Respect: Aretha TV Series Here, Movie Coming

Plus: Forget Woody, Ronan Farrow now takes on Cuomo. Music picks today include early Bob Dylan and current U2, plus Beethoven welcomes "Spring."

So without further ado, let’s spring into Spring. Please take a little time to Comment or Share, or subscribe, it’s (still) free.

News & Politics

Headline of the Day, from NY Times: “New York Man Kept Sharks in Pool in His Basement.”

Stephen Colbert on Biden calling Putin a “killer” and Vlad not denying it: “He’s killed so many people that in 2017 the Washington Post was able to publish a list of 10 critics who died violently or in suspicious ways. His greatest hits are hits.” Jimmy Fallon: “As if the pandemic wasn’t enough, let’s throw in tension with a nuclear enemy into the mix.”

In that new mega NFL deal, probably the last to focus on “linear” TV, Amazon Prime gets exclusive games for first time—Thursday nights.

Mary Trump is joining the board of LPAC, an organization that supports LGBTQ+ women candidates running for office.

It’s not just GOPers and Fox fanatics complaining, observes Politico this morning:

Immigration advocates on the Hill tell us they’re getting increasingly frustrated that Biden and the White House haven’t moved fast enough to address the needs of migrants. Part of their concern is that downplaying the situation as a “challenge” and not “crisis” makes solving it less urgent. Some House Democrats are stewing over the fact that Biden isn’t using military bases or other emergency shelters to help process people quickly in the United States. They’re giving the White House time to fix the policy, but if the situation continues, expect them to go public with their criticisms.

Newsmax TV has hired those two giants, Jason Miller and Andrew Giuliani, as contributors. Meanwhile, toxic Dan Bongino has been signed to take over at least part of Rush Limbaugh’s air time.

From the great Steve Brodner:

As young activists mark Fridays for Future “strikes” today, Mark Hertsgaard's new piece for CJR: "How well does the media cover the climate movement?"

AP: “The House has dismissed a Republican attempt to remove California Rep. Eric Swalwell from the House intelligence panel over his contact more than six years ago with a suspected Chinese spy who targeted politicians in the United States. Democrats scuttled the effort from House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, 218-200, after he forced a vote.”

People were wondering when Ronan Farrow would get to this, and now he profiles Cuomo’s first accuser, Lindsey Boylan, at The New Yorker, with new details and new incidents—such as the one about the guv maybe wanting to “mount” her like a dog.

As Boylan’s disclosures began to draw notice on social media, a group of current and former Cuomo staffers who served as his informal crisis-communications brain trust moved to squash them “in real time,” according to one person with direct knowledge of the effort….Cuomo’s advisers arrived at a plan to leak Boylan’s personnel records, which included allegations that Boylan had bullied colleagues, some of them women of color. “The decision was made collectively,” the person with direct knowledge of the effort said. “That these are facts, the reporters should see them.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday made waves by telling Axios that the Senate filibuster is racist — a historical point that progressives are increasingly making as they seek to end the 60-vote threshold.

“Warren explained to Axios that, during the Constitutional Convention, ‘the founders debated whether to require a supermajority in either House of Congress, and decided that government would function more effectively if both the Senate and the House worked by simple majority.’

“‘When they didn’t want a simple majority, for example in an impeachment, they said so specifically. The filibuster is a later creation that was designed to give the South the ability to veto any effective civil rights legislation or anti- lynching legislation.’ This understanding of the filibuster’s origins is in part what’s driving many Democrats’ hopes at using their voting rights package to try and convince those on the fence to support changes.”

So that Teen Vogue editor, the former high-rising Axios reporter Alexi McCammond, finally quit after uproar over tweets for a decade ago when she was a teen, for which she had apologized numerous times.

CNN’s Oliver Darcy writes:

The NYT came to reporter Rachel Abrams' defense on Thursday after OAN launched a campaign encouraging harassment against her. Abrams, who is apparently working on a story about the small right-wing channel, had sent messages to people at the outlet – a perfectly normal way of seeking out sources. OAN aired a story throughout the day Thursday saying NYT was looking for 'damaging information about OAN.' The segment ended by showing Abrams' email and phone number while telling viewers to 'reach out' and 'stand up to intimidation by the left.'

Music

U2 is on a “virtual” tour: Actually, they are posting four new (old) concert films for fans to enjoy. First one launched on Wednesday, next coming March 25. Info here.

On this date in 1962, Bob Dylan’s debut album, named for him, dropped. Poor sales led it to be known as “Hammond’s Folly”—for the man who signed him (as he had Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, among others), John Hammond. On the recording of Dylan, Hammond would later relate: "Bobby popped every p, hissed every s, and habitually wandered off mike. Even more frustrating, he refused to learn from his mistakes. It occurred to me at the time that I'd never worked with anyone so undisciplined before." Here’s Bob a year later at a Newport workshop:

Just dropping this photo below from a few years back for no good reason, except it’s two dapper songwriting giants who appear to be heading to the Promised Land or maybe the Tower of Song. I think Keith Richards was just off-camera.

Film/TV

As we’ve noted, that Genius: Aretha series drops Sunday, and here is NY Times review today. “The new ‘Genius’ spends most of its time in routine music-biopic mode: exposition, childhood traumas, historical checkpoints. But in the moments when it finds its groove, thanks to Erivo’s incandescent performance and its insight into Franklin’s process, it socks it to us.”

The indispensability of the Black church to American culture — it gave our song music and lyrics — is a through line of “Aretha.” (It would make a good companion to PBS’s recent “The Black Church.”) Another through line: Franklin’s determination to maintain her independence and vision among the men in her life, first C.L., then her first husband and manager, Ted White (Malcolm Barrett), given to jealous fits and violent tantrums.

Unfortunately for those hoping to hear the hits, “Aretha” did not have the rights to “Respect” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” But this shifts the season’s focus toward more unexpected, artistically revealing choices, like her finding the gospel sway in Elton John’s “Border Song.”

And you may not know that an Aretha movie, titled Respect, is set to come to theaters this summer starring Jennifer Hudson.

Here’s a scoop on a movie filming in my neck of the woods: “The movie, which stars Michael B. Jordan, tells the true story of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dana Canedy’s love affair with First Sergeant Charles Monroe King and the journal he left for their newborn son Jordan while deployed overseas. King was killed in Iraq in 2006 making his journal to his son, then seven-month-old, all the more poignant.”

Going nuclear: I have noted here that my film, Atomic Cover-up, will have its world premiere at the Cinequest Film festival March 20-30—but from feedback I can see there’s some confusion over your ability to watch. Like most major festivals, Cinequest (normally hosted in San Jose) has gone virtual this year, but there is this big advantage: You don’t have to be in a theater out there to see the films! You can watch online, for a ticket price of just $3.99. Not only that, but the ticket gives you the freedom to watch any time during those ten days. Go here to read more, watch trailer, buy tix. Or watch trailer here.

Song of the Day

We may be jumping the gun a little (temps in our part of the Northeast today to only reach the mid-30s) but here’s one of the most beautiful five minutes of music ever written, naturally by my man Beethoven. The longtime conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel, once told me me that of the thousands of pieces he admired this was his favorite single movement of all. So take five minutes and chill, and marvel.

Greg Mitchell’s film, Atomic Cover-up, will have its American premiere at the Cinequest Film festival March 20-30. Go here to read more, watch trailer, buy tix. He 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. 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.