I think the first time I saw Andy Kaufman on TV was on Saturday Night Live. He was lip syncing to a recording of the “Mighty Mouse” theme song. I called out to my girlfriend “you gotta see this!” and we both sat in front of the boob tube in a state of absolute disbelief and delight. What exactly was Kaufman up to? He was unlike any comic I’d experienced up until that point. It was pure dada.

As the years went by, Kaufman continued to perplex and provoke his audiences. He blurred the line between comedy and reality to the point that you couldn’t tell when he was being funny or dead serious. His shtick could get so extreme that people began to question his sanity. Was he so good at what he did or was he nuts? This was performance art before the term became a catch-all cliche to explain a kind of comedy that often was more painful than funny and at times even dangerous. He seemed to have no fear of embarrassment, ridicule, or physical harm. He’d push a comedic situation beyond the point of being hilarious into something that veered into the realm of sado-masochism. Sacha Baron Cohen would later take up Kaufman’s mantle and run with it - hardly the first or last to do so, but probably the best.

In addition to being a mad prankster, Kaufman was arguable the best Elvis impersonator who ever lived. Watching him transform from the dweebish “Latka Gravas” into The King transcended mere imitation or method acting gimmickry. Christian Bale is a comparative lightweight (sly Machinist reference) in contrast to Kaufman. Even De Niro’s blob morph in Raging Bull doesn’t compare to Andy’s optical flow. Kaufman was a shapeshifter of epic dimensions, a rare and remarkable creature that could bend his personae in Escher-like twists and turns - all the while concealing his true identity as deftly as Nosferatu cruising the hallways of a blood bank. .

On this anniversary of Andy Kaufman’s death (had he lived, he’d be 63 today), here’s Andy Kaufman’s Midnight Special from 1981.

Inexplicably, there’s very little of Kaufman’s work on DVD. This video was released years ago but is out-of-print now. I wonder when and if some enterprising company will put together the definitive Andy Kaufman boxset. Lord knows his legacy is worthy of it. Some call it genius.
 

 
Your favorite James Bond tends to be the one you saw first. I saw Sean Connery first in a double bill of Thunderball and You Only Live Twice, at the Astoria Cinema, Edinburgh. This was soon followed by Diamonds are Forever at the Playhouse. Of course, Connery being Scots means I am probably biased, but his Bond had what made the series work best - sophistication, humor and thrills.

If it came to a second choice? Well, Moore never seemed sure if he was playing Simon Templar or Lord Brett Sinclair, and by Octopussy, he was cast as a sub-Flashman character in a dismal script by Flashman author, George MacDonald Fraser. Timothy Dalton was too dull and way too serious, perhaps he should have played it more like Simon Skinner, a slightly unhinged secret service man with a license to kill. Pierce Brosnan was good but deserved far better scripts - his Bond should have eliminated the scriptwriters. And as for Daniel Craig - started well, but he looks like he’s in a different film franchise.

For me George Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the only possible second choice. He tried to make his Bond more humane, and kept much what was best in Connery’s interpretation. He was also assisted by a cracking script by Richard Maibaum (additional dialog by Simon “the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel” Raven); an excellent supporting of Diana Rigg as Countess Tracy di Vicenzo, and Telly Savalas as Ernst Stavro Blofeld; and one of the best opening theme tunes (and a glorious song sung by Louis Armstrong) of the series by John Barry.

Yet no matter what Lazenby did, or how good the film, he faced the momentous task of filling a role made by Sean Connery, and he was damned by a lot of critics for it. In this rarely seen interview, George Lazenby talks about the difficulties faced in making On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the rumors, the on-set niggles and why he was banned for growing a beard. First broadcast on the BBC, February 4th, 1970.
 

 
With thanks to Nellym
 

 
Happy Birthday Brian Eno, who is a Beatles song today.

Born Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno on the 15th May, 1948, Eno almost has a job description for every one of his names as a musician, a composer, a producer, a visual artist, a writer, a collector of pornography and an innovator of different musical forms. But Eno is more than the sum of his parts, he is a great inspiration to go take a-hold of life and do as much is as is possible. As he suggested in the documentary Another Green World:

“All of the encouragement from modern life is to tell you to pay attention to yourself and take control of things.”

Though he does go on to say we can also surrender, get by, and transcend, I prefer to opt for the starring role, rather than being an extra in the crowd scene or exiting stage left, chased by a bear. And so should we all, for this is your movie, and you are its star.

For me, that’s what I like best about Eno - he’s a concept to do better, to try different, to learn more. And perhaps to be a little nicer on the side.

Brian Eno: Another Green World is a profile of Eno, made for the BBC’s Arena series.

From the schoolboy who would cycle to the seashore to look for fossils, Eno has been driven by the search for the connections between things. Here, he gives an insight into his fascinating and unique take on the nature of music today. Eno discusses what music means to him, and how he uses it to create an alternate reality, as well as the influences of modern technology in changing the way we are able to understand and develop both music and sound.

You’ll learn bits and bobs from this documentary, though it never really seems to get much further than dusting the surface of this complex and talented man.
 

 
Bonus clip of Brian Eno interviewed on ‘The Tube’ from 1986, after the jump…
 

 
Sixties short film Vertige by Jean Beaudin mixed a time-stretched version of The Beatles “I Am The Walrus” results in a spooky ambient experience that has a decidedly lysergic feel to it.

Thanks to AngelMusification for the The Beatles’ time-stretch.
 

 
In this episode of Sanford and Son, “Fred’s Treasure Garden,” which aired on Nov 29, 1974, Grady finds some pot growing in the junkyard, mistakes it for wild parsley, makes a nice big salad out of it and hilarity ensues. 

Even without Redd Foxx , this is some high grade shit. The roots of stoner humor.
 

 
Faye Dunaway is one hot mess in Frank Perry’s cinematic turd in the punchbowl. Happy Mother’s Day.

No… wire… hangers. What’s wire hangers doing in this closet when I told you: no wire hangers EVER? I work and work ‘till I’m half-dead, and I hear people saying, “She’s getting old.” And what do I get? A daughter… who cares as much about the beautiful dresses I give her… as she cares about me. What’s wire hangers doing in this closet? Answer me. I buy you beautiful dresses, and you treat them like they were some dishrag. You do. Three hundred dollar dress on a wire hanger. We’ll see how many you’ve got if they’re hidden somewhere. We’ll see… we’ll see. Get out of that bed. All of this is coming out. Out. Out. Out. Out. Out. Out. You’ve got any more? We’re gonna see how many wire hangers you’ve got in your closet. Wire hangers, why? Why? Christina, get out of that bed. Get out of that bed. You live in the most beautiful house in Brentwood and you don’t care if your clothes are stretched out from wire hangers. And your room looks like some two-dollar-a-week furnished room in some two-bit back street town in Okalahoma. Get up. Get up. Clean up this mess.

Mommie Dearest in all of its appalling glory:
 

 
Zilla Minx of Rubella Ballet has put together a wonderful documentary that tells the story of the women who pioneered the British punk rock scene. This is a vital film that brings some balance to the lopsided male-centric history of punk.

Featuring women punk rockers from bands of the era including Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex, Vi Subversa of Poison Girls, Eve Libertine & Gee of Crass, Gaye Black of The Adverts, Michelle of Brigandage,Ruth & Janet of Hagar The Womb and journalists, authors and photographers Julie Burchill and Caroline Comb and more. This film includes interviews with the following women & rare footage of their 1980 s live punk gigs. Poly Styrene: Lead vocalist, X-Ray Spex. Gee Vaucher: Art Work, Crass. Eve Libertine: Vocals, Crass. Gay Black: Bass Player, The Adverts. Vi Subversa: Lead Vocalist & guitarist, Poison Girls. Julie Burchill. Author, Journalist. Lou Moon: Lead Vocalist, Evil I. Caroline Coon: Manager, Slits & The Clash, Journalist/Artist Zillah Minx: Lead Vocalist, Rubella Ballet Michelle: Lead Vocalist, Brigandage Helen Of Troy: Actress and Vocalist, FU2 Justine: Violinist, Grechen Hoffner Olga Orbit: Keyboards, Youth in Asia Nettie Baker: Author. Ruth & Janet: Vocalist & Guitarist, Hagar The Womb Rachel Minx: Bass player, Rubella Ballet Kara Minx: Child ballet dancer, Rubella ballet Mary: Bodyguard to Poly-Styrene.”

Watch it on Dangerous Minds and then buy it here. Support D.I.Y. films.
 

 
The story behind the 1977 Topps Star Wars # 207 C-3PO trading card (known as the “boner” card) is that a pissed-off Topps graphics designer decided to give C-3P0 a hard-on and a couple thousand copies of the card were produced and released to the public before the prank was discovered. Of course, the card is a collectible and you can buy one now on eBay for a mere 19 bucks.

Might make a nice gift for that Star Wars fan in your life.

 
An early interview with some of the members of Monty Python (John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin), recorded during filming on the Yorkshire Moors - “Of course it’s changed a bit now. They’ve put the rocks in, haven’t they? That used to be the bathroom over there,” quips Palin, while Jones seeks attention by falling over, and Chapman sips his G&T. Filmed for the BBC regional news program Look North, this was originally broadcast on May 23rd, 1973.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

“Madwoman of the Sacred Heart.” Graphic novel by by Moebius and Jodorowsky.

On the heels of sharing The Holy Mountain with DM readers, I thought an Alejandro Jodorowsky documentary might be timely and this is a good one.

In 1994 French film maker Louis Mouchet interviewed Jodorowsky and a bunch of his friends and collaborators, including director Fernando Arrabal, Peter Gabriel, Marcel Marcea and artist Moebius.

Jodorowsky is witty and wise as he discusses his masterpieces El Topo and The Holy Mountain, his failed Dune project, the Tarot, his role as a teacher and reluctant new age guru. He’s kind of like Freud on psychotropics.

I hope you enjoy this fascinating look into the mind of a modern magician and trickster who is constantly evolving and adapting to new technologies and formulating new philosophies. 

“As soon as I define myself I’m dead.” ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Alejandro Jodorowsky- Constellation 1/4 by zindabad7
 
Parts two, three and four here.

 
Sam Dunn’s Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey is a fanboy’s/girl’s dream come true.

An inside look at the Rodney Dangerfield of music, metal finally gets some respect in Dunn’s throughly entertaining and well-researched 2005 documentary. 

In addition to being a hardcore metal head, Dunn has a degree in anthropology, so he not only brings a fan’s enthusiasm to the mix, he brings a scholar’s insight to a genre of rock that is often shunted-off as being music for dummies. Dunn sees more in the metal than just heavy thunder as he explores the social, sexual and religious aspects of the music’s culture. And as serious as that sounds, the movie manages to be smart without being plodding or pretentious.         

Featuring interviews with Alice Cooper, Bruce Dickinson, Ronnie James Dio, Lemmy Kilmister, Dee Snider, Tom Araya, Pamela Des Barres, Donna Gaines, Chuck Klosterman, John Kay, Geddy Lee, Vince Neil, Rob Zombie.

This is some good shit!

“Britney Spears and Madonna Kiss/Life is Beautiful” by Mr. Brainwash, 2008

Usually recollected (if at all) as one of the decade’s more craven publicity stunts, it now transpires that like Madonna’s recent Illuminati-themed Super Bowl half-time spectacle, Madge’s earlier 2003 MTV Video Music Awards number—where she famously kissed Britney Spears—was also, in fact, a massive, multi-leveled working of choreographed sorcery…

Such, anyhow, is the contention of many so-called “synchromystics,” an enjoyably kooky sub-sect of conspiracy theorists who seem to spend most of their time on the lookout for occult and mythical phenomena in popular culture. Imagine, if you will, a combination of David Icke and D-Listed blogger Michael K.

Based on previously unobserved details and events before, during and after the MTV performance itself –such as the thirteen step staircase in the middle of the stage and of Madonna subsequently changing her name to “Esther” (yeah I missed that too) – the revised interpretation is summed up by leading synchromystic Freeman in the footage below: “What’s actually going on here is Madonna passing on her priestess status to these two ex- Mouseketeers” (refering also to Christine Aguilera, who was involved in the proceedings as well, but is usually dismissed as a sort of symbolic decoy – it seems that the jury’s out regarding Missy Elliot’s rapping cameo, however). As likeminded blogger the Celtic Rebel puts it:

The purpose of the kiss in the ceremony was more than the passing of the ceremonial staff of Queenship; it was the sharing of saliva (i.e. DNA), symbolic of the dualities that are Isis (in this case, the Dark/Light, Evil/Good, Pure/Soiled) becoming one (an insemination of sorts).

Dig? Now, for any self-respecting synchromystic, Freeman’s Mouseketeer reference is no mere aside. To them, Disney’s in-house fame academy is a byword for mind control and degradation, where the eventual participants in these mass rituals (celebrities themselves) are selected and groomed for service to, and to become part of the so-called “priest class”... which is why Britney’s 2007 visit to Esther’s Hair Salon (not Madonna’s) to get her head shaved caused such a synchromystical stir, as Freeman and his trusty sidekick explain below, following a more detailed discussion of that kiss.

“Poor Britney” indeed…
 

 
Previously on DM: The Devil’s discotheque: Madonna’s half-time show a Satanic Ritual.

 
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo and The Holy Mountain truly define the meaning of the words “head movie.” Both films have the capacity to alter your consciousness while you’re watching them and long thereafter. Like the afterglow of a deeply profound dream, El Topo has been a part of me, shifting the gears in the soft machine of my brain, since I first saw it in 1971 at a midnight screening in Denver, Colorado when I was 19 years old. It was in every respect a spiritual experience.

Years later, when I saw The Holy Mountain the impact was less transformative than seeing El Topo, but I was still thoroughly blown away by Jodorowsky’s Technicolor alchemy. His celluloid transmission was light years ahead of its time. Made in 1973, the film’s look and attitude seem totally of the moment. Yes, it has its hippy dippy moments and goes soft in places, but overall it’s an amazing piece of film making that in its visual design - sets, costumes, symbols, color palette - is as cutting edge as anything made by contemporary directors like David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Chan Wook-park or Gaspar Noé. The movie is breathtaking. And it looks like it cost 20 times its $750,000 budget. Amazing.

 
If you’ve never seen The Holy Mountain, I suggest you see it on the big screen. Its visual wonders should be allowed to overwhelm and engulf you.

For home viewing, THM has been released in a beautiful Blu-ray transfer that is vast improvement over the fifth-generation bootlegged VHS copies that used to circulate among hardcore fans way back in the days before Jodorowsky’s praises were being sung by Marilyn Manson and Daniel Pinchbeck.

Normally I wouldn’t steer Dangerous Minds’ readers to a YouTube upload of something as visually sumptous as The Holy Mountain, but this happens to be really nice looking. Watch it and you’ll probably want to own it in remastered form, either on DVD or Blu-ray. Consider this as a kind of introduction, a full-length teaser, a first date with someone you’ll eventually marry.
 

 
Happy Birthday Lee Brilleaux, the unforgettable lead singer of R&B band Dr Feelgood.

Born sixty years ago today, Brilleaux was raised in Canvey Island the hard-living, oil refinery community on the Thames Estuary. It was a perfect backdrop for Brilleaux to develop his taste for working class R&B, and in 1971, he co-founded Dr. Feelgood with guitarist and song-writer, Wilko Johnson. Together they became the twin poles to one of Britain’s most dynamic R&B bands.

DM’s Marc Campbell notes that last month a CD boxset All Through The City was released, and is a definite must-have for all Feelgood fans.

Meantime, here to remember Lee Brilleaux and Dr Feelgood is “15 minutes of magic in 4 songs” taken from the film Going Back Home from 1975.
 

 
Bonus clip of Dr. Feelgood on ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’, after the jump…
 

 
While we have featured the work of Pieter Hugo here on Dangerous Minds in the past, I thought I’d pull it all together into one piece so that those of you who are not familiar with this amazing artist’s work could experience it now.

There aren’t enough adjectives in my vocabulary to do justice to the photography of Pieter Hugo. “Powerful,” “disturbing,” “visceral,” “empathetic,” “sad,” and “beautiful” are all appropriately descriptive, but the term “a picture is worth a thousand words” has never been truer than in case of this South African’s visual genius. So I’ll let the pictures do the talking after I share a bit of background on Hugo’s work  

In the series “The Hyenas and Other Men,” Hugo documents the Gadawan Kura’ (hyena handlers/guides) who live in the shanty towns of Lagos, Nigeria and make a living by performing on the streets with hyenas that they’ve captured in the wild.
 

 
Hugo describes encountering and working with the hyena handlers:

In Abuja we found them living on the periphery of the city in a shantytown - a group of men, a little girl, three hyenas, four monkeys and a few rock pythons. It turned out that they were a group of itinerant minstrels, performers who used the animals to entertain crowds and sell traditional medicines. The animal handlers were all related to each other and were praising a tradition passed down from generation to generation. I spent eight days traveling with them.

In another series of photographs, Hugo evokes aspects of Nigerian films (Nollywood) in haunting photographs that recreate the surreality of cultures intermingling - Hollywood pop iconography (particularly horror imagery) mashed-up with Africa’s long and deep traditions of myth-making. Sometimes the lie is truer than the truth in these tableaus in which Hugo…

[...] asked a team of actors and assistants to recreate Nollywood myths and symbols as if they were on movie sets, Hugo initiated the creation of a verisimilar reality.”

As if Hugo’s photographs weren’t testimony enough to his extraordinary talents, he directed a very very cool video, Control...

[...] a “darkwave township house” cover of the Joy Division classic “She’s Lost Control” – is the fourth single to be taken from South African producer/DJ Spoek Mathambo’s album, Mshini Wam. The video was shot in Langa, Cape Town was made using a cast made up mainly of kids from the local dance troupe, Happy Feet.”

If you’re as impressed by these photos and video (how could you not be?), check out Hugo’s website where you can feast your eyes on more of his amazing visual gift.
 

 
More of Hugo’s photography after the jump…

 
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard this one. I stumbled upon it quite by accident while meandering through the musical maze of YouTube.

“Fallin’” is a perfect collaboration between three groups separated by multiple miles of geographic space but inhabiting the same lysergically-tinged musical universe.

Tom Petty provides the sample and Teenage Fanclub provide the jangly guitar and background vocals as De La Soul spin 70s pop culture references into the weave of this ditty from the sound track of 1993 action film Judgment Night.

...remember when I used to be dope, (yeah!)
I owned a pocket full of fame
(But look what you’re doing now), Well I know, I know
I lost touch with reality, now my personality
Is an unwanted commodity (believe it)
Can’t believe I used to be Mr Steve Austin on the mic
(Six million ways) I used to run it
I guess Oscar Goldman got mad
Cause I got loose circuits (so loose, so loose)
I be the mother goose with the eggs that seemed to be
Fallin’...

 
Dennis Hopper was 13 when he first sniffed gasoline and watched the clouds turn into clowns and goblins. There was little else to do in Dodge City, where he had been born and raised. Catch lightning bugs, fly his kite, burn newspapers, swim. Hopper was, by his own words, “desperate”.  A sensitive child without the stimulation to keep his fevered imagination in check.

He went to movies and watched Abbott and Costello and Errol Flynn. Hopper od’ed on gasoline fumes and became Abbott and Costello meets Errol Flynn, and wrecked his grandfather’s truck with a baseball bat. It was a hint of what was to come.

Signed at 18 on contract to Warner Bros, Hopper identified with Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, and James Dean, but found he was expected to conform to the studio’s whims. Hopper was too sensitive to conform, and his vulnerability saw him bullied and picked on by old time studio director Henry Hathaway, who had him black-balled from Hollywood.

For the next few years, Hopper did little work. Instead, he picked up a camera and documented the social and cultural changes that were happening across America, and to himself, during the 1950s and 1960s. He also became a “gallery bum”. Where others went to the beach, Hopper hung around art galleries looking for inspiration for his acting career.

He met and became friends with the young artists whose works were exhibited - Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Ed Ruscha - and he started to collect, but it wasn’t about the money.

“My idea of collecting is not going and buying bankable names, but buying people that I believe are really contributing something to my artistic life.”

This short film takes us inside the late actor’s home-studio, where he gives a quick tour around his collection of Modern Art works, from Julian Schnabel, Jean Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Ed Ruscha.

Produced and directed by Kimberly M. Wang.
 

 
There’s an absolutely hilarious plan afoot to royally fuck with Mitt Romney that’s rapidly gaining traction on the popular social content aggregator site reddit. Has the reddit community figured out a surefire way to defeat Mitt Romney, even in red states?

Maybe so!

Democrats should pay close attention here. The Republicans may have the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove in their corner, but this is surely more deviously creative than anything a reichwinger could ever come up with.

Even more powerful than money? Well, you tell me.

It goes something like this: Presumed Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, responding to a survey earlier this year from the Morality in Media group’s “War on Illegal Pornography” campaign, indicated that as president, he would call for “strict enforcement of our nation’s obscenity laws.”

Now the merry pranksters of reddit /r/politics want to organize banner campaigns across various online porn sites to advertise Romney’s stance on pornography.

What better way to turn off potential Republican male voters in pr0n-crazy red states. Even the 20-something males who are the most impervious to politics might decide to register to vote over this issue. Hit ‘em where they live…ten plus hours a day!

Here’s a representative sampling of the reddit community’s reaction to the proposed stunt:

This November, don’t let Romney kill your boner forever.

These ads would be going against “The one little trick to get a 9 inch dick”, it doesn’t really matter how easy to pick apart it is.

Taking out ads on porn sites is a marvelous idea - it would likely result in subconsciously associating an orgasm with whatever the message of the ad is.

I seriously LOL’d at this. My room mates had to ask what was so funny. They think it’s awesome, too.

I’m going to start stockpiling porn.

Nobody votes for a boner killer.

I’d think that porn websites would be advertising this freely on their own.

Hi, I run fastjizz.com—if somebody wants to design us a 300x250 i’ll throw it on our homepage for a week!

Where do I donate?

‘Romney can take my porn from my warm sticky hand…’

Nice try, Obama. That said, I’d pitch in a few bucks.

“This November,when you go to the polls, think of your pole.”

This must be done

I work at an ad:tech company, specifically in the business of placing banner ads across the web. If someone is seriously interested in getting these run, I can help.

So he wasn’t happy just pissing off women huh? This is going to be the biggest landslide in the last 50 years.

The hypocritical, angry, white males who feed the tea party have finally painted themselves into a corner. They have to appear to disdain porn for their morally prudish wives, when in fact the porn industry caters almost exclusively to (such) men.

The Republicans have already lost the female voters. This could cleave quite a few males from the GOP fold, too!

 
It’ll set you back over four hundred bucks, but for the hardcore Dark Shadows fan this is a dream collectible.

MPI Home Video has released a coffin boxset of all 1,225 episodes of Dark Shadows on 131 discs at 470 hours of running time. It will be available in a limited edition of 2000 on July 10. A similar limited (just how “limited” is this really?) edition was released last month. It included an autographed photograph of Jonathan Frid and a mini-book and sold out as soon as it hit the market. It has since doubled in value with boxsets selling for close to a grand. Dark Shadows fans are indeed hardcore…or gullible.

And while we’re on the subject of Dark Shadows, the reviews are coming in for the Tim Burton and Johnny Depp re-make and the critics’ fangs are covered in blood. Proof that vampires can’t be resurrected from the dead.
 

 
I wonder if the folks at MPI Home Video are Misfits fans.

 

 
The 1973 film Nancy & Lee in Las Vegas takes an almost cinéma vérité approach to its subject as it documents the less-than-glamorous grind of playing to casino audiences in Sin City.

It’s showtime and Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood do their damnedest to entertain a distracted Vegas audience, most of whom have likely lost or are about to lose next month’s rent. Despite delivering some fine performances, with terrific backing from the Wrecking Crew (Hal Blaine, Billy Strange and Don Randi), Nancy and Lee just can’t get a rise out of the crowd at the once grand Riviera Hotel and Casino. The vibe is flatter than a glass of day-old champagne.

Having lived in Vegas for a couple of years, I’ve seen shows where two-thirds of the audience are clearly just cooling their heels between long bouts at the slot machines or they’ve gambled away all their cash and are doing their best to get through the night without slitting their wrists - the very definition of a “tough crowd.”
 
Scenes of Sinatra and her mother venting back stage are remarkably candid and unvarnished, giving us a glimpse into celebrity-hood’s bleaker dimensions. And the vintage footage of the Strip is way cool.

Songs performed include “Did You Ever,” “Arkansas Coal,” “Friendship Train,” “Summer Wine,” “Jackson” and “She’s Funny That Way.”