Dr Frank Weakly Reader for 4.19.2019
Good Friday lunchbox edition
Just looking for an image for this edition of the Weakly Reader I came across this pic — probably our best merch idea ever. We’ll make more one day, I bet. Anyway, that’s the reason, and the only reason, that this is the “lunchbox edition,” but that’s reason enough. It’s pretty. And it is Good Friday, which is why it’s the Good Friday Lunchbox Edition. I mean, obviously.
So Happy Easter, friends. Drink up and jump into another Weakly Reader, which is my annotated, illustrated index of what occurred within the Dr Frank Web Presence for the past week. I do this every week as a means of keeping track of all the various posts in the various places so I can find them later, should I ever want to.
It’s also, strange to say, a sort of therapeutic ritual. We do the week. We pause. We allow the Dr Frank Weakly Reader to put the week to bed, fully indexed, annotated, and catalogued. Set it and forget it. Chaos is beaten, ever so slightly, into order. If there were an easier, less time-consuming way to do it, I’d do it, but I’d probably miss the ritual. Who knows what kind of mental problems I’d develop without it? Let’s not find out, shall we?
Well, here we go again.
MTX AGONISTES
— Mtx forever: playlists keep coming in. (Go here for instructions, here for background and sexy belly with graffiti on it.)
Cydne did hers the old fashioned way, pulling out records, making copious notes, dubbing it to cassette, and then, and only then, replicating the results on the demon Spotify. This is, obviously, the way the Lord intended it to be done, so kudos to you, Cyd. A good list, too, surprising at times. “Re-activate Your Heart” and “Shining” ftw.
(Oh, and btw, here she is at a ballgame with her MTX/Mariners logo shirt!)
Plus: here’s a 25 “best of MTX” songs from Dan Gorman, not created for the project, but suitable nonetheless.
— MTX, Angry Samoans, Teen Idols, Lucky Strike… found this 1998 LA Weekly Troubadour ad on a twitter account called “ad sausage”, which also featured Elliot Smith and Suicidal Tendencies. Many people made the joke you’re probably thinking of there. I would never make that joke, except by referring to it obliquely and blaming it on other people, as I’ve just done here.
— Came across an old photo of the bins of MTX and Dr Frank tapes and ephemera that I recieved from Corbett Redford after the production was finished on the Turn It Around film and wrote up a little post about it. As one does. Hard to believe it was nearly five years ago.
— And by the way, here’s a recent review of Turn It Around — which I still haven’t been able to bring myself to watch… shyness is nice, but shyness can stop you from watching documentaries in which you are featured as a talking head, though I’ve heard I come off okay in it. One day soon, fingers crossed, head in pre-emptive cringe mode.
— …and, it’s your Friday morning “Here She Comes,” from the Steinways, live in Jughead’s and Vapid’s basement, ca. 2007. “Her eyes are saying something, but I still don’t know what it is.” That’s not bad at all, possibly even an improvement. Thanks, friends.
…and on the covers playlist it goes.
DR FRANK SUPERSTAR
— Some Foggy Mountain Tops: an old song and me. Some thoughts on the traditional Appalachian / Bluegrass tune that wound up on Revenge Is Sweet and So Are You. This post was “selected to be recommended” by the Medium music editors, meaning lots of normal people will theoretically be assaulted by the Mr T Experience at the end of the Bluegrass thread. Result.
— Dr Frank — “Rock and Roll Love Letter” live at the Troubadour, March 2015. Video on YouTube. “Minor secrets” are here. “Gonna keep on rock and rolling till my jeans explode” is how I titled the post. Bradley Skaught pointed out that, surely, the reference is to “genes” not “jeans.” To which I say, when it comes to rock and roll it’s always gonna be spelled “jeans.” And, stop calling me Shirley.
— Dept. of bon mots:
“…was recently pointed out that I am a bit like a cat: you move the couch and I stop eating.”
“The secret to a comfortable life is a competent woman and the love of a good accountant…”
“I walk into a bar in North freakin Carolina and they are playing the Saints and the Undertones. My “culture” isn’t all the way dead after all.”
OTHER PEOPLE’S MUSIC
— Good morning, world: Holly Golightly — “Use Me”; Labelle — “Won’t Get Fooled Again”; the Flying Burrito Brothers — “Older Guys”; Brother John Rydgren — “Music to Watch Girls By”.
— Ann Corio with Sonny Lester, How to Strip for Your Husband.
YouTube playlist at the link. It’s good.
PICTURES OF BEER, PICHERS OF ART
— Behold: antlers at dusk; Francisco Herrera the Younger’s Glory of Hermenegild; hey there, you, what are you doing with that body?; Ilya Repin’s Job and His Friends; your record collection, a mirror of your good taste; just a fat guy with a Mosrite and a hot chick stretching; a different sort of Palm Sunday; Coffee, Tea, or Me?; the Playboy land yacht; a neat trick from Jerry Lee; from John Norman, Vagabonds of Gor; 50 cocktail napkins by William Shakespeare; the Jack Rabbit Club; Jose Escofet’s Beauty and the Beast.
— Not safe. For work. Don’t click unless you want to think bad thoughts. I am irritated by the need to tag things as “explicit” just in case someone might think they are bad, but since I must use the tag, I prefer to do it sarcastically. So behold, if you dare: sci-fi art from Patrick Woodroffe, and Salvador Dali as he arranges six naked ladies to form a skull image…
…and finally, a cat, a laser pointer, and a nice girl — the simple life:
THE WISDOM OF TWITTER
— Part I: "I stand with the millions who suffered horribly in French colonies, and whose wealth was stolen to build this monstrosity [Notre-Dame de Paris].”
— Part II: “The building was so overburdened with meaning that its burning feels like an act of liberation.”
— Part III: “Library collections continue to promote and proliferate whiteness with their very existence and the fact that they are physically taking up space in our libraries.”
IN THE NEWS
— Notre-Dame de Paris caught fire and burned, but the relics and much of the art, as well as les vitraux des rosaces seem to have been saved. Here’s Louis IX receiving said relics from Constantinople, from a 14th Century illuminated manuscript.
The internet buzz about this has mostly been well-intentioned-but-tedious virtue signaling spiced with some appalling “takes,” if takes means what I think it does (cf. the first two “wisdom of twitter” entries above.) The Rolling Stone article clickbaited by the second one quotes some fancy pants luminaries who propose, effectively, that the cathedral be rebuilt as a sort of “woke” version of the revolutionary “temple of reason” that history so resoundingly repudiated once before. France, apparently, needs a less old fashioned, less “problematic” national symbol and here’s a terrific opportunity to create one, with the added bonus that by doing so we get to destroy the old one, which, I learn, many people who teach at universities have been mad at for some time. Like, really, really mad. Who knew?
Most people, French or not, would, I’d imagine, disagree quite strongly with these angry whiz kids. Most people would prefer that Notre-Dame de Paris be restored, to the degree possible, to its pre-fire state. I certainly do, and would. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s a Catholic cathedral first, a national symbol and Parisian tourist attraction second and third. So as to the question of whether to rebuild it as a de-Catholicized secular monument in celebration of multi-culturism and diversity and socialism or whatever: let the Pope decide (but maybe not this Pope…)
— In other “Important Buildings that Got Burned Down” news: what’s left of Boleskine House (burned down to its outershell a couple of years back) has gone up for sale with a £500,000 asking price. More here.
I’m not at all sure the Abramelin demons are done with it yet, but I could picture a pleasant life in the coach house, preserving the ruins as a monument. 93 93/93.
Crowley spent his last years at a Victorian guesthouse in Hastings called Netherwood. Accordingly there is now a “curse of Crowley” in Hastings folklore, which traps you there unless you carry a pebble. Probably a good idea, just to be on the safe side. Here’s a song about it from a local Hastings punk band called Matilda’s Scoundrels.
— How science news starts out basically okay but inevitably degenerates into culture warring that all but eclipses whatever it was we were talking ab — … wait, what was it again? Something about black holes, but mainly X has been oppressing Y by phrasing things a certain way or not phrasing things a certain other way again and you all oughta be ashamed of yourselves. Next story…
— "Why bother attending a lecture on totalitarianism when you can experience the real thing?” tweets Claire Lehmann about Middlebury College’s cancellation of a lecture called “The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies” to have been delivered the Polish philosopher and Soviet-era dissident Ryszard Legutko. Once a dissident always a dissident, I guess. Why do we have universities again? To ensure no student runs the risk of ever hearing anybody say anything he might possibly disagree with ever? Oh yes, that must be it.
— This story is of interest to minds.com users because some of the content in question in this case was posted there. I noticed people referencing it without any documentation or link, which is very common in online discussions, so I posted this to clarify.
— Surviving Brady Bunch cast members reunite for an HGTV series in which they will renovate the old Brady house, each taking a room. Next up, A Very Brady Naked and Afraid.
— Monkey Punch has died. I posted a picture.
— and finally, allow me to extend my sincerest wish that you and your family had a pleasant, fullfilling National Bat Appreciation Day.
Here’s to a good year.
