Greg Mitchell has authored more than a dozen books (see most of them here) and directed four recent PBS films. Subscribing to this newsletter is still FREE—so if you want to help fund, maybe purchase one of my books, thanks!
Cold open for “SNL” last night with a White House press brief re: Epstein.
And “Weekend Update,” with more Epstein among other subjects.
And let us hail an unusually classy, for the program, musical treat with Olivia Dean.
This New York Times opinion piece today links (without crediting me) to my award-winning book on the first Hollywood nuclear drama—wrecked by Pentagon and White House censorship—”The Beginning or the End.”
Why Didn’t ‘A House of Dynamite’ Show a Nuclear Explosion?
Tremendous outpouring yesterday in the music world (mainly from the regions of Americana, alt-country and folk) on the sudden passing of singer-songwriter-humorist Todd Snider at the age of 59, after brief battle with walking pneumonia. He’d also been violently assaulted in recent days.
There were, among other places, full tributes via NPR and at Rolling Stone, which ,called him “ a singer, songwriter, and raconteur who helped shape the alt-country and Americana music movements,’ From Rolling Stone:
Born in Portland, Oregon, and relocating to northern California after high school, Snider rambled his way to Texas in the 1980s, where he met and was mentored by the songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker. In the Nineties, he migrated to Nashville, becoming a key figur the rough-edged East Nashville scene. His 2004 album East Nashville Skyline is considered essential to the alt-country catalog.
Snider was a lively talker with John Prine musical tendencies, a notable raconteur or jokester in his stage act, but often referring to a perhaps untimely end. The first song in his final album this year has this chorus:
Hey now, You gotta live a little / With everything you’ve got/
You gotta live a little / People die a lot….Look it up!
Back in the nineties he had had courage to mock the ‘grunge’ movement going commercial with “Talkin’ Seattle Blues,” in the talking blues manner of Dylan, who got it from Woody.
Also fun was “Can’t Complain”:
And his classic “Conservative Christian Right-wing, Republician, Straight White Man.”
In a different vein, the Stones are just out an expanded package for their ”Black and Blue” album, with a few added cuts and jams. One of interest will be this “Chuck Berry Style Jam.”
From Tunes to Toons
Clay Bennett:
Barry Blitt:
Drew Sheneman
Christian Bloom:
Brodner (referring back to her claim that they caused 2018 California wildfires):
Two for Woody fans:
Prine is gone and now so is Todd Snider. I’m not sure where I’m going to find a source of eloquent observations on the human condition. He’ll be sorely missed.
Todd Snider was a rare talent. Good, if small, selection of cartoons.