God Is Playing Marbles with His Planets and His Stars
The Dr Frank Weakly Reader for 11.20.2020, inclusive
In the present position of the planets it’s impossible for me to say just when I’ll find my course again with these boulders in my way.
In other words, sort of, another Friday has rolled around, and accordingly I present another Dr Frank Weakly Reader, that thing I do where I recap the Dr Frank internet as a sort of index so it may be found later rather than disappear into the information abyss. Kind of stupid, I know, but it works better than doing nothing. This one is labelled “inclusive” because it includes the previous week as well as the one just past, as I missed it last week because of an internet failure. (When your internet’s down, one way to test whether it’s up again is to post a picture of a girl in an AC/DC shirt and purple leopard shorts. Which I did. All clear.)
As I often point out, I do this mainly for my own use, but I don’t mind if anyone wants to read along. And I try, at least a little, to make it pretty and fun for anyone who does. Want to read along, I mean.
All that remains now is to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. It’s going to be a weird one for sure, but we’ve done weird ones before.
And now, on to the weak that was…
FRONT BURNER
— RAD-014–7: you may have noticed, that the “Alternative Is Here to Stay” seven inch re-issue’s stated release date of November 12 has come and gone, and we’re still waiting on the actual product to arrive. We’re living on Covid time. Everything’s wonky and that’s just the way it is.
As far as I know, the pressing happened, but delivery to Sounds Radical HQ has been delayed. Latest word from Sounds Rad is that they expect the shipping to happen first week of December. (Digital copies to pre-orderers go out Friday, that is, today.)
This delay means that the first pressing (the “dibs” one on red and black smoke vinyl) and the second one on opaque red will most likely be arriving and going out together. You can still order the red one (and the shirt and/or “hoodie” to go along with it) if you want in on this.
It’s the vinyl that really matters, of course, but the digital version is up on all the sites like Spotify and such.
— RAD-013: The The Mr T Experience… and the Women Who Love Themre-issue, that is.
You can still get it from Sounds Radical — I believe we’re on to the third limited pressing now, a deep opaque red.
— Records are great:
— RAD-009: Yes, Mtx forever. Still a thing that you can get:
(By the way, stay tuned for some pressing news on this one… the train keeps a-rollin’…)
THE MTX OF MYTH AND LEGEND
— LK-134: Mark Murphy’s latest post from his complete collection of the Lookout Records catalog on the FB Lookout fan group (pic at left.) It kind of just happened, but it wound up being beautiful. Nice when that happens to happen.
— High School Is the Penalty for Transgressions Yet to Be Specified: When I started writing this song I happened to note it on the facebook, and it came up as a “memory.”
“As much like W. S. Gilbert as possible while remaining in the voice of an American teenager…” Well, you never know till you try.
Here’s Jonathan London’s short film / video:
Lots more on this song in its Song for Odin write-up from last year.
— And speaking of Odin: as noted, the internet at Dr Frank HQ gave out midweek last week, and I called a lid on Song for Odin, posting this instead:
Which is a good one. (“Minor secrets” here.)
Then I put up this one when it came back up the next day — with no write-up as I didn’t have time to do one and I’m not sure I can come up with much of anything more to say about this song at this point:
— …and, at long last, I managed to squeeze out an Odin, the MTX of 1998 doing “Don’t Know What I’ll Do if You Don’t” at the Fireside Bowl in Chicago:
“Minor secrets” are here. Songs for Odin playlist is here.
— What Difference Does It Make?: Also, I begged people to subscribe to my channel yet again, and once again it worked, a bit. This one never gets old:
THE WILD, WILD DR FRANK
— Still digging it, Maddy: pics at left, inset, are from a visit to the Windmill Library in Las Vegas (where I read from my books and played songs) posted by Maddy’s dad, Todd.
Years later she made a video for the song “More than Toast” using Littlest Pet Shop (LPS) animals as characters, on her dad’s phone. It remains one of my favorite things anyone has ever done with one of my songs, so I asked if I could use it for the re-mastered re-issue of that song on the Mtx forever comp., she said yes, and the result is this and it’s still great:
— You’re My Hostess Cupcake: in lieu of a Weakly Reader last week, I re-posted my old tell-all about the history of this song.
— Positive about negativity — just a shot of another one of those FB “memories”:
— Curse of Halford: it struck six years ago this week, and I still feel mild effects from time to time. Full story here, if you missed it or want to see it again.
OTHER PEOPLE’S MUSIC
— The Blossom Toes — We Are Ever So Clean, in entirety, posted because someone on twitter asked for a psych-pop recommendation.
— Donovan — “Cosmic Wheels” and “Maria Magenta”, live on some sorta TV show:
For some reason I’ve had “Cosmic Wheels” running through my head all week as I’ve stumbled down the highway in my boots of steel.
PICTURE BOOK
— Roman calendar: Engelbert of Cologne; Duns Scotus, manuscript page; it looks like Saint George, but it’s actually Theodore of Amasea, also known as Tiron; Leo the Great, in coffee sleeve form; Mercurius the Megalomartyr; Saint Astrik of Hungary; Saint Stanislaus Kostka; Emperor Saint Justinian; the Battle of the Winwæd, in stained glass; Saint Othmar; Elizabeth of Hungary at the wheel; Dedication of the Basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul — Bernini’s baldachin; Elizabeth of Hungary yet again, in Wilhelm List’s depiction of the Miracle of the Roses…
— Behold: Campfire Girls; let’s just say it ain’t the Strawberry Alarm Clock; five ways to take a bath; the human condition (from the film Ran); three girls and a Vulcan; and here’s that AC/DC leopard shorts girl again; don’t kill your wife with work — let electricity do it!; just a casual shot of Major Nelson and Jeannie being groovy; Alessandro Sicioldr’s Lunar Idols; liberate your eyes with Alice Cooper’s unisex mascara; orgy organizer; blonde with gun; Carole’s slumber party; everyone is a voyeur…
— …also:
IN THE NEWS
— RIP Des O’Connor. He was UK-famous for many things throughout the years but this song is what immediately sprung to mind when I learned he’d passed away this week.
Here’s more, though:
FIN
And that’s all I got, except, for those who’ve made it this far down the page, here’s Eve Meyer:
See you next week.
