This That and The Other

November 20, 2025

This That and The Other

Blake Melnick - Red Rocks Co.

Truth shows up in unlikely places: a sun-baked noir where a demoted detective chases a severed arm, an elegant courtroom where fear bends justice, and a live-in-the-room album where groove beats flourish.

Across our screens, pages, and headphones, we kept running into the same question: who controls the story, and what does honesty cost? That thread ties Bad Monkey’s Florida weirdness to the 1950s quiz show scandal and the trial of Mary Surratt. It also runs through new and legacy music that favors feel over façade, where a band’s sound becomes its identity even as the lineup evolves. The result is a tour through deception, reinvention, and the stubborn pull of authenticity.

Bad Monkey works because its satire never loses sight of the struggle for humanness. Vince Vaughn’s character, Andrew Yancey is funny and flawed, a man trying to do right thing in a crooked system. That same moral friction echoes in Robert Redford’s Quiz Show, where image trumps integrity, and The Conspirator, where fear challenges due process. Both films stay eerily relevant as they ask whether truth survives once power sets the narrative - something we see unfolding on the daily...

We added Duster to the mix: a grainy 1970s chase through the American Southwest, stylish yet grounded, canceled too soon despite strong reviews. Together these show picks map the tension between survival and sincerity, spotlighting how stories get shaped - and twisted by the forces surrounding them.

Our reading choices focus on identity and belonging. The Gift of Not Belonging by Rami Kaminsky reframes social life with the idea of the “outrovert,” - someone who moves through groups without merging into groupthink. It’s a liberating model for creative work and for anyone who thrives at the edge of consensus. Paired with Henry Winkler’s The Fonz and Beyond, we see reinvention in practice: step away from the role that made you and choose the part that proves you can change. Both books argue that belonging is not obedience to a mold; it’s being seen for who you are; what you actually bring to the world, even when that means starting over or standing apart.

Music brings the heartbeat.Little Feat’s Strike Up the Band leans into re-creating the sound reminiscent of live performance that have defined the Band for over 50 years: all players in a room, timing locked, soul forward, anchored by Bill Payne's musicality and his willingness roam combined with the new dimension of Scott Sharrard’s vocal-guitar playing and Tony Leone’s drumming honouring Richie Hayward’s feel without imitation. It’s the sound of a legacy that adapts instead of fossilizing, a case study in how a band’s identity can be a living tradition.

We also spotlight Sons of Legion, a self-made act with raw Southern soul, proving that fans still respond to grit over gloss. Rounding it out, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats deliver revival energy where redemption isn’t a lyric—it’s a pulse. Across these records, authenticity isn’t a brand; it’s the method.

Zooming out, the pattern is clear. Whether it’s a crooked game show, a fraught trial, a canceled-but-beloved series, or a band finding new life, the core is the same: truth has a cost. Art that lasts makes room for imperfection. Identity that holds up trades status for earned meaning. And music that moves us builds community without conformity. That’s the space in between: where we test stories against reality, choose integrity over image, and find belonging not by blending in, but by being ourselves ...For What it's Worth