The Lint Screen

Author: PD Scullin

  • Exclusive: Trump-Putin Secret Helsinki Meeting Transcript

    Exclusive: Trump-Putin Secret Helsinki Meeting Transcript

    “The President’s Club” had a super secret meeting–– but we’ve got the inside dope!

    The Lint Screen has secured a top secret transcript of a private meeting President Donald J. Trump held with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in July.

    The document is the only known transcript of this meeting. Immediately following the world leader pow wow, the translators suffered fatal bone saw accidents. Somehow a transcript was made and marked “HUSH HUSH, SUPER SECRET–– DON’T READ, THIS MEANS YOU!!!!” The papers were wrapped around a baby sturgeon and left outside The Lint Screen offices where they stunk to high heaven.

    Here is the transcript in its entirety.

    DT: I’m doing pretty great, right, boss?
    VP: Pretty good, Donald. Not bad.
    DT: I think I’m doing a tremendous job, everyone says so.
    VP: Did you bring me the nuclear codes?
    DT: Oh, I forgot. I left them at the hotel.
    VP: I need the codes, Donald.
    DT: I’ll get them to you, no worries. What’s your email again?
    VP: No emails. No digital trails, Donald. We’ve talked about this.

    DT: Right. What’s a digital trail again?

    VP: Emails. Texts.

    DT: What about Tweets? Everyone loves my Tweets.

    VP: No Tweets. Absolutely not!

    DT: I write excellent Tweets. I get a ton of news coverage with my Tweets. They’re very presidential. Everyone reads my Tweets.

    VP: That’s why we don’t want Tweets, Donald. Remember– secrecy! We need secrecy.

    DT: Right. Secrecy. Super secret! My lips are sealed, boss.

    VP: Good.

    DT: I could give you the codes in a Hannity interview. He really, really likes me.

    VP: No! Not on television.

    DT: But Hannity’s not digital. And he gets great ratings. I can also talk to Fox and Friends, they’re very well respected! They like me, too.

    VP: No. The codes are strictly between you and me.

    DT: You and me. Right!

    VP: No one else needs to know. No one.

    DT: Right. A president’s club secret. Just us.

    VP: Good. Have you killed Mueller yet?

    DT: Mueller’s running the world’s biggest witch hunt!

    VP: Yes, yes, I know, Donald. Did you kill him?

    DT: No collusion!

    VP: Right, no collusion. Have you killed him yet?

    DT: I can kill him?

    VP: Not you, have someone else do it.

    DT: Jared? Ivanka? Have you seen Ivanka lately? She’s so hot! Incredible body.

    VP: It shouldn’t be a family member, Donald.

    DT: Right. Jared has a full plate anyway–– Middle East peace, opioid epidemic, infrastructure, cure poverty, more tax cuts for rich, world hunger, more revenue for the Trump organization, and some other stuff. And Ivanka–– man, she looks so fine.

    VP: Focus, Donald! Who will take care of your Muller problem?

    DT: Focus. Right. Let me think.

    (AN AWKWARD TWELVE MINUTES OF SILENCE)

    DT: I got it, boss–– Pence!

    VP: Pence. Yes, Pence is good–– no one would suspect him.

    DT: He’s a goody two shoes. I’ll order him to do it. He has to do whatever I say.

    VP: Just get it done before Mueller releases something.

    DT: It’s a total witch hunt. No collusion. None.

    VP: Right. Did you get my orders about shutting down the government?

    DT: Yes. I’ll do it. A government shutdown, check!

    VP: How? What’s your plan?

    DT: The wall. My big, beautiful wall. Build my wall or I’ll shut down the government!

    VP: Good. Blame it on the Democrats.

    DT: It’s the Democrat’s fault! Very weak on border security. They want to let rapists and murderers in. 

    VP: Get it done.

    DT: The wall shutdown. Right! No worries, boss! I’m your man.

    VP: That’s what I like to hear. To be sure you stay on task, I will have Sergei Lavrov and Sergey Kislyak checking up on you. Get them an office next to yours.

    DT: I can get them desks in my Oval Office. I have that power. Love those guys.

    VP: No, that might be too much. Too close. We don’t want to arouse any suspicion.

    DT: Right. Secrecy. Keep it secret. I’ll find them some office space in The White House. Maybe the Lincoln bedroom–– Lincoln never sleeps in there.

    VP: Lincoln is dead, Donald.

    DT: That explains it. Lincoln was an awful president. Very bad.

    VP: Just get your tasks done and keep Sergei Lavrov and Sergey Kislyak informed.

    DT: Will do, skipper!

    VP: Don’t call me that.

    DT: Sorry, boss.

    VP: Let’s break this up. Not a word to anyone about what we discussed.

    DT: Mum’s the word. Check!

    VP: Keep up the good work, Donald. We will talk later about the Trump Kremlin Tower.

    DT: It will be a great addition to the Moscow skyline.

    VP: Yes, yes. Do your job, Donald.

    DT: I will. I’ll make you proud.

    VP: You had better do that, or else––

    DT: No collusion!

    VP: No collusion. Now get me those codes, Donald!

    DT: Will do, skip!

    VP: Quit calling me that!

    DT: Sure thing, boss.

    THE MEN STAND, SHAKE HANDS AND EXIT.

  • The Tenth Pick In The Great Album Game

    The Tenth Pick In The Great Album Game

    Grab a seat, your opera glasses, and settle in for a wild musical journey.

    Pick number ten of the great album game (that’s Pick X for Super Bowl fans, wait–– I don’t want to pay the NFL licensing fees–– that’s Pick X for “The Big Game” fans).

    My first pick was The Beatles, and I am finishing with Queen. Two British bands, each made an indelible mark in rock history. These bands are also two anchors of fond memories of my best friend Joe Riccitelli, who cancer took from our world on December 30, 1999.

    Fuck cancer.

    Growing up in Hubbard, Ohio, Joe lived three backyards away. Although I have six brothers, Joe was my seventh.

    When we were ten or eleven years old, we were Beatles fanatics. Joe, another neighbor named Ernie Stinson and I would meet in Joe’s garage and pretend we were The Beatles (it was a thing, okay?). Joe would swipe a pack of his father’s cigarettes (Raleighs, with a coupon on every pack–– smoke more, collect tickets, get prizes!).

    Joe had two badminton racquets. Since we three bandmates trying to play the Fab Four, one of us would be John, one Paul, and one Ringo (there were only TWO guitars–– Rickenbacker badminton racquets!). Joe had a terrific voice, and Ernie’s wasn’t bad. I sounded like a squeaky toy run over by a truck. So I usually got stuck being Ringo. I could pretend to drum and nod my head with a lit ciggy butt dangling from my lips (just like in the Beatles movies!).

    We were cool kids. Bad boys.

    Fast forward to years later when Joe and I became Queen fanatics (Ernie had moved away–– was he on tour, why didn’t he take us?). Now that we were legitimate teens, we were smoking our own cigarettes, not stolen ones. No coupons for us. We didn’t pretend to be Queen in Joe’s garage. Nope. We’d drive around singing Queen–– like in Wayne’s World.

    We even drank beer. We liked beer!

    We saw Queen live twice in Cleveland, and the band was phenomenal. Freddie Mercury (birth certificate name: Farrokh Bulsara) was an incredibly charismatic performer who owned the crowd from the moment he stepped on stage. The band was tight as a new olive jar in zero gravity. Brian May created a guitar sound like no other–– crisp, vibrant, spine seducing–– the result of his astrophysicist brain applied to electric guitar electronics.

    On vinyl, the first two Queen albums, cleverly titled Queen and Queen II staked the band as a legit hard rock, progressive act. With their third album Sheer Heart Attack, they showed more versatility with all four band members contributing songs. Mercury’s Killer Queen became an international hit. But it was 1975’s A Night At The Opera that busted them wide open. At the time, it was the most expensive album ever produced.

    The album opened with Death On Two Legs, an intimate f-u from Mercury to the band’s old manager. From there, the band explores a world of musical genres–– Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon puts Mercury in a time machine as he trips us into the 1920s. Then, it shifts into Roger Taylor’s I’m In Love With My Car, porn for gearheads. Next is one of my favorite Queen songs, John Deacon’s You’re My Best Friend, with a melodic hook that sets itself deep and reels you in. Followed by a Brian May song he described as sci-fi skittle, “39”, then, May’s “Sweet Lady” and completing side one with Mercury’s “Seaside Rendezvous”, another blast to the past complete with muted horns, tap dancing, and a kazoo for good measure. All with the layered harmonies only Queen could do.

    Side two opens with the weakest song on the album, Brian May’s The Prophet Song. It’s based on a dream May had while battling hepatitis. It is very prog-rocky, and long at over eight minutes. Cut two is Mercury’s haunting and beautiful Love of My Life, complete with a harp (not played by Harpo, surprising given the Marx Brothers title of this album). Cue the ukulele for the next track, Mercury’s Good Company, with May laying in some sweet guitar licks. This sets up the band’s best-known song, Bohemian Rhapsody. Scaramouche, there has never been a song like this one–– mixing real life with fantasy and offering no escape from reality, etc. The band closes the album with a heroic rendition of God Save The Queen with the Queen Mum playing glockenspiel.

    I may have gotten that last part wrong.

    A Night At The Opera is a treat. The band would go on to make more great music and deliver amazing performances–– Queen at Live Aid, anyone?

    The world lost a great artist when Mercury died in 1991. And whenever I hear Queen, I remember Joe, my great friend who I lost, my bandmate I sang with and shared so many great times.

    There you have it–– my ten picks (eleven albums, I cheated a little) and why I love them. Because music is so personal, I also know this list is fluid, an organic process subject to change. I battled with albums and artists that almost made this ten collection but didn’t–– Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, The Who Quadrophenia, Temptations, Led Zepplin II, Jimi, The Clash London Calling, Ricki Lee Jones debut album, Sam and Dave’s Hold On I’m Comin’, and on and on.

    I haven’t even touched jazz, classical, country, western swing, theatre music, blues, or bluegrass.

    I’m thankful all these musical styles exist. Any great song can instantly transport one to a time and place and feeling.

    Music is a time machine, an audio miracle that moves us, jump starts our emotions and give you a bump of dopamine with a chaser of uncut joy.

    Think about your list. Indulge and lose yourself in the soundtrack your life.

    Thanks for reading. And fuck cancer!

  • The Ninth Pick In The Great Album Game

    The Ninth Pick In The Great Album Game

    A rock legend, a musical chameleon, an artistic trailblazer. But boy, could he play guitar.

    For my ninth pick I’m doing a two-fer–– one great British singer/songwriter and one American. Yeah, I know it’s a cheat, but screw it. My game, my rules.

    An artist is lucky if he can impact his art once. David Bowie did it again and again and again. I wouldn’t be surprised if he does it again after his death. He was that good.

    Davy Jones formed his first band at age 15, became dissatisfied with the commitment and drive of his bandmates, and proceeded to ping around a variety of blues-influenced bands. He never felt at home.

    In the mid-60’s he changed his name to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees (his first choice for a name was Mickey Dolenz, which unfortunately was also taken). David selected Bowie as his last name after Jim Bowie and his knife. Remember him? Remember the Alamo? If I had a Bowie knife at your throat, you’d sure as hell remember!

    In 1967, Bowie released his first album (cleverly titled David Bowie). It made little noise and slid into the abyss. He met a dancer, studied dance, joined the circus, studied dramatic arts, avant-garde theatre, mime, and commedia dell’arte. He sopped it all up like thirsty bread in a puddle of gravy. His theatric flair would come into play throughout his career. Early in ’69, he went on a short tour with Marc Bolon’s Tyrannosaurus Rex. Bowie was third on the bill doing a mime act.

    Yes, a mime act. Live with it.

    Bowie released his song Space Oddity five days before the launch of Apollo 11 (July 11, 1969). Being stuck inside a tin can was a hit, David Bowie was on his way. Over the next three years, he recorded and released albums that gained him an avid following and introduced an androgynous look in concerts and interviews.

    DB devoured culture and fed his imagination. He created ‘the ultimate pop star’ the character of Ziggy Stardust–– a combination of Iggy Pop and the music of Lou Reed (Bowie would later work with both artists). The album Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars was released in 1972. Bowie was Ziggy, an androgynous bisexual rock star who acts as a messenger for extraterrestrial beings. The glam rock legend was born and over his career, Bowie would assume other personas–– Aladdin Sane, The Thin White Duke, and other musical identities through different genres.

    Ever the chameleon, Bowie was an artist always in search of being original, right down to his swan song album Blackstar. For a nice sampler of early to mid-Bowie, David Live is a great one to feast upon.

    Some rock stars are destined, never to be denied.

    Now, let’s make America great again. In 1960, at age 10, Tom Petty met Elvis thanks to an uncle working on a movie with the hip-shaking hipster. Three years later, little Tommy saw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan and was hooked. The rock star life was for him, it seemed like a pretty good gig (it’d look cool on the ol‘ resume). Where do you sign up?

    Petty began learning and playing. One of his teachers was Don Felder who would later join the Eagles. Tom began forming bands and gigging like a madman. He dropped out of school and worked odd jobs like laboring on the grounds crew at The University of Florida and digging graves (not on campus–– this was a different job).

    Tom had the passion bad, the rock bug burning hot in his heart. After his band Mudcrutch broke up, he formed The Heartbreakers and they beat it to L.A. pursuing their dream of trying to get signed. They did, and in ’77 they released their self-titled album with the song Breakdown, which became a big hit in the U.K. and made some waves stateside.

    1979’s Damn the Torpedoes is the third album of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, and it became huge. Triple platinum. On his next album Hard Promises, his new label MCA wanted to raise the disc’s price from $8.98 to $9.98. Petty was pissed, he didn’t want to appear like he was price gouging fans. He waged a bitter battle with the label and held the price.

    Petty would go on to record many great albums, along with side projects like Traveling Wilburys (he got to play with a Beatle, Bob Dylan, and Roy Orbison–– talk about your rock dreams), writing an excellent soundtrack for the film She’s The One, and re-booting his old gang of Mudcrutch. He even had a cool radio show called Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure on Serius XM.

    When you consider the number of great, classic rock songs Petty made, he is one for the ages. For a deeper dive in TP and the making of his album Wildflowers, listen to the Broken Record podcast with Malcolm Gladwell and Rick Rubin. Listen to all the episodes, they are excellent.

  • THE EIGHTH PICK IN THE GREAT ALBUM GAME

    THE EIGHTH PICK IN THE GREAT ALBUM GAME

    All hail the Queen, long may her voice reign.

    Her daddy was C.L. Franklin, a minister at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit. He was a famous preacher man, check out some of his preachings on YouTube and you’ll get an idea of the pipes he had. But his daughter Aretha, well, she was something else. When she sang in the choir, angels sat, their jaws dropped, and listened in wonder.

    She pursued a life of secular recording at age 18 with Columbia Records and did what the engineers told her to do. She had some success but was hardly a star.

    Five years later, when her contract expired, Aretha switched labels to Atlantic Records. She went to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and began recording with its legendary studio musicians. Aretha started doing her own musical arrangements, giving songs her vision and voice, and bada bing, the angels they shat themselves. The Queen of Soul was born and she would reign for another five decades.

    This album has some prime Aretha–– Respect (she put Otis Redding’s version up on the rack and re-builds it for power and a feminism anthem), I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You), Soul Serenade, Baby, Baby, Baby, Save Me, Do Right Woman, Do Right Man, and Dr. Feelgood (Love Is Serious Business).

    When Aretha covered any song, she made it hers and owned it. Gershwin, The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael, Bernstein and Sondheim, The Rolling Stones, Carole King, hell, and even Question Mark And The Mysterians.

    You can pretty much dive anywhere into her catalog and get lost. The woman expressed emotion like a raw nerve with pipes of gold. She was a songwriter, pianist, actress, feminist, and civil rights activist.

    The world lost a queen last year, but her voice will live on for the ages.

  • The Seventh Pick In The Great Album Game

    The Seventh Pick In The Great Album Game

    Who knew balloons and arrows through the head could be so much fun?

    A palate cleanser, people. Since this challenge is about albums that were significant in your life, this one is right up there. Steve Martin was an incredible comedic force and inspiration to me. He began college as a philosophy major, then changed to a theatre major, then dropped out.

    Young Steve loved making people laugh, and had a different philosophy about what comedy could be. As he wrote years later: “What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation.”

    Martin crafted his stand-up act for years, bombing more often than WW II. He persevered and eventually found his voice. Steve was the world’s biggest horse’s ass, for our amusement. A pompous prick. A jerk (“born a poor black child”). Every set up he delivered had a surprising left turn.

    He was absurd. Silly. A refreshing tsunami into comedy. And people loved it. “Excuuuuuuuuuse me!” and “I’m just a wild and crazy guy” soon became catchphrases (they also became obnoxious). Martin made arrows through the head, balloon animals, even playing the banjo cool.

    Then, he quit stand up. He was a guy selling out arenas, cashing easy money, and walking away because it lost its thrill.

    Steve Martin has an incredible body of work–– movies, concerts, plays, and books. His memoir “Born Standing Up” is one of my favorites. It shows how his overnight success took years of pain and suffering, and his unending quest to receive his father’s approval.

    Some factoids you may not know about him. At age 23, Martin received an Emmy as one of the writers on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. He has suffered from tinnitus (ringing in the ear) ever since the filming a shooting scene in Three Amigos. Only Alec Baldwin has hosted Saturday Night Live more than Martin.

    If you still have an album collection, chances are there is a Steve Martin disc. Enjoy it.

  • The Sixth Pick In The Great Album Game

    The Sixth Pick In The Great Album Game

    Grab a match, everybody get in line, stop making sense!

    Four former art school students formed a band in New York City in 1975, and in ’77, they released Talking Heads: 77. Bassist Tina Weymouth explained what ‘Talking Heads’ meant: “A friend had found the name in the TV Guide, which explained the term used by TV studios to describe a head-and-shoulder shot of a person talking as ‘all content, no action’. It fit.”

    Talking Heads had incredible content, like songs about a psycho killer, worrying about the government, ‘the book I read’, having no compassion–– you know, standard rock fare stuff.

    Instantly Talking Heads drew attention as one of the freshest new wave bands and became mainstays at CBGB.

    After the release of their second album More Songs About Buildings And Food, I saw them at the Tomorrow Club in downtown Youngstown, Ohio. I was a writer for the Youngstown State University ‘Jambar’ newspaper and smooth talked my way into reviewing the concert and meeting the band.

    I am bad with faces, and to identify the band members I relied on their portrait shots from their first album. I met three of the band members at the soundcheck–– two men, one woman. I instantly deduced the woman was Tina Weymouth, pretty good gumshoe work there! The two young guys were clean cut, as were all three male members in the band portrait.

    I asked the first guy if he was “David By-run?”

    “No,” he said, “I’m Jerry Harrison.”

    I asked the second guy if he was “David By-run?”

    “No, I’m Chris Frantz. David Byrne is coming later,” he said.

    “Oh,” said I, registering the singer’s name was pronounced “Burn” not “By-run.” The three band members were nice enough not to walk away in disgust from this punk kid reporter pestering them.

    When I met Byrne that night, he was aloof with a faraway look in his eyes. He was shy and introverted and spoke about as much as a mime. David Byrne was on his own wavelength. His lyrics reflected that sensibility. No one wrote lyrics or songs like Talking Heads.

    That night at the concert, the band played tight. Byrne stuck to a three-foot circumference around his microphone. He played guitar and delivered his lyrics exactly as recorded on the band’s albums. The epitome of “All content. No action.”

    Imagine my surprise when I saw the movie Talking Heads Stop Making Sense, the best concert film ever IMHO. Byrne is a masterful showman (the big suit? Come on!). The band is tight, fun, and fluid. Content finally had action. I would pick that album as my favorite since they play cool renditions of some of their greatest songs, but that pick would be too easy.

    Instead, I’ve selected 1983’s Speaking in Tongues, with the band’s only legitimate hit, Burning Down The House. This disc includes Making Flippy Floppy, Slippery People, Girlfriend is Better (where the phrase “Stop making sense” is used), Swamp, I Get Wild/Wild Gravity, This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody) and more. The sound is a fresh mashing of rock, funk, and get your groove on, baby. The music would sound just as original if released today. Give it a go for a good time.

    I’m telling you, that ‘David By-run’ is something else. And if you haven’t heard it, Remain In Light is a close second for me as their best work.