Joe Rollino

Human endurance is a fascinating thing. One is often drawn to characters that prevail where others fall, who push life to the edge and whose lives occupy extreme territory. It can take different forms - there are those who can drink and drink and drink and still remain standing/alive.

Actor Richard Harris' capacity for drink was infamous and astounding. In 1997 he discovered he owned a Rolls Royce that had been housed in a New York garage since 1974, and such was his almost constant inebriation during the 70s he had no recollection of ever owning it (If this anecdote seems a little crowbarred in, it's because I love that story).

More honourably representing the nature of human endurance are characters like Joe Rollino. His innate ability was not with alcohol imbibing but weight lifting. He was cool in several ways but chief among them were the following:

- He was the self-proclaimed world's strongest man in the 1920's
- Time could not kill him, he only died after being hit by a van aged 104

Endurance is the wrong word for this man. He wasn't merely enduring living this long, he was showing off at it, still bending coins in his teeth at the age of 103. And unlike characters like Harris, Rollino never drank, smoked and or ate meat.

His whole story reads like an urban myth or a television movie, with a bizarre hotch potch of cameos throughout history - World War II heroics, bodyguard for Greta Garbo, bit part in On The Waterfront (left on the cutting room floor). More than anything he was clearly well loved and a local hero in Brooklyn.

And now for quite a gay looking photo:

It's that guys glasses that makes it gay and not Joe Rollino who is badass.

Arrested Development and The Godfather

I have a past history of comparing sitcoms to other things, or 'sitcomparison' as I now suddenly like to call it. So imagine my delight when I stumbled onto this nugget of sitcomparison gold, comparing the cult sitcom to the movie colossus. I had no idea of the similarities, but apparently it's as Ann as the nose on Plain's face.

Tune in next week when I'll be comparing 1970's British sitcoms to elements of Indian cuisine (or at the very least finding someone else on the internet who already has).

I've worked out why I hate everyone and everything

Reading one of the many enlightening articles on Cracked.com (6 Factors That Influence Who You Have Sex With), I came across an intriguing passage regarding hearing:

The brain is a really complex organ. But after decades of studying it, most psychologists and neurologists feel comfortable making a couple of generalizations -- namely, that the left side of your brain handles verbal information and is tuned in to positive emotions, while the right hemisphere concentrates on nonverbal stimuli and more negative emotions. They also know that information that goes in your left ear is handled by the right side of the brain.

Armed with this information, psychologists in Italy devised a study that tested how the different sides of your brain process information. What they found is that requests are 50 percent more successful when heard from the right side than the left. In the study, a woman approached people at a club and asked for a cigarette, leaning in to one side or another. Exactly double the number of people obliged her when she asked on their right. In a dating situation, not only could the chances of someone saying yes to a date hinge on who is standing where, but the emotional aspect could come into play as well. Sure, you might agree to go out with someone who talked in your left ear, but your first impression might be to associate him with more negative emotions.

Being deaf in my right ear my first impression of everyone is associated with negative emotions. I've never really thought about it too much before, but I'm now convinced that profound unilateral hearing loss has shaped my personality more than I had ever given it credit for. It's responsible for a whole host of winning attributes.

Maybe it's some really bad science and Ben Goldacre can tell me where I've gone wrong, but it's nice to find things to blame for all the bitterness and hatred, however fanciful it may be.

Memoirs # 12

At primary school I remember thinking I invented that thing where you tie your jumper round your waist. No one was doing it before me. Before me all these kids were boiled in their jumpers playing football, but I showed them the way with a killer device.

Not sure it's something that would ever need a patent. But if so, here's my submission:

So yeah, money please.

The White Abum as a single album

I was thinking about this problem today. If I were to cut The White Album to a single album what would be kept and what would be cast asunder? Without actually consulting the track listing I made a quick list of the songs I'd most like to listen to. Out of a possible 30, this came to a worryingly slim 9. To my surprise it was very Lennon heavy (I always thought I was a Mark Corrigan type character), and it had, perhaps less surprisingly, very little representation of the long ones, strange ones or quiet ones. Because, let's face it, they're are some truly awful tracks on The White Album, Don't Pass Me By and Piggies amongst the named and shamed.

Then there's Revolution 9. This fairly uninteresting track of questionable significance made me consider the make up of this single album altogether. In the time it takes to listen to Revolution 9, you could have listened to I'm So Tired, Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey, Why Don't We Do It In The Road? and I Will, with 30 seconds leftover. So would I want to cut down the album according to time or tracks? This led to other considerations - Would I try to represent McCartney and Lennon more or less equally with a token Harrison number ala most other Beatles albums? Would I try to show the contrasting styles and conflicting individual personalities the White Album is famed for?

Looking up other attempts on the internet I came across these from old music nerd magazine MOJO. Some of these MOJO attempts neatly organise the new cut into 'Nice side' and 'Nasty side'. This approach of neatening up a sprawling album didn't seem right. If anything my original route of simply picking the songs I liked the most seemed more appropriate. The very fact of the matter is that it's the inclusion of the self indulgent, the avant garde and the Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da that makes the White album what it is. Any new cut would have to be an unrepresentative selection. So here's my 14 track cut:

Back In The USSR

Dear Prudence

Glass Onion

The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Happiness Is a Warm Gun

Yer Blues

Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey

Sexy Sadie

Why Don't We Do It In The Road?

Revolution 1

I'm So Tired

Blackbird

Cry Baby Cry

3 observations on making this cut:

- Not only is there obvious crap on the White Album, there's a lot of 'take it or leave it' kind of stuff - I wanted to do a 15 track cut but didn't feel compelled to add any others beyond 14.

- Re-listening to aid my selection didn't really help, it's hard to re-evaluate something you've listened to hundreds of times.

- McCartney does not come out of this well.