Baron Dave Romm
Memories of My Father
By Baron Dave Romm
Shockwave Radio Theater podcasts
Memories of My Father
Marty asked me for pictures of offspring, mentorees, and so on. I don't have any kids, though I do have an ever-growing crop of nieces and nephews. My mother is a photographer, and I don't have many pictures of her from way back, but I do have a fair amount of pictures of me and my father, a few earlier shots and a few later that I took. Here are some of them, annotated as best I can. All except the first and the last were taken by Ethel G. Romm.
Avrom Nathan Romm, known as "Al", died just before one the odometer Y2K in December of 1999. Al Romm stories, obituaries and more family pictures on the romm.org site.
Avrom N. Romm, middle row, second from
left
after spending a few years in the army fighting WWII, he came
home to Massachusetts and went to college
From the University of
Mass. at Amherst Yearbook, 1947
My father and
a very young me
Niagara Falls, 1956
Me and my
father shoveling snow
Middletown, NY, Winter 1958-59
Undated picture is few
yards closer to the house as the shoveling above, and a few years
later in the fall.
My
father and brothers at the house in Middletown, NY, Channukkah
1966CE
Undated picture, but
probably mid-60s
when we visited my father's mother (see below) in
Holyoke MA
we usually stayed at the Howard Johnson's at the edge
of town
l-r: Dad, cousin Debbie, me (w/camera; I used to have
that shot)
cousin Bobbie (unless I've mixed up Bobbie and Debbie
again), brother Dan, a bored brother Joe
A mother
and two of her sons: Avrom, Bertha and Elliot Romm
Listed as
Springfield, MA which probably means Nana's apartment in Holyoke,
1979
picture by Dave Romm (not yet a Baron)
Happy Father's Day everyone!
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog maintains a Facebook Page, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Farhad Manjoo: The Newspaper Isn't Dead Yet (slate.com)
Why newsprint still beats the Kindle.
Michael Hirschorn: The Newsweekly's Last Stand (theatlantic.com)
Why 'The Economist' is thriving while 'Time' and 'Newsweek' fade.
Don Tapscott: Higher Education Is Stuck in the Middle Ages -- Will Universities Adapt or Die Off in Our Digital World? (Edge; Posted on Alternet)
There is a huge clash between the model of learning offered by big universities and the natural way that young people who have grown up digital learn.
PAUL CONSTANT: Not Keeping Quiet (thestranger.com)
Librarians Speak Out Against Proposed Policies at Seattle Public Library.
John Anderson: Fast chat with 'food evangelist' Michael Pollan (Newsday)
Author of the foodie manifesto "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and, more recently, "In Defense of Food," Michael Pollan grew up in Woodbury, N.Y., when farms still dotted Long Island. Growing up next to a pumpkin field may have influenced Pollan's work as a food evangelist - not so much for a fruits-and-nuts regimen, but against the corporatization and general unhealthiness of American foodstuffs.
Steven Rea: Don't watch 'Food, Inc.' if you don't want to ruin your appetite (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Look at "Food, Inc.," the new documentary, and the picture is altogether different: cattle standing hoof-deep in their own excrement in giant meat-processing plants, chickens pumped up on chemicals to make them fat and packed into hangars where they never see the light of day, genetically engineered tomatoes that have no taste - it's scary stuff.
Curt Holman: 'Food, Inc.' Reveals Hidden Costs on the Menu (Creative Loafing (Atlanta))
Of all the scary food documentaries, Food, Inc. proves the most powerful and the most neatly packaged. Overall, it serves as a resounding call to action that holds out hope for the future. In the short-term, its perspective on food calls to mind an old quip by Rodney Dangerfield: "At my house, we pray after we eat."
RICHARD ROEPER: Interviews gone wild: O'Reilly, Speidi, Artie (suntimes.com)
As you read this, somebody somewhere is sitting in a small dark room, wearing a microphone and an earpiece, looking into a camera lens and talking with someone who is in a TV studio in another city.
Ron Rosenbaum: The Best Way To Speak Shakespeare (slate.com)
It will make you catch your breath.
Duane Dudek: Director (and now author) Guillermo del Toro: Fantasy is faith (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
As a youth, Guillermo del Toro "was blessed or cursed with" lucid dreams.
John Anderson: Woody Allen can't curb his enthusiasm for Larry David (Newsday)
Woody Allen needs no introduction. Love him or hate him, he's been making movies since 1966 and has been a major factor in our cultural consciousness.
Roger Moore: 'Whatever Works' for Larry David is starring in Woody Allen's new movie (The Orlando Sentinel)
Larry David likes being the curmudgeon. He works at it, pushes that grumpy image. A reporter is calling him from Orlando? "Lakers in five!" he tactlessly chortles.
The Weekly Poll
Current Question
The 'Eye for an Eye' Edition...
The recent domestic terrorist murders of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas, Army recruiter Pvt William Long in Little Rock, Arkansas and security guard Stephan Johns at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. occurred in jurisdictions that have the capital punishment. Prosecutors of these crimes will, no doubt, consider asking for it due to obvious premeditation of the perpetrators.
Are you in favor of Capital Punishment?
Send your response to
Father and Grandpa
Meet DadtotheboneBob's girls
Sarah and Maddie
said:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast and cool.
I'm continually amazed by the number of news-readers in LA who say eye-raq & eye-ran. Bet they eat eye-talian food, too.
I'm so old I can remember when the stations actually cared about stuff like that, although these news-readers seem more likely hired for an ability to suck the chrome off a ball hitch than any reading skills.
Changing Rules
Spelling
It's a spelling mantra that generations of schoolchildren have learned - "i before e, except after c."
But new British government guidance tells teachers not to pass on the rule to students, because there are too many exceptions.
The "Support For Spelling" document, which is being sent to thousands of primary schools, says the rule "is not worth teaching" because it doesn't account for words like 'sufficient,' 'veil' and 'their.'
Jack Bovill of the Spelling Society, which advocates simplified spelling, said Saturday he agreed with the decision.
Spelling
First Contract Up For Grabs
Beatles
Beatles fans have a chance to get their hands on a piece of the band's memorabilia - if they can guess its value.
The Beatles' first music contract - with manager Brian Epstein - is currently insured for £500,000 but is regarded as an irreplaceable piece of musical heritage.
John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr signed the contract in 1962 and they catapulted up the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.
Competition entrants must pay £10 for the chance to estimate what the contract was valued at by a panel of experts if it had been put up for auction in April 2008 at a London auction house.
Beatles
Skateboards At White House
Tony Hawk
Professional skateboarder Tony Hawk on Friday took a brief ride at the White House as part of a Father's Day celebration.
Hawk, 41, skated in the grand foyer and the nearby Old Executive Office Building, with the permission of White House officials.
The skateboarding icon, also known for his popular brand of skateboarding video games, posted photos to his Web site and Twitter page.
Hawk joined other dads, athletes and celebrities at a Father's Day forum hosted by President Barack Obama. Celebrity chef Bobby Flay helped man the barbecue grills for a White House picnic for the attendees, which included NBA players Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat and Etan Thomas of the Washington Wizards.
Tony Hawk
Has Mercy
Madonna
Madonna's new daughter has flown out of her native Malawi on a private jet headed for London, an airport employee and a person familiar with Madonna's adoption proceedings in this southern African country said Saturday.
The airport employee, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter, said 3-year-old Chifundo "Mercy" James left late Friday headed to London, with a stop in neighboring South Africa. The girl, the second child Madonna has adopted from Malawi, was reportedly accompanied on the flight by a nanny, a child nurse and a third aide.
The person familiar with the adoption, who also was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said the girl known as Mercy should have reached London on Saturday morning. Madonna has homes in England and in the United States.
Malawi's highest court had granted the adoption June 12, overturning an April lower court ruling that Madonna had not spent enough time in Malawi to be given a child.
Madonna
Hospital News
Steve Jobs
Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs underwent a liver transplant operation about two months ago and is expected to return to work by the end of June, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
Jobs, a pancreatic cancer survivor seen as the driving force behind development of the iPod, iPhone and other category-defining products from Apple's famed innovation machine, went on medical leave in January for an undisclosed condition.
A spokesman for Apple Inc would not confirm the Journal report but said, "Steve continues to look forward to returning to Apple at the end of June and there is nothing further to say."
While investors may react negatively to the news on Monday, when stock markets re-open, analysts say Wall Street is broadly prepared for Jobs' shift to a role that sees him focusing on big pictures ideas and products at Apple.
Steve Jobs
Axes Top Executives
Paramount
Hollywood studio Paramount Pictures, which suffered the first big bomb of the summer last weekend with an Eddie Murphy comedy, has fired its top production executive after barely 18 months in the job.
The Viacom Inc-owned studio said on Friday it would replace Paramount Film Group president John Lesher with former DreamWorks production chief Adam Goodman. Also out is production president Brad Weston.
Paramount, which is struggling to regain its momentum after a lengthy reliance on co-productions led to a major shakeup four years ago, did not cite a reason for the latest personnel shift in its statement.
Murphy's "Imagine That," which Paramount said cost $55 million to make, has earned $9.2 million after eight days.
Paramount
Not Channeling Norman Bates
Thomas Parkin
A man accused of dressing up as his dead mother to collect her Social Security and rent subsidies is blaming the crime on an impersonator.
Thomas Parkin tells the New York Post in a jailhouse interview that he wasn't the person captured on security cameras dressed in a wig and his mom's clothing.
The newspaper says that during the 40-minute interview at Riker's Island, the 49-year-old also claimed his mother was once a B-movie star who dated Gene Kelly, and offered a rambling discourse on the psyche of Norman Bates, the cross-dressing killer in Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho."
Parkin and an alleged accomplice are awaiting trial on larceny and fraud charges. Parkin was charged Wednesday.
Thomas Parkin
Joining `NCIS: Los Angeles'
Linda Hunt
CBS says Academy Award-winning actress Linda Hunt is joining the cast of the new fall drama "NCIS: Los Angeles."
The network said Friday that Hunt will play a tough, efficient department manager who gets government investigators the electronics and other crime-fighting tools they need.
"NCIS: Los Angeles" is a spinoff of the long-running CBS drama "NCIS." The new show stars Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J as members of a Naval Criminal Investigative Service division that goes after criminals who pose a threat to national security.
Linda Hunt
Leaving "Grey's Anatomy"
T.R. Knight
Television network ABC on Friday said popular actor T.R. Knight will not return to hit hospital drama "Grey's Anatomy" when new episodes hit U.S. airwaves this coming season.
"Leaving 'Grey's Anatomy' was not an easy decision for me to make," Knight said in a statement. "I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to play this character and will miss my fellow cast and crew very much.
"I continue to wish them the very best, and wholeheartedly thank all of the fans who have supported me and the show with such passion and enthusiasm," he said.
Knight had previously asked to be released from his contract on the show, and in the season finale in May, his character, Dr. George O'Malley, lost his heartbeat after being hit by a bus.
T.R. Knight
Opens Amsterdam "Pink Light" Brothel
Bruno
British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in his latest incarnation as a gay Austrian fashion reporter, jet skied through a canal into Amsterdam's red light district on Friday to open a brothel full of men in thongs ahead of the Dutch premiere of 'Bruno'.
"For too long, guys coming here from around the world have been forced to have sex with women," Cohen said, standing in front of a pink-lit brothel building in the Dutch capital as surprised tourists and stag party goers looked on.
"It gives me great pleasure to declare Amsterdam's pink light district officially open for business," he said, as about a dozen men emerged from behind curtains at the windows of a three-storey brothel.
After declaring the pink brothel open, Cohen left in a black car while the men left their rooms, put on white robes and waved goodbye to crowds. The real prostitutes, who had hidden from the flashing cameras, reopened their curtains to wait for their next clients in their red-lit windows.
Bruno
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
