JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #613.254!

Bill Cosby – To Russell, My Brother, With Whom I Slept (Warner Bros.) :: Boy, I guess we’ll never see anyone with enough guts to use a slyly-suggestive title like that these days, huh?

SIZZLING BOOK OF THE WEEK: Mickey Leigh with Legs McNeil – I Slept With Joey Ramone (Touchstone) :: Thankfully, this is the complete antithesis to Legs’ earlier oral history of punk Please Kill Me, which was so direly depressing that even I couldn’t bear to keep it around. But just like the above-noted Cosby comedy classic, I Slept With Joey Ramone is heartfelt to a fault in the way that it narrates how brothers relate to each other—in this case Mickey to Joey—with the big difference being that there’s understandably nothing in Cos’ tale about the wages of Mickey’s monkey; the variances of being an iconic rock star; or the tragic too-tough-to-die trauma of terminal cancer. But don’t let that stop you from reading one of the most compassionate rock books ever written because you could do a lot worse and, let’s face it, you probably already have.

SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: The Rolling Stones – Ladies And Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones (Eagle Vision) :: It goes without saying but I’ll say it anyway: try as it might, this movie, which is the only officially Stones-sanctioned document of the Stones’ legendary 1972 Tour Of The Americas, doesn’t come even remotely close to capturing the unearthly Olympic Gods Walking The Earth essence of what it was like to actually be there, in the same room as them, to bear witness at what was arguably the Stones’ greatest last live stand; the argument being that you can always find some snooty purist who will eagerly insist that it all went downhill after 1966, never mind ’69.

That said, this isn’t anywhere near the sad slice of cinema that I initially deemed it to be after I saw it during its initial theatrical run in 1974. Back then, I staggered away with a bad taste in my eyes and the distinct feeling that the whole thing was nothing but a bunch of self-indulgent, big-lipped, vanity close-ups of the singer. Then again, I did sit through two consecutive showings of the Beatles’ Let It Be in May 1970 because I didn’t think that I’d gotten my two dollars and fifty cents worth the first time around, so I’m a tough audience to begin with.

However, I’ve mellowed enough in my dotage to now see this for what it really is: a well-shot rollicking romp that displays every band member in equal dollops of drag and has a sonically superior soundtrack that’s probably the best we’re likely to hear in lieu of their oft-bootlegged Klein-cancelled live album—and if it’s no Stones In Exile, well, what is these days?

Robert Frank – CS Blues (Embargoed) :: This is!

Be seeing you!