Crawling on the planet's face

Some insects called the human race, lost in time, and lost in space and meaning  - Happy Earth Day!



So go outside and hug a tree. If you don't want to be this familiar with nature, give a warm but firm shake hands to your house plants.



Here's a little poem, especially for our friends in California, on this Earth Day -

Choosing to let it mellow can make a difference in water usage, and save you some money long term, depending on the part of the country you live in.


April 22, 1935 -
Universal Studios released the sequel to the original Frankenstein movie, Bride of Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff, Colin Clive and Elsa Lanchester on this date.



Elsa Lanchester never receives on screen credit as "The Bride". The character is listed as being played by "?".  Elsa Lanchester said that her spitting, hissing performance was inspired by the swans in Regent's Park, London. "They're really very nasty creatures," she said.


April 22, 1939 -
Warner Bros. released the film, Dark Victory, starring Bette Davis (in one of her favorite roles) and George Brent (her favorite actor with whom she had an affair) on this date.



Bette Davis pestered Warner Brothers to buy the rights to the story, thinking it a great vehicle for her. WB studio chief Jack L. Warner fought against it, arguing that no one wanted to see someone go blind. Of course, the film went on to become one of the studio's biggest successes of that year.


April 22, 1942 -
One of Hitchcock's brilliant World War II efforts, Saboteur, premiered in Washington D.C. on this date.



Alfred Hitchcock's original director's cameo was cut by order of the censors. He and his secretary played deaf-mute pedestrians. When Hitch's character made an apparently indecent proposal to her in sign language, she slapped his face. A more conventional cameo in front of a drugstore was substituted.


April 22, 1950 -
Peter Frampton, musician, singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, was born on this date.



If you were a teenager in the mid 70's, you were issued your standard copy of Frampton Comes Alive to face your 'awkward' years.


April 22, 1953 -
Twentieth Century Fox releases the surrealistic science fiction film Invaders from Mars, directed by William Cameron Menzies on this date.



In one scene, Dr. Kelston refers to the "Lubbock Lights" and to a "Captain Mantell." These were real life U.F.O. events that created a national wide sensation in their day. The photographs shown by Dr Kelston are actual photographs of the Lubbock Lights that appeared in newspapers and magazines.


Today in History:
April 22, 1451 -

April 22, 1870 -
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was born on this date He later became Lenin, invented the Communist Party in Russia and made himself first Head Bastard of the Soviet Union.



It's interesting to note that Alexander Kerensky, the leader of Russia's provisional revolutionary government in 1917 until overthrown by Lenin, was born on the same day as Lenin, only eleven years later.



Well, it's interesting to some people.


April 22, 1904 -
Robert Oppenheimer was born on this date. Mr. Oppenheimer is known as the father of the atomic bomb.



The bomb's mother has never been identified to anyone's satisfaction, which only underscores the lax security at Los Alamos.


April 22, 1923 -
Sex is a part of love. You shouldn't go around doing it unless you are in love.



Bettie Mae Page was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on this date.


April 22, 1946 -
I’ve been called the Pope of Trash… I’ve been milking that title for years, and maybe that’s why I feel infallible.



John Waters, film director, actor and raconteur, was born on this date.


April 22, 1964 -
President Johnson opened the New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadow, Corona Park, New York, on this date.



The Fair also is remembered as the vehicle Walt Disney utilized to design and perfect the system of "audio-animatronics," in which a combination of sound and computers control the movement of life-like robots to act out scenes. In the It's a Small World attraction at the Pepsi pavilion, animated dolls and animals frolicked in a spirit of racially-insensitive unity on a boat-ride around the world.



Once the fair was over, Walt feverishly pushed his Imagineers to build him an 'actual' President. Historians argue that this was the beginning of Ronald Reagan campaign for the Presidency.


April 22, 1994 -
Richard M. Nixon suffered a fatal stroke on this date. His body was laid to rest in the unhallowed grounds of his Presidential Library.



His head was severed from his body and wooden stakes were driven through his heart to make sure he was dead.



And so it goes