Podcast appearances and mentions of Madonna Inn

The Kent-Burningham household took a road trip to Cambria (we're already laughing too) AFTER Lala made a couple of new “mom friends” (wait till you hear this story)! They stopped at the Madonna Inn, and toured the Hearst Castle, and got their fill of art and kitsch. All the stories. Plus, are you ready for Saturday's Pink Moon! Check your zodiac signs! And did you watch the White Lotus finale? Shocking! And there's a special message for the trolls hating on RHONY's Erin Lichy!   GTL video episodes available Fridays at 9am Pacific on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@GiveThemLalaPodcast?si=9oETguBpysJbttBz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We had a day off from the Morro Bay Birding Festival, so we decided to see what else the surrounding area has to offer.  It did not disappoint!  Elephant Seals to the north, Monarchs and the Madonna Inn to the south, and a whole bunch of wild landscapes to the east.Main Story Begins at: 6:20 Show notes Buy me a Coffee Spring ChirpPiedras BlancasThe Life of a Female Northern Elephant Seal Carrizo Plain National Monument Pismo Beach Monarchs Madonna Inn eBird Trip ReportBirds/Animals mentioned LeConte's Thrasher  Rock Wren  Intro Bird Call: California Thrasher (Recorded: Morro Bay, California January 2025) Outro Bird Call: Rock Wren (Recorded: California, January 2025)  Support the showConnect with us at... IG: @Hannahgoesbirding and @ErikgoesbirdingFacebook: @HannahandErikGoBirdingEmail us at HannahandErikGoBirding@gmail.comWebsite: http://www.gobirdingpodcast.comVenmo: @hannahanderikgobirdingGet a discount at Buteo Books using code: BIRDNERDBOOKCLUB

So Strickland's going to Vegas this weekend? Maybe I should drive out there and surprise him. Better yet, YOU should get out there and surprise him! Seriously, I'll obligate him to buy you a drink if you are in Vegas this weekend, he's staying downtown off of Fremont St. Not a little drink either, one of those yard-long touristy frozen drinks where you're not sure if you'll get alcohol poisoning or diabetes first. Reach out in the FB group (www.niceshortcut.com) and tag him. If he's not looking at FB, someone else in the group will buzz him, you should totally do this, he would love the attention. And you should check out San Luis Obispo, CA, here are some links: https://jockossteakhouse.com/dinner/ https://www.madonnainn.com/viewroomsDo you want some cool merch? Check out the store here- https://www.niceguysonbusiness.com/merch Leave a voicemail for the Nice Guys: 424-2DJ-DOUG - (424) 235-3684Need help podcasting? www.TurnkeyPodcast.comJoin our Nice Guys Community. www.NiceShortCut.com No time to get to this, but you can read the blog here: 12 Worries Every Entrepreneur Has (or they are lying) Show notes written lovingly by the most anonymous man (or woman) in the world. Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

In today's episode, Nicole and Rich gush over vintage vacation destination outfits, the Madonna Inn, and Rich's strong dislike of horseback riding. Nicole opens up about a jaw-dropping observation her daughter made about her dad, Matt, that hit home for her. The duo also dives into their frustration with the lack of empathy they've seen toward celebrities impacted by the fires. Nicole shares the chaos of a lice outbreak at Parker's school, while Sarah and Rich recount their hilarious antics trolling a couple on a first date during their own date night.  Have Kids, They Said... is a SiriusXM Network Podcast made by Nicole Ryan and Rich Davis.If you'd like to send us a message or ask a question email us at HKTSpod@gmail.comFollow on social media:Instagram @havekidstheysaidpodNicole @mashupnicoleRich @richdavisand @siriusxm

Kurt and Scotty talk about Tokyo's Crush Christmas March getting cancelled, plates of peeled bananas left on a residential street, missing dog rings doorbell to let owner know it's home and thieves return stolen rug to Madonna Inn! Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/4a61tMk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It can be a curse working for an iconic brand - especially when people want a little piece of that brand without paying for it! Source: https://www.sfgate.com/centralcoast/article/rug-stolen-from-madonna-inn-returned-19962773.php

Phyllis Madonna's fearless design vision at the Madonna Inn is the focus of this episode, where branding expert Emily Heyward from Red Antler joins us to discuss the branding strategies behind this beloved cultural landmark._______This show is powered by Nice PeopleJoin this podcast and the Patreon community: patreon.com/womendesignersyoushouldknowHave a 1:1 mentor call with Amber Asay: intro.co/amberasayLinks: madonnainn.comTheir signature goblet (inspired by Alice Turney Williams wallpaper and rug designs)Obsessed: Building a Brand People Love From Day One by Emily Heyward About Phyllis:Phyllis Madonna is a visionary designer, philanthropist, and co-founder of the iconic Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, California. Born in 1928 in Orange County, she moved to the Central Coast in 1948 after marrying Alex Madonna. Although she had no formal design training, Phyllis's creative instincts played a crucial role in shaping the Inn's distinctive style, famous for its eclectic themed rooms and lavish use of pink. Encouraged by her husband to take the lead in designing the rooms, Phyllis's designs became the heart of the Inn, transforming it from a roadside motel into a world-renowned destination.Beyond her work at the Inn, Phyllis has made significant contributions to her community, supporting local arts organizations and spearheading the Phyllis Madonna Musical Revue and Fashion Show, which raised millions for women's shelters over three decades. Her blend of creativity, community spirit, and entrepreneurial drive has made her a beloved figure on California's Central Coast​ About Emily Heyward:Emily Heyward is a co-founder and Chief Brand Officer of Red Antler, a leading brand agency known for launching some of today's most successful startups, including Casper, Allbirds, and Hinge. With a background in advertising and a degree in postmodern theory from Harvard, Emily pivoted from working with big brands to helping emerging companies create purposeful, consumer-driven identities. She has been recognized as one of the Most Important Entrepreneurs of the Decade by Inc. Magazine and is the author of Obsessed: Building a Brand People Love from Day One, which explores how brands can inspire deep loyalty from their very beginnings. With a reputation for building “cult brands,” Emily is frequently featured in media outlets like Forbes and Fast Company, and she continues to be a prominent voice in brand strategyBuy Her Book: OBSESSEDEmily Heyward WebsiteFollow Emily on Instagram ____View all the visually rich 1-min reels of each woman on IG below:Instagram: Amber AsayInstagram: Women Designers Pod

As an international touring artist on fiddle and pedal steel, Andrea Whitt will be joiningMoby in Europe this September on his first tour in ten years. She has also toured with country megastar Shania Twain, Italian rocker Zucchero, country artist/rapper Struggle Jennings opening for Jelly Roll, and an exclusive VIP experience performance on the Dead and Company tour. This year Andrea stepped out from her long time role as a side musician and produced her first solo show where Robby Krieger from The Doors joined her on stage as a special guest. She was also recently a guest performer with the well-known jam band, Blues Traveler.   Andrea has performed at many of the world's top amphitheaters, arenas and theaters, and has shared stages with high-profile artists across all genres. Her credits include Journey, Ariana Grande, Moby, Kamasi Washington, KYGO, Deep Purple, Stevie Wonder, Cee-Lo Green, One Republic, Natalie Cole, John Legend, Halsey, Harry Connick Jr., Phil Lesh, Jelly Roll, BB Rexha, 30 Seconds to Mars, and Allison Wonderland. Last fall she joined the house band for the CMT show ‘Smashing Glass' where she performed with Clint Black, Chris Jensen, Lucy Silvas. Andrea has also recorded on many acclaimed albums, including Kendrick Lamar's Grammy Award-winning To Pimp a Butterfly, Kendrick Lamar's Damn, Kamasi Washington's The Epic and Harmony of Difference, Zucchero's Black Cat Live, Stu Hamm's Hold Fast, Blxst, Katie Gavin of Muna, and a PBS special with Shania Twain.   Set for August 2024, Andrea Whitt's next release is “Sleepwalk,” her take on the classic song by Santo & Johnny. Andrea's version dark, dreamy and ethereal, and sounds like what you'd get if Lana Del Rey played pedal steel. The “Sleepwalk” video was shot at the historic Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo. Since most of her work is as a hired performer with other artists, when she has a release of her own, Andrea puts time and care into every facet of her artistry including styling her own wardrobe, artistic direction, and merch designs.   Determined and eager to explore new facets of creativity, Andrea wants her life to feel like the non-stop expression of Interlochen Arts Camp she went to growing up. In addition to music, she's a lifelong visual artist, having started drawing and painting when she was a toddler. Andrea is regularly commissioned for paintings in her signature ink and watercolor and oil painting styles. Much of her work can be found on her site, Boho Bunnie, which started as a fashion blog with recognition from press such as Marie Clare, Britt & Co and Free People. Modeling for the camera has “a similar type of energy” to performing on stage. The Boho Bunnie blog is morphing into a lifestyle brand, which produces products that inspire and encapsulate the fun, sexy, and expressive bohemian in all of us. She's now hard at work building the Boho Bunnie brand, which includes art prints, merch she has designed, fashion and a perfume line.   Want to watch: YouTube Meisterkhan Pod (Please Subscribe)

Thank you for 10 incredible years.Huge thank you to everyone who contributed to co-creating this space.We are forever impacted. Forever grateful.Join us at the Yellow Conference Oct. 6-8th at The Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo: yellow2023.comAre you a woman or non-binary leader creating meaningful work? Join our membership community! yellowco.co/membershipFollow, subscribe and leave a review! Find out more about Yellow Co.'s community of women creaeting meaningful work: yellowco.co | @yellowco.co • Connect with Joanna at joannawaterfall.com and on IG @joannawaterfall :) Music Written by Jonny Pickett (check out his music on spotify) Thanks for listening!

We're taking this week off, so enjoy a best-of-the-Vault compilation!  It has phone calls to Jan Brewer, Victoria Jackson, Swedish Guy Time at Ikea, Tales from the Madonna Inn and more!   For additional hours of bonus content visit www.patreon.com/attitudes Join us on Discord for episode discussions and Wednesday Night Watch Parties! https://discord.gg/gK2eZHCSM7See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We regularly hear about eclectic tractors but have you tried an electric truck? Duff Bevill, Founder and Partner and Brooke Parsons, Viticulture Analyst at Bevill Vineyard Management were part of the Ford Pro Pilot Project. They tested the capacity of an electric van, truck towing capabilities, and battery life of electric vehicles during day to day farming operations. The pair discuss the benefits of tracking GPS and maintenance through Ford's Telematics and the things you need to consider when looking to add an electric truck to your fleet.   Resources:         120: Autonomous Drone Vineyard Spraying 219: Intelligent Sprayers to Improve Fungicide Applications and Save Money 225: California's Ban on Autonomous Tractors   Bevill Vineyard Management Farming of the Future: Ford Pro, Sonoma County Winegrowers Join Forces to Electrify Business of Farming Sustainable Farming in Sonoma County Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet   Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year - PODCAST24 Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.   Transcript [00:00:05] Beth Vukmanic: We regularly hear about electric tractors, but have you tried an electric truck? Welcome to sustainable wine growing with Vineyard Team. Where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth Vukmanic, executive director. Since 1994, we have brought you the latest science-based practices, experts, growers, and wine industry tools. Through both infield and online education so that you can grow your business. Please raise a glass with us as we cheers to 30 years. [00:00:37] In today's podcast Craig Macmillan, critical resource manager at Niner wine estates with long time SIP Certified vineyard and the first ever SIP certified winery. Speaks with Duff Bevill. Founder and partner. And Brooke Parsons, viticulture analyst at Bevill vineyard management. [00:00:55] They were part of the Ford probe pilot project, where they tested the capacity of an electric van. Truck towing capabilities and battery life of electric vehicles during day-to-day farming operations. The pair discussed the benefits of tracking GPS and maintenance through Ford telematics and the things you need to consider when looking to add an electric truck to your fleet. [00:01:17] . Because you listened to this podcast, you won't want to miss the premier wine growing event of the year, the Sustainable Ag Expo. Enjoy the perfect blend of in-person and online learning. Speak directly with national experts earn over 20 hours of continuing education. And explore sustainable ag. Vendors. It all takes place. [00:01:38] November 12th through 13th, 2024 at the Madonna Inn expo center in San Luis Obispo, California. As a listener to this podcast, take $50 off of your ticket. When you use code podcast 24 at checkout. Get yours today at sustainableagexpo.org. Now let's listen in. [00:01:56] Craig Macmillan: Our guests today are Duff Bevill and Brooke Parsons. Duff is owner of Bevill Vineyard Management in Sonoma County. And Brooke Parsons is Viticulture Analyst with Bevill Vineyard Management. And we're going to talk about the Ford Pro Pilot Project that they're involved in. Thanks for being on the podcast. [00:02:19] Duff Bevill: You bet, man. [00:02:19] We're happy to be here. [00:02:20] Craig Macmillan: So Duff, what exactly is this project? How'd you get involved in it? Give us a little history. [00:02:26] Duff Bevill: Yeah, back in I think it was September, October of 2021. Well, I'm involved with the Sonoma County growers organization and Carissa Cruz, our president and Carissa. [00:02:37] Got a name of somebody to call. And she made a cold call to a Ford motor company. And then I think one more phone call after that. And she got in touch with Ford pro told him what we were interested in doing. Thought whether it was a perfect fit because our sustainability program that we've you know, managed now for more than a decade, well over a decade. [00:02:54] And Ford sent someone from Detroit out here to meet with us over dinner and another representative out of Sacramento that was, I think, a lobbyist for Ford, I can't remember exactly. His role, but both of them came out here and she cold called a couple of us to come and have dinner with his middle of harvest and yeah, we hit it off and she went back to I guess, technically Dearborn and told them back there that we were legitimate and she thought that they should pursue something with us. [00:03:19] So that, that was in September, October, then in November around Thanksgiving. A team from Ford came to meet with us. They want to know size of our fleet of vehicles. They're just trying to get some, to find out how legitimate we might be. And they went back positive. And then the following January, so it'd be January of 2022 Ford came out full blown to Sonoma County, out to the Dutton Ranch. [00:03:43] And we had a big, giant press release. President Jim Farley came out from Ford, all on film, gave a talk and that sort of thing, and it was a big deal. So that really launched, it's really January of 2022. Roughly probably March, I think it was, of 2022, they didn't have the lightened pickup trucks available yet. [00:04:01] That was still, suffering from COVID, you know, and, and Production was down. So , they actually had some Ford vans, electric vans, which they just gave us a try and Brooke she was basically assigned that van and tried to figure out what to do with it. And so we, all collectively came up with an idea on how to use the vans, although you know, they're just not a fit for farming, but we made, we made it work out. [00:04:23] And then I think it was in June, we finally pick up the lightning. So June of 2022, we've got the lightnings. And then what we did was we gave Ford feedback. We met with engineers, either Zoom or in person on a pretty regular basis for the better part of a year. More than a year probably. [00:04:40] Just getting feedback from a farming point of view, you know, from us using vehicles in the field. And each one of the three companies used them differently and to gather information. I personally wanted to drive it so I could see. How it would work if I want to buy more, would actually work for me . [00:04:56] I know one of the other companies used to have their shop mechanics use it and another company had one of their field foreman use it. So all of us really tried something different with it and for different reasons. But anyways, that's how it worked out. And we just fed information back and forth, making recommendations, you know, see if there's any flaws that Came up and we'd report back immediately to them. [00:05:14] We saw something that Could be improved or or ask why it was the way it was that sort of thing [00:05:20] Craig Macmillan: And we're talking about a completely electric vehicle that's designed for farm use Is that right? [00:05:25] Duff Bevill: The concept of ford pro so I got my ford hat on right now the concept of ford pro It's a division that was created to really focus on business people with fleets so farming was a connection I don't think they thought of until we reached out to them. [00:05:42] I think on paper, originally they were looking at the local contractor. You know, the guy was he drove it personally, he was the contractor, or he had a couple carpenters working for him. I think that was probably it initially. Whether they were thinking of farming at all until we reached out to them. [00:05:58] I don't know. They almost certainly weren't thinking of wine grape growing on the west coast. I think that the whole name Ford Pro, it was really targeted to professional business people who would normally have a pickup truck and how they could adapt using electric vehicle. [00:06:15] Craig Macmillan: I wasn't familiar with this until this came up for this episode. Is this product line is, is that commercially available at the time that you approached them? Is it available now? Is it still in kind of a testing state? [00:06:26] Duff Bevill: They weren't available yet, but they were marketing in the summer of for sure the fall, but certainly the summer of 2021. [00:06:33] I saw ads on TV or Something that would pop up on a website. If you're on Googling something else on a Ford pro for a lightning come up for 10 seconds and disappeared on it. It was a little bit of a tease at that point. But I know the one I got or the one that we have now was number one Oh nine. [00:06:48] Craig Macmillan: Okay. [00:06:49] Duff Bevill: I used to kid them asking, tell them I wanted number one, but they wouldn't give it to me. But I got number one oh nine and, they were just beginning to market it you know, shortly after Covid hit. And so they continued to in, in 2021, you know, we were basically all shut down in 2020. [00:07:05] And 2021 was still pretty disastrous, but they were but all their production facilities were shut down. I mean, they came to a halt just like everybody else. So I think they anticipated getting out there, marketing earlier, making it available earlier. But I think the biggest stumbling block was for, I think a lot of manufacturers, they just didn't have the chips from the big chip manufacturer in Hong Kong. [00:07:25] And that was what it boiled down to. I think it was true for all the car companies. Yeah. [00:07:30] Craig Macmillan: Yeah. I remember that. [00:07:31] Duff Bevill: That was, you had to get that out there. And so they had a marketing plan. They created a division. They had a president of the division identified. The marketing team was in place. [00:07:38] All the engineers were shifted to the Ford pro team. You know, we got to meet almost all those people, I could, make a phone call to one of the head engineers anytime I wanted to, or send them a text or an email. [00:07:49] Craig Macmillan: Wow. [00:07:50] Duff Bevill: It was a real interesting experience. [00:07:53] Craig Macmillan: And you said you got a van first, is that right? [00:07:56] Duff Bevill: Yeah, Brooke drove it, yeah. [00:07:57] Craig Macmillan: That got handed over to you, Brooke. What was that like? Did you have experience with electric vehicles prior to that? Did you have experience with vans prior to that? Were you, Pickup truck person. [00:08:05] Brooke Parsons: Good questions. Yes. I had never driven a van much prior, especially for viticultural tasks. Before using the e transit, I used a pickup with a trailer that I would load a four wheeler onto the trailer and the e transit took the place of the trailer and the pickup. So I loaded With a ramp. The four wheeler inside. [00:08:31] Craig Macmillan: Oh, it was a pretty good sized vehicle then. [00:08:33] Duff Bevill: Yeah. A half ton chassis. It was basically F-150 chassis, but the van, you know? [00:08:38] Craig Macmillan: Oh like a panel van. [00:08:40] Duff Bevill: Exactly. [00:08:41] Craig Macmillan: Oh, okay. I was thinking like in a condo van. [00:08:44] This is more like a panel van. You got room to put stuff in. That makes sense. More like a, more like a service truck. [00:08:48] Brooke Parsons: Like a service truck. So I'd open the back of it to load the four wheeler, but I could also open the side to access my tools and whatnot. It was nice. [00:08:59] Duff Bevill: They actually outfitted it with shelving. Which would have been perfect if you were like a plumber or an electrician. But with the shelving it made the bay too narrow that we couldn't even fit the four wheeler and ATVs, so we had to take the shelving out so we could use it for that purpose. [00:09:14] You know, we just substitute trailer and a pickup truck for the van. But how long did you drive that van? [00:09:20] Brooke Parsons: I drove it for one full season, so May or June through the end of harvest. [00:09:25] Craig Macmillan: How did you find that? Cause you see that all the time. You see the truck with the trailer, with the ATV in the back. [00:09:30] How did you find that moving up to a van? Did you find it easier to drive? More difficult? Were you not as confident [00:09:34] Brooke Parsons: I loved it because I didn't have to worry about a trailer and I didn't have to unload it each night to put it in the barn. So I just closed it all up and it was safe inside the van. [00:09:46] If I went anywhere. I felt safe to leave the four wheeler locked inside and it wouldn't be tampered with. It was simple enough to bring back to the shop and charge every day and be ready to go the next morning. [00:10:01] Craig Macmillan: That was gonna be my next question, Brooke. So when you first started with this, did you have any concerns about range? [00:10:05] Duff Bevill: All of us do. [00:10:07] Brooke Parsons: Yeah, that was the number one concern was range. For our operation, we farm all in Sonoma County and in a given day, I wasn't driving more than say a hundred miles in the van and it did make a difference in the range, whether or not I had weight in the vehicle or not, or if I use the heat or not. [00:10:32] I didn't have as much range in the van as the Ford Lightning. And I had to be careful there were a couple of scary moments that I thought I'd have to call Somebody to come get me, but I never ultimately ran out of power [00:10:48] Craig Macmillan: So with a little practice and a little experience, you knew [00:10:51] Duff Bevill: If you were to buy a a ford lightning, I don't know about the other electric vehicles in the ford product line But for sure the lightning you would have a choice of, I think, two different battery packs. [00:11:02] One they refer to, I believe it's just standard. And then they had a second option or an option that would be the extended battery. My understanding at the time, the Ford, pro version of the Ford Lightning came with a standard battery. But when they heard I was, you know, initially I was getting over 300 miles in a charge, I asked them about that and they said let us get back to you. [00:11:22] Well, a week later they got back and said, oh yeah, that's right, we set yours up, or the three, but for sure mine, the one we still have, with the big battery. They sort of custom built that truck. These three are one offs in that first early run of the heavier battery pack, which to me and I suggested this to him, if the marketing is intended to be to the professional business owner driving a pickup truck, I think Ford pro should just be, you have a standard big battery in it for those reasons. [00:11:50] They may do that. I have no idea. You're got a professional driver. He's in there going from. The lumber yard to the job site down to the Supply depot for something else. I would just think that's just based on our habits in the farming industry. [00:12:03] You're shuffling around and it seems to me that'd be a good option, but anyways, It worked out great for me. [00:12:08] Craig Macmillan: So you've been driving the lightning now for a little while, right? [00:12:11] Duff Bevill: I drove it for the first two I guess nine months just so I could assess How I might want to buy more of them for , our operation here. [00:12:19] We buy a couple of pickup trucks every year. I gave , the, pickup to Brooke. So she now drives the pickup cause we turned the van back in. [00:12:25] Craig Macmillan: I figured that might get kicked back to you so Brooke now you've driven the van now you're driving the truck How do you feel about the truck? [00:12:31] Brooke Parsons: It handles better than any vehicle. I've ever driven. I love to drive it. I'm very proud of it and I Like it a lot zero complaints [00:12:41] Craig Macmillan: Even though you have to have a trailer again [00:12:42] Brooke Parsons: Even though I have to have a trailer again, that's okay. [00:12:45] Duff Bevill: It was remarkable how it seemed like it was luxurious riding because the electric horsepower, . That thing is so powerful. One of the things, again, my understanding of the engineers, they redesigned the chassis on it. [00:12:57] So Ford that F one 50 has four wheel, all four corners, independent suspension. Soon as we got to, we put it up on the rack to take a look at the, Technology underneath it. Look at the batteries, you know, you're not touching anything, you're just looking at everything. [00:13:10] And they designed this beautiful cast aluminum suspension for the back end of that truck. That you'd find in a, I don't know, luxurious European automobile, I think. But it's built heavy to handle all that, torque. You know, oh, it's like, I don't know, 800, horsepower when you push the special button on the dashboard, you know, and it's pretty stunning the performance and that's all torque. [00:13:31] That's twisting power. And so the engineers had to design into that thing, something capable of handling that much torque is beautiful. But the point is a four wheel independent suspension just rides beautifully cars heavier. So about a thousand pounds heavier, I think because of the batteries. So the comments, the extra weight. [00:13:47] And a very sophisticated suspension. It's just like a luxury sedan. And you're driving pretty nice. [00:13:52] Craig Macmillan: And so Brooke, you've been driving this truck now, one of the things that has come up around electric vehicles has been the question of horsepower end of torque. [00:13:59] How do you feel this truck performs compared to like, let's say a diesel dually, [00:14:03] Brooke Parsons: It accelerates very quickly, so getting onto the freeway is no problem when it's busy. And the other biggest factor that I notice is braking. You hardly have to brake and it takes a little bit of time to get used to because when you take your foot off of the accelerator, it naturally stops because the engine isn't going. [00:14:29] And you hardly have to use your brakes, which is very nice. [00:14:33] Duff Bevill: When I first got it, my wife had a Prius many, many years ago, and she pretty much drove it right off the lot. The way it was set up from the dealer. Well, I discovered that you could switch to regeneration on electric. So when you did let off the throttle, it would break by regenerating electric motors, regenerate electricity, put it back in the battery. [00:14:52] Well, that's the first thing I did on this lightning. Find that setting I think in the nine months that I drove it I told the guys at Ford I said, I'll bet you I didn't touch the brakes ten times in those nine months [00:15:03] Brooke Parsons: but to answer your question I've only pulled light things behind it and So I haven't really put it to the test in that way. [00:15:13] Craig Macmillan: I was doing a little research on this and I understand that there's like a data collection and management component to this that's attractive. [00:15:19] What can you tell me about that? Have you used that feature? It can tell you about your fleet, I guess? [00:15:24] Duff Bevill: Aside from electric vehicles Ford was really interested in us, Using and learning to use, and hearing back from us, their telematics. That's what they call it, Ford Telematics. [00:15:37] And I think it was initially launched with the Ford Pro division, where you sign up every vehicle in your fleet. We've got like 20 Ford pickup trucks, something like that. If you go back all the way, I want to say like to 2014. [00:15:49] Prior to that, I'm not sure, but for sure, like 2014, the electronics in those vehicles have the capability of just hooking up to the telematic system. The Ford is promoting, and if you get it into your fleet and get your, your vehicles in entered in your fleet, you can monitor them. Of course, like GPS, that's what everybody's doing nowadays, but much more than that, your shop manager could know, have a better use of knowing when it's time for an oil change, you know, we just do it. [00:16:14] We track that kind of stuff, hard copy paper, put a sticker on the dashboard and the drivers relay to us when the mileage number comes up, they notify the shop manager and we schedule for a service. Typically the oil filter change and then in general inspection we inspect the brakes and all that kind of stuff. [00:16:31] With the telematics they have the potential setting up where you could punch in a timeline that you wanted either by the calendar. Like every 12 months on the vehicles that we don't run very much. We do a major inspection every 12 months. And then the ones that actually have the mileage being for somewhere between five and 7, 000 miles, something like that. [00:16:50] Depends on the vehicle. Depends on the tractor or it's a pickup truck or a full size class eight diesel truck. And so all that stuff is available. And one of the pluses and this happened to us. It was a perfect, we've used this as an example. Typically in modern vehicles, the components that fail first are the sensors that measure your NOX exhaust pipes. [00:17:11] Those are the ones that are going bad. Probably because of the heat cycle they go through because of their exhaust pipes, right? So about anywhere between 40, 000 and 60, 000 miles, those are the devices that fail. So one of our foremen called the shop, our shop manager, and said check engine light came on. [00:17:27] I guess he got the code through telematics, identified it as an oxygen sensor, ordered the part. The truck never came back to the shop. It's still out on the job site. We're supposed to be with the crew. He gets the parts ordered. The delivery guys bring the part to the shop that day. And it's interesting how it works is that is the analysis is it is 90 percent likely it's your oxygen sensor. They come up and then when the guy back that night, they bring it right into the shop and change that sensor. At the end of the day, confirmed that that was the part that needed to be replaced. [00:18:00] The next day was back on the job site, all repaired. The only other way around that would have been. Bring it back to the shop. Get your, your analysis device on it, you know, on the onboard computer or mechanic drives out to the job site, does the same thing at the job site. [00:18:16] And then it comes back or it comes out, orders the parts on a telephone or something like that. So it's saves time. There's no doubt about it. And there's a lot more to, manage a lot of the of systems we have already in place Ford doing the same thing with their telematics. [00:18:28] So some of the things Didn't have any added value because we already have that kind of technology, but they were expanding a lot of that technology for fleet management. So that's a real plus. And they were constantly tweaking that in making improvements on the usability of it and that sort of thing. [00:18:44] So that was a big deal. That was a big one. [00:18:47] Craig Macmillan: The fleet management aspect of having an electric vehicle like this with this kind of a technology going into the future could be huge for a farm, could be huge for a management company like yourself that has properties all over the place. That kind of remote diagnostic is really amazing. [00:18:59] The idea of like, Hey, the light's on. Okay, I'll fix it tonight. No problem. [00:19:03] Duff Bevill: Well, the other big plus is when we put that lightning up on the rack, just to take a look at it, you know, we're just kind of noodling through the, , there's no oil to change in an engine. We found one plug access to a transmission on it. [00:19:18] But even the owner's manual says don't touch any of that kind of stuff. You know, they can be serviced, but there's no schedule for servicing. The disc brakes, I don't think you'd ever If you use the vehicle to its maximum value, I don't think you'd ever put brakes in it. There's no transmission transitions made up of hundreds and hundreds of parts. It's not electric motors or a simple, simple mechanical device and the internal combustion engine has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of parts that aren't there. So it has the potential of being over the ownership timeline of it. [00:19:52] A lot less cost per mile. Even when you, you calculate in your Cost of electricity charge, but we have here and we've got solar panels here too. We already had installed From a number of years ago So we've got sort of that added advantage whether the electric vehicle made a little bit even more sense because we're already kind of using discounted Power [00:20:11] Craig Macmillan: that was going to be my next question. i'm assuming your solar is connected to the grid So it's an offset so you're not islanded, but you still have the, you're generating power on your own. [00:20:20] So you've got onsite power generation to power your fleet to a degree. That's brilliant. Yeah, that's fantastic. I remember years ago people were complaining about diesel engines and friends of mine were like, well, if you build us a solar truck, I'll freaking drive it. I got no problem with that. [00:20:33] Well, here we are. What do you know? It's 30 years later, we have solar trucks, in effect. There has to have been some obstacles to adopting this. Were there some roadblocks or some things you had to learn along the way before you really felt like you were totally comfortable? [00:20:46] Duff Bevill: Well, like I said, I was familiar with a hybrid. [00:20:49] I still drive a hybrid. I drive a hybrid Ford pickup truck now. We had to get a charging station installed. Here at the office and then, you know, there's a decision. Do I do it at home or do the office? I wanted to hear at the office because that's where the fleet is parked and I had to think through, you know, get the one installed and how many more can I have and how many trucks will it eventually service without a major infrastructure redesign. [00:21:11] So we've got that one put in and I, in the process, I had the electrician who was recommended to us. I had him install extra conduits underground. That are dummy right now. I assume we'll, we'll, extend for more pickup trucks. [00:21:25] That was really the big obstacle. And then that's why I drove it because I want to know firsthand exactly what I was up against. I accomplished what I wanted. I want to learn as much as I could about it. Being there, having access to the Ford people, especially the engineers. Was on the fast track of having a better understanding. [00:21:40] I got to talk to the guys who actually, one guy designed the grill, the other guy designed the dashboard. I mean, I was talking to those, [00:21:45] Craig Macmillan: you had access. Yeah. That's, that's pretty amazing. Brooke, what was your learning curve? Like you talked about a couple of things, but were there obstacles that you felt you kind of ran across that you had to figure out, or that could be improvements [00:21:56] Brooke Parsons: just forming the habit of charging. [00:21:57] One time I forgot and. I was responsible for getting people someplace in the morning and it made me nervous. But you do that once or twice and you don't forget. So that was the real only obstacle. When traveling a longer distance, I did have to learn how to find charging stations that work well, are compatible with the lightning. [00:22:25] And Ford is making advances in that area, now partnered with Tesla to use their system. And so that will only improve. But really it's around learning how to use the logistics of electric charging. [00:22:44] Craig Macmillan: Right. And that's true for electric charging. For all of that. And you're right. I think a little bit of practice. [00:22:49] Most of the folks that I know with electric vehicles, they're scared at first, and then they kind of figure it out. Now that you've had a chance to work with this, I think I already know the answer to this question. I mean, there's a question for both of you. When you were looking to your crystal ball, how do you see this technology being applied in the future? [00:23:03] Duff Bevill: Think there's a place for it. I'm not so sure that one type of energy source is going to be the, solution for everything. I think practically, I think it's going to be some kind of a combination of energy sources and I don't discount nuclear. [00:23:14] There's probably a place for everything, certainly in a transition period that that'll work best for all. Electrician put in the the charging station for us. He said, , if everybody's gonna go electric, the package must be solar panels, um, battery storage, either a large battery storage in a community setting, you know, like in a neighborhood or a small city size. [00:23:37] Or you'll have battery storage areas that is appropriate, like maybe at our farm shop. Because we're commercial, we would be a candidate for battery storage, at least for our operation. So you'd have a solution for, you know, we're back to Sonoma County weather conditions again for the first time in quite a few years. [00:23:55] I mean, it's overcast and rainy a lot of days out of the year. If you have solar panels, they're just not going to be working as efficiently and you still have to go to work every day and get your people to work. If you are relying. Let's say exclusively on electric, you've got to have something other than solar panel on the roof [00:24:09] so windmill, solar panels, battery storage, there's some combination of multiple technologies. I just think that's sort of realistic of what it is. Do you want 95 percent of it to be coal? No, none of us do, you know, cause we all know the story there, but is, is there a place for coal for 10 percent of it? [00:24:25] 15 percent of it. Don't know. I have no idea. It's good. I mean, we liked it. It's you know, just, we're not relying on it entirely right now, but we'll phase into it as time goes on. [00:24:33] Craig Macmillan: Well, that was going to be, and and maybe Brookie also can kind of speak to this. I mean, is there a time when there isn't going to be a diesel truck on the farm? [00:24:40] Duff Bevill: We're more concerned about diesel tractors. You know, the evolution went from, steam, you know, the early 1900s. The steam to, and then, you know, both in automobiles and, and on, on the farm, the competition was steam or gasoline because diesel wasn't invented yet. [00:24:58] diesel engine wasn't invented until the 1920s. So turn of the century, 19th and 20th century, it was a competition between steam and gasoline, gasoline won. So gasoline surge forward all the way into the 1930s and with a few exceptions and in the 1940s, but by the 1950s. There was a clear transition that diesel was much, much more efficient, you know, pound for pound and horsepower for horsepower. [00:25:24] I can't even think of where you could buy a gasoline tractor once you got in the 1970s. I'm sure you could still, but it represented a really small percentage. And by the 80s and 90s, it's all diesel.down to almost lawnmower size you can get it John Deere ride along more, you probably have a choice between gasoline and and diesel power to mow the golf course, [00:25:42] that's actually transitioning to electric now too, you know, those, those small ones will plug it in and then mow for two hours, we're not even in the transition part of that story yet. [00:25:52] There's a couple, manufacturers that have electric tractors the, inconvenience of them is really insurmountable right now, but changing batteries at lunchtime in your barn and that kind of stuff, tough. That's, tough technology. [00:26:05] Craig Macmillan: It's still new. Yeah, this is still new. We're still finding our way there. I've talked to people about that topic quite a bit. It'll get better. Yeah, we'll see where it goes. Hey, Brooke, what is one thing that you'd recommend to listeners if they're thinking about adopting electric vehicles for the farm? [00:26:20] Brooke Parsons: Would say be open to trying new things. It expands your mind and. It allows opportunity that would not be there otherwise. And be okay with mistakes. That's how we learn. [00:26:37] Craig Macmillan: That's great advice. I think that's really, really good. Where can people find out more about you at Beville Vineyard Management? [00:26:43] Duff Bevill: Look at our website BevillVineyard.Com Get you right to the, right to the website. [00:26:47] Craig Macmillan: Well, I want, to both for being here. Thanks, Duff, and thanks, Brooke, for being here. [00:26:51] Duff Bevill: Well, thank you for reaching out to us. [00:26:53] Brooke Parsons: You're welcome. Thank you. [00:26:55] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening. Today's podcast was brought to you by Valent. Bio-sciences a leader in biostimulants constantly delivering, cutting edge innovation to maximize their customers yields and ROI. [00:27:14] Their are 40 plus products span the three bio stimulant brands providing solutions for every acre. Make sure you check out the show notes. For links to Bevill vineyard management. Articles on the Ford Pro Pilot project and sustainable Winegrowing podcast episodes. 120 autonomous drone vineyard spring. 219 intelligent sprayers to improve fungicide applications and save money. And 225 California's ban on autonomous tractors. [00:27:44] If you liked the show, do us a big favor by sharing it with a friend subscribing and leaving us a review. That helps us reach more listeners. Like you, you can find all of the podcasts@vineyardteam.org / podcast, and you can reach us at podcast@vineyardteam.org. [00:28:00] Until next time, this is sustainable. Winegrowing with the vineyard team. Nearly perfect transcription by Descript

As summer swelters on, Roz finds sweet sweet relief as listeners call in with their own CHILLING stories of the paranormal! Wryn booked a room for two at the Madonna Inn—or so she thought, April's complex relationship with her sister continues beyond the veil, Juniper's run-ins with the demonic will take your breath away, and Katie's youthful trespassings are full of... doll heads?! Want to share YOUR paranormal experience on the podcast? Email your *short* stories to GhostedByRoz@gmail.com and maybe Roz will read it out loud on the show... or even call you! Be sure to follow the show @GhostedByRoz on Instagram. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3WwYCsr Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hometown Radio 05/28/24 3:30p: Get ready for the annual Greek Festival at the Madonna Inn

The Madonna Inn is a California icon for many reasons, most famous of which might be its embrace of the color pink: pink walls, pink goblets, pink carpet—even pink tennis courts and pink lamp posts. Who made the decision to go pink? That would be Mrs. Phyllis Madonna, who co-founded the hotel and restaurant with her late husband Alex Madonna, a successful businessman, developer and contractor. Their over-the-top aesthetic and unique interpretation of luxury turned the inn into a destination for travelers driving Highway 101 through San Luis Obispo—and over the years, a whole new generation has adopted the Madonna Inn as its own. (Just search up “Madonna Inn” on Instagram and brace for impact.) But it isn't just tourists who love the inn: we locals love it too, and have been known to argue about which is better: the Pink Champagne Cake or the Black Forest Cake. Interestingly, when I sat down with Marketing Director and longtime assistant to Mrs. Madonna, Amanda Rich, she spoke mostly about Mrs. Madonna's Cheese Pie (whose recipe I share below) and her own favorite dessert, which I guarantee isn't one you would guess. Website: madonnainn.com Instagram: @madonnainn1958   Madonna Inn Cheese Pie (courtesy of Madonna Inn) 12-14 graham crackers 1/4 cup melted butter 4 3-ounce packages cream cheese (whipped) 2 eggs (whites beaten stiff) 3/4 cup sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice 1 cup sour cream 3 1/2 tablspoons sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla Crust: Crush graham crackers until fine, then mix with melted butter. Press and shape into a pie plate. Bake in 350-degree F oven for 5-7 minutes. Remove and cool. Filling: Combine cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar, egg yolks, 2 teaspoons vanilla and lemon juice. Beat until light. Fold in beaten egg whites. Pour mixture into graham cracker crust. Bake in 350-degree F oven 15-20 minutes. Remove and cool for five minutes. Topping: Blend 1 cup sour cream, 3 1/2 tablespoons sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Pour over pie filling. Bake 10 minutes more. Refrigerate for 5 hours.

If you like this podcast, then you will not want to miss the premiere sustainable winegrowing event of the year – the Sustainable Ag Expo. Cliff Ohmart, Principal at Ohmart Consulting Services has helped Vineyard Team bring together the nation's top researchers to present at the Expo for a number of years. In today's podcast, you will get a preview of the topics and speakers for this year's event. Enjoy the perfect blend of in-person and online learning. Speak directly with national experts, earn over 20 hours of continuing education (including 18 hours of DPR), and explore sustainable ag vendors November 14-15, 2023, at the Madonna Inn Expo Center in San Luis Obispo California. By popular request, this year we have doubled the number of online courses so attendees can learn on-demand between October 16 and November 30. Here are some of the sessions Cliff mentions. Make sure to check out the sustainableagexpo.org for the full program: In-Person Integrating Multiple Layers of Spatial Vineyard Information into Variable-rate Management Maps Terry Bates, Cornell University Vineyard Spraying Technologies to Improve Application Efficiency for Every Grower Brent Warneke, Oregon State University Trunk Renewal for Management of Trunk Diseases Kendra Baumgartner, USDA-Agricultural Research Service Soil Health and Regenerative Management to Support the Goals of Winegrape Producers Cristina Lazcano, UC Davis; Noelymar Gonzales Maldonado, UC Davis; Charlotte Decock, Cal Poly The Importance of Areawide Controls for Mealybugs and Leafroll – Is This Cost Effective? Kent Daane, UC Berkeley Online Update on Vineyard Autonomous Equipment  Michael Miller, CAWG, Director of Government Relations Nematodes affecting winegrapes: Biology and Management Dr Inga Zasada, USDA ARS Biological Control of the Glassywinged Sharpshooter and Pierce's Disease Dr. David Morgan, CDFA Current Status of the Winegrape Market  Jeff Bitter, Allied Grape Growers As a listener to this podcast, take 50 off of your ticket when you use code PODCAST23 at checkout. Get your ticket at Sustainable Ag Expo.org. Resources: ***Tickets | Sustainable Ag Expo*** 53: Producing Compost and Carbon Sequestration 90: Nematode Management for Washington Grapes 129: The Efficient Vineyard Project with Terry Bates Efficient Vineyard Madonna inn Sustainable Ag Expo Program: In-Person Online Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet   Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year - $50 OFF with code PODCAST23 Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.   Transcript Craig Macmillan  0:00  And with me today is Cliff Ohmart. He is a consultant with Omart Consulting in a whole variety of areas. One of the things that he's doing right now is he's helping to organize or he's organizing the program for the 2023 Sustainable Ag Expo in San Luis Obispo coming up. He's going to tell us a little bit about some of the folks and some of the topics that will be there and some things that might be of interest to you. So welcome, Cliff.   Cliff Ohmart  0:22  Thank you very much, Creg. It's nice to be here with you. And I think this is a great opportunity to have this podcast before the expo so people can get an even better feel than just the website of what's coming.   Craig Macmillan  0:34  Absolutely. For those who don't know, what is the Sustainable Ag Expo?   Cliff Ohmart  0:38  it is a combined presentation slash trade show that the Vineyard Team has been putting on, I think, for at least 15 years now.   Craig Macmillan  0:47   It's been a while.   Cliff Ohmart  0:48  I's developed into quite the history, the roughly the format is there's a session in the morning from eight to 10, a half hour break for people to go out to the trade show 10:30 to noon, more presentations. Then there's lunch for people go to the trade show, then one to three, another half hour break, and then 3:30 to five. And there's only one session at the time, so people don't have to worry about missing something. Also, they're free to circulate through the trade show during the presentations if they so choose. This year, the Vineyard Team decided to change the format, which I takes I'm excited to see how this will go. So this year, it will be Tuesday, Wednesday full days as I just described that schedule. But then Monday evening, it'll be a kickoff what we're going to be doing for the feature presenter, which is Dr. Terry Bates from Cornell, he and I will be on stage for a period of time, I think half hour to an hour where we'll be in sort of an interview back and forth situation give a chance to see him ask questions to get ready for the next day. And so I'm excited about that. And then the first session which will be Tuesday morning from eight to 10. First Terry Bates will be doing a formal presentation of his work followed by a panel of Terry Bates, Dr. Andrew McElrone, and Dr. Mason Earles from Mason is from UC Davis. Andrew is works at ARS Agricultural Research Service Station, and Davis and their area of expertise is all around detailed data analysis and Andrew especially on water relations, particularly in vineyards, Mason Earles more along remote sensing, things like that. And the focus of Terry's talk, as well as the night before is on precision viticulture. He, along with a big team of people developed something called the efficient vineyard. And it's very impressive, in part because the software is available for anybody for free. And it's anywhere from it can capture as the website is a really nice website for you can use your phone to capture gopher holes, the location of gopher holes, broken post right up to very advanced remote sensing that you can import into the software. So it's all in one spot. I'm excited about this, because I think you've probably seen the same thing. There's so much technology out there. And it's very exciting. But I think especially for the small to mid size grower, there's a concern about do I have the time to do this? Do I have the ability to do this? What's this all about? Where's the bigger grower can hire somebody to check it out? And I think the session Monday night and Tuesday morning is going to be focused on what's the reality here? What can growers do with it. And then from the researchers perspective, which is Andrew McElrone, and Mason Earles, they want to see people applying their work. And so what is that's really what I'm hoping to get out of that session.   Craig Macmillan  3:49  Yeah, I have interviewed Terry Bates. And I've also communicated with him off and on over the years. And his areas of specialization is proximity sensing. So some of the high tech stuff they do has to do with like yield monitors and harvesters and different types of EC sleds and stuff like that. But he also is very much about making a map. And you can do it. One of his messages to me almost every time I talk to him is like people can do this, you can do it. You don't need to go too crazy, the most important thing is do it. And so I'm really excited to see him there and talk about the more advanced technological stuff. But also I imagine he'll be encouraging people to follow this concept. I think it's really, really fascinating and the things that they find out it's fascinating, too.   Cliff Ohmart  4:33  I agree.   Craig Macmillan  4:34  There's a lot of stuff also that's out there that's available but you don't have to invent you don't have to invest in there's information that's out there.   Cliff Ohmart  4:40  Yeah, that's what I think, especially for us on the West Coast. You know, Cornell is a powerhouse, as you know, and I think West Coast people, some people probably know that others don't. And there's more and more things to tap into, on both coasts, as well as the Middle. One fun thing too for me Is the moderator for the after Terry's talk for the session with Terry, Mason, and Andrew is going to be moderated by Donnell Brown, who is executive director of the National grape Research Alliance. And one of the things to think about is I don't have to moderate she's going to do it. Then the other thing is, the National Grape Research Alliance has been instrumental in bringing researchers together from around the US in viticulture and enology and creating a goal oriented team to go pursue money to do various things like develop the efficient vineyard project. So she's going to be the moderator. So she knows these people well, so that'll be fun. My only regret is I know, there won't be enough time to really get into what we do as much. But there'll be afterwards for people to talk to the speakers on the side.   Craig Macmillan  5:56  And that is one of the really great things about the expo is the speakers. Well, I guess full disclosure. Years ago, I worked for a Vinyard Team. And the position was technical program manager and and I was responsible for putting together programming for the expo and whatnot. Every buddy that I ever recruited, was super happy to stick around and talk to growers. That was like the high point for them. And this is an opportunity where you get to do that. And they take questions during the session. But sometimes people there's not time or they didn't want to ask and then they have an opportunity to actually interact with the with the scientists themselves. And that's just a fantastic opportunity. Because a lot of conferences and meetings, you can go and you don't really have the opportunity to talk to the the experts afterwards. And it's much more informal. It's very much also grower to grower, I think one of the things that's great about the the expo is there's a lot of conversation after the sessions between people along the lines of Yeah, we tried this, or we're thinking about trying this, or what do you think about it, you know, and that's just super invaluable. I think.   Cliff Ohmart  6:59  I don't want to forget, I don't think we will. But another change in format is this year, instead of the third day of presentations, we're going to be recording 10 or so virtual recordings that will be available from October 16 to November 30, to the attendees of the Expo, and we'll touch on a couple of those. I'm sure the Vineyard Team website will have a nice list of presenters of the imprison Expo in virtual as well so people could see. But I think we're going to touch on a couple of those you and I in this podcast. But I wanted to bring that out as well.   Craig Macmillan  7:34  Let's go right into that. First of all, because that is a change for Expo. But I think it's also a change kind of in our modern world. So this is the idea of making content available to those who have bought tickets essentially. Right. So it's another day of the expo, but they can view it at any time during that window.   Cliff Ohmart  7:51  Yes.   Craig Macmillan  7:52  So that gives them some schedule flexibility, which is pretty cool. Who are some of the folks that are going to be in these virtual virtual sessions?   Cliff Ohmart  8:00  There's a really interesting, I think half hour to 45 minute talk by a fellow named Michael Miller, who is the California Association of Winegrape Growers, Director of Government Relations, and he is doing a presentation on the laws and regulations related to using robotics, particularly driverless tractors in the vineyard, which probably does not surprise you. The technology is ahead of the laws and regulations. So there are driverless tractors now a little available, and yet the laws and regulations around you know, through OSHA, are you have to have a driver on the tractor at all times. Very interested to hear that presentation about what's coming, who's doing the work to try to change those laws. What might the changes look like.   Craig Macmillan  8:45  I'm totally fascinated by this idea. And yeah, absolutely, technology will run ahead of regulation, and then regulation kind of get caught up. And that's where we're at. Right now. We're in the middle of that process. And we went through with drones to kind of work our way through it. I can't wait to see that one. And it's gonna be fascinating. Who else?   Cliff Ohmart  9:05  Another advantage of doing these virtual recordings is we can get people from overseas. So those that have attended the expo before, especially the virtual ones during the pandemic, there's this interesting fellow Dr Zi Hao Wang at the University of Sydney and he has been working on using drones in vineyards for bird control. So he's two other and two years in the past on this and it's a continuation of the work he's doing. It's still pretty much theoretical at the moment in that it's not being used commercially out in the vineyard. However, he is an engineer by trade and education. And you can see when you see some printed presentation, he brings that to the end. One of them very interesting things is his his focus is on tethered drones. Not free flying drones. For two reasons. One is they need to be on call all the time during the day daylight hours. So there's a problem with battery life. And with tethered drones, you don't have to have that. The other is that even though drones, the trades make it sound like they're very easy to fly, they get away. And another reason that tethered drones offer the advantage. So it's fascinating. He's got simulations that he shows in his presentation about how the Tethered drones will work. One of the things that he he just reviews what he's done before, and there is a past year's presentation on this, where he shows proof of concept that you can train the birds to be afraid of drones, if just the drone by suffer bird is not going to be afraid of it. But he literally took dead crows. And because crows do exist native crows in Australia and our problems, he hung them from drones to show that you can definitely condition them very quickly. And then he's got great videos of birds flying away during this.   Craig Macmillan  11:04  That is really a trip.   Cliff Ohmart  11:05  And then another interesting one is going to be on carbon planning for for your farm or your vineyard. There is a company that develops sensors and things like that, but also ecologically based things called Agrology. They do some very detailed work. And so the CEO of Agrology, Adam Koeppel is going to give a presentation, carbon planning, I mean specifically about carbon planning, and measuring soil carbon in real time, which is necessary and the benefits of carbon planning. I thought that that's kind of a unique thing as well.   Craig Macmillan  11:40  What is carbon planning?   Cliff Ohmart  11:42  This would be you know, you've already heard people marketing, I've got a carbon neutral vineyard, it's how do you measure that? You know, how do you sequester carbon? Can you sequester carbon? What difference does it make, but it would be along the lines of and clearly energy consumption comes in? How do you develop a carbon plan for your farm, so that what's happening in the soil, but also energy use and all of that.   Craig Macmillan  12:06  Speaking of so carbon, there is going to be a session I think on day two, around climate smart AG, regenerative ag and soil health.   Cliff Ohmart  12:15  Yes, and I am so excited about this session. When I reached out early on, I definitely wanted to session on soils, because there's so much going on around soil, micro biomes carbon sequestration, regenerative farming, and knowing that there's a lot of great concepts out there. But how much do we really know about all these things? Well, actually, the title of the session is, for the whole two hours, soil health and regenerative management to support the goals of Winegrape producers, Charlotte Decock, from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. So she'll be local in terms of the in person, Expo, she's going to be tackling this topic of regenerative agriculture. What is it? And what can be your production goals around it? So she herself is leading a comprehensive effort on looking at the practices which, you know, regenerative AG is nothing new, to be honest. And I think a lot of us realize that but so she's gonna be looking at things that are going to be sound very familiar cover cropping, compost, addition, sheep grazing, and no till, and what are they doing to specific soil characteristics biophysical and chemical, then another very interesting talk is Noelymar Gonzales Maldonado. And she is a PhD student with Christina Lazcanois here at UC Davis and Noely done some interesting survey around the perceptions of grape growers on what they think soil health is. And then she's connected that to the results of our survey to actual problem soils versus healthy soils and based on the growers deficient, and what they have done in those soils to, you know, address this idea of soil health, and it's going to be fascinating.   Craig Macmillan  14:02  Oh, yeah, um, yeah, totally.   Cliff Ohmart  14:04  Because we're talking about practitioners out there. What do they think regenerative AG is soil health is how do they deal with it and the soils if they have both really good ones, and not so good soils. And then the last person is I mentioned Christina Lazcano, and she's a soil scientist here at Davis, and she's going to be looking at regenerative ag and production goals. And she's leading a comprehensive effort on practices that I've already mentioned the cover crop and compost edition and looking at the effects chemically and physically on the soils. So you can see they're all related. The session is going to be interesting in that they'll all be up front, and they're going to be tag teaming. So it's going to be a really different type of session.   Craig Macmillan  14:49  That sounds really, really fascinating. I know Christina and Charlotte, and they are absolutely fantastic. Not only are they great scientists, they're great communicators, that's worth the price of admission to just see that one session. As far as I'm concerned.   Cliff Ohmart  15:01  So that's going to be Wednesday morning from eight to 10. So, you know, I think we've got a lot of good stuff all day. But the session opening session Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning are clearly highlights.   Craig Macmillan  15:15  Something else we should mention before I forget, are there continuing education hours available?   Cliff Ohmart  15:19  There are and we basically our goal was to have 15 to 18 continuing education units for PCAs. And growers. So that means related to pest management stuff, it will be a combination of the in person presentations, as well as those virtual presentations. Some of the virtual ones will be awarded CPA units, CEU units where you will have to take an exam after you have presentation because you can imagine there's no way in two days, we're going to be able to cram in 15 to 18 hours of CPUs a lot of CCA units as well, for the in person expo.   Craig Macmillan  16:01  Are any of those laws and regs. DPR laws and regs units?   Cliff Ohmart  16:05  There are we have a closing session on Wednesday afternoon, that is going to be done by Juan Muniz from AgSafe on worker safety and pesticides around the farm. So that'll be an hour and a half of laws and regs for that session.   Craig Macmillan  16:21  You've been to a bunch of these what's what's your favorite part, we've talked, we've hit on some highlights, but just you personally what's your favorite part of going to Expo?   Cliff Ohmart  16:27  My favorite part is to listen to what people are talking about in terms of the different presentations. You know, I'm biased, because I've helped put them all together. That's what I listened for. And then of course, for me, I get to see people because being retired, I don't go to many meetings anymore. And it's great to see both the growers the viticultural consultants, the trade people that I know to talk on the side. So all of that, and then it's fun to peruse the trade show, I don't have a lot of time because I ended up introducing a lot of presenters. So it's it really is a combination of all of that, because I stay at the Madonna Inn it's also fun to stay in one of those funky rooms at the Madonna Inn. That's not to say it's not comfortable. But I think you laugh. I think anybody that stayed there, they've got some really interesting rooms.   Craig Macmillan  17:19  For those who don't know, in San Luis Obispo, there's a hotel called the Madonna Inn, and they have themed rooms, and they're all different. And they're all decorated to the theme. So depending on how many times you stay, you'll stay in different rooms, and you'll see different things and the facilities themselves are quite interesting. So yeah, it's a fun, it's a fun place. It's a fun place to do it. And then they have an expo hall, which is where the expo will be, which is again, really a nice building, it's really well appointed, has everything that we need. Oh, what about what about food people need bring sack lunch?   Cliff Ohmart  17:53  No, my experience with the expo is there's always food available for lunch. It's gonna vary from Tuesday to Wednesday. But I have never felt like I needed to go out over lunch.   Craig Macmillan  18:06  I've always been very happy.   Cliff Ohmart  18:08  Yeah. And then there'll be a snack in the afternoon, and then tea and coffee and some pastry in the morning before you get there. So it's worth getting there a little at a time. Because that's there as well.   Craig Macmillan  18:20   How did you come up with the program? Were you given direction? Did you say hey, these are great ideas that you have people come to you and say I'd like to do this? How did you put together?   Cliff Ohmart  18:29  There is an organizing committee that the venue team through Beth Vukmanic put together and it's you know, it's an existing committee from year to year. And so how we start is we independent of them, I sit down and come up with some ideas and send it to them. And they do the same to me. And we very quickly put a pretty large spreadsheet together with all our ideas and with the ideas come specific people. And then from there, it really tends to come together very quickly. Once we get started reaching out to people, we base it on what's been happening in the past what seems to be current this year, that wasn't last year. So it's a combination of things.   Craig Macmillan  19:12  So again, it's grower driven, growers talking about what's of interest to them, and then handing it over and saying, okay, brings the best in the brightest. Obviously, things are always in flux. And at the point of this interview, we're quite a ways out from the expo. But we do have some other rock stars. I wanted to mention, John Roncoroni is going to be there. Apparently, he's a weed scientist. He is fantastic. I think he's retired or close to it, at least the last time I talked to him. And then Kendra Baumgartner and she's been kind of a perennial favorite, her areas, trunk diseases, and that area has progressed dramatically in 20 years what we've learned and it's always a joy to see what new stuff she brings. Akif Eskalen who's doing a lot of work in nursery practices. He's doing some pretty interesting things that could impact the whole industry, which I think is is pretty cool. Emily Symmes is going to talk a little bit about mealy bugs and mating disruption and David Haviland, who's an absolutely fantastic entomologist. I think he's going to talk about ant control. That's right. He's a very good speaker, and really, really good. George Zhuang. He is an extensionist, and has been doing really great work around the central valley, I believe, predominantly, but he speaks all over the state and has worked on all kinds of stuff. I think he's going to talk about root stocks. At this time. Matthew Fidelibus is also gonna be talking about root stocks and varieties in that session.   Cliff Ohmart  20:31  What I would point out there is he has developed an online guide to grape varieties  root stocks, and that specifically was talking about so I think that's a great opportunity for growers to hear about this.   Craig Macmillan  20:43  I'm also happy to see that Mark Fuchs is coming back. He's from Cornell, he has been one of the leaders in research on red blotch. He was our featured speaker at the expo, gosh, I don't know five or six years ago, he's always fascinating and is doing really interesting work. And then one of my favorite entomologist, and people in the whole world, Kent Daane, is gonna be talking about leaf row virus and areawide management for mealy bugs, which is turning out to be really important working together as a group to manage a pest. It's not just within your fence line, it's crossed the area. And that's been a really interesting project that has gotten some traction in Lodi, I'm familiar what they what they've done, there. And so that should be really fascinating as well, who am I leaving out?   Cliff Ohmart  21:26  Our fellow named Brent Warneke, who is going to be talking about sensor based sprayers and spraying and vineyards. He's from Oregon State. And he'll be talking about air blast, as well as micro sprayers. He's done a series of interesting work on sprayers that are sensor based. And as he sort of says in his little description, just because you have a sensor based sprayer, doesn't mean you're all ready to go. He's going to talk about how they can be best used and what they actually can do for you.   Craig Macmillan  21:58  David Morgan, I'm not familiar with David Morgan, can you tell me who that is?   Cliff Ohmart  22:03  You did a great job of covering the entire agenda for the in person. Now we can talk a little to finish up on the virtual part. So I was really interested in trying to get someone to come and talk about the Pierce's Disease Control Program that is based at CDFA. And it's the research arm is funded by growers by an assessment. It's very important, I think, for growers to see how successful their research dollars have been. And to make a long story short, I ended up having David Morgan, who is now working on exactly what he's gonna be talking about. But he is going to focus his presentation on the bio control of Glassman sharpshooter, which I think everybody knows is one of the crucial pairings in the Pierce's disease problem. He's stationed out in Riverside with CDFA and very knowledgeable biocontrol is his expertise, there's going to be a talk about a fellow named Michael Brownbridge who is with Bioworks. I'm not familiar with Michael but he's going to be talking about pesticides as well as bio fertilizers. So that's going to be a part of the program. And another one we just you mentioned Kent, Dana, and you refer to Lodi Yes, I've been so excited to secure Maria's Zumkeller she is with Lang Twins vineyard in Lodi and I saw a talk she gave at Lodi grape day in February, the Lang Twins have recognized for a while now the seriousness of leaf roll virus being vectored by vine mealybug. So the two together it's becoming a huge problem. They have boldly approached the use of intensive monitoring and rogueing vineyards to see if they can manage economically vine mealubug for leaf roll. And so Maria is going to be talking about the latest. They've got several years of data now and it's very amazing and impressive to see what they've done. It's possibly for people that have serious problems with leaf roll. This is one approach they might want to take and it is connected to Kent Daane's work because he's worked in the Central Coast and Lodi with area wide management and fine mealybug and coupled with that leaf roll So those are the things that I'm highlighting up then there's a talk by Luca Brillante, from Fresno and he's going to be doing a presentation on diagnosing red blocks disease, which of course is what Mark Fuchs would talk about diagnosing red blocks with spectrometry. So remote sensing.   Craig Macmillan  24:40  And then there's also some thing on powdery mildew controlled organic powdery mildew control.   Cliff Ohmart  24:45  Yes, there is interesting talk by Annemiek Schilder who is the county director in Ventura County and she has done a research experiment using compost tea and So that's what her presentation is going to be about. It's basically starts by saying what is compost tea, which is important to understand how to make it. And it's it's pretty simple. And then how to apply it and what results she's gotten out in the vineyard with it.   Craig Macmillan  25:16  Yeah, that'll be very interesting. People have been playing around with that for a long, long time. And I think it's, it's interesting to see it come back. And then one that I think that I will try to catch is Jeff Biller talking about the grape market, we can't forget the the other E. Right. We've got the environment, social equity, and economics and so grape markets' important. So all part of the all part of the picture and the those talks whether, it's him or somebody else is always very interesting. And there's usually something along those lines in the Expo.   Cliff Ohmart  25:48  And it's going to be very current. We have organized with Jeff, he will record that presentation, literally a few days before the videos will be released. So I think like October 11. So it would be very up to date. In fact, to Jeff's credit, he was not going to do a recording unless he could do it at the last minute because things change. Again, I agree. It's, you know, their times are not easy for a lot of growers. So a grape market is as complicated and   Craig Macmillan  26:17  Ever changing.   Cliff Ohmart  26:18  Yeah, we all need to keep track of that.   Craig Macmillan  26:21  Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks Cliff has been great. Our guest today was a Cliff Ohmart with Omart consulting, and one of the things he does is he helps put together programming for things like the Sustainable Ag Expo, which is coming up in November of 2023. I personally cannot recommend it enough. Every time I've gone or have helped organize it. I've learned so much. And I've also met so many great people and some of them are speakers and so more growers and some of them were vendors and it's just a it's just a fantastic time to kind of get away and it's also really fun because usually hopefully harvest is over and you have a little little reward there at the end before you take your break and then come back and do budgets. So anyway, thanks, Cliff.   Cliff Ohmart  27:02  You're very welcome Crreg. It was really great to do it and I will see you and San Luis Obispo.   Craig Macmillan  27:09  You will see me you will see me I'll be there.   Nearly Perfect Transcription by https://otter.ai

Listen to this episode to hear: How to navigate and understand your core values as a foundation for intentional decision-making and life design. The significance of self-acceptance and patience during transitions, and how to avoid outside pressures. Why it's important to create space in your lives for self-reflection and to discover answers from within rather than rushing into decisions. How to maximize your energy by staying aligned with your core values Why Busy doesn't mean Bad The importance of self-awareness and curiosity in understanding one's motivations and values How to naturally arrive at clearer decisions and solutions in your life, even when they seem elusive. About Olena: Olena Mytruk is a life design coach and mentor, as well as creator of the Breverie Life Design System. Olena helps busy modern professional and entrepreneurial women thrive in both work and life – by helping them design their lives around who they are, what they believe, and what they want to achieve. Get 10% off the first 3 months to The Breverie by using code: YELLOW10Join us at the Yellow Conference Oct. 6-8th at The Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo: yellow2023.com Are you a woman or non-binary leader creating meaningful work? Join our membership community! yellowco.co/membership Follow, subscribe and leave a review! Find out more about Yellow Co.'s community of women creaeting meaningful work: yellowco.co | @yellowco.co • Connect with Joanna at joannawaterfall.com and on IG @joannawaterfall :) Music Written by Jonny Pickett (check out his music on spotify) Thanks for listening!

Hometown Radio 09/21/23 6p: Historian James Papp shares the history of the Madonna Inn

Hometown Radio 09/01/23 4p: Dr. James Papp shares the story of the Madonna Inn

The great TODD BARRY returns to the show to talk to Tom about his new stand up special; 'Domestic Shorthair', laying down drums on a forgotten indie rock 7", knowing Daniel Whitney before he was Larry The Cable Guy, and MORE! Tom gets a call from "CAPTAIN" IN SODABRIDGE! Plus, MAKE MIKE HOLLYWOOD: What should Associate Producer Mike do while he's in Lipstick City? We open the phones with your suggestions to find out... Tom recaps his weekend trip to the legendary MADONNA INN! Pat debuts a song! And much more! SUPPORT THE BEST SHOW ON PATREON! WEEKLY BONUS EPISODES & VIDEO EPISODES! https://www.patreon.com/TheBestShow WATCH THE BEST SHOW LIVE EVERY TUESDAY NIGHT 6PM PT ON TWITCH https://www.twitch.tv/bestshow4life FOLLOW THE BEST SHOW: https://twitter.com/bestshow4life https://instagram.com/bestshow4life https://tiktok.com/@bestshow4life https://www.youtube.com/bestshow4life THE BEST SHOW IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://thebestshow.net https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/the-best-show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We continue our miniseries on the 1980s movies distributed by Miramax Films, with a look at the films released in 1988. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT   From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   On this episode, we finally continue with the next part of our look back at the 1980s movies distributed by Miramax Films, specifically looking at 1988.   But before we get there, I must issue another mea culpa. In our episode on the 1987 movies from Miramax, I mentioned that a Kiefer Sutherland movie called Crazy Moon never played in another theatre after its disastrous one week Oscar qualifying run in Los Angeles in December 1987.   I was wrong.   While doing research on this episode, I found one New York City playdate for the film, in early February 1988. It grossed a very dismal $3200 at the 545 seat Festival Theatre during its first weekend, and would be gone after seven days.   Sorry for the misinformation.   1988 would be a watershed year for the company, as one of the movies they acquired for distribution would change the course of documentary filmmaking as we knew it, and another would give a much beloved actor his first Academy Award nomination while giving the company its first Oscar win.   But before we get to those two movies, there's a whole bunch of others to talk about first.   Of the twelve movies Miramax would release in 1988, only four were from America. The rest would be a from a mixture of mostly Anglo-Saxon countries like the UK, Canada, France and Sweden, although there would be one Spanish film in there.   Their first release of the new year, Le Grand Chemin, told the story of a timid nine-year-old boy from Paris who spends one summer vacation in a small town in Brittany. His mother has lodged the boy with her friend and her friend's husband while Mom has another baby. The boy makes friends with a slightly older girl next door, and learns about life from her.   Richard Bohringer, who plays the friend's husband, and Anémone, who plays the pregnant mother, both won Cesars, the French equivalent to the Oscars, in their respective lead categories, and the film would be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of 1987 by the National Board of Review. Miramax, who had picked up the film at Cannes several months earlier, waited until January 22nd, 1988, to release it in America, first at the Paris Theatre in midtown Manhattan, where it would gross a very impressive $41k in its first three days. In its second week, it would drop less than 25% of its opening weekend audience, bringing in another $31k. But shortly after that, the expected Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film did not come, and business on the film slowed to a trickle. But it kept chugging on, and by the time the film finished its run in early June, it had grossed $541k.   A week later, on January 29th, Miramax would open another French film, Light Years. An animated science fiction film written and directed by René Laloux, best known for directing the 1973 animated head trip film Fantastic Planet, Light Years was the story of an evil force from a thousand years in the future who begins to destroy an idyllic paradise where the citizens are in perfect harmony with nature.   In its first three days at two screens in Los Angeles and five screens in the San Francisco Bay Area, Light Years would gross a decent $48,665. Miramax would print a self-congratulating ad in that week's Variety touting the film's success, and thanking Isaac Asimov, who helped to write the English translation, and many of the actors who lent their vocal talents to the new dub, including Glenn Close, Bridget Fonda, Jennifer Grey, Christopher Plummer, and Penn and Teller. Yes, Teller speaks. The ad was a message to both the theatre operators and the major players in the industry. Miramax was here. Get used to it.   But that ad may have been a bit premature.   While the film would do well in major markets during its initial week in theatres, audience interest would drop outside of its opening week in big cities, and be practically non-existent in college towns and other smaller cities. Its final box office total would be just over $370k.   March 18th saw the release of a truly unique film.    Imagine a film directed by Robert Altman and Bruce Beresford and Jean-Luc Godard and Derek Jarman and Franc Roddam and Nicolas Roeg and Ken Russell and Charles Sturridge and Julien Temple. Imagine a film that starred Beverly D'Angelo, Bridget Fonda in her first movie, Julie Hagerty, Buck Henry, Elizabeth Hurley and John Hurt and Theresa Russell and Tilda Swinton. Imagine a film that brought together ten of the most eclectic filmmakers in the world doing four to fourteen minute short films featuring the arias of some of the most famous and beloved operas ever written, often taken out of their original context and placed into strange new places. Like, for example, the aria for Verdi's Rigoletto set at the kitschy Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, where a movie producer is cheating on his wife while she is in a nearby room with a hunky man who is not her husband. Imagine that there's almost no dialogue in the film. Just the arias to set the moments.   That is Aria.   If you are unfamiliar with opera in general, and these arias specifically, that's not a problem. When I saw the film at the Nickelodeon Theatre in Santa Cruz in June 1988, I knew some Wagner, some Puccini, and some Verdi, through other movies that used the music as punctuation for a scene. I think the first time I had heard Nessun Dorma was in The Killing Fields. Vesti La Giubba in The Untouchables. But this would be the first time I would hear these arias as they were meant to be performed, even if they were out of context within their original stories. Certainly, Wagner didn't intend the aria from Tristan und Isolde to be used to highlight a suicide pact between a young couple killing themselves in a Las Vegas hotel bathroom.   Aria definitely split critics when it premiered at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, when it competed for the festival's main prize, the Palme D'Or. Roger Ebert would call it the first MTV opera and felt the filmmakers were poking fun at their own styles, while Leonard Maltin felt most of the endeavor was a waste of time. In the review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin would also make a reference to MTV but not in a positive way, and would note the two best parts of the film were the photo montage that is seen over the end credits, and the clever licensing of Chuck Jones's classic Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Opera, Doc, to play with the film, at least during its New York run. In the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper chose one of its music critics to review the film. They too would compare the film to MTV, but also to Fantasia, neither reference meant to be positive.   It's easy to see what might have attracted Harvey Weinstein to acquire the film.   Nudity.   And lots of it.   Including from a 21 year old Hurley, and a 22 year old Fonda.   Open at the 420 seat Ridgemont Theatre in Seattle on March 18th, 1988, Aria would gross a respectable $10,600. It would be the second highest grossing theatre in the city, only behind The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which grossed $16,600 in its fifth week at the 850 seat Cinerama Theatre, which was and still is the single best theatre in Seattle. It would continue to do well in Seattle, but it would not open until April 15th in Los Angeles and May 20th in New York City.   But despite some decent notices and the presence of some big name directors, Aria would stiff at the box office, grossing just $1.03m after seven months in theatres.   As we discussed on our previous episode, there was a Dennis Hopper movie called Riders on the Storm that supposedly opened in November 1987, but didn't. It did open in theatres in May of 1988, and now we're here to talk about it.   Riders on the Storm would open in eleven theatres in the New York City area on May 7th, including three theatres in Manhattan. Since Miramax did not screen the film for critics before release, never a good sign, the first reviews wouldn't show up until the following day, since the critics would actually have to go see the film with a regular audience. Vincent Canby's review for the New York Times would arrive first, and surprisingly, he didn't completely hate the film. But audiences didn't care. In its first weekend in New York City, Riders on the Storm would gross an anemic $25k. The following Friday, Miramax would open the film at two theatres in Baltimore, four theatres in Fort Worth TX (but surprisingly none in Dallas), one theatre in Los Angeles and one theatre in Springfield OH, while continuing on only one screen in New York. No reported grosses from Fort Worth, LA or Springfield, but the New York theatre reported ticket sales of $3k for the weekend, a 57% drop from its previous week, while the two in Baltimore combined for $5k.   There would be more single playdates for a few months. Tampa the same week as New York. Atlanta, Charlotte, Des Moines and Memphis in late May. Cincinnati in late June. Boston, Calgary, Ottawa and Philadelphia in early July. Greenville SC in late August. Evansville IL, Ithaca NY and San Francisco in early September. Chicago in late September. It just kept popping up in random places for months, always a one week playdate before heading off to the next location. And in all that time, Miramax never reported grosses. What little numbers we do have is from the theatres that Variety was tracking, and those numbers totaled up to less than $30k.   Another mostly lost and forgotten Miramax release from 1988 is Caribe, a Canadian production that shot in Belize about an amateur illegal arms trader to Central American terrorists who must go on the run after a deal goes down bad, because who wants to see a Canadian movie about an amateur illegal arms trader to Canadian terrorists who must go on the run in the Canadian tundra after a deal goes down bad?   Kara Glover would play Helen, the arms dealer, and John Savage as Jeff, a British intelligence agent who helps Helen.   Caribe would first open in Detroit on May 20th, 1988. Can you guess what I'm going to say next?   Yep.   No reported grosses, no theatres playing the film tracked by Variety.   The following week, Caribe opens in the San Francisco Bay Area, at the 300 seat United Artists Theatre in San Francisco, and three theatres in the South Bay. While Miramax once again did not report grosses, the combined gross for the four theatres, according to Variety, was a weak $3,700. Compare that to Aria, which was playing at the Opera Plaza Cinemas in its third week in San Francisco, in an auditorium 40% smaller than the United Artist, grossing $5,300 on its own.   On June 3rd, Caribe would open at the AMC Fountain Square 14 in Nashville. One show only on Friday and Saturday at 11:45pm. Miramax did not report grosses. Probably because people we going to see Willie Tyler and Lester at Zanie's down the street.   And again, it kept cycling around the country, one or two new playdates in each city it played in. Philadelphia in mid-June. Indianapolis in mid-July. Jersey City in late August. Always for one week, grosses never reported.   Miramax's first Swedish release of the year was called Mio, but this was truly an international production. The $4m film was co-produced by Swedish, Norwegian and Russian production companies, directed by a Russian, adapted from a Swedish book by an American screenwriter, scored by one of the members of ABBA, and starring actors from England, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States.   Mio tells the story of a boy from Stockholm who travels to an otherworldly fantasy realm and frees the land from an evil knight's oppression. What makes this movie memorable today is that Mio's best friend is played by none other than Christian Bale, in his very first film.   The movie was shot in Moscow, Stockholm, the Crimea, Scotland, and outside Pripyat in the Northern part of what is now Ukraine, between March and July 1986. In fact, the cast and crew were shooting outside Pripyat on April 26th, when they got the call they needed to evacuate the area. It would be hours later when they would discover there had been a reactor core meltdown at the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. They would have to scramble to shoot in other locations away from Ukraine for a month, and when they were finally allowed to return, the area they were shooting in deemed to have not been adversely affected by the worst nuclear power plant accident in human history,, Geiger counters would be placed all over the sets, and every meal served by craft services would need to be read to make sure it wasn't contaminated.   After premiering at the Moscow Film Festival in July 1987 and the Norwegian Film Festival in August, Mio would open in Sweden on October 16th, 1987. The local critics would tear the film apart. They hated that the filmmakers had Anglicized the movie with British actors like Christopher Lee, Susannah York, Christian Bale and Nicholas Pickard, an eleven year old boy also making his film debut. They also hated how the filmmakers adapted the novel by the legendary Astrid Lindgren, whose Pippi Longstocking novels made her and her works world famous. Overall, they hated pretty much everything about it outside of Christopher Lee's performance and the production's design in the fantasy world.   Miramax most likely picked it up trying to emulate the success of The Neverending Story, which had opened to great success in most of the world in 1984. So it might seem kinda odd that when they would open the now titled The Land of Faraway in theatres, they wouldn't go wide but instead open it on one screen in Atlanta GA on June 10th, 1988. And, once again, Miramax did not report grosses, and Variety did not track Atlanta theatres that week. Two weeks later, they would open the film in Miami. How many theatres? Can't tell you. Miramax did not report grosses, and Variety was not tracking any of the theatres in Miami playing the film. But hey, Bull Durham did pretty good in Miami that week.   The film would next open in theatres in Los Angeles. This time, Miramax bought a quarter page ad in the Los Angeles Times on opening day to let people know the film existed. So we know it was playing on 18 screens that weekend. And, once again, Miramax did not report grosses for the film. But on the two screens it played on that Variety was tracking, the combined gross was just $2,500.   There'd be other playdates. Kansas City and Minneapolis in mid-September. Vancouver, BC in early October. Palm Beach FL in mid October. Calgary AB and Fort Lauderdale in late October. Phoenix in mid November. And never once did Miramax report any grosses for it.   One week after Mio, Miramax would release a comedy called Going Undercover.   Now, if you listened to our March 2021 episode on Some Kind of Wonderful, you may remember be mentioning Lea Thompson taking the role of Amanda Jones in that film, a role she had turned down twice before, the week after Howard the Duck opened, because she was afraid she'd never get cast in a movie again. And while Some Kind of Wonderful wasn't as big a film as you'd expect from a John Hughes production, Thompson did indeed continue to work, and is still working to this day.   So if you were looking at a newspaper ad in several cities in June 1988 and saw her latest movie and wonder why she went back to making weird little movies.   She hadn't.   This was a movie she had made just before Back to the Future, in August and September 1984.   Originally titled Yellow Pages, the film starred film legend Jean Simmons as Maxine, a rich woman who has hired Chris Lemmon's private investigator Henry Brilliant to protect her stepdaughter Marigold during her trip to Copenhagen.   The director, James Clarke, had written the script specifically for Lemmon, tailoring his role to mimic various roles played by his famous father, Jack Lemmon, over the decades, and for Simmons. But Thompson was just one of a number of young actresses they looked at before making their casting choice.   Half of the $6m budget would come from a first-time British film producer, while the other half from a group of Danish investors wanting to lure more Hollywood productions to their area.   The shoot would be plagued by a number of problems. The shoot in Los Angeles coincided with the final days of the 1984 Summer Olympics, which would cut out using some of the best and most regularly used locations in the city, and a long-lasting heat wave that would make outdoor shoots unbearable for cast and crew. When they arrived in Copenhagen at the end of August, Denmark was going through an unusually heavy storm front that hung around for weeks.   Clarke would spend several months editing the film, longer than usual for a smaller production like this, but he in part was waiting to see how Back to the Future would do at the box office. If the film was a hit, and his leading actress was a major part of that, it could make it easier to sell his film to a distributor.   Or that was line of thinking.   Of course, Back to the Future was a hit, and Thompson received much praise for her comedic work on the film.   But that didn't make it any easier to sell his film.   The producer would set the first screenings for the film at the February 1986 American Film Market in Santa Monica, which caters not only to foreign distributors looking to acquire American movies for their markets, but helps independent filmmakers get their movies seen by American distributors.   As these screenings were for buyers by invitation only, there would be no reviews from the screenings, but one could guess that no one would hear about the film again until Miramax bought the American distribution rights to it in March 1988 tells us that maybe those screenings didn't go so well.   The film would get retitled Going Undercover, and would open in single screen playdates in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, St. Louis and Tampa on June 17th. And as I've said too many times already, no reported grosses from Miramax, and only one theatre playing the film was being tracked by Variety, with Going Undercover earning $3,000 during its one week at the Century City 14 in Los Angeles.   In the June 22nd, 1988 issue of Variety, there was an article about Miramax securing a $25m line of credit in order to start producing their own films. Going Undercover is mentioned in the article about being one of Miramax's releases, without noting it had just been released that week or how well it did or did not do.   The Thin Blue Line would be Miramax's first non-music based documentary, and one that would truly change how documentaries were made.   Errol Morris had already made two bizarre but entertaining documentaries in the late 70s and early 80s. Gates of Heaven was shot in 1977, about a man who operated a failing pet cemetery in Northern California's Napa Valley. When Morris told his famous German filmmaking supporter Werner Herzog about the film, Herzog vowed to eat one of the shoes he was wearing that day if Morris could actually complete the film and have it shown in a public theatre. In April 1979, just before the documentary had its world premiere at UC Theatre in Berkeley, where Morris had studied philosophy, Herzog would spend the morning at Chez Pannise, the creators of the California Cuisine cooking style, boiling his shoes for five hours in garlic, herbs and stock. This event itself would be commemorated in a documentary short called, naturally, Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, by Les Blank, which is a must watch on its own.   Because of the success of Gates of Heaven, Morris was able to quickly find financing for his next film, Nub City, which was originally supposed to be about the number of Vernon, Florida's citizens who have “accidentally” cut off their limbs, in order to collect the insurance money. But after several of those citizens threatened to kill Morris, and one of them tried to run down his cinematographer with their truck, Morris would rework the documentary, dropping the limb angle, no pun intended, and focus on the numerous eccentric people in the town. It would premiere at the 1981 New York Film Festival, and become a hit, for a documentary, when it was released in theatres in 1982.   But it would take Morris another six years after completing Vernon, Florida, to make another film. Part of it was having trouble lining up full funding to work on his next proposed movie, about James Grigson, a Texas forensic psychiatrist whose was nicknamed Doctor Death for being an expert witness for the prosecution in death penalty cases in Texas. Morris had gotten seed money for the documentary from PBS and the Endowment for Public Arts, but there was little else coming in while he worked on the film. In fact, Morris would get a PI license in New York and work cases for two years, using every penny he earned that wasn't going towards living expenses to keep the film afloat.   One of Morris's major problems for the film was that Grigson would not sit on camera for an interview, but would meet with Morris face to face to talk about the cases. During that meeting, the good doctor suggested to the filmmaker that he should research the killers he helped put away. And during that research, Morris would come across the case of one Randall Dale Adams, who was convicted of killing Dallas police officer Robert Wood in 1976, even though another man, David Harris, was the police's initial suspect. For two years, Morris would fly back and forth between New York City and Texas, talking to and filming interviews with Adams and more than two hundred other people connected to the shooting and the trial. Morris had become convinced Adams was indeed innocent, and dropped the idea about Dr. Grigson to solely focus on the Robert Wood murder.   After showing the producers of PBS's American Playhouse some of the footage he had put together of the new direction of the film, they kicked in more funds so that Morris could shoot some re-enactment sequences outside New York City, as well as commission composer Phillip Glass to create a score for the film once it was completed. Documentaries at that time did not regularly use re-enactments, but Morris felt it was important to show how different personal accounts of the same moment can be misinterpreted or misremembered or outright manipulated to suppress the truth.   After the film completed its post-production in March 1988, The Thin Blue Line would have its world premiere at the San Francisco Film Festival on March 18th, and word quickly spread Morris had something truly unique and special on his hands. The critic for Variety would note in the very first paragraph of his write up that the film employed “strikingly original formal devices to pull together diverse interviews, film clips, photo collages, and” and this is where it broke ground, “recreations of the crime from many points of view.”   Miramax would put together a full court press in order to get the rights to the film, which was announced during the opening days of the 1988 Cannes Film Festival in early May. An early hint on how the company was going to sell the film was by calling it a “non-fiction feature” instead of a documentary.   Miramax would send Morris out on a cross-country press tour in the weeks leading up to the film's August 26th opening date, but Morris, like many documentary filmmakers, was not used to being in the spotlight themselves, and was not as articulate about talking up his movies as the more seasoned directors and actors who've been on the promotion circuit for a while. After one interview, Harvey Weinstein would send Errol Morris a note.   “Heard your NPR interview and you were boring.”   Harvey would offer up several suggestions to help the filmmaker, including hyping the movie up as a real life mystery thriller rather than a documentary, and using shorter and clearer sentences when answering a question.   It was a clear gamble to release The Thin Blue Line in the final week of summer, and the film would need a lot of good will to stand out.   And it would get it.   The New York Times was so enthralled with the film, it would not only run a review from Janet Maslin, who would heap great praise on the film, but would also run a lengthy interview with Errol Morris right next to the review. The quarter page ad in the New York Times, several pages back, would tout positive quotes from Roger Ebert, J. Hoberman, who had left The Village Voice for the then-new Premiere Magazine, Peter Travers, writing for People Magazine instead of Rolling Stone, and critics from the San Francisco Chronicle and, interestingly enough, the Dallas Morning News. The top of the ad was tagged with an intriguing tease: solving this mystery is going to be murder, with a second tag line underneath the key art and title, which called the film “a new kind of movie mystery.” Of the 15 New York area-based film critics for local newspapers, television and national magazines, 14 of them gave favorable reviews, while 1, Stephen Schiff of Vanity Fair, was ambivalent about it. Not one critic gave it a bad review.   New York audiences were hooked.   Opening in the 240 seat main house at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, the movie grossed $30,945 its first three days. In its second weekend, the gross at the Lincoln Plaza would jump to $31k, and adding another $27,500 from its two theatre opening in Los Angeles and $15,800 from a single DC theatre that week. Third week in New York was a still good $21k, but the second week in Los Angeles fell to $10,500 and DC to $10k. And that's how it rolled out for several months, mostly single screen bookings in major cities not called Los Angeles or New York City, racking up some of the best reviews Miramax would receive to date, but never breaking out much outside the major cities. When it looked like Santa Cruz wasn't going to play the film, I drove to San Francisco to see it, just as my friends and I had for the opening day of Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ in mid-August. That's 75 miles each way, plus parking in San Francisco, just to see a movie. That's when you know you no longer just like movies but have developed a serious case of cinephilea. So when The Nickelodeon did open the film in late November, I did something I had never done with any documentary before.   I went and saw it again.   Second time around, I was still pissed off at the outrageous injustice heaped upon Randall Dale Adams for nothing more than being with and trusting the wrong person at the wrong time. But, thankfully, things would turn around for Adams in the coming weeks. On December 1st, it was reported that David Harris had recanted his testimony at Adams' trial, admitting he was alone when Officer Wood stopped his car. And on March 1st, 1989, after more than 15,000 people had signed the film's petition to revisit the decision, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Adams's conviction “based largely” on facts presented in the film.   The film would also find itself in several more controversies.   Despite being named The Best Documentary of the Year by a number of critics groups, the Documentary Branch of the  Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences would not nominate the film, due in large part to the numerous reenactments presented throughout the film. Filmmaker Michael Apted, a member of the Directors Branch of the Academy, noted that the failure to acknowledge The Thin Blue Line was “one of the most outrageous things in the modern history of the Academy,” while Roger Ebert added the slight was “the worst non-nomination of the year.” Despite the lack of a nomination, Errol Morris would attend the Oscars ceremony in March 1989, as a protest for his film being snubbed.   Morris would also, several months after Adams' release, find himself being sued by Adams, but not because of how he was portrayed in the film. During the making of the film, Morris had Adams sign a contract giving Morris the exclusive right to tell Adams's story, and Adams wanted, essentially, the right to tell his own story now that he was a free man. Morris and Adams would settle out of court, and Adams would regain his life rights.   Once the movie was played out in theatres, it had grossed $1.2m, which on the surface sounds like not a whole lot of money. Adjusted for inflation, that would only be $3.08m. But even unadjusted for inflation, it's still one of the 100 highest grossing documentaries of the past forty years. And it is one of just a handful of documentaries to become a part of the National Film Registry, for being a culturally, historically or aesthetically significant film.”   Adams would live a quiet life after his release, working as an anti-death penalty advocate and marrying the sister of one of the death row inmates he was helping to exonerate. He would pass away from a brain tumor in October 2010 at a courthouse in Ohio not half an hour from where he was born and still lived, but he would so disappear from the spotlight after the movie was released that his passing wasn't even reported until June 2011.   Errol Morris would become one of the most celebrated documentarians of his generation, finally getting nominated for, and winning, an Oscar in 2003, for The Fog of War, about the life and times of Robert McNamara, Richard Nixon's Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War era. The Fog of War would also be added to the National Film Registry in 2019. Morris would become only the third documentarian, after D.A. Pennebaker and Les Blank, to have two films on the Registry.   In 1973, the senseless killings of five members of the Alday family in Donalsonville GA made international headlines. Four years later, Canadian documentarian Tex Fuller made an award-winning documentary about the case, called Murder One. For years, Fuller shopped around a screenplay telling the same story, but it would take nearly a decade for it to finally be sold, in part because Fuller was insistent that he also be the director. A small Canadian production company would fund the $1m CAD production, which would star Henry Thomas of E.T. fame as the fifteen year old narrator of the story, Billy Isaacs.   The shoot began in early October 1987 outside Toronto, but after a week of shooting, Fuller was fired, and was replaced by Graeme Campbell, a young and energetic filmmaker for whom Murder One would be his fourth movie directing gig of the year. Details are sketchy as to why Fuller was fired, but Thomas and his mother Carolyn would voice concerns with the producers about the new direction the film was taking under its new director.   The film would premiere in Canada in May 1988. When the film did well up North, Miramax took notice and purchased the American distribution rights.   Murder One would first open in America on two screens in Los Angeles on September 9th, 1988. Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times noted that while the film itself wasn't very good, that it still sprung from the disturbing insight about the crazy reasons people cross of what should be impassable moral lines.   “No movie studio could have invented it!,” screamed the tagline on the poster and newspaper key art. “No writer could have imagined it! Because what happened that night became the most controversial in American history.”   That would draw limited interest from filmgoers in Tinseltown. The two theatres would gross a combined $7k in its first three days. Not great but far better than several other recent Miramax releases in the area.   Two weeks later, on September 23rd, Miramax would book Murder One into 20 theatres in the New York City metro region, as well as in Akron, Atlanta, Charlotte, Indianpolis, Nashville, and Tampa-St. Petersburg. In New York, the film would actually get some good reviews from the Times and the Post as well as Peter Travers of People Magazine, but once again, Miramax would not report grosses for the film. Variety would note the combined gross for the film in New York City was only $25k.   In early October, the film would fall out of Variety's internal list of the 50 Top Grossing Films within the twenty markets they regularly tracked, with a final gross of just $87k. One market that Miramax deliberately did not book the film was anywhere near southwest Georgia, where the murders took place. The closest theatre that did play the film was more than 200 miles away.   Miramax would finish 1988 with two releases.   The first was Dakota, which would mark star Lou Diamond Phillips first time as a producer. He would star as a troubled teenager who takes a job on a Texas horse ranch to help pay of his debts, who becomes a sorta big brother to the ranch owner's young son, who has recently lost a leg to cancer, as he also falls for the rancher's daughter.   When the $1.1m budgeted film began production in Texas in June 1987, Phillips had already made La Bamba and Stand and Deliver, but neither had yet to be released into theatres. By the time filming ended five weeks later, La Bamba had just opened, and Phillips was on his way to becoming a star.   The main producers wanted director Fred Holmes to get the film through post-production as quickly as possible, to get it into theatres in the early part of 1988 to capitalize on the newfound success of their young star.    But that wouldn't happen.   Holmes wouldn't have the film ready until the end of February 1988, which was deemed acceptable because of the impending release of Stand and Deliver. In fact, the producers would schedule their first distributor screening of the film on March 14th, the Monday after Stand and Delivered opened, in the hopes that good box office for the film and good notices for Phillips would translate to higher distributor interest in their film, which sorta worked. None of the major studios would show for the screening, but a number of Indies would, including Miramax. Phillips would not attend the screening, as he was on location in New Mexico shooting Young Guns.   I can't find any reason why Miramax waited nearly nine months after they acquired Dakota to get it into theatres. It certainly wasn't Oscar bait, and screen availability would be scarce during the busy holiday movie season, which would see a number of popular, high profile releases like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Ernest Saves Christmas, The Naked Gun, Rain Man, Scrooged, Tequila Sunrise, Twins and Working Girl. Which might explain why, when Miramax released the film into 18 theatres in the New York City area on December 2nd, they could only get three screens in all of Manhattan, the best being the nice but hardly first-rate Embassy 4 at Broadway and 47th. Or of the 22 screens in Los Angeles opening the film the same day, the best would be the tiny Westwood 4 next to UCLA or the Paramount in Hollywood, whose best days were back in the Eisenhower administration.   And, yet again, Miramax did not report grosses, and none of the theatres playing the film was tracked by Variety that week. The film would be gone after just one week. The Paramount, which would open Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on the 14th, opted to instead play a double feature of Clara's Heart, with Whoopi Goldberg and Neil Patrick Harris, and the River Phoenix drama Running on Empty, even though neither film had been much of a hit.   Miramax's last film of the year would be the one that changed everything for them.   Pelle the Conquerer.   Adapted from a 1910 Danish book and directed by Billie August, whose previous film Twist and Shout had been released by Miramax in 1986, Pelle the Conquerer would be the first Danish or Swedish movie to star Max von Sydow in almost 15 years, having spent most of the 70s and 80s in Hollywood and London starring in a number of major movies including The Exorcist, Three Days of the Condor, Flash Gordon,Conan the Barbarian, Never Say Never Again, and David Lynch's Dune. But because von Sydow would be making his return to his native cinema, August was able to secure $4.5m to make the film, one of the highest budgeted Scandinavian films to be made to date.   In the late 1850s, an elderly emigrant Lasse and his son Pelle leave their home in Sweden after the death of the boy's mother, wanting to build a new life on the Danish island of Bornholm. Lasse finds it difficult to find work, given his age and his son's youth. The pair are forced to work at a large farm, where they are generally mistreated by the managers for being foreigners. The father falls into depression and alcoholism, the young boy befriends one of the bastard children of the farm owner as well as another Swedish farm worker, who dreams of conquering the world.   For the title character of Pelle, Billie August saw more than 3,000 Swedish boys before deciding to cast 11 year old Pelle Hvenegaard, who, like many boys in Sweden, had been named for the character he was now going to play on screen.   After six months of filming in the summer and fall of 1986, Billie August would finish editing Pelle the Conquerer in time for it to make its intended Christmas Day 1987 release date in Denmark and Sweden, where the film would be one of the biggest releases in either country for the entire decade. It would make its debut outside Scandinavia at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1988, where it had been invited to compete for the Palme D'Or. It would compete against a number of talented filmmakers who had come with some of the best films they would ever make, including Clint Eastwood with Bird, Claire Denis' Chocolat, István Szabó's Hanussen, Vincent Ward's The Navigator, and A Short Film About Killing, an expanded movie version of the fifth episode in Krzysztof Kieślowski's masterful miniseries Dekalog. Pelle would conquer them all, taking home the top prize from one of cinema's most revered film festivals.   Reviews for the film out of Cannes were almost universally excellent. Vincent Canby, the lead film critic for the New York Times for nearly twenty years by this point, wouldn't file his review until the end of the festival, in which he pointed out that a number of people at the festival were scandalized von Sydow had not also won the award for Best Actor.   Having previously worked with the company on his previous film's American release, August felt that Miramax would have what it took to make the film a success in the States.   Their first moves would be to schedule the film for a late December release, while securing a slot at that September's New York Film Festival. And once again, the critical consensus was highly positive, with only a small sampling of distractors.   The film would open first on two screens at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday, December 21st, following by exclusive engagements in nine other cities including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC, on the 23rd. But the opening week numbers weren't very good, just $46k from ten screens. And you can't really blame the film's two hour and forty-five minute running time. Little Dorrit, the two-part, four hour adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, had been out nine weeks at this point and was still making nearly 50% more per screen.   But after the new year, when more and more awards were hurled the film's way, including the National Board of Review naming it one of the best foreign films of the year and the Golden Globes awarding it their Best Foreign Language trophy, ticket sales would pick up.   Well, for a foreign film.   The week after the Motion Picture Academy awarded Pelle their award for Best Foreign Language Film, business for the film would pick up 35%, and a third of its $2m American gross would come after that win.   One of the things that surprised me while doing the research for this episode was learning that Max von Sydow had never been nominated for an Oscar until he was nominated for Best Actor for Pelle the Conquerer. You look at his credits over the years, and it's just mind blowing. The Seventh Seal. Wild Strawberries. The Virgin Spring. The Greatest Story Ever Told. The Emigrants. The Exorcist. The Three Days of the Condor. Surely there was one performance amongst those that deserved recognition.   I hate to keep going back to A24, but there's something about a company's first Oscar win that sends that company into the next level. A24 didn't really become A24 until 2016, when three of their movies won Oscars, including Brie Larson for Best Actress in Room. And Miramax didn't really become the Miramax we knew and once loved until its win for Pelle.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 117, the fifth and final part of our miniseries on Miramax Films, is released.     Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

We continue our miniseries on the 1980s movies distributed by Miramax Films, with a look at the films released in 1988. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT   From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   On this episode, we finally continue with the next part of our look back at the 1980s movies distributed by Miramax Films, specifically looking at 1988.   But before we get there, I must issue another mea culpa. In our episode on the 1987 movies from Miramax, I mentioned that a Kiefer Sutherland movie called Crazy Moon never played in another theatre after its disastrous one week Oscar qualifying run in Los Angeles in December 1987.   I was wrong.   While doing research on this episode, I found one New York City playdate for the film, in early February 1988. It grossed a very dismal $3200 at the 545 seat Festival Theatre during its first weekend, and would be gone after seven days.   Sorry for the misinformation.   1988 would be a watershed year for the company, as one of the movies they acquired for distribution would change the course of documentary filmmaking as we knew it, and another would give a much beloved actor his first Academy Award nomination while giving the company its first Oscar win.   But before we get to those two movies, there's a whole bunch of others to talk about first.   Of the twelve movies Miramax would release in 1988, only four were from America. The rest would be a from a mixture of mostly Anglo-Saxon countries like the UK, Canada, France and Sweden, although there would be one Spanish film in there.   Their first release of the new year, Le Grand Chemin, told the story of a timid nine-year-old boy from Paris who spends one summer vacation in a small town in Brittany. His mother has lodged the boy with her friend and her friend's husband while Mom has another baby. The boy makes friends with a slightly older girl next door, and learns about life from her.   Richard Bohringer, who plays the friend's husband, and Anémone, who plays the pregnant mother, both won Cesars, the French equivalent to the Oscars, in their respective lead categories, and the film would be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of 1987 by the National Board of Review. Miramax, who had picked up the film at Cannes several months earlier, waited until January 22nd, 1988, to release it in America, first at the Paris Theatre in midtown Manhattan, where it would gross a very impressive $41k in its first three days. In its second week, it would drop less than 25% of its opening weekend audience, bringing in another $31k. But shortly after that, the expected Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film did not come, and business on the film slowed to a trickle. But it kept chugging on, and by the time the film finished its run in early June, it had grossed $541k.   A week later, on January 29th, Miramax would open another French film, Light Years. An animated science fiction film written and directed by René Laloux, best known for directing the 1973 animated head trip film Fantastic Planet, Light Years was the story of an evil force from a thousand years in the future who begins to destroy an idyllic paradise where the citizens are in perfect harmony with nature.   In its first three days at two screens in Los Angeles and five screens in the San Francisco Bay Area, Light Years would gross a decent $48,665. Miramax would print a self-congratulating ad in that week's Variety touting the film's success, and thanking Isaac Asimov, who helped to write the English translation, and many of the actors who lent their vocal talents to the new dub, including Glenn Close, Bridget Fonda, Jennifer Grey, Christopher Plummer, and Penn and Teller. Yes, Teller speaks. The ad was a message to both the theatre operators and the major players in the industry. Miramax was here. Get used to it.   But that ad may have been a bit premature.   While the film would do well in major markets during its initial week in theatres, audience interest would drop outside of its opening week in big cities, and be practically non-existent in college towns and other smaller cities. Its final box office total would be just over $370k.   March 18th saw the release of a truly unique film.    Imagine a film directed by Robert Altman and Bruce Beresford and Jean-Luc Godard and Derek Jarman and Franc Roddam and Nicolas Roeg and Ken Russell and Charles Sturridge and Julien Temple. Imagine a film that starred Beverly D'Angelo, Bridget Fonda in her first movie, Julie Hagerty, Buck Henry, Elizabeth Hurley and John Hurt and Theresa Russell and Tilda Swinton. Imagine a film that brought together ten of the most eclectic filmmakers in the world doing four to fourteen minute short films featuring the arias of some of the most famous and beloved operas ever written, often taken out of their original context and placed into strange new places. Like, for example, the aria for Verdi's Rigoletto set at the kitschy Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, where a movie producer is cheating on his wife while she is in a nearby room with a hunky man who is not her husband. Imagine that there's almost no dialogue in the film. Just the arias to set the moments.   That is Aria.   If you are unfamiliar with opera in general, and these arias specifically, that's not a problem. When I saw the film at the Nickelodeon Theatre in Santa Cruz in June 1988, I knew some Wagner, some Puccini, and some Verdi, through other movies that used the music as punctuation for a scene. I think the first time I had heard Nessun Dorma was in The Killing Fields. Vesti La Giubba in The Untouchables. But this would be the first time I would hear these arias as they were meant to be performed, even if they were out of context within their original stories. Certainly, Wagner didn't intend the aria from Tristan und Isolde to be used to highlight a suicide pact between a young couple killing themselves in a Las Vegas hotel bathroom.   Aria definitely split critics when it premiered at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, when it competed for the festival's main prize, the Palme D'Or. Roger Ebert would call it the first MTV opera and felt the filmmakers were poking fun at their own styles, while Leonard Maltin felt most of the endeavor was a waste of time. In the review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin would also make a reference to MTV but not in a positive way, and would note the two best parts of the film were the photo montage that is seen over the end credits, and the clever licensing of Chuck Jones's classic Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Opera, Doc, to play with the film, at least during its New York run. In the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper chose one of its music critics to review the film. They too would compare the film to MTV, but also to Fantasia, neither reference meant to be positive.   It's easy to see what might have attracted Harvey Weinstein to acquire the film.   Nudity.   And lots of it.   Including from a 21 year old Hurley, and a 22 year old Fonda.   Open at the 420 seat Ridgemont Theatre in Seattle on March 18th, 1988, Aria would gross a respectable $10,600. It would be the second highest grossing theatre in the city, only behind The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which grossed $16,600 in its fifth week at the 850 seat Cinerama Theatre, which was and still is the single best theatre in Seattle. It would continue to do well in Seattle, but it would not open until April 15th in Los Angeles and May 20th in New York City.   But despite some decent notices and the presence of some big name directors, Aria would stiff at the box office, grossing just $1.03m after seven months in theatres.   As we discussed on our previous episode, there was a Dennis Hopper movie called Riders on the Storm that supposedly opened in November 1987, but didn't. It did open in theatres in May of 1988, and now we're here to talk about it.   Riders on the Storm would open in eleven theatres in the New York City area on May 7th, including three theatres in Manhattan. Since Miramax did not screen the film for critics before release, never a good sign, the first reviews wouldn't show up until the following day, since the critics would actually have to go see the film with a regular audience. Vincent Canby's review for the New York Times would arrive first, and surprisingly, he didn't completely hate the film. But audiences didn't care. In its first weekend in New York City, Riders on the Storm would gross an anemic $25k. The following Friday, Miramax would open the film at two theatres in Baltimore, four theatres in Fort Worth TX (but surprisingly none in Dallas), one theatre in Los Angeles and one theatre in Springfield OH, while continuing on only one screen in New York. No reported grosses from Fort Worth, LA or Springfield, but the New York theatre reported ticket sales of $3k for the weekend, a 57% drop from its previous week, while the two in Baltimore combined for $5k.   There would be more single playdates for a few months. Tampa the same week as New York. Atlanta, Charlotte, Des Moines and Memphis in late May. Cincinnati in late June. Boston, Calgary, Ottawa and Philadelphia in early July. Greenville SC in late August. Evansville IL, Ithaca NY and San Francisco in early September. Chicago in late September. It just kept popping up in random places for months, always a one week playdate before heading off to the next location. And in all that time, Miramax never reported grosses. What little numbers we do have is from the theatres that Variety was tracking, and those numbers totaled up to less than $30k.   Another mostly lost and forgotten Miramax release from 1988 is Caribe, a Canadian production that shot in Belize about an amateur illegal arms trader to Central American terrorists who must go on the run after a deal goes down bad, because who wants to see a Canadian movie about an amateur illegal arms trader to Canadian terrorists who must go on the run in the Canadian tundra after a deal goes down bad?   Kara Glover would play Helen, the arms dealer, and John Savage as Jeff, a British intelligence agent who helps Helen.   Caribe would first open in Detroit on May 20th, 1988. Can you guess what I'm going to say next?   Yep.   No reported grosses, no theatres playing the film tracked by Variety.   The following week, Caribe opens in the San Francisco Bay Area, at the 300 seat United Artists Theatre in San Francisco, and three theatres in the South Bay. While Miramax once again did not report grosses, the combined gross for the four theatres, according to Variety, was a weak $3,700. Compare that to Aria, which was playing at the Opera Plaza Cinemas in its third week in San Francisco, in an auditorium 40% smaller than the United Artist, grossing $5,300 on its own.   On June 3rd, Caribe would open at the AMC Fountain Square 14 in Nashville. One show only on Friday and Saturday at 11:45pm. Miramax did not report grosses. Probably because people we going to see Willie Tyler and Lester at Zanie's down the street.   And again, it kept cycling around the country, one or two new playdates in each city it played in. Philadelphia in mid-June. Indianapolis in mid-July. Jersey City in late August. Always for one week, grosses never reported.   Miramax's first Swedish release of the year was called Mio, but this was truly an international production. The $4m film was co-produced by Swedish, Norwegian and Russian production companies, directed by a Russian, adapted from a Swedish book by an American screenwriter, scored by one of the members of ABBA, and starring actors from England, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States.   Mio tells the story of a boy from Stockholm who travels to an otherworldly fantasy realm and frees the land from an evil knight's oppression. What makes this movie memorable today is that Mio's best friend is played by none other than Christian Bale, in his very first film.   The movie was shot in Moscow, Stockholm, the Crimea, Scotland, and outside Pripyat in the Northern part of what is now Ukraine, between March and July 1986. In fact, the cast and crew were shooting outside Pripyat on April 26th, when they got the call they needed to evacuate the area. It would be hours later when they would discover there had been a reactor core meltdown at the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. They would have to scramble to shoot in other locations away from Ukraine for a month, and when they were finally allowed to return, the area they were shooting in deemed to have not been adversely affected by the worst nuclear power plant accident in human history,, Geiger counters would be placed all over the sets, and every meal served by craft services would need to be read to make sure it wasn't contaminated.   After premiering at the Moscow Film Festival in July 1987 and the Norwegian Film Festival in August, Mio would open in Sweden on October 16th, 1987. The local critics would tear the film apart. They hated that the filmmakers had Anglicized the movie with British actors like Christopher Lee, Susannah York, Christian Bale and Nicholas Pickard, an eleven year old boy also making his film debut. They also hated how the filmmakers adapted the novel by the legendary Astrid Lindgren, whose Pippi Longstocking novels made her and her works world famous. Overall, they hated pretty much everything about it outside of Christopher Lee's performance and the production's design in the fantasy world.   Miramax most likely picked it up trying to emulate the success of The Neverending Story, which had opened to great success in most of the world in 1984. So it might seem kinda odd that when they would open the now titled The Land of Faraway in theatres, they wouldn't go wide but instead open it on one screen in Atlanta GA on June 10th, 1988. And, once again, Miramax did not report grosses, and Variety did not track Atlanta theatres that week. Two weeks later, they would open the film in Miami. How many theatres? Can't tell you. Miramax did not report grosses, and Variety was not tracking any of the theatres in Miami playing the film. But hey, Bull Durham did pretty good in Miami that week.   The film would next open in theatres in Los Angeles. This time, Miramax bought a quarter page ad in the Los Angeles Times on opening day to let people know the film existed. So we know it was playing on 18 screens that weekend. And, once again, Miramax did not report grosses for the film. But on the two screens it played on that Variety was tracking, the combined gross was just $2,500.   There'd be other playdates. Kansas City and Minneapolis in mid-September. Vancouver, BC in early October. Palm Beach FL in mid October. Calgary AB and Fort Lauderdale in late October. Phoenix in mid November. And never once did Miramax report any grosses for it.   One week after Mio, Miramax would release a comedy called Going Undercover.   Now, if you listened to our March 2021 episode on Some Kind of Wonderful, you may remember be mentioning Lea Thompson taking the role of Amanda Jones in that film, a role she had turned down twice before, the week after Howard the Duck opened, because she was afraid she'd never get cast in a movie again. And while Some Kind of Wonderful wasn't as big a film as you'd expect from a John Hughes production, Thompson did indeed continue to work, and is still working to this day.   So if you were looking at a newspaper ad in several cities in June 1988 and saw her latest movie and wonder why she went back to making weird little movies.   She hadn't.   This was a movie she had made just before Back to the Future, in August and September 1984.   Originally titled Yellow Pages, the film starred film legend Jean Simmons as Maxine, a rich woman who has hired Chris Lemmon's private investigator Henry Brilliant to protect her stepdaughter Marigold during her trip to Copenhagen.   The director, James Clarke, had written the script specifically for Lemmon, tailoring his role to mimic various roles played by his famous father, Jack Lemmon, over the decades, and for Simmons. But Thompson was just one of a number of young actresses they looked at before making their casting choice.   Half of the $6m budget would come from a first-time British film producer, while the other half from a group of Danish investors wanting to lure more Hollywood productions to their area.   The shoot would be plagued by a number of problems. The shoot in Los Angeles coincided with the final days of the 1984 Summer Olympics, which would cut out using some of the best and most regularly used locations in the city, and a long-lasting heat wave that would make outdoor shoots unbearable for cast and crew. When they arrived in Copenhagen at the end of August, Denmark was going through an unusually heavy storm front that hung around for weeks.   Clarke would spend several months editing the film, longer than usual for a smaller production like this, but he in part was waiting to see how Back to the Future would do at the box office. If the film was a hit, and his leading actress was a major part of that, it could make it easier to sell his film to a distributor.   Or that was line of thinking.   Of course, Back to the Future was a hit, and Thompson received much praise for her comedic work on the film.   But that didn't make it any easier to sell his film.   The producer would set the first screenings for the film at the February 1986 American Film Market in Santa Monica, which caters not only to foreign distributors looking to acquire American movies for their markets, but helps independent filmmakers get their movies seen by American distributors.   As these screenings were for buyers by invitation only, there would be no reviews from the screenings, but one could guess that no one would hear about the film again until Miramax bought the American distribution rights to it in March 1988 tells us that maybe those screenings didn't go so well.   The film would get retitled Going Undercover, and would open in single screen playdates in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, St. Louis and Tampa on June 17th. And as I've said too many times already, no reported grosses from Miramax, and only one theatre playing the film was being tracked by Variety, with Going Undercover earning $3,000 during its one week at the Century City 14 in Los Angeles.   In the June 22nd, 1988 issue of Variety, there was an article about Miramax securing a $25m line of credit in order to start producing their own films. Going Undercover is mentioned in the article about being one of Miramax's releases, without noting it had just been released that week or how well it did or did not do.   The Thin Blue Line would be Miramax's first non-music based documentary, and one that would truly change how documentaries were made.   Errol Morris had already made two bizarre but entertaining documentaries in the late 70s and early 80s. Gates of Heaven was shot in 1977, about a man who operated a failing pet cemetery in Northern California's Napa Valley. When Morris told his famous German filmmaking supporter Werner Herzog about the film, Herzog vowed to eat one of the shoes he was wearing that day if Morris could actually complete the film and have it shown in a public theatre. In April 1979, just before the documentary had its world premiere at UC Theatre in Berkeley, where Morris had studied philosophy, Herzog would spend the morning at Chez Pannise, the creators of the California Cuisine cooking style, boiling his shoes for five hours in garlic, herbs and stock. This event itself would be commemorated in a documentary short called, naturally, Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, by Les Blank, which is a must watch on its own.   Because of the success of Gates of Heaven, Morris was able to quickly find financing for his next film, Nub City, which was originally supposed to be about the number of Vernon, Florida's citizens who have “accidentally” cut off their limbs, in order to collect the insurance money. But after several of those citizens threatened to kill Morris, and one of them tried to run down his cinematographer with their truck, Morris would rework the documentary, dropping the limb angle, no pun intended, and focus on the numerous eccentric people in the town. It would premiere at the 1981 New York Film Festival, and become a hit, for a documentary, when it was released in theatres in 1982.   But it would take Morris another six years after completing Vernon, Florida, to make another film. Part of it was having trouble lining up full funding to work on his next proposed movie, about James Grigson, a Texas forensic psychiatrist whose was nicknamed Doctor Death for being an expert witness for the prosecution in death penalty cases in Texas. Morris had gotten seed money for the documentary from PBS and the Endowment for Public Arts, but there was little else coming in while he worked on the film. In fact, Morris would get a PI license in New York and work cases for two years, using every penny he earned that wasn't going towards living expenses to keep the film afloat.   One of Morris's major problems for the film was that Grigson would not sit on camera for an interview, but would meet with Morris face to face to talk about the cases. During that meeting, the good doctor suggested to the filmmaker that he should research the killers he helped put away. And during that research, Morris would come across the case of one Randall Dale Adams, who was convicted of killing Dallas police officer Robert Wood in 1976, even though another man, David Harris, was the police's initial suspect. For two years, Morris would fly back and forth between New York City and Texas, talking to and filming interviews with Adams and more than two hundred other people connected to the shooting and the trial. Morris had become convinced Adams was indeed innocent, and dropped the idea about Dr. Grigson to solely focus on the Robert Wood murder.   After showing the producers of PBS's American Playhouse some of the footage he had put together of the new direction of the film, they kicked in more funds so that Morris could shoot some re-enactment sequences outside New York City, as well as commission composer Phillip Glass to create a score for the film once it was completed. Documentaries at that time did not regularly use re-enactments, but Morris felt it was important to show how different personal accounts of the same moment can be misinterpreted or misremembered or outright manipulated to suppress the truth.   After the film completed its post-production in March 1988, The Thin Blue Line would have its world premiere at the San Francisco Film Festival on March 18th, and word quickly spread Morris had something truly unique and special on his hands. The critic for Variety would note in the very first paragraph of his write up that the film employed “strikingly original formal devices to pull together diverse interviews, film clips, photo collages, and” and this is where it broke ground, “recreations of the crime from many points of view.”   Miramax would put together a full court press in order to get the rights to the film, which was announced during the opening days of the 1988 Cannes Film Festival in early May. An early hint on how the company was going to sell the film was by calling it a “non-fiction feature” instead of a documentary.   Miramax would send Morris out on a cross-country press tour in the weeks leading up to the film's August 26th opening date, but Morris, like many documentary filmmakers, was not used to being in the spotlight themselves, and was not as articulate about talking up his movies as the more seasoned directors and actors who've been on the promotion circuit for a while. After one interview, Harvey Weinstein would send Errol Morris a note.   “Heard your NPR interview and you were boring.”   Harvey would offer up several suggestions to help the filmmaker, including hyping the movie up as a real life mystery thriller rather than a documentary, and using shorter and clearer sentences when answering a question.   It was a clear gamble to release The Thin Blue Line in the final week of summer, and the film would need a lot of good will to stand out.   And it would get it.   The New York Times was so enthralled with the film, it would not only run a review from Janet Maslin, who would heap great praise on the film, but would also run a lengthy interview with Errol Morris right next to the review. The quarter page ad in the New York Times, several pages back, would tout positive quotes from Roger Ebert, J. Hoberman, who had left The Village Voice for the then-new Premiere Magazine, Peter Travers, writing for People Magazine instead of Rolling Stone, and critics from the San Francisco Chronicle and, interestingly enough, the Dallas Morning News. The top of the ad was tagged with an intriguing tease: solving this mystery is going to be murder, with a second tag line underneath the key art and title, which called the film “a new kind of movie mystery.” Of the 15 New York area-based film critics for local newspapers, television and national magazines, 14 of them gave favorable reviews, while 1, Stephen Schiff of Vanity Fair, was ambivalent about it. Not one critic gave it a bad review.   New York audiences were hooked.   Opening in the 240 seat main house at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, the movie grossed $30,945 its first three days. In its second weekend, the gross at the Lincoln Plaza would jump to $31k, and adding another $27,500 from its two theatre opening in Los Angeles and $15,800 from a single DC theatre that week. Third week in New York was a still good $21k, but the second week in Los Angeles fell to $10,500 and DC to $10k. And that's how it rolled out for several months, mostly single screen bookings in major cities not called Los Angeles or New York City, racking up some of the best reviews Miramax would receive to date, but never breaking out much outside the major cities. When it looked like Santa Cruz wasn't going to play the film, I drove to San Francisco to see it, just as my friends and I had for the opening day of Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ in mid-August. That's 75 miles each way, plus parking in San Francisco, just to see a movie. That's when you know you no longer just like movies but have developed a serious case of cinephilea. So when The Nickelodeon did open the film in late November, I did something I had never done with any documentary before.   I went and saw it again.   Second time around, I was still pissed off at the outrageous injustice heaped upon Randall Dale Adams for nothing more than being with and trusting the wrong person at the wrong time. But, thankfully, things would turn around for Adams in the coming weeks. On December 1st, it was reported that David Harris had recanted his testimony at Adams' trial, admitting he was alone when Officer Wood stopped his car. And on March 1st, 1989, after more than 15,000 people had signed the film's petition to revisit the decision, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Adams's conviction “based largely” on facts presented in the film.   The film would also find itself in several more controversies.   Despite being named The Best Documentary of the Year by a number of critics groups, the Documentary Branch of the  Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences would not nominate the film, due in large part to the numerous reenactments presented throughout the film. Filmmaker Michael Apted, a member of the Directors Branch of the Academy, noted that the failure to acknowledge The Thin Blue Line was “one of the most outrageous things in the modern history of the Academy,” while Roger Ebert added the slight was “the worst non-nomination of the year.” Despite the lack of a nomination, Errol Morris would attend the Oscars ceremony in March 1989, as a protest for his film being snubbed.   Morris would also, several months after Adams' release, find himself being sued by Adams, but not because of how he was portrayed in the film. During the making of the film, Morris had Adams sign a contract giving Morris the exclusive right to tell Adams's story, and Adams wanted, essentially, the right to tell his own story now that he was a free man. Morris and Adams would settle out of court, and Adams would regain his life rights.   Once the movie was played out in theatres, it had grossed $1.2m, which on the surface sounds like not a whole lot of money. Adjusted for inflation, that would only be $3.08m. But even unadjusted for inflation, it's still one of the 100 highest grossing documentaries of the past forty years. And it is one of just a handful of documentaries to become a part of the National Film Registry, for being a culturally, historically or aesthetically significant film.”   Adams would live a quiet life after his release, working as an anti-death penalty advocate and marrying the sister of one of the death row inmates he was helping to exonerate. He would pass away from a brain tumor in October 2010 at a courthouse in Ohio not half an hour from where he was born and still lived, but he would so disappear from the spotlight after the movie was released that his passing wasn't even reported until June 2011.   Errol Morris would become one of the most celebrated documentarians of his generation, finally getting nominated for, and winning, an Oscar in 2003, for The Fog of War, about the life and times of Robert McNamara, Richard Nixon's Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War era. The Fog of War would also be added to the National Film Registry in 2019. Morris would become only the third documentarian, after D.A. Pennebaker and Les Blank, to have two films on the Registry.   In 1973, the senseless killings of five members of the Alday family in Donalsonville GA made international headlines. Four years later, Canadian documentarian Tex Fuller made an award-winning documentary about the case, called Murder One. For years, Fuller shopped around a screenplay telling the same story, but it would take nearly a decade for it to finally be sold, in part because Fuller was insistent that he also be the director. A small Canadian production company would fund the $1m CAD production, which would star Henry Thomas of E.T. fame as the fifteen year old narrator of the story, Billy Isaacs.   The shoot began in early October 1987 outside Toronto, but after a week of shooting, Fuller was fired, and was replaced by Graeme Campbell, a young and energetic filmmaker for whom Murder One would be his fourth movie directing gig of the year. Details are sketchy as to why Fuller was fired, but Thomas and his mother Carolyn would voice concerns with the producers about the new direction the film was taking under its new director.   The film would premiere in Canada in May 1988. When the film did well up North, Miramax took notice and purchased the American distribution rights.   Murder One would first open in America on two screens in Los Angeles on September 9th, 1988. Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times noted that while the film itself wasn't very good, that it still sprung from the disturbing insight about the crazy reasons people cross of what should be impassable moral lines.   “No movie studio could have invented it!,” screamed the tagline on the poster and newspaper key art. “No writer could have imagined it! Because what happened that night became the most controversial in American history.”   That would draw limited interest from filmgoers in Tinseltown. The two theatres would gross a combined $7k in its first three days. Not great but far better than several other recent Miramax releases in the area.   Two weeks later, on September 23rd, Miramax would book Murder One into 20 theatres in the New York City metro region, as well as in Akron, Atlanta, Charlotte, Indianpolis, Nashville, and Tampa-St. Petersburg. In New York, the film would actually get some good reviews from the Times and the Post as well as Peter Travers of People Magazine, but once again, Miramax would not report grosses for the film. Variety would note the combined gross for the film in New York City was only $25k.   In early October, the film would fall out of Variety's internal list of the 50 Top Grossing Films within the twenty markets they regularly tracked, with a final gross of just $87k. One market that Miramax deliberately did not book the film was anywhere near southwest Georgia, where the murders took place. The closest theatre that did play the film was more than 200 miles away.   Miramax would finish 1988 with two releases.   The first was Dakota, which would mark star Lou Diamond Phillips first time as a producer. He would star as a troubled teenager who takes a job on a Texas horse ranch to help pay of his debts, who becomes a sorta big brother to the ranch owner's young son, who has recently lost a leg to cancer, as he also falls for the rancher's daughter.   When the $1.1m budgeted film began production in Texas in June 1987, Phillips had already made La Bamba and Stand and Deliver, but neither had yet to be released into theatres. By the time filming ended five weeks later, La Bamba had just opened, and Phillips was on his way to becoming a star.   The main producers wanted director Fred Holmes to get the film through post-production as quickly as possible, to get it into theatres in the early part of 1988 to capitalize on the newfound success of their young star.    But that wouldn't happen.   Holmes wouldn't have the film ready until the end of February 1988, which was deemed acceptable because of the impending release of Stand and Deliver. In fact, the producers would schedule their first distributor screening of the film on March 14th, the Monday after Stand and Delivered opened, in the hopes that good box office for the film and good notices for Phillips would translate to higher distributor interest in their film, which sorta worked. None of the major studios would show for the screening, but a number of Indies would, including Miramax. Phillips would not attend the screening, as he was on location in New Mexico shooting Young Guns.   I can't find any reason why Miramax waited nearly nine months after they acquired Dakota to get it into theatres. It certainly wasn't Oscar bait, and screen availability would be scarce during the busy holiday movie season, which would see a number of popular, high profile releases like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Ernest Saves Christmas, The Naked Gun, Rain Man, Scrooged, Tequila Sunrise, Twins and Working Girl. Which might explain why, when Miramax released the film into 18 theatres in the New York City area on December 2nd, they could only get three screens in all of Manhattan, the best being the nice but hardly first-rate Embassy 4 at Broadway and 47th. Or of the 22 screens in Los Angeles opening the film the same day, the best would be the tiny Westwood 4 next to UCLA or the Paramount in Hollywood, whose best days were back in the Eisenhower administration.   And, yet again, Miramax did not report grosses, and none of the theatres playing the film was tracked by Variety that week. The film would be gone after just one week. The Paramount, which would open Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on the 14th, opted to instead play a double feature of Clara's Heart, with Whoopi Goldberg and Neil Patrick Harris, and the River Phoenix drama Running on Empty, even though neither film had been much of a hit.   Miramax's last film of the year would be the one that changed everything for them.   Pelle the Conquerer.   Adapted from a 1910 Danish book and directed by Billie August, whose previous film Twist and Shout had been released by Miramax in 1986, Pelle the Conquerer would be the first Danish or Swedish movie to star Max von Sydow in almost 15 years, having spent most of the 70s and 80s in Hollywood and London starring in a number of major movies including The Exorcist, Three Days of the Condor, Flash Gordon,Conan the Barbarian, Never Say Never Again, and David Lynch's Dune. But because von Sydow would be making his return to his native cinema, August was able to secure $4.5m to make the film, one of the highest budgeted Scandinavian films to be made to date.   In the late 1850s, an elderly emigrant Lasse and his son Pelle leave their home in Sweden after the death of the boy's mother, wanting to build a new life on the Danish island of Bornholm. Lasse finds it difficult to find work, given his age and his son's youth. The pair are forced to work at a large farm, where they are generally mistreated by the managers for being foreigners. The father falls into depression and alcoholism, the young boy befriends one of the bastard children of the farm owner as well as another Swedish farm worker, who dreams of conquering the world.   For the title character of Pelle, Billie August saw more than 3,000 Swedish boys before deciding to cast 11 year old Pelle Hvenegaard, who, like many boys in Sweden, had been named for the character he was now going to play on screen.   After six months of filming in the summer and fall of 1986, Billie August would finish editing Pelle the Conquerer in time for it to make its intended Christmas Day 1987 release date in Denmark and Sweden, where the film would be one of the biggest releases in either country for the entire decade. It would make its debut outside Scandinavia at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1988, where it had been invited to compete for the Palme D'Or. It would compete against a number of talented filmmakers who had come with some of the best films they would ever make, including Clint Eastwood with Bird, Claire Denis' Chocolat, István Szabó's Hanussen, Vincent Ward's The Navigator, and A Short Film About Killing, an expanded movie version of the fifth episode in Krzysztof Kieślowski's masterful miniseries Dekalog. Pelle would conquer them all, taking home the top prize from one of cinema's most revered film festivals.   Reviews for the film out of Cannes were almost universally excellent. Vincent Canby, the lead film critic for the New York Times for nearly twenty years by this point, wouldn't file his review until the end of the festival, in which he pointed out that a number of people at the festival were scandalized von Sydow had not also won the award for Best Actor.   Having previously worked with the company on his previous film's American release, August felt that Miramax would have what it took to make the film a success in the States.   Their first moves would be to schedule the film for a late December release, while securing a slot at that September's New York Film Festival. And once again, the critical consensus was highly positive, with only a small sampling of distractors.   The film would open first on two screens at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday, December 21st, following by exclusive engagements in nine other cities including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC, on the 23rd. But the opening week numbers weren't very good, just $46k from ten screens. And you can't really blame the film's two hour and forty-five minute running time. Little Dorrit, the two-part, four hour adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, had been out nine weeks at this point and was still making nearly 50% more per screen.   But after the new year, when more and more awards were hurled the film's way, including the National Board of Review naming it one of the best foreign films of the year and the Golden Globes awarding it their Best Foreign Language trophy, ticket sales would pick up.   Well, for a foreign film.   The week after the Motion Picture Academy awarded Pelle their award for Best Foreign Language Film, business for the film would pick up 35%, and a third of its $2m American gross would come after that win.   One of the things that surprised me while doing the research for this episode was learning that Max von Sydow had never been nominated for an Oscar until he was nominated for Best Actor for Pelle the Conquerer. You look at his credits over the years, and it's just mind blowing. The Seventh Seal. Wild Strawberries. The Virgin Spring. The Greatest Story Ever Told. The Emigrants. The Exorcist. The Three Days of the Condor. Surely there was one performance amongst those that deserved recognition.   I hate to keep going back to A24, but there's something about a company's first Oscar win that sends that company into the next level. A24 didn't really become A24 until 2016, when three of their movies won Oscars, including Brie Larson for Best Actress in Room. And Miramax didn't really become the Miramax we knew and once loved until its win for Pelle.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 117, the fifth and final part of our miniseries on Miramax Films, is released.     Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

Listen to this episode to hear: • Why Jill has chosen to work for a winery vs. start her own • How you can still live in alignment and do what you love while working for someone else • The strengths of a female-founded, female-led team • Why Jill didn't enjoy being labeled a “female winemaker” for a long time • How Jill has navigated working in a male-dominated industry • Why being a sustainable winery is so much more than the environment (but why that's important too) • The skills Jill fostered that helped her land her dream job as head winemaker at Cambria Wines About Jill: Jill Russell grew up with a love of food and wine while living in the Bay Area and working as a server at a winery in Livermore Valley. She developed a love for the Central Coast where she attended Cal Poly, SanLuis Obispo in their new Wine & Viticulture program. Interested in experiencing winemaking abroad, Jill spent a quarter studying in Adelaide,Australia. After college she had the dream opportunity to make wine in Menetou-Salon, Loire Valley France. With all of her connections and work during college at Tolosa, StephenRoss & Phase 2 Cellars, Jill was drawn back to Santa Barbara County and established her reputation there. She was introduced to Paul Lato, who believed she not only had the skills, but the right energy to help make some of the best wines that the Central Coast had to offer. At Paul Lato Wines, she specialized in wines sourced from prestigious vineyards of the Santa Maria and Santa Rita Hills regions but found herself particularly drawn to the uniquely characteristic vines of Santa Maria Valley. Years later, the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself, and Jill knew it was her destiny to take on the role of winemaker at Cambria Winery, one of the quintessential wineries of Santa Maria Valley. Jill is thrilled to work alongside former Cambria Winemaker and General Manager Denise Shurtleff. Jill lived in San Luis Obispo for more than ten years, and shares a love of the Central Coast with her husband Torrey. They now live in the quaint winemaking town of Los Alamos. Use code SIPCAMBRIA for a complimentary tasting BOOK YOUR RESERVATION HERE: CAMBRIAWINES.COM/EXPERIENCE/VISIT NOT ABLE TO STOP? SHOP CAMBRIA WINES NEAR YOU: WWW.CAMBRIAWINES.COM/CAMBRIA-LOCATOR About our Partnership with Pepperdine University: Our partnership with Pepperdine Graduate School of Education and Psychology (GSEP) makes you eligible for tuition discounts, application opportunities, and application fee waivers to many programs, including the top-ranked MA in Social Entrepreneurship and Change program. The first in the country, it is perfect for working professionals or full-time students and gives you the perspectives and tools to create sustainable change in the world. Focus on solving real-world problems without the requirements of a traditional business program. The MA in Social Entrepreneurship is a hybrid with bi-coastal on-campus experiences in LA and DC. Completed in 20 months, the program provides students a two-week global immersion opportunity, a two-term capstone project, and a fast-pitch competition. No GRE is required. Apply for Fall 2024 at gsep.pepperdine.edu/apply. Use code YELLOWCO23 to waive your app fee on the last page. Call 310-258-2850 if you have any questions.Join us at the Yellow Conference Oct. 6-8th at The Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo: yellow2023.com Are you a woman or non-binary leader creating meaningful work? Join our membership community! yellowco.co/membership Follow, subscribe and leave a review! Find out more about Yellow Co.'s community of women creaeting meaningful work: yellowco.co | @yellowco.co • Connect with Joanna at joannawaterfall.com and on IG @joannawaterfall :) Music Written by Jonny Pickett (check out his music on spotify) Thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode to hear: • Martha's story of moving from content employee to tech entrepreneur • The surprising thing that led Martha to the decision to bootstrap vs. getting funding • The power of radically listening and tirelessly testing before launching • Why email marketing is NOT dead • How Martha has navigated leading a team through tough times • Why listening, testing and community are at the core of the FloDesk brand • The one thing Martha does before they make any new moves at FloDesk. ABOUT MARTHA: Martha is the CEO of Flodesk, a visually stunning and user-friendly platform that helps creators sell online and design emails people love to get. Martha is known for her passion for design, user experience, and helping small business owners succeed. She has been featured in Forbes and other publications for her entrepreneurial experience and expertise in email marketing. Sign up for 50% off your first year of FloDesk here: https://flodesk.com/c/YELLOW Follow FloDesk on IG: https://www.instagram.com/flodesk/?hl=en Find out more about Flodesk at Flodesk.com >> Join us at the Yellow Conference Oct. 6-8th at The Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo: yellow2023.com >> Are you a woman or non-binary leader creating meaningful work? Join our membership community! yellowco.co/membership Join us at the Yellow Conference Oct. 6-8th at The Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo: yellow2023.com Are you a woman or non-binary leader creating meaningful work? Join our membership community! yellowco.co/membership Follow, subscribe and leave a review! Find out more about Yellow Co.'s community of women creaeting meaningful work: yellowco.co | @yellowco.co • Connect with Joanna at joannawaterfall.com and on IG @joannawaterfall :) Music Written by Jonny Pickett (check out his music on spotify) Thanks for listening!

Steve & Izzy kick off MAY Cause Injury, a month-long celebration of STUNTS on film, as they are joined by Bobby of the Grindbin Podcast to discuss 1977's "Stunts" starring Robert Forster, Richard Lynch, Fiona Lewis, Bruce Glover & the MADONNA INN!!! What's a great way to save on parking? Do you like dummy falls? Why isn't there an Academy Award for Stunts? Who would have won it this year? Is this Grindbin: The Movie?!? Let's find out!!! So kick back, grab a few brews, flip the switch, and enjoy!!! This episode is proudly sponsored by Untidy Venus, your one-stop shop for incredible art & gift ideas at UntidyVenus.Etsy.com and be sure to follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & Patreon at @UntidyVenus for all of her awesomeness!!! Try it today!!! Twitter - www.twitter.com/eilfmovies Facebook - www.facebook.com/eilfmovies Etsy - www.untidyvenus.etsy.com TeePublic - www.teepublic.com/user/untidyvenus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to a very ethereal episode! Today the ghouls discuss Peter Weir's 1975 Australian classic, Picnic at Hanging Rock. From wiki: “Picnic at Hanging Rock is a 1975 Australian mystery film produced by Hal and Jim McElroy, directed by Peter Weir, and starring Rachel Roberts, Dominic Guard, Helen Morse, Vivean Gray and Jacki Weaver. It was adapted by Cliff Green from the 1967 novel of the same name by Joan Lindsay.” Also mentioned: The Madonna Inn, Esalen, Mad Men, Mildred Pierce, fighting capitalism with laziness, Poker Face, White Noise, Harold and Maude, The Virgin Suicides, Roger Ebert, Lana Del Rey, Videodrome, Lake Mungo, Earth Girls Are Easy, Once Bitten.  NEXT WEEK: Let the Right One In Website: http://www.bloodhauspod.com   Twitter: https://twitter.com/BloodhausPod  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bloodhauspod/  Email: bloodhauspod@gmail.com     Drusilla's art: https://www.sisterhydedesign.com/ Drusilla's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hydesister/ Drusilla's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/drew_phillips/     Joshua's website: https://www.joshuaconkel.com/ Joshua's Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoshuaConkel  Joshua's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshua_conkel/ Joshua's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/joshuaconkel

Hometown Radio 02/02/23 5p: Connie and Clint Pearce talk about everything from the Madonna Inn to rodeo

Sasheer went out to see My Chemical Romance and Nicole is NOT OKAY. Nonetheless, they both welcome the return of emo culture. Nicole may have gone out to play with a big dog the night before recording and is now in need of a “hair of the dog.” Speaking of dogs, Nicole and Sasheer investigate Bosco, Veronica's Insurance practice partner and german shepherd. This leads them down the spiral of lawyers on billboards. And in true holiday spirit, Sasheer gifted Nicole pieces of cake from her favorite, the Madonna Inn! Lastly, they answer listener queries, from sugar baby affirmations to how to communicate with an aggressive friend at game night! Email or call Nicole & Sasheer with your friendship questions at:nicoleandsasheer@gmail.com

I am so honored to have Julia Loken, a comedian, podcast host, and astrologer from Los Angeles, as my guest this week. I really enjoyed our conversation because Julia is one of those people who can talk about anything while making you feel like you've been friends forever. Because of this, we discuss a variety of topics including her astrology podcast @whatsyoursign, her discovery of astrology, and how astrology can be used to gain perspective in our own lives, as well as, how it can be used to look at cultural and political trends. Plus, we talk about how it was for her to listen to her husband's interview with me, being to another comedian, her bachelorette weekend at the notorious Madonna Inn, the merits of being flexible in an ever-evolving partnership with your best friend, and how therapy led her to develop more self-love and acceptance. We end the episode with Julia guiding us through a brief grounding practice that she uses to reset anywhere, anytime.

A tale of two trips - Kevin and his family go on a road trip to San Luis Obispo visiting Sensorio, Madonna Inn and a dinosaur playground near cliffs. Meanwhile, Evan abandons his family to go to Las Vegas and talk about his family. Also, Kevin's daughter comes home from school sick, proving once again that she's smarter than her parents. Our podcast is on Youtube. Subscribe here! This episode, the dummies are enjoying a BarrelHouse Brewing Co. Galaxy Cold IPA. We are excited to partner with Little Otter Health - Exceptional mental health care for children and families! For more Dumb Dad Pod, follow us on social - https://bit.ly/3t6tE9M We've got DUMB DAD MERCH!  And we're on CAMEO! We'd love to send a message to a dad (or anybody) in your life who needs a Dumb Dad pick-me-up! CHEAT CODES - BETONLINE - Use our Promo Code: BLEAV to receive your 50% Welcome Bonus on your first deposit. Thanks to Chris Verdú for our show music! Check out Verdú on SoundCloud!

Adam and Ian talk Sheriff's Day happening this Saturday at Madonna Inn 10a -3p, Tip a Cop, and the latest of what's going on in the county. Photo: Paso Robles Press

Adam and Ian talk Sheriff's Day happening this Saturday at Madonna Inn 10a -3p, Tip a Cop, and the latest of what's going on in the county. Photo: Paso Robles Press

Cyber Round Up Shareholder Meeting- 1 to 3 Stock Split approved (effective Aug 25)- 10-12 Giga Factories - 1.5/2M yearly output- Giga Canada?- CyberTruck price and option change- Superchargers continue expansion (poll)- Model Y best margin today, best selling in 2023- TeslaBot business will surpass car business- AI Day 2 Sept 30https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-employees-are-the-lifeblood-of-the-company/Model Ys arrive in Australia and New Zealand https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-starts-delivering-model-y-to-customers-in-australia2nd Annual Tesla Take Over at Madonna Inn happened over the weekend- Twitter Video from Ross GerberFSDBeta 10.69 slated for release Aug 20https://teslanorth.com/2022/08/07/tesla-fsd-beta-10-69-release-date-august-20/ Tesla signs $5B nickel deal with Indonesia https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-nickel-products-deal-5-billion-indonesia-report/Tesla's Biggest Advantagehttps://www.carswithcords.net/2022/08/teslas-biggest-advantage.html?m=1California still loving the Model3 & Yhttps://driveteslacanada.ca/news/tesla-model-3-and-model-y-were-the-two-best-selling-cars-in-california-in-h1-of-2022/500 mile TeslaSemi coming this year!https://driveteslacanada.ca/semi/tesla-semi-deliveries-later-this-year/Musk sells $7B in Tesla stock to be ready for Twitterhttps://driveteslacanada.ca/news/elon-musk-sells-nearly-7-billion-worth-of-tesla-tlsa-shares-in-case-of-forced-twitter-deal/Tesla Giga Nevada starts to buy copper foil from Redwood Materialshttps://www.teslarati.com/tesla-giga-nevada-copper-foil-redwood-materials-deal/

Episode #244 is brought to you by out Title Sponsor United Pacific Industries. https://upcarparts.com/c10-chevy-truck/ -Get your parts. Build your passion. www.brotherstrucks.com - Your source for 1947 Chevy and GMC restoration truck parts.  www.classicperform.com - CPP your suspension, steering and brake source! www.dakotadigital.com - The best upgrade for your cab - VHX, HDX, and the Retro Rad RTX!  www.vintageair.com - Vintage Air has a sure fit kit for you and your C10 - Made in the USA!  www.azproperformance.com - When you are ready to upgrade from stock - Pro Performance has what you need. www.mar-k.com - Your #1 source for all of your trim and moldings, made in the USA!  ____________________________________________________________________ Interviews from the 2022 C10 SLO Down - held in San Luis Obispo at the Madonna Inn. 

Being a Patreon member comes with its own set of perks. Extra episodes are one of those. But this episode is too cool and has sat for too long, so we've decided to set it free! Enjoy! Here at Mothball headquarters, we're always brainstorming new and weird ideas to keep you monsters entertained. You're a ravenous lot, and we love you for it. To answer your question, "How much do you love us?" we've cooked up a new treat. Every month, for our Patreon members only, The Mothball Prophecies will release a full-length, hyper-specific Curio Corner. Each bonus episode will focus on an iconic place or object. We're talking about the crown jewels of the vintage world; subjects that are just too vast for a regular Curio Corner. To start off this new series, we're taking a mental trip to a celebrated California hotel. The Madonna Inn is legendary for its kitschy decor and unrivaled gift shop. If you're looking for new glassware to collect, the Inn's signature goblets are to die for. Grab your drink of choice and get cozy because we're about to plunge headlong into the most glamorous hotel this side of the Mississippi. Thank you to our team :Edit and Sound Design by: Grae @ Grae Matter Studios Intro by: Caylin Temple Copyediting by: Spell Check intro and Outro Music: Down the Rabbit Hole by myuu Source: https://soundcloud.com/myuu/down-the-rabbit-hole (https://soundcloud.com/myuu/down-the-rabbit-hole) License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)

Summary:   "Spilled airplane wine on someone's crotch." Wedding month takes a dark turn this week as we watch the anti-romcom Destination Wedding starring Keanu Reeves and Wynona Ryder. Also discussed: Madonna Inn, The Kids in the Hall, and a new book about Tegan and Sara.   Show notes:   Madonna Inn: World Famous San Louis Obispo hotel    Moses Ingram talking about the racism she's endured since becoming Reva in Obi-Wan Kenobi on Instagram       Recommendations:  Andrea G.:  The Kids in The Hall (Amazon)    Andrea W.:  Tegan and Sarah: Modern Heartthrobs (book)   Lisa: Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney)   Music credits: "Electrodoodle" by Kevin MacLeod From: incompetech.com Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License   Theme song "Pyro Flow" by Kevin Macleod From: incompetech.com Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License   "Vivacity" by Kevin MacLeod From: incompetech.com Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License   Pop This! Links: Pop This! on TumblrPop This! on iTunes (please consider reviewing and rating us!) Pop This! on Stitcher (please consider reviewing and rating us!) Pop This! on Google PlayPop This! on TuneIn radioPop This! on TwitterPop This! on Instagram Logo design by Samantha Smith Intro voiced by Morgan Brayton Pop This! is a podcast featuring three women talking about pop culture. Lisa Christiansen is a broadcaster, journalist and longtime metal head. Andrea Warner is a music critic, author and former horoscopes columnist. Andrea Gin is a producer and an avid figure skating fan. Press play and come hang out with your new best friends. Pop This! podcast is produced by Andrea Gin.  

Deuce and Mo return to talk about their wild weekend at Madonna Inn and then talk about NBA Draft with former pro baller and one of the best basketball content creators Jordan Richard about the depth in this draft, who the Kings should look at and the special talent in the draft. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

* Amit recorded after a red eye flight and was initially rather grumpy. * White Hot - the Netflix documentary about Abercrombie & Fitch's unparalleled rise and fall due to blatant racial discrimination in its hiring and marketing practices. * Oklahoma police officers were charged with manslaughter in the grotesque and tragic murder of Quadry Sanders. * Unions - Amazon - Long Island City - AOC. * Police officers' collective non acceptance of the fears of citizens vs their own fears. * South Korea's perplexing ways of determining one's age. * The peculiar design and expected utilization of the bathroom at California's Madonna Inn which was named one of the top 10 bathrooms in the world.

We talk relationships, moving, getting married at the Madonna Inn, and more! Head on over to https://www.patreon.com/CraigAndFriends to support the show and get hours and hours of exclusive content

We're really excited to have Christina McNeill with us talking all about how she's developed her true style and artistic voice. She is a photographer in the San Francisco area and has really honed in on her unique style. For those of you that don't know, Christina is a veteran and has seen the wedding industry from a lot of different angles. She brings a really great perspective today from both her art background, to also being an editor at a prominent wedding blog to also building her wedding photography business alongside that blog. If you saw the Madonna Inn shoot that she did, then you know exactly the kind of style that she's going for. When we think about Dare to Develop, we think about daring and taking risks in business and Christina is just such a great example of that. RESOURCE LINKS: Christina's Website Christina's Instagram DARE TO DEVELOP INSTAGRAM DARE TO DEVELOP SHOW NOTES ASHLEY'S INSTAGRAM/WEBSITE KRISTINE'S INSTAGRAM/WEBSITE Thanks for tuning into Dare to Develop. We hope you enjoyed the episode! Please subscribe and leave us a review.

AUDRA WOLFMAN and BRETT STILLO are back and together we do a  2021 year end wrap up. The main focus is AUDRA and BRETT's Christmas trip to the world famous MADONNA INN in San Luis Obispo. We talk about other roadside attractions, getting back in the real world, meeting IRL, SNOOPY and The Red Baron, school of rock teaching, AMOEBA records, 8Tracks, vinyl collectors, dressing up for the holidays and stick around after the outro song to hear our favorite NEW YEARS memories.

Meatball and Big Dipper finally get a moment to catch up one on one about all the wild events of the last few weeks. They consult their list as they review seeing Carrot Top, performing at the Berrenstain Bears Festival, visiting the Madonna Inn, ordering Late Night Food, socializing at Leather Pride, and of course: Bareback Retweets. Listen to Sloppy Seconds Ad-Free AND One Day Early on Forever Dog Plus Also check out hipdot.com to order Meatball's new makeup palette!  Call us with your sex stories at 213-536-9180! Or e-mail us at sloppysecondspod@gmail.com FOLLOW SLOPPY SECONDS FOLLOW BIG DIPPER FOLLOW MEATBALL SLOPPY SECONDS IS A FOREVER DOG AND MOGULS OF MEDIA (M.O.M.) PODCAST Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're back, baby! Reporting from the Madonna Inn's fabulous Mill Room, Hayley Crusher Cain and new Co-host Danielle Mercrusher Bagnall are resurrecting the podcast with a dash of mischief and a very strong cocktail! The ladies speak of fort-making, friendship and Hayley even reads depressing entries from her Covid Times Diary. Will Sparkle and Destroy 2.0 be cooler than the previous incarnation? Who knows! Will you join us to find out? We hope so! Follow us at @hayleyandthecrushers @stepcatsofficial Email the show at sparkleanddestroypod@gmail.com

They're baaack! Jo and J.J. kick off Season 2 the only way they know how - by spelling out that sometimes we can get this emotional intelligence piece wrong.  Many well intentioned leaders approach emotional intelligence as a tick box exercise, merely going through the motions, rather than really understanding the objective.  That faux emotional intelligence in corporate societies will likely try to cover up a more self serving agenda. Jo brings an article on the topic from the Harvard Business Review, and it leads to her and J.J. discussing how to spot inauthentic emotional intelligence, how we can develop actual skills to listen to what people really need, and why modern day EQ can seem so darn self serving. Also, J.J. shares an update on her third book, and what the process of finishing it is kicking up for her emotionally.    Takeaway: [2:11] J.J. shares an update on her third book, and it's going to stir up a lot of stuff about the ego and narcissism, but it made her laugh, so that's a good sign. She and Jo discuss the process of writing and how the sweet spot is always on the other side of the fear.  [10:30] Fun fact for those who may not know: VAT stands for “value added taxes”.   Who knew? [11:15] Jo reads from Harvard Business Review's article, Is Your Emotional Intelligence Authentic or Is It Self-Serving?  The author writes about three most common emotional intelligence counterfeits he has seen leaders get trapped in:  A need to be the hero disguised as empathy.  A need to be right masquerading as active listening.  A need for approval dressed up as self-awareness.  [14:51] If some of these describe you, don't panic! It doesn't mean you are an awful person, we are often trained to do these to fit into our job or the larger thread of society.  [18:17] We can feel the energy of inauthenticity on a primal level.  [21:54] The White Knight syndrome is a co-dependent move where you think you are more together than everyone you socialize, and only you can help them. The Sexist Rescuer is also the person that swoops in to “help” someone and save them from sexism, but with a need to be recognized attached to it.  [23:47] Emotional intelligence only works if you are asking yourself the hard questions. We may get a hit of shame, but it's our only chance of moving forward. If you are in a group considered the minority, it is your responsibility to do the work on what triggers you and your blind spots.  [29:12] There is verbal and emotional abuse veiled in emotional intelligence, which is the worst kind of abuse of power, and it's up to us to take a hard look at ourselves and acknowledge our blind spots.    Connect With Us: Joanna Denton | Dr. J.J. Kelly    Is Your Emotional Intelligence Authentic or Is It Self-Serving?  Madonna Inn 

In this episode, I explain why travel has been a priority to me since separation and how it has impacted my relationship with my daughter, Lanie.   I share my motivation and rationale for trips that my daughter we  went on in 2019 and 2020.  Also, I encourage you to consider sharing travel experiences with your child(ren).If you thought this was going to be an episode of me glamorizing galavanting around the country with my daughter in the first year after my divorce, you'd be wrong.  I begin by talking about how I tacked Lanie onto a work trip to Chicago before we had even moved out of our house. On Day1 we shopped the Miracle Mile, rode the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier, ate at Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinders in Lincoln ParkOn Day2 we went to the Hancock Building and hung out at their observation deck, did Tilt and sky deck at Willis Tower, saw the Bean, ate Stan's donuts, Garret's popcorn, rode the LOn Day 3 we hung out with my boss and co-workers.  We ate a fancy brunch at Maple and Ash, and went to Soho House.Our 2nd trip together, was in June 2020 to Seaside, FL.  We went on this trip to escape our apartment.We relaxed at the beach, went to the Great Southern, Bud & Ally's, and Modica Market.We found our rhythm of how we travel together as a pair... I get up early to walk and explore, we eat and adventure during the day, we call it a night pretty early.Our third trip of 2020 was in late July/early August to Colorado.  We took this trip to continue with tradition and to avoid a massive water leak in our apartment. We had already  packed to move into our townhouse.   We started by staying a couple of nights at Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado Springs.  It was a beautiful spot.  We went to Garden of the Gods, and explored the area.  We ate at Urban Egg, Denver Biscuit Co. , and Dos Santos Tacos. I met a Bumble date I had been talking to while we were there. The drive from Colorado Springs to Vail was incredibly beautiful and we had never done that before.In Vail, we stayed at Lions Head. We rode the gondola up to the top of Vail Mountain and did the mountain coaster.  I hiked down by myself.We went river rafting and horseback riding. We ate at  Blue Moose Pizza, La Nonna, Fall Line, and Vintage Vail.Our fourth trip of 2020 was in early November.  This was Lanie's dream come true. We flew to San Francisco and drove the wondrous Hwy1 down to Los Angelos.On Day 1 we explored San Francisco. We ate at Boudin at Fisherman's Wharf, went to Ghiradelli Square, drove Lombard St, saw the Full House house, drove the Golden Gate Bridge, and stayed the night in Half Moon Bay.On Day 2, we had lunch at La Bicyclette at Carmel-By-The-Sea, drove 17 mile drive, and stayed in Monterey. We stopped at all of the beautiful spots, including Spanish Bay, Lone Cypress, and Pebble Beach.  We even had a snack and drink at the Pebble Beach Lodge.On Day 3, we drove directly to the Bixby Bridge and followed the incredible twisty-turns drive through the redwoods down the coast of Big Sur. We stopped in Paso Robles in beautiful wine country and landed at the famous Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo.On Day 4, we drove further south to Santa Barbara, ate In and Out in Ventura, and fell in love in Manhattan Beach. Lanie did schoolwork while  I met a Bumble date I had been talking to for months!I encourage you to consider some sort of travel with your children.  It has been an incredible way for Lanie and I to bond and to share experiences.  Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/manshopping)

CEO Larry Korman, a frequent California Highway One traveler, and Lea, who drove it on her honeymoon and many times since, take us along the Pacific Coastal Highway from Mendocino to Malibu, with stops along the way:  realities like washouts, and the frequent pleasures of this spectacular drive, going north to south.-- We cover Mendocino with its glass beach; Bodega Bay where Hitchcock filmed The Birds (Larry is friends with star Tippi Hedren).-- We take a day trip into San Francisco; then down past the Devil's Slide and the Big  Foot museum to Santa Cruz,  Carmel/Monterey and the 17-Mile-Drive.--  Big Sur,  a gorgeous spot, is next, with the Falls and the Henry Miller Library.  Larry's comes as often as possible.-- On to San Simeon, and The Hearst Castle; San Luis Obispo, with the famed Madonna Inn;  Pismo Beach, with Monarch butterflies; Solvang, with its Danish influence; the wineries near Los Olivos; Santa Barbara, Santa Monica and Malibu, with is pier. And Los Angeles. -- Lea's gives her favorite memory, and then, Larry gives his._____Larry Korman is President of AKA Hotel Residences and Co-CEO of Korman Communities, a residential real estate company that has developed 30,000 homes and 20,000 apartments over the past century. There are 24 suburban and metropolitan locations within two brands: AVE and AKA (korman.com). The collection consists of exclusive high-rise, extended-stay properties in New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and   London.Links: AKA corporate website:  https://www.stayaka.com/ ; AKA West Hollywood website:  https://www.stayaka.com/aka-west-hollywood; AKA Beverly Hills website:  https://www.stayaka.com/aka-beverly-hills; AKA corporate Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/stayaka/; AKA West Hollywood Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/akaweho/_____Podcast host Lea Lane blogs at forbes.com, has traveled to over 100 countries, written nine books, including Places I Remember, and contributed to guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter; Travelea on Insta; on  Facebook, it's Places I Remember by Lea Lane. Website: placesirememberlealane.com.  Please follow, rate and review this weekly travel podcast!_____

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 195, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: You Should "C" 1: To overturn a boat is to do this to it. Capsize. 2: Name shared by the mother of 3 kings of France and a "Great" Russian empress. Catherine. 3: At times, only the grin of this Lewis Carroll feline could be seen. Cheshire Cat. 4: Clint Black knows it's the organization abbreviated CMA. Country Music Association. 5: This official name of the Ivory Coast is the country's name in French. Cote d' Ivoire. Round 2. Category: Oh, The Amenities! 1: Perhaps a game of squash before your afternoon tea at Cliveden, once the home of Lady Astor in this country. England. 2: Enjoy a hot drink in the morning in Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, after a chilly night in a hotel made entirely of this. ice. 3: Ah! A lavishly stocked mini bar! It could distract me from the dancing fountains and the "O" show at this Vegas hotel. The Bellagio. 4: Frolic in a 7' tall champagne glass hot tub at Caesars Cove Haven Resort in the Poconos in this U.S. state. Pennsylvania. 5: This California inn whose name reminds us of "The Material Girl" has a caveman room with a waterfall shower. The Madonna Inn. Round 3. Category: Grammar 1: This part of speech can be transitive or intransitive. verb. 2: Tradition has it that this type of noun is capitalized. proper noun. 3: It's the preposition in the following: Alex walked under the ladder. under. 4: As in this clue, ending a sentence with one of these is a practice some don't agree with. preposition. 5: A verb's voice may be active or passive and this feature may be indicative, subjunctive or imperative. mood. Round 4. Category: "Itch"Y 1: A perfect trailer goes off without one. Hitch. 2: It can mean to cut class or to cut a trench. Ditch. 3: Out-of-stock sales items are the hallmark of this deceptive sales tactic. Bait-and-switch. 4: Look into my eyes--it means to captivate someone as if by magic. bewitch. 5: This comical sci-fi book was inspired by a 1970s handbook for travelling Europe on a budget. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Round 5. Category: It's In The "Bag" 1: Bilbo's surname in the "Lord of the Rings" saga. Baggins. 2: The musical "Kismet" opens at dawn in this ancient city. Baghdad. 3: A person who collects money for a political party or a criminal organization. a bagman. 4: This musical instrument was often played in battle. bagpipes. 5: "Ramp agent" is Southwest Airlines' term for the heavy lifting job more usually called this. baggage handler. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!

I split town to try and have an adventure, and I end up at the Madonna Inn for the 35th time.

Hello, friends! This month, we're gabbing about THEME PARKS, a subject Sarah and Bryn have a lot of experience with.   Question 1: What was your favorite Theme Park experience as a kid, teen and adult?   Kid   Not Afraid: Bryn begins with the tale of the time her former fighter pilot father took her on her first upside-down roller coaster, the Corkscrew at Knott's Berry Farm in ‘80s Buena Park, California. Risk-taker: Sarah's also got a roller coaster memory for us: When it came to amusement park time for the Heitman family, the formula was Sarah and dad bonding on roller coasters, and her mom enjoying watching them from a bench with a nice coffee. Sarah's first experience was on The Rattler at Fiesta Texas, a wooden roller coaster.    Teen    Living in an ‘80s movie: Bryn takes us for a trip to a slightly alarming teenage memory of her 8th grade field trip to Disneyland, but redeems herself with tales of sultry summer nights at all-ages dance club Studio K at Knott's Berry Farm. Bryn didn't know this at the time of our recording, but found out that Studio K was located in the Fiesta Village esplanade where Jaguar! now stands.  Sweet freedom: As a member of marching back from middle through high school, Sarah has plenty of band trips to various theme parks under her stylish belt. And she remembers this great sense of freedom, being unleashed at the parks without chaperones clinging tight: You're given your stipend of money to spend and a time to return to the bus. Have at it! She felt like flying.  Biggest ride memory: Batman: The Ride for the first time. And the soundtrack theme was pumping through the line, it was at night, and it was very, very cool.    Adult   Moving to LA = Theme parks galore: Sarah discovered that when your new college friends have annual passes to Disneyland, you get an annual pass and become a regular. And she discovered that her favorite Knott's Berry Farm is actually Knott's Scary Farm.    Moms and Kids and Solo Moms: Of course, one of Bryn's favorite things about theme parks has to be getting to take her kids there for the first time and watching their relationship with the parks evolve as they get older. An unexpected second discovery has been the joy of going to theme parks alone, which has been a gift to herself that has made a big impact on her.    Extra: Bryn likes themed stuff: Clifton's Cafeterias, Old World, Madonna Inn   Question 2: What do we want to learn about Theme Parks?   Bryn dug into the difference between an amusement park and a theme park.  This article from Theme Park Insider gives a good definition of a theme park.  An amusement park generally is a large outdoor area with fairground rides, shows, refreshments, games of chance or skill, and other entertainments. American amusement parks came out of the idea of the  “pleasure gardens” of Europe. A theme park is an amusement park that's organized and built around a particular theme or group of themes.   Sarah brings us the 411 on roller coasters! History: Where did they come from? Engineering! How does a roller coaster work? Reading: Newton's first law of motion Extra credit: Weightlessness   Extra credit: Weightlessness   Question 3: What are you excited about regarding Theme Parks, especially now that they have reopened after a long period of closure?   Sarah is super-digging how Disney California Adventure's new Avengers Campus is mirroring the Disney+ shows and changing up characters and interactions   Bryn is looking forward to being more present when she's at the parks and appreciating the privilege of being there. And both of us are excited about getting dressed up in fun outfits/Disneybounds, and packing our bags with just the right stuff to optimize our day. Especially big scarves.   BONUS Question: What's your favorite immersive Theme Park experience?   Sarah relates her experience of walking into Be Our Guest, the Beauty and the Beast restaurant in New Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom. It was literally walking IN TO the beauty and the beast film's ballroom.  Bryn cheated and said the Exploratorium's Tactile Dome in San Francisco. We'll all have to forgive her.     About Totally Tell Me Everything   Two friends, one fun topic, three burning questions = lots of fun conversation! Each month we pick a topic and ask each other three questions about it - we learn about the subject, our past and each other. So come sit by us and we'll totally tell you everything!   How To Listen on the Go:   Listen now and leave a Review on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Google Podcasts | RSS   If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave a podcast rating and review!!   Social Media   Instagram: http://instagram.com/totallytellmeeverything Sarah: http://instagram.com/jeditink Bryn: https://www.instagram.com/brynane/ Join the Skywalking Facebook Group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/488002904732240/   Subscribe to the Skywalking Network Newsletter    

Its episode 95 On this episode we are broadcasting from the Madonna Inn in central California at San Luis Obispo. We have OG veteran of the podcast Jackie Trudel back and we are celebrating her birthday for in this special one of a kind hotel. Cant get much more cinematic than the Madonna INN. We go over a lot of the Job we have been doing on American Horror Stories and chat about the new episodes that have been coming out. Jackie chats about what it is like working for Mikey and exactly what it is she does.   For quote that movie Jackie goes head to head against Mykie.   We try our best to do Movie in a jar also and if you ask me i would say that it turns out to be a hit!   As always we get into the topic of recent releases and rumored movies and tv shows. We tell a few new fail stories.     We are proud members of the Inner Circle Podcast Network. If you like our podcast you will love any podcast in our inner circle family. To check out us or any of the other shows visit innercirclepn.com and subscribe on social media @innercirclepn Check out all of our Inner Families best shows   The Plunge #NoOffense Show Shit Happens When You Party Naked Simmons and Moore Podcast The Hood Diner The Untrained Eye     Follow us on Instagram: @failinghollywood     Facebook: @failinghollywoodpodcast     Twitter: @failinghollywoo     Email us: failinghollywoodpodcast@gmail.com     And call us with and fail stories or questions or thoughts : (818) 928-5279     If you are listening to us please rate us and review us, any feed back really helps.

On another relaxed fit, rant-based episode, we tackle such thought provoking topics as the Madonna Inn, Sims 4, tablecloths, the most hateable characters in media, the elusive sigma male grindset, and more! Follow us on Twitter at @leightonnight and on Instagram at @leighton_night. You can find Brian on Twitter/Instagram at @bwecht, and Leighton at @graylish (Twitter)/@buttchamps (Instagram). SSCH!

Our pal Andrew Caudill joins us to talk the difference between malls and shopping centers, the history and future of Eagle Rock Plaza, going to movies and shopping for CDs at Madonna Plaza in San Luis Obispo, his mom's years working at Mervyn's and how that may have affected his current-day affinity for Kohl's and, finally, everyone's favorite messy off-price bitch: Ross Dress For Less. Plus key copying, Starbucks Refreshers, the Madonna Inn, Hearst Castle, and another exciting round of Mall Rat-ergories. JOIN THE MALL TALK PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/malltalkpod/ BUY MALL TALK MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/malltalkpodcast FOLLOW ANDREW: https://www.instagram.com/andrewcodhill/  https://twitter.com/andrewcardale  FOLLOW MALL TALK: https://www.instagram.com/malltalkpod  https://twitter.com/malltalkpod 

Circus Vargas is Up & Adam in the Morning! Mariella and Daniella tell Adam what it's like to be 8th generation Circus Performers, and what you can expect in the ALL NEW Circus Vargas show June 17 - July 5 at the Madonna Inn

This inn (which has been closed and locked up since 2004) is supposedly haunted by the ghost of Sarah Alice Miller and possibly the ghosts of the many people that have been murdered around it. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/san-hauntse/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/san-hauntse/support

Happy New Year to you, dear everyone! Nicole and Sasheer kick off the first episode of 2021 reflecting on what they would miss about 2020 if it didn't happen. They also discuss Nicole's new wallpaper, The Madonna Inn, how many styles you can have while home decorating, new years resolutions, new planners, singing Celine Dion, Jordan's fresh tattoos, and tattoos in general. Then they take the quiz Which Disney Princess Are You Based on Food Preferences? And finally, they answer your questions! This week Nicole and Sasheer give advice on dating your friends' exes, whether you're obligated to invite people, and whether a laughing game is fun. (Spoiler, it is.) Email or call Nicole & Sasheer with your friendship questions at: nicoleandsasheer@gmail.com

As we think about 2021 and how to plan for the year ahead, we wanted to acknowledge that the year ahead might be a lot like the year we are leaving and that is to say that we expect it to be unexpected. This episode is all about us setting our different parameters for being our version of successful in 2021. It’s a different way than we have approached goal setting in the past and even the way that both of us are approaching our strategies are different but can we both agree that the year ahead should be focused on what you can control? Oh, for sure. What we talked about:What did you do in the past that didn’t serve you?What did you learn this year that does work for you?How will you guide your 2021 strategy? Erica has picked a word - SPACE to guide her goals for the yearLaura is focused on professional development and isn’t going to get distracted by Focusing on what we can control and keeping in mind that the restrictions of 2020 won’t be goneBonus question - what will keep you motivated this year since travel and big celebrations, live music, etc might not be an option this upcoming year? Laura introduces her “Want To Do List” Food styling Create an amazing playlist Make a bold personal appearance change - purple hair, get those glasses, change your fashion style Erica makes some suggestions Reinvented date night (to go margaritas, playing a game, dancing party in your living room)Mini safe vacations Let’s see what happens. Topics covered: #wanttodolistProfessional Development, Career Growth, Mental health, stress management, Goal-setting, reframing, filling your bucket, relationships, hobbies, friends, music playlists, executive assistant, expectations, specific goals, self-improvement, education, qualifications, vulnerability, styleLinks mentioned: Madonna Inn https://www.madonnainn.com/ Garden Focaccia Bread https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/dining/focaccia-bread.html 7 Habits of Highly Effective people https://www.amazon.com/Habits-Highly-Effective-People-audio-cd/dp/1511317310/ref=asc_df_1511317310 Announcements: Thanks so much for listening and don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review!Where to find us: Instagram: @ohforsurepodcast Facebook: @ohforsurepodcast Email: ohforsurepodcast@gmail.com Website: https://www.ohforsurepodcast.com How to Listen:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/oh-for-sure-podcast/id1541797810 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6iMBNfF9JekfVIONjZtQFt And lots of other platforms, linked from our website!

Melissa's new gal pal, Marisol Lunceford, joins her on the mic to tell a story that highlights the importance of Native American Heritage month. Marisol introduces Sacheen Littlefeather, an Apache actress that caused a ruckus at the 1973 Academy Awards by protesting Hollywood's portrayal of Native Americans in the film industry. Melissa tells the story of Lucy Parsons, a radical anarchist that fought for the rights of working class people and was considered "more dangerous than a thousand rioters". Wishing you a happy, safe, champagne-filled Thanksgiving! *gobble gobble*SHOW NOTES:In this episode, we talk about:Blind dates with new gal palsThe awkwardness of dining at restaurants during a pandemicWine review: La Crema Pinot Noir and Lazy Bones Cabernet FrancThe quirky Madonna Inn hotelSacheen Littlefeather - racism in the 1950's, Occupy Wounded Knee, and the treatment of Native Americans in HollywoodLucy Parsons - the anarchist movement, 8-hour work day protests in the 1880's, and the struggle for free speech in America RESOURCES:The funky Madonna Inn--> https://www.madonnainn.com/The history of Occupy Wounded Knee --> https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/535.htmThe history of the Haymarket Riot --> https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/haymarket-riotMarisol Lunceford's Instagram --> https://www.instagram.com/the.ambitious.mama/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Back at the Madonna Inn, only this time I stay. And go horseback riding on my new friend, Gus.  

It’s a Boo Crew creature double feature! On this episode, back to back interviews with two films making huge waves right now! First up - Aaron B Koontz and Cameron Burn’s “SCARE PACKAGE”! Take a trip with them to the video store for an in depth look into the gore and fun behind this insane rollercoaster ride. Find out how to get creative with a treadmill from Craigslist to filming at the Madonna Inn and more! Then, explore the inner darkness of Brandon Christensen’s “Z”! He talks about crafting the unique sonic world, the creature design and eerie artwork that brings an imaginary friend to life. Grab your ticket to episode 138! The show is about to begin! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Out of sheer desperation for a change of scenery, I head back to the Madonna Inn for dinner, only to get angry again that nobody working there was wearing a mask, and then I calm down after having a long talk with a horse. I don't remember if I recorded that though. Plus great ideas on going back to the moon.

We got a visit from our neighbors next door at Zoo Med. They are a part of the big "Reptile Expo" happening at the Madonna Inn this weekend.

Goodwill! Madonna Inn! Fake enthusiasm!

Amanda Rich is the artistic director of the incredible and sensational Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, California. We discuss the unique designs of the fabulous guest rooms, the pink theme throughout the inn and its restaurants, and the famous pink champagne cake. For me, this place is heaven on earth! Enjoy a voyage into the Madonna Inn!

Adam and MAR have always supported universal glassware. But which is the best? Zalto? INAO? Stemless? On this episode, join Adam and MAR while they drink Frank Cornelissen's "Susucaru" Rosato out everything from $3 Crate and Barrel glasses to Madonna Inn goblets to find the best glass for your bottles. Natural Disasters is powered by Simplecast.

Episode 190 takes the show back to the central coast of The Golden State as we chat with Steve Weiss, co-founder of Coast and County Brokers in San Luis Obispo. Steve has been in the business nearly 35 years and shares a few stories about forming a brokerage and a culture that works. 03:15 - San Luis Obispo - Tell the listeners about your area   04:30 - A quick chat about The Madonna Inn   05:15 - Cal Poly SLO and the town   06:00 - How did Steve get from LA to San Luis Obispo?   06:40 - Start of the real estate career for Steve.   08:55 - A brief history on the California Real Estate market   10:46 - Opening Coast and County   13:20 - Is the brokerage built on the team concept?   14:40 - Do you have some takeaways for others contemplating opening a brokerage?   15:50 - The importance of being involved at the association level   17:45 - Getting involved on local radio   19:05 - Tales from the California Coastal Commission   21:30 - Are iBuyers an issue in SLO?   22:20 - Steve's Inman Connect story   24:50 - What piece of advice would you give a new agent?   Email Steve   Call Steve at 805-886-1404

This furry, funky episode sponsored by STEPCATS PRODUCTIONS, filmed in front of a live audience in beautiful San Luis Obispo, CA! Danielle Bagnall is an artist, librarian, land mermaid, Tiki enthusiast, and green go-getter. She is also the pink-bearded MerCrusher you've come to know and love in Hayley and the Crushers' Blue and Green video! If you thumbs down that video, we will come for you. : ) I hope you enjoy this conversation about dealing with phone addiction, making weird deadlines for your art, running into Dita Von Teese at Madonna Inn, and Danielle's strange, special cats Lilly and Mochi (who happen to be the Inspiration behind STEPCATS PRODUCTIONS). You can find Danielle online on instagram @ahoymiss https://www.instagram.com/ahoymiss/?hl=en More info on Hayley and the Crushers at www.hayleyandthecrushers.com

Nick Wiger, comedy writer and podcaster, joins Jordan and Jesse as they take a break from their usual topic for a discussion of the wedding Nick and Jordan attended at the Madonna Inn, Jesse's recent call to 9-1-1, and the perils of living in Santa Monica.  

Nes and Jess meet with husband and wife, tattoo artist Emily Effler and comedian John-Michael Bond to talk day trips, the Madonna Inn, things to do when you have 12 hours in a new city and following strangers into the desert on alien based promises. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’m fresh off a life-changing trip to California, where I spent a week road tripping from San Francisco to Los Angeles — alone. I learned a lot about myself on this trip. My only goal was to surround myself with beautiful things. I went in with no expectations and an open mind, and by the time I flew back home, I felt lighter, happier, and more fulfilled than I have in years — or maybe ever. So on this special bonus episode, we’re flipping the script: This time, I’m in the hot seat, and my husband Brian is taking over the hosting duties. He asks all the hard, insightful, let’s-really-get-into-it questions (including why I really booked this trip, why I never give myself credit for my successes, and why I often say no to things without considering the potential amazing outcomes), and I enjoyed digging a little deeper into my feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and dreams. Enjoy! Stuff We Mention on this Episode: CAli on the Run: My 7-Day Pacific Coast Highway Road Trip Itinerary: http://www.aliontherunblog.com/2017/12/18/california-coast-road-trip-itinerary/ “Making It Count”: http://www.aliontherunblog.com/2017/12/04/making-it-count/ Brian on Episode 2 of the Ali on the Run Show: http://www.aliontherunblog.com/2017/03/01/episode-2-brian-cristiano-married-someone-crohns-disease/ Brian on Episode 17 of the Ali on the Run Show: http://www.aliontherunblog.com/2017/04/06/ali-on-the-run-show-episode-17-brian-cristiano/ Brian on Episode 47 of the Ali on the Run Show: http://www.aliontherunblog.com/2017/11/22/ali-run-show-episode-47-brian-cristiano-newport-pie-run-turkey-trot/ Westin St. Francis San Francisco: http://www.westinstfrancis.com/ Chris Heuisler on Episode 6 of the Ali on the Run Show: http://www.aliontherunblog.com/2017/03/01/episode-6-chris-heuisler-national-run-concierge-westin-hotels-resorts/ Bike ride to Sausalito: https://www.strava.com/activities/1309995780 Andrea Barber on Episode 45 of the Ali on the Run Show: http://www.aliontherunblog.com/2017/11/09/ali-run-show-episode-45-andrea-barber-aka-full-houses-kimmy-gibbler/ Golden Gate Park: https://goldengatepark.com/ Ali’s Half Marathon PR Recap: http://www.aliontherunblog.com/2011/03/27/national-half-marathon-recap/ Erica Sara Designs: https://www.ericasara.com/ Natural Bridges State Beach: http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=541 Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa: https://montereyplazahotel.com/ The Madonna Inn: http://www.madonnainn.com/ Cerro San Luis Trail: https://www.yelp.com/biz/cerro-san-luis-trail-san-luis-obispo Meet Brian: http://www.aliontherunblog.com/2011/09/28/meet-my-handsome-friend/ Follow Brian: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/boldceo/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/boldceo/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/boldceo Growing BOLD: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc0OV-7Bct-i1h_7a7pXA-A BOLD Worldwide: http://www.boldworldwide.com/ Follow Ali: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliontherun1 Twitter: https://twitter.com/aliontherun1 Blog: http://www.aliontherunblog.com/ Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/13333410 Thank you for listening to and supporting the Ali on the Run Show! If you’re enjoying the show, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on iTunes. Spread the run love!

WITH ONLY 9 DAYS UNTIL HIS WEDDING, Dan takes time out of his hectic schedule to recap the final planning stages and talk playoff baseball with Eric. The word of the week is #blood! Fellow Groomzilla Sean O'Connor (Hood Adjacent) joins the boys to talk crazy families, Madonna Inn kitsch, and why marriage ceremonies and comedy don't mix. Plus Sean bonds with Dan over the struggle for sincerity and the search for the elusive perfect vow. TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR THE S1 FINALE OF GROOMZILLAS WITH SPECIAL GUEST... DIRECTOR OF LOVE ACTUALLY, FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL, NOTTING HILL... RICHARD FUCKING CURTIS!!!FOLLOW GROOMZILLAS:https://twitter.com/groomzillashttps://www.instagram.com/groomzillaspodGROOMZILLAS IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST:http://foreverdogproductions.com/fdpn/podcasts/groomzillas

Did Rachel and Dawn discover the working idea for the Titanic storyline?  Why were there so many flowers? The biggest question- could any of us afford to ride the Queen Mary? We also learn that Rachel’s never heard of the Madonna Inn and that you can now tour the Queen Mary and even stay overnight if you’re in Long Beach. Friend of the show Christy managed to track down the actual cost of a 1954 ticket aboard the Queen Mary from the author of The Tucker-Tyler Adventure, a travelogue of two young women who made the very same voyage. Check out the accompanying website or buy the book at Amazon. Next week’s episode is Season 5, Episode 21 “Memphis Melody”

I go suit shopping, then drive to the Madonna Inn to get a $40 cake.

I head out to Anza Borrego to find a dragon, walk amongst the palm trees and get interrupted a few times. Then, of course, Madonna Inn.

I head out to Palm Springs to check out Doug Aitken's Mirage, then back to the Madonna Inn for no apparent reason.

Christmas day drive up to the Madonna Inn.

After falling apart at the live show Saturday, I head up to the Madonna Inn to realign my thinking and get cake. Also get freaked out by a snake, and an old dude's weird jacket.

I suspected I would love talking with Mike Carano (The After Disaster, 5 Minutes with Mike, Miscellaneous Adventures from the World of Mike Carano) and I was right because he's incredibly honest and open about all the stuff that goes through his head. We discussed how he feels uncomfortable all the time, trespassing, decision making, his childhood and his stint in a cult, his relationship with his parents, self-help books, meditation, Dr. Drew, how he met his After Disaster cohorts, being afraid to disappoint people, drinking, meds, The Madonna Inn, driving, snacks and so much more. We also took your questions over Twitter and did a round of Just Me Or Everyone.  

The Madonna Inn is a hot pink and gold extravaganza!  Plus, we heart Buck Angel and you should, too.  Also, of course there's such a thing as a circus entirely comprised of cat performers and it's got to be bonkers, right? 

10/10/13 - Mary Jo Mellado Willey has the next part in the Southern California 101 series, this time focusing on the outlying areas, such as the coast and mountains.

"Weird Al" Yankovic (king of pop culture parody and star of "UHF") joins Cole and Vanessa for their super-special shiny 100th Episode! They talk Dr. Demento, Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez, Bedazzlers, Guy Fieri's Ass Blast Nachos, the final Twilight, GAZOOOOOO!, People's Sexiest Man of the Year Channing Tatum, accordions, The Madonna Inn, utilizing Leslie Nielsen, mountains of fan letters, the White and Nerdy explosion, Kevin McCarthy, Sadgasm, holiday cards from Robert Goulet, the Wheel of Fish, a very bizarre Homeland episode, and Al's hiring of a young Tress MacNeille! Leave your answer to the Firsts question (the first parody film you were really into) on our website for a chance to win an Alpocalypse CD/DVD and UHF DVD signed by Al!

Jackie Kashian (The Dork Forest, stand-up) joins the The Long Shot dough kneaders to discuss fat cats, The Madonna Inn, dolphin love, and nicknames.