Musing of the Moment: Old Movies

I've been watching some old movies on Turner Classic Movies over break, and I've come to one solid conclusion: Grace Kelly is hotter than the hinges off the gates of Hell. 

I watched Rear Window the other day. 

I put out a query on FB about movies that came out before 1980 that any young person should watch. Here's what the mind hive of friends produced:

• Rear Window
• The Maltese Falcon
• Taxi Driver
• Blazing Saddles
• Dog Day Afternoon
• 12 Angry Men
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• Airplane!
• A Clockwork Orange
• Alien
• Rocky 
• Enter the Dragon
• Star Wars IV: A New Hope
• Godfather I and II
• The Blues Brothers
• Animal House
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• Saturday Night Fever
• Grease
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• The Shining
• North by Northwest
• The Graduate
• French Connection
• The Sting
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• Cool Hand Luke
• Casablanca
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Roman Holiday
• Poltergeist

I've seen most of these except for the following: Taxi Driver, Dog Day Afternoon, Close Encounters, Cool Hand Luke, and Roman Holiday.

The one movie I would add to that list is Life of Brian. 

Music Friday: "Swingtown" & "The Joker"

The Steve Miller Greatest Hits album is one that evokes some memories. 

Here are two songs that can get you grooving. 

Music Friday: "Lazy Eye"

A band that I've been getting back into listening to more often is Silversun Pickups. 

I was reminded of them via a discussion on a FB group I'm a member of that talks about grunge and 90s alternative rock. The question asked in the group was something along the lines of what is a current band that reminds you of 90s alternative rock, and I said this band. 

Here's a tune from one of the two albums I have from the band, Carnavas.  

Stay Positive: Cannery Row (the Movie)

Last night I watched a film that I taped from Turner Classic Movies. It was the 1982 film Cannery Row starring Nick Nolte and Debra Winger. 

I remember my friends and I renting it and watching it on VHS. After watching it, we later made beer milkshakes that the novel made famous. 

It's not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but it made me want to read the two novels it is based on, Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. They are Steinbeck novels, which are very much of their era.

And I've always liked Steinbeck even though in some literary circles Steinbeck is seen as "too easy" for literature professors. And there's also the stink that is attached to Steinbeck because people read his works in middle school and high school, such as my son having to write a literary analysis paper this semester about Of Mice and Men. 

Despite the literary snobbishness aimed at Steinbeck, he's an excellent writer, who actually could write literature that has humor in it. 

Music Friday: "Nothing Can Hurt You Now"

I hold that Glossary is one of the most underrated bands of the 21st century. It's just straight-up rock-n-roll with great lyrics. 

Here's a tune from the 2007 album The Better Angels of Our Nature.  

Musing of the Moment: Considering 8 Mile

The movie 8 Mile came out over twenty years ago, but I never watched it until last night.  

I like Eminem but not as much as to watch the movie way back then or to buy any of his CDs back when people bought and listened to CDs. 

I watched the movie last night and enjoyed it. 

The film takes you on the journey of hero made famous by the work of Joseph Campbell. The white kid outsmarts the rap battles dominated by black guys after a number of setbacks. 

The minor gaffe in the movie though is making Kim Basinger, who plays B-Rabbit's mom, try to have a consistent Southern accent. And she's not good at it. 

Why? 

The movie is set in Detroit. 

Music Friday: "One Last F.U."

An album I acquired earlier this year that was a new release was Should've Learned by Now by the great band Lucero. 

Here's the opening track from the album and a live performance of it.  

Fumbling Toward Culinary Talent: Eggy Spaghetti

It has been a long time since I made this makeshift dish that one of my fraternity brothers showed to me decades ago. 

It's basically a scrambled egg and spaghetti mash-up that is great to eat after a hard night of drinking. 

I didn't have a drunken night, but I have lots of leftover spaghetti, and I didn't feel like eating it with my homemade pasta sauce. 

Ingredients

3 eggs

A healthy dollop of sour cream

Leftover spaghetti

Avocado or canola oil

A healthy sprinkling of parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Process

Grab a couple of good handfuls of leftover spaghetti and put it in into a cast iron skillet. Chop up the spaghetti with a spatula, so the pasta is in smaller pieces. Heat the skillet to medium and coat the pan and pasta with oil.

Crack your eggs into a bowl and add in the sour cream, which makes scrambled eggs fluffy. Add in salt and pepper. Blend with a fork. 

Once the pan is hot enough, pour the egg mixture over the spaghetti and treat it like scrambled eggs. Sprinkle a healthy does of parmesan cheese on top when you plate the dish. 

Sunday Hangover: Georgia

SEC Champions.

Unfortunately, I don't think that'll matter to the playoff committee because Washington, Michigan, and Florida State are all undefeated and Texas beat Alabama in the regular season. 

Regardless, I enjoy booting Georgia out of the national championship hunt, and Alabama is the champion of the SEC. 

After Georgia's initial drive, I was concerned because they marched right down the field. Then the defense got it together. 

The pass to Jam Miller for a touchdown was beautiful. 

Roydell Williams did well as the lead back with McClellan out with a foot injury. 

We probably won't win the mythical national championship, but the coaching job by the staff this season is admirable. 

Alabama is likely to have four guys go in the first round of the NFL Draft - Latham, Turner, Arnold, and McKinstry - but I expect the Tide to be part the expanded, 12-team playoff next season if all goes well. Milroe is going to grow even better I suspect, and the OC will develop game plans to take advantage of his talent. 

Roll Tide.

Since Alabama is not in the national playoff hunt, I'll start growing my beard of mourning. 

Addendum: My son informed me this morning that Alabama made the playoffs and will face Michigan in the Rose Bowl. 

I'm very surprised, but I look forward to the twelve-team playoff starting next season. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I doubt I'm the only person in the U.S. who does this, but when I change from one pair of shoes to another pair of shoes, I often have the Mister Rogers song in my head. 

"Won't you be my neighbor?"

Since Moscow Don is likely not immune to being sued for his critical part in the Jan. 6 insurrection as related by NPR ("Appeals Court Says Trump Isn't Immune for Jan. 6 Riot Lawsuits"), I wonder how may class-action lawsuits can be lodged against that fascist wannabe goon. 

I hope that white-supremacist grievance merchant is buried in even more lawsuits. The more the better. He's a serious threat to our country. 

And the people who support him are delusional morons. 

Even worse are the people who will vote for him who know he's a fascist-in-the-making, but they vote for him because of whatever issues he supposedly supports. In reality, he's a Republican in name only, a RINO. 

He's not really conservative except for the far-right social-issue dog whistling he does on a regular basis. 

Music Friday: "Ghost in the Machine"

I had no idea Dawes has put out a new album recently. Misadventures of Doomscroller came out sometime in 2022, so it's new music to me. 

Counter to their previous releases, this album has sort of a jammy feel to it. I like it. It's different. They have fewer songs on the album, but they're just longer and feature some solid instrumentation.

Here's one of the songs that caught my ear right away after listening to it.