Yo, Cards Fans: Cut The Rick Some Slack

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.

The Best Film You’ve Never Seen

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.

Vanilla Fudge - A Welcome Blast From The Past

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.

Hope Returns For The U of L

Forgive old-time Cardinal fans if it all seemed a flashback. Old-timers meaning those who not only know about Peck Hickman but saw him coach. This was Ed Kallay time one more once.

Not Ed Kallay, the former U of L radio play-by-play announcer, but Uncle Ed Kallay in the Magic Forest with sidekicks Tom Foolery and Sylvester the Duck on “Funny Flickers.” Because playing out before these fans was Keystone Kops befuddlement, guys aimlessly running back and forth, seemingly devoid of direction.

Super Bowl Is A Chip Shot Away

We will gather. Yes, of course, we will.

It is our annual rite. Our right inalienable.

We will eat chips. Tons of chips. Corn. Potato. And dips. Guacamole, lots of guacamole. So much that one of us, the guy in the corner with green dribbles down his sweater, will mention how there’s more avocados sold this weekend than the rest of the year combined. Or something like that.

Cards Go “Extreme Makeover: Defense Edition”

When it comes to adding value, nothing fills the bill like an Extreme Makeover. Ask the family of Patrick Henry Hughes.

He’s the locally renowned, blind and disabled member of the U of L marching band. Thanks to “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” the family is enduring extreme tax addition. Their real property assessment is thrice what it was before Ty Pennington and his phalanx of hammer wielders showed up for the redo.

Hughes’ beloved Cardinal pigskinners, looking for a similar bump, took notice.

Call it “Extreme Makeover: Defense Edition.”

“The L Word” — Lame or Loser or Both?

It is easy to understand the popularity of “The L Word.” Theoretically, of course.

A healthy segment of the American populace adores looking at attractive women without their clothes on, watching them making love, making sex, making eyes at their girlfriends’ girlfriends and generally carrying on as people love their soap opera stars to do.

The Game - It’s The Only Place To Be

My future brother-in-law sidled up to me Christmas Eve at the family gathering. Surrounded by the detritus of wrapping paper, he looked me in the eye and accused me — good-naturedly, I think — of, well, his words: “You’re brainwashing my daughter.”

Can We Get A Medic????

Where’s the M*A*S*H unit when we really need it?  The homies are wounded, hardly walking for heaven’s sake, let alone ballin’ like they should.

Oh, that’s right, Hawkeye and Trapper John are off playing golf, those scoundrels. Well, here’s hoping they get back quick. They’d better. Hot Lips needs help. Send a copter for them.

Otherwise March Madness be March Sadness ‘round here.

21st Century Schizoid Man On The Couch

Robert, we’ve been sitting here 20 minutes. Besides mumbling about “crossing patterns,” all you’ve done is doodle on a pad and write down names. Would you like to share?

It’s Bobby, not Robert. Nobody calls me Robert. Nobody has ever called me Robert. Understand?

Movies I Love, Part IV: “Brazil”

In Brazil, Katherine Helmond plays Jonathan Pryce’s mother. In one of the more incisive (and insightful) running gags in the film, she gets more and more plastic surgery as the movie progresses. Until her face falls off. Literally.

While that isn’t really what this invigorating film is about, it does underscore the cockamamie brilliance of Terry Gilliam’s vision of the future. Which, truth be told, is now. And that whole time warp is also part of the trip.

Review of “I’m Not There”

Even having lived it, it’s hard to describe the genesis of the Bob Dylan mythos in a way that could explain such obsessive observations as Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There.

I first heard Dylan — literally — while hauling my foot locker down the hall as I entered my freshman dorm in the fall of ‘63. My dorm counselor in the next room had that first eponymous album on the box. Being young, impressionable, inclined toward rebellion, ready to break out of my prepster malaise, I grabbed hold of the guy who was to be the bard of my generation.

I wasn’t alone. Far from it.