Skater Dater, Music, and Lord Buckley

As I browsed around YouTube, I stumbled on a reference to Skaterdater, a short film about skateboarding made in 1965.

I'd thought it was charming when I saw it many years ago.  The two things I remembered about the soundtrack were the surf music and the fact that the film makers didn't need synchronized sound.  There is one point in the film where a funny noise is a lead into the next shot.

I was so taken with the soundtrack, surf music over the rumble of skateboards on asphalt, that I taped it off the theater speakers shortly after I saw it.  (It was a tiny theater and I knew the owners.) 

The link above will take you to the film on Google video so you can see it for yourself.

I checked the music credits: Mike Curb and Nick Venet, names which meant nothing to me until I looked up their bios.

Mike Curb, was a Republican Lt. Governor of California from 1978-1982 under the Democrat, Jerry Brown (II). He was involved in some political shenanigans: taking advantage of the law that put the Lt. Governor in charge when the governor is out of state, he tried to get several judges appointed while Brown was "out of California airspace." (The appointments were voided on Brown's return.)

Later, he was immensely successful in the musical business. Check out his bio.  I was impressed.  Especially so when he made news by calling on Belmont University to rehire a soccer coach who seems to have lost her position for being a lesbian.   here's a link to the story in on the Nashville Scene web site.

The other, Nick Venet, worked with recording luminaries from jazz, pop, and world music. Just reading the names Chet Baker,Stan Getz, Chico Hamilton ("Drumfusion"), Stan Kenton, Gerry Mulligan, and Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross flooded my mind with treasured memories of afternoons just listening to jazz on turntables. (Where did I get the time? Where has it gone?)

He worked with Lord Buckley the great hip and tragic comedian. You couldn't be hip way back in the 50's and 60's without knowing who he was. The two pieces I treasured were "The Nazz", the story of Jesus, "Scrooge", the retelling of Dicken's "Christmas Carole" in a dark ghetto dialect. You can imagine Lord Buckley as a mix of Redd Foxx and Robin Williams topped with the sound effect from Bill Cosby's early records.

A casual mention of "The Nazz", "the carpenter kiddie", "beat up retarded sparrow", or saying "merry Christmas with you" or "What's the matter with you baby?" brought a knowing smile to the cognoscenti. You were home.

Perhaps his most enduring legacy was this bit of trivia from Wikipedia:

"Venet created the "Produced By" credit on singles and albums and started album liner notes for crediting individual performers, musicians, and engineers of pop and rock records. Venet is primarily known for signing the Beach Boys and producing their early material."

He worked with Ravi Shankar, Nat "King" Cole, and Peggy Lee and Kay Starr.  Just amazing.  Dead at 61 from Burkitt's lymphoma.

Throwbots

How cool would it be to have one of these?

They're throwable robots with cameras from Recon Scout. You heave one of these things in (they'll survive a 30' drop onto concrete) and control it with a joystick. Designed for the military and SWAT teams.  You can get yours for just $6-9K. Ideal for braking up jail fights.

For more information, there are videos on YouTube. (Search for "recon scout throwbot" because "recon scout" is also the name for a knife.) Although intended to reduce exposing soldiers and police to hostile fire, I can fantasize a household loaner business to scour a house on a periodic basis to check under couches for missing retainers, rings, and keys.

Because of it's light weight an officer can hold the throwbot in one hand and still keep a weapon in the other.   Most of us are fortunate not to need to consider features like these when making purchases.  Other design features make sense: the throwbot is turned on by pulling a pin rather than flipping a switch to make it easier to activate with gloves, Hazmat suits, etc. and very difficult for the other guys to inactivate it.  (Of course the expectation is that the other side won't have the appropriate pin or a controller to turn off or jam the device.)

I'll know how common these things become when they appear in CSI reruns.  (They may be a standard feature of cop shows, but I'm at a disadvantage here because I rarely watch TV.)

Brutal Knitting

Next winter may be the time to let your freak flag fly.

Tracy Widdess, the knitter, will accept commissions.  If you want to stand out in a crowd, these knits will guarantee it.

$6,400 Kohler Numi Toilet

I kid you not.

If I ever get a chance to teach an intro Computer Science class, this will certainly be an item they'll have to discuss when asked we discuss what constitutes a computer.  Just look at the controls:
I guess in time it will not seem odd, but a toilet with speakers and audio input? I would have written that the bathroom seems to be the only place you can get away from ..., but now there's advertising in restrooms and we've all overheard cell private conversation in public bathrooms.

I imagine that the person on the other end of the conversation will ask if the other person is in a bathroom. It'll no longer be remarkable when the answer is in the affirmative.

What Do We Stand For?

An article mentioned a firm building their social networking system using Mason software, a name which was unfamiliar to me. A web search led me to George Mason University's web site and what you see below:

It reminded me of a joke from an old Pogo comic strip:  

Q: "What do we stand for?" 

A: "We don't stand for much."

Hacker vs. Hacker

There is a fascinating article in Business Week (I stumbled over it on Bloomberg BusinessWeek) about the cyber security firm, HBGary, being hacked by Anonymous, the anarchic cyber-guerrilla organization. The attack came after an official at HBGary boasting to the Financial Times that he would reveal the identities of the Anonymous's leaders in his presentation at the next RSA conference.

Steven Colbert put it this way: Anonymous is a hornet's nest. And [HBGary] said, 'I'm gonna stick my penis in that thing.'"

The real fun began when stolen documents were posted on line. The files revealed proposed campaigns to rival the dirty tricks of the Nixon era: infiltrate Anonymous to expose the leadership and a cyber-campaign of disinformation against WikiLeaks.  The corporate results were predictiable: clients disengaging and others making a point of distancing themselves from HBGary.

An interesting read for sure.