The State Of My Union

SNL Recap

After a month long break, SNL finally returned with Shane Gillis hosting. I should begin with the disclaimer that I do not like Shane Gillis, nor do I care much for his type of d-bag humor. I’m not concerned that my preconceived feelings for him tarnished my thoughts on the episode, because the studio audience wasn’t all that impressed either. He was bombing so badly in his monologue - more than a few “this isn’t my audience” asides - that he was coming across as someone making his initial appearance at his local comedy club’s open mic night.

There was a sameness to much of this week’s material. It was clearly tailored to fit Gillis’s persona, so he was portraying the full gamut of losers. Deadbeat dads, bad boyfriends, clueless dummies, and the like. It was a 90 minute long bro fest, but he never added any color to his characters. Everything just sat there.

Something had to be named Top Sketch Of the Week, so I will reluctantly give it to the revival of a bit that last aired a few years ago. That is the local news sketch in which the 4 anchors (Gillis, Kenan, Ego, & Heidi) devolve into a competition over the race of the suspects in the crime stories that they are reporting on. I couldn’t help but wonder how much better it would have been with Nate Bargatze instead. I suspect he would have played the role with a little more likability.

The cold open predictably centered on the embarrassing Trump/Zelenskyy meeting. It suffered from the standard issue with Trump sketches. When reality is so bonkers what can a comedy sketch possibly add to it? A decent addition this time was Marcello in full deer in the headlights mode as Lil’ Marco. There was a surprise cameo from Mike Myers, taking over the role of Elon Musk from Dana Carvey. I found it a little distracting, Myers generally does great accent work but in this instance his Musk sounded disconcertingly close to his Austin Powers voice. I was almost waiting for him to scream “yeah, baby!” while waving his chainsaw.

Even some of the usually more reliable show segments were lacking this week. Neither of the Update desk pieces did it for me. Marcello debuted the character of Movie Guy, ostensibly to preview the Oscars, but much more interested in talking about SpongeBob instead. And Jane’s wacky songs have yet to grow on me. I admire the commitment to the bit, here she sang an increasingly absurd love song with lyrics that referenced the trolley problem. This week also included one of the weaker Please Don’t Destroy videos. Rather than the standard PDD format set in their office, this time they played characters as opposed to themselves. They, along with Ego, were judges on a parody of The Voice. Gillis played a contestant whose voice they admired until the judge chairs swiveled and they saw his awful vibes: bad hair, creepy demeanor, riding around on a mobility scooter that he doesn’t actually need.

The only other sketch this week that was mildly salvageable was the PBS Kids sketch about a show called Dad’s House in which Gillis portrayed a divorced dad poorly caring for his kids (Andrew & Sarah) on his weekend. For breakfast he opens up a can of Vienna sausages and pours some syrup on the plate. The lack of laughs this week makes it tough to choose an Employee Of the Week. Heidi was all over the episode, but it was more quantity than quality. I’ll give it to Kenan, he was pure Kenan as the priest in the wedding sketch. That was enough to stand out this week.

Chloe was noticeably absent this week and as it turned out she missed the show because she contracted COVID. No word on if she caught it at the 50th anniversary gala but at least 3 of the attendees did in fact get sick at the celebration. Jost knew what he was talking about when he joked at the special that NBC placed some of America’s most beloved 60 year old entertainers in one small space.

Two hosting stints later and Shane Gillis continues to show that it was fortunate for all concerned that he was fired mere days after having been hired. The guy is an awful sketch comic. SNL dodged a bullet, and he has played the martyr card so well that his career has thrived in a way that it would not have had he had a brief stint in the cast. Bringing him back to host a second time feels like Lorne being stubborn. I can’t imagine any justification for a third hosting gig. Next week promises to be better. Lady Gaga will do the hosting/musical act double gig. She did a great job of it the first time she hosted way back in 2013.

Joe Cocker

Joe Cocker’s nomination is another one which ignites my feelings on the committee’s stubbornness when it comes to placing heritage rock artists on the ballot, but those feelings are not quite as harsh in this case. There are a lot of bullet points in his favor. I would have been fully supportive of his candidacy had he been a nominee say, 15 years ago and not just because he was still alive then. It’s just that I’m repeating myself again, the Hall does not need to constantly cherry pick artists from that era.

With that caveat out of the way, Joe Cocker has an impressive resume. One of the singularly identifiable voices of his generation, his performance at Woodstock was a highlight of that festival, and his performance seen in the film was a star making moment. With a performing style that can best be described as moving as if someone had just placed a live lobster in his trousers, he seemed like a man possessed. A year later he would headline the Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour, one of the landmark tours in rock history, supported by well more than a dozen backing musicians and singers.

Cocker was not a songwriter, but that was no hurdle. Blessed with a perfect bluesy growl, he had a talent for taking a well known song and making it his own. Some of his more famous recordings such as With a Little Help From My Friends or The Letter sound absolutely nothing like the original versions, but why bother covering a famous song if you’re not going to try to make something unique out of it?

He began to soften the edges in time. By the mid-1970’s he was just as much of an adult contemporary balladeer as he was a rock singer. He had his greater commercial success in the US in that latter part of his career, but it was with earlier recordings where he made his greatest impact and where he made his strongest case for Hall induction. So, what to do? One of the factors that I look for in a Hall artist is how distinctive they were. That’s a yes for Joe Cocker. How great is an artist’s best body of work? He looks good there as well. If there is going to be an old school classic rock artist inducted this year I would rather it be Joe Cocker than Bad Company. I know I’m fighting a losing battle with my insistence that the Hall needs to move forward more quickly than they are. I wouldn’t jump up and down in joy if Cocker is inducted this year, but I wouldn’t be angry either.

Biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit: Technically it’s his duet with Jennifer Warnes Up Where We Belong, if you strictly limit it to his solo hits then it is You Are So Beautiful.

My personal favorite: Delta Lady

If elected, how will his segment be handled in the ceremony: I don’t think it will be much of a problem to find a blues singer to perform a song or two in his honor. I only hope that whoever it is does a straightforward performance and doesn’t attempt to mimic Cocker’s stage manner. We don’t need a farcical parody.

A Tale Of Two Speeches

I shared my brief thoughts about the Oscar ceremony in Monday’s newsletter, but now that I had a couple of days to put some more thoughts together I need to discuss 2 terrible acceptance speeches, which were made by winners of 2 marquee awards. The first was Kieran Culkin, who made the mistake of joking about a topic that would have felt uncomfortable if you were seated at a dinner table with him. But at an event that has an audience of millions? Ugh. He was essentially standing at the podium demanding that he should be allowed to impregnate his wife. Based on her reactions, she was not having it. I’m sure his intentions were good natured, but in light of the current atmosphere in which misogyny is dialing it up a notch, I couldn’t watch that with a sense of humor.

Culkin took what should have been a private joke too far. Adrien Brody, on the other hand, was simply unbearable. As he said when the orchestra tried to play him off, it wasn’t his first rodeo. Everyone remembers when he planted an unwanted kiss on Halle Berry when he won his first Oscar. “I bet they didn’t tell you that was in the gift bag.” He doubled down the next year when he presented the award for Best Actress and sprayed some Binaca in his mouth before opening the envelope to reveal that Charlize Theron was the winner. I don’t recall if he tried to be inappropriate with her, but it would have been a mistake if he had. Don’t mess with Furiosa.

So, everyone knew that another Brody win could turn into a s***show. No, he didn’t try to get to second base with Cillian Murphy. (I wonder if that’s why this year the producers broke with the usual tradition in which the award would be presented by the previous year’s winner of the opposite gender. This avoided the visual of Brody making a move on Emma Stone.) First off, after walking to the stage he removed gum from his mouth and tossed it to his companion. Hygiene, Adrien, hygiene! Then, his speech went on and on and on and bounced all over the place. It’s fitting that he won for a movie that runs 3 1/2 hours long; his speech lasted almost that long. I’m only half kidding when I say that if he gives another award worthy performance in the future that voters will have second thoughts about voting for him so that they wouldn’t have to sit through another Adrien Brody speech.

5 Years Later

The reality of the COVID threat hit different people at different times, but we are coming up on the 5th anniversary of Tom Hanks/Rudy Gobert Day, which was the moment when s*** truly got real. In no time shutdowns of all sorts came in rapid succession, along with shelter in place orders and the preponderance of the phrase “essential workers.”

There were signs of insanity in culture well before this - QAnon type irrationality was already well established, but COVID was what finally broke something in our society and I am terrified to think what will happen the next time we see something similar. It doesn’t necessarily need to be another pandemic, it could be anything that would require collective sacrifice.

A mature society would do a reassessment of how we responded to the COVID crisis. What did we get wrong, what did we get right, what adjustments would we need to make to better adjust for the next crisis? That’s not what happened. Instead, the loudest voices are dismissive over every single measure that was taken. And with a sociopath in charge of HHS, and NIH & CDC being gutted, we would be left with no guidance nor any resources if, say, bird flu mutates or, just thinking out loud if there is some sort of hypothetical measles outbreak.

I find myself in a constant struggle with myself to avoid being too nihilistic. So I am not going to say we are doomed. But 5 years later the winners were not the scientists who worked around the clock to develop a life saving vaccine. The winners were the people who harassed the front line workers who were simply asking them to put on a mask to protect others.

50 Years Ago - Cooley High

Cooley High was not only a classic high school film but it also went on to inspire a beloved high school set sitcom and even introduced an actor who would star in a different popular high school show only a few months later. It shares some superficial similarities to American Graffiti; both were period pieces set slightly more than a decade earlier. Both had great soundtracks; Cooley High is overflowing with early Motown classics along with one crucial new song - the original version of It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday serves as the bed for an important scene near the end. Both focus on a group of young men at crossroads in their lives.

It is not simply an American Graffiti remake, however. It is very much its own movie. Set in Chicago in 1964, it follows two best friends over the course of several days. The bookish Preach (Glynn Turman, who was waaaaay too old to be portraying a high school student) loves poetry but has little interest in school, and Cochise (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) is a budding basketball star who has just received a college scholarship. They and their friends get into mischief that ranges from minor stuff like cutting school to small time hustling to shooting dice to womanizing to what turns out to be a much more serious matter in which they take a joy ride in a car that they do not immediately realize is stolen. That leads to a decision by a well-meaning teacher (Garrett Morris) which proves to have serious consequences.

Plot is a secondary matter in this movie. It’s just as much about the atmosphere, and the location plays an important role here. The “L” and its tracks and trellises are practically a character in the film. The movie can best be described as a slice of life character study.

There are some light moments, but at heart it is a gritty drama, which makes it odd that this helped seed a sitcom years later. Similar to the way that the gritty Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore begat the broad comedy Alice, here there was a deal to create a series based on Cooley High. After years of development and changes the location eventually shifted from Chicago to Los Angeles, the tone was smoothed out, and the result was What’s Happening!

Cooley High was one of the most influential movies of its era. It is in the National Film Registry and the next generation of African-American directors often spoke of how heavily this film inspired them. There’s even a blink and you missed it appearance from a very young Robert Townsend.

Closing Laughs

For fear of sounding like a motivational poster, let’s all be sure to care for each other. Have a splendid day everyone, and we will talk once again on Friday.