Tip-Top Quotables: "It's like she's walking on a carpet of mice," plus a few other great lines this week

My favorite monthly section in old Source magazine issues was "Hip-Hop Quotables," in which the Source editors printed out their favorite new rap verse of the month, from the first bar to the last. "Tip-Top Quotables," which I've named after that Source section, is a collection of my favorite quotes of the week from anywhere, whether it's a recent TV show or a new rap verse. "TTQ" won't appear on this blog every week. It'll appear whenever the fuck I feel like it.

So this week, I wrote my first piece for Splitsider, "The 'Gas Leak Year' of The Boondocks," about why I, a Boondocks fan, have been disappointed with most of the show's new episodes. Complex podcaster Desus, who's big on Black Twitter and writes frequently hilarious tweets, retweeted the link to my Splitsider article, so thanks to Black Twitter, my piece received more RTs and faves than I expected. If there's any half of Twitter you'd be glad to have on your side, it would definitely be Black Twitter, and not having Black Twitter on your side is something Stacey Dash would know all too well.

If I didn't write the Boondocks critique and someone else wrote it instead, I would have included an excerpt from it below. But because I wrote it, I won't quote from it in "TTQ" because doing so would be masturbatory and self-congratulatory, like favoriting your own tweet. Sorry, Harry Allen, you'll always be a hip-hop journalism hero of mine, but favoriting your own tweet is the epitome of being way too up your own ass. I hope the favoriting of his own tweet was an accident (maybe he was trying to favorite the retweeting DJ QBert did of his tweet, and instead, it ended up looking like he was favoriting himself). He's middle-aged. Folks on Twitter who are middle-aged always make a bunch of blunders over there, like hyphenating a hashtag or doing the social media equivalent of wearing squeaky Selina Mayer shoes. Speaking of which, those very shoes are the subject of a couple of this week's best quotes.

* "It just destroyed me. I mean, I was bulimic the whole first year, and I didn't even lose any weight from it."--Chief of Staff Ben Cafferty (Kevin Dunn) on his first year as the last president's Chief of Staff, Veep, "New Hampshire"

* "It's like she's walking on a carpet of mice."--Mike McLintock (Matt Walsh) reacting to the squeaky high heels Gary Walsh (Tony Hale) gave to President Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) as a gift, Veep, "New Hampshire"

* "Sounds like the theme from Psycho."--Ben on Selina's squeaky shoes, Veep, "New Hampshire"

(Photo source: Mara Wilson)

(Photo source: Frank Conniff)

* "It's like getting divorced in the '50s. People didn't go to divorce court. They just looked at their wife like, 'Baby, I'm gonna go get a pack of cigarettes. I'll be right back.'"--Dave Chappelle on the controversial way he bounced from Chappelle's Show and became "seven years late for work," during his first Letterman interview in 10 years

* "It's not a criticism to say that Jon Brion absolutely bullies his score onto the screen in Paul Thomas Anderson's 2002 romantic drama Punch Drunk Love--in fact, the director rather preferred it that way. Distracting, percussive, and chaotic, there's a parallel storyline happening with Brion's work in the film next to Adam Sandler's rage-ridden character Barry, and viewing the film is a fantastically exhausting attempt to figure each thread out. Together, Anderson and Brion achieved a new expressionistic form with a film score, down to the instruments used on-screen and behind the scenes. The broken harmonium that Barry decides to fix was planted in Anderson's mind before the script was even finished, and as it turned out, Brion recalled a harmonium that he fixed with duct tape before going on tour with Aimee Mann--a situation which ended up in the final film."--Charlie Schmidlin, The Playlist, "16 Musicians-Turned-Film Composers and Their Breakout Scores"

* "Depending on how much time you have, explaining Ruby's impact on African-American women in Hollywood could take hours."--The Smoking Section's J. Tinsley on the late Ruby Dee

* "I anticipate that I'll always write about race and racism in some professional capacity. Still, wouldn't it be wonderful if writers and creatives on the periphery were welcomed in from anonymity, not thanks to their accounts of woe, but simply because they have things to share--tales of love, joy, happiness, and basic humanity--that have nothing to do with their race and also everything to do with their race. I'm ready for people in positions of power at magazines and newspapers and movie studios to recalibrate their understanding of what it means to talk about race in the first place. If America would like to express that it truly values and appreciates the voices of its minorities, it will listen to all their stories, not just the ones reacting to its shortcomings and brutality."--Cord Jefferson, Medium, "The Racism Beat: What it's like to write about hate over and over and over"

* "Just before they got rid of Owen Gleiberman, EW trumpeted the launch of 'The Community,' a blog 'featuring superfans with passion and unique voices' recruited from the blog's readership. In other words: a way for EW to exploit the labor of fans, students, and other aspiring bloggers who'll write for free, a model made notorious by The Bleacher Report... The idea of working for free for Time Inc., which had $3.35 billion in gross revenue, and $337 million in pre-tax operating income, in 2013, seems beyond absurd."--Anne Helen Petersen, The Awl, "The Trials of Entertainment Weekly: One Magazine's 24 Years of Corporate Torture"

From the home office in Wahoo, Nebraska, it's "Top 10 reasons why the soon-to-retire David Letterman's 4am episode remains one of my favorite Late Show eps"

10. The Top 10 List for May 14, 2004 was read by people working the graveyard shift.

9. I was too young to stay up and watch NBC's Late Night with David Letterman when it first aired. But I grew up watching the soon-to-retire Letterman's CBS show (if the words "Happy Da Birthday Ve" or "Dave and Steve's Gay Vacation" don't make you smile, you're clearly a Leno fan), and the May 14, '04 episode with Amy Sedaris and musical guest Modest Mouse, which Letterman taped earlier that morning at 4am in front of an amazingly awake (but not really amazing to most of New York) Ed Sullivan Theater studio audience, was the closest Late Show has gotten to recapturing the weirdness of Letterman's Late Night years.

8. Unless I'm mistaken, Late Show remains the only late-night talk show that ever taped an episode at 4am. "We thought it would be cool, just something different to try... The city is always interesting, but particularly interesting at 4am," said Late Show executive producer Rob Burnett to USA Today in '04 about the show's one-time decision to switch from Letterman's usual late-afternoon recording time to an ungodly hour.

7. Letterman made one of his grandest entrances by riding on horseback to the Ed, to the tune of Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra's rendition of John Barry's Midnight Cowboy instrumental theme. An underrated John Barry movie theme as walk-on music on a late-night talk show! Shaffer's walk-on music choices have occasionally been questionable (he once soundtracked black SNL cast member Ellen Cleghorne's entrance with "Jimmy Crack Corn," a song about a black slave, and then claimed it was because "Cleghorne" sounded to him like "Crack Corn"--I'm not making this up), but otherwise, they've always been clever, and I'm going to miss that part of the show, as well as Letterman's wit and snarkiness.

6. I stopped liking Sedaris ever since Angry Asian Man wrote in 2009 about her history of doing this, but the 4am show was worthwhile also because it featured the frequent Late Show guest, who wasn't accustomed to being in front of a camera at 4am, at her loopiest.

5. Shaffer soundtracked the porno video store part of Sedaris' 4am walking tour of her Greenwich Village neighborhood with the Vince Guaraldi Trio classic "Cast Your Fate to the Wind."

4. There was a segment about catching rats in Manhattan.

3. The rat expert's reply to Letterman's question about why he studied rats was "Because I hate them."

(Photo source: National Geographic Creative)

2. Everyone in the studio audience received an Egg McMuffin. I don't care for Mickey D's, but the only worthwhile part of the Mickey D's menu is its breakfast items. Want to scare away a hipster? Hurl Egg McMuffins at him.

1. Fucking Midnight Cowboy theme, y'all!

Speaking of John Barry, his score cues from The Knack... And How to Get It, The Persuaders, From Russia with Love, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and The Living Daylights can be heard during "AFOS Prime," from 4pm to 9pm Pacific and 11pm to 7am Pacific, Monday-Wednesday on AFOS.

Drums, please!

This week, Late Show with David Letterman is presenting its first-ever "Drum Solo Week," a series of shows in which Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra will put the spotlight on legendary drummers and percussionists like Sheila E., Roy Haynes and the CBS Orchestra's own Anton Fig. Because of "Drum Solo Week," it's time to revisit a killer two-minute drum solo that opens "Come Maddalena (Like Maddalena)," a cue from Ennio Morricone's lush score to Maddalena, an obscure 1971 Italian art-house movie in which, according to IMDb, Lisa Gastoni "takes the title role in uninhibited, full frontal nudity fashion" and falls in love with "a priest in doubt over his vocation." I've never seen Maddalena--I assume it's like The Thorn Birds, but without that creepy "he first knew her when she was a little girl" thing.

The soloist at the start of "Come Maddalena" is Morricone's frequent drummer during the '60s and '70s, Vincenzo Restuccia. His terrific drum work is also the highlight of "L'Ultimo," a Morricone instrumental that first appeared on the 1970 album Ideato, Scritto e Diretto da Ennio Morricone and was, according to a page about the 1970 LP, "composed for an unrealesed [sic] film whose title has been forgotten by Morricone himself." (I wonder why Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi didn't hire Restuccia as their percussionist during the recording of their Rome homage to '60s and '70s Italian film scores. Restuccia would have been perfect for that project.)

The groovetastic "L'Ultimo" sounds like something Marcello Mastroianni would have played in his convertible while driving around 1969 Rome with his 10th Victim stunna shades on.

14 favorite elements of songs I currently have on rotation while I create artwork for my own book

1. The cinematic-sounding French horn lines during Kanye West's "All of the Lights"
Ye is a modern-day Mozart--as in batshit crazy, but a total musical genius.



2. The military drums during Pusha T's "My God"

(Photo source: Trebles and Blues)

3. The piano sample during Trebles and Blues' "The Tempo"

4. The handclaps during The New Pornographers' "Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk"



5. The bloops that open The Chemical Brothers' "Car Chase (Arp Worship)" from the Hanna score

6. The bass line of Lyrics Born and Sam Sparro's "Coulda Woulda Shoulda"

7. The really tight brass section during The Heavy's live 2010 performance of "That Kind of Man" for KEXP

8. The "Love You Save"-esque beat of Dennis Coffey and Mayer Hawthorne's "All Your Goodies Are Gone"

9. Dres' flow during the Black Sheep track "Elevation"

10. Bambu's delivery of "I used to sit in church and look at the stained glass and wonder why none of them look like me" during "Misused"

11. The electronic bass line of Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy end credits cue "Solar Sailer"

12. Ernie Isley's smokin' guitar solo at the end of The Isley Brothers' "Summer Breeze"
I only listen to that cover of sappy Seals and Crofts just to get to that guitar solo.

13. Teena Marie (R.I.P.) leading the female half of the Long Beach audience in a playful battle of the sexes with Rick James over which gender is louder during the live 1981 version of "I'm a Sucker for Love" that's on the deluxe edition CD of Street Songs

14. "The Michael McDonald of the rap game," Nate Dogg (R.I.P.), proving he wasn't your father's Michael McDonald when he crooned "And you even licked my balls" during Snoop Dogg's "Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None)"

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: The Heavy, "Short Change Hero"

Song: "Short Change Hero" by The Heavy
Released: 2009
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's featured in the end credits of Dwayne Johnson's recent revenge flick Faster, which earns points for also featuring Guido and Maurizio De Angelis' "Goodbye My Friend" from another revenge flick, the 1974 Franco Nero actioner Street Law. Viewers of the Syfy original series Haven might be familiar with "Short Change Hero" from its appearance in Haven promos.

I'm a fan of the British band The Heavy. I'm not a fan of Hollywood's current perception that "How You Like Me Now?" is the only song The Heavy has done. So I'm glad Faster gave exposure to a Heavy track that's not "How You Like Me Now?"

Both those jams and "That Kind of Man" sound incredible live. Hell, all of The Heavy's songs sound incredible live. (David Letterman loved The Heavy's live performance of "How You Like Me Now?" with the horn section of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings so much that he did something he had never done before: he had the musical guest do an encore.)

"On, Donner! On, Blitzen! On, Chuy! On, Tavo! C'mon, Becto!": 10 current favorite Christmas tracks

The following is inspired by a holiday music meme I first saw posted by Matt on Scrubbles.net. Like Matt said in his list, some of us require a bit of acid in our eggnog (or in our DVD players--my favorite holiday movie is The Ref, the film where Kevin Spacey memorably tells his evil mom he'll get her a cross for Christmas so that whenever she feels unappreciated for her sacrifices, she can climb on up and nail herself to it).

10. The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, "Fairytale of New York"
Now that's my idea of the perfect Pasko song. The cover version with Dr. Girlfriend as Shane MacGowan and the Monarch as MacColl is hilariously fooked up.

9. OutKast, "Player's Ball"
Andre 3000 and Big Boi's very first single was originally a Yuletide joint, in which the Player's Ball happens on Christmas Day instead of "all day e'ryday." The Christmas Day line is removed from the Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik version, but most of the other holiday references remain ("Ain't no chiminies in the ghetto/So I won't be hangin' my socks on no tip").

8. Darlene Love, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"
I first heard this tune during the opening credits of Gremlins. I've grown fond of "Baby Please Come Home" because of Love's annual performance of the Phil Spector-produced standard on Letterman's Christmas shows.

7. Donny Hathaway, "This Christmas"
Everyone from Patti LaBelle to woman-beating douches have covered "This Christmas," but Hathaway's 1970 original will always be the best version. It's mostly because of the thunderous percussion and them funky horns. Earlier this month, the Chicago Sun-Times published a terrific article that contains interesting tidbits about the Chicago native's classic recording, like its unlikely ties to film music (the song's bridge was inspired by Elmer Bernstein's Magnificent Seven theme!).

6. Booker T. & the MGs, "Merry Christmas Baby"
Atlantic's 1991 Soul Christmas compilation is my favorite holiday CD, thanks to the inclusion of "This Christmas," Clarence Carter's "Back Door Santa" and the sizzling Booker T. & the MGs cover of singer Charles Brown's 1947 standard, which was featured in David Sedaris' classic 1992 NPR reading of The Santaland Diaries.

5. Vince Guaraldi Trio, "Skating"
This is the only track on the list that's from a film or TV score. My favorite tune from the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack is neither "Christmas Time Is Here" nor "Linus and Lucy." It's the underappreciated "Skating." Guaraldi once said, "I don't think I'm a great piano player." Nah, during "Skating," Guaraldi was a great piano player.

4. The Waitresses, "Christmas Wrapping"
Like in "This Christmas," the horn section sounds so tight during "Christmas Wrapping."

3. Cheech & Chong, "Santa Claus and His Old Lady"
Donde esta Santa Cleese? Another enjoyable Christmas track involving a Latino comedian is Horatio Sanz's "I Wish It Was Christmas Today," which was covered earlier this week by Julian Casablancas and the Roots.

2. Patton Oswalt, "My Christmas Memory"
I lose it every time I hear Oswalt's impression of a slowed-down David Seville from "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)."


1. Run-DMC, "Christmas in Hollis"
Jam Master Jay's killer "Back Door Santa" sample is a reason why millions of us continue to exclaim "Goddamn, that DJ made my day!" long after his death.

"Great Moments in Presidential Speeches" (2006-2009)

There's one downside to the eagerly awaited end of the Bush Administration: the retirement of David Letterman's nightly Bush-bashing segment. Called "the gift that kept on giving" by Letterman staff writer Eric Stangel, the segment is receiving a grand sendoff from the Late Show host, shortly before Obama's inauguration. "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches," you will be missed.

I'll also miss the running gag of Late Show staffers getting inserted into the clip of JFK's inaugural address:

The staffers include announcer Alan Kalter, "cue card boy" Tony "Inky" Mendez (who shows cue cards to President Kennedy), costume designer Susan Hum (whose actions include taking his picture with a disposable camera, removing lint from his shoulder, stealing his wallet, and eating a jumbo pretzel), associate producer Nancy Agostini, and stage manager Biff Henderson. All "cameos" end with the staffers clapping along in real-time response to Kennedy's speech.

20 favorite TV moments of 2008

Happy New Year. These favorite moments of mine are all from scripted or non-reality TV. Screw reality TV.

(Warning: some spoilers ahead.)

20. Conan, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert try to kick each other's asses to the tune of "Brianstorm" by the Arctic Monkeys (Late Night with Conan O'Brien).

19. Barney, Ted and Lily rock "the Naked Man" (How I Met Your Mother).

18. Rob Riggle gives Code Pink enough rope to hang themselves (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart).

17. Walt blows up Tuco's office (Breaking Bad).

16. Brock battles a French assassin who's obsessed with Silver Age comic books (The Venture Bros.).

15. Michael goes undercover as a wimpy chemist (Burn Notice).

14. "She must prove she loves America, as opposed to Republicans, who everyone knows love America. They just hate half the people living in it" (The Daily Show).

13. The island is visited by the freighties, who include Daniel, a heroic science nerd, and Miles, a wiseass "ghostbuster" and the most interesting and least clichéd Asian American male character to hit network TV in years (Lost).

12. Patterson punches Encino Man (Generation Kill).

11. "Hey John, I got a question! You need a ride to the airport?" (Late Show with David Letterman).

10. Stephen tries--and fails--to hide actual tears during Barack Obama's historic victory (Indecision 2008: America's Choice).

9. Wendy emerges from the water in Ursula Andress' Dr. No bikini (The Middleman).

8. Don tells Peggy to get out of the hospital and move forward (Mad Men).

7. The survivors find Earth (Battlestar Galactica).

6. Katie Couric (Amy Poehler) interviews Sarah Palin (Tina Fey) (Saturday Night Live).

5. Jack crashes Liz's high school reunion (30 Rock).

4. Bubbles is finally invited to the dinner table (The Wire).

3. Vic confesses (The Shield).

2. Joe Biden (Jason Sudeikis) and Sarah Palin (Fey) go head to head (SNL).

1. Iceman's team sings "Teenage Dirtbag" (Generation Kill).

-----

Runners-up:
- The Bawlmer cops sing "The Body of an American" for the final time (The Wire).
- Desmond looks for his constant (Lost).
- "A guaranteed disaster. Like eating a burrito before sex" (30 Rock).
- Samantha Bee tries to get Republican delegates to say the word "choice" (The Daily Show).
- BET fires everyone who can read (The Boondocks).
- 6H turns into Amadeus (30 Rock).
- John Legend sings "The Girl Is Mine" with Stephen (The Colbert Report).
- Will Arnett does his last sex tape (Human Giant).
- Sayid sells his soul (Lost).

My three favorite holiday traditions return tonight

For me, Christmas ain't Christmas without three things: 1) Paul Shaffer doing his hysterical impression of Cher singing "O Holy Night," 2) Jay Thomas telling an anecdote about an encounter with Lone Ranger star Clayton Moore, followed by Thomas trying to knock a giant meatball off the top of a Christmas tree with a football, and 3) Darlene Love performing "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)."

One of the suckiest things about the writer's strike was that it led to Late Show with David Letterman not being able to do its annual Christmas edition last year. Tonight, Cher and her muff, Thomas and Love are back.

"Uppity" is the new "n----r"

I wish Senator Obama or his followers came up with an angrier response to that redneck asshole who called the senator and his wife "uppity" last week. As John Ridley recently said on The Huffington Post, Obama should have "hit 'em where they live."

I wonder how Mays or Mitch Gilliam would have handled Westmoreland.

Probably like that. So wrong, yet so right.

The fact that it's 2008 and a white Congressman still throws around the term "uppity"--plus McCain's use of the word "gook" and the possibility that Palin* once called Obama "Sambo"**--are just some of the many reasons why I'll never vote Republican.

* "They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska" is this year's "Our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for us."

** To borrow a Letterman joke, Palin comes across like the mayor of a small town that's banned dancing, so I wouldn't be surprised.