“Airplane!” is 35 years old
Airplane!, the gut busting, hilarious send-up of airplane disaster movies, turns 35 this year. For a long list of reasons, I’m not sure that a similar kind of movie could be made now, but especially for Gen Jonesers who grew up with the movies and television shows poked at and parodied in the film, it doesn’t get any funnier.
The IMDb.com profile gives you a list of the awesome cast, reader reviews, a list of classic quotes from the movie, and more.
In a great interview with co-producer David Zucker conducted by Yahoo’s Jordan Zakarin, we learn some of the backstories that led to the casting of the movie, including that of Peter Graves as Captain Oveur :
Peter Graves famously didn’t want to play the aspiring-pedophile pilot at first. Was he reluctant to deliver lines like “Have you ever seen a grown man naked”?
Peter Graves’s reaction [to the script] was, “This is the most disgusting piece of garbage I’ve ever read.” His wife and his daughter read it and they laughed all the way through and they said, “Dad, you have to do it.” So he was ready to do it when we shot.
Across the pond
My first experience of watching Airplane! was odd and memorable. It was the spring of 1981, and I was spending my final undergraduate semester at Valparaiso University’s Cambridge, England, study abroad center. I went with a group of fellow VU students to a local movie theatre. Amidst a somewhat sparsely attended screening, we were the only ones laughing uncontrollably throughout, while the rest of the (presumably British) audience chuckled politely on occasion.
How could our British moviegoers have understood how LOL funny this was! If you’re not familiar with Barbara Billingsley’s role as suburban housewife June Cleaver in the TV sitcom Leave It to Beaver, then you have no idea how hilarious it is to listen to her speaking jive to a couple of black passengers.
Of course, perhaps the Brits that night didn’t fully appreciate Airplane!‘s over-the-top, un-PC American-style humor, done in such rapid-fire, equal-opportunity target style that you don’t have time to become mortally offended.
I only know that my stomach was sore from laughing so hard.
If you’ve got some time to kill…
As some of you know, I’ve been writing a professional blog, Minding the Workplace, for over six years. A lot of the material is heavier stuff, looking at employee relations, workplace bullying, employment law, psychological health at work, and so on. But on occasion I’ve written pieces with a lighter touch that may be of interest to readers here. I thought I’d dig into the archives of that blog and share a few of them:
Taking stock at midlife: Time for reading assignments? (2014) — “So, in the absence of these colleges for 40-year-olds (and beyond), how can we think and reflect upon our lives to date, our lives right now, and our lives to come? For those who, like me, sometimes turn to good books for guidance, let me introduce a thick anthology, Leading Lives That Matter: What We Should Do and Who We Should Be (2006), co-edited by Mark R. Schwehn & Dorothy C. Bass, both of Valparaiso University, my undergraduate alma mater.”
What now, not what if (2013) — “Currently stored on my DVR are a PBS program and a National Geographic docudrama about President Kennedy, both produced to coincide with the 50th anniversary of his assassination. Although I’m a devotee of history, I have a feeling that I won’t be watching them….That lesson was reinforced to me in Stephen King’s 2011 time travel epic, 11/22/63, which takes us back to the years leading up to the assassination of President Kennedy.”
The perils and pleasures of nostalgia, even about work?! (2013) — I get especially nostalgic about two work experiences. The first was my initial year as a Legal Aid lawyer in Manhattan, following my graduation from NYU’s law school….My second nostalgic focus: Returning to NYU after six years of legal practice as an instructor in its innovative first-year Lawyering Program….Both clusters of memories, however, gloss over the fact that I was years away from discovering my true passions as a teacher, scholar, and advocate. I was clueless about a lot of things, and not exactly on the leading edge of emotional maturity.”
August 1982: Next Stop, Greenwich Village (2012) — “This month, I find myself particularly nostalgic over events of 30 years ago, when I moved from Hammond, Indiana to New York City to begin law school at New York University, located in the heart of Greenwich Village. This was a pretty big deal for me. Although I had benefited greatly from a semester abroad in England during college at Valparaiso University, I was far from worldly and had never been to New York City before applying to NYU….Within a few days of my arrival, I would start classes in Vanderbilt Hall, the main law school building, on the southwest corner of Washington Square….”
Collegiate reflections: Studying the liberal arts (2012); Collegiate reflections: Working on the campus newspaper (2012) — “With Commencement season coming to a close at colleges and universities across the nation, I beg my readers’ indulgence as I use a short series of posts to reflect upon my own collegiate experience….”
Ch-ch-ch-changes: Some books to guide toward good transitions (2012) — As we turn the calendar to a New Year, I wanted to gather together some recommended titles for those who are engaged in or contemplating a major work or personal transition….If you’re in the midst of big changes, these books may prove a worthy investment in terms of your livelihood and well-being. I hope you find them helpful.
Does life begin at 46? (2010) — “Conventional wisdom, according to research, is wrong. True, we start off our adulthoods pretty happy and become increasingly disenchanted as middle age approaches. However, our outlook then gets better as we age. The Economist cites research studies to back up its proposition, overcoming the presumption that this is more Boomer-inspired babble about how 60 is the new 40.”
Embracing creative dreams at midlife (2010) — “Dreams die hard is something of an old chestnut, but having entered the heart of midlife, I am thankful that this often is true. I think especially of creative energies waiting to be tapped and unleashed, perhaps after some of life’s other priorities and responsibilities have been addressed, and pursued with the benefit of experience and maturity. Two long-time friends come to mind when I ponder this. Hilda Demuth-Lutze is a friend from college days at Valparaiso University (Indiana) who is the author of historical novels for young adults. Mark Mybeck is a friend going back to grade school in Hammond, Indiana, whose band, Nomad Planets, is creating a niche for itself in the Greater Chicagoland indie rock scene.”
On TV, crime dramas are my thing, so why am I hooked on Downton Abbey?
So…why does Downton Abbey do a number on me? Why do I completely lose myself in each episode?
Without question, my favorite TV genre is the crime drama, whether it be the quirky, L.A. light Major Crimes, the serious, New York-y Blue Bloods, the dark, twisty Prime Suspect, or the gritty, real The Wire.
As for Downton, until I binge viewed the first two seasons, I was completely dismissive of it. I figured that I would have no interest in a drama about upstairs/downstairs life in a stuffy old across-the-pond estate. That kind of program has never caught my eye.
Well, I’ve gulped down the Downton Kool Aid, and there appears to be little I can do about it.
Convincing performances, interesting characters, entertaining plots and subplots, and top-notch production values pretty much tie it up in a bow for me. The show draws you into the daily goings on of the Downton denizens, and both the little and big things in their lives start to matter — as they do in our own.
Season 5 has just finished here in the U.S., capped off by a two-hour “Downton Christmas” special that set the TV reviewing blogosphere afire. I won’t give up any details — no spoiler alerts necessary — but suffice it to say that the two hours were very well spent.
About that blogosphere: After each Downton episode, you’ll find dozens of clever, funny, and poignant commentaries online, not to mention blow-by-blow summaries to remind you of everything you saw and point out a few things you missed. Judging from the comments left to these pieces, a lot of people are watching intently and then taking to their computers to compare notes with others.
I’ve read articles praising The Wire for being like a modern day Dickensian tale, set in the underbelly of modern urban society. The kudos are well deserved, but Downton Abbey merits literary comparisons as well. Like readers of serialized stories by Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle back in the day, viewers of Downton are immersing themselves in the weekly episodes and debriefing the latest twists soon afterwards.
In other words, the medium might be different, but the cultural ripple effects are quite similar. We follow the stories, and we talk about them later. Cool.
Dreaming of spring training
Baseball season approaches! Meanwhile, if you’re wondering what the sidewalks look like in many residential areas of Boston, here’s one from my ‘hood. I snapped the photo on Sunday night, walking home from the subway. (Photo: DY, 2015)
During this winter of our discontent here in Boston, baseball season seems as far away as the moon. Perhaps that’s why I find myself waxing nostalgic about the game, thinking back to my boyhood years when I became a fan.
During my latter grade school years, I discovered baseball, both watching and playing. The watching was inspired by my 80-something grandfather, who was living with us in Northwest Indiana and enjoyed Chicago Cubs games on television. He didn’t speak much English, but he could follow the ballgames, and so after school and during summers, we’d often watch with him in our little TV room. Here’s the song that would open many a Cubs telecast:
The playing was by way of my friends, who were big sports fans. A few were on organized Little League teams, but for most of us baseball was a pick-up game played on the local parkway, with improvised diamonds. I was terrible at first, but I had fun and kept at it, to the point where I could hold my own hitting and fielding.
In fact, my affinity for the game grew quickly, and the slightest sign of spring became reason to get out my baseball glove and bat. Once the temperatures hit the 60s, I would be full of anticipation for the coming Cubs season and for our parkway ballgames. I’d check the newspaper for news about spring training and search out neighborhood pals to play catch. I also became a fan of tabletop baseball games that used statistical charts and cards to simulate the performances of real-life baseball players — the forerunners of today’s sophisticated computer and video games.
As I got older my focus on baseball waned. But after I graduated from law school, I rediscovered the game. I was in New York City by then, and in the mid-1980s it was still possible to get Mets grandstand seats for under $10. I shared a pair of season tickets with friends during the Mets 1986 World Series championship season, and it was a blast. I also joined fellow Legal Aid Society lawyers for weekly softball games in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Yup, those were good years.
Today, I’d be in better physical shape if I was still playing softball, instead of anticipating the start of fantasy baseball season and playing baseball board and computer games! Whatever. Until this snow starts to clear up, any manifestations of baseball around here will be virtual anyway.
July 20, 1962: It was a dark and stormy day
Path of the 1962 tornado, as marked by the yellow line. We lived on Oakwood St, near the origin. (Photo of TornadoHistoryProject.com)
With March on the horizon, we’re now approaching the severe storm season, and I’ll be paying attention to forecasts and reports about tornadoes, building on a fascination that traces back to my early childhood. And thanks to an incredible database, TornadoHistoryProject.com, I can track down the history and path of the very first tornado I ever experienced, albeit down in the basement of my childhood Griffith, Indiana home.
It was July 20, 1962. Mom had taken my brother Jeff (almost 9 months old) and me (almost 3 years old) down to the basement by the time the tornado passed over our house. After it was safe to leave the basement, I went upstairs to see that our swing set had been knocked over. That was the worst of it. Thankfully it was a relatively weak tornado, with no reported injuries. However, as I’ve learned from the Tornado History Project, it had some staying power, traveling nearly 15 miles.
This is one of my earliest and sharpest childhood memories. In fact, I cannot recall anything else from that time making such imprint. My next firm memory comes from over a year later, when I was watching President Kennedy’s funeral.
I guess this helps to explain why I’ve been so captivated by tornadoes. In recent years, I’ve been going on storm chase tours and hanging out on Facebook with storm chasers and other bad weather enthusiasts. I guess some experiences just stick to the ribs, yes?
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Related post
My first storm chase tour: May 2008 (May 2014)
The hot mess that is “Glee” is in its final season
Rachel (Lea Michele) and Blaine (Darren Criss) performing “Suddenly Seymour,” from Little Shop of Horrors (photo: DY, 2015)
When Glee (Fox) came onto the scene in 2009, it was all the buzz due to its edgy humor and snappy musical numbers, built around the ongoing fortunes of a high school glee club in small-town Ohio. It quickly gave notice that it would tackle, often in unorthodox fashion, topics such as teenaged angst, sexual orientation, jock culture, bullying, and the dynamics of a dysfunctional American high school.
Glee‘s ensemble cast of emerging stars, including Lea Michele as ingenue Rachel Berry and Broadway veteran Matthew Morrison as glee club director Will Shuester, would be joined regularly by notable guests drawn from stage and screen, some jumping into self-mocking roles.
The show was nominated for a slew of Emmy awards following its first full season. That would prove to be its high water mark, for although Glee would continue to have a core of devoted fans, it would soon lose some of its novelty. It also experienced real-life tragedy when Corey Monteith, a beloved core cast member, lost his battle with drug addiction and died due to an apparent overdose.
When Glee appeared, I found myself comparing it to another TV depiction of high school, the brilliant (and criminally overlooked) Friday Night Lights, a drama about life and football in small town Texas. With a few exceptions, the story lines and dialogue in Friday Night Lights were pitch perfect, even when dealing with sensitive subjects such as race or abortion.
By contrast, Glee has been a hot mess, sometimes nailing its messages, other times eliciting grimaces, but almost always in an entertaining mode. Pushing the envelope via a quirky mix of humor, music, and emotional drama is not an easy thing to do on network TV, but Glee has succeeded more often than not.
I haven’t been a steady Glee viewer. Like others, I was drawn to it at the beginning, and then kind of lost interest. But I’ve decided to tune in for the final season, and it has proven rewarding. On the whole, Glee has been good for television and spoken to a lot of kids (and some adults) who have felt like misfits while navigating the halls of their high schools and life in general.
Classic movie report: February 2015
Reading the bad news…will they always have Paris? (Photo: DY)
I declared as one of my New Year’s resolutions that I would watch more classic old movies, so each month I’m devoting an entry to how I’m doing with it. Here are my three latest:
Casablanca (1942) (4+++ stars out of 4)
Have you ever watched a movie touted as one of the best of all time, only to conclude that it was good, but not great? That’s how I felt the first time I watched Casablanca many, many years ago, and that ho hum assessment caused me to put off watching it again until earlier this week, when PBS televised it.
Well folks, I now understand why this belongs on the short list of the greatest films of all time. I get it, I get it, I get it.
The cast, the acting, the script, the story, the location, the wartime setting, and the music…the music(!!!)…it all clicked for me. I now comprehend why Humphrey Bogart was so great. I now see why young Ingrid Bergman was one of the beauties of the era. And as for Dooley Wilson’s vocals and piano playing, let’s just say this isn’t an all-time great movie without him.
Plus, Casablanca is a historical time capsule. It was made during heart of the Second World War, when the final result was hardly assured. Rick and Ilsa’s Paris was still under Nazi occupation at that time!
“Of all the gin joints”…classic line, iconic scene (Photo: DY)
October Sky (1999) (3 stars)
This is about as recent as movies in this series of posts will get, but I can say that it’s got a heartwarming, old-fashioned quality to it, with a story grounded in an actual event. Four high school boys in a 1950s West Virginia coal mining town, spurred by news of Russia’s launching of the Sputnik rocket, set out to build a rocket of their own to compete in a science fair. I kept passing on this movie and finally gave it a chance. I’m glad that I did. A young Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper, and Laura Dern are fine leads. The bonus features tell more of the feel-good story that inspired the movie.
The Unconquered (1947) (2 stars)
A Cecil B. DeMille production featuring Gary Cooper and Paulette Goddard in a tale about mid-18th century American colonists and Indians in what was then the Western frontier (the region around modern day Pittsburgh). Given DeMille’s reputation for producing epic pictures, I thought I’d check out one of his lesser known movies. It embraced white man vs. red man stereotypes so common in movies of the era, but I expected that. I found the story, overall, to be uneven and lacking dramatic pull.
From top dog to underdog: Why I’m pulling for Barnes & Noble
Recent B&N acquisitions
Not too long ago, Barnes & Noble was a big bad bully of the bookselling industry, pushing indie bookshops out of business across the country and swallowing up competitors like B.Dalton. For a while it jousted for top dog status with Borders, its main competitor in the superstore category.
But then along came Amazon, the biggest, baddest book selling behemoth of them all, armed with easy online click & ship ordering, the Kindle e-reader, and marketing savvy. Borders would go into a slow death spiral, finally crashing a few years ago. Barnes & Noble is now trying to survive as the only significant, national brick & mortar bookstore chain.
The top dog has morphed into the underdog.
Still and all, I very much hope that B&N makes it. I have always enjoyed walking into their stores, wondering what new discoveries await me, and exploring their huge selections. In addition to the shopping experience, B&N’s stores host author talks, meetings of writers’ circles and book clubs, and informal meet-ups. They are good for a community.
In addition to shopping at indie bookstores and, yes, Amazon at times, I’ve been making a conscious effort to buy more of my books, DVDs, and periodicals at B&N’s main store here in Boston. If it disappears, Boston will be without a major, high volume bookstore in the heart of the city, and that would be a genuine civic shame.
Me and B&N: The beginning
Barnes & Noble and I go way back. I first discovered it well before its superstore era, when the company was a plucky retailer, with stores in Manhattan and a fledgling mail-order business. As an undergraduate living in Indiana (1977-81), I sent away for their thick catalogs, and I would spend hours poring over the remainder listings in search of good bargains.
When I moved to New York for law school in 1982, my periodic walks from NYU’s Greenwich Village campus up to B&N’s twin retail stores on opposite sides of 5th Avenue at 18th Street became regular rituals. The east side location housed its flagship academic bookstore, offering mostly new non-fiction titles and textbooks at full sticker price. As a budget-conscious student, this made it better for browsing than for buying.
The west side storefront, however, was the site of B&N’s huge Sale Annex. It quickly became a personal treasure trove, with several floors of low-priced remainder books, discounted new books, and a generous used book section. At the risk of betraying more of my geekdom, I confess that my heart would start beating faster upon entering the store, in anticipation of the affordable goodies I might find there. I cannot guess how many hours I spent in that store during my 12 years in New York.
Right next to the Sale Annex was a large B&N music store. Here, too, I was overwhelmed by the choices. This was still the golden age for cassette tapes, and the music store seemed to have them all. At the time, my “stereo system” was the portable cassette player I had brought with me from Indiana, and I would wear out the batteries over and again playing my purchases there.
Enter the superstores
In the early 1990s, B&N made its big move, launching the superstores with their huge book selections, many shelves of periodicals, music and video offerings, and cafés selling beverages and food. They started in New York and soon expanded the concept nationally.
At that point, B&N became the bad guy, the Manhattan bully that was pushing small independent bookshops out of business. There was truth in the charges. With its thousands of titles and discounted best sellers, B&N simply offered much more than did its smaller competitors, and at lower prices for popular books. Borders would soon join the fray, and the two went head-to-head for a decade or so, while the indies took even more of a beating.
Among book lovers, the superstore vs. indie issue became political. Looking back, I recall being in a distinct minority among my liberalish social cohort in saying that I preferred the big superstores to the mom & pop bookshops.
These debates even helped to inspire a main storyline in the 1998 romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail, starring Meg Ryan as the owner of a small Manhattan bookstore and Tom Hanks as a senior executive for the superstore opening in the indie shop’s neighborhood. (It also features AOL as the e-mail platform. How things have changed!)
Fast forwarding……
My gosh, the superstore vs. indie discussion is largely passé, yes?! When it comes to bookselling today, it’s Amazon vs. Everyone Else. In fact, until recently it appeared that Barnes & Noble would go the way of Borders and disappear from the scene. In particular, B&N’s Nook e-reader has flopped as a competitor to Amazon’s Kindle, and losses from its e-book division have been a drag on B&N’s balance sheet. In addition, Amazon’s ubiquitous online presence has hastened the closure of many B&N stores across the country.
Among the departed are the main and annex stores on 5th Avenue at 18th Street. That breaks my nostalgic heart a little.
However, B&N has been making something of a comeback. It appears that a growing number of book buyers have recognized the importance of having brick & mortar bookstores around, and B&N has joined indie booksellers in enjoying a minor resurgence. In pure business terms, even its stock value has staged a recovery.
Until a year or so ago, I was buying most of my books from Amazon and keeping a Prime membership to guarantee fast delivery. However, ethical concerns over Amazon’s treatment of its warehouse workers have caused me to reduce my ordering from Amazon and to cancel my Prime account. (See this piece posted to my professional blog for a longer explanation.)
In the meantime, I’ve rekindled my enjoyment of visiting brick & mortar bookstores of all types, including small indies, used bookstores, and B&N’s superstores. Yup, click & ship is awfully handy, and online booksellers (including B&N and Amazon) are now networked with used bookstores across the country, making the hunt for elusive out-of-print titles much easier. Nevertheless, physical bookstores, where you can browse and discover and buy, are a joy for the mind and spirit and are part of an intelligent, healthy society.
Let’s hope that B&N and other bookstores are around for a long time. I look forward to giving them more of my business.
I’m still writing about (drum roll, please) snow
Sunday a.m., looking down my street while the wind gusts
Dear readers, you’re about to be treated to another entry about the weather here in Boston. We’ve got our fourth consecutive weekly Big Snowstorm, two of them blizzards. Winter Storm Neptune (snowstorm 4/blizzard 2 if you’re counting) has been unfolding before our very eyes this weekend.
I wish I could claim that I’ve turned the snowbound days into productive work activity, but it’s only partially true. The weather geek in me keeps an eye on the TV weather coverage, even if it’s becoming repetitive. Snow here, snow there, snow everywhere — and plenty of wind gusts, too. This is, after all, a weather pattern of historic proportions, and we’ll be talking about it for years. Hey, this ain’t nothin’ compared to the big ones back in ’15……
Sunday a.m., neighborhood snowmobiles
The local transit authority announced that the subway, buses, and commuter rail will be operating on, to put it gently, adjusted schedules on Monday, after being shut down completely today. My university decided to hold classes, which means that a lot of students, faculty, and staff will be having somewhat adventurous sojourns into downtown Boston. I’ll be among them!
I’ll also have a little soreness in this middle aged body tomorrow, thanks to my largely futile efforts at snow shoveling today. Fortunately, I was able to hire a couple of guys who were earning extra cash with a snowblower and a snowplow truck. They did in a few minutes what would’ve taken me…never mind…I wouldn’t have finished. That said, even the snowblower had trouble pushing through mounds of snow where the sidewalk was supposed to be.
Sunday a.m., corner intersection
I did manage to watch some TV, including the latest episode of The Americans, one of the best one hour dramas around right now. I also watched an ESPN streamed college basketball game featuring my undergraduate alma mater, Valparaiso University, overcoming a half-time deficit to beat Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the latest win in a surprisingly strong season. VU’s basketball team wasn’t much to speak of while I was a student. But its fortunes have improved considerably since then, to the point where VU now ranks among the better mid-major Division I hoops programs.
As I finish off this blog post, I’m missing a 40th anniversary special for Saturday Night Live. It realize that it’s an iconic Generation Jones television show, premiering in 1975. SNL has had its moments — for me “Da Bears” skits and Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin impersonations are brilliant — but overall I find its humor misses as often as it hits. Maybe I’ll catch it another time, perhaps during a future snowstorm.
Snowpocalypse 2015
Another winter Monday in Boston: Walking down the street toward the subway station
Even my dearest friends who read this blog are probably tiring of this, but I must write again of the weather! Here in Boston, we’re getting pounded with another 20 inches or so of snow, our third major storm over the past 15 or so days. The city is once again in shutdown mode, and the white stuff keeps piling up.
This is the third Monday in a row that my classes have been cancelled, and for me the novelty of snow days may be forever gone, er, at least for a while. Anyway, I decided that this would be a good day to go to my office and get some work done. Encouraged by online postings that my subway line was experiencing only “moderate delays,” I bundled up and trudged over to the subway, a/k/a the “T” (shorthand for Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority).
The lies they tell: At this point it has been at “3 min” for 20 minutes with no announcements
You see the electronic sign in the photo above? I’ve noticed something about it, in any kind of weather. When it ticks down to 3 minutes, time according to the T stops in its, uh, tracks. It may stay at 3 minutes for a couple of minutes, maybe 5 minutes, maybe a bit longer. This time, however, it stayed at 3 minutes for over 20 minutes, with no public address announcement informing us of extended delays. I got the message and decided that riding the T today was not a prudent option.
I’ve spent most of my life in parts of the country where snowfall is par for the course, but I cannot recall being hit in three successive weeks with storms that, standing alone, would be regarded as the signature event of a more normal winter. This has been a remarkable stretch of weather, and I’m sure we’ll be sharing stories of the winter of 2015 for many years to come.
Musings of a Gen Joneser 
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