According to a post first seen last night on The Intertia and this afternoon being reported everywhere, the filmmaker who gave us Endless Summer and the motocross flick On Any Sunday has died. I met Bruce Brown at the Action Sports Retailer show in San Diego in 1994 and talked to him, surprised by how down-to-earth he was compared to all the other industry moguls and surf stars with their millionaire cover model ‘tudes that were at the convention center that day. We spoke for a while and he signed an original Endless Summer poster for me. Then pioneer Hawaii big wave surfer Greg Noll walked up and terrified him with a friendly laughing and unexpected bear hug that looked like he’d get crushed by. Bruce Brown was really skinny, maybe 57 years-old at the time, while Noll was in the same age group but maybe between 250 to 300 pounds and beefy. Brown said afterwards, “I need to hang a sign around my neck that says, ‘Do not hug’.” Lol
Legendary Filmmaker Bruce Brown (December 1, 1937 – December 10, 2017)Legendary Filmmaker Bruce Brown (December 1, 1937 – December 10, 2017)Legendary Filmmaker Bruce Brown (December 1, 1937 – December 10, 2017)
[This repost is from a new venue that I’ve opened up and I’d like to formally introduce. Prospector will be a place where we’ll discuss the strange and complicated shifts that are occurring in our society regarding an often taboo subject, making money. Writers, bloggers, and analysts are invited to join in the discussion. But what I am really interested in are the views of participants in this new economy. While I intend to keep REVIEWER MAGAZINE focused on reviews and news of arts and entertainment, with some political analysis — as it has been for over 20 years — PROSPECTOR will be about economic issues. If you are a bold explorer and a risk taker in any money-making venture, or an entrepreneur with a new idea, contact me at Editor@ProspectorMagazine.com. ~RR]
Gates’ Tech City On A Hill
In The Arizona Desert Bill Gates Plans A Master Tech Community
I saw a click-bait article on my Facebook feed today and rather than follow it down its link rabbit hole I googled the main headline points and came up with this story, and then this story here about how Bill Gates recently bought 25,000 acres of desert sand, rock, and cactus in Tonopah, Arizona, for 80 million dollars and plans to turn it into a city with smart cars and other high tech features: ‘…Gates could do what Disney could not, because he has more control over the outcome, and because technology has advanced to a level that makes the overall vision more viable.’
Gates’ shining city in the desert will be called Belmont.
One news site quotes the Gates-owned real estate company who organized the purchase, Belmont Partners, as saying in a press release, “Belmont will create a forward-thinking community with a communication and infrastructure spine that embraces cutting-edge technology, designed around high-speed digital networks, data centres, new manufacturing technologies and distribution models, autonomous vehicles and autonomous logistics hubs”.
While this master plan can and should be replicated elsewhere, my first thought was, “Who’s going to provide the nightclubs and entertainment for the geeks?”
Okay, no seriously, what a great idea. Do you know how much BLM land may be freed up for development in the next three to seven years if Trump gets his way? Isn’t 95 percent of Nevada federal land that’s basically unused? Think of all the mega-casinos and convention centers that could be built.
And what about all the Appalachian towns and Rust-Belt cities in the Northeast that are dying because industry left them? Some smart tech billionaire could approach their city planners and say, “Right, let me invest all this money in your tired but scrappy little old town and I’ll turn it into a high-technology burg of the future with free high-speed internet for all but you give me and my company bargain basement deals and zoning rights on all the real estate you have for sale and 50 percent of all the returns your town makes in productivity and profit for the next fifty years.”
Or something like that. You get the idea. There is SO MUCH investment potential in vast swathes of this gigantic country if more people with the means like Bill Gates were allowed to take the chance. Positive change would happen fast!
1898 50-cent U.S. postal Western Mining Prospector: This design was taken from a drawing by Frederic Remington, entitled “The Gold Bug.” It pictures an old prospector, who, with two pack burros, makes his way through mountain country in search of riches.
No one’s really defended Donald Trump’s Access Hollywood tape, unless you count his girlfriend Rudy Giuliani, until Melania stepped forward yesterday on CNN with Anderson Cooper.
It was painful to watch but elicited a lot of sympathy for the statuesque penthousewife. What else could she do? Her whole future is tied to the Donald.
They’re all lies, she told Anderson, as the reporter nodded in acknowledgement and looked away from her. She said she “never knew” the PEOPLE writer Natasha Stoynoff who accused Donald of hitting on her. This same writer came to the Trump’s wedding and interviewed Donald at their Mar-A-Lago estate and she said The Donald tried his moves on her while Melania was out of the room. Later on after she quit writing about Don the Dooshbag and says she saw “Melania on Fifth Avenue, in front of Trump Tower as she walked into the building, carrying baby Barron” where Melania asked about her and why they hadn’t seen her around lately. Melania denies any of that happened and insinuates that she would’t ever be bothered with even knowing this peasant. So she’s a liar and the story needs to be pulled by PEOPLE Magazine. Her lawyer sent a letter saying so.
She asked that people shouldn’t feel sorry for her, but that’s not easy. Some things money can not easily compensate. But Melania makes an attractive surrogate for the Republican front runner. She’s the picture of a devoted wife defending her embattled spouse, and it’s hard to not want to believe her when she says she has faith in her husband, that she knows his accusers are liars, even as her eyes dart away from those of her interviewer as she says this.
Anderson Cooper held back noticeably too. It didn’t seem appropriate for Cooper to bring up the plagiarized speech Melania used with words originally spoken by First Lady Michelle, or about Melania’s website being redirected to Trump.com after it was reported that it had falsely claimed for more than 10 years that she had a degree in architecture and design from the University of Ljubljana.
But now of course we can believe Melania when she looks to the left and tells Anderson Cooper without any momentary eye contact that those women are lying and she believes her husband.
To cap off the interview I think she even said that she’s seen women come right up to Donald right in front of her and give him their number and say they want to “work” for him, as she squints her eyes at Anderson knowingly as if to say she’s fully aware of what they mean by “work” for her husband. Isn’t she admitting that as far as she’s concerned being a female and working for Donald Trump is a defacto sexual arrangement? It sure looked that way.
I really felt sorry for Melania at that point in the interview. The natural reaction is to want to believe a devoted wife who steps up to defend her man.
She’s tough and beautiful, but she’s to be pitied. At least she came out of her period of sequestering. The last we’ve heard of her before yesterday’s appearance on CNN was wit the ruckus over the DailyMail UK’s September 2 retraction of a story from August about allegations that the Slovenian model agency she worked for in Milan was ‘something like a gentleman’s club’ for wealthy clients to hook up with high priced models.
Melania Trump and Anderson Cooper on AC360, 10-17-16.
Lisa Carver’s Resurrected Seminal Band Needed A Ride
to L.A., so what else could a man do but volunteer?
by Reviewer Rob
[9/4/16 No idea why this post was on Private for this past month. I must have forgotten to finish writing it and then publish it as Public after starting the post. Anyways, here it is…]
Here’s some videos from the LA roadtrip with the charming ladies of Suckdog last month.
Lisa Carver and her band SUCKDOG in the Reviewervan on their way to the City of Angels to do a show. Click the links at the bottom this post for the videos.
Part 1 of 2:
Part 2 of 2, the Grande Finale’:
The cellphone Car Seat Theater interview with the band on the drive up earlier that day:
Talking ink: Low Gallery in Barrio Logan at a mid-summer show during ComicCon
by Reviewer Rob
I had both my Nikons hanging on my neck this night with the goal of playing around with their capabilities. The D5200 and D5300 were set on their fastest ISOs for a shoot at Meegan’s art gallery/performance venue Low. I’d come to see a couple of bands play, Lisa Carver’s Suckdog and The Vaginals (Vaginals sounded great, by the way). It had been a couple of years since I’d last seen Meegan and I noticed she’d gotten a couple of new tattoos.
Meegan Nolan is the stylish owner and proprietor of Low Gallery. She’s all about art — the appreciation as well as the business of it — and only now while ‘shopping this pic did it dawn on me that she was wearing a stylin’ cartoon t-shirt (is that the Tazmanian Devil?). Classic, it was, after all, the weekend of the famous San Diego International ComicCon. Yes as a fashionista Meegan is also a triple threat. On this night her shiny gold pants were amazing. But these classic-era style tattoos were what I really liked. The symbolic “Black Rose” is on her right forearm and a standing nude ‘a la Sailor Jerry adorns her left.
I shot this while the bands were setting up for the show and Meegan was standing against the back wall of the space. No flash was used, just ambient light, so it’s grainy. Like I said, I was pushing what the low light ability of the cameras could do. I think at 1/100th of a second it’s pretty decent. Photoshop brought out more contrast and color from the original RAW image.
Image file info:
Nikon D5300
Tamron lens 18-270mm F3.5-6.3 DiII VC PZD B008N
Focal Length 18mm (in 35mm: 27mm)
Exposure: 1/100 sec; f/3.5; ISO 12800; Manual; Pattern Metering
Flash: Did not fire
Meegan Nolan with her new arm ink: a black rose and nude in the style of Sailor Jerry. Photo by ReviewerPhoto.com 2016.
