It is the quietest day of the year around here, isn’t it? The first Monday after the first Saturday in May. All the hoopla, juleps, bed races, hair coifs, visit to the milliner’s shoppe, hair appointments, celebrity sightings, last minute alterations to that apparel you must wear to the Derby or Oaks or both, discarded tickets . . . all gone to bed until we arise to Thunder again in ‘09.
Well, it’s about the same in New Orleans. JazzFest, the world’s premier music festival, always ends the day after Derby, and the tired, somewhat empty feeling in the Crescent City is similar to that here in Derbyplace USA. (Okay I know that Ash Wednesday at Mardi Gras epicenter also invokes a major sigh of relief, but work with me here. I’m trying a new segue on my annual New Orleans during JazzFest update and the metaphors aren’t coming through cleanly.)
What I am about to discuss regards a conspiracy, I am so sure, of the highest order. Egypt, ironically, isn’t the only place where the citizenry is inclined to riot over the lack of bread. That what I’m about to discuss deals with the unleavened variety makes it that much more important.
Read on.
My sweetie — you know her as The Film Babe — doesn’t panic in emergency situations. She is stalwart. So when, in a palpable tizzy, she called while out running errands last Saturday afternoon, it was obvious there was an exigency of consequence at hand.
There were but a few hours left before sundown, when Passover commenced. She was gathering the last necessary items for the Seder. Normally unflappable, she was beside herself.
“There’s no matzo to be had in this town.”
Competitive professional golf is a curious spectator sport. It’s the only one that I can think of where the fan without a genuine emotional rooting interest cheers for the favorite rather than the underdog.
Which means if there’s no guy in the hunt who grew up down the street or working in the pro shop at your country club, you tend to root for . . . Tiger Woods.
It is so odd.
Some Louisville Cardinal fans won’t give it up.
Rick Pitino was once Big Blue. And once a Cat always a Cat is a mantra for many.
So, in some red & black households, the U of L’s coach remains unloved, his coaching prowess in question. Especially when he’s compared with his beloved predecessor Denny Crum. The Rick’s strategic bench art — or lack thereof, according to this segment of Cardinaldom — remains a sore point.
I thought I read the words of my title — The Best Film You’ve Never Seen — in a review somewhere of Romance & Cigarettes.
But, after watching this incredible and incredibly unique masterpiece on DVD which the Film Babe got from NetFlix, I went back and read the reviews where I thought I’d viewed the line. Ebert perhaps. Stephen Holden in the New York Times. Salon maybe.
But no. They weren’t there. Though those salient film observers all agreed with each other. And me. That this film never got a serious studio release, that you’ve probably never heard of it, is a major travesty.
The song blasted from the box in my car like a welcome punch to the solar plexus. God bless those New Albany High School deejays for continually foisting such chestnuts on us. A gem a day keeps the doc away. I couldn’t stop smiling during the entire seven-and-a-half minutes.
At the bombastic faux seriosity.
At the simplistic yet soaring riffs from the Hammond B-3. It’s rock’s greatest instrument, you know?
At the sitaresque guitar licks, Bronx Italoharmonies and Carmine Appice’s thunderdrumming.
At the stolen moments from The Supremes, Berry Gordy’s signature Motown girl group.
At the band’s telling yet effective moniker, Vanilla Fudge.
“You Keep Me Hanging On.” Indeed.
It’s season ticket insurance time for Cardinal fans.
The U of L is resurgent. Be wise. Be insured. Pay the premium now.
This perhaps confusing concept has been a running stream of consciousness for a cadre of inveterate Cards fans for decades now. It started when the program became a national player, when the school kicked it up a notch during the invigorating uptick of the 1970s.
