Dave Garrett

Yeah, I should've been more clear about the distinction between rentals and gross. $4 million in 1963 dollars is roughly $31 million in 2016 dollars. By way of comparison, the top-grossing feature in 1963 was CLEOPATRA at $57.77 million, which is just shy of $450 million in 2016 dollars. Leaving aside CLEOPATRA's gargantuan production and marketing budget of $44 million and just comparing the grosses, that's the difference between a feature with niche appeal and one that had a much broader audience.

Taiyo Yuden announced a year ago that they were exiting the recordable media business. I would expect that whatever stock is still available at retailers, if any, is all that's left. http://www.yuden.co.jp/eu/cms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/150611Withdrawal-from-the-Recording-Media-Business_HP_E.pdf

Wikipedia sez $2,000,000 US and Canada - usual caveats apply to relying on Wikipedia, but in this case they do cite Variety's box office data for top rental features of 1963. I had forgotten that it was actually nominated for the Palme D'Or at Cannes!

Mondo films were a whole genre unto themselves, and Mondo Cane was the great-grandaddy of them all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondo_film Not sure how "mainstream" Mondo Cane was - it predated the establishment of the familiar G/PG (originally GP)/R/X ratings, but I can't imagine it got very far beyond being pigeonholed as a transgressive curiosity on the arthouse circuit. The later films it spawned were certainly much more grindhouse fodder. Pauline Kael reviewed Mondo Cane, and didn't think much of it: "The Italian documentary-maker Gualtiero Jacopetti and his associates are actually documentary fakers: they set out to demonstrate how uncivilized the world is, and then fake the proofs. There's no shortage of available evidence, but they prefer titillating, shocking frauds. The grossness of the picture works to the advantage of the filmmakers, since it seems almost naïve to attack it."

It's gotten a fair amount of press in Houston, but that was to be expected given the Aeros connection. It's been pointed out more than a few times that when Howe played with the Aeros, they drew bigger crowds than the Rockets did (but the Rockets weren't exactly setting the NBA on fire in the early-to-mid 70s). http://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/columnists/mcclain/article/Gordie-Howe-was-inspiring-captivating-figure-7975091.php

I would be very wary of sites that force you to disable your ad blocker before viewing any content. It's not only possible to have malware injected via ads, it's already happening: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160111/05574633295/forbes-site-after-begging-you-turn-off-adblocker-serves-up-steaming-pile-malware-ads.shtml This is why I quit reading Forbes entirely. There are a handful of sites (like this one) that I don't run an ad blocker on, but for all others, if I'm required to turn it off in order to access the site, then I won't be accessing the site.

A Bizspeak Blacklist

What kind of phone do you have? With many phones it's possible to enable "tethering", which allows you to use the phone's data plan/connectivity on other devices such as laptops or tablets. Your laptop just sees the phone as another wifi network to connect to. I've had to do this on occasion when my regular cable internet connection was down and I was doing something that required an internet connection but was not optimal to do using a phone.

http://popvssoda.com/ A perennial topic of discussion in our house, as my wife is from Missouri, where "pop" has a comfortable lead over "soda", whereas in this part of Texas, "coke" is used as a generic term by a significant majority of folks.

Going on a school outing to see the Freedom Train when it made a stop here. http://www.freedomtrain.org/american-freedom-train-home.htm

Reading this, I'm reminded of nothing so much as Joe Bussard complaining that everything recorded after 1933 sucks. It would be foolish to expect everyone to fully appreciate Prince, but music isn't a zero-sum game, and I'm personally glad that there's room for both Prince and J. J. Johnson in my collection.

Saw this on another forum when someone in Detroit mentioned the upcoming screening there. It's getting a wider release on May 1 after several festival screenings over the past couple of years. More info at http://www.rahsaanfilm.com/

Ran across this video on Facebook of a 1990 soundcheck in Osaka, and thought it was a very interesting contrast to many of the other videos that have been circulating since Prince passed: https://www.facebook.com/steve.purcell.14/posts/10208003651783349

Ran across this blog post from 2012 containing a bunch of flyers from AACM gigs in the 1970s, and thought there would be some interest here. Couldn't find any previous posts mentioning this. http://gemsofjazz.blogspot.com/2012/10/great-black-music.html

Not sure about a two-sided recordable DVD, but I've used dual-layer blanks before in such instances. ImgBurn used to be great for dual-layer burning, as it will suggest several places where the layer change could go and allow you to select the optimal one. Unfortunately, I can no longer recommend ImgBurn when it comes to good freeware for DVD burning, as the last version of the installer that's out there appears to have been infected with malware for some time now.

It wasn't just the playoff run last year that was an issue, it was the combination of the (unexpected) playoff run and other events that they'd already committed to. As part of reworking the project plan, they almost certainly assumed a deep playoff run this year and presumably haven't scheduled any other events that might impact the renovation timeline.

I was pulling for Villanova, but the game turned out to be much better than I expected. And although the way they won it will probably not erase 1983 from the highlight reels whenever the topic of buzzer-beaters comes up, Jenkins' ice-cold dagger certainly won't dredge up unpleasant memories in the future the way Lorenzo Charles' dunk does.

The remastered Dick Van Dyke DVD set uses the same transfers that the Blu-ray set did, just in SD rather than HD. It's "remastered" only in comparison with the older DVD sets that were previously released. The question has been asked more than once as to who's going to pay twice the cost of the Blu set to get the new DVDs. Even if you don't have a Blu-ray player already, you could buy one and the Blu set for less than the cost of the new DVDs. Dick Van Dyke is one of the shows that was filmed on 35mm film, and the Blu-rays look amazing.

That's just one piece of the center field renovation that's planned. They opted to postpone the renovations another season because they weren't going to be able to get everything done before the home opener this year. The timeline got shortened due to last season's playoff run and some other events that had previously been scheduled for the park.

Astros social media folks having some fun after their opener with the Yankees was rained out today at Yankee Stadium:

Got an email today about another Black Saint sale at Import CDs, this time including the most recent batch which were released last November (those are 42% off suggested retail): Black Saint sale

Certainly listened to "Karn Evil 9" and the like a fair amount when I was growing up, but was also a fan of his pre-ELP work with The Nice. RIP.

From last night's Late Show with Stephen Colbert:

It is indeed the same set, repackaged in a "fatboy" 4-disc jewel case; I'm guessing the booklet is likewise a smaller version of the one in the longbox. The longbox set is the one I remembered as being considerably more expensive. When I realized the newer one was a different version, I initially thought it was one of those overseas PD releases, but a quick trip to Google to research the label it was issued on (Gusto Records) revealed that they're a Nashville-based outfit that owns the King catalog (as well as the catalogs of Starday, Musicor, Federal, and several other labels). The Amazon seller appears to be the label itself, as the note that was included with my copy was on King letterhead and included a kingrecords.com contact address. I also got a complimentary cassette - Groove Power: The Best of 80s R&B.