Happy Sad - Pizzicato Five

I miss Pizzicato Five. This is from the 1990s. It all seems like it's a world away by now.

I should ask Professor Google what's up with Maki and Yasaharu these days.

Hot Tips for Wi-Fi TV

Okay, here’s a couple of tips for your wi-fi TV viewing pleasure. All up on the YouTube, with good resolution and in their entirety.

1. Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.  This is a W.C. Fields vehicle, in fact I think that it was his last. Very nice hi-resolution viewing. The film features a lot of film-in-film styling; in fact most of it is a visualization of a cold script reading in a Hollywood studio. Tons of great lines.

“You’re as funny as a cry for help.”

“I was in love with a beautiful blonde once. She drove me to drink. That’s the one thing that I am indebted to her for.”

“How could a rock dropping from a thousand feet hurt your head?”

2. Scorpio Rising. (Kenneth Anger)  Oh . . . my . . . God. I missed this one when it was new. I was around that scene, but not of that scene. It’s what we used to call an “underground movie" (made in 1964). I really can’t say what I would have made of this movie back then. I saw quite a few of the undergrounds, but honestly I preferred things like French New Wave; Ingmar Bergman; Japanese cinema in general; and screwball comedies from the 1930s.

I watched Scorpio Rising for the first time just the other night. It looked as though Quentin Tarentino made a combination TV commercial for Harley Davidson Motorcycles and Tom’s of Finland, with gratuitous references to Nazism and Devil worship, featuring a lot of that old time Rock and Roll.

Disclaimer: you will be shocked.

3. Things to Come. 1936. This is such a famous movie that you should already have pictures in your head. It’s never been easy to find, but now it’s way up on the YouTube. Looks good too, very clear.

Super-futuristic; H.G. Wells story; staring Raymond Massey and Ralph Richardson. Great story and special effects. The social commentary hits like an overhand right from Mike Tyson. It was released only a couple of months before World War II started, and the action begins just as “World War II” was starting.

Thank God almighty that the real war did not go on as long as the war in this movie. So at the time it was a cautionary tale about war, but by now it’s a cautionary tale about how things could always have been worse.

Go ahead, check these out. Man, I love wi-fi TV. 

Lee Dorsey - Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley

It does sound like the Meters in the back-up, doesn't it? (See Below.) Ziggy alert! Right from the get-go.

It seems like this is an Allen Toussaint song, so it's possible that he did it first. (Wow, how about those rim-shots?) Lee Dorsey, man, if he shared a song with anybody at all, they'd better watch out. First, last or in between, Lee's gonna get you.

There are some great live videos of Lee up here on the Intertubes. Look around!

Sailin' Shoes- Hey Julia- Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley: Robert Palmer

I think that Robert Palmer was a very good singer in general, but the album that this is from is really exceptional in every way. Robert himself found a new gear, and the back-up is as good as it gets. There are two drummers on the album, Ziggy Modaliste and Bernard "Pretty" Purdy! It doesn't get any better than that. The band in general is the Meters, with some assists here and there. It's all hits, all the time. I love this album.

But, the cover angle. Robert and the fellows put a new twist on the Little Feat song. I don't play that "better" game, like too many people on YouTube. They're different; I like 'em both.

Good cover of "Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley," too. That's a Lee Dorsey song, isn't it? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Might have been the Meters on his original as well!

Sailing Shoes - Little Feat

It jumped into my head today that I've been neglecting Little Feat. They must hide around some dark corner in my synapses so that I can walk on by without them coming to mind.

They're an all time favorite of mine, though. They were in heavy rotation back at the house for a long time. I saw them play a couple of times. Why, I even took my father to see them at the Roxy in L.A. one time. We had fun. He was the only old man in the room so they were sure that he was a big executive from some parent company in New York and they cleared a space for us and sat us at a table right down front. Best seats that I ever had at the Roxy!

Lookin' Good!

People tell me that I look good. Usually, this comment is phrased as, “you look great for sixty-eight!” I wonder if that’s one of those left-handed compliments, like, “you throw good, for a girl.” But really, I’ll take it, because I am actually sixty-eight-years-old. If I were only fifty-eight, I’m sure that I wouldn’t take it so well.

Most of the people who tell me this are Thai, which discounts it somewhat. Thais are unfailingly friendly and polite, and if they can think of something nice to say, they’ll say it. Sometimes they tell me, “you have a nice nose!” Back home it would be different. Americans would be more likely to think that my nose was rather too big. But big noses are popular in Thailand, so that works in my favor.

I am also bald headed, which is okay with me. I make sure that what is left of my hair is kept very short and neat with frequent haircuts. A bald uncle told me when I was a boy that frequent haircuts were a must for a bald man, or else it all looks very messy. I had teased him about saving money on haircuts. Now I also know that the opposite is true.

It is likely that I do look okay for sixty-eight. More importantly, I feel okay. My blood pressure is on the high side, but not high enough to worry the doc’s. (I was at the hospital the other day for a blood test. My reading was 143/78. I was so relieved that I almost lit up a cigarette on the spot.) I have an enlarged prostate, but what sixty-eight-year-old can say that he does not? I have a gall stone with the remarkable diameter of one centimeter, but I am assured that many people make it through life with those things and never experience any discomfort at all. I’ve always been lucky, so I’ll take my chances.

I try to think about my cholesterol as little as possible.

Being born is such a crap-shoot. I’d be surprised if many people would take the chance if the decision were theirs. “Okay, here’s the deal,” says the somebody, “either you can choose not to be born, and nothing good or bad will ever happen to you, and you’ll never know the difference,” the somebody gives a knowing smile, “or you can be born, and it might work out okay or you may be subjected to a life of confusion, pain and suffering the likes of which only God can imagine, to no purpose at all, and then die horribly and alone.”

Thank you sir, but I’ll take never-having-been-born.

But that’s just me. 

Clyde McPhatter - Chinatown - MERCURY LP 20902

Here's your daily dose of gratuitous racism.

Ching, chang, a chingalingalang!