bruckhorn

The talk of the fire hydrants is starting to smack of political fodder. Fire hydrants are designed to provide water for 2-3 house fires, max. No hydrant system has been designed and installed that has the capability of providing enough water to hundreds of fire trucks simultaneously. Now, if you wanna bitch about how many public works systems in the US date from the 1930s and before... I'm not gonna stop you. I remember a tale of a composer suffering from most of his scores getting destroyed due to the Northridge earthquake back in the 90s. The damage wasn't due to structural damage to his studio, or a fire caused by a broken gas line. Nope, it was from the water sloshing out of his pool, downhill, into the studio where the scores had fallen from the shelves in the shaking. He didn't look amused by it, so I didn't pursue which insurance policy was used to pay for the repairs.

The 20th. The day I'm getting my root re-re-canal. What are the chances I remember to check out the sound clips? Should be able to get the shipment in time for my birthday (the day between John's and Jerry's).

Maybe he was insisting that Han shot first.

I’m not joking and stop calling me Shirley.

For forty years, I've called him The Voice. And not it has been silenced. I remember how pissed I was when Darth Vader's mask was taken off and there was this little wimpy white guy. I wanted to see the biggest, baddest, mofah in the galaxy-- you know, the man behind The Voice! Later on, I would learn about the symbolism and all that jazz, but still a major disappointment for my thirteen year-old self. And, he has the best line in Field of Dreams. Sure the monologue at the end is great (what oratory skills), but the spin he put on the simple "Rules. There are no rules here." Classic. I quote it frequently. Not as often as "You're killin' me, Smalls" from another film Jones appeared in, The Sandlot, but it still gets its play. One more thing. He's was one of the few people in Hollywood who could call John Williams, "Kid."

Chris posted a link to an update on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/chrissiddallmusic It was on Jun 24. Previously, he had stated that he was planning on releasing Braveheart in 2023 and a quartet of titles in 2024: The Land Before Time, Cutthroat Island, Batman: Mask of Phantasm, and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Update: Braveheart is now slated for 2025, its 30th anniversary. The Land Before Time is in process and he views it as being his next release. He has posted a video of a follow-along score for the opening cue. Cutthroat Island and Batman: Mask of Phantasm are still under license and could be the next one after The Land Before Time, but with this year being the 40th anniversary of Star Trek III, he may move that up in the pipeline, depending on public feedback. Other items: he is working on a book that is "over a dozen" Disney songs arranged for orchestra that were performed in concert in May. His description leads me to think that the bulk of the work is done and is just needing the finishing touches. He also mentioned another title that he decline to state, but wrote that it's done and ready to go, but was originally going to be digital only and he is trying to obtain the needed rights to physically publish it. So, the mystery title could be next, if a modification to the publishing deal can be concluded quickly. "It's an achingly pretty score which is regarded by many as one of the greatest ever written." And has cues not used in the movie. Also: the complete score has not been officially released. (Not knowing the title, I allow that a bootleg could be out there.) Any guesses?

The first words I said to my nephew, Jacob: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown." My sister smiled; I think she may have betted with my brother-in-law about it. More than once, when asked for a favor, I've replied, "Is it a felony favor?" A variation on "Was it a felony favor?" I got to meet him back in the 90s and chatted with him briefly. He was one helluva writer. Shame he got shafted over directing The Two Jakes. I wonder what he would have done with it. Nicholson's pacing was way too slow. Even, but glacial.

From TV, but then some of the Python quotes are from TV, too. "Why is your screen name 'John Williams'?" "Because I always score." And, I believe the appropriate response from any JWFAN member is: A-fuckin'-men! My apologies for the swearing, but not for the eliding.

Beetlejuice is now available for ordering: https://neumation-music.com/products/danny-elfman-beetlejuice-in-full-score

"You're killin' me, Smalls!"

The Journey of Natty Gann But, I never had a chance. It was announced and released the day after I left on vacation and when I returned and got back online, it was already sold out. Then there's Dial of Destiny. I canceled the order when the shipping was nearly as much as the disc itself. I figure it would be available cheaper though Amazon. I chose-- poorly.

They have posted another “coming soon” title: John Barry’s The Last Valley. https://neumation-music.com/products/john-barry-the-last-valley-in-full-score

Buy the books and read them to find out! Please let there be e-book versions. With my eyesight, I like the ability to enlarge the font size that e-books allow.

They're just trying to keep you humble and help you maintain your fanboy cred.

Considering that for Star Wars, we're talking hours of unreleased material, "few" is acceptable to describe the unreleased music from the Indiana Jones films. Disney will surely use the poor sales of the announced Indy set as an excuse to not do any proper complete scores to Indy or Star Wars. We're too small of a niche market for it to care. Hopefully, Intrada stays on its good side and eventually gets a chance. How old is Doug?

I predict two titles I'll want to immediately order. One that I'll wait on and a year from now still wouldn't have ordered. And two that'll make me hope that someone will like those. And Jay now appears to be counting down the minutes in his avatar...

So, Jay, will you get a screen cap of yourself and use it as an avatar once Black Friday rolls around? I am surprised by the amount of topical humor; they have usually eschewed it in the past knowing that the material might sit on the shelf for a while before being tapped for an episode. I guess knowing that it's was the final batch, it was a case a "Whaddya gonna do? Cancel us?" The swap and having Colin and Ryan do the singing for "Greatest Hits" on last week's episode just screams them knowing its the last go around, so let's have some fun. Looking forward to the rest of the shows...

Who put my reading glasses in my sunglasses case? Probably Zimmer pulling a prank. Germans don't really get humor. C'mon, schadenfreude anyone?

The Scarface LP comes off as really, REALLY! Order now and wait four months for delivery. Can't imagine any production delays occurring in the interim. Ot course, we're still waiting for the JFK release that MV said he was working on years ago.

Box -> "I think I need a bigger box" from the Taco Bell commercial that was a tie-in to Godzilla. Or: Us overthinking the picture = Brainstorm!

There is an old curse: may you have to watch a Wagner opera without a sandwich. Or, something to that extent. When I was in college multiple professors expressed their hatred of Wagner, stating that he "destroyed harmony" and apparently Western music in general. It was really bad. Poor Bruckner got painted with, "He wrote one symphony, nine times." Pretty tame compared to old Richie. After reading analysis of Williams' Star Wars and how it was influenced by the two, I took a listen and decided I liked them. Though both composers (especially Bruckner) are performance dependent. If you don't like them, fine. Back to the disappointing movies: There have been portions of movies that have disappointed me. For instance: The Dark Knight. I didn't see it until The Dark Knight Rises came out. I avoided it because of all of the praise the Heath Ledger got. From the clips I saw, I thought it was role that Paul Giamatti could have easily played. And having seen the movie, I still think that. The prequels: nobody had the strength of character to tell Lucas: this sucks. Get a writer, get a director, and stick to the technical aspects, George. The sequels: plan the damn thing out before shooting frame one. After The Force Awakens, I told a guy in the theater that it was an okay remake of Star Wars. And after The Last Jedi, "Where in the hell do they go from here?" Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: too many characters and no reason to care about any of the new ones. And Highlander II really is in the argument for worst movie ever. Right up there with Up the Academy.

At least it wasn't a sex dream.

This was back when the internet was still somewhat new and we still had dial-up modems. Before the dark times. Before the empire social media. The track title was "The Princess Appears", so that's what we called it. Or we got specific and referred to it as the music from when Luke is looking out at the sunsets. Then we'd get into a discussion if "sunsset" was correct or "sunsets". And then one day a sage said the magic words "binary sunset", thus killing the sunsset/sunsets debate. Truly, a sad day.

Isn't that the release date of the MM complete JW Star Wars boxed set? I heard someone's birth year as being in 2027 last night, no maybe time is more fluid than I think.

I was pleased that I was able to order both a physical and e-book. The cover photo of the "modern" Jerry needs to be fixed-- he did not suddenly become left-handed!