The Daily Tonic: The Count Of Pennsylvania

With all the talk of STOP THE COUNT! and so much focus on Pennsylvania, a distant bell was ringing in the back of our heads – and we couldn’t figure out why. Until we went looking for stories about all of the most notable residents of the currently contested battleground states and saw Bret Michaels’ name.

Then it clicked.

Though it was the less well-known Pamela Anderson sex tape, the one she shot with Bret Michaels featured him dressed as Count Dracula.

When jazz legend Charles Mingus died in 1979, he left behind quite a legacy: nearly 70 albums as a bandleader, 30 albums as a sideman – and one toilet training manual for house cats.

Despite having one of the busiest careers in jazz, and a love of spending time with prostitutes (he once claimed to have had 26 in one “sitting”), Mingus somehow managed to find the time to figure out how to train his cat, Nightlife, to use the pisser like a person.

Not only that, but he also found the time to write it all up as a handy-to-use guide so that you too can save yourself a small fortune in kitty litter.

[Want to learn how?]

Before Nevada’s favourite son Nicolas Cage got the part of Big Daddy in Kick-Ass, director Matthew Vaughn sounded out a few other actors.

Matthew McConaughey was one of them, and he got as far as holding a meeting with Vaughn on a film set to discuss it. McConaughey was apparently very keen for “A normal role, a serious part” as he was tired of being thought of as just a body.

Alas he was filming something called Surfer Dude at the time, and was pitching to Vaughn while clad in nothing but a pair of budgie-smugglers.

There’s a famous fabled line in the music industry: “No Moët, no showy. No Chandon, no band on.”

Thought to be first coined by Buzzcocks members Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle, all sorts of acts have used it since with varying degrees of irony: Grace Jones, Status Quo, Terrorvision, etc…

The most impressive use of it we’ve heard though? North Carolina’s Miss Nina Simone.

Nina was heard saying it when she was served a glass of substandard fizz backstage at Bishopstock Festival in Exeter in 2001. The Moët must have gone straight through her too because she ended up having to nip off the stage during her set to have a piss in the field behind the stage.

Mars writes:
“When I worked with Ray Charles he used to have a pint mug of Bols gin and white coffee on the go at all times, which his valet had to keep permanently topped up.

“Apparently he took it up when the feds made him stop the heroin…”

Seeing as it’s been the overriding theme of the week, today’s ten tracks are all about counting. There’s a count in the song titles, and a count in the band names – and, just to stay completely on message, one of them is frustratingly unfinished.

You get one point for every song you correctly name and one point for every band you identify. Ten songs, twenty points.

[Get on it]