Category Archives: Film & TV

Wallets, billfolds and money-clips

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When the nurse handed me my vaccination card she said, “Keep this in your wallet.” Hmm, where did I put my wallet? For the past year we’ve been paying for stuff online with a credit card.

I found my wallet and decided to do a little house cleaning. How much of this stuff do I really need to have with me every time I leave the house? I can pay for gas and groceries using my phone and ApplePay. And I’ve always kept some cash in a money clip. I see that some get by with their driver’s license and a credit/debit card in a phone case. Which got me wondering… do young folks still carry wallets?

“The difference between billfold and wallet is that a billfold is a small, folding sleeve or case designed to hold paper currency, as well as credit cards, pictures, etc while wallet is a small case, often flat and often made of leather, for keeping money (especially paper money), credit cards, etc.” (WikiDiff)

Forty years ago, when I started wearing suits to work, I carried a wallet in the inside pocket of my suit coat. (The one on the left in the photo below). When I hung up the suits for last time, I switched to a “billfold” (middle) and kept it in a pocket of my laptop case.

Along the way I kept looking for ways to lighten the load and tried some that didn’t fold at all. Just some pocket for credit cards and a magnetic money-clip. I’m giving that a try as I get back in the world.

I’ve long been fascinated by “fat wallets” and collected a few photos over the years. Each of the wallets pictured below were carried in the hip pocket. I would have dearly loved to got through the contents of each of these. What a story they could tell.

And no discussion of wallets would be complete without George Costanza’s exploding wallet. Another scene from the Wallet episode.

The Beatles: Get Back

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Peter Jackson has released a “sneak peek” at his COVID-delayed documentary, The Beatles: Get Back. He stresses this is not a trailer or a sequence, rather a “montage” to give you a feel for “the spirit” of the film. Can’t imagine where or how he come up with 56 hours of “never before seen” footage of the band.

The Beatles hit the U.S. airwaves in February of 1964 (“I Want to Hold Your Hand”). I was a sophomore in high school and I won’t even try to tell you want a big deal this was. Nothing even close in the 50+ years since.

The Beatles broke up in 1969 so they provided the soundtrack for my high school and college years. I am really looking forward to this documentary. PS: It sure looks like they were having fun.

Laurel Canyon

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I really liked this documentary. Late 60’s, early 70’s was my era, but it was just a very well done film. I learned a lot about the music and the musicians from that time and that place. I was playing a lot of this music on the radio in the early 70’s but had no real appreciation for the artists or the place the music was coming from.

HBO Intro (1983)

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Lots of folks reading this weren’t born in 1972 when HBO launched. Hard to explain why it was such a big deal. If you wanted to watch a movie on TV back then, you waited for one of the networks’ “Movie of the Week” or something from a local affiliate. A cable channel that just showed movies (in those days) was a big deal. Met with a lot of skepticism (“Why would you pay for movies when you can get them for free?!”)

In 1983 HBO introduced a new logo that was revolutionary for the time. I share it because one of the people who worked on it (David Bruce) was from my little town. He did the Stargate effect which would be no big deal when computer generated graphics came along but was very cool in 1983.