.
{Psst! If you missed the "dogs" in Part 1 > HERE (yes, there were two dogs this time!), they were located in the 'Billy 'N' Billie' screenplay pages I showed you.}
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Alright, let's get on it.
Let's get ON this thing!
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Please vote in the comment section below for which song you preferred. And then please be kind enough to visit all - I said, "ALL" - of the other BOTBers and also drop your two-cents in their contests.
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'THE BACK ROOM'
by Van Morrison
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'BETTY WAS BLACK
(AND WILLIE WAS WHITE)'
by Todd Snider
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I intend to return here on (or about) April 22nd with my own vote and the Final Tally.
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Until then, may you...
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Bless & Be Blessed!!
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~ Stephen (T. McCarthy)
Love the bluesy vibe and guitar riffs of Van Morrison's Back Room! It grabbed me from the get-go. Todd Snider, not so much...
ReplyDeleteP.S. I'm still taking a break from writing BOTB posts, but will come by to vote as often as possible.
DEBBIE ~
DeleteI appreciate your continued BOTB support, and look forward to your return at some point.
This contest intrigues me, because although I like both songs, they're both... uhm... (what's the word I want to use here?)... peculiar - they're both peculiar but in very different ways. I can see how a person might enjoy one and not the other, or might not enjoy either one. These are definitely not following any kind of standard formula.
~ D-FensDogG
Good to see you put a bit for a juggler in your screenplay.
ReplyDeleteThese two songs were totally new to me. I'm a big Morrison fan as you know, but in this case the Snyder song was fantastic. Love that sound
Give my vote to Todd Snyder.
Lee
BOIDMAN ~
DeleteOnce upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, I spent a great deal of time at Venice Beach. And everything in that opening scene of my screenplay was something I'd really seen in the area, including the guy juggling live chainsaws!
The turbaned man playing electric guitar while roller-skating was a Venice Beach icon for many years. His name was Harry Perry. Harry wasn't really a notable musician, so when "they" created the following album, they had Harry just talking rather than playing:
[Link> SPIRIT OF VENICE, CALIFORNIA
(Harry Perry is track #3.)
That album was released in March of 1992, and I think it's fairly representative of the Venice Beach experience of that time.
Glad you dug the Todd Snider song so much! Cool! A kind of Country Blues sound with a modern message.
~ D-FensDogG
I remember seeing Harry Perry a few times when we went to Venice Beach. Usually saw a juggler or two juggling something or other. Going there was ( and still is) a place we'd take visitors who had never been. Last time I went was November 2023.
DeleteLee
I had a hunch that you'd seen Harry Perry before. He was there for years and years (decades?) and was almost a (mobile) Venice landmark.
DeleteAnother performer who was practically a landmark (whom I neglected to mention in my screenplay's opening shot) was the guy who'd haul his piano down to the boardwalk and serenade the folks eating at The Sidewalk Cafe. I'll bet you've seen him, too.
~ D'DogG
Betty was Black is my vote. I normally would go for Van but I found it a bit chaotic. What a shame that you gave a bad impression to the director but you did write a screenplay! You wrote a book and gave it to your friends. They must have loved it.it just shows the many careers one can have.
ReplyDeleteBIRGIT ~
DeleteThanks, as always, for bringing your two cents for the Vote Bucket!
Yeah, the Van song is definitely something *different*. That was one of his very early recordings, around the same time as 'Brown-Eyed Girl', and he was still experimenting, looking for that "sound" he'd later become so famous for.
I'm actually 100% OK with the failed attempt to get my screenplay made into a movie. I truly feel that things turned out as they were meant to. (The other night, I flipped through some pages of it and found myself laughing at some of the stuff I came up with. Example: One of my protagonists getting goosed by a goose. Which actually *almost* happened to me one time at the Venice Canals. ;^D
When it came to the arts, it seemed like I always had just "warning-track power" (if you're familiar with that baseball term). I could get closer than many, but never quite had that big breakthrough. It was almost like I was being "teased".
However, I'm still standing (tired, but standing), and something (or Someone?) tells me that a big event is just down the road & I will have a "role" to play in that.
~ D-FensDogG
BIRGIT, here's another one that I'd forgotten about but which made me chuckle when I came across it the other night...
DeletePapa Louis is a Venice Beach pimp; Billie Clayton works for him, but not as a prostitute:
PAPA LOUIS [to Billie Clayton]: "I'll take good care of her. You know that. Didn't I do good by you? Didn't I even keep you company on those nights when you felt lonely?"
BILLIE CLAYTON: "Nights when I felt lonely?! What are you, dyslexic? I'm leaving, Louis. I'm done with this."
Clayton leaving Louis on page 31 (one of the script's several plot points) is a key that leads to a great deal of conflict involving multiple characters as the story progresses.
~ D'DogG
VOTE = VAN MORRISON
ReplyDeleteAn unusual Van Morrison track. I liked the Todd Snider song, but I couldn't get past my attraction to the Van Morrison number. ~Ed.
ED ~
DeleteYes, definitely an "unusual" song. Although it must surely have been rehearsed to some degree (the background vocals are perfectly placed), it still has a very spontaneous, conversational feeling about it. It wouldn't surprise me if Van had ad-libbed some of the lyrics as he went along.
That's actually the thing that appeals to me so much about it. That insouciant stream-of-consciousness feeling. It really nails down the mood of the times, when Pooh and I were doing nothing other than drinking beer, focused on the music of the moment, and yakking about this, that, and the other thing; yakking about where we'd come from, where we were, and where we hoped to go. Few songs capture a slice o' my life more accurately than does 'The Back Room'.
~ D-FensDogG
My vote goes to Van Morrison. His song fit my ear better whereas the other just didn't grab me. You won't find a mid-month battle at my place, but I'm around. Have a bandtastic day, my friend!
ReplyDeleteCAThy! It's That YOU!!
DeleteI thanks ya for coming by with a vote, even though you're not participating in BOTB this round. I sincerely appreciate your loyalty to the cause, m'dear!
~ D-FensDogG
That's a bummer that your meeting with Tony Bill went awry, but by the sounds of it, that all worked out for the best, even if we never got to see Billy 'N' Billie and Hollywood slowly declined shortly thereafter. Is that a coincidence? I'm not sure. I might ask Ms. Snow White when she's not drooling all over herself -> https://mybroadband.co.za/forum/data/attachments/1747/1747519-fbf239f10ae6fd013d3bd3cc51dd763a.jpg
ReplyDeleteThis was a tough battle for me. Van's song has such a great, bluesy sound, but the lyrics don't hook me quite as much. Meanwhile, Todd Snider has a song that's catchy, whimsical, and I love the story being told in the song. Unlike the previous battle, this IS a story-driven song that I can find myself returning to for a repeat listen, so give my bote to Todd.
~Chief Julio (was red now that it's sunny, Snow White retard helmet will never not be funny)
Chief Tom "Big Shooter" Harpberry ~
DeleteI still believe 'Billy 'N' Billie' was a good story, that it was a good script, and it had a very uplifting ending. However, I also firmly believe that even if my interview with Mr. Bill had gone well, something was going to derail the project eventually. God knew that Hollywood was no place for a person on the path that He was going to be putting me on in just 3 more years.
I don't have a problem with how things have gone. It's kind of like how the English bartender in my screenplay put it:
"It is a problem if you let it be one. I have a German Shepherd; I named him Churchill. I have no problem with that."
When it comes to that Van song, I think for some folks it may be a "you had to be there" kind of thing. Or at least a "you had to be somewhere like it" thing.
Thanks for the bote, McBuddy!
~ D-FensDogG
I'm traveling and just lit in one spot for a couple of days, so NOW I can comment. I listened before and hence had a couple of days to consider the songs.
ReplyDeleteYou are right (in a previous comment): both songs are peculiar. Odd, bordering on weird.
Morrison sounds like Mick Jagger to me in this song. And it is catchy, but gets pert-dern "talkie" in style and goes on a LONG time! I would like the song better if it were about three and a half minutes long.
When I saw the "Betty Was Black" title for a brief sec I thought: Oh, it's Ram Jam, or Lead Belly. Nope. This song I had never heard (just like the Van song.)
Todd's vocal stylings (like Van's above) also feature a lot of non-musical "talk-singing" vocalizations, but I prefer Todd's song this time around. He gets the vote.
Sixgun McItchyfinger
McSix ~
DeleteVery pleased to know that things are S.O.P. with you. The first couple of days when you weren't your normally prompt self here (i.e., when you were unusually absent) my first thought was this:
Aww, he's probably just driving from the Galápagos Islands to Nevis Island.
But when it got to Day 3, I started to feel a bit of concern. (Could he have run out of gas somewhere between the islands and be stranded?
I kinda figured you wouldn't embrace either of these songs to any great extent, but I was 50% entirely certain that you would vote for Todd Snider. I asked my Magic 8-Ball if you would vote for Todd and it said: "It is decidedly possible" So, that cemented it in my mind.
Thanks for coming by with your two ounces of carbonated water for the community punch bowl, Brother! Glad to know that you and the entire Six family are safe & sound. (Who's Number One?!)
~ Rupert Van DogGboy
YOU'RE NUMBER ONE.
ReplyDeleteI'm driving but not between islands this time. Just drove from NH to San Antonio in one quick dash, and there was very little time for anything on the web. Drive from 7 am till 11, crash in the RV, get up and do it again.
I hate to be even a bit late to these "dances" but suffer it to be so for now. I will be doing mo' of this shizzle next month, too, so we'll see how well I do next month!
Do you have more Todd on the agenda for next time? He seems like he loves to sing about booze a lot, so you prolly have more lined up!
No. 6
SIR SIX-A-LOT ~
DeleteI'm Number One?!
That's not what Patrick McGoohan said.
>>... Drive from 7 am till 11, crash in the RV, get up and do it again.
Hmmm.... That reminds me of a Steely Dan song... and a Beach Boys song, too!
>>... but suffer it to be so for now.
HA! I wonder how many of my readers could immediately recognize the source of that line.
>>.... Do you have more Todd on the agenda for next time? He seems like he loves to sing about booze a lot, so you prolly have more lined up!
I only know of one more Snider song that would meet the requirements to be eligible in this contest. I had it on my 'Maybe' List for awhile, but removed it because it's just too depressing:
[Link> You Think You Know Somebody
According to my cowculations, the person with the most number of songs that include booze (a.k.a. hooch and evidence) is Tom Waits. Not far behind him is Hank "Bocephus" Williams Jr. Honorable Mentions are Lynyrd Skynyrd & Todd Snider, both at 4 songs which would qualify for inclusion in this themed contest.
May BOTB Trailer:
For a reason I don't want to disclose just yet, in my two May Battles I am planning to use just one song. Yip! Four versions of the same song. And these recordings are so dang good that I'm pert-dern sure that my May 1st & May 15th Battles are going to be appreciated to a far greater extent than my more recent Battles have been. We got some goot juans comin' soon, Six!
~ D-FensDogG
POSTSCRIPT:
DeleteMcSixbro... I'm listening to all of these renditions of May's mystery song that I have saved on my BOTB's BOTB 'Maybe' List & I'm thinking that this could even turn into 3 or 4 Battles using the same song.
Hokey-Smoke! This might be that one song which has the greatest number of great covers recorded of it!
~ D-FensDogG
Al Bondigas here. I never really cared for “The Back Room” back in the day and I thought for sure that I would be rulin’ fer the Toddster, even though I had never even heard of his song. Well, people change and tastes change. I’m barely, ever so slightly, makin muh rulin’ fer Van. So close you couldn’t put a thread through it. That’s it, that’s muh rulin’!! Back in the day when I lived at the pig walk, many times I would drop by Pooh’s liquor store and hang out while helping him stock the beer cooler, take out trash and sweep up. The back room always enabled us to get a jump start for the night of partying.
ReplyDeleteJUDGE AL ~
DeleteBeets
Creamed Corn
Artificial Watermelon flavors
Jelly Belly Buttered Popcorn jelly beans
These are things that I used to strongly dislike, but as I got older, I found that... I still disliked them.
However, I get ya. There are some things that seem to change for the better, or for the worse, as time goes on. (Really hoppy beers I used to love, I can't drink now. Lagunitas 'Sucks' now sucks.)
Pooh's back room was a magical, mystical place in that galaxy far, far away.
Thanks for makin' a rulin' in this BOTB courtroom, McBrother!
~ D-FensDogG
There were things I liked about both of these, but as Birgit said, Van Morrison's offering was too chaotic for me. Todd Snider gets my vote.
ReplyDeleteSIR JOHN ~
DeleteThank you for coming by with your two cents. With your vote tallied in, this contest is just too dang close! (4-5) I shudder to think that yet another tie may be looming on the horizon. One more tie will give me 24, which is a FULL YEAR of BOTB TIES! I can scarcely stand the thought of that.
~ D-FensDogG
And Stephen...
ReplyDeleteWhat time is it? ....Great write up and tanks a millun for the photo of the back room at Seamus Liquor and for the plug of my book Sacred Places and Sacred Faces. Reminds me of when we would "go all day" and then I would fall in. Yes, I remember the Huck Finn days well. LTBA...yet grateful for those moments nonetheless. Yes, we had some carefree days we were drinking to forget for some reason. But yes, there was freedom in that too. Takes me back my friend. You know where my votes a goin don't ya? Why fer the Irish Rebel of course. Don't ya feel sick?
A big JW,
Pooooh!
AND, POOH, THAT'S NOT ALL!...
DeleteI'm glad you were able to make it here in time to bring your two cans of Coke Zero for the community punch bowl! Somehow, I feel this Battle would have been illegitimate if you hadn't had a say in it.
Yeah, McBrother, two lines in that song that always make me smile are...
1) "Why don't we go all day?"
(Thinkin' maybe we didn't?!)
2) "Yeah, I feel sick".
I had some hangovers while listening to that line... many times. But in my mind, I'd always answer it by thinking this: "I'll be right tomorrow" (from Van's GREAT[!!!] song 'Cleaning Windows'). However, I was mishearing the lyrics, which were really "Alright, we'll be ready tomorrow". I like my words better.
[Link> I never drank to forget nor forgot to drink.
~ Al K. Holic
Here's a few more STMcC originals, just for the fun o' it:
For me, “Home” is where I hang my... enemies.
~ Mr. Intense
I always feel wealthy when I possess one dollar more than I can drink.
~ Al K. Holic
Behind every ugly man there's an inflatable woman.
~ Louie Banana
I love you, man.
(JOHN WAYNE! JOHN WAYNE!)
~ D-FensDogG
(a.k.a. Al K. Holic, Mr. Intense & Louie Banana)
Here's some more, because... uhm... well... just BECAUSE! (I got no time to xsplane.)
Delete[Link> There are only two kinds of people in the world.
I don’t like either of them.
~ Miss Ann Thrope
(a.k.a. D-FensDogG)
Forgiveness? Uh, yeah, well, I think it's certainly a viable option... if you've run out of ammo and still haven't managed to hit your target.
~ Mr. Intense
It ain't that pretty at all.
~ Warren Zevon
(from his song “Ain’t That Pretty At All”)
[*Note: My friend Pooh and I got a lot of mileage out of that particular line in the early 1980s. Here are a few examples of how we’d employ it:
. . .
“You hungover?”
“Yeah... and it ain’t that pretty at all.”
. . .
“How was your date last night?”
“Well, she wasn't that pretty at all.”
. . .
“Did you pick up your paycheck?”
“I did. And it ain’t that pretty at all.”
. . .
Pooh and I even went to see Zevon perform live once at a small theatre in Los Angeles. But Zevon don’t perform live anymore ‘cause he’s dead.]
We drank.
We drank a lot.
We drank more than we did not.
~ General Poohregard
He's not our breed!
~ Pooh
Sorry for making you all koyaanisqatsi and all.
~ Pooh
There is no one in this world who hates anything more than I hate "this world".
~ Mr. Intense
If you’re only going to have one beer, you might as well make it six Mickey’s Big Mouths.
~ Moody McMe
I was falling-down liquored-up.
~ Al K. Holic
You know what Merle Haggard says:
"F#ck 'em!"
~ Kelly "Andy" Anderson
Sometimes my evil alter ego escapes and wreaks havoc until I am able to coax it back in with promises of whipped cream and dirty women.
~ Louie Banana
Why don’t you just be YOU so someone else doesn’t have to?
~ Louie Banana
You're OUTTA HERE!
~ Wally George
~ Stephen T. McME
(Just being me, so someone else doesn't have to do this nasty job!)
We did indeed have very close outcomes. Congratulations on another good pairing.
ReplyDeleteLee
Thanks, LEE.
DeleteI felt that this Battle was going to be competitive. However, I'll admit that I anticipated Todd Snider coming out on top. I like it when I guess wrong, because the surprises are what keeps me interested after all these years.
I'm really looking forward to my next Battle, because not only am I completely in the dark about who's likely to win, I'm not even sure who my own vote will be going to.
~ D-FensDogG
++++++++++++++++++++++++
ReplyDeleteBATTLE OF THE BANDS
Results For 2025, April 15th
'THE BACK ROOM'
by Van Morrison
Versus
'BETTY WAS BLACK (AND WILLIE WAS WHITE)'
by Todd Snider
++++++++++++++++++++++++
My sincere thanks to everyone who took the time to visit and cast a vote in my BATTLE OF THE BANDS' Battle Of The Booze contest.
The voting really went back and forth for the entire week, and I became a-skeered that I was going to wind up with another pointless tie.
Fortunately, my vote gave Van Morrison a squeaker of a win. I do like the Todd Snider song, but for me, listening to 'The Back Room' is like climbing into Hector Peabody's WAYBAC MACHINE and reliving a small slice of my life from long ago.
FINAL TALLY:
Van Morrison = 6 votes
Todd Snider = 5 votes
So, 'The Back Room' will advance to the eventual Playoff rounds, while Betty & Willie climb back into their bottle of Tanqueray.
Thanks again, Y'All, for your participation.
I intend to return here again on May 1st with a new Battle -- one that I think is going to be pert-dern excellent & very challenging for most voters. This is a gonna be a toughie, and I'm not even trying to guess who'll win it.
Bless & Be Blessed!!
~ STMcC
DogGtor of Alcohology &
King of Inebriation Nation