Seen: At the swap meet

Cover - beveled areas stand up about 10mm

I'm certainly no true believer, but I do appreciate a lot of the art and architecture created in the name of our world's religions. Case in point: This huge - probably a good five inches thick - and profusely illustrated bible I came across at the swap meet a couple weeks back. It was in rough shape and the binding was falling apart, but that didn't take away from the spectacular gilt inlaid cover or the incredibly detailed black and white plates, most likely reproductions of etchings, scattered throughout the book. They wanted eighty bucks for it, so I just snapped a few pics with my phone. Click photos for larger versions.

Title page

R.I.P. Terriers

Just thought I'd mention how depressed I am about the recent cancellation by the bonehead execs at FX of what I thought was the best new TV show of 2010, Terriers. The show had a breezy Rockford Files vibe, sharp writing, great acting and great chemistry between stars Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James, who play scruffy unlicensed PI's turning up all kinds of trouble in picturesque Ocean Beach (San Diego), California.

That putrid shows like Dancing With the Stars continue to haul in massive ratings while the brilliance of Terriers, not to mention the recent L.A. cop show Southland, get the axe after one season is a crime against my sanity and intelligence. The final episodes of Rescue Me can't come soon enough!

Oh, and if, like me, you can't get the catchy Terriers theme song out of your head, you can get it from iTunes. It's called Gunfight Epiphany.

Edit 12-27-10: There's some rather confusing information available online, but I just saw a preview for a new Southland season on TNT beginning in January.

Seen: In the middle of the street

Sunset near my parents' house in Huntington Beach Dec. 11, 2010

Seen: At the swap meet

Ancient Scott-Atwater outboard motor - beautiful.
Print available soon through my Etsy shop.

Zero to 88 MPH in 1.21 Jigawatts

Went to check out a special screening of the fully restored 25th anniversary edition of Back to the Future in digital projection at a theater in Orange last night. Yes, it was absolutely fantastic - it really is a perfect movie. I don't think I'd seen it on the big screen since it's premier in 1985. The Back to the Future trilogy will be released on Blu-Ray tomorrow - Oct. 27th.

Eric Stolz as Marty McFly with Christopher Lloyd's Doc Brown

An interesting factoid I just learned about the movie is that Eric Stolz was originally cast as Marty McFly, and actually completed five weeks of filming before director Robert Zemeckis and producers Steven Spielberg, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy decided he just wasn't right for the role and replaced him with their first choice, Michael J. Fox, who at the time was having scheduling conflicts with his hit TV show Family Ties.

Check this blog entry [here] for some additional behind the scenes info, as well as some screen caps of Eric Stolz as Marty McFly. Hopefully someday this footage will surface, but it's been 25 years already so I'm not holding my breath. Here's the 25th anniversary release poster:

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema

If you're a regular reader of uber-movie-geek site aintitcool.com, you're familiar with the Alamo Drafthouse - the Austin, Texas movie theater notable for offering a unique dining during the movie experience - gotta go there sometime! - and hosting multiple annual film festivals throughout the year.

To promote their 'free screenings of famous movies in famous places' film series they've commissioned illustrator Olly Moss to re-imagine a movie poster for each event. Very cool. Check them out here.

See more of the work of Olly Moss here.

Aria Walkthrough

You may have read my post from last year (link here) documenting the construction progress of the City Center project on the strip in Las Vegas. I just returned from a weekend out there for the final round of the AMA SuperCross series at UNLV's Sam Boyd Stadium, and the now-open (after more than $8 billion and five years of consruction) City Center complex, which houses the new Aria hotel-casino, was on my must-see list.

After touring the Bodies exhibit at the Luxor - a bit creepy but very interesting and informative - the massive City Center complex was just a short drive north on the strip, crammed between the Monte Carlo and the Bellagio. It's all a bit overwhelming as you drive in - tall metal and glass towers packed tightly together just yards off Las Vegas Blvd. Pedestrian and monorail flyovers span the entry to the Aria's spacious circular front entrance, which is ringed by a 25 foot high water-wall and shielded from the oppressive Vegas sun by a massive steel and glass cantilevered covering structure. The Aria's two towers are so tall, however, that this area is entirely in the shade for half the day anyway, so go figure.

Aria towers and entrance canopy - click photos to enlarge

Part of Aria lobby view from mezzanine ( that security guard was eyeballing me snapping pics)

Everything about the place is fresh, modern and impressively designed in a way that says high-end luxury without being stuffy or pretentious about it (Bellagio). This is the direction Vegas should have gone in the 90's instead of its Disneyland-on-steroids (Excalibur, Circus Circus, Treasure Island) and geographically themed developments (Paris Las Vegas, The Venetian, New York NY) that currently dominate the strip. It's good to see Vegas architecture take a stab at competing on the world stage, instead of being the overfunded joke that it's been for the past 20 years.

Elvis Theater - up a long escalator ride from the casino

That curious structure is part of Morton's Ocean Club in the near-deserted Crystals shopping plaza (calling it a 'mall' is just too San Fernando Valley)

The obvious question remains though - can the current economy sustain this, and the several other mega-projects currently underway in Las Vegas? Me-thinks luxury hotel rooms could be cheap in Vegas for the foreseeable future...

Game? It was never meant to be a game. Never!

If you were around my age in the early summer of '75, you probably remember quite well being literally terrified as you sat through 'Jaws' for the first time. I was 11 and it shook me up pretty good - so much so that I went back and saw it again.

Five days after the premier of Steven Spielberg's first blockbuster, another iconic 70's film began its run in theaters: John McTiernan's dystopian future action-drama Rollerball. As a kid enamored with sci-fi, and about to be transported to a galaxy far, far away a mere two summers later, I was too young to see Rollerball, no matter how cool the previews on TV looked, as it was rated R.

Event posters used at the Rollerball venues in the film.
As always, click any image for a larger view.

So Rollerball got filed away in that part of my memory already filled with other cool stuff that I would have access to once I was old enough - like Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, driving a car and Playboy magazine.

My first experience seeing Clockwork Orange was a midnight screening at our little Ramsey, New Jersey town theater while I was in high school, but I don't recall the first time I finally did see Rollerball. Most likely on TV sometime in the 80's. I remember coming away somewhat disappointed, as, outside of the action sequences, the film was slow paced and talky, and I wasn't old enough to process much of the political subtext. Oh but those action sequences - the actual playing of the fictional game of rollerball - are flat-out fantastic even by today's standards. The game as conceived and presented in the film is an entirely legitimate sport, and in fact there were rumors that an actual rollerball league was once under consideration.


A decade or so ago I picked up a DVD release of the original Rollerball - let us just agree that the hideously aweful 2002 remake with LL Cool J never happened - that had the widescreen version on one side and full screen on the other. Unfortunately, the widescreen side refused to play - and I refuse to watch widescreen movies in full screen mode - so, no Rollerball for Austin.

Recently I'd been thinking about Rollerball again, and wondering when the film was slated to be released on Blu-Ray. So I did a little searching about on the interwebs and while there seems to be no information as to when Rollerball will be released in hi-def, I did discover some pretty cool poster art used for the film.

Concept sketch, painting and final poster by Bob Peak.

Legendary illustrator-artist Bob Peak did the artwork for the official Rollerball poster, featuring the iconic spiked glove of helmeted player 'Johnathan E', played in the film by James Caan. How could you not want to watch the film after seeing this poster?

Hey as soon as Rollerball finally comes out on Blu-Ray, I will!

Some international market posters for the film.

Late Addition: Just found this at the swap meet on Saturday. Rollerball on LaserDisc:

Vinyl Project 2.10.10

All right, after getting lazy during the holidays, and then fighting through a problem with my backup drive (turned out to be a powerstrip going bad), I'm back to the huge task of ripping my vinyl collection into computer-friendly iTunes-able MP3 files - and consequently sharing some of the cooler record sleeves I come across on my journey.

This one is a 2001 triple vinyl release of remixes by famed DJ-producer Armand Van Helden, featuring his reworking of tracks by Sneaker Pimps, Daft Punk, New Order and others. No fancy packaging, I just thought the photos of an oil refinery or power plant - or whatever it is - were cool. As always, click image above for a larger view.

Pee Wee's still got it!

Last September I got an email from TicketMaster announcing that tickets to a new live stage presentation of the Pee Wee Herman Show had just gone on sale - that morning at 8:AM! So without hesitation I did what any self-respecting child of 80's pop culture would do and immediately fired up ticketmaster.com and scored a pair of the best tickets I could find. This was going to be cool - I've been a huge Pee Wee fan ever since the original show aired as an HBO special in 1981.

A few weeks later I received another email from TicketMaster, this time telling me that due to overwhelming demand and venue scheduling difficulties, The Pee Wee Herman Show was moving from the Music Box at the Fonda in Hollywood to the Club Nokia theater downtown, and that I would have to purchase new tickets. I promptly did as instructed and wound up with decent seats, as it's a fairly small venue, but not as close to the stage as my original ones at the Fonda.

Show day arrived January 30th and the area around the Nokia was buzzing with all kinds of activity. Giant white hospitality tents had been set up everywhere, trucks bearing huge satellite dish antennas were stack-parked up and down the block and security guards waving walkie-talkies had set up checkpoints at every driveway and crosswalk. Wow, I had no idea Pee Wee was so HUGE!

Oh. Turns out all the mega-high-tech infrastructure was for the Grammy Awards show, happening the next night at Staples Center across the street from the Nokia.

Club Nokia is a smaller venue tucked into the restaurant row portion of the vast new Nokia Theater complex, and up on the third floor. After exiting the elevator and navigating an airport-style security check, my date and I were allowed inside and shown to our seats - minimally padded banquet chairs zip-tied together in a semi-circle facing the red curtain of the stage, which were so narrow I could only get a cheek-and-a-half on one at any given time.

I snuck a shot of the stage set with my phone.

Our matinee show started promptly at 4:30 and as the packed crowd first glimpsed the wonderful set - kind of a cross between the original Pee Wee Show's stage set and the one from the Pee Wee's Playhouse TV show - a huge roar of approval went up and we were all instantly under Pee Wee's magic spell. A moment later Pee Wee himself appeared, fought off a standing O, introduced the secret word of the day and we were off to our adventure in Puppetland.

It was truly amazing to see some of the actors from the original show's cast reprising their characters nearly 30 years later. Jambi, Mailman Mike, Miss Yvonne... it was obvious they all dearly loved putting these silly personalities back on again and acting like a bunch of big kids. The absence of Phil Hartman as Captian Carl was somewhat palpable to us longtime fans - Cowboy Curtis, originally played in the multiple Emmy winning Pee Wee's Playhouse by Lawrence Fishburn, assumed love interest duties with Miss Yvonne this time around - and as Paul commented in a generous and unexpected Q & A session after the show, he wanted to honor Phil's place in the show's history by not trying to replace him. Instead opting to omit the Captain Carl character from the re-booted production.

Pee Wee talks to kids in the audience after the show.

Mr. Rubens also 'let slip' that a new Pee Wee movie project was in the works, but that Tim Burton is 'much too busy' to return as director. See you on the big screen soon Pee Wee! - in 3D I'd imagine!

San Diego at Sunset

:: click photo to enlarge ::

This is why we live here - Last night, just after the Chargers beat the Redskins a few miles up route 8 at Qualcom, I got this eight-shot panorama with my iPhone from Seaport Village on the bay in San Diego. Spectacular. Turning around and looking towards downtown, the clouds were bright pink.