Category Archives: Top Five Lists

Top Five Worst Cases of Using Nouns as Verbs

If you’ll recall, the Stooges often negatively impacted each other. And when I hear these words used these ways, I feel like Curly.

One of these just smacked me in the face a moment ago when I was innocently looking for something entirely unrelated. It came from a supposed institute of higher learning — although I assume it was written by an undergraduate intern or some such in the press office. (I did a word-study job like that at Memphis State in the early ’70s, for a dollar sixty-something an hour. But I wouldn’t have done this.)

So it’s time for a list.

I had trouble deciding upon criteria for this distinction. They aren’t necessarily the worst, although some a pretty horrible. I gave a lot of weight to their being overused. Some I could perhaps wink at if I heard them once every couple of years. But our ears and eyes are constantly hammered by these. They are ubiquitous, and therefore, in a sense, among the “worst.”

Here they are:

  1. impact — Don’t cite your “authorities” that say it’s all right. Yes, this mistake has been made for centuries — like using “they” to refer (in casual, lazy conversation) to a single person, which is a separate issue, of course. But “authorities” defend it because they have friends — academics, bureaucrats, and such — who think it makes them sound official, and serious, and expert. It’s like saying “persons” instead of “people” like a normal person. And it’s insufferable.
  2. gift — This one may be the most profoundly awful — particularly since the verb that should be used, “give,” is so short and convenient. But it’s not used as frequently in news stories as “impact.” and therefore is slightly more forgiveable.
  3. parent — Just gross. You can “be a good parent.” But you cannot “parent well.”
  4. partner — I couldn’t decide which of the “p” words to list first; they’re on about the same level. Seriously, what’s wrong with “work with?” Why the hell would you say “partner with?”
  5. dialogue — This one’s bad, but not as obviously so as the ones above. I just had to come up with five. Maybe you can come up with a worse one.

On another day, I’ll lecture the garment and advertising industries on the fact that there’s no such garment as a “pant.” “Pant” is what a dog does. People wear pants, and that’s what they are called. The singular item is called a pair of pants. Got that? If so, I won’t have to return to the the subject…

Top Five Best Horror Films (or TV Shows)?

The big ‘jump scare’ in the best on the list.

Why a question mark on the headline? After all, aren’t Brad’s Top Five lists final and authoritative?

Well, not this one. Because I am not a horror fan. This may be an oversimplification — because there some films in this genre I do like — but in general, I feel like we have enough stress and disgust and shocks in real life. I feel the same way about scary rides at the fair. I’m not paying somebody good money to make me unhappy.

In some ways this is odd, I suppose, because when I was a kid — starting when I was 9 or 10 — I was a huge fan of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories. When I lived in Ecuador in the fifth and sixth grades, I had an hour ride on the bus either way. My friend Tony and I would sit in the back and tell each other the Poe stories we’d read, to while away the time.

Which reminds me. The creepiest of all Poe’s stories was “The Fall of the House of Usher.” I was very, very disappointed to see that Netflix was presenting a TV series with that title. The very straightforward story — the meat of the narrative takes place over a single evening, as I recall, although what goes before is creepy enough — lends itself in no way to a TV series. The only way you can do that is to hire some writers who are not Poe and have them cram a bunch of excess stuff into it. Worse, it appears to be one of those execrable “updates.” Enough said.

There are so many works in literature — such as my faves of recent years, O’Brien’s Aubrey/Maturin series of novels — that call for that kind of treatment, that beg for it. The world would be such a better place if Hollywood would address that need. But no, it’s considered more profitable to ruin Poe.

You might say I’d change my mind if I watched it. That is possible, but extremely unlikely. And not worth wasting time on. I watch a lot of TV (and movies on TV), but I am selective, because I do have a life. If it looks extremely unlikely that I’ll like it, or learn anything from it, I spend the time instead on something that I’m pretty sure will be rewarding — there are enough things out there fitting that description to fill 100 lifetimes.

For that reason, I have never seen, for instance, “The Exorcist,” the anniversary of which is being so overcelebrated at the moment. I paid attention to the marketing at the time — the head-spinning, the floating above the bed, the especially gross vomiting — and moved on to other things.

So my body of experience producing this list is woefully inadequate. But I often find that I enjoy seeing what items y’all will name, and all of you are probably more knowledgeable about this than I am. So, to start a discussion, here goes:

  1. Psycho — You don’t get more classic than this, or more perfect. It might be Hitchcock’s best film, in addition to being the best horror film. Every touch is just right. Anthony Perkins is astounding, but of course the key scene is Janet Leigh naked in the shower. Doesn’t show much, but it’s pretty titillating for 1960. And it’s such a brilliant stroke to pull the viewers (the males anyway, especially the young ones) in with such a stunning woman in the altogether, and utterly shatter it with possibly the greatest “jump scare” in film history. By the way, I was inspired to write this post by a piece in the Post today assessing movies by the number of such “jump scares.” The writers seemed to think more is better. There are only three in this one — that I recall thinking back — and that’s just the right number: the shower scene, Martin Balsam climbing the stairs, and the final reveal about Norman’s mother. More than that would have ruined it.
  2. Dracula (1931) — Yep, I trend toward classics, and this, to me, is the very best of the great ones of the ’30s. It’s not about the blood, folks. It’s about the amazing creation and maintenance of a mood of dread and horror. Think of Dracula’s “brides” gliding across the room. That epitomizes what I’m talking about. That’s the essence.
  3. The Sixth Sense — This one would utterly fail that “jump scares” test I mentioned before. There’s really just one, at the end, and you build to it over the course of the film. And I’m not sure the intellectual realization of what’s been going on qualifies as such a “scare.” Probably not. Although at times it just feels like a Bruce Willis movie, only a bit darker, the kid who sees dead people keeps it in the horror genre throughout. Anyway, the director has been trying so hard for so long to be scary — even changing his middle name to “Night” when he was in college — that I feel like we should throw him a bone here.
  4. Alien — This was a great, ground-breaking sci-fi film, realistically depicting what extended life in space might conceivably be like, if it ever proves to be truly feasible. But in terms of plot, it was basically a haunted house story, and maybe the best ever. Also, it gave us Sigourney Weaver. Top that.
  5. The Walking Dead — This is why I added “TV shows,” parenthetically, to the headline. I felt obliged to include this as an illustration of when I was wrong for refusing to watch it for the longest time. I finally gave in and started, and was hooked — for six seasons. After watching the last episode of the sixth, I decided the writers had run out of ideas, and stopped. But there’s still a lot I love about it in those first seasons. Favorite character? Daryl Dixon, who adapted to post-apocalyptic life more smoothly than anyone. Least favorite character? Andrea, who never missed a chance to do the wrong thing and put her companions in danger. Finally, aside from this being a TV series, I debated most over including it because, is it really a horror movie? That whole genre seems a bit more like dystopian science fiction. But for awhile, I liked it. One reason why: Nobody says “zombie.” (I vaguely recall someone saying it and getting corrected once. Am I remembering that right?)

There are some honorable mentions in my limited repertoire, such as “An American Werewolf In London.” And if I had insisted on keeping the list to movies, the best of the zombie apocalypse genre was “28 Days Later,” which of course starts the same as “The Walking Dead.” And the same as the last great music video, “Party Rock Anthem.”

Some lists included “Young Frankenstein.” That is a great pick for any list — the best Mel Brooks movie by far — and if I included it in the five above, it would probably top the list. I love it. But I’m gonna be pedantic here, and admit it’s not a horror movie. It’s a brilliant comedy that mocks horror movies. That suggests another sort of list, which would include “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Little Shop of Horrors.” (Or should those two be on a sub-sub-list, “musical horror comedies?” It’s difficult to say.)

Anyway, ideas?

‘Alien’ gave us Sigourney Weaver. Top that.

Top 17 Best Songs (With Parentheses in the Titles)

What, indeed, IS so funny ’bout it?

I was trying to clean out my email a few days ago, but got distracted by this fun item the NYT was promoting. (Seems like the Times is just going out of its way to tempt me away from actual work these days, huh? First Wordle, then Spelling Bee, then this thing I had written about the same day I saw this…)

The Times called it “13 (great) songs with parenthetical titles.” Of course, it’s a rather silly category. One song with parentheses has nothing in common with other songs with parentheses, aside from that punctuational quirk. All it tells you is that the songwriter was engaging in an affectation, trying to say, Look, I’m deep. This song is written on multiple levels — including parenthetical!

Of course, I had to step in and correct it — narrowing the list to those that are actually good, if not necessarily great, and then expanding it to bring in equally good songs that the NYT left out. The proper thing to do then, of course, would have been to whittle the result down to a true Top Five list, but I didn’t want to spend days on the silly thing.

So here’s my Top 16 Best Songs (With Parentheses in the Titles). They aren’t in order with the best at the top, or anything. The first six are from the NYT list, the other 10 are ones I added. You may offer whatever suggestions occur to you:

  1. “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” — I agree to include this with mixed feelings. I love the song — it’s one that truly does rise to “great” — and let always feel kind of ignorant and out of it because for many years, this somewhat uncharacteristic number was all I knew about Otis Redding, the man who really knew HOW to express a lack of Satisfaction. I am wiser now.
  2. “I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” — I agreed on this one, if only to give a nod to the late Meat Loaf, to make up for the fact that this is one of only two songs of his (the other being…) I can recall. And it really is a pretty decent song.
  3. “(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman” — The NYT was confused, citing the Aretha Franklin version. But I’m not as big a fan of Aretha as lots of other folks are, and so I prefer Otis Reading’s version of “R.E.S.P.E.C.T.” And on this, I have to give the credit to the woman who actually wrote the song, Carole King.
  4. “It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll (But I Like It)” — This is far — very, very far — from bring among the Rolling Stones’ greatest songs, but it meets the criterion, and they’re the greatest rock and roll band in the world, so let’s include it.
  5. “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” — Not only the best R.E.M. song, but probably the best use of parentheses on the NYT list.
  6. “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” — A weaker use of parentheses than, say, R.E.M.’s, but a nice song, and it’s nice to contemplate something from when that lovely young woman was so full of promise, before her life started falling apart.
  7. “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” — This is a slight correction to the NYT list, which mistakenly chose “I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Have Never Met).” To its credit, that list also mention this one, and “One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later).” That third one — the one from Blonde on Blonde (What? You don’t have Blonde on Blonde?), is the best song of the three. But “It’s Alright, Ma” is the one with the punchiest use of parentheses.
  8. “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” — My fave of all of these. It’s an enigma: How can it sound like the quintessential Elvis Costello song when Nick Lowe wrote it? And how could the NYT have left it out?
  9. “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)” —  Yeah, what you thought was the title is completely contained in the parentheses. This is Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons being… I don’t know what.
  10. “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” — Another of mine, as a way of getting a South Carolina band on the list. I lived in New Orleans when this was first big, and it was years before I knew that it and I were born in the same place.
  11. “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” — Of course, we need to hear it through the SNL skit.
  12. “Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)” I threw in this one because it is my considered opinion that Randy Newman doesn’t get enough attention. He would probably agree. And it comes from a truly great album that you will never heard fully played on the radio because, you know. It’s a shame “Louisiana 1927” didn’t have some parentheses.
  13. “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” — Maybe the person who compiled the NYT list isn’t old enough to remember Kenny Rogers & the First Edition playing it on a variety show, back when those existed.
  14. “She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)” — You have to be in a certain sort of mood, I suppose, to enjoy Jerry Reed. I include this in case you’ve feeling that way. I’m not…
  15. “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ On Your Mind)” — This Loretta Lynn number is probably the one item on this list that is truly a classic.
  16. “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” — You thought I was going to forget the Fab Four? Perish the thought.

What should have won, since 1976

Can you BELIEVE it wasn’t even nominated?

As y’all know, I love movies, and I used to care about the Oscars. I even made a point back in the day of seeing all the Best Picture nominees before the big night — and mind you, in those days that meant going to the theater and buying a ticket. But I stopped caring after the debacle of 1998. I knew the Academy’s judgments were random, whimsical, and dumb before that, but that was the last straw.

And since then, I haven’t seen any evidence that my 1998 judgment was wrong.

So while I generally ignored all the hoopla over the Oscars over the weekend, my attention was grabbed by this story in The Washington Post: “The Oscars always get it wrong. Here are the real best pictures of the past 47 years.”

By the Post‘s critic’s standards (I’m using “critics” loosely here), that headline is somewhat misleading, since they occasionally agreed with the Academy’s judgment. And so do I. But in general, it states a truism.

I don’t know why they started with 1976, but since that is about when I started reviewing movies for The Jackson Sun, it works for me.

So I copied their list, and corrected it, by stating which was truly the Best Picture in these given years. You can thank me later. Oh, and to explain — especially in the earlier years, a huge criterion for me is whether it holds up. Is it as impressive now as it was then, or even more so? Do I think “Star Wars” was a great, profound cinematic statement? No. But boy, has it held up…

If I say “I dunno,” it’s because I didn’t see the nominated films — or saw one or two and was unimpressed, and wasn’t interested enough to see the others. You’ll see me do that a lot in the last few years. I’ve seen some good films over those years, but no really great ones — and of course I’ve felt far less obliged to go out and see them. I mean, I’ve got a nice HD screen in my house. I wait at least until they appear on a streaming service that will show them for “free.”

And no, I didn’t give this a lot of thought, and didn’t elaborate. I just saw it as a good topic for discussion. Or a bunch of such topics. If anyone engages, I’ll explain my choices.

My version of the list:

1976
Nominees: All the President’s Men, Bound for Glory, Network, Rocky, Taxi Driver
Best Picture winner: Rocky
The actual best picture: All the President’s Men, OR Rocky. Quite a year.

1977
Nominees: Annie Hall, The Goodbye Girl, Julia, Star Wars, The Turning Point
Best Picture winner: Annie Hall
The actual best picture: Star Wars

1978
Nominees: Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, Heaven Can Wait, Midnight Express, An Unmarried Woman
Best Picture winner: The Deer Hunter
The actual best picture: The Deer Hunter

1979
Nominees: All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now, Breaking Away, Kramer vs. Kramer, Norma Rae
Best Picture winner: Kramer vs. Kramer
The actual best picture: Apocalypse Now, with a good word thrown in for Breaking Away

1980
Nominees: Coal Miner’s Daughter, The Elephant Man, Ordinary People, Raging Bull, Tess
Best Picture winner: Ordinary People
The actual best picture: Coal Miner’s Daughter

1981
Nominees: Atlantic City, Chariots of Fire, On Golden Pond, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Reds
Best Picture winner: Chariots of Fire
The actual best picture: Chariots of Fire

1982
Nominees: E.T. the Extraterrestrial, Gandhi, Missing, Tootsie, The Verdict
Best Picture winner: Gandhi
The actual best picture: E.T.

1983
Nominees: The Big Chill, The Dresser, The Right Stuff, Tender Mercies, Terms of Endearment
Best Picture winner: Terms of Endearment
The actual best picture: The Right Stuff, OR Tender Mercies

1984
Nominees: Amadeus, The Killing Fields, A Passage to India, Places in the Heart, A Soldier’s Story
Best Picture winner: Amadeus
The actual best picture: Amadeus

1985
Nominees: The Color Purple, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Out of Africa, Prizzi’s Honor, Witness
Best Picture winner: Out of Africa
The actual best picture: Witness

1986
Nominees: Children of a Lesser God, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Mission, Platoon, A Room with a View
Best Picture winner: Platoon
The actual best picture: Hannah and Her Sisters

1987
Nominees: Broadcast News, Fatal Attraction, Hope and Glory, The Last Emperor, Moonstruck
Best Picture winner: The Last Emperor
The actual best picture: Moonstruck

1988
Nominees: The Accidental Tourist, Dangerous Liaisons, Mississippi Burning, Rain Man, Working Girl
Best Picture winner: Rain Man
The actual best picture: Working Girl

1989
Nominees: Born on the Fourth of July, Dead Poets Society, Driving Miss Daisy, Field of Dreams, My Left Foot
Best Picture winner: Driving Miss Daisy
The actual best picture: Field of Dreams

1990
Nominees: Awakenings, Dances With Wolves, Ghost, The Godfather Part III, Goodfellas
Best Picture winner: Dances With Wolves
The actual best picture: Goodfellas

1991
Nominees: Beauty and the Beast, Bugsy, JFK, The Prince of Tides, The Silence of the Lambs
Best Picture winner: The Silence of the Lambs
The actual best picture: Oh, surely there had to be something better than these.

1992
Nominees: The Crying Game, A Few Good Men, Howards End, Scent of a Woman, Unforgiven
Best Picture winner: Unforgiven
The actual best picture: Unforgiven

1993
Nominees: The Fugitive, In the Name of the Father, The Piano, The Remains of the Day, Schindler’s List
Best Picture winner: Schindler’s List
The actual best picture: The Piano

1994
Nominees: Forrest Gump, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, The Shawshank Redemption
Best Picture winner: Forrest Gump
The actual best picture: Four Weddings and a Funeral

1995
Nominees: Apollo 13, Babe, Braveheart, Il Postino, Sense and Sensibility
Best Picture winner: Braveheart
The actual best picture: Apollo 13. (The critics simply said “not that,” referring to the Mel Gibson film. They’re right.)

1996
Nominees: The English Patient, Fargo, Jerry Maguire, Secrets & Lies, Shine
Best Picture winner: The English Patient
The actual best picture: Fargo

1997
Nominees: As Good as It Gets, The Full Monty, Good Will Hunting, L.A. Confidential, Titanic
Best Picture winner: Titanic
The actual best picture: As Good as It Gets, OR Good Will Hunting

1998
Nominees: Elizabeth, Life Is Beautiful, Saving Private Ryan, Shakespeare in Love, The Thin Red Line
Best Picture winner: Shakespeare in Love
The actual best picture: Life Is Beautiful, OR Saving Private Ryan

1999
Nominees: American Beauty, The Cider House Rules, The Green Mile, The Insider, The Sixth Sense
Best Picture winner: American Beauty
The actual best picture: The Sixth Sense

2000
Nominees: Chocolat, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Erin Brockovich, Gladiator, Traffic
Best Picture winner: Gladiator
The actual best picture: Gladiator, for the lack of anything better.

2001
Nominees: A Beautiful Mind, Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Moulin Rouge!
Best Picture winner: A Beautiful Mind
The actual best picture: The Lord of the Rings, starring New Zealand

2002
Nominees: Chicago, Gangs of New York, The Hours, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Pianist
Best Picture winner: Chicago
The actual best picture: Chicago

2003
Nominees: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Lost in Translation, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Mystic River, Seabiscuit
Best Picture winner: The Lord of the Rings
The actual best picture: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Duh.

2004
Nominees: The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Million Dollar Baby, Ray, Sideways
Best Picture winner: Million Dollar Baby
The actual best picture: The Aviator

2005
Nominees: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, Good Night and Good Luck, Munich
Best Picture winner: Crash
The actual best picture: Munich, or Capote

2006
Nominees: Babel, The Departed, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen
Best Picture winner: The Departed
The actual best picture: The Departed

2007
Nominees: Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood
Best Picture winner: No Country for Old Men
The actual best picture: Michael Clayton

2008
Nominees: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Picture winner: Slumdog Millionaire
The actual best picture: Gran Torino, which I can’t believe wasn’t nominated. Actually, yes I can.

2009
Nominees: Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire, A Serious Man, Up, Up in the Air
Best Picture winner: The Hurt Locker
The actual best picture: The Hurt Locker OR A Serious Man

2010
Nominees: Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King’s Speech, 127 Hours, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter’s Bone
Best Picture winner: The King’s Speech
The actual best picture: The King’s Speech

2011
Nominees: The Artist, The Descendants, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, The Tree of Life, War Horse
Best Picture winner: The Artist
The actual best picture: Moneyball

2012
Nominees: Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty
Best Picture winner: Argo
The actual best picture: Lincoln

2013
Nominees: American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, Philomena, 12 Years a Slave, The Wolf of Wall Street
Best Picture winner: 12 Years a Slave
The actual best picture: Gravity

2014
Nominees: American Sniper, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of Everything, Whiplash
Best Picture winner: Birdman
The actual best picture: Dunno — despite the fact I saw most of these.

2015
Nominees: The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Room, Spotlight
Best Picture winner: Spotlight
The actual best picture: Brooklyn, OR Spotlight

2016
Nominees: La La Land, Moonlight, Manchester by the Sea, Arrival, Fences, Lion, Hidden Figures, Hacksaw Ridge, Hell or High Water
Best Picture winner: La La — no, wait! MOONLIGHT!
The actual best picture: Manchester by the Sea

2017
Nominees: Call Me By Your Name; Darkest Hour; Dunkirk; Get Out; Lady Bird; Phantom Thread; The Post; The Shape of Water; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Best Picture winner: The Shape of Water
The actual best picture: Dunkirk

2018
Nominees: BlacKkKlansman, Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Green Book, Roma, A Star Is Born, Vice
Best Picture winner: Green Book
The actual best picture: Dunno.

2019
Nominees: Ford v Ferrari, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Little Women, Marriage Story, 1917, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, Parasite
Best Picture winner: Parasite
The actual best picture: Jojo Rabbit (or anything, I’m sad to say, other than The Irishman)

2020
Nominees: The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, Mank, Minari, Nomadland, Promising Young Woman, Sound of Metal, The Trial of the Chicago 7
Best Picture winner: Nomadland
The actual best picture: Dunno. Tried to watch both Mank and Trial of the Chicago 7, but didn’t get to the end of either.

2021
Nominees: Belfast, CODA, Don’t Look Up, Drive My Car, Dune, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, The Power of the Dog, West Side Story
Best Picture winner: CODA
The actual best picture: Dunno.

2022
Nominees: All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water, The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Fabelmans, Tár, Top Gun: Maverick, Triangle of Sadness, Women Talking
Best Picture winner: Everything Everywhere All at Once
The actual best picture: Dunno, although I still plan to see All Quiet on the Western Front and The Banshees of Inisherin, soon as I can grab the time.

I had meant to post this over the weekend before the Oscars, but didn’t, and who cares? I didn’t have an opinion on this year’s…

Hey, I liked it when I reviewed it at the time, and it holds up.

Another song I should have paid attention to at the time

Almost 10 years ago, I put up a post headlined, “Top 12 Songs I Either Missed Entirely, or Didn’t Fully Appreciate at the Time.” I enjoyed looking back at it just now, although it filled me again with regret for the decades during which I had missed some amazing music.

This happened to me again the other day. I was looking for something else on YouTube, and it suggested I might want to watch the above video of The Moody Blues playing “Go Now.” I immediately remembered it was a great song and wanted to hear it, although I hadn’t known, or had forgotten, that it was by The Moody Blues. Another one of those bands I had been aware of but not really followed in the ’60s. And when I say “aware of,” I mean just barely. I immediately thought something along the lines of “oh, that artsy band with one of those two songs with ‘white’ in the title.”

Yes, to embarrass myself further, I can’t ever remember which is which between “Nights in White Satin” and “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” not for sure, until it gets going good — maybe not until I actually hear the title in the song. (Which means I recognize the Moody Blues song more quickly.) And I know even less about Procol Harum than about The Moody Blues. (But gimme a break on my confusion — don’t both songs have a similar atmosphere about them? They’re in a category together in my head.)

Anyway, once I know who it is, I can tell, and think, Yeah, this is what the “Nights in White Satin” group would have sounded like three years earlier, at the height of the British Invasion. (For you kids just joining us, in the 1960s, music and fashion changed so quickly, everybody went through an eon or two of cultural evolution each year. Today, everybody dresses and looks the same as they did 30 years ago.)

See how different they looked in 1967, boys and girls?

Oh, and speaking of the fact that this was 1964, I’ve thought of an excuse for why “Go Now” was dim in my memory — I didn’t hear it until a long time later. I was living in Ecuador at the time (from November 1962 to April 1965), and missed a lot of stuff. The Beatles had filtered down to us, and to some extent The Beach Boys, but that was about it.

Anyway, as I learned the other day, the song is more wonderful than I had dimly remembered from having heard in on oldie stations over the years. In fact, the thing that makes it so wonderful is that series of piano chords you hear over and over, so I’m hoping Phillip Bush will read this and explain to me the spell those chords cast.

The closest I come to having any musical insight into it is to recognize that it’s in a minor key. And I may be wrong about that. I think it’s F minor, but I got that specific detail from Googling, and there were dissenting opinions (don’t go trying to tell me about the “wisdom of the crowd”). But Phillip will know. I was just going by it having a minor-key feel.

But the story gets more interesting. I was so into in the song as I listened that I started reading about it online, and found that unlike “Nights in White Satin,” this was not originally a Moody Blues song.

You know the old story of pop music — of white guys making it big with black folks’ music? This is kinda one of those stories.

It was written by an American R&B man named Larry Banks. It was first recorded by his estranged wife Bessie Banks. She thought it was going to make her career, because it was getting some airplay. Then the Moody Blues released it, that that was pretty much it for major stardom for her. There’s this quote from her on Wikipedia:

I remember 1963 Kennedy was assassinated; it was announced over the radio. At the time, I was rehearsing in the office of Leiber and Stoller. We called it a day. Everyone was in tears. “Come back next week and we will be ready to record ‘Go Now'”; and we did so. I was happy and excited that maybe this time I’ll make it. ‘Go Now’ was released in January 1964, and right away it was chosen Pick Hit of the Week on W.I.N.S. Radio. That means your record is played for seven days. Four days went by, I was so thrilled. On day five, when I heard the first line, I thought it was me, but all of a sudden, I realized it wasn’t. At the end of the song it was announced, “The Moody Blues singing ‘Go Now’.” I was too out-done. This was the time of the English Invasion and the end of Bessie Banks’ career, so I thought. America’s DJs had stopped promoting American artists.[3]

Wikipedia sort of questions her details because the Moody Blues’ version didn’t come out until a year after hers. But, when it happened, I don’t doubt a bit that it was a moment of deep dismay for her. She and Larry were splitting up at the time, near as I can make out from looking it up. I sure hope she got some of the money. Come to think of it, I hope Larry got some money from the deal.

I don’t blame the Moody Blues for this at all. They heard a song that sounded good, covered it, and got rich and famous. It launched them to stardom. Although they didn’t do much to “make it theirs.” It’s very much the same as hers, down to those piano chords. They may have speeded it up slightly, à la “That Thing You Do.” But that’s about it.

For that matter, going to the larger historical trend, I don’t blame Elvis, either. Elvis was making the music that welled up out of him. He couldn’t help it that Sam Phillips saw him as the “white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel” he’d been looking for….

You want to blame somebody? Blame the white fans. (But don’t blame me on “Go Now;” I was in Ecuador.) But I do feel bad for Bessie Banks. Her version was great as it was. In both cases, though, I think the piano was a big part of what made it so…

First Five Poems that Come to Mind

I like ol’ Edgar Allan, and I don’t care who knows it!

I was going to say Top Five, but that’s not accurate. More like the first five I could think of that I actually like.

I was recently interviewing a lady who writes poetry, and to have something to ask — since I’m not a person who thinks a great deal about poetry (which you will be able to tell from this list) — I asked who her favorite poets were. She named Robert Frost and several people I’ve never heard of.

That got me to thinking, well, what would mine be? And since evaluating a writer’s entire body of work is too much effort, I changed it to fave poems. And I’m pretty sure these five had come into my mind before the phone conversation ended.

None were by Frost. I mean, he’s good and all — I guess. I only know that one that everybody knows, and it’s fine. No, I mean those two that everybody knows. OK, those three. But none of those came to mind right away.

Here are the ones that did. Since one of them isn’t technically a poem, if I think of another to make up for it, I’ll give you six:

  1. Annabel Lee — At some point in my life, I learned that some people who are snobby about poetry (you know, English majors) look down upon Poe’s verse. As a fan since I was a little kid of his Gothic horror stories, I feel I must stick up for him. But I think “The Raven” is too obvious, don’t you? Barry would sneer at me if I picked that.
  2. Ballad of the Goodly Fere — I first read this in my college days at my uncle’s house, thumbing through an anthology he had. I was drawn to it because I had run across a lot of mentions of Ezra Pound in reading about Hemingway and such, but had never read anything by him. And I loved it. Mind you, this was at the time that “Jesus Christ Superstar” came out, and the Messiah tended to be depicted as a sort of wimpy hippy, so I appreciated the contrast of depicting him as a stronger, more working-class sort. I also enjoyed the dialect. Of course, it’s still the only thing I’ve read by Pound. We don’t tend to run into — or seek out, for that matter — a lot of stuff written by writers who are infamous for their fascist leanings. Or at least I don’t — there too much else to read. It’s still a good poem.
  3. La Belle Dame Sans Merci — Just to stick in one of the Romantics. I mention it not just because I have an avid interest in the Matter of Britain, and this has to do with a knight. It’s because, well, it inspired the worst nightmare of my life. This was also in my college days, and the shocking state of mind the dream produced caused me to get up, leave my dorm room and go sit on the floor in the well-lit hall until I could shake the spell. Fortunately, I got better. I can’t tell you the content of the dream. It was more of a vague horror, related to what the knight felt when “I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill’s side.” I’ve never been a partaker of hallucinogens, but it was like Aldous Huxley on mescaline, when he looked upon an ordinary chair and saw it as the Last Judgment. It was a moment of existential horror that defies easy rational description– little to do with knights.
  4. No Man is an Island — OK, this is the one that isn’t actually a poem, although it’s frequently quoted as one, since John Donne is the only famous metaphysical poet., and you often see it presented as a poem. And that’s not the title. It’s a part of Meditation XVII, which is in turn a part of a prose work called “Devotions upon Emergent Occasions.” My supposed title quotes the most famous line, or second most, if you count the one Hemingway turned into a novel title as leading the list. Anyway, if we count it as a poem, it’s definitely one of my favorites. Because, you know, it’s way communitarian.
  5. The Second Coming — Since Donne’s most famous work isn’t a poem, this may be my favorite — thereby confirming your impression that my taste in poetry is stunningly unoriginal and mainstream (although I tried to throw you there with Ezra Pound). It’s a contest as to which is more often quoted or paraphrased — this or the Donne thing. Hemingway went with that, and Joan Didion went with the Yeats. Well, a lot of people fall back on the Yeats these days. Maybe because it was written 104 years ago, but nothing written since goes as directly to the heart of what’s happening now in politics and society than “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” or perhaps even better, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.”

Anyway, if we were ranking, and you counted the Donne piece as poetry, those last two would be my top choices. Stories about knights and ladies are all very well, but I like words to express ideas.

You’ll note they’re all pretty short poems. I love to read book-length prose works about the Matter of Britain, but don’t go expecting me to read a poem that long, Lord Tennyson. I still haven’t read The Iliad, for instance, and not just because I have no Greek. Poetry is too much work to read on and on.

Maybe I’ve been trained by pop songs. With Emily Dickinson, of course, it was hymns, and I think she was onto something.

Genealogy alert! So was my ancestor Thomas Wyatt the elder. He introduced to English a nice, short, disciplined form called the sonnet. Within a generation, William Shakespeare was making a name for himself with that form. I’m not really into sonnets (I prefer Will’s plays), but I respect the limits. Fourteen lines, baby, and that’s it. You’re done!

For that matter, I also enjoy haiku. And limericks…

Yeats, rendered by another artist I like, Sargent…

Top Five (or so) Samba Songs

I’m trying to get back into my walking routine, after having gotten off-track what with my stroke and long COVID, and that means listening to Pandora while I pound the pavement. And while I’m not sure which of my many stations is my official favorite, the “Astrud Gilberto” one has been getting a good bit of play.

And yeah, I know I’ve mentioned Astrud before several times. To evoke another form of pop music, I can’t help myself.

Most of my “Top Five” lists come from the very center of popular culture — predictable stuff. Like, you know, “Can’t Help Myself.” This is one that’s slightly to the side, the thing that gets me closest to being a jazz fan (and you know, they’re all cool). It may not interest you. (It may not have interested you the many times I’ve mentioned it before — but this is different; it’s a Top Five List!) If you’re not familiar with it, at least try listening to a song or two on the list. You may find yourself rewarded.

I was first exposed to it when I lived in South America. No, I didn’t hear it on the radio in Ecuador, or from the turntable when my parents had people over to dance. That was very different. I might have missed it completely except my Dad had to go to Rio for an international naval conference, and he brought back an album or two. Not having much access to the stuff in which I would be inundated when we came back to the States in 1965, I used to listen to my parents’ albums on the Telefunken — Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Patty Page, the Mills Brothers — and these new ones really grabbed me.

When I got back to the states, I found that folks here were really grabbed by the second song on my list, and Sergio Mendes was big, but that’s about all the samba I heard back here.

The list:

  1. Mas Que Nada — Had to put this at the top because I included it on my “slapdash ‘Top Ten (plus) Songs of All Time’ list.” To save myself some typing, here’s what I said then: “If you want to evoke the 1960s in the mind of someone who actually lived through them, you’ll play this perhaps even more readily than something by the Beatles or the Stones. That’s what Austin Powers did, and it worked. Coming from me, it also represents my love of samba music from that era.” But I could easily have chosen one or more of the following on that list…
  2. Girl from Ipanema — Which introduced me to Astrud. If you’d like to be introduced to the girl who actually inspired the song she sang, here she is at the right, below. Don’t you think it was really classy of me to use one in which she’s fully dressed? There are plenty of bikini shots on the web, but frankly it would kind of creep me out to post cheesecake picks of a 17-year-old, which is what she was at the time. Anyway, this is probably the best-known samba song ever in this country. About half the singers on the planet covered it. Anybody who lived through the period will find “Mas Que Nada” almost as familiar, but they probably can’t name it.

    Helo Pinheiro

  3. Desafinado — Another one with an extremely familiar tune, but most can’t name it. Hey, I might not be able to name it — or classics below such as Corcovado or Agua de Beber, if you just play the tune. But I’ll know them, and love them. I’m bad about that. Songs that I hear in Portuguese are like instrumentals to me. I’m terrible with instrumentals. I can tell you it’s John Phillip Sousa, but not which tune. And I’m terrible with Big Band music. I’ll say “Hey, is that Begin the Beguine?” and it’s “In the Mood.” Embarrassing. (Although I sometimes do better if it’s Ellington.) Anyway, Portuguese is enchanting to here in this form, but it might as well be instrumental. I grew up speaking Spanish, which is a great help in understanding Italian — but little help at all with Portuguese.
  4. One-Note Samba — I’ve brought this one up before, asking Phillip and other music wizards how in the world it works. He explained it. I still don’t understand it. I can’t tell you why I like the Beatles, either. When it works, music is magic to me. Maybe Gandalf would understand it, but I don’t.
  5. Corcovado — Some of my gringo friends may know this as “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars.” But whatever you call it, it’s beautiful. It makes me want to go to there.
  6. Agua de Beber — And again, I don’t have a lot of commentary on this one. It’s just awesome.

Yeah, that’s six. But who’s doing math here? It’s samba. And I just couldn’t decide which one of these to drop. In fact, if I poked around a bit more, the list would be a lot longer. For instance, I can’t believe I left off the song in the video below. Some of you modernists may note that they’re all from the ’60s (and a couple date from 1959). Well, yeah. To me, that’s the era of samba.

By the way, before someone who knows way more about music than I do points to one of these and says, “Technically, that’s not samba!”… I thought I would go ahead and say I don’t pretend to be an expert. If it’s Brazilian, and from that era, I call it samba. If I get it wrong, don’t look at me. Blame it on the bossa nova.

I labored a bit to set up that bad joke, didn’t I?

Top Five (and Ten) TV Shows of All Time

Sure, I could have gone with Omar for ‘The Wire,’ but I’m going with my man Bubbles, who doesn’t get enough credit.

One nice thing about a Top Five list of TV shows is that you can bill it as “all-time” and still stick to stuff you know from your own lifetime. You don’t feel like you have to go back and pull in “Greensleeves” or “Veni, veni, Emmanuel” to make up for neglecting Top Songs before Elvis.

Sure, there was some TV before my time, like “Your Show of Shows,” which went off the air about eight months after I was born. But while I’ve heard people rave about it, I suspect I didn’t miss all that much. I mean, I’ve seen some of Sid Caesar’s stuff, and he was good, but to me, Imogene Coca was the cavewoman on “It’s About Time” — which I assure you isn’t going to make my Top Ten.

I thought at first that I wouldn’t have the discipline to stick to the Top Five format, since this is a pretty broad field — All TV Shows, ever. I figured I’d do 10, and then go back to the Nick Hornby standard when we do top sitcoms or something narrower like that.

But after I’d made a list of 10 and started trying to rank them, I realized the Top Five were very clear, and stood out well above 6-10. So I did five, and then another five. I hope Barry will be proud.

And yes, this is inspired by what I mentioned a couple of days ago — the Rolling Stone list that outrageously didn’t include “Band of Brothers” in its top 100. Bud already reacted with his own Top Ten list, which I urge you to peruse as well.

Anyway, here goes:

  1. The West Wing — If not for streaming, I would not even be a fan. I never watched my first episode until years after the show ended. I’m so glad I was able to watch it on Netflix. I regret that it’s only available now on a service I don’t subscribe to. Why do I love it? It makes me feel happy about the world I live in. (It makes me actually appreciate human beings, and have hope for the species.) Not many things do that out there in the media universe. But someone who understands America as well as Aaron Sorkin does can do that.
  2. Band of Brothers — You should understand that I felt invested in this from the beginning, long before the first episode appeared on HBO. I had been thinking for some time about what an awesome TV series Stephen Ambrose’s book would make — if it were made by the right people. Specifically, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, who brought us “Saving Private Ryan.” (I was also thinking about “From the Earth to the Moon” as a model, so I should probably mention Ron Howard as well.) I even thought about writing them to suggest the idea, but I’ve never done fanboy stuff like that. As it worked out, I didn’t have to. They went ahead and did it anyway. You might say I wished it into being — and it was everything I had wished for. I need to figure out how I did that, so we can finally get that Jack Aubrey series…
  3. The Wire — Wow. This was just so awesome on so many levels. It’s a newspaperman’s fantasy — an amazingly high-quality production that shows exactly what things are like in his city. And of course, it was written by an unusually gifted newspaperman, former cops reporter David Simon. He switched careers for a very newspaperman reason: “I got out of journalism because some sons of bitches bought my newspaper and it stopped being fun.” Well, it was often intensely painful to watch, but The Wire was also fun. I will end by simply naming some favorite characters: Omar, of course. Major Rawls. Kima Greggs. Beadie Russell. Jay Landsman. Brother Mouzone. Tommy Carcetti. And most of all, Bubbles the snitch.
  4. Firefly — I’m not going to go into the horrible thing that happened, and how all the people in charge at Fox network are a buncha gorram idiots. Although obviously they are. I mean, come on! It’s the only series ever that’s about space cowboys — something that previously only existed in the imagination of Steve Miller. That made it automatically better than any show that was merely a space opera or merely a western. And then, the characters and the writing took that advantage and blasted it clear across the known ‘verse. The use of language alone — “‘verse,” “shiny,” and the odd bits of Chinese thrown in — made it irresistible. Not quite on a “Clockwork Orange” level, but way up there. Favorite characters? Well, I guess Kaylee was my true favorite, but my publicly admitted favorite (so I don’t seem to be a dirty old man) is Jayne. Third would be Mal. Sorry, captain…
  5. The Andy Griffith Show — Yep, I’m a sentimentalist. If I wanted to be critical and judge it by Golden Age of Television standards, I’d object to the flaws. Like, how come only about two characters beyond Andy have Southern accents? Or how come, if he’s the sheriff, he seems to work for the mayor of Mayberry rather than being a separately elected county official? Why did Andy go from being the main comic figure to being the straight man in later seasons? But never mind all that. I love it, and I’ve loved it almost all my life (it wasn’t around for my first few years). If you want to love it as well, remember the main rule: Never watch an episode that’s in color. The good ones are all in black and white. Favorite character? Ernest T. Bass. Second fave is Floyd the barber. But I love the others as well. Except some of those who came along after Barney left.

Just barely got in one comedy, because the list needed it, and because I love me some Mayberry. Here’s the next five:

  • The Sopranos — I didn’t mean to disrespect you, Tony. Really. The show was awesome, and probably launched the whole Golden Age. I respect Rolling Stone‘s decision to make it No. 1 on their list. And I had it in my Top Five, truly. But then I realized I had completely forgotten “Firefly.” Anyway, fave characters: Paulie Gualtieri (played by an actual Wise Guy), Silvio Dante (possibly the most inspired casting decision in TV history), Adriana La Cerva, Artie Bucco.
  • Seinfeld — This came just about as close as you can get to being the perfect sitcom. And there was never another one like it. It did not fit in any kind of category. I could say much more, but do I really have to convince you? The only way I can imagine you disagreeing is if you get on my case for not having it in the Top Five.
  • 30 Rock — And this one may have been THE perfect sitcom. It took the same foundation upon which Carl Reiner based “The Dick Van Dyke Show” — in his case, his experience writing for “Your Show of Shows” — and expanded upon it and went wild with it. So many great characters, from Liz and Jack down to guest stars like Al Gore playing themselves (“Quiet!… A whale is in trouble! I have to go.”) But the one who amazed me the most, and could alone have put it on this list, was Kenneth Ellen Parcell.
  • Hill Street Blues — Kind of dated now, but wow was it impressive at the time. We had a sort of minor cult following at the paper in Jackson, Tenn. I remember one night watching it over at the publisher’s condo. He and his wife, who was our business reporter, served nachos. I had never heard of nachos. Of course, I couldn’t eat them anyway. But we all enjoyed “Hill Street.” Capt. Furillo was my ideal leader. As news editor at the paper, I wanted to be just like him in dealing with my reporters. But my favorite character? Renko.
  • Mad Men — One of the most glittering examples of Golden Age TV — brilliant in writing, direction, cinematography and acting. Like entering another world — one in which we got to see Christina Hendricks way more than we did in “Firefly.” For some reason though, once we got way into the 60s and people started dropping acid, I stopped watching. I need to go back and finish. I suppose I’ll have to start from the beginning, dagnabbit. Favorite character? Not sure. Maybe Joan. Or maybe Roger, the acid-dropper. Now I’ll do something different and list by far my least favorite: Pete Campbell. What a creep and a half.

There were a lot of other great shows out there, some of which didn’t even get a mention from Rolling Stone. So here’s a random bunch of honorable mentions:

  • Key and Peele — I suppose this is the thing on this list that I got into most recently — like, within the past decade. These guys are incredibly brilliant, and there’s no one else like them. However they first met and teamed up, we’re lucky they did. Best bits? Well, I love the obvious choices, such as “Obama’s Anger Translator,” “Substitute Teacher” and “I Said (I quickly look around before continuing) Biiiiiiiitch.” But my fave might be “Retired Military Specialist.”
  • The IT Crowd — For years, I saw this available on Netflix, and ignored it, having no idea what it was. Then my younger son talked me into watching one episode — and now I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve watched the whole three seasons. It’s hard to describe how funny it is. Now, I’ll watch pretty much anything that has the players in it. Fortunately, Chris O’Dowd has gotten a lot of work, and if I need a Richard Ayoade fix, I can always watch some “Travel Man” on Prime. But my greatest frustration is that it’s hard to find my favorite, Katherine Parkinson, anywhere. Last time I saw her was in “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” and it really wasn’t all that funny. Best episode is either “The Work Outing,” “The Dinner Party,” or “Are We Not Men?”
  • Breaking Bad — Are you thinking it’s kind of weird that this didn’t make either the Top Five or the next five? I sort of am, too, but I just kept thinking of things I liked better. It might be that this was the most stressful TV show I have ever watched, and the stress has lingered. But it still seems worthwhile to have watched it all, because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have appreciated the last episode, and that was really good.
  • Green Acres — I have mentioned a number of times that the possibly the most amazing night ever on television (from an 11-year-old’s perspective) was Sept. 15, 1965, the night that “Lost in Space,” “Green Acres” and “I-Spy” all debuted. We had returned to America — and to television — five months earlier after two-and-a-half years in Ecuador, and I was already overdosing on popular culture, and loving it. But that was the biggest night. At the time, my fave was probably “Lost in Space,” but “Green Acres” was definitely the one that aged the best. As was written in my favorite reference work, The Catalog of Cool, “To be truly cool, one must genuinely understand the uselessness of logic and reason in a world gone mad. ‘Green Acres’ understood it better than any other show.” I’d never seen anything like it before, and I haven’t since. Favorite character? Eb, of course.
  • The Office — The real one, the British one. Absolutely brilliant, although admittedly sometimes hard to watch, because David Brent. Favorite character? Probably Gareth.
  • Friday Night Lights — I’m sort of putting this here as a way of thanking Bryan for getting me to watch it. But I’m also putting it here because it was really, really great. Even though it was about, you know, football…
  • The State — I loved MTV when it started, when it knew its job was to show music videos, and have them be introduced by people like Martha Quinn or Daisy Fuentes. And it was wonderful. Then it got into other stuff. I will never forgive it for launching the scourge of reality TV. But I can almost forgive “The Real World” when I consider “The State.” If only it had lasted. And if only I could find the old skits online somewhere. Best one ever? “Prison Break.” (But that’s “off-limits”…)
  • Life on Mars — OK, this show was really uneven, and sometimes the writing was shaky. But it was a lot of fun, and I’ve watched the two seasons (the two series, since it’s British) several times. And not just to see Liz White as Annie. When I saw it on The Guardian‘s 21st-century list, I decided I had to mention it. A warning, though: Do not try to watch the American imitation. I couldn’t even make it through the first episode. Sure, it’s got Harvey Keitel in it, but he couldn’t save it.

Finally, I know I’ve forgotten something. Maybe several somethings. The way I was almost done when I remembered “Firefly.” But you’ve got to start a discussion somewhere…

Yes, I am a sentimentalist.

Today may be George’s birthday, but I’m thinking about ‘Lincoln’

The very first time I posted a “Top Five” list on this blog — during the first year, on Jan. 9, 2006 — I threw away the opportunity.

I did the most obvious topic of all — best movies of all time — and while the five were all completely deserving, I didn’t really think about it. I listed them, and didn’t even bother to explain my choices. I guess I just thought there was all the time and space needed in the future to fill in the gaps.

Here were the five:

1. “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
2. “The Godfather.”
3. “Casablanca.”
4. “The Graduate.”
5. “High Noon.”

Recently, I had occasion to ask, “Why wasn’t ‘His Girl Friday’ on the list?”

Well, I was asking myself something similar last night when, just before hitting the hay, I watched a few minutes of Spielberg’s “Lincoln” after seeing it was available on Prime.

And of course, since I needed to get to bed, I spoiled myself by scrolling to the very best scene of all. I’ve talked about it here before. Which, for whatever reason, I can’t find on YouTube — although here’s a piece of it, for some reason messed up with a sepiatone effect.

It’s that scene when Abe explains to his confused Cabinet exactly why the 13th Amendment has to pass, and has to pass now, before the war ends. It is the most amazingly perfect explanation of a political situation — of perhaps the key legislative moment of our nation’s history — that I have ever heard or read. His explanation of why the Emancipation Proclamation is on the ragged edge of uselessness (something many in the room likely understood, but as we see all the time these days, the audience does not), all the contradictions he has had to navigate to get this far without such an amendment — treating escaped slaves as “contraband,” which meant regarding them as property, which meant respecting the laws of the rebelling states, and sometimes regarding them as a foreign entity when his most core conviction is that they are not, and so forth…

And it’s all delivered by one of the best actors who’s ever lived, in what is probably his greatest performance, speaking in that backwoods aw-shucks way Lincoln had, the plain man so comfortably dissecting the most complex truths…

It’s amazing. And while this is the best, the film contains scene after scene like it. I remind you of the one in which Tommy Lee Jones takes his oh-so-self-righteous fellow Radicals to task by demanding that they try thinking, just for once, about the opportunity before them: “But… Hasn’t he surprised you?”

And so forth.

It would be amazing, a top-drawer film, on the most superficial of terms — based on mere wonder at how much they make Day-Lewis look like Lincoln. See the image above from my Prime account. I mean, if Lincoln didn’t look like that, he should have.

But there’s just so much more, in every detail. Of course, one is tempted to dismiss in on those grounds alone — Spielberg was such a mature master craftsman, at the peak of his game (which impresses us more — Scorsese’s raw “Mean Streets” or his polished “Goodfellas?”), and he had so many resources that previous generations never dreamed of. He was deliberately making a great film, and he did it.

Lacking that freshness factor, it seems out of place on a list that includes “Casablanca” or “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Those people had no idea whatsoever they were making something for the ages. It just happened. Poor combat-fatigued Jimmy Stewart was just trying to get a movie cranked out, having just returned from the war, and Capra was just doing that thing he always did, loving America the way he did…

But it’s right up there, however you count its virtues.

Anyway, I just wanted to say something about it, again (yes, I’ve praised it and praised it before).

Confession time: When I got the idea to write this, I was thinking this was Abe’s birthday (although Wikipedia had set me straight before I started writing). When I was a kid, and we celebrated both of them separately, I always had trouble remembering which was the 12th and which was the 22nd. I mean, come on — they’re practically the same number.

So I guess it’s just as well we mashed them into one day. Although, of course, I don’t think I’ve ever had that day off. Whatever…

The best use of rhythmic alliteration in a pop song, ever

Usually, I would wait until I could come up with “Top Five Uses of Alliteration,” in keeping with the immemorial custom of the blog.

But that might take me a month, or at least an hour (if I wanted a lame list, just to have a list).

So I just thought I’d say it. This is the best use of alliteration to achieve a rhythmic effect in the history of popular music:

“Little old lady got mutilated late last night…”

Yeah, it’s gruesome, perhaps even off-putting. But wow, does it pop as a way to warn people to look out for the Werewolves of London.

Today, walking around the neighborhood and listening to Pandora on my new phone — I initially started to listen to headlines on NPR, but like most news these days, it was all stupid — and since it was a new phone and all, I listened to a station I hadn’t heard for awhile, probably years and years: My “Handbags & Gladrags Radio” station.

I didn’t know what to expect, beyond related Rod Stewart tunes. I think when I created it I had been watching “The Office” (the real one, not the American one), and I always loved that they made an instrumental rendition of the song their theme. I wasn’t trying to make a Rod Stewart station, it was the song itself. I wanted to see what Pandora would tell me was like it, because I expected it would be pretty good.

And it was. Yeah, it’s a little on the mellow ’70s side. You can smell the dope (in the air, and sense the use of ‘ludes in the vicinity. But it’s more of the smart, edgy side of the mellow ’70s. Not Bread or Seals and Crofts or something mind-numbing like that. Stuff you can really get into, mind and body.

That, of course, led to the late, lamented Mr. Zevon. Which I appreciated.

The line before that one has a nice rhythm to it, too — although it’s not as evocative or provocative, it does a nice job of setting up the great one: “You better not let him in.” It creates anticipation, even excitement, because you know: Here it comes!…

And there it is! And now you know that whether you “hear him howling around your kitchen door” or not, don’t go walking through Soho alone after dark.

So… if we were building a Top Five List, what else should be included? It’s got to use alliteration to achieve a really impressive rhythmic effect, the way Warren did, racing through “Little old lady got mutilated” so that the words tumble over each other, and slowing down on the last three as though Warren hesitated to say the last word, probably because it didn’t have an L in it: “late last… night.”

I don’t mean exactly like that. It should be as different and distinctive as this is. (At least, it was distinctive, until other songs ripped it off). It just needs to achieve as impressive an effect.

Anyway, now that I asked y’all to do the rest of the work, just to observe the forms, here’s a quick Top Five Best Songs I Heard Just Now on that Station:”

  1. Werewolves of London, of course. I’m not sure whether this is my favorite Zevon song or not, but it’s definitely in the Top Three. “Lawyers, Guns and Money” is probably first, with “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” offering it some stiff competition. All on that same amazing album.
  2. Maggie May. Have I ever told you how large this song looms in my legend? About hearing it that day when I came to interview for the job at The State in 1987? It’s a good one, one of the moments in my life when I felt I was in a well-directed movie, and the person in charge of the needle drops had a really nice touch? If not, remind me to tell you.
  3. Your Song, by Elton John. This puts me on the sand of Barber’s Point on Oahu in 1970-71, not so much sunbathing (although getting burned) as resting up, letting the cramps in my side go away before I paddled my board back out. You ever surf (or are you like Charlie)? If you haven’t, you can’t imagine the way it punishes your lats. Anyway, someone else sitting nearby had brought a radio, and this was playing.
  4. Mandolin Wind. Not sure whether this or “Handbags” is my favorite Rod Stewart song. As does the wonderful “Werewolves,” “Maggie May” is probably third.
  5. Can’t Find My Way Home. In which Blind Faith inspires a semi-religious experience. Which is what they did throughout their oh-so-brief time as a Supergroup.

Other songs I heard were good, too, but those are the top five. If you’re on Pandora, I highly recommend creating such a station. This is far, far from being the only kind of music I like, but it is A kind of music I like…

Top Five Best Vacation Spots from Movies

‘There wolf. There castle…’

I read yesterday about this fun idea, poorly executed:

If you like scary movies, as the ghostly voice famously asks on the other end of the phone, you can now stay in the original house from the horror movie “Scream.”

Because this Halloween season marks the film’s 25th anniversary, Airbnb will be offering three one-night stays for up to four people at the Northern California estate where the movie took place….

Besides just being really scared, guests will have the opportunity to explore the two-story property in Tomales, Calif., and see eerie details such as knife marks on the doors to the garage. They will also get a virtual greeting at check-in from their host, David Arquette, who will be reprising his role as small-town sheriff Dewey Riley….

As one who loves movies, I think this is a tremendous idea. And when I say “poorly executed,” I don’t mean they didn’t follow through properly on details. For instance, here’s a picture of a room in the house, which you see comes complete with such time-appropriate items as a cordless landline phone. Also, it appears that when you watch the four movies in the series, they will be on VHS. Nice.

The trouble is, they chose a movie — or movie franchise — that I have never seen, and never intend to see. In fact, I’m not into the genre. My favorite work in this vein is this Geico ad, which makes fun of it wonderfully. So they’re not getting my hard-earned vacation bucks.

But there are some I would at least consider, assuming I had the money, and if certain impossible things were possible. Note that these are not my Top Five movies or anything. I thought about that. For instance, I thought about the Bailey home from “It’s A Wonderful Life.” But beyond having the top of the newel post on the stairs come loose every time you grabbed it, I wasn’t sure how to perfectly create the feeling of being in that particular house. So I just picked five movies I like that were set in places that lend themselves to the concept:

Number Five: “Home Alone” house — This is at No. 5 because it really didn’t require much creative thought. But I had to include it because among films I actually like, I can’t think of any that is more about a house as much as anything. Sure, Macaulay Culkin and Joe Pesci are both very entertaining, and who can forget John Candy’s cameo as the reassuring Polka King? But the house itself plays as important a role as any of the humans. “Home” is even in the title. I came away from watching it thinking, “I’d like to live in that house.” And it’s a real house, in the actual suburbs of Chicago. It’s still there. But since it sold for more than $1.5 million in 2015, you’d be better off aspiring to rent it through Airbnb.

Number Four: “Almost Famous” bus — Why does it have to be a house? Rock bands’ tour buses have places to sleep on them, right? Of course, for this one to work, you have to assume a little magic: The actors from the movie would all be there, too, and they would all be the same ages they were when the film was made in 2000. Well, Patrick Fugit wouldn’t be there, because the idea is that you, the paying guest, would be that character. But you’d see Russell Hammond and Jeff Bebe and the other members of Stillwater. And here’s the best part: You’d get to sit next to Miss Penny Lane! You’d all be on your way to the Riot House in L.A., which would be a long way away as you drive through Midwestern farm country. And all of you would be singing “Tiny Dancer” together.

Number Three: “Young Frankenstein” castle — As you approached your destination, Eye-gor would announce, “There wolf. There castle.” Assuming you wanted him to talk that way, which you would. You, of course, would be back in the hay with Inge. Once at the castle, you would be led to your chamber by the housekeeper, Frau Blücher (the horses outside all whinny loudly), carrying an unlit candelabra. She would warn you to stay close to the candles, for the stairs are treacherous. Then she would offer you Ovaltine before you retired. The fun would start when Inge came to your bed to wake you up from your Nachtmare, and the two of you would then follow the secret passage (“Put… the candle… BACK!”) down to the hidden laboratory, which would be filled with the actual, functioning equipment from the movie this one was lampooning.

Number Two: “Cool Hand Luke” barracks — Hey, if people will pay money to be in a place where a horror movie was set, why not a prison? And you can have a lot of fun here, playing poker with your fellow guests for a cold drink. If you get tired of that, you can bet everyone you can eat 50 eggs. Why 50? It’s a nice, round number. Then, after everybody’s in their bunks, Dragline will keep you all awake by talking endlessly — in great, steamy detail — about “Lucille.” Speaking of the bunks, remember that clean sheets come on Saturday, at which time you put the clean sheet on the top, the top sheet on the bottom, and turn in the bottom sheet to the laundry boy. That’s a rule. There are a lot of rules, but don’t complain about it. If you do, that will be regarded as back-sassing a free man, and you’ll spend the night in the box. And you don’t want that.

Number One: HMS Surprise — Really, I just wrote the whole post for this one, because it is truly the ultimate. And like the “Home Alone” house, the venue actually exists. The filmmakers adapted HMS Rose to look and sail exactly like Surprise herself, and with ol’ Boney dead and the war over, it’s probably available now. At the start of your experience, instead of being greeted by a video of David Arquette like in the “Scream” version, the real-life Killick himself (as portrayed by David Threlfall) will walk up to you, as ornery as ever, jerk his thumb back over his shoulder, and announce, “Wittles is up!” That will be the start of a magnificent feast featuring soused hog’s face, flying fish that just happened to land on the deck moments before, an unending flow of wine (“The bottle stands by you, sir!” the captain will say repeatedly), and some sort of pudding, maybe even Spotted Dick. And that’s just the start. Your stay won’t last a weekend, or even a week, but months and months, because you’ll be sailing to the Far Side of the World. And it won’t cost you a thing. In fact, you yourself will be paid — not much in wages, but prize money is guaranteed! When you catch up with the chase, the captain will give you a pep talk, then give the poor sods a broadside, and you’ll board ’em in the smoke — a pistol in one hand and a heavy cavalry saber in the other! And you can’t say fairer than that, can you, mate?

I look forward to your own ideas.

Some of your shipmates aboard Surprise. That’s Killick pouring the wine.

Top Five Social Media I Hate (Personally)

The above is an email I got today. My reaction was, “LinkedIn deserves to be ‘moentized,’ far as I’m concerned. I may moentize it myself, next time I see it…”

We’ll talk another day about people who send out such emails, and are so careless with their headlines. Today let’s stick to LinkedIn, shall we? I hate it.

Which inspired me to write this quick-and-dirty list of social media I hate. And when I say “quick and dirty,” I mean even quicker and dirtier than the sloppy one about the Top Songs earlier.

I think I spent way less than one minute coming up with the five. Which is fitting, when writing about social media, don’t you think?

Anyway, here’s the list. Note that this is a personal list. I have to deal with some of these professionally, and in truth for many in business something like LinkedIn actually is useful, and I often help people make it more useful to them. But for me, I don’t get much out of it. This is partly because I’m not at a point in life when I’m trying to a) get a job or b) build a career. In other words, this is not business; it’s strictly personal:

  1. LinkedIn — Years ago, a colleague persuaded me to sign up for this, because it was the “professional Facebook,” or something like that. Not long before that, someone had persuaded me to sign up for Twitter, and I had loved that, so why not give this a chance, too, I figured. Also, I was briefly persuaded that in my post-newspaper career, I needed to be on LinkedIn. I no longer am. In fact, I haven’t been for years. Persuaded, I mean. Maybe y’all can argue me into believing again that it serves a purpose to me. Have at it.
  2. Snapchat — OK, I think maybe this feature has changed, but I’m not going to look it up, because I don’t care. I mean the feature that anything you posted there would soon disappear. This was touted as a feature rather than a flaw, which means it was being pushed to people who were stupid enough to post, on the internet, things they did not want other people to see. Here I was, glorying in the fact that anything posted on the Web could stay there forever (unless one’s blog disappeared), meaning that I would never in my life have to type or copy or in any way again publish the “background” we used to have to put in news stories — all you had to do was link to the old material, because it wasn’t going away! That was possibly the one most wonderful thing about the Web. And these people were giving it the finger. So I hate it.
  3. Instagram — It’s about pictures, and yet you can’t right-click and save a picture from it. How stupid and pointless is that? I can grab pictures, if I need them, from anywhere else. But not from here. Which I realize is intentional, and that irritates me no end. I’m responsible with pictures, and careful not to use them if I don’t have permission to do so, within the boundaries of Fair Use. (Ask Paul DeMarco.) So I stay away from it.
  4. Reddit — Listen, I know a lot of intelligent people who really like this medium. But I don’t, because I don’t understand it. I’ve tried using it, and couldn’t find any reason way in which it was a helpful or useful tool, and decided I didn’t understand it. Which meant the people who love it must be smarter than I am. And what do I think of a social medium that shows me other people are smarter than I am? I hate it.
  5. Facebook — It’s a little weird that this is only No. 5 on my list, because I’m sure that I say “I hate Facebook” more than I say I hate all other social media combined. But that’s just because I deal with it that much more. So does everyone, because it is by far the most ubiquitous. And one of many reasons it’s so dominant is that in many ways it is useful. Like for sharing pictures and news with a group of friends and relatives. For instance, one branch of my family has a members-only group from which I’ve gotten lots of great old family pictures for my tree. And Facebook does that better, and more conveniently, than most other instruments. Of course, if you start using FB as your sole Source for News and All Knowledge, it will mess you up. But that’s your fault. So really, I just occasionally dislike it fairly strongly, and other days enjoy what I get out of it….

Of course, there are other social media I love, even as I see their profound flaws and worry about the Rabbit Hole phenomenon. Those include Twitter — use it responsibly — and YouTube.

Then there are in-between social media — such as Pinterest. I go surf through it occasionally, and it intrigues me, but I can’t shake the feeling that it could be so much better…

A slapdash ‘Top Ten (plus) Songs of All Time’ list

A Pre-Raphaelite take on “Greensleeves”…

Just to start a conversation…

I mean, a serious Top Ten Songs of all Time would take years to think through and put together, and even then I’d probably hesitate to publish it without lots of caveats, protesting my own ignorance and forgetfulness. How do you construct such a list and have confidence in it?

Think about it. I doubt that any of us would even be familiar with a tune dating back before, maybe, the 9th century (see my list below). And surely there was something catchy going on somewhere in the Roman Empire — not to mention the many thousands of years homo sapiens was kicking around before inventing writing. Some caveman might have had a great groove going on around the campfire (assuming fire had come along).

Because “all time” is a long time.

But even within my own lifetime, I’m sure that if I tried to do it, within five minutes after posting, I’d remember something I’d forgotten. And then I’d remember something else.

Nevertheless, I’ve been thinking about doing such a list for awhile, and I was reminded of that notion today when I saw this tweet, shared by our own Bryan Caskey:

Bryan had replied, “Rolling Stone Magazine is just trying to stay relevant and avoid relegation into the lower tier.” (I sort of wondered what he meant. What about that list made it “relevant?” And relevant to whom, in what context?)

In any case I jumped in, criticizing specifics: “Seems like they’re trying a bit too hard to ‘take care of TCB,’ to cite a painfully redundant phrase I heard somewhere. And ‘Like a Rolling Stone?’ I’m not sure that would even make a list of top ten songs by Dylan alone…”

I was overreacting a bit. That probably would make a Dylan Top Ten. But fourth best song of all time, by anybody? Come on…

Anyway, here’s the Rolling Stone list.

And now, my own slapdash effort. I’m just going to throw a bunch of songs out there, with some of them being representative of several other songs I might have chosen in the same category. And to save time, I’m not going to worry about paring it down to 10, much less my usual five, because that takes extra work. Note that these are all popular songs; I’m not trying to be all arty with you. (You may argue that Veni, veni, Emmanuel is sacred plainchant — or something like that; I’m no expert — but I will say it had to be really popular to last 12 centuries.)

Oh, and I’m not ranking them, just listing sorta, kinda chronologically. Here we go:

  • “O Come. O Come, Emmanuel” — If you’d perused the charts back in the 9th century, you’d probably have known it as Veni, veni, Emmanuel. Definitely my favorite hit from before the Norman Conquest. And I guess it’s the oldest song I know — or the oldest that I know is that old. The Church plays this a lot during Advent — it’s sort of the Advent song. But they never quite play it enough for me.
  • “Greensleeves” — Or, as it was known when published in 1580, “A Newe Northen Dittye of ye Ladye Greene Sleves.” As you probably know, Shakespeare mentioned it. I first heard the tune myself when I went to see “How the West Was Won” as a kid. Now, I usually hear it at Mass in the weeks after Advent ends, as “What Child Is This?” Whatever the lyrics, it’s an awesome tune. So congratulations, King Henry. This was your one chance to make the list, and you did it! (Just kidding.)
  • “La Marseillaise” — This is the only national anthem on the list, I promise. I love our own, and “God Save the Queen,” and the Russians have a nice one. I can even say positive things about “Deutschland über alles” (or, as it is correctly called, the Deutschlandlied — but we don’t usually call it that because it’s a lousy song name). But I think the French take the prize in this, if in nothing else. If you doubt the song’s power, go watch “Casablanca” again.
  • “Lorena” — There were a lot of hit songs during the Civil War, but of all those Ken Burns weaved so artfully into his TV series, I find this one most appealing. It predated the war, but during the fighting it was huge among both the blue and the gray. Here’s a version with words.
  • “I’ll Be Seeing You” — Same here. Written in 1938, but during the war, this one most powerfully captured the yearning of so many millions to be back with their loved ones. One of the most wistful songs ever.
  • “Hard-Headed Woman” — Had to get in some Elvis P. This one was my fave when I was about 3 (the year it came out), and I’m just going to keep it there. It’s special because it represents a certain category in my mind, which is songs that really rock out, no holds barred. You could say the same about “Tutti-Frutti,” or maybe another Little Richard track such as “Good Golly Miss Molly.” Creedence made a solid entry in the class with “Traveling Band.” But this is my favorite. When I was a kid, I definitely had a favorite line. I used to go around saying, “You better keep your cotton-pickin’ fingers out my curly hair…” Oh, and if you like some Wanda Jackson, here you go.
  • “Summer Wind” — I’m also making a special effort to get in some Sinatra, and to me, this one blows away all the others.
  • “Yesterday” — OK, I’m being hard on the Beatles here, only allowing them one song. Especially hard on Lennon, since as even he admitted, he had nothing to do with this one. If you want to be kinder to John, you can substitute “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” or maybe “In My Life.” If I spent years working on this list, really did the homework and the sweating, I might end up with more than one Beatles song on the list, but this one will have to represent the rest.
  • “Just Like a Woman” — My answer to Rolling Stone including “Like a Rolling Stone.” Yes, that’s very emblematic of him, but it’s easy to name a bunch of his works that are simply better songs, no doubt about it. And if you don’t think this is the best thing from “Blonde on Blonde,” I’ll allow you to substitute “Visions of Johanna.”
  • “Soldier of Love” — This me pulling a real Barry (from High Fidelity) move, going with a pop song that’s sort of esoteric. I loved it when I heard the cover of it on “The Beatles on the BBC,” but I think I might have enjoyed the Pearl Jam cover even more. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever even heard the original, whoever did it. (Oops, found it.)
  • “Mas Que Nada” — If you want to evoke the 1960s in the mind of someone who actually lived through them, you’ll play this perhaps even more readily than something by the Beatles or the Stones. That’s what Austin Powers did, and it worked. Coming from me, it also represents my love of samba music from that era. So you could also have chosen “One-Note Samba,” “Desafinado,” or the ultimate standby, “The Girl from Ipanema.” For that matter, just get Astrud Gilberto to sing anything, even if not samba, and I’ll be happy.
  • “Green Shirt” — My official Elvis C. entry. Again, could have been any number of others, but we love this one down at the Quisling Clinic.
  • “Hallelujah” — I’ve raved about this a number of times in the past, but I tell you — this Leonard Cohen masterpiece would probably make the Top Ten list even if I spent the rest of my life on it.
  • “Creep” — Wanted to get in something good from the early ’90s — the very last gasp of rock music — and probably would have been happy with something from Weezer or Green Day, but for now this will do. The boys from Abingdon did a great job on this one. And if you’d like a fun cover, here ya go.
  • “Hey Ya” — Here, I’m just being perverse by including one song from the Rolling Stone list. It was the only pick that I found at all original or thoughtful, and I’m sure Barry would say the same. So I’m throwing it in. It ain’t “Greensleeves,” but it’s catchy.

Yeah, that was 15. I just didn’t want to do the sweating necessary to get it down to 10. I look forward to seeing y’all’s lists. And remember, “all-time” doesn’t just mean, you know, when you were in high school…

Top Five Fictional Detectives

detectives

– “Who is your favourite person from history?”
– “Sherlock Holmes.”
– “Well, he’s fictional.”
– “Whoa! I think you’d better check your facts there. Fictional? Who took care of the business with the giant dog that was eating everybody? It wasn’t Watson. Don’t tell me, I suppose he was fictional too? Maybe there was no giant dog….”

— The IT Crowd

I was kind of excited, initially, about the interactive feature I found Sunday on my Washington Post app.

The headline was “Pick the best fictional detective,” and it was presented in an interactive graphic meant to evoke the NCAA tournament “brackets” that everyone (even I, despite my lack of enthusiasm for sports) filled out mere days ago.

So, you know, if you enjoy both mysteries and sports, it was extra fun. A cool idea.

But this is no proper way to figure out even who you, yourself, think are the best detectives, much less who the best actually are. (For instance, say two of your five best detectives face each other in the first round — that means one of your top five gumshoes won’t even make the top 32, assuming you’re starting with 64. That’s not right. No way it’s right. It’s a false system of selection. With basketball, it works. Not with detectives.) Another problem is that too few of my fave detectives were even on the bracket in the first round.

The only professional, scientific way to determine the top dicks is to draft an actual Top Five list, and then argue about it with everybody. Stands to reason. The immemorial custom of the blog, and so forth…

Coming up, I was never a big fan of mysteries. I wasn’t an Agatha Christie enthusiast. Nor was I into Conan Doyle, even though I always enjoyed the Basil Rathbone movies. I just wasn’t that much of an admirer of formulaic fiction. Just as I’m not big into blues, or reggae. To me, the songs just sound too much alike. One is fine, but not a whole album. I mean, you know, a blues progression is a blues progression.

Even with Edgar Allen Poe — I preferred the horror stories to “The Purloined Letter.” I got into Poe when I was about 10, and we 5th-graders shared the stories to chill each other’s blood. And “she was buried alive!” does that way better than “the letter was in plain sight!”

But then, things happened. I started reading books that broke the mold, such as Martin Cruz Smith’s wonderfully original thriller Gorky Park and Len Deighton’s alternative history novel SS-GB. And you know what a le Carre fan I am. Well, his first books about George Smiley cast him as a Christiesque amateur solver of mysteries.

And then, along came streaming, and my wife and I got hooked on a range of British murder mysteries and police procedurals. And entirely new forms, such as Nordic noir, and, believe it or not, Welsh noir.

Anyway, here’s the list. I’m sure I’m leaving out somebody awesome, but let’s get the party started:

  1. Arkady Renko — The only Russian in the bunch — almost the only non-Brit, come to think of it — he just blew the doors off the genre when he arrived in Gorky Park, and kept it up over the next few novels. I love a book that puts you in an unfamiliar place and makes it real, and that novel made you feel you were actually in the middle of the Soviet criminal-justice system in the middle of the Cold War — even though Martin Cruz Smith had never been there (just as Patrick O’Brien had never been aboard a Royal Navy frigate during the Napoleonic Wars, but he could absolutely put a reader there). I also think highly of Renko’s American counterpart in the novel, William Kirwill, but it would be cheating to put him on the list, too. Just please don’t picture William Hurt from the movie when you think of Renko. That was a horrendous instance of miscasting. For Renko, you need a Daniel Day-Lewis, to invoke my last Top Five list. He would have been perfect, when he was about 35. Kirwill, however, was perfectly cast — when I was reading the book long before the movie, I was sort of picturing Brian Dennehy.
  2. Sergeant Gerry Boyle — OK, I don’t understand the Irish Garda system all that well, so I’m not sure that Boyle technically is a “detective.” But he’s a good copper, anyway. And again, I’ve got my last Top Five list on my mind, because this was the wonderful, deeply flawed character brought to life by  Brendan Gleeson in “The Guard.” The other night, I watched a few minutes of “48 Hours” — which frankly is about as much of the film as I ever could stand. Anyway, you know the rumpled, interesting character Nick Nolte is trying to play? Gleeson does it right in “The Guard.”
  3. Detective Chief Inspector Gill Murray — The cop show we’re currently obsessed with is “Scott & Bailey,” but I couldn’t choose between Rachel and Janet. Of the two, of course, Janet is the grownup (usually), but I still didn’t want to choose. Anyway, even though she sort of gets third-place billing and isn’t even in the 5th season, Gill is far and away the best cop on the show. Possibly because the actress, Amelia Bullmore, actually wrote some of the episodes, but her character just gets smarter and smarter.
  4. Christopher Foyle — This is the star of “Foyle’s War,” a cool series in so many ways. It’s historical. It’s about WWII. It’s about how life on the home front was affected, and not in the usual way, like folks saving tin cans or whatever. Also, it’s got Honeysuckle Weeks in it, and the fact that Foyle has her as his driver should qualify him alone, if only on the basis of her awesome name.
  5. George Gently — OK, I really debated whether to put this one in the Top Five, but I’m doing it out of frustration as much as anything. It really ticked me off that Prime let us watch the first season “free,” and then cut us off. I hate that. And I’m anxious to see the rest. But he also makes the list because he’s probably the best of a type that you see so much in these productions: the world-weary old hand, filled with almost as much irony and cynicism as investigative skill — of which he has plenty. I just think he does this better than Morse, or Lewis in his modern-day iteration, or Tom Barnaby, or Foyle, or any of those guys. I also think Lee Ingleby — whom Aubrey fans will remember as Hollom in “Master and Commander” — does a great job as his troublesome young assistant.

HONORABLE MENTION (or, to be honest, the next five, because I couldn’t stop)

  • Gene Hunt — There are lot of reasons to say Gene is not a good detective, even the opposite of a good detective, and Sam Tyler mentions most of them at great length, and repetitively, on “Life on Mars.” That’s sort of Sam’s thing, other than being confused about whether he’s a time traveler or just a guy in a coma. But Gene has certain rudimentary, atavistic skills, such as fairly decent gut instinct. And awful as he is, fans of the show eventually get to enjoy Gene as a guilty pleasure. A very guilty pleasure, because he is awful. In fact, he’s so awful that I think it’s kind of a libel on the world of 1973 to say senior cops were like this and got away with it back then. But if you get picky, you won’t enjoy the show anyway. I should also add that this is kind of a Jayne Cobb thing. I call Jayne my favorite character on Firefly because as a grandfather I don’t want to admit it’s really Kaylee. In this case, for Kaylee, substitute Annie Cartwright. She does get to be a detective late in the series, but most of the time, she’s a WPC. I think this picture is of the moment when Sam asks her first name, and she says “Annie!” Which is when the viewer starts to love her.
  • John River — This is my first entrant from the world of Nordic noir. And the ways in which it qualifies as Nordic noir are confusing. It’s set in London. River is a London cop. But he’s played by a Swedish actor. Of course, what makes it noir is the tone. River, you see, talks with dead people, and they talk back. All the time. Which can be an advantage when you’re a cop, if not a fun one. Also playing a key role is Nicola Walker. She’s not a household name — I had to look it up right now — but when she pops up in any role she’s impressive. Here she is as a guest star — playing a pivotal role — on “Scott & Bailey.”
  • Jimmy Perez — This is the protagonist of “Shetland.” I went back and forth on whether to choose him or the semi-hero of the Welsh noir (it was actually originally in the Welsh language, but then released in English) “Hinterland,” Tom Mathias. Both are cops out in the boonies, trying to do a tough job under trying circumstances. Ultimately, I go with Jimmy because he’s more stable.
  • Jimmy McNulty or Bunk Moreland, you decide — I just had to get someone in from what may be the best American cop show of all time, “The Wire.” I thought I’d go with McNulty since he was kind of the star, and because his bend-the-rules detective work got the ball rolling in the first episode. But “McNutty,” as Bubbles, unquestionably the best fictional snitch ever, called him, was a screwup. So I’m offering his partner Bunk as an alternative. Of course, he could be a screwup, too. But they were great together.
  • Douglas Archer — Just to pull someone in from the weird world of alternative history. I initially read this as a Len Deighton (The Ipcress File) fan, but this kind of stands out from his other books. Archer of the Yard is a classic British detective, who in 1941 finds himself working for the SS because the Germans went ahead with their invasion of Britain, and it was successful. And because you still need to catch bad guys, right, even when you’re working for worse guys. This was a great tale — way better than weirdly similar stories like Fatherland (Detective Xavier March, a 1960s cop working in a Germany that did not lose the war, is a sort of combination of Archer and Arkady Renko). I’ve never seen the TV series, because it’s on the premium level of Hulu, and I’m just not going to pay for that. I’ll just say that the actor playing Archer doesn’t look right at all, based on photos I’ve seen.

Yeah, I know — all white guys, except for one lady-type person, and Bunk, who I know you’re already suspecting I snuck in for diversity’s sake. (But I didn’t. Bunk’s awesome.) Yeah, well…. I just couldn’t get into “Luther,” as great as Idris Elba is. Speaking of Bunk and Elba — the thing about “The Wire” is that the best characters were not the cops. In fact, by far the best character in the show was an armed robber. And Omar was not only black, but gay, if you’re keeping score. Unfortunately, this is a detectives list.

And I considered a bunch of women, and almost put Marcella on the list. She’s fascinating. But man, that series really took Nordic noir (although it was set in England) to some weird places, and we got to where we couldn’t watch anymore. And while I’m somewhat intrigued by Chloé Saint-Laurent on the French cop series “Profilage,” she’s technically not a detective, and I’ve only seen her in two episodes so far, so I don’t yet know how good she is.

And no, Jackie Brown, about whom I thought for a second, wasn’t a detective. If I were doing a Top Five Flight Attendants List, she’d be a great candidate. Along with Elaine Dickinson…

Oh, but wait! Back to “The Wire”… “Beadie” Russell was awesome! And she sorta became a detective during the course of the series, right? There are just too many fictional detectives out there for me to know where to stop. If I did this again next week, my Top Five might be five completely different people…

Top Five Irish Actors

Lincoln

Best on the list — and I didn’t even have him pegged as Irish

I was thinking about doing a rant against Identity Politics, which I still might do if I find time today or tonight, because now that Trump’s gone, it seems to be all we can talk about (the argument over motivations in the Atlanta shooting, this business over who gets to play on girls’ teams in school, the unrelated battle over whether enough resources are committed to female sport on the college level, etc.) when there are far, far more important things we could be talking about (the deteriorating relations with China and Russia, the Biden administration’s upcoming $3 trillion spending plan — yes, that number is correct — and a host of other things that I won’t mention because this parenthetical, and the sentence of which it is a part, are both far too long now).

But that would take a long time, and I have less than zero time available for it. So I’ll go completely in the opposite direction. Earlier, I randomly ran across a picture of Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane in a Tarzan movie, and idly thought, “Whose Ma was she again?” (Mia Farrow’s, for the curious.) And I found on Wikipedia that she was listed No. 8 on a list in The Irish Times of “The 50 greatest Irish film actors of all time – in order.”

So of course I had to look at it, so I could disagree with it. And not just with the fact that it’s undisciplined to list 50 when the proper number is five.

Anyway, just choosing from this list of 50 (there could be others, but I’m not going to spend time thinking about it), here’s my five. I’ll start with my apologies for not putting Maureen O’Hara at No. 1 the way they did, or even on the list. I mean no disrespect to the lady. Here’s my list:

  1. Daniel Day-Lewis — First, I had no idea he was Irish. I thought he was a Brit. But he’s definitely the best. Interestingly, some of my favorite performances by him were as iconic American figures: Abraham Lincoln, the ultimate frontiersman Natty Bumpo, and violent nativist Bill the Butcher. They had him at No. 2, behind Ms. O’Hara, but he’s the best.
  2. Kenneth Branagh — Also would have pegged him as a Brit. He certainly impersonates one well. He can be overbearing, but the man can act. I agree with them that he was most impressive as Henry V. But they were wrong to put him way down at No. 20 on the list.
  3. Brendan Gleeson — He’s just magic in everything. If you haven’t seen it, try to find The Guard and stream it. He’s great. They had him at 18.
  4. Maria Doyle Kennedy — You may remember her as the hottest of the Commitmentettes. (Yes, I know Angeline Ball — in the center in that picture — was the prettiest, but I found Maria, whom you see to Angeline’s right as well as below, more appealing.) They had her at 46, and she deserves much better. She’d probably have been higher, except that — and this bugs me — you so seldom see her. But occasionally she’ll crop up where you don’t expect her — as Catherine of Aragon in “The Tudors” or Siobhán Sadler in “Orphan Black.”
  5. Chris O’Dowd — OK, he’s no Daniel Day-Lewis, or even particularly great at all, but I’m a huge fan of “The IT Crowd,” and I don’t think it gets enough attention, so I’m promoting him from where they put him, at 39. Mind you, if Richard Ayoade were in any way Irish, I’d have included him on my list — there’s a guy you don’t see enough, even less than Maria.

Honorable mention, with their ranks on the Times’ list:

8. Maureen O’Sullivan

9. Michael Fassbender

11. Barry Fitzgerald

24. Colm Meaney

That’s it. Back to work…

My favorite Commitmentette.

My favorite Commitmentette.

Alexandra got it right — or the most important part, anyway

But I liked "The Little Drummer GIRL." I get points for that, right?

But I liked “The Little Drummer GIRL.” I get points for that, right?

I wrote about this before, didn’t I? But I can’t find it, so…

I happened to run across Alexandra Petri’s piece from two years ago, “A ranking of 100 — yes, 100 — Christmas songs,” and I nodded approvingly once again, and so I thought I’d share it. Even if it means I’m doing so, you know, once again…

The main thing is, the Christmas song she hates the worst is the same one I do: “The Little Drummer Boy.” As you may recall, I dislike it even more than I dislike Paul McCartney’s insipid, monotonous “Wonderful Christmas Time,” as I explained in my Top Five list several years ago.

One nice thing about this year is that I haven’t been to the mall even once, and I don’t think I’ve been in a single store where such drivel was being pumped at me, so that’s a point in favor of 2020. There’s that, and Joe Biden getting elected. Yay, 2020.

But the distaste lingers from previous years.

Anyway, nice job, Alexandra. Here’s her explanation of why “Drummer Boy” is the worst:

100. “Little Drummer Boy.” My hatred for this song is well-documented. I think it is because the song takes approximately 18 years to sing and does not rhyme. The concept of the song is bad. The execution of the song is bad. There is not even an actual drum in the dang song, there is just someone saying PA-RUM-PA-PUM-PUM, which, frankly, is not a good onomatopoeia and probably is an insult to those fluent in Drum. I cannot stand it. Nothing will fix it, even the application of David Bowie to it. Every year I say, “I hate this song,” and every year people say, “Have you heard David Bowie’s version?” Yes. Yes, I have. It is still an abomination.

Quite right. Although as I said the other day in my piece on the passing of John le Carré (another bad point about 2020 was losing him and a bunch of other cool people), I really like “The Little Drummer Girl,” so maybe my feminist friends will give me some points for that. Which would be a rare treat…

The doctor should have tried a little harder on his Top Ten Albums of the ’60s list

Pepper

Do you have a Google search app on your phone or iPad? I do. And Google uses it to entice me to click on things. On the home page, there are all these links to things Google is convinced fascinate me. Most have something to do with the Beatles, or the Sopranos, or Key and Peele skits.

You’d think I’m not interested in anything else. Which is weird. Is that really what the data say to Google about me? I mean, it’s not like it’s sending me to significant news about these pop-culture touchstones. Or even authoritative sources. Most are from websites I’ve never heard of, and which I would never go to to become more informed about anything.

But sometimes they get me. Sometimes I click anyway, at the risk of encouraging this stuff. I did so when I saw this link to a piece headlined, “From Bob Dylan to The Rolling Stones: Hunter S. Thompson’s favourite albums of the 1960s.” It’s from something called Far Out magazine, which as you can tell by the spelling of “favourite” is published from Britain.

I mean, how could I resist?

But what I found was disappointing. It seemed to me that, beyond throwing in some esoteric choices to let you know he’s the head doctor of Gonzo, little thought went into it. Maybe in the original letter there was some engaging explanation of each choice. But the list itself seems kind of flat:

  1. Herbie Mann’s – Memphis Underground (“which may be the best album ever cut by anybody”)
  2. Bob Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home
  3. Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited
  4. The Grateful Dead – Workingman’s Dead
  5. The Rolling Stones – Let it Bleed
  6. Buffalo Springfield – Buffalo Springfield
  7. Jefferson Airplane – Surrealistic Pillow
  8. Roland Kirk’s “various albums”
  9. Miles Davis – Sketches of Spain
  10. Sandy Bull – Inventions

So, of course, I thought I should put together my own list.

It wasn’t easy. I cheated a bit by consulting Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Just to prime the pump. Then I added four or five of my own that weren’t even in the magazine’s top 200. (I didn’t look lower than that.)

I went back and forth between things that were emblematic of the period and enormously influential and things that just appealed to me at the time. As Thompson did, but I tried to be more disciplined about it.

You’ll notice this is all white guys, except for the one Jimi Hendrix pick. I could slough that off and say I wasn’t going to skew the list for Identity Politics, but the thing is, I tried to. I did so because you can’t review the 60s without being blown away by the contributions of black and female musicians (and sometimes Hispanic as well — I really tried to squeeze in a personal favorite, Feliciano!, but it didn’t make it). But problems having to do with the nature of my list kept getting in my way.

For instance, how do you review the ’60s without including The Supremes, or some of Dionne Warwick’s renditions of Burt Bacharach songs? But… what album would I choose? The songs tower over the decade, but no particular album stands out — in my mind, anyway. (You may correct me with something I should be thinking of and failing. If you do, I’ll thank you.)

I tried cheating, by including “Otis Blue” from Otis Redding. It was on the Rolling Stone list, and I started to include it. But… even though it had songs that I love, they’re songs I came to know later, posthumously. The truth is, I’m one of those white boys who hadn’t heard of Otis until “Dock of the Bay” came out after his death. I was blown away by the rest of his work much later. As for the album in question, I didn’t even remember it. I wasn’t cool enough for it to be part of my 60s memories.

Then there was my abortive effort to get Janis Joplin on the list. For a moment, I included “Cheap Thrills.” I mean, can you think of an album that looked more ’60s than that, with its R. Crumb artwork? But… that wasn’t honest. It wasn’t nearly as good an album, in my view, as “Pearl,” which was recorded a little too late, and not released until 1971, after her death.

And it really hurt to leave off Carole King’s “Tapestry.” It included some of her work from the ’60s, but there was no escaping the fact that it was released in 1971, and is very tied up with that specific time.

Man, if we could just have included that adjunct of the ’60s — the ’70s — this would have been a much more diverse list. (Al Green, anyone? Joni Mitchell?) But I stuck to the ’60s. I even left off Led Zeppelin II, even though it was released in 1969, because it’s just too firmly associated in my mind with 1970 and later. The ’70s were the decade of album-oriented radio. I mean, think about Carole King’s work in the early ’60s — all those hits she wrote for Little Eva, Bobby Vee, the Drifters, the Chiffons, Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield and even the Monkees. None of those make me think of the word, “album.”

Anyway… it’s full of flaws, but here’s my list:

  1. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band — Not necessarily my favorite from the Beatles, but a towering achievement. And from the music to the cover, can you get any more ’60s than this? It was Rolling Stone’s No. 1 all-time pick. (Their Top Five had three Beatles albums!) I know it’s cooler to choose, say, “Revolver” or “Rubber Soul,” or even to leave the Beatles off altogether. But I care more about citing the ’60s top albums than I do about being cool.
  2. Are You Experienced? — Again, when you go with Jimi Hendrix and pick ONE album, you’re leaving off fantastic classics of the period. It’s tough. There’s no, say, “All Along the Watchtower.” But hey, it’s got “Purple Haze,” “Manic Depression,” “The Wind Cries Mary,” “Foxey Lady” and “Fire,” so I’m going with it. Come to think of it, what was I complaining about?
  3. Let it Bleed — Not the Stones’ best album — those would come in the ’70s (“Sticky Fingers,” “Exile on Main Street”). And it means passing up their awesome early hits, such as “Satisfaction.” But there are some great Stones tunes here. And of course, the one that pushes the album onto the list more than any other is “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”
  4. Highway 61 Revisited — It’s tough to pick ONE Dylan album, and I’d agree with you if you chose any one of three or four others instead of this. Especially if you picked “Blonde on Blonde,” or insisted it had to be early, pre-electric Dylan. But looking back over the track list, I feel good about this one. Don’t you, Mr. Jones?
  5. Meet the Beatles — Yep, two Beatles albums. I almost set myself a rule to prevent this, but if anyone was going to get two, it would be the Fab Four. And how do you leave this one off? Critically and musically it might not be as impressive as later stuff, but for those of us who lived the decade, this is the album that started what we think of as the 1960s. Before that, it was like the Four Freshmen and such. So I’m keeping it, even though it prevented me from including something else I really liked.
  6. The Band — This 1969 release barely makes it, and I’m going to confess I didn’t really discover The Band until a year or two later. But it’s my list, and I’m such a fan that I’m including it. Rolling Stone rates “Music from Big Pink” higher, but I’m going with the Brown Album. If you could only take one album from these guys to a desert island, it would have to be this one.
  7. Crosby, Stills and Nash — Another one released in 1969 — meaning my list is way skewed toward the end of the decade. But go listen to it. Look at the cover. Doesn’t it pretty much scream “’60s” to you, from the very first notes of “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”? Even if you don’t agree, you’ll have the treat of hearing “Marrakesh Express,” “Guinnevere,” “Wooden Ships,” “Lady of the Island,” and “Helplessly Hoping.” So stop complaining, and enjoy.
  8. Best of Cream — I need to be specific here. Over the years, there have been several “best of Cream” albums on the market, but none of the others were any good. This one, the one released on vinyl in — of course — 1969, was awesome. It was truly their best — “Sunshine of Your Love,” “White Room,” “Born Under a Bad Sign,” “Spoonful,” “Tales of Brave Ulysses” — and that unbelievable live version of “Crossroad.” This album is not easy to find. At least, I never could find it on CD, and I just checked iTunes — again — and you just can’t find that distinctive cover with the vegetables (see below) anywhere. Good thing I still have my vinyl.
  9. Blood, Sweat & Tears — Released in 1968, this was their second album, but everything else they did fades alongside this one. It was so different from anything I was hearing at the time, and I really got into the horns, the jazz influence and other stuff that set it apart. Hey, I was a dumb kid. I knew nothing of jazz. To me, “God Bless the Child” was new! I didn’t even get the reference to Churchill’s famous speech. Also, this is where I first encountered Erik Satie! So it opened my mind a little.
  10. Whipped Cream & Other Delights — There were so many different sounds that made up this decade, stuff other than guitar groups, that I felt like I needed to get in something from Bacharach, or Petula Clark, or Sergio Mendes. But I didn’t. I’ll stick in some Herb Alpert, though. His music is almost as representative of the decade as the Beatles — in its own way (hey, you couldn’t have had TV game show without it!). This was crossover music. There was a copy of the album in our house, but it belonged to my parents, not to me. And of course, if I’m going to think of a Herb Alpert album, it’s going to be this one. Because of, you know, that cover. I looked at it a lot. Because, you know, I was really into the music.

Well, that’s it for now. I’m interested to see where y’all agree and disagree.

APLD_5351138__97707__05232014021005-3665

 

Doug and I were 60 percent in agreement!

Have I told you guys how great you look in garnet?

Have I told you guys how great you look in garnet?

This is to make up for that long post that no one but me could have found interesting. (And I wouldn’t have, either, if it had been about someone else!)

This morning Phillip Bush said something way wrong on Twitter — that cool as it was, the theme from “Mission Impossible” wasn’t Lalo Schifrin’s best. That instead, it was the theme from “Mannix.”

Knowing I could not win an argument with Phillip about music, I tried anyway, saying, essentially, nuh-uh! I also mentioned “Peter Gunn,” to give my case force by mentioning a show that was on before I was old enough to stay up that late.

Obviously, I was doomed.

But then Bryan, whose brain has not been recently damaged by a stroke, said he agreed with me, then quickly changed the subject:

Related: Give me your top five movies that are primarily *about* music.

Nice one, Bryan.

Bryan, Phillip AND our own Doug Ross all offered their lists before I returned, as follows. Doug’s:

Bryan’s:

and Phillip’s:

No, I don’t know know to separate those. Anyway, I had nothing to add. But I thought Doug’s was the most creative, and immediately endorsed his last three picks, adding two from the other lists:


I think we were all too contemporary. I suspect we did injustice to the music of earlier generations. For instance, were we all wrong to have left out “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” which featured Jimmy Cagney dancing down stairs?

And wouldn’t our grandparents have scorned us for leaving out “The Jazz Singer?”

I dunno. What do y’all think?

mugshot-james-cagney-dancing-robert-odierna-criminal-movie-reviews

James Cagney, dancing down stairs!

The official, properly considered, Robert Redford Top Five List

the natural

I hadn’t intended to do this. There’s something inherently uncool in doing such an obvious, vanilla, whitebread Top Five List. Barry would never stop giving me grief about it, if Barry actually existed. Actually, I suspect Jack Black would never let up, if he found out about it. So don’t tell him.

Actually, a cool list would be, say, a Jack Black list.

But no, this is about the ultimate whiteguy A-lister from a generation ago, or more. I mean, next we’ll be doing, I dunno, a Clark Gable list or something. Or so Barry would say.

But I have to do this to set things right. In a recent comment on this blog, reacting to a side conversation about a clip from “Three Days of the Condor” — really a Max Von Sydow conversation, not about Redford at all — Bryan Caskey snuck up while I wasn’t looking and posted this:

Top Five Robert Redford Movies
1. Jeremiah Johnson
2. The Sting
3. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
4. Sneakers
5. Spy Game

Ahhhhh! No way! Totally apart from the very worst thing about it — more on that in a moment — he put “The Sting” (a relatively desperate attempt by Hollywood to recapture the Newman/Redford magic of the previous) above “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid!” That should have cancelled the whole list outright, but there it is, still on this blog, and I feel responsible and must set the record straight.

So, here is the official bradwarthen.com Top Five List for Robert Redford.

But wait. I didn’t mention the worst thing: He left “The Natural” off his list altogether! We’re talking about a film that not only makes my Top Five list for all sports films, but is at the TOP of my Baseball Movies list! And he’s a sports guy and I’m not!

So anyway, here is the official bradwarthen.com Top Five List for Robert Redford:

  1. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid — I probably wouldn’t start the list with this — the second and third films are better — but this is a Robert Redford list, and without this film, we wouldn’t know who Robert Redford is. Also… it’s a unique Redford movie. It’s the only film he appeared in in which his character was cool. After that, he competed with himself to see how uncool he could make his characters. Including Roy Hobbs. Definitely including Jeremiah Johnson, the dullest Mountain Man in the Rockies. The Sundance Kid is one of the coolest characters ever in a Western. Watch, and see what Redford did with him — and then tell me one other character he did that with. You can’t. Newman’s characters were almost always cool. Redford’s never were.
  2. All the President’s Men — Every time I see this film, I’m blown away at how good it was. I don’t remember being that impressed with it when it was new, but it’s amazing. And it’s because of the little things. It has the most realistic depiction of the interview process that I’ve ever seen. The naturalistic awkwardness that Redford as Woodward and Hoffman as Bernstein experience as they try to get people to talk to them and put their story together is probably painful for laypeople to watch — but if you made your living doing that kind of thing, you’d recognize it, and be impressed. And you’ll also see why I preferred being an editor to going through the daily grind of being a reporter. It’s very, very real.
  3. The Natural — To Bryan’s credit, I was reminded of this film’s awesomeness when Bryan put this video on Twitter, with its invitation, “If you’re missing baseball, watch this.” You should definitely watch that compilation, and think about how much poorer it would be without the clips from “The Natural.” That film corrected a huge literary mistake, committed by Bernard Malamud. Malamud’s novel stripped all nobility from Roy Hobbs, and condemned him not only to lose in the end, but to deserve it. Totally depressing. It totally missed why Americans, back when they were real Americans, loved baseball. The film understood all of that, was unembarrassed about it, and crammed it all in with no apology.
  4. The Great Gatsby — If you try to look this up on IMDB now, they’ll show you the Leonardo DiCaprio version, which is just sad. There’s a certain amount of personal involvement here: This was the movie that inspired me to wear a white linen suit when I got married that same year. (Try even finding one of those.) But it’s great. No one can sound as plain and uncool as Redford calling people “old sport.” It’s pure mastery. And it has Sam Waterston — and Edward Herrmann in a cameo, playing the piano! Oh, and see if you can find the guy who played Hershel Greene in “The Walking Dead” — he’s in it! In a key role! (Talk about a guy with a cool Top Five list!)
  5. The Candidate — I was going to put Jeremiah Johnson here, but I didn’t, just to be cantankerous. Jeremiah’s good, but it’s maybe too popular among my more libertarian friends, who think that being a mountain man is a sensible way to live. So I thought I’d go with something that in its own way was kind of groundbreaking — the story of a political candidate who only ran because he was promised he would lose — and has Peter Boyle as a political operative.

Butch-Cassidy-Film-Still-2-800x640

Top Five Coolest Airplanes Ever

F-4

I’m trying to keep my mind off of Super Tuesday today. The last three days have been wonderful, from Joe’s stunning win here, through the endorsements of Amy, Pete and Beto. But while Joe was concentrating on South Carolina, Bernie was getting a huge head start everywhere else, especially California. And Bloomberg was spending half a billion dollars to try to win the very voters Joe needs to stop Bernie.

Burl with one of his early models.

Burl with one of his early models.

So… how about a Top Five List? I’m feeling kind of basic today (I’m in a “Top Five Side One, Track Ones” mood), so let’s make this the sort of list we could have made when we were 11 years old and building model airplanes. Back when we weren’t cool (yet), but we had a keen sense of what we thought was cool. We can make it a sort of tribute list to our friend Burl Burlingame, who along with many other accomplishments was the best modeler any one of us ever knew.

And just to head off the “war-monger” cries from some of my friends, I’m sorry, but warplanes have always been cooler than civilian aircraft. Not because they’re warplanes, but, well, just look at them. Built for speed and performance, they’ll always be cooler than, say, a 707. The way a 1964½ Ford Mustang or a 1962 Jaguar XK-E is way cooler than a minivan.

This was inspired by a video YouTube suggested to me this morning. I had called up Cream’s “Tales of Brave Ulysses,” and YouTube suggested something called “Best Rock Songs Vietnam War Music.” And again, it’s not “War” that makes it cool. Think about the Vietnam War movies you’ve seen. Don’t they tend to have awesome soundtracks?

So, intending to just leave it playing while I worked, I called it up. And the first image on the screen was the above one, of an F-4 Phantom taking off. (No, wait — the flaps are down, so I think it’s landing. But I don’t know. Bob Amundson, can you give us a ruling?) It showed while CCR’s “Fortunate Son” was playing.

So I got to thinking, and here’s the list. And not in order of coolness — more chronological:

  1. Fokker DR.I Triplane. The Red Baron‘s plane, it was both wicked and ungainly looking — but all planes looked awkward back then, right? The SPAD was all right, and the Sopwith Camel had a great name, but the Fokker was cooler. Also, 11-year-olds who build airplane models like to say “Fokker.” Almost as good as saying the full name of the Fw 190.
  2. P-51 Mustang. Maybe the nicest-looking, solid-but-sleek design in aviation history. And quite a formidable fighter. Also, it looked so modern. (Weirdly, the P-47 Thurderbolt came later, but looked 20 years older — at least to my eye.) I had trouble on this one. I was torn between this and the Spitfire, which won the Battle of Britain (OK, the Hurricanes helped) — the ultimate emblem of British pluck. But as big an Anglophile as I am, I went with the American plane.
  3. C-47 Skytrain. Or Dakota. Or Gooney-Bird. OK, it’s not fast, and it’s not sleek. Definitely the Plain Jane of the bunch. But it was so awesome in its plainness. One of the main instruments that won the war for us. The Band of Brothers jumped out of them, they saved Berlin in the Cold War, and… It was the first plane I ever flew in, hopping over the Andes, up and down the Pacific coast of South America. An unbelievable amount of noise and vibration, but a real thrill for a kid. So I’m playing favorites here.
  4. F-4 Phantom. My generation’s version of the P-51. It had a solid look to it, like nothing could knock it out of the sky (a handy attribute when flying Wild Weasel missions), but also looked like it could fly like a bat out of hell. And it sorta could. These also loom large in my legend, from the ones that flew out of MacDill AFB when I lived there in high school to the ones the Kansas Air Guard flew over our house (we were under the takeoff pattern) when I worked in Wichita.
  5. X-15. The world’s first operational spaceplane, the futuristic great-grandchild of Yeager’s X-1. This was another one I had to think about a bit. It was competing with the SR-71, another sci-fi sort of aircraft. But the X-15 was the one I thought was cool when I was a kid, and it wins on sheer speed. The Blackbird could cruise at Mach 3.2, but in 1967, the X-15 set the speed record that still stands: Mach 6.70.

I almost put the Navy’s ultimate WWII plane, the F4U Corsair, on the list (foldable gull wings! Pappy Boyington!). But the P-51 beat that out as well as the Spitfire.

The North American X-15 rocket plane, made to fly to the edge of space.

The North American X-15 rocket plane, made to fly to the edge of space.