I’ve had Charles Mingus on my mind this week. I learned of the work of Neil Fujita because of the Mingus album cover featured on Wednesday. Fujita’s cover art for Dave Brubeck is featured today. He also designed these classic book covers:

I’ve also had Richard Thompson on my mind this week. He wrote Mingus Eyes for the 1994 album Mirror Blue. You can’t beat these Beat lyrics:

“What a fool I was, what a thin disguise.
Brando mumble, Mingus eyes.”

RT’s music will be featured in the next Sunday Dozen.

Speaking of Charlie Mingus, Joni Mitchell added lyrics to the great man’s classic composition about his friend Lester Young in 1979.

I might as well throw in this Jeff Beck version suggested the other day by regular reader Jerry Y:

Enough pork pie, we begin our second act by going back to school: law school.

Con Law Professor Blues: The hard right turn by Sam the Sham Alito and the Federalist Society Pharaohs has legal academics in an uproar. When I was a law student all my con law profs were liberals much to the consternation of right-wing students. The worm has turned and it’s not an edible gummi.

Slate legal eagle Mark Joseph Stern has the gory details.

Thanks to the chicanery of the Turtle and the Trump appointees, we’re stuck living with it. Ugh, just ugh.

Hit it, Chris.

The whole thing has a bitter flavor much like the sour beers that pop up during Oktoberfest. You may be wondering why I have beer on my mind during a discussion of SCOTUS’ hard right turn. This is why:

Now that you’re suitably depressed, let’s take a trip to Florida in the wake of Hurricane Ian.

Florid In Florida: This segment is not about D Duce Wannabe DBA Ron DeSantis. He’s actually conducting himself like a regular governor. I told you he was a phony.

Michael Grunwald was among those who argued that building Cape Coral was a lousy idea. He’s taken the argument to the Atlantic; the magazine, not the ocean.

This tagline says it all:

Cape Coral is a microcosm of Florida’s worst impulse: selling dream homes in a hurricane-prone flood zone. But people still want them

Building that sub-division in that part of Florida was tantamount to sticking out one’s chin and daring Mike Tyson to hit it. Hurricane Ian emulated Tyson and bit the Florida peninsula’s ear off; metaphorically speaking, that is.

The last word of our second act goes to McKinley Morganfield DBA Muddy Waters:

We begin our third act with our favorite stolen feature.

Separated At Birth Casting Edition: Mingus is still on my mind. He played with Charlie Parker. Here’s Forrest Whitaker who played the title character in Clint Eastwood’s Bird side-by-side with the real Charlie Parker.

Here’s Bird with an all-star band including that standup guy Charles Mingus on standup bass.

The Movie List: Ready for some Bacon this morning? The list includes Kevin’s teevee work. In fact, number one is his current Showtime series, City On A Hill. He was born to play corrupt but oddly lovable FBI agent Jackie Rohr. If you haven’t seen it, check it out.

The Kevin Bacon Dozen

1. City On A Hill
2. Apollo 13
3. Diner
4. Frost/Nixon
5. Mystic River
6. Black Mass
7. A Few Good Men
8. Footloose
9. The River Wild
10. Murder In The First
11. Hollow Man
12. They/Them

Number 12 is a sleeper Blumhouse horror flick in which Kevin plays the villain.

Best Of Letterman: History was made on this episode of Late Night with David Letterman.

Holy listomania, Batman.

Saturday GIF Horse: Ready for more Bacon? You have no choice. We have the scene that made Kevin a star followed by a 2018 Footloose recreation for Jimmy Kimmel’s chat show.

Instead of Kenny Loggins, we have some fraternal bacon with the theme song of that movie.

Pictures Of Homan: Just when you thought I was done writing about my late friend, I strike again. A couple of cool pictures of Dr. Homan have resurfaced this week.

The first one, in his Seeds of Decline costume for Krewe du Vieux 2012:

The next picture also requires some exposition. A friend brought nutria sauce piquante to our Muses party as a novelty one year. I didn’t like it, but Michael refused to try it. The next year, he showed up in this:

Homan was our very own mythical character. He was the Paul Bunyan of the bayou. I miss his zany antics. RIP, nutty friend.

I guess I should file those away in a:

Tweet Of The Week: Why do they think reminding voters that Sen. Mark Kelly was an astronaut will hurt him? The malakatude, it burns.

Friends don't let friends vote for Mark Kelly. pic.twitter.com/QcUy6m6Vcr

— Republican Party of Arizona (@AZGOP) October 4, 2022

Let’s close down this virtual honky tonk with some more music.

Saturday Classic: It’s time to circle back to Richard Thompson with the classic animated video for a song about a homicidal maniac.

I don’t feel so good after that.

That’s it for this week. The last word goes to Kevin Bacon and Aldis Hodge in City On A Hill: