I'm not sure if this is a real thing

Happy Cinco De Marcho! Cinco De Marcho is a 12-day drinking regimen for anyone who wishes to “train one’s liver"

for the closing ceremonies on St. Patrick’s Day.


Also, it's National Cheez Doodle Day.



It's doesn't sound appetizing saying 'Extruded Flavored Cornmeal Day'


March 5, 1954 -
The Classic B movie, Creature from the Black Lagoon, premiered on this date.



Julie Adams noted that making the film was an extremely pleat process, and that the cast and crew got along quite well. She also explained that she felt sympathetic toward the monster. Adams said, "There always is that feeling of compassion for the monster. I think maybe it touches something in ourselves, maybe the darker parts of ourselves, that long to be loved and think they really can't ever be loved. It strikes a chord within us."


March 5, 1956 -
Frank Sinatra released his tenth studio album Songs for Swingin' Lovers! on this date.



Sinatra aficionados often rank it his best album and many music critics consider it one of the greatest albums of its era.


March 5, 1959 –
In The Twilight Zone episode The Last Flight, (which originally aired February 5, 1960,) British RFC Flt. Lt. Decker was lost over France on March 5, 1917, and he seemed to have returned on this date, 42 years later.



The episode was filmed at Norton AFB, San Bernardino, California--playing the roll of Lafayette Air Base, Reims, France. There was a Reims Air Base in France in 1959 (the year the episode was set), now known as Aerodrome de Reims-Champagne. Norton AFB was decommissioned and closed in 1994. The site is now San Bernardino International Airport.


March 5, 1965 -
The Mannish Boys released their second single I Pity The Fool, featuring a young David Bowie, produced by Shel Talmy, (who was also producing the early singles and albums by The Who and The Kinks).



Jimmy Page was Talmy's regular session musician and played the guitar solo on I Pity the Fool.


March 5, 1970 -
Universal released the blockbuster film, Airport, starring just about everyone who was available in Hollywood, on this date.



The field and terminal scenes were filmed entirely at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport, due to the abundance of snowfall during the winter months there, although at first, the film's producers were forced to use bleached sawdust as a supplement, to make up for the lack of falling snow, until a snowstorm hit the Twin Cities area during production.


March 5, 1971 -
Led Zeppelin started a 12-date 'Thank You' tour for British fans, appearing at the clubs from their early days and charging the same admission prices as in 1968.



Northern Ireland was a war zone at the time and their first show was at The Ulster Hall, Belfast, Northern Ireland where they played songs from their upcoming fourth album, including the first public performances of Black Dog, Stairway To Heaven, Going To California and Rock And Roll.


March 5, 1978 -
Mae West's final film, Sextette, was released on this date.



Eighty-four-year-old Mae West had trouble remembering her lines. She wore a wireless earpiece during filming, and Director Ken Hughes would speak her lines, which she would repeat. The earpiece occasionally picked up police radio transmissions. Once, West picked up a police call and repeated, "There's a 608."


March 5, 1983 -
Michael Jackson's single Billie Jean hits No. #1 on the Billboard Charts and stays there for seven weeks, on this date.



In his autobiography Moonwalk, Jackson said that Quincy Jones wanted to change the title to Not My Lover because he thought it would be confused with the tennis star Billie Jean King. Jackson ended up winning that battle.


March 5, 2006 -
The nature documentary Planet Earth narrated by David Attenborough premieres on the BBC TV, on this date.



The project took 40 camera teams shooting at over 200 different locations all over the world for more than five years.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
March 5, 1616 -
Copernican theory was declared “false and erroneous” in a decree written by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine and issued by the Catholic Church and the work was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Roman Catholic Church, on this date. Further, no person was to be permitted to hold or teach the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun.



When Galileo later violates the decree, he will be put on trial and held under house arrest for the final eight years of his life.


March 5, 1770 -
British soldiers who had been taunted by a crowd of colonists opened fire, killing five people, on this date, in what would become known as The Boston Massacre. Among the five killed was an African American sailor, Crispus Attucks.



Colonists were already resenting the Townsend Acts, a very early WHO album. Tensions caused by the heavy military presence in Boston, led to brawls between soldiers and civilians and eventually to troops shooting their muskets into a riotous crowd.

SO you can see, the tradition of killing innocent black men in American is older than the Republic.


March 5, 1933 -
Germany went on a 12 year drinking binge - the Nazi Party won 44 percent of the vote in German parliamentary elections, enabling it to join with the Nationalists to gain a slight majority in the Reichstag.



Adolf 'Evil Bastard' Hitler had become chairman of the Nazi party in 1921, and two years later he tried to topple the German republican government in the "beer-hall putsch." Nazi storm troopers surrounded government officials during a meeting at a beer hall in Munich. The troopers forced the officials to swear allegiance to the Nazi revolution. But the coup was defeated and Hitler fled, then he was captured and imprisoned. While in prison, Hitler dictated his autobiography Mein Kampf (or, in English, I'm Crazy and I'm Gonna Kill You or How I Intend to Enslave or Kill Millions of People Immediately Upon My Release) to a sympathetic scribe, and the book became important to Nazism.

The failed coup made Hitler famous ( he already began selling the cryptic t-shirt 'World Tour 1939 - 1945'), and the Nazi party capitalized on the economic depression of 1929, as well as the heavy reparations Germany was made to pay for World War I, and they became a powerful force in Germany. In 1932, Hitler ran for president of Germany, but lost. The next year, he became the chancellor. Just before the parliamentary elections in 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire, which led to the Reichstag Fire Decree, which rescinded habeas corpus and other protective laws.



The following week, March 5, 1933, the Nazi Party won a slight majority in the elections. Within three weeks, the Nazi-dominated Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which gave Hitler dictatorial powers and ended the Weimar Republic in Germany.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: beer, Bavarians and the ballot do not mix.


It was on this date in 1946, in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, that Winston Churchill made his famous observation that, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent."



The speech was not well received at first, as the people of Fulton weren't sure which continent he was talking about and they didn't care what sort of drapes were fashionable in foreign parts.


Bizarre ironies of History -
On March 1, 1953, after an all-night dinner with interior minister Lavrenty Beria and future premiers Georgi Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, Josif Stalin, truly Evil Bastard, did not emerge from his room the next day, having probably suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body.



Although his guards thought it odd that he did not rise at his usual time, the next day they were under orders not to disturb him and he was not discovered until that evening. He died four days later, on March 5, 1953, at the age of 74, and was buried on March 9. His daughter Svetlana recalls the scene as she stood by his death bed "He suddenly opened his eyes and cast a glance over everyone in the room. It was a terrible glance. Then something incomprehensible and awesome happened. He suddenly lifted his left hand as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse upon all of us. The next moment after a final effort the spirit wrenched its self free of the flesh."



Officially, the cause of death was listed as a cerebral hemorrhage. Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs that Beria had, immediately after the stroke, gone about "spewing hatred against [Stalin] and mocking him", and then, when Stalin showed signs of consciousness, dropped to his knees and kissed his hand. When Stalin fell unconscious again, Beria immediately stood and spat.



His body was preserved in Lenin's Mausoleum until October 31, 1961, when his body was removed from the Mausoleum and buried next to the Kremlin walls as part of the process of de-Stalinization.



Wait, it starts to get weird here, America learns of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's death when Air Force Staff Sergeant Johnny Cash intercepts a coded message from Russia. Cash enlisted in 1950 after he turned 18 and was assigned to the 12th Radio Squadron Mobile of the US Air Force Security Service at Landsberg, West Germany, where he proved his skill as a Morse Code operator.

The famed Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev lived in dread fear of getting on the wrong side of Stalin. Always looking to appease the Evil Bastard, he died at the age of 61 from a cerebral hemorrhage on March 5, 1953 (the same day and even hour and cause that Communist Party leader Joseph Stalin died.)



Prokofiev had lived near the Red Square and for three days the throngs gathered to mourn Stalin made it impossible to carry Prokofiev's body out for the funeral service at the headquarters of the Soviet Composer's Union. Paper flowers and a taped recording of the funeral march from his Romeo and Juliet had to be used, as all real flowers and musicians were reserved for Stalin's funeral.

Herman J. Mankiewicz, producer and alcoholic screenwriter, best known for his collaboration with Orson Welles on the screenplay of Citizen Kane, for which they both won an Academy Award and famously clashed over credit,



died of uremia poisoning in Hollywood, CA on March 5, 1953, the same day as Joseph Stalin and Sergei Prokofiev.


March 5, 1963 -
There's less violence in the world when people are using Hula-Hoops. - Mikey Way

The US Patent Office issues patent No. #3,079,728 to Arthur K. Melin and Richard Knerr for their Hula Hoop design.


March 5, 1963 -
Virginia Patterson Hensley (Patsy Cline), country music singer has an unfortunate close encounter with an airplane on this date.







What was it with singers and small planes in the early 60s


March 5, 1977 -
Walter Cronkite and Jimmy Carter went on the air for a call-in radio program where ordinary citizens could call and ask the president anything they liked.



Over 9 million callers tried to get through, and the questions ranged from Carter's pardoning the draft dodgers to why he sent his daughter to public school.


March 5, 1982 -
John Belushi was found dead at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood from a cocaine and heroin overdose on this date. A sketchy woman, Cathy Smith, was later charged with administering the fatal injections.



Sorry but there was really nothing funny about that - it was just a waste.


March 5, 1989 -
Darwin Award nominee Michael Anderson Godwin, previously on death row for murder but with sentence commuted to life imprisonment, died in a toilet-related accident at the Central Correctional Institution in South Carolina on this date. Godwin, sitting on a stainless steel toilet, bit into headphone wires that were connected to his television. He was immediately electrocuted.

[Moral: use a porcelain toilet. And eat more fiber.]



And so it goes.

It's a call to action

Today is my favorite day - March 4th

It's the day that tells you to do something.


March 4, 1922 -
The first vampire film Nosferatu, an illegal adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, was released in Germany on this date.



The film was loosely based on the Bram Stoker book but the characters' names were changed in an attempt to prevent legal action (which failed). The subtitles were translated into French, then when the film went to the USA into English but with Stoker's character names used.


March 4, 1950 -
One of the classic Chuck Jones Looney Tunes cartoons, The Scarlet Pumpernickel, was released on this date. This was another show I was not allowed to watch with my family because I laughed too loudly.



By all means, please, stop eating or drinking while watching this cartoon, you may injury yourself. Also, a State dept report has just been released, the cavalry came to the rescue but it was too late.


March 4, 1961 -
Michelangelo Antonioni's landmark of European cinema, L'Avventura, premiered in the US on this date.



The rocky Aeolian island on which the first portion of the film was made - its name is Lisca Bianca - didn't have electricity or running water and was subject to violent weather, including a tornado. At one point, the crew found themselves completely stranded on the island.


March 4, 1963 -
The Beach Boys released Surfin' U.S.A. a song with lyrics by Brian Wilson set to the music of Sweet Little Sixteen, written by Chuck Berry. Billboard ranked Surfin' U.S.A. the No. 1 song of 1963.



Many of the early Beach Boys' songs were about surfing. Dennis Wilson was the only Beach Boy who actually surfed, but surfing was a very popular at the time, especially with teenagers who bought records. For The Beach Boys, the surfing subculture gave them an opportunity to write songs about adventure and fun while exploring vocal harmonies and new production techniques. And while the majority of Americans didn't surf, the songs represented California, which was considered new and modern and a great place to be. Surfing, and California by extension, became more about a state of mind.


March 4, 1967 -
The Rolling Stones song, Ruby Tuesday, topped the charts on this date.



Brian Jones played the recorder (it sounds like a flute) on this song. He was a founding member of the group and fancied himself their leader, which along with a debilitating drug habit, starting causing problems in the band around this time. He was booted from the group in June 1969, and found dead in his swimming pool less than a month later.


March 4, 1979 -
Mary Tyler Moore's second ill-conceived venture in a variety series, The Mary Tyler Moore Hour, co-starring Dody Goodman, Michael Keaton, Joyce Van Patten, Ron Rifkin, and Doris Roberts, premiered on CBS on this date.



The show's premise was to give the audience a fictionalized view into the life of the star of a television variety show, much as The Jack Benny Show had purported to do two decades earlier on the same network. Unlike the Benny show, or Moore's sitcoms, but more like her earlier variety show the previous fall, The Mary Tyler Moore Hour would have trouble attracting a sizable audience. The series only lasted 11 episodes.


March 4, 1982 -
The David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker silliness, Police Squad, starring Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Each week featured a "Special Guest Star" who is killed off in the opening credits. Lorne Greene and William Conrad are knifed and tossed out of cars; Georg Stanford Brown has a safe dropped on him; Florence Henderson is shot during a musical number; Robert Goulet is executed by a firing squad; and William Shatner avoids a burst of machine-gun-fire only to drink a glass of poisoned wine.


March 4, 1984 -
Appearing in front of 50,000 people, The Police play the final concert of their Synchronicity tour in Melbourne, Australia, on this date.



It is their last show, except for a few special events together, until 2007.


March 4, 1996 -
The Beatles song Real Love, compiled from a John Lennon demo recording, is released in the UK, on this date. Yoko Ono supplied Lennon's demo for this song and Free As A Bird and gave the remaining Beatles permission to use them.



Paul McCartney did his best John Lennon imitation to help the lead vocal because the recording of John's voice was low and spotty in some places. The lead vocal is actually a John and Paul duet.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
March 4, 1837 -
The "Windy City", "Chi-Town", "Second City," and the "City of Broad Shoulders" - Chicago became incorporated as a city on this date.



10,000 extra votes from various local cemeteries were counted that day alone.

Remember, vote early, vote often.


March 4, 1849 -
This is a US secret you probably don't know - this is the day America had no President.



James K. Polk (whose cause of death was officially listed as "diarrhea") officially stepped down as the 11th US president and President Zachary Taylor (who would die in office after eating cherries and milk at a July 4th celebration) refused to be sworn-in on a Sunday.



US Sen. David Rice Atchison (1807-1886) of Missouri then technically held office as president until Zachary Taylor took his oath the next day. However Atchison’s term as president pro tempore of the Senate had also expired, and his new term did not begin until March 5. For the rest of his life, Atchison enjoyed polishing this story, describing his "presidency" as "the honestest administration this country ever had."


March 4, 1861 -
The first official flag of the Confederate States of America, called the Stars and Bars, having seven stars, for the seven states that initially formed the Confederacy, was formally adopted as the flag of the Confederate States of America, on this date.

This flag was sometimes difficult to distinguish from the Union flag under battle conditions, so the flag was changed to the Stainless Banner. The union of the Stainless Banner, known as the Southern Cross, became the one more commonly used in military operations. The Southern Cross had 13 stars, adding the four states that joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter, and the two divided states of Kentucky and Missouri.



While, the Southern states were adopting their banner, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th President of the United States on this date as well.

So now you know.


March 4, 1884 -
...By a man's finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt cuffs -- by each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable....



Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson begin their work on the case in A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes story, on this date (or maybe it didn't. I'm not going to join the massive debate the Holmesians get involved in with the accuracy of this date.)


March 4, 1933 -
Frances Perkins began on this date as the U.S. Secretary of Labor, the first female member of a president’s cabinet, in 1933. Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her during the Great Depression to help establish Social Security and other public safety net programs that were known collectively as The New Deal.



For 12 years in that cabinet role, she built a reputation as the woman behind the New Deal. She also helped establish the first minimum wage and overtime laws for American workers, workplace safety regulations (after a tragic factory fire), and the standard 40-hour work week.


March 4, 1952 -
Ronald Reagan married his 'mommy' Nancy Davis,

in the San Fernando Valley, on this date.


March 4, 1960 -
Waaaa, Ricky I don't want to be married anymore to you, you lousy two bit skirt chasing, whoremonger.



Lucille Ball filed divorce from Desi Arnaz on this date.


March 4, 1966 -
John Lennon claimed that The Beatles were "bigger than Jesus", and that "Christianity will... vanish and shrink" on this date.



I guess he was dead wrong about that.


March 4, 1974 -
The first issue of People Magazine featuring actress Mia Farrow, starring in the movie The Great Gatsby, was released on this date.

The duration of your stay in the bathroom has never been the same.


March 4, 1994 -
Comedian John Candy died on this date.





Just think - the fun John Candy and Desi Arnaz are having in the 3D House of Stewardesses. (So remember, EVERYBODY MAMBO!)



And so it goes.

Say 'Bonjour' to a lilac

Today is World Wild Life Day. The day celebrates both wild plants and animals on our planet and is also a day to be aware of what human beings are doing to endanger the delicate balance of the world eco-system. The United Nations proclaimed March 3 as World Wildlife Day on December 20, 2013.



This years theme: “Partnerships for Wildlife Conservation,” is a way to celebrate all conservation efforts, from intergovernmental to local scale.


Today is also I Want You to be Happy Day. I can think of nothing else that will make you more happy than to continue reading this posting, or perhaps finding me a new job that pays something.



I know that would make me very happy.


March 3, 1933 -
W.C. Fields classic short, The Fatal Glass of Beer, premiered on this date.



In Fields' first sound film, The Golf Specialist there is a wanted poster of Fields which shows him in his Fatal Glass of Beer costume. It evidently was taken from an earlier stage presentation of the classic Fields sketch.


March 3, 1972 -
Elton John released the song Rocket Man, (officially titled Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time), on this date.



The inspiration for Bernie Taupin's lyrics was the short story The Rocket Man, written by Ray Bradbury. The sci-fi author's tale is told from the perspective of a child, whose astronaut father has mixed feelings at leaving his family in order to do his job. It was published as part of the anthology The Illustrated Man in 1951.


March 3, 1985 -
ABC-TV unleashed Bruce Willis, Cybill Shepherd and the crew from the Blue Moon Detective Agency onto an unsuspecting world, when it premiered the pilot episode of Moonlighting on this date.



Bruce Willis was the very last of about 3,000 actors to audition for the role of David Addison, Jr. (Have a good thought for Bruce while you watch this today.)


March 3, 2008 -
Chumbawamba break the record for longest album title with their 160-word release The Boy Bands Have Won...

Using efficient typography, the British band get the full title on the cover:

The record of longest album title was established in 1999 with Fiona Apple's 90-word title for her second album, When The Pawn...

The Belgian group Soulwax broke it with a 103-word title for a compilation album in 2007 before Chumbawamba claimed it.


March 3, 2010 -
Tim Burton fanciful retelling of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, starring Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover, and Mia Wasikowska is released.



Tim Burton and Johnny Depp worked hard to give the Mad Hatter more depth and presence than in past portrayals. In fact, the pair swapped sketches and themes for the character prior to creating this new version. This movie marks the seventh time Johnny Depp has worked under the direction of Tim Burton, and the sixth time for Helena Bonham Carter.

Another book from the back shelves of The ACME Library


Today in History -
March 3, 1861 -
Russian Tsar, Tzar, Czar Alexander II issued a manifest and ends feudal control of serfs as part of a program of westernization.



The Russian serf lived a hopeless life of back-breaking labor and desperate poverty. Their oppression, which continued even after their liberation, caused riots, assassinations, and literature. Finally they had the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 to make the serfs equal to everyone else, and it worked.

From that point forward, everyone lived a hopeless life of back-breaking labor and desperate poverty.



The American surfdom can only be blamed for the Beach Boys and Annette Funicello.


March 3, 1863 -
The National Conscription Act was signed, forcing all men between 20 and 45 years of age into the draft lotteries. Except for rich bastards, who could buy their way out for $300, or hire another man to serve in his place.

The inevitable result is the week long New York Draft Riots.


March 3, 1875 -
The opera Carmen, composed by Georges Bizet, opened in Paris at the Opera-Comique, despite intense controversy surrounding its opening. The story was considered too salacious for the general public, and Bizet had trouble getting even one actress to agree to play the title role.



This was Bizet's only hit opera, as he died suddenly at the age of 37, three months later.


March 3, 1876 -
The Kentucky Meat Shower took place on this date in 1876, during which what appeared to be flakes of red meat measuring approximately 5 by 5 centimetres (2 in × 2 in) fell from the sky near the settlement of Rankin in Bath County, Kentucky.



The incident sparked plenty of wild theories about how it happened. To this day, there's no 100% certain explanation.

But you know your ole pal the doc, I'll go with the vulture vomit.


March 3, 1879 -
Politician Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina was sworn in as the second African American congressman in December 1870. (The first being Hiram Revels.) He was the first black presiding officer of the House of Representatives.



Rainey served a total of four terms in Congress until this date in 1879, establishing a record of length of service for a black Congressman that was not surpassed until that of William L. Dawson of Chicago in the 1950s.


March 3, 1887 -
Anne Mansfield Sullivan arrived at the Alabama home of Capt. and Mrs. Arthur H. Keller to become the teacher of Helen, their blind and deaf 6 year old daughter on this date.

Anne Sullivan was legally blind and Helen Keller was blind and deaf. They accomplished more in their lives than most able-bodied people.


March 3, 1902 -
Sarah Rector was born on this date. Who is Sarah Rector, you ask? An impoverished African American member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, at the age of 11 she became a millionaire oil baron when oil was discovered on the land allotted to her by the government.



Sarah avoided hundreds of attempts to scam her out of her fortune and became known as the “Richest colored girl in the world.” She lost the majority of her wealth in the Great Depression, as did many wealthy Americans. Sarah married twice, had three sons and died in 1967 at the age of 65.


March 3, 1923 -
The first issue of Time magazine, created by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce (the first weekly news magazine in the United States), was published on this date. It featured on its cover, Joseph G. Cannon, the retired Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

It has been suggested that TIME is an acronym, for The International Magazine of Events.


March 3, 1931 -

An English beer drinking song became the National Anthem of the United States on this date.



The lyrics to said drink song are -

To Anacreon in heaven where he sat in full glee,
A few sons of harmony sent a petition,
That he their inspirer and patron would be,
When this answer arrived from the jolly old Grecian:
Voice, fiddle aud flute, no longer be mute,
I'll lend you my name and inspire you to boot!
And besides I'll instruct you like me to entwine
The myrtle of Venus and Bacchus's vine.

I believe drinking heavily is the key here.



Perhaps we can hand out laminated cards before each game.


March 3, 1931 -
...Why, you can get a phonograph record of Minnie the Moocher for 75 cents. And for a buck and a quarter, you can get Minnie....

On the same day President Herbert Hoover signed a congressional act adopting The Star-Spangled Banner, as the national anthem, Cab Calloway recorded the classic Minnie The Moocher.



It became the first million-selling jazz album.


March 3, 1934 -
John Dillinger escaped from an escapeproof jail in Crown Point Indiana, using a wooden pistol he carved himself. It's his second escape.



Remember, J. Edger was just months away from slicing up the corpse of Dillinger for his own personal collection.


March 3, 1959 -
An embittered and confused Lou Costello roused himself from his hospital bed to mutter, Fuck you Abbott, Who's on first now, coughs up bloody phlegm and died on this date.



Bud Abbott, ten years older than Lou, smiled to himself, lit a cigars and lived another 15 years to spite his former partner.


March 3, 1969 -
Apollo 9, the third manned mission in the United States Apollo space program, blasted off from Cape Kennedy on a mission to test the lunar module.



It carried astronauts James McDivitt, Russell Schweickart and David Scott and made 151 Earth orbits over 10 days. The mission was the second manned launch of a Saturn V rocket.


March 3, 1991 -
Three white police officers had proceeded to beat Rodney King beyond what was necessary to use force to control him. Moreover, these three officers had reported that the bruises, cuts, and/or scrapes they gave King were minor in nature. The beating by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department of Rodney King is captured on video, the video then appeared on television news which angered many of the public especially those in the African American community who believed the police brutality was racially motivated.



Four LAPD officers were eventually tried in a state court for the beating but were acquitted. The announcement of the acquittals sparked the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.


On a personal note: Happy Birthday Cara

Hope you're enjoying your birthday weekend.



And so it goes.

Eighth Wonder of thw World

March 2, 1933 -

RKO Studios, on the brink of bankruptcy, gambled the studio on a filmed puppet show for kids, releasing the film King Kong on this date.



In the original film, the character's name is Kong -- a name given to him by the inhabitants of "Skull Island" in the Indian Ocean, where Kong lived along with other over-sized animals such as a plesiosaur, pterosaurs, and dinosaurs. 'King' is an appellation added by an American film crew led by Carl Denham, who captures Kong and takes him to New York City to be exhibited as the "Eighth Wonder of the World".



Kong escapes and climbs the Empire State Building (the World Trade Center in the 1976 remake) where he is shot and killed by aircraft. Nevertheless, "it was beauty who killed the beast", as he only climbed the building in the first place in an attempt to protect the lead female character Ann Darrow.



The film saved RKO Studios from bankruptcy.


March 2, 1935 -
One of the earliest Technicolor Merrie Melodies cartoon, I Haven't Got A Hat, directed by Friz Freleng and featuring the debut of Porky Pig and Beans the Cat (a minor Looney Tunes character from the '30s,) premiered on this date.



Struggling against other animation studios, Warner Bros. were desperate to find a character as successful as major studios' mascots, such as Disney's Mickey Mouse, Fleischer Studios' Betty Boop and Felix the Cat, and so Freleng designed several potential characters, Little Kitty, Beans, Ham and Ex, Oliver Owl, and Porky Pig.


March 2, 1939 -
The first of many collaborations between John Ford and John Wayne, Stagecoach, went into general release on this date.



The hat that John Wayne wears was his own. He would wear it in many westerns during the next two decades before retiring it after Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo because it was simply "falling apart." After that, the hat was displayed under glass in his home.


March 2, 1940 -
The Looney Tunes short, Elmer's Candid Camera, directed by Chuck Jones, and featuring the newly redesigned Elmer Fudd for the first time, premiered on this date.



Elmer Fudd evolved from Egghead, a character created by Tex Avery in the mid-'30s. In this cartoon, Elmer still wears the same attire (derby hat, high collar, green coat) as Egghead, and sports a large, bulbous nose, which was one of Egghead's distinguishing traits.


March 2, 1965 -
The movie version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, had its world premiere at New York's Rivoli Theater on this date.







When Maria is running through the courtyard to the Von Trapp house in I Have Confidence, she trips. This was an accident. However, director Robert Wise liked this so much that he kept it in the movie. He felt it added to the nervousness of the song and of the character.


March 2, 1967 -
The Star Trek episode This Side of Paradise first aired on NBC TV on this date.

In it, the Enterprise visits a planet where mysterious plants regulate the population. Spock is entranced by the planet and refuses to leave.



Some of Spock's family background is fleshed out in the episode with references to his half-human heritage. The episode also first reveals that Spock's father is an Ambassador, which would be depicted in later stories. Spock's mother is said to be a teacher, but there would be no further details or depictions of her career.


March 2, 1984 -
Rob Reiner's seminal mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap starring Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and a bunch of other great actors premiered in the US on this date.



37 different people have been in the band over the years. Excluding the two original members, one keyboard player, and the original and current bass players, that means the band has had 32 different drummers who inexplicably died.


March 2, 1987 -
The long-planned collaboration between Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton, The Trio album, was released on this date.



The album sold over 4 million copies and won the Grammy Award for Best Country Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal.


March 2, 1989 -
Like A Prayer became the first hit song to debut in a commercial when it is used in a 2-minute Pepsi ad starring Madonna.



The spot is called "Make A Wish," and shows Madonna watching her 8-year-old self at her birthday party. The commercial airs in prime time around the world, the Pepsi people claimed that 250 million viewers saw the ad, and that they were clearly the choice of the younger generation, as their partnerships with Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and now Madonna, demonstrated. Unfortunately (for Pepsi) the commercial is never broadcast again because the next day, the video was released, and in it, Madonna kisses a black man and dances in front of burning crosses - not what Pepsi had in mind.


March 2, 1990 -
Paramount Pictures released the submarine thriller, based on the Tom Clancy novel of the same name, The Hunt for Red October, starring Sean Connery (with the worst attempt at a Russian accept ever), Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, and Sam Neill, on this date.



After being faxed the script, Sean Connery initially turned the role down on the basis of the plot being unrealistic for the post-Cold War era. Whoever sent the fax neglected to include the foreword, explaining the movie as historical. Once he received the foreword, Connery accepted the role.


March 2, 1991 -
Chris Isaak's single Wicked Game reached the #6 position on the US Billboard charts, on this date.



Lee Chesnut, who was music director of an Atlanta radio station and a huge fan of David Lynch films, helped popularize this song when he added it to his playlist after watching Wild At Heart. The song gradually gained an audience and charted in the US 18 months after Isaak's album Heart Shaped World was released.


March 2, 2009 -

Jimmy Fallon premiered on the third incarnation of the Late Night franchise, first hosted by David Letterman, followed by Conan O'Brien, on this date.



In 2013, Fallon was selected by NBC to succeed the continually retiring Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show. The last episode of Late Night under Fallon aired one night after Leno's final episode of The Tonight Show on February 6, 2014. Most of the cast and crew immediately began working on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, which premiered on February 17, 2014. Seth Meyers was named as Fallon's replacement, and Late Night with Seth Meyers debuted February 24, 2014.

Don't forget to tue in to The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today


Today in History -
When he was a young man, no one knew for sure if Nicholas I of Russia, the son of Paul I, was Czar, Tsar, or Tzar. It was hard to know anything at all about someone whose last name was a vowel, especially when he lived in a hermitage. Nicholas was therefore as confused as he was powerful, which inevitably led to his becoming an Evil Bastard.



He didn't realize what an Evil Bastard he'd become until he lost the Crimean War, however, at which point he discovered that in addition to being Evil he was also an Incompetent Bastard. This made him Autocratic and he therefore died on March 2, 1855.



His first son Alexander, was left to ponder all of this when he became Alexander II on the same day.


March 2, 1882 -
Queen Victoria was a much beloved monarch, except by her would-be assassins. The queen escaped another assassination attempt on this date. Roderick Maclean, the final in a series of eight malcontents over the course of her very long reign, took a shot at the queen as her carriage pulled away from Windsor railway station after she refused to accept one of his poems.

He was beaten back by two schoolboys with umbrellas and arrested by Superintendent Hayes of the Windsor Police. He was tried for high treason but found not guilty but insane and sent to an asylum.


March 2, 1900 -
It seems to me that the American popular song, growing out of American folk music, is the basis of the American musical theater… it is quite legitimate to use the form of the popular song and gradually fill it out with new musical content.
... I have never acknowledged the difference between serious music and light music. There is only good music and bad music.







Kurt Weill, composer, Brecht and Gershwin collaborator, was born in Dessau, Germany on this date.


Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was born 119 years ago today, on March 2, 1904. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984, and is one of only a few men in history to have written illustrated books in verse about a pedophiliac cat.



You can hardly blame the guy for changing his name. (Remember it's National Read Across America Day in honor of Dr. Seuss.)



On March 2, 1931, Mikhail Gorbachev was born with a big red splotch on his head, so he got right into politics. Mr. Gorbachev was the last Evil Bastard to reign over the Soviet Empire. Fortunately, he was also Bumbling Bastard, and his invention of glasnost and perestroika accidentally made walls fall down in Germany.



This caused Boris Yeltsin to ride on top of a tank and was therefore historical.


March 2, 1939 -
Howard Carter died of King Tut's curse on this date.



But dammit remember there is no mummy's curse.


March 2, 1944 -
A train of mixed military/civilian passengers (Train #8017) stalls inside a tunnel outside Salerno, Italy, asphyxiating 426 from fumes. Authorities question Mussolini on the necessities of have trains run on a timely basis to meet ones death in such an unpleasant manner.

But he was having his own problems at the time.


March 2, 1944 -
I was a product of Andy Warhol's Factory. All I did was sit there and observe these incredibly talented and creative people who were continually making art, and it was impossible not to be affected by that....







Lewis Allan Lou Reed singer, songwriter, poet and guitarist was born (on the wild side.)


March 2, 1949 –
Captain James Gallagher landed his B-50 Superfortress, Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas on this date after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.



En route, the aircraft was refueled four times near Lajes Air Force Base in the Azores, Dhahran Airfield in Saudi Arabia, Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, and Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, using the soon-to-be obsolete grappled-line looped-hose technique.


March 2, 1968 -
Syd Barrett left Pink Floyd, after melting his mind with various extremely dangerous drugs on this date. He spends the following years mumbling about pork chops and refrigerators.



A very good biography about Syd Barrett, A Very Irregular Head, came several years ago.


March 2, 1982 -
Science fiction author Philip K Dick died of a stroke in Santa Ana, California on this date. Since 1974 the author had been possessed by a superalien who arrived in his head via a beam of pink light.



It has been suggested that Mr Dick and Mr Barrett had been in regular communication via the pork chops in his refrigerator.


March 2, 1997 -
Don P. Wolf and a team of researchers at the Oregon National Primate Research Center announced that they had produced rhesus monkeys from cloned embryos, the first successful use of cloning-related technology in primates.

Isn't this how that whole the Planet of the Apes problem began.



And so it goes.

The March winds are the morning yawn

March comes in like a the Spiny Lumpsucker and goes out like a Satanic Leaf-Tailed Gecko.

The name of March comes from ancient Rome, when March was the first month of the year and called Martius after Mars, the Roman god of war.

In Rome, where the climate is Mediterranean, March is the first month of spring, a logical point for the beginning of the year as well as the start of the military campaign season. The numbered year began on March 1 in Russia until the end of the fifteenth century.



Great Britain and her colonies continued to use March 25 until 1752, the same year they finally adopted the Gregorian calendar. Many other cultures and religions still celebrate the beginning of the New Year in March. (But I bet you told your boss that you still tenaciously clung to the Julian Calendar and celebrated January 13th as New Years Day - well you're SOL.)

Among the things we celebrate this month are:
* Cataract Awareness Month
* Honor Society Awareness Month
* Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Month
* Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month (Please stop broadcasting colonoscopies!)
* Deaf History Month
* Feminine Empowerment Month
* Foot Health Month
* Furniture Refinishing Month
* Humorists Are Artists Month
* International Hamburger & Pickle Month
* Irish-American Heritage Month (Please don't let the Catholic High Schools know that St. Patrick's Day can be celebrated all month long.)
* Poison Prevention Awareness Month
* Talk with Your Teen about Sex Month
* National Umbrella Month
* Social Worker's Month (If you don't talk to your kids about sex.)


Today is National Pig Day honoring the porcine fellow. According to one of the holiday's creators, the purpose of National Pig Day is "to accord the pig its rightful, though generally unrecognized, place as one of man's most intellectual and domesticated animals."



For goodness sakes, lock the front door


March 1, 1936 -
Warner Bros. Pictures releases the horror film The Walking Dead, directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Boris Karloff and Edmund Gwenn, which premiered in New York City, on this date.



The "glass heart" machine used to revive Karloff's dead character was said to be "nearly a prefect replica" of an actual perfusion pump- a device designed to keep organs alive outside an organism's body- which had been built by Charles Lindbergh, when the legendary pilot and engineer was working with a Nobel-winning scientist at New York's Rockefeller Institute research labs in the mid-1930s.


March 1, 1968 -
The Star Trek episode The Omega Glory aired in this date.

In it, the Enterprise comes across the derelict Federation ship Exeter, and the crew discovers that its entire crew has been killed by a plague.



NBC announced that Star Trek would be renewed for a third season during the closing credits of The Omega Glory, broadcast on this date. In the announcement, they also wrote "Please do not send any more letters", responding to the vast amount of mail received during the protests organized by Gene Roddenberry and Bjo Trimble.


March 1, 1973 -
Pink Floyd released their eighth studio album, Dark Side Of The Moon, on this date.



The album debuts at an inauspicious #95 on the US Albums chart, but has become the album with the most weeks on the Billboard charts, thanks in large part to a run from 1977-1988 when it never left. With an estimated 45 million copies sold, it is Pink Floyd's most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums worldwide.


March 1, 1981 -
NBC-TV aired the made-for-TV film Elvis and the Beauty Queen, starring Don Johnson and Stephanie Zimbalist on this date.



The color scheme seen when Elvis is first showing Linda around Graceland is inaccurate. Linda and Elvis worked together to come up with the red theme. Also, Linda designed the stained glass in the house. A receipt on display at Graceland shows that the designer closely worked with Linda on the designs. The movie shows the stained glass already installed.


March 1, 1985 -
Another of Woody Allen's takes on the public's relationship with the movies, The Purple Rose of Cairo starring Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, and Danny Aiello, premiered on this date.



Woody Allen has frequently said that Eve Arden is his favorite comedic actress, and he very much wanted to collaborate with her on this film. Allen offered Arden a part, but unfortunately she had to turn it down in order to care for her ailing husband.


Another unimportant moment in history


Today in History:
March 1, 1810 -
Frédéric François Chopin, one of the best-known and best-loved composers of the Romantic period, was born on this date.



Chopin's entire musical output was devoted to his favorite instrument, the piano.


March 1, 1932 -
A person, most likely not the convicted and executed Bruno Hauptmann, climbed a makeshift ladder to the 2nd floor of Charles Lindbergh's New Jersey home and snatches his twenty-month-old son, Charles Jr. Whoever took the baby left behind a poorly-written ransom note demanding $50,000 in small bills.



Interesting aside, leading the investigation for the New Jersey state police was Col. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, father of the Gulf War hero, Stormin Norman, who shares his name.


March 1, 1954 -
The first hydrogen bomb is detonated at Bikini. Even though the bomb was hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bomb exploded there in 1946, no islanders were evacuated this time. Almost 300 people suffered radiation exposure. The test was so successful that it blew the once happy island into tiny bits that came to be known collectively as the Bikini Atoll.



Shrewd fashion moguls in France put two and two together and invented bell bottoms.


About four hundred years earlier--on March 1, 1562-- Jason and his thousand Huguenots were at prayer in Vassy, France, when they were suddenly massacred by Catholics. Huguenots and Catholics subsequently fought The Wars of Religion for over three decades to settle the question of Best Religion Ever. Unfortunately the Edict of Nantes granted religious tolerance in 1598 and the question was never settled to anyone's satisfaction.

I truly hopes God is grading on a curve. . . .


March 1, 1969 -
While performing with the Doors at The Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami, the formerly svelte, now tubby alcoholic Jim Morrison asks the audience Do you wanna see my cock? then exposes himself briefly on the Miami stage.



For thus showing why he was known as The Lizard King, Morrison received a sentence of six months hard labor.

Mr. Mojo Rising indeed.


March 1, 1971 -
You may not need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows but... The radical group Weather Underground exploded a bomb in a restroom of the U.S. Capitol building, causing significant damage. The bomb exploded after an intensive search of the building yielded no results.



Nobody was ever convicted of the attack.


March 1, 1978 -
The body of Charlie Chaplin was stolen for ransom by Galtcho Ganav (Bulgaria) and Romnan Wardas (Poland) from a cemetery in Corsier, Switzerland. The actor's corpse is recovered two months later.



One can only hope the little tramp was properly embalmed.


March 1, 1982 -
Russian spacecraft Venera 13 landed on Venus and sent back data.



Frightened scientists try to suppress the video but the world must know.



And so it goes.