Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to Episode 537 of Sneaky Dragon – the podcast for the workers!
This week: Annabelloney; why a dybbuk?; yes, android; Clang Solo; Ponty-ier-pool; a big fan; whopperness; fryer works; have fruit, won’t travel; nut bag; frittering away; quit suffering; let them eat fruitcake; lottery dinks; distracting spaghetti; movie menu rundown; accident phone; shadowy men…and a woman; low incidence; family ratings; holy goose; sexy squirrels; nutty comics character; chivalry is dead; cool Charlie Brown; Peanuts kaiju; most evil Disney character; Top 5 Odd Time Signature Songs; blue fairies and red devils; Questions of the Week – Sneakers respond; gloat of many colours; blurred lines; top dogs; the dickens; a Dollop of Trollop; Weather Channel rich; New Gods minutiae; and, finally, the purloined novel.
Top 5 Odd Time Signatures (as requested by John Halbrooks)
- The Go-Betweens – “Cattle and Cane” – Rough Trade single and album track on Before Hollywood, 1983 – 1:47:33
- The Stranglers – “Golden Brown” – Liberty single and album track on La Folie, 1981 – 1:53:38
- Dave Brubeck – “Blue Rondo A La Turk” – Take Five, 1959 – 2:01:07
- Aretha Franklin – “I Say a Little Prayer” – Atlantic single and album track on Aretha Now, 1969 (1966) 2:11:32
- Led Zeppelin – “The Ocean” – Houses of the Holy, 1973 – 2:16:34
Bonus track:
- The Beatles – “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” – The Beatles, 1968 – 2:27:24
Question of the Week (from John Halbrooks): Do you have an interesting story about your name?
Sub-question of the Week: Who is your favourite/the best villain in literature?
Thanks for listening.
Louise was talking about Peanuts and bird-patting in this week’s comments and sent this strip to illustrate her point:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Hey guys, great show this weekend, I have to support David 100% on his choice of movie food. If I can’t eat it as if I were blind, I shouldn’t be eating it in the dark during a movie. Popcorn is ideal as are finger snacks or candy but a Whopper and fries?! If I’m sitting in a theater, I can smell a Whopper off someone at 100 paces away. We have a place that’s made to eat while you watch a movie but it’s set up in a way that you’re eating before the film starts and usually finished before having to direct any attention to the screen. That’s when they bring bags of popcorn to you as part of the deal of ordering a meal with the movie. Also, no spaghetti please…or silverware clinking on plates while I’m trying to hear the movie.
Answering your question for me from Episode 536, “What’s one thing people get wrong about Texas?”. Texas is a huge state, the second largest right behind Alaska, so when I hear visitors ask, “Can we go see the Alamo?” or “Let’s take an afternoon and go to Padre Island.” I have to laugh. So many visitors, Chicago family included, think it’s like the Tri-State area they’re from and you can just drive around Texas in no time. My Uncle from Chicago wanted to go to El Paso once which is eleven hours away. I had a recruiter call me once about a job in Austin so I told him “I’m not moving to Austin.” He responded with, “Can’t you commute?” I could, but I’d have to eliminate sleeping from my life since Austin is almost four hours away. To be fair, the guy was in Chicago and had no idea how large Texas was. I’m North of Dallas and I can be in Oklahoma within the hour, so everything in Texas is either far West, South or East for me. So the old state tagline, “Everything is Bigger in Texas” kind of rings true, especially if you mean your gas bill or the distance you’re spending it on. Also, Ian is right, all my exes do live here.
Galveston! It’s such an old, old town and salty. I’ve been many times as a fairly affordable getaway and for Spring Break. My first wife and I took the kiddos when they were little just to experience what a beach was like. The Gulf of Mexico is filthy though, you can’t see through the water and it’s advisable to wear old shoes when going in the water. My daughter who was four at the time, wanted to go into the water for shells, so we carefully waded out as I reached down and blindly sifted out shells for her from under the water. At one point, I retrieved something that wasn’t a shell, so I separated it and turning away from my daughter, inspected it. It was a dog’s tail! I din’t want my daughter to see it, so I quickly threw it back and retreated to the dry beach to do something else like build a sand castle or something. There’s also seaweed everywhere! I was even pulling it out of my swimsuit later on after leaving the beach. There is some great historical places to see in Galveston and a very old shopping district called “The Strand” with tons of antiques and seafood. Galveston is a very old and worn out place but it’s only one of hundreds of places along the Gulf that you can visit…like I said, it’s a big state.
You got the interesting story about my name already, so I’ll move to “Who is a fictional character you relate to?” from last time. I’ll give you guys some huge props if you know this character without looking him up, David Basner. David Basner is Tom Hanks’ role in the 1986 film, “Nothing in Common” which I think I saw in the theater four or five times. If you’ve ever seen it, Hanks is an advertising Creative Director in Chicago who has to deal with his elderly parents divorce played by Jackie Gleason and Eve Marie Saint. The detail of Hanks’ character in advertising inspired me and I was seeing the film for that. He drove a Jeep which I also drove. The film took place in Chicago which at the time was planning on moving back to. The Ad Agency was based on the famous Chicago Leo Burnett Agency, which I ended up working with while designing Spot campaigns for 7UP. And lastly, Hanks was still friends with his ex girlfriend played by Bess Armstrong who bears and uncanny resemblance to my ex girlfriend at the time. I’ve been compared to Hanks by friends and family before but not like this, I still give the film “Nothing in Common” a huge credit for giving me a look inside the Advertising biz and luring me into it. Yes, I related to David Basner.
Best villain? Ian said I could choose films, right? David, you’d flog me if you knew how little I read actual books….sorry, mainly comics. Thinking I should lean into Darth Vader for best villain, or Doctor Doom, I want to give an unexpected shout out to an actor who famously plays villains perfectly onscreen, David Warner. Warner’s roles span decades but it’s his villains that resonate the most for me: Evil Genius from “Time Bandits”, Master Control Program from “TRON” or my favorite of his, Dr. John Leslie Stevenson aka Jack the Ripper from “Time After Time.” There are so many more screen credits to his name, I absolutely love seeing Warner in any he role he’s in.
Shit, I wrote a lot…and I’m first! Goes to show you what a good nap can do for you.
All Good Things to you both and all my fellow Sneakers! Have fun with the Sparks! release, I’m excited for you all!
Ed,
A dog’s tail?? Yikes and yuck, in that order! Still, this Strand sounds charming enough. I get so much enjoyment from the song GALVESTON that I doubt my opinion would change even faced with the reality of a visit. See ya there in 2025?
My favourite villain in literature? Probably Comrade O’Brien in Orwell’s 1984. I know he’s a stand-in for the totalitarian state rather than a fleshed out character in-his-own right, but that doesn’t make his deadpan volley with Winston Smith any less unnerving and horrifying. In a similar vein, the interrogator Gletkin in DARKNESS AT NOON similarly sticks in mind, but I really need a revisit.
Who am I kidding – my favourite villain is either of the two SCORPIOS – Hank Scorpio from the Simpsons, or Harry Callahan’s nemesis in DIRTY HARRY.
P.S. I love traditional wedding/christmas fruitcake, Dave! It’s so good. I really had to fight to have it as one of the layers in my wedding cake. My wife is Colombian and couldn’t believe it: “it’s so bland, so dense, do you really expect people to get up and dance after eating it? You’re crazy, people don’t really eat it?”. My cherished one still holds this opinion. She has, however, come to somewhat like a small scrape of vegemite over crispy toast.
P.P.S Dave, how long can you go with burger ‘after taste’ in your mouth?
P.P.P.S How are Regis and Mick??
Hi Ian & Dave –
Hearing you after a pause made me realise how your gentle chatter (and searing critique of vintage confectionery) has come to enhance the start of my week. You were sorely missed, and this week’s talk was all the sweeter for it. For example, your discussion of the Charlie Brown Expanded Universe took me back to a dusty corner of my great-aunt’s attic and her stash of acrid-smelling Peanuts paperbacks. The great illustrators from Beatrix Potter onwards left space at the edges of their drawings into which the imagination could wander – and Schultz does this by evoking things beyond the frame, from the inside of Snoopy’s kennel to the unseen characters of the Teacher and the Little Red Haired Girl. As a child it was strangely comforting to see Charlie Brown suffer realistic frustration, disappointment and melancholy, and I hope today’s children can find similar bittersweet entertainment.
Thank you Dave for another blazing ‘Top 5’: I loved the variety of styles you assembled this week, with the Led Zeppelin a particular high point. Their “Black Dog” knots my noodle every time it gets to the part where the guitars slip into 5:8 whilst at the same time the drums keep plodding along in 4:4. Baby baby!
The way these tunes rattle your brain by disrupting ‘normal’ musical patterns is delicious, although it’s easy to understand why some might find them annoying. Someone once told me that the UK telephone ring is in ‘odd’ time to make it deliberately irritating: “ring , ring , 3 , 4 , 5, ring , ring ”.
From the perspective of a dancer, odd time signatures can be a particular challenge. Many years ago I saw a band crack out a perfect version of Lalo Schifrin’s (5:8) ‘Mission Impossible’ theme in a local nightclub. After the irresistible groove had filled the dance floor, the clubbers faces were filled with confused looks as they realised they were being – literally – wrong footed by the music, starting one bar on the left foot and the next on the right. Of course U2 sorted this all out by flattening the theme into 4:4, which tells you all you need to know about them. Blondie achieved the impossible by combine danceable disco beats and odd time signatures in ‘Heart of Glass’, which cheats by dropping a beat here and there.
Our Swing Dance classes are tentatively restarting, and we’ll be adding a session on the ‘odd time’ challenge. A particular favourite for this exercise connects to your Dave Brubeck selection – his 7:8 ‘Unsquare Dance’. There’s a fantastic clip of a couple dancing to this, and they get around the odd time signature with the occasional ‘skip’ step and some sharp choreography, which must have been an absolute bugger to coordinate and is visible here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yExwkQYcp0.
Three more to add to the playlist:
– Genesis’ ‘Turn it On Again’ alternates between 7, 8, 5 and 4, and yet still sounds like a top 40 pop banger.
– Nick Lowe’s ‘I love the sound of breaking glass’ dropped beats add tension to the pop.
And lastly
– Rocky Bill Ford’s 1956 “Mad Dog in Town”, a slice of grungy Rockabilly that flits between 2, 4, 6, and 8 in a way that defies analysis, and nicely counterpoints all the clever-clever art school bands.
Held over from last week, I finally thought of a funny celebrity name! If you remember the 1970’s show “EMERGENCY!” then you’ll remember Randolph Mantooth who played Johnny Gage. Born Randy DeRoy Mantooth, Randolph Mantooth is the actor’s real name. And you thought Byron Allen was a deep retro TV throwback….
Hey !
About my name, I think I already told you or did I ?
Don’t remember, because, sometimes, I think that I have done what I’ve thought I will do but in fact don’t.
Sorry Ian, cumbersome sentences man is back !
Oh! But now I have a real excuse because I’m officially stamped with the Genuine ADHD high quality weirdness label… And, subsequently, I’m on drugs, but don’t worry it’s completely legal.
Let me take my medication… ** cough ** cough ** Oh shoot! This one IS the flour.
Err… where was I again? Oh yes my name, I told you about Regis, that I remember. So my surname, Priqueler, Yeah, I know ! Don’t even try to start to spell it. Even, here, people mispronounce it.
So there’s a Jacques-Antoine Priqueler who got a wikipedia page, a small one and only in french, but nonetheless a wikipedia page.
Born in 1753, he was native from Champagney in the east of France. He was some sort of a country police man. Not a good start. But he climbed, as we say, to Paris, where he frequented some leftist clubs and among them the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, an abolitionist club (there’s a wikipedia page for it too, in english).
At this time the revolution was only a growing dissatisfaction amongst the french people, because taxes and all that. So as the king (you know, rex, regis..) had catch some of its rumours, at least enough to make some marketing stunt.
He decided to ask all his people to write what they really want in books called « notebook of grievances ». In the french power fashion of « tell us what you need and we will explain you how to do without » It seems that it quite backfired.
Anyway, at this time, Jacques-Antoine got back to his district and told to the good peoples of Champagney to write in the notebook that they should freed all black men. I don’t think they ever had the opportunity to see one in the flesh or even imagine that they even exists. But, hey, if it could piss the power we should write to free them, whoever they are. Fuck Da powa !
It’s known as the Vow of Champagney (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C5%93u_de_Champagney).
Then the revolution passed with one hundred more years of slavery. And a few less heads.
And my late uncle has an entry in the Maitron, do not confuse with the metro, underground too but not in the same way, which is the Biographical Dictionary of Social and Labor Movement.
Best baddy? Maybe The Captain Nemo (not the fish) I think that was the first time I encountered a character which you can’t say if he is bad (it’s a tyran and fight the heroes) or if he is good (he hate all the humans), he is a rebel with a cause. And like all the baddies he has a cool ride.
I must confess I not a big fan of putting music in rants, but last week and this week top 5 songs… TOP.
And I particularly liked David point of views on Zappa and Zeppelin, amongst all his pieces of knowledgeable informations on music.
I got some songs which strike a chord, and Golden Brown is one of them, songs having a peculiar or quirky instrumental line or melody, at least for me. Maybe I will submit you my top 5 or 10 of those.
That’s all folks…
Welcome back Regis!
Hey thanks Jonathon !
I have finished the all the dirty Harry’s Minutes and I’m on the extra minutes !
Regards
Questions of the week – about my name: I was thought to be a boy, and as such, my name was going to be Mark (my Dad’s mom’s maiden name was Marks). My parents were SO completely convinced I was going to be a boy that they had not even considered a girl’s name.
My great-great aunt Hazel was very excited about the new baby coming, at least in part because the due date was close to her birthday of Nov. 1. She wanted the baby, if it was a girl, to be named after her, but my parents were loath to name a baby Hazel, which was, at that time, a very old fashioned name.
Ultimately I was born a day before my Aunt Hazel’s birthday, and I was a girl, so Auntie Hazel was desperately wanting a little one named after her. My mom’s name was Violet, so she knew all about the old-fashioned name; her own name was also a name she didn’t really like, so she decided to get creative for me – it took three weeks for then to settle on something, up until which time I was ‘No-name Williamson’.
Eventually they decided to take my aunt Hazel’s name and spell it backwards to create Lezah.
I’ve never met another Lezah, although there was a racehorse born in the 1950s with the same name/same spelling. going through school, I always hated the first day of school or the day we had a substitute teacher as I KNEW my name would be garbled – in elementary school, my friend Tanilia and I suffered the same fate together.
The TV personality Leeza Gibbons helped to make my name a little less foreign, and courtesy of the internet, I have discovered that there is a young lady who is a very good university level competitive runner called Lezah Williams who uses the same spelling as I do.
Another great Top 5!
My favorite villains have typically been those that you kinda feel sorry for. The ones who might have been good, but got pushed over the edge. Perhaps there is still a little glimmer of redemption left in them, or maybe not. My favorite fictional villain is Severus Snape… yes, I know he ended up being heroic at the end of the series with unrequited love for Lilly, sacrificing himself for the greater cause, and all of that; but there was a lot of duplicity throughout the series. Is he bad? Is he good? Is he all bad? In television shows, my favorite villain was Regina (the evil Queen) from Once Upon a Time for similar reasons. Did her environment make her bad? I kinda felt sorry for her and wanted to root for her expect when she was especially nasty. And my favorite big screen villain is Loki. He’s delightfully wicked. After all, why is it that people can have the same personality type, and yet some are really decent while others are horrid? What pushes some over the edge? Obama and Nelson Mandela have the same Myers Briggs personality type as does Joseph Goebbels, and yet they used their talents for very different ends.
As far as the origin of my name, my father fancied himself a teenage mad scientist, and we even have photos of him as a young man in his home laboratory full of test tubes and that sort of thing. He says that the most beautiful thing he has ever seen was when he would refract light through a crystal. I’m the only daughter. That’s how I got the name.
And I ought to post this on Horse Mysteries, but I’m really enjoying the horse podcast. Lezah sounds so similar to Mary. I know very little about horses and the racing culture, so when I listen, I learn. It is pretty interesting. Good job!
I just so happen to be listening to this episodes discussion on food and movies while eating a plate of spaghetti and meatballs! So of course I took the opportunity to analyze how much concentration it takes. I found that I did have to look down at my plate to start twirling the spaghetti, but once I started I didn’t need to look down again. The most amount of concentration actually came from cutting the meatballs and scooping them up. I’d say from my “research” that you could watch a light movie without missing much, but anything with intricate details or quick scenes would best be avoid while eating a big plate of spaghetti.
Also love this weeks songs, odd time signatures are a song element I always enjoy. Say a little pray in particular is just a spectacular tune.
Since I am, apparently, incapable of commenting in any timely way, I have a couple thoughts on this episode that I noted several days ago:
In T.H. White’s Arthurian mythos—*Sword in the Stone* being the first part—Merlyn doesn’t change Arthur into animals for kicks, he does it to teach him specific lessons in empathy, ethics, etc. he’ll need to understand when he’s king. My mom was a fan, and bought *The Book of Merlyn* when it came out in 1977. To pre-teen me, the gorgeous illustrations and familiar characters were irresistible, and I’ve got some indelible memories of it, especially how spectaularly alien the ant culture seemed when Arthur became one.
My head canon for Peanuts is that Peppermint Patty is a lesbian, Marcy is bi (and I’m on board with her and Chuck dating), and Schroeder is asexual. But that’ll all shake out in later years—which they’ll never get to because, well, Peanuts.
My top villains are almost all anti-villains, but I’ve got a top 5 for both they and regular types.
Best Anti-Villains:
5. The Creature (Frankenstein)
4. Fagin (Ron Moody’s version in Oliver! the musical)
3. Long John Silver
2. Lord Vetinari (Terry Pratchett’s Discworld)(Barely a villain, probably)
1. Hank Scorpio (Simpsons)
A few favorite standard villains, unordered:
– Grand Admiral Thrawn (Star Wars) (cultured and deadly smart, it’s hard not to find him compelling)
– The MIGHTY MONARCH (Venture Bros) (one of the few *almost* capable villains in the series, mostly undone by his myopic, obsessive hatred)
– Prof. Moriarty (ST:TNG version) (dangerously capable; the only way to outsmart him is to exploit his ignorance of technology. And oh so much fun to watch him effortlessly keep stepping ahead of everyone else)
– Mr. Dark (Jonathan Pryce in Something Wicked This Way Comes, which had one of my all-time favorite posters by David Grove) (dashing, charming, terrifying, ruthless)