First Time I Did It

First Time I Did It

When the family gathered all its belongings and moved to Washington State from Texas I was an innocent young pre-teen.  You could say I was sheltered beyond normal. I am not embarrassed to admit that my brother and I were mama’s boys.  That used to happen a lot to young boys when they are raised by the stay at home mothers.  Add to that, the fact that you are raised strongly in the Catholic faith and don’t dare do anything out of the ordinary without considering that you will be in church on Sunday and participating in the Confession process.

All justifications aside, I loved and respected my mother and would have no consideration for being raised differently.  Our life style was very repetitious but never boring.  Mother was a wonderful cook and while we were typical of the families of the time, the dinner options were restricted to two:  Take it or Leave it! 

Being of the Mexican culture, Corn and flour tortillas were always part of the lunch and dinner meal.  Bread was not a staple that we were too familiar with.  I don’t recall ever hearing of hamburgers, or hot dogs before we moved from Texas.  I do know for a fact that McDonald’s was already in business in 1954 so for at least 5 years prior to moving to Washington State (1959) I had never even heard the word hamburger.

After that lengthy introduction, I need to get back to the subject at hand.  The first time I did was at the drive-in theater.  There were two movies playing but I still remember the main attraction: Hercules Unchained starring Steve Reeves.

I remember that my older step-brother and his wife went to the snack bar (just before intermission to avoid the crowd) to buy popcorn, soda and candy.  When they returned, they brought back something that smelled especially tempting and delicious.  I asked what it was and she told me but I had no clue what she was talking about.  So she allowed me to take a bite and I was hooked to this day.  That is the first time I heard of it and had my first ever taste of pizza (Saturday, October 1959).  Since the first time I did it, I’ve never said no to an offer of a slice of delicious pizza.  The best is yet to come……

Disappearing Acts

Disappearing Acts

Once upon a time not that long ago there was the wonderful developing technology where you could throw your voice to anywhere in the world (the telephone).  Not every household in the USA had one because of cost or even accessibility.  Telephones were connected by wires that had to stretch over “telephone/electrical” poles all over the land.  If you lived out in the country, you would be required to pay a high cost (somewhere in the thousands depending on distance) to run the lines to your property from the nearest phone pole.

For the multitudes that couldn’t afford a telephone at home, there came the payphone.  So interwoven was the payphone booth into our society that even Superman used the phone booth in the storyline every time that he had to change from Clark Kent to Superman.

About the same time the television technology was emerging (black and white at first).  Horrible reception in the beginning, more snow than content.  Transmission capability (towers) were limited at first and most prevalent in areas of dense population (cities) where you could reach the most people with the least number of transmitting towers.  Initially there was only 3 major television networks competing for viewership.  Programing was also minimal for the number of hours of broadcast.

While there was progress being made on all fronts of technology, new emerging technologies were coming to the forefront.  Imagine being able to send documents across the country within minutes to complete transactions that required your signature.  The fax and fax machine slowly worked into every one’s life and eventually would become indispensable.  At the start of this phenomenon you would go to a central location to send and receive faxes.  Eventually the more affluent (businesses to be sure) would acquire their own fax transmitting machines.

Audio recording media has gone from vinyl to 4, and 8 track cartridges, cassettes, CD’s. and now digital with the leap to the latest (streaming).  Video rentals have pretty much disappeared because you can now rent DVD’s out of a red box or better yet stream from Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video or iTunes.

But wait! There’s more; the latest rumor is that televisions sets will be the next to disappear from your retail shopping.  The best way to catch your favorite movies at present and on the run is iPad, Tablet, your PC or your cellphone.  It wasn’t that long ago that everyone was striving to outdo the Joneses to the largest television screen possible.  I presently have a Home Theater projector for up to 100 inches and more.  The best is yet to come……….

Right Place Wrong Time

Digital Technology

Speaking in Poker Terms, at some point in time we have to get comfortable with the hand that we have been dealt.  In this instance I am referring to the many advances in digital technology that keeps progressing by leaps and bounds especially in the area of audio and video.  I still remember the time when we had no choice but to listen to the car radio at whatever reception we could get and be happy with it.

Can you imagine life without recorded music? Probably not.  By the time I got to where I had a real interest in music and the recorded medium, the 45 rpm vinyl records were in.  I still got to play the 33 1/3 rpm, and 78 rpm vinyl records, but not with my father’s permission.  I used to own and operate 3 music stores in Washington State in the early to mid-70’s, a very inconvenient time for music store owners.

 

Some very popular music would hit the charts, and I would have to maintain inventory in 45 rpm, and long play vinyl, 8 track, and cassette.  All product would eventually sell but it seems that customers were always asking for the one medium that had just sold out. I swear I had the supplier on speed dial, I was constantly placing special orders.

The arrival of the 8-track and Cassettes were a special joy, because now you could take your music along for a road trip.  No more being stuck with radio stations that you kept losing the frequency to.  You could take them to the beach, and you didn’t have to be overly careful with it, and that is why you didn’t always carry them in organizers.

The arrival of the CD was supposed to be the “Perfect Sound Forever,” wrong on two counts: early CDs sounded horrible (though noise free, an audio first); and if you didn't handle them reasonably well, they would (and still do) degrade. Many first generation CDs degraded all by themselves. They were more than difficult to play in any moving environment: portables and car players were for a long time expensive and less than successful, unlike the 8-tracks and cassettes they were replacing. The price of the CD’s when they first came out were cost prohibitive, and not all artists were releasing music on the CD at first.  An interesting note: there are no continued releases of recordings for 8-tracks or cassettes, but the LP has never gone out of production, with many new releases for the increasingly small audiophile market and lunatic fringe.

Between 1990's and today CDs reached their maximum saturation and became the easy to use medium they are known as today, they began to look clunky compared to the MP3 players.  Further progress has now brought the “Cloud” into play where I can access my music collection from anywhere with the use of a Smart Phone, computer or the magic of Blue Tooth technology.

So once again we need to accept the hand that we have been dealt, and enjoy the technology that we have all around us while we are here.  With the advent of “Google Glass,” and wrist watch computers, sooner or later we are going to miss out on the future of digital technology.  I must say that I am glad I won’t be here for the Blue Tooth Technology being imbedded into our heads and using the eardrum for a speaker (for internal use of course).  The best is yet to come….

Comic Book Based Movies

Original Lone Ranger & Tonto

We often hear sayings that are loaded with wisdom but ignore them because after all they are only based on historical precedence.  Here is a few in case you haven’t heard any lately: 

• “Leave the world a better place than you found it.” 
• “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
• “If you can’t improve on something, leave it alone.”
• “Don’t ruin a good thing.”
• “It’s not always about money.”
• “Something’s can’t be improved.”

Who amongst us likes to admit being wrong.  Not me! But I will admit to being a little over confident and trusting.  Ultimate Hog Heaven, Posted June 12, 2013: http://www.being50.com/2013/06/ultimate-hog-heaven.html

I was exuberant about the promise that the year 2013 was going to be so great for many of my comic book heroes.  Remakes of comic book characters were being advertised as the bigger and better productions for all of the fans from the early years.

 

Well, I will admit that the effort was not only not impressive, but in fact a disaster for the most part.  Let start with the Lone Ranger and make comparisons to times gone by:  Johnny Depp and Jay Silverheels one character you could look up to and the other was laughable.  In the original, the main character was the Lone Ranger with Tonto as a very strong second.  In the remake:  the main character is Tonto even if he is supposed to be mentally ill.  The Lone Ranger doesn’t even rate a second or third place in the lineup.  The silver bullet concept of the original series was reduced to one silver bullet period.  The trusty horse Silver hardly rates a mention in the whole movie.  Some images like words, once released can’t ever be undone.  In all honesty I couldn’t differentiate between the Captain Jack Sparrow and Tonto characters.

 

Many of the Comic Book Characters that I grew up with were meant to be taken serious.  Big time money investors in the film industry need to stay true to what the fans want:  They should make up their minds and make comedies or improve on the legends that we grew up with.  Finally as a true Aficionado of the Comic Book Era that I grew up with, I would give this Lone Ranger effort three thumbs down, but I only have two hands.  The best is yet to come……

Remembering Good and Bad

1957 Ford Failrlane Skyliner Hard Top Convertible

I’ve often been known to say that when we think of days gone by, we always think of the good things, and have a tendency to conveniently forget the negatives.  Most people call that tendency human nature.  I have a type of personality that focuses on the positive, not that I have a non-eventful life or perfect life, I just feel that life is way too short to constantly highlight the negative.

Today, I was having an untypical day and catching up with national and world news, and I caught myself thinking about how those types of crimes (kidnappings, rapes, stabbings, etc.) were almost non-existent when I was growing up.  So I decided to think about my life back then to see if I could identify, an occurrence where that type of crime might have entered into my life.

When my step brother turned 21 his beautiful wife of two years wasn’t old enough to go with him to a party that his friends were throwing for him to celebrate the legal age of drinking.  At first she was very upset that he would go and party with his friends, without her by his side.  He eventually convinced her over the course of a week that all they would be doing is shooting pool at the local tavern in town (the town population then was 3,250).  By quoting the population numbers, I am making the point that the town is very small, and everybody knows everyone, and he would definitely be in his best behavior.

Somehow I got dragged into it, and unlike in today’s times where a young wife might say, well if you are going out with the guys, I am going out with the girls.  My sister-in-law’s solution was to take me out to dinner, and a movie.  I was all of 14 years old, and I really felt it was more of an imposition on me than anything else.  I really felt that I was basically babysitting, although I was the young one.  My sister-in-law wanted a nice dinner, so I was treated to a very nice new dress shirt, tie and dress slacks.  We traveled 45 minutes to the big city (in their pride and joy, a 1957 Ford Fairlane Hard Top Convertible.  The trunk opened up and the whole hard top would mechanically drop into the trunk, and the trunk would automatically close), we ate dinner at a fancy restaurant, and went to see Elvis Presley’s Blue Hawaii (I will never forget the movie because as it happened my sister-in-law and I were equally lifelong fans of everything Elvis Presley did).

After the movie, we got in the Ford Fairlane, and decided to take a slow drive through the main drag of the big city.  My sister-in-law being young, and proud of her Ford responded as expected when challenged at a traffic light and totally embarrassed the driver and the two passengers of a 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air.  We tried to lose them as we made our way to the open road that would take us back home, but they kept tailing us.  I don’t know if they were trying to get even for being embarrassed or if they took a liking to my beautiful driver, but they wouldn’t give up. 

Even though, once out of town we noticed their headlights kept getting smaller as we put distance between us, they were still following us.  With hardly any traffic in either direction, my sister-in-law decided that it wasn’t safe to have this morons follow us all the way to our town, so she came up with a plan.  Since we had close to a half mile distance between us, she planned to pull to the side of the road and get the 30/30 Winchester out of the trunk and aim it at them as they approached.  I argued my case and stood my ground (call it Machismo if you want), I insisted that she should pull over as planned get out of the car and into the field bordering the road, while I stood next to and to the rear of the car, while holding the 30/30 as they drove (hopefully) by.  As it turned out they put on their high beam lights, as they neared and when they made out the figure of someone holding up a rifle, they floored it and passed right on by.

Please understand that I wasn’t playing John Wayne or Robert Mitchum, but was in fact scared to death (scared enough, however, to open fire if I had to).  On the rest of the way home, we took some side roads that eventually got us home without running into the morons that would either be returning to their city (assuming that they were from the big city), or waiting for us in ambush up the road a ways.  We discussed how we had some excitement to top the night off, but pinky swore not tell anyone about the close encounter with the morons, that may have had evil plans for us.  My step brother and his wife are still happily married in their golden years and as far as I know we still have a secret in common.  As I think about it I can’t help but understand that evil and other crimes have always been around us, we have simply lived blessed lives. The best is yet to come…

Best Scary (Suspenseful) Movies

Count Dracula - Bela Lugosi

I have always been a very big fan of scary movies.  I don't believe that I am part of a small group.  If you are anything like me you don't approve of gore for gore's sake.  I appreciate a quality production effort, great script and even better acting.  I know it sound like an oxymoron scary and quality all in the same sentence.  However, because we spend our hard earned money, we have the right to demand or at least support the few quality projects that come along.

 My memory on scary movies go back to Béla Lugosi, Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, and others from the era.  I would gladly admit to attending to the premieres releases of their magnificent work, unfortunately like many of you I only know of their work, long after the fact.  As an example; I enjoyed the camera work and production on the remake of "The Fly," with Jeff Goldblum, but it didn't really come close to improving on the classic first effort.  

The Masters:

Borris Karloff

·       Béla Lugosi (10/20/1982 – 8/16/1956): In 1927, he appeared as Count Dracula in a Broadway adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, where he was talent-spotted as a character actor for the new Hollywood talkies, appearing in the first Dracula film with sound. Through the 1930s, he occupied an important niche in popular horror films, with their East European setting, but his Hungarian accent limited his repertoire, and he tried unsuccessfully to avoid typecasting. Meanwhile, he was often paired with Boris Karloff, who was able to demand top billing.

·       William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff: was an English actor. Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster inFrankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939). His popularity following Frankensteinwas such that for a brief time he was billed simply as "Karloff" or "Karloff the Uncanny." His best-known non-horror role is as the Grinch, as well as the narrator, in the animated television special of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas!(1966).

·       Vincent Price (5/27/1911 – 10/25/1993): Price's first venture into the horror genre was in the 1939 Boris Karloff filmTower of London. The following year he portrayed the title character in the film The Invisible Man Returns (a role he reprised in a vocal cameo at the end of the 1948 horror-comedy spoof Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein).  In the 1950s, he moved into horror films, with a role in House of Wax (1953), the first 3-D film to land in the year's top ten at the North American box office, then The Mad Magician (1954), and then the monster movie The Fly (1958) and its sequel Return of the Fly (1959). Price also starred in the original House on Haunted Hill (1959) as the eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren. He played Dr. Warren Chapin, in The Tingler, a 1959 horror-thriller film by the American producer and director William Castle.

Vincent Price

I have seen my share of bombs to name a few:  The Thing, The Blob, The killer Tomatoes, The Monster from the Black Lagoon, and Godzilla to name a few mediocre efforts.  Some movies are considered cult worthy because of the laughable and almost amusing effort. 

Amongst my favorites (and I reserve my right to add to the list at a later date): The Fog, Halloween. Friday the 13^th, The Exorcist, Poltergeist, The Shinning, House on Haunted Hill, and Carrie.  I am sure that I missed a few, but you get the idea. 

Two reasons why I have distanced myself from the horror genre of movies:

1. The Horror movie industry has gone to great lengths to become about slash, and gore (which I don’t care about),
2. My wife doesn’t care to feel scared especially if it’s not necessary (I am beginning to agree with her), I do enjoy suspense.  

The best is yet to come….

Chick Flicks

Chick Flicks

There is no denying that with today’s Digital Technology the quality of movies is at least one hundred times better than the movies of the 80’s.  However, few would argue that a good storyline and script can be beat by modern technology.

If you were to meet me today, you might possibly think what a level headed individual Armando is (it could be said)!  Many of the wonderful attributes that I might enjoy today (matter of perspective), I owe to thirty-six happy years of marriage to my dear wife.  She has shown me a lot of patience in allowing me to mature.  Once upon a time, long, long ago a movie by the title of On Golden Pond was released (1981), starring Katharine Hepburn, and Henry Fonda among others and my wife couldn’t wait to see it.  My attitude was that both Katharine and Henry were well past their prime and what could they offer me (Action Junkie) for entertainment.  My wife refused to see it by herself, and so she decided to wait until I was ready for to see it.  About a year and half went by before she talked me into renting it.  I was so happy to have finally seen such great performances, and learned a lesson that to this day I haven’t forgotten.  Since that time my wife and I have seen, and enjoyed many movies often referred to as “Chick Flicks.”

I can write a book about all the lessons I’ve learned by interacting with my wife over the many years that we have partnered to raise our children.  I am glad that she doesn’t read my blog because this kind of confession could easily go to her head.  I was very recently reminded of a movie that ranks amongst one of my all-time favorites.

This movie that I am going to discuss has all the elements that endear it to my taste in movies.  There is the strong father figure with a wonderful family, including the perfect wife, and children.  Very strong and controlling, influential father, but yet very fair minded.  The young daughter is beautiful, yet innocent and sheltered, but extremely smart and talented.  The young man hero is a Fonz kind of character (from television series Happy Days) the nice slick combed back hair style of the Elvis Presley era (for all the young cast of young men).  The young women are all good looking, and are very talented, as are the young men.

There are additional elements that make for a great plot, violence (fist fights), abusive relationships, drugs, Thievery, Honor, and classic cars.  The movie is great through and through, but the end of the movie is even better.  The maligned young hero is vindicated at the end and all ends well.  Definitely a feel good movie and the soundtrack became one of the bestselling albums of all time spending 18 weeks at the #1 Album sales (Billboard), and went multi-Platinum with 42 million albums sold worldwide.  If you are anything like me the soundtrack is part of your music library, I only wish I could dance like Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze).  Bring on the Chick Flicks (don’t forget Ghost).  The best is yet to come….