Jason Cochran

10 failed movies and TV shows redeemed by later success

Jason Cochran — Fri, 25 May 2012 12:00:14 +0000

At the time? Embarrassing. Now? Fun! Strange how a few years makes you see the joy that was intended.

You hate songs in the second person

Jason Cochran — Fri, 25 May 2012 01:58:40 +0000

Second person isn't just a way of announcing, I'm a musical! I'm talking metaphorically about abstract concepts! It's also a way for writers to distance themselves from the toughest feelings their creations have. As if to apologize for the absurdity of breaking into song, lyricists use You to provide some intellectual breathing room. It's the hot mitt of musical emotion.

There’s a plaque for everything

Jason Cochran — Fri, 11 May 2012 21:12:07 +0000

Jimmy Carter spent two nights here in 1994. Steinhatchee, Florida.

Revisiting Rosewood, Florida, today [video]

Jason Cochran — Fri, 11 May 2012 19:00:42 +0000

We pass desultory intersections like Rosewood's every day. And we will never know how many of them were once the settings for brutal events, in which Americans, believing they were right and on the side of God, were in fact the instruments of something sinister and evil.

A little of my recent work

Jason Cochran — Wed, 09 May 2012 01:38:01 +0000

I round up a few links to a selection of the coolest things I've been up to in the past few months.

Movie musicals: Stuck in Renée Zellweger’s head for a decade

Jason Cochran — Tue, 01 May 2012 03:28:43 +0000

Something happened at the very start of Chicago that marked a pivot in musical theatre. In fact, what happened in the first five minutes of Chicago the movie could be said to have set the filmed musical on a new course forever, and few people even noticed it had happened.

The Amazing Plague

Jason Cochran — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:00:24 +0000

Just turn on the TV right now and count how many times people say it on the news, reality shows, and interviews. Whenever someone runs out of an ability to properly explain something with specificity, they run to the adjectival filler 'amazing.' It's cheap, industrial-grade description — the corn syrup of self-expression.

Implosion video of Amway Arena in Orlando, shot up close

Jason Cochran — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 18:07:58 +0000

I shot this video early this morning in downtown Orlando from the VIP viewing area as the not-so-old Amway Arena (once the TD Waterhouse Centre, opened 1989) was demolished. Ka-boom! Instant 9/11 flashbacks for me, and lots of dust.

Travel and the baby brain

Jason Cochran — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 11:00:44 +0000

Travel regresses us to our "baby consciousness." Is it any wonder that so many of us travel in our 20s, when we've just left that larval childhood stage but have not yet grown into the ill-fitting uniform of full adulthood? Is it any wonder so many travelers put a high priority on intensely sensory experiences such as drinking, sex, panoramic views, and extreme sports — pursuits that please our primal natures?

Welcome to the Low Self-Esteem Economy

Jason Cochran — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:38:04 +0000

More of us are being told by businesses that because the economy remains in a muddle, we're all the equivalent of rank beginners. Welcome to the new Low Self-Esteem Economy.

The State Department STEPs up outreach to travelers

Jason Cochran — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 19:06:45 +0000

U.S. consulates or embassy are never places that welcome a weary traveler, not even if you have the privilege of carrying a passport with a bald eagle stamped on the cover. Indeed, the diplomatic fortresses we build abroad, such as the bunker on London's Grosvenor Square and the $750 million citadel in Baghdad, are resolutely intent on keeping us out.

Stap Vinnig Oor: Round the world during the Web’s infancy

Jason Cochran — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 04:06:07 +0000

Everyone logs their trips online now, but no one was doing it then. I was a pioneer. Here is the miraculously hand-coded site where I tracked my round-the-world journey back in 1998.

Who is this Paul McCartney guy?

Jason Cochran — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:14:48 +0000

I think there may be a cultural reason for the self-enforced stupidity we're seeing in American youth, and moreover, for a stubborn failure to perceive that mouth-breathing ignorance as a failing.

How to see London for $15 a day

Jason Cochran — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:28:38 +0000

Some incredibly useful tips for saving cash on a London vacation — without missing out on what makes London London.

San Francisco’s tourist pitfalls

Jason Cochran — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:09:08 +0000

I take you to San Francisco, which is already a good-value city for vacations, and show how to make it into an even better value.

A ride on L.A.’s Angels Flight

Jason Cochran — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:50:31 +0000

An as-if-you-are-there video, without commentary or too many cuts, of a ride on the historic Angels Flight Railway in Los Angeles.

Signs that your favorite website is a post mill

Jason Cochran — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:14:49 +0000

Post mills can undermine the Fourth Estate, allow marketing and PR departments to manipulate our media as their mouthpiece, and leave the watchdogs sleeping. An entire generation of people is growing up without an understanding that the people who bring them their news have hastily recycled it, without checking how it got to them.

Spirit Airlines alleges conspiracy because it can’t pretend airfares are $9

Jason Cochran — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:15:37 +0000

Travel sellers are sending customers disingenuous emails about the new DOT fare quote rules. Spirit Airlines' fear-mongering email is typical of the false victimhood that hucksters hide behind these days.

Seven things Facebook and Google get wrong about you

Jason Cochran — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:00:03 +0000

Most of the major sites we use now purport to be able to "customize" what they show you based on what you've looked at before. But this worrying fascination is built on some logical lapses about who we are and what our behavior really exposes about ourselves.

You’re not a very good capitalist

Jason Cochran — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:09:38 +0000

Too many people seem to think hard work is the same thing as 'capitalism.' In truth, almost all of us work hard to put the fruit of our labor in an investor's pocket. Look at your life if you doubt me.