I’ve got a whole section of my book collection demarcated “Theater mysteries.” Several dozen of them, and nearly a dozen of those are by Simon Brett and star the itinerant and alcoholic actor Charles Paris.

Brett, sadly, gave up writing Charles Paris yarns years ago and turned to other characters, such as Mrs. Pargeter. So the best we could hope for was that the old books could be adapted into other media. Which the BBC has recently done, clogging the airwaves with them this past week. The latest adventure has been running in weekly installments on BBC4 while older ones have been getting broadcast daily on the web-0nly BBC7.

Roam around the radio pages of www.bbc.co.uk and you’ll find various ways to access episodes which have run within the past week. It’s a fitting medium for Charles Paris, not only because one of the murders, Dead Side of the Mic, is set in BBC Broadcasting House, but because Simon Brett worked for years as a radio producer himself.

In the BBC series, which take three episodes to complete one novel, Charles Paris is played by Bill Nighy. Not at all the actor I’d always imagined might play this actor. I’d always thought of Charles Paris as boxy, plain, vaguely handsome, like Ann-Margret’s husband Roger Smith or perhaps James Mason. There are always too many of guys like that, and it would explain why Charles works steadily though not often enough. A reedy, distinctive character actor like Nighy, however—well, he stands out in a crowd.

But of course that’s the wonder of radio. You don’t have to think of what Bill Nighy looks like. And he sounds like a drunken hammy actor, just as he behaved like a drunken hammy pop star in the Christmas film classic (just ask last week’s Entertainment Weekly) Love, Actually.

Somebody in food service had a sense of humor.

The sternos, the plates and coffee maker all heated up the annual holiday party for hotel workers at the Connery convention center last weekend.

Why didn’t we know to tell you of this beforehand? For one thing: Private party. For another: None of the bands believed it was really going to happen,
“It paid real money. But i don’t think they’ d even heard us when they asked us,” conjectured Plates keyboardist Ronnie plate. Is she sure nobody requested as much as a demo tape? “Positive. We don’t even have a demo tape.”
Intrigued, we tracked down the social committee of the hotel employees’ local. Seven phone calls later, we found out who booked the bands. Turns out we could have got his info much quicker by just raising our voice anytime at the Bullfinch.
The bands were recommended by Q, tireless servant of the scene, who turns out to work in the laundry room at the Connery two overnight shifts a week. (What does this guy not do?). Q, ever conscious of the integrity of our hardy scene, thought it would look better if the booking went through proper channels. So he passed oh his suggestions to the appropriate committee, who trusted his punning instincts and made the bookings.

Q, ever the unassuming humbleton, apparently didn’ t  mention his involvement to anyone. Nobody is surprised by that. The bands just wish they knew so they could thank him.
So the gig went well then?
“Bunch of shitfaced workers kicking back in a ballroom while somebody else does the work they usually do? This was nirvana for them,” quoth a Plate. Plenty of spooning afterwards at that gig, we reckon.

In the usual places: Audrey and the Peapods with Luxor and Tress at the Finch tomorrow (bring a present for a tot and get in free)… Sea Drift and Asian Birds at Hamilton’s also tomorrow, following a Happy Hour acoustic set by Avignon Bright… Tress again two nights from now, kicking off the Woodruff/Aquatique bill at Dollaire’s. As local openers, they’ve been granted a whopping 20 minutes and no sound check. You’re better off catching them at the Finch…

He was on his way back from a deathbed confessional at the nursing home when he noticed it. He could only sigh, the exhalation turning to vapor and chilling his nose.

Someone—more than one person, considering the quality of the thing—had made a snowman in the meadow, and had pretended it was him.

It had a hat and pipe like Parson Brown’s own, which he found somewhat flattering. What ruined it all for him was the  sign designating his snow effigy as the “No Man.”

Brown happily answered to the old-fashioned title of Parson, since his father had been a Parson Brown before him. But in recent months the quaint nomenclature had turned on him. Now he was being called Parsimonious Parson Brown, Prissy Parson Brown and, worst of all, Impossible Parson Brown. There were letters about him in the town paper nearly every week.

He couldn’t remember the first time he’d ever said “Are you married?”—or exactly what he’d meant by it. But now this had become his catchphrase, his albatross, used by those who conspired to criticize his silence on the subject of same-sex marriage. He admitted he was conflicted. But they wouldn’t give him any peace. A conspiracy, that’s what it was.

He walked on, only to see another snowman. This one was a circus clown. Was this meant to be him as well?

Behind it, flowing from the branches of a tree, was a flowing ribbon, with signs written in the same hand as the “No Man” one, plus pictures of flapping bluebirds of happiness. “Here to stay is a new bird,” one of the placards read. “He sings a love song,” announced another.

Parson Brown headed upmeadow, now more curious than upset.

A ceremony was in progress. Two men stood hand in hand, their eyes glistening like the newfallen snow. They were reciting vows they’d written themselves:

“To face unafraid

The plans that we’ve made.”

Parson Brown silently watched them, realizing what he was being privileged to witness

He glanced around to see who was officiating. No man, it seemed. Just the snowmen.

It was a beautiful sight. And it was cold. Because it was just pretend.

Parson Brown marched forward boldly, as if stepping deliriously into a magical wonderland. He broke the wintry calm with a loud “Ahem” that was anything but frosty.

“I’m in town,” he thought. “I can do this job.”

Few people have tried to entice the local gay crowd more avidly than Fairy Fay. Entertainment-wise, that is. Start with that name, and move swiftly to the names he/she handchose for her/his bandmates: Polly, Wally and Doodle. Then on to the band’s name, Spunky Gal.

Yet when a mining-camp conflagration like this tries to work its rainbow magic at the Bullfinch, the only audience members rubbing their legs together are the crickets.

Why is this? Not because our beloved Bullfinch has somehow been pinched in the homo-friendly scene gene. Plenty of performers and patrons there are out themselves, or fellow travelers, or comforting or comfortable or curious. The percentage of actual closed-minded bigots is admirably low.

But the very open-mindedness which makes the Finch a hotbed of diversity can make it a lousy place for the, shall we say, excessively stylized. Heartwrenchingly sincere acoustic songs work well there. So do shouty garage anthems. So do long blues-rock jams. Raw rules there. Tightly-wound mechanical-beat leather-and-lace theatrics? Not so much.

More’s the pity, since FF and his devoted doodles in SG need and deserve a venue fit for their fetching flitting. They have this one song where they teach an original hip-waggling dance move to the assembled throng (or is that thong), and the attempt falls as flat as Fay’s brassiered chest when the crowd’s, you know, just not that into him (her). Fay’s personal brand of prissiness is simply too pushy for the laid-back louts at the Finch. And forget Hamilton’s, with its frat-boy swagger and stunted coming-of-age comings and goings. Too risky.

There are dedicated gay clubs in town. Some of them even have stages and not just bar counters which they convert into fashion runways at the drop of a garter. By his own admission, Fairy Fay has become delicata non grata at the joints which are most appropriate for his performances. He tells one version of the fall-out, they tell another, and it’s not ours to judge whether the truth is here or there, just that Fay cannot play there.

There is no doubt that he is a demanding, if diminutive, person. But Fay’s also a fine and fierce performer. Unlike a lot of local acts we could name, Fay rehearses a lot. Fay shines before a large and appreciative crowd, but gets surly when forced to appeal to those who don’t want him there. Think we’re being hard on him? In his own words: “I do a very specific thing for a specific type of person. I don’t need to do it for anyone else for the simple reason that it won’t get them off.”

We think he was talking about his music there.

Other sounds going around: Kinflicks opens the Bastard Out of Carolina tour stop at Dollaire’s Tuesday… Darkness falls, as usual, for High School Rock Nite at Hamilton’s Wednesday, with Regeneration, Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall and Rubyfruit Jungle… Fried Green Tomatoes reunion Thursday afternoon where one of the old folkies works in the kitchen, at the Whistle Stop Café downtown near the train tracks. Come by 4 p.m. and get free fries, we’re told… Curious Wine and Boys on the Rock Thursday at Hamilton’s, a rare double-bill of original bands at the covers-conscious club… Dream Boy, Dancer from the Dance and Stone Butch Blues mixed-style marathon at the devil-may-care Bullfinch Saturday. Last time Dream Boy played there, he enlisted the Three Junes as back-up singers for his doo-wop plaint “Halfway Home,” but we’re pretty sure the sisters won’t be around this time since they have a gig same night at the Family, Country & Woods restaurant out in Francoeur… Front Runner and Sacred Lips of the Bronx tough-guy show at Hamilton’s Friday… and that’s more than enough scene love for now. Except we really do need to find Fairy Fay a place to play.

Patti LuPone— A Memoir. By Patti Lupone with Digby Diehl. Crown Archetype, 2010. 324 pages, with index. $25.99.

I’ve been doing Theater Books of the Week for a month now and I haven’t gotten to Sondheim’s Finishing the Hat yet? Thought it’d be nice to offer up Patti LuPone’s new autobiography first. In the same way that theater junkies have waited a lifetime for a book by Sondheim, LuPone waited her whole career for a shot at performing some of the key female roles in the Sondheim canon. She got her wish like crazy—multiple Sweeney Todds and Gypsys since the turn of the 21^st century—each on Broadway, but also for Chicago Ravinia festival, where she’s also gotten to do Anyone Can Whistle, Passion and Sunday in the Park With George.

I remember seeing LuPone perform at the grand reopening of the Garde Arts Center  in the late 1990s. This was an era when Frank Sinatra was called upon to be the first concert at the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville and Liza Minnelli christened the new year-round indoor Oakdale Theater in Wallingford. The Garde was smaller and scrappier than the other swellegant venues of that time, and I thought LuPone was an ideal booking for the Garde’s rebirth. She had the same spunkiness and diverse up-down-up background as the Garde, and she dressed up real nice. She can go from snappy to slinky within the space of a single song.

…or a single chapter, as this book shows. It’s not a detailed and deep tome by any means (hence the “memoir” appellation rather than the more austere “autobiography”). But it’s plenty passionate and eager to explain the plentiful exasperations of LuPone’s long career. Since her own outspokenness has, over the years, helped frame what we think we know about her, this is a wonderful longform opportunity for her to explain and defend herself.

Some of the defensiveness seems eminently justified. After Evita made her a Broadway, she found it hard to re-establish herself as a dramatic stage actress, and you feel for this woman who’d done scads of Mamet and serious regional theater no longer being welcomed in that realm. Meanwhile, Evita wasn’t exactly pro forma Broadway—politically minded, supremely difficult to sing, rather sparse compared to the coming wave of high-tech  musical/lightshows. LuPone was a woman without a country. When she found herself on a hit TV series, Life Goes On, the thrill was muted because she’s felt a lack of chemistry with her on-screen husband from the very first audition.

On the other hand, LuPone is prone to protest too much, and you really start wanting to hear someone else’s side. The famous tale of her getting hired to be Norma Desmond in the London world premiere of Sunset Boulevard, then denied the chance (even though it was guaranteed in her contract) to open the Broadway production as well, is exactingly related by LuPone, yet considering how stringent she is with contracts and agreements throughout her life, it’s hard to fathom all the “I was never told…” aspects of her story. There are numerous bits in the book where she glides over what was probably considered abhorrent behavior at the time—forgetting to give castmates opening-night gifts, for instance—with weak excuses about her frame of mind. You get the sense that she wants to counter every accusation ever made against her, without giving readers a full sense of what the fuss was about in the first place. Co-author Digby Diehl, the L.A. arts journalist who also worked on the autobios of Esther Williams and Natalie Cole, is genius at arranging a text which really feels like it came straight out of LuPone’s mouth, but he can’t fill in the gaps if she won’t.

In any case, this is an excellent time for LuPone to be telling her story. The arc of the book is that she was always a precocious performer, producing musicals in parking lots as a kid, appearing on Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour (the famed TV competition which she reveals was rigged), and getting into Juillard with an audition she herself describes as “flippant.” The struggles which follow are not so much with fame as with control over which roles she wants to be most identified with and how much input she has into how to play them. The memoir culminates cleanly and naturally with her Broadway success as Mama Rose in Gypsy—an opportunity which involved not only having to resolve a decades-long stand-off between her and the show’s director and original bookwriter Arthur Laurents, but having to re-interest Broadway audiences in Gypsy just a few years after Sam Mendes had directed his own maverick production with Bernadette Peters.

This Gypsy highpoint frames LuPone’s narrative. Here’s the book’s first couple of lines:

I’ve opened Gypsy four times. The first time, I played Louise (aka Gypsy) in the Patio production of the musical. I was fifteen years old.

That circularity is augmented by another recent expression of her daring and devilishness—when she played tuba as Mrs. Lovett in John Doyle’s brash Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd. The tuba was her childhood instrument of choice. Despite its self-serving lapses, this memoir is all the more resonant for how it connects Patti LuPone’s childhood dreams with her adult ones. Also for how it eclipses all her presumed prima donna pettiness with her desire for highly principled performances.

Tale of the tape

So Millie of the Model Marvels had a crush on Herve of the Pothunters.

We’re not blowing her cool for her by reporting it here; she’s written a song about it already, and scrawled a hear and initials on a well distributed flyer for this Wednesday’s TMM show at the Finch. (Due to some deft schmoozing of the Bullfinch management, the band is being allowed to break the midweek acoustic barrier and set up “the larger amps.”)

So amorous, amiable Millie made a mix tape and gave it to her bandmate Michael, who’s a good friend of her heartthrob Herve’s roommate Joe Derlesh. (they were in The Liaisons together). Joe asked Millie who was on the disc, then dug it so much he dubbed and kept a copy for himself. He happened to have it on—dancing to it, even, he says—when Anton of Ancient Regine stopped by his place, overheard a few tracks in a row and asked what the cool radio station was. A couple exchanges later, Millie’s mix actually was being broadcast on radio—our local hipster college station RGC 82, of course, where Friday “Hear and There” show host “Spawn” Smith (“manager” of the Dangeroos) attempted to credit the curator of the customized cuddle-inducing set but got it all wrong. Joe and Anton were handing out copies to whoever asked.

At this point, Millie reckons, hundreds of people have heard her private love letter, and dozens own copies of it.

But, as all the brokenhearted (not the band) demand to know, did the mix ever get to the two darling ears it was intended for?

We made a somewhat embarrassing phone call and can authoritatively report that yes, it did—but in an anticlimactic fashion. The ever-gracious Herve (heck, we have a crush on him too—who wouldn’t?) is in possession of the original edition of Millie’s munificent mix. But he heard it first on Spawn’s radio show, which mentioned someone else (who is the only embarrassed by this tale, and whose name we won’t mention even though it’s common knowledge and was broadcast for ten miles or more on a 100-watt radio station) as the intended recipient.

For the principal players in it, this adventure made for lots of laughs, and several rounds of drinks, at the Bullfinch last week. One of the lighthearted responses to the episode was that Millie and Herve say they’ll do acoustic covers of every song on the mix, maybe a month from now at one of those Wednesday happy hours like Millie’s playing this week. That’s where she’ll be debuting that song we mentioned at the outset of this column.

It’s called “Mitts on My Mix.”

Sharing the love elsewhere in scenesville:

Congratulations to the Little Browns. They are officially the one millionth band to jokingly self-title their debut album Self-Titled. Need ideas for the next one? Some riotous pun on Two/Too, perhaps. Release party Thursday at Hamilton’s…

We’ve been asked to inform you that the Doo Wop spectacular at Dollaire’s, put together by no other than Mr. Macmillan of ‘60s local harmony hotshots The New Americans, is exceptional in that all the bands include at least one original member. So at least one of the voices you hear in The Bantams, The Del Reys, The Groves, The Harlequins or The Hyperions will be exactly the same ones as on those scratchy old records you never listen to anymore.

Seriously, doo wop is too good an art form for Dollaire’s. The Pantheons’ “Center Street” put this town on the map. There a fervent international fan base of doo-wop devotees who care deeply, with the acuteness of a trainspotter or a baseball statistician, about the line-ups of these legendary groups. Many acts of the doo wop era lost (or never held) the rights to their names, and when the original artists did pesky things like ask to be paidl, they were erased from the groups they founded by evil managers and producers. Mr. Mac, whose own band was considered neo-doo wop back in the day, causing some bad blood with the traditionalists, says he’s always been a fan of the old school. The Dollaire’s bill proo-woo-woo-wooves it…

I did an interview with Ronnie Spector which should be running in next week’s New Haven Advocate. She’s been doing annual Christmas Day concerts at Mohegan Sun casino for years now, and has just released a 5-song EP, Ronnie Spector’s Best Christmas Ever—her first significant Christmas recordings since The Ronettes appeared on Ronnie’s then-husband’s classic album A Christmas Gift for You.

In her honor, then, here are 20 other R&B/Soul Christmas tunes which have been high on the Arnott household holiday playlist this season:

1. “I Wish You a Merry Christmas,” Big Dee Irwin and Little Eva:

“Big Dee, did anyone ever tell you you were big, strong, handsome kind hearted… and fat?!”

“Huh?!”

2. “Santa Claus is a Black Man,” AKIM and the Teddy Vann Production Company:

“He looked a lot like you. He was handsome…”

“I can dig it.”

“He was black.”

“Right on.”

“He had an Afro, he was really out of sight. Now I’m going to tell everybody that I saw Santa.”

3. “Fat Daddy,” Fat Daddy:

“I’m Fat Daddy. I’m Santa Claus.”

4. “Hurray for Santa Claus,” The Fleshtones:

“We spell it S-A-N-T-A C-L-A-U-S!”

5. “Lil’ Bass Boi,” B-Fast and G-Slow (of the 69 Boyz):

“One time for the boyz in the hole, parumpumpumpum…”

6. “Peaceful Christmas,” Danny Boy

“Bells don’t jingle no more. White snow don’t fall in the ghetto.”

7. “Jingle Bells,” Booker T & the MGs.

8. “Purple Snowflakes,” Marvin Gaye:

“They seem to say that our love is here to stay. We’ll be cosy and warm until the flowers bloom.”

9. “Christmas Celebration,” B.B. King:

“Let Christmas bring you happiness. Well, I want you to have a good time like we did on all the rest.”

10. “Feliz Navidad,” El Vez.

11. “Run Rudolph Run,” The Archies.

12. “Oh Holy Night,” The Temptations.

13. “Winter Wonderland,” The Funk Brothers.

14. “Xmas Twist,” Twistin’ Kings.

15. “The Christmas Song,” Etta James.

16. “Santa Baby,” Faith Evans.

17. “Christmas Time is Here,” Dianne Reeves.

18. “(Christmas Ain’t Christmas Without the One You Love,” The Ebonys.

19. “Soul Santa,” Brook Benton:

“Wouldn’t it be so revealing if Santa had black kinky hair?”

20. “Hang Up Your Stocking,” The Chipmunks.

CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE: Have to acknowledge some extraordinary Christmas compilation compilers here. Wish I could be cool enough to have discovered on old 45s or urban radio…

Numbers 1, 2 & 3 are all from A John Waters Christmas, which is right up there with his Hairspray and Cry Baby soundtracks in the themed comp hall of fame. (It also features Tiny Tim, The Coctails and the anti-consumerist warcry “Here Comes Fatty Claus” by Rudolph and Gang.)

#4: From The Fleshtones’ Stocking Stuffer, probably the most recent disk on this list.

#5: From Quad City All-Star Christmas.

#6: From Christmas on Death Row.

#7: From the Rhino promo gift Music to Stuff Any Stocking—Christmas Sampler 1996.

#8 and #9: From Blue Christmas, free CD with MOJO Magazine’s January 2005 issue. (MOJO has another Christmas CD in its current issue.)

#10: From Elton John’s Christmas Party, a comp prepared for Starbucks’ Hear Music label.

#11: From The Archies’ Christmas Album featuring Betty & Veronica.

#12: Bonus “previously unreleased” track on The Best of The Temptations Christmas CD.

#13 & #14: From A Motown Christmas Volume 2.

#15: From Etta James, 12 Songs of Christmas.

#16 & 17: From Slow Jams for Christmas (Capitol Records, 2007).

#18 and #19: From Slow Jams Christmas Volume 2 (unrelated to the above; this one’s on The Right Stuff, label, from 1997).

#20: From Christmas With The Chipmunks—Alvin, Simon & Theodore with David Seville. Always thought it was nice of this album to spell out all the participants’ names in the title. The Supremes never experienced that sort of democracy.

Scanning the Bullfinch Bar & Grill midweek, like that ancient kids’ TV show our parents told us about where a woman held a mirror and called roll…

Smallest first. There’s little Millie. Her cute crushes on scenesters are legendary. So is what she does for the scene as a promoter, radio DJ, zine editor, band leader and foremost fan. Her heart’s really in this. Look, she’s glowing.

Next, the oldest: Eustace, aka Useless (a self-deprecation he himself coined for one of his albums), aka Yoost, a guy who had records out when records were records, when labels were labels, when the drinking age was three years lower. Important because he not only continues to make money off of music, he still goes out to see other people make it.

There’s Sonny Blitt of the blats. Bad business decisions (and weak bass playing) have shaken a good band—and we’re talking stuff that would be nickel and dime in another industry but can cause chaos and starvation in thus one. (Did we just call this scene an industry? Shoot us)

Now we spot three former bandmates, in separate corners of the room, eying each other warily. All have new acts debuting as soon add they can find drummers. Amusing, since two of these folks used to be drummers.

There’s W.G. Harvest, the acoustic folksinger. He’ll tell people he’s here to scout talent for his Open Mic, but he’s really hanging around waiting for a bus, like he does every Wednesday night after choir practice at his church.

Look, there’s an entire band sitting together. That’s a rarer phenomenon than you think. For a lot of locals, rehearsing is all the socializing they need.

Us, we’re just watching. Any minute now, an awkward moment or a fight will break out.

Stay tuned. Off each other.

Brady Brady Brady—The Complete Story of The Brady Bunch as Told by the Father/Son Team Who Really Know

By Sherwood Schwartz and Lloyd Schwartz. Foreword by Monty Hall (Seriously. Monty Hall. Like that’s going to sell book in 2010.) Running Press, 2010. $24.95.

Sherwood Schwartz, creator of The Brady Bunch and hands-on producer of nearly all its manifestations save for the Variety Hour series and the Very Brady Sequel feature film, credits his wife with coming up with the title of this book.

Well, the title Here’s the Story was already taken. So was Growing Up Brady, The Brady Bunch Book, The Brady Bunch Files, Alice’s Brady Bunch Cookbook, Beyond the Brady Bunch, The Brady Bunch Guide to Life, Life Lessons from the Bradys, Bradymania!, Bradypalooza, Love to Love You Bradys and (boooring) The Brady Bunch.

The best titles are all taken, which may be why this book conserves its one by having two separate books by two separate authors under the same Brady Brady Brady cover. The more thorough one, by Lloyd J. Schwartz comes second. The first one, by his dad Sherwood, comes first and is superficial and grudge-filled; it reads like a long introduction to Lloyd’s.

Any revelations? Hardly, after Barry “Johnny Bravo” Williams’ book, which came out over a decade ago and has since earned an “updated special edition.” There are a lot of intriguing tangents, like how Lloyd’s rebellious phase as a 1960s student liberal lasted a nanosecond before he joined the family business and rose in the ranks from dialogue coach to associate producer to producer. It’s clear that both father and son feel they have to defend charges of nepotism, and the way they mention awards and ratings shows how thin-skinned they are about those who would dismiss or diss the Bradys.

Sherwood Schwartz goes so far as to say that the reason The Brady Bunch and his earlier hit series Gilligan’s Island worked so well is because they were “socially significant.” He makes Gilligan’s Island sound like Sartre’s No Exit and the Bradys like a precursor to August: Osage County. Sherwood Schwartz is very big on social significance. He tells a story about an idea he had (which he does not expand upon) that would have saved and redeemed a show by other producers, a show that was sadly axed before its full potential could be realized. That sadly aborted program? Me and the Chimp.

All this second-guessing, reprioritizing, hindsight and nostalgia begs the question: Why was this book not called Much More Than a Hunch?

Got assigned a magazine story on a fading pop starlet who’s made some interesting career choices of late. Don’t want to poison the well by giving away details, but the only reason this mag wanted to cover her was because she’d hooked up with a hot indie producer and an up-and-coming college band, eschewing the flourish and drama of her teen years—which were, like, last Tuesday.

Got an earful, more than the mag could handle, so we’re sharing it below the radar with you. The local connection is that the last time this young woman graced our fair city with her presence it was at the Ampitheater, on one of those day-long AM rock showcases. If she ever tours through here again, the most appropriate venue may well be the Bullfinch.

Even before our interview properly began, she was lambasting the very idea of it. “You’re only talking to me because you can.” Which means? “A rag like this couldn’t have gotten within a mile of me when my first album blew up.”

We figured that if she was taking it, we probably had license to antagonize too, so suggested that the very high level of fame she achieved so quickly might well have made her unattractive to the alternative press, which prefers to build up its own pantheon.

“What you guys don’t understand,” she railed, “is that I was always interesting to you. I had all the fans. I had the radio fans, and I always had that pocket of fans at college radio. All us pop stars, we have those; deep-thinkers who defend us like we’re artists. They know the names of our producers and the guys who play on our songs, and the songwriters we’re working with, even when we don’t put it in the liner notes. Seriously. There’s always that fringe, and you guys could always have done an article and pleased that fringe.”

A few more statements along these lines, then Ms Pop of Last Week suddenly appeared to break down. We’d be more sympathetic if she weren’t still being so hostile. “Now these shitty magazines are all I’ve got, til I’m  back on radio,” she cried. “You think my fans READ? My fans DANCE!”

The chat kind of danced downhill from there, She wasn’t too articulate about how she’d met her new collaborators (“My manager said it was good idea,” though it appears he’s not her manager anymore) or how she got her ideas or (admittedly, our ultimate last-ditch question) how that little puppy dog of hers is doing.

Some folks, we wager, can only handle power when it’s remote. This is not about getting burned by the sun—we have far better examples of that. This is about getting skinned knees at ground level.

Hope you feel better and the little people flock back, darling. We’d still rather hear your shitty pop  while riding mall escalators than just about anybody else’s.

Duly noted: The Daily Ink says their Friday gig with The Cagles will feature an interband jam or two. Go Comics rounds out the Bullfinch bill. … You don’t think you’ve heard of Black Jack and the Dent Teens but it’s really just the Hubba Bubbles in disguise, gigging with a new singer next Tuesday at Hamilton’s back room while Chu is at a a family reunion in Ohio. …