Hucklebug, Episode 143: RIP Bea Arthur, shout-outs, movies (Stennie: Sid & Nancy, All of Me, The White Sheik, Bet: none!), lowlights & highlights, fuck-offs & you-rules, Bet & Stennie attempt to name all nine Supreme Court Justices, CD Mix 9 Alternate tracks 11-15.
Music: “The Hucklebuck,” performed by (respectively): The Birdies, Otis Redding, Lou Monte, Frank Sinatra. Also: “The Elements,” Tom Lehrer.
Bea Arthur played Vera and Angela Lansbury played Mame.
Be sparing on your Purell—you can’t find any in the stores. They’re all flat out. Because everyone must PANIC! I like my handwashing, but I work in a huge building, so I’m not always going to head all the way to the ladies room when my hands feel grotty. So I wanted some hand sanitizer at my desk. So it’s hiking down the hall again.
I don’t think your ratings are too high, Stennie. You feel how you feel about the movies. If the movie makes you happy, it’s worth that rating. You should rate it how you feel it. It’s why I have categories like “Umm No”, “Eh”, “Pretty Good”, “Freakin’ Awesome”, “Guilty Pleasure” and “Clooney”. I tend to stick to one category—I’ll let you guess which one.
You forgot a Kennedy on the Supreme Court. I don’t think I could name nine current ones. I can name nine (more than nine) Supreme Court Justices overall, but they’re all kind of merging into each other so I don’t know which ones are now. S.D. O’Connor isn’t on the court any more. I can’t remember whether Stevens croaked or not, but I can’t remember anyone else so I think he’s still there. So I’m one short. (Okay, now I just looked it up. I dare ANYONE to remember the ninth guy. Unless it’s a hot day (that’s a hint)).
Apparently, I had a meth lab on my street. A family up the block was just arrested for manufacturing methamphetamine. I’ve tinyruled the link to the story:
http://tinyurl.com/czhvf2
What happened to the Hucklebug movie club? Is that still a go?
Apparently Bet recovered from her little thing on Thursday night. Good news that she’s okay, but it means that I lost a bet with Stennie.
Was this the episode where you mentioned a tv/movie curse? It’s been too long since I listened to it. Anyway, it reminded me of a favorite SCTV bit, when they made a show out of the tabloid rag that was one of their sponsors, the National Midnight Star. “Three of the four stars of Wizard Of Oz are dead! Is Ray Bolger next?”
Gary Oldman doing My Way as Sid Vicious is right from Sid’s own performance at the end of The Great Rock ‘n Roll Swindle, as I’m sure you know. Gary pretty much nailed it, if not for getting the voice and the act down exactly, then for the spirit of the thing. Here’s Sid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKx3B_S_-30
It’s still, seriously, my favorite version of the song I otherwise hate.
Oldman and Webb were pretty much dead-on with the actual personalities of Sid and Nancy. The clips I’ve seen of those two from back in the day confirm this. Easy to do when the subjects were trying to be characters themselves.
I’m soo behind on my Hucklebugs. Gosh, I’m behind in life!!! Just listened to 141 on my lunch break. What’s this we’re all getting together for something for the next CD Mix? Did I miss the cutoff to sign up?
I just rented BottleShock. Cute, predictable, but it’s based on a true story, so kinda hard not to know the ending.
Blazing Saddles Special Edition should be waiting in my mailbox when I get home. I’ve never seen it(Yes, I’m waaaay behind on movies I should have seen already. Insert insult here * *.)
Thanks Stennie for mentioning our dinner! I had fun too! And I didn’t freeze outside while you smoked. I was just…chilly. Anything for a friend. Although you really should stop smoking…again. *cough cough*
Okay, I guess I should tell the world, not that it will matter, but here goes. I have a new blog…I’m trying to get to it more often, so there are only a few entries so far, but I’m hoping to post frequently, since I’m telling people about it. Of course, I’m still tweaking it so be gentle.
http://frizzbenefits.blogspot.com/
What does bet hate more than anything? Am I the only one whose first thought was Green Acres?
SCOTUS Js: Bet and Stennie got:
Chief Justice John Roberts, who succeeded CJ Rehnquist
Justice Samuel Alito, who succeeded Justice O’Connor
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who was recently diagnosed with (pancreatic?) cancer and may also retire during Obama’s first term.
Justice David Souter
Justice Antonin “Li’l Nino” Scalia
Justice Clarence Thomas
Lily added:
Justice Anthony Kennedy
Justice John Paul Stevens, who is still on the court, but almost 90 and expected to retire. He was appointed by Gerald Ford, but has come to be regarded as a fairly reliable liberal voter.
Not too shabby.
That leaves only . . . Justice (Stephen?) Breyer, who was appointed by Clinton, I believe.
A couple SCOTUS fun facts: Did you know that we’ve had both a Justice Frankfurter and a Justice Burger? And that Chief Justice Warren Earl Burger succeeded Chief Justice Earl Warren? Kooky.
Alternate tracks:
11. Spoken Word: Mike Nichols & Elaine May, “A Little More Gauze”
– Steve Martin, “I’m so Mad at My Mother” (I also came this close to using “Grandmother’s Song” as my amnesty track (spoken word + SAT)) I really wanted to use Steve Martin just to remind myself and the world of how great he once was before becoming the Meryl Streep of the HarFos. But, alas, it didn’t work out.
– Monty Python, “Australian Table Wines,” which includes the line, “The 1972 Coq du Rod Lavier has a kick on it like a mule; eight bottle of this, and you’re really finished.” Would have made a fun segue into track 13 (Bluejuice are Australian), it was ultimately nixed because I was holding fast to “The Penis Song” for track 1.
12. Alternate version: “A Little Less Conversation (JXL Remix)” – Elvis Presley
– Lots of possibilities, (Los Lobos, John Prine, Counting Crows) but once I hit upon the “more gauze/less conversation” pairing, I decided that none of my alternate alternates was remarkable enough to merit breaking up the set.
13. SAT Vocab Song: Bluejuice, “Vitriol”
– John Hiatt, “Ride Along,” which uses “somnambulist,” was the song I had in mind when I suggested the category; ended up not using it because I wanted to use him for the movie song, which I also had in mind when I suggested that category.
– Sting/The Police, “Children’s Crusade” (“corpulent generals safe behind lines”); “Spirits in the Material World” (“we subjugate the meek, but it’s the rhetoric of failure”); “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” (not so much a vocab deal, but a highbrow Nabokov reference). I ended up using The Police for my sex song; plus nothing worked as well as “Vitriol,” which I’ve adopted as my new personal anthem: “And if you can’t shape up, nobody wants you, fuck the whole world and what everybody’s saying, hey!”
14. Epic—Song that would make a good feature-length film: John Hiatt, “Trudy and Dave”
– John Hiatt, “Tennessee Plates”;
– Bruce Springsteen, “Meeting Across the River “ (more precisely, would make a great Scorsese movie, but it just bogged the mix down too much);
– Los Lobos w/ Bobby Womack, “Wicked Rain/Across 110th Street”;
– Gordon Lightfoot, “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”;
– Stan Ridgeway, “Goin’ Southbound”;
– Ode to Billy Joe – Bobby Gentry (which actually was made into a movie, IIRC, starring Robby Benson).
15. Nonsense—Song containing gibberish: Blossom Dearie, “Doop-doo-dee-oop”
– Clark Terry, “Mumbles”;
– Louis Prima, e.g., “Just a Gigolo” (couldn’t find it or anything else);
– Kaiser Chiefs, “Na Na Na Na Na”
Sorry I’m late!
Stennie, I’m in total agreement with you on the hate crimes. Giving stiffer sentences to people who kill based on race, gender or sexual preference is kind of like punishment for wrongthinking. What’s inside your head should be no one’s domain but your own, dammit!!
Kind of a creepy stinger to go out on!