Tarzan

Tarzan was one of my favorite fictional characters growing up. I loved Tarzan movies, then watched the Tarzan TV show that ran from 1966 to 1968. Then read some of the Edgar Rice Burroughs books in the early 1970's. Never did watch any of the later animated TV shows.

Probably the first Tarzan movie I saw was the 1959 version of Tarzan the Ape Man which I saw at a Saturday matinee at the New Lyric Theater in our neighborhood. I remember that movie in every detail.

Later I would see most if not all of the earlier Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movies on TV in the mid sixties that were made between 1932 and 1948. Then the other ones made with Lex Baxter 1949 and 1953. After that Gordon Scott played Tarzan several times/

And then there was my first Tarzan... Denny Miller.  Not so good but it was all thrilling to me at the time. He only played Tarzan once but it was the first time I saw Tarzan on the silver screen. In hindsight it was really bad. Here is a funny summary of the movie from IMBd...

This movie has little connection with the 1932 original. It does, however, have lifted footage (tinted to more-or-less match the color), including obvious footage of Weissmuller's vine-swinging. Miller is not once called Tarzan in the movie, and his yell is also lifted Weissmuller. The elephants who wreck the pygmy village are lifted/tinted from the original, but the "pygmies" (real in the original) were kids from Fairfax High School in Los Angeles. Costumes are left over from "King Solomon's Mines" so that more stock footage could be lifted. And the crocodile fight is taken from "Tarzan and his Mate"

-Ed Stephen

The Flintstones

One of my favorite shows as a kid was The Flintstones which first came out in the fall of 1960 when I was just about to turn 9 years old. The show would run until 1966 and then of course in reruns for decades. It was a wonderfully funny animated family sitcom that was set in the stone age past but with all the modern conveniences, social situations and everyday concerns. It was the first animated series in prime time on television. So this show came to television 60 years ago this month.

This show was a big hit in our house. We all loved it and just laughed at their stone age antics and their stuff like the stone furniture, going bowling, and their cars powered by their feet. It was all just so crazy. We watched it all the time and because of the younger kids in the house it was always on into my teenage years. 

A couple of years later in 1962 there was a spinoff of sorts with The Jetsons which was the same animated family sitcom concept but this time set in the future.

We watched The Jetsons all the time too.

Gumby

Our Gumby and Blockhead figures have been very popular with our grandkids these past couple of years. Clara has been very excited about Gumby in particular and wants him to be around constantly. When she is at our house she wants to play with him and when she is home and is on the video phone with us she wants to see him.

I've also been using Gumby and Blockheads as props in a series of beer pics in the kitchen and photos of albums in my Vinyl Spins series on the 3rd floor. I've posted a lot of those pics on Facebook and Instagram and Gumby is very popular and has generated a lot of comments.

We got these figures when our kids were little and I know there is also a Pokey figure somewhere in the house probably in a box somewhere.

A few months ago I looked online to see if the Gumby show was streaming anywhere and discovered there was a recent promotion of Gumby on Amazon Prime for the original first run series starting in 1956. I sat the kids down, fired up Amazon Prime and started the first episode of season one when Gumby goes to the Moon. It was a little scary for them. We watched another show from later in the season and the kids loved it.

However, the show certainly was of it's time in the 1950's and there was serious amount of fear and anxiety running through both episodes we watched. It kind of reminded me of the duck and cover drills we had in school at the time.

Added: Recently Ashley and Sean got Stella a Gumby dog toy for Christmas but Clara claimed it for her own.

Alfred Hitchcock

Long before I saw any of his films I was very familiar with the Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV series that ran from 1955 to 1962. It was on every week in our home. Over the years I probably saw every episode.

I just looked back on a few and they were all familiar with many of the most famous actors of the day. All the stories were creepy too. Maybe I should go back and watch old episodes of this show during the upcoming pandemic winter.

I stared my writing about Alfred Hitchcock with The Birds as part of my series of matinee movies and which I saw when it first came out in 1963.

Later I would try to watch any Hitchcock movie out there and there were plenty of them. How could I pick a favorite? The first one that always comes to mind for me is Rear Window and probably followed by North By Northwest but the list goes on and on. He was also quite the character and like so many others I liked to try to spot his cameo appearances in his films. Hitchcock walking across the street or getting off a bus. He was always there somewhere.

I was amazed to discover how many films he actually made and how far back they went. Some of his early films like The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes are ranked among the greatest British films of the 20th century. 

Some of my own favorite Hitchcock films:

• The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1934
• The 39 Steps, 1935
• Sabotage, 1936
• The Lady Vanishes, 1938
• Rebecca, 1940
• Suspicion, 1941
• Shadow of a  Doubt, 1943
• Spellbound, 1945
• Notorious, 1946
• Rope, 1948
• Strangers on a Train, 1951
• Dial M for Murder, 1954
• Rear Window, 1954
• To Catch a Thief, 1955
• The Trouble With Harry, 1955
• The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1956
• The Wrong Man, 1956
• Vertigo, 1958
• North by Northwest, 1959
• Psycho, 1960
• The Birds, 1963
• Marnie, 1964
• Torn Curtain, 1966
• Topaz, 1969
• Frenzy, 1972

Wow, what a fantastic list. I would love to have my own Hitchcock Festival this winter and also include some of the TV shows too.

RBG & The Capitol

I found it to be shocking that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the first woman with a funeral and to lie in state in our nation's Capitol Building Rotunda. No other woman in the history of America was given this honor that has been bestowed on so many of our government leaders. Really?

Comments and Racism

 

I've always liked to read what other people thought about issues. I would read letters to the editor in newspapers every day and also read the letters in various magazine.

When the Internet first came along I read what people said in various newsgroups and on the freenet. Now I read the comments following stories posted to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram among others.

This has also coincided with the election of the first black person as president in 2008 that opened the floodgates for every racist in America to spew hate and it has only gotten worse since the election of Trump.

I have found it shocking just how racists people really are on social media. It's like they now have the opportunity and drive to rant about their racism and how much they are not a racist while constantly making racists comments.

Joan Armatrading

We were listening to Joan Armatrading singing Love and Affection today and were reminded of the first time we had heard anything by her which was actually in a movie theater. It was in the fall of 1976 and Becky and I went to a movie. I don't remember the movie but I vividly remember that before the movie came on there was a short promotional video on the screen of Joan Armatrading performing Love and Affection which was a song from her upcoming album being promoted. We both loved the song and shortly after seeing that clip I bought the album. This was long before MTV.

It turned out to be a wonderful record that had many amazing songs. Over the next year or so I went back and bought her previous album and then got her new albums over the years as they were released.  I think I have 15 of her albums.

She has many wonderful songs across all of those albums. Some of my other favorite songs include

• Down To Zero
• Show Some Emotion
• Rosie
• The Weakness In Me
• Me Myself and I
• I'm Lucky
• All The Way From America
• I Love It When You Call Me Names

And so many more...

The following clip is the promotional video we saw in the movie theater in 1976.

Keeping Busy

It's been over six months since the pandemic shutdown began and it has certainly taken its toll on everyone. For us it hasn't been as bad as other folks since we are retired. It intensified some of the retirement experiences and eliminated other things we had been doing like going to restaurants and traveling. We also miss being able to see our children and grandchildren as much as we would like although we did spend some time with them this summer.

I've spending a lot of time sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop. I was getting neck and back aches and eventually moved one of our comfortable desk chairs down to the kitchen which has improved ability to sit at the computer for long periods of time.

The kitchen has always been an important room in our home. I didn't want to go up to one of the upstairs rooms with a desk and chair to spend time at the computer. I wanted to be in that room that has been so central to our life. Sometimes Becky is in the other room watching a movie while I'm in the kitchen working on mixes, listening to music, or writing. The only thing I don't do in the kitchen is read and for that I have a nice comfortable chair in the living room. Of course I also read in the backyard and the front porch but for the coming winter I'll be in that living room chair.
 

Here are some of the things I've been doing to keep busy...

Writing blog essays on a variety of categories

Reading lots of books

Watching TV series and movies

Playing long concerts on YouTube
Work around the house and in the yard

Listening to music

Making mega mixes

Taking a walk everyday with Becky

Becky going to her studio doing art work and preparing art of her exhibition in October

Buying and selling on eBay and Etsy. Doing research on pots, dishware, etc.

Becky misses going to estate sales which she hasn't done in six months.

I have a keyboard upstairs but have not sat there and played very much since the shutdown started. I don't know why.  I played it a lot more during my first couple of retirement years but seemed to have lost interest.

Tour de France... over

It's sad not coming downstairs every morning and turning on the Tour de France. I did it every day for three weeks and it was comforting in this time of fear, chaos and uncertainty. It was nice watching the tour instead of the news. 

We didn't watch every moment of it. I was often in the other room on my laptop or doing something around the house but the Tour was on the TV. The voices were in the background. I could walk in anytime and sit down to view the race action or the wonderful scenery as it was revealed by the camera on the helicopter.  The camera action throughout the race is truly amazing. I wonder sometimes how those guys on the backs of motorcycles operate the TV cameras so efficiently while weaving in and out of the action along the race route.

There was always plenty of drama and strategy. I've been watching the race for about eight years now but it's only been the past few years that I've learned so many of the race nuances that make it so entertaining. It was a fun experience this year.

The race was postponed from its usual running time in late June early July until September because of the Covid Virus. It was interesting to see the effects of the virus on the race. All of the participants including the riders and support staff were tested several times throughout the race and wore masks when not actually riding. All the interviews were conducted with masks. It looked like almost all of the spectators wore mask and there were places along the route where the amount of people were strictly limited. 

But not always and there were some fears that fans along the route would spread the virus like this jerk with his mask down and getting close to a racer.

Tonality

Becky's art show

TONALITY

Exhibition of Works by Becky Koenig PAUSA Art House / 19 Wadsworth St, Buffalo, NY 14201
October 2 – November 28
Ticketed Viewing Times: Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays 5- 6pm
See: www.pausaarthouse.com

An exhibition of recent works at Pausa Art House. For everyone's safety there will not be an opening reception. The exhibition can been seen during ticketed hours 5- 6pm on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays for the duration of the show. Tickets will be available on pausaarthouse.com .

If you go to Pausa for dinner, you can view exhibit from your table following Covid guidelines.

There will be an artist's gallery talk available online after the opening date.

The Notorious RBG

 

The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg has shocked the nation.  We could all see it coming but we had hoped she could hold off until after the election but that wasn't to be.

We also always knew that the Republicans would do anything and everything in their power to fill her seat with a conservative pick. It was inevitable and it will happen regardless of whatever the Democrats try to do to stop it. Sadly this is the world of America in 2020. 

Paul Auster

Another author on my GoodReads book list with 10 books of his that I've read. The first one was Moon Palace in 2005. I read six of his books in a two year period. He is definitely one of my favorite authors.

There are a few of his books I've missed and should go back and read.

Books I've read by Paul Auster

Moon Palace, 1987 - May 2005

Oracle Night, 1989 - Jun 2005
The New York Trilogy, 1987 - Jul 2005
Brooklyn Follies, 2005 - Apr 2006

The Book of Illusions, 2002 - Jun 2006

Mr. Vertigo, 1994 - Jul 2006

Travels In The Scriptorium, 2006 - Feb 2008

Man In The Dark, 2008 - Sep 2008
Sunset Park, 2010 - Dec 2010

4 3 2 1, 2017 - Apr 2017

Downplay

 

The Fox Virus

It has become increasingly apparent that the real deadly virus attacking our nation is the misinformation campaign from the Fox propaganda network.

The Fox network and the president himself are directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans because of their misinformation and lies. 

While they like to call the disease the China Virus or the Kung Flu. Over the past several months I've referred to it as the Trump Virus because of the inept mishandling of the pandemic by the Trump Administration but I've started calling it the Fox Virus or the Fox Flu because of their contribution to the spread of the pandemic.

It's shocking that there are so many people who get all their information from Fox. People living in a bubble that reinforces all of their own hate and bigotry. It really is sad.

We know there have always been people like that all throughout American history but the modern media and the internet has put so many of these people into constant contact with each other. It is also scary.

I take a look at Fox every day. Most of the time I don't last very long watching it because the network almost always immediately verifies what I think about their hateful rhetoric and misinformation. Their political agenda is on display at all times. Their propaganda is there for all to see. Their manipulation of their viewers is so obvious that it boggles the mind that people take this all in. 

The only thing I can think of to explain this phenomenon is that people knowing go to that network to bet their hate verified and stroked. To make themselves feel good about their bigotry and self-centered political beliefs.

The Liberty Hound

Places

Yesterday we had a late lunch early dinner on the patio of The Liberty Hound which is one of our favorite places to eat and hang out. The patio has a fantastic view of the waterfront including Canalside and the Naval Park.

The food is always good. They specialize in seafood and we had shrimp po' boys and fish tacos. The fries were excellent as usual. They also have a fine selection of mostly local craft beers on tap along with a few classics.

This was actually our first time at a local restaurant since the pandemic shut things down in March. We had been on patios a couple of times while on vacation in NY but we've stayed away from restaurants the past six months. We choose to come down there early on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon to avoid any crowds. We succeeded in that respect. There were a few other seniors on the patio when we got there but they had finished up shortly thereafter and then we had the patio to ourselves for awhile  before some young people started coming by for a happy hour drink and snack. Overall we had a wonderful time there and felt completely safe. The staff was very efficient and effective.

We've been going there regularly since they opened in 2011. I think we've only had dinner inside maybe once or twice. We always like to sit outside on the patio.  We've also stopped by at happy hour following an afternoon hanging out on the Canalside, the Erie Basin Marina or anywhere along the waterfront. We usually park nearby.

So what is a Liberty Hound? It's a Navy term that means someone who takes advantage of every minute of time off or a sailor who loves liberty more than anything else. On both of my ships the Liberty Hound was also the term given to the first person to make it to the quarter deck for liberty call in a port. There would be a Liberty Hound for the entire ship and also each department would have their own Liberty Hound. The guy who cleaned up first, got dressed and was ready to hit the beach before anyone else. The Liberty Hound.

The restaurant had a public contest to come up with a name before it opened. The Liberty Hound was the winner.

1,600 Unique Beers

I had my 1,600th unique beer checkin on my Untappd app today while having a meal on the patio at The Libery Hound, one of our favorite restaurants. The beer was a pint draft of Minkey Boodle, a raspberry sour from Thin Man Brewery in Buffalo.

I started using Untappd to track my beer tastings in 2013. I usually check in when I have a beer for the first time or it is something unusual. My first check in was Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, a double imperial stout by Dog Fish Head Brewery on June 14, 2013. 

I always check a new beer into Untappd. It is like a beer ritual for me now and has been for over seven years.

My first ten check ins on Untappd.

• Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, a double imperial stout from Dogfish Head Brewery
• Torpedo Extra IPA from Sierra Nevada Brewing
• Flower Power IPA from Ithaca Beer Company
• Dirty Bastard, a scotch ale from Founders Brewing
• Summerfest, a pilsner from Sierra Nevada Brewing
• Anchor Steam Beer from Anchor Brewing
• West Coast IPA from Green Flash Brewing
• 60 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head Brewery
• Honkers Ale, an English bitter from Goose Island Beer Co.
• A Little Sumpin' Ale, an American pale wheat beer from Lagunitas Brewing

and the list goes on and on...

Barkskins

The Book List

Barkskins by Annie Proulx, 2016

Finished reading in December 2018

I enjoyed this wide ranging novel about the land... the forest as told through a multi-generational saga of two families and their struggles with three centuries of deforestation and the economic and ecological impact of progress. It is also a fascinating and disturbing account of the fate of native peoples in this destructive environment.

The book is really a history of the forests of North America. I started reading this just after finishing another book about trees and forest, Overstory by Richard Powers.

A TV series has been made from the book. I just completed the first season. It has not be announced whether there will be any more shows. The season ended with a cliff hanging battle for the fate of almost all the characters. 

I was disappointed in the way the season ended because I like the closure of a season in multi-season series especially one like this that is from a large far ranging book. At the rate of the first season then this series might go on for at least six seasons to cover all that happens in this book over three centuries. We shall see.

James Ellroy

James Ellroy is on my list of GoodReads authors with 11 books read.

The first book of his that I read was The Black Dahlia in February 1994.

He is an incredible writer of American crime fiction. I've loved every novel of his that I've read. I also very much enjoyed his memoir My Dark Places. 

His novels are always dark but fascinating. Once I read The Black Dahila I was hooked on Ellroy.

Books by James Ellroy on my list.

• The Black Dahlia, 1987 - Feb 1994
• The Big Nowhere, 1988 - Mar 1994
• L.A. Confidential, 1990 - Apr 1994
• White Jazz, 1992 - Apr 1995
• American Tabloid, 1995 - Jun 1995
• Killer On The Road, 1986 - Jun 1996
• L.A. Noir, 1991 - Jul 1997
• The Cold Six Thousand, 2001 - Nov 2001
• My Dark Places, 1996 - Apr 2005
• Blood's A Rover, 2009 - Mar 2010
• Perfidia, 2014 - Jan 2015
• This Storm, 2019 - Sep 2019

Arthur C. Clarke

 

The Book List 1970-2020

My GoodReads stats has Arthur C. Clarke on the list with 11 books of his that I've read. Actually there should be more.

We all associate Arthur C. Clarke with the movie 2001:  A Space Odyssey which he co-wrote the screenplay for in 1968 which became one of the most influential films of all time. He was already known as the Prophet of the Space Age. He wrote a companion novel based on the screenplay of the film and also on an earlier short story. The novel expanded on the screenplay and he would go on to write several more books on what would be a Space Odyssey series based on 2001. 

I've read this book several times. The first was in late 1968 just after the movie came out. I read it again in August 1974.  Then another time in the mid 1990's and then again last year.

Later when the sequels came out I read the next two in the series. I see now that I missed the fourth book in the series 3001: The Final Odyssey that came out in 1997 and I need to add that to my to read list.

I saw the movie at a large downtown theater when it was released in 1968.The movie was awesome and something one would never forget. I was glad to have read the book soon after seeing the film because it answered many questions I had about what had happened. The movie was somewhat cryptic but the book explained it all. 

In 1984 I saw the sequel movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact. It was good but not a great film like it's predecessor.

In 1969 I bought the soundtrack album to the movie. It was the first album of classical music I bought myself.

However, I think my favorite book of his is Childhood's End from 1953 which I read in 1975. I've read that book several times too.

Other books of his I've read

• 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968 - Dec 1968
• Childhood's End, 1953 - Feb 1975
• Rendezvous With Rama, 1972 - Aug 1976 
• 2010: Odyssey Two, 1982 - Dec 1983
• 2061: Odyssey Three, 1987 - Nov 1988
• Rama II, 1989 - Sep 1990
• The Garden of Rama, 1991 - Apr 1992
• The Hammer of God, 1993 - July 1994
• Time's Eye, 2003 - May 2008
• Sunstorm, 2005 - May 2009
• Firstborn, 2007 - June 2009

R.I.P Toots

Toots Hibbert died this week. Toots & The Maytals was one of our favorite reggae bands. I had to go upstairs and give Funky Kingston a spin. This album was always near our turntable from 1975 on. He was a reggae pioneer and a peer of Bob Marley. I loved his soulful version of reggae and he had some interesting reggae versions of rock and folk songs. He could certainly get funky.

Later in the day I put on his very best of CD for some kitchen dinner listening.

Toots & The Maytals in my collection:

• Sweet and Dandy, 1969
• Funky Kingston, 1973
• In the Dark, 1974
• Reggae Got Soul, 1976
• Live Toots & The Maytals, 1980
• The Very Best of Toots & The Maytals, 2000
• Pressure Drop: The Definitive Collection, 2002
• True Love, 2004
• Unplugged on Strawberry Hill, 2012

Lucas Davenport

 

The Book List 1970-2020

John Sandford is another author on my GoodReads list with 13 books of his that I've read. I'm also currently reading another of his books in the Lucas Davenport series so that will soon make 14. I'm sure there will be more.

John Sandford is a former crime reporter who began writing crime mystery novels heavy on police procedure. John Sandford is a pen name and his real name is John Roswell Camp. He won a Pulitzer Prize for journalism. Now he is a New York Times bestselling author.

I read the first group of his books in the Lucas Davenport series very fast. I would usually read them in less than a week. They have always been well written and fast paced. Page turners. Writes a book every year.

I look forward to reading these books and just finished another one today which now makes the total of books I've read from John Sandford at 14. I'm sure there will be more. The Lucas Davenport series is currently at 30 books so I'm not even half way through the series. There are also another related series. 

The John Sandford books I've read and when.

1. Rules of Prey,1989 - Feb 2019
2. Shadow Prey, 1990 - Feb 2019
3. Eyes of Prey, 1991 - Mar 2019
4. Silent Prey, 1992 - Apr 2019
5. Winter Prey, 1993 - Apr 2019
6. Night Prey, 1994 - May 2019
7. Mind Prey, 1995 - May 2019
8. Sudden Prey, 1996 - Jun 2019
9. Secret Prey, 1998 - Aug 2019
10. Certain Prey, 1999 - Oct 2019
11. Easy Prey, 2000 - Nov 2019
12. Chosen Prey, 2001 - Mar 2020
13. Mortal Prey, 2002 - Jun 2020
14. Naked Prey, 2003 - Sep 2020

The Basement Bottles

After we had been living in our home a few years I came across some booze in very old generic bottles stashed away in a small space way back under the floor boards in a basement workshop room. Prohibition era? I left them there and hadn’t thought about them the past couple of decades. Checked again and here they are.

Good Vibrations

 

The Beach Boys

This is a copy of some comments I made concerning a post by a friend declaring The Beach Boys as the greatest of all American bands. 

I’ve loved the Beach Boys for a long time and saw them perform in 1966, 1968, 1969 and 1970. Also much later as a washed up oldies band at minor league baseball games. In their 10 year prime they were one of the most influential American bands out there making music but I’d hesitate to call them the greatest of all time. That being said I have all of their studio albums between 1962 and 1973, their comeback album from 2012, a couple of live albums, several compilation albums, the Pet Sounds box set, the Smile Sessions box set, the Made in California box set and a few of the later Brian Wilson solos albums. I also recently read the Brian Wilson memoir. I could certainly discuss the Beach Boys all night or better yet play all their music in my collection.

I was recently in a heavy Beach Boys discussion with some friends which motivated me to put together a long mix of Beach Boys and the bands they influenced, homage songs, cover songs and songs about the California beach scene some Beach Boys fun. I put it together last week and just posted it to Spotify here... so enjoy.

Good Vibrations: A Brian Wilsonesque Playlist

Asking Directions

During out last trip overseas about a year ago this week in 2019 we were asked for directions by other people 7 times. I wrote down in my trip notebook each time someone asked us for directions while we were in Dublin, London and Edinburgh. I was doing this because we had a similar number of people ask directions while we were in London and Paris the previous year. We were amazed that people kept coming up to ask questions.

Did we look that much like natives? Confident and assured as we walked around a foreign city. We were standing in a Paris square in 2018 admiring the surroundings when an older French woman and started talking to us in French and we could tell by her voice inflection that she was asking a question. She got angry when she realized she was talking to a couple of American tourists that couldn't speak French.

Maybe this happens because we've done our homework. We researched the cities we visit and most of the time we know where we are going and how to get there. We move about with confidence and apparently it shows. This has also happened at other places. When we were in Hudson NY a couple of days for our nephew's wedding we were twice approached by people asking us directions. We had to admit we didn't know what they were talking about. Another time in NYC we were down in the subway and a family came up to us asking directions.

I guess we look like we know what we're doing and know where we're going.

FastVote Card

Today we received a FastVote card from the Erie County Board of Elections. The card gave detailed information about voting in the November 3, 2020 general election. It included information applying for an Absentee Ballot using an online form or by applying for one by mail.  The info also included all the dates needed to vote by mail.

The card gave information on the Fast Vote Process that included Early Voting at locations throughout the County. A resident may vote in any of the 37 early voting locations regardless of where you live. They suggest bringing the FastVote card with you for a faster voting experience. The Early Voting happens starting October 24th and runs through November 1st. Another nice option.

The complete list of voting sites are listed at www.elections.erie.gov

It also detailed how to vote on Election Day

Tour de France

 

Over the past week or so I've been watching the Tour de France every morning on TV. During the three weeks of the race I get up each morning and the first thing I do is turn on the TV to NBCSN and begin watching the stage of that particular day. 

This year the race was rescheduled from the usual late June and early July to the currently running tour now in September. 

I find the race to be very relaxing. I have it on but do not sit and watch the entire thing but usually go about my morning routines with the race on in the background. I sit down and watch for a few minutes at a time. We've been watching the Tour de France now for about five years.

I also enjoy the scenery which is a very important part of the tour and a big draw for fans in itself. France is beautiful and the tour goes through some very spectacular terrain and also many very picturesque towns and villages. I like that so much of the race route is covered by helicopters focusing on the countryside.

There is drama every day as the teams and individuals compete.

Agent Pendergast

The Book List 1970-2020

Another author on my GoodReads list with 13 books read.

Reading the Preston & Child horror crime mystery novels is relatively new for me. I read the first one Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, published in 1995, in August 2018. So I was late getting to read these authors. 

I did read Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston in September 2008 which I enjoyed very much but did not know at the time of his other books written with Lincoln Child.

I enjoyed Relic and went on to read more books featuring the maverick FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast. I read them fast and I'm always looking forward to reading another one which I download as e-books from the public library.

BTW, the movie version of Relic was not very well done.

I've read 12 books in the series and I know I'll read many more.

• The Monster of Florence: A True Story, 2008 - Sep 2008
• Relic, 1995 - Aug 2018
• Reliquary, 1997 - Sept 2018 
• The Cabinet of Curiosities, 2002 - Oct 2018
• Still Live With Crows, 2003 - Apr 2019
• Brimstone, 2004 - Apr 2019
• Dance of Death, 2006 - Jul 2019
• The Book of the Dead, 2006 - Jul 2019
• The Wheel of Darkness, 2007 - Sep 2019
• Cemetery Dance, 2009 - Oct 2019
• Fever Dream, 2010 - Mar 2020
• Cold Vengeance, 2011 - May 2020
• Two Graves, 2012 - Aug 2020

Sports or Lack Thereof

 

The decline of sports in my life. It started before the pandemic shutdown. Everyone is affected now but I was weening of sports for some time.

I always liked to watch games on TV and to go to games. I started out very early going to Phillies games as a kid and later watched every game or listened to them on the radio. 

I liked watching the NFL and college football, major league baseball, the NBA and college basketball, hockey and Premier League soccer. I had season tickets to the basketball games at the college where I worked and especially loved going to the March Madness tournaments when they came to Buffalo. 

I always watched the Buffalo Bills games and also the Philadelphia Eagles. I was a two city sports fan across the board. I also liked to watch the Olympics and the World Cup soccer tournament. I liked watching tennis tournaments too. The only sports I didn't watch was golf and auto racing. And professional wrestling of course.

Then I retired four years ago. Something happened and I gradually lost interest in most sports. I stopped watching professional baseball, football, basketball and hockey. I also stopped watching college football.  I would still watch college basketball but stopped going to the local games. I also haven't been to a Bisons baseball game in a few years.

Recently I was thinking about this phenomenon and wondered why I had changed. Perhaps it had to do with the need for some relaxation after a day or week of work. Sitting in front of the TV watching a game was a way to relax. Also there was the social aspect of talking about sports at work and discussing teams and games. That all ended when I retired.

Now there is no need for a special time to wind down after a day of work. I just gradually stopped paying attention to the sports world in general. Last season I watched only one Bills game completely through to the end and that was a playoff game. During the season I would maybe watch a few minutes of a game then lose interest. I would watch a few minutes of a baseball game and then move on to something else. 

I've heard of some guys who retired and then did nothing but watch games on TV.  Not me. I still like to watch soccer but it really is just something on the TV while I'm doing other things around the house. Perhaps it's because there are no commercial breaks during one of those games except at halftime.

We will see how this goes as sports starts to return after the shutdown of the pandemic where everyone has gone through sports withdraw. It really didn't bother me at all.

Vampire Chronicles

Anne Rice is an author in my GoodReads Book List 1970 - 2020 coming in with 13 books read.  I had four authors at 13 books each.

These books by Anne Rice I read during the 1990's and a couple more at the turn of the century. They were mostly from the Vampire Chronicles series but there were several from the Mayfair Witches series.  There were a few more of the vampire series in the early 00's that I did not read and then she started the series up again in 2014 with more books after writing a number of Christian themed novels.

I did find her vampire and witch novels fascinating and I liked the interconnected stories of the series and the travels in history.

Her books that I read

• Interview With The Vampire, 1976 - Oct 1994
• The Vampire Lestat, 1985 - Nov 1994
• The Queen of the Damned, 1988 -  Jan 1995
• The Tale of the Body Thief, 1992 - July 1995
• The Witching Hour, 1990 - Nov 1995
• Lasher, 1993 - Jan 1996
• Taltos, 1994 - Feb 1996
• Memnoch The Devil, 1995 - Jun 1996
• Servant of the Bones, 1996 - Jan, 1997
• The Vampire Armand, 1998 - Nov 1998
• Pandora, 1998 - Apr 2000
• Merrick, 2000 - Feb 2001
• Blood and Gold, 2001 - Nov 2001

James Bond

Next author on my Good Reads Book List 1970-2020 stats at 13 books. I started reading Ian Fleming’s James Bond series as a teenager in the 60’s and then reread those early ones along with a lot more in the early 1970’s while in the Navy. James Bond books were frequently traded throughout the ship while on long cruises along with Louis L’Amour westerns and Edgar Rice Burroughs adventures.

I remember as a teenager picking up James Bond books off a book rack at the drug store down the street. I was reading some of these books in the mid 1960's and a few more in the early 1970's. None since.

Of course part of the allure of reading the books was the movies showing at the time and in particular Sean Connery.  I think I saw every Bond movie in the 60's as they were released. 

The first one Dr. No was released in 1962 and I saw it up the street at our neighborhood theater.

Books in the series I read.

• From Russia With Love
• Dr. No
• Casino Royale
• Goldfinger
• Thunderball
• Diamonds Are Forever
• Live and Let Die
• Moonraker
• On Her Majesty's Secret Service
• The Spy Who Loved Me
• The Man With The Golden Gun
• For Your Eyes Only
• You Only Live Twice

A Little Beer History

Back in the day. I have a long history of drinking beer. I grew up around beer drinkers. My dad drank Esslinger Beer which was brewed in the Philadelphia area. At least that is what I remember him having around the house. He was an occasional drinker usually when his brothers were around. They would have monthly parties when we were growing up. They also drank Ortliebs that was another local beer. 

Uncle Tom, my grandmother's brother, who lived down the street drank Pabst Blue Ribbon a lot. I wonder if that is why my brother Tom was such a PBR fan back in the 70’s long before the hipsters discovered it. Many of my uncles drank Schmits beer of Philadelphia. Uncle Tom also drank Ortliebs which was also my first can of beer he slipped to me when I was up on the third floor watching a game on TV with him.

As a teenager I drank whatever we had. I remember Schilitz at some parties. I really started drinking beer in the Navy and it was lots of Budwiser and Miller on the bases at the clubs. There was also near beer at some of the bars near the  Navy bases in Virginia where my ships had their home port. When we were overseas we drank the local beers and it was my first time really exploring different beers. I particularly remember liking Fix beer in Greece and Red Stripe in the Caribbean countries. 

Later when I was back in Philly living with friends we did explore a lot of foreign beers but our regular beer seemed to be Rolling Rock and we liked the little pony bottles too. There was a good beer distributor up in Germantown Avenue in Mt Airy that we went to a lot to get something a little better. We liked checking out the British, Irish, Austrialian, Canadian, Dutch, Belgian and German beers in particular. I think one of the first pale ales I liked was John Courage Ale from John Smiths Brewery in England. We would splurge and buy a case which was very expensive for the time.

There were a few bars around town that had good beers. Taker’s Café in Mt Airy was one. Another one with lots of Irish and English beers on tap was the Kyber Pass downtown.

In 1976 I made my first of several trips to Buffalo before moving there in 1979 and had my first Molson Canadian and Labatts Blue. Another favorite at the time was Old Vienna. Later on we would go up to Toronto and get the really strong stuff.

The 1980’s was more of the same. I mostly drank Canadian beers except when I was working at the Pastime Lounge. People were always buying the DJ beers and I had made it known with the bartender that I would drink Miller while working. It was almost like drinking water after all the beers I’d been experimenting with the last decade or so. It was also around that time that I stopped drinking Bud in any form when I could help it.

Throughout the 1990’s I had stopped drinking the American factory beers. More and more local breweries had closed over the previous couple of decades and it was the era of just a few national breweries and a handful of locals. It was also a time of the first craft beers and the larger successful locals like Sam Adams Boston Lager, Sierra Nevada in California and the beers of Saranac in New York. I loved checking out new beers back then and never went back to my old ways of drinking regular familiar beers.

During the 90’s I also attended a lot of work related conferences where I got into the habit of looking for new beers to try while out and about. I spend a lot of time in San Francisco and really enjoyed lots of new beers including my first taste of Anchor Steam and Pliny the Elder double imperial IPA on tap which has it's own interesting history. I would continue exploring beer at conferences all through the 2000’s and beyond too.

I started tracking my beers using the Untappd app. Right now I'm about to log in my 1,600 unique beer.

Five or More

I recently posted  about the books I've read in GoodReads and the numbers I found for individual authors in my list. Edgar Rice Burroughs was the author I'd read the most of by far. 32 books. The number two author was more than half. 15 books read by Neil Stephenson.  Cryptomonicon was the first which I read in October 2004. I then went on to read his Baroque Cycle and the first one Quicksilver I read in January 2005. After that I went back and read some of his older science fiction novels from the 1990's and also continued over the years to read every book of his as it came out.

After Stephenson the list gets weird and goes back to my early love of Ian Fleming's Jame Bond.  Then a mid life fixation on vampires with Anne Rice. Then it was a more recent and current enjoyment of the crime mystery series of John Sandford and the duo of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. I just finished another one of their novels last week and I have another Sandford book ready to read in my library ebook hold list. So those two authors will continue to accumulate.

The list goes on and on. Fifty years of reading. Lots of science fiction and best selling thrillers. I should add that my list of books that I've read is at 1,415 and counting. Fortunately I was also counting and logging my books over the years. I originally had a notebook that I wrote down the books I read and dated the month that I finished the book. I was doing that back in the 1970's. Then some time in the 1980's I put the list into a word processing document. I added books to that online document for many years, decades actually. Then eventually I took the entire file and uploaded it to the GoodReads website and kept up my logging books there. That app also allowed me to categorize books and manipulate statistics like making the list of authors based on the number of books by each author in my list.

So here is the list... five or more books by an author from my reading list 1970 to 2020.

Edgar Rice Burroughs – 32

And then...

· Neil Stephenson – 15
· Ian Fleming – 13
· Anne Rice – 13
· Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child – 13
· John Sanford – 13
· Arthur C. Clarke – 11
· James Ellroy – 11
· Paul Auster – 10
· William Gibson – 10
· Robert A. Heinlein – 10
· Stephen King – 10
· Tom Clancy – 9
· Michael Crichton – 9
· Richard Russo – 8
· E. L. Doctorow – 8
· John Banville/Benjamin Black – 8
· Larry McMurtry – 8
· H. G. Wells – 8
· Philip Roth – 8
· James S.A. Corey – 8
· Bernard Cornwell – 8
· J. K. Rowling – 7
· Orson Scott Card – 7
· Bruce Catton – 7
· Tana French – 7
· Louis L’Amour – 7
· Mark Twain – 7
· Margaret Atwood – 6
· Rick Atkinson – 6
· Ray Bradbury – 6
· Joseph Conrad – 6
· Umberto Eco – 6
· Philip Jose Farmer – 6
· Dashiell Hammett – 6
· Frank Herbert – 6
· William Kotzwinkle – 6
· Doris Lessing – 6
· George R.R. Martin – 6
· David Mitchell – 6
· Edgar Allan Poe – 6
· John Le Carre – 6
· Kevin J. Anderson – 6
· Andrzej Sapkowski – 6
· S. M. Stirling – 6
· Jules Verne – 6
· Kurt Vonnegut – 6
· Martha Wells – 6
· Theodore H. White – 6
· Stephen E. Ambrose – 5
· John Burdett – 5
· Octavia E. Butler – 5
· Don DiLillo – 5
· Philip K. Dick – 5
· Charles Dickens – 5
· Nick Hornby – 5
· Elmore Leonard – 5
· James A. Michner – 5
· Yukio Mishima – 5
· Terry Pratchett – 5
· Jim Thompson – 5
· Barbara Tuchman – 5