Fever in the Funk House Now

Before Biden speaks to Congress, enjoy a deleted "Almost Famous" clip as Frances McDormand meets Led Zep, plus the Beatles do Shakespeare and music from Linda Ronstadt and Jon Batiste.

The usual news and politics clips and cartoons and videos today but also introducing a new feature: a Photo of the Day from my own camera, shot in the USA and abroad almost always from the past fifteen years. It will appear, as it does today, at the very bottom of the page, but for starters here is a view of last night’s Super Moon over the Hudson and Tappan Zee Bridge below my home. Now: share, comment, subscribe (it’s still free).

News & Politics

Politico on the usual nutty California candidates running against Gov. Gavin Newsom in recall election: “A porn star (again). A guy who wants to incarcerate California inmates in Central America. Randy Quaid? A low bar to run plus social media=a recall circus. Buckle up!”

Headline of the Day, from the Daily Beast: “Trump Is Back to Griping About Hollywood, Ratings, and Other Pointless Things."

The Onion “quotes” two Americans on the EU lifting travel ban for Americans. “If I can lie to the TSA about why I’m entering a country, I’m sure I can handle lying about being vaccinated.” And: “I can’t wait to try one of those European variants I’ve heard so much about.”

For the first time ever there will be two women sitting behind a President when he addresses Congress tonight. You know who they are.

Biden, this time: According to Politico, the American Families Plan, a $1.8 trillion bundle of proposals that Biden will detail before a joint session of Congress tonight, will not include two top Democratic priorities, despite intense pressure in recent days.

There will be no plan to allow the government to negotiate prescription drug prices, which is kryptonite to drugmakers. And there will be no reduction in Medicare’s eligibility age or an expansion of Medicare benefits, two changes that would move the country closer to a single-payer system — and the demise of private health insurance. Instead of including those twin progressive priorities, the White House settled on an extension of expanded Obamacare subsidies included in Biden’s Covid-19 relief bill.

MyPillow lunatic Mike Lindell is set to appear tonight on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" but some advocacy groups are urging Kimmel to reconsider.

Nutcrackers, sweet: The Justice Department has charged at least 400 people in the Capitol insurrection, according to CNN's tally of court docs. They're from 43 states, rich and poor, college students and seniors. Needless to say, overwhelmingly white….D.C. cop who suffered heart attack on Jan. 6 hit Trump last night for downplaying riot: “In an emotional interview on ‘CNN Tonight,’ Michael Fanone described in vivid detail,” Wash Post relates, “the terror he experienced defending the Capitol and called out elected officials who have tried to obscure that reality.”

Wayne’s (Pathetic) World: A secret video obtained by The New Yorker shows loony N.R.A. chief Wayne LaPierre and his wife hunting endangered African bush elephants. His wife, Susan, kills an elephant, cuts off its tail, and holds it in the air. “Victory!” she shouts. It’s a disgusting chronicle. Disgraceful Wayne is such a bad shot and idiot at following instructions that he shoots a massive elephant from close range three times without killing it as the poor thing suffers and his guide laughs. The guide then has to walk up to animal and put it out of its misery, then tells hapless Wayne, “great job.” Watch it and weep, if you can. It was filmed for an NRA show but the program never aired “because of concerns that it could turn into a public-relations fiasco.”

I’ll be gone, dog: Axios reports, “CBD sales for dogs with separation anxiety are also going up as people ease back into everyday life.”

The popular cooking site Epicurious will not publish new beef recipes over concerns about climate change: “We think of this decision as not anti-beef but rather pro-planet.”

May Day, May Day: Terrific piece by Will Bunch at Philly Inquirer on 50th anniversary coming on May 4 for the May Day leftwing and antiwar protests in D.C. that led to an astounding 12,000 arrests—and now largely forgotten.

In a new example reminiscent of George Floyd’s death, a California man died after cops kept him prone with weight on him for several minutes, body cam video released last night shows.

From CNN’s Brian Stelter via newsletter: The New York Post's front-page claim about VP Harris’s book being included in welcome kits for migrant children fell apart on Tuesday. “The Post deleted the story, then republished it with a weak editor's note. Then the reporter who wrote the article, Laura Italiano, tweeted that she had resigned…all the sordid details here.”

Headline in NY Times: “After Nearly a Year of Unrest, Portland Leaders Pursue a Crackdown.” Mayor Ted Wheeler said he wanted to “unmask” demonstrators who engaged in property destruction.

Wash Post: The refugee cap the Biden administration touted — then ditched — is back on the table. “The White House is again considering setting the number of refugees who can enter the United States through September at about 62,500.”

Film/TV

The Present accounted for: Glad to see former CIA chief John Brennan with piece in NY Times urging Biden to watch the film that should have won the Oscar for movie short, The Present: “The United States needs to tell Israeli leaders to cease provocative settlement construction and the sort of oppressive security practices depicted in The Present.”

When the three-time Oscar winner was only almost famous: The most popular piece on the Rolling Stone site for most of Tuesday was a story about an 11-minute scene deleted from Cameron Crowe’s popular Almost Famous film, probably because it was an early Frances McDormand flick. I enjoyed the movie back in the day partly because at Crawdaddy on more than one occasion, around 1973-74, I chatted with the inspiration for the McDormand character—Cameron’s real-life mom in California. I’d be trying to reach him about an assignment and she would say, “Cameron’s not home from school yet.” (He was about 16.)

A few months later, on a rock ‘n roll junket to London, we shared some laughs about that. He also pulled a classic Cameron moment. Over the pond enroute to the UK, he was dozing in an aisle seat directly across from me. When he awoke, without moving his head, he shot a glance at me then touched the play button on the tape recorder on his lap. Coming from the speaker: one line from a recently released Jackson Browne song, “Late for the Sky,” where he sings, “How long have I been sleeping?” Of course, I cracked up. He acted as if he’d….done this before to one of his elders.

Anyway: the deleted scene opens with a school official trying to convince Mom that the young Cameron stand-in really ought to be allowed to go on tour with a rock band as it is a great break in journalism. She is still skeptical so they play her the entirety of Led Zep’s “Stairway to Heaven” thinking she might get its “Tolkien” references. Well, I won’t spoil the climax, watch below if you dare. One wonders if the too-long scene would have made the final cut anyway but Led Zep short-circuited it by denying permission to use that song (while okaying a few others). Maybe Cameron should have tried a different Led Zep tune—”Battle of Evermore,” with Sandy Denny perhaps more appealing to Mom….

Music

On this day in 1964, The Beatles recorded the TV special Around The Beatles at Wembley studios. They played a couple of songs but also enacted a goofy Act V Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Nights Dream with John in the female role of Thisbe.

Four years later on this date, the red hot and partly nude musical Hair opened at the Biltmore Theatre in New York City. The show featured eventual hit singles “Aquarius / Let the Sunshine In” and “Good Morning Starshine.” The production ran for 1,729 performances (I caught up to it in 1971, a year before it shuttered).

On this day in 1976, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band appeared at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, the first time a rock band played there since The Byrds (after turning countryish) in 1968.

And on this date in 1978, the movie FM, about a (duh) radio station, was released in the US. Linda Ronstadt, Jimmy Buffett and REO Speedwagon all appeared. Here’s Linda from the film with one of her greatest rock performances on “Tumbling Dice.”

Books

Won’t you go home, Blake Bailey? Norton has decided to permanently shelve the Blake Bailey bio of Philip Roth. Further, says NY Times, it will "make a donation in the amount of the advance it paid to Mr. Bailey, who received a mid-six-figure book deal, to organizations that support sexual assault survivors and victims of sexual harassment.…"

Marty Baron, late of the Wash Post, has signed a contract for a memoir, Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and The Washington Post.

A Jane Austen museum in England plans to describe her family’s ties to the slave trade. Some people are not pleased.

Song Pick of the Day

Jon Batiste, fresh off his Oscar for Soul soundstrack, here displays even more soul with live performance of song made famous by fellow New Orleans native and greatest American musical figure, Louis Armstrong.

My Photo of the Day

Speaking of New Orleans, my tribute to Mardi Gras.

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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.Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.