Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 116

'Frank' Imposter

Trailer for film that debuted at Sundance on up and coming rock band led by a genius who wears fake head throughout (played by Michael Fassbender).   Well, it's better than talking beaver.

11 Years Ago: 'NYT' and Colin Powell Heighten Calls for Iraq War

Check out Philip Shenon's report from this day on March 15, 2003.  Excerpt:

Iraq has identified a Virginia-based biological supply house and a French scientific institute as the sources of all the foreign germ samples that it used to create the biological weapons that are still believed to be in Iraq's arsenal, according to American officials and foreign diplomats who have reviewed Iraq's latest weapons declaration to the United Nations.

Meanwhile, Colin Powell was slamming the French for questioning the war and his bogus case for WMD at the UN:

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell openly suggested that Paris had been influenced by a long history of ''commercial relationships'' with Mr. Hussein, and that Franco-American relations had been damaged, at least in the short term. With some bitterness, American officials looking back over recent months say that France never intended to support an American-led war with Iraq, although the French foreign minister, at a dinner with Mr. Powell in New York in September, suggested otherwise. 

Greg Mitchell’s new edition of So Wrong for So Long on how Bush and the media gave us the war  includes a preface by Bruce Springsteen, a new introduction and a lengthy afterword with updates.

It's a 'Mad' World

AMC posted 15-second teaser and poster for upcoming "Mad Men" season last week and now has released a few snaps.  Here's one:

Friday Night Music Pick

One of great Lou Reed solo tunes, sadly overlooked.

Very Persuading

Heading across the river tonight to Tarrytown to (once again) catch Richard Thompson, this time with son Teddy.   Apparently they do this, one of greatest songs, as encore.   And there's a Richard-Teddy-Linda album coming.

Smile, Though the World Is Laughing

Jon Stewart loves to do his Yertle the Turtle imitation of a certain U.S. Senator and last night he couldn't get enough of a new TV ad for Sen. Mitch McConnell's troubled Senate re-election run.  He kept running one segment when Mitch just keeps smiling, in different scenes, as music plays--with Jon's team substituting different fun tunes.  At the end he asked people to post their own versions under #McConnelling.  My original contributions:  With the "True Detective" theme and  the Turtles', "It Ain't Me Babe."

Here's what the YouTube search discovers so far, and one with the immortal Rick Astley below plus "If I Only Had a Brain."

Ganga-preneurs

Very funny Colbert take on the booming pot industry in Colorado, where everyone is a new Willie Nelson Rockefeller or Warren Puffett.  "The market has spoken, and the market  is tokin'."


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Thursday Night Music Pick

Richard Thompson, "A Love You Can't Survive."

My Biggest Movie Role

One year ago today the sad closing of the fabled Boston Phoenix today--following a few years ago of the other major alternative paper there from decades back, The Real Paper--made me recall my one and only appearance in a Hollywood/indie movie.  I even co-starred with Jeff Goldblum.  Well, in a way.

It was back in the mid-1970s, and the set photographer for a film called Between the Lines, directed by Joan Micklin Silver--a rare female director at the time--called me at Crawdaddy to ask if I could round up a few other vanishing longhairs to appear in the movie, which was set at a Boston alt-paper.  The photog was Lorey Sebastian, ex-wife of Spoonful John (she was the "you" in "you and me and rain on the roof" etc.). But I digress.

My appearance would amount to this:  Lorey would take a picture of Jeff, other stars (Lindsay Crouse, John Heard, Bruno Kirby, Stephen Collins), and the folks I could gather,  in front of a loft building in Soho,  looking like we were all back in 1970.  It was summer but we had to wear winter clothes for some reason. The picture would then appear in the movie as some of the characters gazed at it and reflected on the good old days before the paper got kind of corporate.  Yes.  Even back then.

Goldblum played the smart-ass record reviewer. (I later got him to write a review for Crawdaddy and we hung out a bit.)  So, if you watch the film, you will see me--with the rest of the "staff."  For a few seconds.  R.I.P. my film career, and the Phoenix, former home of Charlie Pierce, Dan Kennedy, Mark Jurkowitz and so many other worthies.

Failures in Launch

Remember those stories about poorly performing officers in charge of (maybe) launching our nuclear missiles out of silos? Turns out it was even worse than we though, AP reports.  They, literally, flunked overall assessments. 

The Air Force operates a total of 450 Minuteman 3 nuclear missiles, divided evenly among the three bases.

An ICBM base has many interconnected pieces, including security forces that provide protection for the missiles and for the underground launch control centers, as well as commanders and others who work from a headquarters base. But at the mission’s core are the missileers and their mastery of “emergency war orders,” the secret messages that would authorize a launch. They are supported in the missile field by personnel known as facility managers, who run above-ground support buildings where security forces and others sleep and where cooks prepare meals for the full team.