What goes around, comes around?

Posted May 20, 2006 12:33 AM by Dave Weingart

Same as it ever was.

Posted May 20, 2006 12:34 AM by Stefan Jones

Or "Let's do the time warp... again"? (By the way, I wonder how Charles Gray wound up in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.)

Posted May 20, 2006 12:36 AM by Serge

Oh, come on. See the light.

Posted May 20, 2006 12:36 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

More clues, please...

Posted May 20, 2006 12:38 AM by Serge

Once upon a time there was nothing. Then it exploded.

Posted May 20, 2006 12:38 AM by julia

I don't know, julia. I thouight the idea of the Big Bang to be followed by a Big Crunch then by a Big Bang was pretty much kaput. Too bad because that shoots down Moorcock's short story of 1970, Last Vigil.)

Posted May 20, 2006 12:43 AM by Serge

Jeez, you guys.

Posted May 20, 2006 12:47 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Oh, dear, what can they do??

Posted May 20, 2006 12:58 AM by Jon Meltzer

And I'm feeling blue.

Posted May 20, 2006 1:00 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

#include "cheesy organ solo"

Posted May 20, 2006 1:02 AM by Jon Meltzer

I nearly died.

Posted May 20, 2006 1:09 AM by Russell Letson

What kind of schlamiel throws away a canvas work jacket like this?

http://home.comcast.net/~stefan_jones/tan_jacket_lo.jpg

Posted May 20, 2006 1:13 AM by Stefan Jones

Cause you walked hand in hand with another man in my place.

Posted May 20, 2006 1:22 AM by Madeleine Robins

"We have all been here before, we have all been here before...."

Posted May 20, 2006 1:27 AM by Lizzy L

how long will it take til she sees the mistake she has made?

Posted May 20, 2006 1:45 AM by julia

"Have you seen the flags of freedom? What color are they now?"

Posted May 20, 2006 2:05 AM by Rich McAllister

"When I came to your door
"No reply."

Posted before I looked at Patrick's Wikipedia link, I swear it!

Posted May 20, 2006 2:48 AM by Linkmeister

And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Posted May 20, 2006 2:52 AM by Lizzy L

No reply.

(This is sort of meta and existential, isn't it?)

Posted May 20, 2006 2:59 AM by Darkhawk

The average length of a CD these days is 70 minutes or so; did you notice the length of the entire album over there at Wikipedia? 26 minutes, 10 seconds. Man, Inna-Gadda-da-Vida lasted that long, didn't it?

Posted May 20, 2006 3:01 AM by Linkmeister

Stefan - Looks like you're posing for a self-pic that's fully compliant with the code of myspace.

Posted May 20, 2006 3:04 AM by Larry Brennan

Linkmeister: IIrc, the length of Inna-Gadda-da-Vida was proportional to the amount and type of chemical stimulus ingested by the person listening. If you were not stoned, it went on forever, or until you left the room. If you were stoned, it went on forever...

Posted May 20, 2006 3:05 AM by Lizzy L

Lizzie, you're probably right. It sure wasn't danceable for its full length without chemical help. Chicago's Beginnings, on the other hand...

(My fraternity's live band budget was pretty small; maybe two per semester. The rest of the time it was albums. There was always enough for a keg and punch, though.)

Posted May 20, 2006 3:15 AM by Linkmeister

Welcome, one and all, to the far-flung future of....1965!!

Posted May 20, 2006 3:46 AM by David Goldfarb

In Horkstow Grange there lived an old miser
You all do know him as I have heard say

Posted May 20, 2006 4:09 AM by Dave Bell

I seem to be late to the party, but I recognized the quote right away.

Maybe I should follow with "I don't want to spoil the party so I'll go." But before I go, two nuggets:

(a) This week was the 40th -- yes, fortieth -- anniversary of the release of Pet Sounds.

And (b) I expect we shall all get our kicks from the next Open Thread.

Posted May 20, 2006 5:10 AM by Lois Aleta Fundis

The Big Bounce theory is making a comeback. See http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/Ashtekar5-2006.htm

Posted May 20, 2006 8:39 AM by Randolph Fritz

Cause I know where you've been
And I saw you walk in
Your window.

(Every time I hear it, I hear that.)

Tangent: I picked up an LP by Gordon Jenkins years ago at Wax Trax in Denver for a dollar. I took a chance on it because of "A Little Touch of Schmilsson In The Night" for which Jenkins did the arrangements and wrote one of the best songs, "This Is All I Ask." Every now and then, Ned Brooks used to remark that he couldn't get hold of the record himself, and I'd resolve to make him a copy. This year I did it. I burned it to mp3, and since Ned claims not to savvy mp3s, I made an audio CD out of it, including cover art and liner notes. I did this twice, having lost the first one I made while it was sitting around.

So yesterday I was following links from the WFMU blog to the Virtual Sex Museum to see Harold Lloyd's nude photography, and in one of the inside shots, there it was -- the album cover for Seven Dreams, the album in question. Which, incidentally, includes voice work by Thurl Ravenscroft, aka "Tony the Tiger" (who did the songs for the Grinch), and Dickie Beals, who for years did kid voices for MGM cartoons.

So I thought that was kind of keen, anyway. (Can't find a real link to Seven Dreams, but the Wikipedia article on Jenkins mentions that he also did the arrangement for Nat King Cole's gorgeous rendition of "When I Fall In Love.")

Posted May 20, 2006 8:43 AM by Kip W

I have an incredibly stupid, inane, useless, dull, pedestrian, uninteresting question...

Why is there a "forward-quote" or whatever you call it in "Open thread ‘65"? Is that a typing error, or does that have a meaning I'm not familiar with?

Signed,
Confused

Posted May 20, 2006 9:15 AM by Michael Weholt

Oh, wait. Never mind. I just got it. Duh.

Posted May 20, 2006 9:16 AM by Michael Weholt

Freddie's dead

Posted May 20, 2006 9:28 AM by adamsj

adamsj: Freddie's dead

And from that:

A family friend ... paid tribute to the star, who was famed for his manic dance routine, which he called "the Freddie".

Have these people no sense of history? The Freddie was not "manic". Dumb, maybe. Stupid, perhaps. But manic? No, not by any reasonable definition of the word. Think: Big Bird taking a stab at actually flying.

Posted May 20, 2006 9:56 AM by Michael Weholt

Staying within the vein of rock and/or roll, I've been astonished in the past several days by the amount of music video (not all of it professional, not all of it good, with some overlap in all directions) at YouTube (prompted by this listing of 80s music videos posted there. The listing is far from complete -- search on an artist's name at YouTube to find more -- and some of what's there are real gems. (For example, I finally got to see Peter Gabriel in the infamous flower costume during Supper's Ready.) (Okay. So I was really prompted to go over there when I saw an embedded Mike Jittlov video I'd never seen in a blog post, and then found even more of his work at the site. But I digress.) (One last digression. You can save YouTube videos via this site. They'll be .flv files, and there's a link at that site to a .flv player you can download. I'm not advocating that anyone steal copyrighted material, however.)

Posted May 20, 2006 10:41 AM by Bruce Adelsohn

It was a "forward-quote" because I made a mistake. It should be a proper apostrophe, and now it is.

Posted May 20, 2006 10:49 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Patrick, Michael didn't get that you were referring to the year.

Posted May 20, 2006 10:54 AM by Xopher

Gods on Earth! "The Ciphere of Leonardo" is fantastic! Everyone go look at it right now!

Posted May 20, 2006 11:01 AM by Xopher

If I may just further parse this transaction to within an inch of its miserable tiny life, you are right, Xopher, but I took Patrick's comment as an indication that he understood my confusion (subsequently self-resolved), but that he had, while looking into the matter, discovered that he had erred on the side of non-apostrophe, something that I wouldn't have noticed, but being a professional, he would and did notice, and so he fixed it, and then proceeded to point out the correction for the benefit of others who might have noticed his mistake and appreciate the correction. As I understand it, copy editors are crawling all over this place.

Next: head of pin, angels on.

Posted May 20, 2006 11:11 AM by Michael Weholt

[further discussion of a tiny punctuation mark deleted here]

Poor horsie.

Posted May 20, 2006 11:19 AM by Xopher

Beatles? Got nothing.

Explosions? That I can help with. We've discussed Sodium and Posstasium. Braniac meets their angrier big brothers.

(The explanation on Francium is bogus, though -- the real problem with Francium is the fact that maybe 500g of Francium exists in the entire earth at any one given time. Having said that, I wouldn't drop 2g into a tub without a very long pole. Note how our "experimenter" uses a longish pole -- then wisely drops it, because carrying stuff slows you down when you're running.)

Posted May 20, 2006 11:52 AM by Erik V. Olson

Considering my age back in '65, there wasn't much to that year except the Beatles! So I immediately thought of them, but didn't catch the quote till later. (Yes, I know plenty of other things happened, but as a teen I was paying most of my attention to music, Mods and movies.)

Posted May 20, 2006 11:53 AM by Faren Miller

Stefan:

Someone who commmitted a crime in it and wasn't sure they got all the bloodstains out?

Posted May 20, 2006 12:53 PM by Lila

The Brainiac video is highly entertaining. Though I did get the potassium/water demo in person, not on video. But then I went to school in the days before they stripped all the really fun chemicals out of school storage rooms.

Posted May 20, 2006 2:02 PM by tavella

Kip W: I would gladly commit the murder of your choice for mp3s of Thurl Ravenscroft singing Gordon Jenkin's music. I don't think my alley has ever had anything more right up it.

Or perhaps we could arrange a trade? I've got some mp3s of Thurl singing pirate songs, tons of Paul Frees, or a rare high-brow performance by Daws Butler as Toby Dammit in Poe's Never Bet the Devil Your Head. Or make a request, and I'll see if I have it.

Email in username if you're interested.

Posted May 20, 2006 2:54 PM by HP

Since this is an open thread... How is the movie version of The Da Vinci Code? The critical consensus isn't exactly encouraging. In spite of the movie having Tom Hanks sporting a mullet.

Posted May 20, 2006 3:39 PM by Serge

Serge: I am so not going to see that movie. But I will be curious (yellow) to know what my friends say about it.

Posted May 20, 2006 3:50 PM by Lizzy L

Well, do let me know what your friends say, Lizzie L. Its rating on Rotten Tomatoes is rather low. Of course The Core had a very bad rating too and I enjoyed it immensely, bad science and all. True, it did have a character with the same name as yours truly. Quite a rare occurence. I think the last time was for Bronson Pinchot's hairdresser character in Beverly Hills Cop.

Posted May 20, 2006 3:58 PM by Serge

I can't get no...

Posted May 20, 2006 4:29 PM by bonniers

"Someone who commmitted a crime in it and wasn't sure they got all the bloodstains out?"

I checked for bullet holes, blood stains, drug paraphenalia and the like. Washed it with color-safe bleach, checked the pockets once more, and tried it on. If it didn't fit, I would have donated it to Goodwill. As it is, it is a good winter dog-walk coat. Lots of pockets . . .

Posted May 20, 2006 4:42 PM by Stefan Jones

"a good winter dog-walk coat. Lots of pockets"

You put the dog(s) in your pockets?

Posted May 20, 2006 4:59 PM by Linkmeister

Since it's an Open Thread:

"Barry Bonds tied Babe Ruth for second place on the career home run list Saturday with his 714th homer, a solo shot into the right-field seats leading off the second inning."

Brad Halsey of the Athletics was the unfortunate victim.

Posted May 20, 2006 5:04 PM by Linkmeister

Hmmm, I could probably fit four or five chihuahuas in there . . .

Seriously, lots of jacket pockets come in handy when you're wearing a pocketless sweat suit underneath, which I do on my morning walks.

Posted May 20, 2006 5:06 PM by Stefan Jones

My local PBS station had a ball cap with two zippered pockets as a premium recently; pockets are indeed a good thing.

Posted May 20, 2006 5:11 PM by Linkmeister

The Braniac video was amusing. On Mr. Ford's recommendation in an earlier thread, I set my DVR to harvest some episodes on G4 and all I can say is that it's amusing, but light on actual explanations. Except for the stuff getting blowed up part, I tend to fast forward through it.

I'll stick to Mythbusters, where they at least explain what they're up to.

Posted May 20, 2006 5:12 PM by Larry Brennan

Linkmeister: My local PBS station had a ball cap with two zippered pockets as a premium recently

Envisioning a ball cap with flappy pockets hanging down like earflaps, or sticking out like Princess Leia's hairdo.

Posted May 20, 2006 5:16 PM by Larry Brennan

Grins. Nah, not in Hawai'i. Think watch pockets.

Posted May 20, 2006 5:22 PM by Linkmeister

True, it did have a character with the same name as yours truly. Quite a rare occurence.

But at least your place in electronic music is secure...

Posted May 20, 2006 5:31 PM by Tim Walters

pockets are indeed a good thing

Pockets are a very good thing. But it's ridiculously hard to find women's jackets with decent pockets. They're either these tiny little things that are hardly large enough to hold a wallet, no less a paperback book, or else there aren't enough of them.

My husband doesn't understand why I hoard jackets--it's because I have such a hard time finding decent ones.

Posted May 20, 2006 5:47 PM by Michelle K

A Serge Modular, Tim? I like that. Once I shut a database that users were still working with and one of them said jokingly they needed a Serge protector.

Posted May 20, 2006 5:54 PM by Serge

Hi, all. Short-time lurker, first-time commenter.
Pockets are indeed a good thing, but I've noticed that, in the last decade or so, it's become increasingly difficult to put a book in your back pocket - the only books that seem to fit are media tie-ins (mostly Star Trek, Doctor Who, or Buffy novels - Star Wars ones seem to be too thick). Pretty much anything is either too thick (I can't even force a Peter F. Hamilton into the thigh pocket of my cargo pants!) or too large (say, John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" - perfect thickness, but too wide).

Is that depressing, or just a sign of the times?
Oh well, at least I can roll up an Interzone; that fits quite nicely!

Posted May 20, 2006 6:33 PM by Glenn Harrison

My first attempt to write about my found jacket was actually about my found jackets. It was bounced because of "Questionable Content." Apparently due to the name "black jacket."

So, here is the other jacket I found by a dumpster. A sturdy black duck windbreaker, again, in perfect condition.

(Hmm, it looks like the content filter just doesn't like links my web space.)

Now I need to be on the lookout for a Hawaiian shirt with lots of pockets for summertime walking . . .

Posted May 20, 2006 6:45 PM by Stefan Jones

Stefan, I'll keep my eye out for one for you. Most aloha shirts have a single breast pocket, but you never know.

Posted May 20, 2006 6:52 PM by Linkmeister

(Not that I read media tie-in novels, but I have to handle a lot of them at work. I feel so unclean...)

Posted May 20, 2006 6:54 PM by Glenn Harrison

Serge, on the subject of hearing one's name in a work of fiction: I've been getting into SF and Horror radio dramas quite a bit lately, and a few months ago I was listening to Mystery in the Air while I was doing some chores, and was stunned to hear the eminently imitable Peter Lorre say, "Yesss, the Reverend Howard Pierce is dead -- murdered -- and I keeeeelled him!"

First name, last name, and I get to be a fictional murdered minister. Peter Lorre killed me! Needless to say, it is my favorite piece of audio in the whole wide world.

Posted May 20, 2006 7:07 PM by HP

By the way, assuming I'm not the only one addicted to X Minus One and Quiet, Please, I'd just like to point out to genre audio fans that the indefatigable ZombieAstronaut has survived Hurricane Katrina, hosting problems, and an automobile accident to return to the web, now via LiveJournal, here.

Zombie Astronaut was the guy who got me beyond striving to hear the occasional episode of Lights Out on my local NPR station and on to serious collecting. He's managed to recreate the look and feel of his orignal site using the LiveJournal tools, complete with his terrific commentary.

Posted May 20, 2006 7:20 PM by HP

I think I'll test the limits to the Openness of this thread.

A propos of nothing in particular, look who won the Eurovision Song Contest

I'm a little disappointed, but only because I was going for the

...... Spoiler of a sort follows .........

(telling you who didn't win in a field of 32 is still a spoiler, right?)

...... stop reading now if you're saving your eyes for the telecast ..........

Lithuanians, who seem to have shown real fighting spirit.

Posted May 20, 2006 7:32 PM by Vian

Vian, that winning performance is ... something else again. Buffy meets LOTR meets Spinal Tap. Woo.

Here's the band's own video of that song.

Posted May 20, 2006 8:22 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Open thread! Insert random tidbit...

Today I was visiting my 93-year-old next-door neighbor, while a man and his two sons were doing some yardwork for her. She said they were from her church (she's Mormon) and volunteered their time--it didn't cost her anything. When they were finished, the man walked over and she introduced us. Of no interest at all here, except that she called him "Brother Nielsen", heh, so I thought of our hostess.

That's it. That's all I got. Sorry.

Posted May 20, 2006 8:24 PM by mary

Today's imposition on everybody's patience:

Well we had heroes then, and were too young for girls
But a helmet let you breathe the night on alien worlds
We were set to raise ship, and our blasters were hot
While Tom Corbett fought a Mercurian plot
Tom Corbett’s in heaven and I'm in limbo now

The book said that You Will Go To The Moon
I hope the bus is coming soon, ‘cause it’s my Earth’s long afternoon
We spent our youth dreaming of a ticket to ride
And found that the pork was all done on that side
Tom Corbett's in heaven and I'm in limbo now

Hard times, hard future times
Living in orbit on nickels and dimes
Can't close my eyes on the Moon and the stars
For a soap-bubble promise of a mission to Mars

Old dreams, they don’t die easy
Most folks don’t care, I say, was you there
The builders pack up and get their contracts elsewhere
Our jets are half spaceships, but what are they for
To shoot down the Russians from the last pretend war
Tom Corbett’s in heaven and I'm in limbo now

Budgets get cut, and orbits decay
Looks so much better on film anyway
While people believe it was all for some rocks
Spirit is limping, Opportunity knocks

Well I can see me now, I'm striking out for Venus
I wander the Belt in an evergreen Now
Footprints in Moondust and gold on my brow
And there's Cadet Corbett, he gives me a wave
And a new day is dawning and the planet is saved
Tom Corbett’s in heaven and I'm in limbo now

Posted May 20, 2006 9:06 PM by John M. Ford

Everyone check out this picture of the Eurovision contest winners...

Imagine GWAR winning a beauty contest...

Posted May 20, 2006 10:08 PM by Jon H

John, that's just beautiful. I could hear RT in my head as I read it.

Posted May 20, 2006 10:08 PM by Dr Paisley

Mr. Ford, I'm verklempt here now. but Very Good Job on Tom Corbett. Thanks.

Posted May 20, 2006 10:11 PM by Paula Helm Murray

"The Ciphere of Leonardo" is fantastic!

Very nice. But... Saunierye? Saunieyre? Sauyniere? Y does the Y keep moving backwards in his name?

Is it for authenticity's sake or is there scope for some unofficial cryptography of our own?

Meanwhile, I second Geoffrey Chaucer's recommendation of the Mountain Goats, although not so much "Cubs in Five". They are playing in Portland the day after I leave Oregon for good. Damn them.

Posted May 20, 2006 10:27 PM by candle

I was watching a stream of Eurovision.

Mutant Klingons! I still think Norway should have one.

Posted May 20, 2006 10:46 PM by Dave Weingart

I know it's passed by, but one more comment on the Beatles quote that began this thread:

I got the quote right away... but not the "65" relevance, because I have the Beatles on CD, which follows the UK not the US album releases, and "Beatles '65" wasn't an album at all. "No Reply" was on "Beatles for Sale" -- released in 1964.

I guess it's a generation thing.

Posted May 20, 2006 10:54 PM by Stephen Frug

Xopher: Barbaro?

I, watching the replays on tv, was absolutely devastated. I cannot imagine how his people feel.

Posted May 20, 2006 11:06 PM by cap

I just got home, checked in to ML, and found the news about Barbero. I am so sad. He is a great horse -- I hope they can save him. I no longer have a TV so I will not watch the replay, but I don't need to. :-(

Posted May 20, 2006 11:28 PM by Lizzy L

I grant you (in re the Particle called "Google Trends: the real hierarchy of values") that immigration ranks well behind sex, food, money, and terrorism in the lists of things people search for on Google.

And yet!

Immigration ranks well ahead of frottage, crepes, aluminum siding, and bin Laden as matters of public concern. (On at least two occassions over the past couple of years, crepes have ranked ahead of bin Laden.)

Posted May 20, 2006 11:32 PM by James D. Macdonald

HP... If one is going to be bumped off, I'd say that having Peter Lorre do the bumping off is a great way to go.

Posted May 20, 2006 11:34 PM by Serge

We are not worthy of Mike Ford. Retreats, making signs of admiration and not-worthiness. OMG. WTF. BBQ.

Posted May 20, 2006 11:46 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

(Also LBJ, IRT, youth of America on LSD.)

Posted May 20, 2006 11:48 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Tom Corbett's in heaven. Damn, that's gorgeous.

Posted May 20, 2006 11:49 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

"I got the quote right away... but not the '65' relevance, because I have the Beatles on CD, which follows the UK not the US album releases, and 'Beatles '65' wasn't an album at all."

Ahem, you silly person.

Posted May 20, 2006 11:56 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

"Beatles '65" was certainly an album that year. I have it, along with about 4 inches of other pieces of vinyl (several of which have 'Beatles' on the jacket). Not a complete set.

Posted May 21, 2006 12:06 AM by P J Evans

cap: no, that hadn't happened and/or I hadn't heard. The horsie I was referring to was strictly metaphorical.

HP, you should make it your outgoing message on your voicemail.

Posted May 21, 2006 12:33 AM by Xopher

I can name that song in zero notes.

As soon as I logged onto the front page and saw the apostrophe in the title, I said, hmm, Beatles open threads two in a row.

Posted May 21, 2006 12:35 AM by Jeffrey Smith

Is anyone here old enough to have seen Tom Corbett? Or Rocky Jones? Or the Video Ranger?

I have some 1950ish Flash Gordon adventures on dollar-store DVD; they were filmed (in West Berlin!) and so survived better than the the domestic live shows.

Apparently, there's a vigorous fan base, and they have conventions:

http://www.solarguard.com/2006sgreunion/index.html

Posted May 21, 2006 12:41 AM by Stefan Jones

From the LA Times obit: At his request, Thomas was buried Tuesday in his "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet" costume.

Posted May 21, 2006 12:53 AM by Lizzy L

Stefan: No, I'm not quite that old, though I had some Tom Corbett books when I was . . . young enough not to yet know who Robert Heinlein was. (I found out pretty soon thereafter.) The stuff warps you (and sometimes makes you a weftist), just like Ole Doc Wertham said.

A number of years ago, Minneapolis had a station that ran nothing but "classic" TV, and they had some of the German-made Flash Gordons. I recall an odd episode where they go back in time to postwar Berlin . . . and have scenes in, well, postwar Berlin.

And when the Skiffy Channel was brand new, and still hunting around for programming, they had a late-Friday block of vintage SF video, including "Tales of Tomorrow" and "X Minus 1" (which had also been a radio show). Now, of course, they offer serious and important films like Cheap CGI Mutant Lizardy-Buggish-Penguinoid Thingies Eat Actors You Wouldn't Care About If You Knew Their Names, Featuring Rutger Hauer For Five Minutes In His Standard Black Trenchcoat.

Posted May 21, 2006 1:07 AM by John M. Ford

". . . and have scenes in, well, postwar Berlin."

Saw it! The episode is on one of my Dollar Tree DVD sets.

There was a brief shot of the heroic trio driving past a thoroughly smashed Reichstag in a jeep.

I have a postcard from Bruce Sterling showing the building all tidied up with a glowing dome on top; quite a contrast!

For the most part, the TV Flash Gordons were dull, dull, dull.

Posted May 21, 2006 1:15 AM by Stefan Jones

Oh, Mike, you youngster!

Of the old tv shows Stefan mentioned, I only saw Rocky Jones. It was shown here very early Saturday morning (6 or 7 am), but I would wake up and go downstairs and put the tv on very quietly, because I was the only one awake.

I had the Tom Corbett books, too, because they were published by Grosset & Dunlap like the Tom Swift Jr. and Hardy Boys ones, and that made it easy for my family to buy them for me. (And Rick Blaine, Science Inventor. And somebody-or-other a multi-sports star. And who knows how many more I've forgotten?) I read Heinlein out of the library, but they weren't the same kinds of books so there were never any of those on birthdays and Christmas. (I got the G&D series until I requested Edgar Rice Burroughs paperbacks instead; I had to provide a list of those that I needed every year.)

I really only remember one Tom Corbett book, a sports book -- the game was a sort of soccer or something in zero-g with a pool of mercury inside the ball that unbalanced it and made it very hard to direct.

Posted May 21, 2006 1:32 AM by Jeffrey Smith

Erik V. Olson,

I'll match your 2 grams of cesium, and raise you one
tender biting old man.

(via http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/51711)

Posted May 21, 2006 1:47 AM by Sebastien Bailard

TNH: Something else, indeed.

Before coffee, my brain cell was suggesting posting it to the my-city's-more-multicultural-than-X thread (see why I don't post before coffee?), as an example of what happens When Multicultural Policies Go Horribly, Horribly Wrong. I mean, ya let the dern rubberforeheaded aliens in, and suddenly, look what happens to a beloved cultural institution.

It'll be Killer Robots From Venus next, you mark my words.

Posted May 21, 2006 1:48 AM by Vian

"Rick Blaine, Science Inventor. And somebody-or-other a multi-sports star."

That would actually be Rick Brant, authored by John Blaine. He lived on Spindrift Island with his adopted brother Scotty. His father was a scientist for a government agency, as I recall. Here's a website: Rick Brant.com.

The multi-sports star was undoubtedly Chip Hilton, written by Claire Bee (an inductee into the Basketball Hall of Fame...he was an outstanding roundball coach). Chip was a latter-day Jack Armstrong.

Posted May 21, 2006 1:51 AM by Linkmeister

Here's something gloomy to go along with John's poem.

A spaceship-on-wheels that once made shopping center appearances to promote Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, now falling apart in a junk yard:

http://www.solarguard.com/silvercuprk02.htm

Posted May 21, 2006 1:56 AM by Stefan Jones

Is anyone here old enough to have seen Tom Corbett? Or Rocky Jones? Or the Video Ranger?

Raises hand. The Video Ranger (Don Hastings) was a neighbor of my aunt in Glen Cove, NY. He used to come over to shoot pool in her basement bar.

I saved my box tops and sent in for most of this stuff and brought one of these in, one day for First Grade show and tell.

As I wrote Craig Miller, the other day, this was one of the first 45s in my record collection -- at age 8 or 9.

Um, to infinity and beyond!

Posted May 21, 2006 2:08 AM by Lenny Bailes

"Rick Blaine, Science Inventor."

That would actually be Rick Brant, authored by John Blaine.

Thanks, Link. I'm astonished I got that close!

Posted May 21, 2006 2:14 AM by Jeffrey Smith

Jeff, I went searching for those books once via Google, trying to remember the author's name. That's why it stuck in my head. I owned the first 20 or so; they were published in color hardbound editions (I don't know what that style is called; no doubt the professionals here do). The Hilton books had regular book jackets; I think I owned 5-6 of those.

Posted May 21, 2006 2:50 AM by Linkmeister

True, it did have a character with the same name as yours truly. Quite a rare occurence. I think the last time was for Bronson Pinchot's hairdresser character in Beverly Hills Cop.

Well, there was Edina Monsoon's son in Absolutely Fabulous, but you never saw him. He was always in some remote location doing some kind of research, like collecting lava samples in the Arctic. So her daughter would always get lines like, "...and yes, I faxed the volcano."

Posted May 21, 2006 3:19 AM by hamletta

My parents, when I was about 10 or 12 (so the mid-70s) one day presented me with three hardcover Tom Corbett novels. I'd never heard of the TV show, etc, but I devoured those three books countless times. And like Mike Ford, I found my way to Heinlein very shortly after that when a friend of my dad gave me this humongous box chock full of classic sf novels, including a then-complete set of Heinlein, Burroughs, lots of Asimov, some Clarke, and many many more. Instant library. It took me a long time to come up for air.

I, too, was saddened to hear that Mr Thomas passed away. Was looking forward to meeting him in LA this year.

Posted May 21, 2006 3:24 AM by Adrian Bedford

Lordi are definitely the standouts of Eurovision. Win or not, they were so different from the mass of processed music product that everyone else seemed to be supplying.

And ephebephilia seems to be alive and well, as least as an illusion, in the pop music business.

Next time we have to have fake schoolgirls in a British entry, can we at least try for the St Trinians Hockey Team Cheerleader Squad Pz.Abt?

Posted May 21, 2006 4:13 AM by Dave Bell

I caught a clip of the Eurovision winners last night, but thought it was a trailer for next week's Doctor Who.

Posted May 21, 2006 5:11 AM by Glenn Harrison

Captain Video was the program, and the main character. IIRC, it was on the old Dumont network, the same one that gave us The Honeymooners. The Video Ranger was a younger guy, the Captain's assistant/sidekick. Don Hastings, who played him, last I heard was still on one of the afternoon soap operas. (I forget which.) My mom had a bit of a crush on him from the Captain Video days, and followed his career a bit even though it wasn't one of her regular soaps.

Rocky Jones, now, is the one I have the most fond memories of: my cousin, my next-younger sister, and I loved that show so much that we used to *play* Rocky Jones when we were little. (Ages about 4, 2, and 3, give or take a year. I'm the one in the middle age-wise.) We would use a laundry basket or two as our "spaceship" and the drawer handles on the dining-room buffet as our "control panel".

Posted May 21, 2006 5:32 AM by Lois Aleta Fundis

First name, last name, and I get to be a fictional murdered minister. Peter Lorre killed me! Needless to say, it is my favorite piece of audio in the whole wide world.

Simon R. Green has a habit of killing me off in his Deathstalker novels. But they are not, nevertheless, my favourite pieces of fiction in the whole wide world.

Posted May 21, 2006 6:42 AM by Dave Langford

It seems like good contemporary sf writing is full of references and in-jokes. I've just noticed a building called Langford Towers in Peter F. Hamilton's "Judas Unchained" (and it's no coincidence I spotted that one!), and Alastair Reynolds made me laugh out loud by having a major faction descended from Slashdot users in "Century Rain".

Posted May 21, 2006 7:21 AM by Glenn Harrison

Inside jokes in SF have a long history, sufficiently so that naming characters after particular people has a label: Tuckerization, after Wilson (Bob) Tucker. Well before the term was coined, various Weird Tales writers killed each other off in gruesome fictional ways.

Uh, well, yes, of course, but if I explained them all, what would be the point? And Chris Claremont's done it to me twice, in an issue of Excalibur and a Star Trek graphic novel. [Note to self: return favor soonest. Unstable molecular sushi?]

Posted May 21, 2006 7:58 AM by John M. Ford

Sure, Beatles '65 was an album--an album with cheesy phony stereo. When I first saw the publicity for that box set Patrick linked to, I thought to myself, "Man! Beatles completists are even stupider than Deadheads!"

Posted May 21, 2006 8:14 AM by adamsj

If I ever decide to ruin my life by writing a science-fiction novel, it's likely to be the true story of Double Star from Dak Broadbent's point of view, and I'm hoping to explain the Doc Scortia/Doc Capek anomaly in five hundred words or less.

Posted May 21, 2006 8:19 AM by adamsj

LS/MFT! (Lucky Stiffs -- Mike Ford Time)

I only saw Rocky Jones on MST3K, which wouldn't count. I think Teresa was on the team (the Brave Underdogs, changed on us to Defiant Losers, and eventually Egyptian Air Force) when I was in a trivia bowl at Penulticon. Gordon Garb asked the question, "Who was the hero of the 50s TV show, 'Jet Jackson, Space Cadet'?" and I looked around briefly, slammed down the soda can which was my ring-in, then felt horrible qualms of having been tricked when Gordon turned to me with an evil smile and said "yes-s-s?"

In tiny type, I said "Jet J-Jackson? Space Cadet?"

There was a dreadful silence before Garb smiled and said "Correct!" My autonomic processes quietly restarted. We had gained a point!

(In fact, we won. That's why I'm pretty sure Teresa was on the team.)

Posted May 21, 2006 8:55 AM by Kip W

I saw a claim, elsenet, that US TV were going to do their own Eurovision Song Contest, and I though, "That's going to be a short programme." But then it occurred to me that they could have an entry from each State.

Well, as long as Utah doesn't enter the Mormon Tabernacle Choir every year...

But are there any other cheap jokes about possible musical styles in such a sompetition?

Posted May 21, 2006 9:17 AM by Dave Bell

SF and inside jokes... I seem to remember a Diane Duane Trek novel circa 1984 which had a female character named Keravus. I understand that this is the Latin for 'Cherry'. Yes, as in C.J.Cherryh...

Were there any such inside jokes in Mike's The Final Reflection?

Posted May 21, 2006 10:06 AM by Serge

SF and inside jokes... I seem to remember a Diane Duane Trek novel circa 1984 which had a female character named Keravus. I understand that this is the Latin for 'Cherry'. Yes, as in C.J.Cherryh...

Posted May 21, 2006 11:07 AM by Dan Blum

I seem to remember that even Doctor Who is referenced in Duane's Trek novels... my admittedly foggy memory dredges up something about a hologram of the TARDIS on the rec deck in "My Enemy, My Ally".
It's been a long time since I read that... I think my copy might still be up in the attic, along with "The Final Reflection". Maybe it's a good time to revisit them, I haven't opened a Trek novel in some years!

Posted May 21, 2006 11:11 AM by Glenn Harrison

"Sure, Beatles '65 was an album--an album with cheesy phony stereo. When I first saw the publicity for that box set Patrick linked to, I thought to myself, 'Man! Beatles completists are even stupider than Deadheads!'"

Well, completism often has its goofy side, but what are you gonna do? However, it's dead wrong to claim that the Capitol versions of the Beatles' early catalog--recently re-released on CD as a pair of boxed sets--are entirely composed of "fake stereo." Just looking at Beatles '65, included in the first boxed set, the only "duophonic" mixes in the stereo section are "She's a Woman" and "I Feel Fine." The rest are true stereo just like their British releases. In fact Capitol only made what they called "duophonic" mixes when EMI didn't give them stereo mixes; which is to say, for many of the songs which were released as singles, since at the time, the convention in the UK was for LPs to be released in stereo and 45-rpm singles to be mono. What's really different is the overall sonic mix; catering to what it perceived to be American taste, Capitol tended to pour on lots more reverb than Parlophone/EMI, and those reverb-laden versions are the sound of the early Beatles for some of us of a certain age. (I've heard that, in some cases, Capitol even went so far as to add even more reverb to copies shipped to the East Coast. I don't know if that's true. Paging Danny Caccavo, white Beatles phone please.)

What's also different is that, leaving aside a couple of well-documented goofs, these Capitol boxed sets represent a far better job of getting the early Beatles' sound onto CD than the canonical EMI CDs do. As Bruce Spizer points out in this brief and highly informative article about the recent Capitol re-releases, the EMI CDs--the ones you see in every record store in the world, based on the British vinyl releases--were mastered for CD many years ago when the problems of accurately porting recordings to the new compact-disk platform were nowhere near as well-understood as they are today.

These albums have not been upgraded although mastering techniques and technology have improved significantly in the two decades that have passed. While some people believe that the British vinyl albums of the sixties sound better than the Capitol albums, even so-called purists would be hard pressed to argue that the British CDs from 1987 sound better than the discs in the Capitol box sets. That fact of the matter is that they sound flat and lifeless when compared to the Capitol discs. Until the standard Beatles catalog is remastered and released on CD, the Capitol discs are the best way to listen to the Beatles recordings from 1964 and 1965.

As for whether it's "stupid" to care about stuff like this, surely nobody in this conversation would actually care to argue that nobody should take a detailed interest in the history of great popular music, since that would be, in fact, kind of stupid.

Posted May 21, 2006 11:12 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

You should hear Patrick and Danny Caccavo when they get going on this stuff. Patrick, who is looking over my shoulder as I type (hello dear, don't do that), says that compared to Danny Caccavo, he hardly knows anything.

Posted May 21, 2006 11:29 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Dan Blum... Kerasus, not Keravus. I should have know that, since the French word for 'cherry' is 'cerise'. Anyway, I think I had asked C.J.Cherryh about whether or not that was supposed to be her in that Duane movel, and her response was yes and also that she'd return fire by having a big sentient worm named after Duane. I don't remember that she ever followed on that threat.

Posted May 21, 2006 11:43 AM by Serge

Heck, Patrick, I don't think it's stupid to think about it and discuss it--doing it right now, ain't I?--but when I listen to the Beatles, I'd prefer to hear what they were trying to produce, not what someone else somewhere else thought someone else somewhere else wanted. I understand nostalgia, like patriotism, is the love of the reverb one heard in one's youth (if I ever catch the bastard who stole my reverb unit, send money for my bail), but my formative years were spent hunting mono Kinks LPs.

Didn't ever find but one, either, damn the luck.

Posted May 21, 2006 11:46 AM by adamsj

"but when I listen to the Beatles, I'd prefer to hear what they were trying to produce"

Sure, but the fact is, the current state of the "canonical" CDs doesn't provide much more of an accurate reflection of The Artists' Original Intent than the re-released Capitol compilations do. In point of fact, until the (supposedly in progress) Great Remastering is released, if you really want to "hear what they were trying to produce," you'll do best to skip the existing EMI CDs and listen to old vinyl instead.

And even that won't get you all the way to "original intent." For another example, look at Sgt Pepper. According to Mark Lewisohn, it took 700 hours of recording time, and the group took an intense, hands-on approach to compiling the mono mix. Session logs for all of the songs conclude with the mono mix being finalized, often with hours of work, with all four group members present. The stereo mix was delegated to others, who spent a total of 10 hours on it. George Harrison stated repeatedly in later years that they regarded the mono mix as the work they intended. According to people I know who've heard it, it's noticeably different and sonically superior. (I've never heard it.) But it hasn't been for sale from EMI since the late 1960s, and it's never been available on CD. The "canonical" CD is the stereo mix, the one the band didn't care about enough to be present for.

The current state of the catalog is full of arbitrariness, bad choices, and unfixed accidents. The virtue of the Capitol boxed sets is (1) they sound better and (2) their arbitrarinesses and bad choices are better-documented.

Posted May 21, 2006 12:19 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Another inside joke... John Hemry's JAG-in-space novels, had among the ship's crew one Kowalsky. I asked him if this was a reference to who I thought it was, and he said yes and no. His prime motivation was that he wanted the crew to have at least one 'sky'-suffixed character because every Navy ship has to have at least one. THEN he decided to name him after the Seaview's Kowalsky. Luckily, Hemry's Kowalsky didn't have the tendency to have his skull be the target of blunt objects like the Seaview's did.

Posted May 21, 2006 12:20 PM by Serge

Now I'm feeling bad about being better set up to play an eight-track than an elpee, to say nothing of not having enough copies of corresponding vinyl releases to compare and play on a lazy Sunday afternoon in nineteen hundred and...oh, sorry.

Posted May 21, 2006 12:55 PM by adamsj

Well, I'm now revisiting feelings of bitterness toward the miserable so-and-so(s) who swiped several of my early vinyl Beatles albums during multiple moves in the 60s and 70s. Rubber Soul, gone; Sgt. Peppers, gone; Magical Mystery Tour, Help!, A Hard Day's Night, gone. It's worse because I'm trying to rehab my Pioneer turntable, purchased in 1973, just to avail myself of my ~300-album collection.

Posted May 21, 2006 1:55 PM by Linkmeister

Stefan Jones: [a] spaceship-on-wheels that once made shopping center appearances
to promote Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, now falling apart in a junk yard [..]

Thanks for the link!
The whole 'Solar Guard' site was interesting to browse
( you gave a link to a convention page in one of your other posts ).
Frankie Thomas is discussed on the home page,
with a link to a memorial page.

I found a model of one of those promotional spaceships
( that is, the 'truck and spaceship trailer' )
about 3/4 of the way down on this page.

SJ: Is anyone here old enough to have seen Tom Corbett?
Or Rocky Jones? Or the Video Ranger?

Not old enough to have seen any of these in their first runs.
But in the 80's, USA Network ran a two-hour block they called Night Flight,
which played episodes of 'Tom Corbett - Space Cadet', and 'Space Patrol'.

I had taped some of these ( on beta ), and reviewed them with friends.
At the time, we were uncertain whether 'Space Patrol' had ever been a real program,
or if it were a fiendishly clever pastiche of 1950's sci-fi.

There had been some interesting animation
and video features which they ran on Night Flight;
Ed Emshwiller's Sunstone animation was featured once.

Fireside Theater's J-Men Forever
( a sort of 'What Up Tiger Lily' constructed out of Republic serials )
was a regular favorite in that programming block.

John M. Ford: [..] when the Skiffy Channel was brand new,
and still hunting around for programming,
they had a late-Friday block of vintage SF video,
including "Tales of Tomorrow" and "X Minus 1" [..]

I had taped some of these, too ( on VHS ).

I think I still have this tape.

A helpful hint: if the humidity in your environment is not controlled,
your video tapes can get moldy.

Jeffrey Smith: I had the Tom Corbett books, too,
because they were published by Grosset & Dunlap
like the Tom Swift Jr. and Hardy Boys ones,
and that made it easy for my family to buy them for me.

I had a few of the Tom Corbett books, pretty much for the same reason;
even though it had been a couple of decades since the series ran on television.
Treasured because it was SF, before I was able to buy my own.

I recall Willy Ley was credited as a technical advisor,
and I had seen him also listed as a contributor
to one of the Time|Life science books ( Man and Space? ).

Posted May 21, 2006 2:23 PM by Rob Rusick

Patrick Nielsen Hayden: The current state of the catalog is full of arbitrariness,
bad choices, and unfixed accidents.

Is this something Michael Jackson bears some responsibility for?
Or did he improve the situation in anyway?

Posted May 21, 2006 2:25 PM by Rob Rusick

To diverge from the Beatles discussion a bit:

There is a fine fine fine snarky review of The Da Vinci Code movie at the N.Y. Times. Old hat to some here, I'm sure, but those who missed it may wish to read it at A 'Da Vinci Code' That Takes Longer to Watch Than Read

Initial snark salvo from first paragraph, "'The Da Vinci Code,' Ron Howard's adaptation of Dan Brown's best-selling primer on how not to write an English sentence, arrives trailing more than its share of theological and historical disputation."

Posted May 21, 2006 2:39 PM by Clifton Royston

Speaking of old SF shows on TV... Does anybody remember Men into Space? Calling it SF is a bit of a misnomer as it was attempting to show a realistic pre-NASA exploration of our solar system. The only time I can remember where the show gave me a science-fiction frisson was one episode where the ship's crew took a closer look at an asteroid, and they realized that some really old tech was embedded into it,

Posted May 21, 2006 2:54 PM by Serge

Another jumping-off point...

I dunno. As sad as the thought might be that the spaceship on wheels sits unwanted in a junkyard, something about the pictures -- the nose of the spaceship poking out next to the rusty truck, the decay of the futuristic dials inside -- appeals to whatever artist's-eye I posess. What does happen to old spacecraft when they can't fly any more, anyway? (In the Firefly episode "Ariel," Kaylee and Wash go to the Ariel City dumpyard to find a broken hospital vehicle, and there's at least one broken-down spaceship there. There are probably other such depictions in the history of SF, though they don't come immediately to mind.)

I wish that kind of decay was shown more in science fiction movies and television. For that matter, I wish any kind of gritty space opera in the tradition of Firefly was around today. Even the "sanitized for your protection" Star Trek-spinoffs seem to have fallen on hard times. I wonder why that is? Dystopia seems to still be popular -- witness The Matrix, X-Men, the forthcoming A Scanner Darkly... Real, commercial space-travel seems closer and closer to hand. It's not as though space travel or a science fictional setting inhibits the paranoia plots of shows like 24 and Alias that seem so popular lately. So why no space-ships in popular media fiction? Why are the modern science fictional heroes of popular culture all planet-siders?

(I've been writing a paper on Firefly for a class, and it's sent me into mourning all over again.)

And dammit, Mr. Ford, that's wonderful, and it needs to be set to music if it hasn't been already.

Posted May 21, 2006 5:24 PM by Kevin Riggle

Serge:

Could you be thinking of the Disney space-documentary productions?

I got the "Tomorrowland" DVD set a few years back. In the moon-flyby episode, the crew drops flares as the zip past the "dark side." One flare briefly illuminates a ruin of some sort. There's no mention of it in the narration . . . just a brief visual blip.

I was pretty impressed by these Disney futurhoiddic productions. They did a good job explaining the science and used believable technology.

* * *

Ah, J-Men Forever! What a total blast. A few friends have second-generation copies.

Night Flight also showed humorously dubbed episodes of a live-action japanese kiddie show that was later adapted for American TV as the Power Rangers.

Posted May 21, 2006 5:31 PM by Stefan Jones

"I wish that kind of decay was shown more in science fiction movies and television."

There isn't enough already?

That kind of thing is so easy to go overboard with. You end up with starcraft equipped at the shipyard with flickering lights and hallway fog generators, and starports overrun with mohawked thugs, smugglers, and lady mercenaries . . . etcetera, etcetera.

There have been a few relatively "straight" SF TV shows ("War of the Worlds," the about a big research sub . . . something DSV?) that were made more edgy and young-male-demographic-friendly after a season or two.

"Firefly" was an interesting mix. Tidy high-tech worlds and gritty frontier worlds.

Posted May 21, 2006 5:40 PM by Stefan Jones

No, Stefan. I do remember those Disney documentaries and loved them in those pre-Apollo days, but what I saw was a weekly series. Its look, if I remember correctly something from 40 years ago, was very similar to Disney's ships and stuff. As for the title, I said earlier that it was Men into Space, but I'm not sure although I do think it was something very close to that. (And the title was truth in advertising because I don't remember that the series had a single woman make it into space.)

Posted May 21, 2006 5:41 PM by Serge

Stefan: "Men Into Space" was from ZIV, Ivan Tors's company, and came along right after their "Science Fiction Theater." I probably saw more than one of the Disney films at school, but the only one I remember is "Eyes in Outer Space," which starts as a remarkably dull history of orbital satellites, but then suddenly shifts gears to a great-looking skiffy yarn about a weather control agency using all sorts of cool tech to steer a hurricane away from the Eastern seaboard. (In a slightly surprising nod to the realities of the weather, this inadvertently creates a big damn central low that drenches Oklahoma.) This does involve satellites (including a crewed station that points cameras at the storm) but it's pretty clear that the Disney crew really just wanted to give the kids a present for having endured the fiendish Didactotron beams.

. . . it needs to be set to music if it hasn't been already.

The track you want is Richard Thompson's "Al Bowlly's in Heaven."

Posted May 21, 2006 6:12 PM by John M. Ford

Thanks, Mike. I was outside since my earlier post about Men into Space, doing yardwork, and thinking that if there once was such a show, Mike would be the one who could confirm. I think footage from that show appeared every once in a while in the old Outer Limits, whenever it involved something set in space. (One that comes to mind is the one where evil flowers throw puffed rice at people, thus causing their death.)

Posted May 21, 2006 6:44 PM by Serge

About the Disney films, Mike... There was one about an expedition to Mars, with a whole fleet of saucer-shaped ships. The one image I remember is that at night, some crystal towers would naturally rise from the Martian soil, and collapse when the day came.

Posted May 21, 2006 7:23 PM by Serge

Thanks, Patrick, for the links about the Capital versions CD releases. I knew that was coming, and then forgot about it. My husband used to be a major Beatles researcher, but I'm afraid he stopped keeping up on the subject once Lewisohn and others got pretty much every recording nailed down as to date, personnnel, etc.

Beatles '65 is one of the records I used to put on the P.A. at a skating rink in Dewitt, NY, circa 1968. (Yes, they let the customers do this, even fifth graders.) Having listened to these songs on cheap stereos for so many years, I'm still sometimes amazed to listen on an iPod, and hear the subtleties of the recordings for almost the first time.

Are you familiar with OOPS (Out of Phase Stereo)? This was a little wiring trick mentioned in a Goldmine article in the early 1980s. The idea was to rewire a turntable in such a way that (IIRC) everything that was in both tracks canceled itself out, so that the elements that were buried in the mix could be heard. The main example in the article was Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, in which John says "Arm! Leg!" when Desmond lets the children lend a hand. In the next verse, when Molly does the same, John says, "Foot!" These can actually be heard on decent headphones even without OOPS, but I doubt that anyone can hear John's "Home. H-O-M-E," wihout OOPS. I've often wondered, since the advent of CDs, whether OOPS can be done with modern home equipment.

Posted May 21, 2006 8:00 PM by Karen Funk Blocher

"I wish that kind of decay was shown more in science fiction movies and television."

There isn't enough already?

That kind of thing is so easy to go overboard with. You end up with starcraft equipped at the shipyard with flickering lights and hallway fog generators, and starports overrun with mohawked thugs, smugglers, and lady mercenaries . . . etcetera, etcetera.

I don't know. That sounds kind of interesting. There have been very few William-Gibson-meets-Star-Trek TV shows made. Maybe none. The movies have done better at dystopia, but very few movies made in the mold of Blade Runner are space opera. (Besides, coming up with a SFnal reason for equipping starcraft with fog generators would be great fun... ;-) I'm totally the young-male demographic, so maybe I'll appreciate "straight SF TV shows" more in a decade or two. (Hmm... a TV show based off the world of Michael Swanwick's Vacuum Flowers... That could get interesting.)

I don't really want shows which depict decay to wallow in it -- decay for decay's sake. I'd like a healthy mix of utopia and dystopia. I just got tired of the utopia of the Star Trek spinoffs, and I didn't get enough of Firefly to make me long for the Prime Directive again.

And I think the show you're thinking of is