More than a year after the birth of this blog, during the subprime mortgage mess leading up to the economic meltdown that resulted in the Great Recession, Quentin Tarantino bought the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. Tomorrow morning there will be a meeting of the Cartoon Club, hosted by noted animation historian Jerry Beck.
Colbert, King of Late Night
It is so good to listen to an intelligent conversation about Covid with Fauci, without all of the noise and nonsense about hydroxychloroquine and injecting disinfectant.
But with a healthy dose of smart silliness.
All Shook Up
After getting the Covid-19 Bivalent booster yesterday, I woke up in the middle of the night shivering uncontrollably. Eventually I was able to get back to sleep, and I feel okay today.
“Shakin’ All Over” is in this fantastic, official 65-track Who playlist. “My Generation” remains one of my all-time favorite performances, with a spine-tingling power chord crescendo at 11:30 into the track.
Shellacs
I wouldn’t be surprised if R. Crumb had dealings with the recently deceased Joe Bussard. Crumb’s collection of vintage 78 rpm records is large, but the collection Bussard has left behind is enormous.
The Washington Post spent time with Bussard not long before he went into hospice care: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/05/joe-bussard-record-collector-78s/
Bussard cites “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,” by Blind Willie Johnson as “one of the greatest sides ever cut,” but the article neglects to mention that two copies of it are traveling through interstellar space.
An interview with Bussard from ten years ago: https://dustandgrooves.com/joe-bussard-frederick-ma/
Moving up the music timeline into the 40’s and 50’s, I’ll take this opportunity to mention Jim Dawson’s updated and revised edition of his book, What Was the First Rock ‘N’ Roll Record? After Jim saw copies of the original edition going for $75 and up on eBay, he thought he’d better put an end to that. The Kindle edition of the all-text book is only five bucks.
Linda Linda Linda
An update on Linda Ronstadt, whose diagnosis is now the Parkinson-like condition Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.
Getting Boosted
It’s been exactly eleven months since my last Covid shot. Tomorrow I will receive the new booster. I assume we should expect that Covid shots, like flu vaccines, are now an annual ritual.