Steely Dan’s music helped me get through my major illness in 2024 AKA the Big Bleed. I listened to little else in the first month after I got out of hospital. It gave me a deeper appreciation of their music and how damn cinematic it is. I hereby declare October 2026, Steely Dan paired with a featured image from the movies month. Damn, that was long-winded in a way that Donald Fagen might mock. What can ya do?

I’m still adjusting to my hearing aids. My hearing has been bad for so long that some things sound way too loud. For example, when a cellophane bag of chips, pretzels, or whatever is opened it sounds positively apocalyptic. The good news is that my internal sound mixing board works again thanks to technology. I’m not an ear buds fan, so I’ll have to get used to putting something in my ears. Oh well, what the hell.

The featured image features movie magic from the Howard Hawks classic, Red River. As you can see, some of it was shot on a soundstage. Monty Clift, John Wayne, and Noah Beery are standing so stiffly that they must have been lighting the next shot.

That brings us to this week’s Steely Dan theme song.

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen wrote Black Cow for Steely Dan’s 1977 album Aja. It’s about a cad, not a cow. In fact, black cow is arcane slang for a root beer float of all things. That concludes this brief foray into fountain drink history. Does that make me a soda jerk? Beats the hell outta me.

We have three versions of Black Cow for your listening pleasure: The studio OG, Steely Dan live, and a cover by Ahmad Jamal. Hit it:

Lest you think I’m cowed by this week’s theme song, here are two more cow tunes:

The stampede is on to our second act. It begins with a piece about Thomas Jefferson’s Black descendants.

TJ’s Lost Descendants: There’s been more genetic testing involving the Jefferson-Hemings mishigas. This round was conducted because some insisted on being skeptical of earlier tests. It’s hard for the keepers of TJ’s flame to accept the fact that he liked sex let alone sex with an enslaved woman. I am not making this up.

There’s a swell piece about all of this by Julian Lucas at The New Yorker. DNA swabs aren’t required to read it.

A Killer Story is an unusual true crime documentary about real life amateur detectives in Topeka, Kansas. There’s a swell piece in Vanity Fair about the series so I’ll let it handle the exposition:

As true-crime yarns go, here was a tantalizing one—and that was before an unaffiliated Kansas couple turned it into their life’s work. After the case went cold for several years, Sisco’s ex-wife, Dana Chandler, was convicted of double homicide in 2012, but the lack of direct or forensic evidence has always cast doubt over her guilt. In A Killer Story, an HBO documentary series premiering next week, former New York Times and ProPublica journalist Joe Sexton and director Matthew Galkin probe the murders and the arc of Eileen Umbehr, a true-crime TV obsessive who roped Sexton into the story with a relentless stream of unsolicited emails, and her husband Keen, a onetime trash collector who refashioned himself as a lawyer and political gadfly. The couple devote themselves to proving Chandler’s innocence, and it makes for some disorienting viewing in its own right.”

It certainly does. The Umbehr’s are well-meaning obsessives. Obsessions rarely end well. This one did not.

Here’s the trailer.

Grading Time: I give this three-part docuseries 3 1/2 stars and an Adrastos grade of B+. It’s worth watching for Joe Sexton’s potty mouth. He used to work for the Gray Lady, I hope he swore as much in the Times newsroom as in A Killer Story.

The last word goes to The Kinks:

We begin our third act with our favorite stolen feature.

Separated At Birth Casting Edition: I just went on about the man from Monticello, let’s see who played him onscreen.

Damn, Hugh O’Brien’s wig is terrible. If I were a Real Housewife, I’d make a wig joke but I’m not so I won’t. Instead, I’ll post this goofy song:

Your Basic Basie: Basie. Sinatra. Quincy Jones. Say no more.

Oops, I said more. What can ya do?

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

The Best Of SCTV: The Canadian cut-ups are now on Netflix. I’m delighted that their comedic antics will reach a new audience, especially because of my country woman Andrea Martin who I will not claim as kin.

Classic Movie Trailer: Red River moseys from the featured image to this segment. Giddy-up.

Grading Time: I give Red River 4 stars and an Adrastos grade of A. It’s a stone cold classic

I’ll let Tex Ritter sing us out of this segment:

Holy oddball pairing, Batman.

Saturday GIF Horse: Here’s noted dog lover James Garner in a GIF from The Rockford Files featuring a tuxedo cat awakening Jim from a nap by hurdling him.

Toon Time: Who among us can let go of the Eric Schmitt mishigas? Do senate chairpersons call out anyone for abusive language anymore? I’ve never heard a senator call anyone a dirtbag before. Chuck Grassley was asleep at the wheel. Again.

Did I say Can’t Let Go?

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

Saturday Closer: We move from dirtbags to digging in the dirt.

That’s all for this week. We’re ending differently this time since it’s an election year. The last word goes to Harold Lloyd: