Saturday Odds & Sods: My Rival

Peter Adrastos Athas

2 hours ago

I often complain about the weather in this feature. This week, I have nothing to complain about. Fall has finally fallen in New Orleans.

The big local news is that the Saints are playing in the first ever NFL game in Paris tomorrow. That’s Paris, France, not Texas. The protests are taking place miles away from the stadium so it should be okay. I’m not calling them riots: They start off peacefully, then the police break out the batons and beat the shit out of the crowd. French police regard themselves as guardians of the state, not protectors of the public.

I was in Paris with my parents during an earlier period of Gallic unrest. I don’t recall what the protests were about but we got tear gassed in the Metro. It was not pleasant: My eyes get itchy just thinking about it.

The Saints are off to a shaky start. I’m about to show my age, Coach Kellen Moore is a nice young man who speaks in cliches. He’s done one thing right: finding QB Tyler Shough who is the real deal. The jury is still out on Moore but beating the Steelers would shut his critics up for a few weeks. Who among us wouldn’t enjoy seeing Aaron Rodgers lose abroad?

The featured image is of Ralph Bellamy, Cary Grant, and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. Bellamy never got the girl but his rival, Cary Grant, always did. Bellamy got the last laugh with his performance onstage and onscreen as FDR in Sunrise At Campobello.

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen wrote this week’s theme song for Steely Dan’s 1980 album, Gaucho. I’m one of the few who judges Gaucho by the music, not the stories of crazed perfectionism surrounding the record.

My Rival is the most obscure Steely Dan tune I’ve posted at First Draft. It’s funk Becker and Fagen style:

There’s another song of the same title by Alex Chilton:

We begin our second act by linking to an excerpt from the memoirs of a noted actress whose mother was a legend. That would be Rachael Sterling and Diana Rigg:

Rachael’s Story: Sterling is no nepo-baby, she’s a fine actress in her own right. Her credits include many TV titles with Bs in them: Blackpool, Broadchurch, Bancroft, and The Bletchley Girls. She’s as good a person as an actress: She put her career on hold to care for her mother in her final days.

There’s a quirk in Sterling’s memoirs that critics have fixated upon. I’m about to do likewise:

There have been headlines of late that make me out to be an ash-guzzling savage nightly devouring her mother’s charred remains. “Rachael Stirling eats mother Diana Rigg’s ashes before going on stage” declared a dozen news outlets last month, while others referred to the “strange habit only she really understands” and “Dame Diana’s daughter admits eating her ashes in bizarre tribute”. I’ve written a book about our relationship, All About My Mother, in which I do confess to nibbling a grain or two, but I didn’t expect to be portrayed as a matricidal cannibal by the press.”

What can you expect from Fleet Street? To read the entire excerpt, get thee to The Guardian.

I’ll let Mark Knopfler play us out of this segment:

OJ Simpson & The Drug Dealer: I have a confession to make, I’m an OJ Simpson case buff. I’ve seen most of the documentaries, dramatizations, and watched big chunks of the trial live. I didn’t think there was anything new until I read this NYT piece: OJ Simpson, A Secret Informant, and a Decades-Old Mystery.

A professional criminal and mob associate named Tommy Ippolito claimed to have been OJ’s bag man; literally, not figuratively. He claims to have disposed of the mythic satchel in which the murder weapon and bloody clothes were stashed.

Ippolito was a friend of Al Cowlings, OJ’s bestie and the guy who drove the Bronco during the slow-mo chase:

Ippolito was a reliable federal informant who told the FBI of his role in the infamous Simpson-Goldman slaying. His story got lost in the Simpson shuffle. I find it plausible and downright interesting,

The Eagles and Steely Dan get the last word of our second act with songs about the drug dealer they shared. As far as I know, it was not Tommy Ippolito.

We begin our third act with our favorite stolen feature.

Separated At Birth Casting Edition: Acorn TV has a swell series involving a manor house murder with surrealist artists as the suspects: This Is Not A Murder Mystery. The title is inspired by this Magritte work:

Man Ray is played by the Irish actor Frank Bourke who is a dead ringer for the dead artist.

As we watched the first episode, I told Dr. A that the series felt like it had been made for me. I’ll write more about it when the series ends but for now this song about Man Ray will just have to do.

Your Basic Basie: The Count recorded a wide variety of music over the years. Here’s a show stopper from Gypsy.

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

The Best Of Lucas Film: I recently discovered a treasure trove of outstanding half hour documentaries made by Lucas Film. Here’s one about the man who wrote The Front Page, which became His Girl Friday.