The Gary Files # 20: Gary Friedrich

(I found this picture on his Wikipedia page.)

An explanation: Since the name Gary is going extinct, I thought it incumbent upon me to celebrate more notable Garys than myself.  This is the twentieth of a series!

Gary Friedrich is an American comic book writer famous for his runs on Sgt. Fury & His Howling Commandos & Ghost Rider, which he co-created.  (He's probably wearing a Ghost Rider shirt above.)

When did you first become aware of him?  I read so many comics when I was a child, & loved the look of Ghost Rider, & was always a credits-reader, so I doubtless noticed his name in Marvel Comics of the 1970s.

Credits-reader?  Yeah, comics - especially, at the time, Marvel - had a box which told you who was responsible for the book - which I would read along with everything else on the page.  Here's one from Ghost Rider, which I found here:

I read that stuff religiously.

Was it cool to see your name in a comic book?  Of course!  A famous Gary!  With a last name I probably couldn't pronounce!  & not as cool as "Ploog"!

Did he become a favorite writer of yours?  Not really.  I never liked war comics, so wasn't a fan of his Sgt. Fury stuff, & I believe he left the comics world by the time I started really getting into comics as a teen.

He had to fight for a creator-credit for Ghost Rider, didn't he?  Yes, he sued Marvel & the film company around the time that the movie came out.

Did he win?  All I can find is that the parties "reached a settlement."  It probably means he got some cash.  So, sure, I guess he won.

But the second movie was a flop, right?  I don't know.  Was it?

Why are you asking me?  For fuck's sake.  I'll look it up.  Yes, it has a 4.3 on the IMDb, & 17% (!) on Rotten Tomatoes, so it wasn't a good movie.  It cost 64 mil to make & took in 55 mil in the theaters, so I guess it was a flop, but I'm sure it made it up overseas & with rentals.

Was his name really Gary?  Yes, Gary Friedrich.  No middle name listed.  Maybe he didn't have a middle name?

Do you know why he was named Gary?  Born in 1943 - it had to be because of Gary Cooper.

Self Help Radio 020216: Regret

(Original image here.)

One thing I regret about doing a show about regret is that I used the word regret way too much in a joking way all throughout the show.  I'd say, "I regret to inform you," or describe the show as "regrettable," or say things like, "I wish I hadn't done that."  I probably killed that joke within the first two times I said it, & then I just kicked it like the proverbial dead horse all through the show.  & even now I am saying I regret it which is also part of the overkill.  Arrgh!

Ah well.  It was appropriate.  Lots of regret on the show.  Lots of songs about regretting & not regretting.  A children's author who writes & draws stories about an egret named Regret.  A not-self-help author who claims that regret helps, rather than hurts, you.  A spiritual man who rejects regret.  & a Hollywood gadabout whose regrets could fill more than one show about regret.  There's so much regret that frankly I'm kind of glad I did it.

What?  I know!

The show is over at the Self Help Radio website.  It's in two parts.  What's in the two parts is on the web page, or you can see the playlist below.

Listen.  You won't regret it!  You will regret it!

(part one)

"Why Regret" Cozy Cole _1944-1945_
"Regretting" Sabby Lewis & The Vibra-Tones _Hit The Road, Jack: The ABC-Paramount Story_
"Remember & Regret" Sonny Burns _A Real Cool Cat: The Starday Recordings_

"No Regrets" Little Willie John _The King Sessions_
"No Regrets" House Of Commons _The History Of Michigan Garage Bands In The 60s, Vol. 1: The Wheels 4 Label Story_
"No Regrets" M.P.D. Limited _Oz Beat Frenzy! Rare & Unknown 60s Garage, Vol. 1_
"I Pray Every Day You Won't Regret Loving Me" David Ruffin _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 9: 1969_

"Lifetime To Regret" George Jones _The Voice Of Country_
"I'll Regret It All In The Morning" Richard & Linda Thompson _Hokey Pokey_
"Teen Age Regrets" Sisterhood _I'm Just The Other Woman! MSR Madness Vol. 4_
"No Regrets" The Walker Brothers _The Walker Brothers: The Singles_

"Regrets" Eurthymics _Touch_

(part two)

"Miss Otis Regrets" Kirsty MacColl & The Pogues _Galore_
"Regrets A Second Time" Jenny Adkins _Regrets A Second Time_
"No Regrets" Half Man Half Biscuit _No Regrets_

"Regret" Sultans _Shipwrecked_
"No Regrets" King Khan & The Shrines _What Is?!_
"No Regrets" Von Bondies _Pawn Shoppe Heart_
"Sweat Loaf" Butthole Surfers _Locust Abortion Technician_

"No Regrets" The Brunettes _Mars Loves Venus_
"Regret Sets In" Silver Scooter _The Other Palm Springs_
"Je Regrette, Je Regrette" Carl Barat _Carl Barat_
"Regret" Marsheaux _Peek-A-Boo_

"I Regret" Soul Merchants _1985-1987_
"Regret" Ceremony _Rocket Fire_
"Do You Have Any Regrets" Darian _Do You Have Any Regrets_

Whither Regret?

(I found this image here.)*

The one thing I will try not to regret today is constantly using the word "regret" during the show.  This will be very difficult for me, as I am prone to working the theme into every damn dumb thing I say during the show.  I would be such a great hacky comedian!  (That's a contradiction I know.  I regret even saying it.)

Okay, I'll stop.  But the show is appropriate - & it's weird that I haven't done a show about regrets before - because regret is in the top four emotions that I feel on a regular basis.  I don't know if it's genetic - members of my family appear to be more forward-looking than I - but it often keeps me up at night, this regretting I do.  Then I regret all the time I waste regretting.  & on & on.

Maybe I'll regret doing a show about regret, but probably not.  Who knows?  You can regret listening to it (I know, it's the same every week) if you want this afternoon from 4-6pm on 88.1 fm in Lexington, & online at the same regretful time at wrfl dot fm.

Regrets - I've had a few - but no, I won't be playing that song today.  Regretfully.

* If you go to this website, you'll read lots of information about regret & recovery, some of which may be of interest to you.  What they surely ought to regret is the title: "Regret & It's Role In Recovery."  It irks me when people mistake the contraction "it's" for the possessive "its."  It's just so easy!  Say "it is" when you see "it's"!  Now, people often say, "But it's like when I say Joe's or Bill's."  That's true - until you remember that its is a word like his, hers, yours, & theirs.  & it's very rare to see those written as hi's, her's, your's, & their's, isn't it?  Anyway, people in recovery have more things to worry about, but boy does that mistake get my goat.

Preface To Regret: German Regret

(I found this here.)

The other day, last November, I found myself around a small kitchen table with three old German people.  I was related to one of them.  Two were in their mid-eighties, the other in her late seventies.  Even though it was the middle of the day, the oldest one, a male, not related to me, put a beer in front of me.  I thought that was weird, since they weren't drinking.

One of the German people was my mother.  Didn't they know I was driving her home later?

The oldest German person was asking me lots of questions about my life.  Like most people, he was really only asking because he wanted to talk to me about his life.  I guess he doesn't know me well, although he's technically known me my entire life.  Because I am a talker.

But I understood what he was doing, so I let him talk.  He wanted to let me know that he knew his life was soon to be over, & that he regretted not doing so many things.  He wasn't too forthcoming about what exactly he had wanted to do that he didn't do, but he did constantly tell me not to do what he did, & enjoy my life.  Something uncomfortable was the fact that his wife - the woman to whom he's been married for over half a century - sat across that small table & heard everything he said.  But I suppose fifty years is a long time, & she had probably heard this spiel many times before.  There's a kind of acceptance past "sick of your shit."

My mother didn't hear anything, because she's deaf as a post, but too vain to get a hearing aid.  They're for old people, she says.  Not eighty-six-year-young women like herself.  If someone had to ask me what the most common reply to anything I say to her was, I would say it's "What?"  After which, she pretends she hears me, & then says whatever she was planning to say.

Honestly I don't know what immediate reaction I had to the old German man dumping his regret on me, even though it happened just the other day, last November.  Later on, I was a bit amused, because I remembered some of the stories my mother had told me about him.  It seems that he's done pretty much what he's wanted to do his entire life, including cheating on his sweet, long-suffering wife.  If the stories are true (& I have no idea if they are), he's been involved in some shady dealings, some of which involved family & friends.

Does he regret that, & wish he had lived a better life?  Or is he just at the end of his life & wishes he'd been more daring?  We didn't choose this, you know, but perhaps there's a sense of buyer's remorse for some of us.

I'll call this "German Regret" from now on.  Getting away with most things during you life, but regretting it at the end anyway.

Because there are people who don't regret anything.  I know them.  They terrify me.

Cradle To Grave (Episode Ten)

Wow!  Ten episodes of this!  & no one's called the police or anything!

This is bound to be boring to you, but I've developed the easiest way for me to put the show together, which still takes a bit of time.  I gather the names, using all sort of web resources, starting with the Wikipedia.  (I'm also starting to look around, when I have time, to find the birthdays of musicians I admire who might not have Wikipedia pages.)  After that is done, I have a long, long list of people of interest.  In many cases, of course, they are members of bands or, in the case of jazz musicians, they've played with many folks, often as a sideperson & not a leader.  Then I sit down & cross-reference the names with my shabby database of the music I own.  Usually I can find more than enough to fill the hour there, but then I want to dig deeper.  The jazz bands are an example, but there are rock musicians too who might have played in different bands & then I have pick something I think is a good representation of his or her musical contributions.

The point is, I literally go down a list.  This is true.  In earlier attempts, I tried to group folks into genres, & search for them that way.  I don't know what I was thinking, but it added an extra step of difficulty in gathering music for the show.  I have eliminated that step.  In a way, it's made it much more fun to pull the music for the show together - which makes making the show more fun.

Hey!  I told you it was boring.

This week's show is now at self help radio dot net if you have always wondering who was born or who died on January 30th.  You can see a list, actually, of those people below.  It's in two part, like usual.  Note the password & username.  Blah blah blah.

Happy birthday!  I'm sad.

(part one: birthdays)

"Friars Point Shuffle" Chicago Rhythm Kings _Mezz Mezzrow 1928-1936_
"Kitten On The Keys" Stan Freeman & Bernie Leighton, with Percy Faith & His Orchestra _I'll Take Romance_
"I Still Love Him So" Roy Eldridge _Little Jazz: The Best Of The Verve Years_
"Oud Blues" Ahmed Abdul-Malik _The Music Of Ahmed Abdul-Malik_

"Teardrops From My Eyes" Ruth Brown _Atlantic Rhythm & Blues (1947-74)_
"Wrong Doing Woman" Earl Gilliam _Let Me Tell You About The Blues Texas (The Evolution Of Texas Blues)_
"Shirley Lee" Bobby Lee Trammell _Rockin' Bones: 1950's Punk & Rockabilly_
"Rock & Roll Is Here To Stay" Danny & The Juniors _Golden Classics_
"Love Potion No. 9" The Clovers _The Best Of The Clovers_

"A Walk In The Black Forest" Horst Jankowski _Black Forest Explosion_
"Stroke It" Ingfried Hoffmann _The In-Kraut, Vol. 3_
"Love Me" The Phantom _Love Me_
"Afterglow (Of Your Love)" Small Faces _Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake_
"3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds" Jefferson Airplane _Surrealistic Pillow_
"Strange Man" Dorothy Love Coates _Gospel Music_
"Johnny Mathis' Feet" American Music Club _Mercury_

(part two: death anniversaries)

"My Gal Sal" Jelly Roll Morton _The Complete Library Of Congress Recordings By Alan Lomax_
"Hey Little Girl" Professor Longhair _Longhair Boogie_
"Glory Be" Lightnin' Hopkins _The Fire/Fury Records Story_
"Louise" Mance Lipscomb _Songster_

"Hold Tight, Hold Tight" The Andrews Sisters _The Best Of The Andrews Sisters_
"Theme From Mission Impossible" The Kane Triplets _Girls Go Zonk!!_
"Rainy August Night" The Yandall Sisters _The Love I Feel_
"Raindrops" Zephyr _Zephyr_
"Tom Cat Blues" Saffire – The Uppity Blues Women _Hot Flash_

"Red Cadillac & A Black Moustache" Warren Smith _The Sun Records Collection_
"Honey Dew" Byron Slick Gipson & The Sliders _Vocal Groups: Coast To Coast_
"Somebody In The World For You" The Mighty Hannibal _The Best Of Loma Records: The Rise & Fall Of A 1960s Soul Label_
"The Auld Triangle" Luke Kelly _You Never Heard Better!_
"Sing Me A Song Of The Islands" Alfred Apaka _Sing Me A Song Of The Islands_

"The James Bond Theme" The John Barry Seven & Orchestra _The Best Of The Sixties_