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Kukla's Korner Hockey
Coyotes' Situation Coming To A Conclusion
by Paul on 06/14/13 at 06:06 AM ET
Comments (12)
from Dan Bickley of the Arizona Republic,
Divorces don't happen overnight. Most times, you can hear them coming.
Loose comments? A chilly change in tone? If you're a Coyotes fan, you were jolted by both before Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.
Commissioner Gary Bettman said time was running short on the city of Glendale. He said "stuff's gonna happen" in the next two weeks. He even tossed out the visual of a boarded-up Jobing.com Arena.
Not what you expect from a life partner.
Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly acknowledged for the first time that the Coyotes might not be playing in Arizona next season. He said the puck was in Glendale's end, assuming all city-council members actually would catch the metaphor.
It sounded a lot better when we were on the 1-yard line.
Filed in: NHL Teams, d, | KK Hockey | Permalink
Man if they moved them to a Canadian City wonder how much HRR and the salary cap would jump for season 2014-2015. That and all the outdoor games I would think it's going to jump pretty high.
Posted by tbassett on 06/14/13 at 09:56 AM ET
I''ll believe it when I see it.
And tbassett, IF the Yotes move, it'll be to a U.S. city.
The NHL knows that all Canadian cities like QC and Toronto would gladly pony up $300M (or more!) for expansion fee's.
City's like KC or Seattle would scoff at such a hefty price tag.
I can see PHX moving to Seattle above any other town.
It's a good sports town and without an NBA team (for now), they have a great chance of being successful there.
Posted by Hank1974 on 06/14/13 at 10:38 AM ET
I can see PHX moving to Seattle above any other town.
I think Vegas is a real possibility too. And it helps the NHL keep a SW presence.
Posted by SnLO from the binary digisphere on 06/14/13 at 10:42 AM ET
And tbassett, IF the Yotes move, it'll be to a U.S. city.
I don't think that's anywhere remotely close to a sure thing. Cities like KC and Seattle can't even get and keep NBA teams. There's not a lot to suggest an NHL team would fare any better.
There's always the chance Bettman et al will do something stubborn or stupid instead of insightful or perspicacious. Still, I tend to think their greed wins out over their stupidity, in most cases. The greedy move is to cash a big check from a buyer who will move a team to the Greater Toronto area, then cash a monstrous check every year in HRR-share from that club.
Posted by HockeyinHD on 06/14/13 at 11:02 AM ET
Cities like KC and Seattle can't even get and keep NBA teams
Seattle did it for 41 years.
If you don't know the history, why bother mentioning it?
Hockey would work out just fine in Seattle.
The only city that is arguably ahead of Seattle on the "potential relocation" list is Quebec City.
Posted by Alan from Atlanta on 06/14/13 at 12:05 PM ET
Hate to break it to everyone, but with the East already being lopsided with more teams, PHX wouldn't be moving to Toronto, or Hamilton, or Quebec City.
If they move they're going to Seattle, KC, or… the now-vacant Houston.
Posted by Primis on 06/14/13 at 12:32 PM ET
Not gonna happen in Vegas. I'm tired of explaining the arena situation. In short, there's no money. End of story.
If they don't get this settled by draft day 2013, Tippet's gone.
Posted by SYF from Twerkin' with Anastasia Ashley on 06/14/13 at 01:04 PM ET
I'm tired of explaining the arena situation.
Posted by SYF from a viewing moratorium of NBC's hockey coverage on 06/14/13 at 01:04 PM ET
my bad. sry, i'm not following the pracitcal viability of that locality beyond a team presence in a market. I don't mean that as a slight either.
Posted by SnLO from the binary digisphere on 06/14/13 at 01:22 PM ET
Naw, it's cool. Las Vegas as a media market isn't even ranked in the top 25. I don't get those boneheads in the NHL front office who keep giving Vegas the googly eyes and severe erections.
Posted by SYF from Twerkin' with Anastasia Ashley on 06/14/13 at 01:26 PM ET
Vegas is a locality that is in the national spotlight though. It is a destination location. So, my thought is the NHL is looking at it as a national exposure opportunity rather than building a local market. And local wise, maybe trying to pull in tourist money. But we all know that doesn't work so well (see Florida teams). they (NHL) keep having the awards show in Vegas too. It really seems they are trying to get the interest of the gambling world to build their empire much the same way it did for the NFL. Maybe.
Posted by SnLO from the binary digisphere on 06/14/13 at 01:37 PM ET
Heh. Even GR is a bigger (slightly, but still bigger) TV market than Vegas. Top 100 TV Markets (PDF File; estimates as of Jan. 1, 2013 for 2012-2013).
I'm all for Seattle. After seeing how they turned out for MLS, I've wished for no one else since then to have another pro franchise.
Posted by SYF from Twerkin' with Anastasia Ashley on 06/14/13 at 02:05 PM ET
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the NHL should put a team in Vegas, just they seem to want to.. possibly for the reasons I listed. I read you.
I agree, Seattle could be a great location and have the potential fanbase. My opinion is also based on seeing the crowd turn out for the Wold Cup Qualifier against Panama. But I don't think the NHL wants to risk cannibalizing the Vancouver market due proximity of the two cities. Strategically Portland would seem more likely if to improve / expand presence in the NW.
But really I have no clue, I'm all speculation and opinion. LOL
Posted by SnLO from the binary digisphere on 06/14/13 at 03:39 PM ET
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Buenos Aires (simply B.A. to its close knit ex-pat community) has long been hailed as South America's answer to a European city. Winding streets, flavorful cuisine, and some of the world's finest wines surely echo the Old World's calling cards on the other side of the Atlantic. But with a favorable rate of exchange, Argentina's exciting metropolis can offer all of that European luxury at accessible prices.
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It might have something to do with his chronic seasickness but that shouldn't take away from the gesture. Graeme Wood, the low-key founder of online budget travel group Wotif.com Holdings, is to donate one of his ocean racing yachts to charity.
To coincide with International Day of People with Disability on Friday, Wood will give away his redundant $500,000 transpac 52 yacht to Sailors with Disabilities. "They do a great job. [The boat] had been sitting around, so I rang up and said, 'Here, do you want a yacht?' '' Wood said yesterday. "I got out of offshore racing. I only do harbour racing now."
Wood said the boat, one of the original Wot yachts which has now been renamed Woteva, usually races with a crew of 15 and he expects similar crew numbers when Sailors with Disabilities takes it over. "A lot of these people are in a wheelchair or they only have one leg. It's a gutsy effort,'' he said. The official handover takes place at the Cruising Yacht Club on Friday in Sydney's Rushcutters Bay.
Wood also backs the Global Change Institute through the University of Queensland, to which he has given Wotif shares over the years. He has also contributed money to the likes of Jan Cameron for the Tasmanian Land Conservancy cause.
The Australian Financial Review


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Wave playoff tickets on sale
The Milwaukee Wave are offering $7 tickets for their home semifinal game in the MISL Playoffs, scheduled for 7 p.m. on March 10 at the U.S. Cellular Arena, as they pursue their seventh indoor soccer championship.
Tickets are on sale today and fans can purchase seats via Ticketmaster or calling (414) 224-9283. All seats in the arena are half-price for the game, which means VIP level tickets are $15, Preferred level seats and $12 and Premier level seats are $7.
Season ticket holders seats are reserved for them until Feb. 26; after that date those seats will be released.
The Wave (13-2) have already clinched a spot in the postseason and await their opponent in the two-game series in the semifinals. If each team wins one game, a 15-minute, tie-breaking "mini-game" will be played immediately after the contest in Milwaukee, which will be Game 2 of the series.
Milwaukee won championships in 1998, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2011 and 2012, and has adopted "Title Wave 7" as this year's playoff theme. If the Wave get through the semifinal round, the two-game championships series will be the weekend of March 14-16. Milwaukee's home date will be announced soon.
Five games remain in the Wave's regular season, including four at home. Their next contest is at 2 p.m. on Sunday against the Pennsylvania Roar.
Fans have the opportunity to win a precious gem from Robert Haack Diamonds in our "Kicks and Stones" promotion, and the first 1,000 fans receive a drawstring bag courtesy of Badger Max. Former Wave star Joe Hammes will be honored at halftime. For tickets, call (414) 224-9283 or visit ticketmaster.com.
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Season Six of The Sopranos, Tony Soprano lies close to death in a hospital bed after being shot in the stomach by the senile Uncle Junior. Tony dreams about a trip to Southern California where he is accidentally given the identity of another man. The "Join the Club" episode displays a unique mixture of fantasy and reality as the burly New Jersey crime boss wanders unrecognized around suburban Costa Mesa, California.
I find myself thinking about this fictional moment as I carry recording equipment down a dark street in New York City's West Village. It's a cold, wet night and steam comes up from a vent in a manhole cover. I'm following a man wearing frayed jeans, rain jacket, and battered hat, and then suddenly we both stop at the same doorway. The man turns into the light, and I realize that it's David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos --one of the most critically acclaimed and influential series in the history of television.
The 61-year-old Chase grew up as the only child of an Italian-American family in New Jersey. After drumming in garage bands during the 1960s, he ended up at the graduate film program at Stanford University. From 1976 to 1980, he was a writer-producer for The Rockford Files and won an Emmy for his television movie, Off the Minnesota Strip. Chase spent two seasons as a writer-producer for Northern Exposure and created the short-lived and much-admired series Almost Grown in 1988.
I introduce myself to Chase, and he presses a door buzzer. A moment later, we step out of the cold and enter the Manhattan home of Chase's friend Tom Fontana. The 55-year-old Fontana has had a strong influence on American television as the writer-producer of St. Elsewhere, Homicide: Life on the Street, and Oz, for which he has received Emmys, Peabodys, and Writers Guild Awards as well as a Humanitas Prize. In 2005, Chase and Fontana stood together on the same stage and received a special Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He, too, is taking a break from the arduous task of writing and co-producing a pilot for NBC, M-O-N-Y, being directed by Spike Lee.
In addition, Fontana is writing his first novel, so it seems appropriate that we end up in the townhouse's library where we are surrounded by thousands of books. There's a faint Victorian feeling in the air as the two friends sit in club chairs near a window overlooking the night streets of Lower Manhattan. Fontana drinks tea and talks about Europe while Chase sips a glass of merlot. Both writers are equally perceptive, but there are differences in personal style. Fontana is friendly and ebullient while Chase has a quiet, intense manner. The creator of The Sopranos seems tired from the strain of working on the show's final season but smiles and gains energy as the two writers begin to talk about their craft.
Tom Fontana: Here you are on the precipice of finishing the show. How are you feeling? You're at that point where it's really going to be over after all this time.
David Chase: I guess the reality has hit me, although maybe not really. We had the last cast table read today. We came in, and the regular cast were there. We usually have everybody who's in the show come in for the table read, but we stopped doing that the last three or four episodes just to minimize the chance of people talking [publicly about the plots]. So the regular cast was there, those of us who started out in the beginning and some of the newer people. When it was over -- and I didn't expect this -- it got quiet and nobody moved for a long time. Then Edie Falco was crying -- and she's not a spigot. And then it was like group therapy; people started talking. Jim Gandolfini says, "This is fucking weird." And we said why we're doing what we're doing. I finally began to realize I needed to say something as the guy who created and ran the show. I said, "Obviously, this has been a life-changing thing for all of us…" Then I said a few more things. Still, nobody moved. Somebody else said something, and still nobody moved. Nobody wanted to leave that room. It was very nice but odd. It was quiet, and nobody was getting up. It was really something.
Why We Write
Tom Fontana: Before we talk too much more about The Sopranos, I want to go way, way back, to the beginning, before you were a writer. Do you remember the first moment you realized something that you had seen or had read or heard was written? In other words, is there a moment where you said -- whether you were a year old or 10, or whatever -- somebody created this, as opposed to, "That's really Superman"?
David Chase: The first time I remember was when my father took me to the public library at night. I got a book -- I was probably seven or eight -- on Greek mythology. Flash forward to 1965 when I went to see Roman Polanski's Cul de Sac at the theater here on Third Avenue. When I came out of there and stood in the lobby, I remember thinking, Wait a minute, that's the work of one guy. I wonder if I could do that. I was beginning to understand that films didn't come out of a factory somewhere, that those names on the titles were like an author's name in a novel.
Tom Fontana: What did you start writing when you started to write?
David Chase: When I was a kid in high school, I had this idea that I would be a writer, that I would write novels. And I got a few pieces of paper and pencil and started writing a novel that was loosely based on the cook and his daughter at this summer camp where I had worked as a dishwasher. I got two pages into this thing and thought, Well, now what do I write? What happens next? I put it aside and never came back to it. In college, I did the same thing. But I took a creative writing course in my freshman year where I wrote one story, three pages long.
Tom Fontana: What did you study in college?
David Chase: English literature. But I was never serious about it and I never wrote much at all. I did mostly school assignments. What happened was I became besotted with film and then realized that however that works, the only way into it would be through writing. So strangely enough, in a way, I don't consider myself a writer. I mean, I do, but I don't think I could write anything but scripts and screenplays.
Tom Fontana: Well, writing a novel right now myself, I said to my editor, "You should call this the first and last novel by Tom Fontana because the process is too overwhelming."
David Chase: To me, it's so daunting I won't even go near the thought.
Tom Fontana: It's stupidity; it was complete stupidity for me to undertake this.
David Chase: What was so bad about it?
Tom Fontana: When you're writing a script, especially episodically, you go, Okay, I got that, I got this scene. I'll fix the other scene on the set, or the actors will carry the water, or the music will come in here and it'll save my ass because the scene really kind of doesn't have the oomph I thought it would. When you're writing a novel, you're sitting there literally going, Holy shit, there's nobody but me! You're climbing the literary ladder and you're looking at Faulkner's ass and Chekhov's ass, all these other guys who are a billion times better than you are, and the book is going to sit on a shelf somewhere-
David Chase: You're in the ring with the big guys…
Tom Fontana: Yeah, and I'm like a lightweight in a heavyweight boxing match.
David Chase: I'd be, "How do I find just the right word every time?"
Tom Fontana: Exactly, exactly.
David Chase: Every fucking time.
Tom Fontana: Every time and not repeat. The other thing I've learned is, again, because we write dialogue the way people talk, you don't really care if the grammar's good or you're repeating words or stuff like that. With this [novel], I go, Man, I only know six words and they all stink. But enough of me whining. Right now, you're doing what you wanted to do, direct and write, create a show-
David Chase: No, my goal was never to create a show. Television -- I've said this before and I'm going to say it again -- television was never part of my life goal. I wanted to be a filmmaker. I wanted to make movies. I got hired to do a TV show. The money got into my head, and I kept snorting that money for a long time. I went from term deal to development deal to development deal. I wasn't Aaron Spelling, but that didn't matter. I didn't want to be that. I never wanted to be somebody who had more than one show. I don't know how people do that. I never wanted to have a series.
Tom Fontana: But you created a show that is one of my favorites, Almost Grown, in '88. I hope some day it'll be out on DVD -- it's a really intricate family story about two people who you meet in three different places in their lives.
David Chase: High school, college, and divorce.
Tom Fontana: And you meet all the people in their lives at different periods. The stories, the scenes, slide in and out of each other and compliment and contradict each other-
David Chase: Rock 'n' roll was really at the center of it. Almost Grown is actually the name of a rock 'n' roll song by Chuck Berry. For some reason, we didn't go out and get the rights [to the song]. The idea was that there would be a song in the present day, which, at that time, was 1988 -- someone would hear an oldie or a song that would be a mnemonic device to send you back to that period in their life and you'd play out a story back there and then come back to the present.
Tom Fontana: Every week it was almost like you were reinventing the franchise, in the sense of the audience couldn't say, "Oh, this is what they do every week, they go between three time periods."
David Chase: Yeah, and then a couple of times we went to the disco period, 1976, '77. That show was satisfying to work on. It was just starting to get some attention when CBS cancelled it. Almost Grown has certain similarities with The Sopranos. The tone is similar.
Tom Fontana: The family is at the center of the story…
David Chase: …The family and the annoying mother. Almost Grown was the lab for The Sopranos.
All Unhappy Families
Tom Fontana: Let's talk about The Sopranos. You created a show and, out of the blocks, blew everybody away. Was it a surprise first of all?
David Chase: A tremendous surprise. Not only to me, to everyone who worked on the show. And, as you know, HBO is different from the broadcast networks. We had finished 13 episodes out in Queens -- no one was shooting out there then -- and in New Jersey. No one was telling us what to do, we were left to ourselves, so we all thought to ourselves, Well, this was too much fun, so this isn't going to happen again. I thought critics were going to say, "Another mob show? Please! How many times do we have to do this?" I really did think we're going to get slammed. Strangely enough, the opposite did happen. But we were all done, and we thought that would be it.
Tom Fontana: I just read an article in Commonweal that says The Sopranos is about "faith and it's about the lack of faith." Was that your intention? Or is it like, "I'm going to write about this theme, and however anybody wants to interpret it, they interpret it." That first season, did you say to yourself, I'm going to create something that people are going to hold up and examine from 15 different angles?
David Chase: What I said was, "Now that I'm away from a lot of these strictures that I've been working under for so long [at the networks], all I want to do is entertain people." So this is what I thought: I want to give them action, comedy, tears, suspense, and really good rock 'n' roll music. Seriously, that was my goal. At the same time, I said, "I'm going to tell stories without all this exposition." It's what I'd seen in foreign films. In those films, someone says something, or something happens, but it's not commented on -- there's no arrows that point to it. Even though the characters don't talk about it, the viewer starts to say, "Look at that, there's some sort of a pattern there." That's what I did want to do. I had been working in the business for so long I was so tired of episodic television. Did I want to make a grand statement? No. But I did want to make films in which the audience had to pay attention.
Tom Fontana: Okay, so now you're the most heralded show in television, and your first season is over, and you get a call from Chris Albrecht, and he says, "We're back, let's do it again." How intimidating is that? Did it constrain you or liberate you? Did you go, like, "Fuck it, I don't care"?
David Chase: I was still in the "fuck it, I don't care" mode, which is what I had been in season one. Let's just do it -- let's just do what we want to do. But what we had real problems with is that the story of The Sopranos was a feature pitch -- and I call it a pitch because I did pitch this as a movie, which was a mobster in therapy having problems with his mother, who's also involved in some sort of a gang war or mob business problem. A few years after I came up with this pitch, I had one of my first meetings at Brillstein-Grey. My manager, Lloyd Braun, walked me to the elevator after the meeting and said, "I want you to know that we believe that you have inside you a great television series." Huh? I had never thought that way. I didn't care about creating a series. Really. But I was, I guess touched is the word. I was moved by this confidence. I didn't think he was bullshitting.
Tom Fontana: No, Lloyd doesn't bullshit.
David Chase: So I was driving home and I thought of this discarded pitch that I had. I thought about turning it into a story about a TV producer and his mother. Then I thought, That's such a wussy thing. Like some yuppie and his horrible mother. So I had thought, Well, maybe if the guy's a gangster, he's at least a tough guy. He's everything I'm not, you know. I thought about that and suddenly thought, Well, as a TV series, if this is a television show, you'd be able to concentrate on the women, starting with the mother. For a TV show, that's good, because it's mom, dad, junior, and sis. That seems to work for television.
Tom Fontana: I remember you saying to me in passing that the heart of the show was about the relationship with the mother, and that was something you wanted to write about and that you had found a unique way to do it.
David Chase: But that relationship was destroyed at the end of season one because Tony's mother had tried to kill him. Obviously, they weren't going to be having any scenes together -- realistically, there's no way that there would be any reconciliation after that. The actress, Nancy Marchand, was Tony Soprano's mother, and her character was supposed to die. But Nancy was sick with cancer, and she said, "David, just keep me working." So Tony didn't kill his mother with a pillow and she didn't have a stroke, but the character was used very sparingly in season two.
Tom Fontana: Did you feel extra pressure in that second season? Forgetting about competing with anybody else in television, you now had to compete with yourself on a yearly basis, on a weekly basis. Did that haunt you?
David Chase: No, I don't think it bothered me in season two. It didn't concern me.
Tom Fontana: Did the media attention ever start to?
David Chase: Well, I try not to read that stuff, as much as I can. I try not to read reviews.
Tom Fontana: I know from my own experience, doing shows like Homicide, where it's critically acclaimed and you're feeling so good about the work. Then we had a huge shift in the show when Andre Braugher left at the end of the sixth season, because his character [Frank Pembleton] had become so central to the series. You put his character in the box with a criminal and you basically -- I mean, a lot about what was fun writing the show was, "How can we make it impossible for Andre the actor to play this next box scene?" That was the challenge because he was so good that the writers were like, "We can't just give him the same old baloney we gave him last week. We have to give him something harder to do." You were in somewhat of the same situation because Nancy Marchard was so integral to the show initially; then, bit by bit, because of her illness-
David Chase: Yeah, that freaked us all out. What do we do? At the time, I decided that Tony needed a nemesis, somebody who wanted his job. But how many times can you do that? You take care of Richie Aprile and then the next one was, the character Ralphie, Joey Pants. It was mechanistic and stupid when I look back on it-
Tom Fontana: I don't think so, David. It is the heart and soul of what we all do: set up a protagonist and an antagonist. If you don't find that, it's just a lot of characters standing around, going, "Good work, nice whack!"
David Chase: That's when I figured we could also start to do more stories about the kids -- Tony and Carmela as parents -- which we did do, and people did like that. Then I loved it, this little conceit of this mob boss kind of being as powerless as any-
Tom Fontana: Father.
Working Stiffs
Tom Fontana: Talk a little about your work habits. Do you have a routine? Do you write the same time everyday? Do you write the same place everyday? Because I had heard at one point that you would dictate -- this is like the mythology of David Chase -- in a van, and you would dictate as you went from New Jersey to Silvercup Studios in Queens.
David Chase: That never happened. I did have a van that was supposed to allow me to write or look at dailies in the van, none of which I ever did. I'd sleep in the van, and then get to where we were going. No, I never dictated. I've never been able to do that. I've always had to be in front of the keyboard and actually doing it. I heard about people who do that. I don't get it.
Tom Fontana: Yeah, I don't either. But then again, I don't even have a computer. I write longhand.
David Chase: You do?
Tom Fontana: Yeah. I'm completely hopeless. Do you write the same time every day?
David Chase: No.
Tom Fontana: You intermingle the producing with the writing?
David Chase: Yeah, I intermingle it all.
Tom Fontana: See, I'm the opposite. I get up at 5:30 and write for four or five hours, and then I take off my writer head and I put on my producer head. I'll fix a piece of dialogue on the set; but in terms of conceiving a whole scene once the producing starts, forget it.
David Chase: Any writer on our show who's going to do a teleplay has a completely beated-out story that has been generated in the writers' room. I don't know if you do that or not.
Tom Fontana: I do a half-assed version of that.
David Chase: Ours is pretty tight. They go away with 36 to 42 scenes, with even key pieces of dialogue in some of the scenes. That would be me or Terry Winter or Matt Weiner, whoever's doing it.
Tom Fontana: How many people are in the writers' room?
David Chase: Uh, well, all the people. Probably five this last season -- me, Terry Winter, Matt Weiner, and Andy Schneider and Diane Frolov were the team. That's it. From the beginning, this is how it worked. We would come into the room and break story, as they say, so people go away with a completely worked out outline. I don't write every episode like you do.
Tom Fontana: I just finished the rewrite on this pilot I'm doing for NBC, and we start shooting next Wednesday. I finished the novel up to a point where I could stop and still be able to get back to it when we're done with the pilot. I'm facing about a week's worth of nothing to write. I know tomorrow I'll get up to write something, a short story -- I'm compulsive about writing, and I truly love to write. I have to write. It's insane.
David Chase: I think about ideas all the time. I write them down. I could conceivably write a screenplay, which I haven't done because I don't have time. But I do not go downstairs and write everyday. I don't have that.
Tom Fontana: Part of me envies you and part of me…
David Chase: No, now I feel like I'm a fraud. Or lazy.
Redemption Song
Tom Fontana: We talked just for a little bit about the whole Commonweal article -- the idea that The Sopranos is dealing, thematically, with redemption. The show has also dealt with politics, with race, with addiction, and certainly psychotherapy-the pros and cons of psychotherapy -- violence, language as a weapon as well as a tool, and emotional brutality. First of all, do you feel that the show has a responsibility to depict those kinds of issues, or do issues come up out of the environment that you've created?
David Chase: I don't think the show has a responsibility to deal with anything except be entertaining.
Tom Fontana: So all of those things pop up as a result of the storytelling-certainly the way that you've handled Christopher's addiction forces the viewers to go, "Oh, wow, that's very real." Normally, in television, somebody has an addiction and then 43 minutes later they're cured.
David Chase: I can't stand that kind of thing. But it all comes out of the characters, I guess. And I don't know what you'd call it. I find that so much of television nowadays is teaching and lecturing and hectoring and sermonizing, and characters are mouthpieces for guys who live in West Los Angeles. The characters are not really characters. They spout things, and they talk about issues. Facility with words is nothing. Anybody can do it with a junior college degree. It's anti-magic. People who aren't communicating with each other is much more interesting for me than people saying exactly the right bon mot.
Tom Fontana: You've had a great cast. How have they helped you, as a writer, develop the characters? Obviously, the first season was what it was. But did you have conversations with the actors to say, "Where do you think we should go with your character?"
David Chase: Jim Gandolfini had a lot to do with Tony's personality. And this was done without much conversation. I think the Tony Soprano that I was originally thinking of was not as tough as what the character became. Jim showed me early on how much of a prick that guy would have to be. We never talked about it. I just saw it. The first day we shot, there was a scene where Christopher said he was going to sell his story to Hollywood. In the script, it said something like, Tony slaps him. But when we shot it, all of a sudden Jim was out of his seat. He picked Michael Imperioli up by the neck, by the collar, had him almost off the ground and said, "What?! Are you crazy?" And I thought, Of course, that man's a motherfucker. That guy is surviving the mob. He's really a dangerous person. He's not a fun guy.
Tom Fontana: What about the other actors?
David Chase: It was the same thing. Tony Sirico, who plays Paulie Walnuts, was originally mostly a day player who had worked in a few movies. But we began to watch him in scenes and began to know more about him. Tony Sirico is so interesting that we began to graft elements of Tony onto Paulie: the cleanliness fetish, the devotion to his mother. At first, Tony didn't want anybody messing with his hair. He was a little leery of doing things that were silly, but he did it, and he handled all of it. Now he's one of the standbys of the show, one of the pillars.
Tom Fontana: I always feel in terms of the actors who I've worked with on shows that there's this interesting metamorphosis, over a long period of time, where who they are as a character and who they are as a person somehow morph together. It's fascinating to watch. I remember what Bill Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett said to us once on St. Elsewhere. They were husband and wife on the show and in real life. A new script came out, and there was a scene between the two of them. "Were you listening at our window last night?" they said to us. "Because this is the argument we had last night." Obviously, we weren't listening at the window, but we were listening to them, and you just start to absorb that stuff. But I also feel, in terms of Sopranos -- and this was true for me with Oz -- I found that the actors gave me courage that I had previously not possessed as a writer.
David Chase: Our writers would talk about a particular actor and say, "I bet he can play that scene." Working with good actors is like energy flowing back and forth. You see them, you give them more, and they do more. Then it just grows. It's organic. It's great.
Tom Fontana: That's exactly what I was talking about. It's the thrilling part of doing episodic television. Because you're making this long-term commitment to each other.
A Killer Script
Tom Fontana: One of the things that I have always loved about the show is Christopher's dance with show business and showing the joys and sorrows that we all go through. How much of that is Chase's revenge against all those assholes that you had to deal with?
David Chase: Obviously, it's allowed us to take a few swipes at things. I would say it's also allowed us to puncture our own pretensions and narcissism and ego. I'm sure it's not a great secret. There's always been a somewhat close symbiosis between both businesses, going back to The Godfather with Johnny Fontaine, the whole Sinatra thing and all that. I'm sure you know that here in New York these guys approach you with screenplays. There are connected guys like Christopher with screenplays. It's not far-fetched.
Tom Fontana: No, no, not at all. That's the beauty of it.
David Chase: These guys talk about The Godfather a lot. They reference it as to what would really happen. That was a conceit early on, that this will be a gangster show in which they talk about other gangster movies, and it has been important. But there are guys who have these scripts, so it's not that bizarre. The idea of this was not for me to get back at anybody working in Hollywood, although we've taken a few shots at some stuff. Christopher's character allows us to make fun of ourselves.
Tom Fontana: You just won another Writers Guild Award for the show, you and your team. You've won so many awards for the show. Did you have to add a wing in the house in France just for the awards?
David Chase: I don't know how you feel about awards-
Tom Fontana: I love to win them, I like being nominated, and it doesn't bother me when I'm not.
David Chase: When you're not nominated?
Tom Fontana: When I'm not nominated. Because a lot of times I've been in categories nominated with people whose shows I didn't particularly think were all that great.
David Chase: That's the problem. See, it's hard to talk about this without sounding arrogant. But it's one of those things where, if you invest in the fact that you are nominated or win, then how can you not invest in the fact when you aren't or don't?
Tom Fontana: Yeah, exactly.
David Chase: So how can it mean something when it's good, and not mean anything when it isn't? Awards can be a little bit toxic. They're great, and I try to say, "Look, it's just fun. They nominated you, you lost, you won. Who really cares?" But you can get annoyed when you see what else is out there and what else wins. Because you think to yourself, I don't get it. We worked hard on this show. We do so much of X, and Y-I mean, what's the point? Why did I come all the way out here for this show?
Tom Fontana: We'll both get in trouble for this, being East Coast people, but it's so funny. I will stand out in Pasadena -- at least the last time I went to the Emmys, that's where they had the awards-and it's like four o'clock in the afternoon, I'm in a tuxedo, and it's hot, and I'm thinking, I don't care if I win, I just want to go home. To me, the event itself becomes debilitating.
David Chase: Exacerbated by the terror that you might have to go up and speak. I think to myself, It's also my responsibility to be entertaining while I'm speaking. Then you get there and you realize, Okay, so you're not going to be as entertaining as Ellen DeGeneres … And you don't say anything amusing because you don't know what the fuck you're doing, humor-wise.
Tom Fontana: Exactly. I always have this terror that they're going to see me. My hair used to be very, very, very long. And, one year when I won, all I kept thinking as I was walking up to the stage is -- it was right after the opening dance number, which was terrible, and the first award was our award -- and I walk up and my hair is really long, people are like, "I don't want to see him! Oh, my God, that long-haired freak is disgusting!"
David Chase: Who is the writer anyway?
Tom Fontana: That's the thing, the audience is saying, "Where is Ellen DeGeneres? Where are the stars? We don't care about this writing nonsense." But, as I said, on the other hand, I love to win because it's like Sally Field: "You like me, you really like me."
David Chase: I don't know if I feel that way. I guess it's just pure competitiveness. Actually, I don't believe "you like me, you really like me." I don't believe they like me.
Tom Fontana: "They begrudge you, they really begrudge you"?
David Chase: No, I don't mean that. Well, I guess all awards are different. I was starting to think, Why would your show win the Emmys? Because they love you, they really love you? Or, [because] it was time? And what the hell does that mean? I think you need to be deprived a little bit, because we didn't win anything this year except for the Writers Guild Award. So by the time the Writers Guild Award came along, it was, Somebody loves us!
The Sopranos Movie
Tom Fontana: In terms of The Sopranos as a movie, would you approach it differently than you would doing the series?
David Chase: I don't know. I haven't done it. Probably not. Would it be more than a two-hour Sopranos?
Tom Fontana: At one point, I was asked to do Oz as a feature, and I was like, "Oh, that's pretty cool!" I worked out this idea in my head of what an Oz movie could be. And they said, "Oh, no, no, no, it needs a hero." And I went, "Have you ever seen the show? There's no hero! It is what it is." And they said, "Well, then you can't have that happen because then we'll get an X rating."
David Chase: It's a different business.
Tom Fontana: People who would go to see an Oz movie would probably do so because they've seen the television show. So the question is, would the restrictions of a feature -- getting an R rating -- start to play a part in it, or would you have to find a way to do the story in a different way?
David Chase: Our goal from the beginning, from the first episode, has been to try to do a little feature every week. For example, the college episode with Tony and Meadow. To me, that's a movie in itself. Hopefully, every one of the episodes is like that. "Pine Barrens" was like that. So, I wouldn't be that daunted by doing it. But seeing these characters five years from now, I don't know if that's interesting to me.
Tom Fontana: You wouldn't want to write a Sopranos version of the Brady Bunch Reunion where they all go to Hawaii?
David Chase: See, it would be tough. My guess is we'd have to go back and pick a day like in 2005 and show something that happened in some week that you hadn't seen in 2005.
Tom Fontana: Or would you write a screenplay about Tony's father? That's a movie I'd pay full price for -- to see he and the mother, but when they were kids.
David Chase: That would interest me as a story -- to do Newark, New Jersey, in 1960. That's where my family comes from. But then wouldn't people say, "Where's James Gandolfini? This isn't The Sopranos; this is something else." Maybe if there is a way to go back and forth because I can't conceive of doing it without a very strong Tony-Carmela component. It would be interesting to go back to Newark in those days.
Tom Fontana: Yeah, you'd write the shit out of that.
David Chase: Newark had a big Italian-American community. Little Italy in Newark was the next biggest Italian-American community in the country to lower Manhattan. Typical Jersey statement.
Tom Fontana: So where are the pages? Come on, let's go, let's go!
David Chase: I think I'll write a novel about it.
Afterward: As the conversation comes to an end, David Chase finishes the glass of wine, pulls on his battered hat, and shakes hands with Fontana. I follow Chase into the tiny elevator that connects the different floors of the townhouse. Both of us are silent as the elevator grinds slowly downward to the street-level entrance.
I'm reluctant to say anything and break the mood, but it's my only chance to make my own comment about The Sopranos. "I just wanted to tell you how I admired the 'Join the Club' episode of the sixth season," I tell him. "All those scenes in Costa Mesa looked real, but they felt like a dream."
Chase stops in the hallway and nods slightly. "Thanks. Some people had problems with those episodes. They couldn't figure out what was going on."
He hesitates for a moment and then shrugs as if the distinction between dream and reality is always significant. Out on the wet sidewalk, we shake hands and Chase moves off in the opposite direction.
There's a siren in the distance, coming closer. The bluish glow from a television set illuminates an apartment window. Standing on the curb, I watch Chase walk alone beneath a patch of streetlight and then disappear into the shadow.


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By JOE KNYCHA, www.wheelbasemedia.com It's widely known that hybrid vehicles shine brightest in high-density stop-and-go traffic, achieving in the process low fuel consumption and ultra-low greenhouse-gas emissions. That's because the built-in electric motor helps the gas engine get the car rolling. But how are they on the open road? More to the point, how do they… Read more »
Posts Categorized: News
By BILL MCLAUCHLAN www.wheelbasemedia.com The common belief is that something won't last very long unless it's created in a lab. That might be always be the case, but the source material for such parts is quite literally in a liquid state.Cars with bodies and parts made from seaweed and powered by biofuel derived from algae… Read more »
Five ways to get real and consistent savings at the pump
ARA Whether it's shopping for groceries or clothes at the mall, we're always on the lookout for the best deal. Though it may be through more subtle means, you can apply the same money-saving principals toward other everyday expenses. The money you spend on gas is a perfect example. By making a few adjustments like… Read more »
Squeeze more savings out of the gas pump this summer
ARA With gas prices on an eternal upswing and the summer driving season in full force, drivers are looking for ways to alleviate the pain at the pump. Some simple steps can make a big difference in your fuel economy so you can save money and get the most out of every gallon. Start with… Read more »
Auto loan terms continue to loosen for all buyers
DEE-ANN DURBIN AP For car buyers seeking auto loans, happy days are here again. U.S. banks and auto finance companies are once again welcoming all kinds of customers, even those with less-than-stellar credit. The average credit scores of new and used car buyers, which spiked during the economic downturn, have fallen to nearly the same… Read more »
Cars and Conversation with Jay Leno
UMFA presents Jay Leno for special event at University of Utah in connection with Speed: The Art of the Performance Automobile The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) at the University of Utah is pleased to present Cars and Conversation with Jay Leno, a special ticketed event taking place at Kingsbury Hall on Saturday, July… Read more »
Carmakers report strong June sales, easing worries
DEE-ANN DURBIN AP DETROIT— From mini cars to monster pickups, sales of new cars and trucks surged in June and eased concerns that Americans would be turned off by slower hiring and other scary headlines. Automakers sold nearly 1.3 million cars and trucks in June, up 22 percent from the same month last year. Chrysler… Read more »
Vroom! Texas considers 85 mph speed limit, nation's highest
By Richard Simon Los Angeles Times (MCT) WASHINGTON — Everything is bigger in Texas, they say. Soon, it could be faster, too. The Lone Star State could raise the speed limit on one stretch of highway to 85 miles per hour, the highest in the nation. But don't press the pedal to the metal yet…. Read more »
Idling limits the 'Rodney Dangerfield' of laws
PAUL FOY AP SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Jodi Miller likes her coffee as much as anyone, but she admits to feeling guilty idling her car with a half-dozen others at a coffee shack on a residential street corner. Miller knows Salt Lake City recently passed a law that limits "unnecessary" idling to no more… Read more »
Car maintenance made easy with simple tips from a gear head
ARA Everyone knows car maintenance is important, but if you're not a gear head – someone who loves working on vehicles – the idea of doing routine car maintenance can be very intimidating. "Whether on the set of Top Gear, at NASCAR races or just in my garage at home, I'm fortunate enough to be… Read more »


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Olive & Aloe® Moisturizing Body Lotion Trial Size
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Wreck-It Ralph is awesome. That's all that needs to be said. If you're a gamer, you grew up with animated films, and you like good movies then you will love Wreck-It Ralph. It's unbelievably well written, has great characters, and a ridiculously creative premise. There's so much to love about Wreck-It Ralph that nothing I say here or in my original review can possibly give you an idea on how special this movie really is. Disney usually does a stellar job with its Blu-rays and Wreck-It Ralph is no exception. It has its flaws but the Wreck-It Ralph Blu-ray will satisfy fans of the flick.
The quality on the film is great. It unfortunately has letterbox (like everything seems to nowadays) but don't let that get in the way of the pretty presentation. The 2D Blu-ray is sharp all the way through, from the 8-bit of Fix-It Felix to the colorful Sugar Rush. The Hero's Duty scenes have strange blotches unfortunately. I think they were just trying to make things look more dark but it took me out of the picture. The 3D didn't impress me too much in theaters but I feel it's slightly improved here. It's still nothing great and a little bit of a disappointment as CG-animated films usually have some of the best 3D around but it has its cool moments. I'll stick to the sharper 2D image.
The sounds of Wreck-It Ralph all sound great. The great score by Henry Jackman blends nicely with the action on screen. The characters all sound great and the classic video game noises are all a nostalgic punch to the face (especially if you grew up in that time).
The Bonus Features in Wreck-It Ralph are:
The Paperman (7 minutes) is the Oscar winning short that played before the theatrical release of Wreck-It Ralph. The Paperman has certainly grown on me as I did find myself loving it more here than in theaters. If you didn't see Wreck-It Ralph in theaters then The Paperman is worth a look as it is very cute, but I still don't think it's a masterpiece in animation like some consider it.
Bit by Bit: Creating The Worlds of Wreck-It Ralph (17 minutes) goes behind the scenes of the characters and worlds in Wreck-It Ralph. We get interviews from the animators who worked on the film, all of which were insightful. You learn a few things you didn't catch before and overall, Bit by Bit is a nice behind the scenes look at Ralph.
Alternate & Deleted Scenes (5 scenes, 15 minutes) are unfinished animated scenes from Wreck-It Ralph that didn't make it to the final cut. They're all from previous drafts of the script with none of them really connected to the final film. They're still pretty fun to watch and I recommend them if you enjoyed the film. There's also a commentary for the deleted scenes by Rich Moore (Director and Story), Phil Johnston (Writer and Story), and Jim Reardon (Story). They talk a bit about why the scenes didn't make the cut and production on the film. The Deleted Scenes and the Commentary aren't nothing too great and nothing worth watching more than once.
Video Game Commercials (4 of them, 3 minutes) are a bunch of fake advertisements for the games in Wreck-It Ralph. The Fix-It Felix Jr. one is in the style of an old 70's commercial, Sugar Rush is made to look like a 90's commercial (if you can really distinguish a 90's commercial), and Hero's Duty hysterically looks like the game trailers that come out nowadays. You also get a trailer for Fix It Felix's Hammer which was pretty funny. They're cool little features that are all worth a viewing.
There's also a Digital Copy commercial and other Sneak Peeks.
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL, if you accidentally paused the 2D Blu-ray version of the film (not the 3D or DVD copies) and you came back to find Chris Hardwick's purdy face on screen then you have accessed The Gamer's Guide to Wreck-It Ralph (9 minutes). Chris Hardwick appears on screen to point out all the video game references in the film. This is the feature that I wanted from Wreck-It Ralph to point out some of the things that I missed. It's strange that you have to pause the film to access it but it's all fine in the end. The Guide doesn't go too in depth like an IGN Wiki as it doesn't show you everything, but it shows you some of the things you're going to hit yourself for not noticing the first couple of times around (FROGGER WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME).
Excluding the Digital Copy commercial and Sneak Peeks, the Wreck-It Ralph set ends up at about 52 minutes (including The Gamer's Guide and The Paperman). That might sound pretty weak but we got most of everything we asked for. We got The Paperman, our Behind the Scenes look at the film, Deleted Scenes, and a guide to the video game references. A commentary is all that's missing. Yes, we have a commentary for the Deleted Scenes but not a commentary for the movie. In what world does that make sense? Other than that, I don't have many other complaints. I wish the Guide was a little more in-depth and showed you literally everything as I noticed references that the Guide didn't point out (Aerith lives). It's still a decent set of Bonus Features that you can blow through pretty quickly.
While the Wreck-It Ralph Blu-ray isn't as excellent as the film is, it's still a great Blu-ray. The presentation is mostly solid and the bonus features were pretty good, but the lack of a commentary and some of the picture quality nitpicks certainly hamper the Blu-ray. If you loved Wreck-It Ralph in theaters or *gasp* haven't seen this masterpiece yet, pick up the Blu-ray. It's well worth it.
There are two version of the Wreck-It Ralph Blu-ray. An "Ultimate Collector's Edition" includes a 3D Copy, a 2D Copy, a DVD, and a Digital Copy (not Ultraviolet). The other "Collector's Edition" Blu-ray includes the 2D Blu-ray and DVD. If you have a 3DTV then obviously go for 3D but if not then the regular "Collector's Edition" should suit you just fine, unless you really want that Digital Copy.
This is the review of the "Ultimate Collector's Edition" copy.


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Just Add Water Productions, Inc. (JAW) is the first and only Philippine institution of advertising broadcast producers operating as a group on a professional level.
JAW functions as an outsourced broadcast department and provides advertising agencies and advertisers production-related consultancy via its pool of experienced senior broadcast managers/producers. It also provides trained broadcast producers of varying levels of seniority to supervise various production management requirements such as TV Commercials, Radio Commercials, Digital Content Videos, Print Materials and Corporate Videos.
JAW started operations in 2005 with a roster of 8 producers. JAW has since grown and now manages a pool of 23 producers. Our producers are equipped with extensive experience in production and advertising. The pool consists of trained reputable producers with many years of acquired skills and experience as broadcast department heads, senior in-house agency producers, production managers, TV segment producers, copywriters, art directors, etc.
Everyone at JAW is committed to standardizing work ethics and processes with professionalism and integrity as its core. All JAW producers undergo regular training seminars on self-improvement, skill enhancement and updates on the latest technology available in the industry.
JAW is also committed to investing years for the one-on-one training of new producers to service the ever-evolving advertising and production landscape.
JAW provides our clients and agencies not only a steady resource of producers, but also a stable, professionalized and organized structure. Producers are monitored and properly evaluated by the Senior Managing Producers. The Senior Managing Producers are there as resource persons when required and to help troubleshoot projects when needed. Being a legitimate company, JAW has the proper support system in place.
JAW also provides Broadcast Management and Consultancy services, for which a Senior Producer or a team is assigned to oversee all the broadcast production requirements of an Agency or a Client.
The Agencies we service include Publicis JimenezBasic, McCann WorldGroup, Publicis Manila, DM9 JaymeSyfu, DDB Philippines, JWT, Dentsu, Campaigns and Grey and BBDO Guerrero among others.
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Glen Campbell to Be Honored at 2011 CMA Awards
Brad Paisley, Vince Gill and Keith Urban will pay special tribute to Glen Campbell during the 2011 CMA Awards. The tribute comes as Campbell supports his last album, 'Ghost in the Canvas.' Campbell recorded such classics as 'Rhinestone Cowboy' and 'Galveston,' but says that 'Ghost in the Canvas' has very special significance for him as he takes his final bows as a performer.
"The songs actually speak for themselves," Campbell says in an interview with The Boot about the album. "All I thought about was 'sing it in tune with feeling.' I don't want it loud, I don't want it soft, I just want it nice and comfortable because if you get the feeling out of a song, you've won the war. I've had that happen on occasions where it all just fell in place. Amazing. Everything sounds so good. It's just like you're in a room with somebody."
The personal sentiments on the album are reflected by those that have and will honor Campbell and his career. At an intimate performance last month at the Nashville studios of Sirius XM satellite radio, Campbell's old flame Tanya Tucker was in attendance . The two had a turbulent relationship and hadn't seen each other for more than 20 years before that show.
"There's nothing bitter about it," Tucker said when asked if the reunion was bittersweet. "It's all sweet. He was funny as usual and always on pitch. He's a great singer and he's funny."
Tucker didn't speak to Campbell at the performance or at any time since his diagnosis, but she said it was vital she see him perform.
"He's just so great," she noted. "We want him to be a long time going. Because he's such a wonderful … legend, really. He's always been so great. He's still got it. I've loved him since I was about 8 years old. I still do. That never will go away."
The 2011 CMA Awards, which will air on Nov. 9 on ABC, will be hosted by Paisley and Carrie Underwood.


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Make Your Computer Speedy Again, Get Online Computer Services
Make Your Computer Speedy Again, Get Online Computer Services
We have been increasingly becoming more and more dependent on technology, to the point that we're helpless without it. A minor breakdown of our computer will hamper and interrupt your own lives. As technology gets to be more available, the problem associated with it also increases, such as network issues, virus attacks, malware as well as other hardware problems. For this reason a fast and prompt computer troubleshooter will always be in demand to fix these problems without disrupting any one of our activities. Laptop repair in Glendale
Because computers are necessary in our everyday matters, it's paramount that you locate a computer repair service very quickly in case of emergency. But sometimes, it is not practical that people go to the computer repair center every time a problem arises. So, with all the advent of remote administration software, pc repair technicians are readily available online that will solve your problems rapidly. But sometimes, we take charge and manage the pc repair ourselves, exploring answers given with a forum or a blog. This can be time consuming and may lead to data loss.
Fortunately, now you can obtain the services of computer repair online, even for minor problems, and without needing to be physically present at the shop. Software problems and virus attacks can normally be handled remotely but issues with hardware will necessitate an installer servicing your home or utilizing the unit at the shop.
The most typical services offered by repair centers are:
1. WAN/LAN setup and installation.
2. Virus control and removal. To protect from outside attack and vulnerabilities, it's a good idea to buy and install antivirus which can fend off these attacks.
3. Repair of component level -these are hardware or electrical problem that really needs special equipment to repair. These are CD or DVD player, printer, scanner and others.
4. Firewall, email as well as other communication issues.
5. Reformat/ Restoration of Windows/Linux Operating Systems
6. Data back-up and recovery.
Laptop repair can also be scheduled for maintenance purposes, which may be done at a set rate. Reputable companies offer money-back guarantee to make certain the problem does not recur. Sometimes diagnosing is incorrect leading to an incomplete repair. Oftentimes, hidden problems will occur when something triggers it, which can only be done through ardent testing. Even experienced computer technicians depend on the internet for the latest information, so if you're willing to spend some time reading about your problem, then you can also browse the different newsgroup that discusses these types of topics.
Your computer will be the lifeblood of your business, so don't allow anyone except Gurus to test and repair your pc. Computer repair Glendale AZ can fix any laptop and desktop problems, it doesn't matter what type of brand, OS, make or model. We've expert technicians which are certified and offer a wide variety of services with the finest quality to get your computers up and running again. Laptop repair in Glendale


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TOP STORY >>Snyder: Fund center now
Leader senior staff writer
Congress may still authorize $9.8 million for the Jacksonville/Little Rock Air Force Base Joint Education Center when the defense authorization bill moves into the joint conference committee, Second Dist. Cong. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., told Jacksonville Rotarians on Monday.
Both Snyder and Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., are on that committee, and Snyder said he was cautiously optimistic about restoring the funds.
Money for the Air Forces share of the project is included in the House version of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, approved in June, but not the Senate version. Jacksonville residents voted in 2003 to tax themselves, so the city has its $5 million share literally in the bank.
The existing joint education center, located on the base, is affiliated with six schools, including ASU-Beebe, which offers an associates degree. Currently, ASU-Beebes LRAFB branch, directed by Nancy Shefflette, has the largest presence.
Addressing another local concern, Snyder said he doesnt have a good answer for the problems the air base is experiencing with its housing-privatization contractor, who has walked away from the job with only a fraction of the work completed.
The privatization contract has gone awry, said Snyder. We need to find a solution and get back on track with a different developer.
Snyder said that no matter what a persons perspective on the war in Iraq or on the Bush Administration, This country and the world are at a real crossroads.
This is a pivotal time in our nations history, he said.
Some may say, and I agree, that big holes have been dug the past six years, and the problems arent going to go away quickly.
He said the next president and Congress would have a built-in challenge, not the least of which is the war in Iraq.
Replacing a retiring congressman in July, Snyder has become chairman of the newly reconstituted House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
Under House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the subcommittee was disbanded about 12 years ago, leaving no one to oversee and investigate problems and potential problems in the military.
Snyder invited generals and think-tank wonks of every stripe to discuss the Iraq imbroglio and surprisingly, all seemed to concur that the problem has become so complex and so challenging and so interwoven not only for the military, but also for national security, that there is no easy way out.
But both Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), who authored the surge strategy, and Maj. Gen. John Batiste (Ret.), who opposes it, had one point of agreementWe dont have a diplomatic (plan) for Iraq.
Five years into the war, the agreement was the military was doing a good job, but the diplomatic corps is not doing the job.
Unless we really look at a diplomatic plan and put resources behind it, we may as well pull out now, Gen. Wesley Clark testified.
Snyder said that for all the public concern over Iraq, Iran and health care, that in the halls of Congress, trade issues are the most divisive.
These are bread-and-butter issues for American families, the congressman said. Trade is scarier than hell, and its just one of the challenges we face as a nation.
Snyder said he was very disappointed that President Bush vetoed the popular State Childrens Health Insurance Program to provide continued health care for the poorest children and extend coverage to the children of the working poor, especially since the bill only authorized the plan for five years and paid for it by increasing tobacco taxes.
What we have control over, we need to take control over, he said.
Snyder said he wasnt sure Congress is doing justice for the American people but that in a divided House and Senate, law-making is a messy business.
Pat Teague asked Snyder what happened to the idea that paying for troops and reconstructing Iraq would be paid for by sales of Iraqi oil. Snyder said Iraqs oil production hadnt recovered from the 1979 war, that the oil industry is still struggling from old technology, the flight of able oil producers from the country and violence.
He told Marshall Smith that there was pretty good evidence that Iran had some sort of nuclear program, but that a nuclear weapons program, even one that could threaten Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, would ultimately make Iran less safe, not more safe.
He said a diplomatic solution must be worked out.
Shefflette told Snyder she was worried about the capability of U.S. forces in an environment where military personnel is declining.
Snyder said both the Army and the Marines had begun increasing the size of their forces and that the Air Force and Navy have belatedly realized they need to grow so they can move and supply a growing army of fighters.
Technologys just not enough, said Shefflette. Snyder said he worried about a military force so reduced in size that it must rely upon contractorswho must be paid overtime.
Snyder, citing General Gregory Schumacher, said that with reduced forces, the U.S. could win a war on a second front, but it would take longer and be more costly. Bishop James Bolden III, retired from 24 years in the Air Force, asked if there was a draft in the countrys future.
There is no support, Snyder replied.


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Will There Be Picket Lines At NY Fashion Week?
Drama may ensue during New York's upcoming fashion week. Because the IMG Fashion event changed venues this year from Bryant Park to Lincoln Center, a contractual mess has occurred between IMG and Lincoln Center's theatrical labor employee union, which is normally granted work contracts to oversee events on the entire campus. Reports the Wall Street Journal, "Certain events occurring under the umbrella of New York Fashion Week will take place in Lincoln Center facilities that require the use of union labor, and those events will comply with the lease terms of those facilities, according to a person familiar with the matter"; however, there is a slight disagreement because some of the tents will be erected on the plaza (outside) and not in Lincoln Center's buildings, which may allow IMG to hire others to help oversee and produce the event. The union wants to be the sole labor provider for NY Fashion Week, and if an agreement is not reached, they are considering a protest complete with leafleting and picket lines. Drama! Let's hope this gets worked out quickly as the week's September 9 start is just around the corner. [Wall Street Journal]


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Blog: entries tagged with "flickershow"
Drawing blanks
Wednesday 25 November 2009
To summarize the summer:
We released the first full-length Flickershow CD, entitled Drawing A Blank. Ten songs; I played bass, sang harmony, did arrangements and other odds and ends. We're quite proud of it, and the CD release party was a blast. There's a link to buy it online from our website, and it's also available through that music store Apple runs. Things have been a bit quiet since the CD release, since Julian's just got married (check out their awesome first dance on the YouTube) but there will be gigging in the new year, and with luck some out-of-town gigs in the spring.
All other music ventures have been on hold, meanwhile. I'm starting to plot my return to action, but it's been nice to take a break for a few months and mess around with other things like writing and drawing (including the cover art for our CD) and catching up on comics.
Making arrangements
Tuesday 8 July 2008
Over the past couple of weeks J and I have spent another few days in the studio, without playing a note. Yes, it's session-player time. In particular, we've now got:
- electric guitar (a Dano 12-string jangle on "Invincible" and some sweet swell-pedal action on "Still Life") courtesy of Dominic;
- more drums and percussion by our engineer/producer Don
- violin on "To The Nines" by Andrea and more on the way for "Aphrodite";
- crazy undersea bowed-string noises and vocalizing on "Siren" from Rami
- organ, piano and harpsichord, courtesy of Richie; and
- a suitably over-the-top trumpet section on "Mute" all played by Stefan.
Who knew just sitting and listening could be so much work? We've learned a lot about listening, and coming up with musical ideas on the fly, not to mention guiding other people into realizing those ideas. It's a fun challenge, communicating musical concepts to other people through words, singing, vocal noises, and occasionally, actually writing things down.
Julian had always had a trumpet melody in mind for the bridge on "Mute", and wanted big, bold chords for the ending. I added a harmony to the bridge, and started fleshing out the "chords" idea with a swingy rhythmic motif… and then realized I was going to have to write the thing out. I'd composed the part in Logic, and couldn't get the program's "Score" view to output anything that made any sense. So I summoned up every last bit of music theory I'd ever taken, and wrote the whole thing out. Took a couple of late nights, and I worried that it was illegible, but our players approved.
Here's the bridge from the demo version, with lovely synthesized trumpets: Mute (trumpet demo, 880k)
Not everything we did could be scored, of course, but regardless, we found it really, really helps at least to have a clear idea of what you're after before you start. When Rami came by to play, bringing with her an Iner Souster creation called "Fat Bob", we didn't have parts written out - Bob, having one string and no fingerboard, isn't particularly suited to playing melodies, anyway - but I think we had a strong idea of the texture and atmosphere we were after. J quickly joined in, offering images of a ship breaking apart at sea, the creaking of the rigging, the cracking of the timbers and the crashing of the waves. I'm really looking forward to sifting through the resulting noises and building them up into a soundscape.
Lots more to go: more drums, keyboards, backing vocals, violin and percussion - not to mention mixing and mastering. But it's all starting to come together nicely.
Friday 16 May 2008
A quick summary of an eventful season:
I'm settled into my new position as web maintainer for Evergreen, an organization focused on environmental education and community-based greening initiatives. It's a fine bunch of people, and the work feels much more worthwhile than almost anything I did working on the "agency side".
We've been dropping into Don Kerr's studio every few weekends to record the new Flickershow album - we have ten songs in progress, with vocals, guitar, bass and drums complete on almost all of them and keyboards on about half. I'm currently working on the trumpet arrangement for a recent song called "Mute". We've also played a whole pile of gigs, most notably busking in front of Pages Books on Queen St, and a swell gig for Earth Hour which included an hour-long, completely acoustic songwriters' circle.
Sean and I spent a few days in San Francisco last month - he was there to attend a couple of different conferences, and we got to visit his sister, her partner and their two black cats (it seems to run in the family). I spent several days walking all over the downtown area, and up to Fort Mason, where I visited the Long Now Foundation's museum and shop. Spent many hours checking out every sound-related exhibit at the Exploratorium. I came home with far too many books, and a new pair of shoes - my old pair having disintegrated completely after several dozen hills too many.
Much more to come - more musical experiences; several books to discuss; and my obsession with ruins continues.
2007 wrap-up
Sunday 13 January 2008
The dust's settled on 2007 at last, and does it ever feel like a new year now. Here's a few highlights, including some stuff I didn't write about the first time round:
January: Spinglobe moves into a brand new office in a neat building in the east end. One of the first projects is a music video for the Mahones. It's a takeoff on that Fellini scene where la Saraghina dances the rhumba on a Mediterranean beach - except it's January, on Ashbridge's Bay, and the warm spell of the previous week is most definitely over. We should have called the production Minus 8½. We freeze our collective asses off, but the video ends up looking pretty darn fine.
February: Played in the band for a musical revue put on as a fundraiser by some friends - my first time playing Broadway style is a fun challenge; I stress way about it more than I have to. Reconceived long-running audio drama idea as a podcast; later in the year would reconceive it again as a comic. Expect it to morph into a novel, a musical extravaganza and finally a series of haiku in 2008.
March: In the studio with Ellen Carol to record bass tracks for her new CD, produced by Don Kerr. Restarted work on Flickershow CD; we get some solid demos done and some cool results on a trip-hoppy new song called "Hold Up Donny". It doesn't last, however; I end up firing myself as producer later in the year. If all goes well we'll be recording with Don in 2008.
May: Played with Flickershow at the Sammy Sugar Day Festival, the kickoff for Ellen's fundraising bike tour of Eastern Canada. Finally launched a site for Presonance, a collaboration with Rezo Largul.
June: Attended OpenCities, an "unconference" about the convergence of civic engagement and the open source movement. Among the topics are the waterfront revitalization, public space, DIY electronics and public art, dancing in the streets. Coincidentally, the next day, Flickershow played at Pedestrian Sundays, a monthly car-free event in Kensington Market (other events occur in Mirvish Village and on Baldwin Street); our first outing with keyboard player Rich.
Later in the month, Sean's mom comes up from Pennsylvania for a visit. Tuesday we're at work while she takes it easy; she's out having a smoke on the front porch when lightning strikes a tree two doors down, and a gale-force gust of wind tears off branches for several blocks. We return home to find our street a maze of police tape, tree limbs and downed power lines. Neighbouring streets are almost unaffected. "I didn't do it," she pleads.
July: Played Newmarket and Brampton - our only out-of-town gig prior to this was our TVO appearance taped in Parry Sound. First steps toward developing an analog-to-MIDI interface using that splendid new toy, the Arduino.
August: Cottage outing with co-workers. Lots of laughs, plenty of good food and drink, and some cool photographic exploration of natural forms and painting with light.
October: A week from hell. Two or three clients go through reorganizations, and a number of key projects go on indefinite hold. Contractors removing a cellular tower break a sprinkler pipe and flood part of our office. None of this registers, however, because our co-worker's 21-year-old brother has just died in his sleep. Things are very quiet for several days.
November: Two good friends of ours invited us to play a song at their crazy cabaret-style lesbian wedding. The only question was what to wear. (As MC for the evening, Sean had no such dilemma, since they'd put him in a rather lovely kilt and feather boa.)
At the end of the month, a beautiful, awe-inspiring, mad trip to Marrakech with Sean, his mom and stepdad, and a new friend, the irrepressible and energizing Katie. We stayed in the heart of the medina, a maze of winding alleyways full of people, tiny shops, mopeds and stray cats. A handful of local kids kept asking for money; Sean juggled for them instead (years ago he did it for a living in Dallas) and became an instant hit. Later, we drove through the Atlas Mountains to ride camels into the desert and sleep in a tent. Beautiful country, lots of wonderful people. And occasional strange family moments.
December: The partners make the tough decision to sell the company to a bigger firm. Some of us move over, the video business splits off (taking on the name Robotnik Films), and I start looking for work. I'll miss the place, and I'll miss working with the Spinglobe crew. But it's a huge opportunity, both to find work in a field that's important to me and to have some actual free time again. Here's to the new year!
Art and music
Wednesday 2 May 2007
Tonight, Sean's out of town and M. is performing in a musical uptown, so the house will be free for Flickershow recording, hooray!
Only yesterday I was reading Muffy's reports from the Open Ears festival and wishing I'd made it back to KW to catch it. I don't generally get to see many shows, and the reason mostly boils down to Too Damn Busy. Either I'm working late (Sean and I seem to be home at 10pm as often as not), recording or playing with Flickershow, or recovering from the above.
I'm determined to change things around now. Coming home at a more reasonable time, for one thing; for another, working Saturday and staying home to work on music in the middle of the week, when the house is empty.
And I think I'll have to check out some of the events at Deep Wireless: A Festival Of Radio Art. (Thanks, Torontoist.)
Here's the latest version of the particle sim - the particles attract this time around, and have random values for mass.
I've cleaned up the source and commented the hell out of it, and collected most of the major parameters so they're easy to adjust before compiling.
Source plus the containing FLA file:
Spring music
Tuesday 27 March 2007
This winter I seem to have been in a sort of musical hibernation. No gigs, no writing, hardly any jamming, no listening to any new music.
My main musical effort was playing bass in the band in show-tune revue some friends were putting together. Good experience, and while I still can't sight-read well, it certainly gave me the chance to improve at it. (My favorite tunes to play: "Nobody's Side" from Chess, "Life Of The Party" from The Wild Party, both full of syncopations and time changes; "Take Me Or Leave Me" from Rent, where I got to rock out a bit; and "I Could Be Happy With You" from The Boy Friend, just because it was so damned cute in that faux-'20s, so-very-English sort of way.)
But other than that - perhaps in part because of it - I've just been burned out. Frankly, I was getting worried how little interest I had.
I managed to rouse myself enough to familiarize myself with Yes and Peter Gabriel, having borrowed some of their albums… and suddenly, much was explained to me about '70s rock.
A while ago J and I laid down some scratch versions of a whole pile of songs, both new and old, to use as the basis for a new CD. They sat untouched until a few days ago, when I stuck bass parts on some of the newest ones to send to our drummer. Here's one:
Hold_Up_Donny.mp3 (3'43")
I was afraid I was getting into a rut with my parts, so on these new songs there's all kinds of pushed rhythms and other oddness. For the first time I'm making use of the Jazz bass, and taking advantage of its punch and sustain with a much more legato line. I'm attempting to play chords on the "choruses", also for the first time, and the whole thing has a sort of Fender Rhodes feel to it. Starting to sound pretty trip-hoppy. Fleshing this one out is going to be a lot of fun!
New music discoveries this week too. Currently on the playlist:
Flook (borrowed from my Go-playing friend downstairs, also a Celtic music aficionado) an Anglo-Irish band who specialize in wonderful hyperactive flute-and-bohdrán grooves.
The Golden Dogs. Ran across two of their videos while browsing idly, and immediately went and got their album Big Eye Little Eye. Chock full of my kind of hooks (my favorite is "Runouttaluck" - if you cranked Stereolab up to double speed and mashed it up with the B-52's it might sound like this) plus the same sort of dueling boy/girl vocals that make the New Pornographers and other bands so addictive. And they exude such joy in the video for "Construction Worker" that I think I have a crush on the whole band.
Be afraid…
Wednesday 25 October 2006
...plus the acoustic harmonies of SPOOKYHORSE
and a special appearance by New Wave pop sensations SPIELFILM
Toronto: The Renaissance Café
($5 - show starts at 9pm)
1938 Danforth Ave (at Woodbine) [map]
Saturday 13 May 2006
Last night was a blast - great sets from Dave and Rich DeJonge and the David Hein Band. Each act did two sets, and for our second set we played as a quintet. Great three-part harmonies on "Gold Thieves", and "Searchlights" finally came together live like it did on the CD. And we covered "Lucky" by Radiohead and "A Day In The Life", which both benefitted enormously from having Lance and Ellen there. Hope we got a good recording.
Halfway through our breakneck rendition of "Idiot Grin", I felt something sharp hit me in the back of the leg. I realized after a moment that it was part of one of Clark's "hot rod" drumsticks. Hot Rods are essentially a slim bundle of narrow wooden sticks that are a little quieter than solid sticks, while still having a comfortable weight for playing, and Clark's were disintegrating on the spot. Another piece of wood pinged off the back of my head during the bridge. After the show, Clark told me he'd bought them just when he joined Flickershow about a year and a half ago, and was curious to see how long they'd last. As it turned out… it was exactly long enough.
We'll miss ya, Clark. Happy dadhood. :D
Clark lent me his DVDs of The Beatles Anthology, which are fascinating viewing (though how the band ever put up with the screaming fans I will never know). I wasn't as familiar with their early stuff, so I've just heard "I'll Follow The Sun" for the first time. What a nifty melody, with that augmented fourth!
Dreams: lots of people I didn't recognize, all living together in a big (sometimes small) house for a few days. Middle-aged… but were we on some kind of sports team? Looked briefly like my Grandma's house (the setting of many of my dreams when I was young). There was a thunderstorm, and lightning struck an old dead tree out the back, about three times. I could see the electricity snaking across the yard and into the foundation of the house to ground itself.
I woke up speaking in the voice of a mysterious new character for my radio plays.
Saxes and arranging
Tuesday 2 May 2006
There's nothing like being awakened at 5:30 in the morning by a cat throwing up on you.
I've realized that I don't really care for sax solos on rock songs… but I love rhythm parts, especially with bass/baritone sax. I'm thinking of "Good Morning" by the Beatles, and the neat arrangement on "This Song" by Ron Sexsmith with a pair of (tenor?) saxes, the lower of them doubled by an electric guitar.
Hmm. Might have to try doubling violin and piano, or violin and guitar.
Other voicings I'd like to try sometime:
- Two male voices singing an octave apart. The Fembots have some octave-doubled voices on their latest. Also, Julian's got me listening to some early Tears For Fears, and "The Hurting" in particular does this. It's very '80s, come to think of it - Depeche Mode used it all over the place; also Bowie's "Ashes To Ashes" (and "Space Oddity"), and Talking Heads on "Mind", the Police on "Bring On The Night" and "Spirits In The Material World"... a quick survey of an '80s compilation turns up A Flock Of Seagulls, INXS and Squeeze.
- Heck, just two voices in unison. I instinctively go for harmonies, but unison can be powerful too.
- And speaking of octaves, piano octaves. I just did a disco-ish track for a short film, and played the melody on a piano that way. Punchy! Ooh, and how about 12-string guitar?
I've finally gone and wiped my studio machine and reinstalled Windows. It's so much perkier now - years of forgotten software layers and busted registry bits swept away… ahh, that's better.
Unfortunately, I can't find my Cubase install CD - gah! But I did bring home my Mbox and installed Pro Tools 7, which will be very nice to have. Next step: good monitors.
Fun rehearsal last night, in preparation for our next gig (our last one with Clark for a while - details on the Flickershow site.
Banging on things
Wednesday 12 April 2006
So I've been pondering alternative and found percussion, and scooping together some playlists full of inspirational material… everything from samba and African stuff to Peter Gabriel's early solo stuff (when he got tired of the usual pop percussion and avoided using cymbals for two or three albums), the Fembots (alarm clocks! gunshots!) and Graeme Kirkland (that guy who used to busk with big paint buckets all over town).
Might try out some found percussion when we record "Catch-22", our ostensible Latin number. And I'm planning to have another crack at the "song-a-day" experiment: write a piece every day of any length and style (usually they ended up being about a minute long); quality is less important than consistently making the effort.
There are a lot of songs with typewriters in them.


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Language Lit homecoming program and reception
When Saturday October 13, 2012 @ 9:00 AM (1747 days ago)
Where Common Grounds Coffee House
Duration 1 hour
Poet, Chris Longenecker, C '82, will read from her latest poetry book. Informal gathering and light refreshments.
Intended Audience General Public
Contact Information
Name Donna Souder
Phone # 540.432.4204


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I have capsular contracture. My implants are placed above the muscle. Should I go under the muscle? Is that possible and will it look horrible?
Will Going Under the Muscle Look Horrible After Going Above the Muscle?
Doctor Answers 8
Breast implant replacement under the muscle
I think that you will even better than on top of the muscle and a slightly lower rate of capsular contracture. This is a good choice.
Learn more: http://www.breastrevisionsanfrancisco.com
Replacing Implants to Submuscular Position?
Thank you for the question.
In the event of capsular contracture or severe breast implant rippling replacing implants in the sub muscle position is the best way to go in my opinion. This may or may not be possible depending on your specific situation.
Generally, it is possible to replace implants under the pectoralis muscle (dual plane). However, the major issue of concern is the overlying breast tissue and skin and whether further surgery will be necessary to achieve the aesthetic results desired. For example, some patients who have implants replaced into the sub pectoral space may benefit from breast lifting to achieve the desired goals.
This type of surgery does require some level of experience. It would behoove you to seek consultation with well experienced board-certified plastic surgeons well-versed in revisionary breast surgery.
I hope this helps.
Learn more: http://www.poustiplasticsurgery.com/Procedures/procedure_breastrevision.htm
Replacing over the muscle implants under the muscle
The risks of going under the muscle are as follows:
More pain after surgery (muscle dissection hurts);
Longer recover (same reason);
Possible later "separation of volumes" leading to a "double contour" deformity as the breast falls with time and gravity and the implant stays high on the chest, isolated by the muscle layer;
Distortion of the implant by the muscle during exercise leading to weird breast motions.
A better bet is simply to place the new implants on top of the muscle but under the old capsule (or simply in the same pocket after removing the capsule).
You might also like...
Replacing implants previously over the chest muscle in an under-the-muscle position is possible
Hi there-
While this maneuver does require a bit of experience, placing your new implants under your chest muscle is definitely in your best interests, lowering the risk of recurrent capsular contracture, and giving you a more natural, long lasting result.
The photo I have linked to is an example of just the maneuver you are asking about. We did her surgery over 5 years ago and she still looks this good.
Learn more: http://www.realself.com/files/Breast-Implants-before-114214.jpg
Will putting breast implant deep the the muscle look horrible?
In the case of capsular contracture around a subglandular implant, removing the capsule and repositioning the implant deep to pectoralis major muscle is sound management. Submuscular placement will likely camouflage your implant better, and result in a slightly more natural appearing augmentation.
Learn more: http://www.feelbeautiful.com/breast/augmentation-san-diego-ca/
Capsular contracture treatment
Capsular contracture is one of the more troubling complications associated with breast augmentation. Some studies indicate that it is the most common cause for requiring secondary surgery (revisions). The treatment typically includes removal of the old implant, a total or subtotal capsulectomy, and the placement of a new implant. Capsular contracture rates do appear to be less for silicone implants when they are placed under the muscle. This is still a bit controversial though. When a pocket change is carried out with implants being removed from above the muscle and then subsequently placed under the muscle, the breasts can have a much different appearance. The implants can sit much higher, at least initially. There may also be skin excess requiring a breast lift. I agree with Dr. Minniti below, that it is probably best to get a few opinions before deciding on a particular board certified plastic surgeon.
Capsular contracture
Breast Implants and Capsular Contracture
Hello Cecelia,
Your best chance of minimizing the risk of recurrent capsular contracture consists of removing and discarding the implant, removing the entire capsule from around the implant, and placing a new implant under the pectoralis muscle. Depending on your anatomy, you may also require a breast lift as well. Done well, your results could look very pleasing.
Revision breast surgery is more complex and requires experience. You should visit a few surgeons that have an excellent reputation in revision breast surgery. These doctors will be not only certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, but also members of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
Best of luck!
These answers are for educational purposes and should not be relied upon as a substitute for medical advice you may receive from your physician. If you have a medical emergency, please call 911. These answers do not constitute or initiate a patient/doctor relationship.


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"The Chinese investment has affected the city property markets,"
Chinese developers have been outbidding local developers and driving up prices for land. More than 40 residential sites have sold within 10 kilometres of the Melbourne central business district to Chinese developers in the last 18 months, according to Oliver Hume Real Estate Group. In Sydney there is a similar story.
Urban Development Institute national president
Mr Abedian said that while there was a concern, it could be that the Chinese money pouring in will end up like the Japanese investment of the 1980s.
"In the short term it might be a problem but in the long term . . . we should be open to investment in our country," he said. "After the Japanese left it created a platform for the Australian development companies to pick up all the sites."
Politicians have 'no idea'
Mr Abedian said that while the Chinese investment surge was a problem, the biggest challenge his listed company faced was dealing with politicians in local, state and federal governments. "They are elected and they have no idea what they are talking about and yet they make the final decision on everything," he said. "They move based on one notion and that is being re-elected again, not about what is good for our city. Everybody knows what [architect] Jørn Utzon has done for Sydney but just visualise whether today that [the Sydney Opera House] would be possible. It would be impossible for any politician to believe in a project like that," he said.
He hinted at politicians' desire for casinos as one of the biggest problems and suggested they take a lead from the Spanish city of Bilbao. "That city was going through the same things as the Gold Coast – unemployment was high . . . but the leader of the city decided to create the Guggenheim Museum. They did not go and say we need another casino there, which is the source of decay in society," Mr Abedian said.
Sunland managing director
"Government policy based on polls every week is not conducive to creating betterment," he said. "The notion of statesmanship has been completely lost and I think our political leaders need to reflect on what it means to have leadership."
The Australian Financial Review