Carnival and Paul Drake’s gotcha day loom. We adopted the dear boy on Twelfth Night in 2018. I guess that means we must consume King Cake on Monday. Poor us.
I said all I have to say about the latest mess in Mesopotamia yesterday. Suffice it to say that I don’t think it’s an Archduke Ferdinand moment but it’s some serious shit,
This week’s theme song was written in 1976 by Nick Lowe for his kinda sorta solo album Jesus Of Cool, which was released in America as Pure Pop For Now People. I said kinda sorta solo album because it featured Nick’s band Rockpile on all the tracks. More about them later.
We have two versions of So It Goes for your listening pleasure: the original studio recording and a live medley with Heart In The City.
Both Nick Lowe and I picked up the phrase “so it goes” from Kurt Vonnegut. So it goes.
Before jumping to the break another Rockpile tune. This time the guys are backing up Nick’s then wife Carlene Carter:
Now that we’ve got all that crying out of our systems, let’s dry our eyes and jump to the break.
I can’t quite let go of last year, so we begin our second act with some retrospective pieces.
Looking Back At 2019: TPM has an annual feature, The Golden Duke Awards in which they take a humorous look at the best scandals of the year. This time I was enfranchised as TPM members could vote. A scandalously good time was had by all.
My Bayou Brief publisher, Lamar White Jr., takes a look at the people and events that shaped the Gret Stet of Louisiana in 2019. I get a shout-out for coining the term Neelyisms. It’s only fair to return the shout-out even if I disagree with Lamar’s selection of New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell as the most authentic Louisiana pol. If it were annoying, I’d be down with it.
Part two of Lamar’s first annual opus dropped last night. My name is dropped several times.
Finally, Dave Barry’s annual year in review piece, which has made me laugh since its inception. I particularly enjoyed this section on the infamous no-call in the Saints-Rams game last January:
In sports, the Los Angeles Rams win the National Football Conference championship game after the referees, on a critical play, fail to notice when a Rams defensive back attacks a New Orleans Saints receiver with a chain saw. Responding to the ensuing outrage, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says he will “conduct a thorough review of league policy regarding power tools,” adding that “New England is scheduled to win the Super Bowl anyway.”
Thanks, Dave. Anyone who mocks Roger Goodell is okay by me:
That was the Krewe of Spank’s float for the 2014 Krewe du Vieux parade. Bite me. Roger.
We interrupt our Rockpile fest with a Harrisong:
We resume our Rockpile extravaganza with a pedagogical musical selection:
How Rockpile Tried and Failed to Save Rock and Roll: There’s a marvelous piece by Mitchell Cohen about the glory days of Rockpile, which ended with a series of artistic disagreements between co-leaders Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds.
The Rockpile catalog included their own record Seconds of Pleasure as well as albums by Lowe, Edmunds, and Carlene Carter. They not only rocked they ruled. Read the article, then seek out their music.
It’s a pity that Rockpile lasted such a short time. I need some therapy to cope:
The next section explains why I posted Salvador Dali’s stage design for the Hitchcock film Spellbound. I’ll let the NYT image doohickey serve as the segment header.
I’m fascinated by Ellman’s theory that Spellbound was a proto #METOO movie. As Kurt, Nick, and I would say: So It Goes.
We conclude our second act with two tunes that have nothing in common with the Hitchcock movie except the title:
We begin our third act with our favorite stolen feature:
Separated At Birth: I hope I’m not testing your patience with this pairing of Brad Pitt and legendary shrink Hermann Rorschach.
If I were a better person, I’d post a Rorschach ink blot but I’m not, so I won’t. It would be a blot on my reputation such as it is.
The Classic Movie List: I wrote about Robert Mitchum’s great performance in Cape Fear on NYD, so it only seemed fitting to feature him this week.
My Top Ten Favorite Robert Mitchum Movies:
- Out Of The Past
- Crossfire
- Cape Fear
- The Sundowners
- Night Of The Hunter
- The Friends Of Eddie Coyle
- His Kind Of Woman
- Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
- Farewell, My Lovely
- The Big Steal
That was a hard one. I came up with 15 films off the top of my head. Mitchum is one of the most underrated stars in film history.
Saturday GIF Horse: From Robert Mitchum’s body of work to his hate hand in Night Of The Hunter, which is #5 on the list.
It’s a pity he didn’t have a second career as a hand model. The extra cash could have come in handy.
Weekly Vintage Video: Rockpile mania continues with two videos from Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe as solo artists with non-Rockpile backing bands.
Saturday Classic: How else would I conclude a Rockpile-centric post? It’s a show the boys did in Germany in 1980:
Be patient at the end. They do several encores. You can pretend the Hamburgers were cheering for you. It’s what I did as did Paul Drake. He assumes applause is his due as an internet rock star.
That’s it for this week. The last word goes to Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe.
