Saturday Night Fish Fry

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During the so-called Summer of Love, this peculiar composition was "in the tube," chartwise, for The Beach Boys. I never understood the song at the time, but it's grown on me after 40-odd years. I still don't understand it, though. And just to make matters a little more inscrutable, here's an alternate version that didn't make it out of the studio until a few decades later. But it's the one Brian Wilson originally intended for you and me to hear.



This track was supposed to be part of Wilson's "psychedelic" masterpiece album, Smile. But his well documented crackup overtook him before he could get the whole thing right to his ears and ego. The completed pieces---the releasable ones, at least---were issued on a disc called Smiley Smile. Yes, "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes and Villains" were basically salvage material from the Smile project. The version of Smiley Smile that I own, a 1990 reissue that also includes the Wild Honey album, includes the present track.

Wilson, morbidly depressed over the whole matter, claimed to have destroyed all the 1966 - 67 Smile masters. He "reconstructed" the project in 2004, unwisely in my opinion. I've unintentionally heard snips from it, and prefer not to hear any more.

So here's a summer song for you, simmered in vinegar by Brian Wilson 44 years ago, presented to commemorate both our current brain-denaturing heat wave and the slide of much of our populace into a state of desperate mental illness. Brian was far ahead of his time on that score, as well.

Heroes and Villains (Alternate Take), The Beach Boys (issued 1990, Capitol C2 93696), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

The Little Theater Screen

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OK, this is for Saturday morning. But pipe down when you watch it---Dad's still sleeping!



I think this is one of Fleischer Studios' best and most diabolical cartoons ever. I can't think of another with so much nonstop visual invention. The only breaks in the action are there to inject suspense or move the anti-plot in a new direction. And the surreal thread that these scenes are strung upon writhes like something that the coroner might have tweezed out of Edgar Allen Poe's brain through a nostril. Except for the appearance of our special canine guest star and the awesome, fetishistic Radio City Music Hall finale.

Yes, they really did show these cartoons on TV in the 1950s, when there was a scarcity of made-for-TV animation. As I've mentioned before, though, Fleischer cartoons were not produced for Depression-era tots... at least not until Hollywood set up the Hayes censorship office and they put a dumpy housefrock on Betty Boop.

As a point of semi-interest, this short was released to theaters 80 years ago last Sunday (24 July).

Bimbo's Initiation, Dave Fleischer, Director (1931, A Fleischer Studios Talkartoon; Grim Natwick, Animator), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

"The Little Theater Screen" was invented by Frazier Thomas.

Ennui in the 22nd century

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At home in the early 1990s, Star Trek: The Next Generation was a favorite of two of the three men of my house. Big Rock Head sort of pretended to like the show, but he confessed in much later days that it bored shit out of him and made him fall asleep. But Beer-D was fascinated by the bald-headed Shakespearean captain, the animalistic-looking Klingon security chief, the bozoistic first officer, and all the Industrial Light & Magic infrastructure. Over several recent years we revisited all seven seasons over biweekly dinners, episodes in order, as we affectionately decomposed all the instances of internally inconsistent logic, bullshit motivations, bogus technology as judged by 15 years of hindsight, and so on... not diminishing our enjoyment one iota. And since that time, we have also revisited every episode of that show's successor, Deep Space 9.

Despite the undeniable lack of "gravitas" reeking from the entire Star Trek enterprise (LULZORS!!!), as TV adventure fare goes, these shows generally achieved a reasonably high level of production value, attention to detail, and philosophical speculation. Owing to these attractions, I think, Beer-D had to be coaxed a bit to plunge into the original Shatner series, and I myself had not followed it closely as as a youth, and wasn't sure about the ultimate entertainment value.

I hunted down the original DVD release from an Amazon affiliate in order to get the undoctored Star Trek experience, without new special effects or any embellishments other than a clean transfer from the masters to a high-res medium. I did not want any of the "fakiness" sanitized away, both for aesthetic and historical reasons. I hereby declare that my purchase has amounted to a major entertainment score. The show is a true laff riot from bottom to top.

Tonight I won't offer any reviews or critiques of Gene Roddenberry's universe, but will help you dip a toe into the water of Trek context. The catalyst for all this exposition is a Tumblr photo site I saw mentioned on BoingBoing, which you can view directly here. The "Space Trek" site presents the enterprise in the full glory of its 22nd century banality. Behold: the Sick Bay!

Note the clean, modern architectural lines, painted in county-jail green. The rippled medicine cabinet glass elegantly secures the contents of the meds locker. We are viewing a workstation where the curvy space nurse can pose in a vinyl office chair while sterilizing the formica surfaces. Note the highly advanced, Space-Walmart-type sanitation devices. At least there's no danger of running out of Space Lysol on this tub, because our leggy nurse has two backup bottles at the ready... just in case. No need for labels, though. If she forgets what's inside, she can just summon Mr. Spock to logically infer the contents.

The S&P coup

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I want to add a little to my previous post on S&P's implicit threat to blackmail the federal government into adopting a specific piece of legislation (i.e., $4 trillion spending reduction over the next 10 years).

Paul Krugman seems a little skeptical that an S&P downgrade of US debt would be huge deal because, basically, bond traders already know that ratings agencies don't know what they're doing:

The point is that when S&P or Moody’s speaks, that’s not the voice of “the market”. It’s just some guys with an agenda, and a very poor track record. And we have no idea how much effect their actions will have.

I don't doubt that. But to me the important point is not so much what financial traders do with an S&P intervention of this nature, but what the media and politicians will do with it. A ratings agency downgrade of US debt will be presented as something like scientific evidence that we need to finish drowning the federal government in the bathtub now! now! now! It's hard for me to see how our disinformation economy could get any worse---how it could further accelerate America's decline. But my intuition tells me we haven't reached terminal velocity yet. We'll be even closer when the press, the Congress, and the President anoint Wall Street as the new fourth branch of government.

Fourth branch, Third World

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I think that Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, like the few other reports I've seen about the Standard and Poors threat to downgrade US debt to Third World status, just misses the point.

Yes, insane Republican ideology and The Conceder In Chief have done a swell job creating an existential economic threat by tying approval of the debt ceiling to the politics of government spending and taxation. This is the "Worst. Congress. Ever." Blah blah blah.

In journalism lingo, there's a "buried lede" in Klein's piece:

And having upset S&P, appeasing them might not be so simple. Beers repeatedly emphasized that he wasn’t just looking for a number. He was looking for something “credible.” And credible, in his view, was something that both parties had embraced. After all, he argued, deficit-reduction plans have to be continuously implemented over a decade or more, and if there’s not “buy-in from both parties,” there’s no reason to believe that the plan will survive the inevitable changes in political control.

On the one hand, the S&P view is a reasonable analysis. But on the other, sinister hand:

You might ask whether all this matters. S&P got the financial crisis almost entirely wrong — in fact, their analytical errors, alongside those of other agencies, substantially contributed to it — so why should we listen to them now?

But the question isn’t whether S&P should be listened to. It’s whether the market will listen to them.

Yes, that's right. The once-respectable financial rating agency, which is as tarnished by the 2008 economic implosion as any Wall Street investment bank, has made federal legislative politics an evaluative criterion for assessing the full faith and credit of the US government and the debt it issues.

And as a small digression, it's probably worth inserting here that there really is no deficit crisis. The deficit is high-ish in relation to conventional yardsticks, but interest rates are so low (near zero as applicable to government borrowing, in fact), that there is no problem servicing this debt... unless the ceiling isn't raised promptly. The "deficit crisis" is an invention of right-wing politicians, corporate media, and as a johnny-come-lately, President North Star.

But back to the libretto: There is nothing benign whatsoever about what S&P is up to here. They aren't trying to serve as a voice of reason: they're emphatically inserting itself into the political fray with the power of a fourth branch of government, but one outside of federal checks and balances. "You motherfuckers attend to the 'deficit crisis' ," S&P seems to be saying, "or else we'll sic The Market on you." With "you," of course, meaning both politicians and voters. It is an aggressive, unconscionable lobbying assault on behalf of The Corporation---a protection racket that the federal government must now subscribe to with an initial payment of $4 trillion extracted from middle-class taxpayers, the poor, and the elderly. If they pull this off, there will be no end to the racket until we're all living in sheet metal shacks on dirt lots.

The S&P threat gives every politician in Washington enough cover, or terror, to cave in to the demands of the Republican legislative caucus and The Conceder in Chief for "the good of the nation." Once this smelly, syphilitic Wall Street camel has its nose all the way into the tent, S&P might conceivably become as powerful as the Federal Reserve in dictating the grim economic future of America. No accountability; just the perpetual threat to shit everybody else's nest if some warty bankers and corporate chieftains don't like the drift of public policy.

Cavalcade of marsupials

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It turns out I was correct about the massing of the terror prowling the night kitchen here in my private domain, The United State Of Moronica. Not a mouse. And happily, not a rat. Fifty50 reader Carlos Magnus was kind enough to lend me a small steel live trap, which I deployed Monday night somewhat arbitrarily in front of the basement door against the breakfast nook wall. I loaded the bait tray with a nice Japanese rice cracker thinly coated with peanut butter on each side (for good adhesion to the tray).

At about 0330, around the corner from the head of my bed, I heard something fairly large but sluggish rattling around in the cage. Since I hadn't set the catches on the trap correctly, my prey almost worked himself out before I got him out the front door. Not a raccoon, either: a possum that was almost too large for the cage! Since this drill interrupted a sleep cycle I could barely navigate or perceive what was happening, but felt satisfied with my high-level trapping achievement and quickly drifted off as soon as I hit the mattress.

On a whim, "just in case," I reset the trap again the next night. And I'll be a suck-egg mule if I didn't hear the goddam cage rattling around at the crack of 0230! Luckily, this coincided with the conclusion of a sleep cycle, apparently, and I had the presence of mind to grab the Nikon D80 and take a mugshot of this guy.

Not the same prisoner I took the previous night. Significantly smaller. For reference, the baseboard behind him is about 3 inches high. I was pleased that the creature remained calm and also well behaved, elimination-wise. Having set the trap latches correctly this night, I carried the trap onto the porch and gave him early parole. Of course, on the third night, when I caught another motherfucking possum (same trap, same place, at about 0130 this time), it occurred to me that the specimen pictured above might have found his way back into the crib from the staging area of my porch. He seemed a bit smaller than Two of 4, though (that's right---four!), so it may have been another sibling. Anyway, with great cunning I released the latest addition to my collection all of 15 feet away from the porch, and he made a beeline across the street to hopefully break into a neighbor's house.

Last night, I deployed two live traps (one in the basement) and came up with No. 4 at about 0230; possibly even a bit smaller than No 3. This time I let my captive chill in the cage on the porch for the duration and took him into work with me. While tempted to release him in the foyer of Rudy's apartment building or inside of Walmart on Prospect, I found an unkempt field for the release. Understandably, Four of 4 was showing some teeth to reflect his poor attitude after a noisy, bumpy ride in in the back compartment of the station wagon, but still behaved well enough.

So tonight, in a few minutes I'll swallow a handful of pills and wash 'em down with 8 oz of gin in preparation for bedtime. But again with double-barrel traps baited with a succulent midnight snack for the herd of marsupials in the basement.

Saturday After Hours

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About 40 minutes ago I sent the manuscript of the book I'm editing to the author. It's a monster job, and there will be plenty more editorial work to do after author revisions, but it should be much less intensive than what I've just completed. The immediate significance of this milestone should be a big drop in subliminal stress, a possible moderation of blood pressure, and a general boost to my quality of life. Also, slightly less-lazy blogging behavior.

Speaking of monsters, last night while trying to sleep I heard something very ungainly-sounding that was ratfucking the dirty dishes on my kitchen countertop. It sounded more massive than a mouse, and got into things that mice haven't gotten into before. Coming downstairs just now to call it an evening, I heard some more sounds, this time apparently coming from the basement. As I started to descend the stairwell to investigate, I heard some very peculiar sounds that may have been vocalizations---low and suppressed, short impulses mostly, that could have come from a bird (crow, grackle, or starling), a squirrel that is unhappy, or even a raccoon. I shut the basement door and won't think about it any more until the motherfucker has starved to death.

Enough. Nighty night.

Happy Independence Day, Soldier!

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Beer-D is watching Independence Day fireworks tonight in a small town called Mahomet (yes, I agree---it's a much more peculiar name for these parts even than "Podunk" is). It is a Champaign County bedroom community to which affluent people flee from our twin cities for the "good schools" and other mythical quality-of-life perks. Any-hoo, I received a text message from him shortly before the fireworks began, commenting on how well received some patriotic Toby Keith song was by the Proud Americans in attendance. Then, this exchange between him and me:

Beer-D: There's some bugler actually playing Taps right now. The fuck?

RubberCrutch: He must think it's Memorial Day.

Beer-D: Oh my god, they played it for a guy who's ABOUT to be deployed to Afghanistan!

Well, yes, I understand that Taps is played at lights-out on Army installations every night. Likewise, I am familiar with the fact that the sounding of Taps by a bugler is universally recognized by Americans as a musical salute to a deceased soldier at his or her funeral. I am not a military veteran, but I'm pretty sure that Taps is not a song that a soldier wishes to hear immediately before being deployed to a theater of operations. I wonder if this untimely gaffe even registered with anyone other than the soldier and his family.

A Word From Our Alternate Universe Sponsor

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From the land of pines
Lofty balsams



I actually picked up a 6 of Hamm's at the package store this afternoon because they only had a "five pack" of Schlitz (which Leo Durocher used to call "Slits Beer"). I had no idea they still "brewed" this stuff any more. Will report back as to it's purportedly "crisp, clean cut to the taste." Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Saturday Night Fish Fry

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Here's Jackie Wilson, singing lead for Billy Ward and His Dominoes.



I really like this performance and arrangement, but it certainly is a noodle-scratcher.

First, consider the most prominent facet of this track: Wilson belting out the lyrics with depression and mania, bundled under tension tighter than a gnat's ass. But he sounds like nothing so much as a freshly minted graduate of the Dudley Do-Right School of Voice.

Then there is the chart, which definitely has the upbeat "fish-fry" feel as a frame for some pretty "prayer-meeting" lyrics. I'd started to post this several times in past months but couldn't figure out which rubric it belonged under. But since it's in a tempo suitable for shagging at a Carolina beach music club with sand on the floor (it's a dance, perv!), here it is on a dog-day Saturday night.

And, as a production artifact---but not one engineered into the original---there's this cheesy post-production reverb hovering conspicuously over the recording like a cloud of corn aphids wanting to get into your ear canals.

Frankie Sinatra recorded this tune the same year as the Dominoes---1955. The lyrics sound like a natural for Sinatra, and with a Nelson Riddle arrangement one might expect his version to be the definitive one. I'm sure most people familiar with it agree with that sentiment, but not me. The way I hear it, Riddle's chart doesn't surpass "OK" and neither does the orchestra performance. And Frank's fiddling with the melody at the margins, which is a key to his interpretive genius, falls flat on this one and actually weakens the line considerably. If you want to compare it with Wilson's interpretation, go look for it on YouTube---Sinatra's version doesn't rise to the level of interest that I need in order to be bothered to embed it and track down the catalog data for you.

But Wilson's peculiar version of this composition totally kicks ass. Not sure why it didn't hit in 1955, but they didn't even try because it was the B side of another Dominoes tune few people have heard of---"May I Never Love Again." I'd guess the studio chumped it as a throwaway track because the lyrics were too mature of a take on getting the bum's rush from a lady to have broken through on the emerging rock charts of the day. That is, it did not reflect the standard teenager-style sentiments about such matters.

Learnin' The Blues, Jackie Wilson with Billy Ward and His Dominoes (1955, King Records 1492), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Rich asshole framed for rape?

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Based on what New York prosecutors have discovered about their client regarding the DSK rape allegation, we may actually have a case here in which a bona fide member of the global elite community may have been falsely accused of something. Sez the New York Times:

Investigators with the Manhattan district attorney’s office learned the call had been recorded and had it translated from a “unique dialect of Fulani,” a language from the woman’s native country, Guinea, according to a well-placed law enforcement official.

When the conversation was translated — a job completed only this Wednesday — investigators were alarmed: “She says words to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing,’ ” the official said.

But then again, maybe not. Press leaks about an allegedly lying rape victim do not constitute an acquittal of the accused. Outside of the Gucci law office that is a privilege of a gentleman of DSK's standing and the Manhattan District Attorney's office, we  know only a few things for certain. One is that a person is innocent of an accusation until proven guilty. Another is that raping a woman who lies, or may even be a "gold-digger," is a crime nevertheless.

Beyond those things, there is a certain conjecture (for a hypothetical case, naturally) that may not be automatically false; namely, a case in which two nasty, cynical people might simultaneously try to do something horrible to each other at different coordinates of human experience, so to speak. For example, a hardened woman without conscience might be willing to entrap a rich asshole into raping her in return for a huge payday, and a misogynist asshole may follow his dick and the woman's "script" into committing an act of sexual violence. Interesting legal and existential questions follow for the ages, not to mention a zillion insipid talk show interviews, a tell-all book by those "who have knowledge" of the situation, and a Hollywood blockbuster based on a true story.

Many other conjectures are possible, too, so the one put forth above means approximately nothing.

Meanwhile, based on what I heard on NPR this morning, irrespective of what may have happened in that Schrodinger's cathouse of a hotel suite, I think that a majority of French citizens will jump at the chance to greet DSK as if he were a returning war hero and rid themselves of the ridiculous President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year's national election. After all, at least one conspiracy narrative emerged very quickly on the heels of DSK's May arrest. It's feasible that Sarkozy could find himself as an unwilling partner in a metaphorical menage a trois.

Editor's note: I saw this story first at Balloon Juice.

Friday Evening After Hours

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You ain't so well-to-do
Unless you got a little koo-chee-koo



Sad but true. However, most of us weren't endowed at birth with the considerable talent, charm, and other assets of Mr. Bull Moose Jackson. There's a nice, concise Wikipedia bio of him at the other end of this link. He blows melodic lines with a big, smooth classic tenor R&B sound during intermissions from his vocals. His lyrics are always full of good humor, especially when he steps a bit over the line into lewd territory (not here so much as in fan favorites like "Bow Legged Woman" and "Big 10 Inch [Record]"). And he sings in a voice of the people---unremarkable in terms of sonority, maybe, but delivered with punch and excellent phrasing.

Editor's note: to enhance your enjoyment of this song, it is recommended that you close your eyes for the duration. The video is an excruciatingly embarrassing thing to behold and will distract you like the stare of a cobra. Also, the catalog information below may not be correct since the discography typesetting on my Charly (record label) compilation is garbled and misaligned. Thank you for your attention to these matters.

If You Ain't Lovin', Bull Moose Jackson (1955, 78 rpm single King 4775), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.