Jean Claud Pierric was one of the hippest cats around during those days, and put together a ton of funky “stock jazz” and other music for use in television commercials and the like. He’s still around today, and active amongst the reasonably large group of fans he has online. He even shares his old records as MP3′s via his blog, which is in French.

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Listen to JC Pierric – Athena
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I’ve posted the album this song is from here, and recommend checking it out. It’s a good example of the quality of stuff he put out back then – and while definitely quirky and cheesy in parts, you may find it cool.

Check it out and post your comments here.

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Yep, it’s the Brady home as it looks today on Google Street View.
More info here, here, and here.

Hell is for Heroes Title

How many of you guys have heard of a little film called Hell is for Heroes?

You should check it out. Why? Well, it’s a good little WWII movie set on the Siegfried Line in France. It was directed by Don Siegel, who directed the 1950s classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers as well as two episodes of The Twilight Zone. Siegel would go on to direct Dirty Harry, The Shootist, and Escape from Alcatraz.

You might have heard of the cast, too:

Steve McQueen

Bobby Darin

Fess Parker

James Coburn

and, last-but-not-least:

Bob Newhart

Yep, button-down Bob himself. In case you were wondering, he plays a nebbish Army clerk who ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s even a sequence where he gets to do his famous telephone schtick. Speaking of Bobs, Bobby Darin does a bang-up job as wise-crackin’ scrounger from the Big City and more than holds his own, even against Steve McQueen

So, great director, great cast. What does this have to do with the assignment? Well, as you may have already guessed from the title of this post, it was filmed in Cottonwood, California.

Steve McQueen wonders why he took this role.

Apparently, France is a land of red dirt, scrub oaks, and manzanita. Who knew?

The film itself is pretty taut little film and it still very watchable today, once you get past the fact that these famous actors are playing soldier not far from where we did a quarter-century ago.

The famed red clay dirt of France

Some interesting tidbits: Much of the film takes place at night, because daytime temperatures were regularly hitting 110+. Obviously, they were filming during the summer. During the filming, Bobby Darin and the other stars were seen around Redding. They frequented the Squire Room and the Casablanca Lounge and stayed at apartments on Trinity Street which are still standing. Unfortunately, I don’t know which ones.

A look at the valley where most of the film is set.

The best I can determine from watching the movie is that it was filmed west of I-5, possibly near the truck scales. The U.S. soldiers are on a ridge top, facing west. (There’s a scene where you can  see the hills north of Redding on their right.)

The final push on the German pillbox.

The producers  took advantage of Shasta County’s long history of environmental ambivelance and really blew the place to hell. Trees were exploding everywhere, and there were tons of squibs and larger explosions. It looked damn good, even thrown against modern WWII flicks like Saving Private Ryan. The scenes of the larger guns firing (anything larger than a mortar) were stock footage, but that’s to be expected.

Tank traps or new art installation?

Anyway, I apologize for not having modern pics of the area, but if I can ever nail down its location, I promise I will make the trek to the wilds of Cottonwood and shoot it. Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye open for the Wehrmacht.

Here, then, is your mission:

1. 1

   Find an accessible location where a movie was filmed.

   By “movie”, I mean one that was widely-released in theaters everywhere. It could be a really old movie, or one that came out last year… but it has to have been shown in movie theaters. We’re looking for quality here, so online or straight-to-DVD stuff doesn’t count. Neither does anything with a higher rating than ‘R’, if you get my drift. Just do your best to pick a movie that’s cool or interesting in one way or another.

   As for the location, it should be a place you have (or can gain) easy access to. It could be a five minute drive, or 300 miles away – it doesn’t matter. You just have to be able to get there, and have good access to the original filming site(s). Look down below for more info on how and where to get started.

2. 2

   Watch the movie and grab a few interesting stills from it.

   Generally, this will require using software to grab a handful of still images from the DVD (or whatever format you watch the movie in). This isn’t as difficult as you might think, and there are some links below that’ll make it a whole lot easier for you.
   These stills would probably be mostly exterior shots, but they can be anything that does a good job of establishing the location.
   It may be that only one scene or shot was filmed in the location you’ve found. That’s fine – just make sure you grab at least a couple of images from that part of the movie.
3. 3

   Go to the location where the movie was filmed, and take some pictures.

   Based on the stills you grabbed in step 2 above, do your best to photograph the location from the same angles. If possible, shoot for similar time of day, weather conditions, and so on. You basically want to get some cool shots of the same exact place, ones that can be compared side-by-side with the stills from the movie. Before you head out, you may even want to print the stills you grabbed (or put them on your phone, iPod, whatever) for visual reference while you’re there.
4. 4

   Post your whole experience here, and show the movie stills alongside the shots you took yourself.

   This shouldn’t be too difficult. Show us what you’ve come up with, and make it as interesting as possible. Tell us about why you chose the movie you did, and what it was like going to the same location. What were the differences between the film and what you experienced? Put it all up here.

Finding Locations

Filminamerica.com is a pretty good starting point, but it doesn’t list everything. There are tons of other sites with huge databases of movie locations, so do a few Google searches and you’ll be on your way. Be thorough, because some of them have more info than others, and none of them detail everything. You never know – it could be that Leprechaun 2 was filmed in the woods behind your house, and only one site out there has that valuable information.

Grabbing Still Images

Once you have the right software, it’s pretty easy to grab stills from any kind of video you can play on your computer. The awesome and free VLC Media Player (available for both Windows and Mac) will allow you to do this with ease. In fact, there’s even a handy how-to guide here.
There are other methods and programs for doing this, too. If you get stuck and can’t figure this out, just email me.

Final Considerations

You are by no means constrained to doing this for just one movie. If you have the time and ability to go through all this for more than one, that would be very cool.

Remember, our fine state is a rich land of movie history, so dig deep and do some research. You may find that some really cool old movies were filmed not too far from where you are. This assignment should also give you the opportunity to check out some cool movies you may not have seen before. Have fun with this, and show us something interesting.

Ready?
 
Begin.

More info here.

1. Why are there so many bead stores out there?
2. How does a bead store stay in business if they’re selling… just… beads? It seems that this would be nearly impossible. Is something else going on at these places?
3. WHO BUYS BEADS?!?

Seriously, I’m wondering if I’m missing something here. Are bead stores where people go to secretly buy drugs or something? I’m starting to get the feeling that this is the case, and that I’m just naive for not already knowing that. It could be that my first question above only applies to the area where I currently live, which makes me even more convinced that bead stores are somehow drug-related. I remember there being many stories about The Beadman in Redding, where local high school kids went to buy illicit substances and drug paraphernalia in their “back room” – so this theory doesn’t seem all that far-fetched. I know there are obviously people that make jewelry, and they need to buy beads occasionally. I just don’t see that tiny fraction of the population keeping all these bead stores afloat financially, all by themselves.

This evening as Mrs. Eduardo and I were out on Highway 116, we saw a bunch of roadside signs advertising BEADS!!! at some place up ahead. I’ve noticed that there is often a sense of urgency in bead advertising. There are almost always exclamation points in anything advertising beads, so this is also somewhat interesting. Maybe bead merchants are totally legit, and just really desperate… Even the Beadman’s gotta eat.

Come on, Amigos – help me out here. let me know what you think.

About ten years ago, I had a terrifying nightmare in which I was attacked by a giant mosquito that had a cat’s head. I won’t get into that now, but I may post about it sometime in the future before we move on to the next topic. Needless to say, it left me scarred.

Now, I don’t know if it was because I mentioned it while commenting on Paco’s dream the other day, or if it’s because our house seems to be full of mosquito hawks right now, but something summoned the same horror from my subconscious recently.

A couple of nights ago, I dreamed that my wife and I lived in an alternate version of the house we’re in now. There was a nice pool in the backyard, with a small cabana/storage shed type thing in the back corner of the yard.
It was a Saturday, and I was about to do some yard work when I opened the shed door to get some tools or something. After I’d stepped inside, I heard a creepy rustling sound that gradually rose in frequency to a low vibrating buzz. The hairs on my neck rose, and as I instinctively retreated from the shed I saw something rise up from the floor and slowly start flying toward me. I just about lost it when I saw that it was a huge, hairy mosquito with a wingspan of about three feet. Actually, it was probably a mosquito hawk… Maybe less threatening in one sense, but still unspeakably hideous at that size.
To my surprise and relief, the thing flew past me after hovering there for a few seconds. I remember being more grossed out than scared, because it was all hairy and nasty-looking just like those frightening bug photos taken with scanning electron microscopes.

Anyway, after it flew past me it headed for our front yard. I followed cautiously, and interestingly enough found our friend and fellow amigo Pecos standing there. We smiled and greeted each other, since it actually has been a long time since we’ve seen one another. I think at that point the giant mosquito buzzed over to us, and Pecos said something like, “oh, THERE you are. I’ve been waiting here long anough!”
Then, right before my eyes, the mosquito morphed into a woman!

I just about fainted as the giant hairy insect shapeshifted into a perfectly normal, ordinary woman – fully clothed, with purse and everything. She just stood there next to Pecos, smiling. He went on to explain that they had recently gotten engaged, which I thought was weird given the fact he is already married.

“Oh, yeah – it HAS been a long time since I last saw you, hasn’t it?” he said. He continued explaining how it all came together, but I still didn’t understand what was going on. I was still a little troubled over the fact that the lady standing in front of me was actually a giant insect that lived in our shed.

For some reason I decided to take a picture of them, so I pulled out my phone. Pecos started making fun of me for having an iPhone, and I think I woke up after that.

Please note that some content on this site is now considered ‘private’… That is, certain posts are only visible to the official Amigos (when logged in). As we start getting more traffic on the site, it’s become obvious that certain posts and categories need to be censored from public viewing. If you have any questions on this, just ask Eduardo or Jaime. If you are a contributor to this site, make sure you log in before doing anything here – even reading old posts – because certain things won’t even show up if you don’t. A lot of older entries will be invisible if you aren’t logged in.

To the rest of you, this is why it may occasionally appear that certain posts are missing here. We’ve got them in the system, it’s just that they’re not 100% suitable for public consumption for various reasons. We hope you understand. Pretty much all content from here on out will be public, so this mainly applies to older posts.

Thanks!