The Last Bass Outpost

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/31/bull-car-riding-shotgun-nebraska-watusi

I never knew how capable of fine irony Nebraskan police can be: "There were some citable issues with that situation."

No joke!

Admittedly, I have a soft spot for Nicolas Cage AND for Dracula, but this quirky little movie was such a hoot I cannot fathom why it box office bombed ...





It's lovingly written (with good knowledge of the source material), paced and performed. Even the awkward love story is cute. Lots of slapstick gore, you have to have a stomach for that.

No one put her up here up to now, but she deserves her place. Troubled, a drama queen, probably a handful to be with, she once said about herself that she had lived her life "like a public car crash", but what a voice!







And all melisma-free; Da-yay-yay-yave will appro-hoo-hoo-hoove.

... before Todd Rundgren was unleashed on them (and vice versa!). The original 1972 New York Dolls demos (lovingly remastered) that got them a recording contract:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DFBM2uI-z0&list=OLAK5uy_mCXD2DzrFUAfJwgqWJin0Km3EOPNZOE7M&index=3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5rH8B7IVf8&list=OLAK5uy_mCXD2DzrFUAfJwgqWJin0Km3EOPNZOE7M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpyZ8amAWD4&list=OLAK5uy_mCXD2DzrFUAfJwgqWJin0Km3EOPNZOE7M&index=4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DFBM2uI-z0&list=OLAK5uy_mCXD2DzrFUAfJwgqWJin0Km3EOPNZOE7M&index=2

I love Todd Rundgren, but setting him up with the Dolls was bound to fail. They should have picked Eddie Kramer, Jack Douglas, Bob Ezrin or Glyn Johns to produce them, someone of that ilk.

Shows just how late 60ies/early 70ies stones'y they were, very 'Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!'.

Mark, why didn't the Nasty Habits ever cover the Dolls? Too obvious, too East Coast or too cult?

I've always rated Chris Glen as a bass player (eg Alex Harvey, Michael Schenker and Ian Gillan) and I was aware that he has very large gigantic hands:







But I've only learned now that his hands are actually the result of a hereditary gene mutation, giving him extra phalanxes and extra length:





I found out via an interview by Beth-Ami Heavenstone, Grahamm Bonnet's bassist and significant other, where she said that some of Chris Glen's bass lines are impossible for her to replicate because she has small hands.

... but this is incredible! Hitting a chimney, breaking a wing off and making it home? I don't think that another WW II fighter would have survived that. Just goes to show how that monstrously powerful Thunderbolt engine - once flying -  could keep anything up in the air, never mind the aerodynamics. 





Knocking out three Tiger tanks one one sortie ain't too bad either, that was a lot of damage to the Reich. In today's money, that was 4 million US-Dollars damage right then and there (in the case of the even more costly Tiger II/Königstiger - it's likely that the later models were hit given the date of the attack in early 1945 - a whopping 15 million US-$ !!!); Tiger tanks were incredibly costly to produce (and kept getting more expensive under the dearth of German wartime resouces) and required no less than 300.000 man hours per tank.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/01/new-york-swan-stolen-eaten-three-teens



I guess that is what swans were introduced for in Europe (and later North America) - poultry for the aristocracy (they are initially from the Arctic and/or South America/Australia). But eating them fell out of favor with the upper class (you weren't allowed to eat them if you weren't) pretty quickly, their meat is supposed to be hard and tough (I've never eaten one, but at the end of the day it's just a large duck; their population declined in Germany after WW II when food was in short supply and people began to collectively remember ...).

I hope they used a decent recipe.



From a 15th Century English cookery book; as invariably with all English recipes not terribly elaborate, but do make sure to kill it first:

Swan rosted. Kutte a Swan in the rove of the mouthe toward the brayne enlonge, and lete him blede, and kepe the blode for chawdewyn; or elles knytte a knot on his nek, And so late his nekke breke; then skald him. Drawe him and rost him even as thou doest goce in all poyntes, and serue him forth with chawd-wyne.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/28/too-provocative-mermaid-statue-causes-stir-in-southern-italy





It always made me wonder even as a kid: How and from where do mermaids poo? This sculpture is maybe not the first one to offer biologically sensible clarification, but certainly a very vibrant attempt to do so, molto bellisima!

She's of course not the first mermaid sculpture with a butt, the The Little Mermaid/Den Lille Havfrue in Copenhagen has been watching the harbor for exactly 110 years now in all her tranquil grace.



If not always without criticism. 



One (wo)man's art is obviously another (wo)man's scary-scaly Nordic Nazi statue.