Monthly Archives: April 2008

History of Me, Part I

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Didn’t you say you wanted to know my personal history? No?

Ah. Bummer.

Well, here it is anyway.

I was hatched at the brand new Zion-Benton Memorial Hospital in Zion, Illinois, on 25 August, 1959. This is the only picture I could find of the place on the whole big wide huge internet. It’s from a picture post-card, saying, “Welcome to Zion!” [Why a hospital would be on a picture post-card is beyond me. Come to Zion! Stay in the hospital!] Anyway…the facility was built in 1958, sold in 1975, and totally remodeled into one of the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Cool.

Zion sits at the halfway point between Milwaukee and Chicago, on the Lake Michigan shore, about 45 miles from each city. Just north of Zion, right on the Wisconsin border (although not pictured on this map) is Winthrop Harbor, where both sets of my grandparents lived.

The city of Zion (pop. 22,000, give or take) was founded in 1901 by religious wackjob John Dowie. I mean, the guy was a nut. Really. Many of the streets still have their original biblical names. My Grandma Johnson once lived on Hebron Avenue, and my Grandma Fielder on Gallilee (they both later moved to the Harbor).

Zion is famous for hosting the nation’s first 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant. Two reactors were built; the place powered all of Chicago and a good part of northern Illinois. One day, a technician accidentally shut down one of the 2 reactors, and started it back up without performing the required safety procedures. Big hoo-ha ensued, and angry words were spoken. Eventually, the whole place was shut down due to the age of the reactors.

Here is a photo of the power plant a couple of years before the government shut it down. Reminds one of Alcatraz. Ick.

I remember going to Illinois Beach State Park for picnics in the summer. We didn’t go too often, as I remember; my mom didn’t like the sun (y’all think I’m pale as a ghost?), and dads just didn’t take their daughters for a fun day at the beach because they had to work all day, so…

That’s all for now. More on the history of me another day. Maybe the Indians will win today and I’ll feel more like writing.

Probably not.

Fink out!

IAJE, R.I.P.

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Got an email last night that shook me up.

Dear IAJE Family,

It is with a great sense of loss that I inform you that despite drastic efforts to cut expenses and raise emergency funds, the IAJE Board has voted to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 of the Federal Bankruptcy Law…

The International Association for Jazz Education (formerly National AJE) has been around for as long as I can remember. Forty years, actually. Turns out, if this guy’s scathing blog post and others are right, people like me have been taken for fools for a long time. What have they been doing with my money?

I remember receiving a very short email back in January, from the IAJE board president, saying that Executive Director Bill McFarlin was stepping down, effective immediately. It was strange…no explanation, no nothing. Just, “He’s leaving, and we thank him for his many years of blah blah…”

Well, if the Open Sky Jazz guy is correct in his blog, McFarlin saw the handwriting on the wall. Years of excess and unchecked spending all backed up into what was a huge overdue bill to be paid. He jumped the Titanic before it sank, even though it was probably McFarlin himself who put the iceberg in the water.

I hope they’re all wrong about him, but it won’t much matter in the final analysis. IAJE is gone. Dead. There’s already a movement afoot to get it started again, but I am going to make my voice heard:

  • NO more “international” inclusion, at least for now – it’s taking on the whole world and there isn’t enough money for it. Over-diversification has killed many a business, and this was no exception. Start small, then build wisely.
  • Do NOT put jazz musicians in the position of business leadership! Unless they’re already CFOs of their own companies, get them the heck out of the comptroller’s office.
  • Ix-nay on the flamboyant, overdone, glitzy conferences at swanky hotels, where you pay $100 for the privilege of having hors d’ oeuvres with the board of directors. In fact, forget conferences altogether for awhile. Instead, get the jazz into the SCHOOLS. Hello — that was the initial purpose of IAJE anyhow.

*sigh*

What a bummer. Sad news indeed. It’s like losing a beloved uncle, and then finding out he was secretly a bank robber.

At least there’s Dunkin’ Donuts coffee this morning. I love Saturdays…

Fink out.

Top Ten TV Shows

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I don’t watch much television nowadays. With school, shows, family stuff and my Boston U. classes, it’s too crazy. I’m lucky if I get to look at a movie once in awhile or sit down on a weekend to watch the Indians lose.

So, most of these shows–actually, all but one– are no longer with us, which is a shame for sure. I’ve linked all the titles so you can read more about them if you like.

Top Ten TV Shows, According to Me

10. Quantum Leap. Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) time-travels from place to place in history, trying to set right the things that go wrong. However, as he is trapped in an endless journey, he always hopes that the next “leap” he makes is the leap home.

9. Dark Shadows. I liked both the original series from the sixties as well as the revival show in the early nineties. I remember being in 3rd grade, and my sister and I would make sure to be inside at 3:30 every day to watch Barnabas Collins (which I thought was cool because Collins was my name, too) bite people and scare us to death.

8. F Troop. Absolute silliness, but I loved it as a kid. I wanted to be funny like Larry Storch.

7. Hogan’s Heroes. My dad loved this series, too. The gruesome murder of Bob Crane, who played Colonel Hogan, is one of Hollywood’s unsolved mysteries. [He was bludgeoned to death inside an apartment in Arizona in 1978. Ugh.]

6. St. Elsewhere. Great doctor “dramedy” about the craziness inside a fictitious Boston hospital. It had a serious side too, but hey, when Howie Mandel is on staff (he played Dr. Wayne Fiscus), what can you expect? I never missed an episode, although I — along with a nation of other shocked viewers — stared in disbelief at the series finale ending. Whoa.

5. Dallas. The unquestionable drama series king of the 80s. [I always knew Kristin did it.]

4. Knots Landing. A Dallas spin-off that typified the 1980s. Full of excess and selfish pleasure, throwing caution (and silly things like honesty, obeying the law, and fidelity) to the wind. It was a guilty indulgence for housewives, and I lapped it up.

3. Heroes. Premiere of Season Three is 15 September. Can’t wait.

2. Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. I absolutely refused to watch this show alone, or in the dark. The theme song, played behind a montage of truly creepy, violent-looking paintings, was enough to get the freakout started. There were very few special effects outside of make-up; all the torture happened in your own mind. It was simultaneously hideous and thrilling. I rarely missed an episode.

1. The 4400. I was truly depressed when this show was canceled, because it was successful and had good stories (ok, and Joel Gretsch is dreamy). A large effort to get the show back on the air is underway, but who knows….stupid USA Network anyhow.

Top Ten Week was fun. I think I’ll do it again sometime.

Pax,

RF

Top Ten Musicals

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The hard part about this list is not narrowing down the number of my fave musicals, but putting them in order. I don’t have a lot of “favorite” Broadway shows. It’s actually a very small collection.

Top Ten Broadway Musicals, According to Me

10. The Sound of Music – Rodgers & Hammerstein. I was Maria in my high school production. That’s why this gets the #10 spot. (Ok, that, and Gabe likes it, and I want to humor him.)

9. Godspell – Stephen Schwartz. For a sixties musical with then-contemporary songs, it never sounds dated. Love it.

8. Forever Plaid – A huge favorite ever since I saw my nephew, Jason, play Sparky in a professional production in North Carolina back in 2002. Awesome old standards, sung in tight 4-part harmony. And don’t forget hilarious.

7. Les Misérables – Schoenberg & Boublil. Beautifully written and staged, it had a long run on Broadway. Saw it three times. I haven’t seen the movie version, though.

6. West Side Story – Leonard Bernstein & Stephen Sondheim. Based loosely on Romeo and Juliet, this was the first musical I ever saw that did not have a happy ending. The music is gorgeous, and not for weak singers.

5. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers – Gene DePaul, Johnny Mercer & Al Kasha. The songs are wonderful and the movie is a delight; two years ago, I music-directed the stage version. Most fun I ever had directing a show.

4. Funny Girl – Jule Styne, Bob Merrill. Ok, so I had the lead in this one in high school, too. Most fun I ever had acting in a show.

3. Singin’ in the Rain – Herb Brown & Arthur Freed. Best movie musical, period. Ever.

2. Phantom of the Opera – Andrew Lloyd Webber. Yeah, I know. All the theater snobs are saying, “Ew…how 1986.” Go ahead. And choke on your sashimi while you’re at it. But for me to see a show on Broadway, in Toronto (with Colm Wilkinson as the phantom) and Cleveland for a total of eight times and still bawl all the way through the second act….that’s some powerful music. I will always love it.

1. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street – Stephen Sondheim. I never liked the Broadway stage version soundtracks. Too much wobbly-opera-singer vibrato. The songs sounded way too melodramatic for my taste. But the 2007 movie….well, you know all about that.

Top Ten Books

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I’ve read so many books over the years, there’s no way I could remember them all.

But certain titles stand out over nigh these many decades. The following list is by no means complete – for instance, all the fabulous juvenile fiction I like to read (Artemis Fowl, the Pendragon series, etc.) is not included – but it’s a good representation. Bet you’ve read some of these, too.

Top Ten Books, According to Me

10. The Odyssey – Homer. Yes, Virginia, you can enjoy a book that was written in 800 BC. Here is an entertaining version in which all 24 chapters are reduced to one paragraph each. Funny.

9. The Cry and the Covenant – Morton Thompson. A novel based on the true story of Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor who was ridiculed and shunned by his colleagues for claiming that women and their babies were dying of fever after childbirth because doctors didn’t wash their hands. After handling infectious sores and wounds of other patients and the innards of rotting cadavers, European physicians would simply wipe their hands on their lab coats, then go to the maternity ward to do pelvic examinations on laboring moms. It’s a truly sad story of a dedicated doctor whose unrewarded work in the area of germ theory later made Joseph Lister a very rich man.

8. The Man in the Iron Mask – Alexandre Dumas. Fascinating and horrifying tale of revenge and love by the author of The Three Musketeers. Empathy queen that I am, I had a horrible time wrapping my brain around the idea of being ruthlessly framed, having a cast iron mask bolted to my face, and dragged to a secluded prison to rot, while my twin took my place in real life. Icky. A cruel, uncomfortable premise, but the ending is brilliant and worth the suffering.

7. The Vampire Lestat – Anne Rice. One of the best books of the “Tales of the Vampires” series, the first of which was Interview With the Vampire (made into a movie starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt back in the 90s). I like her writing style; her descriptions about old New Orleans make you feel you know the place. And I do so love the vampire experience…

6. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee – Dee Brown.

5. The Stand – Stephen King. I own every one of his books, and this is one of the best. “Randall Flagg” makes a huge appearance in this one, as he does to a lesser degree in many other King books. [Hmmm…Randall Flagg, Rat Fink. Coincidence?]

4. Dracula – Bram Stoker. I think I’ve read it four times since the seventies. It’s the vampire thing again.

3. Chronicles of Narnia – C. S. Lewis. Awesome series of beautifully written fantasy that every man, woman and kid should read. Incomparable.

2. Harry Potter series – J. K. Rowling. Loved them all. Still can’t convince Kay to read them, though. Stick-in-the-mud, she is.

1. The Dark Tower series – Stephen King. Best read ever, hands down. Someday soon, I’ll start at the beginning again.

If you haven’t read any of these, get thee to the library or local Barnes and Noble. Or borrow from me.

It’s Wednesday – 2 more days until the weekend! (What am I so chirpy about? I have homework all weekend. Sheesh.)

Frieden und Liebe,

Book Fink