Once upon a time, I used a record player, vinyl records, 45 singles, and a cassette tape to make what we called back in the day a mix tape. But we don't make mix tapes anymore now, do we? We make playlists on iTunes. And if you own an iPod, an mp3 player or a smartphone, you don't even need to record them onto anything anymore. I do use my iPhone to play music, but whenever I'm driving around, I have to pop in a CD into my car player, whether it's store-bought or a playlist I burned. That's just how it's supposed to be!

I still make mix tapes now and then, or I guess I'd have to call them compilation CDs now. ("Mix tape" sounds so much sexier.) I decided that from time to time some of the comp CDs are what I want to talk about here in my blog. My first entry - which may come as no surprise to you - is all about Star Trek.

Ever since I went to that "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" Soundtrack Celebration a few weeks ago, I haven't been able to stop thinking about Star Trek. I've been reading old books I have and watching episodes again on DVD and Blu-ray. It just hit the nostalgia button in me and put me in a nice, warm, geeky place.

Before the event, I went through my Star Trek CD collection, music from the various TV series and films, and found a few comp CDs I'd made not that long ago. One that stood out was a CD filled with music from the original TV series. GNP Crescendo produced a lot of licensed Star Trek soundtracks during the 80's, featuring the underscores composed for Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. I think I bought every single one they ever released at the time. The music from the original series was especially fun to listen to.

From the second season episode "Amok Time". Music by Gerald Fried.

From the first season episode "The Corbomite Maneuver". Music by Fred Steiner.

From the second season episode "The Trouble with Tribbles". Music by Jerry Fielding.

Well, since I was heading out to celebrate the music from the original crew's first motion picture voyage, I listened to that disc again, which I had titled Star Trek: Music from Classic Adventures. Since my friend was driving me there, I made him a copy as thanks for ride. And being the designer that I am, I made some pretty CD packaging for it too.

Weeks later, after the event and in that warm geeky place, I pulled out another compilation CD from my Star Trek shelf. I made this one after visiting Star Trek: The Tour during its Long Beach stop in 2008. Because The Tour was a retrospective of the many different shows and movies, this CD collected every opening theme or main title music used in every Star Trek incarnation up to that point, beginning with the Theme from Star Trek to the music used in Star Trek: Enterprise. I called it Star Trek: The Tour, to remind me of what inspired me to put it together. Turned out my original comp CD wasn't playing well anymore, so I burned a new disc - which was a convenient opportunity to now include pristine tracks from my new ST-TMP CDs that I picked up from the Celebration - and again created pretty packaging for it.

You can find all of the Star Trek music used on these comp discs at GNP Crescendo, Screen Archives, Intrada, and Amazon except the theme to Star Trek: The Animated Series, which you can download from several Star Trek fan sites like Memory Alpha or Star Trek Animated.

Here's a video diary of my five hours waiting in line to enter Disney California Adventure on its Grand Re-Opening Day condensed into eight minutes.

On June 15, 2012, I got in line at four in the morning to join those who had been waiting in line since 6:30 pm the night before! However, when I first saw this line filled with hundreds of people, it was nothing compared to what I encountered seven years ago in the same spot. That was 2005, the year Disneyland celebrated its 50th birthday. And on July 17 that year, I arrived here at three in the morning to be among the first to enter the park when it opened, and there were thousands already in line. Coincidentally, Disney used DCA to stage the long line before its sister park opened at 7 am.

The video above shows the size of the line in the Promenade when I first got there and how it continued to grow over the next couple of hours. At 7am, the park's Re-Dedication Ceremony was broadcast in a live feed onto a jumbotron we could see, so some excerpts from that are included too. And from my place in line right at the main entrance, I got a nice, short piece of video of Disney CEO Robert Iger and Chairman of Parks and Resorts Tom Skaggs at the front gates opening them up themselves so we could finally come in.

I had a great time. So if you want to enjoy a special Disney event vicariously through the eyes of a Disney geek, here's your chance. Enjoy!

With Disney California Adventure officially opening to the public tomorrow, I've been reading online about fans debating whether or not it's worth it to get in line at 11pm tonight and stay up all night to be there when DCA opens for its official Grand Re-Opening Friday morning. It reminded me of a very similar event I attended seven years ago.

I went through my archived photo CDs to find the photos I took on July 17, 2005, the day Disney celebrated Disneyland's 50th Anniversary. They're up on my Flickr account now. You can reach them clicking the photo at the bottom. Because I wanted to get them up quickly, I didn't editorialize my selections, I just posted every shot, saved down to low res quality.

To briefly describe the day as I can recall off the top of my head, I got there around 3am to get in a line that snaked through DCA. I passed by scores of fans who were huddled under blankets or inside sleeping bags under an eerie but still exciting dark, early morning sky. Exciting because what park guest ever gets a chance to be here at three in the morning? I later learned I arrived about the time Disney estimated 7000 were in line. I believe between 9000 and 10000 arrived by the time the park opened at 7am.

As we slowly left DCA and entered the promenade between the two parks, we were surprised by cast members standing along the stanchioned walkway into Disneyland, who waved at us saying "Welcome back!" We received the same warm welcome as we entered Disneyland, walked through the tunnel under the railroad track and onto Main Street, USA. Cast members everywhere were waving and cheering at us saying "Welcome back!" It was a fantastic surprise, very heart-warming, and you could tell the cast members were just as thrilled to be there as we were!

At 10am, an official ceremony was scheduled in the Hub with Disney dignitaries and celebrities there to add to the pomp and circumstance. Julie Andrews was that year's official Disney ambassador, so she spoke during the ceremony, as did Art Linkletter who was there 50 years ago as one of the co-hosts during the televised opening of the park. Christina Aguilera performed a song and then there was doves and fireworks.

I made friends with the people I was in line with, and we spent the rest of the day together enjoying the park. I left Disneyland around 4:30p, after speakers throuplayed Walt Disney's dedication speech, the famous one he spoke to open the park 50 years ago to the time and day.

The rest of the details I'll leave for you to interpret from the pictures. Most should be self-explanatory.

And you ask, "Was it worth it?" Yes!

Postscript

I will already remember this weekend as my "magical weekend", but not simply because "I was there" for Disneyland's birthday. The day before, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince arrived in bookstores. I picked mine up early that Saturday morning and then spent the entire day reading it. I managed to finish reading the entire book by around 1am, which released me from any worries I had about anyone spoiling the book for me! I then took a quick shower and headed off to Anaheim, ready to focus on the next half of my truly magical weekend.

On December 7, 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture arrived in theatres ten years after its last first-run episode aired on NBC. I became a fan - a Trekkie - while watching the reruns during the 70's. And I remember being caught up in the excitement of the release of the new movie and the new starship and the new uniforms, even as I knew watching it that something was definitely off about this latest “episode” of Star Trek. But there were clunkers among the show’s 79 episodes (e.g., "Spock's Brain"), so no matter what, fans like me would forgive the fact that the movie, like any one of the carbon-based units in the film, is not perfect. Star Trek was back one last time (so we thought at the time), and that was great!

Star Trek: The Motion Picture, referred to commonly as TMP, arrived two years after Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and a year after Superman: The Movie. Those were the films that John Williams astounded moviegoers’ with, introducing heroic scores and signature themes that would make him The Composer for fantasy adventure films of the day. Naturally, he influenced the works of other film composers working on similar projects. I bought his records and sought out any other works that were just as exciting to listen to, that carried a weight that was as epic, romantic and inviting as Williams' work. And Jerry Goldsmith’s score to TMP easily met the criteria.

Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams are contemporaries. Both started working in the 50’s in Hollywood, both composed music for scores of 60’s television shows – Goldsmith counts The Twilight Zone and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. among them and for Williams, Lost in Space, Land of the Giants, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea – before moved on to scoring for films. Williams won his first Oscar for adapting the music from Fiddler on the Roof for its film adaptation. Goldsmith earned his one and only Oscar for his score to The Omen. But you’ve also heard Goldsmith’s work in Patton, Chinatown, The Wind and the Lion, The Sand Pebbles, Legend, Planet of the Apes, Alien, Rudy, Hoosiers, Gremlins, First Blood, Air Force One, The Mummy and Poltergeist.

If by chance none of the above films are familiar, everybody still knows at least one Goldsmith piece of music. The "Main Title" from TMP was re-used as the theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Specifically, the music wasn’t composed to be a TV theme, but no one can argue the theme sounds right for a Star Trek show. It exudes confidence, adventure, discovery, even a little whimsy. Hum a few notes and everybody knows the show you’re talk about.

On June 4, 2012, Jerry Goldsmith’s seminal work on TMP was celebrated at an event promoting the release of a new expanded edition of his score to the film. Titled “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” Soundtrack Celebration, it was sponsored by La-La Land Records and Creature Features and featured a panel of speakers who worked with Goldsmith including some who were orchestra members during the TMP scoring sessions. In addition, the discussion featured video interviews of Goldsmith, who died in 2004, and footage from TMP with rare music cues composed by Goldsmith that were re-written after feedback from director Robert Wise. A screening of the 2001 Director’s Edition of TMP concluded the evening.

Some friends and I attended the event, where we also got to buy our copies of the new 3-disc collection a day before its official release date plus have them autographed by two of the panelists. The 115-minute panel discussion, hosted by Jeff Bond, included among others the soundtrack's producer and long-time Goldsmith recording engineer Bruce Botnick, and Craig Huxley and David Newman who both performed on this score. It was a much better program than I had expected it to be. Many of the anecdotes that were shared were very informative or very entertaining. David Newman, who played violin in the score and would become a successful film composer himself, scoring the Star Trek-inspired comedy Galaxy Quest and the sci-fi cult favorite Serenity, explained that Williams’ popular romantic style of film music that had quickly become the norm to film goers and filmmakers, and that challenged Goldsmith’s own modernistic style of music, a challenge he slowly but obviously successfully overcame. Goldsmith’s agent Richard Kraft shared with us the composer’s annoyance of a young James Horner who hung around the recording sessions to watch Goldsmith but also spend a lot of time talking to the Paramount execs. Horner would later go on to compose the score to TMP’s next two sequels, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock before scoring Titanic.

Another highlight of the evening was a demonstration of an instrument called the blaster beam. It’s featured prominently in the TMP score. In another intersection of the Star Trek universe, the creator and performer of the blaster beam, Craig Huxley, was formerly a child actor who was cast in two episodes of the original Star Trek series. As he explained at the event, he went on to become William Shatner’s musical director when the actor “…wanted to combine beat poetry and jazz scat singing with outer space.” He produced Shatner's infamous “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and "Rocket Man" during those days.

Huxley told the audience how excited and intrigued Goldsmith was when he learned about the blaster beam, and how the composer was eager to use it in his score for TMP. In the middle of the panel discussion, Huxley stepped behind the blaster beam to recreate some of the tones Goldsmith composed for it in the score and sounds used in the sound design of the film. For all the geeks in the room, it was an amazing experience to hear these familiar sounds performed live in front of us! I recorded the entire demonstration. Take a look at it below.

Since that evening, I’ve played the hell out of my new CD purchase! My friend has too, sharing with each other over the next few days how nostalgic it's made us feel and how much we love the new recordings, which were drawn from a different source as any previous releases which essentially makes every track on the set previously unreleased. And let me tell you, the fidelity of every bit of the score is AMAZING!! It even inspired me to pull out a book that I've owned for quite a while, Star Trek: Phase II: The Lost Series, and finally read the story of what would have been the 1970's return to television of most of the original cast in a series continuation before Star Wars and other factors forced Paramount to elevated the project into a motion picture production.

The new Star Trek: The Motion Picture 3-disc original soundtrack collection is limited to 10,000 copies and can be ordered from La-La Records or Screen Archives Entertainment.

I discovered a wonderful place yesterday: the audio/visual section of the Katy Geissert Civic Center Library! :p

While meandering around the lower level, I found the Documentaries and Special Interests section where there were many titles I'd never imagined existed, like Star Wars vs. Star Trek: The Rivalry Continues and Best of Filipino Food Vol. 1. I checked out Pioneers of Television Season 2 and watched the first of four episodes on it. Science Fiction covered primarily the 60's, interweaving the origins of Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, Lost in Space and Time Tunnel through new and archival interviews with the series' casts, some of whom guest-starred in popular episodes of the other shows. I was surprised how much time they spent delving into the creators of the shows, mainly on Gene Roddenberry and Irwin Allen with a little on Rod Serling, as well as material on Shatner and Nimoy's early acting days. There were a few things I learned from it (As a Trek and TZ fan, so much of it I'd already known), but the new interviews (the DVD was released in 2011) and several stills that I'd never seen before I enjoyed a lot. The rest of the 50-minute episodes are Crime Drama, Local Kids' TV and Westerns. I'm looking forward to seeing and enjoying them too before I have to return this disc back to the library next week!