Thrills & Chills
Posted at 5:59 AM on June 15, 2009
by Dale Connelly
(23 Comments)
Radio Heartland offers you an opportunity to see Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson at the Cedar Cultural Center The Fitzgerald Theater this Wednesday Night, June 17th.
We have three pairs of tickets to give away.
Kasey & Shane are from Australia and are on a short U.S. tour with just a few stops, including a live broadcast on A Prairie Home Companion this past weekend.
Take advantage. Take a chance. Enter the drawing. Obey the rules.
I wish you the best of luck.
Better luck than the people running the Six Flags Theme Parks in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The company declared Chapter 11 Bankruptcy this weekend. The parks will remain open and the hope is that bankruptcy will help Six Flags recover it's "whooosh"!
Dealmaker and entrepreneur Spin Williams thinks this is a great development. I signed up for Spin's E-Alert Network to get regular updates on the discussion at the meeting that never ends.
Here's his latest:
Declaring bankruptcy puts the theme park company right in step with the overall American experience. As you know, there's no thrill ride like the economy, and sliding into bankruptcy is extremely terrifying in a way that is horribly real and totally unforgettable. We kicked it around at the meeting and the group recommends re-branding the entire Six Flags experience as a wild ride on the financial rollercoaster. They need to embrace this calamity, own it, and re-package it as family entertainment!All the rides should get new names.
The Great American Scream Machine" should become "Wall Street Wailer".
Park customers will be able to confront their worst fears and come away victorious. What's a little personal bankruptcy when you've ridden "The Liquidator" and laughed about it? It's terrible to lose your home but not quite as gut wrenching as riding "The Balloon Payment"!My advice? With their shares worth almost nothing, we at the meeting are bullish on Six Flags!
Personally, I'm going to hold off on what appears to be Spin's "buy" signal.
I've never been much of a thrill seeker when it comes to roller coasters and things that twirl you around and shake the change out of your pockets.
Or worse.
How about you?
Comments (23)
Hi Heartlanders. I visited Cedar Point once and experienced something I will never forget. A bunch of us got into this large cylinder. This cylinder spun around quite fast and then the bottom dropped down and we were suspended against the wall. I started sliding down which scared the heck out of me. Never again!
"Tilt-a-Whirl" was the last thrill ride i liked -but the one that sickened me almost as badly as the economy was those swings on long chains that go around in a circle and spin out almost parallel to the ground.
yesterday i fell off the "Majority and Nibby" ride - had hold of both of their collars and they decided to run and give me a thrill. face in dirt. sore knees and arms.
Dream, Desi, Opus and Spot are doing extremely well but wish it were cooler than 80.
I agree with Barb on the rides...they always made me sick, the last time I got on anything that goes around fast was when I was 16. After two or three tilt-a-whirls in a row, I was doubled over. Never again. I will ride a merry-go-round and sometimes a ferris wheel.
Coming off a bucking 13 hand horse is exciting enough for me at this age...I know, the idea is to stay on. Good theory.
Barb, I'm glad to hear the youngest are doing well. Missed you at the the Mahtowa farmer's market yesterday. People in shorts rather than down jackets. Ah, what a difference a week makes!
Have a good one all.
I love a carousel - all the pretty horses, the romance! No other ride ever even tempts me in my adulthood, thought I do enjoy a stroll thru the midway at the fair, see the trhillseekers in action. Life offers quite enough excitement without seeking more in my experience. And I have a strong fondness for 'normal' days.
Poor Barb! Ouch! Be gentle with yourself over the next couple of days as you recouperate!
Good morning, all, and thanks for the entertaining and comical Monday morning blog entry, Dale!
I would just love, please, to hear some Neil Young if it fits in with the overall plan. :-)
Have a great day, all!
Good morning, fellow Heartlanders! Hope you all had a good weekend.
I was glad to hear "The Littlest Birds" song, because wrens are nesting in my back yard and have been sounding very happy.
I'm also more of the "carousel" crowd vs. thrill rides. Daughter got me onto the spinning teacup ride at Como Town several times last year - dizzy I can handle, but not upside down, up high, shaken, or stirred.
Barb - hope you can recuperate quickly from your exciting ride.
(And thanks for the carousel song - I was trying to think of a good one...and failing.)
Thanks for the Neil Young! That was the very song that has been going through my mind. Glad I got to hear it start to finish!
Good Morning Dale,
I was going to ask you to play some Richard Thompson this morning and having just heard the last 2 spinning songs "Wall of Death" seems appropriate for the todays theme.....
Have a great Monday everyone, I already am!
Wall Street and thrill rides certainly have a lot in common. Maybe too much.
I think Spin Williams is spinning out of control if he thinks people would like to go on a ride named after Wall Street. But I guess Spin is kind of an out of control character.
The Orange Might Trio show at the Cedar went very well with a big crowd that nearly filled the place. Randy Sabine came up on stage to join the Trio and members the other band at the show, Mississippi Peace, for a great ending. I very much appreicate the nice interview that you did with the Trio, Dale.
I used to do them all with the boy, then when I hit 40 I couldn't even do a playground merry-go-round without getting woozy. Can still do a carousel, and we got brave recently and did the Double Ferris Wheel at the State Fair...
Off topic: Iris Dement Friday night (sold out) was absolutely mesmerizing. That clear, pure, twangy voice -- so different from her speaking voice, which she used sparingly. Almost 2 hours of solid singing, accompanying herself on piano (WOW) and guitar. Comfortable in her own skin, and funny... so that I relaxed way into it (not hard, it was very warm in there), just let the sounds wash over me. Thanks RH for sponsoring!
By the way, I don't know if you have the album from the musical "Carousel", Dale, but if you do, how about the Carousel Waltz?
Ooh, almost forgot, the first group, local trio The Pines, did a nice set -- worth going to if you can find them. OK, I'm done now.
I come from a family of "rides make us sick"-ers too. When I worked for an insurance company, I visited a company in Faribault. The plant manager told me that the "Tilt-A-Whirl" was invented right there. I told him that it wasn't personal but his company's grand creation made me sick. He said, "Yeah, we get that a lot..." Then there was the time that my brother fell off the Alpine Slide in Lutsen...
The Orange Mighty Trio were fantastic on Saturday night.
2 Carousal songs (plus the waltz from carousal,thanks, Barbara in Robbinsdale) I can get going in my head (round and round and roung...) are "On a Carousel" from "Jacques Brel is alive and well and living in Paris" and a Blood Sweat and Tears song whose title and words escape me. But it is late in the day, I'm off to milk & feed...maybe some other day?
Happy Monday Heartlanders.
I wish Spin well... but unfortunately for me, as I've gotten older, my equilibrium has become less and less fond of thrill rides. Although according to my daugher, I do become a really nice shade of green after I've forced myself on a ride out at Valley Fair. I don't think changing the names will change that!
Have a great week all!
That other thing that the Six Flags story reminds me of is that Astroland, the last amusement park on Coney Island, closed last year. Sad.
Good Morning RHers!
I saw this You Tube clip on someone's facebook page, and thought it might be of interest to RHers, too. It is a choral version of Toto's song, "Africa". The intro and ending of the song has the choir imitating rain and thunder. The choir is from Slovenia, I believe. Copy and paste the link to view the video.
http://bit.ly/SoSbg
Good morning RH,
Thanks for the note about the Iris DeMent concert Barbara, I want to see/hear her live sometime too.
As to thrill rides, figuratively speaking being the father of two daughters, one of which is 13, the other 7, has been quite the ride. We are approaching with trepidation the dating and boys stretch.
In the literal sense, I do not like being spun much. I might be able to do one Tilt-a-Hurl ride, but the thing where the floor drops out, no way. I do like roller coasters - upside down, corkscrew is fine with me. Older daughter happened to be at Valleyfair last Friday and did most of them.
Thanks for the thrill ride and carousel requests, everyone. I went to the library for "Wall of Death" and found it missing. Drat!
I'll have to put together a thrill seekers medley later in the week, incorporating some of your suggestions. Hang on tight 'til then.
Dale and Mike - thanks so much for Pat's "learning the hard way" for me. made me chuckle. i knew, when i grabbed both those guys at once, that it probably wasn't the smartest thing i've ever done. we're working on a way to pasture them without endangering my body in the future. (it's the apple trees that are the issue - keeping them off the apple trees, that is) fencing is expensive, but i think if i got broken it would cost way more :-) thanks for the good thoughts.
howdy, y'all!!
what a glorious weather weekend, eh? the yard looks so pretty.
lots of grad parties all over the neighborhood, so i got to eat lots of free food :-)
i gotta say, i think spin's renaming of the rides does capture quite poetically the feelings inspired by the named events....especially Skull Mountain/visit to HR.....ha ha
okay, i'm really going to try to tune in tomorrow during the show------
I wish that I had kind, soothing words for Six Flags... Without getting into a lot of detail... a family member was employed by a well known park whose inhabitants include "Shamu"..... He was employed in one of the smaller parks....the park was bought out three and four times.... and 6 flags was one of the purchasers. 6 flags gutted this particular park sold it off to someone else, and one by one laid off a lot of employees. My brother had been with the park for 25 years... It was heartbreaking for them....
I feel for the employees... Six Flags? Not so much!
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