I've been celebrating it on the wrong day

It's National Vodka day. (I've always thought it was October 2.) While it's not my first choice of drink - I'm not one to pass up the chilled neutral spirit.



Whatever brand you drink, it always taste better fresh out of the freezer. And if you feel the need to scream because you haven't had a drink, please seek professional help.

(Yes, they may quote me on that, I'd be willing to endorse the stuff.)


St Francis of Assisi, (nee Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone,) was born the son of a rich silk merchant in Italy during the late 12th and 13th centuries. He is remembered for his generosity to the poor, love of animals and his willingness to minister to the lepers. He was fond of kissing leper's sores which comes across today as somewhat of a fetish.

St. Francis, who at the time, was not a saint, or a priest for that matter, went on to found the Catholic Church’s Franciscan order as well as the women’s Order of St. Clare (remember the patron saint of Television.) St. Francis was reportedly the first person to receive a stigmata (please seek out the old ladies in the back pew of church to explain that one,) as well as developing the Christmas creche. Exhausted, St Francis decided to rest on his laurels and died in Portiuncula, Italy on October 3 or 4, 1226, (neither electric lights, clocks nor calendars were around his monks' cell, so the exact time could not be established.)



Usually in many churches around the United States, The Feast of St Francis is celebrated by offering animal blessing services (this year the blessings were held yesterday October 3rd.) One of the largest services in the United States is held at St. John the Divine in NYC.


October 4, 1951 -
Vincente Minnelli's gorgeous technicolor valentine to the movie musical, An American in Paris, premiered in NYC on this date.



Leslie Caron didn't speak English when she landed her first major role. She had a vague understanding of the language due to having an American mother, but was not conversant. Luckily for her, the part didn't have many lines and was comprised of mostly dancing, a skill that Caron was very fluent in.


October 4, 1957 -
Leave It To Beaver premiered on CBS-TV on this date. Once again, another show from the 50s where the lead actor (Hugh Beaumont not Jerry Mathers) was a raging alcoholic.



Jerry Mathers wore his Cub Scout uniform to his audition. During the audition, he told the casting directors that he was anxious to leave for his den meeting. The producers were charmed with Mathers' innocent candor and cast him in the title role.


October 4, 1959 -
Dennis the Menace, based on the Hank Ketcham comic strip, starring Jay North, Herbert Anderson, Gloria Henry, Jeannie Russell, Joseph Kearns, and Sylvia Field, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Ironically, Jay North, who played a rascal and a mischievous child character in the series, has served in recent years as a correctional officer and administrator working in particular with troubled youths within Florida's juvenile justice system.


October 4, 1961 -
Dave got to yell at Alvin nationally when The Alvin Show premiered on CBS-TV on this date. While it only lasted one season in prime time, the show was first show to feature the singing chipmunks.



The Chipmunks' names were taken from the names of three executives at Liberty Records, where David Seville and the Chipmunks made most of their early recordings. Alvin was named for label president Alvin Bennett, Simon for label vice-president/record producer Si Waronker, and Theodore for recording engineer Ted Keep. One of the first cartoon shows, along with The Flintstones, to become a success in prime time.


October 4, 1964 -
Supermarionation was used once again to freak out unsuspecting children when Gerry Anderson's third series Stingray, premiered in the UK on this date. (It was the first British series to be filmed entirely in Colour: the extra U was particularly expensive.)



The total cost of the production for Stingray was approximately £1 million (£21 million in 2020). The budget per episode was £20,000, which enabled AP Films, whose earlier productions had been in black and white, to film in Eastmancolor. Though Stingray would debut in black and white in the UK, the switch to color filming was intended to increase the series' chances of being bought by a network in the US, where color TV broadcasts were already common. During the production of Stingray, AP Films became the UK's largest color film consumer.


October 4, 1976 -
Barbara Walters made her debut on ABC-TV as the first female nightly network news anchor on this date, and offered a then-unheard of million dollar a year salary to co-anchor with veteran Harry Reasoner.



But Reasoner was not pleased with having her there. In addition to their lack of chemistry, the network's ratings did not improve, and she was replaced in mid-1978. She joined another ABC show, 20/20, where she had much greater success.


October 4, 1980 -
Queen started a three week run at No.1 on the Billboard singles chart with Another One Bites The Dust, on this date.



Queen were originally reluctant to release this as a single, but backstage after a Queen gig at the Los Angeles forum, a visiting Michael Jackson convinced them it would be a hit. "Michael and all his brothers were all going, 'That's a fantastic track. You must release it,'" recalled Queen drummer Roger Taylor to Q magazine December 2009.


October 4. 1996 -
Tom Hanks' directorial debut, That Thing You Do!, starring Tom Everett Scott, Liv Tyler, Johnathon Schaech, Steve Zahn, Ethan Embry and Charlize Theron, premiered in US theatres, on this date.



The four actors playing The Wonders rehearsed as a band for eight weeks to get the feel of performing - but most of their performances in the film were dubbed by other musicians.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
October 4, 1822 -
Rutherford Hayes was born on this date, in Delaware, Ohio.



That's not especially interesting in itself. Presidents, after all, must be born somewhere - and President Hayes was not the only one to have chosen Ohio. But consider: Jimmy Carter was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, and Chester Arthur was born on October 5, 1830, in Fairfield, Vermont (or Canada.) That's three presidential birthdays in a four-day period, a glut of presidential timber not to be found anywhere else on the calendar. Hayes came into office by one electoral vote, accomplished nothing, and did not run for a second term.



Chester Arthur came into office as James Garfield's vice-president and was promoted eight months later, upon Garfield's assassination. He accomplished nothing, and wasn't even nominated for a second term (although he does look a lot like Captain Kangaroo.)



Through no fault of his own, Jimmy Carter was elected president in 1976 (and must therefore bear his share of responsibility for my own difficult misspent youth). He sought but was denied a second term.

Significance? Zero.


October 4, 1883 -
After a number of false starts, financial troubles and difficulties negotiating with various national railway companies, Georges Nagelmackers' Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (French for "sleeper cars") established a route from Paris to Istanbul, making it first run to Giurgiu in Romania via Munich and Vienna, on this date.



The original Orient Express stopped serving Istanbul in 1977, and its new route ran from Paris to Vienna until 2007, when the train departed from Strasbourg instead of Paris. In 2009, after 126 years, the Orient Express ceased operation; aviation and high-speed trains had put an end to the classic Orient Express.


October 4, 1957 -
Sputnik One (meaning "companion" or "fellow traveller"), the first man-made satellite, was launched on this date, beginning the "space race."



The satellite, built by Valentin Glushko, weighed 184 pounds and was launched by a converted Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Sputnik orbited the earth every 96 minutes at a maximum height of 584 miles. (This will be on the test.)



In 1958, it reentered the earth's atmosphere and burned up.

Significance? A Little More Than Zero.


October 4, 1969 -
A despondent Diane Linkletter jumps out the kitchen window of her tenth-story apartment in West Hollywood, California on this date.



before an autopsy can be performed, television personality Art Linkletter blames his daughter's death on a bad LSD trip. Even though the toxicology report disputes Art's assertion, the LSD story persists.


October 4, 1970 -
If I hold back, I'm no good. I'm no good. I'd rather be good sometimes, than holding back all the time.



Janis Joplin accidentally overdoses on an unusually-pure dose of heroin, on this date, at the Landmark Motor Hotel in Los Angeles.


October 4, 1976 -
Earl Butz, President Ford's Secretary of Agriculture, was forced to resign after newspapers print a comment he made regarding race relations



(and I will paraphrase for those with weak constitutions) : "I'll tell you what the coloreds want. It's three things: first, a tight female reproductive organ; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to go to the bathroom."


October 4, 1986 -
Network news anchorman Dan Rather was mugged in New York City on this date. The attacker, one William Tager, shouted the question "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" during the beating.



While the "frequency" refers to the wavelength of the transmissions that CBS was beaming into Tager's head, history is still unclear on exactly who "Kenneth" is or why R.E.M. would record a song about it. It is rumored that the attack occurred because of Rather's uncanny resemblance to underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger.


October 4, 1989 -
Secretariat, 1973 triple crown winner and one of the greatest athletes of all time, was euthanized in Paris, Kentucky. He was 19.

Not surprisingly, viande de cheval appeared on the menu of several Parisian Bistros that night.


October 4, 1989 -
Death can really absorb a person. Like most people, I would find it pleasant not to have to go, but you just accept that it's more or less inevitable.



Dr. Graham Chapman (though he never actually practiced medicine professionally) died from complications related to spinal and throat cancer on this date.


One more thing - Gmar chatima tova

Yom Kippur starts this evening. If you're celebrating (strange choice of words,) you better hurry up and finish reading this before sundown. May your fast pass easily - Don't hesitate to contact me if you can't remember the things you should be atoning for by now.



Hopefully, because you finally got to go outside since being cooped up for the better part of two years, your sins are not so numerous that you really couldn't cast them upon the water.



And so it goes