Miscellany

Best trivia questions: What, other than music, did Bob Dylan and Ethel Merman have in common? (Hint: she wasn’t jewish), What did Jack Benny and (football great) Otto Graham have in common? (By the way Graham was not “the Dutchman”, that was Norm Van Brocklin), Bear with me please–Who were the Aryans involved in WWII? (NOT the f—ing Germans (sorry, getting better) as it turns out). Answers at bottom.

Some favorite operettas: The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore (these guys the beginning of British Humor?), Die Fledermaus, The Merry Widow (check out the movie with Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier), Orphee aux enfers (check out Moulin Rouge (‘52), lots of Can-Can, and one of my favorite short men (not W. Allen).

A conspiracy theory anyway that really happened: Bless You Dorothy Kilgallen!!! You figured it out, unfortunately got killed just before going to print, for having figured it out (JFK assassination). You were also my favorite panelist on “What’s My Line”–great show—multitude of YouTubes. Thank you.

Best scriptures, true, not in the Bible: God helps those who help themselves, God works in mysterious ways, Teach your tongue to say “I don’t know” (a proverb. Another:) Every day of your life do these three things: laugh, think, and cry, joyfully or otherwise, (another:) God loves all His creatures, and even likes quite a few, (another:) Good things come to those who (exhaust every possible endeavor, solution, response…) and wait, (another:) Moderation In All Things, especially moderation…

Favorite Linguists: McWhorter, Chomsky, Mark and Aven from “The Endless Knot” podcast, Venneman (a crackpot?–maybe. But interesting.) Note: the difference–We say “a”ut, Canadians say “o”ut.–Really.

Satan’s favorite hobbies: 1) Starting wars, 2) Persecuting the Jews, 3) Getting the mentally ill to freak out over the book of Revelation.

Best revisions of old sayings: Dogs NEVER lie, whether sleeping or not, Dead dogs wag no tails (sorry), Heroin is the opiate of the masses, Absolute incorruption empowers absolutely.

Some really good otherwise not in the website TV episodes: Buffy (Becoming Part 2) must kill (?) Angel. I think he becomes Good Angel just before the fatal blow. I’m crying as I write this. Anyway she does the right thing. Praise be to Buffy, The Sopranos (Made in America). We haven’t seen it yet, but the discussion vis a vis existentialism we have seen already tells me it must be AWESOME, Merlin (Excallibur) must provide Arthur a particularly good sword. We’ve just started watching this, this one my favorite so far. This show is good, but not your father’s legend, but the sword does end up in a lake (note: just saw last two episodes of season 4–this show has gone from good to great!), Jack Benny on You Bet Your Life, you can find it. Honorable mention: Eric Cartman serves some adversary chili (?) made from his parents, Bart Simpson sells his soul to Milhouse.

Who was the best yodeler: Jimmy Rogers, Hank Williams or Sheldon Cooper? Have to go with Hank but could he throat sing?

Most unbeatable sports records: Check out Connie Mack’s losses, Cy Young’s complete games.

Which Star Trek, OST or STNG? OST sometimes has crazy plots, however, it also has some of the best SciFi writers of the 60s, and many really classic plots (OST-5, STNG-0), William Shatner is a method actor. That’s where he gets in trouble. Did you know that apparently The Method comes to us through Stanislavski from a guy named Chaliapin—is there anything that guy didn’t do?, however, Kirk has a good sense of humor, Picard doesn’t, and Shatner portrays it perfectly (OST-7, STNG-0),

OST has no Reicher, lots of mano a mano for Kirk (OST-7, STNG-1), Wesley Krusher, but, Deanna Troy, no change, his mom vs. McCoy, (OST-8, STNG-1), LaForge over Scott, (OST-8, STNG-2), Data and Spock, a draw, Poker, Violin by Data, 10 Forward, Whoopie Goldberg, and especially the Holodeck, (OST-8, STNG-7), Pleasure Planet, (OST-8, STNG-8), Klingon’s, (8-9), Borg vs. “People” with 100 tentacles from Andromeda, (8-10), special effects ? Did’nt want this outcome, am I forgetting something?, should have weighted plots more?, “Q” vs. Harry Mudd?–Well, there you have it. “Life is full of disappointments …”

An interesting life: She was born 1885, her extended family owning a farm in Michigan, by 1901 was teaching school (image Little House. Her favorite anecdote: the student who upon being asked “who founded the Colony of Roanoke?” responded “The Colony of Roanoke was losted and never founded.” Married Martin Dopler in 1907, Richard Dopler born 1908. Convinced her family by 1912 to sell the farm, move south to central Florida where land was cheap, the weather nicer, and where citrus grew great in spite of the lousy soil. So they buy it, clear it, plant it, make good money, and at some point buy a very large ranch, (30,000 acres, cattle, even Brahmins, horses, even Arabians. By the way, my Mom, having largely grown up there, became a GREAT rider. I have seen old home movies, she always rode bareback, and her rear end and the horse were as one. Never any reins either (spoke to her today–she DID use a bridle. Maybe I idealized her? Something Freudian? Oh No…)), between Lake Okechoby (sp?) and The Kissimee (same problem) River, and Lake Ishtokpoga (again). In 1950 she and Marty sell the ranch and are millionairs (oh well I give up on spelling–But a lot of money in those days). In 1985 We all go to her hundredth. Countless progeny (had to rent a hall. Chopin’s third scherzo (c-sharp minor performed by me–could be worse). She is in fact my Great Grandmother Nettie on my Mom’s side. Anyway, when Ma, last year, moved to a facility in Los Alamos (our youngest brother and his family live there), she gave away all her possessions. I think I got the best of it: a very old picture album of her ancestors and a wonderful photo of a large family, newly arrived, in front of their tent on Wertz Point, Crooked Lake, the men in back then the ladies including Nettie, then the kids including Grandpa Richard, 4 years old, then the dogs. Behind everything, many, many pine trees.

Some more interesting lives—of friends of mine! Saber Elaydi. Born in Palestine, finds himself in Egypt in ‘57, his home town having been wiped off the map. Manages to get a BS (?) in math from the university of Cairo, somehow gets over here, a sponsor?, and gets a PhD in math, somewhere. All I know is that there was a LOT of dish-washing involved. Gets a good job at UCCS, Colorado Springs, where I meet him. He’s in charge of TAs and I want to be a TA. Now you’ll get an example of his remarkable, very strong, perhaps a bit confrontational personality: So there I am in my first class, at the board, trying to solve the students’ problems, when I hear a loud voice from the side saying “do you guys buy that?” He has snuck in. None of them respond, fortunately neither do I. So he gets up and before leaving tells them “He is the cream!, the cream of the cream!” Later he is chosen by both me and my favorite other grad student, Ann Cushman, to be our advisors for our masters theses. When I tell her the above story, she says calmly, “If he had done that to me, I would have killed him.” And I think, knowing her, she very well might have.

The Wassermans, a jewish family in Poland, produce a son, Irving, and send him through law school at the University of Cracow. They then, as well, no doubt, as many of their neighbors, become concerned with what’s happening in Germany. They decide to send Irving to England or France, out of the way (?), and maybe he can help them all to get there. Polish law won’t do him a great deal of good there but he’s also a good pianist, maybe he can teach? First stop: Vienna. Apparently (I actually believe these:) he goes to an Arnold Schoenberg for further instruction, and maybe any help getting elsewhere, does Mr. Schoenberg know people in Paris, London? Schoenberg befriends Wasserman. Turns out Arnold is not your typical great composer, he’s thin skinned, one must be careful not to get under that skin. He has a son whom he is inordinately fond of—best tennis player in his class. Irving also runs into Anton Berg, composer of Wozzeck, a piece Irving is very fond of later, talks about a lot. It’s also my favorite atonal piec– a little atonality in my stuff too. Well, Schoenberg gets Irving to someone at Julliard, clear over here, from thence to USU, Logan, Utah, where I meet him. He’s head of the music dept., considered best piano teacher in Utah, which has something to do with me going there. He takes a shine to me, gives me a score of Symphonie Fantastique (sp?). Once when a daughter is visiting from the Bay Area (from whence older brother Richard, myself, and younger brother Jay all hail, he has her bring me some sourdough which I adore. Can’t relate the fate of his original family—don’t know.

Oh well, you’re probably wondering who this ubiquitous Chaliapin (pronounced more like Shal-YA-pin) guy was. Well, he had an interesting life too, so, Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin, Russian peasant, born in Kazan, 1873. Loved visiting the annual fairs in—well, a place that under the Soviets was called Gorky. In his time, as now, it’s something hard to write. Anyway that’s where he meets Maxim Gorky who later writes his autobiography. Chaliapin is poor, but big and strong, and with a good singing voice, potentially anyways. Anyways he sometimes pulls barges up the Volga, and later will make an awesome arrangement of “Song of the Volga boat-men”. Robeson uses same arrangement, but taken down a bit. He gets a job in a small traveling “opera company” (they sometimes are detained by Cossacks who want to make sure they aren’t interfering with their crops). In Tblisi (sp?), a voice teacher offers him some rubles a month for him to teach him. Nothing altruistic, I think, here, but this guy wants to be associated with Chaliapin, whom he suspects is going places. Well, he is right. By the late 1890s our Feodor Ivanovich is primo basso in Moscow. Starts acting strangely: when the Tzar shows up once everybody in the theater bows, except Chaliapin, he starts giving free concerts for workers, he records The Song of the Flea over and over. He becomes a Revered Artist under the Soviets, then escapes to France, leaving behind a wife, palatial estate and much progeny, hence the spelling Chaliapin. A week before he dies in ‘38 he makes his last recording, another The Song of the Flea, it’s good. So, he never had to live without his voice, or hear of Barbarossa. Chaliapin was probably the first and only opera singer to use “white voice” and “throat singing”.

Did get to see West Side Story. Spielberg has turned a great musical, with some problems, into a great musical drama with some comic elements. Bravi!

If You Think You Have It Bad–my litany of woes: 1) Schizo-Affective Disorder, 2) Psoriatic Arthritis, 3) 3rd Stage Kidney Failure (or Diabetes Insipidus–the result of 23 years of taking lithium–nasty stuff. Also had to give up tobacco, don’t miss it now (much)), 4) Peripheral Neuropathy (a lot worse than you may think), 5) Restless Leg Syndrome (likewise), 6) Plaque (Skin) Psoriasis, 7) Digestion Problems In General, 8) Short-Term Memory Loss (Dementia?–oh no!), 9) Bursitis, 10) Hemmorhoids (sp?), 11) Hallitosis (sp?), 12–Used to have Alcoholism (’92-’22), almost died essentially from that about 2 months ago (sodium down to practically zero, electrolytes way high, blood in catheter, took three nurses to get me to the restroom–arthritis, general weakness, AND Scabbies–TERRIBLE–wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy), then quit alcohol entirely, with much help from my brother and the Lord. EXTREMELY hard, but now feel MUCH better and am getting STRONGER, and am walking 1 – 1.5 MILES every day. Oops–almost forgot–13) Dandruff. God gave me this life, and didn’t want me to waste it, and I obliged Him, perhaps a bit too much. Now I’m afraid, He’s turned my body over to Satan. Well, what you gonna do?

Best church:  The Church of Sandy.

I was Catholic (though never baptized) from ’82-’89, though I preferred spending easters (late night saturdays really) with the Greeks. From ’90-’91 I was Methodist (they paid me to sing with them).  In ’92, upon retreating back to Colorado Springs, I joined Sandy’s Church: Sandy, myself and Rich.  Whenever he had something for her (she LOVED marijuana, tolerated crystal and crack) we’d get together for worship.  I was always wary of drugs, stuck to beer, coffee, and tobacco (stogies preferably.  We’d get our buts at the mall, I preferred stogie buts, but tolerated cigarettes when stogies unavailable.)  It was there that I was finally baptized, in beer.  Bible study and prayer were supplemented by D&D (Rich was a dungeon-master), and…well I guess that was it. Sandy, our teacher, was admittedly moody.  She’d sometimes say things like: “If you guys get to heaven, I want to go to hell”.  She didn’t mean it, I guess, and if she has ended up there, she’s the only one there with jesus in her heart.  I’m not worried. (Once when I gave Sandy $400 of my precious rent rebate, she called me the next day and broke up. For the next 6 weeks, whenever I would encounter her on the street, she would laugh at me.) Second best: Jedi.

Next week: The Reformed Church of Sandy.

Worst Nobel Prize for Literature: Goedel, Escher, Bach–no, there was no Eternal Golden Thread there.

Best Nobel Prize for Literature: I think you’re reading it. Just wondering: would Jesus have won it, or Matthew, Mark, Luke or John?

Favorite Restaurants: Kan’s, San Francisco, Grant Street. My Dad once saw Danny Kay there, the Olympia, Central Ave. (Route 66), Albuquerque, across from the university. If your lucky you can get beef stew on orzo there. Mmmmmmmmmmm, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, KFC.

On Eating with Sandy Padilla: a typical (day) meal: 6 quarts beer, 2 gyro sandwiches, 1 potted meat sandwich, 5 stuffed grape leaves, 3 pieces baklava. Once, for thanksgiving she prepared a turkey leg with chopped vegetables, and put it in the oven. Unfortunately we both then went to bed (passed out). Fortunately, when I woke up it was perfectly cooked. (!!!). A habit of Sandy’s which really annoyed me: when we’d panhandle outside a restaurant (McDonald’s, KFC, Wendy’s, Quizno’s, etc.) she would immediately want to waste the proceeds on their food. being a good citizen, I would follow suit–net gain 0.

Hardest book of the bible: Revelation. Solving revelation (figuring it out) is like solving Schroedinger’s equation, which I don’t think has yet been solved generally–just in certain special cases. A physics guy once told me that if I could generally solve that equation, he could produce time travel. I think he was puling my leg…(?)

Best Monty Python: Holy Grail, Life of Brian (watched this one in Berlin once, “Das Leben des Brians”–nobody laughed but me–they don’t get English humor), Meaning of Life (My friend Donna Tannehill thought this one the best, but she was a bit of a nympho…) For straight-face–Eric Idle–How did he do it??????????????

Best sex partner: Trevanian Shibumi Nicholai Hel–unbeatable.

Best Surgeon: my urologist (his name escapes me). I was recently in for prostate surgery. Apparently he also vasectomized me. Two surgeries for the price of one…

Best part of website: Miscellany

Near Death experiences: 1) attempted suicide (see: all over) 2) three large men in the dayroom, gallery apts., c. ’97, Eugene Peters held me by the throat up against the wall, kept saying “don’t push me!!!”. I kept saying “who’s pushing who???”–had I been braver, I would have used “whom”, my friend Stanley (?) talked him out of it. Incidentally, I once talked Eugene out of hitting, (and probably killing), a woman there–instant karma? 3) In the hospital here about four months ago: see Litany of Woes, etc., above.

Best cheap pizza: Domino’s–the crust sucks, but the sauce kicks ass.

Best Beatles songs: 1) Hey Jude–long coda, but works, 2) Revolution, 3) Paperback Writer, 4) Ticket to Ride, 5) Help! 6) She Loves You, 7) Eleanor Rigby (ending could be better construed), 8) Come together (correct order–I think–Harrison, Starr, Lennon, McCartney. Can you believe this song was inspired by a Chuck Berry song?–true. 9) Song with: “BeeBop, BeeBop, Yeah!!!” 10) Norwegian Wood, 11) All You Need is LOVE (their metrically most interesting),…

Most ambivalent joke: (is it a Good joke, a Bad joke???): “Why do Right-Wingers have such bad senses of humor?–Because they’re so dumb.”

Trivia answers: SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bob Zimmerman and Ethel Zimmerman started out with the same last name, Jack Benny’s first violin teacher was Otto Graham’s dad, The Indo-Europeans were not all “Aryans”, it was only the ones who broke off to end up in Iran and north India who were (referred to themselves as) Aryans. In fact the name Iran comes from that name. So: The Gypsies, 2,000,000 of which, I think, were tortured to death—check it out—I mean about their origins, and the north Indians who fought for Britain.