Crime Jazz

Film Noir

It is a limited genre of music, that's for sure. It's inextricably linked to film noir, but I think you have to credit Otto Preminger (trivia note: Mister Freeze on the Batman TV series) for its genesis. Granted, he didn't write the music, but his city dramas of the late 1950s certainly provided the vehicle for it. That's just for starters. The songs extend into the comic book TV era of the 1960s, with theme songs for shows like Mission Impossible, Man from U.N.C.L.E., the James Bond films.

You had composers like Count Basie,  Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones, John Barry, Lalo, Schifrin, David Amram, Elmer Bernstein. Songs like Arabesque, Frankie Machine, Peter Gunn...

Who cannot listen to Peter Gunn as a personal soundtrack and not strut down the street shouldering aside grandmas and small children, feeling like a complete hardass?

Speaking of which, the reason I've been off the air lately is I've lost my home internet service provider. I've been piggybacking off an unsecured wireless router of one of my neighbors for the past three years. They finally secured their router, and wouldn't you know it, it's the Albanians.

Oh, fucking hell, the Albanians.

We've had a growing colony of them here in my shitbox apartment complex. At first it was one family whom I thought was French, don't ask me why. Maybe it was the two plump but incredibly sexy dark-eyed daughters that just seemed to have an aura of sexy Frenchiness about them. But soon enough, more families moved in, until there were a good two dozen of them. All lean, hard-looking, hungry, lupine men, and lovely women with raven black hair and alabaster skin. And all of them driving BMWs and Mercedes. How can they afford those kinds of vehicles, unless...

I'm thinking of the movie taken, when Liam Neeson is informed that his daughter is being held by the Albanians "not even the Russian mob will mess with them". And, given that the Albanian mob has a reputation for being especially violent and unpredictable, I'm hoping they don't find out I've been stealing internet access through them. Because if they did, I've a feeling I'd soon be typing out this electronic journal with prosthetic hooks.

But nah, they're just families. I see them out there, being gentle with their children, hugging and kissing each other on the cheeks when the clans get together. And they wave and say "Hi" to me, when I see them.

Nah, nothing to worry about.