Every Day I Start My Journaling With "HI BEAT!"

Wow. That was exciting. So Jamie’s back again. I mean, now he’s gone again, but for a moment... just for a moment...

We talked about Tik Tok. I talk about it a lot with Amber too. But I don’t even really understand what it is. The Tik Tok stuff I talk about with Amber (“Yep...nope...”) is actually reels on IG. So I looked up Tik Tok, and I have a slightly (extremely slightly) better idea of what it is after watching this. It seems like a good way to do... something… I’m not sure what. Lip sync?

The mention of “rabbit hole” sent me down a rabbit hole rabbit hole. I remember loving the book Watership Downas a kid, although I don’t remember much about it,  and here’s a trailer for the trippy 70’s animated film. 

 And of course, here is our old pal (especially Amber’s) the not-director of Birdman waxing rhapsodic about Watership Down, the prose of Richard Adams, and animation for adults.

 Do people really not know the story of Rip Van Winkle?

There’s some great B-roll of my gorgeous home town in this report on the militarized containment zone in the Queen City of the Sound. The report is dated March 13, 2020, so I guess it was just a couple of days before everything shut down? And look where we are now...

And finally, we can’t have a mention of Jamie’s Grandma without using it ias an excuse to replay this Frank Pulaski classic about Grandmother nicknames, from back in the day...

Witching At Lughnasa

Better late than never, as they say. Who says? I don’t know. “They.” When I was in college I read a book called “They Died With Their Boots On,” about famous gunfights of the Old West, and my roommate and I started a shelf in our room where we kept stuff that reminded us of things “they” said. The unspecified “they.” I don’t remember much of what was on it- there was an ashtray, because “they say smoking will kill ya”- stuff like that- but I do remember that both of us found it hilarious. And you know what? It was.

 Here are a few of the things that came up in this episode:

I talked about The 100 Foot Wave on HBO. Here’s a clip of Garrett McNamara surfing a 90-footer. And you can see the lighthouse I mentioned in Nazare, and how the surf is RIGHT THERE. I wanna go. You?

I’ve been lucky enough, on numerous occasions, to see some really great bands in unexpectedly amazing venues. Like, it’s one thing to see David Bowie at the Meadowlands, but very different to see Ben Folds at the Bowery Ballroom. (If nothing else check out the section at about 1:12:15 where he assigns horn and sax parts to the audience- so fun!) But I think nothing compares to watching Lauren Hill (I don’t think, in retrospect, it was all the Fugees) do a sound check behind a jewelry store in Beverly Hills. The concert itself was cool too, but there’s something about being there ahead of time...

Anyway, here is Ms. Hill at Chapelle’s block party. It was like this, only way smaller. Apparently, she is planning to go on tour soon. Getcher tickets.

Until I started looking I didn’t realize that Dancing at Lughnasa wasn’t just a play, it was also a movie. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a play. But of course it was turned into a moving picture, and of course Meryl Streep is in it doing a slightly different version of her Sophie’s Choice accent.

Also in that movie? The incomparable Rhys Ifans,  which I only mention because it’s an excuse for me to plug this really fun show that nobody but me saw.  Stellar cast all the way down the line, but I think his part is my favorite.

And finally, Hans Landa just eats up the screen every time he’s on. So I will say this is one of my favorite Hans Landa scenes, but also they’re ALL my favorite Hans Landa scenes.

See you next time