From the Couch Hole: Let Me Show You the Light

Previously on FTCH, the postman rang twice, once for the lemon pepper potato chips and a second time for the best films set in Texas. The Ant Man and Scott Pilgrim have a precious little life down by the sea. This week saw my return to basketball coaching for the second consecutive year. Last year’s two teams just weren’t enough, so I’m coaching three this time around. I hope that others are able to enjoy at least a long weekend next week. This week the baby driver said, “Open your eyes and squeeze me.” The bad monkey was a heretic who didn’t like Christmas cookies ice cream while he read a magazine. Remember, FTCH, a little dab’ll do ya.

Pop Culture Ephemera

• Carl Hiaasen – Squeeze Me (2020) (Knopf): “In a place like South Florida, such heart-bound faith in the justice system could best be described as quaint.” After six years, Hiaasen found a reason to bring Skink back for an eighth time. The reason is Trump, and your appreciation of this book is probably based upon your party identification. The President in this book is referred to by his Secret Service identification, Mastodon. He is more of a Saturday Night Live version of a President from Florida, but it’s a thin disguise for the purpose of this novel. The satire is spot on. There is a rich elderly female supporter of Mastodon who is consumed by a huge python at a Palm Beach club. It sets in motion a series of events that include fake news, false immigration accusations (“No more Diegos”), and the various characters of the police and Secret Service. Our heroine for this run is Angie Armstrong, a wildlife expert who is able to connect all of the dots through her various contacts through her job. Skink doesn’t appear until over halfway through and plays only a tangential role in the plot. I enjoy this series, but after eight times, I’m ready for a little break. If you have a sense of humor about the past and future President, this book might be a nice distraction sometime in the next four years. Addendum: there is an addendum to the version I read that was written after the events of January 2021. It doesn’t reference those as much as put a sad Mastodon permanently back to his Florida roots.

Buy Squeeze Me paperback

• Bad Monkey – “You Really Don’t Want to Kill The Scrumptious Little Puppy” (2024) (S.1 E.9) (Apple+): “This storm that draw everybody together? It comin’!” – Ya-Ya. With a minimum of ten Carl Hiaasen books under my belt, I’m familiar with how the plots are going to go in the penultimate chapter. Everyone is now together on Andros and the plot picks up some serious speed. Along with an increase in action, this is probably the episode with the most laugh-out-loud lines and scenes. I really enjoy how they’ve captured the spirit and lighthearted moments that I love about Hiaasen’s books. I would be remiss not to mention the quirky and fun use of Tom Petty covers in each episode. This week’s cover of “Don’t Come Around Here No More” by Nathaniel Rateliff is perfectly placed. The hurricane is approaching and the last bits of the story are in motion. As with most series these days, this next-to-last episode is typically the most important. This show doesn’t disappoint.

Buy Bobby Caldwell – Cat in the Hat CD

• Bobby Caldwell – “Open Your Eyes” (1980) (from Cat in the Hat): “You’re still regretting the love you left, left behind / Oh darling, I’ve seen you go through changes.” This is one of those beautifully written songs that would probably have been a runaway hit if initially released by a more established artist. The lyrics of someone looking for the perfect lover instead of the writer still resonates today. It’s been sampled and covered (the John Legend cover deserves your attention), but I still get a kick out of this original which occupies an important spot in what I now hear is Yacht Soul.

• Baby Driver (2017) (Directed by Edgar Wright): “Sometimes all I want is to head West on 20 in a car I can’t afford, with a plan I don’t have, just me, my music, and the road.” – Debora. In 2017, Edgar Wright managed to combine all of the lessons of his 13 years since Shaun of the Dead (2004) into a single culminating film. It might seem odd to speak highly of a film that’s often distilled down to a single criticism of “It’s a mixtape movie.” That’s too simplistic. The concept of structuring a film around an almost never-ending mix of songs because Baby (Ansel Elgort) has a hearing disability is only worth talking about if the film surrounding it has something to say. Edgar and I have a similar taste in music, so right off the bat, I’m already disposed to like the film. It’s a film that doesn’t have robots turning into cars, superheroes, or crazy CGI characters. It’s an old-school film with modern pop-culture references. Baby remixes his whole life onto tape, so it’s only fitting that his present is a soundtrack. The supporting cast is strong, especially a cold-blooded Kevin Spacey and a just-bad-enough Jon Hamm. I don’t know how I missed this when it first came out, but this is so much fun, I need a rerelease in theaters in a few years for the ten-year anniversary.

• Heretic (2024) (Directed by Scott Beck/Bryan Woods): “For the rest of your lives, there will be before you choose and there will be after. Ladies, verbally acknowledge, please.” – Mr. Reed. This film proves the axiom that “There’s nothing more interesting than Comparative Religions for a Horror film.” Until the third act, this is one of the more compelling films of the year. That’s thanks to the casting of Hugh Grant as Mr. Reed matching wits with Sophie Thatcher (Sister Barnes) and Chloe East (Sister Paxton). The camera loves the three characters as the first two acts are incredibly dialogue heavy for a modern-day film. The camera also knows just how to treat the house as a fourth character. There’s a wonderful feeling of dread from the minute we enter the house. The claustrophobia is Hitchcock worthy as the walls always seem to be closing in on the viewer. There’s an ending that defies the internal logic of the film up to that point. Up until that point, this is another good alternative on the current state of the horror genre. Much like Nicolas Cage earlier this year, Hugh Grant may have found a second life (third in his case?) by leaning into these dark characters.

Best of the Rest

• Common took that Bobby Caldwell song and turned it into on of the everlasting Hip Hop songs. The genre isn’t always known for the best love songs. This exudes his true love for Erykah Badu at the time. Tell me that your head isn’t bopping along to this incredible beat. Simply one of the best the genre has ever produced.

• The gold standard of Christmas ads for the past decade or more has been the John Lewis commercial each year. This year’s ad isn’t likely to bring the tears of previous ads, but I found it sufficiently charming. It takes a look at the connection between sisters over the years, and maybe even hints at the loss of their mother. There’s more of a universal disappointment at this ad than I think is fair. This year Richard Ashcroft does a cover of Verve’s “Sonnet” to perfection.

• Entertainment Weekly (3/28/97): “Best Commercials of All-Time” #43 – Brylcreem – “Girl In Tube”: Before the Beatles and the hippies changed hairstyles in the decade, Byrlcreem was an industry leader for guys who needed to keep their hair slicked back. I love that they used to say that just a dab would make your hair look “disturbingly healthy.” Instead of including an ad from the ’60s, I’m fascinated by this 1986 relaunch of the product. They took the existing footage of the old ads, slowed them down, and added the Art of Noise soundtrack. It won a number of advertising awards. Memorable, even for a guy that has never used the product.

Sunday Morning Tuneage Flashback

• On the Sunday Morning Tuneage from 6/7/2009, we were back to 90+ degree days. The boys finished their regular-season baseball and both made All-Stars for even more to come. Caleb hit a home run in the last game to earn his goal all season – a $5 footlong at Subway. My #1 Favorite Movie of All-Time was Jaws (1975). I have listed this in the Top Three for over 30 years. I’m thinking I need to start this list up again. This is a seminal movie in my lifetime. Other films created love of genres, but this film created a love of films. Pushing Daisies (ABC) was still hanging around on Saturday nights. The Los Angeles Lakers looked to complete a sweep on ABC. The list of the week might be a little dated, but I’m curious how I would rank it differently.
  • BEST MAGAZINES OF ALL-TIME (2009)
    • 10.  Time.  Never had a subscription.  Always loved the red border.  Love to read it at the dentist and in the bookstore.
    • 9.  Sports Illustrated.  Always in my household growing up.  I loved nothing more than looking at early-’70s issues in the basement.  Still the best pictures in the magazine world.
    • 8.  Life.  Much like SI.  Both sets of grandparents had back issues of Life.  The Year in Pictures alone was a must for every household.  Never read an article in it but would spend hours pouring over the pics.
    • 7.  Psychotronic Video.  For 41 issues, this was my bible for low budget films, weird ’70s films, and the world of Italian westerns.
    • 6.  Mad.  I feel terrible that my kids don’t have something that feels as counterculture as this did when I was 10.
    • 5.  Wired.  For a brief time, this was the place to keep up with everything happening.  It got crappy.  And now it seems interesting again.
    • 4.  The Source.  Does this come out anymore?  In the early ’90s, this was the place to follow the up-and-coming hip hop world.
    • 3.  Film Threat.  From 1984 to 1997, this was another great source of what was happening in the indie and underground scene.  Online it just isn’t the same.
    • 2.  Entertainment Weekly.  I’ve been getting it almost straight through since issue #1 in 1989.  It’s simple but I don’t fail to read the reviews every single week.  A little bite-sized, 100-calorie, cute little mag.
    • 1.  TV Guide.  Bring back that digest size.  It’s still the magazine that I look forward to finding in the mailbox every week.  But before the day of the Preview channel – this was your weekly bible.  I would pour over it – circling shows I wanted to watch.  Or just reading the descriptions of movies and shows.  I owe so much of my geekiness to this little magazine.
  • BEST MAGAZINES OF ALL-TIME (2024)
    • 10. Playboy. It loses points for how it lost its way in the later decades. It’s hard to dismiss how much this was a “must read” for the generation before me. Important artists, important authors like Steinbeck, and some of the best interviews in the business.
    • 9. Life. Still the standard for over a generation for quality photography to tell stories without the pesky need for more than a few longer captions. Come to think of it, quite ahead of its time.
    • 8. Mad Magazine. The classic era of the ’60s and ’70s are hard to beat with Sergio Aragones and Don Martin.
    • 7. National Geographic. The awkward zone between being a scholarly journal and a popular scientific magazine. The best part of me as a child was definitely the maps and any story about the solar system.
    • 6. Rolling Stone. I’m jealous of the people who got to read this weekly through the early ’70s. It was Playboy with the naked ladies swapped out for music. Politically relevant (thank you, Hunter S. Thompson) and somehow cutting edge while covering mainstream music artists.
    • 5. Sports Illustrated. When you wanted to read a story that went beyond the highlights and headlines, this was your magazine. I loved the pictures and ate up all of the NFL/MLB/NBA/NHL preview issues.
    • 4. Film Comment. I might be leaving off all of the smaller indie mags that influenced me in 2009, but this scholarly magazine makes me feel smart even when I don’t understand half of what they are talking about.
    • 3. Spy / National Lampoon. Very different humor magazines with only a bit of a crossover. They were super important to the development of my appreciation of humor. There wouldn’t be shows like The Daily Show without the chances that these magazines took in skewering the news and popular culture.
    • 2. Entertainment Weekly. I quit my subscription in 2016 but it was what I wanted from the internet in a magazine format. It was movies, music, books, and television. It was lists and as you can tell, I’m a list guy.
    • 1. TV Guide. Nothing has made me think twice about this being the most important magazine in my life. TV Listings were the most important magazine in my life? In a way, yes. It had episode descriptions of shows I have forgotten until I read them. It had articles not just about television, but it put the importance of television in larger culture into a context that had never occurred to me. These are pure nostalgia.
    • The list leaves off plenty of titles that I subscribed to for years. Pre-internet, I was probably getting 10-12 magazines a month in the mail and purchasing 4-5 per month at places like Tower Records. I loved Vibe, Spin, The Source, Film Threat, Wizard, Fangoria, Starlog, Tuff Stuff, and even Hero Illustrated. I don’t miss all that paper hanging around the house, but there was something visceral about having those mags around the house to refer to when I went to a record or video store.

1974 in Review

• November – Avengers #129 (Marvel): Cover art by Ron Wilson. Art by Sal Buscema. Written by Steve Englehart. “. . . But the Swordsman’s going to surprise them all.” – Swordsman. Kang takes over the Avengers mansion (because that seems to happen a few times a year). He is defeated by the Swordsman and whatever is coming out of the Vision’s hand, a power I never realized he had (and maybe he didn’t either from the look on his face).
• November 24 – The female hominid “Lucy” was discovered in Ethiopia. Carbon dating puts her at 3.2 million years old, the oldest upright walking human ever.
• November 15 – Earthquake (1974) from Universal Pictures opens in theaters. It is the first film released in “Sensurround” where low bass creates a shaking type of feeling. The film with Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner is a highlight of the Disaster Film genre.

What the Hell Did I Put in My Mouth?

“There are times, when you’ll need someone
I will be by your side
I’ll take my chances before they pass, pass me by
Oh darlin’, there is a light that shines, special for you and me” – Bobby Caldwell

Stay hard.

Shawn