1980 Disco Rats - A Trip Down Memory Lane

Disco Rats
Franklin Lakes Stereo, Franklin Lakes New Jersey

A trip down memory lane is in order. I fondly remember the days of the late seventies and early eighties, the Jimmy Carter years. Gas was around a $1.25 a gallon and a ten-spot filled your tank in a VW Beetle, or Plymouth Duster.The economy was coming out of a tail spin and good jobs were hard to find. I was carefree and happy not knowing what field I was going to pursue job-wise and had a good core group of friends that I used to hang out with and work when I wasn't attending college. Living at home had a lot of advantages and I spent most of my waking hours working anyway so it was a good way to save up money at the time. I held down two jobs after graduating college in 1977, a full time day job at FMNA (Fiat Motors of North America) and a week-end part-time sale job at Franklin Lakes Stereo in Franklin Lakes New Jersey. Franklin Lakes was a bedroom community located about 25 miles north east of New York City and was the home of the IBM CSD Service Division headquarters. A lot of celebrities lived in that town and I remember Earl Monroe of the Knicks lived close by and bought a bunch of high end stereo gear from us. I remember him first walking into the store like a kid in candy store. He was wearing his Knicks warm up sweats and a Walt Frazier style fur coat and stepped out of a black Mercedes SLC300 convertible with NJ vanity plates that read " PEARL". As you can tell from the clothing and haircuts, the disco years had an impact on all of us growing up and working in suburbia. Franklin Lakes Stereo was located on a small non-descript strip mall near the center of town and we had our share of audio geeks and characters visiting our store on a regular basis. Franklin Lakes Stereo was a high end stereo store and we were authorized resellers for Crown, Nakamichi, Trnscriptor, KEF, Sonab, B&O, Revox, Beyer, Rogers and a host of other esoteric brands of audio gear.

We used to send out for Pizza from this local pizzeria (Forgot the Name) and sometimes we would eat in. It had pretty good pizza, veal parmesan sandwiches, and excellent oven baked calzones. We always got this young waitress named Adelle and we gave her the nick-name of Dumbdelle as she was so scatter-brained and could never get our orders right.

Life was good, working hours were long, getting discounts on audio gear was a great side benefit, as was getting a really good car audio sound system for free. When Sunday rolled around, I usually slept in and didn't get up until noon-time exhausted from the seventy hour work-week but you know, those days were some of the happiest days of my life and will always look fondly on those years living and working in the burbs of New Jersey.

Breaking Bad - Face Off Final Episode - 4th Season - Holy Cow!

I have been a huge fan of Breaking Bad ever since the premiere first season episode first aired on AMC four years ago. The writing and acting in this series has always been superb and I always point to this television series as the state-of-the art in content....that is the writing is so good that it elevates the show to a much higher plane and is in many respects contains better writing and acting than you will find in most movies today. Cinematic and thoroughly engrossing story lines with a decent production budget that you can see is invested in every episode and you can see the money is wisely spent on special effects, sets and supporting actors and actresses. I think Vince Gilligan is a genius and has even shown the Coen brothers a thing or two regarding stylized and totally un-expected violence and mayhem. I would even throw in Martin Scorsese and David Cronenberg as well as they also get a wink and a nod or two when viewing the drug cartel shoot-outs and conflicts. The humor is twisted and you have to watch closely to pick up on the easter eggs or "tells" that hint at things to come or devious clues that conveniently connect the dots and fill in the holes of the sub-plots tot he main story line.

If you get a chance to watch this final episode, you will be blown away. Walter White's employer, Gus is blown up and killed in a nursing home by a bomb that is triggered by an old paralyzed member of the Mexican Drug Cartel by the little ringer he uses to communicate. You will see some graphic stuff (gory special effects) that was last used in the Terminator movies. This was by far the most satisfying episode as it tied up so many loose ends and displayed for all to see is the transformation of High School Chemistry Geek Teacher Walter White to cold and heartless killer Tony Montana (Scarface). This is must see television at its very, very best. Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Giancarlo Esposito all give bravura Emmy worthy performances in this episode. See this final episode. You will not be disappointed and you will be totally blown away.

Face Off Episode 13 Season 4
Breaking Bad on AMC

 

Gus Fring (GianCarlo Esposito)

Walter White (Bryan Cranston)

Tio Salamanca (Mark Margolis)

Hank Schrader (Dean Norris)

Aged Well - Not Aged Well or Is it Good Genes or Living a Clean Life?

Aged Well - Not Aged Well or Is it Good Genes or Living a Clean Life? Or Both?

Well my friends, time to decide for yourself. Here are some before and after photos. The before photos were taken around 1972  and the After Photos were taken in 2010.

Aged well?

Jackson Browne 1970

Jackson Browne 2010

Not Aged well?

Keith Richards 1974

Keith Richards 2010

Syd Mead -Visual Futurist - Science Fiction Hall of Fame

As a kid growing up in the suburbs of New York City, I was drawn to science fiction at an early age. I started reading Tom Swift books when I was nine or ten and on my thirteenth birthday, joined the science fiction book of the month club. I read Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, I Robot, Isaac Asimov, and later most of the novels and short stories penned by Michael Crichton, Greg Bear, and William Gibson. I was addicted to any and all things science fiction watching these new programs on network TV, Star Trek, Lost In Space, Time Tunnel, Supercar, UFO, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Thunderbirds, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and a ton of comic books and movies with similar fantasmagorical themes and storylines.

I remember seeing 2001, a Space Odyssey on a field trip to New York City were we saw it in a theatre that had Cinerama. Star Wars blew me away as did Blade Runner and Alien. All of the Jim Cameron movies were also impressive as these movies paid a lot of attention to production detail and constructing a future world that was eerily realistic and functionally fleshed out. It made you believe that their world was real. There was one name that keep coming up in the credits of the the Alien, Blade Runner and the Aliens sequel movie and that was Syd Mead. Syd Mead was the primary go-to consultant for coming up with the futuristic interior and exterior sets in these movies. His background as an automobile designer for Ford Motors and as an Industrial product designer for a number of well known Fortune 500 companies like US Steel and Caterpillar came in handy when director Ridley Scott wanted to present a believable future landscape with the matching interiors to draw in the viewer in a most visceral way.

American Cool - Invented in the United States

Before I digress I wanted to preface this blog entry by saying that the United States is a melting pot of immigrants and descendents of immigrants and is one of the things that makes this country so desirable to live. Whether your parents, grandparents or great grand parents came to America to seek their fortunes (and to provide better lives for their families)  from Europe, Asia, Russia, Ukraine, South America, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Africa, Japan, Taiwan, Pacific Islands, Middle East, (Did I leave out any country or continent? If I did, apologies are in order), ALL and I mean all made significant contributions to United States culture and made the US a better place to live over the years. Working hard to put your kids through school was and still is the mantra and access to an infrastructure of affordable and quality public and private education was and still is the main drawing card along with finding a good paying job in a city or state that provided a reasonable cost of living.

I think it's important now to call out and highlight some of the very cool things (people and inventions) that were invented in the US and has become the calling card for the US globally as everyone around the world picked up on these cool things that came from the US. Further validation of cool items on this list is that Japanese are collecting these vintage items from the US in great quantities (Like vintage US electric and acoustic guitars and vintage automobiles). Lots of Japanese collectors like to acquire cool stuff from the US. The rarer, the better.

The Electric Guitar - Les Paul and Leo Fender are the US inventors who came up with the electric guitar and I think Rock and Roll never would have broken out if it had not been for these two ingenius inventors.

Levis's Blue Jeans - Hipster, Cowboy, Teen, Yuppie, Punk,.....and the genre goes on and on. You name the style or fashion period and you know that Levis' Blue Jeans were popular in virtually every era. The design and material spec has not changed for more than 100 years, and for a good reason. This was a jean that was copied and imitated by thousands of other clothing manufacturers but there is only one original Levis Blue Jeans.

57 Chevrolet Nomad Station Wagon - This iconic automobile is synonomous with surfing and the 60's teen era. The tail-fin styling is classic and timeless and more of these cars were souped up as hot rods and custom rides because everyone knew a really cool car when they saw it. The 57 Chevy Nomad fit that description perfectly.

Elvis Presley

James Dean

Motown

Jazz

Bob Dylan

The Personal Computer

Apple Computer and the Macintosh

The First Router

Adobe PostScript

The first L.E.D. Lightbulb - Cree Research

If there's more cool stuff (people and inventions) that you strongly feel deserves to be on this list, please write post a comment with your suggestion and a brief reason why you think it deserves to be on the list.

Which Company Invented The Digital Camera?

This is NOT a trick question but which company invented the digital camera?

a) Nikon                 c) Sony                 e) Fujifilm           

b) Canon                d) Polaroid            f) Kodak

Big surprise here as the answer is f) Kodak. Actually, Kodak is the only company mentioned here that had a core focus and deep DNA in all technologies related to imaging and color science so they did early on have a leg up on all of their competitors with patents and research in the fields of color reproduction and with film manufacturing and processing. The big 3 Digital Camera companies of today. Canon, Nikon and Sony all embraced digital camera technology and applied their engineering and marketing prowess to beating Kodak in creating more advanced and easier to use digital cameras in a very big way. Kodak at one time like Polaroid was viewed as one of the most innovative product development companies and was often placed in the category of a IBM, Xerox, 3M, and Polaroid when it came to obtaining key patents that allowed them to produce consumer and business products that were so far ahead of every other company's technology offerings.

I think it's fair to say that Kodak missed the boat with digital cameras the same way Xerox lost out to Adobe when it came to PostScript.

We're All Pulling for Pete Huttlinger!!!!

Here is the latest update on Pete Huttlinger. Vince Gill's web-site has been the focal point for the benefit concert publicity and has the latest info on Pete's progress:

FOR PETE’S SAKE: YOU’VE GOTTA HAVE HEART

07/13/11

 
Vince Gill
A BENEFIT FOR PETE HUTTLINGER
A Night of Great Music, Electrifying Jams & Cool Collaborations
Tuesday, July 26 at Mercy Lounge
Featuring Live Performances by Vince Gill, John Oates, The Long Players, John Jorgenson, Mark Selby, Joe Robinson, Baillie & the Boys Della Croce & more!

Vince Gill, John Oates, The Long Players, John Jorgenson, Mark Selby, Joe Robinson, Baillie & the Boys, Sean Della Croce and others are coming together to lend their extraordinary talents to FOR PETE’S SAKE: YOU’VE GOTTA HAVE HEART – A Benefit for Pete Huttlinger on Tuesday, July 26 at Mercy Lounge (1 Cannery Row) at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased via TicketWeb and at the door.

[More:]

All proceeds raised as a result of this amazing night of music – sure to include once-in-a-lifetime collaborations and jams –will help diffuse costs associated with Huttlinger’s surgeries and treatment. The widely respected guitarist and Nashville studio artist is recovering from surgery and awaiting a heart transplant.
Huttlinger has a congenitally defective heart. His heart has slowly deteriorated over his lifetime, and in March, he went into extreme heart failure. Too sick to wait for a heart transplant, Huttlinger was life-flighted on April 29 to St. Luke’s Texas Heart Institute in Houston and underwent surgery (May 4) to have a heart pump installed. This cutting edge device is a mechanical pump that is implanted in his heart and is powered by a battery pack which Huttlinger carries with him. This undertaking is referred to as a “bridge to transplant.” When Huttlinger recovers from this surgery, he will return to Nashville and await a heart transplant which will take place at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Huttlinger suffered a massive stroke in November, but had recovered completely.

To make an online donation go to petehuttlinger.com.

To See Photos from this event you can view them here:

Pete Huttlinger Benefit Concert Photos

Pete Huttlinger is recovering from a recent life-threatening stroke. One of the most talented fingerstyle artists I have ever seen or met Pete is a genuinely nice person who is a fantastic performer and great guy who has helped many aspiring guitarists learn how to play fingerstyle guitar through his instructional DVDs and books. We are all praying for a full recovery Pete. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

Pete Huttlinger playing Josie at the Guitar Player
Live Event held in Livermore CA in September 2009