Video news footage of the catastrophe hit the airwaves almost instantly as you can see the cameraman backing away from an obviously unsavory situation. Not recorded were the ensuing minutes of several hundred people trying to get out through a single doorway (that again), choking on thick black smoke. Some were inches from the door, but couldn't see it. Others couldn't get through for the onslaught.
When the smoke cleared, it was tallied that 96 people lost their lives in the incident, including the lead guitarist from the band itself. Fingers of blame flew at the band, the promoters, and the nightclub. Who said it was OK to have pyrotechnics in a 60-year-old wooden club with one exit? As of this writing, each party claims they had permission from the other, the fire marshall says no one asked him diddly.
Roughly a week before that, a similar situation happened in Chicago, where a small nightclub was the scene of a mass panic after pepper spray got used against two fighting woman. Again, one exit, everybody's going for it, the body count for that one in the 30s. The owner of the club was not supposed to be using the facility for business, so he was in violation. Small comfort to the victim's families.
Of course, baby-boomers remember the old Who incident that nearly broke up the band (wasn't that Chicago?) where a stampede for the door to get in (not out) resulted in a body count in the high 20s to low 30s.
Do we learn nothing from these events? I don't blame Great White, really, any more than I blamed The Who. They were there to do a gig that was already assembled by a crew of other people in their entourage. But a communications breakdown has to be occuring somewhere. Too much money to be made in hard economic times to worry about things like fire codes and such. Things are overlooked to get the show on the road.
Then, accidents happen and we learn why there are fire, ventilation, and capacity codes on the books. There'll be a slew of new laws drawn up to...er....buttress the old perfectly good laws that were ignored anyway, because what else can they do now?
I'll tell you the weirdest thing, tho, and please don't take this the wrong way. Great White was going to go down in history as a short-lived, quasi-Southern rock, big-hair metal band from the '80s barely eeking out a livng on a "where are they now" sort of tour. The end chapters of their band bio will look radically, tragically different now.
Christopher Reeve guest stars on "Smallville"
Jeezis, I love this show! It just gets better and better every week. And this is from a Superman fan from the old school, hard to please.
Clark Kent (Tom Wellig) is having nightmares involving a metallic alien artifact and mysterious alien writings found on a cave wall. In the dream, Clark inserts the artifact, a metallic hexagonal key-type thing with inscriptions on it, into a similar hole in the wall grahic. There's a blinding light and then he wakes up...somwhere. Even if it's the middle of the road, as it was when Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) swerves to avoid running him over. A few of these incidents have him doubting his sanity, but are bringing him closer
to understanding his alien origins, stopping just short of full revelation. A few friends start to get suspicious at Clark's fascination with the real-life cave where the inscriptions are. Slowly, Clark starts being able to read the alien writing.
One day, Clark loses control of his heat vision and torches the side of the family barn. After son and father put out the flames, it is revealed that Clark inadvertantly carved the Kryptonian symbol for hope into the wood. This is captured by a photog for the school paper who publishes it with a crop-cirle angle. When confronted, Clark passes it off as a hoax, but he's deeply disturbed.
Enter Dr. Swann (Christpher Reeve, Superman from the terrific 1979 movie and some lesser sequels) an eccentric and reclusive scientist who disappeared from public view some 13 years ago, after the meteor shower that brought Clark to earth. Having caught the news photo, he ingeniusly lures Clark to his office using the same symbol for hope--on an Instant Message! Clark decides to visit him. Swann reveals the space message he intercepted that day, thirteen years ago: "This is Kal-El from Krypton, deliver him from evil", something like that. Swann wants to know that Clark is the alien baby. At first reluctant to confirm this, Clark is overwhelmed and must learn more---and he does. That his biological parents are gone, there are no other
Kryptonians, the planet itself no longer exists, and that he is alone and unique in the universe.
A later father-son talk (with the outstanding John Schneider as Pa Kent) reassures him that while he is unique, he is never alone.
As usual, all performances on the show were superb, and the extended cameo by Christpher Reeve inspired and historical. At show's end both Reeve and Wellig appear as themselves to ask for support of the paraplegic association Reeve is associated with. Like everything else about this episode, it had me in tears.
And speaking of space artifacts....
Pioneer 10 exits the solar system
If it's possible to be incredibly proud of a piece of space technology, I am that proud of Pioneer 10. Launched in 1972 to basically take pictures of Jupiter, it was decided to attach a "message from earth" in case it actually made it out of the solar system into deep space (or deeper space). That day came yesterday, when Pioneer 10, over 7 billion miles from home, exited the solar system. Believe it or not, it was still sending signals as of the end of January.
Scientists believe it is still sending, but the signals are too faint to hear. The knowledge we have gained from the little-satellite-that-could is overwhelming.
I picture a day that the satellite is captured by an alien world's gravity, perhaps crash-landing on the planet. I hope the aliens who discover it can decipher our message. It would be cool if they sent somehing back. (No, not an armed armada, I meant, like, a greeting card.)
The Grammys
I'm at the end of my strength and the tape I thought I had of The Grammy awards presentations turned out blank anyway, so whatever news I heard was what you heard (basically Nora Jones was the heaviest recipient). For a better take on the Grammys, please see this issue's Mike's Rant.
Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood), dead at 74
This came in during the last minutes of editing this issue of PCR, so I don't want this location underneath the aborted Grammy piece mistaken for a low-priority status. I've been an admirer of Fred Rogers the whole time I was aware of his existence, going on 30 years. Oh, sure, early on I made fun of his super-casual approach and meek vocal stylings like every other punk of the day did (and Eddie Murphy on SNL in the '80s), but, in retrospect, he was a groundbreaker who absolutely knew what he was doing (like my other childhood hero of Kid TV airwaves, Bob Keeshan, aka, Captain Kangaroo). Fred had been battling colon(?) cancer in his last years, a battle he finally lost in the wee hours of
Thursday morning, February 27, 2003.
For a bit more on the life of Mr. Rogers, please see this issue's Mike's Rant.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to William Moriaty who turned 48, Monday, February 24. I'll be catching up to him in about 20 years or so...heh hehe...ahem, coff, coff. OK, OK, I'll be catching up to him in late summer of this year.
Will and I shared a creative writing class together at Robinson High School and we also had an art class headed up by the inimitable Bill "the South shall rise again" King. Sure doesn't seem like almost 30 years has passed since those halcyon days.
Hell, we're still sweating out our writing assignments! Ha ha.
Local actor and Florida Folk Hero Gustavo Perez just returned from a family vacation in Cuba! Gus took pictures and smoked some gen-u-wine cee-gars as well as sampling the local food fare. Gus was enterprising enough to seize this rare opportunity to take some 8mm video of the environs of Castro-land
in order to bring us Americanos a special treat: Gus will use the footage to set his next horror movie in pre-Castro Cuba! Details are still in development at this time, but so far, yours truly is already tied into the project as well as fellow filmmaker, Brandon-based Garland Hewlett ("Brain Robbers from Outer Space").
We welcome your feedback.
