Blasting Off

Quick, which was the first British band to have a No. 1 record on the American charts? If I told you it was the coolest song ever, now would you know it?

Of course, it's "Telstar" by the Tornadoes, beating out the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" by one year. The sound of the rocket taking off at the beginning and end of the song is allegedly the tape of a toilet flushing, played backwards.

Rock Rule No. 14

Songs with extended na-na's in them are generally excellent, though verging on schlocky.

Cases in point:
"Land of a Thousand Dances"
"Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye"
"Hey Jude"
"Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’"

We're All 42 Now

To follow up on my previous post, the Dodgers have now announced that every member of their team will now wear No. 42 on April 15.

Also, everyone on the Dodgers will get hugged by Pee Wee Reese, and anyone who makes it to third base will be required to try to steal home.

Spring of 42

Ken Griffey Jr. of the Reds has asked (and received) permission from Major League Baseball to wear the No. 42, which has otherwise been retired from baseball in honor of Jackie Robinson, for one game on April 15, saying, "If he didn't achieve or didn't overcome the racial tension, would I be wearing this uniform?"

In the kind of sensible, respectful move of which there are far too few in MLB, the commissioner's office then suggested that other players also wear 42 on the 15th, which is the 60th anniversary of Robinson's major league debut. The Rockies' setup man LaTroy Hawkins has stepped up to the plate, so to speak, and will also wear 42 although, as he says, "I don't feel worthy, actually," and he's not just talking about his woeful pitching.

Mariano Rivera of the Yankees is, I believe, the last player still wearing 42 regularly, having been grandfathered in when the number was originally retired ten years ago. It would be nice if Derek Jeter insisted on wearing 42 on April 15, Rivera refused, they got into a fight and both landed on the 60-day disabled list, and the Yankees ended up in last place. After all, one of the things Jackie Robinson was emblematic of was beating the Yankees.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

John Mayer's Curtis Mayfield-inspired "Waiting for the World to Change" is his best hit yet, in large part because he's learned the virtues of returning to his tonics, but also for that wacky guitar-glockenspiel duel. In isolation, the glockenspiel sounds like it ought to be the wimpiest, most effete rock instrument there is, yet it shows up most prominently on records by people who weren't effete at all, like Buddy Holly (who I think actually used a celesta) and the Born to Run-era Bruce Springsteen.

Who am I missing? I know there must have been someone who tinkled the glock and came off sounding like Richard Simmons.

It's a Late Night World/It's a World That We Can Share

After recent posts on Larry "Bud" Melman and Brother Theodore, I thought I'd conclude my Late Night trilogy by discussing why that incarnation of Letterman's show seems so much better than what he's doing now. It was certainly stranger than what he's doing now, with regular visits from the above-named gentlemen and the indescribable Captain Haggerty and oddities like a dentist reviewing Quest for Fire. He used to feud with Chris Elliott; now he feuds with Oprah. It's not surprising which is more popular, but it's obvious to me which is more entertaining.

I could rattle off a dozen great, skewed gags from the Late Night days, including the Joe Theismann pencil sharpener (with his perpendicularly broken leg forming the spinning handle) and Dave's simple comment regarding smoking: "Sure, good health's important, but so is looking cool." I still have the T-shirt my brother gave me that reads "Don't Make Me Violate My Parole," ripped off from a Letterman gag.

The difference between Late Night and The Late Show, I believe, is the size of the studio. Seriously. The Ed Sullivan Theater holds three times as many people as the old NBC studio. and much of the time Dave seems primarily interested in getting a response from them. Thus we get recurring and re-recurring bits like that guy from the Hello Deli or the mercifully now-retired collapsible drinking cup, designed to strike a chord with the tourists in from Overland Park, Kansas. Back in the day, Dave told Newsweek his goal was to "pierce that flat screen every night." Now he seems to want to induce rhythmic clapping in the studio audience, preferably by employing the Rockettes.

I'm not saying The Late Show is bad, because it's certainly quality television, and there's no shame in falling short of the Late Night standards. Dave hasn't been able to match it, but hardly anyone else has either.

Fats Digs a Pony

I know this for a fact: Fats Domino's favorite Beatles album is Let It Be.

Pictures of You

You know, maybe all those women in hockey jerseys are just trying to look like Robert Smith.

OPC Kwik-Kwiz

If, like me, you love Alfred Hitchcock's 1946 movie Notorious, you probably think there's only one thing he could have done to improve it: Get Duran Duran to do the title song.

Ha! Ha! Just a little joke there. But there sure have been a lot of bands that have named songs after Hitchcock movies. See if you can name the song titles/movie titles from the following artists:

The Beastie Boys
Terry Stafford
The Band
The English Beat
U2
The Sonics
Extra credit: Old 97s

A "Prairie Home Companion" Companion

As I was watching Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep starring as gospelish singing sisters in A Prairie Home Companion, I got to wondering if Tomlin couldn't have had Streep's career had she wanted it. They're actually a decade apart in age, and Tomlin had her first (and only) Oscar nomination before Streep even made a picture, but if anything, Lily's early start should have given her a leg up, since the Seventies were something of a better time for women's roles than anything that has come since.

Streep has the somewhat juicier part in Prairie, since she plays both Lindsay Lohan's mother and Garrison Keillor's ex, but Tomlin makes the stronger impression, all edgy and sardonic and Midwestern (she's actually from Detroit, which probably helps). And Holy Jesus, was Lily ever good in Nashville, beaming at her deaf children, frustrated with her marriage to Ned Beatty (but who wouldn't be), and somehow surviving her heartbreaking dalliance with Keith Carradine. Between those two pictures, though, there are a whole lot of empty spaces, and I know she was on Broadway and doing All of Me with Steve Martin and making a whole bunch of "Magic School Bus" cartoons, but there could have been so much more. She could have been Meryl Streep.

Prairie and Nashville are both Altman, of course, so maybe he had something to do with her performances in both. I mean, all I ever hear about Lindsay Lohan is that she's in rehab or drunk or something, but she is wonderful here, gawky and adolescent and comfortable as part of the ensemble yet enough of a star not to get blown away by Meryl and Lily. To the end, Altman knew what he was doing (and I'm going to forgive him for including the Kevin Kline character, a woefully out of place detective with the crushingly awful name of Guy Noir).