Category: Entertainment

R.I.P. Kinky Friedman

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Performer, activist, provocateur, humorist, politician, author … my fellow Longhorn was unique – and immensely talented.

Leading Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys (named in mocking homage to the western swing band Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys), he impressed audiences but was ignored by record labels.

His songs, always politically incorrect, sometimes ostensibly silly, and occasionally obscene, drove home his points with caustic satire.

Examples:

  • Ride ‘Em, Jewboy
  • Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed

I was almost twenty years behind Kinky at UT, so I never knew him. In fact, I never saw him perform live, but two of his devotees and acolytes, “Bowley and Wilson,” were my absolute go-to pick for an evening’s entertainment when out-of-town visitors wanted the full Austin experience. My wife and I probably went to their club at least two dozen times. It was the closest one could get to Kinky without actually seeing the real thing.

R.I.P. Martin Mull, host of Fernwood 2Night, and America’s smart-ass

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Fernwood 2Night was a true cultural treasure. If you don’t remember it, it was a parody of a late-night talk show, blazing a trail for The Larry Sanders Show, with the twist that the show was local rather than national. Mull was the smarmy, lusty host who thought he was too good to be working with mid-American yokels. Fred Willard, as the local version of Ed McMahon, had already perfected his clueless shtick. Frank De Vol was the leader of an awful band. The great Dabney Coleman played the mayor of Fernwood. The writers of the show did an amazing job at coming up with new material, considering that it was on five nights a week (they could only sustain that for a few months). The show was almost perfect. I was totally hooked on it.

The show also parodied the usual assortment of variety show guests. My favorite was Tony Roletti, the inept, insincere lounge singer.

The 1969 show that was cancelled during its opening broadcast

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Notes by Whitecaps:

I’ve mentioned here the controversial and short lived T.V show called Turn-On before. It was arguably the first television show to be cancelled after a single episode. There are some claims it was cancelled during its first airing because many west coast affiliates wouldn’t air it, but I think that is mostly ahistorical as it was only one or two stations.

Anyway, George Schlatter the producer of the show made it available on You Tube 8 months ago and I just noticed.

This is episode one:



While only one episode aired, much of the program much of episode two had already been filmed:



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Scoop’s notes:

Tim Conway was the star of the ill-fated show, which was supposed to be sort of a Laugh-In for grown-ups, although it seemed like the real target market might have been people on LSD. Conway ruminated about the show some years ago. He pointed out that the show aired in the Eastern time zone in its entirety on all affiliates, but as it crossed the country, it was cut shorter and shorter. An affiliate in the Central time zone cut it halfway through, and some affiliates on the West Coast never aired it at all.



This may not be the record for the fastest cancellation, depending on your definition. Jackie Gleason once hosted a game show called You’re in the Picture. In week two, the time slot featured Jackie apologizing for week one. He just sat in a chair on a single camera and expressed his contrition for being involved in “the biggest bomb in the history of television.”

Gleason went on to explain in some detail just how bad the show was. His apology show was actually pretty interesting, as it was filled with Gleason’s old-time showbiz anecdotes, and he was a skilled raconteur



(Here’s part two of the apology show.)

Here is the actual first (and last) episode of the game. Gleason got more and more annoyed with the show as it progressed. Toward the end of the episode, he was dumping on the premise of the game, the ineptness of the celebrity panelists, and even his own performance.

How sweet it wasn’t.

Every Stefon appearance ever

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A repeat, but one that really cracks me up.

Bill Hader‘s now-iconic New York City correspondent may be gone from the NBC sketch comedy series, but over the course of 10 years he solidified his legacy as one of the best SNL characters ever. And the long-running series is celebrating the legend by releasing every single appearance of Stefon on SNL ever, for the first time. Say it with us: Yes yes yes yes yes yes.

The Stefon mad-lib – write your own

Stefon: If you want to treat your (relative or holiday celebrant), New York’s hottest club is (onomatopoeic word), the inspiration of (underground artist of some kind with a mildly offensive pun name that sounds gay or trans). Located in (unlikely location that sounds vaguely New Yorky), this club has everything: (three silly objects that have no place in a club), a (silly thing or animal) that looks like (obscure celebrity), and a human (noun).

Seth: What’s a human (noun)

Stefon: It’s that thing where (number) midgets ___________. (Breaks up) And, look, over there in the corner – is that (major celebrity). No! It’s (something absurdly unrelated to that celebrity)

Let’s give it a try …

If you want to treat your Valentine to a special night, New York’s hottest club is Quack!, the creation of former beat poet, Tranny Aiello. Located in the two bathtubs from an old Cialis commercial, under an abandoned “el” trestle on the upper south side, this club has everything: pool noodles, smoke signals, slide whistles, five tree stumps that look like Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs, and a human carousel

What’s a human carousel?

It’s that thing where eight midgets in horse costumes run around in a circle. (Cracks up) And look over there in the corner! Is that Will Smith? No. It’s a half-eaten breakfast burrito.

Megan L Williams – rear nudity in episode 4 of Clipped

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Not to be outdone by the Lakers, the Clippers also have their own drama series, centering on the 2013-2014 season, which was their best regular season (57 wins). As the team rises, the owner falls. Near the end of the season, owner Donald Sterling is banned from the NBA for life and fined $2.5 million by the league after the public revelation of private recordings of his racist comments.

It stars Ed O’Neill as the owner (Donald Sterling) and Lawrence Fishburne as the coach (Doc Rivers). It also features LeVar Burton in the challenging role of LeVar Burton.


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The other woman (showing a little bit of nipple or maybe just areola) is Nikole Howell.

A quick note on House of the Dragon

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There is no nudity in episode 1 of season 2.

Several of you have complained that the PC culture has infected Hollywood to such an extent that it is squashing female nudity. I don’t know whether that is true in general, but it seems to be. It is certainly true with this show. HBO used to be a good source of nudity in general, and the Game of Thrones franchise was exceptionally good. Not any more. There were plenty of opportunities for nudity in this episode: a bath and two sex scenes. There’s nothing to see.

  • The first sex scene is literally fully clothed. The guy barely removes his armor. As I often say, the Inuits wear less clothing on a seal hunt.
  • The second scene is far from the camera, not that it matters, because it is shot from the rear, woman on top cowgirl-style, employing the ol’ “blanket over her butt”cliche.
  • The bath is photographed to reveal nothing.

Damn, this show is confusing. I am a total GoT nerd. I even own a copy of the pricey “The World of Ice and Fire,” and it’s a good thing I do, because I had forgotten a lot of season one, so I had to reread the chapters on Viseris I and Aegon II to figure out approximately what was going on in this episode.  The downside of that approach is that I now know the plot twists for the entire season. Oh, well. I’ll still watch it.

If you’re not equally obsessed with Martin’s books and shows, or if you have forgotten the details of season 1, you may get lost here. If you aren’t familiar with that universe, I don’t recommend starting here.

A fun bit of ancient musical trivia that I learned only a year ago

Scoop, ... 53 comments.

When we get bored of talkin’ sports, my friends and I wander into other areas for booze-addled debates about subjects with no definitive answer, but with the certainly of our convictions. One of those debates involves the “best cover song,” and our consensus choice has generally been “A Little Help From My Friends” by Joe Cocker. Just recently I realized that I had never considered another song because I had no idea it was a cover. That would be Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly.”

About a year ago, I learned that the original writer and performer is a woman named Lori Lieberman, whose rendition is different from Roberta’s, but not that much different, and also beautiful:



For reference, here’s Roberta’s cover, and Lauren Hill’s re-cover.

I guess I still have to go with Cocker, not because he did a better job than Flack (who’s to say?), but because he took a silly little Music Hall ditty and transformed it into a blues-rock classic, while Flack just took a beautiful song and made another version of a beautiful song.

I can only think of one case where a band took a really awful song and made it worth listening to, and that’s The Dan Band’s satirical cover of Total Eclipse of the Heart. I guess you could also argue that Me and Bobby McGee was a pretty lame song until Janis Joplin turned it up to 11.

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Other popular choices as #1:

Jimi Hendrix, All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan)
Aretha Franklin, Respect (Otis Redding)
Whitney Houston, I Will Always Love You (Dolly Parton)
Gladys Knight, Midnight Train to Georgia (Cissy Houston)
Janis Joplin, Piece of My Heart (Erma Franklin – Aretha’s sister!)
Iz Kamakawiwoʻole, Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Judy Garland)
Ray Charles, any song he ever covered, because he was Ray Fucking Charles.

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And of course, William Shatner, Mr. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan)

Hey, you have to admit Shat made it a completely different song, ala Joe Cocker. Should we penalize him just because it sucked? Not on my watch.

“I Watched Every Baseball Movie and Ranked Them by How Well the Actors Played Baseball”

Scoop, ... 3 comments.

I agree with him in general.

One place where I disagree strongly is about Field of Dreams, which he rates fairly high, but which made not the slightest effort at realistic period baseball. He is supposed to be rating historical realism as well as the realism of the action, but …

1. The kid playing young Doc Graham looks totally clueless and unathletic. The real Moonlight Graham was an excellent minor league ballplayer for many years, both before and after his brief MLB career, and was considered the fastest man in baseball, according to no less an authority than Christy Mathewson. Equally egregious – forget about historical accuracy – it’s impossible to believe that kid represents a young Burt Lancaster, except maybe at age 12. Lancaster was 6’2″ and a physical Adonis. That kid looks like a paperboy. He’d be more realistic playing Eddie Gaedel. (Nor does he resemble the real Archie Graham, who made his major league appearance in 1905, when he was 27 years old. He got his M.D. that year! He continued to play professional baseball for several years AFTER he became a doctor. Also, he was taller than average for his era at 5’11”, 170. The tall, speedy doctor in his mid-twenties would definitely not be mistaken for a paper boy. In fact, if they had cast an actor who resembled Burt Lancaster at 27, it would have been close to perfect!)

2. The filmmakers didn’t bother to figure out how the old-time ball players pronounced their names. Eddie Cicotte was “SEE-kot.” Not si-KO-tee, who was, I believe, the enemy of the Roadrunner.

3. Most important, showing how little effort went into this: the real Shoeless Joe Jackson was a left-handed batter. Elementary stuff – and they got it wrong.

I can really nerd out on other stuff. For example, the real Jackson is recorded on film, and he had a truly weird, lunging swing which is not replicated in the film. (It looks ridiculous by today’s standards.) Baseball swings in general were different in those days. They did not plant the weight back on their heels and go for a mighty hip turn. But why go into that when the filmmakers couldn’t even bother to get Jackson batting from the correct side of the plate?

That said, I LOVE Field of Dreams and I love the novel upon which it is based (Shoeless Joe). It reminds me of my own dreams, and of some great times playing ball and just having a backyard catch with my own dad, the legendary (in his own mind) Suits Sparrow. Beyond that, it’s a story about redemption and second chances – and who doesn’t relate to that? Let the man without regrets throw the first stone.

The Wild Life Of Gary Johnson, The Fake Hitman

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You have undoubtedly heard about Hit Man, the new Linklater film with a 97% rating on RT. You may not know that the Gary Johnson in the film is based on a real person, also named Gary Johnson. He was not a real hit man, but worked undercover pretending to kill for hire whenever the cops got wind of somebody seeking that service. He would meet the client while wearing a wire. As soon as the mark agreed to hire him, a swarm of cops would appear.

The film ends with a dedication to the real Gary Johnson:


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Spoilers follow

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