I am officially a geezer. I’ve seen an audiologist who confirmed how bad my hearing is. My internal mixing board has been out of wack for years. Dining out is not as pleasurable as it used to be because I have a hard time distinguishing voices. Shorter Adrastos: I’m getting a hearing aid next week.

While I’m discussing my decrepitude, here’s a general health update. I’m doing okay. My digestive system has changed since the big bleed. I used to have a cast iron stomach but now I have tummy tumult from time to time. My doctors warned me this could happen, so I was forewarned. Oh well, what the hell.

The featured image comes from Billy Wilder’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Witness For The Prosecution. Marlene Dietrich is testifying as Charles Laughton makes a point as the barrister for the defense. It’s her best performance and one of many great performances by Laughton.

This week’s theme song is the sixth consecutive Robbie Robertson song to adorn the Saturday post. It’s the first one word title in the sequence, which was the trend before Robbie mania. I nearly said Robbie-palooza but Team MAGA made that less appetizing by adding a palooza to their dear leader’s name for their Dallas event.

Repeat after me: MAGA turns everything to shit.

Testimony was written by Robbie Robertson for his 1987 eponymous solo debut album. The album was produced by Daniel Lanois who was working with U2 on another project. That’s how U2 came to be on this track if you’re keeping track.

Testimony is also the title of Robbie’s fine 2016 memoir:

That concludes my testimony. Next witness.

We begin our second act with a brief review of a fine British TV series.

Gone is a six-episode limited series starring David Morrissey and Eve Myles. Morrissey is an old school English headmaster of what we call a private school and they, for some odd reason, call a public school.

Morrissey’s wife goes missing and is found murdered. He is the prime suspect but the detective played by Myles believes he didn’t do it. There are manifold twists and turns to the plot, which I shan’t spoil for you. Suffice it to say that Morrissey and Myles are brilliant.

Here’s the trailer:

Grading Time: I give Gone 4 stars and an Adrastos grade of A-. It’s streaming on Britbox.

I’ll let Boz Scaggs sing us out of this segment:

Documentary Of The Week: If you’re like me, you paid little heed to the Laci Peterson murder case. The tabloids were all over the story and it looked like an open and shut case against her husband Scott who was cheating on her whilst she was pregnant. Scott Peterson was a cad transformed into a monster. But was he?

The Los Angeles Innocence Project has taken on this notorious case. They think Peterson didn’t do it as does Chris Pixley, the presenter of the two part A&E docuseries, Scott Peterson: The New Evidence.

I was gobsmacked by the revelations of police and prosecutorial misconduct that led to Peterson’s conviction. Some evidence was withheld from the defense team and other evidence conveniently disappeared or was destroyed. I’m not a conspiracist but the weight of the new evidence gives me the reasonable doubt the jury should have found at the 2004 trial.

Here’s the trailer:

The LA Innocence Project’s motion for a new trial  was rejected by a trial court, but they’re appealing. My hunch is that a trial court judge didn’t want to reverse such a famous case. Stay tuned.

Grading Time: I never expected to be interested in this case but the documentary makes a strong argument that Peterson was unjustly convicted. I give it 3 1/2 stars and an Adrastos grade of B+.

The last word of our second act goes to Elvis Costello with a song about Derek Bentley who was unjustly convicted and executed in the UK in 1953:

We begin our third act by skipping our favorite stolen feature. The separation won’t last long, SAB will return next week.

Your Basic Basie: Our man Bill Basie loved collaborating with other musicians. He teamed up with Stan Getz on a song made famous by Billie Holiday, so we’ll add her version after the Basie-Getz recording:

Have I told you lately how much I love Count Basie? That goes for Stan and Billie too.

Classic Movie Trailer: You were maybe expecting a certain Billy Wilder movie in this slot? I like to keep my readers off-balance so here’s an antifa classic from the mind of Lillian Hellman starring Bette Davis and Paul Lukas.

Grading Time: It’s a bit too stagey for my taste but I still give Watch On The Rhine 3 1/2 stars and an Adrastos grade of B+.

Saturday GIF Horse: Presenting Marlene Dietrich in a tuxedo tipping her top hat.

I just gave myself an earworm. This is it:

Toon Time: My colleagues Cassandra and Parenthetical wrote swell pieces this week about Trump’s ongoing Kennedy Center tantrum. My contribution is this cartoon by Nick Anderson.

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

Saturday Closer: Presenting a lost Tom Petty tune with a title that captures the spirit of our times despite being 40 some odd years old, Parade Of Loons.

That’s all for this week. The last word goes to George Coulouris, Paul Lukas, and Bette Davis in Watch On The Rhine: