The Late Show Traditions

The official David Letterman channel has released a compilation of the various Late Show Christmas traditions in one handy video. Watch it and pretend it's a new episode, I guess. Darlene Love is omitted but there's a separate compilation just for that.

Today's Mood in Gif Form

 

Remembering Time Life Music Collections

 

Remember Time Life compilations? These were collections of music (120 unforgettable hits!), around some theme or genre, which came on (about) 10 CDs - or cassettes - or records. A long playlist of music isn't so special but specifically, here, I'm looking at the infomercials for the collections.

I've watched a few and the one above is my favorite. It overlaps the Yacht Rock genre pretty well and I love those laid back 70's vibes (70's and 80's).

My favorite aspect about them revolves around the live "presenters" they always have to have. All the clips of each song are like 5 seconds long but some of them get introduced by the hosts as if it's a radio DJ scenario. When you intro a specific song and then the clip of the song is over after 5 seconds it's like... that was so pointless.

A few other highlights:

The "Best of Soft Rock" (above) apparently comes from that specific time when music existed on the internet but not streaming. Part of their pitch is: buy the collection because, what are you going to do, download all these songs and burn them to CD yourself? Don't be crazy!

In "Summer Breeze" they seem to be taking advantage of the Yacht Rock resurgence. Apparently these are still going as of 2022 when music streaming is extremely available.

The one for "80's Music Explosion" features Belinda Carlisle as one of the "presenters" and her acting is a wonder of alien roboticness.

A few stray thoughts:

Do you think these could be a hit with the tiktok generation? If the song changes every 10 seconds, are you in that sweet-spot where they don't get bored? Is this the future of music?

These are great background entertainment for doing work, I find.

Jan Terri - Excuse My Christmas

This is the hit single. When this is the top of the charts and everyone's feeling the glow of Christmas warmth, you remember that you heard it hear first.

Popcorn in Bed - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Another classic.

Growing up, we never had advent calendars. I remember my friend had one in 1st or 2nd grade but that was it. Whenever I would watch this movie, the thing that would fill me with Christmas awe and wonder was the advent calendar. As the date of the calendar increases, childlike joy and excitement build inexorably.

It's good... it's good... it's good.

Understanding a Joke 25 Years Later

I first saw "So I Married an Axe Murderer" probably in 1997 and have been thinking about it ever since. But there's a joke in there that I didn't understand until this very day.

In the famous "Wo-man, whoah man" beat poem, Myers jokes that he's so unlucky with women that he's become obsessed with cartoon women. He references a series of cartoons and then ends with "Hey Jane, get me off this crazy thing... called love."

Who's Jane? I seriously didn't know and kind of assumed it was someone in the coffee house, perhaps the manager. How embarrassing. 

It was today that I realized he's referring Jane Jetson which I should have known because I used to watch "The Jetsons" regularly.

To be fair, he got the quote wrong, it's actually, "Jane, stop this crazy thing!" but that's no excuse for me. Shame. Shame.

What are Sugar Plums?

It's Christmas time, basically, so naturally I've been wondering what sugar plums are and how to get hold of some. If you do a search on amazon you'll get sugar coated plums for sale, which are not the same thing at all. Then talking to a friend, he sent me a recipe but wikipedia warns:

"Another 21st-century take on the sugar plum instructs home cooks to combine dried fruits and almonds with honey and aromatic seeds (anise, fennel, caraway, cardamom), form this mixture into balls, then coat in sugar or shredded coconut.[8]"

... which is what the recipe was. I'm not looking for the 21st-century anything.

So this video explains what they are and how to make them and I guess I won't be trying sugar plums.

Except.

They mention jordan almonds are technically sugar plums and he also refers to some brand of coated pine nuts as being sugar plums; but he doesn't mention or link to whatever he's specifically talking about. Jordan almonds that fit the criteria are all over amazon, so that's obtainable. Pine nuts are trickier. With some work, I was able to track down the pine nuts he's referring to as being "1880 Candy Coated Pine Nuts." They appear to be obtainable but not from any place convenient to me. To be continued perhaps.

Popcorn in Bed - Uncle Buck

"Uncle Bucke?" Aw, heck yeah!

A John Hughes/John Candy classic.

The Name of the Song is the Name of the Artist is the Name of the Channel

It's been 3 years since I premiered "Moscow" and now Youtube has progressed to the above. Workin' the algorithm, I suppose.

Creed - Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Late Night - Looking Back at Bob Dylan's Performance

 Dave recalls Bob Dylan coming on the show to perform "Like a Rolling Stone."

And here is the performance itself.

Dave's explanation that maybe Dylan was upset to have such a grand setup doesn't make sense to me but I don't claim to know what Bob Dylan is thinking in any way. My own interpretation is that this is what Bob Dylan usually does.

Checking in on Scorch

All the details of Scorch's PFG-TV are constantly changing and yet everything is always staying the same.

#BringBackHolly

Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary

 

When making a "dockumentary" about Yacht Rock, there are beset on both sides by two ditches - you can embrace the parody webseries origin of the genre (and treat it as a joke) or you can ignore the origins and define the genre as the general public has since defined it (Jimmy Buffett, The Eagles, nautical themes, sailor hats, etc.) "Yacht Rock" veers off into neither ditch. In fact, I was surprised at how serious a music documentary it is. This is "The History of Rock 'n' Roll" for 2024.

And, at the same time, they also give proper weight and deference to the group of guys who invented the term.

Highly recommended if you want to see an excellent music documentary.

One of the through-lines that goes between MST3K and "Best of the Worst" and shows like that they're mocking films but they're often doing so while appreciating any traces of good art, even at the service of really bad movies. It's an admirable trait to still find the good within the bad, especially as it's a trait I don't have, or at least, haven't developed. One of the things that struck me as poignant, reflecting on the re-emergence of the Yacht Rock genre is this idea that there are these dusty records that no one wants because they're old and out of fashion and someone listens to them and points out that there's something great there and we should all re-think our biases. Let's face it, Yacht Rock - and Easy Listening moreso - was playing when I was a kid and going to the dentist or shopping for clothes; I have, even subconsciously, dismissed huge swaths of music. I admire anyone who shakes off preconceived notions, paying no service to form or fashion and examines the thing objectively for what it is.

JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass

 

Over the years I've flip-flopped quite a lot in my opinion of Oliver Stone's "JFK." To be more precise I always felt it was a fascinating film, extremely well constructed and haunting, but what I kept questioning was whether it told a true story.

In 2021, with the help of further research and unclassified documents, Stone returned to the same subject to re-assess his previous movie. The new information adds a great deal of clarity, as does the documentary, rather than feature film, format.

It's hard to believe I had not heard of this movie's existence until recently - "JFK" was a box-office and cultural phenomenon. Whether it is a function of Oliver Stone's decline in relevance, a decline in interest in documentaries, my own ignorance or something else, I cannot say. But upon hearing about it, I knew I was interested.

Not wishing to be political in any way, but it is worth noting that President Trump has promised to open up the JFK files when he takes office. That should be very interesting indeed and perhaps another movie will be called for.