P.S. A Column On Things

HWMNBN

Start of May 19 Column. More or Less Continuous News Service since 1998

P.S. A Podcast On Things: Special Edition: Me and Comics

Comic Books and Me

I just discovered something amazing. I have written about a million words in this column. I have written hundreds of pages of memoir for my family. Nowhere have I ever discussed my long and storied history with comic books. I will now rectify that omission.

Reading

Reading, now a gendered activity, was universal in the 1960s. In my working class neighborhood, every boy and girl read. I was luckier than most because my house was filled with books and magazines. For those whose houses were literature bare, that’s why God invented libraries. Personally, I read every single Science Fiction novel in the Hollywood Branch of the Multnomah County Library. Also, I read comic books.

Comic Book Effects

I think we were supposed to see ourselves as superheroes. I know I did. I frequently dreamed I could fly, but was distracted by the mundane: figuring out routes that avoided high voltage lines. I found myself mostly doing loops over the playing fields at the nearby grade school. In the dark space beneath the stairs, where Steve and I frequently played, I had a camping lantern. I had a ring containing a big green glass gem. I would press it against the lantern, and intone “In brightest day, in darkest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil’s might, beware my power, Green Lantern’s light.” I didn’t look that up on the Internet; I did it from memory and certain it is close, if not exact. I recited it about as often as a young Episcopalian repeats the Apostle’s Creed.

To Be Continued...

First Time In A While: The Surfer *****+

It has been quite a while since I gave a movie a full review. I was moved to do so by this excellent film.

This film features Nick Cage at his Nick Cagiest. But even if you aren’t a Cage completist, you should see this challenging, disturbing and thought-provoking artwork which deals with profound questions in an interesting, albeit convoluted, way. If you like to leave a film talking about its ambiguity and  intentions, Surfer is for you. You will certainly have more to talk about then after any Marvel movie..

More details on The Surfer here

Damn Shame

Stephen Michael Schindler, RIP March 8, 1954-May 21, 2020

 

Meme O' The Week: Spell Chk

DUCK DUCK GO...GO!

I always thought Duck Duck Go was a poor man’s Google. But now that HWMNBN is trying to make me a poor man (and because reduced income from Google encourages it leadership to help sink him), Duck Duck Go is my default. And, instead of a begrudging acceptance, I FIND JOYOUS ENTHUSIASM. Because unlike the “G” word, AI is OPTIONAL!!! I don’t trust AI, I don’t like the way it is stealing website traffic. And yet, if I want help from a lying, hallucinating idiot, it is just a click away. And DDG’s advertising is way less obnoxious and not based (in a creepy way) on your search history. The Revolution Will Not Be Monetized!

Yesterday, today and tomorrow

“There are two days in every week that we should not worry about, two days that should be kept free from fear and apprehension.” Yesterday and Tomorrow. Whole poem here.
—Anonymous; frequently used in 12-step programs.

Three days that I hate to see arrive
Three days that I hate to be alive
Three days filled with tears and sorrow
Yesterday, today and tomorrow
—Willie Nelson on the same subject

 

This and That

Digital exodus
A PDF brochure describing the reasons for and methods of the Digital Exodus.
...
My Life’s Work: Mostly Disappeared
My 10 million words of journalism were as evanescent as babys breath, with the shelf live of fish. UPI (18 months) and CMP publications (20 years): no trace, no archive anywhere. Oregon Journal: behind a paywall. The Tech: non-searchable PDF pages. Oh well.
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Declining birth rates: Gender makes understanding difficult
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My Quotes Page
It’s been a while since I plugged my quotes page. Reorganized, with some great quotes about love moved near the top. And don’t forget Journalism Quotes.
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Great Proofreading Advice
Nicky Mee does it again. In case you didn’t spot it, look carefully at the name of the first city. Heck, I could have missed that in proofreading.

End of May 19 Column (No. 981)

Start of May 12 Column. More or Less Continuous News Service since 1998

P.S. A Podcast On Things

Danville Band Concert

The Danville Community Band, the one in which I play tenor sax, has a concert on Sunday the 18^th at 3P.M. at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek. I’m going. Be there or be square

Where We’re Headed

Podcast

Friends and family have been suggesting I start a podcast for the last 25 years. I wasn’t sure I had anything to say. For a quarter century I have listening to other people following in my footsteps who have nothing to say. Now, I join them. As New York Times columnist Russell Baker once put it, “Broadcasting the contents of empty minds is what most of us do most of the time, and nobody more relentlessly than I.” And a special note: my nephew Paul created the AI voice which intones the aphorism at the top of the show.

Teaching and Me Part 2

I had hoped and planned to teach English in high school. But at the school my daughters went to, I found the students smug and privileged. Their interest in learning began and ended with whatever it took to get into Cal or Stanford. Grades, not learning.  It’s easy to find the faculty lot—it’s the one filled with Honda Civics. The one with the Lamborghinis is the student lot.

Plus, after three decades a journalist, I expected to be able to teach writing to high school students. My master teacher said to me, “You can write. Can you teach it?”

Chorus v. Verse

Chorus v. Verse

SF Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll used to have fun raising this question about pies: crust or filling (he, like me, thinks crust is a sideshow).

Since I became a lyricist, I have noticed that the chorus (the repeating section between verses) is the only part of a song that most people remember. Clearly, to them, the verse is like the crust.

There are probably several score versions of It Had To Be You (“our” song) that consist of the chorus (It had to be you, wonderful you). Only a handful include the lyric (Why do I do just as you say). Notorious versehound Frank Sinatra is one who sings the lyric.

There are hazards to listening to a song chorus-forward. For one thing, you miss a lot. I am currently revisiting songs from all periods of my life and am flabbergasted by the lyrics, which I am listening to for the first time. (As Sherlock Holmes almost said, “You hear, but you do not listen.”)

I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That) is a great example. In December, I said that my song, Nothing I Wouldn’t Do was an answer song, in a sense, because it was clear what I WOULD do. My friend of long standing Robert Malchman noted that what Meatloaf wouldn’t do is perfectly clear if you read the lyrics.