As you may know, AIRPLANE! is actually a scene-for-scene remake of the 1957 film ZERO HOUR (just released on DVD), with the original plot and much of the original dialogue played for laughs. Here is a comparison of some bits from the original and their equivalents in AIRPLANE! (this is only a partial selection, of course).
I didn’t know that.
I’m sure you recognize the above song from Pirates of the Caribbean. I know I did, when I heard it in The Rock earlier tonight. I’ve got a pretty good ear, I think, and recognized the song immediately as it played during a scene where Nick Cage was running to disarm a missile. So what do these two movies have in common?
1) Jerry Bruckheimer produced both of these movies. Probably not directly responsible, but its a safe bet he brought in person #2.
2) Hans Zimmer – Although Nick Glennie-Smith is the credited composer of The Rock, Hans Zimmer appears as ‘composer: 2 themes, music producer, score arranger.’ Klaus Badelt is the composer of the first of the Pirates movies (and the song above), but Hans Zimmer composed the second two movies (Badelt is not credited anywhere in either of those).
More curiosities: in the reviews of the first Pirates movie soundtrack (composed by Badelt, produced by Zimmer) on Amazon, people recognized similarities to Gladiator and Crimson Tide (both composed by Zimmer).
So did Nick Glennie-Smith originally write the song for The Rock, or was that the music Hans Zimmer was credited for? If Zimmer wrote it, then why is that song attributed to Klaus Badelt? And why isn’t Badelt credited in the second and third Pirates movies, when his song is clearly used? The obvious answer would be that Zimmer, not Badelt, wrote the song. But, far more evidence points to Badelt.
I’m not going to draw any conclusions, because I don’t see any. I’m not trying to expose anything, just trying to satisfy my curiosity. So there’s some useless detective work for you.
Quick and Painless by RAQ
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/RAQ2007-04-21.raq2007-04-21.flac/raq2007-04-21_bowery_matrixc_flac/raq2007-04-21_bowery_matrixc_flac/raq2007-04-21_S1/raq2007-04-21_S1_t10_quick_n_painless_64kb.mp3]
My parents recently finished an addition to the garage, giving them space for their business, and a room on the second floor for the family.
Downstairs, its clear they run their business from that room. But upstairs, there is no clear purpose. It is mostly empty space, with enough furniture to make it comfortable.
Whenever people enter the upstairs, they immediately see possibility for it. “You should live up here.” It would make a great apartment. “You could have a pretty cool studio up here.” Its true.
The lack of a clear, well defined purpose for that room lets people see what it could be. But I’m happy with it the way it is. If it stayed a blank slate, couldn’t it be all of those things, in turn?
Imagine if people saw the potential they see in an empty room, in something that already has a purpose. I hope you’ll join me in my mall.
(Turn On Your) Lovelight by Phil Lesh and Friends
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/phil2007-06-03.bk4022.acm671.burke.flac16/phil2007-06-03s2t07_64kb.mp3]
About a month ago I posted about the Udall Legacy Bus Tour. I’ve been keeping up with it since, but their coverage of the trip is less than thrilling. But recently, they tipped their hat to other folks on similar trips (all having an environment/sustainability theme).
First up is Biotour. Crappy site design makes it a little hard to get around, but the content on there is good, and they also have a form to fill out so you can ride the bus. That’s cool.
Your Environmental Road Trip has the presentation thing down. They’ve got a slick website, good videos (check out the trailers) and seem to have a decent idea of what they want to do.
The Big Green Bus is probably the closest to how the Juan Way Tour would look. Hell, they were even at Bonnaroo. They’ve got sponsorship, and all this great stuff, but they don’t have the media aspect YERT does.
First reaction: Crap, people are already doing this.
That kills the novelty, and sponsorship opportunities.
After thinking about it for more than a second: Wait, that means people are into this. Maybe we could actually get a decent amount of people out with us. Maybe we could even join forces.
Juan Way will hopefully be a combination of aspects in the above projects, with a little less emphasis on the environment. Yes, it’ll be a veggie oil bus…but that’s about it.
Doobie in my Pocket by Keller Williams
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/keller2007-06-16.AKG463/KellerWilliams2007-6-16d2t05_64kb.mp3]
I’ve been meaning to post this song for a little while now. Its from his show at Bonnaroo, and been in my head since I downloaded the set. The problem is that since I finished writing about Bonnaroo, I haven’t really felt like writing anything else. I think that’s mostly because while I was writing about Bonnaroo, I was just writing about what was happening. I’m going to try and get back to future plans, weird hypotheticals, and other such nonsense.
So keeping with that theme, I was recently thinking about abandoned malls. I don’t know why, but one of those anti-urbanization groups is likely to blame. I heard the statistic that half of the retail space in the country is empty. When I heard it, that statistic had numbers to go with it, but you can’t expect my brain to hold on to things like that.
But there is all this bemoaning on account of companies pouring all this money into malls, and then leaving them a few decades later. Right now, malls are on the decline. Apparently big box stores (Walmart) are the new malls. I guess that makes sense, economically, at least. So towns are stuck with this massive concrete eyesore that no one wants.
“Well,” I think, “I’d like one.” And that’s how this idea started. I suppose I haven’t even explained that idea yet. But now you know how it started. Once that seed was planted, I noticed it lined up pretty nicely with some of my other dreams. I think communes, or even just really close communities are wonderful places to live. Now lets tie that idea together with old malls. If I were to acquire an abandoned mall, and open it up to housing, we could establish our own little community. It doesn’t need to be self-sustaining, or even a commune. But with enough people, we could manage property tax and utility bills.
Now you know the idea. I started to look into this, and thankfully the internet is on top of it. DeadMalls.com seems to be the authority, but the site isn’t exactly set up for my needs. They list not only dead malls, but perfectly healthy malls as well (for history’s sake). More exploring found sickmalls.wordpress.com, which lists malls which are on their way out, or already deserted. Its a good resource, but not really exhaustive. Lastly, abandonedonline.net which not only lists abandoned malls, but abandoned big box stores, churches, hospitals, schools, towns – everything. So why should I have to settle for a mall?
Big box stores are probably the cheapest to buy once they’re abandoned, but they are just one massive open space. Not really helpful to the commune idea. But all of those other abandoned buildings…sure!
This is a very long-term idea, but I’m going to keep it stewing in the back of my mind. Good things tend to come out of there.
Update: as luck would have it, my RSS reader threw this my way. Which lead me here.
Update 7/26: more MeFi links.
I can’t help but post this. A guy falls asleep at a cricket game, and the crowd looks on intently.
Today I went back and added my blog posts from somjuan.com/old. So now my posts from February 2005 to June 2006 are on this blog. They’ve all been dated correctly, and I’m slowly adding the original comments to those posts.
All Bonnaroo Saga posts: tag/Bonnaroo 07
Parts 1-5 were written while I was on the road, on paper. I’m pretty happy I was able to do that. Not only because I was able to write things down while they were still fresh, but just writing on paper was a refreshing experience. I wrote in pen, so unless something was really not what I had wanted to write down, I left it and built off it. I like being able to write like that, because when I type, I constantly edit myself as I type, and sentences rarely turn out the way I intended them to.
Most of these entries, like most things on this blog, are meant for me. I’m happy if you can take something away from it, but I am normally the audience I have in mind when I write these things. Because of this some things have been left out, and will probably be forgotten in time. Whether intentional or not, what has been written down is likely all I’ll remember. I’ll try to add more things as I recall them.
Bonnaroo was a very fun experience, but I doubt I will go back. If I got a chance to go back, for very cheap or free, I probably would. The festival is too big, with a crowd too diverse for my liking. I don’t regret going, but once is probably enough for me.
All Bonnaroo Saga posts: tag/Bonnaroo 07
This is where I’m going to throw little things that wouldn’t fit in any other space.
I saw the lowest gas price all trip in Virginia: $2.73/gallon. A good $0.50 less than up here.
The whole trip cost me $402:
– $220 Bonnaroo Ticket
– $120 Greyhound Ticket
– $20 Food/Toiletries
– $15 Iced Lemonades
– $10 T-Shirt
– $8 Pizza
– $6 Waffle House
– $3 Bonnaroo Sticker
Pretty sure those are all my expenses.
On the way down, I saw a huge sign on an apartment complex that read: “If you lived here, you’d be home now.”
At some point (I think it was on the way down, leaving Baltimore) I wrote a poem. It popped into my head, and stayed there, so I wrote it down:
In the back of the bus there is no rain
I can see that it is wet outside,
I can see the lightning,
I can see the windshield wipers going,
But I wouldn’t know it was raining outside
Unless you told me.
I like it because of all the social and various deeper meanings that can be taken from it, but I like it most because I wrote it about none of those things.
I took two disposable camera’s worth of photos. I’ll upload them to Flickr once I get them developed.
If you plan on traveling Greyhound, and you’re going to an event, give yourself some wiggle room by leaving earlier than you need to. You’ll need it.
I’d recommend not traveling Peter Pan if at all possible. The first bus I got on was a Peter Pan bus, and we were 10 minutes late, which made me over a day late. On the way back, the last bus I was on was also a Peter Pan bus (driven by Bus Nazi) and that bus was over 15 minutes late. I’m only happy I had no connecting bus to catch.
That is one thing I can say for Greyhound buses. None that I was on were ever late. If anything, they were early.
The people at Greyhound are nice, but they generally can’t do much to help you (except Gary).
When traveling by bus, you get what you pay for.
All Bonnaroo Saga posts: tag/Bonnaroo 07
Rhythm of the Road by The String Cheese Incident
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/sci1999-12-31.dsbd.shnf/sci1999-12-31d2/sci1999-12-31d2t06_64kb.mp3]
Monday morning I woke up alone. I was even farther away from the nearest tent, because people had either left late last night or before I awoke. I was sitting in the door of my tent eating my breakfast (since the table and shade were gone). While I was eating and watching folks go by, mostly to or from their morning shower, a guy walking by noticed me.
“Peace and love.”
“Huh?”
“Peace and love, man, peace and love.”
“Ya.”
Now, I know that isn’t the right response. It was early, I was eating. But that dude put me in a good mood for the rest of the day. I wish more fests had more of that guy. I don’t know who you are dude, but peace and love.
I got out of my tent and took a shower (a little more difficult since I didn’t have anything to hang it on anymore) and with the water that was left rinsed off as much dust from my tent as possible. My tent was pretty caked in dust, and took about two days of hanging outside when I got home for it to come clean. Or, at least cleaner. I started to pack up my crap, and within an hour of waking up I was ready to go. The thing is, I didn’t really want to go. Not only did I not know the way out, but I didn’t have anything to do until my bus came at 1215. I eventually figured that it would be good to get in line since a lot of people would probably be leaving Bonnaroo, and I didn’t want to miss another bus.
I set out walking from the direction we came in. I think. I asked a volunteer on the way, but he didn’t know: “I’m from Virginia!” Oh well. As I get closer to my vague destination I realize I had gone the right way. I keep walking, on the road at this point, and soon I’m walking alongside the line of cars waiting to leave. The line was pretty long, but steadily moving. Near as I could tell, I was the only person leaving on foot. There were locals out on their lawns, watching the cars go by. There were people who had staked out a good spot on the side of the road, trying to hitch a ride. I met a homeless dude who wanted to buy my tent. I gave him what I had left of my loaf of bread (more than half) and kept going. I found a 12 pack of Coke someone had tossed out of their car onto the side of the road. I grabbed a can, figuring I’d want it at some point.
A little further down the road I glance behind me to see the line, and I notice there are half a dozen people following me. That really freaked me out, because I had thought I was walking alone. I slowed my pace a little so I could talk to them. Turns out they were all headed to the Greyhound station as well, but they didn’t know how to get there. We walked a little further, along the road with the line of cars. Running parallel to this road was the highway, a fence and maybe 20 feet of grass separating us from it. Looking across the highway, we saw a gas station, where we figured the Greyhound stop was. We considered running across the highway for a few minutes, but only two of them had backpacks, and the others didn’t want to run with their luggage. As we abandoned that idea, a state trooper pulled up next to us cautioning us not to cross the highway. We told him we wouldn’t and he went on. Once I pulled out my Google Maps printout we found out that it was the wrong gas station anyway.
Further down the road, we noticed that there were a lot of flashing lights on the highway, and that a 18-wheeler had flipped on its side. Its something when you see this from the highway, but when you’re walking next to it you get to really take it in. Its pretty crazy to imagine something that big turning on its side. I’d hate to be around when it happened. Farther down, guys were selling tshirts. I’d seen a few of the knockoff designs. One was really good, better than the one Bonnaroo was selling. One was terrible, tie-dyed with massive obnoxious lettering. The one these guys were selling looked like the official one, but on a white shirt instead of a deep blue shirt. And it was only $10 (Bonnaroo’s was $25-30). So I grabbed a shirt, and someone else from the group I had joined did as well.
A little further down the road we meet a dude who offers us a ride. This dude was awesome, none of us really wanted to walk all that way, and this guy just popped in and saved the day. We walk back a little ways to this parking lot on a field next to that same road, where his SUV is parked. I’m really happy he didn’t have a small car. We somehow crammed all our crap in the back, and then the five of them squeezed in the back seat (I got to sit alone in the passenger seat. I guess none of them felt comfortable sitting on a stranger’s lap. I’m not complaining). I learned more about these folks as we made small talk with the guy giving us a ride. They were all a little younger than me (17-19) and this had been their first year there as well. Our driver had an amusing Henna Tattoo on the palm of his hand that read Lo Sabes (You Know). He said he got real drunk and didn’t remember why he got that phrase, but he’d get to enjoy it for the next month. He dropped us off at the gas station and went on his way (I’m not sure where that was).
We got there with a lot of extra time since we hadn’t walked, and figured we go to the Waffle House next to the gas station. None of us had ever been to one before, but they were all over the south (that and Shoney’s, which I didn’t visit). Waffle House was good, and the waitresses there were fun to chat with. There were lots of folks coming from Bonnaroo, so we got to trade a few stories. I sat at the bar next to the two girls from the group that followed me. I can’t say I remember both of their names, but they were fun to talk to, despite not having and crazy Bonnaroo stories of their own. Suddenly someone walked in the door, and all the waitresses look up and say “Hello!” I was totally weirded out, and gave one of them a questioning look. She looked at me and said “We have to. Actually I’m supposed to be over there opening doors for people. Ooops.” That sucks, enforced southern hospitality. But the food was good, and the waitresses weren’t too candid with their dislike of the requirements, and were fun to talk to. I’m surprised none of them had gone to the fest though. Most were high-school or college aged girls, and not one of them said they’d gone.
I finished eating and left before that group was done. I’d run out of small talk and didn’t want to just sit there staring at them eat. Over at the gas station twenty or thirty people were sitting on the pavement (not out of the way, either, right where cars should be). A couple buses were there, but it was early, and my bus to Atlanta wouldn’t come for an hour or so. I sat down and waited. Next to me, a representative from Greyhound named Gary was busy talking into his cell phone. He was trying to make sure everyone got on a bus. My ride home went off without a hitch, and I credit Gary. In fact, that’s the only reason I remember his name. He called in some extra buses, and everyone got to where they were going. I left on a bus going to Atlanta about an hour before mine was supposed to come. No complaints there. While I was on the bus waiting to leave, I noticed the folks I had eaten with get on another bus. I had thought they were going the same way as me, but I guess not.
Whatever the case, my bus went straight to Atlanta. Atlanta is a big terminal (not as big as NY, but bigger than the rest I’d been in). I got in line at my gate, and we started to wrap around the terminal. The line for our gate was definitely the biggest in the whole place. Our line was so big, there were three lines. No joke. There was the initial line that came away from the door, then our line that went off to the right, another line off to the left, and a line between us (in case you’re wondering, our line was the real one). This got me and the folks around me a little concerned, as no one wanted to miss this bus. A guy behind me was on his way to NY because he was having a kid, and he was damn sure not going to miss the bus. Like on the way down, I’m pretty sure everyone got on. I honestly don’t recall who I sat next to, because I slept as much as I possibly could.
There were a lot of people on that bus coming from Bonnaroo, but they weren’t the Bonnaroo crowd that I like. These guys tormented this mexican woman who was sitting near them. She was talking on her cell phone (not really loudly) and they got pissed. Later they were bugging her about how loudly she was chewing her food. A few people and I called them out on it, and they eventually stopped. Jerkoffs.
I got to NY the next day around 1400. Yes, the next day…and all my buses had run on schedule. We were actually a little early. Its a long trip. In NY I met Bus Nazi. I got in line for the bus to New Britain, but a bus was coming before mine, that I was unaware of. So when I went to get on the bus, this was brought to my attention by Bus Nazi, and I stepped aside so people could get on. I figured I’d wait until they had all gotten on, and then get back in line. Bus Nazi didn’t like this plan, and told me to step back. So I go over to where the line ends, but that isn’t good enough. “You’re blocking people!” I look around. I’m not. So I ask if I can just sit over in this nook near the door, where I couldn’t possibly block anyone, and would still be near the line. “No. We don’t let people sit there.” Ok. I walk over to some hall and wait for them to finish loading, and when the bus leaves, I head back over in line. That bus left at 1500, and mine came at 1715. I sat down and wrote some more. As 1715 approaches, the line gets bigger and bigger. Bus Nazi comes over to make sure everyone is in order. “Is your luggage checked?” I admit it was pretty amusing seeing him try and guide those teenagers from Switzerland to the baggage check. Their english wasn’t that great. “Does your child have a ticket?” He was talking to a mother who had a young kid, maybe 3 or 4 with her. It turns out that only kids under 2 are allowed on without a ticket. So she gets her friend who was with her to save her spot while she goes to get the ticket. At some point she came back and started to yell at Bus Nazi. She couldn’t afford the ticket, or didn’t want to pay it, and was upset, since the kid was just going to sit on her lap. Bus Nazi wouldn’t hear it, and when she started to cus him out, he made sure she wouldn’t be allowed on the bus. When we loaded, without issue, a girl got off the bus and asked Bus Nazi (who turned out to be our driver) if she could go grab a drink before the bus left. He said no, and she wasn’t happy with this. The drinking fountain was visible from the bus, but he said we were leaving soon, and she should get on the bus. Water Girl starts to cuss out Bus Nazi because apparently she is really thirsty. Bus Nazi is not pleased, and kicks her off the bus. Now, when I say he kicked her off the bus, I mean he said she wouldn’t be allowed on the bus. She got right back on. He went and called security, who got there a few minutes later, to drag her off the bus. Her friend, who was traveling with her, got off as well. So that’s 4 people Bus Nazi kicked off our bus. And now we’re 15 minutes late. Thanks, you’ve done us all a favor. When he got on the intercom to tell us all the rules and the standard bus spiel, he mentioned that someone had tried to jump him earlier that day because of some bus related incident. You think he’d take the hint.
Got back to New Britain a little after 2000; my dad was already there waiting. We got in the car and drove home.
Thus ends my Bonnaroo Story. I’m happy I went, but I doubt I’ll go back.