The Station Fire Threatens The Station ... A Culture Clash Sneak Preview ... Dinner Party Download Users See 12% Brain Increase
The Ashes of Oakridge
Less than a year ago, a wildfire devastated the Oakridge mobile home park, a small, tightly knit, and by all accounts idyllic community in Sylmar. Queena Kim and Frank Stoltze produced this documentary, in three parts, The Ashes of Oakridge.
Scenes from the Station Fire
The interviews were sad, funny, and informative... KPCC's reporters -- like Frank Stoltze, shown near our Mt. Wilson transmitter a couple years ago -- were out in the field covering the Station fire, talking with residents and fire officials.
Reporters on Fire
Off-Ramp producer Queena Kim sits down with KPCC's Molly Peterson and Frank Stoltze, who spent much of their week covering the Station, to get the unexpected inside story on covering wildfires.
CyberFrequencies: Bing vs. Google
Queena Kim and Tanya Jo Miller join CyberFreaks Kevin Ferguson and Jackson Musker to try out Bing, Microsoft's new browser. Microsoft calls Bing a "decision engine" to distinguish itself from Google's "search engine." What's the difference? Listen to find out!
Also check out CyberFreak Jackson Musker on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday (LINK ON YOUR LEFT), talking about Twittering poetry. Scott Simon did not show any fear when he interviewed the rising public radio star.
Conan O'Brien Leaves Out the Call Letters
Dear Conan, thanks for mentioning us in your monologue Tuesday night, but couldn't you have said "89.3-KPCC?" Please? Just once? Dear Listeners: Come inside if you think you can do better than Conan's joke ...
A little humor during the fire is absolutely okay with us. Seriously. And we at KPCC don't mind being the butt of the joke. He's right ... public radio is a little stodgy. But if we only get one appearance on The Tonight Show, it should be MUCH funnier. Use our comments section (below) to craft your own Tonite Show monologue joke about -- yes -- the fire threatening our transmitter. (See, when it's written out like that, it doesn't sound so easy.)
New Product -- Dinner Party Download -- Makes America Smarter & is One of America's Favorite Podcasts!
Do you dread social gatherings where you might be called upon to engage in witty repartee (talk good)? Then, friends, Dinner Party Download is the FREE PROGRAM for you. In a matter of minutes, hosts Brendan Newnam and Rico Gagliano, trained intelligence enhancers, will make you at least 14%* smarter. This time on Dinner Party Download: Gary Hustwit, Krakatoa and Foraging...
Rico Gagliano & Brendan Newnam bring you another fast and funny "booster shot" of cuisine and culture to help you win your next dinner party. This time: A chat with filmmaker Gary Hustwit, director of the documentaries "Helvetica" and the new "Objectified"... Krakatoa explodes without pride... and Brendan breaks the "2-second rule" with a professional food forager.
To listen to Dinner Party Download, click the link on your left. SEND NO MONEY NOW! Only at pledgetime.
(*Statement not evaluated by the FBI, OSHA, Brother Theodore, or Pravda. Margin of error +/- 14 points.)
Predictable ... Fire T-Shirts
KPCC's Brian Watt shelled out $20 for this t-shirt ... come inside to see the back.
"The View" with Jeff Baugh, Traffic + Fire Reporter
When wildfires hit Southern California, all the airborne traffic reporters, like KNX's Jeff Baugh, switch from reporting Sig Alerts to giving their unique perspective, from thousands of feet in the air. KPCC's John Rabe talks with Baugh about covering the Station Fire.
FROM JEFF'S KNX ONLINE BIO:
A native New Yorker, I moved from NYC to LA in '79 and wound up being the DJ at the infamous "El Privado Room" at Carlos and Charlie's on the "Sunset Strip." With the mentoring and direction of a couple of key people in my life at that time, I finished a broadcast school, interned/board op'd at Power 106 and thru sheer luck got the job as a KFWB studio traffic reporter in 1988, quickly moving to Airborne reporter. I vowed to myself to bring new language to traffic reporting, not just state the obvious and try to help people thru various problems. Be it a closed freeway or a deadly earthquake, I continue that commitment today and into the future. Former United States Marine..."Semper Fi"...big USAC Sprint Car fan and still trying to find the "repeatable golf swing."
Culture Clash Holds Peace Talks with Aristophanes
Culture Clash, the performance trio, adapts Aristophanes' "Peace" for a month of performances at The Getty Villa (Sep 10 - Oct 3). Off-Ramp host John Rabe talks with two of the troupe: Herbert Siguenza and Ric Salinas.
Villa Theater Series
Aristophanes’ Peace
Previews: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, September 3, 4, and 5
Performances: Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, September 10–October 3
Time: 8:00 p.m.
Location: Getty Villa, The Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater
Tickets: Previews $20. Performances $42; students/seniors $36. Tickets: (310) 440-7300 or at Culture Clash website (LEFT).
Hawk Humor
Off-Ramp Commentator Christopher Ames' hawk's eye view of the fire...
Script:
Hello, my name is Sid and I’m a rataholic.
(CROWD: Hi, Sid)
So, to qualify, well, I’m a hawk… any other hawks out there today? Yeah, I see you. Eyes like a well, you know. OK, so mosta you guys are slim and sleek and, uh, I’m obviously not. That’s why I’m here at Rataholics Anonymous. I love rats. Too much.
I had a very rough week. You know that big fire up in the Angeles National Forest… some of you went through it with me. Baloo, how you doin? Bambi, how’s the kids? Zasu, you I’m not talking to. Why? Because I helped you build that nest last summer and you still owe me seventeen twigs and a throat fulla barf!
Anyway, different subject. That’s for my Angry Predators Anonymous meeting.
So. The fire. Yeah, bummer. When I first smelled the smoke, I high tailed it. (Heh heh) high tailed it, get it? OK, hawk humor. So I flew away, yeah, got all the way to Castaic before I felt safe. Castaic -- truckers -- garbage. Great for buzzards, huh? But Im a hawk. I DO NOT DO GARBAGE!
So I’m dealing with all this stress, right? Do I eat over it? No. At least not for the first couple of days. But then when I fly back, what do I see? The biggest barbecue buffet in the universe!
Now I’ve got a very strict food program… three squirrel meals a day plus two snacks… seeds, berries, I mean, I can’t stand the stuff… like who ever heard of a vegetarian hawk? But I eat it to try to stay full.
And now this. Everywhere I look, roasted rabbit and quail and lizards and… yeah… rats. All you can eat. My trigger food.
Other animals, they don’t care. And people… forget about it. All they see is destruction and tragedy and mudslides in their future. But hold up a nice rat flambee in front of them… they don’t appreciate. God I wish I could think like a civilian sometimes.
Good news: so far, I’ve abstained. I phoned a few of you, but everybody was busy staying out of danger. A couple of crows called back, but CAW CAW, how’s that keep you from pigging out?
So when I leave here I have to fly over one huge California Fried Everything restaurant. Rats EVERYWHERE. I hear them calling… I’m here… I’m ready… I’m tender and juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside.
God give me strength.
Anyway, thanks for listening. Just being here with you guys has given me one more hour of abstinence. When I leave, I’m going to grab a few nuts, drink some puddle water, and try to focus on being the best hawk I can.
One day at a time… rat free.
Web Exclusive - Nicholas Meyer and John Rabe
KPCC's John Rabe talks with author and filmmaker Nicholas Meyer about his new memoir, the tasty and eminently readable "The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood." Here's the raw audio from the interview, much of which will appear on a later Off-Ramp. He's signing the book Wednesday (9-2) at Borders Northridge and Thursday (9-3) at Village Books in the Palisades. Come inside for "the shooting script" for the interview...
Note from John: Here's the script I worked from. I didn't ask all the questions. No time.
MEYER Q+A
Nicholas Meyer: The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood. (Born Dec 1945 – 63 now.)
Signings: Borders Northridge on Wednesday (Sep 2) and Village Books in the Palisades on Thursday (Sep 3).
This is Off-Ramp, I’m John Rabe.
One man injected new life into both the Sherlock Holmes and Star Trek franchises. Nicholas Meyer’s Holmes pastiche “The Seven Percent Solution” made the best seller lists, then got him an Oscar nomination for the screenplay. He scripted and directed "Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan," widely considered the best in the series; co-wrote “Star Trek 4, the Voyage Home;” and directed and co-wrote “Star Trek 6, the Undiscovered Country.” He also directed “Time After Time;” “The Day After,” the TV movie about nuclear war; and “The Deceivers,” with Pierce Brosnan.
Meyer is out with his memoir of filmmaking. It’s called The View from the Bridge, and it recounts his entire career in Hollywood, including many tasty tidbits Trekkies will devour.
Nicholas Meyer, welcome to Off-Ramp.
You had dinner with Albert Einstein?
Did your parents get into your Hollywood career, never really understood it? (Frustrating that they didn’t get into it more?)
Your first big hit was the novel “The Seven Percent Solution,” in which Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud. You then wrote the screenplay for the movie, which came out in 1976. When did you start reading Conan Doyle? What was the attraction? You’ve got some great stories about the making of the movie, and your encounters with Robert Duvall, who played Watson, and Laurence Olivier as Moriarty. What did you learn about moviemaking from working on “The Seven Percent Solution?”
Let’s talk about Star Trek. The way you tell it, “Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan” was essentially 12 days from NOT getting made because they didn’t have a screenplay. This is one of the moments in your book that I could see as a movie, like Frost/Nixon, a behind-the-scenes, this is a crazy world kind of movie.
It’s true, isn’t it, that “Star Trek 2” saved the franchise?
Shatner and Nimoy are still around and doing well and can talk about themselves. But Ricardo Montalban, who played Khan, is gone, and he’s the one I find intriguing. (I know you’ve been sitting here across from me wondering, dying to ask. I’ll tell you: these are my pecs.)
110 – You write that the disgusting creatures Khan has put in Chekov’s ear – the Ceti Alpha 5 eels, were actually Andean shrimp, cousin of the armadillo, an endangered creature, and they were smuggled through customs for the movie by Ole Machiado. You made this up, right?
As you tell it, you fought like hell to keep the hopeful ending out of The Wrath of Khan. But 99% of Trekkies wanted Spock to come back from the dead. And I’m willing to bet you’re glad Doyle brought Holmes back from the dead.
A key moment in your book,The View from the Bridge, is the filming of Spock’s death scene, and the emotion in the room.
If Kirk is Horatio Hornblower, isn’t Spock Sherlock Holmes?
You made “The Day After” in 1983, the TV movie about nuclear war. A hundred million people watched it, and apparently even Reagan was affected by it. But you faced enormous opposition and criticism. How bad was it and why did they react that way?
156 - You say you’re not a creative genius of the first or second order. Quote, “I could never write the ‘Odyssey,’ but I could turn it into a very good screenplay.” Tell me more about this. Do you wish you were more like, I don’t know, Kurosawa or Kubrick?
When you write a screenplay, then start tweaking it through all the drafts, what’s the dialogue attrition rate? Why? Is this just you or is it the same for most movies?
You are in your mid 60s now. Why did it take you until now to write this memoir?
Thanks for joining us on Off-Ramp.
Nicholas Meyer, writer and director. His memoir is called “The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood.” He’s selling and signing copies at Borders Northridge on Wednesday (Sep 2) and Village Books in the Palisades on Thursday (Sep 3).
I’ve had to edit this version of our interview, but for the whole thing, go to kpcc.org and click on Off-Ramp. For Filmweek, I’m John Rabe.
This is Off-Ramp, I’m John Rabe. We’re talking with Nicholas Meyer about his memoir about filmmaking, “The View from the Bridge.”
More with Nicholas Meyer coming up, as Off-Ramp continues.
Nicholas Meyer, writer and director. His memoir is called “The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood.” To buy a copy online and have it benefit KPCC, go to kpcc.org and click on Off-Ramp. This is Off-Ramp, on 89.3-KPCC.
I have a theory that Frederick Forsyth wrote The Day of the Jackal after reading Holmes. Isn’t it “The Adventure of the Aluminum Crutch?”
Stan Lee's Time Jumper
UPDATED 9/2/2009:
Given Disney's acquisition of Marvel this week, we thought you'd like to hear our interview with the man who made Marvel acquireable in the first place. True Believers, since you listen to Off-Ramp, you already knew Stan Lee was already working with Disney. AUDIO 1: the long Comic Con interview. AUDIO 2: a much shorter one. And look inside for info on the new Time Jumper episode. -- John
Stan Lee -- the man who made Marvel Comics huge -- has a new project with Disney called Time Jumper. It's a movie/comics hybrid called a "motion comic." Here's a long version of the group interview he gave at San Diego Comic Con on Thursday, July 23d, to John Rabe and ...
Julian Bermudez, Gazettes Newspapers of Long Beach; Brian Heater, PC Magazine's gearlog.com; Joseph McCabe, SFX Magazine; Trina Schwimmer, gamingangels.com CEO; and Chris Ullrich, flickcast.com.
UPDATE 9/2/2009: They've just released Episode 3 of Time Jumper. Check out the links to the left for more info and a chance to meet Stan in the flesh. --John
Masked News Avenger
NOTE FROM JOHN RABE: The box of masks I bought for a remodelling job came in handy this week because my car doesn't have AC and I can't close the windows.