About the origins of this piece

The theme in the song The Toast of the Century is basically isolation, either by time and nostalgia, or by distance and reclusiveness. Before I had settled on the plot as seen in the final version, I had played around with a number of visuals and tried to fit them all together.

I wanted a character whom you see both as a young man and an old man. I saw him raising a toast at a podium for a crowd in his mind. I knew I wanted a victrola playing in an abandoned room for the second verse. The whole deal with the emptiness of space came later.

Originally I wanted to base the entire film on James Hampton, a reclusive janitor who constructed a heavenly throneroom out of scraps of wood and tinfoil from cigarette packs. About James Hampton. Ultimately, though, I gave him just a tiny roll as a character on a newspaper, the "other" crewmember who didn't survive the crash.

Also, I wanted to find a way to include the antenna from WSM, the Grand Ole Opry radio tower, which is a landmark just a few miles from where I grew up in Brentwood. WSM is one of the few AM stations that may be heard from coast to coast. The tower, and the station both have a rather rich history. You might recognize one picture of the old transmitter room. (About WSM) (About Blaw-Knox diamond radio towers)

I also did a lot of looking around for images of vintage sound gear. Too many links to list here. And yes, there really iis such a thing as a laser turntable.

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