If there is a Twin Cities version of Rob Fleming, the music-obsessed protagonist of  Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, it’s Bill Hubbell. In past years Bill would burn and send out as many as 20 “Best Of 2004” (“of 2005″…”of 2006”, etc.) compact discs to friends and family. Each year, 15 to 20 discs from that year’s new music, each one with at least 15 or so songs. Billy never asked for a penny. He just wanted to share the music (I may have occasionally sent him a crappy T-shirt as compensation).

Anyway, Bill, Katie McCollow’s brother (see post below), also wrote a few words on the death of Prince that I want to share with you. Thanks, Bill.

Baby, I’m a Star

By Bill Hubbell

The coolest guy in the world died on Thursday. It’s hard to know what to say when the coolest guy in the world dies. Millions have tried and I’ve read as many of them as I possibly could, and damn if I haven’t enjoyed every last one of them.

Imagine living a life that has this sort of outpouring when it ends. You can’t, obviously, none of us can, because none of us ever got to be the coolest guy on Earth.

I mean, I’m sitting here by myself as I write this, and I’m barely the coolest person in this room, and if my wife happens to walk in, I clearly won’t be.

I’m kidding, of course, (not about my wife being cooler than me, that’s pretty clear), nobody my age cares about being cool anymore, but back in the day, when you’re still young and silly enough to think you might be cool, I was plenty guilty of it on many occasions.

It was on one of those said occasions when I saw Prince up close for the first time in my life. I’d turned 19 and of age about a week before, and me and my friends were at Graffitti’s nightclub in downtown Minneapolis. Here I am, wearing some ridiculous combination of clothes I’d spent $30 on at Banks, looking probably something like an Irish immigrant did coming off a boat in the late 1800’s. (At least I was cool enough not to wear the popped collars that the suburban boys we were suddenly thrown into the same environment with had on. We Minneapolis boys laughed and made fun of their popped collars while they laughed and made fun of our $22 jeans.) We were all idiots in our quest for what we thought passed for cool.

Anyhow, I’m standing there trying my hardest not to look like a dork, (and, with just that thought in my head, clearly failing), when “Delirious” starts blasting over the speakers and about 10 seconds in, Prince comes peacocking out of the shadows, strutting through the place like a rock god, which, of course, he was. He walked right by me and my friends wearing an impossibly shiny, glittering, canary-yellow outfit that was pretty similar to the purple one he’d have on in the movie a couple of weeks later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIs4JdfJ8NA

So, you know, it’s a dance club full of idiots like me trying to be cool, so there isn’t a complete freak out, OMG THERE’S PRINCE meltdown by the entire club, but it certainly teetered on that. We saw him three or four times at Graffitti’s over the next month, and it was always like that—he’d prance through the club as if by magic, you’d never know where he came from or where he went, and it never lasted for more than 45 seconds or so.

We were certainly lucky, all of us Minnesotans, having this global superstar and icon in our midst. We always got the extra shows and the random sightings. I think all of us have collectively bristled at the notion that he was some sort of weirdo. Weirdos don’t go to the Edina movie theatre (a lot), high school hockey games (maybe just one, but he was definitely at a SW vs Washburn game) Vikings and Timberwolves games. Sure, he was a Superstar Rock God, but he was also “one of us” and we all unapologetically loved him for being so.

First Avenue, last Thursday night

My wife, of the same era as me (and who went to high school with the popped collar boys), has a great story where she’s at the bottom of the stairs at Marsh’s nightclub and Prince comes dancing down the staircase, full on shoulder shimmying and a huge grin on his face and he WINKS at her as he passes! I’ll spend my whole life trying, but I’ll never make her feel like she did in that moment and I’m ok with that. He was the coolest cat on the planet.

You don’t ask a Minnesotan, at least one of my era, if they like Prince or not. That’s literally as silly as asking them if they like sex. We all LOVED Prince. Rock ‘n Roll, Funk, Jazz, Soul, Dance… what kind of music did he play? He played Prince music.

He entered our lives with the following:

I wanna be your lover
I wanna be the only one that makes you come running
I wanna be your lover
I wanna turn you on, turn you out, all night long make you shout

Mission accomplished. I could go on forever about the music, but suffice to say he sat on “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” for five freaking years, because he had so many incredible songs pouring out of him. Seriously, that would be the greatest song 99.9999 percent of anyone who’s ever played a note could come up with and Prince had it in his holster for five M-FNG years!

I’ve always been proud to be from Minneapolis, but maybe never more so than the past couple of days. I love how quickly we’ve turned sorrow to celebration. I love how we’ve all unabashedly cried with one another, but turned our tears to joy, which is what the coolest guy on Earth would have wanted us to do.

One of my best friends was over last night to watch the Wild game, and as it went to overtime, we were watching “Purple Rain” on VH1 instead.

Cry some more. Talk about how much you loved him some more with your friends. I’m going to go listen to the one…… you know the one…..Dr. tells us that everything is going to be alright….. Thank you Prince for punching the higher floor for all of us.

Prince is in heaven now, but it seems to me that he was already three-quarters of the way there while he was here on Earth. Peace and love–that was his main message. Let us all let a little more of that into our lives.

I was on a train on the loveliest spring day on Thursday afternoon when one of my two favorite Minnesotans, Katie McCollow, sent the following text: “What the effing eff. Prince can’t be dead.”

That’s how I learned Prince had died. As bummed as I was by the news, I’m glad I heard it from a Minnesotan.

Katie and her husband Mike (my other favorite Minnesotan) were born in Minneapolis, were raised in Minneapolis, and will die in Minneapolis (for all the flirting they both do with the American southwest). And so I asked Katie, who’s the most talented writer I know who lives within 10 miles of Paisley Park—either her or her brother, Billy—to write a few words about Prince. Katie, being the decent Minnesotan she is, complied. Enjoy.

******

Our Prince

by Katie McCollow

“The best thing Minnesota had is gone.”

“What about Bob Dylan?”

“Fuck Dylan. He left.”

—The comments section of my daughter’s friend’s Facebook page

And that, my friends, is pretty much it in a nutshell.

Oh, I should warn you, this is another Prince piece, so if you’re sick of reading them, well, I don’t know what to say. I guess you could go read about whatever other dumb thing happened in the world over the last few days, but why you’d care about anything else right now is beyond me.

I’m a born and raised Minnesotan, specifically a Minneapolitan, and I know the whole world is weeping purple tears right now…but it’s different here. Our tears are purple and made of cream of mushroom soup, and Prince totally would’ve gotten that.

There’s nothing I can add to this topic, information-wise; you’ve probably already read and heard whatever sad details of his death are available. All I can offer is my own thoughts and feelings from here in Prince’s ground zero.

I go by Paisley Park all the time—it’s very close to one of my favorite places on Earth, The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, which I’ve been told Prince loved, too. If you think your state has a good arboretum, I am very sorry to tell you this, it is completely lame next to ours.  Comparing your arboretum to ours is like comparing whatever local singer in your town who made it onto The Voice to Prince. Yes it is, so please just stop turning red and calm down. You probably have a football team that doesn’t shit the bed every playoff season, so it’s okay. (Hey! I wrote something about sports!!)

This is, like, the dumpster area at the Arboretum (a mile from Prince’s home)

Anyway, Paisley Park looks like a giant version of that game Don’t Break the Ice. It’s seriously ugly and weird from the outside, and it just sits there on the side of the highway and it seems like maybe you could pull in and get your oil changed. There are no giant gates, there’s no tree-lined driveway or anything that screams “THE COOLEST PERSON IN THE WORLD LIVES HERE,” which simply adds to the fact that Prince was the coolest person in the world.

Paisley Park really does look like the “Don’t Break The Ice” game

Everyone here has a Prince story, or at least a six-degrees-of-Prince story—he was rather regularly spotted around town, not just at clubs, but at the movies, restaurants, shopping at the record store, doing all the same things the rest of us did. He lived across the street from my best friend for a time. He went to high school with my cousins.

There’s a picture floating around the Internet, taken last Saturday, of Prince out riding his bike. Because it was nice out, and when it’s nice out here in April, we do stuff like ride our bikes and plant flowers even though anyone with any sense knows you shouldn’t plant anything until Mother’s Day. I loved the tweet he sent out that same day, when he invited us all over for a dance party “2 GIVE THANX 4 THE GOOD WEATHER AND ALL 4 ALL THE LOVE AND SUPPORT”. When we get a good day in April, we rejoice.

I know this probably all sounds stupid, like that “Stars—they’re just like us!” section in US Weekly—Hey, Prince shopped at Walgreens! Neato–  he had to get his cold medicine and Gummi bears somewhere, right?

Except yeah, it was neat. It was flipping amazing, because he was PRINCE. Spotting him around town didn’t take away from the magical feeling that you’d spotted a unicorn. The fact that he was willing to invite his community over sometimes and be a super gracious host…You guys, c’mon. Do I even need to tell you how incredible that felt? The last time my nephew went to one of his impromptu home concerts, he was served pancakes at dawn. Prince fed my nephew pancakes.

His Purple Reign will never end

That’s why this hurts so much for us. Look, Minnesota is a great place, and we have a thriving arts community of which we are very proud. But he elevated that, first by becoming PRINCE, and then by staying. Right here. We were the nerdy girl who, yeah, had a lot going for us if anyone was willing to look past our glasses and ponytail and get to know us, and he was the unbelievably cool kid who not only took us to the prom and revved our little red corvette, he actually did call us the next day, in fact he fucking married us, and almost 40 years in, he was still bringing us breakfast.

He could’ve gone anywhere, and he would’ve been the biggest star wherever he was, but he stayed. His loyalty to us made our loyalty to him that much stronger.

The stops are pulled out everywhere—driving down the street, I can hear his music blasting from every car (The Very Best of Prince has finally kicked the Hamilton soundtrack out of my own CD player), we’re all in purple, the dance parties and Purple Rain screenings just keep coming…tonight there’s a screening planned at the Twins’ stadium downtown.

My son, a high school student, asked me Thursday night if he could go downtown, where the streets were blocked off outside First Avenue and thousands were gathered for an all-night dance party. I think he thought that I was going to say no. I told him he absolutely had to go, and I was glad he wanted to. He slept through his first few classes Friday morning, and so what?

I hate the circumstances, but I’m so glad my kids and their peers have the opportunity to truly understand the importance and the impact Prince had not just on the world, but specifically on our city and state. Because before Thursday, I’m sure it was more like a cool anecdote for them.

He was not like us, and by “us,” I mean those of us who grew up alongside Prince becoming PRINCE. I was in 6^th grade when my friend Kristy introduced me to his music. We were shooting hoops in my backyard, and she asked me if I’d heard of him, which I had not. We listened to Controversy and stared at the album cover, and an alarm bell went off in my pants.

You guys, my dad famously yanked Billy Joel’s The Stranger off our family’s turn table and snapped it in half when he heard the lyrics to “Only the Good Die Young”. If he’d known what Prince was whispering in our ears, he would’ve burned the house down. And Prince only lived a couple of miles away. 

One of my first thoughts upon hearing he died was, “The Virgin Mary’s hall pass just showed up”.  I’m sorry if that offends you, but take it up with God, I didn’t invent Prince.

And when the movie Purple Rain came out, we saw it every Saturday night and rejoiced. The whole wide world was looking at our hometown hero, and all the accompanying scenic shots of the places we all hung out. To say we were proud is the understatement of every lifetime for eternity. And he just kept getting  bigger, and better, and still, he stayed.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with this, a quote from Carver County Sherriff Jim Olson: “To you, Prince Rogers Nelson was a celebrity. To us, he was a good neighbor.”

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 30th to Amber Heard, who’s had quite the newsy week

Starting Five

“Life is just a party/And parties weren’t meant to last…”

Nothing Compares 2 U

How many icons actually change their name to an icon? Only one who I can think of: Prince.

On April 21, 2016, a queen turned 90 and a Prince passed away at the age of 57. I won’t pretend to be an expert on The Artist Formerly Known As, but I do still proudly own a vinyl copy of Purple Rain. Vividly remember his appearance on Solid Gold in 1981 or ’82 where he and the Revolution played “1999” and “Little Red Corvette.” Had never seen a band that was that blatantly sexual, funky and also could riff like Keith Richards. Also remember in the summer of ’84, waking up to my music alarm just as the first licks of “When Doves Cry” were playing on the radio, and just laying in bed and being hypnotized by the raw energy.

Prince always understood and appreciated that our time on earth here is fleeting:

“1999”

“I was dreaming when I wrote this/Excuse me if I go too fast

But life is just a party/And parties weren’t made to last….”

Or, from “Let’s Go Crazy”

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life…”

and

“We’re all excited
But we don’t know why
Maybe it’s ’cause
We’re all gonna die

And when we do (When we do)
What’s it all for (What’s it all for)
You better live now
Before the grim reaper come knocking on your door”

He was a supremely gifted musician, a prodigy who played nearly all the instruments on his first five albums, all of which were released before his 25th birthday. This clip, which you should just jump to 3:30 for, showcases his mastery of the guitar. Watch him shred right in front of two RnR HoF guitarists, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, as if to say, “Yeah, mine’s bigger…”

He also wrote insanely smart and tight lyrics:

Kiss

Women not girls rule my world
I said they rule my world
Act your age, (not your shoe size)
Not your shoe size
Maybe we could do the twirl
You don’t have to watch Dynasty
To have an attitude
You just leave it all up to me
My love will be your food

He was simply a genius. A Twin Cities product who never really left. I never knew until yesterday that Paisley Park is located just a mile due east of the Minnesota Landscape Aroboretum, which is one of my favorite places. Visit it some day.

Anyway, a few more great moments/tributes/oddities: Yes, he played the only Super Bowl halftime show out of 50 where it rained, and when informed that it was raining, asked, “Can you make it rain harder?” I mean, when one of your signature tunes is “Purple Rain,” you’re not bowing out for that reason.

Niagara Falls: Purple Reign? “That isn’t Lake Minnetonka.”

The folks at Niagara Falls had already decided to light it up purple last night to honor Queen Elizabeth on her 90th birthday. So that was a strange coincidence.

Some wonderful soul did this at the Prince St. subway platform here in NYC. I hope the MTA lets it stay there for awhile.

Why do we just keep standing/alone in a world that’s so cold (waiting for the N and the R)?

Artists who had big hits (for some, their biggest) with songs Prince wrote and let them record: Sinead O’Connor (“Nothing Compares 2 U”), Chaka Khan (“I Feel For You”), The Bangles (“Manic Monday”) and Sheena Easton (“Sugar Walls”).

Also, in the song “Let’s Go Crazy,” Prince mentions “the elevator” three times (“Are we gonna let the elevator bring us down?”). He was found dead in an elevator.

Finally, Prince inspired one of the funniest skits in the history of Chappelle’s Show, “Game, Blouses.”

Prince: Bold. Original. Eccentric. Unique. Completely in control of his destiny and his music. A lot like David Bowie, who did three months ago, in that he was sui generis. A genius.

2. Tiger and SEALs

Take a few minutes half hour to read this piece by Wright Thompson on Tiger Woods, the most intriguing part of which is his obsession with the military, particularly the U.S. Navy SEALs, following his father’s death in the spring of 2006.

Earl Woods served two tours with the Green Berets in Vietnam, then retired and played golf. Eldrick Woods won 10 majors in golf, then his father died and he became obsessed with joining the military (he would win 4 more, the last in June of 2008 at the U.S. Open not far from where the SEALs train in the San Diego area). Most damaging? An anecdote in which Tiger and a few SEALs go out to lunch in a diner and he fails to pick up the check.

Note: They’re all wearing green jackets, but he is not.

One man’s hot take? Tiger was bored by golf. He had mastered it at an early age and he wasn’t nearly as consumed with catching Jack Nicklaus as the public might think. He needed a new drug, and he missed his pop, who was his golf shaman. So of course the military was a way to feel closer to the man his father had been.

Also, to complete the arc of Tiger’s career, read this story by Tim Crothers, who “discovered” Tiger in a way, or at least for Sports Illustrated, a quarter century ago when Tiger was 15.

3. Houston, What Are You Doing?

With Stephen Curry sitting, James Harden was the game’s leading scorer at 35 points.

The final 14 seconds of Game 3 of Warriors-Rocktes.

–Houston, nursing a one-point leading and inbounding under its own basket, throws it away and Golden State scores to take the lead.

—James Harden takes the inbound pass, dribbles up court, pushes off Andre Iguodala (no foul called), and sinks J.

—Draymond Green takes inbound pass at half court, dribbles off foot.

It wasn’t easy being Green on the final play

—Houston, needing to inbound with :01 left from half court, throws pass back toward its own basket. Shaun Livingston comes mere inches from stealing play and making greatest late moment steal in a playoff game since Larry Bird robbed the Detroit Pistons in 1986.

Nutty. Houston wins by one point.

4. The Two Jakes

Cubs win, 16-0, at Cincinnati and Jake Arrieta throws his second no-hitter in his past 10 starts (the other being at Los Angeles last August). Arrieta, the NL’s reigning Cy Young Award winner, is now 4-0 on the season with a 0.87 ERA. His first three-plus seasons as a Baltimore Oriole (2010-13), his ERAs were 4.66, 5.05, 6.20 and 7.23. Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.

David Ross, a 15-year MLB vet who had never caught a no-hitter, was the other half of the battery last night for the Cubs.

5. “Hey (hey), You (you), Get Offa My Lawn!”

Clint gets it

One man’s retort (mine) to all of those millennials mocking us with the “Get Off My Lawn” meme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NelBNtNm8l0

Music 101

Nothing Compares 2 U

As you may know, you can’t find Prince’s original recordings or videos on YouTube (props to him for that; he owns all his stuff), but here is Chris Cornell covering a Prince classic that Sinead O’Connor later recorded herself (without his involvement), who turned it into her star-making hit in 1990.. Thanks to Mark Ennis who pointed this video out to me via Twitter.

O’Connor took this song to No. 1 and the album, I Do Not What What I Haven’t Got, remained No. 1 for six weeks.

Here is O’Connor later reflecting on her relationship with Prince: “He summoned me to his house after ‘Nothing Compares 2 U.’ I made it without him. I’d never met him. He summoned me to his house—and it’s foolish to do this to an Irish woman—he said he didn’t like me saying bad words in interviews. So I told him to fuck off.” O’Connor said: “He got quite violent. I had to escape out of his house at five in the morning. He packed a bigger punch than mine.”

Remote Patrol

SUNDAY

Game Of Thrones

HBO 9 p.m.

GoT is getting some Bran back in its diet….

“We’re gonna build a wall, and the Wildings are gonna pay for it!” Make Westeros great again! The Mother of Dragons is in exile….Jon Snow is dead-not-dead….Cersei is launching her revenge tour…and Winterfell is about to get wild. The Wild Wild Westeros is back!

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 69th to a real wild child, Iggy Pop (who looks a little like yesterday’s birthday boy i n this space)

Change For a $20

It’s all about the Tubmans….

The U.S. Treasury announced that it will be putting a black woman on the $20 bill, the surest indication yet that paper money will soon be a thing of the past. Andrew Jackson: Never got a musical.

2. Pipa Gone-For-Long Shocking?

Pipa Out! At least until next week, we hear.

On Tuesday it was announced that Michael Strahan would be leaving Live in September to go full-time at GMA. And then we learned that Kelly Ripa, a.k.a. Pipa, found out at about the same time we did, so she didn’t show up for work yesterday. Give ’em hell, Pipa!

Got some things to attend to today, so this may be all I can provide. You may prefer it that way.

Music 101

Funk #49

The Cleveland-based James Gang was a three-piece band, highlighted by the tasty guitar licks of future Eagles member Joe Walsh. Because there were just three members, Walsh played both lead and rhythm guitar on this track, which was released in 1970.

xx

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 52nd to Andy Serkis. Love the precious.

Starting Five

Is that Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) or Hillary Clinton? Does it matter?

Dem and Dumber

Finally, after yesterday’s New York 2016 presidential primaries, the resignation is setting in (yes, it’s no accident I used “2016”, “presidential” and “resignation” in the same sentence). Donald Trump got 60% of the vote (“HUUUUUGE”) and Hillary Clinton received 58% of the vote.

You and I may have flirted with “Feel the Bern or “I’m OKasich, You’re OKasich” (I made that one up; they shoulda used it), but this election is going to be the 1999 movie Election: the smart, anal-retentive girl who has been vying for the job since the first day of high school, if not sooner, and the big, dumb jock whose blatant pandering doesn’t seem to bother anyone. I don’t know who is Matthew Broderick’s character in this scenario.

Get ready for Hillary versus Donald. “Benghazi” versus “7-11.”

2. The Voyeur’s Motel

Spying on guests was a Foos’ errand….

So yesterday I was talking to Keith Arnold on our new podcast, “Blown Coverage” ( <–That sounded like a plug; was that a plug?), and he told me about this story by legendary journalist Gay Talese that appears in the new issue of The New Yorker. It’s the true story of Gerald Foos, who erected a motel in which he created peepholes, etc., so that he could covertly spy on couples having sex. Of course, the situation deteriorated from there.

Steven Spielberg already optioned the rights and Sam Mendes is directing the film.

Gay Talese, 84, national treasure

By the way, if you have read “Devil In The White City,” which is also being turned into a movie starring Leo (speaking of Sam Mendes, indirectly….Kate W.), you know that its central character also builds a motel of sorts and creates secret passageways and peepholes with a much more sinister clandestine purpose in mind. And that, like Talese’s tale, it’s based on a true story.

I have yet to read Talese’s piece, but thanks to the miracle of the inter webs you can steal it read it for free here.

3. It Lacks Cat Class, And It Lacks Cat Style

The new Jaguar looks like just another alley cat

That’s the 2017 Jaguar XE, unveiled earlier this week. It looks a lot like a Buick.

This is the 1965 Jaguar E, which is suitable for international espionage (“Yeah, baby! Yeah!“)

4. Samso-nite

Samso has it all figured out….

Good story on CBS This Morning about a small farming island off the coast of Denmark, Samso, that is way ahead of the curve on renewable energy. The farmers there purchased their own wind turbines and put solar panels atop their barns. The island is green, the energy is all renewable, and everyone is doing well. It’s kind of like that island in Wicker Man without the annual human sacrifice (unless they just failed to report that). If you can get past the eyesore of the turbines, it’s pretty sweet.

Don’t think of them as turbines, think of them as slalom posts for water skiers

Related: March was the 11th consecutive month that was the hottest for that month in recorded history. So there’s that.

5. Spence For Hire*

Spence finished 9th in her marathon debut

*If you’re hiring people to run marathons, which, why would you be doing that?

The Boston Marathon was run on a lovely day two days ago. Mississippi State football coach Dan Mullen ran it, even though he did not need a qualifying time, because $$$$ (yes, it was for charity, but so what? Just write a freakin’ check. The rest of us have to actually finish a previous marathon under a certain time to get into the race.). Mullen ran a 4:28. The accepted time for a man his age, 42, simply to qualify is to have run a previous marathon in 3:12 or under.

ANYWAAAAAAAY, the top three male finishers were Ethiopians and none of us know them. The top two female finishers were Ethiopian and, you know, ibid. The only American who finished in the single digits was Neely Spence Gracey, a woman who finished 9th. You may, if you’re a running fan, recognize that name because he father (and her college coach at Shippensburg U. in Pa.) is former Olympic marathoner Steve Spence.

For Spence, 26, who ran a 2;35, it was her marathon debut. But she was actually born on Marathon Monday in 1990, and on that day Steve finished 19th at Boston. Two years later he won the Olympic Marathon Trials in ’92, but did not medal in Barcelona.

Music 101

Run

Many bands actually seem annoyed when their fans sing along to their most popular songs (hello, Counting Crows). But here, playing at the 2009 Oxegen festival in County Kildare, Ireland, Snow Patrol lead singer Gary Lightbody seems genuinely moved that the crowd knows all the words to the band’s breakout hit (look at the grin on his face as the crowd cries out the chorus, or is he smiling at the irony of the lyric “Even if you cannot hear my voice?“). Then again, they are from Northern Ireland. The band flew in from Italy, where it was on tour with U2, to perform at this event. Feels as if it was worth it. Note: Lightbody had a cameo in season 3 of Game Of Thrones, much of which is filmed in Northern Ireland.

The song hit No. 15 on the US Billboard chart in autumn of 2004.

Remote Patrol

Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler

8 p.m-12:45 a.m. TCM

Should you actually watch a silent film made in Germany in 1922 that is more than four hours long? I dunno: should you watch the Eastern Conference playoffs? Anyway, this is purportedly a classic, included on those “Lists of Films To See Before You Die.” Or is it “Lists of Films To See When You Want To Die?” Anyway, it comes highly recommended.