Chuck the Writer loves this song "United Breaks Guitars" by Sons of Maxwell

This is absolutely funny. And it's great. And it's ironic.

Here's the deal.

This musician, Dave Carroll, from the band Sons of Maxwell, was on tour and was waiting for his United flight to take off, when a passenger on that plane looked out the window and said that the plane loading crew were tossing guitars in the air. Apparently one of the guitars that was being tossed - and later damaged and broken - was Carroll's acoustic guitar.

He spent some time trying to get United to fix it, and went from call center to phone jail to runaround.

However, Mr. Carroll didn't let it stop there.

He wrote a song about it.

And he made a video for it

And he shows off his busted guitar in the video.

And I'm posting it right here because I want you to watch this - it's just that great!



And don't get me wrong - I'll fly United more than I would any other airline (and my wife, who loves Southwest, thinks I'm nuts for my brand loyalty), but if United ever damaged my camera equipment in transit, I better get some replacement and not just measly $50 travel voucher!

Go Dave Carroll! Power to the people!

Chuck the Writer FINALLY GOT THE D700!!!!

I scrimped. I saved. I went without.

But on Friday, I was able to finally realize my goal.

Backstory.

From 2005 to the present, I worked with a Nikon D70 camera. I actually purchased this camera to replace my Nikon Coolpix 800, which I had owned since maybe 1999. At the time, the Albany Patroons were coming back to the CBA, and the camera I had just wouldn't work with action photography. So I bought a D70 from my local Ritz Camera and went from there.

Since then, I've used the D70 for four CBA seasons and two Premier Basketball League seasons, and have captured maybe 30,000 photos over that span of time. I also used it for various nature and outdoors photography.

But over time, I saw that my D70 wasn't as powerful a camera as I originally thought. I couldn't get the ISO above 800 without lots of grain. The kit lens that came with the D70 was barely adequate for my needs. In other words - I could go up to bat and hit a single, maybe a double, but the other batters were hitting home runs.

I had fantasized about acquiring Nikon's top-of-the-line D3 camera, but where the hell was I going to come up with $5,000?

Last year, however, out came Nikon's successor camera - the D700. It had the huge FX sensor like the D3, I could crank the ISO up to above 6400 (and maybe higher), and all my lenses would be completely compatible, meaning I didn't need to invest thousands in lens replacement.

The D700 retails for $3,000. Still way out of my price range.

But then came a Nikon rebate. That dropped the price to $2,700.

Then B&H Photo in New York City offered a D700 for $2,000 - factory reconditioned.

After a couple of calls to B&H to guarantee that the camera would be there, I hopped a Greyhound bus and rode down to New York City. I had to hurry - not only was it 4th of July weekend and I wanted to photograph the fireworks at the Empire State Plaza, I had to get to B&H before the place closed at 2pm. For those not aware of this, B&H is predominantly operated by Satmar Hasidim, and that means no work on Shabbat. So the place closes at 2pm and doesn't open back up until Sunday morning.

Got down there. Traded in my F/1.4 lens that I never use. Handed over whatever cash I had squirreled away. And all that, plus some wiggle room on one of my credit cards, and the salesperson opened up a cabinet, pulled out a box that said RECONDITIONED NIKON D700 and put it in a basket. "The only thing you won't like about this camera," he said to me, "is you won't want to stop using it."

Well if that's the only caveat...

Rode back home on the Greyhound. Poured through the operations manual like I was cramming for a midterm final.

On Saturday morning, I tested four of my five lenses on the D700. My F/1.8 action lens worked great. So did my E-series F/1.8, my Kiev wide-angle and my Kiev Fisheye. Even though the latter three weren't computer-based lenses with CPU connections, the D700 has a special command that allows the user to input data about those lenses so that the camera can meter properly. Wow...

Saturday evening. 9:15 pm, I'm on the roof of the Eagle Street parking garage, armed with my new D700, the Kiev fisheye lens, and the cheap-ass Quantaray tripod that I always fear is going to topple over in a stiff breeze.

So did my new camera pass the test?

You tell me....

Chuck the Writer's Latest Trivia Target - the Sea Unit

Competitive team trivia is just that - competitive. Everybody talks trash before the event starts, we all cheer if we get the right answer, we all grumble when the answer is horribly wrong, and in the end we congratulate the winning team, chat for a while, and go home.

Unfortunately, in the four-plus years I've played competitive team trivia, there have been a few sour apples that have really made team trivia less of a fun event and more of a grit-your-teeth-and-hope-the-guy-isn't-parked-near-your-car-afterward event.

Don't get me wrong - I talk trash just as much as anyone else. And if the host says that "Street Academy" is in the lead, and I hear a chorus of boos and groans, that's respect, man.

Unfortunately, some teams mistake respect for taunting.

With that, I'll introduce you to Dave. Dave is the captain of a trivia team originally called "See You Next Tuesday," and is now known as "C-Unit." For purposes of delicate sensibilities, I will rebrand that team as the "Sea Unit," rather than promote their purile pubic pecadilloes.

If Dave's team gets in the lead, he'll come over and start talking trash in the middle of the game at me. "We got you beat, Street Academy! You can't beat us, Street Academy!"

Hmm... A team of one (me) against a team of four or five (them).

I first met Dave's team over at Old Chicago, when his team scored a victory one week. I half-jokingly suggested they might have called a friend to get the answer, and Dave flew into a rage. "I had that answer, Street Academy, I knew that answer, you didn't know it, get over it!"

Oh... kay...

A couple of weeks later, I ran into the team at a trivia game at Recovery Room. I was in the lead at that time. Dave comes over to my table, and starts trying to chat me up - and while he's talking, he's helping himself to the french fries on my plate!

We talked afterward about keeping some decorum, and he agreed to tone it down.

That was until last night.

I was in second place, with a chance for the win, and the final question was "Strom Thurmond once ran as a third party candidate in an election that saw which person elected President?"

I didn't know the answer, so I was trying to calculate how old Strom Thurmond would have been to have been considered a successful candidate for a presidential election. Meanwhile, Dave runs up, slaps his answer slip on the host's table, and then starts shouting across the bar at me, "I got the answer, Chuck, you don't have the answer do you, or else you'd have brought it up already, I got the answer!"

Which completely threw my train of thought off the track. I calculated that Strom Thurmond, who was so old Methusulah once called him Pops, would have been a successful candidate in the late 1940's or mid-1950's, so that would have been either Truman or Eisenhower. I hedged my bet and figured he might have been in one of the two Eisenhower elections.

No such luck. It was Truman. So I lost the $50 bar tab - and the grand prize that night, which involved tickets to a Def Leppard/Poison/Cheap Trick concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

So at this point, Dave and the Sea-Unit team are now on my shit list. You better have your "A" game every time I see your team at trivia, because rest assured, I don't care if I come in 19th in a field of 20 teams - as long as your squad is in 20th place right behind me.

Or worse - in 21st.

Chuck the Writer's First Day on Facebook

Normally, when I received invitations to join Facebook, I dismissed them as unrequested spam - especially when it was tagged as "your friend wants you to join..." without mentioning who my "friend" was.

Be that as it may, today was a surprise. I received ten different facebook requests - and all of them came from people I knew from working with the Premier Basketball League.

Ten people from the PBL - that can't be a coincidence.

So I decided - what the hell - let's give Facebook a trial run. Worst thing that could happen - I shut it off in six months.

But suddenly I realized that there were a tonload of PBL people on the board - owners and coaches and players and fans. And some of them even had my photographs on their homepage (and I know you've got my photo on your profile, Sam Carey! :) )!

One of the reasons I didn't initially join Facebook was because of the horrible experiences I had with MySpace. I always felt like MySpace was designed for the X-generation and not for the baby boomers like me. So I'm going to keep an eye on things regarding facebook. And I'm going to leave it to just "friend" my professional and sports contacts.

But I swear on a stack of floppy discs ... I ain't going to join twitter. Forget that.

Chuck the Writer's thoughts on the passing of Michael Jackson

First off, thoughts and prayers go to the entire Jackson family.

During my years writing for Goldmine, I never did an interview with Michael Jackson or with the Jackson family, although I did meet Jackson's father Joe Jackson when the Jackson Five were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame (not much of a meeting, more like a "hi, how are you" kind of thing).

But during the time I did write for the music collector's biweekly, I did interview several people who either worked with Jackson, were influenced by Jackson, or in some cases parodied Jackson's work.

Here's some quotes:

From my Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff article (Gamble and Huff were the top R&B producers of the 1970's, working with the O'Jay's, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, the Three Degrees and the Intruders)

In 1976, Detroit and Philadelphia met as one when the Jacksons entered 309 South Broad Street for the first of two Gamble-Huff produced albums. "Epic (Records) asked us if we wanted to produce the Jacksons," said Gamble. "In reality, we were trying to sign the Jacksons ourselves to our own label. No question we were trying to do that. But CBS had deeper pockets than ours. Those songs were released on a combined label, that's the first time they ever did that. The house band, MFSB, that played on that first album. The Jacksons didn't play, they just sang on the album."

"I think Tito played on one thing," replied Huff, "maracas or something like that. He did play on a couple of the things they did for themselves. They did cut a couple of songs on that album."

"It was a whole new world for all of them. They came into our world, Philly International was a different environment for them. They were welcome to participate in the production, they produced a couple of songs on their albums, so they had a lot more freedom here. It was trying times for them too, because Jermaine had just left the group, they were going through just a little bit of controversy there. Me and Huff, we had the songs for them, and that's the easy part. Getting in the studio and getting the right songs. I enjoyed working with Michael, because he had his own ideas about how he wanted himself to sound."

"Michael made our job a little eaiser. He was very clever. Plus, he could sing."

In 1996, I put together an interview with the members of Earth Wind and Fire. Here's Verdine White's comments about the state of music video broadcast channels:

In 1983, Earth Wind & Fire released the "Electric Universe" album. It was also their last release for four years. "The whole scene was changing," said Verdine. "There was an explosion of video artists. At that time, MTV wasn't playing black artists - the only black artists they played at that time were Michael Jackson, Lionel Ritchie and Prince. There was BET to play black videos, but they didn't have the same money behind MTV. It hurt a lot of those groups, because the audience didn't know who those groups were, and they only knew about groups that had the visibility. Rick James was the first black artist to really bitch about MTV, and he was right at the time. They were playing acts that hadn't had hit records, and he had hits at the time."

And finally, here's some comments taken from a Goldmine cover story I wrote on "Weird Al" Yankovic:

By 1984, Yankovic and his band were working on a new album, Weird Al Yankovic in 3-D [Scotti Bros./Rock n' Roll 39221]. The last song recorded for that album was a parody of Michael Jackson's rock hit "Beat It" as an ode to omnivorism, "Eat It." Getting permission from the King of Pop to make fun ofone of his biggest hits wouldn't be easy, but Yankovic gave it a try. [Yankovic's manager] Jay Levey contacted Jackson's representatives, and told them what he wanted. A few days later, Levey received a call back - the representatives said Michael Jackson gave his permission, thinking Yankovic's idea was good for a laugh.

"Eat It" became Yankovic's first Top 40 hit, peaking at #12, and winning a Grammy for Best Comedy Recording. The song's accompanying music video featured Al making fun of Michael Jackson's own video, turning Jackson's original "West Side Story" music video rumble into an all-out food fight (and eventually won an American Music Award trophy for Best Male Performance). Rick Derringer even added his own wacky take on Eddie Van Halen's "guest-starring" guitar solo. "If we are parodying this whole thing," said Derringer, "then my contribution as a soloist at that point would certainly be a parody of Eddie's. And that's what I tried to do, and that's why we blew up the guitar at the end of the video. Our version culminated in the guitar player whipping himself in such a frenzy that he exploded. Jim West did the solo in the video, but that's my guitar solo on the soundtrack."

By 1988, Yankovic adapted another King of Pop hit, rewriting Jackson's "Bad" into "Fat."

"I met Michael Jackson twice in person, and both times they were very brief. Once I went to a TV shoot that he was doing, and I got to talk to him briefly after that. He mentioned that he really enjoyed my movie UHF, and the fact that he would play it at his theater at the Neverland Ranch, and guests got a kick out ofit. And another time I was backstage at a Michael Jackson concert, and I presented him with a gold album for Even Worse (the album containing "Fat") and had my picture taken with him - and whoever took the picture had their camera stolen, so I never got that photo. In retrospect, I'm not sure that's the kind of thing that Michael Jackson really appreciated, another gold album for the pile."

Chuck the Writer - TWO MORE AWARDS WON!!

Well, your man is happy. Very happy. Way happy.

I submitted two articles for the 2008 International Automotive Media Awards, and this afternoon I found out the final total.

"Diecast Dreams," the article from RoadKing, won a bronze medal in the magazines-entertainment category.

"Redlines, Orange Tracks and Blue Streaks," the article from Toy Collector Magazine, picked up the GOLD MEDAL in the internet-entertainment category!

Two big awards to add to the collection!

As can be seen here, I am celebrating my awards with Elaine Haessner, the person in charge of the International Automotive Media Awards. My sincere thanks to the IAMA's and their parent company, the International Society for Vehicle Preservation. I had a fantastic time at the awards, and I look forward to writing new articles that, in the future, might also earn similar recognition.

Oh... and after the awards, I had to do a little celebrating.

Because right next to my Red Roof hotel - was a chain restaurant featuring chicken wings, beer, and various other bar delicacies.

In fact... I got two of their "delicacies" to pose with me and my winning awards!!

And talk about stepping into the wayback machine - this Hooter's was having a competitive trivia night, something along the lines of "Are You Smarter Than a Hooters Girl?"

Of course I won. Come on. It's competitive bar trivia. You might as well ask Jack Nicholson if he ever did any acting in his career.

But in any case... I'm celebrating, baby! Two more awards for the Chuck Miller Creative Writing Service!

Chuck the Writer's Award Day: 7am, LaGuardia Airport

The flight out from Albany to LaGuardia Airport was on a DeHavilland turboprop. Just what I need. Last time I flew on a turboprop, my wife and I were going to my daughter Cassaundra's high school graduation in Seattle, and the flight required a connecting flight from Albany International to Newark Liberty - hence the turboprop. Of course, we hit a ton of turbulence, and I'm going through every prayer I can remember, while my wife is going "Whee, what fun!" like she's doing her third run on the Comet at the Great Escape.

Anyways...

After I got in my seat on the plane, someone else asked if I could switch with them so that they could sit with a member of their party. I graciously agreed, and ended up sitting in one of the "exit" aisles. So now I had to pay attention to how to take the exit door off in case of an emergency - and this was LaGuardia Airport, where that plane crashed into the water a few months ago.

No matter - the flight was uneventful if a little turbulent, and after receiving a great overhead view of the '64 World's Fair globe, Arthur Ashe Stadium and Citi Field, the plane landed safely at LaGuardia International Airport.

But what they didn't tell me was that in order to get to my next connecting flight, I actually had to leave the terminal (US Airways) and walk 15 minutes to the main terminal for the next flight (American Eagle). Which meant I had to haul my gear 15 minutes in the muggy morning, and then go through another TSA security checkpoint. Everything in the basket. Back through the X-ray machine. And then down what looked like a subway corridor to the C terminals.

Interestingly, before you go through the terminals there are tons of high-end restaurants. In the C terminal, however, you get your dining choice of Auntie Anne's, Au Bon Pain or Hudson News. Not exactly Jack's Oyster House or Coulsons' News.

So I've got a couple of hours to kill before my next flight. So far so good.