Author: DOuG pRATt

‘Lost’ returns

Being a big fan of The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, a campy note-perfect send-up of old B-grade sci-fi movies, I couldn’t miss a chance to see the sequel, The Lost Skeleton Returns Again. It was shown in the comfortable 45-seat video screening room at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Boston, as a double-bill with another recent Larry Blamire (BLAM-ear) movie, Dark and Stormy Night. With a full house and an enthusiastic audience, I was there with son Eric, along with friend Bismo and his son Chris. It was an extra fannish evening, thanks to the presence of actor Robert Deveau, who played the doomed farmer in Lost Skeleton.

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Deveau introduced both movies, and answered questions afterward. Eric asked how the DVD sales have been for The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, and Deveau said he wasn’t sure, but he knows they’ve earned back the cost of making the movie. Also in the audience was Blamire’s son Cory.

The Skeleton sequel is full of fun, and it was great seeing the cast reunited. I think my favorite moment was a truly inspired twist on the expression “run for it!” The Boston Globe has this review of The Lost Skeleton Returns Again and Dark and Stormy Night, and I more-or-less agree with it, but I’d give the latter movie three stars, because I enjoyed the large ensemble cast very much, all the way through, and I’m fond of the genre. While watching Dark and Stormy Night, I was reminded of The Old Dark House by James Whale (with Gloria Stuart, who turns 100 on the 4th of July). Something else that came to mind was Tex Avery’s 1943 cartoon Who Killed Who?

BTW, both movies will be out on DVD in August. Tech note: The DLP video projector at the theater reminded me of why I have a 3-LCD projector at home. I can live with its panel mis-convergence, but I can’t stand DLP’s “rainbow effect.”

Hollywood Bowl Blow

We saw Paul McCartney at Fenway Park in Boston last August, and he’s still out there touring, doing clusters of cities. In April he was at the Hollywood Bowl, playing for nearly three hours. But back in ’64 and ’65, when the Beatles played the Hollywood Bowl they were on stage for a lot less time.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/MAY/Hollywoodbowl.mp3]
(Audio from Beatles Source)

The Music of Lennon & McCartney

On November 1 and 2, 1965, the Beatles taped a TV programme in, and for, England called, The Music of Lennon & McCartney. Aired in December, and coinciding with the release of Rubber Soul, the show featured songs performed by the boys themselves, as well as some by special guests. Thanks to YouTube user nyrainbow, here’s pretty much the whole thing. Pay attention to Paul’s introduction of Henry Mancini in part 6, and to the way that Mancini replies.

All Beatles, all the time

Last weekend, I caught a few minutes of Beatles outtakes and studio chatter that was playing on one of the best Beatles radio stations on the Internet, Beatles-A-Rama.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/MAY/Beatles-A-Rama.mp3]

There are several Beatles stations on the Net that I have set on the Logitech Squeezebox Radio in the bedroom. You’ll find a comprehensive list by clicking this link to SHOUTcast.

LOA goes EOL

On June 12, the sun will not come out tomorrow. Because after 85 years, Little Orphan Annie will come to an end as a comic strip. It’s inevitable, as will be the eventual deaths of Dick Tracy, Blondie, and other great comic strips that began in the 20’s and 30’s.

I already had something to say about the original run of Little Orphan Annie at this link. As critical as I may be about Harold Gray’s odd mixture of sentimentality and intolerance, I have read several collections from the 30’s, and I enjoyed them a lot, because no other comic strip conveys as much a sense of the Depression. Something I haven’t seen anybody else say, so maybe I’m off-base saying it, is that I think Robert Crumb borrows from Harold Gray in his style of inking and in his depiction of people.

Wall Street cry-baby hates gravity and other laws

Last month, this anonymous letter, supposedly written by a Wall Street type in a fit of sincere pique, was being sent around mailboxes and then onto the blogs.

We are Wall Street. It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn’t hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone’s 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I’ve never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.

Well now the market crapped out, & even though it has come back somewhat, the government and the average Joes are still looking for a scapegoat. God knows there has to be one for everything. Well, here we are.

Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We’re going to take yours. We get up at 5am & work till 10pm or later. We’re used to not getting up to pee when we have a position. We don’t take an hour or more for a lunch break. We don’t demand a union. We don’t retire at 50 with a pension. We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we’ll eat that.

For years teachers and other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice. Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing landscaping? We’re going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the youth of America. Say goodbye to your overtime and double time and a half. I’ll be hitting grounders to the high school baseball team for $5k extra a summer, thank you very much.

So now that we’re going to be making $85k a year without upside, Joe Mainstreet is going to have his revenge, right? Wrong! Guess what: we’re going to stop buying the new 80k car, we aren’t going to leave the 35 percent tip at our business dinners anymore. No more free rides on our backs. We’re going to landscape our own back yards, wash our cars with a garden hose in our driveways. Our money was your money. You spent it. When our money dries up, so does yours.

The difference is, you lived off of it, we rejoiced in it. The Obama administration and the Democratic National Committee might get their way and knock us off the top of the pyramid, but it’s really going to hurt like hell for them when our fat a**es land directly on the middle class of America and knock them to the bottom.

We aren’t dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive. The question is, now that Obama & his administration are making Joe Mainstreet our food supply…will he? and will they?

There are so many responses to this that could, and have, been made online. The short answer is, “Sorry, buddy, but the party’s over, and you’re going to hurt like everybody else.” The best rebuttal I’ve read to the anonymous nonsense is by Nick Kapur at The Motley Fool.