The Gorgeous Hussy. Have there been better movie titles? Yes. Have there been more intriguing movie titles? Not many. I watched the last 45 minutes of this movie on TCM and understood almost nothing.

Reading online, I understand why. TCM's brief is "President Andrew Jackson's friendship with an innkeeper's daughter spells trouble for them both." But the full description runs for more than 600 words.

Slimming down: Daddy and opinionated daughter, Peggy, run a D.C. inn. She loves a senator who won't marry her. She marries a suitor who lives at the inn, but then he goes off with the Navy and dies.

Andrew Jackson becomes president. His beloved, off-slandered wife dies. So, Peggy looks after him and gets slandered. She runs into the senator again. Loves strikes, but they have different views on states' rights. Jackson's secretary of war, John, proposes to her instead.

A militant trying to overthrow Jackson shoots the senator. Peggy visits with her friend, Rowdy, and the senator dies. The militant comes upon their stagecoach and tries blackmail. Rowdy tosses him out, and new rumors start in Washington. Jackson summons his cabinet and their wives, chastises their gossiping, lies for Peggy, John and Rowdy, and fires EVERYONE ELSE. He lets Peggy and John go to Spain. The end.

Ridiculous, yes? Also, partly true, Lindsay* reminds me. The parts with the senator, shooting and stagecoach are fictional, but everything else is in history's… Petticoat Affair. I don't know whether AP U.S. History failed me here or if this was completely over my head at age 16.

Aside from the casting — Joan Crawford as Peggy, Lionel Barrymore as Jackson, a young Jimmy Stewart as Rowdy, and only-a-Grammy-short-of-an-EGOT Melvyn Douglas as the senator — the best part of the film for me is the old-timey D.C. gossip. The senator is John Randolph, who has an area elementary school named for him now. Same's true for the war secretary, John Eaton. Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun make some appearances too. Late Night Shots has nothing on their drama.

…

*Lindsay once did a show about how Calhoun's wife Floride could have been her savior in high school. But Floride doesn't come off great in the Petticoat Affair. "The way I'm reading the history, Floride is a gossiping bully who tries to drive a smart, outspoken, passionate young woman out of DC," I wrote Lindsay. Her reply: "It's because she would be on MY side. And be MY bully. If she can be such a hateful wretch but for my own selfish purposes, that works for me." Fair enough!

One of my favorite movies of all time:

Sonny: I don't wanna talk to some flunky pig tryin' to calm me, man.
Moretti: Now you don't have to be calling me pig for–
Sonny: [Noticing other officers moving in] What is he doin'?
Moretti: Will you get back there!
Sonny: What are you movin' in there for?
Moretti:  Will you get the fuck back there! Get back there will ya!
Sonny: What's he doing? Go back there, man! He wants to kill me so bad he can taste it! Huh? ATTICA! ATTICA! ATTICA!

And even if you make it to the airport…

Pop Eater finds Rory Gilmore likes her men good but a bit complicated.

Still, after the show finished?
I do go out and blow off steam but I don't seek attention when I'm doing it. You can't really relax and have a good time when you're being photographed, in my mind. That kind of kills the fun for me. I go to places where that doesn't happen.

So 'The Good Guy' is about dating good guys and bad guys. Do you date good guys or bad guys?
Um, I don't know. Mostly good guys I think.

Are you attracted to bad boys?
Not if I'm aware of it… I don't know. It's so funny to try to define people as good or bad. I know that's the theme of the film but no, not really. I've been pretty lucky to date so many nice guys.

I mean the too nice guys. Do you ignore them?
It's nice when someone is a nice guy but he has to have something that's complicated, not too much (complication).

That I can do. … Another thing I can do? Stop Alexis from making half-awful movies. I'm not sure how she keeps doing this. I saw Post Grad the other week, and it was the perfect half-awful movie. Terrific cast: Bledel and her face and crazy-huge-as-the-ocean blue eyes, Michael Keaton as her weird dad, Jane Lynch as her weird mom, Carol Burnett as the wacky grandma, with minor appearances from J.K. "Juno's dad" Simmons, Craig "Darryl from The Office" Robinson, and Fred Armisen.

But the movie as a whole? A mess. Script couldn't decide if it wanted to be college funny or family warm. All the quirky was for naught. Naught!

Her new one seems to have similar pain. Says a hed on a Gatehouse News Service story, "The only thing 'The Good Guy' is good at is being horrible." Adds the Boston Globe about this Wall Street-ish drama:

Presumably to shake things up, Beth is a conservationist. It's a line of work that rarely comes into play. She and Bobby never fight about the green industries he's lucratively betting against. She and Daniel never bond over the joys of composting. Although all those shots of her just sitting in Central Park or at her kitchen table suggest that a pitiful amount of imaginative screenwriting is being conserved.

The take then calls Bledel "emotionally monochromatic." And I know that's not true in real life. I see your true colors, Alexis! Let me help.

Sincerely [jointly signed],
The Committee for a Good But a Bit Complicated Patrick Cooper

and

The Committee for a Free Alexis Bledel (and also Free Dan Neil)

"Night traffic" by brianmka.

"Early Winter Market – 143/365" by mosprott. I'd like nothing more at this moment than to embed this shot, but I respect the photographer's choice not to offer it. You'll just have to click. Small, local, worthwhile.

The Flickr pool is from ARLnow.com, which I ran across a few weeks ago, enjoyed and have subscribed to since. A little county pride…

Via friend Glenna, my favorite read today is the Chicago Tribune's "10 things you might not know about April Fools' Day." Two particular items rise to the top of the Trib list for me. The first involves spaghetti.

2 Ranked by the Museum of Hoaxes as the best April Fools' prank ever was a 1957 BBC report about Switzerland experiencing an early spaghetti harvest. The television show included video of peasants pulling spaghetti from trees and explained that a uniform length for the spaghetti had been achieved through expert cultivation. The BBC got hundreds of phone calls, with most callers asking serious questions, such as where could they buy spaghetti trees.

The fantastic BBC video is here. (Sorry for no embed, but those copies are all of lesser quality.) From the voiceover: "The last two weeks of March are an anxious time for the spaghetti farmer. There is always the chance of a late frost which, while not entirely ruining the crop, generally impairs the flavour and makes it difficult for him to obtain top prices in world markets. But now these dangers are over and the spaghetti harvest goes forward." Here's full text and other detail.

And the second item I like involves left-handedness.

9 On April 1, 1998, Burger King took out a full-page ad in USA Today to announce a fast-food breakthrough: the Left-handed Whopper. It featured the same ingredients as the regular Whopper, except the condiments were rotated 180 degrees. According to Burger King, thousands of customers requested the new burger, and others asked for a right-handed version.

Left-handed people! Left-handed people! Sing with me.

I can't find a picture of the USAT ad, but here's the press release from the gag. In part: "It is estimated that more than 1.4 million left-handed customers visit U.S. Burger King(R) restaurants each day." This fake AP story also made rounds online. Museum of Hoaxes actually maintains a left-handed category in its April Fools' Day Database. (Yes, Museum of Hoaxes actually maintains an April Fools' Day Database, a great read.)

Glad to see beloved WXRT and mischievous newies make the list as well. Tagline: "Mark Jacob is the Tribune's editor in charge of putting in commas. Stephan Benzkofer takes out commas for the Tribune."

Garden Cheddar, you say? XTRA Cheddar, you say? Let's look…

Key phrase: "1/3 serving of real vegetables in each serving."

Key phrase: "While they can't replace vegetables…"

Key phrase: "Hey! I'm taking the PEA train!"

The crackers are tasty — good herb flavor. But biting off the fish heads (as is custom in much of America), I don't see any vegetables in there.

I call on the Pepperidge farmers to explain how vegetables get inside.

One of the best stories I read last week was Helen O'Neill's AP story about a one-time virulent racist, Elwin Hope Wilson, making amends. How virulent was Wilson? He punched one-day-to-be Rep. John Lewis in the head during the Freedom Rides. The story was published last spring but recently won an award and turned up on Romenesko.

The writing was deservedly award-winning but did have an odd moment. NASCAR's Junior Johnson made a cameo… but not really.

(more…)

Oh wait, it appears this just happened. How did the world not end?

Ferrari has named CMMB (Catholic Medical Mission Board) and the William J. Clinton Foundation as beneficiaries of an auction of the first Ferrari 458 Italia to arrive in the United States. …

Grammy-Award winner John Mayer will donate his time to perform during the evening and director and Ferrari-collector Michael Bay will be acknowledged for his long-lasting friendship with the company.

The auction of the first Ferrari 458 Italia in the North America will be conducted by the Wall Street Journal's Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive journalist Dan Neil.

More in this short "story" from "Elite Traveler, the Private Jet Lifestyle Magazine." (About page: "Articles provide detailed information readers can't find anywhere else, such as the names of the best therapists at top spas, and direct phone numbers for resort general managers.")

Longtime Patrickcooper.com hero Neil and longtime Patrickcooper.com goat Mayer land mere photos apart in a gallery. And between them in the gallery is car enthusiast and Grey's Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey, whom this blog likes as an actor but guesses is odd personally. I don't know what to feel. Except that Ferrari is messing with strange forces.

As Neil wrote in February of the Ferrari he auctioned, "The 458 Italia is spooky fast without the haunting of mortality." Strange, scary forces.

1. Opening photo with sunglasses, sofa and gun.

2. "Man, if I didn't make my own scene, I could have wound up a hood instead of an actor." [Photo highlight: Dead animal rug in foreground.]

3. "With strangers, I can't breathe…. But I dig my old lady." Later in the pix: slow-dancing in the living room with LPs scattered on the carpet.

4. Mrs. McQueen's butt (respectfully). But if that's not your thing, you get plenty of Mr. McQueen. One cutline makes a related link to his butt. I'm pretty sure this doesn't happen in galleries of less cool celebrities.

5. The sequence of photo 13 — boots, jeans, shirtless, tan, smoking, wearing a watch, in the flatbed of a pick-up truck, with bottles of Lucky Lager beer on the lowered tailgate, in the middle of a Mojave Desert dirtbike race — into photo 14 — later in the race, a small grocery store owner fixing up McQueen's bleeding hands behind the meat counter.

Full gallery here, via TMN. Photos from spring 1963. Never published before this month and what would've been McQueen's 80th birthday.

The new one from Gaslight, American Slang. Happy weekend to you–