I watched a "DVD" last night.  Saraha.  The new one.  The have ads at the start.  This is funny because I used to make and sell ads that go on before movies in theaters.  Anyway, nonetheless(a non word, but blogers can't spell) the ad was for a movie about Bob Dylan.  I have coffee everyday in a coffee house.  The owner thinks its a coffee shop, but deep down he knows its a coffee house.  A coffee house like the ones Dylan, and all the other folkies played in during the early and mid 60s. The good 60's.  The checkered table cloths and little candles in wine bottles all left over from the beat generation.   (Reference "A Mighty Wind" the film).  I thought about the old coffee houses in my youth.  The Black Brick, The Sword in the Stone, the Hungry I.  With vespas, cafe racers (Reference, Mods and Rockers) and my honda 90 parked outstide we would drink blackberry cokes (called bat juice) and listen to kids copy Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary and others.  Playing chess, trying to out turtleneck shirt the new guys.  I always ended up with black, but I had a bright yellow one and a bright yellow folk singers shirt with long pointy collars and puffy arms. Included with the set was a leather vest, 12 string guitar, and blue square glasses.(Reference the Birds)   Nonetheless, it; the ad, made me think about those fun times and the music of that day.  When I was producing TV commercials in the late 70's we had an "older" union cameraman who had worked in L.A. for years.  General Hospial, Sonny and Cher, Hollywood Palace, Joey Bishop Show, etc.  I remembered a story he told about a show he worked on with Fred Astair on Hollywood Palace.  I looked it up and came up with this clip.  It is one of the first two records I bought, 45s .  I loved this group and the song.  Its not itunes yet but here is a live utube of it.  Remember this is of a time when San Francisco was becoming  the middle of the music world, not Liverpool. Bev is the lead singer and was the dream girl of every folkie like me. Please take note of the frug......and white boots.....ummmmm  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_f16t1JGHo

Captains Blog star date 9.26.08

Fear of Flying.

The concern about flying is like eating zuccinni.  You either like it or you avoid it at all costs. 

As a child I would travel around the US with my parents in old converted military aircraft.  I love airplanes.  Keeping in mind that I have seen several planes crash and have been in aircraft that have been on fire.  Living on an airbase has it perks.  A canopy, the plastic part the pilot look thru, fell into the street in front of my brother and I walking home from school.  We looked up to see the fighter pilot eject and the plane crash into a vacant lot.  The family down the street had an engine from a B-25 sitting in their bedroom when they came home from a movie.  The other stories didn’t turn out so well.  About 12 in all.  After all those one would stop flying all together, you would think.  I hate flying now because I am bigger and the seats are smaller.

Flying is humans’ way of defying gravity (see Defying Gravity song from the play Wicked).  It is a way to “beat the clock” .  Not the 50’s game show but the clock of life.  We can get there faster and use the time we saved to waste on something else.  “Time is money”.  This is not true.  “Money buys time”.  If you have lots of money you can spend time doing things you want in the places you want.  Flying helps you get there, faster.  The price for a ticket on the concord  new York to Paris was about $4000.00 in 1982. By 2002 it was $8000.00.  Remember jet fuel was 11 cents a gallon in 1978.  But to get from London to Miami in less time that it takes me to get to Disneyland well it was worth it for some. 

The fear part of flying I think is in the dying part of flying.  My father was in 5 airplane crashes and died at the age of 87 of old age.(note: the German Air force caused 3 of those)  I on the other hand have been across the Pacific twice and whole US 4 or 5 times and can still type and chew gum.  The fear of death is a big factor in getting on a big hunk of steel with no visible means of support, and flies.  Having been on public transportations (buses, trains etc) in San Francisco, LA, New York, Chicago, Saigon, I would say that flying is still the safest form of transportation. I would think everyone one the Concord had had a bath in the last 6 months.

“Fear of Flying” the 1970 book by Erica Jong was about safety, comfort, sex, adventure, freedom, independence, the power to work and write, so say the reviewers of the book.  I didn’t read it.  I didn’t read Cosmo either and my friends say that’s why I had a starter wife.  Anyway the girl in the book fears flying both in the air and on the ground.  From what I can tell from the reviews is that this too is about dying.  The body dying, the mind dying, the soul dying.  Its all about death. (note to self: topic for another blog). 

Just get on the plane.  Unless of course you don’t like zucchini.

The whole song should be quoted here, but you can look it up.

“A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms
Amelia it was just a false alarm”
                                       Joni Mitchell