title: Mercury-Atlas 6

text: One crewman cleared the spacecraft antenna and another crewman attached a line to hoist "Friendship 7" aboard. After being pulled from the water, the spacecraft bumped against the side of the destroyer. Once "Friendship 7" was on deck, Glenn intended to leave the capsule through the upper hatch, but it was too hot in the spacecraft and Glenn decided to blow the side hatch instead. He told the ship's crew to stand clear and hit the hatch detonator plunger with the back of his hand. The detonator plunger recoiled, and slightly cut the astronaut's knuckles through his glove. With a loud bang, the hatch was off. Harry Beal, the first U.S Navy Seal, pulled Glenn out of "Friendship 7". A smiling Glenn got out of "Friendship 7" and stood on the deck of "Noa". His first words were, "It was hot in there."


title: Mercury-Atlas 6

text: After the return of "Friendship 7", NASA announced on April 19, 1962 that the spacecraft would be lent to the United States Information Agency for a world tour. The tour included more than 20 stops, becoming known as the "Fourth orbit of "Friendship 7"".


title: Mercury-Atlas 6

text: Mercury spacecraft # 13 – "Friendship 7" – is currently displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, VA.


title: Mercury-Atlas 6

text: Philip Kaufman's 1983 film "The Right Stuff" includes a dramatization of the "Friendship 7" mission in which Ed Harris plays Glenn. The sequence depicts the spacecraft's three orbits and Glenn's responses to what he saw, sometimes quoted verbatim, as well as the concerns over the heat shield during reentry. The mysterious "fireflies" are also shown, but their true explanation is not revealed; instead they are depicted as magical protection summoned by Australian Aborigines at the Muchea Tracking Station.


title: Mercury-Atlas 6

text: The 2016 film "Hidden Figures" features the "Friendship 7" mission in the climax of the movie, focusing on Katherine Johnson's calculations of the landing.


title: Mercury-Atlas 6

text: To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the flight in 2012, Glenn was surprised with the opportunity to speak with the orbiting crew of the International Space Station while Glenn was on-stage with NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden at Ohio State University, where the public affairs school is named in honor of Glenn.


title: Kim Ji-soo (actress)

text: A graduate of Kaywon High School of the Arts, Kim made her acting debut in 1992. She worked as a television actress for over a decade before branching out into film, saying in an interview that, "I was getting older by the second, and I hated becoming complacent." In 2005, Kim made her first big screen appearance with a leading role in Lee Yoon-ki's "This Charming Girl", a character study of a twenty-something single woman working at a post office. The film was well received by critics, and Kim herself was singled out for praise, with "The Japan Times" commenting, "Kim's performance is a masterful balance of understatedness and open-wounded vulnerability." Kim won Best Actress at the Singapore International Film Festival, and Best New Actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards, Busan Film Critics Awards, and Korean Film Awards, with a further nomination at the Grand Bell Awards. Due to the success of "This Charming Girl" on the international film festival circuit, and in recognition of her role in promoting Korean culture overseas, Kim was invited to a Blue House luncheon, where she met then-South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and First Lady Kwon Yang-suk.


title: Kim Ji-soo (actress)

text: In 2006 Kim appeared in several films, first with Jo Jae-hyun in the melodrama "Romance", though she was publicly critical about the lack of depth to her character. In October 2006, she portrayed a victim of the Sampoong Department Store collapse in "Traces of Love", which was selected as the opening film of the 11th Pusan International Film Festival. In November 2006, Kim starred opposite Han Suk-kyu in the romantic drama "Solace", receiving a nomination for Best Actress at the Korean Film Awards.


title: Kim Ji-soo (actress)

text: Kim returned to television in May 2008 with a leading role in the drama "Women of the Sun". Her turn as a complex antiheroine garnered praise, and she won a Top Excellence Award in Acting at the year-end KBS Drama Awards and a nomination for Best TV Actress at the Baeksang Arts Awards.


title: Kim Ji-soo (actress)

text: In 2010 she starred in her first historical series "The King of Legend" which focuses on Geunchogo, the 13th ruler of Baekje. Shortly before the drama's premiere, Kim was involved in a drunken hit-and-run accident (this was her second offense; her first DUI was in 2000 for which she lost her license). Amidst a wave of complaints demanding that she be fired from the drama, broadcast station KBS stuck by the actress, and Kim released an official apology and paid the fine of . She was later listed among the top 10 highest-paid entertainers on KBS for the year 2011, with a salary of . Starring roles followed in "Love Again" (2012) and "One Warm Word" (2013).


title: Kim Ji-soo (actress)

text: When asked in an interview if she would consider appearing nude onscreen, Kim replied, "I don't want to take nude scenes to prove my passion for acting, which I have always had."


title: Kim Ji-soo (actress)

text: She was in a six-year relationship with actor Kim Joo-hyuk, with whom she co-starred in the 2002 SBS drama series "Like a Flowing River". The couple broke up in 2009.


title: Kim Ji-soo (actress)

text: After her change in relationship status on Facebook was leaked in March 2012, Kim confirmed that she was dating a Korean-Canadian 16 years her junior. The couple split in 2013.


title: Single room occupancy

text: Single room occupancy (more commonly abbreviated to SRO) is a form of housing that is typically aimed at residents with low or minimal incomes who rent small, furnished single rooms with a bed, chair, and sometimes a small desk. SRO units are rented out as permanent residence and/or primary residence to individuals, within a multi-tenant building where tenants share a kitchen, toilets or bathrooms. SRO units range from . In some instances, contemporary units may have a small refrigerator, microwave, or sink.


title: Single room occupancy

text: SROs are a form of affordable housing, in some cases for formerly or otherwise homeless individuals. SRO units are the least expensive form of non-subsidized rental housing, with median rents even in New York City ranging from $450 to $705 per month. The term is primarily used in Canada and US. Since the 1970s and 1980s, there has been an increasing displacement of SRO units aimed at low-income earners in a process of gentrification, with SRO facilities being sold and turned into condominiums. Between 1955 and 2013, almost one million SRO units were eliminated in the US due to regulation, conversion or demolition.


title: Single room occupancy

text: The term SRO refers to the fact that the tenant rents a single room, as opposed to a full flat (apartment). While roommates informally sharing an apartment may also have a bedroom and share a bathroom and kitchen, an SRO tenant leases the SRO unit individually. SRO units may be provided in a rooming house, apartment building, or in illegal conversions of private homes into many small SRO rooms. There is a variety of levels of quality, ranging from a "cubicle with a wire mesh ceiling", at the lowest end, to small hotel rooms or small studio apartments without bathrooms, at the higher end. They may also be referred to as "SRO hotels", which acknowledges that many of the buildings are old hotels that are in a poor state of repair and maintenance. The acronym SRO has also been stated to mean "single resident only". The terms "residential hotel" or "efficiency unit" are also used to refer to some SROs.


title: Single room occupancy

text: The term originated in New York City, probably in the 1930s (the "Oxford English Dictionary" provides an earliest citation of 1941), but such accommodations predate the nickname by at least fifty years. SROs exist in many American cities, and are most common in larger cities. In many cases, the buildings themselves were formerly hotels in or near a city's central business district, typically built in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Theodore Dreiser described early SRO hotels in his 1900 "naturist novel of urban life" "Sister Carrie".


title: Single room occupancy

text: By the 1880s, urban reformers began working on modernizing cities; their efforts to create "uniformity within areas, less mixture of social classes, maximum privacy for each family, much lower density for many activities, buildings set back from the street, and a permanently built order" all meant that SRO hotels had to be cut back. By the 1890s, SRO hotels became "forbidden housing; their residents, forbidden citizens." New York City police inspector Thomas Byrnes stated that rather than give SRO hotels "palliative" care, they should be dealt with using a "knife, the blister, the amputating instruments."


title: Single room occupancy

text: Reformers used moral codes, building codes, fire codes, zoning, planning committees and inspections to limit or remove SRO hotels. An example of moral critiques is Simon Lubin's claims that "unregulated hotels" were "spreading venereal diseases among the soldiers". Other reformers tried to ban men and boys from rooming in the same hotels, due to concerns about homosexuality. The building and safety codes criticized SRO hotel problems such as "firetraps, dark rooms, inadequate plumbing, an insufficient ventilation." In San Francisco, building code inspections and restrictions were often used to racially harass Chinese laborers and the places they lived.


title: Single room occupancy

text: In 1917, California passed a new hotel act that prevented the building of new hotels with small cubicle rooms. In addition to banning or restricting SRO hotels, land use reformers also passed zoning rules that indirectly reduced SROs: banning mixed residential and commercial use in neighbourhoods, an approach which meant that any remaining SRO hotel's residents would find it hard to eat at a local cafe or walk to a nearby corner grocery to buy food. Non-residential uses such as religious institutions (churches) and professional offices (doctors, lawyers) were still permitted under these new zoning rules, but working-class people (plumbers, mechanics) were not allowed to operate businesses such as garages or plumbing businesses.


title: Single room occupancy

text: The United States saw a decrease in single room occupancy housing during the period of 1960s and 1970s urban decay. For example, in Chicago 81% of the SRO housing stock disappeared between 1960 and 1980. Since the early 1970s, the supply of SRO spaces did not meet the demand in US cities. In 1970, newspapers in the US wrote about an "SRO [supply] crisis". Downtown SRO hotels offer few and possibly no rooms to rent to tourists. Indeed, since the end of WWII, the inexpensive hotels that became SROs were lost and not replaced, with the losses coming from conversion to office space, demolition, or upgrading to tourist rental. For example, in San Francisco from 1975 and 1980, 6,085 SRO rooms were lost; in Chicago, from 1973 and 1984, more than 23,000 SRO units were lost. Some viewed the removal of SRO hotels as a good thing, as it meant the "removal of substandard housing and unwanted neighbors" and their "public nuisance"; on the other hand, it was also viewed as causing more homelessness.


title: Single room occupancy

text: Paul Groth states that some downtown "residents literally cannot exist without them [SROs]" as they have "[f]ew, if any, housing alternatives." There are "myths about today's [SRO] hotel residents", claiming that they are all "isolated, needy, and disabled; all elderly; all on welfare; all elderly men; or all welfare mothers with three young children...[,] socially marginal, all mildly psychotic, all alcoholics or drug addicts, all drifters and transients", with some journalists using the derogatory term "welfare hotel". A 1985 study in Chicago revealed "a large minority of impoverished workers". In New York City, about one third of SRO dwellers are black and one quarter are Hispanic. Most SRO residents do not move more often than apartment renters, contrary to media references to "transients".


title: Single room occupancy

text: In the mid-1990s, many "city health officials, architects, city planners, and politicians still argue that no one should live in [SRO] hotels", which are viewed as leading to "severe social and physical maladjustment" and "public nuisance". Apart from media criticism, SRO residents are typically "unseen" and "invisible" in housing reform policies and reforms. SRO residents are typically not referred to explicitly in legislation, considered by city housing communities and urban development efforts, which means that SRO residents often have to move from district to district according to changes in real estate planning. San Francisco architect John Liu called SRO hotels the "most controversial, the most neglected, and the least understood of all housing types." The invisibility of SRO residents is caused by a lack of interest in the lives of the poor and in their lack of a "political constituency", as most housing policy focuses on the family. With the huge reductions in the number of SRO rooms available to the lowest-income populations in the US, the role of SROs is being taken over by homeless shelters; however, many homeless people avoid staying at shelters because they find them to be "dangerous and unappealing" or because they do not meet entry requirements (due to being intoxicated), leading to more people sleeping on the streets.


title: Single room occupancy

text: SRO hotels may be literally invisible to higher-income passers-by when they are discreetly located on the upper floors of a restaurant or retail store. There is a debate as to whether SRO hotel residents are "homeless". Paul Groth states that SRO residents are "not homeless. They are living in admittedly minimal and unusual dwelling units, often in hideous repair and under woefully inadequate management but dwelling units nonetheless." SROs were considered socially acceptable even as late as the late 1950s: the Alfred Hitchcock movie "Vertigo" depicted young administrative staff living in downtown SRO hotels. An equivalent term to SRO is "residential hotel".


title: Single room occupancy

text: In the US, the YMCA began building SRO facilities in the 1880s to house people from rural areas who moved into cities to look for work. The typical YMCA SRO housing provides "low-income, temporary housing for a rent of $110 per week (in 2005)" for stays that are typically three to six months long. By 1950, 670 of the 1,688 YMCAs in the US provided SRO spaces, which made 66,959 beds available. By the 1970s, the typical YMCA tenant was more likely to be homeless people and youth facing life issues, rather than people migrating from rural areas.


title: Single room occupancy

text: The pop song and gay anthem "YMCA" by the Village People describes the YMCA's mix of "gay culture and working-class workouts coexisting in a single communal space", creating "a mix of white-collar and blue-collar residents, along with retired seniors and veterans", with about half of residents being gay. While the song gives the impression that YMCA SROs in the 1970s had a party atmosphere, Paul Groth states that YMCA SRO units actually had "more supervision of your social life—a kind of management as to how you behaved ... [than] in a commercial rooming house, which mostly wanted to make sure the rooms were rented", without monitoring who you brought to your room. While some YMCAs hired professionals to help homeless people and troubled youths (e.g., addictions counselors, social workers, etc.), overall, by the 2000s (decade), most YMCAs decided to move away from providing SROs. By 2004, only 81 of the 2,594 YMCAs still had SRO units.


title: Single room occupancy

text: For much of New York City's early history, housing was provided in shared accommodations that would probably be described as SROs today. These units provided housing for single, low-income men, and to a lesser degree, single low-income women. In New York City, the number of SRO units increased a great deal during the Great Depression, but with the deinstitutionalization of mentally ill people, SRO units became filled with tenants with mental health diagnoses, which led to bans on the building of new SRO units in the 1950s and taxation benefits for landlords to convert SROs into regular apartments.


title: Single room occupancy

text: In the late 1940s, tens of thousands of Puerto Rican families moved to the Upper West Side; in response to this new demand for housing, landlords harassed tenants of rent controlled apartments to get them to leave and turned apartments into multi-room SROs, in some cases almost tripling their rental income for the same apartment building. Housing aimed at Puerto Ricans rose in price in response to the demand, while landlords reduced their maintenance. As the numbers of Puerto Ricans increased, overcrowding developed and bodegas and Hispanic-oriented stores opened; the elderly white middle-income residents became "hysterical on the subject of crime and safety", with community meetings held to deal with the issue of "foreigners" and "low types".


title: Single room occupancy

text: The anti-SRO policies of 1955 were introduced when the demographics of SRO residents changed towards immigrant families; in an environment influenced by "varying degrees of xenophobia and racism", the city took steps to ban new SRO unit construction, prevent families from living in SROs, and change building codes and zoning to discourage SROs. In the 1970s, the city introduced tax incentives for landlords to encourage them to convert SROs into regular apartments, a program which from 1976 to 1981 eliminated two thirds of the SRO stock in the city.


title: Single room occupancy

text: While the city realized by the 1980s that SRO units needed to be preserved, due to their role in housing homeless people, and introduced policies to encourage SRO retention, the number of SRO units had fallen by one half (from its Depression-era highest number). In 1985, the city tried to stop the loss of the remaining SRO units by banning the "conversion, alteration, or demolition" of SRO buildings, but by 1989, this law was struck down by an appeals court. The huge loss of SRO units in New York City is "not the inevitable result" of "market forces"; it was caused by an interaction between city housing policies and market forces.


title: Single room occupancy

text: Paul Tyrrell states that when New York City housing prices rose in the early 2000s (decade), SRO landlords tried to remove longtime SRO tenants to use their real estate for more lucrative uses (one of these being Airbnb-style short-term rental). The owners of the Ace Hotel, a former SRO facility, converted their building to a luxury hotel, with only a few long-term, low-income SRO tenants using their leases to stay in the hotel. There are about 100,000 illegal SRO units in New York City, many of which are "unsafe, with too many people" for the space and a lack of proper fire exits and ventilation. Some landlords who wish to convert their old SRO hotel into a luxury boutique hotel may harass the renters or bribe the low-income tenants so they will leave. New York City law requires building owners to receive a certificate of no harassment (CONH) in order to demolish or convert their building to prove they were not intentionally forcing tenants out through harassment or bribery. NYC residents of illegal SROs are reluctant to complain to housing authorities about the condition of their units or rent regulation violations, as doing so could lead to their eviction.


title: Single room occupancy

text: With the increasing popularity of Airbnb, an online room and house-renting service, housing activists were concerned that this could decrease the availability of SRO units, as landlords may find they can make more money from renting the rooms to tourists. In March 2016, affordable housing advocates in New York City were pleased when a judge ruled that an Upper West Side SRO facility (the Imperial Court Hotel) could not rent out rooms for less than 30 days, a short-term tenure that would favour tourist rentals over lower-income long-term renters.


title: Single room occupancy

text: In the middle of the 19th century, gold prospectors, sailors, and seasonal fruit and vegetable pickers lived in San Francisco's SRO hotels during the winter. SROs played a key role in providing housing for immigrant single adults and families, particularly those from China, Philippines, Japan and Latino countries; the SRO district was nicknamed "hotel city" due to the number of SRO hotels. By the late 1940s, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency began working on "blight removal" and demolition, with thousands of SRO units destroyed to make way for redevelopment.


title: Single room occupancy

text: In 1966, pro-development members of the community formed the San Francisco Planning and Urban Renewal Association (SPUR) to lobby for the removal of poor, immigrant and minority SRO tenants: SPUR stated that "If San Francisco decides to compete effectively with other cities for new "clean" industries and new corporate power, its population will move closer to standard white Anglo-Saxon Protestant characteristics", and thus the association called for exerting "influence" over the city's population to achieve SPUR's goals of improving the "health of the city". In 1968, when a demolition permit was sought for the International Hotel, an SRO hotel inhabited by Filipino seniors, activists and protesters fought to stop it from being destroyed. Although community groups tried to stop the demolition with activism and court action, by 1977, the tenants were ordered to be evicted; protesters formed a human chain to stop the demolition, but police removed them and the building was razed.


title: Single room occupancy

text: During the 1970s, as San Francisco became a popular and economically successful city, job seekers came seeking homes; Justin Herman, the Executive Director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency criticized the presence of SROs, saying "This land is too valuable to permit poor people to park on it". By 1980, the hotel and convention industries were lobbying for the building of new hotels for tourists; tenant activists protested what they viewed as the "Manhattanization" of the city, including the gentrification and impacts on traffic and air cleanliness. From 1975 to 2000, landlords eliminated about 6,085 SRO units. From 1989 to 2002, more than 1,700 SRO units were destroyed by fires. Even in the 2000s, immigrants live three or four tenants per SRO room.


title: Single room occupancy

text: San Francisco is an example of a city that took over particularly squalid SROs, and renovated them for the disadvantaged. Landlords who intend to convert SROs may try to convince their tenants to sign releases, which may require relocation by the landlord and/or compensating the tenant. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development subsidizes SRO rehabilitation to combat homelessness, under the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987. San Francisco passed an SRO Hotel Conversion Ordinance in 1980, which restricts the conversion of SRO hotels to tourist use. SROs are prominent in the Tenderloin, Mission District and Chinatown communities.


title: Single room occupancy

text: In 2001, San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly sponsored legislation making it illegal for SRO landlords to charge "visitor fees"—a practice long run in order for hotel managers to get a "cut" on drug-dealing or prostitution activities in the building. After a rash of fires destroyed many SROs in San Francisco and left nearly one thousand tenants homeless, a new program to reduce fire risk in SRO hotels was initiated. In 2015, there were reports that San Francisco's Hotel EPIK would turn the New Pacific Hotel, a former SRO hotel, into a luxury boutique hotel. A 1980 city ordinance prohibits SRO landlords from renting SRO units to tourists for short term stays (which will result in a fine unless the landlord creates a replacement SRO unit).


title: Single room occupancy

text: Jerry Threet, San Francisco' deputy city attorney, says that SROs are "often the last barrier between SF’s poorest population and the streets". Threet says some SRO owners do the "bare minimum to maintain their buildings", leading to unsafe SRO units. In 2014, City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the owners and managers of 15 San Francisco SROs for "pervasive violations of state and local laws intended to protect residents’ health, safety and tenancy rights". Herrera alleges that the SROs harass or otherwise push out SRO tenants before they can get 30 days tenancy, which gives them protection, an action nicknamed "musical rooms". He also alleges that the SROs either do not do repairs of their units, or do repairs without permits and without licensed, qualified contractors.


title: Single room occupancy

text: In 2016, "The Guardian" reported that the average SRO rents in San Francisco's Chinatown are increasing from $610 in 2013, to $970 in 2015 (the average rent for all rental housing was $3,907). The increase in SRO rents is due to the shift away from renting to Chinese immigrants towards "college graduates, single adults and white people". In 2016, about 60% of San Francisco's supportive housing tenants lived in SRO hotels. Newspaper reporters found "chronic maintenance issues, health code violations and frustrated residents" at some of these SRO hotels, typically built a century ago, including the Crosby Hotel in Tenderloin, which had "vermin infestations", no power, leaking pipes, and an elevator that was unreliable. Following numerous complaints, the owners of the Crosby Hotel spent $700,000 to repair and upgrade the building. The problems in the city's old SRO hotels are "old buildings with aging infrastructure filled with traumatized or dysfunctional people who sometimes can be destructive or neglectful through hoarding, attracting vermin or willfully damaging property". The Henry, another SRO hotel, is also being improved, with staff giving it new paint, an atrium area, WiFi and computers.


title: Single room occupancy

text: A 2018 article states that some SRO landlords in San Francisco are "holding [SRO] rooms empty, perhaps for years, driving up the value of a building" rather than rent them to low-income people; Erik Schmitt states that one in seven SRO rooms in the city are vacant, with some hotels having 100% vacancy.


title: Single room occupancy

text: The arrival of Asian immigrants to the Seattle area in the 1880s, many living in crowded rooming houses, led to concerns from the city council, which passed a cubic air ordinance in 1886 requiring 500 cubic feet of air space per resident. By the early 1900s (decade), Asian immigrants from Japan and China who settled in Seattle were typically the men from the family, who moved to the city's Chinatown and Nihonmachi districts and lived in SROs. Chinese immigrants came to Seattle to work as miners, cooks, railway laborers and cannery workers. These SRO residents used the restaurants, bath-houses, and barbershops to meet their living needs while they worked in Seattle-area industries. Some SROs aimed at Asian residents had a bath-house in the basement to serve Japanese immigrant clients.


title: Single room occupancy

text: One SRO in Seattle's Chinatown that housed immigrant workers, the West Kong Yick hotel, was closed in the 1970s when it could not afford to comply with Seattle fire and building code updates; it was still closed in 2018. By 1980, only 77 of Seattle's original 350 residential hotels were still standing, due to demolitions. In the 1990s, several of the big SRO hotels were renovated, including the Milwaukee, the Northern Pacific, and the Eastern; however, the fire, safety, and earthquake code upgrades led to big rental increases (for example, the Publix Hotel rental went from $75 per week for a SRO in the early 2000s to $1,350 per month for a micro-studio in 2018).


title: Single room occupancy

text: From 2009 to 2014, Seattle had a big increase in the building and creation of new SRO units designed to be rented at market rates, which had an average monthly rent of $660; In 2013, for example, 1,800 SRO units and microapartment units were built. In 2018, the media depicted the increasing popularity of micro apartments as a new trend; however, an article about Seattle in "Market Urbanism Report" states this is a "reenactment of the way U.S. cities have long worked", as individuals seeking "solo living and centralized locations" are willing to accept smaller apartments even though the per-square-foot prices may be higher than some larger units. The report states that 2018-era micro apartments were known as SROs in the early 20th century, and they housed "rich and poor alike" (although the rich lived in live-in luxury hotels and the poor lived in "bunkhouses for day laborers"). Neighborhood groups in Seattle have criticized new micro apartment SRO units, arguing that they "harmed community character and provided ... inhumane living conditions; due to these concerns, the city passed regulations that outlawed micro apartment/SRO construction.


title: Single room occupancy

text: In Canada, SRO hotels (also known as "residential hotels") are most often seen in Vancouver. (In other major cities such as Toronto, rooming houses in converted single-family dwellings are the equivalent form of affordable housing available.) SROs in Vancouver may be either privately-owned and for-profit, privately-owned and non-profit, or owned by government. As of 2019, there were a total of 156 SRO hotels in Vancouver. Most are occupied primarily (though not exclusively) by people struggling with mental health and/or addiction issues, and who are likelier than average to have experienced homelessness. Tenants typically have their own private rooms, but share washroom and kitchen facilities with other tenants. Rooms generally cost between $375 and $800 (CAD, c. 2015), well below the average cost of Vancouver rental housing.


title: Single room occupancy

text: Most SROs were originally intended to be short-term accommodations for seasonal male workers, as well as young families, and recent immigrants, in the early 1900s. Two hotels which would later become notorious, the Balmoral and the Regent, were even considered luxury accommodations. However, first the Depression and then the 1970s closure of psychiatric hospitals (and attendant lack of regard or care of mentally ill Vancouverites), along with the flight of the wealthy and middle class to the suburbs, contributed to the decline and lack of investment in the Downtown Eastside. By the 1970s and 1980s, Vancouver SROs' reputations were poor. A 1989 University of British Columbia thesis by Mercedes Mompel Antolin asserted that only 10–20% of SROs were of good or acceptable quality at the time of writing. And even by 1989, the number of SROs was diminishing: 2,704 units were lost in the period between 1978 and 1986, largely due to the pressures of an increasingly hot real estate market.


title: Single room occupancy

text: Real estate market pressures on SRO tenants have not abated in the 30 years since that thesis was published. The market stock of SROs is decreasing both in terms of vacancy rates and in terms of affordability, and quality of life in SROs is highly variable. Certain privately-owned SRO hotels in Vancouver are notorious for their poor maintenance, absentee landlords, crime, and frequency of drug overdoses; the Sahota family has been responsible for the ownership of many such SRO hotels, such as the Regent and the Balmoral, both of which were ordered to close and were expropriated by the City of Vancouver. While it cannot be said by any reasonable person that the loss of these residences constitutes the loss of quality rental stock (the Balmoral and the Regent were plagued by systemic and deliberate neglect, and tenants had to be evacuated), the decline in availability of affordable housing has been exacerbated by the closure of some SRO hotels.


title: Single room occupancy

text: SROs are a viable housing option for students, single tenants, seasonal or other traveling workers, empty nester widows/widowers, divorced men, low-income people, or others who do not want or need large dwellings or private domestic appliances. The smaller size and limited amenities in SROs generally make them a more affordable housing option, especially in gentrifying neighborhoods or urban areas with high land values and high rents.


title: Single room occupancy

text: The rents of many poor tenants may be paid in full or in part by charitable, state, or federal programs, giving incentive to landlords to accept such tenants. Some SRO buildings are renovated with the benefit of a tax abatement, with the condition that the rooms be rented to tenants with low incomes, and sometimes specific low-income groups, such as homeless people, people with mental illness, people with HIV/AIDS, and so on. A 1991 study stated that SROs can be successfully used to provide housing for people with chronic mental illness, as SROs give residents "personal freedom and privacy" while also giving a sense of community. Some SROs are operated or funded by charities, non-profit organizations, and/or governments as a way to provide supportive housing to "special needs populations", which include people facing drug and alcohol addiction, mental health issues, or disabilities.


title: Single room occupancy

text: While SRO units are mostly associated with low-income renters, in cities where dwellings are expensive and scarce, there may be "middle-class SROs", a type of microapartment aimed at middle class and professional renters. The first 2010s-era micro-unit housing building in New York City, Carmel Place, opened in 2016. It has 55 studios which go from 260 to 360 square feet. An article about "21st Century SROs" states that even though there is "still a stigma around SROs because of some of the experience of the last century", there is a "growing acceptance that small spaces can be well run and safe, healthy spaces to live and can be built more cheaply.” Common's Williamsburg in Brooklyn rents single rooms where tenants share a kitchen for $2,050 per month; "The Guardian" states that "[s]ingle room occupancy housing is obviously not a new concept, however, the genius of late capitalism is that it has made it desirable" to high-income renters.


title: Single room occupancy

text: In 2017 in New York City, Matthew and Seth Weissman, who operate Weissman Equities, renovated a partly empty apartment building in Harlem, creating furnished SRO units with 180 to 280 square feet, which rent for $1,200 to $1,600 per month (this includes utilities and cleaning). "Luxury", "amenity-laden" SRO units are available for $2,150 from Common Baltic in Boerum Hill and for $3,050 per month from WeLive (the residential version of co-working company WeWork).


title: Single room occupancy

text: In San Francisco, Starcity is converting unused parking garages, commercial spaces and offices into single-room residential units, where tenants (tech professionals are the typical renter) get a furnished bedroom and access to wifi, janitor services and common kitchens and lounges for $1,400 to $2,400 per month, an approach that has been called "dorm living for grownups".


title: Single room occupancy

text: In Atlanta, PadSplit is a cohousing organization that converts single-family homes into single rooms that their members can occupy individually, with a shared kitchen and bathroom, along with wifi, and laundry facilities. Unlike WeLive, which is aimed at high-income professionals, PadSplit is aimed at working-class members, and it has single room dues from $500 to $750 per month.


title: Single room occupancy

text: Depending on the landlords and the quality of the properties, SRO conditions can range from squalor to something like an extended-stay, basic hotel. Some have been designed and run in a dormitory fashion. Others have been "cage" hotels, in which a large room is split into many smaller ones with corrugated steel or sheetrock dividers or cubicles, which do not reach the height of the original ceiling. To prevent tenants from climbing over the walls into each other's spaces, the tops of the rooms are covered in chicken wire, making the rooms look something like cages. A 1991 article in "Social Work" calls SRO hotels the "nation's least desirable housing stock" and states that the facilities led to elderly people being "trapped in a situation that exacerbated their isolation and withdrawal from society", even though they were in "desperate need of social services". SRO buildings have been associated with fire risk; in Chicago alone, SROs with serious fires included Barton Hotel in 1955, the Royal Bench Hotel in 1981, the Paxton Hotel in 1993, and the J.R. Plaza Hotel (also called "the Zanzibar") in 1999. In the popular imagination, SRO hotels "carry the stigma of vice and drunkenness", and in fiction writing, there are novels where SROs are used to indicate skid row conditions.


title: Single room occupancy

text: While urban reformers who advocate for the removal of SROs state that "more 'dignified' forms of affordable housing" should be created in the place of SROs, Marco D'Eramo states that "SRO inhabitants have rejected this notion in... surveys, declaring themselves to be reasonably content with their lodger lifestyle." In the 1990s, SRO rooms in Chicago only cost about $60 less per month than renting a single-room apartment; however, SROs do not require a two-month deposit paid by check or credit card (thus requiring a bank account) and a guarantee of regular income (standard requirements for apartments). SRO hotels differ from government and nonprofit housing services in that whereas these facilities have requirements for "minimum age, alcoholic or drug program eligibility, religious affiliation, welfare system dependency", SRO hotels were anonymous and generally accepted anyone who could pay the monthly rent, without requiring identification and information for official databases, setting restrictions on when residents could enter or leave, or requiring exposure to religious recruitment. A study of 485 New York City SRO tenants found that elderly people wanted to stay in their SRO units, so that they could live in "centrally located neighborhoods where apartment housing was beyond their means", without sharing a room. The study concluded that for "many elderly residents, SROs meet needs not easily met by available alternatives" and recommended maintaining SROs as an option for seniors.


title: Single room occupancy

text: A 2013 study of the approximately 3,000 SRO tenants who live in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside found that two-thirds were previously homeless and had an average of three illnesses each, with 95% facing substance dependence and almost two-thirds doing injection drugs. Nearly half had psychosis or a neurological disorder and 18% were HIV-positive. About 28% of the participants were Indigenous. The death rate of the SRO tenants was five times greater than the general population. In a 2018 paper, Barbic et al stated that young adults living in Vancouver SROs were a "vulnerable" and low-income group with "complex health and substance problems compared to their peers in the general population", typically on "median two co-occurring illnesses, including mental, neurological, and infectious diseases", and all had "lifetime alcohol and cannabis use, with pervasive use of stimulants and opioids", and they had a great deal of contact with the "health, social, and justice systems".


title: Single room occupancy

text: SRO hotels are "often viewed as unsafe by youth" in Canada who are seeking affordable housing. At a Vancouver protest calling for more affordable housing, singer and actor Dalannah Gail Bowen stated that SRO units are "'horrible' places to live" that have "squalor, like Third World countries" that "[n]o one deserves to live in". Illegal, unlicensed SRO units that are created in homes and apartment buildings may be overcrowded and lack fire exits and ventilation. In 2013, SROs were described as a "poorly regulated last resort for the most desperate populations."


title: Single room occupancy

text: In Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, an impoverished district where many SROs and homeless shelters are located, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled against an SRO hotel's requirement that visitors to the building show government-issued identification prior to entry. The hotel argued that the ID requirements were needed to provide a safe housing environment in what they called a "dangerous neighbourhood" with a "unique demographic" of individuals who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. The tenant who took the SRO to court argued that the policy was too restrictive, as many of his guests did not have ID. In the first ruling by the Residential Tenancy Branch, an arbitrator held that landlords cannot "unreasonably restrict access by guests to a rental property". The B.C. Supreme Court supported the arbitrator's decision, stating that there was no evidence that the tenant in the case had a history of issues with his behaviour on the property, and nor did his guests; the judge said that tenants and their guests should be protected against "unreasonable interference from landlords".


title: Single room occupancy

text: The construction of new SROs or conversion of existing homes to multiple SRO units was banned in New York City in 1955 due to concerns that they provided "substandard housing conditions" that were "improper and unsafe". Renters of illegal SRO units typically live in units that do not meet health and safety standards; as well, since the units are unregulated, the renters do not have protection against eviction or rent increases. Many SRO buildings, particularly in major cities, face strong development pressure for conversion to more profitable uses as condos, luxury apartments or high-end hotels. Some cities have regulated the conversion of SROs to other uses in order to prevent landlords from forcibly evicting SRO tenants, while conversely many others conversely limit the conversion of other uses into SROs and restrict them via zoning. Some cities do both simultaneously, protecting existing SROs while making it virtually impossible to create new ones. A 2014 article about SRO housing in San Francisco stated that SROs have become a "key urban built environment used to house poor populations with co-occurring drug use and mental health issues"; specifically, it found that women drug users in SROs have more "post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression versus "stably housed women".


title: Single room occupancy

text: In 2007, the musician Beyoncé Knowles provided $1 million towards the building of a $4 million SRO facility in Houston called Knowles-Temenos Place Apartments, which aim to provide supportive SRO housing for people trying to overcome "personal and natural disasters". The facility provides tenants with a shared business center (including computers and Internet access), with the individual rooms having a bath, mini refrigerator, mini-stove and a flat screen TV (wall-mounted), with the aesthetics and build quality similar to new apartment buildings in the downtown and midtown.


title: Single room occupancy

text: In SROs that are old, deteriorating hotels, some of the former amenities created for the hotel may have a new function for the current low-income SRO residents; for example, the lobby becomes a place for tenants to "wait for the ambulance, or to meet your addiction counselor, or to laugh and sing." In some old hotels that are now SROs, the nearby storefronts have transitioned from high-end restaurants and clothing shops (in the past) to "HIV-AIDS outreach groups, nongovernmental organizations, and social services offices". While most SROs are former residential hotels, some other building types have been repurposed into SRO usage, including mortuaries, dry cleaner facilities, nursing homes and schools.


title: AirPort Express

text: The AirPort Express is a Wi-Fi base station product from Apple Inc., part of the AirPort product line. While more compact and in some ways simpler than another Apple Wi-Fi base station, the AirPort Extreme, the Express offers audio output capability the Extreme lacks. The AirPort Express was the first AirPlay device to receive streamed audio from a computer running iTunes on the local network. AirPort Express outperforms the stringent requirements of the ENERGY STAR Program Requirements for Small Network Equipment (SNE) Version 1.0.


title: AirPort Express

text: Apple discontinued developing its wireless routers in 2018, but continues limited support of later models.


title: AirPort Express

text: When connected to an Ethernet network, the Express can function as a wireless access point. The latest model allows up to 50 networked users. It can be used as an Ethernet-to-wireless bridge under certain wireless configurations. It can be used to extend the range of a network, including functioning as a printer and audio server. The model introduced in June 2012 includes two Ethernet ports: one WAN and one LAN.


title: AirPort Express

text: The original version (M9470LL/A, model A1084) was introduced by Apple on July 7, 2004, and included an analog–optical audio mini-jack output, a USB port for remote printing or charging the iPod (iPod shuffle only), and one Ethernet port. The main processor of the 802.11g AirPort Express was a Broadcom BCM4712KFB wireless networking chipset, which incorporated a 200 MHz MIPS processor. The audio was handled by a Texas Instruments Burr-Brown PCM2705 16-bit digital-to-analog converter.


title: AirPort Express

text: An updated version (MB321LL/A, model A1264) supporting the faster 802.11 Draft-N draft specification and operation in either of the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, with almost all other features identical, was introduced by Apple in March 2008. The revised unit includes an 802.11a/n (5 GHz) mode, which allows adding Draft-N to an existing 802.11b/g network without disrupting existing connections, while preserving the increased throughput that Draft-N can provide. Up to 10 wireless units can connect to this AirPort Express.


title: AirPort Express

text: The AirPort Express uses an audio connector that combines a 3.5 mm minijack socket and a mini-TOSLINK optical digital transmitter, allowing connection to an external digital-to-analog converter (DAC) or amplifier with internal DAC. Standard audio CDs ripped in iTunes into Apple Lossless format streamed to the AirPort Express will output a bit-for-bit identical bitstream when compared to the original CD (provided any sound enhancement settings in iTunes are disabled). DTS-encoded CDs ripped to Apple Lossless audio files - which decode as digital white noise in iTunes - will play back correctly when the AirPort Express is connected via TOSLINK to a DTS-compatible amplifier–decoder. This is limited to 16-bit and 44.1 kHz when streaming from iTunes; any higher quality content, such as high fidelity audio that uses up to 24-bit and/or 192 kHz will be truncated down to 16-bit and 44.1 kHz.


title: AirPort Express

text: The audio output feature of the AirPort Express on a system running OS X Lion or earlier can only be used to wirelessly stream audio files from within iTunes to an attached stereo system. It cannot be used to output the soundtrack of iTunes video content to an attached stereo. OS X Mountain Lion introduced AirPlay support, a feature to output Mac system-wide audio directly to AirPort Express. This allows output of the audio of protected video content within iTunes, and also correctly maintains the audio sync with the image displayed on-screen. Video is synced with output audio when playing the video through an AirPort Express if the video is in a format supported by QuickTime Player (such as HTML 5 video in Safari etc.).


title: AirPort Express

text: For Windows and Mac operating systems (before OS X Mountain Lion) there are a few software options available for streaming system-wide audio to the AirPort Express, such as Airfoil, TuneBlade and Porthole.


title: AirPort Express

text: On August 28, 2018 Apple added AirPlay 2 support to the 2012 AirPort Express, providing the ability to be added to the Apple Home app as an audio destination.


title: AirPort Express

text: According to a Bloomberg report on November 21, 2016, "Apple Inc. has disbanded its division that develops wireless routers, another move to try to sharpen the company’s focus on consumer products that generate the bulk of its revenue, according to people familiar with the matter."


title: AirPort Express

text: In an April 2018 statement to 9to5Mac, Apple announced the discontinuation of its AirPort line, effectively leaving the consumer router market. Apple continued supporting the AirPort Express, although an older version of its "AirPort Utility" is required to support the earliest version of the device.


title: Milk Money (film)

text: Milk Money is a 1994 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Richard Benjamin and starring Melanie Griffith and Ed Harris. The film is about three suburban 11-year-old boys who find themselves behind in "the battle of the sexes," believing they would regain the upper hand if they could just see a real, live naked lady.


title: Milk Money (film)

text: Three junior high school boys — Brad (Adam LaVorgna), Frank (Michael Patrick Carter) and Kevin (Brian Christopher) — travel from their bedroom suburb of Middleton to the city, bringing money with hopes of seeing a woman naked. They find a hooker named "V" (Melanie Griffith) who is willing to show her breasts. However, when they decide to head home, they find their bikes have been stolen, leaving them broke and stuck in the city. V speaks with her drug dealing pimp named "Cash" (Casey Siemaszko), and another hooker, Betty (Anne Heche). Cash has been skimming money that he sends to mob collector Waltzer (Malcolm McDowell), who in turn steals from his own boss, Jerry "The Pope" (Philip Bosco). V notices the boys outside in the rain and offers them a ride back home in Cash's car.


title: Milk Money (film)

text: After they arrive at Frank's house, the car V was using suddenly breaks down, so she goes inside to use the phone. Tom (Ed Harris), Frank's father, comes home and is surprised to find a woman in the house. Unbeknownst to V, Frank tells Tom that V is a math tutor and that she's giving lessons to Brad. Tom offers to repair her car in a few days when he is free from his science classes at school. With no other option, she accepts Frank's offer to stay in his tree house without Tom's knowledge. Frank begins a close friendship with V, hoping to set her up with his father. He tells her Tom has no problem with her "job," meaning the tutoring ruse, but she thinks he means her prostitution.


title: Milk Money (film)

text: V learns from television that Cash has been murdered by Waltzer. She phones Betty only to discover that Waltzer is looking for her — Cash told him that she stole the money. She realizes that he is overhearing the conversation and hangs up. With V's car still broken down, she gets Tom's old bike from the garage and rushes to find him. He is on a field trip to the town's wetlands, undeveloped natural land that he is attempting to save from development. He is unable to repair her car any sooner, but she realizes that she is probably safer in Middleton, since Waltzer doesn't know where she is.


title: Milk Money (film)

text: At school, Frank flunks a biology test about sex education and must give his class an oral presentation. He decides to use V as a mannequin and through a ruse distracts his teacher long enough to draw a relatively accurate female reproductive system on her skin-colored bodysuit. Tom and V go out on a date and both realize they are developing feelings for each other. While walking through town on their date, Tom and V run into Kevin's family. V recognizes Kevin's father, who is a client, but he initially says she has him mixed up with someone else before admitting to remembering her and says she was a dance teacher. Tom is impressed with how busy V is being a tutor and dance teacher; V then realizes that Frank had actually lied about Tom knowing about her prostitution. V explains herself to Tom and their relationship grows. She reveals that her real name is Eve, which she thought was too biblical so she removed the Es. Kevin's father unwittingly calls her home phone number, which he had in his pocket notebook, in an attempt to purchase her services again. He talks to Betty; and Waltzer, who happens to be there also, learns from Betty about the trip to Middleton, thus finding out where V is hiding.


title: Milk Money (film)

text: V is terrified that Waltzer will find her, so she decides to leave town, but attends a school dance to say goodbye to Frank. Waltzer shows up to spoil their fun. A chase ensues, with Waltzer finally being eliminated. Anxious about her status and afraid to return to her old job, V goes to Waltzer's boss and relates how he has been cheating him. She asks to be "forgotten" by them. The older crime boss succumbs to her charms and he tells her he'll take care of things and that she doesn't need to be afraid anymore, while also allowing her to walk away from prostitution for good. V finds the stolen money in a backpack and uses it to buy the wetlands in Tom's name; it is also revealed that she purchased the ice cream parlor in town, so she can carry on with her new relationship.


title: Milk Money (film)

text: The screenplay written by John Mattson was sold to Paramount Pictures in 1992 for $1.1 million, a record for a romantic comedy spec script. Mattson was sued by Dino De Laurentiis (DDLC); the lawsuit alleged that Mattson's agent had made a verbal agreement to sell the script to DDLC for $1 million, before selling the script to Paramount for $1.1 million.


title: Milk Money (film)

text: The film was originally set up with Joe Dante to direct and his frequent partner, Michael Finnell, to produce, but they left the project over disputes regarding the budget and their fees. Paramount had wanted Dante to work for less than his normal directing fee, and to shoot the film in Canada using a non-union crew with a budget of $14 million.


title: Milk Money (film)

text: Shot in various locations in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Lebanon, Ohio, the story is set in a Pennsylvania suburb named "Middleton", outside of an unnamed city (for which parts of Pittsburgh and Cincinnati were used).


title: Milk Money (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 12% based on reviews from 42 critics with the consensus: "Ill-conceived and cheap when it comes to cleverness, "Milk Money" is a more than a few cents short of a good time." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B" on scale of A to F.


title: Milk Money (film)

text: Siskel & Ebert speculated that it may have been made by Hollywood executives with an affinity for hookers. In print, Roger Ebert opted not for a conventional negative review, but to portray it as the result of a fictional conversation between two studio executives. Janet Maslin of The New York Times gave it a negative review and suggested ""Milk Money" may be the first brainless American comedy that deserves to be remade by the French". Maslin said Griffith "brings a certain irrepressible gusto to her role" and "Harris manages to be improbably charming". Variety called it "a misguided comedy with Hall of Shame pedigree" and "The film is obvious, loud, mean-spirited and has its mind in the gutter."


title: Milk Money (film)

text: At the 15th Golden Raspberry Awards, the film was nominated for Worst Screenplay, but it lost to "The Flintstones".


title: Milk Money (film)

text: The film was released on VHS in March 1995 and DVD on September 9, 2003. It was presented in anamorphic widescreen in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio.


title: Fishmans

text: In the early summer of 1987 in Minato, Tokyo Fishmans would be formed by founding members Shinji Sato (vocals, guitar, trumpet), Kin-Ichi Motegi (drums, vocals, sampler), and Kensuke Ojima (guitar and vocals) out of Meiji Gakuin University. The group's first demo would be presented the same year, entitled "Blue Summer" by Sato, remaining incomplete to this day. In May 1988, Fishmans would start performing live in small venues in Tokyo, and bassist Yuzuru Kashiwabara would join their ranks in August of the same year. Their first recorded appearance was on the 1989 compilation "Panic Paradise" where two of their earliest songs make an appearance among four other ska-punk groups. In March 1990, keyboardist Hakase-Sun would join the band for their first solo live performance at Shibuya La.mama. In October of the same year, Virgin Records Japan (which would later be renamed to Media Remoras) would approach Fishmans with a record deal, which they promptly accepted. In November, Hakase-Sun officially joined the band, completing the band's original lineup before their first performance at Shibuya Club Quattro in March 1991. Roughly two years after their appearance on "Panic Paradise", their first album "Chappie Don't Cry" was released, produced by musician Kazufumi Kodama. This followed the April 21 release of single "", the first of the band's numerous singles. Mr. Kodama had previous fame with the founding of influential Japanese dub group Mute Beat, and his pitch to create "Chappie Don't Cry" with Fishmans was simply stating to the group "let's make a rocksteady album". After the record, Kodama would no longer appear on any Fishmans project, leaving the record to live on as their most straightforward reggae outing in their discography by many fans. Producer ZAK would make his first of many appearances with Fishmans for a live concert performed that year in June, marking the beginning of a long collaborative history between him and band writer Sato.


title: Fishmans

text: Later the same year, Fishmans' self-produced first EP "Corduroy's Mood" would be released. The record was a profoundly more shibuya-kei take on reggae than their previous music, allowing the band to better experiment and brainstorm more complex compositions. The project was meant to express "a feeling of winter" within its four track runtime, and bears an only faint resemblance to their first LP due to its experimental nature. The band quickly developed a very easy-going sound (mainly influenced by reggae and dub, but also including elements of rock, pop, drum and bass, hip hop, ska, etc.), which was always coupled with Sato's distinctive androgynous vocals, slowly earning them significant acceptance in Japan's underground scene.


title: Fishmans

text: In 1992, the Japanese broadcasting company Fuji TV approached the group to write a theme song for television show "", and in response the band produced the first of many renditions of "". The song aired on the program as an opener from January to March of that year, and the group released the track as a single on February 5.


title: Fishmans

text: From May to June 1992, Fishmans recorded with Japanese musician Haruo Kubota. Not much is known of these attempts to record, however it is known that after a night of getting drunk on sake, Kubota called the group to record in the studio in the middle of the night, causing significant confusion and embarrassment within the band members. This marked the end of the group's relations with the musician as they released their second album on October 21, "King Master George". The record took a much more experimental direction with their sound, featuring everything from jazz rock to sunshine pop, throwing multiple styles at the wall to see what would stick. This included a reimagined version of "100ミリちょっとの", as well as introducing newer classics like "" and "". Despite this experimentation, Fishmans always succeeded in avoiding reggae cliches, keeping a dub foundation powered by Motegi and Kashiwabara's rocksteady rhythm section.


title: Fishmans

text: The following year in 1993, Fishmans collaborated with ZAK in the studio for the first time to release "Walkin" on February 19. This was to much acclaim, which led the producer to continue working with them in another recording session in May. Multiple others would follow as the band worked to create their following single "", a shockingly popular song that pushed the group to significant radio play at release, becoming their first breakout song. Naturally, this led to more collaborations with ZAK and the release of their third LP "Neo Yankees' Holiday", including both aforementioned tracks, as well as the classic "Smilin' Days, Summer Holiday". The record cemented Fishmans' sound in a distinctly dub style, tinged with pleasant melodies and mellow sounds throughout. The band would follow the release of this record with many live performances, including appearances at Shibuya Parco, Shinsaibashi Club Quattro, and Nissin Power Station. They would proceed to tour around Tokyo from November 1 until the end of the year, changing their sound to approach a more rock-laiden style in preparation for the release of a fourth album.


title: Fishmans

text: On February 2, 1994, Fishmans released their maxi-single "Go Go Round This World!", furthering the sound achieved on "Neo Yankees' Holiday" towards a more funk-oriented direction. The single included a popular alternate mix of "Smilin' Days, Summer Holiday" that transformed the laid-back dub track into an energetic and bombastic jam that foreshadowed the sensibilities coming in their next album. This time of rapid maturation led to guitarist Kensuke Ojima leaving the group in May of that year, letting the band of four continue without him. Despite this sudden departure, the group released their second maxi-single on June 17 entitled "Melody", a groovy piano-based production that served as one of Fishmans' most important singles going forward. The maxi-single also marked the first time Fishmans printed any of their material on vinyl as well as CD, the single being printed on 12" analogue vinyl in a limited quantity of 1000 to be offered only at live venues. After this release, the group managed to recruit Buffalo Daughter guitarist suGar Yoshinaga for further recording intended for their next album. On October 21, single "My Life" and new album "Orange" were released simultaneously, taking the group towards a more defined funk rock sound, along with a newly redefined version of "Melody". Certain tracks on the release, such as "" foreshadowed their turn towards dream pop which would follow in the later 90s. These advancements in musical style would only advance further with the coming of 1995, showing the group's versatility in sound.


title: Fishmans

text: On March 17, 1995, Fishmans released their first live album "Oh! Mountain" following a five-city tour in celebration of "Orange"'s release. The album isn't a "true live" album however, as much of the content presented was remixed by ZAK in studio to improve sound quality and add interesting sounds to create a unique home listening experience. The recordings included on the album originated from a total of 11 different concerts.


title: Fishmans

text: It was the spring after the release of "Oh! Mountain" that Fishmans signed with Polydor Records. Polydor had supplied the group with their own recording studio, Waikiki Beach, where they began recording new material in August. That September, a celebratory live concert titled "Let's Polydor" was held to encourage the move away from Media Remoras. Unfortunately, Hakase-Sun was to leave the group immediately following this concert, and the resulting trio would work with a series of guest musicians on their next records, primarily Honzi (keyboards, violin, accordion and vocals) of A Decade-In Fake (later Honzi's World) and Shinya Kogure (guitar) of Hicksville. The further solidification of ZAK on sound mixing rounded out this second phase of the band, which further evolved its sound to incorporate space rock, ambient and psychedelic elements. Song length and scope continued to grow as well, as these new tendencies blended with their dub foundation. Following this significant lineup change, Fishmans released what is possibly the band's most recognizable single, "" on November 25. The song was a sudden yet welcome shift towards dream pop, serving as an introduction to what would become their next studio album.


title: Fishmans

text: On February 1, 1996, Fishmans would release their fifth studio album ', which readily flaunted a more stripped-down, tight production quality. Producer ZAK and writer Sato would often work together on the record to create songs that were more stripped down to their most basic elements, instead of flooding them with lush backgrounds, which contributed to a simpler, cleaner and more crisp output. This, along with the group's much more mature dream pop sensibilities helped to cement the group as a serious, legitimate rock act in the wider world stage. This would become a consistent style of Fishmans' music for the remainder of their career, further separating them from their earlier days of simple reggae music. The album was also printed on limited edition colored vinyl, making this the first of Fishmans' albums to be printed on vinyl records. In celebration of a successful album release, the group embarked on a 10-show tour titled ' which would much later be printed on DVD video. During these tours, support guitarist Michigo "Darts" Sekiguchi would agree to permanently accompany Fishmans for support during the remainder of their career. Following this on March 27, Fishmans released the mellow, yet popular single "Baby Blue" from "Kūchū Camp" which reminded of Fishmans' more sensible, soft side contrasting with their new dream pop sound.


title: Fishmans

text: Despite their relatively wide success, Sato and company found it attractive to experiment with alternative sounds and projects they had never attempted before. Starting in July, the band began to record standalone single "Season" to tease their upcoming full-length LP "Long Season", a 35-minute-long epic based heavily on "Season" divided into five parts. The group finished in August, however "Season" was only released on September 25 and its accompanying album on October 25. Recorded in their Waikiki Beach private studio, the lyrics and melodies presented on the album are intended to be incredibly personal to Sato and to present a dreamlike musical experience. This would ultimately become their most recognizable studio album among underground music communities for its experimentation and truly unique structure. Following the album's release, Fishmans performed the song live on its own for the first time, and with every consecutive performance of the song, the band intended to change the composition so that it would never be played the same twice. Towards the year's end, Fishmans played in Kobe, Nagoya and Tokyo for a new tour entitled "Long Season '96～'97".


title: Fishmans

text: Through February to June 1997, Fishmans would consistently record new material in their Waikiki Beach studio, making this the longest continuous period of time they spent actively recording. At a very early stage during these recordings, the group began recording with music software Pro Tools, completing their new material entirely within the program. On July 2, their single "Magic Love" was released to tease their next project, coupled with a B-side remixed by Hiroshi Kawabe of Tokyo No. 1 Soul Set fame. Fishmans had been growing a friendship with the group, and this remix solidified that relationship between the two bands.


title: Fishmans

text: Their final studio project, ', was released on July 24 and took the group in a much more ambient pop direction than their previous LPs. Lyrically, the album focused on personal everyday life while retaining a wide worldview that inspired the title of the record, steadily magnifying from space, down to Japan, and down to the city of Setagaya. The album included single "Magic Love", as well as standout tracks "Walking in the Rhythm", "Weather Report" and others, pushing much of the record to stand out as a classic in their discography. To coincide with the album's release, a tour entitled ' was conducted, which included twelve shows across Japan.


title: Fishmans

text: The four-track remix maxi-single "Walking in the Rhythm" was also released on October 22, showing the group's prowess in revitalizing their compositions in new and interesting ways, as well as the group's fondness for that particular song. This was followed by the "Walking In the 奥田イズム" tour through Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo, one such full concert (conducted on December 12) being broadcast in full by Japanese music television program Space Shower TV on February 22, 1998. Fishmans proceeded to make numerous appearances on Space Shower TV throughout 1998, after which in 2007 three "episodes" were released on DVD cataloging their complete broadcasts on the program. These mostly consisted of a multitude of rare live concerts and interviews, as well as a full music video for "Long Season" on Episode 2 and a half-hour long live dub mix of "Walking in the Rhythm" and "" on Episode 3.


title: Fishmans

text: Beginning at the start of the year, the group began organizing a new live album after their 1997 live performances at their private studio, as well as at Polydor's studios. Meanwhile, in March, the group performed in concert again at four locations in Japan in their ' tour. Their live album was completed in May and released on August 19, titled ', a remixed and newly produced compilation of Fishmans' best live performances from 1996 to 1998. This style of remixed live performances bore significant resemblance to their previous live output "Oh! Mountain", leaving the two albums to be easily compared as sibling releases. A tour was conducted by the same name in August to coincide with the live album's release, concluding on October 10 at Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall which included a complete performance of unreleased song "A Piece of Future", a song that seemed to foreshadow a turn towards post-rock for the band.


title: Fishmans

text: In July of that year, the band began work on a longer length, new song titled "", a 13-minute long movement not found on any studio album of theirs, although taking the same sonic style as their previous LP "宇宙 日本 世田谷". This long-form song structure was in similar fashion to their previous LP "Long Season", although not nearly on the same grandiose scale. Following the single's December 2 release, however, band member Yuzuru Kashiwabara expressed disinterest in continuing his musical career, electing to leave the band with the coming of the new year.


title: Fishmans

text: In December 1998, Fishmans held five concerts for the "" to grant bass player Kashiwabara a last hurrah with the group. The tour concluded with two back-to-back shows, one on December 27 and the other on the 28th, both performed at Akasaka Blitz in Minato.


title: Fishmans

text: Fishmans performed their final concert on December 28, 1998. That night, they played many of their most widely acclaimed songs and concluded with a full performance of "Long Season". This was to be Kashiwabara's final performance with the band, and Sato with Motegi planned to continue working as Fishmans. Sato died on March 15, 1999. Fishmans' last concert was released as the live album "" on September 29, 1999. It has gone on to receive strong critical and fan praise.


title: Fishmans

text: The passing of Sato was so sudden that Polydor, their record label had already prematurely scheduled the release of two compilation releases for only two days after his death. "Fishmans 1991–1994 Singles & More", a compilation of Media Remoras-era releases was released on March 17, as well as "The Three Birds & More Feelings", a collection of the band's PVs on VHS (later re-pressed on DVD) recorded by Kensuke Kawamura.


title: Fishmans

text: Later in the year on June 30, the compilation album "Aloha Polydor" was released, featuring many of Fishmans' Polydor-era songs as well as an unreleased demo of ', a song Fishmans had been working on at the time of Sato's death. The following month, Motegi was supported by Kashiwabara, Honzi, Darts, as well as former members Hakase-Sun and Kensuke Ojima on a three-show live event in Japan titled ' under the Fishmans name.


title: Fishmans

text: Breaking into the twenty-first century was difficult for Fishmans with the loss of their lead vocalist and writer. On October 25, 2000, the live video album "" was released, cataloging many rare videos of live performances Fishmans made over the years with Sato. The following month, a live event was held at Shinjuku Liquid Room to synchronize with the video performances where a band played over the video, including Motegi on drums. The event was held again in April 2001 at Nagoya and Osaka, spreading awareness of the video album's release.


title: Fishmans

text: After Sato's death, Kin-Ichi Motegi began working as a stand-in drummer for Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, whose original drummer died around the same time as Sato. He eventually became a full-fledged member of the band and plays drums and sings lead vocals with them. Kashiwabara, who had originally planned to abandon the music industry, eventually joined forces with Yusuke Oya (ex-LabLife) to form Polaris, whose spacey and dubby tracks bear significant resemblance to Fishmans' sound in the late '90s. Both Motegi and Kashiwabara would later join forces with Takashi Kato of Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra and Losalios to form rock group So Many Tears, whose music leans further towards indie rock and alternative rock productions than that of Fishmans' more dub-influenced sound.


title: Fishmans

text: Fishmans' popularity only continued to grow, even after Sato's untimely passing. In 2004, a tribute album "Sweet Dreams for Fishmans" was released, including covers by artists as diverse as OOIOO, Bonobos, and UA. This was followed by the compilation albums ' and ' in 2005, which included rare and unreleased tracks alongside their best hits. Among these was "A Piece of Future", a 10-minute long post-rock track only ever performed live by Fishmans finally released to the public. This song was later remixed by tribute project "Fishmans+", a project whose membership includes the likes of Cornelius, Ryuichi Sakamoto and many other Japanese musicians, as well as a large majority of original Fishmans members.


title: Fishmans

text: On November 22, 2005 the remaining members of Fishmans paid tribute to their fans and Shinji Sato by performing live at the Rising Sun Rock Festival. The show lasted three and a half hours, and featured many guest singers, who performed on vocals. The following month, a tribute art exhibition "The Long Season Rewind" was held in Shibuya with contributions from various artists. In the same month, live compilation single "いかれたBaby / 感謝(驚) / Weather Report" was released, featuring three remixed live performed songs courtesy of ZAK.


title: Fishmans

text: In 2006, "The Long Season Revue" was released on DVD (directed by Kensuke Kawamura), which contained a nearly complete live video of Fishmans' tribute concert on November 22 of the previous year. A complete performance of "Long Season" was conducted at the concert, however for unknown reasons it is not present on "The Long Season Revue". The live video was originally only screened in theatres and it featured the original members of the band together with a cast of supporting musicians such as UA, Asa-Chang, Hanaregumi, Oki Yuichi (of Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra) and Ikuko Harada of Clammbon. Following these concerts, Honzi, a long-time contributor with the band, died in 2007.


title: Fishmans

text: Since 2006, the band has played a number live shows at festivals. On May 3, 2011, Fishmans held a three-hour-long revival concert at Hibiya Nozon which was recorded and distributed on DVD by Kampsite TV (Japanese Internet broadcaster for Japanese indies, music videos and other video productions) in similar fashion to the Fishmans Space Shower TV episodes printed in 2007. The DVD was titled "Live 2011/5.3 at Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall "A Piece of Future"". In 2016, the group played 3 shows in Nagoya, Tokyo and Osaka featuring a number of original band members and guests. Most recently in February 2019, Fishmans collaborated live with Japanese jazz-rock group cero at Zepp Tokyo, a venue Fishmans would visit for the first time in 20 years. This was in similar fashion to a live show Fishmans had recorded with Japanese J-pop group Sakanaction in 2012.


title: Fishmans

text: In August 2018, all of Fishmans' music was contributed to Spotify, iTunes and YouTube for streaming purposes, although much of their lesser-known material remains obscure. Nevertheless, this has helped to significantly increase Fishmans' fanbase, especially overseas in North America and Europe.


title: Andrea Botez

text: Andrea Cecilia Cristina Botez (born April 6, 2002) is a Canadian-American chess player, commentator, Twitch streamer, YouTuber and Instagrammer from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.


title: Andrea Botez

text: On the BotezLive Twitch channel, Botez's father, Andrei Botez, known as "Papa Botez" by the community, told the story of moving to Canada. He and his wife moved from the Socialist Republic of Romania to Canada, before Alexandra, Andrea's older sister, was born in Dallas. The Botez family relocated to Texas, where both sisters completed their schooling. Their father introduced Alexandra and Andrea to chess at the age of six and he started training them. At the beginning of her chess training, Andrea tagged along with her dad and her sister, who was already competing in major tournaments such as the World Youth Chess Championship, which motivated Andrea to start taking chess seriously.


title: Andrea Botez

text: Botez began playing chess at the age of six, following her sister's background. She started playing in the USChess tournaments at the age of seven. In 2010, she won the U8 Girls Canadian Youth Chess Championship


title: Andrea Botez

text: In 2015, at the age of thirteen she became the Women British Columbia Chess Champion. In the same year, Botez also won the Susan Polgar National Open.


title: Andrea Botez

text: In 2016, at the SPFNO 2016: U14 GIRLS, Botez placed fourth in the tournament, and 13th in the 2016 Susan Polgar Foundation Girls' Invitational.


title: Andrea Botez

text: Botez attained her highest FIDE classical rating of 1773 in 2018 and her highest USChess rating of 1933 in 2019. As of December 2022, her ranking among active players in the world is 67,989, based on her rating.


title: Andrea Botez

text: In December 2022, Botez competed against WGM (Woman Grandmaster) Dina Belenkaya in the Mogul Chessboxing Championship; hosted by Ludwig Ahgren. The fight consisted of 7 rounds alternating of chess and boxing, until a player/fighter got a TKO or was checkmated. As Belenkaya could checkmate in one move, Botez was successful in stalling to run down time for a final round of boxing to get a TKO. During the final round of boxing, Belenkaya seemed to escape a TKO and go back to chess. With only 6 seconds remaining, Botez resigned instead of allowing checkmate and Belenkaya was announced the winner. The win became controversial, as viewers noticed that Botez had actually received a TKO that was not noticed by officials, and the referee for the match was criticised for the way the TKO was managed. The organizer's Twitter account "Mogul Moves" announced an updated result after a review of the fight "...[Botez] should have been awarded a TKO after the referee initiated the fourth standing count of the fight". The update resulted in both Belenkaya and Botez being winners. Botez's sister criticised the ref immediately after the match, while Botez criticised the ref on her Twitch stream and recalled that the ref apologised to her for the TKO mistake. Botez later put herself forward in consideration for the next Creator Clash, a charity boxing event hosted by iDubbbz, while Belenkaya suggested a rematch.


title: Andrea Botez

text: Alongside her sister, Botez runs the Twitch channel BotezLive, which, as of May 2022, has 1.1 million followers with more than 18.3 million views. She began assisting her sister in 2020 by playing chess and in other variety streams and the YouTube channel BotezLive which, as of May 2022, has over 800k subscribers and 140 million views.


title: Andrea Botez

text: Because of their popularity on various content platforms, the Botez sisters became some of the most known figures on the Chess.com platform, alongside GM Hikaru Nakamura and WGM Qiyu Zhou.


title: Andrea Botez

text: On December 21, 2020, Andrea and Alexandra signed a contract with Envy Gaming as content creators at the launch of the organization's creator network and ambassador program.. They would later move to Los Angeles, CA, where they would join other content creators such as JustaMinx and CodeMiko in the Envy Content House


title: Andrea Botez

text: On her personal TikTok account where she posts highlights from her twitch streams, TikTok trends and short videos from her daily life, Botez has garnered over 310K followers and 5.9M likes.


title: Andrea Botez

text: When Andrea and Alexandra do not stream from their regular set-up at home playing chess or doing various activities, the two sisters host a show on their Twitch channel called "Botez Abroad" where they travel to big cities from around the world and they stream their in-person matches in front of a live audience.


title: Andrea Botez

text: In the second iteration of the online amateur chess tournament Pogchamps, Botez was part of the commentator team.


title: Andrea Botez

text: In 2021, Botez took part again in the Pogchamps 3 tournament, doubling as a coach for CodeMiko and as a commentator, and, once again, she joined the commentator team for Pogchamps 4.


title: Andrea Botez

text: In 2020, Botez participated in the Zoomers Play Chess team match to help raise funds for children in need affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Jat Sikh

text: Jat Sikh (also known by the more conventional endonym Jatt Sikh) is a sub-group of the Jat people and the Sikh religious group from the Indian subcontinent. They are one of the dominant communities in the Punjab owing to their large land holdings.


title: Jat Sikh

text: They form an estimated 21%–25% of the population of the Indian state of Punjab. They form at least half of the Sikh population in Punjab, with some sources estimating them to be about 60% to 66% of the Sikh population.


title: Jat Sikh

text: Initially, some Jats started to follow the teachings of Guru Nanak, which did much to remove social barriers created by the "sāvarṇa" caste society. Jats were previously indifferent towards deep religious affairs.


title: Jat Sikh

text: While followers important to Sikh tradition like Baba Buddha were among the earliest significant historical Sikh figures, and significant numbers of conversions occurred as early as the time of Guru Angad (1504-1552), the first large-scale conversions of Jats is commonly held to have begun during the time of Guru Arjan (1563-1606). While touring the countryside of eastern Punjab, he founded several important towns like Tarn Taran Sahib, Kartarpur, and Hargobindpur which functioned as social and economic hubs, and together with the community-funded completion of the Darbar Sahib to house the Guru Granth Sahib and serve as a rallying point and center for Sikh activity, established the beginnings of a self-contained Sikh community, which was especially swelled with the region's Jat peasantry. They formed the vanguard of Sikh resistance against the Mughal Empire from the 18th century onwards.


title: Jat Sikh

text: It has been postulated, though inconclusively, that the increased militarisation of the Sikh panth following the martyrdom of Guru Arjan (beginning during the era of Guru Hargobind and continuing after) and its large Jat presence may have reciprocally influenced each other.


title: Jat Sikh

text: At least eight of the 12 Sikh "Misls" (Sikh confederacies) were led by Jat Sikhs, who would form the vast majority of Sikh chiefs.


title: Jat Sikh

text: According to censuses in gazetteers published during the colonial period in the early 20th century, further waves of Jat conversions, from Hinduism to Sikhism, continued during the preceding decades. The relationship between the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities of the Punjab region, and between communities such as the Jats and the Rajputs, has been ambiguous over many centuries. The various groups often claim similar origins while asserting their distinctiveness.


title: Jat Sikh

text: Irfan Habib has argued that Sikhism did much to uplift the social status of Jat people, who were previously regarded in the Punjab as being of "shudra" or "vaishya" status in the Hindu ritual ranking system of "varṇa".


title: Jat Sikh

text: Major A.E Barstow comments, that due to their diet and their fondness for wrestling and weightlifting, they possessed good physical attributes for soldiery. According to R. W. Falcon, Jat Sikhs (alongside other Sikhs) were seen as a good source for recruitment. According to Captain A. H. Bingley they were particularly loyal soldiers.


title: Jat Sikh

text: The Jat Sikh community has constituted an important source of recruits for the Indian Army. Many serve in the Indian Army, including the Jat Regiment, Sikh Regiment, Rajputana Rifles and the Grenadiers, where they have won many of the highest military awards for gallantry and bravery.


title: Jat Sikh

text: In Punjab (India), Jat Sikhs are associated with agricultural pursuits and land ownership. They own more than 80%, and possibly as much as 95% of available agricultural land in Punjab. They often reside in the rural areas, and are economically influential in the state.


title: CONCACAF League

text: The CONCACAF League was an annual continental club football competition organized by CONCACAF as its second-tier continental competition. It was announced on 8 May 2017.


title: CONCACAF League

text: The competition uses a knockout cup format with each round having two legs. The top six teams proceed to the CONCACAF Champions League. From 2019 to 2022, the tournament featured 22 teams, an increase from 16 in the 2017 and 2018 editions.


title: CONCACAF League

text: The competition ended after the 2022 edition due to the expansion of the CONCACAF Champions League, starting with the 2024 edition. Two regional cup competitions – the Central American Cup and the Caribbean Cup – were created as qualifying competitions of the CONCACAF Champions League.


title: CONCACAF League

text: Since the 2019 edition, a total of 22 teams participate in the CONCACAF League: 18 from Central America (from 7 associations), 3 from the Caribbean (from 2 or 3 associations), and 1 from North America (from 1 association).


title: The Meteor Man (film)

text: The Meteor Man is a 1993 American superhero comedy film written, directed, co-produced and starring Robert Townsend with supporting roles by Marla Gibbs, Eddie Griffin, Robert Guillaume, James Earl Jones, Bill Cosby, and Another Bad Creation. The film also features special appearances by Luther Vandross, Sinbad, Naughty by Nature, Cypress Hill, and Big Daddy Kane. Townsend stars as a mild-mannered schoolteacher, who becomes a superhero after his neighborhood in Washington, D.C. is terrorized by street gangs.


title: The Meteor Man (film)

text: Jefferson Reed (Robert Townsend) is a mild-mannered school teacher in Washington, D.C. His neighborhood is terrorized by a local gang called "The Golden Lords", led by Simon Caine (Roy Fegan) and allied with drug lord Anthony Byers (Frank Gorshin). One night, Jeff steps in to rescue a woman from the gang only to end up running from them himself. Hiding in a garbage dumpster, he manages to escape. As he climbs out, he is struck down by a glowing, green meteorite. His spine is crushed and he receives severe burns. A small fragment of the meteor was left over and taken by a vagrant named Marvin (Bill Cosby). Reed awakens several days later in the hospital, but when his bandages are taken off, he is miraculously healed of all injuries.


title: The Meteor Man (film)

text: Jeff soon discovered that the meteorite had left him with spectacular superpowers such as flight, x-ray/laser vision, superhuman strength, speed, and hearing, invulnerability, healing powers, the ability to absorb a book's content by touch, super breath, telepathy with dogs (which he uses to communicate with his own dog Ellington), and telekinesis. Confiding this to his parents Ted (Robert Guillaume) and Maxine (Marla Gibbs), they convince him to use his powers to help the community. His mother designs a costume and as the Meteor Man, he takes on the Golden Lords. He shuts down 15 crack houses, stops 11 robberies, brings peace between the police, the Crips (Cypress Hill), and the Bloods (Naughty by Nature) where they begin to work together to rebuild the community they destroyed, and plants a giant garden in the middle of the ghetto.


title: The Meteor Man (film)

text: The Golden Lords learn Meteor Man's secret identity and his slowly diminishing powers. As the violence gets out of hand and the Golden Lords continue their attacks, the community members plan to make a deal with them, but Jeff instead teaches them about fighting for their beliefs. A now-powerless Jeff fights Simon and is beaten up. Simon points his gun at Jeff, but Jeff's neighbor Earnest Moses (James Earl Jones) throws a record at him, successfully knocking the gun out of Simon's hand. Suddenly, Marvin uses the meteor fragment to strip the Golden Lords of their guns. This enables the locals to stand up to the Golden Lords as they fight them alongside Marvin's dogs. Marvin accidentally drops the meteor and both Jeff and Simon grab the rock from both sides, gaining superpowers, and engage in a brawl.


title: The Meteor Man (film)

text: When Simon is about to throw a dumpster at Jeff, he hears Ellington barking, telling Jeff that he can win, and throws the dumpster at Ellington instead, seriously injuring him. This angers Jeff and he disappears and returns as Meteor Man. They continue with their brawl with Meteor Man winning and draining Simon of his powers by absorbing them. He then defeats the rest of the Golden Lords. The locals all gather around Ellington who is now lying on the street, whimpering in pain. Jeff uses his x-ray vision to see that Ellington's ribs are broken. Before Jeff can do anything, his powers fade away, again. But just then, Marvin comes over and uses the last of his powers from the meteor fragment to heal Ellington's injuries, thus saving Ellington's life. The locals all applaud.


title: The Meteor Man (film)

text: Anthony Byers and his gang then confront Meteor Man, but are out-numbered by the Bloods and the Crips who show up to protect Meteor Man. Anthony Byers and his gang are then arrested by the police after attempting to "take a vacation to the Bahamas".


title: The Meteor Man (film)

text: Although Washington was the setting, the movie was actually shot in the Reservoir Hill neighborhood in nearby Baltimore, Maryland.


title: The Meteor Man (film)

text: Marvel Comics produced an adaptation ("Meteor Man: The Movie") and a sequel in the form of the six-issue limited series titled "Meteor Man" written by Bert Hubbard and Dwight Coye, and illustrated by Robert Walker and Jon Holdredge. In the comic, set in the mainstream Marvel Universe, Meteor Man met Spider-Man and Night Thrasher. Many years later, the Golden Lords reappeared on the pages of "" #5.


title: The Meteor Man (film)

text: Peter Rainer of the "Los Angeles Times" compares the film to "a fairly clunky sitcom" with its sense of righteous do-goodism, and although the film intends to inspire, it instead sends the message that it would take a superhero to clean up inner-city gang violence.


title: The Meteor Man (film)

text: Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5 (out of 4) stars, writing "The movie contains big laughs and moments of genuine feeling, but it seems to be put together out of assorted inspirations that were never assembled into one coherent story line...Kids may like the film and anyone can enjoy the moments of inspiration, but 'The Meteor Man' could have been better if it had tried to do less, more carefully."


title: The Meteor Man (film)

text: The film received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Science Fiction Film, but lost to "Jurassic Park".


title: Westies

text: The Westies were a New York City-based Irish American organized crime gang, responsible for racketeering, drug trafficking, and contract killing. They were partnered with the Italian-American Mafia and operated out of the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan.


title: Westies

text: According to crime author T.J. English, "Although never more than twelve to twenty members—depending on who was in or out of jail at any given time—


title: Westies

text: the Westies became synonymous with the last generation of Irish in the birthplace of the Irish Mob." According to the NYPD Organized Crime Squad and the FBI, the Westies were responsible for 60–100 murders between 1968 and 1986.


title: Westies

text: In the early 1960s, Mickey Spillane stepped into a power vacuum that had existed in Hell's Kitchen since gang leaders fled the area in the early 1950s to avoid prosecution. A mobster from Queens, named Hughie Mulligan, had been running Hell's Kitchen; Spillane, a native, was his apprentice until assuming leadership.


title: Westies

text: Spillane sent flowers to neighbors in the hospital and provided turkeys to needy families during Thanksgiving, in addition to running gambling enterprises such as bookmaking and policy, accompanied inevitably by loansharking. Loansharking led to assault, and Spillane had burglary arrests as well. However, among all his criminal activities, the most audacious was his "snatch" racket (kidnapping and holding local businessmen and members of other crime organizations for ransom).


title: Westies

text: He was able to add to his neighborhood prominence by marrying Maureen McManus, a daughter of the prestigious McManus family which had run the Midtown Democratic Club since 1905. The union of political power with criminal activity enhanced the gang's ability to control union jobs and labor racketeering, moving away from the declining waterfront and more strongly into construction jobs and service work at the New York Coliseum, Madison Square Garden, and later the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.


title: Westies

text: In the 1970s, the Irish mob saw an increased threat from the Italian Mafia as the Genovese crime family sought control over the soon to be built Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Since the convention center was located in Spillane's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, Spillane refused to allow any involvement by the Italians. Although the Italian gangsters greatly outnumbered the Irish mob, Spillane was successful in keeping control of the convention center and Hell's Kitchen. The Italians, frustrated and embarrassed, responded by hiring a rogue Irish-American hitman named Joseph "Mad Dog" Sullivan to assassinate Tom Devaney, Eddie "the Butcher" Cummiskey, and Tom "the Greek" Kapatos, three of Spillane's top lieutenants.


title: Westies

text: In 1977, Spillane was assassinated by Roy DeMeo in a hit set up by Jimmy Coonan, who wanted to take over from Spillane. Coonan recruited the infamous DeMeo after a deal was struck between the two. By rubbing out Spillane, DeMeo's crew would then do business with his successor. DeMeo initially came into contact with Coonan after the latter had murdered and dismembered loan shark Ruby Stein.


title: Westies

text: The war began when an 18-year old Coonan swore revenge against Spillane, following the Spillane-initiated kidnapping and pistol whipping of Coonan's father. In 1966, Coonan fired a machine gun at Spillane and his associates from atop a Hell's Kitchen tenement building. Although Coonan wounded no one, Spillane understood that the younger hoodlum was not to be taken lightly. Spillane went to Coonan's father, slapped him around and told him to get his son under control. Coonan was imprisoned for a short period for murder and kidnapping charges that were pleaded down to Class C Manslaughter. He was released in late 1971 and continued his war with the Westside Gang.


title: Westies

text: Hell's Kitchen was no longer safe for Spillane and his family, and he moved to the then-Irish working-class neighborhood of Woodside, Queens. With Spillane gone, his control of the rackets in Hell's Kitchen began to deteriorate; Coonan became the neighborhood's boss, although some still viewed Spillane as boss. On the New York Commission, Spillane was still viewed as the Irish Mob boss on the Westside, putting the Javits Convention Center construction site under his control. Anthony Salerno, a high-ranking member of the Genovese crime family, wanted the center for himself and reached an agreement with Jimmy Coonan. If Coonan became boss, Salerno would run the construction site and give Coonan a taste of the proceeds.


title: Westies

text: Salerno then reached out to Buffalo Crime Family associate and freelance hitman, Joseph Sullivan, to eliminate the three main Spillane supporters in Hell's Kitchen, Tom Devaney, Tom Kapatos, and Edward Cummiskey. Cummiskey had apparently switched sides to the Coonan camp after they both killed and dismembered Patrick "Paddy" Dugan for killing Cummiskey's best friend, but Salerno and Sullivan were not aware of the switch. Devaney and Cummiskey were killed in late 1976, and Kapatos was killed in January 1977. Spillane was out of the picture, and Coonan was the undisputed boss of Hell's Kitchen. It was felt that Spillane still had to die. Roy DeMeo, a Gambino crime family soldier, murdered Spillane as a favor to Coonan. Mickey Featherstone stood trial for the murder and was found not guilty.


title: Westies

text: During the late 1970s, Coonan tightened the alliance between the Westies and the Gambinos, then run by Paul Castellano. Coonan's main contact was Roy DeMeo. In 1979 both Coonan and Featherstone were acquitted of the murder of a bartender, Harold Whitehead. Another Westie (and top enforcer), James McElroy, was acquitted of the murder of a Teamster in 1980.