It’s the last day of August. The month has come and gone without any tropical storms hitting the Gret Stet of Louisiana except for the bullshit storm stirred up by The Clownfish DBA Gov Jeff Landry.

The Clownfish is busy banning things that don’t exist and signing laws that amount to legal clickbait. The fake laws in question involve critical race theory, non-citizen voting, and the Ten Commandments. Landry is not only a wingnut, he’s a copy cat. DeSantis and Abbott got there first. The malakatude, it burns.

Enough about the dismal state of Louisiana politics. Let’s move on to our theme song, which is not inspired by any particular mama but has been my earworm this week. It’s not bad company, y’all.

Randy Newman wrote Mama Told Me Not To Come in 1966 and Eric Burdon & The Animals were the first to record the song. It’s about the wild party scene in the Los Angeles of the Sixties. Newman would go on to record the song on his 1970 album 12 Songs. FYI, my earworm has been the smash hit 1970 version by Three Dog Night.

We have four versions of this week’s theme song for your listening pleasure: Eric Burdon & The Animals, Randy Newman, Three Dog Night, and Tom Jones & Stereophonics:

We have two more mama songs for you: covers by Savoy Brown and the good old Grateful Dead.

Mama Tried is one of the most performed songs in the Grateful Dead concert canon. How’s that for trivia?

We begin our second act with a New York Magazine article from which I learned a great deal.

Fossil Wars: Kerry Howley has written a gobsmacking article about internecine warfare among paleontologists. I had no idea how vicious they were until reading this passage:

The field of paleontology is mean. It has always been mean. It is, in the words of Uppsala University professor Per Ahlberg, “a honeypot of narcissists.” It is “a snake pit of personality disorders.” “An especially nasty area of academia,” the Field Museum’s Jingmai O’Connor calls it.

The feud is between Melanie During and Robert DePalma over a fossil of a dinosaur possibly killed by an asteroid. This bonehead dispute has led the two to engage in a death dance similar to the one in Gaza between Netanyahu and Hamas. Indiana Jones never carried on in this manner.

For the bony details get thee to New York Magazine.

I cannot possibly top that segment, so I won’t try. The last word of our second act goes to the Delta Rhythm Boys:

We begin our third act with our favorite stolen feature.

Separated At Birth Casting Edition: Earlier this week, I name dropped John and Sam Adams. It made me think of the swell HBO series John Adams starring Paul Giamatti as the first Veep and Danny Huston as the Boston brewer.

Here’s a photo array of the players who played patriots:

Let’s remove our powdered wigs and enjoy some jazz.

Your Weekly Oscar: I posted Louis & Oscar’s version of this Cole Porter classic in my second Bobby Junior post this week. Here are two more versions, the second featuring the great saxophonist, Benny Carter.

Have I told you lately how much love Oscar Peterson?

The Best Of Johnny: In the 21st Century, it’s common for stars to voice animated characters. What would Mel Blanc, who voiced almost all the Looney Tunes characters, think? I suspect he would have found it irksome. I know from irksome things.

Here’s a comedic trifecta with Mel, Jack, and Johnny.

As lagniappe, Mel Blanc as Bugs Bunny:

Saturday GIF Horse: We move from the vocal stylings of Mel Blanc to the silent comedy antics of Harold Lloyd. I understand Harold loved to drive fast, so let’s get to the GIFs pronto.

The Junk Drawer: I erred in my sporadic coverage of the British general election. I neglected to post any pictures of the stunts performed by Ed Davey the leader of the Liberal Democrats. It’s hard being a third party candidate, so Davey did some wild shit to gain attention.

It worked: the Lib Dems had one of their best electoral performances since the days of Asquith and Lloyd George, winning 72 seats in the House of Commons.

I wonder if Davey ever used this Count Basie classic as background music:

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

Saturday Closer: After Tim Walz was selected as the Veep’s Veep I suggested this Yes tune as his theme song. Nobody has gotten back to me but I’m not mad. How could I be after finding this performance from the latter days of Late Night with David Letterman?

The last word goes to two great American toons both voiced by Mel Blanc: