TELLING THE TRUTH CAN BE JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #310!

Rogers And Clarke – In Concert! Live! At The Chez Casablanca! (Ishtar) :: Like a complete set of Shakespeare that you get in the corner drugstore for a dollar ninety-eight or a volume of Omar Khayyám that you buy in the department store at Christmas time for your cousin Julia, they’re Morocco bound!

Peter, Paul And Mary – 25th Anniversary Concert (Shout! Factory!) :: Mary Travers may have died in 2009, but she’s still alive and well during this 1986 concert film which celebrates the folk trio’s quarter century milestone. Everything you’d want to hear is here from “If I Had A Hammer” and “Leaving On A Jet Plane” to the greatest drug song ever recorded, the ever-popular yet much-misunderstood “Puff The Magic Dragon” which some still claim is naught but a mere children’s story. I guess that explains why they go so far as to publicly proclaim otherwise during the opening verse by singing: “There never was a different meaning other than the obvious one!”

The Fraternity Of Man – Don’t Bogart Me (Reprise) :: Exactly!

Benjamin Ross – Thorne: Scaredycat (TVA Films) :: Forensic crime ’n’ cop shows are a dime a dozen these days, which is why it’s doubly refreshing to come across one that not only has an over-amped case of the smarts, but a genuinely inventive narrative twist that’s so fresh you wonder why nobody ever thought of it before—and if they did, it’s a sure bet that they never essayed it as expertly as its done here. Of course, some bone-headed copywriter hadda go ’n’ toss a spoiler tag line right on the front cover of the DVD which gives the game away so, whatever you do, don’tcha dare read it! Just get it instead and see if you can suss out the secret yourself.

SIZZLING VIDEO OF THE WEEK: Dean Martin – King Of Cool: The Best Of The Dean Martin Variety Show – Collector’s Edition  (Time Life) :: Just about everybody and their Uncle Abe gets called the King Of Cool these days but, as any certified chill adherent will ably attest, there are only two giants who walked the Earth worthy enough to be bestowed with that mighty moniker: Steve “Cooler King” McQueen and Dean “Coolest King” Martin.

McQueeno was literally a pedal to the metal rebel whose contrarian skill as a consummate conscientious craftsman meant that he could even play Ibsen and make it look hip. Deano, on the other hand, was an unperturbed pro with a blasé demeanor that made just about everything he did look nonchalant to the point of nihilistically not caring about anything but a paycheck, if that.

But luckily you don’t have to take my word for it ’cause all the 100% Proof you need is on this definitive All Smoking! All Drinking! six disc, ten hour compendium which contains eighteen complete one hour episodes spanning the years 1965 through 1973. Why, there’s so many essential unrehearsed moments, it’s hard to know where to begin. With Bill Cosby’s “Chicken Heart” bit? With Orson Welles’ nude undressed rehearsal scene? With Satchmo breaking the sound barrier on “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South”?

All this plus the Golddiggers and the NBC Peacock in living color? I tell you, it’s enough to make a grown man buy!

Be seeing you!