Breakthrough for an Animal

You know three things about me. 1. I'm sore all over from yesterday's garbage misadventure. 2. I get all my ideas from the obituaries. 3. I like to alert you whenever the New York Times mentions the TV show GREEN ACRES, mostly because they tend to get everything about it wrong. Number 1 came to mind just because I am sore all over, but numbers 2 and 3 were combined today in a way I think you will find most stimulating, yes, most stimulating indeed. So an underground cartoonist named John Peck passed away, and he was quoted on GREEN ACRES in his very own New York Times obituary. From the brief snippet, it is very clear that he understood GREEN ACRES completely, unlike the New York Times, although by quoting him on the subject - and in the limited space of an obituary, of all places! - they nudge themselves into acceptable territory. Mr. Peck, in a 1987 interview (a time when watching TV was considered a hobby for dolts... why, I recall when I was first employed by TBS in 1993, I would go to parties, and people would ask what I did, and I would tell them, and they would say - gleaming like a glazed ham with angelic pride! - "We don't even OWN a TV!" like I was supposed to faint or, maybe, lift them onto my shoulders and carry them around from room to room, blowing a trumpet)... what was I saying? Oh! So, Mr. Peck contrasted that attitude with the "high esteem" in which the GREEN ACRES character Arnold the Pig was held, because watching TV (an activity for which Arnold was famous), while looked down upon in humans, was "a breakthrough for an animal." The New York Times obituary department categorizes his statement as "dry."

Innocent Merriment

I was listening to Haydn's Drumroll Symphony... yes, I was! Shut up! And I grew curious about the almost modern-sounding melody line at the very beginning, so I thought I'd see if my quaint and trusty old MILTON CROSS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC had anything to say about it. Well, sorry to report that they devoted just one short paragraph to that work, containing nothing on the subject which had captured my interest. But! Underneath that paragraph was one on the Toy Symphony (now [and I use the word "now" loosely, considering the relative antiquity of the volume] attributed to Mozart's father), for which the following instrumentation was catalogued: "penny trumpet, quail call, rattle, cuckoo, screech-owl whistle, a little drum (in G), and a little triangle." This, Milton Cross and his associates conclude, makes for "innocent merriment to delight both young and old." It also makes the MILTON CROSS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC - Volume I, at least - a book with an owl in it.

My Nephew Is a Genius

Last time I went to Atlanta I forgot to bring my little jotting notebook in which to jot my little notes. You won't catch me making that tragic mistake twice. 1. On the drive to Atlanta this weekend, "Jokerman" by Bob Dylan played. Some particular lyric - I can't recall which; by necessity, one cannot jot while driving - made me think for a split second, "Maybe this song is about Jerry Lewis!" (You may "click" here to refresh your memory about the time Bob Dylan got obsessed with Jerry Lewis.) It did have a "sad clown" vibe. But it also has a bunch of mystical stuff about "kings dressed in scarlet" or something. So never mind. Or, wait! THE KING OF COMEDY. I believe he dressed in scarlet. I don't really think "Jokerman" is about Jerry Lewis. But I was driving alone and had time to think. 2. The occasion of the drive was Barry Mills's birthday party. Who should be there but Craig "Sven" Gordon. We reminisced without irony about the old band we used to be in together, just like a couple of living relics from the cliché museum. 3. Somehow the band Kansas came up, prompting Sven to reveal that the lead singer of Kansas moved into his neighborhood for a time and could often be spotted jogging! 4. Chris Lopez came to the party. An interesting beetle landed on his arm. It looked just like a piece of popcorn. 5. Last time I saw Barry's daughter she was two years old. Now she's nine. Barry told her how when she was two, she liked it when I made crazy trumpet noises, it would really make her laugh. So once I was doing that and Dr. Theresa encouraged me like so: "Work it, Jack!" And Barry's two-year-old daughter suddenly shouted, "Work it, Jack!" Ha ha ha! Barry's daughter bore the retelling of this story with good grace uncommon in one of her age. She was thoughtful and polite about the rambling of her elders. 6. Look!

Barry's birthday cake, of admirable fluffiness, was decorated in remembrance of that kids' show that Barry and I used to make. 7. I met a guy who is working on a feature film about the founding of McDonald's, starring Michael Keaton and Laura Dern. He showed me a picture of "the first McDonald's" building and set that he had helped construct in a town north of Atlanta. "It'll be there a few weeks and then it will be gone, like it was never there," he said. I probably said, "I just had a dream about Laura Dern!" I probably said, "Tell her!" 8. I met a woman named Jenny who I thought said she was "as culpable as any vicar." I asked her, "Did you just say you are as culpable as any vicar?" She replied, "No." She also wanted to know what Lopez and I were like when we had "velvet nubs for horns." Or did she say "fuzzy nubs"? My jotting is unclear on this point. Perhaps she said both. She meant to ask what we were like when we were young. Lopez said, anticlimactically, that one of us would generally walk into a bar and the other one would be there, and one of us would say, "Are you gonna finish eating that?" Jenny asked whether we would sit across from one another or on the same side of the booth on such occasions, and the conversation dwindled. 9. Hey! Remember when I was amazed to learn that there were chickens living on the roof of Manuel's Tavern? I finally got to eat some of those eggs, "rooftop eggs" they were called on the menu, when my sister and brother-in-law and nephew Jasper had brunch there. Jasper wanted a pancake and some French fries. My sister was hesitant! But I was a strong advocate for this hugely appealing and innovative idea. I couldn't believe I had never thought of it myself! French fries are a perfect breakfast food. Why doesn't everybody serve French fries with breakfast? They are not that much different than so-called "home fries." My sister finally said okay, and I like to think my relentless nagging had something to do with it. 10. On the drive home, I saw a coyote run across the highway! I don't think I've ever seen one in person before. I know Melissa and Chris have some living out near their place, but coyotes strike me as exotic in our region. I guess they're not. I have to remind myself about the time I was so excited to see some wild turkeys on the side of the highway, and every person I know told me it's no big deal to see wild turkeys and that I was a sucker for being excited. And now I suppose you're all going to tell me that everybody has French fries for breakfast where you come from. Liars!

Heliocentric Worlds

Brian sent me a tweet in which someone talks (appreciatively!) about "the moment a dud Jerry Lewis bit passes the three-minute mark." The tweeter praised such moments as transgressive. I understand what he's getting at, and he's right, but the more Jerry I watch, the less I can think of those bits (which seldom last three minutes, though they may seem much longer) as "duds." My attitude toward Jerry Lewis is kaleidoscopic! I didn't even mind the sock puppet bit in THE ERRAND BOY last time I watched it. Of course, sometimes Jerry does milk a dud - Milk Duds! - on purpose. He WANTS you to be uncomfortable during Stanley's terrible stand-up act in THE PATSY, or when Kelp and the Dean sit in fraught silence. I've grown to enjoy how he draws things out. The other day I was actually narrating such a moment from CRACKING UP to Pen and Kent, featuring Jerry's compulsion to stretch a gag past its natural life by narrating his own misfortune. I remember a couple of years ago when I got obsessed with listening to a Sun Ra album called "Heliocentric Worlds" over and over. It starts up with some bells jingling and then a noise like a cord being plugged into an amp or a needle dropping roughly on an LP, but after you've listened to that record about ten times in a row, you know when the bass clarinet is going to squeak or whatever, and when the muted trumpet is going to start echoing, you're familiar with the terrain, and what seemed like a jumble turns out to be a path full of friendly landmarks - that electronic burp, which may have been an accident to begin with, becomes a welcoming beacon. What Sun Ra said about peach pie applies here, and I'll repeat it in case you're not up to "clicking" on "links": "if you keep eating peach pie every day, [sooner or later] it's going to taste like something else." And I can swear I "blogged" about this once, but didn't David Lynch famously drink a chocolate milkshake from the same restaurant every day for the same reason? Hey! This is way off the subject, but while I was looking for a frame of my current favorite scene from CRACKING UP (Jerry is a hideous gangster - man, he loves dressing up as hideous gangsters! His grotesque mug shot was the running gag McNeil and I appreciated the most in our recent viewing of THE BIG MOUTH - who becomes mesmerized by the security camera, so that the bank robbery turns into a song-and-dance number; note that carpet, subject of a McNeil theory) I ran across an interesting Jonathan Rosenbaum essay in which he attributes current American disdain for Lewis to (among other things) classism: "regardless of how many rooms his Bel-Air mansion had, Lewis’s nouveau riche manner, like that of Elvis, kept his persona firmly within the realm of the working-class." (See also.) Please "click" on Mr. Rosenbaum's essay, he's so much smarter than me (though I did beat him, I think, in comparing Jerry to Edgar Allan Poe).

"Blog"trospective 14: Graveyards

If there's one thing everybody loves it's a graveyard! So let's make a list of "links" to all our graveyard-related "posts" (and don't forget to "enjoy" our previous "blog"trospectives: 1. Tom Franklin 2. Phil Oppenheim 3. Movies 4. The Moon 5. Sandwiches 6. The United States 7. The Beach Boys 8. Arnold Stang 9. Books With Owls in Them 10. Gelatin 11. Monkeys Riding Dogs 12. Kent Eating Chicken 13. When Megan Lived Here)... GRAVEYARDS! APOSTLE by Tom Bissell features visits to the graves of all twelve apostles---artsy project includes grave desecration---bad idea for McNeil's tombstone, a---barbecue next to a graveyard---bats at Faulkner's grave---being funny after a funeral---"The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church"---Bissell, Tom; plays Marvel Ultimate Alliance while he should be searching for the apostles' graves---Bissell, Tom; searches for the graves of all 12 apostles---block of wood psychologically represents a coffin---"blogs" are like tombs---Bohemond's gravestone---Britton, Connie; sighted when we were staying at a motel with a graveyard attached to it---character in DRACULA wakes unclad in a churchyard at night---churchyard haunter---churchyard with gravestones in THE COMPANY OF WOLVES---circus performers' graveyard---coffin inspectors---coffinmaker who yells about his craft, a---confounded from beyond the grave---corpse preserved in a bog; Freud allegedly likened to---cowherd lies in open graves---Dee, Dr. John; grave of used as touchstone in children's game---discussion of appropriate things to carve on gravestones---doll cemetery---dream of---eating dirt from the graveyard---engraving of Dr. Dee and Edward Kelly hanging out with a spirit in a churchyard---Evans, Linda; slaps a man with a leather strap at her father's grave---exhumation of Tycho Brahe---fairybabes hang around in---famed ventriloquist confronts his mother's ghost at her grave---few loose rails thrown over Meriwether Lewis's grave, a---flea climbs into the grave of the flea who loved him---frogs as quiet as grave-rocks---funeral bell---ghosts break up their graves---Gigot peeks through some graveyard shrubbery at his own funeral---grave gone to without its occupant being aware of the entire catalog of celebrity memoirs I have read---graves of the Scribner family---graveside service for Thomas Paine poorly attended---graveyard right there in the parking lot of a Ramada Inn---guy dug up from his grave and mocked on a throne---hair growing out of cracked-open tombs---Hayden, Sterling; attends the funeral of Marshal Tito---I am reminded of something Bill Taft said to me in a graveyard---Johnson, Robert; disputed gravesites of---Lee, Sir Henry; has an effigy of Mistress Vavasour placed on his grave---listening to "Brick House" by the Commodores on the way to Meriwether Lewis's grave---man buried under the flagstones of a kitchen---man who collects coffins, a---mansion where the arrangements for Jayne Mansfield's funeral were made, the---Mature, Victor; consults the caretaker of a cemetery---McNeil ponders a career as a graverobber---men run howling about graves---monkey ghost described outside of tomb---monks rob a grave!---mortuary makeup man---Murray, Bill; attends the funeral of Elvis Presley---my brother attends Michael Jackson's memorial service (there's no graveyard here but you can "click" back on several interesting "posts" about the day, so why not?)---Naked-Rumped Tomb Bat---night-crows on tombs---old tombs break open, releasing hordes of wandering dead---ominous crow cawing in a graveyard's barren tree---"Pale Pity" asked to consecrate Meriwether Lewis's final resting place---parrot screams curse words at Andrew Jackson's funeral---passing the resting place of Meriwether Lewis without stopping---pasta recipes inscribed on tomb---PET SEMATARY---pigs get skinny after drinking from a trough made from a coffin---pinball machines as coffins---"Policeman at Cemetery"---purported King Arthur and Guinevere dug up from their graves and wrapped in silk---resting place of the Biblical Jacob---Roman vampire burial site---Saunders, George; writes book set in a graveyard---shirtless man reads at grave---shrugging disrespectfully at graveside---Shubuta cemetery---STRIKING DISTANCE (film) concludes at cemetery---supposed gravestone of Till Eulenspiegel---toad dressed as Elvis suggested as candidate for formal burial in a grave---tomb of Talbot, the terror of the French---tombs of the prophets, the---"Tombstone Blues"---trip to Poe's grave postponed in favor of GILMORE GIRLS finale---UFO lands behind a cemetery---Van, Bobby; grave of---where all biographies end---witches dance on Berlioz's grave---Yorick skull (from gravedigger's scene in HAMLET)---York, Joe; makes a complex and satisfying visual pun using a gravestone---youthful graveyard encounters of Megan Abbott and Barry Hannah---Zola heroine lives next door to a drunken undertaker.

Happy Lizard

One of my favorite things in the most recent Adventure Time episode "Breezy" was when Lizard Princess was blatting on a big old horn and Finn came in and started playing the horn exactly like something out of Wadada Leo Smith and Lizard Princess just looked so happy! This is Lizard Princess looking happy in that moment. So happy! She likes that Wadada Leo Smith kind of music. Lizard Princess!

Heavy

Reading this lavish, heavy (I mean physically heavy, like it's hard to carry around) book by Umberto Eco, THE BOOK OF LEGENDARY LANDS. It has lots of great parts, like: "In the West, too, there was no lack of artisans able to construct automata, and legend has it that Pope Sylvester II (who reigned 999-1003) was attributed with the creation of a golden talking head that murmured secret advice." And: "At the court of Khan Mongke in Karakorum, William of Rubrick saw a silver tree whose roots were formed by four silver lions, from each of whose mouths poured mare's milk." There was an angel with a trumpet on top, and when the angel blew its horn, some snakes that were coiled around the tree started spitting out wine, mead, and rice beer. Anyway, people used to know how to have a good time.

Zeno Klinker

Before I "post" anything I make it a rule to ask myself: "Will this interest the fewest possible living people?" So today I started watching an Edgar Bergen movie on TCM. Edgar Bergen! A performer so unrelentingly bland he makes you pine for the pyrotechnics of Richard Dix. When Edgar Bergen speaks he sounds like a therapeutic hypnotist. So this movie was called LOOK WHO'S LAUGHING and the answer was "nobody." Ha ha ha, I just did that thing I hate. But when the title popped up the two o's in LOOK became a pair of wacky, rolling eyes, and beneath them the O in WHO'S turned into a hellishly gibbering mouth as muted trumpets in the score went wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah in a disturbing approximation of the laughter that never came. Hey did I mention that Fibber McGee and Molly are in this movie? So you're probably pretty fired up about that. The writing credits were weird. They mentioned who wrote Fibber McGee and Molly's jokes and who wrote Edgar Bergen's jokes. One guy who wrote Edgar Bergen's jokes was named Zeno Klinker, which I thought was either a terrible or perfect name for someone who writes jokes. I should mention that LOOK WHO'S LAUGHING is directed by Allan Dwan, darling of the auteurist set, and good for him. So the movie starts out with Edgar Bergen performing with his famous ventriloquist's dummy Charlie McCarthy. Lucille Ball does a "sexy nurse" bit and the dummy leers at her and makes gross jokes. So it's very clear that within the reality of this movie Charlie McCarthy is a wooden dummy. But suddenly it is announced that Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy are going on vacation together! And that's okay. Maybe he brings his dummy on vacation to practice. But to get to his vacation destination Edgar Bergen pilots a small plane, okay, and he's got one hand up Charlie McCarthy the whole time, and they have conversations! He's up there by himself flying his small plane with his hand up his dummy. I don't like it. Fibber McGee's jokes are terrible. His enemy says something about an "unimpeachable source" and Fibber McGee says "unimpeachable APPLE-source!" It's a pun on applesauce. I don't want to get into it. Then I was like, "I'm going to bed." And I did. I wasn't even tired! It was the middle of the day. Oh yeah and the production design or something was by someone named Van Nest Polglase or something. (Whoa, the same year as LOOK WHO'S LAUGHING he was the art director for CITIZEN KANE.)

A Package of Candy For You, Miss

I just saw a short on TCM called "Harry Reser and His Eskimos," forgive me for using that outdated and offensive word, but that was the title. So there were these guys dressed up like "eskimos," playing a bland little piece of music. Some of them looked happy to be all dressed up in their fur coats and hoods and some looked uncomfortable and even hostile. Like, there were two violinists sitting side by side, on blocks of ice, I suppose, and one was grinning in a goodnatured way - leering in ecstasy, really - while his companion was clearly thinking, "My parents died from working four jobs to send me to the Oberlin Conservatory!" One handsome man stood up and blew his trumpet and he was like, "I don't care what I am wearing, I look super handsome," you could read his thoughts, and they were accurate. So they're kind of going along, doodle deedle deedle, and the iceman comes out with a big block of ice in his tongs, which must have been a terrific gag at the time, and he tries to sell some ice to a woman in an igloo, but she is like, "No ice today." So the iceman moves along. Like a situation in Beckett! You can imagine this poor iceman going through his eternally fruitless motions. Because there is so much ice where he is! He IS modern man, bereft of purpose. So the band keeps tootling along in a boring fashion and another guy saunters up to the igloo and says "A package of candy for you, miss." And the woman in the igloo is delighted! It is a big box labeled very clearly "GUM DROPS." So the lady in the igloo eats some gumdrops while the band honks and squeaks along. And suddenly there are some guys playing poker at a table near the igloo...? And they start throwing their own supply of gumdrops (!?) at the igloo with apparently malicious intent, though the gumdrops end up forming a valentine heart. The woman comes out of the igloo and looks at the gumdrops and puts her hands on her hips like "Oh, you!" Then she throws some ice cubes at these card-playing degenerates in fur coats, and mind you that the band, in front of which all this is happening, is just tootling along all tra la la. In the illustration accompanying this "post," you may see the young hooligans recoiling from the well-deserved onslaught. So suddenly everybody starts singing a song about how they'd like "a cool mint julep on a summery day," which seems counterintuitive, or maybe "ironic." Then these three frightening monstrous icicles appear, looking like THIS IS SPINAL TAP props, and ballerinas come out of them and start dancing on their toes - ballerina style! - but tap-dancing sounds issue incongruously from their toes. Then a champagne cork pops and a huge bottle that looks more like a beer bottle descends from above and there is a guy straddling it, just wailing like crazy on his banjo. Like, finally some action. This guy is a maniac. "Straddling" is the wrong word but it added some piquancy, did it not? So we suddenly pull out to reveal that we are NOT in the land of ice and snow! We're in a nightclub! And all the nightclub patrons start throwing ice cubes. The band stands up and yells in unison "HOLD THAT TIGER!" though I could swear that's not the song they're playing. Then we pull back through the front doors of the club to reveal, unless I am nuts, that the nightclub itself IS in the land of ice and snow after all, blowing my mind. I think I've covered everything. Dr. Theresa walked in and had to laugh at the look on my face, a look of... undue concern?

Jerry Takes the Heat

So I hear from my friend Ward that he lost his family Oscar pool to HIS DOG. One of Ward's kids put dog food on various pieces of paper representing Oscar nominees, and the dog chose with more accuracy. Ward also reminds me that Robert Shaw (pictured) co-hosted the Oscars in 1976 for some reason. Things were crazy back then! We were all insane and nobody knew what was going on. That reminded me of the Jerry Lewis bio where I read about Jerry hosting the Oscars. The broadcast ended 20 minutes early! The producers asked Jerry to stretch. He tried lots of different things and it went on and on. "Before long he'd picked up a trumpet and started to play off-key. NBC finally broke in with some archive material - a sports film about competitive pistol shooting." An Oscar show that ended early, what do you know. The timing mistake was the producer's fault but the press blamed Jerry, "referring to him as 'an egg-laying comedian' and deriding his 'ghastly evening shirt.'" Or as Jerry says in this video that Ward found for me, "I took all the heat."

Famous Doors of History

Slade over at Square Books saw that I was reading THE FIGHT by Norman Mailer. It's Mailer's account of the Ali-Foreman bout in Zaire (as it was then called). Slade thought I might like SHADOW BOX, George Plimpton's book that covers the same fight. So he brought it up to the store and loaned it to me. Wasn't that nice of him? And here's what I noticed right away: SHADOW BOX has an owl in it, and therefore goes on our fascinating, comprehensive list of books with owls in them, of which you need to make a lifetime study. I noticed it right away because the owl is in the epigraph. That's just about as early as you can stick an owl in your book. George Plimpton doesn't waste any time making sure his book has an owl in it. "He was not born in the woods to be scared by an owl." I guess I understand what that epigraph means. Don't I? Hey, once I held a door open for George Plimpton. My friend Eugene, who was a friend of Plimpton's, had convinced him to come to an event at a bookstore where I worked in downtown Mobile, where nobody ever went. George Plimpton did not acknowledge me in any way, and why should he? You know for whom else I held a door (different door, different day) in downtown Mobile? Dizzy Gillespie (pictured). He said thanks.

Speaking of Trumpets and Sad Clowns

Speaking of trumpets and sad clowns, it occurs to me that one of the favorite movies of my friend from Hubcap City - CHILDREN OF PARADISE - is an essential sad clown movie with lots of trumpet in it. Just dig this sad clown action! If you dare!

Allegorical Clown Time

Brian Z. watched a Spanish film entitled THE LAST CIRCUS. I asked with some eagerness whether there were any sad clowns in it, to which he replied, "YES! A sad clown and a funny clown are engaged in a murderous rivalry that is also some kind of political allegory." Well, I don't know, Brian Z. Once I see the phrase "murderous rivalry," I start to feel that we have strayed over into "scary clown" territory, and you know how I feel about that. Not good! I looked up THE LAST CIRCUS on imdb and found that the original title is BALADA TRISTE DE TROMPETA, which if my extremely limited linguistic talent is not failing me, I believe means "sad ballad of a trumpet" or something. There's one thing you can always count on: sad or scary, clowns LOVE their trumpets! Here we have LA STRADA, the saddest and most clownish example, though Ms. Mesina does not appear in her clown makeup in this scene:

Of Underpants and Clowns

I am perfectly aware that the thing which most concerns you is what movies I watch on TV at three in the morning when I can't sleep. Last night's feature was RICOCHET. What's the word I'm looking for? Subtle? No, that's not it. "Operatic" might be a polite way to put it. When I flipped to it, already in progress, the first image to greet my weary eyes was a clown staring directly into the camera and blowing a trumpet at me. This is never a good sign in a movie! It means you are about to enter an off-kilter realm where anything can happen and not in a good way. And sure enough, uniformed beat cop Denzel Washington soon has a fateful standoff with a gunman. And he responds the way any normal cop would respond, by stripping down to his underpants in the middle of the fateful standoff, to the surprise of the gunman and the hostage and everyone else. Is his wisecracking partner Kevin Pollak (see the photo above, which takes place right around the time the clown pops out and blows a trumpet) the most surprised of all? I really can't remember. But I bet he makes a wisecrack about it! He even makes a wisecrack after he has been - SPOILER ALERT - fatally shot by like a million bullets. (By coincidence, the cop played by Kevin Pollak does some of the same professional-level celebrity impressions that the real-life Kevin Pollak does in his comedy act!) I guess you think the movie is done with clowns and underpants now. You think wrong! Much later (years later in the movie's chronology) we get this line: "Don't shoot, please don't shoot, I'm just a clown!" The clown is addressing Denzel Washington, who - because he is slowly being driven mad by his nemesis - is wearing an open pink bathrobe and underpants! The clown removes his red rubber nose and waves his hands weakly about in a gesture of clowning. None of this is meant to be amusing as far as I could tell. But mainly the movie consists of John Lithgow suddenly turning around to reveal that he is John Lithgow or stepping into a patch of light to reveal that he is John Lithgow or rising from a stooped position to reveal that he is John Lithgow.

The 80s

Am I really sitting here watching the Burt Reynolds vehicle PATERNITY on one of these here movie channels? Apparently I am! I wonder why. It keeps making me think of AUTHOR! AUTHOR!, though AUTHOR! AUTHOR! is, I suppose, a "goodnatured romp for the whole family" while PATERNITY is somewhat "smutty." How are they alike? Well, they are both terrible comedies from the early 80s set in New York City. Oh! Another thing is that Beverly D'Angelo plays a trumpet teacher, and in one scene she has this kid practicing his trumpet while she sits there smoking a cigarette right next to him. That's how we did it in the 80s! And as Laura Lippman pointed out in her famous "blog" analysis of AUTHOR! AUTHOR!, Pacino did his share of smoking around kids in that one. This is almost all I have to say about PATERNITY. Well, there is a horrible comedy scene where the funny part is that a butcher coughs all over the meat. I am sorry I even told you that! But why should I be the only one to suffer? Two more things and I bid you farewell forever: 1) It turns out that Burt Reynolds is better than Al Pacino at certain things, such as being the star of a terrible light comedy from the early 80s. He has an appealing nonchalance that is appropriate to the task. 2) Some guy named Mike Kellin (pictured) plays a hilarious boat captain. He has a couple of lines and that's it. But man, he brings his A game, like Joanna Moore in NEVER A DULL MOMENT. I admire that work ethic. Here's to the Mike Kellins of the world! (Also starring Elizabeth Ashley of WHEN MICHAEL CALLS.)

I Call That Love

Lately I have been listening a lot to the song "Awake" by the Atlanta band Smoke. They have been on my mind. Did you know that Theresa and I met at a Smoke show? It's a "blog" fact! Cut it out and paste it in your homemade book of "blog" facts. I found this video (below) on youtube. Listen for the trumpet playing! That's my friend from Hubcap City blowing his horn. Maybe my favorite part of the song is the guys singing in unison in the background, away from the microphones. I don't even know if you can hear what they are saying, but from seeing them live so many times I can let you know they are saying, "I call that love... that's what it is." A Greek chorus! Oh, and PS, that is the famous Majestic Diner of "blog" fame. We used to live around the corner. "Blog" fact!

What Movies Do Musicians Like?

Our secret contact in the band Hubcap City has stepped up to join our "blog" movie club. He reports: "My favorite movie always changes. I'm always drawn to movies with good scores and soundtracks. Man With the Golden Arm is a movie I think about a lot. It's got a great score, plus Sinatra's a junkie! But it's not my favorite movie anymore. My favorite movie, as of the past week and a half, is Children of Paradise. I saw this for the first time over Thanksgiving. It's a three hour epic. It's also got a soundtrack filled with trumpet music. The Paris tavern scene has a band made up of trumpet, flute, and a guy who plays one big bass drum. So, that's my favorite movie for now: Children of Paradise." EDITOR'S NOTE: The Sinatra movie costars "blog" hero Arnold Stang - the first on our list so far to do so.