The weird weather continues in New Orleans. I can’t remember the last time we ran the heater in April. The pollen is still around but not as thick and sticky as before. It’s minor progress but I’ll take it.

In more significant local news, the city of New Orleans hired former NYPD commissioner William Bratton to look at security issues arising out of the January terrorist attack. The Bratton report suggests that Bourbon Street be made a pedestrian mall for 8 blocks starting at Canal Street, the site of the attack. I dislike the Bourbon Street experience so I’m all Rhett Butler on the subject:

I don’t, however, have a mustache. Dr. A wouldn’t hear of it. It’s okay, I find facial hair itchy.

The featured image is John Garfield and Geraldine Fitzgerald in the 1946 film noir, Nobody Lives Forever. It will be tomorrow’s movie post as I love me some Julie Garfinkle DBA John Garfield. Stay tuned.

One-word theme song month continues with a tune written by Tom Johnston for the fine band with a dumb name’s 1971 debut album, The Doobie Brothers.

I give you Nobody:

We continue with two other songs called Nobody from The Hollies and Nina Simone. I guess nobody complained.

Back to the week that was. It’s been emotionally taxing. I have no plans to slap tariffs on our readership. I never expected to write this much about tariffs. It’s tiresome but you gotta do what you gotta do, dammit.

We begin our second act with a link to a book excerpt. I love excerpts. In fact, I find them exceptional…

Sister Aimee: I’ve long been interested in the bizarre story of the Roaring Twenties celebrity evangelist Aimee Semple Macpherson. She disappeared for five weeks and many wonder to this day if she staged her own kidnapping or whatever the hell it was.

There was a 1976 TV movie, The Disappearance Of Aimee, in which the runaway preacher was played by Faye Dunaway. Bette Davis played her mother. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall on a set with those two divas.

Here’s the trailer:

There’s a new book about Sister Aimee by Claire Hoffman: Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson.  

Vanity Fair has an excellent excerpt from Hoffman’s book.  Jeez, I sound like Mike Myers in Wayne’s World only without the exclamation points:

Sister Aimee was anything but simple, but I dig this song, especially Robin Trower’s lead guitar:

FYI, that’s the wrong album cover, Simple Sister is on Broken Barricades. Oh well, what the hell.

The Broadway Myth: Frank Rich has had a long relationship with the New York City theatre district that we call Broadway. It fascinated him as a child, and he was the NYT’s much-feared theatre critic for many years.

Rich has written about his lifelong preoccupation for New York Magazine, How Broadway Became Broadway. Rich’s focus is on how movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age influenced our perception of Broadway.

The last word of our second act goes to Tony Bennett and Count Basie:

We begin our third act with our favorite stolen feature.

Separated At Birth Casting Edition: Peter Ustinov remains the ultimate movie Nero but the demented emperor was also played by Charles Laughton in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Sign Of The Cross and Dom DeLuise in Mel Brooks’ History Of The World, Part I:

The second movie was a comedy, the first movie was  just unintentionally funny, wasting Laughton and Fredric March. A great actor is a terrible thing to waste. Two is twice as bad or some such shit.

Have I told you lately how much I hate DeMille’s movies?

Your Weekly Oscar: I’m getting carried away with the nobody theme. Here’s OP solo; playing like nobody’s business:

Have I told you lately how much I love Oscar Peterson? I did so on Thursday and Friday, actually.

The Best Of Jiminy Glick: Martin Short has been playing show biz chat show gasbag Jiminy Glick since he was knee-high to a grasshopper. In this clip, his character interviews Mel Brooks.

Saturday GIF Horse: Ready for a John Garfield doubleheader? You have no choice.

Here’s the great actor in The Postman Always Rings Twice with Lana Turner and Cecil Callaway.

I better not post that separately on a Meta social media site. I’ll get my ass suspended. The same goes for the image in our next segment.

Your Weekly Political Cartoon: Another classic from Canadian political cartoonist Bruce MacKinnon. It puts a new spin on an old adage. In this instance Reich Chancellor Musk has cut off his head, not nose, to spite his face. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. #sarcasm

That calls for a saw song as recorded by the Gret Stet of Louisiana’s own Tab Benoit:

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

Saturday Closer: Ed Sullivan was a famous New York newspaper columnist who hosted a Sunday night variety show for decades on CBS. He was as charismatic as an undertaker. Here’s a clip from his show featuring Louis, Keely, and Sam. Can I get a witness?

That’s all for this week. The last word goes to Faye Dunaway and Bette Davis in The Disappearance Of Aimee.