Hello and welcome once again to Five Cool Things, where I talk about some of the interesting books, movies, and music, and anything else I’ve enjoyed over the last couple of weeks. This time I’m talking about an old novel by Graham Greene, two of my favorite musicians playing together, an excellent new FX series shot very near to where I live, the passing of a great backup singer, a new Predator movie, and taking my teenage daughter to a cool concert. Enjoy.
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
We are in the middle of Noirvember and as such, I’ve been watching a lot of classic film noir. I’ll probably dedicate my entire Five Cool Things to that next time, but for now I’ll tell you about this book, which was adapted into a great noir in 1948. Graham Greene is an author whose name I kept seeing pop up in loads of great old movies like The Third Man, This Gun for Hire, Our Man in Havana, and others. It happened so often I finally decided to check him out several months ago and read The Third Man.
Buy Brighton RockThat’s a good book, but what I found out afterward was that it was originally written specifically as a treatment for the excellent Carol Reed film. There is nothing wrong with that, but it does mean the book intentionally follows more cinematic conventions than literary ones. I wanted to see what Greene could do without movies in mind and landed on this one.
Brighton Rock follows Pinkie, the 17-year-old leader of a gang of hoodlums. At the beginning of the book, Pinkie kills a newspaper man who wrote some negative things about the gang, causing one of them to get killed. This leads to a series of events where the gang is trying to alleviate suspicion from Pinkie and the gang. This leads to a witness – Rose, a mousy young waitress who immediately falls for Pinkie. Realizing that if he marries Rose she can’t be forced to testify against him, he pursues a courtship. Pinkie is a fascinating character, as he doesn’t think twice about killing a man, but thinking about sleeping with Rose sends him into spirals of guilt and shame.
The plot is complicated and convoluted. Greene’s writing follows a more emotional course than an action-packed one. He was raised Catholic, and his writing digs deep into themes of sin, guilt, and redemption. It is a very good novel and I’m looking forward to reading more from Greene.
Donna Jean Godchaux (1947-2025)
The Grateful Dead were at a crossroads at the end of 1971. With the release of Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty in 1970, they had begun to leave their early psychedelic jamming ways behind. Those two albums were more in the vein of country rock and proved the band could write great songs. They’d always be a jam band at heart; improvisation would be a key factor in their live performance for the entire 30 years they were a band, but with these new songs they needed help. Ron “Pigpen” McKernan was a great frontman and the bluesy heart of the band, but he was never a great keyboardist. Besides, his years of heavy drinking were starting to take their toll. His health was in decline. He’d be dead in March of 1973.
Buy Grateful Dead – Duke ’78 CDThey hired Keith Godchaux to play piano, and with him came his wife, Donna, on vocals. She was a great singer in her own right. She’d sung on records from Percy Sledge, Elvis Presley, and Boz Skaggs. She added some much-needed harmonies to the new songs. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes she could be a bit much. Her wailing on “Playing in the Band” at many a show was more akin to screeching than singing, but one could easily attribute that to too much hard partying on the road and her inability to actually hear herself amongst the loudness of the band. But in later years, when the venues had better acoustics and the onstage monitors got better, her vocals really added something special. They both played in Jerry Garcia’s solo projects for a few years during this time, and she really shines there.
Both Keith and Donna were kicked out of the band in 1979 for rampant drug use (which is saying something in that band). But she continued to perform and sing in a variety of bands for many years. She died last week at the age of 78. Put on a nice show from 1978 in her memory.
Norah Jones is Playing Along with Jason Isbell
Norah Jones, the multi-platinum-selling, Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, has a podcast. It is exactly the kind of podcast you’d want someone like Norah Jones to have. It is lo-fi and unpretentious. She invites a musician that she clearly respects and sits around for an hour playing songs and talking to them about music and songwriting.
Buy Jason Isbell – Foxes in the Snow CDHer most recent episode is with Jason Isbell, the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter. I love both of those artists, and it is a special treat to hear them together. What I love about Norah’s podcast is that it is so laid-back. This isn’t some slickly produced, MTV series that feels rehearsed and designed to sell more albums.
Obviously, there are production values; someone has taken care to film it well and make sure it sounds beautiful. I have no doubt Norah and Jason did some rehearsing before they started filming, but it feels off the cuff. The performances aren’t perfect; they aren’t always perfectly in sync, and Jason’s guitar sometimes comes in slightly low, but that gives it an authenticity that is so often lacking in these types of things. And their conversation is sometimes awkward; you can tell they both don’t always know what to say.
But there is a real warmth there. These are two people who clearly respect each other’s art and enjoy talking about music. I love hearing creative people be excited about their creativity.
They mostly play songs from Jason’s most recent album, Foxes in the Snow, but they also dig into his back catalog and they do an incredible job on an obscure Neil Young cover.
The Lowdown
This FX series was created by Sterlin Harjo, who also made the excellent Reservation Dogs. It is set in Tulsa, OK, and is loosely based on the life of Lee Roy Chapman, a citizen journalist who helped discover that Tate Brady, one of the founders of Tulsa and a man whose name used to be on all sorts of properties around the city, was a hardcore racist, a member of the KKK, and took part in the Tulsa race riots.
Buy The Lowdown: Lee Roy Chapman’s Quest to Expose Tulsa’s Buried TruthsEthan Hawke plays Lee Raybon, a citizen journalist (or Truthstorian as he likes to call himself) who, as the series begins, has just published an exposé on the powerful Washberg family and their historic, racist ties to the city. In the pilot episode, Dale Washberg (Tulsa native Tim Blake Nelson), the closeted black sheep of the family, dies by an apparent suicide.
But things look suspicious to Lee, and he begins to investigate the possibility that Dale was murdered. He turns first to Donald Washberg (Kyle MacLachlan), Dale’s brother, who is running for governor of Oklahoma. But ultimately trying to solve the case will take him on a long journey where he’ll meet an assortment of people, including Donald’s wife, Betty Jo (Tulsa native Jeanne Tripplehorn); Donald’s assistant, Marty (Keith David); some shady businessmen; and a clan of white supremacists.
But while the mystery is interesting, that’s not really what the show is about. It is a spiritual journey where Lee must learn that while searching for truth is important, it comes with a toll – it sometimes hurts the ones you love. His wife has divorced him, and his daughter is becoming more and more estranged. All of that plays out much more delicately and nuanced than my description.
But also, this is a show about Tulsa. Harjo grew up in Muskogee, Oklahoma, which is just southeast of Tulsa, and he knows the area well. I hate to say that the setting is its own character because it sounds so cliché, but it truly is. And it isn’t just that it was shot on location but that Harjo knows this town, knows its people. The way they talk. The way they act. I have to admit, as someone who grew up just north of Tulsa and still lives there, I would have loved this show just for that aspect. But the fact that it is so good on so many other levels makes it even better.
Predator: Badlands
Up until now I’d never seen a Predator movie in the theater. The original film came out when I was just 11 years old, so naturally I didn’t see it then. I saw it many times on home video, though, and on one occasion, we managed to talk our eighth-grade history teacher into watching it in class (to be fair, he was a coach, and it was the last day of school). I was a bit older when Predator 2 came out, but not old enough for my parents to be willing to take me to see it. Again, I caught it on home video, but like most people I thought it was greatly inferior to the first film, and I completely lost interest in the franchise.
Buy Predator: 4-Movie CollectionIt was revised in the comics, and then they made two Alien vs. Predator films, but by then I had moved on to other things. More sequels came, and still I paid no attention. But when Prey came out in 2022, I found myself interested again. The concept of a Native American fighting a Predator in the 1700s was intriguing, and the reviews were good. Still, I waited for it to hit home video. I wish I hadn’t because I quite liked it. Director Dan Trachtenberg is clearly a fan of the series, and his take revitalized it. I’ve since gone back and watched all the films, and while not all of them are good (and some are decidedly bad), I dig how each movie is self-contained. Predator movies don’t need to tell some larger saga. They are about humans fighting Predators, and that’s it.
But that also gives it plenty of room to do interesting things. And true again most of the films haven’t done that. Most of them have stuck to a formula. But as Prey proved, you could change a few details and make it feel fresh again.
Predator: Badlands proves it even more. All of the films up until this one have basically been about Predators coming to Earth and attacking (or, in the case of Predators, humans are brought to a different planet and attacked). In every film, the Predators have been the enemy. But in this new film, the Predator is the protagonist.
Predators (or Yautja, as they are now officially known as) are a fierce warrior race who fly across the galaxy looking for other species to hunt. In Predator: Badlands, a Predator known as Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is the runt of his clan, and as such his father aims to kill him (because clans cannot have a weak link). But he escapes and flies to Genna, an incredibly dangerous planet (where even the grass wants to kill you), so he can kill a Kalisk, a supposedly unkillable beast. This will prove his worth
While there, he stumbles upon Thia (Elle Fanning), a synthetic sent by the Weyland-Yutani corporation (which officially ties the Predator and Alien franchises together, more so than the two crossover films ever did), to catalog the local species. She’s talkative and hilarious and gives the film some much-needed levity and solves the problem of how to make a Predator your main character when it doesn’t speak English (the film handles why she does in a very clever way).
This is everything I want in a Predator film. It is full of killer action (the film is rated PG-13 despite some truly gnarly violence, but since it is violence against alien creatures and their blood is not blood-red, I guess the ratings board didn’t mind so much). It creates a unique and interesting world, and expands what we know about the Predator. And it is wildly entertaining. I can also finally say it is well worth catching in the theater.
Jeff Tweedy Live in Tulsa
Wilco is one of my all-time favorite bands. Lead singer/primary songwriter Jeff Tweedy periodically makes solo records and tours. If I’m being honest, I don’t love his solo work. It tends to be more mellow, softer, acoustic, and navel-gazing. None of it is bad, and some of it I like quite a bit, but his solo work has never hit me like Wilco music hits me.
Buy Jeff Tweedy – Twilight OverrideBut live, he always puts on a great show, no matter who he is playing with. I’ve seen Jeff Tweedy/Wilco more times in concert than any other artist. For whatever reason, he seems to love Tulsa and the Cain’s Ballroom. It is a fantastic place to see a show. It is small, cozy, and full of history. My wife and I have caught him there multiple times.
So when we learned Tweedy was playing at the Cain’s this past Sunday, we bought tickets immediately. Unfortunately, my wife came down with a nasty head cold and was unable to go. I thought about trying to sell the ticket at the venue but then decided to drag my 14-year-old daughter along. She’s been bugging me to take her to a concert for a while. The only show she’s ever seen was Katy Perry several years ago, and now that she’s older, that’s embarrassing to her. So I asked her to come with me, and she agreed. I was a little concerned she might get bored and beg me to go home early, but I was hoping being in a small venue with some great acoustics would keep her interested.
My guess was, that since this was billed as Jeff Tweedy and the Family Band, that he’d be playing acoustic guitar accompanied by his two sons on drums and keyboards. I was thrilled to be wrong. The band consisted of five players: his two sons plus a bass player; a woman on violin, keyboards, and guitar; and another guitar player. This gave the songs a full sound. And nearly everybody sang, making the backup harmonies fantastic.
He mostly played songs from his new album, Twilight Override, which I’m not super familiar with, plus a few other songs from his other solo albums (nary a Wilco song was to be heard). It was one of those nights where I was only halfway familiar with the music and was unable to sing along, and yet I didn’t care. It was a great show all around.
My daughter had a great time, too. I was careful not to bug her during the show, but I’d slyly look over to see if she was enjoying herself. I caught her swaying along several times. After the show, I said how much fun I’d had and she agreed. I think she became a fan that night.
