Ode to the Obscure: Tuesday Open Thread

So we buried my father last week, and that sucked.

Yes, he was dead at the time. Smartasses.

Needless to say, I’m a bit out of sorts. Pope Mayhem was not a perfect man; he was lazy, he was sometimes self-centered, and he never met a moral high ground he couldn’t immediately cede. But he was also deeply kind, loving, warm, and likely the smartest socially-functional person I ever knew.

Part of his Deal was a memory that caught and held obscure detail incredibly well, while also allowing him to forget where he put down the piece of paper he was holding ten seconds earlier. That, combined with a sense of humor that skewed heavily to the absurd and subversive (Blazing Saddles, UHF, early Steve Martin standup). As far as either of us could tell, I was the only person in the world with essentially the same mental wiring layout, which meant he thought it important that I learned about a lot of Deeply Weird stuff that even our current niche- and nerd-friendly culture has largely overlooked and forgotten.

Here are some of those things. Perhaps they are not new to you. Perhaps they are, and by sharing these I will not be the only one to carry these with me.

1. Putney Swope (1969).

You know how there’s a Robert Downey, Jr.? This implies that there was a Robert Downey, Sr., and it turns out he was a filmmaker. Putney Swope is considered his masterpiece, and it’s a deeply fucked up satire about race and advertising. After the chairman of an advertising agency dies, the remaining board members (prevented from voting for themselves) each decide to cast their vote for the one guy they know won’t win- the sole Black man (Swope). As they all have the same idea, Swope is elected and promptly turns the company upside down.

It’s weird. It didn’t age well. Downey decided to dub over the lead actor’s lines himself because the actor’s voice wasn’t “Black enough”, which in a (broadly) anti-racism satire tells you a lot about the times. 14 year-old Me didn’t know what to do with it. 40-something year-old me still doesn’t. Ultimately, I settled on “a flawed but necessary precursor to Blazing Saddles”.

2. Lord Randall (poem/folk song)

They made Dad memorize this in high school. It’s a weird poem/folk song about a young man who stumbles back to his mom’s house after his girlfriend serves him poisoned eels.

He could still recite it at 75.

It’s thought to refer to Ranulf, Earl of Chester, who kicked it after his wife (allegedly) poisoned him in 1232.

Just shows you how far back “Hoes, Man…” goes as an artistic theme.

3. “What I Am” by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians.

I honestly don’t know what’s going on here. Like, I understand the sentiment of “Choke me in the shallow water, before I get too deep” but it’s a weird refrain for a pop-indie-whatever song from the late 80s.

Then again, he also liked Suzanne Vega, so maybe he was just into quirky cute chicks. That may explain Mother Mayhem.

4. The Secret Life of Machines

This was the Special Treat when I was little. Basically, Mr. Wizard meets Mythbusters meets Explosions and Fire and Jared Owen. With a bitchin’ opening theme song (The Russians are Coming, a variation on Dave Brubeck’s excellent Take Five).