Bellhop
A bellhop or hotel porter is a hotel porter, who helps patrons with their luggage while checking in or out. Bellhops wear a uniform, like certain other page boys or doormen; this occupation is called bellman and bellboy in North America. The job's name is derived from the fact that the hotel's front desk clerk rang a bell to summon an employee, who would "hop" to attention at the desk to receive instructions; the term "porter" is used in much of the English-speaking world. "Bellboy" or "bellhop" is an American English term. This employee traditionally was a boy or adolescent male, hence the term bellboy. Today's bellhops must be quick-witted, good with people, outgoing. Bellhops will meet a variety of different people each day and must have the social skills to deal with them. Duties include opening the front door, moving luggage, valeting cars, calling cabs, transporting guests, giving directions, performing basic concierge work, responding to the guest's needs, they must be able to escort guests into their rooms while carrying luggage, or help move any baggage a customer needs.
In many countries, such as the United States, it is customary to tip such an employee for their service. Brandon Flowers, the frontman and primary lyricist of the Las Vegas-based rock band The Killers, served as a bellhop at the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Ted Serios was a Chicago bellboy who gained notoriety in the 1960s by producing "thoughtographs" on Polaroid film, which he claimed were produced using psychic powers. Karl Ernst was a Sturmabteilung Gruppenführer who, in early 1933, was the Sturmabteilung leader in Berlin. Before joining the Nazi Party he had been a bouncer at a gay nightclub; the Belgian comic strip character Spirou was a bellboy. Throughout many of his albums he always wore a red bellhop suit. In stories this was reduced to him just wearing his bellhop cap. In the 1918 comedy short The Bell Boy Roscoe Arbuckle and Buster Keaton play bell boys. In the classic 1955 "I Love Lucy" episode "Hollywood at Last", Bobby the Bellboy, portrayed by Bob Jellison, makes his first appearance.
The Bellboy is a 1960 comedy film starring Jerry Lewis. The 1962 film The Bellboy and the Playgirls features a bellboy; the 1973 song Bell Boy by The Who has the character Jimmy discover that someone he looked up to is now a bell boy. The 1992 film Blame It on the Bellboy features a hapless bellboy. In the 1995 film Four Rooms Tim Roth plays a bellhop; the 1997 film Tower of Terror The ghost bellhop "Dewey Todd Jr." is portrayed by John Franklin The 2014 film The Grand Budapest Hotel The Lobby Boy "Zero Moustafa." is portrayed by Tony Revolori Porter Skycap Media related to Bellhops at Wikimedia Commons
San Francisco Chronicle
The San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving the San Francisco Bay Area of the U. S. state of California. It was founded in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The paper is owned by the Hearst Corporation, which bought it from the de Young family in 2000, it is the only major daily paper covering the county of San Francisco. The paper benefited from the growth of San Francisco and was the largest circulation newspaper on the West Coast of the United States by 1880. Like many other newspapers, it has experienced a rapid fall in circulation in the early 21st century, was ranked 24th by circulation nationally for the six months to March 2010; the newspaper publishes two web sites: and sfchronicle.com, which reflects the articles that appear in the print paper, SFGate, which has a mixture of online news and web features. The Chronicle was founded by brothers Charles and M. H. de Young in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle, inside of 10 years, it had the largest circulation of any newspaper west of the Mississippi River.
The paper's first office was in a building at the corner of Kearney Streets. The brothers commissioned a building from Burnham and Root at 690 Market Street at the corner of Third and Kearney Streets to be their new headquarters, in what became known as Newspaper Row; the new building, San Francisco's first skyscraper, was completed in 1889. It was damaged in the 1906 earthquake, but it was rebuilt under the direction of William Polk, Burnham's associate in San Francisco; that building, known as the "Old Chronicle Building" or the "DeYoung Building", still stands and was restored in 2007. It is the location of the Ritz-Carlton Club and Residences. In 1924, the Chronicle commissioned a new headquarters at 901 Mission Street on the corner of 5th Street in what is now the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco, it was designed by Charles Peter Weeks and William Peyton Day in the Gothic Revival architecture style, but most of the Gothic Revival detailing was removed in 1968 when the building was re-clad with stucco.
This building remains the Chronicle's headquarters in 2017, although other concerns are located there as well. Between World War II and 1971, new editor Scott Newhall took a bold and somewhat provocative approach to news presentation. Newhall's Chronicle included investigative reporting by such journalists as Pierre Salinger, who played a prominent role in national politics, Paul Avery, the staffer who pursued the trail of the self-named "Zodiac Killer", who sent a cryptogram in three sections in letters to the Chronicle and two other papers during his murder spree in the late 1960s, it featured such colorful columnists as Pauline Phillips, who wrote under the name "Dear Abby," "Count Marco", Stanton Delaplane, Terence O'Flaherty, Lucius Beebe, Art Hoppe, Charles McCabe, Herb Caen. The newspaper grew in circulation to become the city's largest, overtaking the rival San Francisco Examiner; the demise of other San Francisco dailies through the late 1950s and early 1960s left the Examiner and the Chronicle to battle for circulation and readership superiority.
The competition between the Chronicle and Examiner took a financial toll on both papers until the summer of 1965, when a merger of sorts created a Joint Operating Agreement under which the Chronicle became the city's sole morning daily while the Examiner changed to afternoon publication. The newspapers were owned by the San Francisco Newspaper Agency, which managed sales and distribution for both newspapers and was charged with ensuring that one newspaper's circulation did not grow at the expense of the other. Revenue was split which led to a situation understood to benefit the Examiner, since the Chronicle, which had a circulation four times larger than its rival, subsidized the afternoon newspaper; the two newspapers produced a joint Sunday edition, with the Examiner publishing the news sections and the Sunday magazine and the Chronicle responsible for the tabloid entertainment section and the book review. From 1965 on the two papers shared a single classified-advertising operation; this arrangement stayed in place until the Hearst Corporation took full control of the Chronicle in 2000.
Beginning in the early 1990s, the Chronicle started to face competition beyond the borders of San Francisco. The newspaper had long enjoyed a wide reach as the de facto "newspaper of record" in Northern California, with distribution along the Central Coast, the Inland Empire and as far as Honolulu, Hawaii. There was little competition in the Bay Area suburbs and other areas that the newspaper served, but as Knight Ridder consolidated the San Jose Mercury News in 1975; the Chronicle launched five zoned sections to appear in the Friday edition of the paper. The sections covered San Francisco, four different suburban areas, they each featured enterprise pieces and local news specific to the community. The newspaper added 40 full-time staff positions to work in the suburban bureaus. Despite the push to focus on suburban coverage, the Chronicle was hamstrung by the Sunday edition, being produced by the San Francisco-centric "un-Chronicle" Examiner, had none of the focus on the suburban communities that the Chronicle was striving to cultivate.
The de Young family controlled the paper, via the Chronicle Publishing Company, until July 27, 2000, when it was sold to Hearst Communications, Inc. which owned the Examiner. Following the sale, the
Soundtrack
A soundtrack written sound track, can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, television program, or video game. In movie industry terminology usage, a sound track is an audio recording created or used in film production or post-production; the dialogue, sound effects, music in a film each has its own separate track, these are mixed together to make what is called the composite track, heard in the film. A dubbing track is later created when films are dubbed into another language; this is known as a M & E track containing all sound elements minus dialogue, supplied by the foreign distributor in the native language of its territory. The contraction soundtrack came into public consciousness with the advent of so-called "soundtrack albums" in the late 1940s. First conceived by movie companies as a promotional gimmick for new films, these commercially available recordings were labeled and advertised as "music from the original motion picture soundtrack", or "music from and inspired by the motion picture."
These phrases were soon shortened to just "original motion picture soundtrack." More such recordings are made from a film's music track, because they consist of the isolated music from a film, not the composite track with dialogue and sound effects. The abbreviation OST is used to describe the musical soundtrack on a recorded medium, such as CD, it stands for Original Soundtrack. Types of soundtrack recordings include: Musical film soundtracks are for the film versions of musical theatre; the soundtrack to the 1937 Walt Disney animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first commercially issued film soundtrack. It was released by RCA Victor Records on multiple 78 RPM discs in January 1938 as Songs from Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and has since seen numerous expansions and reissues; the first live-action musical film to have a commercially issued soundtrack album was MGM’s 1946 film biography of Show Boat composer Jerome Kern, Till the Clouds Roll By. The album was issued as a set of four 10-inch 78-rpm records.
Only eight selections from the film were included in this first edition of the album. In order to fit the songs onto the record sides the musical material needed editing and manipulation; this was before tape existed, so the record producer needed to copy segments from the playback discs used on set copy and re-copy them from one disc to another adding transitions and cross-fades until the final master was created. Needless to say, it was several generations removed from the original and the sound quality suffered for it; the playback recordings were purposely recorded "dry". This made these albums boxy. MGM Records called these "original cast albums" in the style of Decca Broadway show cast albums because the material on the discs would not lock to picture, thereby creating the largest distinction between `Original Motion Picture Soundtrack' which, in its strictest sense would contain music that would lock to picture if the home user would play one alongside the other and `Original Cast Soundtrack' which in its strictest sense would refer to studio recordings of film music by the original film cast, but, edited or rearranged for time and content and would not lock to picture.
In reality, soundtrack producers remain ambiguous about this distinction, titles in which the music on the album does lock to picture may be labeled as OCS and music from an album that does not lock to picture may be referred to as OMPS. The phrase "recorded directly from the soundtrack" was used for a while in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s to differentiate material that would lock to picture from that which would not, but again, in part because many'film takes' consisted of several different attempts at the song and edited together to form the master, that term as well became nebulous and vague over time when, in cases where the master take used in the film could not be found in its isolated form, the aforementioned alternate masters and alternate vocal and solo performances which could be located were included in their place; as a result of all this nebulo
John Farley (actor)
John Patrick Farley is an American actor and comedian. Farley was born in Madison, the son of Mary Anne, a housewife, Thomas "Tom" Farley, Sr. who owned an oil company. He was raised in an Irish Catholic family, he is the youngest brother of actors Chris Kevin Farley. He has two children, he majored in marketing in college, graduating in 1992 from Regis University, studied at The Second City in Chicago. He and Kevin work together on projects and tour comedy clubs around the country. Farley has received many roles from Chris's former SNL alums, such as Adam Sandler, David Spade, Rob Schneider, his notable film work includes The Benchwarmers. He has small roles in You Don't Mess with the Zohan, Joe Dirt, Almost Heroes and Extreme Movie, he appears on multiple episodes of Frank TV and in one episode on the sitcom Rules of Engagement. In 2015, Farley appeared in the documentary I Am Chris Farley alongside his brother Kevin and many other stars like Adam Sandler and Dan Aykroyd which documented the life of his brother Chris Farley.
John P. Farley on IMDb
Grappling hook
A grappling hook or grapnel is a device with multiple hooks, attached to a rope. Grappling hooks are used to temporarily secure one end of a rope, they may be used to dredge for submerged objects. Grappling hooks were used in naval warfare to catch ship rigging so that it could be boarded. A common design has a central shaft with a hole at the shaft base to attach the rope, three spaced hooks at the end, arranged so that at least one is to catch on some protuberance of the target; some modern designs feature folding hooks to resist unwanted attachment. Most grappling hooks are thrown by hand, but some used in rescue work are propelled by compressed air, mortar, or a rocket. Grappling hooks are used by combat engineers to breach tactical obstacles; when used as such, the grappling hook is launched in front of an obstacle and dragged backwards to detonate trip-wire-fused land mines, can be hooked on wire obstacles and pulled to set off booby traps on the wire. Two tools are available for this purpose.
A grapnel can clear up to 99% of the trip-wires in a single pass. Kaginawa Kusarigama Grappling hook guns
Blondie (band)
Blondie is an American rock band founded by singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band were punk scenes of the mid-late 1970s, its first two albums contained strong elements of these genres, although successful in the United Kingdom and Australia, Blondie was regarded as an underground band in the United States until the release of Parallel Lines in 1978. Over the next three years, the band achieved several hit singles including "Heart of Glass", "Call Me", "Rapture" and "The Tide Is High" and became noted for its eclectic mix of musical styles incorporating elements of disco, pop and early rap music. Blondie disbanded after the release of its sixth studio album The Hunter in 1982. Debbie Harry continued to pursue a solo career with varied results after taking a few years off to care for partner Chris Stein, diagnosed with pemphigus, a rare autoimmune disease of the skin; the band re-formed in 1997, achieving renewed success and a number one single in the United Kingdom with "Maria" in 1999 20 years after their first UK No.1 single.
The group toured and performed throughout the world during the following years, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Blondie is still active; the band's tenth studio album, Ghosts of Download, was released in 2014 and their eleventh studio album, was released on May 5, 2017. Inspired by the burgeoning new music scene at the Mercer Arts Center, Chris Stein sought to join a similar band, he joined the Stilettoes in 1973 as their guitarist and formed a romantic relationship with one of the band's vocalists, Debbie Harry, a former waitress and Playboy Bunny. Harry had been a member of the Wind in the Willows, in the late 1960s. In July 1974, Stein and Harry parted ways with the Stilettoes and Elda Gentile, the band's originator, forming a new band with ex-Stilettoes bandmates Billy O'Connor and Fred Smith. Billed as Angel and the Snake for two shows in August 1974, they renamed themselves "Blondie" by October 1974; the name derived from comments made by truck drivers who catcalled "Hey, Blondie" to Harry as they drove past.
By the spring of 1975, after some personnel turnover and Harry were joined by drummer Clem Burke and bass player Gary Valentine. Blondie became regular performers at Max's Kansas City and CBGB. In June 1975, the band's first recording came in the way of a demo produced by Alan Betrock. To fill out their sound, they recruited keyboard player Jimmy Destri in November 1975; the band signed with Private Stock Records and their debut album, was issued in December 1976 but was not a commercial success. In September 1977, the band bought back its contract with Private Stock and signed with British label Chrysalis Records; the first album was re-released on the new label in October 1977. Rolling Stone's review of the debut album observed the eclectic nature of the group's music, comparing it to Phil Spector and the Who, commented that the album's two strengths were Richard Gottehrer's production and the persona of Debbie Harry; the publication said she performed with "utter aplomb and involvement throughout: when she's portraying a character consummately obnoxious and spaced-out, there is a wink of awareness, comforting and amusing yet never condescending."
It noted that Harry was the "possessor of a bombshell zombie's voice that can sound dreamily seductive and woodenly Mansonite within the same song". The band's first commercial success occurred in Australia in 1977, when the music television program Countdown mistakenly played their video "In the Flesh", the B-side of their current single "X-Offender". Jimmy Destri credited the show's Molly Meldrum for their initial success, commenting that "we still thank him to this day" for playing the wrong song. In a 1998 interview, drummer Clem Burke recalled seeing the episode in which the wrong song was played, but he and Chris Stein suggested that it may have been a deliberate subterfuge on the part of Meldrum. Stein asserted that "X-Offender" was "too crazy and aggressive ", while "In the Flesh" was "not representative of any punk sensibility. Over the years, I've thought they played both things but liked one better. That's all." In retrospect, Burke described "In the Flesh" as "a forerunner to the power ballad".
The single reached number 2 in Australia, while the album reached the Australian top twenty in November 1977, a subsequent double-A release of "X-Offender" and "Rip Her to Shreds" reached number 81. A successful Australian tour followed in December, though it was marred by an incident in Brisbane when disappointed fans rioted after Harry cancelled a performance due to illness. In February 1978, Blondie released Plastic Letters; the album was recorded as a four-piece as Gary Valentine had left the band in mid 1977. Plastic Letters was promoted extensively throughout Asia by Chrysalis Records; the album's first single, "Denis", was the Rainbows' 1963 hit. It reached number two on the British singles charts, while both the album and its second single, " Presence, Dear", reached the British top ten. Chart success, along with a successful 1978 UK tour, including a gig at London's Roundhouse, made Blondie one of the first American new wave bands to achieve mainstream success in the United Kingdom. By this time, Gary Valentine had left and been replaced by Frank In
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,988 officers and 2,869 civilian staff, it is the third-largest municipal police department in the United States, after the Chicago Police Department and the New York City Police Department; the department operates in a population of 4,030,904 people. The LAPD has been fictionalized in numerous films and television shows throughout its history; the department has been associated with a number of controversies concerned with racism, police brutality, police corruption. The first specific Los Angeles police force was founded in 1853, as the Los Angeles Rangers, a volunteer force that assisted the existing County forces; the Rangers were soon succeeded by another volunteer group. Neither force was efficient and Los Angeles became known for its violence and vice; the first paid force was created in 1869, when six officers were hired to serve under City Marshal William C. Warren.
By 1900, under John M. Glass, there were one for every 1,500 people. In 1903, with the start of the Civil Service, this force was increased to 200; the CBS radio show Calling All Cars hired LAPD radio dispacher Jesse Rosenquist to be the voice of the dispatcher. Rosenquist was famous because home radios could tune in to early police radio frequencies; as the first police radio dispatcher presented to the public ear, he was the voice that actors went to when called upon for a radio dispatcher role. During World War II, under Clemence B. Horrall, the overall number of personnel was depleted by the demands of the military. Despite efforts to maintain numbers, the police could do little to control the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots. Horrall was replaced by retired United States Marine Corps general William A. Worton, who acted as interim chief until 1950, when William H. Parker succeeded him and would serve until his death in 1966. Parker advocated police autonomy from civilian administration. However, the Bloody Christmas scandal in 1951 led to calls for civilian accountability and an end to alleged police brutality.
The iconic television series Dragnet, with LAPD Detective Joe Friday as the primary character, was the first major media representation of the department. Real LAPD operations inspired Jack Webb to create the series and close cooperation with department officers let him make it as realistic as possible, including authentic police equipment and sound recording on-site at the police station. Due to Dragnet's popularity, LAPD Chief Parker "became after J. Edgar Hoover, the most well known and respected law enforcement official in the nation" at that time. In the 1960s, when the LAPD under Chief Thomas Reddin expanded its community relations division and began efforts to reach out to the African-American community, Dragnet followed suit with more emphasis on internal affairs and community policing than solving crimes, the show's previous mainstay. Under Parker, LAPD created the first SWAT team in United States law enforcement. Officer John Nelson and then-Inspector Daryl Gates created the program in 1965 to deal with threats from radical organizations such as the Black Panther Party operating during the Vietnam War era.
The old headquarters for the LAPD was Parker Center, named after former chief William H. Parker, which still stands at 150 N. Los Angeles St; the new headquarters is 300 yards west in the purpose built Police Administration Building located at 100 W. 1st St. south of Los Angeles City Hall, which opened in October 2009. The Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners known as the Police Commission, is a five-member body of appointed officials which oversees the LAPD; the board is responsible for setting policies for the department and overseeing the LAPD's overall management and operations. The Chief of Police reports to the board; the Office of the Inspector General is an independent part of the LAPD that has oversight over the department's internal disciplinary process and reviewing complaints of officer misconduct. It was created by the recommendation of the Christopher Commission and it is exempt from civil service and reports directly to the Board of Police Commissioners; the current Inspector General is Mark P. Smith, the Constitutional Policing Advisor for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
The OIG receives copies of every complaint filed against members of the LAPD as well as tracking specific cases along with any resultant litigation. The OIG conducts audits on select investigations and conducts regular reviews of the disciplinary system in order to ensure fairness and equality; as well as overseeing the LAPD's disciplinary process, the Inspector General may undertake special investigations as directed by the Board of Police Commissioners. The Office of the Chief of Police has the responsibility for assisting the Chief of Police in the administration of the department; the Chief of Staff is responsible for coordinating the flow of information from command staff to ensure that the Chief is informed prior to making decisions and coordinating special administrative audits and investigations, assisting and submitting recommendations to the Chief of Police in matters involving employee relations. The Office of the Chief of Staff is composed of the Board of Police Commissioners Liaison, the Public Communications Group, the Media Relations Division, the Employee Relations Group.
The Director of the Office of Constitutional Policing and Policy Police Administrator III Arif Alikhan reports directl
