on the bus
Calgary - YYC
Joined March 2009
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Jason Milroy retweeted
Listening to the anti-oil development Pembina Institute is one of the reasons why Canada is in this place to begin with, and why tax payers were on the hook for the TMX. Remove their influence, streamline regulations and watch those pipelines get built and with it access to international markets and better pricing -> and a strong Canada.
Oil sector questions economics of Alberta’s West Coast pipeline theglobeandmail.com/business…
Jason Milroy retweeted
“Back in Black” was written by Angus Young, Malcolm Young and Brian Johnson as a tribute to AC/DC's former lead singer Bon Scott, who died in February 1980. Rather than creating a mournful song, the band wanted to celebrate Scott's life with something powerful and triumphant. The track became the title song of AC/DC's seventh studio album, produced by Robert John “Mutt” Lange and released later that year. Although “Back in Black” was not initially a major singles-chart hit in the US, the album became a monumental commercial success and eventually one of the best-selling albums in music history. The title track has since become one of AC/DC's most recognisable songs and one of the defining anthems ofrock. Malcolm Young originally used the famous opening guitar riff as a warm-up exercise before it evolved into the foundation of the song.
Jason Milroy retweeted
If you want to get into the classics without hitting a reading slump, put down:
1. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
2. Ulysses by James Joyce
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
4. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Pick up these fast-paced masterpieces instead:
Jason Milroy retweeted
At the 1989 MTV Awards, Tom Petty started "Free Fallin'" alone, then Axl Rose emerged from the shadows to join him.
Two completely different voices, Petty's laid-back drawl and Axl's howl, sharing one mic. Nobody saw it coming.
Jason Milroy retweeted
In the aftermath of 9/11, Steve Buscemi returned to his old fire station, where he had served as a firefighter in the early 1980s.
Donning his old uniform, he worked 12 hour shifts for days on end, searching for survivors in the rubble of the World Trade Center.
He did so without media attention, a quiet act of courage that later became a powerful symbol of solidarity.
Jason Milroy retweeted
In December 2001, just three months after the September 11 attacks, Elton John appeared on “Live by Request,” an A&E special where viewers called in live to request songs. Among the callers, a woman shared that her husband had been one of the first responders to die at the World Trade Center, and that “Rocket Man” was his favorite song.
Elton, visibly moved by the request, sat down at the piano and began playing that 1972 classic that everyone had heard a thousand times before. But that night, in that context, the lyrics about loneliness and distance took on a completely different weight.
Sweating and with his voice breaking on every note, he managed to completely silence the audience for the four minutes the song lasted.
Jason Milroy retweeted
Mark Messier wearing Chief Downey’s helmet prior to the Rangers first home game following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
One of the most iconic pictures in #NHL history
#September11
Jason Milroy retweeted
"Barry Melrose stood for everything that is good and great about hockey."
@JeremySchaap pays tribute to the hockey icon ❤️
Jason Milroy retweeted
Canada’s equalization program will hit $27.1 billion next year.
Look at the table (older data). It’s not shrinking. It’s growing.
Six decades of regional development, industrial strategies, infrastructure programs, and endless federal promises to “close the gap".
The gap didn’t close. The cheque got bigger.
If the receiving provinces were actually catching up, the transfers would fall. That’s how a successful program works. This one is doing the opposite.
Equalization isn’t a temporary bridge. It’s a permanent subsidy that rewards the same fiscal and policy choices year after year. The formula measures “fiscal capacity”. Show us that fiscal capacity and how it's composed. When that capacity stays low, Ottawa just writes a larger cheque. No incentive to change course. No penalty for staying dependent.
The West produces the wealth, while Central and Atlantic Canada collect an ever-increasing share of it. And we’re told this is fairness.
A program that keeps expanding after 67 years isn’t proof of Canadian solidarity.
It’s proof that the original problem was never solved.
It’s proof the incentives are backwards.
If things were getting better, this number would be going down.
It’s not.
Jason Milroy retweeted
Trained for glory. Called to war.
THE MOSQUITO BOWL, from director Peter Berg, tells the remarkable true story of four college football stars who traded the football field for the front lines.
Starring Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson and Tom Francis, the film is in theaters October 30.
Jason Milroy retweeted
Such a heartwarming moment, I love when athletes take the time to do things like this
Jason Milroy retweeted
The original trailer for Pulp Fiction in 1994 was a brilliant piece of marketing. After the film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, an award usually associated with highbrow international art-house cinema, Miramax leaned directly into those expectations.
The trailer opened like a serious European art-house film, with formal narration and classical piano. Then, 15 seconds in, gunshots tear through the Cannes laurels and the now-iconic music kicks in, revealing what the film was really all about.
Jason Milroy retweeted
1976. Gainesville, Florida, to Los Angeles.
Tom Petty is 25 years old. He just landed a record deal for his band, the Heartbreakers.
He is thrilled. He signs everything put in front of him.
Buried in the fine print, he signs away his songwriting and publishing rights. The price: just $10,000.
He does not realize what he has given up. Not yet.
1976–1978.
The band's debut album lands with barely a ripple in America. Then "Breakdown" becomes a hit in Britain.
It gets re-released in the US. It finally catches fire.
A second album, "You're Gonna Get It!," goes gold.
Petty is now a rising star. On paper, at least.
In reality, he has almost nothing to show for it financially.
1979. Los Angeles.
Petty's label, Shelter Records, gets sold to industry giant MCA.
Nobody asks Petty how he feels about it.
He refuses to go along quietly. He says he will not be "bought and sold like a piece of meat."
MCA disagrees. MCA and Shelter both sue him for breach of contract.
Petty keeps recording anyway. He pays for the sessions himself.
He racks up over $500,000 in studio costs, out of his own pocket.
Then he refuses to hand the tapes over.
He has one of his guitar techs hide them. Nobody at MCA can find the masters.
Here's what makes it worse:
Petty has almost no leverage. He is one guy against a major label with lawyers on retainer.
His debts pile up: $576,638 owed, against just $56,845 in assets.
He could lose everything. His music. His band. His name on his own record.
So he does something almost unheard of for a rock star.
May 23, 1979.
Tom Petty files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
It is not a financial collapse. It is a calculated legal weapon.
Bankruptcy court can void unfair contracts. Petty is betting his career on that single fact.
He later explains his math simply: no matter how hard he worked, the people who trapped him in that contract would always profit far more than he did.
MCA is stunned. They did not expect this.
The label fears other artists will copy the move next.
Within months, MCA folds. They release Petty from the old contract.
Then they turn around and sign him to a brand-new $3 million deal. A label built just for him, called Backstreet Records.
He finally gets his publishing rights back too.
1979. "Damn the Torpedoes."
The album he fought so hard to protect is released. It goes double platinum.
Petty is now a certified superstar.
1981. "Hard Promises."
MCA is ready to cash in. The label wants to raise the album's price from $8.98 to $9.98.
They call it "superstar pricing." One extra dollar, aimed squarely at Petty's new fame.
Petty says no. Flatly, no.
MCA had promised him $8.98 from the start. Now they are quietly changing the deal.
Minimum wage, at the time, is $3.35 an hour. A dollar is not nothing to his fans.
He threatens to withhold the album completely. He even jokes about naming it "$8.98," just to make his point impossible to miss.
"If we don't take a stand," he says, "records are going to be $20."
MCA blinks first, again.
They agree to release "Hard Promises" at the original $8.98 price.
Petty gets the last word anyway. The album cover shows him standing in a record store, right in front of a bin of albums priced at $8.98.
Years later.
Petty's bankruptcy strategy does not stay a one-time trick. Other artists study it, and some later use versions of it themselves to escape crushing label debt.
He is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.
He goes on to sell more than 80 million records worldwide.
He never becomes known as a lawsuit-happy troublemaker. He becomes known as the guy who simply refused to be pushed around.
Tom Petty dies on October 2, 2017, at age 66.
Decades later, artists still cite his fights with MCA when they talk about who really controls a record, a song, or a price tag.
A 25-year-old with no leverage stood his ground anyway. The industry eventually had to meet him there.
~Old Photo Club
