Hello!
I’m Christie, a writer of words and music for theatre, film and TV. If you’re here for this very first issue, you probably know me at least a little, but in case you don’t, please let me introduce myself.
I’m a native of Louisville, Kentucky, currently based in Los Angeles. I’m a Gemini with Leo rising (hence the career in show business despite extreme social anxiety), a neurodivergent chaos muppet (shoutout to my fellow babies with OCPD!), and an elder millennial raised on Nick at Nite and chain restaurants. I came in third on Jeopardy! once, but I doubled my money in Final Jeopardy so it was still good television. I’ve never eaten a salad in my life, and I never will until I win a Tony. (I made a bet with my mother at the age of 13. It’s fine, I promise. I eat plenty of vegetables.) I was Speller #79 in the 1998 National Spelling Bee, and am also (for the moment) #1 in my rung of the Diamond League on Duolingo, but we all know what a fickle mistress she can be. (I at least know how to ask “Is that college student six years old?” when I go to Japan, so I’m doing great.)
I have a master’s in showtunes, celiac disease and a smart mouth if you’re not careful.
I love telling stories, and I’ll never waste your time.
So hi! That’s me. Welcome to my brand-new newsletter on Substack! Here’s what you can expect:
— Updates on my goings-on in the world, big and small;
— News about my creative projects; and
— Cute pictures of my dog.
I’ll also highlight once a week a pop culture oddity that I’ve thought way too much about. This is the “Rent-Free” of the title — a lot of my mental real estate is involuntarily occupied by all kinds of nonsense, and I can’t wait to share that nonsense with you.
If you’re a free subscriber, you’ll get this newsletter in your inbox every two weeks, but if you just can’t get enough (just can’t get enough), consider becoming a paid subscriber and you’ll hear from me every week! Doesn’t that sound thrilling? (Don’t answer that.)
Here goes nothin’…
what’s living rent-free in my head this week
Freddie and the Dreamers, “Do The Freddie”
Throughout the history of any art form, you’ll find all manner of artists who are circumstantially linked. Sometimes it’s because they’re from the same schools (either literal schools or schools of thought), or maybe they’re people who hung out at the same bar in Paris in 1926. Sometimes it’s because they had the good fortune or the bad luck to simply be women doing the same thing at the same time. (We’re a monolith, women. Haven’t you heard?)
In the case of the British Invasion, it’s geography. Beatlemania was such a wide-reaching and bewildering phenomenon that it not only opened the door wide for British bands of a similar stature — your Stones, your Kinks, your Who, etc. — they also left it cracked open for a shorter time for record execs to throw buckets of money at literally any twenty-to-thirty-something man who had weird hair, a guitar and three to five similar-looking friends who lived reasonably close to the River Mersey. This subset of gentlemen and their oeuvre has been retroactively dubbed Merseybeat, and some of the bands who came out of the Merseyside woodwork still have a fairly significant cultural footprint — Gerry and the Pacemakers (who may be the forefront, as they literally put out the eternal banger “Ferry Cross The Mersey”, a song I will likely talk about in this very spot someday), the Dave Clark Five, Herman’s Hermits.
Suffice to say, I love all of these dudes.
One Merseybeat band that I would be shocked if you’ve even heard of, however, is Manchester’s Freddie and the Dreamers. (Before you ask if Manchester is close to the Mersey, reader, it is over thirty miles away from it. That’s how desperate they got.) Hell, I only learned of them last year, and by accident. I was watching The Best of the Ed Sullivan Show on MeTV one Sunday night per routine, for I am secretly three octogenarians in a trench coat, when I caught this clip:
Trying to intentionally start a dance craze is a tricky business. It’s a little like giving yourself a nickname — ill-advised at best, downright embarrassing at worst. Now, multiply that by trying to start a dance craze NAMED AFTER YOURSELF. My secondhand embarrassment for poor adorable Freddie Garrity (1936-2006) was bone deep. What even is this dance? Short of the hokey pokey, I’ve personally never found songs with lyrics that supposedly instruct you on how to do their dances all that helpful. I’m told that the Cha Cha Slide is user friendly, but if you don’t know what they mean by “cha cha real smooth”, you’re screwed. Trust me! I know!
These lyrics in particular are the path to madness:
Hear the happy feet dancing to the beat of the Freddie (Freddie)
Put a guy in front make a line in back then you're ready (ready)
Kick your feet up, swing your arms up too
Move your head both ways like you see me do
Then jump three feet to the swinging beat
Do the Freddie (Freddie) Do the Freddie (Freddie)
Huh? Jump three feet? If you kick your feet and your arms up at the same time, you fall over. (I tried!) And “move your head both ways” is a move that has only ever made sense in one context and we all know it:
And then he goes on to assure the listener at the beginning of the second verse that “it’s an easy dance, give yourself a chance!” Cool story, my guy.
Anyway, I saw this once, found it disconcerting, and forgot all about it. That is, until about six months later, when I decided to create a Spotify station based on “Ferry Cross the Mersey” and was knocked sideways by an unexpected truth:
“Do the Freddie” absolutely slaps.
Sure, the dance is impossible to do, to the point that the song itself doth protest too much. But remove the visual of gangly Mancunian doofi flopping back and forth, and you have a bonafide banger. A weird song, but a great time. Listen along with me, why don’t you?
It’s amazing to me the extent to which production can make or break a song for a listener. I’ve learned this firsthand in my career — I’ve won and lost opportunities solely based on the quality of the presentation rather than the writing itself. (This is why I love collaborating with genius arrangers and orchestrators like my friends Frank Galgano and Matt Castle — they’re great at this stuff.)
Here’s a sampling of what I love about the recording of “Do the Freddie”, with timestamps:
— From the beginning, it’s very horn-driven. I love the way the horns punctuate each line with a little “pow!” like at 0:14. The drums throughout are also giving “look what I can do!” and it’s so endearing, especially when they go for broke at the fadeout.
— Freddie himself is extraordinarily weird throughout. His “yeeeeah!” at 0:20 is borderline deranged, but the staccato laugh that begins to pop up starting at 0:51 is the laugh of the toon who killed Eddie Valiant’s brother. I cannot believe somebody at Parlophone Records — multiple somebodies, most likely — heard this and thought, “Print it, boys! Them’s normal sounds that girls worldwide will go nuts over!”
— The guitar is excellent throughout, but the surf-adjacent business in the instrumental break is outstanding. No notes!
— The backup singers are wildly prominent in the mix and it absolutely sends me every single time they wail wordlessly — like, this is some “Sweet Home Alabama” shit. Check ‘em out at 0:59 and 1:24 — they are getting their entire lives, as if they’re 20 feet from stardom rather than 20 feet from Freddie. Bless them.
Anyway, I dare you not to fall a little bit in love. I did.
what I did this week
I saw what’s easily my favorite film of the year so far - the magnificent Thelma, starring June Squibb as a 93-year-old grandma out for revenge after being duped by cruel phone scammers. Studios, take note: the world needs more movies like this one. Smart, funny, and so much heart. Go see it with an audience.
On the repertory cinema front, I also went to delightful screenings of Josie and the Pussycats and The Royal Tenenbaums this week at my favorite movie theater in the whole dang world, Vidiots. (It was a very Parker Posey-forward week, and I’m not mad about it.)
I also attempted to make a gluten free key lime pie this week and it did NOT go well! Apparently the temperature of my oven is off. I’m going to do some investigating and try again soon. Stay tuned.
what’s next?
Come see a preview production of my musical The Fitzgeralds of St. Paul at Irish Classical Theatre Company in Buffalo, New York! It runs November 8-24 and tickets go on sale August 1 (don’t worry, I’ll remind you!) More information can be found on Irish Classical’s website.
On the latest episode of Muppeturgy, we dug into the Alan Arkin episode of The Muppet Show with special guest Chris Feil from the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. Listen and subscribe to Muppeturgy on the podcast app of your choice, and check us out at muppeturgy.com! (Definitely visit our website regularly — my co-host Adam Grosswirth’s GIF creation and curation game is unparalleled.)
in conclusion, a cute picture of my dog
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Let’s do this again next week! Thanks for reading.