Just going on how the Saturday session of this year's Ragtime to Riches Festival went, I had high hopes about the Sunday leg- the 7-14-2019 turn at Omaha's First Central Congregational United Church of Christ.
In a nutshell, we didn't get the kind of crowd that assembled at the Pink Poodle Steakhouse the day before.
But all four of those who paid to come to see the First Central leg of R to R 2019 still had fun.
At 2:00 PM (Central time), I was supposed to give a workshop.
I gave it, all right...but it wasn't the one I hoped to conduct.
Ever since last year, I've been wanting to showcase some of the work of four ragtime composers: Sadie Koninsky (1879-1952), Charlotte Blake (1885-1979), Julia Niebergall (1886-1968), and May Aufderheide (1888-1972).
I brought notes with me.
Yours truly forgot to bring sheet music.
So...I went the autobiographical route instead. (Next year, I want to build my concert around works like Sadie's "Eli Green's Cakewalk," Julia's "Hoosier Rag," May's "Dusty," and Charlotte's "That Poker Rag." And leave the workshop to another performer.)
Speaking of concert...Faye Ballard was the first to give one at this year's R to R.
Hers was a workshop in itself; the Champaign, IL native started her concert with favorites "The Entertainer," "Puttin' on the Ritz," "Sailin' Away on the Henry Clay," and "It Had to Be You."
The former University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana office manager put her tribute to ragdom's Big Three smack dab in the middle: Scott Joplin's "Pineapple Rag," James Scott's "Frog Legs Rag," and Joseph Lamb's "Cleopatra Rag."
Faye went ahead and did one of May's followups to "Dusty" ("The Thriller") and followed it up with Adaline Shepherd's "Pickles and Peppers." "Raggity Rag" and "12th Street Rag" closed Faye's sixth R to R concert out.
Faye's mom, Erma, gave me the inspiration for my own concert.
Last year, Erma wanted to hear "Angry," a 1925 hit for a singer-pianist named Art Gillham, from me. I didn't have the sheet music with me at the time.
Fixed that here in 2019.
Matter of fact, my version of "Angry" led off a concert consisting of tunes whose titles have just one word apiece: Fellow 1925 hits "Cecilia" and "Collegiate," two compositions from 1927 ("Chloe" and a tune that somebody should've had a hit record with, "Beautiful"), 1920's "Margie," and two rags- Nellie M. Stokes' 1906 "Snowball" and another piece Scott J. came up with in 1902, "Cleopha."
I felt better about my concert than my workshop, I'll tell you that. I'm glad the concert worked out.
Marty Mincer accompanying Buster Keaton's 1920 short, "One Week," worked out great.
We were hoping Erma and Faye would come back for the 7:00 PM showing of "One Week," and Marty vamped for a while so that the Two Ballards could see the film in its entirety.
Oh, well...
But the audience enjoyed "One Week..." as well as Marty's handling of the music.
The apple farmer from Hamburg, IA had time left in his set to fire off his version of "The Entertainer" before he took R to R 15.0 out in style with "The Stars and Stripes Forever."
Well...now it's back to the drawing board to get the word out about Ragtime to Riches 2020.
Hope you can make it!
Well...it seems as if two ragtime festivals took place here in the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area last weekend.
But one and the same got on the books: The 2019 Ragtime to Riches Festival.
This year's was the first two-day version since the 2010 edition...the fourth and last R to R held at the Strauss Performing Arts Center at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. (UNO priced the Strauss Center out of the Great Plains Ragtime Society's reach not long afterwards, so the local rag club had to find another place for the fest.)
Since 2011, R to R has taken place at Omaha's First Central Congregational United Church of Christ.
This year, First Central got a Saturday partner: The Pink Poodle Steakhouse in Crescent, IA.
On 7-13-2019, at 5:00 PM (Central time), a "Tune-Ups Party" took place at the legendary Crescent restaurant...the eatery with some of the best prime rib in the Omaha Metro and three working antique upright player pianos.
And all three old uprights got a workout...especially the middle one, a 1913 Bellmann. (The others are a 1919 Gulbransen and a 1916 Ricca & Son.)
In the photo above, the Bellmann is on the left, the Ricca's on the right.
In the publicity for the "Tune-Ups Party," it was said that at least one of this year's featured R to R 15.0 performers would play at the Pink Poodle during an event modeled after a similar one...the Thursday night tune-ups that kick off the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival.
If it hadn't been for two little girls (Maddie and Brooke) and the mother of another little girl (a youngster named Echo; I wish I knew her mom's name) stepping up to tickle the keys, I would've played the entire length of the Pink Poodle tune-ups.
Three hours.
I still had lots of fun at the Poodle, and- equally important- the restaurant's dining room was half full of customers.
When I come back, I'll tell you what R to R's 2019 Sunday session was like.
Today, almost half the telephone calls Americans receive come from automated sources. And that's according to a Federal Communications Commission report released this past February.
Last year, 47.8 billion robocalls got made in America, according to YouMail, a third-party robocall-blocking software company. And that was up 57% over 2017. (By contrast, The Wall Street Journal stated that Americans got hit with 26.3 billion of these automated calls in 2018...46% more than in 2017.)
The way YouMail tells it, that's less than 148 robocalls per person...or less than three automated calls per person per week.
Too many of us get more than our fair share.
It's one thing if you get one from your dentist's office or your doctor's office.
For me, most of the robocalls come from scammers.
I'm fortunate enough to have a caller ID unit hooked up to my phone...and until recently, I've been able to use this rule of thumb:
If, on your caller ID unit, the listing includes the name of the city where the call was made, you got a robocall. If the listing's got a person's name on there, an actual human being phoned you.
What with scammers getting more and more sophisticated by the month (by the year for sure), that tactic no longer works.
Maybe you're in the same boat I'm in. Lots of automated calls I get are supposedly from the same part of town I live in.
This tactic is called "neighborhood spoofing." Here, scammers use their computers to place calls that look as if they're coming from your own area code...in the hopes that you'll more readily answer your phone.
Recently, scammers have started spoofing my own phone number.
Yeah...as if I've got a reason to call myself.
I've been on the National "Do Not Call" Registry (started in 2003). But the registry has its limits...especially where robocallers are concerned. After all, the phone pranksters spoof their identities and call from any number they darned well choose.
Got a landline phone rather than a cell phone (can't afford a cell phone at the present time)
...but if I had an Android or an iPhone or an iPad, it'd have a "Do Not Disturb" mode on it, that's for sure.
And I'm aware of the antirobocall apps out there, like Nomorobo, Robokiller, and Hiya.
But I like- and I'm using- the solution How-to-Geek's Andrew Heinzman addressed in his 5-17-2019 post about America's robocall epidemic:
I've stopped answering my phone.
I know, them's fightin' words to the average American. But if I don't pick up my phone each and every time it rings, and I, instead, wait and see if anybody left a REAL message on my answering machine (rather than an automated message), I decrease the number of robocalls I receive.
I'm trying to be proactive rather than waiting on this country's Congresscritters to come up with legislation to help fight this epidemic.
And I wonder about the FCC's efforts to hold robocallers accountable. In November of last year, agency chief Ajit Pai sent a dozen carriers a letter demanding that they come up with "a robust call-authentication system to combat illegal caller-ID spoofing."
He gave the phone providers until sometime here in 2019 to make real progress in developing this system. And if the companies don't, the FCC "will take action."
It's no surprise that robocalling in America is on the increase.
Take a look at who's calling the shots at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: The Ultimate Con Artist...the Master Swindler...the Grifter in Chief.
He's the same man who nominated Pai to run the FCC.
In a major-league playing career that ran from 1969 to 1990, he played in 2,517 games.
He totaled 9,397 at bats, scored 1,077 runs, got 2,715 hits (496 were doubles and 49 were triples).
Those 2,715 ranked him 66th on big-league baseball's all-time list.
This player smashed 174 homers and drove in 1,208 runs while batting .289.
In addition, he swiped 183 sacks and just about had as many walks as strikeouts. (He drew 450 bases on balls while whiffing 453 times!)
This star led the NL in two-base hits twice, getting 35 in 1981 (his All-Star campaign)
and 38 a couple of years later.
As a first baseman (he broke in as an outfielder), he led his league in assists four times (1982, 1983, 1985, and 1986); his 1,351 helps at first base got him 19th place on the all-time list.
He played in two World Series.
Think of all the Baseball Hall of Famers who never got a chance to taste postseason action...let alone play on the team that won the Fall Classic.
And in 1980, when he was with the Chicago Cubs (the team that got him from the squad he broke in with, the Los Angeles Dodgers), he led all National League batters by hitting .324 (to go with his 41 two-baggers, 10 home runs, and 68 RBIs).
That's how I choose to remember Bill Buckner, who passed away three days ago.
I'll never again shop at the Hy-Vee Food Store at 7910 Cass St. here in Omaha.
Chalk that up to a young sacker named Kyle.
At 1:34 PM on 4-18-2019, I pulled into the parking lot of the supermarket in question. I'd been a steady, loyal customer at that Hy-Vee for twenty years, and that Thursday, I was in a hurry and trying to get shopping done prior to going to my own job in a local plastics factory.
After putting a trio of letters in the mailbox in front of the store, I ran inside the store...ahead of two other customers who were about to walk in.
Kyle, who was changing the trash bag in a wastebasket in front of the store, saw me, and told me: "Don't ever do that again...cutting in front of customers."
I turned around and saw Kyle.
I was flabbergasted.
I tried to explain myself, and that I was in a hurry, and that the week hadn't been too cool for me...but Kyle didn't want to hear from me.
I tried to apologize. Kyle still didn't want to hear from me.
Kyle told me- three times- to move on. Each time, he gestured me away from his view.
The way I see it, young Kyle was trying hard to show off his White Supremacist views.
I'VE BEEN ANGRY EVER SINCE!
At 1:36 PM, I found a manager on duty: Chris. And I told him about Kyle and about the way Kyle treated me.
Chris assured me he'd talk to Kyle, and assured me that I'd done nothing wrong and that I had no reason to apologize.
Got my shopping done at 1:48 PM that Thursday, still angry about the way Kyle treated me.
I even yelled inside the store...and that got me a reprimand from another manager on duty, Wendy.
So, to try and smooth things over, I apologized to Wendy and to the cashier who waited on me, Kay Lynne. (Kay Lynne and I had been able to get along quite well...and in fact, Kay Lynne showed much more understanding of the situation than Wendy.)
I continued to fume at my own job and couldn't wait to get home to send a nasty email to the store director at that Cass Street Hy-Vee (also known as the Peony Park Hy-Vee; a famous amusement park previously stood where that supermarket now does).
The angry email got sent off early last Friday; the next day, I heeded the message at the bottom of the receipt and took Hy-Vee's survey...and doggone right, I mentioned the 4-18-2019 incident.
In both documents, I mentioned that I'd never again shop at that particular Hy-Vee.
The store director emailed me and apologized for the whole thing.
Still, I'm going to start shopping at the Hy-Vee at 51st and Center Sts. here in the Big O.
I don't want to turn my back on the chain that promises "a helpful smile in every aisle."
I like Hy-Vee's wide selection...and that's the biggest reason I'd been shopping there all these years.
What I don't like is seeing racism in action.
And that's what Kyle, like too many others in my life, showed me.
Too many millions of Americans have felt emboldened ever since that walking toilet bowl gave that inaugural address on 1-20-2017...or ever since he won on 11-8-2016.
Kyle showed me he's one of the emboldened.
And I don't EVER want to be in his company again...for any damn reason.
Every time I get up these days, I can't help thinking about this current winter...one of the worst and most severe we've had here in the United States in a long time.
This weekend, here in the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area, we're slated to receive more frozen precipitation. (Sorry...I don't feel like using the "S" word that rhymes with "crow.")
Through yesterday, according to WOWT (the local NBC affiliate),
the Omaha Metro has picked up 48.0" of the frozen stuff. (Last winter, through 2-27-2018, 14.6" had fallen around here...an area in which the average had been 21.0".)
The local record for frozen precip for one winter: 67.6", which took place around here in the winter of 1911-12.
Lots of demoralized people around here right now.
Let's face it: I'm one of them, too.
When it comes to why the winter of 2018-19 has been so brutal, with its frequent blizzards teaming up with long stretches of bitter cold, some people will tell you it's all cyclical (and that we were spoiled around here the previous two winters).
Others tell you that it's all because America is paying for its sins.
Still other folks chalk it up to climate change.
After all, the fact that the world's average yearly temperature has risen- with most of the twenty warmest years in the world's history having taken place since 2000- has made storms (winter and nonwinter alike) more frequent and more violent.
With all that, and humanity's role in bringing about climate change, atmospheric forces (according to some folks) have told us that the bill is due.
What's your take on all this that's going on outdoors?
Well, here's how:
Last month, I stumbled onto the world's biggest social network and educational center for creatives in movies, television, and the stage.
And I got hooked!
It's none other than Stage 32, and right now, it's up to 500,000 members worldwide...more people than live here in Omaha (by itself, not counting the suburbs).
For almost three years, I've been trying to kickstart a pursuit that hooked me from 1980 to 1994: Screenwriting.
When I was still attending Iowa State University, I bought a paperback copy of the script to the 1973 classic "American Graffiti." I really liked the way George Lucas (the movie's director...that's right, that George Lucas!), Gloria Katz, and Willard Huyck wrote the story.
Bought a couple of handbooks on writing for TV and for movies...and I've still got one of them to this very day: "The Television Writer's Handbook," a 1978 publication Constance Nash and Virginia Oakey teamed up to bring to the world.
Then in 1979, as an elective, I enrolled in a screenwriting class Joe Geha conducted. The chief project for each class member was a 30-minute script...and I ended up concocting a TV sitcom pilot called "Long Way," about two women who drove a truck for a Central Iowa soft-drink bottling company. (I worked at such a company during the summers of 1976 and 1978...and liked it!)
The next year, I moved here to the Big O, where I tried and tried and tried to come up with movie scripts (when I wasn't working for a local inventory service). I subscribed to Writer's Digest as well as something called Hollywood Scriptletter, a newsletter that, in the mid-1980s, was renamed Hollywood Scriptwriter.
Through WD, I found out about the Peggy Lois French Agency. Armed with another TV sitcom pilot ("Edna's Garage," about a New Orleans auto mechanic and her crew), I tried to get representation through that Sun City, CA firm...but I was told: "You haven't had enough life experience."
Not even working for my dad at his own Des Moines auto-reconditioning firm during the summers of 1969-72 and 1977 (as well as most Saturdays from 1969-72) supposedly counted to the PLFA staff.
Well, in the middle 1980s, I joined a screenwriters' support group. In those pre-Internet days, we mainly wrote letters to each other. Things were fine...until a letter from a Phoenix member named Willi Waltrip stated that I should give up trying to write scripts and, instead, peck out novels.
OUCH!!
I dropped out of the group, stopping trying for a few years to write scripts, then got back into it by 1990- two years after I'd moved from Omaha to Sioux City, IA.
Between 1990 and 1994, I'd typed out four more screenplays...then packed it in as I started hitting the unemployment lines as the used-record-and-tape-and-CD store I moved to Sioux City to help launch got ready to call it quits.
I was through trying to cook up screenplays. That was it.
Until 2016.
Three years before that,
Nick Holle (who teamed up with Michael Zimmer to helm a 2012 documentary about the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival, "The Entertainers") gave me his Power Mac G5 computer...originally purchased by a former OTPP contestant,
Brent Watkins (who teamed up with his wife Jackie to help produce the documentary).
This Power Mac had- and still has- a copy of Final Draft 6. (Yeah, I know...that was five Final Draft iterations ago.)
But since 4-18-2016, I've been using that copy of Final Draft 6 to get back in the screenwriting race, cooking up a fresh-out-of-the-box, 2010s effort and refurbishing three others (two from the 1980s and one from the 1990s).
I've learned a lot from logging onto Richard Botto's claim to fame
...especially when it comes to how a spec script should look. First of all, I learned that, in today's screenwriting, you don't refer to camera angles in a spec script. You keep character descriptions to, basically, age and traits.
And every scene, in addition to being "EXT." or "INT.," must also be labeled "DAY" (if not "MORNING" or "AFTERNOON") or "NIGHT."
I've never been more fired up about writing scripts than I am right now, thanks to Stage 32 (named after Paramount's Stage 32, a property that previously was in the hands of the old RKO Studios; in fact, "Citizen Kane" was filmed on that very stage).
And I can't wait to pitch my stuff, either. Stage 32, matter of fact, has a page full of listings for pitch sessions.
Well, all I can say after that is: Log onto stage32.com to see what all the hoopla is. And if you'd like to see any (or all four) of the screenplays I've loaded onto Stage 32, just visit stage32.com/profile/673680/scripts_screenplays.
Thanks, thanks, thanks for reading "Boston's Blog!"
