Five Easy Pieces
This is one of those movies I have tried very hard to like and just can't appreciate. I've watched it at least three times over a period of 20 years and I've never been able to buy Jack Nicholson in that role or to even see that a story exists. Sally Struthers naked is a worthwhile novelty, but the…

Stuff that's available for streaming isn't always available, I found out. I had Coal Miner's Daughter and both Godfathers I and II in my streaming queue. Last night they weren't there. I checked the site and none of them is listed as having a "watch instantly" option anymore—in my queue they are now listed as…

Where I grew up, Lawrence Welk was on a different channel from Hee Haw and the same time as Hee Haw. We used to make fun of people who watched Lawrence Welk instead of Hee Haw, because Hee Haw was so much cooler, y'know.

Bent, I hear ya, but Roy's most likely in Branson now, which is really just Hee Haw on Ice.

I remember an old Letterman bit in which, from time to time throughout the show, he checked in remotely with Roy Clark, who was washing his car in his driveway in Tulsa.

Somehow Roy Clark spending his whole career on Hee Haw doesn't strike me as anywhere near as sad as Buck wasting away there. Roy was/is a great guitarist, but I think he was pretty much in his element on the show. And as goofy as the show was, it really did have good music—not only from the guests but from the…

Hee Haw was a mainstay of my childhood—it came on every Saturday at 6:00—and some of my earliest memories are Hee Haw related (that would probably be the title of my memoir). The first murder victim I knew (well, knew as a celebrity) was Stringbean, and I also remember when Don Rich died. Ghoulish days on the old…

I agree with Mustard Tiger. I don't think Melfi was an interesting enough character to merit having a role outside of Tony's shrink. I admire the series for taking the chance and trying to explore something there, but it was largely a dead end. I disagree with the awesomely-monikered Mormon Nailer about the central…

I love Marcus's first book, Mystery Train. I didn't get around to reading it until earlier this year but it's never made its way back to the shelf because I'm always re-reading parts of it. I then got Lipstick Traces but didn't find it as engaging, partly for the reasons smauis notes above (sometimes I dig that kind…

I wrote a libretto based on "The Tell-Tale Heart" for an opera a friend of mine wrote. He's a music prof in Louisiana and he sort of tricked me into it. Try writing a libretto based on a two-page one-character story in which everything has already happened by the time the story starts. Actually, don't, because I…

Monte Montgomery, acoustic guitar virtuoso, does a cool cover "In the Air Tonight" that redeems the song for me. Starts here at 2:30: http://bit.ly/9f8jAz

@Dingus, coincidentally, my grad-school time was in Austin (and I also had the good fortune to drop out before winding up in the teaching mill you describe), and while I was there (early nineties) I remember reading a review of a Mojo Nixon show at the Hole in the Wall in which Don Henley reportedly stepped onstage…

http://www.youtube.com/watc…

MFSP, absolutely Gipsy Kings. That band's CD's were played at every party I went to in grad school in the early-mid nineties (hey, y'all, listen to this "WORLD MUSIC"), but that singer can flat-out wail. I love that guy's voice.

Yeah, I'm sure Lebowski is the biggest reason for popularizing the Eagles as a punchline, but I don't think it was sui generis. Lebowski came out in 1998, and I remember being in Austin in the early nineties and being in a group of people who, in that shorthand way that let me know I was way behind the curve, made it…

At least one thing that sets the Eagles apart from the Leo Sayer/Air Supply category is the strength of their songs. Maybe the super-mellow arrangements don't always hold up well, but most of their songs are several cuts above "All out of love, I'm so lost without you." I've always admired "New Kid in Town"…

"Journey to the Sorceror" is on One of These Nights. (I didn't know that until three minutes ago when I was looking that album up for another reason, but I remembered your question and thought I'd be the hero.)

And Eagles Live, which had that nice version of "Seven Bridges Road" and Joe Walsh doing "Life's Been Good"? I listened to the crap out of that album (well, 8-track actually) when I was a kid. Same with that first Greatest Hits album (well, 8-track). My first comeuppance as a young hipster-wannabe was finding out I…

Comedy!

No love for Last Picture Show
I guess you're just not that good a cocksman.