Mid-Week Check-In

SNL Recap

You can probably predict a lot of what you’re gonna get with a Jack Black hosted episode of SNL. It stands to reason that he will shift into 5th gear immediately and that it would be a music heavy episode. Other than that, what did you have on your Bingo card? Congrats if you had Ego inadvertently leading the studio audience to shout “s***!” or if you had Black ignoring a pair of A-list stars who were seated in the audience. The free space on the metaphorical Bingo card would be the multiple digs at Morgan Wallen’s quick exit last week.

The cold open continued the tradition of regurgitating the previous week’s most prominent WTF moment, this time with JAJ’s Trump making the tariff announcement, later joined by Andrew as Howard Lutnick and Mike Myers hopping like a nincompoop once again as Elon Musk. In the monologue Black celebrated his return to SNL after a nearly 20 year absence by singing a song to the tune of Aerosmith’s Back In the Saddle, and went into the audience mid song. At one point the camera revealed Bill Burr and Kieran Culkin in the audience, but Black did not acknowledge either of them, instead pointing out the marching band that was in formation a few rows back. (I did not learn until the following day that seated in the row behind Burr & Culkin were 3 of the actors who had portrayed students in School Of Rock.)

My pick for Top Sketch Of the Week is one that benefitted from Black uncharacteristically dialing it down a notch. It was set at a waterside restaurant, with Black serving as the bandleader for a potluck jam. His band started to play Free Fallin’ and he invited any musician to join in. Enter JAJ to play bass, followed by Mikey also with a bass. You can see where it’s going; every single person who joined in was playing a bass, much to Black’s slow burning exasperation. A one joke premise, but well executed.

Jack Black’s inherent manic persona was put to good use in The First Play. This built on the premise that when the ancient Greeks invented theatre it stood to reason that there would have to have been a first audience that did not grasp the concept of what a play is. Just like those old stories of early motion picture audiences terrified upon seeing film of a train moving in their direction, the first theater goers would have been similarly horrified to see a murder take place in front of their eyes.

The Dating Game, um excuse me, Love Match sketch was better than it had any right to be. In this one Chloe’s contestant was choosing from 3 unseen bachelors and was smitten by how kind and sensitive Black’s bachelor sounded. Andrew’s host told her that Black was dressed up as Indiana Jones. It worked because of the contrast in tones between Andrew and Black. Yes, SNL relies on game show sketches too often but this one made for an amusing 5 minutes. Kudos to JAJ for his low key portrayal of one of the bachelors, especially after he was told that he looks like Jane Lynch.

There were 2 desk pieces on Update this week. The first was the return of Marcello & Jane as the couple you can’t believe are together. Like the game show sketch this rides on the contrast between Marcello’s extreme extroversion and Jane’s equally extreme introversion. But it was Ego’s appearance that everyone is talking about. Ostensibly there as a response to the WHCA cowardly cancelling Amber Ruffin’s hosting gig for the annual correspondent’s dinner, Ego volunteered to serve as Ruffin’s replacement, promising to make it an apolitical evening by instead joking about the actual dinner. She then gets up from the desk and does a standup set, eventually leading the studio audience in a call & response which resulted in the audience responding with an audible profanity (unfortunately already bleeped in the YouTube upload.) As the end of the season is approaching we’re getting to the point of speculating who will and will not return next year. Ego is in the category of someone who has been with the show so long that you wonder if she’s plotting an exit strategy. She has been a major asset to the show for years; I will definitely miss her when she leaves, whether it is this year or not.

That moment would generally be enough for me to give Ego Employee Of the Week award, but I gave it to her last week and I like to mix things up. I will give it to Heidi instead. She fully committed to her character in the Bass Lake sketch, and she did strong work in the closing sketch as the nurse in the famous V-J Day photo. She has a knack for 1940’s type banter.

This was Jack Black’s 4th time as host. I would strongly suspect that we will not have to wait another 20 years until he becomes a 5-timer. He feels right at home on the SNL stage. You know who else feels right at home? That would be Jon Hamm, who will join the less prestigious 4-timers club himself next week.

April Madness

The lengths of the tournaments result in the champions not actually crowned until April. Is April still mad, even with the lack of alliteration?

Florida made an amazing comeback to win the men’s title for the third time in school history, the first with Todd Golden as head coach. His success is far from being a feel-good story, in fact it is the exact opposite. Rather than talk about that POS, would you rather hear about my bracket instead? Yeah, I know. No one wants to hear about another person’s bracket. I’ll be quick. I entered a pool that Will Leitch put together, and since I watched little college hoops this season I gave it no thought. I made every single one of my picks based on which team was rated higher on KenPom. Fun fact #1: Because this year’s tourney was so chalky I was tied for 5th going into the final weekend. Fun fact #2: I obviously wasn’t the only one who used that strategy because one of the brackets I was tied with was named “KenPom Bracket.” Fun fact #3: I was ranked above the actual Ken Pomeroy in that pool! He didn’t even follow his own rankings. Fun fact #4: I was eliminated when Duke lost. Fun fact #5: My bracket discussion wasn’t as quick as I promised it would be. Sorry.

The women’s results were a better story. Plucky little underdog UConn, the only non-#1 seed to make either the men’s or women’s Final Fours, utterly dominating their opponents to win their 12th championship overall. I kid about the seeding, there were 5 schools in the women’s field that had legitimate claims on a 1 seed. It just happened that the Huskies were the team pushed down to the 2 line. Knowing the capacity for athletes to motivate themselves over any perceived lack of respect it’s entirely feasible that this placed a collective chip on their shoulders and spurred them on to victory.

The tournament was a victory lap for UConn’s Paige Bueckers, the presumptive #1 pick in next week’s WNBA Draft. The quick turnaround from the college to the pro season presents challenges for players and teams alike, even more so this year. Sedona Prince of TCU is expected to be a first round pick. You may remember her as the player whose video of the sparse workout room for the women in the 2001 bubble went viral and shamed the NCAA into improving the amenities for the women. Due to redshirting and the extra year of eligibility the NCAA granted players following the pandemic, Prince remained in college all this time. Her entrance into the league comes with issues, issues that any WNBA team interested in her might not have enough time to fully investigate. She is a 24 year old woman competing against opponents as young as 18, it stands to reason that she would have dominated the college game this season. How good is she really? Worse, there have been years of domestic violence accusations from multiple partners thrown against her, including some allegations of sexual abuse. If this were the NBA or NFL with the months long period between the end of the college season and the draft, teams would have more time to fully investigate and to interview the player. Not so in the WNBA; whichever team selects her will be taking a massive risk. Something to keep an eye on.

All of the focus on the college game means that the end of the NBA regular season is creeping up on us. It ends on Sunday as a matter of fact. These last few games are a dream for people who love tiebreaker scenarios. The Western Conference teams are so tightly bunched - as I am writing this 2 games separate the current 3 seed from the 8 seed - that the playoff grid changes with each game result. A bad week and any of the 6 teams can find themselves in play-in territory. The NCAA tournament was not as chaotic as it normally is. The NBA is more than making up for it.

The Side Categories

Time to think of songwriters, producers, and record company executives. On second thought I will skip record execs. Most of those that came from the generations when labels were run by music people rather than business people are already in, and I have previously mentioned Estelle Axton, whose induction is long overdue. Unless and until Axton wins the Ertegun Award, there is no reason to consider any other candidate from the boardrooms.

I’m also hard pressed to come up with a worthy songwriter, although chances are good that the Hall will honor an obvious name whom I had overlooked, causing me to smack myself in the head. I could say Burt Bacharach, with or without Hal David, but I suspect that if he was on the Hall’s radar he would have been honored the same year that they inducted Dionne Warwick.

In addition to the producers whom I had discussed in an earlier post which centered on names from the world of hip-hop, there are some rock oriented producers who are worthy of consideration. Daniel Lanois has had a long and fruitful career, with a wide range of artists in his discography, more than just U2. Phil Ramone had a similarly vast body of work, along with a huge number of Grammy awards. Mutt Lange has produced some of the most massively successful albums of his time. Digging a little deeper, T Bone Burnett doesn’t have the same record sales as the other names that I have mentioned, but he has an undeniable cool factor in regards to the projects that he has worked on.

But if I had to narrow things down to one producer with the most Hall worthy résumé, Don Was is the man. His discography is so stuffed that I’m convinced he must have gone without sleep for around 20 years or so. I’m actually surprised that he isn’t in already; he has produced records for so many heavy hitters that there has gotta be a long line of people eager to lobby on his behalf.

Clem Burke

I’m pretty sure I have referenced this observation before, but it’s a great one. Years ago I saw an interview with Joe Strummer in which he stated that what killed The Clash was not Mick Jones’s departure, it was Topper Headon’s. Strummer said that any band is only as good as its drummer, and it is a notion that I have thought about a lot since I first heard it. A great drummer adds so much to the quality of a band’s work. Few sticks men epitomized that better than Blondie’s Clem Burke, who died earlier this week at the age of 70.

When the news came out seemingly the entire internet shared the video of Dreaming, which is not only arguably the best Blondie song but also what is almost indisputably the best example of his work. The drum track is so prominent that it as much a part of the song’s melody as it is the song’s rhythm. In the liner notes for a Blondie anthology keyboard player Jimmy Destri good naturedly described Dreaming as a drum solo with lyrics. If so, what a freaking great drum solo. Playing for Blondie also demonstrated his versatility. Blondie dabbled in multiple genres as time went on; Burke’s ability to master those different sounds went a long way towards making those musical experiments successful.

Burke drummed for Blondie throughout the band’s entire career, and he was a prolific drummer for hire during the dozen years when Blondie was on hiatus. He sat behind the drum kit for everyone from Bob Dylan to the Eurythmics to the Romantics to Dramarama. He even had a blink and you missed it stint as Elvis Ramone, although he wasn’t with them long enough to drum on an actual Ramones album. Reading one of his obits also reminded me that he was a member of a post punk supergroup called Chequered Past which also included Steve Jones, Michael Des Barres, Tony Sales, and Nigel Harrison.

Burke is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame along with the other members of Blondie. He was hands down one of the greatest drummers of his era. I realize that it’s too obvious to share Dreaming, but just listen to it. The dude wails on those drums like a maniac, yet it never takes away attention from the other elements of the song. This loss is a big one.

50 Years Ago - Shampoo

It sounds too perfect. A movie about a promiscuous Beverly Hills hairdresser starring Hollywood’s most famous Lothario. It feels like it was tailor made for Warren Beatty. Let’s see who was the screenwriter. Oh, it was co-written by Beatty and Robert Towne, so it checks.

Set against the backdrop of the 1968 Presidential election - TV news reports are often heard in the background - Beatty’s character juggled clients in and out his salon and his bedroom. The time and setting were meant to signify the cultural change brought on by the backlash symbolized by the election results. I’m not sure if that theme fully hit; it’s probably better to simply look at it as a modernized wacky screwball comedy/bedroom farce.

Beatty’s paramours were portrayed by Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, and, in the role for which she won an Oscar, Lee Grant. Jack Warden was the cuckolded husband of Grant’s character, and in her film debut Carrie Fisher was their teenaged daughter. (Don’t worry, Beatty was ethical enough not to make her one of his conquests although she did attempt to seduce him.)

The movie was directed by Hal Ashby. Ashby is not often lumped in with the great American directors of the 1970’s, largely due to the fact that once the decade ended his output was sparse and subpar. But he had this spectacular run of movies: Harold & Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Bound For Glory, Coming Home, Being There. Damn, that’s impressive.

Shampoo finished as the #3 box office hit of 1975, behind only Jaws & One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Because it is so much of its time it has not aged as well as the other 2 have. It is still a very entertaining film, and with those 3 lead stars (Beatty, Christie, & Hawn) it is an aesthetically pleasing one as well. In addition, remember that 1975 was the same year that the TV series Fay, which starred Lee Grant, was a massive flop. I suspect that winning an Oscar took her mind off of that.

Closing Laughs

That’ll do, pig. Thanks for tuning in all you good folks and we will talk once again on Wednesday. See ya then!