I’ve already complained about the summer heat this week, so I blew my stock opening for this feature. What was I thinking?

It’s been a typically weird news week in the New Orleans metro area. St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith was arrested for starting a brawl at a popular Northshore steakhouse.  Smith claimed the fight was inspired by vicious social media posts by the guy whose ass he kicked. It’s a black eye on local law enforcement. Did they put a steak on it to ease the swelling?

To say I was irked by Eric Clapton’s malakatude during the pandemic is an understatement. Like some other old hippies, he went all anti-mask libertarian over the lockdown. After we both calmed down, I found myself missing his music, so I released EC from purgatory beginning with last week’s Friday Cocktail Hour. Besides, I’ve been on a run of one-word song titles for this feature and Badge is as good as it gets.

Eric Clapton and George Harrison wrote this week’s theme song in 1969. George was initially credited as L’Angelo Misterioso for contractual reasons. It’s a mystery why he chose that moniker.

We have three versions of Badge for your listening pleasure: the Cream OG, EC live, and Fanny.

I often riff on the theme song title by posting tunes with similar titles. But there’s a paucity of songs with badge in the title, so here’s a fanny song:

You can’t go wrong with Marvin Gaye.

We begin our second act with a political piece about a candidate who’s the center of considerable buzz this campaign cycle.

Michelle Goldberg On Jon Ossoff: An oddity about the New York Times’ current lineup of opinion columnists is that two of them were poached from Slate: Jamelle Bouie and Michelle Goldberg. The Gray Lady only steals from the best.

Goldberg recently wrote a long piece about the reelection campaign of Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff. She sees him as potential presidential candidate, so do I.

Ossoff was widely considered the most vulnerable incumbent going into this election cycle. That’s no longer the case: between his oratorical prowess and assiduous constituent service he’s now favored to beat either of his possible GOP opponents who Ossoff dismisses as “Trump puppets.” There’s a lot of that going around.

Ossoff is such a gifted phrase maker that I featured his phrase Mar-A-Lago Mafia in a quote of the day post in April. His speeches cleverly weave together MAGA corruption scandals with the everyday concerns of voters. I think he’s on to something big, so I donated to his campaign.

The last word of the segment goes to Ossoff’s fabulous campaign kickoff speech in the ATL:

The Poltergeist Rumor: I love the movie Poltergeist. It’s one of the best horror films ever made. There’s something of an auteurship dispute. Rumor has it that producer Steven Spielberg directed it, not Tobe Hooper. Both men have always denied this canard but it persists. So much so that Slate’s Keith Phipps recently revisited the subject.

The rumor is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how movies are made. It’s a collaborative artform, so there are many hands involved in creation, production, and release. The producer is always a major player. During Hollywood’s golden age, producers were more important than directors. By 1982, that was no longer the case hence the Poltergeist confusion.

Like Keith Phipps, I believe that Tobe Hooper directed the movie with able assistance from the producer. Frank Capra’s notion of One Man, One Film is a bunch of hooey or is that malarky? Discuss amongst yourselves.

The last word of our second act goes to The Band:

We begin our third act with our favorite stolen feature.

Separated At Birth Casting Edition: This is an oddball entry. It’s inspired by the third version of Cape Fear, now showing on Apple+. I like it thus far, especially for the performances by Amy Adams, Patrick Wilson, and Javier Bardem as the villain of the piece, Max Cady.

I give you the Max Cadys: Javier Bardem, Robert DeNiro, and Robert Mitchum.

Cape Fear is based on John D. MacDonald’s novel The Executioners, which is a rather generic title. Cape Fear is much better. It’s all capey and feary.

Your Basic Basie: Count Basie tried to keep up with the times. In the Sixties, he covered quite a few then contemporary pop songs. This is one of them.

Have I told you lately how much I love Count Basie?

Classic Movie Trailer: Speaking of badges, there’s a memorable badge reference in this John Huston classic. It’s perhaps the best film ever made about the corrosive effect of greed. It came in second on my John Huston Dozen.

Grading Time: I give The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre 4 stars and an Adrastos grade of A. It’s a stone cold classic.

Saturday GIF Horse: I don’t know about you but I don’t need any stinking badges. Neither does this bandito from the Huston flick.

It’s time for a treasure tune:

Toon Time: The Insult Comedian claimed to hear mostly cheers when he was booed at Madison Square Garden during the Knicks-Spurs game. He’s either deaf or in denial.

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

Saturday Closer: These live video clips are inspired by the Randy Smith mishigas. Nobody was shot there, not even a deputy.

That’s all for this week. Jon Ossoff got his start in politics as an aide to the late, great John Lewis. Jon and John get the last word.