Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to Episode 404 of the Sneaky Dragon Podcast! The only podcast on the Internet!
That’s not true. I don’t even know why I bothered to write that.
Anyhoo…
On this week’s show: false start; palindroning; mash notes; Dragnet flicks; one-armed actors (again); misleading movie summaries; regressive tech; monobolical; Mary Poppins-based religion; surprising Bible fact; Irish songs #5; Irish waitress; wacky White Spot; show takes a turn; Irish songs #6; Irish Archie; Luann update; disappointing present-day Andy Capp; Simpsons regret; E.C.-elebration; revenge monster dilemma; Irish songs #7; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond and the Dragons have some thoughts; is or isn’t incest-based; Groundhog Day with a guessing game; hard sell; Irish songs #8; slacker super heroes; bandwagon offer; and, finally, timeshare mind palace.
Thanks for listening.
Question of the Week: What is something you’ve wanted for a long time and finally stumbled upon?
Sub-question: What is something that is little known that you would recommend?
For instance:
Man, we forgot Thomas Haden Church. He’s always good.
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Yes, I knew about Jesus having brothers and sisters from growing up in fairly churchy family. “James the brother of Jesus” is someone we hear about more than the others. He might have been the James that wrote the Epistle of James in the Bible. Not to be confused with Saint James, who was one of the original 12 apostles of Jesus. That James is also known as “James the Greater” to distinguish him from another apostle named James who is known as “James the Lesser.” I always thought that was kind of cold.
In the days before internet and digital downloads I used to listen to a comedy show on the radio every night. The D.J. played clips from Marx Brothers films off an album titled “The Marx Brothers – The Original Voice Tracks From Their Greatest Movies.” The album was narrated by Gary Owens of “Laugh-In” fame and had groovy, psychedelic 1969 artwork on the cover. The only reason I knew this was because my Dad had the W.C. Fields companion album released at the same time. I called the radio station asking about the album and was told it was out of print and the Decca label was no more. For years I searched the libraries and rode my bike to all the record stores and found nothing. I even called my Uncle in Chicago who was the music librarian at Roosevelt University, but still nothing. The main reason for wanting this, besides being a piece of Marx paraphernalia I didn’t have, was that it contained mainly tracks from their Paramount films, the ones I hadn’t even seen yet, my local Dallas station only played the MGM films. So really, this was my first exposure to any of the Marx Brothers’ Paramount films, in audio only. I gave up and threw the notion on the back burner of my mind until many years later, while going through the film scores at used record store, I found it! I think I paid $4.00 for it too and even though I had seen all the Paramount films by this time, I still wanted it. The fellas over at The Marx Brothers Council Podcast did an extensive review of the album on their fourth episode if you feed so inclined to learn more.
https://www.discogs.com/The-Marx-Brothers-The-Original-Voice-Tracks-From-Their-Greatest-Movies/release/1865447
I think I included the film, “Only Lovers Left Alive” starring Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton when I submitted my top ten film list, but it’s a lesser known film that I highly recommend, especially to you guys. Unlike most vampire films, this is a dark comedy and not horror, so it’s not scary. What makes it enjoyable are the way these two immortals view the world around them and how they interact with the living. Hiddleston is a miserable soul who lives in his past in Detroit and Swinton loves every day with optimism in Morocco. The film also stars the late actors Anton Yelchin and John Hurt and has a great soundtrack too.
Oh, and Ian, I was raised Catholic too. I think the heavy focus and idolotry of Mary within the Catholic faith completely obliterated any recollection of Jesus’ siblings. Outside of an auto repair place down the street called “Christian Brothers” I never remembered anything about Mary having any children beyond Jesus either.
First, thank you, Ian, for letting us listeners know of the Washington Post piece about your lovely wife, Pia Guerra! I looked it up right away and it’s brilliant. i hope she was pleased with it. I thought it was really well done, and it’s great she is getting more and more recognition! Thanks to Pia for all her amazing work!
Second, I’m with Louise: I did know Jesus had siblings, and I just remember as a middle school kid being totally amazed by it when I heard, like “Weird no one ever mentioned that before.” Up till then I thought Jesus was an only child… I guess many of us did.
Questions of the week:
#1 There was a novel I found at the library and read in 1979 that I just loved, a love story, but also a tale of cultural divide and acceptance between the Wampanoag Native American tribe and the settlers in New England in the 1700’s. Shortly after, I moved from Indianapolis to small-town Wyoming, and I regretted returning that book to the library; thought I should have hung onto it and paid the fine. I looked for it for years, searching any thrift shops and used book stores. One day several years later I visited one with my Mom in Sioux Falls, SD, a tiny little shop, and, it was strange, because as we walked in, I just had a feeling,,, Sure enough I found the book on a dusty bottom shelf. At last! Very satisfying!
#2 (aka subquestion) Maybe you Canadians all know about this movie because it is Canadian, but I’ve never met anyone here in the States who’s heard of it: “Gunless” with Paul Gross as the gunslinger who shows up in a little Old West Canadian town where known of the townfolk have guns or believe in having them. It was made in 2010 and is such a funny film, but with loads of heart and an extremely cool, if subtle, message.If you do not know it, please see it. I think this answer applies to one of last episode’s questions about comedy that can hold up in any time period. It is wonderful!!!
PS Just one more thing, David thank YOU for your grand Irish renditions of all of our submitted songs! It was lovely indeed, and had me laughing out loud all the way! You’re a great sport!!!
I’m all caught up! For the moment! The trick was going on a three hours bus ride with nothing to do but catch up on podcasts.
I really enjoyed the Irish versions of songs, but fake Irish accents drive me nuts. I used to live in Ireland, so whenever I hear an Irish accent, I try to place it. The only ones I can discern with reliability are the Dublin Southside and Dublin 4 accents; I recognize Belfast and Kildare accents but always get them wrong; everything else is a mystery. So when I hear “bad” Irish accents, my brain goes into categorization mode on faulty input data and bluescreens. That’s my problem, though.
Also, two non-Irish songs that got covered a lot when I was there (usually by a guy with a guitar) are Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” and Tracey Chapman’s “Fast Car”. They don’t do it Trad style, but it happened enough to be worth mentioning.
> What is something you’ve wanted for a long time and finally stumbled upon?
> Sub-question: What is something that is little known that you would recommend?
For the main question, uh, I didn’t know I wanted it, but as soon as I found the LPs for “Jesus Christ Superstar” I had to buy them. It’s not a perfect show, and some of the songs are clunkers, but i enjoy works that wrestle with Christianity. (FWIW, I did hear that Jesus had siblings, but not through Catholic Sunday School lessons.)
Something little known: Uh, Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a fantastic film that people should see. It’s about a transsexual woman and how she escaped living in East Germany as a boy, transitioned, and became a musician, only for her protege to steal her songs and become a rock star. The video for “The Origin of Love” is representative of the film: https://youtu.be/_zU3U7E1Odc
Cheers, eh!