After a late-night broadcast of the disaster film ZERO HOUR! ('57), comedy troupe members: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker bought the rights to the film to direct a scene-by-scene spoof.
The result was AIRPLANE ('80) – one of cinema's greatest comedies.
Before they were airplane inventors, the Wright brothers owned a bicycle shop. Only five bicycles made by the Wright brothers are known to exist.
This one, a model they called St. Clair that was made in 1898, is on display in our "Wright Brothers" exhibition in DC. #WorldBicycleDay
🎵 Paul McCartney in testa alle classifiche digitali
Il nuovo album di Paul McCartney, “The Boys of Dungeon Lane”, sta riscuotendo un enorme successo a livello internazionale.
L’album è al primo posto della classifica mondiale di iTunes per il secondo giorno consecutivo e guida anche la classifica europea di iTunes per il terzo giorno di fila.
Il disco ha raggiunto la vetta delle classifiche in quasi venti Paesi e mantiene ancora il primo posto in undici nazioni tra le quali anche l’Italia.
Fonte World Music Award
#PaulMcCartney #TheBoysOfDungeonLane #iTunes #WorldwideiTunesChart #EuropeaniTunesChart #MusicCharts #NewMusic #Beatles #YesterdayPills
It was 59 years ago today...that Sgt Pepper was released.
5 months later Carol Burnett with Bobbie Gentry, Gwen Virdon and Phyllis Diller paid tribute on the 6th ever Carol Burnett Show.
Colorized footage of Chuck Berry at his absolute peak.
The man who invented rock ‘n’ roll guitar. That duck walk, that tone, that attitude — this is where it all began. Every legend from The Beatles to Jimi Hendrix took pages from his book.
Pure rock ‘n’ roll royalty. 👑🎸
Good math, but not all quite there:
First, SpaceX pays fairly average, but for more than a decade they have offered regular (~bi-annual) liquidity to employees. To live comfortably (especially to have a family) in LA County, most employees would have sold a little bit here and there, if not a lot (e.g., if they were the sole earner in a household).
Second, critically, because there is no double trigger (in order to facilitate the liquidity), most people default to "sell-to-cover" — i.e., ~40-50% of their holdings are immediately sold to cover the taxes on vest. Remember these vests are W-2 events. In order to not do this, the employee would need to come up with significant cash (because the taxes are paid against the price at vest, not the price at grant) — especially later on.
However, two things make SpaceX particularly awesome IMO:
1. They gave employees the option to choose stock or options along the way. Someone who took options and paid the taxes with cash would have done very well.
2. They gave stock to everyone. There are a bunch of highly skilled workers that we on X never think of, like Tube Benders, Orbital Tube Welders, Cleanroom Technicians, etc. that are going to make significant fortunes.
Maybe it's overly quixotic, but this last point is underrated part of @elonmusk attacking physical problems, not just software ones, with 100x thinking: a bunch of people in the types of jobs America needs and romanticizes (for good reason) will be rewarded with the kind of wealth that really would not be possible at any other company they would have chosen.
An incredibly positive story that, if you can't see it in that light, you should look inward.
#PaulMcCartney's latest masterpiece, 'The Boys of Dungeon Lane', a reflective, nostalgic collection of 14 tracks of memories from his past and his first new solo studio album in over 5 years since McCartney III in 2020, scores the Top new Entry at #1 on the Worldwide & European iTunes Charts after reaching #1 on iTunes in 15+ countries! 💪💿🔝🆕💥1⃣🌎&🇪🇺🎵➕1⃣🎵✖️1⃣5⃣🌎👑❤️🔥
'The Boys of Dungeon Lane' has reached #2 on US iTunes, Canada, France, Germany & Brazil so far! The Album has debuted at #10 on European Apple Music and #17 on Worldwide Apple Music!🔥
'The Boys of Dungeon Lane' on iTunes (15x #1)
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
Ireland
Italy
Kyrgyzstan
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Trinidad and Tobago
United Kingdom
'The Boys of Dungeon Lane' on Apple Music (15x #1)
Denmark
Netherlands
Jennifer Nettles delivers a killer take on Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days,” then joins Ben Harper for “I’m on Fire” at the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors.
That unusual, powerful, and soulful voice is something special. What a beautiful tribute to The Boss.
When George Lucas made the first Star Wars, he gave up a $500,000 paycheck. In return he kept one thing the studio thought was worthless: the rights to the toys. That deal went on to make more than $20 billion. And this February, the film that started it returns to theaters.
Back in 1977, nobody made money selling toys based on movies. Fox, the studio, had tried it before and gotten burned, so they handed those rights to Lucas and didn't think twice. He took a smaller fee, and kept the toys and the sequels instead.
Then the movie came out. The whole world went a bit mad for it. Kids wanted Luke, they wanted Vader, they wanted the funny little robots that beep. In its first year, Star Wars sold $100 million in toys. Stores ran out. The toy company, Kenner, ran so short that it shipped empty boxes with a note promising the actual figures would arrive later.
The film cost about $11 million to make. The toys made two hundred times that. They kept selling for decades, and by 2012 the merchandise alone had pulled in more than $20 billion. That year Lucas sold the whole company to Disney for $4.05 billion.
So that is how it got so big. Money is the easy part. The harder thing to explain is the love, why a grown adult still tears up at a film about a farm boy and a glowing sword, nearly fifty years on.
Lucas did not make that story up. He borrowed it.
While he was writing, he kept one book close. It came out in 1949, written by a man named Joseph Campbell, who had spent his whole life reading the old myths and legends of every culture he could get his hands on. Campbell spotted something. Under the surface, they were all the same story. A regular person leaves home, faces something terrifying, and comes back changed forever. He called it the hero's journey.
Lucas took that ancient shape and wrapped it in spaceships. Luke is you. The dusty farm is your ordinary life. The adventure is the part of you that quietly wants out. That is the whole trick of it, and the aliens and lasers are just paint on top. Underneath sits the oldest story human beings have ever told, and somewhere deep down, you already know how it ends. That small flicker of recognition is what people are really buying a ticket for.
The cut coming back on February 19, 2027 is the true 1977 original, before any of the tweaks Lucas made in later years. The same version people saw the very first time. An eleven million dollar movie that grew into a twenty billion dollar toy empire, all by quietly telling us the one story we never get tired of hearing.
Ringo’s summer tour starts today and Paul’s album drops tomorrow. Every day I’m grateful to be a Beatles fan witnessing these guys still doing their thing
A week ago to the minute, Paul McCartney performed Help! & Drive My Car for the SNL audience after SNL ended.
I love that Will Ferrell joined him on cowbell, referencing his & SNL's best sketch ever ...
Because we gotta have more cowbell, baby. 🫰
The annual Pentecost tradition (today!) at Rome's Pantheon is a moment of extraordinary beauty.
It occurs every year on the seventh Sunday after Easter. At noon, after the Holy Mass, thousands of rose petals are dropped through the oculus of the mighty dome.
As the petals fall, a choir sings "Veni Sancte Spiritus," known as the Golden Sequence, a masterpiece of sacred Latin poetry.
This is to celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Virgin Mary and the Apostles.
The rose petal ritual likely dates back to 607 AD when the pagan temple became a Christian church.