Meeting 805
December 26, 2005
Trey Haddad, President
Nathan Slerm-r & Chris Garcia, Vice-Presidents
Dave Gallaher, Treasurer
Galen Tripp, Sargent at Arms
Barbara Johnson-Haddad, Secretary
Began 8:00 pm - Due to the absence of a Treasurer, the money jar used was a
scrap of Christmas paper shaped like a wine bottle
8 people attended
No President
No Secretary
No reading of the minutes, as Chris had forgotten to bring them
Treasurer, arriving late, reported that we took in $15 last week in the
regular jar & $40.25 in the party jar (bringing the total to $90.25 or
enough to pay for a hotel room).
VP reports:
no Nathan [week 9]
Chris reported, as usual, that there was a new issue of "The Drink Tank"
from the Drink Tank Cahootery, which makes it an even 60 (wow!) for the
year. Plus an 8-page year-end "summary" of his fan writing, including his
reviews of his own fanzines. [NOTE to Chris: Cheryl Morgan recently posted
that she refuses to print reviews submitted by authors of their own works.]
No committee reports
Announcements:
David Gallaher announced that he had arrived late (shame, shame) and that he
and Spring were having a party on Friday, the penultimate day of the year,
starting around 7 pm.
Dave Clark asked if anyone knew the exact location of fabled, homogenized,
identical Christmas trees in an apparently Nazi-run neighborhood in Willow
Glen, which he called "The Stepford Trees." No one would admit to knowing
this arcane factoid.
Frank noted that Vincent Schiavelli, the great droopy-eyed character actor,
had passed away. Ken noted pre-meeting that in an alternative history,
Abraham Lincoln, with his weird brows and odd facial structure would have
made a great character actor.
Chris Garcia noted that a complete set of VHS tapes of "The Prisoner" is
available at the Good Will near the Sunnyvale Towne and Country.
Follow-ons: The DVD version of "The Prisoner" did NOT feature introductions
by local TV host Scott Apel, and thus "The Prisoner" had gotten away
Scott-free.
Reviews:
Ken reviewed "The Christmas Invasion," the first episode of "Doctor Who"
starring David Tennant, who replaced Christopher Eccleston. Ken called it
"fantastic." In the process of regenerating as Mr. Tennant, the Doctor
spends half the episode asleep, then awakes, wondering "who" he is. The
episode also has references to "The Lion King" and "Hitchhikers" in addition
to Killer Christmas Trees, which always make TV better. Spring later noted
that in the "Harry Potter" film, there was a joke about the identity of the
character played therein by Mr. Tennant: Barty Crouch Junior ("Who?"). The
"Doctor Who" episode will be re-shown at this week's meeting of the Legion
of Rassilon, Friday, 7:30 pm, at Carl's Junior, 2551 N. First Street, San
Jose.
David Clark reviewed Al Franken's new book "The Truth (with Jokes)" as lying
with statistics.
D. Gallaher reviewed a collection of "South Park" Christmas episodes, shown
on Comedy Central. It was refreshing to see the evolution of Mr. Hanky,
including the story of how he got married and had several children/turds,
including one with a peanut stuck in his head. He said he was "moved."
Frank reviewed the first season DVD of "Sealab 2021" as a rollicking good
time, with his favorite episode being the time loop one wherein characters
are duplicated while Sealab itself is blown up again and again and again,
thus illustrating that it is, in fact, a "freakin' bomb on stilts." And the
episode wherein the commander is trapped under a soda machine while the rest
of the crew become roadies to a rock and roll band.
Chris Garcia reviewed the DVD of the original "King Kong" (from 1933) as
worth borrowing from Frank. The DVD has many extras, including a recreation
of the lost "spider pit" sequence. This sequence featured King Kong shaking
sailors off a log, whereupon they fall down a chasm, whereupon they are
eaten by giant spiders. This segment was filmed, but deleted after the
initial release, and then lost. Peter Jackson's crew recreated this
sequence with stop-motion monsters, including a beast reconstructed from an
original 1933 model dinosaur; they even X-rayed the model to get its fine
structure so they could rebuild the internal metal armature exactly.
Spring also noted that, during the filming of the 1976 "King Kong," the
giant ape hand prop temporarily froze with middle finger outstretched. This
story sounded apocryphal, but she swore it was true.
Dave Clark noted that Kong in the original film was an 18-inch tall model,
but that everyone, including Tom Cruise, looks bigger on a big screen. He
also commented about gullible reporters who believed a pilot who, in 1976,
claimed to have flown one of the planes in the 1933 original, and also an
actor who claimed to have played Kong on in an ape suit in 1933, though Kong
was not actually done in "suitmation" but in stop-motion animation. A story
along these lines - entitled "The Man Who Would Be Kong" by Andrew Fox - is
at Sci Fiction at
http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/originals/originals_archive/fox/index.html
David Gallaher reviewed "Harry Potter" on IMAX as making "Harry Potter" on a
big screen look like "Harry Potter" on a small screen. Also, Hermione's
role is much reduced from the book.
Then we auctioned off a VHS of "Star Crash" (which Dad noted destroyed many
careers) for six bits.
Lots of fanzines ("Costumer's Quarterly" and "Fanorama") went for eight
bits, ten bits, and eight bits.
A copy of Flatland went for four bits, as did a deck of ESPN playing cards.
We adjourned at 8:47 pm
Despite a last-ditch effort to introduce zombies into an otherwise
non-zombie-fied BASFA meeting, the Rumor of the Week was "Chris Garcia will
seize control."
