Breaking Down "Breaking Bad" Filming Locations with Adam and Billy - Episode 1

I'm just getting around to Adam Ramirez's and William Dickey's ten-year retrospective series of videos on "Breaking Bad." There were several of us filming-location hunters, each looking for their own special nirvana among the junk yards and fast food joints in the South Valley and elsewhere, but I thought Adam and Bill made the best location-hunting team, not just because they worked so hard, but because they were so LUCKY! Doors opened for them that were closed to everyone else. And luck doesn't just happen - it's a skill too. And they had it! 

From 39:00 to 44:00 they discussed my role, which was to consult my Albuquerque geographic instinct from afar, plus consult Google Earth, and home in on locations (with the valuable help of Sven Joli in Virginia). Adam and Bill discuss one particularly-obscure location, and I wanted to discuss that one: a row of condos. 

The location sits on western bluffs above the Rio Grande. When I was attending West Mesa High School I had a friend who lived about half a mile north of there. Particularly in the years 1972-73 (ages 15-16), I would frequently visit the general neighborhood. Among other things, my friend had built a hang glider, and (with considerable risk) was trying to get the overbuilt thing airborne. At some point, I likely passed by the condos - and remembered them. 

So later, in the 2010-11 timeframe, more than 37 years later, when I was trying to find that obscure filming location, I remembered.... 

It's interesting. Even though I moved from Albuquerque at the age of 23, I still have that instinct. I've lived in Sacramento now for 33 years, but I haven't developed that instinct for there yet. Childhood is a special time. 

Watch Adam and Bill's series!

 

Catastrophe Near Acapulco

But communications are out so the scale of the disaster is unknown. Hurricane Otis blew up too fast for people to prepare:

The hurricane’s intensification was among the fastest forecasters have ever seen: its top-end windspeed increased by 115 mph in 24 hours. Only one other storm, Hurricane Patricia in 2015, exceeded Otis’ rapid intensification in East Pacific records, with a 120-mph increase in 24 hours.

The term rapid intensification refers to when a storm’s winds strengthen rapidly over a short amount of time. Scientists have defined it as a wind speed increase of at least 35 mph in 24 hours or less, and it generally requires significant ocean heat. The National Hurricane Center said Otis strengthened so fast on Tuesday that it had “explosively intensified.”

Otis “took full advantage of a warm patch of ocean” that was roughly 88 degrees Fahrenheit, said Brian McNoldy, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Miami – more than enough ocean heat to fuel a monster storm.

...Otis’ strengthening “was extremely unusual,” McNoldy told CNN. “It’s unfortunate it happened right before making landfall, but if this had occurred over the open ocean, it still would have been very remarkable.”

Tropical storms usually take several days to grow into powerful hurricanes, but with human-caused climate change, rapid intensification is becoming a more common occurrence, said Suzana Camargo, hurricane expert and professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” Movie

On Saturday, I saw Taylor Swift's Eras Tour movie. I'm not a Swiftie, but I had previously thought her "Love Story" was the best-crafted pop tune of all time. I liked how she was working with Jeff Bhasker (from Socorro, NM, so basically a hometown boy). I worried about the lyrics of her various songs (maybe showing mental disturbance). A little scary. Still, in general, I was favorably disposed to her. Clearly incredibly talented. 

My first impression was that her concert was strange. I thought her style of music was better-suited for a more-intimate setting, not for a huge space. At the same time I was amazed by the concert technology. The technology gives you lots of options (like effectively-using a huge space for music that might not otherwise be best-suited). 

The choreography was strange too, with Taylor and her dancers striding in unison. Reminded me of high school: Taylor and her friends, heading in unison to the cafeteria at lunchtime. Mandy Moore ("La La Land") was apparently chief choreographer. 

What a good concert! (Or the best parts of several concerts at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA). There were several teenage girls seated near me. The closest girl seemed unmoved by the concert (maybe a Goth sensibility, or just reserved?), but her two friends were singing all the songs and dancing when the spirit moved them. 

On Sunday, I talked with a woman whose Swiftie daughter attended two of the concerts, including spending one evening at stage side. Not only did she get some of the best videos ever, which she can match exactly with the movie, but she was featured in an audience-reaction shot for a full five seconds of the movie (Birthday Girl). Girls she hasn't talked to since elementary school are getting in touch! Life-changing stuff. This woman filled me in a bit on the fandom, in particular, with the friendship bracelets. No question, Taylor Swift takes her fans seriously! 

Here is more on SoFi Stadium - the unsung hero of the movie:

“It’s becoming an identifiable place for music globally,” said Christy Castillo Butcher, SoFi Stadium’s senior vice president of programming and booking. “The shots filmmakers can achieve here are gorgeous. It becomes another character in these films.”

...“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” will easily place among the year’s top grossing films. One guest at Swift’s doc premiere at the Grove last week? Beyoncé, who will debut her own “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé” on Dec. 1.

...The still-gleaming SoFi doesn’t have the same mystery of a Colorado sandstone crevasse, nor is it a technological marvel like the newly opened Sphere in Las Vegas. But when SoFi debuted to the public in 2020, fans noticed the surprising intimacy of it, as far as 70,000-capacity stadiums go. The main floor is built well below ground, and the vertical rake of the seats puts more fans closer to the action. The semi-enclosed roof adds some punctuation to the scene. If you’re a performer, it creates more of a wall of bodies than a sea of them.

For a filmmaker trying to lend intimacy to the biggest pop shows on the planet, that’s an invaluable asset.

“There is a thoughtfulness at SoFi that really added architectural texture and class to the world of our film,” said Micah Bickham, director of “The Weeknd: Live at SoFi Stadium.” “Rather than at an older stadium with a tremendous first section, SoFi has all these different levels; it’s more of a cascading effect where the camera’s almost climbing a wall.”

Kiwi Hobbies Can Spread Quickly

Watch out!:

Residents of the small coastal city of Porirua, New Zealand, are asking local music geeks to think twice about blasting Celine Dion hits from bullhorns at earsplitting levels in the middle of the night, according to reports.

Dubbing themselves the Siren Kings, groups of people strap multiple massive speakers to their cars and blare music ranging from reggae to Dion classics including “My Heart Will Go On,” robbing residents of sleep. The goal is reportedly to see whose music broadcasts the loudest and clearest. 

While some people in the 62,000-population city outside of Wellington are fine with the music itself, they wish the dueling would stop so that their sleep will go on. Recently residents petitioned Porirua’s city council to do something, anything.

Disco Came and Disco Went

I remember the 70s as a glorious time, with the musical beat accelerating as the years passed. I adopted disco music as my favorite, so I was crushed when people dropped it like a hot potato. Then a funny thing happened. The music was back in two years, led by Michael Jackson, but by universal agreement no one called it disco anymore. The music morphed into House and EDM, and thrives today in many guises. 

My favorite disco memory was dancing away in a club in 1979 when someone stepped on the back of my foot. I figured I was dancing too close to the person behind me, so I started dancing across the floor. To my surprise, the pain on the back of my foot only intensified. I finally looked down and was shocked. The woman behind me had stepped into my shoe, with the thin needle of her stiletto fitting snugly between my sock and the inside of my shoe. As I started shuffling across the floor I wrenched her shoe off her foot and she came limping angrily after. I tried to present her shoe to her a la Cinderella, but she wasn’t interested.

But for a few flashy years in the 1970s, disco was the dominant force in the entertainment and nightclub scenes, with Dingbat’s, Bistro, Faces and dozens of other clubs dotting the Chicago area, mirrored balls spinning over packed dance floors.

The program argues persuasively that disco was born of a time — ”a decade of fear” — in a country suffering soaring unemployment, rising gas prices, factory closures and other ills. At the same time, Black Americans, Latinos, women and gay people were eager to have recognition and cultural prominence. Disco represented a liberation of sorts, offering freewheeling oases where the marginalized could express their energies. The beats were catchy, the lyrics fervent and the scene flamboyant. Discos were places of self-expression, relatively safe and undeniably lively. They sprouted across the land.

And the scene skyrocketed when John Travolta hit the sidewalks, dance floors and movie screens in 1977′s “Saturday Night Fever.” That same year the famous Studio 54 opened in New York City.

By then, disco was firmly mainstream, with almost half the radio stations in the U.S. playing the music. But not WLUP-FM and its leading disc jockeys, Steve Dahl and Garry Meier. Dahl had come to that station only months before, fired from his former radio home at WDAI-FM, when it went all disco all the time. Proudly anti-disco, Dahl was paired with like-minded Meier and the pair concocted a promotional event as a way for listeners to express their distaste for disco.

Bone

I’ve been apprehensive ever since Saturday night. I gave Jasper a bit of rib from a flanken-style steak, thinking he could chew on it. Instead, he swallowed it whole. Could he pass such a large object? 

Jasper remained healthy, to my bafflement. Tonight, I discovered the bone remnant in my bed (with a quarter for comparison). Jasper threw it up at some point. To which I say, thank goodness!