The VP who says "Ni"

WOW! What a headline!! "McCain picks Palin for VP" I didn't think that anything in the universe could make me vote Republican this year, but McCain, you crafty old Muppet-lookin' buzzard, you've sold me. Michael Palin for VP? Are you kidding me? One of the Python boys a heartbeat away from the presidency? Sure, the Dems will hit you hard on the constitutionality of a UK citizen as VP, but stand your ground- this is the coolest thing ever! The debates this year will be about African vs. European swallows. Foreign policy will be determined by not expecting the Spanish Inquisition. Hey, maybe you could show up to your inauguration clapping coconut halves together and riding imaginary horses! That would be so aweso....what? SARAH?!?!? Um..... nevermind.

I'm a dork

I'm no diehard political junkie, but I've always enjoyed checking out the party conventions every four years. I don't have the patience or interest for watching every minute or listening to every speech, but I'm really glad that today I got to see my favorite part of any convention: the roll call of state votes. Yes, I know it's weird that I'm into that, but I've loved it all my life. It's so damn silly and hilarious that it just fills me with glee. Giddy delegates who just came from the bar across the street, having a big party on the convention floor, delivering self-conscious soliloquies like, "Madame Secretary, the great state of Podunkia, home of the world's largest hairball, birthplace of Paul Lynde, realm of the richest deposits of sandy loam in the Western Hemisphere, where the sky hits the horizon and the horizon likes it, home of the only state capitol built entirely underground, creators of the swivel chair, the long-handled duster, and the creamiest of creamy nougats, proudly casts its votes...." God, I love that crap. I want to be a delegate someday just so I can do that.

I lived in Bruce Wayne's penthouse

Okay, not exactly. Here's the deal:

I finally got around to seeing "The Dark Knight" a couple days ago. Good movie, but that's not what this is about. Chicago again plays the role of Gotham City, but it seems to be more prominent in this one. More locations that are obviously Chicago, except they mostly avoid lingering shots of the Sears Tower or John Hancock Building or whatever that would make it REALLY obvious (though they do linger on the twin cylindrical towers of Marina City, which I thought was kind of odd since it's a pretty famous Chicago landmark).

I'm no Chicago expert, but I've spent several years going to tradeshows there and getting very familiar with the hookers and drug dealersI MEAN familiar with a, say, six-block area in the heart of downtown. It seems about half of the location shooting for the movie was exactly in that area, so I was intrigued (and kind of distracted) by seeing something I recognized in every other shot. They even shot some stuff at McCormick Place, the bigass convention center I've been to about a shflagillion times.

They're building a new Trump Tower (because there aren't enough of THOSE in the world) right on the Chicago River, and this past April I stayed in a place called Hotel 71- okay, it's not just a "place", it is in fact a hotel- that is directly across the river from it. I had a terrific view from my room, which was on, I think, the second floor from the top. I saw this in one direction (sorry, the white balance went all blue on these shots):



And the Trump building directly ahead:




And some other cool stuff the other direction, but we're not talking about that right now. Anyway, early on in the movie I realized that some interior scenes had a view that could only be from one of the completed lower floors of the Trump building. A little while later, I realized that another building they were zooming in on was Hotel 71. Then, we were in Bruce Wayne's luxurious penthouse, and from the view, it also had to be Hotel 71, right about where my room was!

Anyway- it turned out that half the movie seems to have been shot in or on the Trump building and Hotel 71. The whole climactic scene with the Joker and the hostages and yadda yadda yadda, that was inside Trump and the cops were spotting it from the top of the hotel. Just to confirm I wasn't crazy or stupid- on this point anyway- I checked Reputable Online Sources and discovered that indeed, both buildings were used, and that yes, Mr. Wayne's penthouse was built on the top floor of the hotel, in what I think is a kind of bar/reception hall.

So.....no real point to this, except that it was cool to watch a movie and realize it was practically shot in my hotel room!

How I Became a Film Director

I thought of something today that hasn't crossed my mind in a while. It amused me. So I'm foisting it upon you, dear readers.

Cast your minds back- those who can go back that far- to the long-ago days of the early 80s. Back then, if you wanted to watch a movie on demand in your home, you had to go to something called a "store" and get a magical item known as a "videotape". Bringing anything back yet?

Okay, let that concept digest a bit, and let's go on to something else. In, oh say about 1984-ish, when I was a young buck still full of piss and vinegar and creativity, my dad bought a top-of-the-line Panasonic VCR with attachable camcorder, a real rarity then. The full VCR unit was actually two connected units, the tuner and the recorder. The recorder unit was portable- you just unplugged it from the tuner, put in a battery unit the size of a '67 Impala, attached the shoulder strap and camera, then slung the assembly over your shoulder and went off to shoot, in theory, videos of the grandchildren. Except that I immediately got hold of it and started shooting my own silly video productions, and even a few wedding tapes on the side.

Okay, back to the rental tapes- you know how if you let the tape run to the end of the credits and beyond, eventually there would be some completely blank tape left before it ran out completely? Well, it occurred to me one day that that tape was just going to waste...

So, a bit of Scotch tape on the "no record" hole on the back of the cassette, and presto! Recordable cassette! My friends and I only did this a couple times- we didn't destroy anything already on the tape, just anonymously stuck a little extra surprise onto the end for anybody that let the tape run too long, and dutifully returned it to the store.

The only ones I remember (maybe the only ones we actually did) were on the Tower Video copies of "The Producers" and "Magical Mystery Tour". One was just a clip of us driving around in somebody's car (faces turned away from the camera), but the other had a bit more production value- we actually made signs, wore paper bags over our heads, and ran around the back parking lot of Fresno State.

That's really all there is to the story. Just hadn't thought about it in a long time, and it made me laugh. I wonder if those tapes still exist somewhere, stuck in somebody's closet after being bought out of the bargain used bin at Tower.