Persons – Page 10 – GEORGE ROTHERT

What Pan Am Did for/to Us

Wonder why Spirit Airlines charged you $26 for your carry-on bag one time but $45 on another flight? It’s called dynamic pricing, constant adjustment of prices based on demand, in general and, more specifically, what their algorithms determine is how badly you want to buy it.

It’s also why if you check flight prices for a particular itinerary and come back a couple days later to discover the fare has gone up. The airline remembers you — think “cookies” — and it will likely cost more the next time you check. They want you to decide you’d better buy now, before the price goes up more.

But what does all this have to do with Pan Am?

Eat Like a Gangster

Las Vegas is ever mindful of its history. In the works right now is a ten-million-dollar renovation of the the storied Flamingo Hotel’s recently-closed steakhouse. Set to open in the spring of 2020, the swanky new eatery will be named “Bugsy & Meyer’s Steakhouse,” an homage to the Flamingo’s developers and founding fathers of modern-day Las Vegas, Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky.

Promoters say Bugsy & Meyer’s will be an ode to old-school Vegas, serving dry-aged prime beef and classic cocktails. “We want our guests to feel like they’ve traveled back in time,” a spokesperson says. (In a nod to the twenty-first century, there will also be a vegan menu.) Inside the establishment will be a super-exclusive “Count Room,” door accessible to the privileged few through an unmarked. It will feature its own secret menu. (Hey, “secret menu” works for In-N-Out Burger.)

[Personal favorite: check out the Downtown Cocktail Room on the edge of the original Las Vegas Strip.]

Christmas with Colonel Sanders

Eating fried chicken every year “is what makes Christmas, Christmas.”

Protestantism, Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity — all are active in Japan. But something less than one percent — that’s < 1% — of the Japanese population profess to be Christian. That doesn’t prevent them from celebrating Christmas, and gathering around the table for the traditional holiday repast.

For many in Japan, Christmas dinner is cole slaw, shrimp gratin, triple-berry tiramisu cake and chicken. Not just any chicken, though, but Kentucky Fried Chicken. People line up at their closest KFC on Christmas Eve at for their “Party Barrel,” ordered in advance. KFC Japan does a third of its business at Christmas time.

Harvesting the Ocean for Art

“I want to reach people who might throw something on the beach and not think about it, and I want them to start to think about it.”

Plastic is pervasive in the oceans. From giant plastic garbage patches to plastic nano-particles finding their way into sea life and thus humans. Angela Haseltine Pozzi is using the plastic flotsam to create sculpture.

Haseltine Pozzi gathers plastic bottle caps, cocktail toothpicks, shotgun shell casings and detergent bottles that wash up on her hometown beach at the town of Bandon on the southern Oregon coast. The debris come from as far away as Asia and Europe. So far, she has fabricated eighty life-size animals, real and imagined: a jellyfish made of golf balls, sharks from flip flops and plastic lighters. Haseltine Pozzi Haseltine Pozzi gathers plastic bottle caps, cocktail toothpicks, shotgun shell casings and detergent bottles that wash up on her hometown beach at the town of Bandon on the southern Oregon coast. The debris come from as far away as Asia and Europe. So far, she has fabricated eighty life-size animals, real and imagined: a jellyfish made of golf balls, sharks from flip flops and plastic lighters.

The Debate That Changed Politics

“Kennedy knew it was going to be important. He rested that afternoon. Nixon made a speech to the Carpenters Union that day in Chicago — thought this was just another campaign appearance that night — was ill. Arrived at the studio, banged his knee when he got out of the car, was in pain, looked green, sallow, needed a shave.” – Don Hewitt

With a little over a month to go until election day, polling showed Republican Vice-president Richard Nixon with a slim lead over his rival, Democratic Senator John Kennedy, in the race to choose the successor to two-term President Dwight Eisenhower. On September 26, 1960 both candidates met at a CBS television studio in Chicago. For the first time ever, the presidential debate would be televised. Seventy-million viewers tuned in that evening.

Those who listened to the debate on the radio perceived Nixon as victorious. Television viewers saw Kennedy as the clear winner.

The Ironic “Louie Louie”

The version of “Louie Louie” recorded by Portland band the Kingsmen reached number 2 on the pop music charts in 1963. Parents were outraged by the song’s supposedly obscene lyrics. Teenagers reveled in what they thought was a dirty song being played on the radio. The Federal Bureau of Investigation even delved into it, analyzing whether “Louie Louie” was smutty. The band was close-lipped but enjoyed the controversy that drove record sales higher.

The Kingsmen had paid $50 to rent the studio. They recorded the song in one take, gathered around a single microphone. The singer Jack Ely stood on his toes shouting at the boom mic, place too high.