The Life of Brian

The Royal Flush continues. Voters cancelled. Plus music from Hank Williams, U2, Brian Wilson, B.B. King and (whew) birthday boy John Cale.

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News & Politics

Jimmy Kimmel: “Harry said racism was a big part of their decision to leave, and you know things are bad at Buckingham Palace if they came to America to get away from racism.” Stephen Colbert: “Also, it’s never good when the British ruling class thinks someone is too dark—then they steal their land and make them play cricket.” Jimmy Fallon: “Yeah, it was a big event, mainly because they revealed the baby’s gender in California without burning down an entire forest.”

The publisher of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s book, American Crisis (for which he was paid a reported seven figures), has halted all promotion and will not publish a paperback. Crown also published my recent book The Tunnels which is, hah, still available in paperback.

Cornel West is leaving Harvard (for second time) after the big tenure dispute—will wind up at Union Theological in NYC.

Politico scoop this morning: Biden has decided to nominate Lina Khan, a Columbia University legal scholar championed by progressives and anti-Big Tech activists, to the Federal Trade Commission. “Along with the recent hiring of Tim Wu as an economic adviser inside the White House the addition of Khan signals that Biden is poised to pursue an aggressive regulatory agenda when it comes to Amazon, Google, Facebook and other tech giants. The addition of Khan and Wu represents a massive shift in philosophy away from the era of Barack Obama, who proudly forged an alliance between the Democratic Party and Big Tech.”

The Georgia Senate passed a bill Monday to roll back “no-excuse” absentee voting and require more voter ID, which would create new obstacles for voters— after Republicans lost elections in the state last year for president and the U.S. Senate.

Major NY Times piece linked here, the headline may be enough for those interested: “Inside the Lincoln Project’s Secrets, Side Deals and Scandals.” What a “geyser of cash”—$87 million in donations—can do.

Yes, longtime Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) announced he will not run for re-election but don’t get your hopes up too high for a Dem flip. State gets more conservative all the time and Trump won by 15%. And now the new loony right has a chance to fill that seat. However, Politico points out: “Democrats will make a run at Blunt’s seat — he already had a declared challenger, former state Sen. Scott Sifton, who had assembled a credible campaign team with a history of winning in red states. But it will be uphill for the party to mount a real challenge in a Democratic midterm year.” Former Sen. Claire McCaskill quickly announced she would never run for office again. Progessives may boost Rep. Cori Bush.

Great piece at NY Times: “Two police officers from Rocky Mount, Virginia, danced with Black Lives Matter activists in June 2020. On January 6, they stormed the U.S. Capitol. Why did they go? What does their story tell us about power and status in America?” The officers were arrested, their homes searched and their guns confiscated. “Residents yelled at one another outside the municipal building while the Town Council was inside debating the officers’ jobs. From the best of America to the worst of America. That was Franklin County over the past year. But what happens now?”

Actual breaking CNN news yesterday: “The two German Shepherds belonging to President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden were returned to the Biden family home in Delaware last week after aggressive behavior at the WH.” Keith Olbermann quipped that the dog was probably set off by a visit from Joe Manchin.

WSJ correction yesterday: "The stray word 'Yay!' was inadvertently inserted during editing of an article on Friday about Connecticut's Covid-19 restrictions." Someone there was clearly celebrating the loosening of restrictions and carried away. My view: Mask, don’t tell.

Impact of the Covid/stimulus bill is recognized more each day. Now a focus is on the $300 per child checks for most families, viewed by some as almost revolutionary (for USA). NY Times: “Though framed in technocratic terms as an expansion of an existing tax credit, it is essentially a guaranteed income for families with children, akin to children’s allowances that are common in other rich countries.”

The plan establishes the benefit for a single year. But if it becomes permanent, as Democrats intend, it will greatly enlarge the safety net for the poor and the middle class at a time when the volatile modern economy often leaves families moving between those groups. More than 93 percent of children — 69 million — would receive benefits under the plan, at a one-year cost of more than $100 billion.

Rare trial of journalist arrested while on the job, at a political protest no less, begins in Iowa. “Andrea Sahouri, a public safety reporter for the Register, had been covering protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd on May 31 last year, when police pepper-sprayed and arrested her and her then-boyfriend, Spenser Robnett. They were charged with failure to disperse and interference with official acts, misdemeanors that could lead to 30 days in jail.”

Wall St. Journal: “The Biden administration is racing to complete a wide-ranging climate-change strategy next month, enlisting agencies across the government to craft a plan that could reshape the U.S. economy and disrupt major industries. President Bidenand his senior aides are exploringpairing executive actions—like tighter pollution standards, targeted investments and changes in federal procurement—with congressional action to speed a shift toward low-carbon energy.”

Music

On this date in 1987, U2 released its Joshua Tree album. Though the group was already popular, it would propel their lasting breakthrough in the USA. Bono said at the time, "There's two Americas: There's the mythic America and the real America. We were obsessed by America at the time. America's a sort of promised land for Irish people—and then, a sort of potentially broken promised land." The Joshua Tree reunited U2 with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, who helmed their previous The Unforgettable Fire. Here’s the hit single and maybe best tune, with gospel choir in Harlem, from the Rattle & Hum doc.

Born on this day in 1942, John Cale, so let’s bring out a real obscurity, an acoustic demo of his great Velvet Underground tune, “Venus in Furs.” Ah, yes, “Kiss the boot of shiny, shiny leather.”

Film

Documentary film director Leon Gast died yesterday in Woodstock, NY at the age of 85. He made the Academy Award winner on the Ali-Foreman fight, Once We Were Kings, as well as docs on the Grateful Dead, B.B. King, the Hells Angels, and Our Latin Thing. Here’s B.B. with his classic “The Thrill is Gone” in Gast’s 1974 film:

UPDATE: My first film, Atomic Cover-up, has been selected by the major Cinequest Film Festival for its U.S. premiere. The festival page for film now has the trailer and link for tickets at just $3.99 for viewing any time between March 20-30, so you can buy now. Rod Lurie, director of hit film The Outpost, wrote on Monday, “There's a reason I agreed to intro this documentary. It isn't just brilliantly done —it's a fucking historical first, including images from the Japanese atomic bomb devastation that were suppressed for decades. If you're a history student it is malpractice to not see the movie.”

Books

Coming in early April: Joel Selvin’s book Hollywood Eden, on the rise of Southern California 1960s culture through the music of, among others, the Beach Boys (recording “Good Vibrations” above), Jan & Dean, the Byrds, and the Mamas & The Papas. Selvin is the well-known author of previous books on the Altamont tragedy, Bert Berns, the Dead, Ricky Nelson and others. Linda Ronstadt calls it “a detailed look at the hugely influential California music scene just before the arrival of folk rock and psychedelic music -- a vital link in the chronicles of the American popular song.” And my colorful friend Stevie Van Zandt: “Growing up in the Darwinian slaughterhouse of New Jersey, we couldn’t have imagined the paradise so accurately described by Hollywood Eden. Through the years I became familiar with most of the characters in this book, yet I learned something on every page.”

One of the greatest, yet shrouded in mystery (at one point), SoCal songs of the ‘60s was the Beach Boys’ “Surf’s Up” from 1966. A Brian Wilson collaboration with Van Dyke Parks, and intended for the famously aborted Smile album—as first recounted by Crawdaddy founder Paul Williams back then—it was not officially released until 1971. Here is the amazing original unreleased Brian Wilson piano demo (bleeding into the ending of the later version with entire group).

Song Pick of the Day

Surely you have all heard Hank Williams—one of the true 20th century greats—sing from his records, and certainly you have been exposed to numerous covers of his songs. But films of him performing in the late-1940s/early 1950s (before he died, alone and forsaken, at the age of 29) have always been scarce and of low quality, so it’s likely that many have never actually seen him “live.” Well, this will fix that. Notice the swinging knees and hips, unusual for the time and anticipating Elvis and rock ‘n roll (which he influenced in so many other ways). For example, “Move It On Over” was years before “Rock Around the Clock.” And even Leonard Cohen claimed Hank resided way above him in “the tower of song.” Special bonus in this clip below: yes, that’s little June Carter introducing him. Are you sure Hank done it this way? Yes.

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. 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 and now has written and directed his first feature, Atomic Cover-up, which will have its American premiere at a festival this spring.