Happy Waitangi Day to you!

Today is Waitangi Day in New Zealand. This celebrates the February 6, 1840 signing of The Treaty of Waitangi by representatives of the British Crown and leading Maori chiefs in Waitangi. The treaty preserved many Maori rights while making New Zealand a British Colony.

Given the confused and confusing state of things, I must recommends that America join her Kiwi friends in celebrating Waitangi Day. There's no particular logic to this, but it's fun to say "Happy Waitangi Day." We could all wear funny hats and buy each other Waitangi presents.



Sound silly?

Just four days ago we were all waiting for a stupid rodent to crawl out of a hole and look for his shadow. In the Southern Hemisphere, Summer is winding down, which might have something to do with why today is Waitangi Day down there.)


We are halfway between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, which is the scientifically correct way of saying it's the middle of winter, such as it is in the Northeast.



I used to hope that by the second half of Winter, we could coast to the start of Spring. Given that we are living through very tumultuous times again, I'd be happy for just a snow apocalypse or two.


February 6, 1921 -
The Kid, starring Charlie Chaplin and 6-year-old Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester), was released in the US on this date.



The production company tried to cheat Charles Chaplin by paying him for this six-reel film what they would ordinarily pay him for a two-reel film, which was about $500,000. Chaplin took the unassembled film out of state until the company agreed to the $1.5 million he was supposed to be paid, plus half the surplus profits on rentals, along with reversion of the film to him after five years on the rental market.


February 6, 1965 –
The Righteous Brothers song You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ hit No. # 1 on the Billboard charts on this date.



The husband-and-wife songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil wrote this song at the request of Phil Spector, who was looking for a hit for an act he had just signed to his Philles label: The Righteous Brothers. Phil Spector produced this song using his famous "Wall of Sound" recording technique. Spector got a songwriting credit on the track, as he usually demanded one around this time and had the clout to get it.


February 6, 1981 -
Daniel Petrie's policier, Fort Apache, The Bronx, starring Paul Newman, Ed Asner, Ken Wahl, Danny Aiello, and Pam Grier opened amid much controversy in the US, on this date.



During production residents of the Bronx protested the film claiming it would show show only the Bronx badly and ignore the good qualities. Moreover, local Bronx community groups also allegedly threatened to sue the production because of the way the picture was going to depict the Bronx and its ethnic minorities such as African Americans and Puerto Ricans. Because of this, the picture starts with a disclaimer in the prologue and script changes to the screenplay were made.


February 6, 1981 -
For some unknown reason, ABC gave the go-ahead for this sequel of The Brady Bunch, The Brady Brides, which premiered on this date. (The show barely lasted a season.)



This was the only Brady show in sitcom form to be filmed in front of a live studio audience.


February 6, 1982 –
The J. Geils Band song Centerfold hit No. #1 on the Billboard charts on this date.



The J. Geils Band signed with Atlantic Records in 1970 and made a name for themselves as a great live act with a blues-based sound. Centerfold was a musical departure for the band - a new wave sound similar to what The Cars and The Police were doing. It was also their biggest hit, earning them a slot touring with The Rolling Stones, the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, and heavy rotation on the new cable network MTV.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
February 6, 1911 -

That great American, Ronald Reagan, who appeared in such films as Jap Zero, Girls on Probation and Bedtime for Bonzo, was born in Tampico IL on this date.



It should be a national holiday (or a day of great national shame.)


February 6, 1917 -
Getting divorced just because you don't love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.



Zsa Zsa Gabor, Queen of Outer Space was born in Budapest on this date. Party girls everywhere are celebrating their patron saint's day. Think of how awkward it must be for her to run into the gaggle of men that were her husbands in the afterlife.


It was on this date in 1919 that the German constituent assembly met in Weimar for the first time to declare itself The Official German Government For The Time Being.



This Weimar Republic, as it came to be known, should not be confused with the Weimar Republic fashion clothing outlet found in many American malls. The former caused an economic depression, Hitler, and the horrors of the Second World War. The latter caused a slight dip in sales at Banana Republic and Old Navy.


February 6, 1928 –
Immigrants from Europe arriving in New York City was nothing unusual in the 1920s, but a young woman calling herself Anastasia Tschaikovsky was different, marking her arrival on US soil with a press conference. She claimed to be the youngest daughter of the murdered czar of Russia and arrived in New York City to receive surgery on her broken jaw, an injury she said she had got from a Bolshevik soldier as she escaped the massacre of her family in Yekaterinburg, nine years earlier.



Controversy swirled around her and her claim that she was Anastasia Romanova, throughout her life until her death in 1984. In 1991, DNA evidence indicated she wasn’t a Romanov, although there are some who question the validity of those results.


February 6, 1937 –
Which way did he go, George? Which way did he go?







Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men, the tragic story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers in California during the Great Depression, was published on this date.


February 6, 1943 -
In like Flynn.

Omnisexual, possible neo-nazi, actor Errol Flynn was acquitted of raping an adolescent on this date. The woman had actually tried this shakedown with other celebrities and wasn't quite an adolescent despite her testifying with pigtails and a lollypop.


February 6, 1945 -
Today is Bob Marley Day in Jamaica and Ethiopia. Bob Marley, musician, singer-songwriter and Rastafarian was born on this date.



How can your day not be a little brighter.


February 6, 1951 –
The Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train, derailed near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, on this date, killing 85 people and injured over 500 more.



The accident remains New Jersey's deadliest train wreck, the deadliest U.S. derailment since 1918, and the deadliest peacetime rail disaster in the United States.


February 6, 1952 -
Elizabeth II became Queen upon the death of her father George VI (who had been ill for some time and died in his sleep from a coronary thrombosis), on this date (she has been on the job for 70 years.)



At the exact moment of succession, she was in an observation post at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya.



Talk about bizarre ways you can land a job - Elizabeth went up a tree a princess and came down a Queen.


February 6, 1971 -
Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard becomes the first person to hit a golf ball on the Moon on this date.



Near the end of the second moonwalk and just before entering the lunar module for the last time, Shepard attaches a six-iron to the end of a sample collecting tool and hits two golf balls. The first lands in a nearby crater. He hits the second one squarely, and, in the one-sixth gravity of the Moon, Shepard says that it travels “miles and miles and miles.”


Before you go - another preview of a Super Bowl commercial. Surprise, this one is a beer commercial (the extended version):



Either Bill wasn't available or he was way too expensive. It's cute though.



And so it goes