There's a Tom Lehrer concert video!?!!

(Reposted from 'Brief Window')

When were you planning on telling me about this?

Is this old news? 'Cuz it's a revelation to me.
Gosh, I haven't been this excited since last month's Nichols & May bonanza!

I just stumbled onto 'The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel' at YouTube.

It's a collection of Tom Lehrer performing 12 of his songs in rare video clips of a European concert taped in 1967, shortly before he retired from active performing to resume full-time teaching.

Just like so many other people of my generation, Tom Lehrer's brilliantly satirical musical comedy records were a part of my formative years, and just like so many other people, I knew most every song by heart.

But despite the familiarity of his music, much of Lehrer himself remained enigmatic.

There were no photos of Mr. Lehrer on any of his LPs, and I was just a little too young to have seen him on the U.S. version of 'That Was The Week That Was' when it aired on TV.

Seeing photos of Lehrer much later was a sort of curious experience, as I tried to reconcile his appearance with whatever hazy mental image I'd been carrying around since childhood.

Given that lack of previous visual reference, I think it's really fun and revelatory to see Lehrer actually performing in these recently-surfaced video clips.

Mostly, it's just something I never thought I'd see.

Head over to the 'The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel' and see for yourself.

Accessing the Main Playlist page will give you the option to watch all of the videos play out in sequence.

Scrolling down to the page's 'Favorites' section will also display some of the paltry few other Tom Lehrer video clips from other sources that have been floating around in recent years.

They may not be as cool as the European concert footage, but it's a blessing to have more choices.

Just a taste below; ▼ Tom Lehrer performs 'The Masochism Tango'

Rudy Ray Moore has left us (1927 - 2008)

(Reposted from 'Brief Window')

Comedy and film legend
Rudy Ray Moore is gone, and
so an era ends.

Regardless of what place
Rudy Ray Moore held in your life, there was no one else quite like him.

- Read the Los Angeles Times obituary.

Moore began releasing adult comedy records in the 1960s, coming into a market that had been around for a while, but was reaching new 'heights' of rudeness with other comedians emulating the styles of Redd Foxx or Richard Pryor.

Whether appearing under his own name or as his alter-ego Dolemite, Moore's efforts often out-did them all - - at least when it comes to explicit content.

In the 1970s he became a bad-ass action hero in a series of films that are nothing if not memorable.

"Put yo' weight on it!"

I always particularly enjoyed his fighting skills...

NOTE: NSFW!
In NO WAY are these collected video clips of Dolemite film trailers to be considered safe for work!

Below, ▼ from 1975's 'Dolemite'...

- - from 'The Human Tornado' in 1977... ▼

- - and ▼ 'Disco Godfather' from 1980.

(NOTE: Please leave a comment if you discover dead video links. Thanks.)

See also:
- A bio page at the Official Rudy Ray Moore Website

- Some of his Original Rhymes and 'Toasts' at
Dolemite Dot Com

- You can listen to his 'Sweet Peter Jeeter' &
'The Cockpit' albums at Kliph Nesterhoff's
Classic Television Showbiz

Reasons To Be Cheerful: week of 10/17/08

(This is a compiled repost of items culled from my soon-to-be-extinct subsidiary blog, 'Brief Window')

1. Leif Peng at Today's Inspiration has put up a great string of posts looking at the work of David Stone Martin, the American artist / illustrator responsible for so many classic and influential album covers, primarily in the jazz vein, primarily in the 1950s and '60s.

Click over to:
- David Stone Martin: For the Record
- David Stone Martin: Early Days
- David Stone Martin: Modernism meets Traditionalism

One link included is to Fox Music's David Stone Martin flickr set, which is where the four images posted here were found.

(Via Martin Klasch)

For more DSM, see also:
- The Album Art of David Stone Martin, a list at Rate Your Music
- LP Cover Lover
- Like Wow! Vinyl Culture Quarterly




















2. Composer / Arranger Neal Hefti passed away last Saturday, at the age of 85.

He'd worked with big band leaders like
Woody Herman and Count Basie in the 1940s and '50s, as well as many other top names.

Hefti segued into scoring for movies and television in the '60s, which is where he'd said he did his best work.


Most people who lived through that era can instantly recall his themes to 'The Odd Couple' and the '60's incarnation of 'Batman'.

Surfing about the web, a few interesting links turn up that give further insight into the life and work of Neal Hefti - -

Follow links to:
- New York Times obituary
- A profile at Space Age Pop.Com
- A 2004 interview with Neal Hefti, posted at The Robert Farnon Society Website
- Several tracks from Neal Hefti are available at Grabb.it

- The out-of-print LP, 'Hefti in Gotham City', recorded during the height of 'Bat-Mania', is available for download at 'Blog of 999 Dances'

- The 'Hefti in Gotham City' LP included the brassy track 'Gotham City Municipal Swing Band', which for more than a decade became familiar in and around the San Francisco bay area as theme music to 'Creature Features', the local late-night horror movie TV show, hosted for years by Bob Wilkins.









3. The evidence has been around for a while now: Men are the New Women.

- - At least as far as the fashion industry, the cosmetic, personal accessory, personal fragrance industries and certainly the world of advertising are concerned.

Options and a range of choices are a good thing, but not surprisingly it feels like it may only be commerce that's driving it.





"Hmm, what else can we get them to buy?"

How about Pantyhose for Men?

Follow the link above to the 'e-MANcipate!' site, and also check out Manolo's Shoe Blog to learn so much more about 'Mantyhose'.


4. In Walks Plantbot!

It's the planter box that strolls about the room, following the best patches of sunlight.

Imagine several in a small apartment!

Click over to
The Play Coalition for a closer look.

- - And while you're there, take a peek at their other innovative products, like The Subtletie and The Immersion Scarf.
Pretty tricky... (Via Neatorama)

5. Click over to
The Advertising Artwork of Dr. Seuss,
and see some of what Ted Geisel was up to
when he wasn't creating children's books...

A Melvin Monster comics round-up

(Reposted from 'Brief Window')

Prolific and beloved comic book auteur John Stanley, creator of Little Lulu, introduced Melvin Monster in a Dell Comics series back in 1965.

Melvin was a kid monster who, despite the wishes of his parents ('Mummy and Baddy') was not so terribly interested in doing monstrous things - - though (like a certain friendly ghost) some people were not entirely convinced. Another outsider hero, a lovable misanthrope.

Magic Carpet Burn has recently posted the entire story from Melvin Monster #10 (an exact reprint of '65's issue #1) for us to enjoy, divided into its chapters.

- Follow links to:

Part 1: Like A Little Monster Shouldn't

Part 2: Teacher's Patsy

Part 3: Human Being Land

Part 4: A Home Away From Home

Part 5: The Collector




There are several spots around the web that have also been kind enough to post other exploits of Melvin and Company, in addition to those who focused on Melvin as a topic of discussion...

Follow links to:

- 'Crazy Klutch', from issue #5 at
Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine.

- 'Supermonster', from issue #8, reprinted at
the 'Stanley Stories' blog.
The post includes an examination of the character dynamics found in the series.

- Furthering such an examination,
'A very normal family', posted at headsOnBoards in Joyville compares and contrasts Melvin and other 1960's monster humor comics, such as Mr. and Mrs. J.Evil Scientist,
The Little Monsters, and Oona Goosepimple.
Many links are provided (including some you see here).

- A synopsis of issue #4 at Scott Shaw's Oddball Comics.

- A remembrance of Melvin at Til the Last Hemlock Dies.

- Drawn & Quarterly Comics have announced plans for
a series of John Stanley reprint books.
As of this writing, that series should begin appearing next year, starting with a Melvin Monster collection, scheduled to show up sometime around May.

Reasons To Be Cheerful: week of 10/10/08

(This is a compiled repost of items culled from my soon-to-be-extinct subsidiary blog, 'Brief Window')

1. Prepare for a feast of amazing visuals at
Wrong side of the art.

"...Specializing in cult/horror/exploitation/B/sci-fi movie posters, and basically any other genre to which one may refer as 'shit'."

(click on images to ENLARGE in a new window)

(Found via DTYBYWL)




































































































2. Follow link to a stack of compelling visuals: 'I Got Millions of Images' at
WFMU's Beware of the Blog (via NOW STYLE POP CROSSOVER).






































3. 'Sitting in the Dark with Patton Oswalt' (and at a high school graduation ceremony, too)

This film series is already half over as of this writing, and it's only really available to folks in Los Angeles (not me), but still it's an interesting peek into the current happenings of Actor / Stand-Up Comedian
Patton Oswalt and his passion for cinema.

- Click over to Patton's website for details and program notes on the series of double-bills he's programmed at
The New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles (ending later this week).

At left, a lovely poster for the series by cartoonist
Ivan Brunetti!
◀

(click on image to ENLARGE in a new window)

You can also check out
a nice interview with
Patton Oswalt at The Onion's A.V. Club, in which he elaborates further on the movies he's chosen, his history with the New Beverly and with film in general.








- - And as long as you're skirting the edges of Planet Oswalt, head back to his website and read the funny and truly inspiring commencement speech he delivered this past June at his old high school in Ashburn, Virginia.


4. Spin the dial over to The Outland Institute for Eight Theme Tunes No TV Show Could Live Up To.

The question is posed: "Is it possible for a theme tune to promise something so exciting, so spooky, so newsy or so scantily-clad that the television show simply cannot live up to it?"

The institute is located in Melbourne, Australia, which (for me) enhances the exotic qualities of the TV themes chosen (in a series of video clips), even when the shows are somewhat pedestrian.

- - And while I agree whole-heartedly with their inclusion and opinions regarding 'Space: 1999', I personally disagree with the stance they've taken on 'Lost In Space', as I much prefer the theme music to the first two seasons, as opposed to the theme used in the third.


















- - However, the Outland Institute post has also introduced me to 'Chopper Squad' and
'K-9 and Company', so for that I am indebted...

- Some further info has come from the Institute- -
"Curiously, the "K9 & Company" theme was written by Ian Levine who also wrote and produced "So Many Men, So Little Time" by Miquel Brown (two million copies sold), and "High Energy" by Evelyn Thomas (seven million copies sold).

"And they were both terrible too."

His name was Lloyd Thaxton. (So what)

(Reposted from 'Brief Window')

Television personality Lloyd Thaxton passed away last Sunday. He was 81.

Thaxton was a regular fixture on television in
Los Angeles in the 1960's as host to a musical 'dance party' show along the lines of 'American Bandstand'.

'Lloyd Thaxton’s Record Shop' began airing on L.A.'s KCOP in 1959, evolving eventually into 'The Lloyd Thaxton Show'.

The hour-long program hit national syndication in 1964 and ran until 1968, featuring guest appearances by top rock & pop acts of the day.

(Below, ▼ with Solomon Burke, James Brown and The Shangri-Las)

What set Thaxton's show apart from others was his wacky and irreverent onstage antics, typified by his customary sign-off;
"The name of the show is 'The Lloyd Thaxton Show,' and my name is Lloyd Thaxton."

- - Which would receive an immediate and loud response from his teen-age studio audience - - "SO WHAT!"

Thaxton's obituary from the Los Angeles Times includes an anecdote about a fan letter he'd received;

"...A favorite quote of his was from a fan who wrote one time and said,
'When I first saw your show, I thought you were making fun of rock 'n' roll. And the more I watched, I realized you were making rock 'n' roll fun.' "

























Following the end of 'The Lloyd Thaxton Show', Thaxton went on to host game shows, and eventually moved into producing and directing for television, winning five emmy awards for his work on 'Fight Back! With David Horowitz'.

In recent years, Lloyd Thaxton's blog included news about his current doings as well as reminiscences about his show, his career, and his life.

A blog post he wrote this past May, 'The Do-It-Yourself Obit', is surprisingly upbeat, despite its current layer of poignancy...

See also:
- A rememberance at By Ken Levine

Louis Prima and Space Junk

(Reposted from 'Brief Window')

Oh, the places you'll go when running a google search in our modern, information-saturated age...

...So there I was, innocently searching the web for any quick bits of background info regarding 'Beep Beep', a mid-1950s song (with proto-space age sound FX) from lounge lord Louis Prima, in preparation for submitting the song (with spoken intro) to a 'songs with sound effects in them' episode of the Contrast Podcast.

One nugget of news I encountered was that the song had been played in December of 2006 as a wake-up call aboard the international space station for astronaut
Sunita Williams.






Among Williams' achievements on her mission was having been the first person to run the Boston Marathon while in Earth's orbit.

A further bit of trivia happened while Williams was on one of several space walks, floating outside the station.
A camera she was carrying became untethered and floated away into space before she could do anything about it.








Where it gets more interesting is that the mishap was captured on video, and that we here on Earth can still watch the incident on YouTube.

(Found via Kempton Ideas Revolutionary, where you can also listen to Prima's
'Beep Beep'.)

What's more, that wayward camera is now among thousand of pieces of space junk circling the globe, all currently being fastidiously tracked by NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office.

Like bits of space junk in orbit, little 'pearls' of trivia collide and bounce off one another in interesting ways, but can soon become a dense cloud of data and just all too much to take in...