A Salute to Simone Silva

Let's hear it for the Egyptian-born model and actress Simone Silva. Silva appeared as a nude model in numerous pin-up magazines in the 1940s and 50s, then got her big acting break with a film called Lady Godiva Rides Again. She appeared in fifteen films between 1950 and 1956, and did the short-lived TV series The Gay Cavalier in 1957, the year she unexpectedly died of a stroke.


Simone is best known today not for her film work, but for these photographs with Robert Mitchum taken at the Cannes film festival in 1954, which caused a worldwide scandal. I'm not sure why exactly - I mean, come on, even for 1954, these photographs are rather tame. And heck, like many actresses, she had been posing for cheesecake nudes for years already.

I guess no one had actually unfurled their girl-glands in broad daylight at Cannes up to that point. Nowadays, if you wanna freak people out at Cannes, you have to enter a film that glorifies graphic sexual mutilation. Oh, but of course, that's "art" - and Simone's cheerful exhibitionism is just, well, just that.


Mitchum, who was no stranger to scandal (after his marijuana arrest in 1948, which would have snuffed a lesser man's career, he was utterly unrepentant) weathered it just fine, but not Simone Silva. She was kicked out of the Festival, and when she got back to America, she was deported back to France and fired by the director of a film she had been contracted to do.


The negative publicity from the photo romp pretty much spelled the end of her Hollywood dreams, or so the official version of history holds. But if you stop to think about it, Marilyn Monroe posed stark naked all the time and she was very in-your-face about it - and her career went just fine. No, I think Simone's problem is just that the world wasn't ready for her. We're ready for you now, Simone - come on back.

- - JSH

Everybody Lies, So C'mon And Love Me

Two more journeys into Friesconsciousness, guaranteed to melt the cheese on your Cheeseburger mind. "C'mon and Love Me" is our version of the KISS tune recorded one evening when we happened to find ourselves strolling through a cemetery in Richmond, KY and felt a song coming on. "Everybody Lies", a Headcoats cover, was recorded on the fly in a drunken haze in a Berea College building way back in the 20th century, which is why we're singing and playing so quietly, so as not to get us kicked out (which, as I recall, we were anyway.)

- - JSH

Narcissistic Personality Syndrome Rocks

Here's a super-sized slice of self-determinism from Cheeseburger & Fries themselves, way back in the bad old days.

"I Love Myself" was a staple of Ch&F live shows for some time prior to this under the title "I'm in Love With Myself", and then appeared on the second Ch&F album Gray Hawk Fever (which was distributed solely at Cut Corner Records in Lexington and a Citgo station in Sand Gap) as "In Love With Myself".

Originally recorded at Water Street Antique Mall, it's this version, recorded live on "The Cheeseburger & Fries Show" on WRFL, that became the definitive standard, with an impromptu surrealist rap by Fries that hijacks the train, drives it to Santa Fe, and buys it a round of sarsaparilla.

- - JSH

Coat of Many Crackers

Chilly weather is upon us, and I ain't squawkin'. I actually like cold weather, and am especially pleased that it's time to dig out my long black "Dr. Bill" overcoat (so named because I've always admired the one that Dr. Bill wears in the Kubrick masterpiece Eyes Wide Shut.)

I don't really dig summer menswear, because it's too darn hot to get bedecked in anything really dapper. (I don't know how Colonel Sanders could stand it, always walking around in a full suit with vest and high starched collar. At least it was a white suit.) And most important of all, my winter coat gives me a place to put all my stuff.

As previously noted here, a Transylvania Gentleman needs a lot of pockets to hold all the crap that is necessitated by his swingin' rounder lifestyle. There are several hidden inner pockets in my specially-modified coat that, like Batman's utility belt, enables me to whip out just what I need when I need it. My Dr. Bill coat pocket system goes like this:

* Left side inner pocket #1: wallet.

* Left side inner pocket #2: business cards that give only my email address (for the average acquaintance).

* Right side inner pocket #1: snuff and snacks (crackers, cookies, breath mints)

* Right side inner pocket #2: business cards with my phone number (for those super-special people - y'know, like you.)

* Left outer pocket - cellphone, receipts that I absent-mindedly pocket and never look at again.

* Right outer pocket - keys, loose coins.

Additionally, I keep matches and lighters in every one of those pockets, ensuring that one will be always be instantly handy to light the Luckys of lasses. Cigars, if they're small, I often keep in my button-down shirt's breast pocket, but if they're large or in a metal tube, they go in the snack-cracker pocket.

Still more tiny hidden coat pockets contain classified James Bond kinda things that you don't need to know about. You know, next-generation nanotech girl detectors and such.

Keys and flashdrives may sometimes go in my right-hand pants pocket. Hip flask, if I'm packin' such, goes in the left front pants pocket. (I never put anything in my rear pants pockets.)

My camera case, which rarely leaves my side, also is a handy repository for other auxilliary junk. There's a shot glass, a deck of cards, and other such "you never know when you might need it" items.

Now, dear reader, you should be fully briefed on how to mug me. Be seeing you.

- - JSH

Pan Con Lechon

Our old friend JLK has a new feature on his blog called "Eat the Menu", in which he plans to try something new on the menu each week at his favorite Mexican restaurant, El Nopal.

Though I admire his bold experimental spirit, I could never do that because I'm too much a creature of habit when it comes to stuffing my face. I tend to get the same things again and again at my own favorite Latin restaurants. (And at Ernesto's, I don't even eat - I just drink.) However, inspired by JLK's intestinal fortitude, I recently deviated from my instinctual patterns at Havana Rumba and ordered something I'd never tried before - the Pan Con Lechon.

And I didn't regret it. It was a tasty pile of pulled pork on Cuban-style pressed bread with papas fritas on the side. (You're seeing the leftovers here, being packed up in a to-go box, along with the table bread and garlic butter. The taters were already consumed.)

But even now, I'm dreaming about that good ol' Steak Chimichurri. Must. Consume. More.

- - JSH

Poetry Corner

I just wrote a poem. It's been ages since I wrote anything like a poem, and if I have been poetic, it's all been coded into the form of my comics and drawings.

It's called "J.K. Rowling is a Close Personal Friend of Mine."

I write bad poetry
because there is no
point in writing good poetry
because nobody reads poetry
besides
the publishing industry is in the toilet
and nobody reads anything much at all anyway
the last literary movement I hereby proclaim to be my bowels
and, yay, they have moved
just like the insides of the great poets have moved before me
plop

The drawing carefully selected to illustrate this bit of poetic business is my homage to the cover of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu #19 (original by Gil Kane & Tom Palmer), which was rejected by the Covered blog. Only the best stuff for all my friends...

--JTD

Feds Spying on Social-Networking Sheep

From FOX News:

"A privacy watchdog has uncovered a government memo that encourages federal agents to befriend people on a variety of social networks, to take advantage of their readiness to share -- and to spy on them. In response to a Freedom of Information request, the government released a handful of documents, including a May 2008 memo detailing how social-networking sites are exploited by the Office of Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS).

As of Thursday morning, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and Digg had not commented on the report, which details the official government program to spy via social networking. Other websites the government is spying on include Twitter, MySpace, Craigslist and Wikipedia, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which filed the FOIA request.

"Narcissistic tendencies in many people fuel a need to have a large group of 'friends' link to their pages, and many of these people accept cyber-friends that they don't even know," stated one of the documents obtained by the EFF."

Since I have absolutely zero interest in online "social networks" (if you wanna "friend me", you're gonna have to do it by buying me a drink in the real world and not in this digital make-believe one), I'm not all that concerned. Besides, my life's an open comic book anyway; Hell, I'd even invite Dick Cheney into my home and let him go through my underwear drawer - which he'd probably enjoy.

- - JSH

Same Old Song

The other day I was in a car with someone who was playing the radio, and Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" came on. I cringed and begged her to change the station, or better yet, turn the radio off entirely. She obliged, but she was curious why I hold such a disdain for so-called "classic rock". My answer was that old music is old and it's played out.

"But isn't most of the music you listen to even older?", she asked, confused.

Well, yeah, but the difference is that it's old music that I've never heard before, or at least haven't heard often, such as "Ghost of the Mayor" by the Edison Symphony Orchestra. I grew up with "classic rock" before it was classic, and was as thoroughly immersed in it as anyone else.

Therefore, I can have long detailed conversations about Yes, Styx, Dire Straits, Led Zeppelin, Krokus, Cinderella, Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Wings, Rush, Cheap Trick, April Wine, Nazareth, REO Speedwagon, .38 Special, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Billy Joel, Van Halen, Angel, ZZ Top, Head East, Average White Band, Foghat, Blue Oyster Cult, Quiet Riot, America, Earth, Wind & Fire, Chicago, Atlanta Rhythm Section, KC & the Sunshine Band, Allman Brothers, Linda Rondstadt, Black Sabbath, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jimi Hendrix, Bad Company, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Thin Lizzy, Mountain, The Eagles, The Grateful Dead, Steve Miller Band, Kansas, Prince, Carly Simon, Hot Tuna, Eric Clapton, The Doobie Brothers, Rod Stewart, Abba, Grand Funk Railroad, Jefferson Starship, Air Supply, Bee Gees, Aerosmith, Grass Roots, Badfinger, James Taylor, The Guess Who, John Cougar Mellencamp, Poco, Jimmy Buffett, Queen, Boz Scaggs, Aldo Nova, The Carpenters, Foreigner, Traffic, Mahogany Rush, Carole King, Hall & Oates, Olivia Newton-John, Anne Murray, Motley Crue, Joe Walsh, Captain & Tennille, Genesis, Toto, Pink Floyd, Kenny Rogers, Seals & Crofts, Journey, Jethro Tull, Steely Dan, King Crimson, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bob Seger, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Phil Collins, Madonna, The Police, Heart, Pat Benatar, Robert Palmer, Firefall, Supertramp, Boston, etc. and sound very knowledgeable and even enthusiastic about them - and yet at the same time, I don't really have a desire to hear most of the songs by most of these bands in my life again. Ever. This is a cause of considerable confusion for some.

Led Zeppelin IV came out in 1971. By the mid-seventies, its songs had already been overplayed, run into the ground by radio. By decade's end, the horse was pretty well fully flogged to death. And yet throughout the 1980s we were still bombarded by these songs at every turn. And throughout the 1990s, it continued. And then again through the oughts.

It's now the teens of the 21st century, folks. I have been subjected to the likes of Led Zeppelin for four decades now. Enough is enough. Excuse me now, I gotta go listen to some 1920's Chicken & Skeeter records to cleanse my palate of the Elton John music they're blasting in this coffee house.

- - JSH

Death of the DVD

Brother Dockery recently hipped me to something I wasn't aware of: that big-box bastion Best Buy is phasing out its selection of CDs and DVDs from its stores.

As I predicted here a couple years ago, Blu-Ray is being forced down the public's throat whether they want it or not. I love Blu-Ray myself, but I don't plan on rebuying everything I ever owned all over again on the new format. When you get my age, you've owned the White Album six times (vinyl, remastered audiophile vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD, remastered CD) and Apocalypse Now four times (Laserdisc, VHS, DVD, Redux DVD - could have been five if I'd gotten on the Betamax bandwagon). Me, I prefer watching the crap of the ages these days anyhow, so none of this affects me.

I don't actually shop at Best Buy, mind you, so it's no skin off my stuff. (When I was laptop-shopping last week, I did peek in at their netbooks but was appalled by the idiocy of their staff who were useless at answering my questions.)

The plummeting quality and value of modern commercial pop music and the Hollywood film industry seem to competing with one another to see who hits bottom first, not unlike the hammer and the feather dropped by Apollo 15 astronaut Dave Scott in order to demonstrate gravity. (Pay no attention to the breeze of wind that blows the feather at 0:21 secs, though - you weren't supposed to see that.) We are perilously close to experiencing firsthand the utter and complete cultural demise of an entire society, as the general populace is too jaded, too bored, too hypnotized from the internet and video games, too zombiefied from anti-depressants, to care much anymore about good books, good movies, or good music.

According to Hacking Netflix:

“We’ll have another store reset before the holidays, which will include an increase in the space for higher-growth and, in the aggregate, higher-margin categories, like Best Buy Mobile, e-readers and gaming, with a heavy emphasis on new gaming platforms and pre-owned game titles,” Best Buy Chief Executive Brian Dunn said in a conference call with analysts Tuesday.

Well, isn't that just dandy. Never mind that society is literally in its death-throes, never mind that the planet is coming apart at the seams, go play some more video games, why dont'cha?

- - JSH

How to Live

As a sort of extended train of thought from yesterday's musings on speeding vs. being a mellow driver, I should also point out that it's all part of a general attitude which can best be summed up this way:

If you think you're a big-shot because you're always busy, always on the phone, always speeding in a hurry to get somewhere, you're actually not.

I see poseurs all the time at places like Starbucks, gabbing loudly on the phone while waiting in line, in a voice two shades too loud, "okay, look, John, I'm behind schedule already, and you know we've got that thing at 3, and I want you to put Steve on that, because I gotta go to the bank but I'm starting to stress out about this power-point presentation, and Kendra called in sick just before the deadline so we're really screwed on this deal", blah blah blah. There's a self-congratulatory smugness apparent with their theatrically fake pose of being a harried exec, and the real punchline is, anyone whose day goes like that is not an exec, they're actually middle management at best.

Execs don't worry or stress about such things. They don't have to. That's why they're execs. Execs hire lackeys to stress about the day-to-day details; they're your problem, not his. So if you really want to act like a big-shot, what you need to do is present yourself as not having a care in the world.

There's a guy here in Louisville I admire very much, he's a millionaire many times over - maybe even a billionaire. He owns skyscrapers, hotels, and office property around the world. If anyone on Earth should be a type-A-personality, stressed-out, cranky, super-swamped-with-responsibilities wreck, it would be him, you'd think, right? Wrong. He's one of the calmest, mellowest, friendliest down-to-Earth guys you could ever meet, and he always takes lots of time to talk to me when our paths cross. Definitely the kinda guy Pete Townshend spoke of in "A Man is a Man". He doesn't pace around with a furrowed brow lugging around a briefcase full of "important papers" while endlessly dit-dot-ditting into an iPhone. He doesn't even wear a suit and tie. He doesn't have to. He's neither haughty nor pompous nor too good to talk to the likes of you and I. And he gets stuff done without actually looking busy.

Meditate on that, ye salarymen with inflated notions of your stations.


- - JSH

How to Drive

It never ceases to astound me, how I can be driving at the speed limit, or even well over the speed limit, and there's still somebody behind me who wants to go even faster.

I see this at all times of day and night, but especially during the rush hours in which people are frantically headed to work, frantically headed to lunch, frantically headed back from lunch, and frantically headed home from work. Me, I'm not the frantic type, so I can't really relate.

That doesn't mean I don't drive fast occasionally; I mean, who among us has not at some point? There are roads - and I'm sure we all can immediately think of some in our own experience - where the speed limit has been set to some arbitrary and unnaturally slow level. Straight stretches of desolate road where everyone ignores the speed limit and drives like they're on the interstate basically because we can and because there's really no compelling reason not to.

But in town, in a fairly populated area, these drivers that I can see in my rear-view mirror, quadrupling in size as they approach in just two seconds, barrelling towards me like some kinda nut in a Mad Max movie, well, they're a problem. And like the old maxim says, "There's never a cop around when you want one."

They're an even bigger problem after they veer around me without braking, duck into the other lane, then quickly swerve right back in front of me, weaving in and out of traffic like the Tasmanian Devil on diet pills. This behavior has a depressing effect on traffic for the rest of us, because all us sane people slow down and hit the brakes when one of these nuts hurtles through our airspace. And it only takes a few seconds of accumulated braking for a ripple effect to take place, compounding traffic congestion as this "bubble" of slowdown bottlenecks backward.

Something else I see at all times of day and night, but especially during the rush hours: wrecks, accidents, pile-ups, causing further traffic jams for all us good drivers. To be sure, some were caused by morons yammering on their cellphones or distracted by their three screaming un-seat-belted brats that they should never have had. Some may even be hypnotized by their own lame modern hip-hop music that they have blasting at such a ludicrously high volume that it is barely recognizable as anything but a subsonic roar. But I'm pretty sure that most of these wrecks are caused by the aforementioned reckless-driving speeders. I don't have any statistics to back that up, but I could probably find some if I really cared about backing up my words (and I don't, because I know and you know that I'm right, even if I'm technically not.)

So, whenever I have the opportunity, when I see these fruitbats flying towards me at a truly retarded rate of speed, I get parallel with a car in the other lane and hold my position alongside it, effectively creating a roadblock that shuts down the Unser-wannabe from being a further public menace. If you listen closely, you can almost hear the sound of steam emitting from their ears as they weave back and forth from lane to lane, trying to figure out which is moving faster, and realizing they're both moving resolutely at the exact same speed.

Don't tell me I shouldn't do that. Don't tell me it causes more problems. Tell it to the guy who wants to go 80 mph on a 35 mph road, and honks his horn at me because I'm "only" going 50mph. I'm already speeding myself, what the hell more do you want? I'm saving people's lives here by putting a stop to this kook's road-rampage, yes I am.

(I once looked into the idea of marketing a device like a giant Lite-Brite that one would mount on the back of their car, with programmable messages for the car behind you - like "Get off my ass or I'll drive even slower" or "I'm doing the speed limit, fuck you." Unfortunately, someone else already has a patent on such a device, and it isn't street-legal in all areas.)

- - JSH

Cobwebs and Irish Whiskey

No, that's not the recipe for one of my cocktails of questionable savoriness - but it could be.


It's actually a description of what I stared at while having a Duvel-drinkin' Don Draper-style business lunch recently, at the great Irish pub Ri-Ra on Fourth street in the L-ville.


It took a long time for it to really cross my mind that I was looking at Halloween decorations - seeing elaborate Addams Family-esque cobwebs all over everything seemed perfectly natural to me; that's just how I roll.

- - JSH

Acer Aspire One D260

Yesterday the wi-fi doohickey conked out on my own personal laptop, and though I tried everything short of the Heimlich Manuever and an invocation of Choronzon to resurrect the dying digital whatchamacallit, my efforts failed. Even the imaginary vaporware frammistat I downloaded didn't help. This is mega-bad news for a roving reporter, a guy on the go, a no-fixed-location Nostradamus, a man of purloined letters like myself.

And as Tom Frost, a thinly-veiled equivalent of Paul Bowles, said in the film version of Naked Lunch, "Bill, I feel desperately insecure without a typewriter in the house."

Last night duty called, however, and my power of positive bullshitting was summoned by Theatre Louisville to go see Actors Theatre of Louisville's production of the Charles Ludlam classic The Mystery of Irma Vep and subsequently cough up some semblance of a review. So I had to wait until this morning to truck on out to, of all places, Wal-Mart, who had the best deal on a no-frills netbook in town.

It's the Acer Aspire One D260, and so far my experience with it has been favorable - but I'll be sure to chime in here with consumer warnings if snything goes South with it. I'll keep ye posted, toasty.

Although this model is supposed to be offered in charcoal grey, the guy at Wal-Mart said upon consulting his stock, "we have purple, purple, and.... purple." Oh well, it matches my purple Van Heusen shirt I scored at Macy's t'other day.

- - JSH

A Thing About Ernesto's

I may have missed out on getting to eat at Hitchcock's Ernie's, but at least I have Ernesto's to keep me warm. It's a Mexican restaurant with multiple locations in L-ville, but my personal preference is for the one in Middletown on Shelbyville Road.

Free wi-fi, so a degenerate old wordsmith like me can take over a booth in the back and type out literary masterpieces worthy of Jack Torrance all evening, and keep those super-strong Happy Hour margaritas a-comin'. And unlike some parsimonious places, they don't seem to care if you eat your own weight in free chips and salsa as long you keep a-drinkin'.

After the fourth frozen margarita, my prose becomes rather spirited (no pun intended, but Barton Fink reference indeed intended.) Hunter S. Thompson knew just what I'm talkin' about but he's dead now and his death must be avenged.

More salsa, mi hermano.

- - JSH

Smokey the Beer

Do you love the flavor of smoke? As in, bacon, country ham, smoked sausage, hickory seasoning? I surely do, and that's why I'm totally bowled over by this here Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbeer I discovered tonight. It is not just tinged with a light hint of smoke, it is downright smokiness personified, which excites me greatly. (If my bit about Bacon-infused Old Fashioned didn't do it for you, then this most certainly will not either.)

I checked out Schlenkerla's website to learn more about this new and powerful elixir, which actually turns out to be not so new after all: the brewery goes back to at least the year 1405, which is when the first known mention of it occurs in the historical record. It's name, "Schlenkerla", is a pun on "Schlenkern" which means to walk erratically and drunkenly.

Whoever wrote the ad copy for the website is my kinda guy:

The connoisseur drinks it slowly with relish, but steadily and purposefully. He knows, that the second "Seidla" (half-liter) tastes better than the first, and the third even better than the second. He drinks during the morning pint and during the afternoon break. He drinks it in the evenings, drinks it alone and with company, especially with company, as "Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier" makes one talkative and exuberant. It brings together the local with the stranger, as it is common in Franconia to share your table with others. Even if the brew tastes somewhat strange at the first swallow, do not stop, because soon you will realize that your thirst will not decrease and your pleasure will visibly increase.

I obtained mine at Whole Foods Market on Shelbyville Road in Louisville - not sure where else in Transylvania a gentleman might procure this fuel. Possibly at Sergio's or the Louisville Beer Store.

- - JSH

Walk Like A Man, Smell Like a Waffle

I used to be a regular patron of Sephora (don't laugh), because it was the best place to find the Philosophy line of smell-um-good products. Though they, like Sephora itself, seem primarily aimed at ladies of the QVC-level persuasion, they used to offer the greatest glop one could ever hope to smear on oneself: an all-purpose shampoo/body wash/whathaveyou called Waffle Cone. And the stuff actually smells, for all the world, like pure liquid waffle cone. Amazingly amazing.

Needless to say, though, if I think something's great, that's a prime indicator that the average gherkin won't dig it. And sure enough, Waffle Cone quickly faded from Sephora shelves. It was still briefly available at Macy's, but that source soon dried up too. And so I hung my head low and mourned the loss of another product that was foolish enough to aim itself at the Jeffrey Scott Holland market.

But while unearthing boxes of mystery crap from one of my storage units recently, behold, what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a forgotten freakin' full unopened bottle of Waffle Cone, the last that may ever come my way again.

Life is good.


- - JSH