aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Standing in line for Star Wars

Doug’s on the phone with his half-brother Josh who’s in Phoenix waiting in line for Star Wars tickets. So I decided to check-in and see what’s happening with the Star Wars line geeks. No link to NPR’s visit Friday. Maybe they stopped updating.

Yes, I know, the line geeks really are so April but I’m on vacation and everything else I want to blog on will raise my blood pressure and eat up too much mindspace. I’ll get to that when I get home. Tonight it’s line geeks or nothing.

Much has been written since people started lining up a couple months back, but for me Wil Wheaton’s original post is still the very best:

So there are these Star Wars fans Ãœbernerds who are lining up in front of Grauman’s for the premiere of “Revenge of the Sith” in a couple of months.

The only problem is, “Return of the Sith” isn’t going to screen at Graumans. For reasons that are best left to the shadowy corners of The Film Distribution World, it will be playing at the Arclight, which is about a half-mile away. (The Arclight, by the way, is the best theater in Los Angeles. Nobody else even comes close.)

When they found out about this unfortunate turn of events, the Star Wars Nerds naturally packed up their stuff, and walked down the block to Arclight.

Except they didn’t.

They’re keeping the line right where it is . . . as a self-described act of protest.

Boy have things changed. See, in 1977 I stood in line at Mann’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd for the original Star Wars. In those days we didn’t have sign-in sheets or laptops with movies. We got no press coverage. Or t-shirts. And though it was a very long line, we didn’t bond. 

I haven’t read the reviews for Revenge of the Sith, but I know this--back in 1977, that movie was worth the wait.

Anonymouse sources

Romenesko quotes the White House Daily Briefing:

REPORTER: In context of the Newsweek situation, I think we hear the caution you’re giving us about reporting things based on a single anonymous source. What, then, are we supposed to do with information that this White House gives us under the conditions that it comes from a single anonymous source?

SCOTT McCLELLAN: I’m not sure what exactly you’re referring to.

REPORTER: Frequent briefings by senior administration officials in which the ground rules are we can only identify them as a single anonymous source. ...

Later in the briefing:

REPORTER: With all due respect, though, it sounds like you’re saying your single anonymous sources are okay and everyone else’s aren’t.

McCLELLAN: No, I’m not saying that at all. In fact, I think you may have missed what I said. I think that we should move away from the use of—the long-used practice of the background briefings, and we’ve taken steps to do that.

What steps? Let’s end the background briefing.