New Year's Eve
What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? | Morgan James with Roy Dunlap on piano
So when exactly was it that Zooey Deschanel and thousands of amateur ukulele players hijacked Ella Fitsgerald’s definitive rendition of What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?
Someone should have warned me about this before I started scouring the Internet this morning for video of Ms Fitzgerald but ended up being gang-tackled by hordes of teenaged girls sitting cross-legged in their bedrooms, strumming their ukuleles, and singing this fine American classic.
Ah well, at least they know the song and seem to have some non-ironic fondness for it.
Just to show I’m not a totally gangrenous stick-in-the-mud shooing neighborhood kids off my lawn, here’s a youngish newcomer trying to do it right and true.
No Direction Home
| New York Times |
I’ve said it before and now I’m saying it again: Major League Baseball should make Pete Rose eligible for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Ban him from being a manager or a coach or an owner or a ballpark hot dog vendor, bar him from ballpark events and appearances, stop him from working on the MLB Network; do everything that properly and legitimately bans him from baseball for life—but give him a chance to have his plaque on the wall in Cooperstown.
The Hall of Fame is a sham as long as Pete Rose isn’t at least given the chance to be voted in.
MST3K Is Alive!
By the time the MST3Kickstarter came to a close last night, 48,270 of us had joined together to raise over $6,300,000 in toto (including a half-million bucks worth of geegaws in the online store) for Joel Hodgson and Company to create a full season of 13 new episodes (plus a bonus Christmas 2016 show) of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the only television show ever to wrack me with fits and waves of hysterical convulsive laugher (and it did so consistently).
Each and every episode looked like it cost 36 cents to make, and each and every episode was as original, as inspired, as brilliant, and as funny as any television comedy I have ever seen.
And now, after a 17-year hiatus, it’s coming back.
Jonah Heston (New Host): Jonah Ray
Kinga Forrester (New Mad): Felicia Day
TV’s Son of TV’s Frank (New Evil Henchman): Patton Oswalt
Crow T Robot: Hampton Yount
Tom Servo: Baron Vaughn
So much ugly stuff going on in this country and around the world, I know. It seems sort of superficial and callous to get so amped up about a TV show, right?
Oh fuck it. On with the shows!
Oh, by the by: the MST3Kickstarter also managed to edge past Veronica Mars as the most successful crowdfunded video project of all time. Ooh Rah!
MST3K: The Definitive Oral History
Read
Photograph: Platon
A Very Michael Christmas Playlist
- Cool Yule • Louis Armstrong
- Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree • Brenda Lee
- Sleigh Ride • Ella Fitzgerald
- What Are You Doing New Years Eve • Nancy Wilson
- I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm • Tony Bennett
- Merry Christmas, Baby • Ike & Tina Turner
- Please Come Home For Christmas • Charles Brown
- Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas • Frank Sinatra
- Sugar Plum Fairy • Simon Holland
- Carol Of The Bells • Wynton Marsalis
- Who Took The Merry Out Of Christmas? • The Staples Singers
- ‘zat You, Santa Claus? • Louis Armstrong
- Boogie Woogie Santa Claus • Charles Brown
- I’ll Be Your Santa Baby • Rufus Thomas
- Jingle Bell Rock • Bobby Helms
- Blue Christmas • Elvis Presley
- River • Joni Mitchell
- Here Comes Santa Claus • Ramsey Louis
- Silent Night • Johnny Cash
- Sleigh Ride • The Ronettes
- Shimmy Down The Chimney (Fill Up My Stocking) • Alison Kraus
- Please Come Home For Christmas • Aaron Neville
- Baby, It’s Cold Outside • Dean Martin
- Merry Christmas, Baby • Charles Brown
- Let it Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! • Rosemary Clooney
- Good Morning Blues • Count Basie
- Winter Wonderland • Shirley Horn
- Mistletoe and Holly • Frank Sinatra
- The Christmas Song • Mel Tormé
- Greensleeves • John Coltrane
- Run Rudolph Run • Chuck Berry
- Christmas Wrapping • The Waitresses
- Boogie Woogie Santa Claus • Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra
- Jingle Bells • Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
- The Merriest • June Christy
- Shake Hands With Santa Claus • Louis Prima
- White Christmas • Ella Fitzgerald
- Christmas Night In Harlem • Louis Armstrong
- Merry Christmas Baby • Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra With Sonny Parker
- Santa Claus Is Coming To Town • Lena Horne
- Winter Wonderland • Louis Armstrong With Gordon Jenkins & HIs Orchestra
- Jingle Bells • Fats Domino
- Santa Baby • Eartha Kitt
- Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto • James Brown
- Back Door Santa • Clarence Carter
- Santa’s Blues • Charles Brown
- Someday At Christmas • Stevie Wonder
- A Song For Christmas • Charles Brown
- Santa Claus, Santa Claus • James Brown
- Merry Christmas, Baby • Otis Redding
- The Christmas Song • Nat King Cole
- Little Saint Nick • The Beach Boys
- What Do Bad Girls Get? • Joan Osborne
- Blue Christmas • Bright Eyes
- Father Christmas • The Kinks
- Happy Xmas (War Is Over) • John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band
- Santa Claus Is Coming To Town • Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
- Beatnik’s Wish • Patsy Raye & The Beatniks
- Blue Xmas • Gil Evans and Miles Davis
- Santa Claus • Sonny Boy Williamson
- Merry Christmas Darling • Hop Wilson
- Silent Night • Etta James
- Christmas In Heaven • Charles Brown
- Christmas In New Orleans • Louis Armstrong
- The Day It Snows On Christmas • Allen Toussaint
- Shakana Santa Shake It • Bo Dollis & The Wild Magnolias
- Christmas Without The Creole • Irma Thomas
- All I Want For Christmas Is You • Mariah Carey
- Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) • Darlene Love
- Fairytale of New York • The Pogues
- Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town / White Christmas • Jimmy McGriff
- Happy New Year • Lightnin’ Hopkins
Movie Night: The Last Picture Show
The Last Picture Show | Directed by Peter Bogdanovich | Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Ellen Burstyn, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, Cybill Shepherd | 1971
POST MOVIE NIGHT NOTES
More flawed and raw than I remember from high school 40+ years ago or when I last saw it in the 1980s at Berkeley’s UC Theatre. The black-and-white photography is not nearly as sharp or as rich as my memory of it, and the same can be said for Ben Johnson’s Oscar-winning and painfully hurried line readings as Sam the Lion (especially the scene at the tank dam with Sonny and Billy). Although it now plays surprisingly ragged (Joe Bob’s out-of-nowhere and go-nowhere abduction/molestation of the little girl, for example) and under-tuned overall, the movie still works thanks to Sonny’s strong central story, Shepherd’s Jacy, and Cloris Leachman’s achingly beautiful performance as the withered Ruth Popper. 