My talented brother Brendan O’Malley is an amazing writer and actor. He’s wonderful in the recent You & Me, directed by Alexander Baack. (I interviewed Baack about the film here.) His most recent gig was story editor/writer on the hit series Survivor’s Remorse. Brendan hasn’t blogged in years, but the “content” (dreaded word) is so good I asked if I could import some of it to my blog. He did series on books he loved, and albums he loved. I thought it would be fun to put up some of the stuff here. So we’ll start with his list of 50 Best Albums. I’ll put up one every Monday.

I have always loved these essays, because I love to hear my brother talk. I am happy to share them with you!

50 Best Albums, by Brendan O’Malley

47. Destiny’s Child – Destiny Fulfilled

The first stutter of the marching band snares that skitter along underneath “Lose My Breath” acts like some magic elixir on me, dressing me up in a tuxedo and dropping me right into an old screwball comedy. I am Cary Grant and I don’t mean I’m a gorgeous movie star, I mean I’m a naive professor who can’t quite wrap his head around the fact that there is a woman in a silky evening gown standing ever so close.

Then “Cater 2 U” kicks in and whatever machinations she has undertaken to get me away from my important work on particle phsyics have worked. Through some sequence of mishaps and little white lies we are alone in a fabulously appointed hotel room. I’ve bumped my head and must lie down. She sits next to me, rustling the fabric of that shimmering dress, and presses a poultice to the only lump the code will allow her to acknowledge.

But, being the clumsy minx that she is, she spills a champagne bottle all over me and my throbbing tuxedo. Just then Destiny’s Child start cooing “T-Shirt” and we’ve got to get out of these wet things!

The screwball reasserts itself as we’re flushed out of the hotel room by an overeager bellhop. In the lobby in nothing more than my skivvies I implore the young lady to simply leave me alone, why is that so hard for her to do? Just then my fiancee (fiancee, I’d completely forgotten!) sweeps through the lobby on her father’s arm declaring that the grant I’d expected to complete my work has now been taken off the table. Destiny’s Child ask, ‘Is She The Reason?’ on behalf of the wet minx who now views me as something of a cad.

She has a quick conversation with a maid. “Girl” underscores the scene as the two commiserate in thwarted love.

Our wet heroine then flees the lobby and sits at the hotel bar sipping then gulping cocktails at an alarming rate. Through Destiny’s Child she tells herself to break this “Bad Habit”. I’m still shell-shocked in the lobby in my underpants, too shaken up by the loss of my potential academic future to realize that the woman of my dreams is a mere yards away and under the happy spell of martinis.

A quick kick in the rear by the aforementioned bellhop brings me to my senses and I rush in to tell her I could care less about that silly grant and even less about that horrible woman I was engaged to only moments before. Can’t she see I’ve changed? She is deep into intoxicated grief however and rebuffs me, telling me why through the mournful lilt of Destiny’s Child “If”.

In a fit of desperate invention, I rush into the convention being hosted by my ex-fiancee and her war profiteer father! Wrapped in a bathrobe monogrammed with the initials of the swanky hotel I bum rush the stage and begin a rambling explanation of my research. My findings are shocking indeed but when combined with my declaration of undying love for the young lady hiding in the back of the hall they elicit a rousing cheer, as Destiny’s Child declares me “Free”.

My poor sexy ex-fiancee spikes her heels into the plush rug, whips the fur stole further around her neck, and along with Beyoncé, declares herself “Through With Love” until she collides with the bellhop in front of the marble staircase. He breaks her fall with a kiss.

My tuxedo restored, I dance cheek to cheek with my new fiancee, the right one, who not only loves me dearly and is sexy as all get out, but is also an heiress bent on funding research that she can feel passionate about. Destiny’s Child sings “Love” as we are revealed to be in the lobby of the hotel where we have just gotten married and decided to live.

Is this an album review? I’m not sure. But when Beyoncé asks, “Can you keep up, baby boy?” and then puts her foot down and says, “Put it on me deep in the right direction” that is what happens to me. I’m scandalized in all the best ways.

— Brendan O’Malley