A Day in the Life

Post-holiday hot news and politics, plus "Sgt. Pepper's" anniversary and music from The Band, Brandi Carlile, The Kinks and Annie Lennox.

Welcome to June (see song picks below). Enjoy, then share, comment or subscribe (it’s still free).

News & Politics

The Onion: “Coronavirus Variant Excited To Compete With World’s Top Mutations In Tokyo This Summer.”

Headline of the Day, from The Daily Beast: “Joe Manchin: Deeply Disappointed in GOP and Prepared to Do Absolutely Nothing.”

Sympathy for the Devil: Raw Story happily relates,

On Memorial Day, Twitter blew up as several prominent right-wing figures were tricked into honoring Lee Harvey Oswald, the gunman who assassinated President John F. Kennedy. The ruse was pulled off by The Intercept reporter Ken Klippenstein, who shared a picture of Oswald as a young private first class to several conservative accounts with the request, "My grandpa's a big fan of yours and is a veteran, he would be thrilled if you could RT this photo of him for Memorial Day." Right-wingers who fell for the prank included Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), American Conservative Union president and lobbyist Matt Schlapp, and revisionist history documentary filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza.

Sin like Flynn: Politico reports, “This is a real headline in America in 2021: Former Trump advisor Michael Flynn said the U.S. should have a coup like Myanmar, where the military overthrew the democratically elected government. He has now been bannned by Twitter. Maggie Haberman: This crazy talk "is inextricably linked to the current efforts to focus on 'audits' in states like Arizona." People can try to ignore it, but "there's a world where a very dangerous conversation is still happening..."

24 Hours in Tulsa: Biden heads to Tulsa today for the commemorations of the 1921 race massacre. Congress is out this week, but his team is will continue working to try to strike a deal with GOPers on infrastructure.

Murder Most Foul? Yes, John Hinckley—who shot Ronald Reagan and James Brady to impress Jodie Foster—has a YouTube channel where he plays songs on guitar and sings them, even one by Dylan. He had been found not guilty by reason of insanity and released from a psychiatric facilty in 2016.

Texas Fold ‘Em: The exciting “walking filibuster” that Texas Dems pulled to thwart the horrid new GOP voting laws—they left the session this weekend to thwart a quorum—may be short-lived. AP: “Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who had declared new voting laws a priority in Texas, said he would call for a special session to finish the job.” But national Democrats are pointing to the Texas walkout to add pressure to end the Senate filibuster and pass the For the People Act and/or the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Steve Brodner comments:

Covid on the Run? WH chief of staff Ron Klain, citing NYT data, said Sunday that Covid-19 cases "are now back down to where they were in March 2020. Wow." But the CBC reports from Manitoba: Hospital Covid admissions are 100% unvaccinated and many quote conspiracy theories "to the brink of death." Meanwhile, dogs are being trained to detect the coronavirus. “The smell is obvious, just like grilled meat for us,” one researcher said.

Progressive candidates all seem to be fading in NYC mayor’s race. Huff Post: “How A Historic Spike In Crime Upended New York City Politics.”

Axios: “72% of North American theaters are now open. While the Memorial Day weekend set a pandemic record, it still brought in about half of the $230 million in box-office sales in 2019. The big picture: It seems unlikely that the box office will ever fully return to pre-pandemic highs, given how much movie consumption habits and business models have changed.”

Guy with biggest MAGAphone: NBC relates, Steve Bannon has his MAGA megaphone back. GOP candidates know it. “With Fox News losing favor among Trump’s most diehard fans, ‘War Room’ appears to be gaining steam as a safe space for the far right. It’s routinely among the most popular podcasts on Apple’s platform and streams live twice each weekday and once every Saturday through the Real America’s Voice network.”

China will let families have three children, rather than two (was just one not so long ago), to try to reverse a declining birthrate.

The Virginia Theological Seminary, built on slavery and Jim Crow labor, has started paying reparations.

Music

This week in 1967 the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s was released in the USA and rock music was never quite the same. You know the music but how much do you recall about how the cover—one of the most famous in the history of the record album—came together? Michael Cooper shot the photos of Fab Four for the projected album earlier in the year. Those pictures plus a collage of over sixty famous historical figures would find their way to the front cover. Lennon would claim that he was “flying on drugs” throughout the photo sessions. Later the entire lyrics for the album were printed on the back—possibly a first for a rock album. EMI rejected Lennon’s request to add images of Hitler and Jesus to the front cover collage, and also turned down Harrison’s plea for Gandhi. Why was Elvis, of all people, omitted? McCartney asserted, “Elvis was too important and too far above the rest even to mention.” Here’s isolated vocal on the title cut.

We featured an excerpt from Jonathan Taplin’s new book a couple of weeks back, so: Here’s a link to Zoom chat between Taplin (who road managed The Band, among other) and Robbie Robertson last week on Dylan era, the “ugly pink house,” Marty Scorsese, and beyond. Also reveals that noted screenwriter Jez Butterworth is writing a movie drama for Warner Bros. right now, about the group. And now, below, “King Harvest,” one of the greatest Robbie songs—and vid of early Band—while rehearsing their second album, far from Woodstock, in Sammy Davis Jr.’s old pool house in L.A. They talk about filming it in the Zoom chat. Taplin: “Richard [Manuel] was only drinking after concerts….And no one had yet discovered cocaine.” Robbie: “Everyone just did their job. You see the communication in the eyes and the signals.”

Born on this date in 1981: Brandi Carlile. She helped lead a major tribute to her hero Sir Elton a few days ago (with H.E.R. and Demi Lovato), but below she does her terrific version of “Madman Across the River” a couple years back.

Film/TV

My new documentary Atomic Cover-up yesterday won one of the two top awards at the international festival in Rio. It was also easily the most watched film there over the past ten days. More festivals coming--but gratified to win first prize.

Not a Wes Anderson fan, but we do love France, history and journalism, so here’s trailer for long-delayed film coming on October 2.

Boys in the Attic: Now that Mare of Easttown has finally concluded, The New Yorker proposes some sequels, such as Hairof Easttown: “Small-town Pennsylvania not only ruins lives but also hair styles in this gritty drama starring Kate Winslet’s dark roots and a small creature that died on Guy Pearce’s head.” And Eyre of Easttown: “A plain and simple Pennsylvania girl falls in love with a mysterious man named Rochester who walks the moors of Sharp’s Woods with her. ‘This place is so depressing, even for me,’ she whispers. ‘Hey, is that Bertha’s body in the creek?’”

Books

While the 1970s earns a lot of tributes as a golden age for American films, a new book highlights 1962 as the greatest year here and globally. Not sure about that (e.g. Kubrick’s Lolita was disappointing) but here is a very partial list of movies from that year: The Manchurian Candidate, Yojimbo, Lawrence of Arabia, Days of Wine and Roses, To Kill a Mockingbird, Last Year at Marienbad, Jules and Jim, Cape Fear, Billy Budd, Viridiana, and on and on….

Song Picks of the Day

For the new month: Annie Lennox, “Memphis in June” and The Kinks’ obscure but fine from 1966 “Rainy Day in June.”

“Essential daily newsletter.” — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire

“Incisive and enjoyable every day.” — Ron Brownstein, The Atlantic

“Always worth reading.” — Frank Rich, New York magazine, Veep and Succession

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels (on escapes under the Berlin Wall), the current The Beginning or the End (on MGM’s wild atomic bomb movie), and The Campaign of the Century (on Upton Sinclair’s left-wing race for governor of California), which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. His new film, Atomic Cover-up, just had its world premiere and is drawing extraordinary acclaim. For nearly all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he served as longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine. He recently co-produced a film about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.