who is at least initially unaware that the whole reason for this is that he/she is being recruited for a religion/church/group by the other (who will grow in stature in that group for this “outreach”). Once the “organization” foundation for this relationship is recognized, the two can often get bogged down in a wrestling of wills, with one trying to get the other to “join up”. This “friendship” will usually only last as long as the “recruiter” keeps after the potential “recruitee”. Once the cause seems lost, the relationship and friendship ends.

Romance-When a man and a woman pursue a platonic friendship, there will sometimes be an undercurrent of romance which needs to be delicately quelled (so as not to damage the feelings of the other). Sometimes one party to the friendship will find out, through other people, that his/her friend has developed a romantic interest in the other. And then it’s pretty hard to go back to that simple friendship.

Gossip-When a friend begins to gossip about the personal lives of others, I get the distinct impression, true or not, that he/she is gossiping about me behind my back. So I immediately begin to distrust my friend and will henceforth be much more reserved and formal about what I share about myself in conversation. When I walk into a room and see people sitting around a table gossiping about another, I mark those people in my mind as being unworthy of friendship with me. And I don’t think that I’m alone in this!

Age-Age is often used to give one party an advantage of the other when discussing just about anything. One side may continually draw upon his/her experiences to dominate the conversation over the other. Of course, there will almost always be age gaps between people. This difference, though, can give flavor to the friendship and sometimes creates a beneficial and enduring mentor/student relationship. But if one side resents the other’s constant invocation of his/her age advantage, then that friendship will not grow.

Prejudice-I know people from all sorts of backgrounds who will pepper their conversations with generalizations about race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, and national origin. And there are a few who regard me is somehow being “bad” because I my skin color is relatively light or because I am a male. It’s great to be different, but most of the differences that people like to emphasize speak nothing about traits like trustworthiness, graciousness, dignity, compassion, generosity, and loyalty. And those are the traits that really matter!

Narcissism-There are certain people who, when they walk into a room, expect everyone to stop what they’re doing and breathe a sigh of relief, because “so-and-so” is here! Such people see everything and everyone as reflections of themselves. In conversation with another, they expect their partner to submerge his/her own self and fully concentrate on them alone. “It’s all about me” is the theme of this “friendship”, and only those are either in a dependency relationship or have very low self-esteem will put up with this for very long.

Life Narrative-Everyone has their own life narrative. And within this narrative, we all, whether intentionally or not, make certain assumptions from our experiences as to how people will behave. This can often lead to an unhealthy cynicism about human nature. If you assume that your new friend will eventually betray you because of your life experiences, then you will not try to wholeheartedly develop that friendship. Sometimes we just have to blot out our past and give others a fresh slate to work with! New friends are not responsible for our past slights!

Slippery Slope to Doom-When someone shares his/her opinion with me, I expect to be able to respectfully disagree, if that’s how I feel. But when most of one’s opinions are so starkly black & white & cut & dry, with the only alternative being the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it, I don’t really want to interact with this person and become closer, as a friend. It’s not that I feel “disrespected” about not being able to share my opinions. It’s just that I don’t think that there is only one right answer or viewpoint with any divergence leading to disaster.

Assigned Role-Sometimes in a friendship, one may find that he/she is regarded more as a reminder of someone else than as an completely different, unique individual. Even to the point of being blamed for the past person’s shortcomings and transgressions! As we grow older, we naturally see similarities between the people we know now and those of our pasts. But everyone is different, and not responsible for what others may have done.

Triangulation-A friend who triangulates will tell you one thing and act as if you are both bosom buddies. But behind your back the same “friend” will criticize you. The way to discover people like this is to notice how much they criticize their other friends when they aren’t present.

Pack Rat-Two people will often form friendships in the context of being in a larger group. And if one friend loses standing or leaves that group, the other may feel pressure or simply an inclination to allow that friendship to fade (if not abruptly end).

So, there are plenty of intrigues that can sabotage a friendship. And I recognize that nobody’s perfect, and some degree of what I have listed is present in many, if not most, friendships, to some extent. But I feel that the best, enduring friendships don’t permit these intrigues to get out of hand.

Geographic Dreams

I don’t know how you dream, but in my dreams, I almost always think like a complete dunce (the character of Patrick Starfish in SpongeBob SquarePants comes to mind). When I do wake up from a dream, I will often want to kick myself for acting so stupidly within the dream! I think that this is largely due to my lack of critical ability within the dream state. But this is not always the case. There is a certain kind of dream I have from time to time that somehow seems to make such an impact on me that I unconsciously have incorporated it into my “reality” memory: the geographic dream.

In eastern Gainesville, just on the other side of Main Street around a place called the Thomas Center, is a compact theme park with several rides, especially of the roller coaster variety. North of this park lies a vast area of concentrated, old apartment buildings some of which are abandoned. And there are railroad tracks running around this area. I have gone on several of the rides in the park, and I would have to say that, as far as theme parks are concerned, it ranks right up there at the top (especially since the lines are so short). But the catch is this: none of this is real! The theme park, apartments, and railroad tracks only exist in my dreams, and by “dreams”, I mean that I have dreamed of this place a number of times!

There is a solid wall in the building where I work that, in an earlier dream, connected to a library with a large sitting area. I sat in that place once, reading a book in Finnish (and understanding it). Now, whenever I walk past that wall during work, I think about that curious dream. By the way, I don't know any Finnish.

In the formerly undeveloped Everglades wilderness southwest of Hollywood, there is a back-winding road out in the middle of nowhere on which stands an all-night restaurant that I’ve eaten at (but only in my dreams). There is a special waterway running north-south through Fort Lauderdale that I’ve swum down, and which has a little pastry shop on the side (the best-tasting pastry ever), but once again, this is a figment of my dreams. There are specific real spots where, when I am dreaming, I can actually lift off of the ground and fly (out along the north side of my old Hollywood home and in the middle of the road directly in front of my current home). Recently, I took off with my family in a plane that was camouflaged as the second floor of an old house near the Office Depot on US 441 in Gainesville. I sat in a comfortable recliner, strapped on my seat belt, and the second floor took off! The pilot decided to go through a few loops over Gainesville, to which I whooped and hollered in delight! I could go on and on with dream experiences of this type.

I’m sure that you, too, can probably dig up your own dream experiences as they relate to real places. Those that I mentioned of my own experiences were just among the ones that I most clearly remembered upon awakening. I wonder how much of our feelings about our waking, real world are influenced by unconscious associations from unremembered-but-latent dreams. After all, we are all a mix of the rational and irrational. And sometimes we may get a feeling about a place that we can’t explain the reasons for. Perhaps this says something about my psychological makeup, but dreams about geography and travel have always been the most memorable and meaningful for me.

Favorite Songs of 1968

1968 was a peculiar year for me in music. At the time, I was 11-12 years old and had much different musical tastes back then than I do now. So many of the songs from that year that are now among my favorites were then among my least favorites! But I’m reviewing the years AS I LIVED THROUGH THEM, so my list of favorite tunes may seem a bit patchy.

1968 was the year of the long song, with hits like Hey Jude (by the Beatles), MacArthur Park (by Richard Harris), Time Has Come Today (by the Chamber Brothers), and Sky Pilot (by Eric Burdon and the Animals) taking up huge swaths of time on radio play (I liked all of them). It was also a year of national tragedy, marked by the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. Dion memorialized these two within his touching Abraham, Martin, and John. The Rascals summed up the social climate of the country with their People Got to be Free. Judy Collins’s Both Sides Now, which I called “Clouds” back then, has only grown in stature with me over the years. Mechanical World (by Spirit) and Journey to the Center of the Mind (by Ted Nugent) were two of the better hard rockers. Mighty Quinn, by Manfred Mann, was my #3 song back in ‘68. It was one of those tunes whose lyrics kept gnawing at me and wouldn’t go away. My #2 favorite song of that year was an example in the recording business of “phasing gone wild”: the psychedelic Pictures of Matchstick Men by the Status Quo. And my top favorite song of 1968? A long instrumental piece, dominated by the keyboard, whose title and artist escaped me all the way into the late 1990s, when a coworker told me that he had heard it while driving through Georgia; the radio announcer identified it as America, by Keith Emerson (of later Emerson Lake and Palmer fame) and the Nice. America was an inspired rock adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s America (from West Side Story) and Dvorak’s New World Symphony. But back in 1968, I knew nothing of this. I just thought that it was the coolest thing I had heard in a very long time! And I still like it a lot.

Frustration With Running

I am feeling a bit frustrated about my running lately. First of all, last month I had my best two-mile time (12:46) and one-mile time (6:14) since 1974. It looked as if I was making progress beyond my wildest dreams. In the following weeks, though, I seemed a get more bogged down and tired when I would go for a run. Now, for the past week, my left foot (around where the toes are attached) has been aching, preventing me from running. I had been intending to run in a local 3-mile road race on July 4, but I’ve scratched that idea, hoping that I’ll be ready to run competitively by October. I miss the routine and exhilaration of intense running. But I also miss the old long-distance, slower running I used to enjoy many, many years ago. Although treadmill training is very convenient in many ways, the long run “out-in-the-country” really defines the essence of this activity for me. But I have to figure out how to run while protecting my feet better! Until I’m ready to resume running, I guess I’ll be going back to training on the cross-trainer machine at my YMCA. And doing hot, sweaty yard work.

Star Trek

When Star Trek Enterprise, the fifth series of the Star Trek saga, was cancelled before its scheduled run ended, there was an outcry from Star Trek enthusiasts against the action. After all, hadn’t Star Trek, in all of its manifestations, become something of an institution unto itself, complete with its own “history of the future”? I haven’t seen any of the Enterprise episodes, but if anyone thinks that they are being deprived of Star Trek, then they are severely deluded!

When the original Star Trek series, starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, was cancelled after only three seasons in 1968, I truly felt deprived, for I was just getting into the series when it was ended. And there was a period when reruns of this great old series had not yet hit the airwaves. There was no such thing as video or DVD rentals yet, so that period was truly a time of deprivation. What is the situation nowadays regarding Star Trek? If you were to add up all of the hour-long episodes for the five series (Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek Voyager, and Star Trek Enterprise), you would come up with a figure around 600 episodes! And all series are being shown around on the various cable/satellite channels. If watching Star Trek was your forty-hour-per-week job, then it would take fifteen weeks watching episodes end-on-end without repetition to go through all of them. And that excludes the ten Star Trek movies, all of the Star Trek books, and even the Star Trek cartoon series!

A few days ago, I saw that Star Trek Voyager was on, so I decided to see what it was like. In this episode, Captain Janeway (played by Kate Mulgrew), encountering a hostile computer, decided to initiate a self-destruct sequence to destroy her ship if the computer couldn’t be “fixed” in time. A few days later, I caught the end of another Voyager episode where the Captain was doing the same thing! First, I thought that I was just seeing the same episode, but no, it was different this time. Which brings me to a conclusion: there is a limit to how many different story ideas can be generated for a specific series with its characters and circumstances. I’d be willing to bet that, if you crossed over from one Star Trek series to another, you would find examples of old stories being recycled to fit the new series and its characters.

When Star Trek originally aired, people had not yet reached the moon. Space exploration was still considered to be the “final frontier” by most, while nowadays the emphasis seems to be more on how we can cushion our lives for ourselves here on Earth. And that includes being able to pretend, through more advanced special effects, that we have conquered space already. After all, compared to Star Trek, Stargate, Star Wars, and Battleship Galactica, real space travel is such a drag to follow, isn’t it? But back in the late sixties, that wasn’t the prevailing feeling.

I plan to watch more of all the Star Trek series, although right now I’m only familiar with the first two (and I still haven’t seen most of Star Trek: The Next Generation). But I am so familiar with the original series that I can forecast what the characters say before they say it! Any possible criticisms notwithstanding, from what I’ve seen, the Star Trek media "federation" has put out an interesting, quality product over the years that is a refreshing departure from the sickening “reality” shows and cop shows that have plagued television so much lately.

Correction: My figures were a little off: there are nearly 700 hour-long Star Trek episodes!

Monday Newsbreak: 6/23

--Several Florida Republican politicians, including Governor Crist, are reversing their previously-held opposition to oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The headline article about this issue in Sunday’s Gainesville Sun mentioned not a word about the reputed drilling in the same area, either planned or already underway, by China and Cuba. To me, it’s one thing to regulate our own companies. But if other countries, not subject to our safety and environmental regulations, can fill in the vacuum created by the eastern Gulf ban, then that is not only preventing us from producing our own energy, but it is also endangering our environment more than if we had permitted regulated exploration and drilling in the first place!

--Republican presidential candidate John McCain took his campaign northward to the steps of the Canadian capital, Ottawa, as he discussed there the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and criticized Democratic opponent Barack Obama for his reservations with that treaty. So far, no one has yet had the heart to tell the poor, misinformed Arizona senator that Canada is not part of the United States, although, perhaps if he is elected President, that may be how he treats our neighbor to the north, anyway.

--I have heard several people, including political commentator Arianna Huffington, express opposition to Barack Obama asking Hillary Clinton to join him on the ticket. I realize that, in the midst of a campaign for a party’s nomination, the different sides and their supporters naturally will tend to get a little hot under the collar about each other. That happened earlier between the McCain and Romney camps on the GOP side. But as people have a little time to chill out, more should see the advantage of having a united ticket like this. I support an Obama-Clinton ticket. If Clinton is not the VP pick, then I wish Obama would select California senator Dianne Feinstein.

--There has been an enormous amount of flooding along the northern Mississippi River, with Iowa losing a large percentage of its grain harvest this year. I wish those involved in this widespread disaster a speedy and full recovery. It appears that local, state, and federal authorities are doing what needs to be done to assist those stricken by flooding.

--I recently saw my first WNBA game, which was between the Connecticut Sun and the Seattle Storm. This was a very close and exciting game. I noticed that women’s professional basketball is just as aggressively played (if not more) as the men’s NBA. There seemed to be fewer open shots, due to tenacious defenses. I’ve come to believe more and more in the importance of passing in basketball offense. The men, to me, still have the advantage in that area (with Phoenix Suns guard Steve Nash being the master of this aspect of the game). Still, one game is just that: one game, and I’m bound to change my view of the WNBA the more I see.