It’s April Fool’s Day. I have no pranks for you. I was involved with some zany internet pranks with my Crowded House fan friends including Cassandra. Here’s a link to a relic of that era: CH Confidential. I wrote the Ask Pineapple Head advice column. My comments were spiky and snarky. Not much has changed.
A reminder that later today we’ll debut a new feline feature: Caturday. Meow.
Let’s stop fooling around. According to the internet, Nick Lowe wrote this week’s theme song in 1975 for Dr. Feelgood then recorded it with Rockpile for the Seconds Of Pleasure album. I couldn’t find the Dr. Feelgood version, so I’ll post a song with a similar title after we rock with Rockpile.
Have you ever been a Fool Too Long? Who hasn’t? Here’s Nick and Rockpile:
I’m feeling foolish that I don’t know the Fool Too Long story. Woe is me, bop. If anyone knows anything, please leave a comment.
Here are three different tunes entitled Fool For You:
Craig Fuller was the guy who kinda sorta replaced the irreplaceable Lowell George in Little Feat when they returned in 1988.
Enough Tom foolery; on with our second act. We begin with a story about the losingest team in NBA history, the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers.
9-73: The Guardian’s Dave Caldwell wrote a splendid piece about the worst team in a proud franchise’s history. They were 30-52 bad the previous season. Their best player and future Sixers coach Billy Cunningham jumped to the ABA Carolina Cougars. After that, they stunk up the NBA like spoiled Stilton. Sheesh.
Caldwell interviewed the best player on that dreadful squad, Fred Mad Dog Carter. Carter went on to coach the team 20 years later. I remember him: he was a gamer stuck on a horrible team.
For the details, get thee to The Guardian.
Anastasia Of Arizona: Francis Wilkinson wrote a swell piece for TPM Cafe positing the Romanov influence on the rash of GOP pretenders in the wake of the BIG LIE
Scary Kari Lake is the Anastasia of Arizona. That makes Trump the Tsar. I already call him the Kaiser of Chaos and I’m not changing that. The word Tsar is overused in America, That’s why I use Kaiser instead. They’re both rooted in Caesar: the emperor, not the salad.
Dr. A had the dubious honor of meeting fake Anastasia Anna Anderson when Dr. A was a nurse in Charlottesville. She did not like the pretender. So it goes.
The last word of our second act goes to one of Dr. A’s faves:
We begin our third act with our favorite stolen feature.
Separated At Birth Casting Edition: We’ve been watching A Spy Among Friends a mini-series about the Philby spy scandal in the UK. What’s not to love about casting Damien Lewis and Guy Pearce in the leads?
Pearce plays Kim Philby. Here they are side-by-side.
There’s actually a song about Philby by British guitar wizard Rory Gallagher. Who knew?
The Movie List: I may be a lapsed baseball fan but Opening Day was this week, so I thought I should celebrate America’s former National Pastime. Hollywood has never been crazy about baseball movies because they don’t do well in many markets abroad. So it goes.
The Baseball Movie Dozen
- Bull Durham
- 8 Men Out
- The Natural
- The Bingo Long Travelling All Stars & Motor Kings
- 42
- Moneyball
- The Bad News Bears (1976)
- Major League
- Pride Of The Yankees
- Field Of Dreams
- Million Dollar Arm
- A League Of Their Own
I realize many will disagree with Field Of Dreams at #10. Tough you know what. Uplifting movies aren’t my jam. That’s why Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig is number 9, number 9, number 9.
I’m skipping the obvious songs for this number from Billy Bragg and Wilco’s Woody Guthrie album:
Your Weekly Oscar: I love trains; not model RR trains but the real deal. All aboard the Night Train:
Have I told you lately how much I love Oscar Peterson?
Saturday GIF Horse: Robert Redford in The Natural. Say no more.
Throwback Image: I thought of poster while name dropping Spiro Agnew last Monday. I had it on the wall of my teenage bedroom. It drove my father crazy:
I neither had nor wanted one of these:
Let’s close down this virtual honky tonk with some more music.
Saturday Closer: Ready for a spy song written by the Was brothers? Hit it:
That’s it for this week. I stole then memed this image from TPM for this week’s last word:
Espionage is all so topsy turvy and confusing! If Kim Philby had never been caught there would never have been a postage stamp made after him or even a monument of him in Moscow and most of us would never have heard of him even though he was a cousin of Field Marshal Montgomery. If only he had read the epic spy novel Beyond Enkription in The Burlington Files series! It’s about Pemberton’s People in MI6 and is a must read for espionage cognoscenti. Have a look at a recent intriguing news article in TheBurlingtonFiles website dated 31 October 2022 about Colonel Pemberton’s People in MI6, John le Carré and Kim Philby. You may be gobsmacked.
Thanks. Will check it out.