TU VUO' FA' L'AMERICANO

You might recognize this swinging Italian tune from "The Talented Mr. Ripley," a film adapted from a crime novel by Patricia Highsmith. (An even better adaptation of the same book is "Plein Soleil," a french film from 1960 starring Alain Delon as Ripley) In this scene, Jude Law and Matt Damon join a jumping Italian band to sing Tu Vuo' Fa' L'Americano. See if you can keep up.

Tu vuo' fa l'americano !
" mmericano! "mmericano!
siente a me, chi t'ho fa fa ?
tu vuoi vivere alla moda
ma si bive " Whisky and soda"
p? te sente' e disturb?
tu abballe'o" Rocco Roll"
tu giochi al "basebal"
ma'e solde pe' camel
chi te li d? ?...
la borsetta di mamm? !
tu vou' fa l'americano
" mmericano, "mmericano!"
ma si nato in Italy !
siente a me non ce st? niente a fa
okay, napolitan !
tu vuo' fa l'american !

The original, by Renato Carosone in 1958.

What's the meaning of this canzone Napolitane? Here is a rough translation:

You want to make like an American,
You want to make like an American,
And want to live in the latest style,
But when you drink whiskey & soda it makes you sick.

You dance to rock & roll and play baseball,
Sure, but when you need money for Camels,
Where do you go? To Mamma's pocketbook.

So you want to make like an American,
But you were born in Italy.
Seems to me there's nothing to be done.
OK, you're Neapolitan anyway.

Another take on Mr. Ripley, "Plein Soleil," directed by René Clément in 1960

SPADE COOLEY (1910-1969)

Say what you want about violence in Hip Hop -- those "gangstas" got nothing on the King of Western Swing, Spade Cooley. Spade was a big star, appearing in 38 Hollywood westerns, and had a string of top ten singles. But he was crazy as a bed bug, paranoid, and jealous of his young strawberry blond wife, Ella Mae. So much, in fact, that he literally stomped her to death after suspecting she was having an affair with another singing cowboy, Roy Rogers.

Born dirt poor, at the peak of his fame Cooley had amassed over fifteen million bucks capitalizing on the Western Swing craze. He owned a huge mansion on Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles, a ranch in the Mojave Desert, and a 56-foot yacht for sailing the seas. They say his closets were lined with 100 custom cowboy suits, 50 hats and three dozen pairs of pointy-toed boots. But the vicious murder of his beautiful younger wife Ella Mae shocked the nation, and brought his kingdom crashing down.

WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS MUSICIANS

I love this mugshot of young Jersey tough Frank Sinatra. The Guardian just put together a list of the ten most dangerous musicians, and Sinatra didn't even make the list. Oh, well. We'll have some people pay them a visit. In the meantime, here's the list THEY put together.

http://music.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,2206916,00.html

To hear Leadbelly perform "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" click button:

Police State Put on Hold

Never a watchdog, always a lapdog, little yipper Alberto Gonzales resigned today in a two minute prepared statement. One minute forty, actually. The Attorney General gave no explanation, nor did he respond to accusations of criminal misconduct – perjury, violations of the Hatch Act, misrepresentations to Congress, suborning perjury and obstruction of justice. Not to mention the political firings of eight judges.

For nearly seven years, Gonzales, an old friend and ardent supporter of the President from his Texas days, helped push the Bush agenda first as White House counsel and then as Attorney General. The prime legal architect behind the Bush torture policy, he dismissed the Geneva Convention as "quaint" and "obsolete." On the homefront, he helped whittle away civil liberties and opened doors to wiretapping and other invasions of privacy of the American citizen.

For more on the case against Gonzales, check out this video from Robert Greenwald.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk7Sluyzqr0