Moorside Rule

About one-third of the recent delay in posts can be ascribed to the somewhat screwy way by which blogger beta came in to the world. In other words, it couldn't work out which of my passwords to use - the google or the blogger - or my laptops couldn't decide, or I was being an utter moron.

To be honest I didn't have anything particularly pressing to communicate to you all. I did want to mark the passing of Bruno Kirby, who many of who would have known as Lieutenant Steve from Good Morning Vietnam, or from City Slickers. The obits have described him as a character actor, although he was much funnier than that.

My favourite role of his wasn't even a long one. It was as Tommy Pischedda in Spinal Tap, and the following quote is pinched from this messageboard.

[Tommy Pischedda is driving Spinal Tap from the airport in a limo]

Tommy Pischedda: Excuse me...are you reading "Yes I Can"? You know what the title of that book should be? "Yes I Can if Frank Sinatra Says it's Okay." Cause Frank calls the shots for all of those guys. Did you get to the part yet where Sammy is coming out of the Copa... it's about 3:00 in the morning and he sees Frank? Frank's walking down Broadway by himself....

[Spinal Tap raise the partition in the limo thus cutting Tommy off]

Pischedda: Fuckin' limeys.

I used to trot out that last exclamation whenever I encountered a fellow limey behaving badly in New York, but since I haven't been hanging around Soho or Central Park that much recently I've been known to whisper it under my breath at the approach of every compatriot, as if desperately to assert my own uniqueness. You might even call me a self-hating limey.

Tune? Well, it ain't a polka, that's for sure, though it is related to the GMV soundtrack The soundtrack features some dialogue which didn't make it into the movie, as well as some songs that failed similarly. I was always puzzled about the tune selection until I finally got round to buying the first Nuggets compilation, and realised the whoever had compiled the soundtrack had just copied the last two sides of Nuggets.

So, instead of The Them's version of Muddy Waters' Baby Please Don't Go, featuring a young Van Morrison, I'll give you the Amboy Dukes' version, featuring a young Ted Nugent. Psych!

The Amboy Dukes - "Baby Please Don't Go"
Nuggets here, or the Dukes' Loaded For Bear here