Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to Sneaky Dragon the podcast known for its wit, charm and fart jokes!
This week: pirated podcast; toys for drugs; we yield to crime; great apes; overlords; overtalkers; special ops; spectacle over spectacles; contact high; eye wear; palindromic birthday; computer animated murder; the trouble with the Troubles; Turkish defamation; overly elaborate schemes; movie moves; wine and vodka outrage; Ian takes the pledge; girly drinks; drinks nurse; con-fortable; celebrity appearances; stick-on Hitler moustaches, dox whistle; we got a nutty convoy; mental health issues on parade; here’s how it works; truth decay; bear pokers; Two-Milkshakes Dedrick; a house divided; Dork Shadows – Move Your Body; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; slide right in; Duke salute; close to the hedge; heroes and villains; but what do I know; mixtapes mixtape; non-classical upbringing; and, finally, endless grace.
Question of the Week: What’s your favourite murder mystery?
Sub-question of the Week: What was the first record you bought?
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I’ll answer question #2 right now, as that’s one I can answer immediately: the first album I ever bought was Alice Cooper’s School’s Out (with the little fold out desk); I bought it in grade 6 or 7, I remember it was in preparation for my birthday party (which was to be a sleepover).
My inspiration for buying the album was that when I was 9, my mom took me to the UK, and we stayed with relatives in a small house that was full of rambunctious teenagers (three boys and one girl), a very foreign environment for me.
It was a loud and active household, and my youngest cousin was obsessed with the album – I remember that he wore a pair of jeans with the name Alice Cooper embroidered on the back pocket, and he also woke the entire household daily by switching on the record player every morning at 5 am, (turned to 11), and he would play School’s Out full blast, then lift the needle and replay, ad infinitum.
It was shocking and exciting and got a bit annoying and repetitive but was definitely a formative moment for me.
Our last principal at the school I work at used to play School’s Out at the end of the last day in June. Love it.
Apologies if the response to the first record I bought appears twice, I wrote it and it didn’t seem to stick, so will re-do here:
1. Favourite murder mystery: oh so many – and some maybe not exactly murder mysteries, but…for books, I have a real fondness for a short series (I think it’s ongoing) by a Canadian author that is set in the UK, the Flavia de Luce books. They are presented as more of a kids book but have great appeal. I will also confess to having a great liking for Dick Francis books (maybe no surprise) and the Sue Grafton books (I find her writing style very soothing for some odd reason, although I feel no kinship with the main character). I also liked the book The Lovely Bones but didn’t really like anything else that author did.
I don’t know if this qualifies as a murder mystery but one of my favourite films from my youth was Three Days of the Condor; it found it exhilarating. Fargo is my #2 all-time favourite movie, if that qualifies, and I also love North by Northwest and Game Night (although I don’t think anyone actually gets killed – but I went into that film with low expectations and it instead filled me with happiness and excitement).
For TV shows, I like the Ms. Fischer Murder Mysteries as much for the fashions as anything else. I don’t know if Prime Suspect qualifies as a murder mystery but I found it very compelling to watch when it first came out, although when I tried to re-watch it about a year ago I could not really get into it – too gritty.
#2 – First record – that would be School’s Out by Alice Cooper. I was inspired by my cousin in the UK who played it at 5 am on the daily, turned up to 11. It was loud and exciting and rebellious and got a bit repetitive but I loved it.
Totally with you on Fargo and The Lovely Bones, Lezah!
Back in college, I can remember being surprised by the movie “D.O.A.”, the 1988 remake of a 1949 film noir thriller. Dennis Quaid is Dexter Cornell, an English Professor, who is poisoned and has 24 hours to find out who has murdered him. After what appears to be a student’s suicide, Quaid is led down a series of murders that have nothing to do with his own murder only to find out in the end that his jealous colleague, played by Daniel Stern is the culprit. Stern’s objective is to kill Quaid and steal a manuscript written by the student described as the “Best book he’s ever read”, so Stern kills the student and Quaid so he can adopt the manuscript as his own. The twist is that Quaid never read the student’s manuscript and would never had known that Stern had stolen it but has to die for it anyway. In the end, Quaid kills Stern before the poison takes his life and the manuscript is left unread and unpublished forever.
I thought this was such a clever film that I saw it several times when it showed on campus and I bought the one sheet poster for my dorm room. The entire film was shot in San Marcos, Texas in and around the Texas State University but never references San Marcos in the film itself. It all happens right before Christmas and it’s hot, so I figured it must be Texas….
Another murder mystery was the 1976 spoof, “Murder by Death” with a cast list of favorites such as Peter Sellers, Peter Falk, Maggie Smith, David Niven and James Coco. It’s kind of dated but I can watch Falk just chew up all the scenes as the bogus Sam Spade, or as he’s known in this film, “Sam Diamond.” It’s deliberate and intentionally meant to sink a knife squarely in the heart of murder mysteries.
My first album was the double album score to “Star Wars” by John Williams, I paid my friend five dollars for it since he received it as a gift and didn’t want it and I still have it. My first record, or 45, was bought at our local supermarket. They had the records in a cardboard box across from the camera counter where you brought your film to be developed. It was “Livin’ Thing” by The Electric Light Orchestra, B-Side was “Ma-Ma-Ma Belle”. I’d heard it on the radio and really wanted it, so when I found it at the store I had to have it. It also cemented my love for ELO which must have pleased my musical tastes in symphonic music. The funny thing is that I don’t think I ever bought one album of theirs, I just listened to them on the radio and later bought a collection of ELO CDs, but that record was the start of it all.
On last episode, I may have listened to the exchange about mixing wine and vodka to make sangria three or four times. That may be one of the funniest segments I’ve ever heard on Sneaky Dragon! You boys were on fire last week!
Love peace to all….(Insert Ringo Starr with peace fingers here)
Murder mysteries? Well, if we can extend the genre to crime fiction, I’m definitely a fan of the hard-boiled, film noir school. Like Dave, I love Dashiell Hammett’s books, particularly the Continental Op short stories, and the movie of the Maltese Falcon is very rewatchable. Someone once said Hammett took the crime story out of the drawing room and put it in the street, where it belongs, and that’s about right. I really enjoy Raymond Chandler too, especially the Big Sleep, both as a book and a movie, and the film of Double Indemnity that he adapted from James M Cain’s novel, with Billy Wilder directing.
Agatha Christie and her ilk are less to my taste, though I seem to have watched, read or listened to dozens of them. I did like the TV adaptations of the Poirot stories with David Suchet in the title role, but so many of the plots turn on last-minute revelations – ‘The maid was an impostor!’ / ‘Ah, but a second baby was born that night!’ – that I often ended up feeling cheated.
Sherlock Holmes can be hit or miss. Generally, the stories written after his return from apparent death are less successful. However, I would recommend a fairly recent Holmes novel, The House of Silk, by Anthony Horowitz. I felt this really captured the very best of Conan Doyle and his characters and was a well-written addition to the series.
First single was Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) by George Harrison, which came out in 1973, when I was 11. As a true music nerd even at that age, I naturally preferred the B-side, an upbeat, slightly shambolic song called Miss O’Dell, which I still think is one of Harrison’s most purely enjoyable compositions. First album was Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player, by Elton John. Hey, I had to start somewhere.
Peace, love and understanding to all!
For non-traditional murder mysteries, I’m going with The Sixth Sense and Momento. After the events of the past week, I’m hoping my future favourite mystery will be: who managed to put an end to a sociopathic war criminal?