Criterion has released Bringing Up Baby

Bringing Up Baby is an excellent comedy from 1938 starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. It was directed by Howard Hawks.

I remember the ad campaign for Putney Swope

Robert Downey, Sr. who made Putney Swope passed away yesterday. I remember the ad campaign for the film – examples are in the tweet below. Some papers censored the middle finger. I lived in Philadelphia then and I know I saw examples with the finger and without.

I even brought them into my high school English class and the teacher didn’t know what the middle finger meant! I think she even hung the ads up in the classroom.

Vinegar Syndrome has released the film on Blu-ray.

One of the fake commercials in the film:

Coronavirus outbreaks – 7/7/21 update

This could be avoided if people were vaccinated

The theremin

The best known usage of the theremin is in “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys. It’s also used in the score for the film Ed Wood.

By the way, Dust to Digital issues great music.

Covers: The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)

“The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)” (1970) was the last song Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green recorded with the band. It hit #10 on the UK charts but was not successful in the US. It was on the remastered version of the album Then Play On. I thought of it because it was covered in the tribute to Peter Green organized by Mick Fleetwood which I just got in a Blu-ray/2 CD set. The original inspired a lot of hard rock covers.

Vaccine Polls update 6/30/21

CBS News poll: Vaccinated or not, Americans venture out

The return of Hammerjacks

The original Hammerjacks was a bar on South Charles St. It looked great – lots of exposed brick. However, it played loud hard rock and heavy metal music which is not my type of music. Then it moved to a huge old industrial building. Again, it looked great. They had concerts but mostly nothing I was interested in. I saw three shows there – Buddy Guy, Los Lobos, and the Kinks. The building was one of the ones demolished to make room for the Ravens stadium that opened in 1998. Attempts to revive it have failed but a new effort is coming.

Design for new Hammerjacks in Baltimore unveiled

PA Republicans and the big lie

There may be an audit there. Terrible news.

I love mascot races

Clifton Chenier

Clifton Chenier, born on June 25, 1925, is the founder of modern zydeco music. He had a few records on Specialty and Chess in the 1950s but most are on independent labels like Arhoolie.