Man, lots of newbies arriving lately. Reminds me of late-2007. Anyway, welcome to the board. We can always use new blood around here to help skew the age curve downward. Lovely name, by the way. Hope you enjoy your time here. For some reason, that photo does look photoshopped.

You called? Welcome aboard the board...welcome to infinate hours of lunacy!

Another of my favourite scenes is when the kids come and ask Damone if he has Blue Oyster Cult tickets, and Damone says "No I don't have any Blue Oyster Cult tickets...where were you 3 months ago? I was THIS close to working at 7-11."

Wow, I had no idea Swensen's was still around. Although, if they are still in LA, they're doing a good job of hiding. All the old Swensen's I remember in Santa Monica, Westwood and Hollywood are all gone. Haagen Dazs and Penguins wiped them out. Even when I'm in San Francisco I don't notice any Swensen's. Can't really recall how good they were and where they stand in relation to Haagen Dazs, Baskin-Robbins, Coldstone Creamery, Fosselman's, etc.

^^^ As any screenwriter can tell you, what's on the page and what makes it onto the screen aren't always the same. Swensons, Carl's Jr., All-American Burger...those are all Southern California specific locations. Who knows why they didn't use Swenson's or Carl's, Jr in the film. More location trivia...all the All-American Burgers are gone now. The last one left, on Sunset blvd. near where Hugh Grant got caught with that hooker, finally closed last year. Carls Jr. is still going strong, but Swensons bit the dust long ago in the 90's. Oh, and Ridgemont is a fictional place, but they used the Sherman Oaks Galleria for the interior scenes at the mall. Alas, the Sherman Oaks Galleria, while technically still there, is much different from what it used to be.

Teen-age angst may be universal, but the way it's expressed frequently depends on cultural mores. One reason Quadrophenia isn't hard for an American to understand is that the Mods were a clique that had interests an American could relate to: R & B, scooters, girls and drugs. But lots of American teen flicks of the 70's just didn't travel well across the pond...American Graffiti, Van Nuys Blvd., Hollywood Knights...and the primary reason is the lack of a "cruising" scene. When I was in Europe, the teen-age friends I had didn't see getting a driver's license as a big deal, whereas in America, every kid can't wait til they're 16 and can be FREE! For that is what the car signifies in American culture: freedom. The ability to just pick up and go...go anywhere. Away from your parents. Away from school. Away from work. Away from your worries. That's why so many European cars were ugly, tiny, boxy, utilitarian things, while American cars grew ever fanciful. Cars were often the repositories of our dreams and aspirations. Whereas just about every town in the US had a local car scene, the whole hot-rodding thing didn't exist in Europe. Oh sure, Europeans love their racing, F1, motorcycles, etc., but the idea of going down to the junkyard or used car lot, and buying an old 55 Chevy or 32 Ford or 66 Mustang, and building her up, piece by piece, into a road-chewing beast, is an idea foreign to most non-American cultures. Notice I said most...I'm well aware of the Japanese car scene, and I even met a cat in Heidelberg, who was obsessed with Detroit muscle, and had bought several already and had them shipped overseas. But the American high school rituals of Friday night football games and cruising the strip afterwards and on Saturdays don't exist in most places. That said, and as much as I love "Fast Times...", a couple of things still stick in my craw when I watch the movie. The Point. I realize the San Fernando Valley is not a hotbed of cultural sophistication, but are you telling me The Point was the best place those kids could find to make-out? Hell, I went to high school in Riverside, which was a hick town in the 70's. But even there, we had Make-out Mountain, where you could park and neck with the glittering lights of the Inland Empire below. Or there was the Grove, which was this secluded creek area near an orange grove, where lots of impromptu keggers happened. But to take a girl to some dirty old baseball dugout to score? No matter how much of a sexist, horny wolf I might have been when I was younger, I would NEVER subject a girl to that, virgin or otherwise. What makes it WORSE, the Pacific Stereo dude takes Stacy there! Dude, you got a job and your own place, theoretically...but even if you don't, spring for a motel fer chrissakes. I mean, she gave you her cherry and all you gave her was splinters in her back. Gauche, man...totally gauche.

Hey, at least she took a nip. Did you see that clip of the Queen and what's-his-name during their trip to Ireland last week? They both stared at the pint as if it was an alien. They looked ridiculous. If being a royal means you can't have a bit of Guinness in public, then you can have the job. One-half Irish, myself.

President Obama is visiting Ireland this week, beginning today. I was hoping that some of the Irish board members here could provide some firsthand reports. From what I've seen so far, it looks like the Irish love him. I just hope he doesn't wimp out like the Royals did and not drink the Guinness. Drink it, Barry! P.S. This thread is about Obama's trip to Ireland. You want to bash the President, take it somewhere else!

Silver Rider, the opening scene with Stacy takes place at Perry's Pizza, not an ice cream parlor. And Steve, wasn't it Rock and Roll used in the Cadillac ad, not Black Dog? Ok, enough with the nitpicking... If there's any movie I've seen almost as much as The Song Remains the Same(93 times in the theatre alone), it's Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I spent the 70's reading Cameron Crowe's pieces in Rolling Stone and the L.A. Times. I remember reading Fast Times in Rolling Stone, and even have a 1st edition of the book. But I don't think anyone was expecting the impact the movie had...Cameron Crowe(screenplay) and Amy Heckerling(director) were non-entities in Hollywood and the cast was full of young unknowns. The most recognizable faces in the cast were Ray Walston, Nancy Wilson, and Vincent Schiavelli. Of course, the movie's release soon changed that, as almost all the cast members went on to have careers in film, the most prominent being Sean Penn and Jennifer Jason Leigh. And Phoebe Cates...oh Phoebe Cates. I don't think there's a man between 40-50 years old that doesn't remember the first time he saw that epic, ICONIC scene at the pool that Steve has kindly posted above. Of course, seeing it on youtube or video is one thing...but Phoebe Cates on a 60-foot screen is the stuff of legends. So many memories tied to this movie...and so many quotable lines. And it's an "American" movie, meaning you really have to be American to get the cultural subtext. I know this because I saw this movie twice with European crowds, one German and the other French, and there weren't as many laughs as you would get with an American audience. Some of the cultural references went over their heads, and that whole world of "high school and malls" was alien to them. But it remains an American comedy classic, and one I hope succeeding generations discover as well. "People on LUDES should not drive." ~ Jeff Spicoli "I hope you had a HELLUVA piss, Arnold!" ~ Brad Hamilton

You want CLUELESS? Here's a story about a woman who was finally kicked off a train after yapping on her cellphone for 16 hours while in the "Quiet Car", a designated "no cellphone" zone. Then she has the nerve to claim SHE felt "disrespected"...someone needs to tell her that respect is not owed, it's earned. Read on for the full story:Woman thrown off train for cellphone talking Now, after reading that, I'm sure you have 2 questions: 1) Why did it take 16 hours for someone to do something about it? If I had been on that train, I would've said something after 15 minutes.; and 2) Whose cellphone battery lasts 16 hours? Who can even talk for 16 hours without going hoarse? She's lucky that wasn't an east coast train...someone might've strangled her.

I just had a V-8!

I am taking my godson to the midnight performance of "Re-animator - the Musical". The first 3 rows are designated the "Splash zone", where audience members are liable to be splattered by blood. They give out ponchos to wear. Of course my godson wants to sit there. Re-animator the Musical This weekend I have a book call in Malibu to help out with, and a Harold Lloyd book-signing Sunday afternoon.

Actually, the fact no one did gives me hope. It means nobody here took that malarkey seriously.

Regarding burning the Quran. NOTHING was ever solved or changed by burning a book, whether it was the Quran, the Bible, Mein Kampf, or My Two Dads. People who burn books just look silly. The same goes for record burners...whether they're burning disco records or Beatles records. Regarding the free speech/hate speech quagmire, I realize the 1st Amendment protects all forms of speech, but wasn't there a Supreme Court decision by Oliver Wendell Holmes that placed certain restrictions, (ie. you can't falsely yell "fire!" in a crowded theatre), on free speech? I don't know the case name off-hand.

There's probably a video-track recording, too...similar to the Seattle Kingdome 1977 tape.

You know, I'm sure you're a nice guy, but your habit of responding to people with either: 1. 2. Nope 3. FAIL is really annoying, and adds nothing to the discussion. It doesn't matter whether I agree with Magic Fills The Air's point or not, but she's right in that your response of "Fail" doesn't explain how she is wrong; it's a snotty, childish response. And merely stating a Supreme Court decision doesn't mean anything either. As history has shown, the USSC is not infallible. Otherwise, we would still be living under the Dredd Scott decision.

It's like the real estate agent's mantra says...location, Location, LOCATION!

Can't wait...I'll be sitting beside a fire, roasting marshmallows...and souls.

ONLY $2-3!?!? Christ, you scored dude! I can tell you there's no way you'd find a Big Bambu w/ paper for that price in L.A.

Wait...let me dig out my harp and washboard. I assume, being one of Jimmy's right-hand men, Steve can handle the guitar. Spontaneous combustion awaits.

You lucky sod. Might I inquire where you found this(garage sale, swap meet, record store) and how much?

One of my interests in life are statistical oddities; occurances that go against the conventional wisdom. I'm a big fan of Richard Feynman and his writings, one of the great original minds of the 20th century. Which brings me to this NHL thread. By almost every significant measure, the NHL ranks a distant 4th among the 4 major North American Sports Leagues: the National Football League(NFL); National Basketball League (NBA); Major League Baseball (MLB); National Hockey League (NHL). If you add in NASCAR, hockey would be 5th. And if you cast your net beyond the North American borders and threw F1 racing and Premiere League Football (soccer) in, the NHL would fall even further down the list. Yet, here on the LZ board, football, baseball and basketball threads struggle to stay afloat for any length of time, while the NHL thread is on its 125th page! How can one explain this? I don't know the geographical breakdown of the members here, but I doubt Canadians are number one. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say the 2 major groups are the Europeans(counting the U.K.) and the United States. All things being equal, the social-economic-racial-gender makeup of this board shouldn't be drastically different than the pool of respondents for all the various sports polls. The fact that Led Zeppelin finished so high in that ESPN Rock Bracket poll suggests a corollary between sports fans and Led Zeppelin fans. And every sports poll ESPN has done shows the NHL behind the other three leagues. So why not here? In fact, given the preponderance of UK fans here, how is it that not even an English Premiere League thread can sustain the level of interest the NHL thread has? Not that this will keep me awake at night, but, in the wise words of Yul Brynner in "The King & I", "tis a puzzlement". As for what's going down now, I've gotta root for Vancouver. Poor Canada hasn't had a Stanley Cup-winning team since the 1993 Montreal Canadians beat the Gretzky-led Los Angeles Kings(their ONLY Stanley Cup appearance)...DAMN Marty McSorley and his illegal stick! By the way, you can thank the success of the Gretzky trade to LA for the fact that there are now hockey teams in Nashville, Tampa Bay, Carolina, and Phoenix. Sorry Canada.

WTF? This makes no sense. I'm reminded of that Chappelle show bit..."cocaine's a helluva drug."