When you wake up Sunday with an hour less sleep, and it’s still dark and cold, keep playing this until you feel better.
Or if you’re really old, you can play it and reminisce about the Summer of Love.
Eating Out in San Francisco
Perusing the bill after enjoying a meal in a San Francisco restaurant, you will likely see an additional charge, usually itemized below the sales tax, for “SF Mandate” or “Employee Mandate.” The charge could be 4% of the total tab, or 5% or 6%. Or a flat charge of $1.50 or $2.00 per diner. Or maybe there is no additional charge. The city of San Francisco requires businesses with twenty or more employees to provide heath coverage. This is so distasteful to restaurant operators, who value their workers so little and are so resentful of compensating them, they put the cost as a separate charge on the bills.
He Was No Dirty Harry
San Francisco detective Frank Bullitt got crossways with ambitious politician Walter Chalmers over the murder of a crucial organized-crime witness under the detective’s protection. Oh, okay, this didn’t really happen. It was a 1968 movie, “Bullitt,” with Steve McQueen in the title role. Lone eagle Bullitt refused to be part of Chalmers’s (Robert Vaughn) machinations. The movie also featured what many aficionados consider the greatest car chase ever filmed.
Steve McQueen himself drove the fastback Mustang, chasing bad guys in a Dodge Charger to their fiery end. (No stunt driver for McQueen. He also gave us the greatest movie motorcycle chase.) The iconic Mustang disappeared shortly after filming ended. McQueen reportedly wanted to buy it, but it could not be found. The car recently turned up in a Mexican junkyard. No one knows where it has been for the last forty-nine years or why it was in Mexico. Experts claim the VIN confirms it is the authentic car. Estimates are that the car, when restoration is finished, could have a value in excess of a million dollars.
What the Funicular?
Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling’s characters shared a tender “La La Land” moment inside an Angels Flight cable car. The real-life Angels Flight is decidedly less romantic. The funicular railway travels 300 feet up Bunker Hill at a thirty-three-degree angle from downtown Los Angeles. Traveled, that is.
The funicular cable cars originally opened in 1901 and ran until 1969. It reopened in 1996, then closed in 2001 after a fatal accident. It has operated off and on since 2010. It suffered a derailment in 2013 and has been out of service since. The trash and graffiti were not visible in the movie scene, purportedly filmed without the knowledge of the L.A. utilities commission. Angels Flight is being renovated and will supposedly open again by Labor Day… not like the Fenelon Place Elevator that has been in continuous service since 1893.
Next time you are in Dubuque Iowa, after you’ve eaten your loose-meat sandwich and breaded pork tenderloin, find your way to Fourth Street and take an excursion on the Fenelon Place Elevator. Don’t worry, the trip will not cause you any digestive distress; it’s a gentle ride. Former mayor and former state senator J. K. Graves built the incline railway in 1882, for his private use to transport him between his home at the top of the hill and his bank downtown. Two years later, he took passengers at a nickel a ride. In the midst of a recession, Mr. Graves gave the newly-formed Fenelon Place Elevator Company the franchise to use the track’s right of way.
It now costs $3.00 round trip for the 296-foot ride up the 189-foot hill. At the top you’ll have a panoramic view of downtown Dubuque and the Mississippi River.
The World We Know Has Ended
Auto-Tune is ubiquitous in recorded music. If the vocalist is off-key, or the guitar is out of tune, not a problem, Auto-Tune electronically fixes it. It was first used in 1998 to enhance recordings by Kid Rock and Cher. (It became known as the “Cher effect.”) Although singer Michael Bublé is critical of the practice because it makes everyone sound the same – “like robots” – he admits he uses it when recording “pop-oriented” music. Christina Aguilera made a public appearance wearing a T-shirt bearing the legend, “Auto-Tune is for Pussies.” She later admitted she has used it, too. Country stars Faith Hill, Shania Twain and Tim McGraw reportedly use it in live performances.
“I’m not a perfect note hitter either but I’m not going to cover it up with Auto-Tune. Everybody uses it, too. I once asked a studio guy in Toronto, ‘How many people don’t use Auto-Tune?’ and he said, ‘You and Nelly Furtado are the only two people who’ve never used it in here.’” – singer/songwriter Neko Case
Guess what? Robots are starting to take over the composing process as well. A company named Amper has raised money from investors to develop artificial intelligence for making music.
Click here to read more about it. Or just kill yourself. Better yet, spend your music money at local clubs and hear and dance to real live music.
Vancouver Welcomes Trump
Vancouver British Columbia was a welcoming place during the 2010 Winter Olympics. I was fortunate enough to own a residence there at the time and to be there for some of the festivities. The streets were alive day and night with people from all over the world; Walking through the crowds downtown one heard many languages spoken. Vancouver welcomed the world and the world savored Vancouver’s beauty. I no longer am a part-time Vancouverite. I may have got out just in time.
Recently the shiny new sixty-nine-story Trump International Hotel and Tower officially opened, a few blocks away from the no-longer-mine condominium. The Holborn Group, led by Joo Kim Tiah, from one of Malaysia’s richest families, owns the hotel. The Trump organization licenses the name to the hotel operator and handles reservations. A petition demanding the Trump now not be allowed has more than 50,000 signatures.
About a hundred anti-Trump demonstrators greeted Eric and Donald Jr, who came for the ribbon cutting. Vancouver mayor, Gregor Robertson, did not attend, stating, the Trump name and brand “have no more place on Vancouver’s skyline than his ignorant ideas have in the modern world.” City Councilman Kerry Jang called the hotel a “beacon of racism … intolerance, sexism and bullying.”