Mr Know-it-all

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Everything I Know about New York City

July 11, 2018

It's my favorite big city in the world, not that I've visited all that many. Let's see: Chicago of course, LA, Seattle, Boston, Baltimore and Tokyo. Tokyo would have to be the most populous, with 33 million people. More than all of Canada! But I digress. Back to New York. New York City, specifically Manhattan, has an energy all its own(though perhaps not always the healthiest of energies). Still, it's a place in which I'd have a permanent residence--if I had the means. I love that energy. Also the grandeur and dynamism of its architecture. My kinda town. But it didn't start out that way. I went to school out East, in Baltimore MD, in the late 70's, and one early observation of my classmates was that there were basically two types of New Yorkers: 1)those from the actual area, one of the 5 Boroughs; and 2)those from the East Coast who pretended to be from New York. This latter category of folks, with their affectations, turned me off to the exper

Everything I Know About College Basketball

April 04, 2018

Well if it were based on actual knowledge of the sport, this article--call it what you will--would already be over. Run the credits, show a cartoon, do what you have to do- we're done! It's true. Even though I purport to write about it here, I don't know shit from apple butter about College Basketball. For the most part, sports have always been lost on me. Just never had the knack nor the interest in throwing or catching or otherwise batting around spherical objects, nor in watching others do the same. Added to my lack of aptitude and/or interest was the genetic element: being the son of a non-jock. I remember my Dad joking about he and I catching a Superbowl Sunday and wolfing down lots of beer and pigs' knuckles! Dad has been gone for a good while, but he still cracks me up. Beer and pigs' knuckles indeed. How much more primal can you get?! But there is something to be said for playing sports, depending on the quality of the coaching. Learning to w

Everything I Know About Denmark

February 01, 2018

I'm interested in most everything in this world except Opera and Politics(though in this area I'm trying more these days)- oh, and most team sports. And even though I'm not much of a traveller, am very curious about the countries of the world, particularly the relatively out-of-the-way places. All three of the Scandinavian countries interest me, and for slightly different reasons-Norway for its scenic beauty and progressive social programs; Sweden for its progressiveness and what I'd imagine to be some pretty striking scenic beauty. Denmark is supposed to be a very flat country as far as terrain, so you wouldn't have the killer views, but I like their liberalism/humanitarianism, and their rather warped sense of humor as evidenced in their movies. I'd never really thought much about that part of the world, except as a little kid reading in a book we had at home, on the history of civilization, called The Epic of Man . Lavishly illustrated with beautif

Everything I Know about Oklahoma

January 13, 2018

Within the repository of useless information otherwise known as Roger's Brain, there's an Okie File. A smallish compendium of facts about the great state of Oklahoma. Being one of those people who know 2 or 3 facts about damn near everything, I have many such files between my ears. That was my impetus for starting up this blogsite, a way to channel all this useless or near-useless information into an entertaining format. Also a catharsis of sorts for me, getting it out of my system- or at least objectifying it in two-dimensional form. Anyway. I should say here at the outset that I've never been to Oklahoma, and don't know anyone from there. Once, as a road musician during the Winter of 1985 I was on a bus that drove through there- and I did wake up for a few seconds, so I guess I could say I've been there. Those few seconds were enough to satisfy my curiosity. No, my motivation to learn about Oklahoma came from a fairly cute girl who worked in one of tho

The Body Beautiful

January 09, 2018

Human Physiology and Anatomy is something I've always had a bug for, in one capacity or another. I had a couple years in my 20s where I worked out with weights- and from there, learned a little bit about Human Anatomy. I knew about the upper back muscles, called Latissimus Dorsi; the shoulder muscles, called Deltoids, which are three bundles of 7 strands- called Deltoids because of their triangular shape, which resembles the Greek letter Delta. All this information was gotten from Muscle Mags, which I read at the time. As well as useful data and advice, they were interesting from a sociological point of view, being a most unique 'sub-culture' with its cast of characters and various intrigues. But as far as any great muscular development, I just wasn't the right guy for the job. I am a mesomorphic ectomorph, a skinny-boned person who can put on some muscle- but not a lot. Unless you've got the genes, there's only so much you can do to improve your phy

Celebrities' Real Names

December 20, 2017

Probably on one of the lower eschelons as far as any real importance in life, but a fun thing to gather information about, at least if you're the kind of person who likes that sort of thing. For better of worse, that's me. There was a list of these celebrity birth names at the office, 5 or 6 years ago, when I was still engaged in the world of dayjob. It was circulated by a fellow who loved to memorize stuff and then rattle it back at you. Somehow a lot of them got lodged into my own brain. So I'm sharing them here, in just a minute. Lucky you. I suppose something as meaningless as celebrities' birth names, and what and how they were modified could have some social relevance. The ones from the 40s and 50s do reflect attitudes after WWII, where you saw many German names 'whitebreaded'. One quick example before we get to the master list, is Fred Astaire. Frederick Austerlitz. Well, then again, Astaire is more euphonious than Austerlitz. Less- auste

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