Summer grinds on in New Orleans. I prefer coffee grounds myself. Does that make me a groundskeeper? Laugh amongst yourselves: I have a black thumb. All I have to do to kill a plant is look at it.
I selected the Kandinsky featured image because it looks like a box of fancy doughnuts. Mmm, doughnuts.
The full title of the painting is Color Study: Squares With Concentric Circles. I hope that squares me with everyone. I seem to be afflicted with some sort of word play addiction today. It’s time to kick it and move on to our theme song.
Jerry Lynn Williams wrote Pretending in 1989. It was recorded by Eric Clapton on his Journeyman album. It’s a funk rock song with backing vocals by the great Chaka Khan. It also has one of the goofiest promos videos ever released featuring EC and his band playing in the driving rain. Don’t try that at home, y’all.
We have two versions of Pretending for your listening pleasure: the aforementioned goofy video and EC live at the Royal Albert Hall in 1991.
At this point, I’d normally post some songs with pretending in the title. Not this time. Instead, here’s another song with backing vocals by Chaka Khan:
While we’re talking Chaka, here she is with Rufus, the band, not Sewell:
I seem to be spinning my wheels this week. It must be the heat. Oops, I said that already.
We begin our second act with a segment inspired by Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.
Caddyshack On The Potomac: I’m not much of a Caddyshack fan. I saw it when it came out because Bill Murray and Rodney Dangerfield were in it. I found it mildly amusing but golf is not my jam. My dad played golf until he tried it while smoking a pipe. He dropped the pipe and nearly caused a golf course conflagration. Lou stuck to racquet ball after that.
You’ve surely heard the caddy story by now, here’s how Swan described it to Vanity Fair:
He wants to be a great man of history. He wants to be almost a Napoleon type of figure. And he literally handed us a two-page document that he said was written by a historian, which compares him to what he called “the top 10.” But it’s Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Tamerlane, William the Conqueror. These are not people that presidents of the United States would typically relish being compared to. Trump was visibly in a state of pleasure to be in their company.”
The so-called historian was a caddy for golf legend Gary Player. How did this moron think he could get away with fobbing off a caddy as an historian to Haberman and Swan? Oy, just oy.
The caddy story is why I’ve added Caddyshack to the On The Potomac series:
Glengarry Glen Ross On The Potomac
Is this segment a mere pretext for posting links to past posts? Fuck yeah. Consider it a minor addition to the On The Potomac series, which wouldn’t be complete without the trailer:
Things You Don’t Know About Me: I’m a bad Greek. I hate ouzo. That wasn’t always true. It happened one night in the Plaka in Athens during my misspent youth. I drank way too much ouzo and got black out drunk: vomiting was involved.
Shorter Adrastos: Ouzo made me ooze or some such shit.
To this day, I can’t stand the smell of ouzo or black licorice. I hate it more than vodka and that’s saying a lot.
The last word of our second act goes to Squeeze:
We begin our third act with our favorite stolen feature.
Separated At Birth Casting Edition: I’m irked to still have Cleopatra on my mind. Here’s a photo array of actresses who have played the Queen Of The Nile:
Weezer plays us out of this segment:
Your Basic Basie: I wonder if Count Basie ran this album title by Sinatra. Chairman Of The Board was Frank’s nickname, after all.
Have I told you lately how much I love Count Basie?
Classic Movie Trailer: I still have Ben’s Uncle Joe on my mind. The Barefoot Contessa is one of the best films about film ever made. What’s not to love about a movie starring Bogart, Ava Gardner, and Edmond O’Brien?
The Barefoot Contessa landed at number 8 on my Humphrey Bogart Dozen.
Grading Time: I give this Mankiewicz movie 4 stars and an Adrastos Grade of A. It’s a stone cold classic.
Saturday GIF Horse: Here’s a Caddyshack GIF on the golf course, not the Potomac.
Toon Time: This before and after toon predates this week’s NATO summit, but it still rings true:
Let’s close down this virtual honky tonk with some more music.
Saturday Closer: Here are two, count ’em two clips of Keely Smith and Count Basie joining forces on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Have I told you lately how much I love Count Basie? Yes, I have.
That’s all for this week. The last word goes to Count Basie & his Orchestra circa 1940:
