The Good Old Days thread

[|iR|Focalor]

I wouldn't call myself a "Star Wars nerd" at all... I'm just a casual fan.

I was bored and felt like watching all 9 of the main movies, mostly with the intention of watching the newest 3 over again. I've seen all 3 of them, but I remember feeling incredibly confused by the strange ending of the last one, so I wanted to watch them again... probably just to confirm how stupid and awful they really are.

When downloading the movies, I came across a torrent that was called the "despecialized trilogy". I looked up some more info on it...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmy's_Despecialized_Edition

It's the original trilogy compiled from several sources (35mm film, laser disc, capacitance disc, etc) with the original sound effects, music, and color timing, none of the later added CGI effects and characters, and restoration of all of the original scenes that were later changed or removed by George Lucas for the re-releases.

I've gotten through New Hope and Empire Strikes Back so far. Right off the bat, I notice the color is definitely different from the DVD version I have. It looks a lot more like a movie from the 70's and 80's, more similar to the technicolor process used in the 60's and 70's which made colors pop out a little better. Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but it seems like this de-specialized version has a lot of extra scenes in the bar where Luke and Obi-Wan meet Han. Or maybe it's the removal of all the CGI crap that makes the scene look so different.

Biggest thing I notice in Empire Strikes Back is the re-inclusion of the original scene where Darth Vader communicates with the Emperor via hologram. The Emperor looked different in the 2nd movie, and his voice was not the same as in the 3rd one either (less deep voice, less evil sounding, no english accent). He only appears in the Empire Strikes Back just that one time as a hologram. In the George Lucas re-releases, this scene was changed to include the Emperor as he appeared and sounded in the 3rd movie for the sake of "continuity".

Again, I'm not really a Star Wars nerd, but I'd definitely call myself a movie nerd. I do agree with the fans who like these de-specialized versions of the films more. I don't like the fact that George Lucas decided to change those films so drastically. Remastering, color tweaking, that's one thing. Even if you're gonna add shitloads of extra footage like the later re-release of Apocalypse Now did, that's fine, because you're not "changing" the movie all that much. Fans of the de-specialized versions argue that George Lucas effectively "vandalized" the movies by changing them so significantly, and I definitely agree. I kinda liked the prequel movies, but I was not a huge fan of the large amount of CGI used in the prequels. It was what I'd call "believable enough" but it still looked very much computer generated. Conventional effects and puppeteered characters may not look 100% real either, but at least they don't look 100% fake like all the computer generated characters do.

I didn't watch the first movie too much as a kid, but I remember in the 80's and 90's, HBO used to show The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi quite frequently. I used to watch them a lot when they'd come on. My mom was especially a fan of Empire Strikes Back, but I liked Return of the Jedi more because of the ewoks and the speeder bikes. It's cool to finally be able to see them once again like they were back then.

[|iR|Focalor]

On this episode of "People You Forgot that you Forgot"...

Nutritionist, motivational speaker, and 90's infomercial lady, Susan Powter!



She had the "Stop the Insanity" infomercial hocking her "Stop the Insanity" book and weight loss program. See what I mean, you forgot that you forgot about her, right? 

Was browsing the youtube app the other day when I came across a live streaming loop video from Adult Swim for the Space Ghost Coast to Coast 30th anniversary. One of the guests was Susan Powter. I was like, "Ha! I remember that buzz headed bitch! She was great!"

[|iR|Focalor]

More Kmart stuff...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjPyvoAx6qc

[QwazyWabbit]

Q. What happened?
A. Private equity companies. Eddie Lampert (Lamprey) who used the resources of Kmart to buy and bankrupt Sears. All the assets still being held by these empty shells are owned by ESL Investments who is the primary creditor for all the debts and Eddie owns ESL. Prior to that, the management at Kmart used it as their own piggy banks to support a high lifestyle until SEC sued chairman Conaway and president Schwartz for misleading investors about the financial position of the company.

There was a Kmart near my home that we used to buy clothing and supplies. The lot was always about half-full and they seemed to be doing OK but Eddie made sure it would fail. Now it's a dark and unused carcass with yellow tape surrounding the parking lot and 24 hour security patrols in beat up used police interceptors and a chair in front of what used to be the automotive bay. The only blue light specials are under the remote surveillance trailers and Eddie isn't even popping for those anymore. That's for the Home Depots.

If you see reports of private equity investing in a company, immediately sell any stock in that company or its subsidaries on the open market at the current price, do not wait for the tender offer because it will cost you in the long run. PE is the vampire death of finance.

[|iR|Focalor]

Sears.

My grandmother, who I never met (she died when my mom was 10 or 11) worked for Sears at the old Sears & Roebuck building in East Atlanta off Ponce De Leon Ave. It sat mostly empty and in disrepair for many years (as did many of the larger buildings on that street for much of the 80's and 90's). Thankfully, the people of Atlanta value the building and it's history and have kept it rather than demolishing it or radically renovating it. They did renovate the interior and turn it into apartments, but they restored the exterior and kept it looking the same.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XweEZkbKXVM


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOAv9s1u0qY

[QwazyWabbit]

Eddie Lampert in some ways got his come-uppance on both bankruptcies. Bankrupting Sears in 2018, it's been in court and ultimately, the SCOTUS refused to hear his appeal of the 2019 decision that the collateral was only worth $433.5 million vs their estimated $718 million in unpaid debt. The properties owned by Sears and Kmart, still held in the bankruptcies is now, post COVID, worth far less than that $433.5 million and it's very unlikely to rise in value for many years now due to the collapse of the commercial real estate market nationwide. I doubt he will live to see his investments recovered. BTW, he came out of Goldman Sachs, possibly the most crooked bank in the U.S. but IMO it's a tie between GS, BA and WF.

If that apartment scheme is working then I'm happy for the landlord and tenants but I'm not sure many people would like living in a windowless condo complex born from the death of big box retail. I expect if you could research the developer and landlord books they are underwater on the deal.

Lampert even made a bid to buy all of Sears (as part of a scheme to get first-priority creditor status in the bankruptcy) but it was financed by more debt than cash and he tried to get out of paying Sears' former employees the pensions they were due. (That's another story. Underfunded pension funds are rampant in corporate America. Companies defer funding of pensions, holding back the cash to keep the books well-cooked and stiff the pension funds down the line. You're better off with a 401(k) and/or IRA than a pension.)

 

[|iR|Focalor]

If that apartment scheme is working then I'm happy for the landlord and tenants but I'm not sure many people would like living in a windowless condo complex born from the death of big box retail. I expect if you could research the developer and landlord books they are underwater on the deal.

Nah, it had tons of windows. I think that was one of the big problems with finding someone else to take over the building after Sears stopped using it. Tons of homeless people broke into it to live (and turned it into the biggest multistory crackhouse you've ever seen) and many of the windows were broken out. Nobody needed that much space, nobody wanted to replace all the windows and clean the place up, and the neighborhood at the time was a shithole.

This is a more recent one. See the big vertical "PONCE" and clock sign hanging off the side. That was added when it was turned into the Ponce City Market. You can see the beltline there in the foreground. It might be a more recent pic because in more recent times, they don't mow the grass as often along the trails and it doesn't look as nice as it did when it first opened. Funny how that always happens. But thats taken from an elevated position where the railroad bridge crosses Ponce De Leon Ave right beside the building.




I think this is an older pic from the 2000's. See the railroad bridge going over Ponce. The building on the front side of the railway is the old Ford Factory building. Before WW2, they produced Model A's, Model T's, and flathead V8's for the Model 18's. After WW2, they moved production to a larger plant down by the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport, which operated until about 2006 building pretty much nothing but the Ford Taurus. (My youth pastor at the church I went to in high school worked there as a paint dept mgr or paint quality control guy - he said he HATED IT) It ALSO sat empty and derelict for many many years. But that was actually a pre-gentrification craze project where they renovated it and turned it into apartments with shopping storefronts on the first floor. The Kroger next door to it finally closed recently I think, probably more plans for expensive shit only douchebags can afford. Since the 2000's it was often refered to as the "murder kroger", because so many people have been murdered in that parking lot and around the Ford building. Lovely, huh.



And this is a current screenshot from google streetview. You can see the fence they added to the railway bridge to keep idiots from falling off or jumping to their deaths when they realize they cant afford the rent anymore.



According to wiki:
 
As Sears, Roebuck -
From 1926 to 1979, it was a Sears, Roebuck and Co. retail store, warehouse and regional office. ... In 1979, the retail store closed but the building continue operating as a Sears regional office until 1987.

As City Hall East -
In May 1990, the city of Atlanta bought the building for $12 million, with plans to place 2,000 police and fire employees there, and later rent space out to county, state, and federal agencies. The city subsequently moved the central offices of its police department and fire department into the building. A city-funded art gallery was also established on the first floor. From 1995 to 1999, the Southeastern Flower Show was held here. The building was closed to the public on March 29, 2010.

As Ponce City Market -
The City sold the property for $27 million to Jamestown, a private-equity group, on July 11, 2011. Jamestown, which also invested in the redevelopment of the White Provision retail and restaurant complex in West Midtown, bankrolled the 180-million-dollar plans by developer Green Street Properties to convert it into a mixed-use development. In a July 2011 interview, Michael Phillips, managing director of Jamestown, said that Jamestown is focused on Ponce City Market becoming the fourth nationally relevant food hall in the U.S., alongside Pike Place in Seattle, the Ferry Building in San Francisco, and Jamestown's own Chelsea Market in New York City. Jamestown also plans rooftop gardens where local restaurants can grow food. Jamestown planned to complete renovations by early 2015 and then have the building added to the National Register of Historic Places. It was hoped that the new development, along with the new adjacent BeltLine trail and Historic Fourth Ward Park, would stitch together the four neighborhoods that meet where it is located and revitalize the Ponce de Leon Avenue corridor. Ponce City Market officially opened on August 25, 2014.

---------------------

Well... what wiki doesn't tell you is that even though Atlanta bought the building in 1990, they really only fixed up the first couple of floors facing Ponce De Leon Ave, the rest of the building was still a a garbage dump. City Hall East and the part of East Atlanta Police used the first floor back side of the building facing North Ave. The art gallery? Yeah nobody cared or ever went to see it. Their lofty plans to make so much money for the city renting the place out as offices and such... never really happened. Just another example of the Atlanta city council being stupid with money and never being held accountable for it.

2011... the gentrification begins... If you've seen the episode of South Park where they turn dirt poor Kenny's house into a douchey wine bar and noodle shop district with overpriced loft apartments, yeah, that's what this is.

They mention "rooftop gardens". I guess that's part of the douchey gentrification routine. Just a short walk east from the old Sears along Ponce is the old Clermont Motor Hotel built in the 1920's. It got to be a pretty notoriously awful place - with an equally notorious strip club on the basement level known as the Clermont Lounge, a pretty famous dive bar, and I do mean "dive bar" - the strippers are fat and ugly, but they're sometimes comical and fun and that's sort of their "thing". They've tried to shut the place down a thousand times with health code violations and other shit but too many people want the place to stay, so they're still there. The Clermont Hotel upstairs remained closed for a long time - it probably closed about the same time Sears did in 79. In 2013, it was finally bought and renovated into a douchey boutique hotel... with rooftop gardens. They have some kind of rooftop bar open to everyone. I see the same kinds of "rooftop gardens" popping up in downtown Athens GA too. Even the little town where I live, they renovated an old grain mill building that became a microbrewery and restaurant and installed a big rooftop deck. I'm so tired of that shit. The prices are outrageous. I'm not going to pay 60+ fucking dollars for dinner for 2 people in a place where they won't kick me out for wearing jeans and a "Who farted?" T-shirt.

As for the "beltline", it's the old Atlanta Railroad systems outer loop that was built in the late 1800's after the Civil War by several different regional railroad companies as a bypass loop around Atlanta (Atlanta was a major railway hub back then and very congested.) Very few of the rails are still in use anymore, and the loop wasn't used probably since the 80's. If you read the wiki page, you can see the idea behind it is based on this "woke" pie in the sky worldview of "inclusion of marginalized communities" and other such catch-phrases that certain people like to use to pretend they're making the world a better place. One of the ways it states it intends to make the world a better place is by "preserving affordable housing" - says so right on the wiki page too. But again, I say they PRETEND they're making the world a better place, because in reality, they dump assloads of money into redeveloping these places, and then the rent ends up being more than anyone from a fucking "marginalized community" (including poor white folks like me, I'm not making a veiled racist statement here) can possibly afford. On the west corner of the Sears building is a West Elm shop. It's a nice fancy upscale kinda place with sort of expensive stuff. The people who work there can't possibly afford to live anywhere in that neighborhood. Anyway, getting back on topic... the beltway... they pulled up the old rails and put down a concrete walking path, installed some benches and trash cans, some grass and bushes. It's a very popular path everyone uses for jogging, bicycling, walking... robbing, raping, murdering. Don't go alone, and don't go unarmed. You might think. "I'll go with my dog, if something happens, he'll bark and scare them off." Is it a vicious pitbull? Then it might work... or it might just bite someone and then you get sued. If it's not scary though, the people robbing you might rob you of your fucking DOG TOO. That's been another growing issue since covid in Atlanta is people stealing dogs and reselling them.

[QwazyWabbit]

Ah, I see. It was my impression from the videos in your prior post that it was a windowless mall store. The windowed structure is "old" Sears stand alone store type that dominated downtown life. There's one near downtown L.A. and I believe it's been a warehouse for decades, given up by Sears even before Eddie arrived on scene. I can remember those days as I had been to those types as a kid. I can still remember the "bing bing" sounds of the stores comm system and I can remember Boston Store's pneumatic tubes for transporting order sheets or records through the store. It was a different world then.

[|iR|Focalor]

Buster Keaton.

Plenty of people know the name (maybe less so the pre-Gen-Xer's), but a lot of people probably counldn't name any of his movies. I couldn't until lately. I always thought older silent films were mostly poorly acted pieces of decaying dookie that should probably be preserved, but aren't that good compared to modern films. That may be true to some extent... that they aren't particularly well acted, but I guess that was just the way of the times. People were going from stage plays to a new medium, and the makeup and often over-dramatic gesturing was just how it's done. And while not many silent films are all that greatly entertaining compared to modern films (at least in my opinion), the production and scale and size of some of them was incredible.

The best example: the old 1915 black and white DW Griffith film, Birth of a Nation. It contained HUGE Civil War re-enactment scenes, with real cannons firing real powder, and many hundreds if not thousands of extras dressed as Union and Confederate soldiers. Pretty sure lots of extras were injured during some of the scenes, perhaps even killed since the cannons were firing real powder (anything in the barrels or stuck to the sides would've been projectiles). In those days, they didn't have safety regulations in the movie industry, and many times people using guns actually used REAL BULLETS (like the old Scarface movie from 1932). "Here, here's your prop gun, it's loaded with real bullets... just make sure you don't aim it right at someone when you fire it, try to miss them as best you can. Mkay? Great!"

Another great example of incredible production would be just about any Buster Keaton film. This guy was the original Jackie Chan insane stuntman. He performed all sorts of wacky insane stunts and falls, some that could've easily killed him, some that actually DID injure him very badly.

The General (1926) - from the good old days before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was ever a thing.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpT6QbqIXgo

(This film is public domain at this point so hopefully this video link won't die anytime soon.)

[|iR|Focalor]

Buster Keaton.

The General (1926)

Just wanna highlight my favorite funny scene from this...

The "I'ma strangle you, ya silly bitch" scene.    (from 55:56 to 56:38) - link there should start it at the right spot.

[|iR|Focalor]

RIP Richard Simmons.

I'm not someone who's "pro-gay" but I'm not "anti-gay" either. And that's kinda what was cool about Richard Simmons. He was quite obviously gay, and it shaped his persona, but he never felt the need to make it the most important part about himself, which made him far more relatable to everyone else on earth who's personality is not built on what they decide to do with their genitals for fun. Those kinds of people... it's like, "I GET IT, YOU'RE GAY, IT'S NOT A SPECIAL TALENT, CAN WE MOVE ON?" I feel the same way about daily dope smokers now too. Getting high is ALL they ever talk about. It's annoying. "THERE IS MORE TO LIFE. WATCH, I'MA GO DO IT... AWAY FROM YOU."

Richard Simmons was a fun dude though. Never serious, always funny, infectiously positive, genuinely kind and cared about people. A Bob Ross kind of guy. (Both had fro's... maybe fro's are magic) Virtually nobody on planet earth had a bad thing to say about them. That's the kind of legacy you want to leave, ain't it? Me, I'm too irish to be nice to everyone that consistently.

As a little kid - maybe when I was 4 or 5 - I remember how me and my mom had a few shows we'd watch most weekday mornings. One of them was called You and Me Kid (on the Disney channel) - it featured parents and kids often doing exercises, stories, educational stuff.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGEZIJ0sLXo

We'd also usually watch Richard Simmons show and we'd sometimes do the exercises along with them.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-JaWWtcf60

[Prophet]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciLEWR_ugI4


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVp6AiRbxvs


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3ctZI9_oyo

Haha! I had one of those old steering wheel games when I was a kid.  Shit, showing my age.  But then, being on this forum and game shows my age lol.

[Sgt. Dick]

Remember this -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0aKKFybRNM

[|iR|Focalor]

Remember this - Where's the beef?

Heard of that one a million times but I never saw it on TV myself that I remember.

I do remember a hundred and one different versions of the juicy fruit commercial all with the same twangy song.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ92qqzutcE&ab_channel=ArcadeSpookyTree

They even parodied it on one of the Star Wars parody episodes of Family Guy.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSnp8mEPmEw&ab_channel=SBellah714

[|iR|Focalor]

Remember baseball cards?

Remember Pete Rose? One of the greatest baseball players ever until they kicked him out for betting on his own games. His nickname was Charlie Hustle... Better Call Saul got it from Pete Rose.

1986 Topps Pete Rose card.



(Pete Rose passed yesterday.  Dunno the cause of death yet. Rest in peace, Charlie Hustle.)

I'm about 90% sure I've still got this one in a binder somewhere as well as most of the entire set of the 1986 year Topps.

Remember baseball cards though? You used to be able to find them at grocery store checkouts, gas station checkouts, etc. And for a while there in the 90's, you could actually find baseball card and sports memorabilia stores that would BUY them for close to what their value was. Doubt you could find anyone to buy them for what they're worth anymore... unless it's older stuff - 1970's and before.

Oldest one I have in my collection that I remember... 1959 Topps special 3-player Cleveland Indians card  featuring Minnie Minoso, Rocky Colavito, and Larry Doby, "The Destruction Crew."



I have no foggy idea what it's worth.