I’ve been playing a lot of music from my misspent youth lately. It must have been inspired by seeing a high school chum during the French Quarter Festival. We were both on the staff of the San Mateo Hi, the school newspaper. I started off doing bread and butter school news stories and wound up writing music, book, and movie reviews. I wish I’d saved some of those pieces but did not. Oh well, what the hell.
That’s what passes for an introduction this week because it leads to our theme song. It’s a hit single from an album act; make that opus act, long songs were a Yes staple. Roundabout was written in 1971 by Jon Anderson and Steve Howe for Yes’ Fragile album. It was the first track on that classic album and marked Rick Wakeman’s debut with the band.
We have 4 versions of Roundabout for your listening pleasure: the single edit; the album OG; Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman live in 2018, and Asia live with co-writer Steve Howe on lead guitar:
You say Yes; I say Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman. Let’s play the damn song already.
There’s a 1965 song called Roundabout, which I’d never heard of until this week. Not bad.
We begin our second act with a segment about food theft. I am not making this up.
This swell piece by lawyer turned food writer Olivia Potts tells a tale of crime and artisanal cheese. It made me crave cheddar or want to go to college at Havarti. That’s an old joke, not necessarily a gouda one.
Let’s have some cheese and crackers before moving on:
Fear and Loathing In Gary, Indiana: Gary is a sort of prequel to The Bear. It stars Ebon Moss-Bacharach and Jon Bernthal. Moss-Bacharach plays “Cousin” Richie, my favorite character on The Bear and Bernthal plays Mikey Berzatto, the guy whose death brings his chef kid brother back to Chicago. It depicts a drug fueled road trip from Chicago to Gary, Indiana, hence the segment title.
Both players knock it out of the park. Bernthal is one of my favorite contemporary actors. He reminds me of John Garfield. High praise indeed.
Grading Time: Gary is 58 minutes of gritty intensity, but it’s well worth a looksee. I give it 3 1/2 stars and an Adrastos grade of B+. It’s streaming on Hulu.
The episode uses another Yes song from Fragile as a framing device.
Things You Don’t Know About Me: I claim California as my first home state but I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. How did a family of Greek immigrants land in Mormon country? Kennecott Copper had a Greek recruiter in New York who showed new arrivals pictures of Utah, which resembles the Peloponnesus from whence my Papou hailed. My namesake took the bait and that’s how I came to be born in Utah.
My parents moved to California when I was 5. Thanks, mom and dad.
The last word of our second act goes to Bob Weir:
We begin our third act with our favorite stolen feature.
Separated At Birth: I give you the abolitionist and the contrarian, William Lloyd Garrison and Larry David.
Your Basic Basie: Here’s the Count with a tune composed by Chester Babcock DBA Jimmy Van Heusen.
Have I told you lately how much I love Count Basie?
The Best Of Monty Python: I’ve used this clip before but it goes with the Potts piece like brie and Ritz crackers. What’s not to love about a sketch involving some Greek mocking? I can not only dish it out, I can take it.
Classic Movie Trailer: I used a cast photo of the great 1939 comedy Midnight as the Friday Cocktail Hour featured image yesterday. It was written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett and has a phenomenal cast starring Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, John Barrymore, and Mary Astor.
Grading Time: I give Midnight 4 stars and an Adrastos grade of A. It’s a stone cold classic.
Saturday GIF Horse: Speaking of featured images, I used one of Invisible Man Claude Rains in my latest malaka of the week post. In this GIF he proves how polite he is by covering his mouth whilst doing something or other.
I used an Elvis Costello song as the last word of the Kean Junior post. Here’s another Invisible Man song. I suspect you’ve heard of the band:
Toon Time: We have two by Nick Anderson this time around.
Let’s close down this virtual honky tonk with some more music.
Saturday Closer: I’m on the record as a Peter Frampton fan. He appeared last week on CBS Saturday Morning. The full clip is not online so this doubleheader will just have to do.
That’s all for this week. The last word goes to The Bear’s Richie and Mikey.
