From the Couch Hole: I Came in from the Wilderness, A Creature Void of Form

Previously on FTCH, we were tangled up in blue because of the twisters. The masters of the air will speak no evil about loaded Oreos and that’s an infinite jest. Last week, I started the annual slog that is the last three weeks of January/early February for my work. That along with coaching my three teams in basketball dominates my time. This week during the forever war we took shelter from the storm and told don’t look back. We are lady parts were a complete unknown as well as the Bugles with Tabasco. Remember, at FTCH, think outside the bun.

Pop Culture Ephemera

• Joe Haldeman – The Forever War (1974) (Published by St. Martin’s Press): “The most important fact about the war to most people was that if it ended suddenly, Earth’s economy would collapse.” This well-regarded book is often on All-Time Best-Of lists. It’s also my first foray into the sub-genre of military science fiction, at least in terms of consistent focus of the plot. I found the first act the most interesting as a commentary on the Vietnam experience. You have William Mandella being drafted into our first war against an alien force on a strange planet. When he and his fellow soldiers return to Earth, they are only two years older then when they left and the Earth is 27 years (thanks to the relativity of space travel). The Earth is 2024 is unrecognizable to them from the planet they left in 1997. It’s akin to the feeling of soldiers returning to America after the Vietnam War to a country they couldn’t recognize.
  
  The rest of the book is interesting, and I found it to be a much more breezy read than many of the science-fiction books I’ve explored in this semi-project. The book is often cited as a pacifist response to Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1959). The difference being that the war with the alien beings in this book is less of battles (those mostly take only minutes) but about the time spent between battles and how much more detached the soldiers become from the civilians, symbolized by the extreme passages of time that they miss until they don’t know or recognize anything of the planet they left. This was thought provoking and his vision of the future of gender politics is spot on. I am keen to read more from this author.

Buy Joe Haldeman – The Forever War paperback

• We Are Lady Parts – “Play Something” (2021) (S.1 E.1) (Peacock): “I didn’t expect them to track me down. They must have done some sleuthing.” – Amina. I’m starting off the year by knocking off some of the series that has been floating around my lists unsampled. One episode in, and this British comedy (partnered with Peacock) appears to be a keeper. The initial impetus of the show is Don Maclean fan, microbiologist student, guitar teacher, Amina, being recruited for a punk band of three other female Muslims. The show manages to be clever funny (with a few laugh-out-louds), have characters you like immediately, and uniquely Muslim in the life experience of the characters. I love that it’s completely about female empowerment without the feminist message being upfront. It’s just a given that these young women are in a punk band and in control of their destinies. I’m following through with this season and next.

Buy Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks CD

• Bob Dylan – “Shelter from the Storm” (1975) (from Blood on the Tracks): “Not a word was spoken between us, there was little risk involved / Everything up to that point had been left unresolved.” Like just about every song on this album, Dylan seems to be looking back upon failed relationships with longing and regret. His use of language is superior here. “Shelter” is the peace and “Storm” is the conflict. The words slip off his tongue perfectly. Each repetition is preceded by the “her” of the song saying “Come in” as both the comfort of a home and the sexual comfort of that phrase. It’s brilliant and still only my third favorite song on this incredible album.

• Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back (1967) (Directed by D.A. Pennebaker): “I’m glad I’m not me.” – Dylan. If you don’t watch this after going to see A Complete Unknown (2024), did you even get the experience? This groundbreaking cinema verite document of the tour of England in 1965 by Dylan, Joan Baez, Donovan, and Alan Price. The themes of the biopic are all present here, but maybe in greater and lesser degrees than in a film that wants to tell a dramatic story. Dylan’s interactions with reporters are not flattering. Bob comes off as the asshole that he admits to in the movie. Here the type of jerk is much more uncomfortable in how he treats reporters trying to do their job versus how he treats his friends in the biopic. The music outshines the musician here. I wish there had been more Joan Baez, but she disappears for much of the film. Dylan is leading a revolution with his music, but he is still an insecure boy from Minnesota who lashes out when he is being questioned. If this had been my only exposure to the man, I might not have become as big of a fan. Luckily, I knew the music well before I saw this important documentary.

Buy Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back Criterion Collection Blu-ray

• A Complete Unknown (2024) (Directed by James Mangold): “I wanna hear you. Go track some mud on somebody’s carpet. Make some noise, B.D.” – Johnny Cash. Most biopics bite off more than they can chew with their subjects. The key becomes picking the right-sized bite. Director Mangold has made quite a few good choices. The title would let you believe that it’s subject is Bob Dylan’s rise to stardom. The story that is woven through Bob’s journey from 1961 arrival in New York City until his electric performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 is one of societal change as much as a folk singer’s success. Bob Dylan (Timothee Chalamet) is part of a triangle with Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) that each represent a different direction of the movement started by Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy). Bob’s vision is destined to win out, it’s inevitable, and the performance at Newport sets the movement on that unstoppable track.
  
  The film succeeds where other similar pictures don’t partially because when you tell the story of a musician, it’s best to let the music do much of the work. Mangold allows almost all of a song to play instead of falling back upon montages of multiple songs. Hiring actors that do more to capture the spirit of their real-life counterparts instead of physical attributes works much better. I don’t care that Monica Barbaro doesn’t look exactly like Joan Baez; she is amazing at capturing the essence of who Joan was in this period. The film opens and closes with Woody Guthrie to remind the viewer that the connection to the past is what we should take away from the film. It is very accessible to people who don’t consider themselves fans of Bob Dylan, and I expect it to garner a fair share of awards this spring.

Best of the Rest

• I am always taken aback at how much crap this guy gets at every turn. Chris Martin covered “Shelter from the Storm” on Saturday Night Live in 2020 when it was SNL at Home. I appreciate that he sticks the melody and still puts his emotional twist on the lyrics.

• Entertainment Weekly (3/28/97): “Best Commercials of All-Time” #39 – Keep America Beautiful “Crying Indian” (1970): “People start pollution. People can end it.” This advertising campaign was ubiquitous through the decade of the ’70s. They didn’t need a sequel, this one just aired over and over. Pollution was all over the public-service ads that we encountered as kids in that decade. This was such a successful ad that I’m surprised it isn’t ranked as a Top Ten commercial.

• It took me well into adulthood to place the music in the Keep America Beautiful “American Indian” commercial. It’s by Peter Sarstedt and called “Overture.” It’s really a great song that could be part of a movie and used to accompany NFL Films highlights of the Steelers vs. Bengals from 1975. He had a song used in Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited (2008) that brought Peter Sarstedt and this particular song to mind for many of Wes Anderson fans like me.

Sunday Morning Tuneage Flashback

• On the Sunday Morning Tuneage from 7/12/2009, there was only one important message on that day. We grew our family by one dog, and that dog was the wonderful Westie, Miles. I was claiming that U2’s Unforgettable Fire was their best album (just putting it out there for a future list). My #19 Favorite Film of All-Time was Brazil (1985). The comparisons to Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four are valid, but the film exists in a bubble by itself thanks to the unique vision of Terry Gilliam. I would reconsider such a high ranking, but I’m not upset with the choice. A film called Meteor (NBC) gave us a world where we were counting on super scientists Jason Alexander and Christopher Lloyd to save us. Every couple of years, Disney liked to combine their shows. This summer it was Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana (DISN) with three shows for 90 minutes. The list of the week may not have changed much but it’s a nice tie-in to a 2025 Project.
  • BEST COMEDY ALBUMS OF ALL-TIME (2009)
    • 10.  Rodney Dangerfield – No Respect:  The man’s stand-up was a machine gun spray of hilarious jokes.
    • 9.  Steve Martin – Let’s Get Small: “Obsequious, purple, and clarivoyant”
    • 8.  Mitch Hedberg – Mitch All Together
    • 7.  Bill Cosby – Wonderfulness  The Chicken Heart and Tonsils on the same album.
    • 6.  Eddie Murphy – Comedian: Ice Cream Man and Barbecue.
    • 5.  Bill Cosby – I Started Out As a Child:  Oops and Lone Ranger.
    • 4.  Steve Martin – A Wild and Crazy Guy
    • 3.  Richard Pryor – . . . Is It Something I Said?: The debut of Mudbone.  ” . . . and it’s deep too!”
    • 2.  George Carlin – Class Clown: Includes the “Seven Words” but so much more.
    • 1.  Bob Newhart – The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart: I wish I was nearly this funny.  If I did stand-up it would hopefully sound like this.
  • BEST COMEDY ALBUMS OF ALL-TIME (2025)
    • 10. Neil Hamburger – Great Phone Calls (1992): The prank phone call humor has gone away in the era of the cellphone. Before it completely disappeared, Neil Hamburger perfected the best surreal moments of the genre.
    • 9. Robert Klein – Child of the ’50s (1973): The era of observational humor was really in bloom in the decade of the ’70s. Klein was one of the first that I can remember telling the longer story form of observation.
    • 8. Firesign Theatre – Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers (1970): This troupe made the most of record production with special effects and clever sound drops. This particular album lampoons all aspects of pop culture and was a favorite of mine.
    • 7. Mitch Hedberg – Strategic Grill Locations (1999): Word play that reminded me of the next generation of Steven Wright and George Carlin.
    • 6. Steven Wright – I Have a Pony (1985): I can’t think of a comedian I quoted more than Steven in my college days.
    • 5. Steve Martin – Let’s Get Small (1977): Well, exuuuuuuuuse me, but there wasn’t a more influential album among my fellow ten-year-olds than this one.
    • 4. Bob Newhart – The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart (1960): His deadpan humor works better on the album format than some of the others on this list. He’s just a genius.
    • 3. George Carlin – Class Clown (1972): It’s hard to pick just one, but this was an album that I kept going back to through the years. The “Seven Words” bit is brilliant not in its ability to shock but in the structure and delivery. It’s a masterwork.
    • 2. Eddie Murphy – Comedian (1983): This was his second album. It came after Trading Places (1983) and before Beverly Hills Cop (1984), and the 22-year-old still sounded like a 22-year-old of his generation. Language that might cause a cringe today was refreshing and bold in 1983. He was clearly part of a new generation.
    • 1. Richard Pryor – Live on the Sunset Strip (1982): Known to most of us as the “album after the freebasing accident.” His story of prisons, Africa, and the accident itself are all iconic and still as incredibly structured as anything I hear today.
  • I left Bill Cosby off of this list. I’m still uncomfortable separating the man from the comedy. The last list was made at a time when I wasn’t hearing many new acts on albums. The era of streaming, specifically Spotify, has given me the chance to be exposed to more older comedy albums and to enjoy some of the others more often. I don’t know that the modern-day comics think of a 40-50 minute set divided into two album sides. It’s much more free form and harder to define tracks like these older routines. I love modern comedy but any of these ten will give you a chuckle.

1975 in Review

• January – Planet of the Apes #4 (Curtis/Marvel): “Apes wearing clothes! It’s a madhouse… a mad-house!!!” – George Taylor. Cover by Bob Larkin. Art by Mike Ploog. Written by Doug Moench. An original story, an interview with Ron Harper, and a continuation of a six-part adaptation of the first film with extra details thrown in that didn’t appear in the films.
• January 6 – The soap opera, Another World (NBC) becomes the first daytime serial to expand from 30 minutes to an hour. It starts a wave where the last 30-minute soap opera (The Young and the Restless [CBS]) will convert to an hour by 1980.
• December 29, 1974 – The 1974 AFC Championship Game was second of four consecutive playoff meetings between the Raiders and Steelers. A week after the “Sea of Hands” victory, the Raiders would host the Steelers and take a 24-13 loss. Franco Harris would rush for 111 yards and his backfield mate, Rocky Bleier, would rush for 98 yards. Pittsburgh will meet the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IX, January 9th at Tulane Stadium.

What the Hell Did I Put in My Mouth?

“Now there’s a wall between us, somethin’ there’s been lost
I took too much for granted, I got my signals crossed
Just to think that it all began on a noneventful morn” – Bob Dylan

Stay hard.

Shawn