Sorry for the lateness of this, but
There are two classical music stations in Los Angeles. The longest-existing one is KUSC-FM, but there is actually a more recent one on, of all things, AM -- KMZT. (K-Mozart.) On the weekends, KMZT remain classical, but have some different programming in the mornings. And what I discovered last week is that at 10 AM (L.A. time) on Saturdays, they play a classic Broadway cast album. I totally forgot about that, but today they just started playing the original cast recording of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." Those who live in Los Angeles can simply put on 1260 AM. But out-of-towners can still get it online. Just click here below and then select "Listen Live." (If you get this too late, just remember they'll have another show next Saturday...)
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Over on Mark Evanier's wonderful website here, he's been running a list that was published about the country's favorite fast-food restaurants, and giving his wildly entertaining play-by-play analysis of each. The other day, he discussed Burger King, which...well, let's say it was not among his favorites. That reminded me though of when I worked at Burger King as one of my first jobs in high school. (My mother, for some reason, always tended to refer to it as "King Burger.") I always sort of liked the place, though I was just a kid, so my sense of fine cuisine is not what is today, or perhaps the quality has plummeted over the years. But my main memory of Burger King is how I almost revolutionized the company. Burger King always prided itself on its "char-broiled" burgers. They had (and I assume still have) a couple of conveyer belts -- one went slow through the charbroiler for the meat, and the other zipped through with the buns. The employee manning the conveyers would race around, grab the product, put the burger together, and drop it in an aluminum warmer.
(I think you also put cheese on some of them, and placed them in a special part of the warmer. I'm guessing that special orders were made in the back, though at this point, many decades past, I don't have a clue...) Anyway, it was exhausting work trying to keep up with the orders, and make sure there were always some prepared burgers in the warmer bin, so that they could be grabbed instantly for fast, immediate service. The trick in trying to keep up was not letting the warmer run out, so as not to be screamed at by the overbearing boss. One day, however, I came up with a system that turned the store on its ear. I don't know why it took most people who manned the conveyor belt a long time. I suspect they did it orderly: put down a burger, put down a bun, run around and get them, or something like that. Me, what I came up with for the conveyer belts would have been Henry Ford proud. I just started slapping down burgers on the belt, since they needed a head-start, and only after threw on the buns. I timed it so that by the moment I raced around to the other end, everything was coming out at the right instant. I whipped the burgers and buns together, stacked them quickly in the warmer, had built in a long-enough buffer for me to run back to the front to toss in some more, only to rush around again as they came falling out. Whereas it was a struggle for most employees to keep burgers in the warmer bin before running out, forcing the servers to wait, mine kept stacking up and up. And up. The burgers were filling the bin to the point where it was almost overflowing. Indeed, I was on the verge of them spilling over. The servers weren't even coming close to keeping up with me. That's when the over-bearing boss wandered by. He took one look at the warmer bin, and almost burst a blood vessel in his head. "What are you doing??!" he screamed. The problem, you see, was that I was too efficient. There was no way the servers would be able to get through that jammed bin, and as the boss put it the burgers at the bottom would be all soggy and wasted. I was bluntly admonished to go back and slow the bejeepers down. (Hey, was it my fault that they didn't have enough customers to eat through the bin fast enough??) And so, back I trudged to the front of the conveyer for char-broiling, putting on the brakes, sloooowing way down, and boringly putting on one burger and bun at at time. Oh-so pedestrian. Just one more example of The Man and Corporate America stomping out the true innovators. If this manager, if all of Burger King could have gotten on the ball, and marketed things so that there were lines out the door of people, all able to get their burger instantly using the RJ Elisberg Method of Fine Fast-Food Preparation, to this day King Burger could have been the #1 fast-food outlet in the world. With their own sign of Billions and Billions and BIllions Sold. At the very least, they could have had a sign that said, "Billions and Billions and Billions Made." Last night, I saw the documentary Tim's Vermeer, a film from of all people magicians Penn and Teller. (It was directed by Teller and produced by Penn Jillette. It follows a friend of theirs, Tim Jenisen, who’s a very successful inventor and technician from Texas -- in fact, a two-time Emmy winner for innovations -- who sets out to prove a theory by David Hockney about how artist Johannes Vermeer painted with such vibrant realism, most-especially for the time, a mystery since the Dutch master left no notes, by re-creating a famous Vermeer work -- even though he's never painted in his life. (That effort isn't limited to just artwork, but is down to personally reconstructing the very conditions, as well -- all the miniscule conditions, building most everything from scratch, from grinding the paint to building a work room. Despite never having done any of those things before, either. The theory overlaps lines of general research from British art historian Philip Steadman. Both Hockney and Steadman are in the film quite a bit. The film runs 80 minutes, though to be clear parts of it are definitely slow -- one friend who saw the documentary earlier thought it could have been trimmed and been a great episode of Nova. For me, however, I loved the pacing, and it got a wonderful reception at the Writers Guild screening. Half the fun of the film, I think -- indeed part of the point -- is watching the painstaking, near-obsessive, borderline idiotic effort this guy makes. And you can only get that with the unrelenting, minute detail. Here's the very entertaining trailer. Quips and pictures of double-toilet stalls aside, Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins has a scathing article about the problems facing the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. And very serious problems. The cost is only part of that problem, and the small part. Far larger is the terrorist threat, given the ongoing battles between Russia and Chechnyan rebels -- and more. This isn't all guesswork, there are been recent bombing and deaths near Sochi recently. As she writes in one part --
"Let’s be clear about something: The people most at risk in Sochi are ordinary Russians. They’re the ones being drained and even impoverished by these crooked $50 billion Games, and who are at greater risk of being killed because nationalist insurgents in the North Caucasus have promised to add blood to the tab. Scare stories about “black widows” infiltrating the village, and warships on alert, aren’t the half of it. Insurgents from Chechnya, Dagestan and Abkhazia have vowed to strike the Olympics, and they have the capacity to do it. In 2013 there were 375 deaths from attacks in the region. In 2012 Russian forces found a cache of ammunition just 24 miles from Sochi meant for attacks on the Games, including homemade bombs, land mines, mortars and grenade launchers. Then there are infuriated Syrian fighters seeking revenge for Putin’s support of President Bashar al-Assad. To put it plainly, Putin and the IOC have chosen to host an Olympics on the edge of a war zone." One added concern has been that the Russian government has not looked outside the country for assistance with security. On the positive side, I heard on the radio just yesterday afternoon that a Russian official has finally made an overture to NATO for help. The American NATO officer in charge is now studying the proposal. You can read the whole article by clicking here. If you need another reason not to go to Sochi, Russia, for the Winter Olympics -- adding on to the list of weather, threats of terrorism, national policy on homosexuality, and organization -- we have one more to include. It comes from this photo taken by Steven Rosenberg of the Associated Press. This comes from the Biathalon Center bathroom facility. Yes, it's true. The designers in all their wisdom have put two toilets in one stall. To make matters worse -- and yes, that's possible -- there is only one paper dispenser, which sits on one side, so clearly the other person would have to reach over.
For a country with such a concern over homosexuality, it's fascinating to see how open-minded they are about other things... There is a domestic violence bill before the Kentucky state legislature, and a state rep Joe Fischer (R-Fort Thomas) has joined the honor roll of shameless pandering thugs. In the "How do you look at yourself in the mirror" class.
He attached an amendment banning abortion after 20 weeks. And his fake-defense to justify his reprehensible action was to say, "The most brutal form of domestic violence is the violence against unborn children." No, really, he said that. Seriously. If Mr. Fischer wants to sponsor a bill banning abortion after 20 weeks, that's his right. But to attach it to a completely separate matter and try to make them seem the same is where he leaps, prances, and explodes far over the line of decency. "The most brutal form of domestic violence is the violence against unborn children." If I had a wish in all this, it would be that he goes to visit a shelter for the victims of actual domestic violence and has the courage to make that same statement. It wouldn't shock me to discover that seconds later he would understand completely what domestic violence actually was. Occasionally, I do try to wonder how some people can say things with a straight face or if they understand the words coming out of their mouths, though I don't wonder too hard because I don't want my head to explode. To say, for instance, that more brutal than battering a woman is anything that concerns something not even born yet is one of those things. Never mind, of course, that domestic violence relates specifically to acts by members of a household to another member, and abortion does not. Again, even if you believe abortion is the worst crime in the world, it is not domestic violence. And still, we get: "The most brutal form of domestic violence is the violence against unborn children." And the Republican Party gets all upset when they are charged with waging a war on women. Wherever would one get that idea?? I mean, geez, Joe Fischer just gave you a twofer. The sun may shine bright on that old Kentucky home, but with the way some think there, I suspect they keep the curtains drawn. And it's not to keep the sun out. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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