The Berk and The Burke

A lazy Monday-night-cum-Tuesday-morning, and a few short takes to toss off as I cozy up with a beer or two or more and listen to the last few albums from the magnificent Solomon Burke. (And if you don't know Solomon Burke, shame on you.)

• Monday was Paternal Unit's birthday. Maternal Unit's to follow shortly. March is always Birthday Month. There's a "Pisceans in the gene pool" joke in there somewhere, but I'm too lazy to make it.
  
• Laugh-out-loud-spit-beer-all-over-myself line of the night, from the increasingly risible 24, uttered by the currently-institutionalized former First Lady: "What would I do without that man's produce?" Lauren Bacall, eat your heart out. (Follow-Up: Seems Dave Barry had the same reaction I did. Sad minds think alike, one gathers.)
• Seems nic has posted her very first Truly Doctor-J-Like entry, with the requisite elements of gross-out humour and topical perversion. (Hold for applause.) Mind you, given the image attached to her post, I'd have gone for the genuinely retch-worthy title The Juice of Haggard. Which should, of course, make you appreciate nic's discretion all the more. ;-)
  
• How many faux-hyphenations can one use in a single blog entry?
  
• Random observation: Ironic, isn't it, that the only thing Oscar Wilde ever got wrong was assuming that the Marquis of Queensbury would play by his own rules? Ah, the first known case of truly thinking "outside-the-[witness]-box."
  
• Solomon's "Fading Footsteps" is bloody brilliant. He reminds me that a soul-shouter's worth is directly related to his ability to spike the words "Good God!" with genuinely relevant oomph.
  
• Much as it will probably be to everyone's surprise, I finally saw Dreamgirls, and thought it little more than cheesy, manipulative drek. I'm no fan of musicals generally, but you'd think that the genres at stake would be right up my alley. But, alas, no. The tunes were forgettable (when they weren't insufferably grating), the performances hokey, and the script as inventive as a Law and Order episode's. It also reminds me of Dr J's Rule Of Musicals Number One: Dialogue can't just be a means to get to the next song. I will spare you the diatribe the movie deserves, but I'll say two things in short: Jennifer Hudson got the Oscar for this???? and Jamie Foxx's performance here should be that the Academy does not have a retroactive award-annulment policy.
• Since it came up: It's (past) time NBC finally put Law and Order out of its misery. The Law part isn't there anymore, and the Order part is most significantly characterized by the camera's emphasis on the (albeit lovely) wonder that is Milena Govich's chest. But if every episode is just going to be a fictionalization of some celebrity's recent scandal, just euthanise the show before we're forced to watch something about Screech's videotape.
• LandO Part III: Evidently, the Arthur Branch doesn't fall far from the Reagan tree. Now, if it were Adam Schiff....
  
• Solomon's "Let Somebody Love Me" is awesome. If this entry serves no other purpose, let it be that at least one of you goes out and buys a Solomon Burke album. Old or new, I frankly don't care.
  
• As one might have expected, Iranians are complaining about the depiction of the Persians in 300. Methinks the word Farsical might be coming into our language. Mark my word.
  
• My old friend Zelda defends her dissertation next week, and this blog--- and certainly many of its associate ones--- is choking with anticipation for inevitable success. Her situation reminds me of the only time in ten years that I ever had to have someone else cover one of my classes, because I had to go and write one of my comprehensive exams. Said he to my charges, I was later told, "Send out all the good karma that you can." (Or something to that effect.) Let's all do the same for Zel. At the very least, it can't hurt.
  

My almost-as-old-friend Sylvia reminds me, accidentally and not a little shamefacedly on my part, how very, very little I have accomplished with my own writing in recent years, especially as she plugs away so conscientiously at her work, while I shrink from mine like a twelve year-old fumbling from his best friend's hot mom. Argh. But there's the rub: Solomon Burke can do more with an impromptu "Good God!" than some of us other berks could ever say with novels. And yet, there's probably a novel in there. Wish I could write it.