SOUNDTRACK: THE SUFFERS-Tiny Desk Concert #482 (October 27, 2015).
The Suffers are a ten piece soul band fronted by the charismatic Kam Franklin. I loved how at the start of this show each band member counted down 1-10 while Kam stood on the desk to sing.
“Giver” is a slow R&B type song with lots of lengthy horn solos.
“Midtown” has a funky sound with a cool bass line. I though that song started to get interesting towards the end but then they stopped it.
“Gwan” is my favorite of the three because it is more uptempo and fun and allows the band (including Kam) to really rock out.
Everything about The Suffers is right on–the horns sound great, the band is tight, Kam’s voice is string and powerful. But I just don;’t like this kind of music at all. And I don’t really need to hear The Suffers again (although that last song is pretty good.
[READ: September 10, 2016] The Complete Peanuts 1989-1990
I had said that the previous book felt a little lightweight compared to previous years. This book actually continued in that somewhat unsatisfying vein. For point of reference, when I jot down strips that I really like, I usually fill two or three small pages of paper. This book had only one page and a little over flow.
But, it also had one of the most exiting and emotionally satisfying sequences as 1990 drew to a close.
Schulz has also been having fun with the new fewer-panel style. It’s mostly three panels but he experiments with 2 panels and even one panel. He seems to enjoy playing with the space afforded with one panel–its interesting to see.
The year starts off with an ugly dog contest and the introduction of yet another of Snoopy’s brothers, this one named Olaf. Olaf is very ugly and wears a sack. When he takes it off he reveals himself to be a squat round version of snoopy with buck teeth or a tongue hanging out of his mouth. In June of 1989 we actually see Snoopy’s Dad on Father’s Day. He looks like snoopy but with a big mustache (white), small glasses, and a cap.
Starting in the previous book and continuing through now, we often see Sally responding to things on the TV. Most of them are pretty funny. Later, Sally says that her school play is going to be Hansel and Grateful.
Marcie still has mixed feeling for Charles and tells Patty to throw a bean ball at him, but then takes it back. In the summer of 1989 Patty goes to summer school and Marcie teases her that she (Marcie) and Charles area at camp togetehr. Patty gets very jealous.
In July 1981 in a one panel; the kids are on line to buy tickets to the movie sand one of them says “Those two guys on TV hated it.”
Snoopy has another good food comment this year: “Do you want a cookie with nuts or a cookie with raisins?” “Neither, I prefer plain cookies. I don’t like food in my food.” But speaking of cookies, there are about 100 strips where the punchline is something about Snoopy eating cookies. It gets a little out of hand. There were always the jokes about the chocolate chip cookies calling him but soon all of the punchlines start to do with cookies.
Franklin is still talking about his grandpa with Charlie Brown. And Pig-Pen returns for a little while.
In July of 1989 an “old friend” calls Charlie Brown. She insists on coming over and says she hasn’t seem hm for a long time. She seems to have red hair (but is not the red-haired girl) an upon seeing them, runs up to Snoopy, calls him Charlie Brown and takes him away. She looks at Charlie and asks “who are you.” She feeds Snoopy sundaes until he is nearly sick.
Over the summer Patty and Marcie are supposed to read four books, but Marcie reads an extra one: The Little Prince. Patty says it’s so short what’s he big deal? Marcie read it in French.
In August 1989 in the kids are lined up for autographs $30 for Joe DiMaggio, $25 for Ted Williams. Steve Garvey is $9 and Maury Wills is $5. Charlie gets Joe Shlabotnick’s and the guys gives Charlie a dollar. Joe Garagiola continues to pop up in the strip. Charlie tells Schroeder he can have a career as a catcher and then after you retire you can go on TV like Joe Garagiola and Lucy says Who?
1989’s football gag has Lucy telling Charlie to think of the regrets he’ll have if he never risks anything.
Starting in 1989 and continuing for a few years it seems, Charlie has become very close to Snoopy–a relationship that was never really there before. There’s a lot of pictures of Snoopy on Charlie’s lap (very cutely drawn, I must say. It more or less starts in October with Charlie saying “All I seem to want to do lately is sit around holding my dog on my lap.” This leads to Charlie quitting school and devoting his entire life to making Snoopy happy. They eat a lot of food until Snoopy gets sick and he concludes ” I think I happied him to the vet.” Charlie concludes that he was sorry making him happy didn’t work out and Snoopy replied “I was already happy.”
There’s also a resurgence of the blanket battle between Linus and Snoopy which I always liked.
POP CULTURE: Lucy is listening to the radio and says she missed the ball because Michael Jackson hit a high note. Later in the month Linus thinks to videotape the Great Pumpkin (although we never see him do it). In August 1990, Snoopy calls himself “Joe Bungee” and in November, Snoopy is riding Rollerblades and then later Sally asks for them from Snoopy Claus.
In January 1989 Patty is watching her hero Donna Adamek bowl.
I really enjoy the wordless joke of the street sign pointing up and then a curve down. One of the Woodstock birds stands on top of the sign, the other two where the arrow points. Snoopy s says, “You’re right we should have had a picture of that.”
A lot of the Mother’s Day panels for the last few years have been about Woodstock trying to give a card to him mom, but in 1990 Charlie lets his mom pitch for Mother’s Day which is very sweet
For summer camp Sally refuses to go. When Charlie describes on the phone that there will be canoeing, swimming, rock climbing, tennis hiking, soccer he turns to Sally to sally and their Granma just signed up.
As I mentioned earlier, this book wasn’t that exciting for me. I never really got into any of the story lines. Until summer camp of 1990 when things suddenly became awesome. Charlie takes Snoopy to camp, which is kind of fun. But then unexpectedly, on July 23, Charlie talks to a cute girl. He says he always gets nervous around pretty girls. But she says he shouldn’t be: pretty girls are human too. Her name is Peggy Jean and he is so in love that he calls himself Brownie Charles, which she thinks is adorable. She really likes him! She even holds the ball for him to kick. But he is so conditioned that he doubts her sincerity which just gets her mad.
But before camp is over, she tells him he’s the nicest boy she’s ever met and then she kisses him! And a few weeks later when Charlie can’t figure out why she hasn’t written, it’s because Sally has been throwing out all the letters that came to Brownie Charles–if only he’d been waiting at the mailbox!
I also enjoyed the joke in August of 1990 where snoopy sells a raffle ticket and it say s “You don’t win anything but you’ll have the pleasure of owning your very own raffle tickets… be the first on your block to start a collection.”
In Sept 1990 Pig Pen decides to run for class president. Someone shouts that he has no dignity so he puts on a stove pipe hat. Nobody votes for him anyhow.
And then in October, we get some real insight into Marcie. She comes over to say that her parents are driving her crazy. They want her to be perfect and get straight A’s. Shes cracking up. It’s a pretty intense moment for Peanuts. And Charlie is in way over his head. Marcie falls asleep at Charlie’s house. When she wakes up she says “I don’t want to go home… can I stay here? If I go home I have to be perfect…. Sally shouts from the other room, “If she doesn’t want to be perfect she’s come to the right place!” The sequence ends sadly open-ended with Marcie saying she’s going home so she can get straight A’s “just so I can go to some college they’ve already picked out for me.” And Sally says “and end up marrying some nerd.”
In Dec 1990 Charlie goes to buy Peggy Jean some nice gloves. But they cost $25. He sells all of his stuff to buy them for her only to find out that her parents just bought her gloves. Sadly he gave them to Snoopy instead.
The book ends with one of the saddest Christmas strips ever. It’s just Spike sitting alone with mistletoe stuck to a cactus and him saying “Rats.”
Apropos of this, the intro was written by Lemony Snicket. Rather than raving about the strip, Snicket revels in how dark it is He quotes all of the darkest lines in the book and says how odd it is that these sentences are found in the section marked Comics.
And then Snicket summarizes the strip:
The hero of this melodrama is a balding grammar school student paralyzed by fear and self-loathing. Sadly, the psychiatrist he chooses is also a child, who not only offers him nothing but cruelty and scorn…One would be tempted to label her as the villain of this ongoing tale of terror, if she didn’t share the same unhappy hopelessness as her helpless patient.
Then there’s her young brother who shuffles around town clutching ragged bedclothes and trying to dissolve one of his own fingers in his mouth. It’s no wonder the psychiatrist has fallen into a cycle of romantic obsession and violent argument with a temperamental musician.
Our hero, in the meantime, is not far from obsessive complication: two women compete for his attention, all the while maintaining a tense “friendship: with one another despite the fact that one of them, out of stupidity or malice, mistakes the gender of the other.
Even the neighborhood dog, who by all rights should remain clueless of the goings-on, is ravaged by the local madness. When not talking to a bird who utters nothing but apostrophes, he fantasizes that he is fighting in one of the world’s mist horrific conflicts.
I am fascinated by the endless ghastly tale of these poor youngsters.
Make no mistake, Lemony Snicket is a huge fan.
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SOUNDTRACK: JASON SHARP-A Boat Upon Its Blood [CST119] (2016).
Constellation records had been rather quiet this year in terms of new releases. And then back in August they announced three new discs with this intriguing blurb:
I Just Read About That... 