Nom de plume: Rivrdog

"Battleship", the failed movie concept

A thought: why did the concept fail? An almost identical concept, "Space Battleship Yamato", has been going strong in both the sci-fi and anime genres for 38 years in Japan.

Could it be...

...that old, rehashed concepts don't fool the fans?

Wotta setta pipes!

For a 7-year old!

I wonder if she'll be able to sing at an old aviator's funeral...

Oh, and she doesn't do too bad with the National Anthem, either.

H/T to the T-Bone out in MT. Keep your wits about you, Tom, Parole & Probation is one of the most dangerous CJ jobs out there...

Oops, mea culpa

...for an oxymoron: "corrupt mayors"

ca va sans dire, as the French would say...

"Payola" 2

Most folks are not old enough to remember the original "payola" scandal. The word Payola came from "pay to play" + the maker of the-then most popular jukebox, "Rockola". Aside from home vinyl records (45 and 33 rpm, with still quite a few 78s left over), you listened on (non-stereo) radio, played records (only stereo if you were a rich kid), or dumped quarters into Rockolas to hear music. That was the music I grew up with. In that era, a pay-for-play system (Payola) first started with the jukeboxes (every cafe, restaurant and bar which wanted the under 25-crowd's money had to have a Rockola), then spread to the radio stations. If you were a new musical group starting out and you wanted to actually rise up the charts and sell vinyl, you paid to have your music played. The scandal around the pay-to-play system grew until Congress held hearings, and banned the practice.

Payola tried to make a comeback amongst the gangsta rappers of the '90s, but when they started shooting at each other, it got too visible and that practice stopped.

Now it's back, and in the worst knock of the late Steve Jobs' Apple, Inc, it's all about an I-phone and I-pad app. While you are watching the TeeVee, you have your smartass Apple gadget sitting nearby, with the Viggle app running. It listens to the sound from your speakers, and determines what you are watching, then keeps track of how many minutes you've watched. You are "rewarded" for installing the app and using it, at the rate of two reward "points" for each minute watched. After you have watched 62 hours of TeeVee and used the app to monitor it, you are sent a $5 Burger King certificate.

OK, I promised I won't go all health-nut on you, suffice it to say that those who would get excited about being rewarded with free fast fatfood will be indirectly deciding what the rest of us will watch, and that's a bad, culture-busting (waistline-busting and pall-bearer busting) idea. Just how many Ruben Studdards does the entertainment industry need?

An even worse idea is that the entertainment moguls would allow this system to install itself in their empires. I don't give a fig about "American Idol", because, despite the fact that the yearly winners have mostly had good voices, none of them sing the kind of music I like to hear. None of them.

This new system is Payola all over again, pure and simple, this time a bit different, putting the keys to music success in the hands of the fast fatfood generation, and that's a BAD thing.

Word about singing the National Anthem

I don't care who the Hell you are, what your level of fame as a singer is, there are some RULES about singing the National Anthem in public.

The Rules:

• The song has music which goes with it. Learn the music, which means learning the beat and the meter of the stanzas you are going to sing. Sing the music according to it's original beat and meter.
• The song is a hymn of praise to our Nation. Never forget that. The song is never about YOU, it is ALWAYS about the Nation. Respect the Nation by singing it properly and well, and YOU will be respected. This is the consequence of not singing it well. Do not have the production crew broadcast your image from weird angles, such as waist-level, focusing on your mouth as you hit high notes and hold them too long. Remember, the song is not about YOU.
• If you don't know how to sing the song, You Tube is full of fine singers, Madeline Edwards comes to mind, who have sung it properly. You Tube is also full of fine bands/orchestras who have played it properly, the USMC Band comes to mind.

Do it right or don't do it. It's not supposed to be a show-stopper, it's supposed to be a sincere gesture of respect for our Nation and it's values. If you don't feel that respect, on a daily basis, this old Veteran suggests you just keep silent. If you DO feel that respect on a daily basis, and have a decent voice, PRACTICE the National Anthem, many times, before you sing it in public. It is a technically-difficult piece to sing, and if you try to "wing" it, you will mess it up.

Hydrate yourself well

...because your eyes are going to de-hydrate you some while you watch this Christmas Story.

BTW, the event he spoke of in the poem, taking up a young, suddenly-orphaned girl and taking her home, that has actually happened, and I was a part of it.

I don't remember the Winter day now, it's been 25 years and I shredded all those Patrol notebooks long ago, but I was on patrol on Dog Watch (6pm-4am), and there was a terrible car crash out in the East County. Initially, I wasn't assigned, but as I listened to the dispatch calls, two patrol units went Code Three, then a Sergeant, then two Fire/First Aid companies, then the dreaded call for the Medical Examiner (Coroner) came from the crash scene.

I went about my patrol duties in my own District, but noted some interesting radio by-play about the crash call, involving passing of numbers for calls to the District Attorney, the Juvenile Court, the Children's Services Division. Eventually, I finished my shift, having gotten no closer to the call than some highway-blocking duty, for just a few minutes until a Reserve unit could relieve me.

As I turned in my shift paperwork to the Dog Watch Sergeant, I asked him about Deputy Stellato, who had gotten the original call for the crash, but had not been seen on duty, or heard on the radio since.

"He's on Family Leave" was the Sergeant's curt reply. I got curious. "Did one of his kids get sick?" I asked. "No", said the Sergeant, "he just got a new Foster child." The grizzled old Road Sergeant didn't want to talk about it, but he looked up from his stack of paper long enough for me to see HIS eyes were wet, "The couple who just died in that wreck left a little girl at home, and Stellato volunteered to foster the little girl, and it's all been handled properly."

Well, this hardened 'Nam combat vet, 8-year Road Deputy got a sudden lump in his throat. I still can't think about that night without tearing up.

Andy Stellato died this year, some sort of nervous-system disease, ALS maybe, and I went to his funeral, of course (he was a Police Academy classmate of mine). The Pastor related this vignette of his life, and most of the Deputies who were with Andy that ugly night were there to wish him Godspeed.

May God speed you about your Life on Earth, and welcome you Home when you leave it, but fear not in the meanwhile, there are always some stout men and women wearing Deputy's Stars to handle the rough stuff for you.

H/T to the Patriot Padre, who's spent some time behind a badge himself, including pulling MY bacon out of the fire on a dark night in a rough barfight.

Liturgical music

If you've ever studied music, you know that in Western Civ, there is a wealth of music that was composed to Praise the Lord. In fact, until the Renaissance, most music had that purpose, because music with other purposes (i.e., to please the ear NON-religiously) was considered a sin.

In those days, if you were gifted enough to be able to write (poetry or prose), compose music, or render images in any art form, you did your work in the Name of the Lord. When you did, you were broadly supported by the wealthy and powerful members of whatever society you were a member of. The aristocracy took it as their duty to support the arts, and by doing so, they also supported the clergy and the spreading of God's Word.

Not so much anymore. Today's liturgical music is a small niche of popular music. Christian music attempts to cover all the bases, venturing into every genre from rap to rock and roll, and I've even heard of Christian Punk (but I haven't listened to any). Some current Christian music is quite traditional, some is even historical (Gospel music which originated within groups of black slaves, for example).

It all has it's place, and today and tomorrow is the main place for it.

In Portland, we have listener-supported Classical music on FM radio and streamed on the Internet. I awoke to my Eton S360 radio some post-Medieval liturgical music this morning, and I will play it most of the day. It just suits the Holy Holiday, it seems to me.

You can listen with the Rivr Family, right here. I hope you have a decent sound system that you can connect to your computer. I only have that in my office, so I will listen to the FM presentation on my home-theater set-up (formerly known as a "stereo") on FM 89.9 mhz.

At some point during the evening today, I might even turn the TV to Oregon Public Broadcasting, which traditionally plays the Yule Log, an endless video loop of a fire in a huge wood-burning fireplace (one of the three massive central fireplaces in the central lounge of Timberline Lodge).

Liturgical music is a part of me, I used to sing it during my private school's Christmas Pageants (they don't have them now, not PeeCee to celebrate Christmas, even if you are a private school). I've listened to it forever.

Liturgical music represents the Peace on Earth and Goodwill to Men that the birth of Christ is supposed to represent. Listen to some as you prepare for your family's Christmas celebrations.

Call me a Wah-mbulance!

I'm all butt-hurt.

Ever do your best writing in a long time, on someone else's blog, making it theirs?

I just did, waaaah!

So, go here and read my sentiments on Crime and Punishment, over at Say Uncle blog. Those sentiments are in comments #15 & 17 (if #17 gets published, its awaiting moderation).

It may help to read the article that Uncle based his post on. It's a short read.

The Tinkerer & The Sword

No, this is not a D&D-inspired tale, it is straight out of the history of my family...

My late father (1906-1993) was a tinkerer. Defined here:

"3.  a person skilled in various minor kinds of mechanical work; jack-of-all-trades."

Ever since I was old enough to descend the basement stairs (we usually lived in houses with basements), I would often find him at his workbench, bringing some device or other back to useful life with his tinkering. There was the 1930s waffle iron he used until he died, for example. My Mom put up with the countless hours he spent in his workshops, probably because it kept him out from under her feet as she kept house.

Dad was a military man, of high field-grade rank all my life, anyway, so he could have afforded to do things like collect cars, play golf at swank country clubs, own a yacht, or some other pleasure of the well-off head of family of his day.

He didn't do those things. His cars became collector items, solely because he kept most of them for 25-30 years, carefully maintaining them and keeping them going, until he more or less had to give up driving when he turned 85. He never played "Pasture Pool", and although expressing interest in buying a cabin cruiser, he didn't. He saved his money, I got a third of it, and am relatively well-off myself as a result.

He tinkered, and tinkered well, too well. My Dad had an eye for well-built things, things that although old and valuable, still could be made to function.

One of those things was the Hunting Hanger. While we were stationed in England in the mid-50's, he found the sword at an antique place in Portobello Road in London (we made regular trips there, it was a great family entertainment). When he got this sword, it was in OK shape, but the pommel was dismounted, and the haft of the blade had simply been peened over the grips to make the sword stay together. It had no scabbard.

 

Dad put the sword back together, sharpened it properly to usefulness as a weapon, and "gave" it to me. It was mine, but I couldn't carry it, mainly because it lacked a scabbard, and I was just a lad, not trained in the ways of discipline and war just yet. Besides, D&D hadn't come on the scene just yet, so people with swords hung at their sashes were generally looked upon as strange.

Then, Dad tinkered together a scabbard. He made it the way they used to be made, with carefully shaved hardwood, brass mountings, and all covered with the finest glove-leather.

 

Note that I've not kept the brass polished, nor the leather oiled. The sword stays in a nice, dry closet.

Now, for the rest of the story!

The sword and scabbard, fine examples of English sword-making as they are, are probably worth little. The sword is worthless because it has been tinkered back to life, not restored. The scabbard is worthless because although it represents a lot of (pre-Internet) research and hand-craftsmanship in wood, metal and leather, it is of modern construction and has no "antique" provenance.

It's priceless to me, though, because my Dad repaired the sword with his tinkering skill (and the then-recent invention of Epoxy Cement), and he built the scabbard, with it's fittings, with brass, Dremel (although his die-grinder predated anything Dremel, we would call it a Dremel today) butane torch, solder and patience, lots of patience.

I do not have that sort of patience, so I am not a Tinkerer. I repair things or Re-cycle them, but I don't tinker much back to life. That part of the family skill-set died with my Dad and his two brothers, all of them were excellent tinkerers.

Tinkering used to be a part of our culture, and it's gone now. It would take a cataclysmic societal upheaval, something to prevent manufacturing of the useful things we need to continue life, to bring it back. That could yet happen, but I probably won't live to see any possible restoration of the art of tinkering.

The Meaning of Liff

I am surprised, that as the Chief Pedant in Charge of the Internet, I haven't run across this collection of nonsense words to describe stock human responses to life situations before now. Reading the list, the words will not stick with you, but you've probably experienced a full half of all those situations listed if you're as old as Dirt like I am.

Oh, BTW, I am not a Hitchens fanboy either, Og. Hitchens did NOT attain the greatness of the great philosophers, not because he couldn't think and write as well, he could, but because unlike the great ones, he felt the need to rub less-gifted and educated mortals' faces in their own excrement, feeling secure in the knowledge, one presumes of the man, that his own shit not only didn't stink, but was actually a beneficial face-cream...

H/T to Og, who misses the title of Pedant, just barely, by actually being able to DO things with his hands...