Collars 'R' Us

A few months back a little game started among some of my Facebook buddies and myself. The instigator of this game was my girlfriend Laura, who had noticed that my friends Clark Brooks and Michael Noble aka Ruprecht had a similar warped sense of humour.

There is a website and Facebook page run by a lady calling herself The Kitsch Bitsch, and some of the photos on her Facebook page (as well as some other folks' random photos) are of a suitably cheesy '60s/'70s style. Some of these pictures are taken from old fashion catalogues and awful ads in the back of women's magazines. I forget which picture started it all, but the thing is snowballing.

You see, what Laura did was to tag us guys in one of these pictures. We then felt duty bound to make up an appropriate story to explain how and why we were in the picture, disguised and wearing awful cheap polyester clothing.
It started to sound like a bad '70s detective show. It tickled the three of us so much we decided to keep doing it. Now this may not sound like much of a game to you - but frankly, I don't care. I think it's hilarious and I'll only stop when it ceases to be so. Here, as an example of the sort of thing I am talking about, is a recent entry, with additional comments from Rick Arthur, whom I believe to be a pal of Michael's...

Rick Arthur Say hello to my little friend...
Those outfits give the wearer certain powers.
There is a reason these fashions came and went out of style. They were bullet proof, smudge proof, and stain resistant!

Michael Noble ‎Jeff? Clark? We're going to have to be a bit more on our guards about our superhero exploits. It appears Rick Arthur may be on to us. How else would he know the duds shown were "bullet proof, smudge proof, and stain resistant" ... ???


If you recall, I had first dibs on the clothing we selected for "Collars 'R' Us' ... the caper where we almost lost our crime fighting licenses. I don't remember much about this adventure as I was mesmerized at one point by my "Lawrence Welk"-flavored shirt. I do recall being bludgeoned over the head for my inattentiveness by the guys we were hired to stake out. Was it you, Jeff, who came to my rescue? Or Clark. Details may now be revealed!

Jeff Hickmott I must admit, my memory of this particular adventure is a little hazy, but that might be due to the fact that my trousers were so tight that my circulation was slowed significantly, causing me to become rather light-headed. however, I do recall that it was Clark Brooks' quick thinking that saved us both when he pointed off into the distance and yelled, "Look! Jacqueline Bisset!! In the swimsuit she wore in The Deep!" which caused enough of a distraction to enable us to make a speedy getaway. Hats off to Clark there, for sure.

Clark Brooks What's odd about that is that is not the kind of thing I'd normally be inclined to share with either of you. Or anyone else for that matter.

Michael Noble ‎... which makes it all the better of a tale ...

Puzzler: Mos Def

So last time I asked you folks where one might see the venerable Steve Cropper in a Jack Black film. The more perceptive amongst you might know that the answer was in a scene from Be Kind Rewind,  starring Mr. Black and the wonderful Mos Def as two hapless video-store clerks whose entire library gets wiped clean in some sort of freak magnetic happening, and they then decide to re-film the entire library themselves. Much hilarity ensues. Steve Cropper is to be found sitting alongside Booker T. Jones on a train, portraying themselves as fans of Fats Waller. Unfortunately there appear to be no clips of this brief cameo anywhere on the Intertubes.

So the next question...?

Which rocker has Mos Def portrayed on the big screen, and in which movie?

100 Records that Shook The World, #28

"There's oodles of pain in the Low album. That was my first attempt to kick cocaine, so that was an awful lot of pain. And I moved to Berlin to do it. I moved out of the coke center of the world into the smack center of the world. Thankfully, I didn't have a feeling for smack, so it wasn't a threat."

It was intended to be the soundtrack for Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth, but Roeg preferred something more acoustic and folky. No matter. Bowie was kicking coke for the first time, recording in Paris with Tony Visconti producing, Brian Eno collaborating, and exploring the sounds of all those wonderful Krautrockers like Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk, all the while battling his former manager in court. The front cover, showing Bowie in profile under the word Low (a still from Man Who Fell To Earth),  was a deliberate pun about keeping a low profile. 


The end result was one of the most influential albums of the 70s, featuring the wonderful single Sound And Vision.


Enjoy.