Verrückt: ist Kaputt?

Das Scheiße ist Bananen.*  Via io9:

World's Tallest Waterslide Opens For Test Rides—Immediately Shuts Down

*According to Google Translate, that's German for "This shit is bananas."

Summer 2014: the Return of the Action

Breaking News!

A blast from the past: 'Action Park' is back for the summer

How Was YOUR Week?

I spoke with the fabulous Julie Klausner about the Park recently. The Onion's AV Club says it's a "very entertaining and funny interview about working at New Jersey’s notoriously unsafe Action Park amusement park as a teenager. " You can listen here.

The Action never stops at Mashable.

My social media feeds are blowing up with this video, featuring Chris Gethard, Park scion Andy Mulvihill, and a plethora of old footage and photos (at least one of which was yanked from this blog). They promise a part 2 later in the week.

More Photos of Abandoned Amusement Parks

Photo by Chris Grabert, via io9

Is that an inverted Rebel Alliance logo on the cat's forehead? Regardless, io9 compiled some AMAZING photos of abandoned amusement parks. Check them out here. 

Styrofoam Mountain Action Park

From Hoboken411

I'm assuming that the author of this post is referring to the Park. Good to see its reputation lives on when describing New Jersey haphazardness. Though I will say, hills were the one thing Actual Action Park had in abundance.

The Discreet Charm of the Flash Pass

From The Billfold:

"Six Flags is constantly one dirty look from devolving into complete anarchy. It’s inhabited mainly by throngs of people who have been subjected to the sweltering sun, outrageous prices, sugary beverages, and the extreme dichotomy of 90 seconds of thrilling g-forces alternated with 90 minutes of existence-questioning boredom." 

Other than that, Matt Powers, what did you think of Great Adventure?*


*My NJ upbringing prohibits me from calling it Six Flags.

RIP, Ray Bradbury

One of the best days I ever spent working at the Park was the one day I spent at the summit of the Alpine Slide. The sun was shining. It was warm, but not too hot. I brought my lunch with me and I had plenty of water and sunscreen. The lead ride attendants rode up to visit for a bit, under the guise of "checking the bullwheel." That was nice. But nicer still was the luxury of being able to sit and read all of "Fahrenheit 451" without interruption.

NY Times Obituary

Stranger than (Science) Fiction

Cyriaque Lamar's post on the cannonball loop over at io9 included a lengthy quote from the COTA. I am delighted, as the site is a daily read for me and my go-to source for Doctor Who news.

What I Did on my Summer Vacation, or, Days in Rodanthe

I spent the last week on Hatteras Island, North Carolina. On the way to the rental house, I passed through a town called Rodanthe, setting of a Nicholas Sparks novel. I have not read "Nights in Rodanthe," nor have I seen the Richard Gere/Diane Lane-starring film adaption, but I did stop to take pictures of what, to me, was the main draw of the town- Waterfall Action Park.

Two Amazing Videos of Abandoned Parks

These two videos deserve more prominent placement than they'll get in the larger post I'm working on.  The first has been circulating for awhile now, but it's well worth watching again.

Six Flags over New Orleans never reopened after Hurricane Katrina:



Via Gawker, Joyland in Wichita, Kansas, which closed in 2004:


No Joy from Mike Petty on Vimeo.


Amazing.

Park Talk on the Best Show

Oh, hey there! Last night, I was listening to The Best Show on WFMU, as is my Tuesday night tradition. One of Tom's callers mentioned the Park and I called in to offer my expert opinion. You can listen here. The call starts at about the 1:45 mark, but you owe it to yourself to listen to the entire three hour show, because this was a particularly good installment of what is always three of my favorite hours of the week.

The City That's Running Wild

While the Park may only live on in sanitized form, another Sussex County institution perseveres. I am referring, of course, to Wild West City. If you grew up in or around New Jersey, I'm sure you remember the Uncle Floyd-starring commercial:





Yeah, you're going to have that stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Sorry about that!

Meet the New Boss.

Same as the old boss.

Mountain Creek resort in N.J. sold to developer Gene Mulvihill

The Dukes of Sussex

In the Park's heyday, Cobblestone Village was filled with gift shoppes, food concessions and a "Broadway" stage. But as attendance fell off, more and more of them were shuttered. Some were repurposed as offices or used for storage and some, well, some were used for other purposes.

The Park was located in Sussex County, a red pocket of an otherwise Blue State, and as such, there was a certain, uh, disregard, for the federal government and their pesky rules. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise that one night, during a routine sweep of the area, security found a functioning still in one of the vacant shoppes.

Moonshine. Apparently, it's making a comeback.

Parkular Mechanics

Popular Mechanics posted a piece recently titled 5 Theme Park Rides that Pushed the Limits of Common Sense. Guess which park featured two out of the five?

At The Movies

So.  Adventureland.   

I liked it much better than I thought I would.   The director, Greg Mottola, worked at an amusement park on Long Island in his youth, and he really captured the tedium and soul-sucking nature of the job.   The kids with their life ahead of them, trying to figure out their place, trying to live up to their parent's expectations, or free themselves from their parents' mistakes.  Wondering if they'll ever get out of Pittsburgh.  Get to New York.  Get the girl.  Figure out who they are, who they want to be.  Figure out that the strangely clean and well groomed maintenance guy is full of crap- he never jammed with Lou Reed and he's never going to leave his wife, in fact he'll never leave Adventureland, because that is where he's the king.  

It's not a new story Mottola's telling, but he tells it well.  And he fills it with great little touches- like the flirty hot girl isn't called Lisa- she's Lisa P.  Because in a place like Adventureland, there's always going to be people with the same first name.  Or when James, the protagonist, bursts into the manager's trailer trying to escape an angry patron, and without speaking, or even looking up, Kristen Wiig's character throws Bill Hader a baseball bat and he runs out to confront the problem.  It's a dance they've done before.  

Mottola did a Q & A after the screening and talked about how he had to fight to keep it a period piece, which was one of my favorite aspects of it, since it really put it in an almost parallel timeline with my Park experience.  And Adventureland is the type of park that doesn't exist anymore.  Besides, setting the film in the '80s allowed them to start off the film with the Replacements' Bastards of Young.   In fact, the soundtrack (and Yo La Tengo's score) was dead on throughout.  

Except for the roadhouse jukebox that featured the Velvet Underground.  Emotionally, it worked, but VU in a bar like that?  Never.   The coolest thing you'd get is Neil Young.  

 

Adventureland opens Friday.  Hopefully, it will screen at the drive in.  

Adventureland

Oh great, someone beat me to the Park movie.  Though this looks more like Bowcraft than the Park:

I pledge to you, Dear Reader, that I will go see this film and offer my professional opinion on the staff's shenanigans.

The Center Goes To Brooklyn

If you like your blog posts in a more dynamic, audio visual format, please come to Union Hall in Park Slope on Tuesday, March 3.   I will be participating in the Adult Education lecture series, theme for the night is Safety Lessons.    And afterward, you can apply what you learned on their indoor bocce court.   

From the Police Blotter

Of all the rides I attended at the Park, the only one I actively hated was the Transmobile.  It was hot, it was boring and the office manager usually staffed it with losers.  Like this guy Ron.  When he wasn't in uniform, he sartorial choices ran toward track suits and Oakley Blades.  He was a Jersey dumbass in the Christopher Moltisanti vein.   In fact, the one solid memory I have of him is particularly Christopher-esque.   

One night, after the Park was closed for the day, he and another dude happened to be in the Spa parking lot as they were getting a beer delivery.  Ron had the bright idea to steal one of the kegs. (Kind of like when Chrissy and Tony stole the cases of wine in Pennsylvania.   Except they had guns.  And were fictional.)   Ron was promptly arrested.    He was still wearing his Park uniform, something noted in the local paper, much to the staff's delight and management's chagrin.