Every day can end beautifully

If you missed seeing Manhattanhenge last night, (as unfortunately I did - I was celebrating with the Caligaris in an undisclosed location.)

you could try again tonight at 8:21 pm ET (enjoy it for me.).



Those Illuminati are generous, aren't they?

(And hey, pay attention to the traffic lights. Don't ruin my birthday by getting run over by a car!)


July 12, 1912 -
The first foreign-made film to premiere in America, Queen Elizabeth (Les Amours de la Reine Élisabeth), starring Sarah Bernhardt premiered on this date in NYC.



Rumors that Bernhardt performed in the film uniped are untrue. Bernhardt did lose her leg to gangrene in 1915.


July 12, 1947 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Crowing Pains, directed by Bob McKimson, and starring Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn, Henery Hawk, and the Barnyard Dawg, was released on this date.



Sylvester, Dawg, and Foghorn Leghorn were shown here early in their screen careers. Their appearances and voice characteristics, as well as their sparring partners, would continue to evolve over the decades.


July 12, 1962 -
The Rolling Stones, (or more precisely, the group that they became) gave their first concert on this date. The concert was held in London at the Marquee Club.

At the time, the band was called The Rollin' Stones - they got their current name in 1963. One of the most successful groups in history, the band has sold more than 200 million albums and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.


July 12, 1976 –
Family Feud, hosted by Richard Dawson, debuted on ABC on this date. It later aired on CBS and then in syndication.



There were some objections to Richard kissing strange women on national television. ABC tried to influence the kissing to stop, but Dawson rebelled and said he was going to do it. Mark Goodson asked people to write in and say in favor of kissing or not, the responses were overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the kissing on.


July 12, 1984 -
Madonna's Like a Virgin video premiered on MTV on this date and became an instant hit.



The songwriting team of Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg wrote Like A Virgin. Other songs they have written include Eternal Flame by the Bangles, So Emotional by Whitney Houston, True Colors by Cyndi Lauper, and Alone by Heart. All were #1 hits in the US featuring female vocalists. Steinberg considers "Virgin" their most famous song.


July 12, 1986 -
The band, Simply Red's hit Holding Back the Years topped the charts on this date.



Simply Red is singer Mick Hucknall ("Red" was his nickname because of his red hair). He originally recorded this in 1979 with his band The Frantic Elevators.


July 12, 1990 -
Viewers first met Dr. Joel Fleischman and the folks in Cicely, Alaska when Northern Exposure premiered on CBS TV on this date.



The mural for Roslyn's Café in the opening credits is an actual café. The apostrophe and an S was added in since the show is supposed to take place in Cicely, Alaska. After the show was completed, the apostrophe and the S was removed from the mural.


July 12, 1991 -
John Singleton directorial debut, Boyz N the Hood, starring Ice Cube, Cuba Gooding Jr., Morris Chestnut, Larry Fishburne, Nia Long, Regina King, and Angela Bassett, went into general release on this date. (John Singleton's Oscar nomination for Best Director at the age of 24 made him the youngest director to ever receive such an accolade, beating Orson Welles by a good two years.)



Writer and director John Singleton based Tre Styles' (Cuba Gooding Jr.) childhood on his own. Singleton's father was a mortgage broker like Furious Styles (Laurence Fishburne). When he was twelve, Singleton moved in with his father in South Los Angeles, California. Like Trey, Singleton stayed out of trouble with his father's guidance and went to college.


July 12, 1997 –
The joys of angry prison sex were explored far more than you wanted them to be when Oz, starring Ernie Hudson, Terry Kinney, J. K. Simmons, and B.D. Wong premiered on HBO, on this date



Some cast members that played prisoners have noted that, throughout the series, if you showed up late to the set, your punishment would be that your character would either die or be raped the next week.


July 12, 2002 –
Most of main stream America becam aware of OCD syndrome when Monk, starring Tony Shalhoub, premiered on the USA Network, on this date.



Syndicated and streaming prints of the episode use the Randy Newman It's a Jungle Out There theme song in place of the original pilot/season one theme set to a montage of scenes from Mr. Monk and the Candidate and the original season one theme. The footage in which the original theme song played (showing Monk cleaning his apartment and preparing his talk with Dr. Kroger) is shown without the Jeff Beal theme.


Another album from the discount bin at The ACME Record Shoppe


Today in History:
July 12, 100 BCE -
Julius Caesar was born on this date. He is famous for fighting the Garlic Wars and dying of the unkindest cut. His death so shocked the people of Rome that they buried him instead of praising him, although this may have been because he was a Proud Man.



Interesting to note that in between, fighting across most of Europe, Caesar was quoted as saying, It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.


July 12, 1807 (there is some confusion about the exact date, but since it's my birthday, I get to choose.) -
The famous world conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte was attacked and defeated by … bunnies. The emperor had requested that a rabbit hunt be arranged for himself and his men. His chief of staff Alexandre Berthier set it up and had men round up reportedly 3,000 rabbits for the occasion.



When the rabbits were released from their cages, the hunt was ready to go. At least that was the plan! But the bunnies charged toward Bonaparte and his men in a vicious and unstoppable onslaught. The man who was dominating Europe was no match for a battle with bunnies. If only he had The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch!


July 12, 1908 -
Milton Berle was an Emmy-winning American comedian who was born Milton Berlinger, on this date. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater (1948-1955), he was the first major star of television. He became known as Uncle Miltie to millions during TV's Golden Age.



That's all well and good but the real thing you want to know about Uncle Miltie is his prodigious member.



now try getting that out of your mind's eye.


Other notable July 12 birthdays include:
The question is not what you look at, but what you see.



Henry David Thoreau (1817)


Learn to do common things uncommonly well



George Washington Carver (1861 - there is no actual documentation on his exact birth date)

(God bless you Dr. Carver, for your work on alcohol.)


All the sounds of the earth are like music.



Oscar Hammerstein II (1895)


We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.



R. Buckminster Fuller (1895)


Moe and Larry were the best. We worked well together and enjoyed every moment of it.



"Curly" Joe DeRita (1909)


The rock n' roll lifestyle did have its perks, but it wasn't all limos and parties in the early days.



Christine McVie (1943)


Number one, like yourself. Number two, you have to eat healthy. And number three, you've got to squeeze your buns. That's my formula.

Richard Simmons (1948)


I don't actually live in America; we live on a small island off the coast

Me (1960)

(make sure you check out this year's Godzilla's Atoll LPs)


Figure skaters have awful perceptions of hockey players.



Kristi Yamaguchi (1971)


Let us pick up our books and our pens. They are our most powerful weapons.



Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai (1997)


July 12, 1843 -
Mormon numero uno Joseph Smith discloses a divine revelation instructing his followers to take multiple wives, in what the LDS Church calls "plural marriage" but everyone else calls polygamy.



The Mormons are ultimately forced to disclaim the practice in September 1890.


On July 12, 1957, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first president to employ a helicopter while in office. The first helicopter put into presidential service was the HMX-1 "Nighthawks."

Though helicopters had been in operational use by the American military since 1944, concerns over their safety caused the Secret Service to bar their use for the nation’s chief executive except in case of emergency.


July 12, 1960 -
In 1955, a French electrician named André Cassagnes got an idea for a new toy after seeing how an electrostatic charge could hold aluminum powder to glass. He worked up a prototype for the toy—based on the design of a television screen—in his basement workshop and called it L’Ecran Magique, or the Magic Screen.



The first Etch-A-Sketch went on sale on this date.


July 12, 1979 -
Bonanno crime boss Carmine Galante, the "cigar problem", was whacked at Joe and Mary's Restaurant in Brooklyn on this date. Galante died with a cigar still in his mouth.



Almost everyone in the New York mob feared the ruthless crime boss, so the killing was sanctioned by the consensus of Paul Castellano, Joe Bonanno and Santo Trafficante.


July 12, 1979 -
Bill Veeck, owner of the White Sox, decided to have "Disco Demolition Night" at Chicago's Comiskey Park, where baseball tickets cost only $.98 if the purchaser brought along a disco record for the bonfire on this date.



During the second game of the doubleheader, thousands of vinyl LPs flew onto the field, generating enough chaos that the White Sox are forced to forfeit. (One of our bunkies shared with us that Mike Veeck, Bob Veeck's son, along with Bill Murray, owns a string of independent baseball teams. Their motto: "Fun is Good."



And so it goes.

If you're stuck for a gift suggestion

Just giving you a brief heads up - if in doubt, I'll happily accept gold ingots

Hey, if Senator Bob Menendezcan accept them, who I'm I to turn them down.

This one, not so much, thank you.


It was great foresight on the part of our beloved city forefathers to lay out the city in such a way that this happens every year just around my birthday.

Once again, the sun will be perfectly lined up with the east-west streets of New York.



So get outside to catch the 'Full Sun on the Grid' at 8:20 pm ET and enjoy it. (You can see it one more time tomorrow night but it might be cloudy. )


ACME would like to issue this public service announcement concerning Brain Freeze (also known as sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia)  -

Now to the point at hand -



Why bring this up? The date today is 7/11 (at least in this country. Foreigners and other degenerates refer to the day as 11/7 but that's another story...)

The convenience store 7-Eleven celebrates their name day, so to speak (and their 99th birthday,) by giving away Slurpees to the "brain freeze" fearless public, but you do need to have a 7Rewards loyalty membership card. That doesn't mean you can't make a frozen concoction and home and toast 7-11 on your own. (The amount of alcohol you include in your celebratory drink is between you and your maker.


July 11, 1936 -
The Looney Tunes short, Porky's Pet, directed by Jack King, and starring Porky Pig, was released on this date.



A sign in the station invites travellers to stop at the Millar Manor, a nod to the short's writer, Marvin Millar.


July 11, 1942 -
A classic 40s Merrie Melodies cartoon, Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid was released on this date.



The part where Bugs and Killer are temporarily fooled into thinking that the bones are theirs is a reference to a Harold Lloyd film, The Freshman.


July 11, 1942 -
The Looney Tunes short, Wacky Blackout, directed by Bob Clampett, was released on this date.



Thurl Ravenscourt, who would go on to bring cereal mascot Tony the Tiger to TV screens everywhere, is featured here, along with the future Betty Rubble, Bea Benaderet.


July 11, 1965 -
One of the 60s best Beach movies, Beach Blanket Bingo opened today.



In the scene where Don Rickles is doing his comedy routine, everyone in the club is laughing, except Buster Keaton (who can be seen in the background) indicating that he didn't think Rickles was particularly funny (and didn't realize he was in view of the camera).


July 11, 1969 -
The Rolling Stones released Honky Tonk Women on this date.



In this song, Mick Jagger sings about having a go with two different honky tonk women. The first is a "gin-soaked, bar-room queen in Memphis" - likely a prostitute. The second is a "divorcée in New York City." Jagger would sometimes introduce it as being "a song for all the whores in the audience."


July 11, 1969 -
Co-incidentally, David Bowie, released his single Space Oddity, supposedly in conjunction with the July 20th Apollo 11 moon landing, on this date.



In 1980, Bowie released a follow-up to this called Ashes To Ashes, where Major Tom once again makes contact with Earth. He says he is happy in space, but Ground Control comes to the conclusion that he is a junkie.


July 11, 1970 -
Three Dog Night started a two-week run at No.1 in the US with their version of the Randy Newman song Mama Told Me Not To Come, which was also a No.3 hit in the UK.



The song was first covered by Eric Burdon on his first solo album in 1966 and gave Tom Jones & Stereophonics a No.4 hit on the UK Singles Chart in 2000.


July 11, 1983 -
Reading Rainbow, hosted by Levar Burton premiered on PBS on this date



While developing the show, the creators of Reading Rainbow met with Fred Rogers and Joan Ganz Cooney of Sesame Street and The Electric Company fame to find out how to make more engaging television programming.


July 11, 1990 -
For some reason 20th Century Fox released The Adventures of Ford Fairlane directed by Renny Harlin and starring Andrew Dice Clay, on this date. The film was both a commercial and critical failure.



Billy Idol was cast as Smiley, but had to pull out of the role after a nearly-fatal motorcycle accident. Renny Harlin personally asked Robert Englund, who had previously worked with him on A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, to take over the role after Idol's accident.


July 11, 1997 -
The under-rated Robert Zemeckis Sci-Fi film (based on a Carl Sagan novel,) Contact, starring Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Angela Bassett, Rob Lowe, and David Morse, opened on this date.



The remark made throughout the movie by different characters, that if humans were the only life in the universe, it would "be a terrible waste of space", is a famous quote by author Carl Sagan. It references a statement by the Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle, considering the potential worlds of other stars; "A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space."

Don't forget to tune into The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today


Today in History:
July 11, 1533 –
The Church of England came into being on this date. The story of its origins is shrouded in sex and therefore historically important.

Henry VIII ascended to the English throne in 1509, an energetic young man of seventeen. He immediately decided he needed a male heir. This became the enduring theme of his reign, and he consequently came to be known as the Son King—or, to his detractors, the Heir Head.



Henry was such a devout Catholic that he earned the title Defender of the Faith without even stepping into the ring. His first wife, whom he'd married before becoming king, was Catherine of Aragon, who earned the nickname "Catherine of Aragon." Catherine made an excellent queen until she failed to produce a son, at which point her job performance was reevaluated.



By the 1530s, Henry had decided he was married to the wrong queen. Now around forty, he did what many middle-aged men do - he got himself a convertible couch and a new wife.

The couch caused no controversy. The new wife, however, required official permission from the Pope, who - being Catholic - declined to authorize a divorce.

Henry divorced Catherine anyway, and on July 11, 1533, the Catholic Church effectively seceded from the Church of England in retaliation.



With the Pope having stormed off, Henry appointed himself head of the Church of England. Still the Defender of the Faith, he penned the Act of Supremacy, a bold legal document proving that the Church of England was better than the Catholic Church, that Henry was better than the Pope, and that a single white king was back on the market.

Sir Thomas More, then Lord Chancellor and one of Henry's closest confidants, refused to swear to the Act of Supremacy. On July 6, 1535, he was promoted to the rank of Sir Thomas Somewhat Less.

From this point forward, Henry began marrying and divorcing women on a near-sporting basis. The divorce process was now much more efficient, having removed the pesky bottleneck of papal approval. In fact, Henry turned the whole affair into a kind of royal game: each wife would be blindfolded and asked to produce a male heir.



This practice came to be known as Bluff King Hal, and centuries later it served as the inspiration for the popular French game Hungry Hungry Guillotine.


July 11 1804 -



Former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and sitting Vice President Aaron Burr duel in Weehawken, New Jersey after Hamilton allegedly slandered Burr during a political dinner in New York. Hamilton was shot in the liver and died the next day.



Meanwhile, Burr lives on to finish his term in office and is eventually tried for treason after attempting to raise an army and seize land for himself, either in Mexico or the Louisiana Territory., but that's another story.


July 11, 1859 -
Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities was published on this date.



The book, would become the best-selling, original English language novel of all time, with more than 200 million copies sold.


July 11, 1893 -
Japanese businessman Kokichi Mikimoto perfected his technique for creating hemispherical cultured pearls, producing the world's first cultured pearl on this day.



In the next 12 years, he would hone his technique, making spherical pearls that were indistinguishable from the perfect specimens rarely found in nature.


July 11, 1936 -
The Triborough Bridge in New York City was opened to traffic, on this date.



Built at the height of the Great Depression, the creation of the Triborough Bridge put thousands of struggling people to work. It also was New York City's first bridge specifically designed for automobiles.


July 11, 1937 -
I want to say at once that I frankly believe that Irving Berlin is the greatest songwriter that has ever lived.... His songs are exquisite cameos of perfection, and each one of them is as beautiful as its neighbor. Irving Berlin remains, I think, America's Schubert.











Jacob Gershowitz, one of the greatest writers of the American songbook, died of a brain tumor at age 38 in Beverly Hills, California on this date.


July 11, 1960 -
The novel To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee (the book is her only published work, until recently) was published, on this date.



The novel quickly became a classic and won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1961.


July 11, 1979 -
The derelict space station Skylab finally returned to Earth, ignominiously breaking into 500 separate fragments which are swallowed by the Indian Ocean. That was, except for the ones which crashed into Woorlba Sheep Station, near Balladonia in Western Australia.



Shortly thereafter, President Jimmy Carter telephoned the prime minister of that country to apologized for scattering NASA litter on his nation.

Oops. (Leading up to the event, Electric Light Orchestra took out ads in trade magazines dedicating their new single, Don't Bring Me Down, to Skylab.)


July 11, 1997 -
Bodybuilder and wannabe actor Jonathan Norman was arrested for trespassing on Steven Spielberg's estate in Malibu, California on this date. Believing that the film director "wanted to be raped," Norman had brought along a kit containing handcuffs, duct tape, nipple clamps, chloroform, and a stun gun.

I never realized that Steven liked nipple clamps, he seemed more like a butt plug man to me. And I'd like to think he enjoys ACME Warming Bung Balm.



And so it goes.

The Man Who Lit the World

Today is Tesla Day - Inventor and electromechanical genius Nikola Tesla, the man who invented the 20th Century, was born to Serbian parents in what is now Croatia on July 10, 1856 .



Remember, if we could only harness the free floating electricity,



we could do away with the electric companies.


It's Teddy Bear Picnic Day, again. It's a day set aside for you to take a stroll in the woods with your favorite bears.

If you don't wish to spend quality tim with your bear today, perhaps you may want to celebrate Don't Step on A Bee Day, which is celebrated throughout the United Kingdom.



While it is important that one is aware that walking barefoot may increase the chances of a bee sting, the day aims to create consciousness about the conservation of bees and highlights the plight they face due to the destruction of their habitats.


July 10, 1916 -
Charlie Chaplin further develops his 'Tramp' character with the release of The Vagabond, on this date.



Look for this - Charlie loses his hat outside the bar, is seen inside wearing it, then picks it up where he lost it when he leaves. When he escapes from the gypsy, he is hatless at first, but the next shot shows the hat suddenly back in place.


July 10, 1942 -
Orson Welles’s butchered masterpiece, The Magnificent Ambersons, was released by RKO Pictures on this date.



After a disastrous preview—which took place a week after the Pearl Harbor attack—it was clear to the executives at RKO that the film was too long, too dense, and too somber. Orson Welles, however, had decamped to Brazil, where he was in the midst of working on a film called It’s All True, which was never completed. Welles had been sent there under the auspices of Nelson Rockefeller, one of RKO’s chief shareholders, to make a film intended to boost U.S.–South American wartime relations. With Welles out of the way, however, the onus of recutting and trimming the film fell on editor Robert Wise.



Like El Dorado or Shangri-La, a work print of Welles’s version supposedly exists in a vault somewhere in Brazil—tantalizingly, just out of reach. TCM has sponsored an exhaustive search of a major Brazilian film vault.



But wait: all is not lost. A Welles superfan named Brian Rose—himself an accomplished filmmaker—has used animation and countless hours of painstaking research to recreate missing footage from The Magnificent Ambersons. Rose hopes eventually to share his version of The Magnificent Ambersons with other Orson Welles enthusiasts.



Edward Saatchi, CEO of Fable Studio, is going one step further. He is leading a noncommercial project that uses generative AI to reconstruct the lost 43 minutes of The Magnificent Ambersons. Using surviving scripts, stills, and live-action doubles, Saatchi’s team aims to recreate the footage originally cut and destroyed by RKO in 1942.


July 10, 1947 -
One of Jules Dassin's post-war film-noir classics, Brute Force, starring Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Yvonne De Carlo, Ann Blyth, and Charles Bickford, premiered in Los Angeles on this date.



The second of three films that Burt Lancaster made for Mark Hellinger, the writer-producer who discovered the former acrobat and turned him into a movie star. The first of these was The Killers and the three-picture contract was completed with Criss Cross, a film Hellinger never lived to see, as he died before production began. His widow insisted that Lancaster honor the contract he had with her husband.


July 10, 1948 -
The Looney Tunes short, The Shell Shocked Egg, directed by Bob McKimson, was released on this date.



The unnamed rooster in this cartoon has the exact same figure and shape as Foghorn Leghorn, created two years earlier in 1946. The only difference between the two are the colors of their feathers. This rooster has two shades of brown, while the feathers of Foghorn Leghorn are solid white, except his tail and head. Both roosters are very tall.


July 10, 1954 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Oily American, directed by Bob McKimson, was released on this date. This short is seldom shown on American television due to American Indian stereotypes.



The butler is a based on, character actor, Arthur Treacher, who was known throughout his life for playing butlers in film.


July 10, 1966 -
The follow-up to the Japanese science fiction television series produced by Tsuburaya Productions, Ultra Q, Ultraman, premiered in Japan on this date. (I have seen it listed as having first aired one week later July 17, 1966. Who knows, I wasn't there.)



The sequences of Ultraman battling monsters were so expensive to film, that the producers needed a way to limit the scenes to only a few minutes for each episode. The solution was to give the character the weakness that he can not survive in his true self for more than roughly three minutes before he runs out of energy. This is marked with his warning chest light, called the Colortimer, which begins to blink with increasing speed as his energy runs out.


July 10, 1967 –
The Monkees released the single, written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Pleasant Valley Sunday, on this date.



While studio musicians were brought in to play on many songs for The Monkees, the band did play on this one - for the most part. Peter Tork played piano and Mike Nesmith played the famous opening guitar riff.


July 10, 1972 -
Harry Nilsson's eighth album, Son of Schmilsson was released on this date.



It featured George Harrison under the name George Harrysong and Ringo Starr, listed as Richie Snare, on some of the tracks. Peter Frampton also played guitar on most of the album.


July 10, 1976 -
Starland Vocal Band's song about afternoon nooky – Afternoon Delights topping the Billboard Pop charts on this date.



Despite having only this one hit, the Starland Vocal Band were given their own summer replacement TV series on CBS called The Starland Vocal Band in 1977. An unknown comic named David Letterman appeared on the show.


July 10, 1978 –
World News Tonight with anchors Frank Reynolds, Peter Jennings and Max Robinson (the first black anchor on a network newscast in the US) premiered on ABC TV on this date.



The program has been anchored at various times by a number of other presenters since its debut in 1948. It also has used various titles, including ABC Evening News from 1970 to 1978, World News Tonight from 1978 to 2006, World News from 2006 to 2009, and ABC World News from 2009 to 2014. Since 2014 the program has been called ABC World News Tonight.


July 10, 1981 -
John Carpenter sci-fi thriller, Escape from New York, starring Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Donald Pleasence, Ernest Borgnine, Isaac Hayes, Adrienne Barbeau, and Harry Dean Stanton, premiered in the US, on this date.



John Carpenter originally wrote the film between 1974 and 1976 as a reaction to the Watergate scandal, but no studio wanted to make it because it was deemed to be too dark and too violent. That all changed after the success of his film, Halloween.


July 10, 1985 -
The third offering in the Mad Max series, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, starring Mel Gibson and Tina Turner (and directed by George Miller and George Ogilvie) premiered in the US on this date.



The film was originally not a Mad Max film, but a post-apocalyptic Lord of the Flies film about a tribe of children who are found by an adult. It became the third Mad Max film when George Miller was suggested that Max is the man who finds the children.


July 10, 1987 –
The animated film, The Brave Little Toaster, directed by Jerry Rees and voiced by Deanna Oliver, Timothy E. Day, Jon Lovitz, Tim Stack, Thurl Ravenscroft, Wayne Kaatz, Phil Hartman, Joe Ranft, and Jonathan Benair, was released on this date.



In a 2010 interview at Cal State, Northridge, Deanna Oliver revealed that at her son's deployment ceremony to Afghanistan, some of the soldiers who were fans of the film had brought their toasters with them for her to autograph.


July 10, 2003 -
PBS' Soundstage returned to TV on this date, with a performance from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.



The series had not aired in over 18 years when it ran from 1974 to 1985.


Another unimportant moment in history


Today in History:
July 10, 1553 –
Lady Jane Grey, the great-granddaughter of Henry VII, ill-advisedly took the throne of England, upon the death of Edward VI, on this date.



Hopefully she didn't buy any green bananas. She wasn't going to be in the position to see them ripen.


July 10, 1559 -
Heed the prophecies of Nostradamus!

Henry II of France had a splitting headache today. Henry was having a friendly joust with the captain of the Scottish Guards, Gabriel de Lorges de Montgomery, when he was momentarily blinded by the visor on the captain's helmet.



The captain's lance was somehow broken and Henry II was pierced through the eye socket and temple on June 30 (Ouch!). The King writhed in agony until he died from his wounds on this date. Nostradamus wrote a poem about a lion and a cage and somehow that tripe predicted Henry II's death.


July 10, 1871 -
Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself..



Marcel Proust, French novelist, tea enthusiast and master procrastinator was born on this date.


July 10, 1938 -
Aviator Howard Hughes (you know his C.V.) made a record flight around the world on this date, completing the trip in just 91 hours, breaking the previous record by more than four days.



Taking off from New York City in a Lockheed Super Electra he continued to Paris, Moscow, Omsk, Yakutsk, Anchorage, Minneapolis, ending back at New York City.


July 10, 1939 -
My high-school a cappella teacher would embarrass me in front of the choir. 'Mavis, you're in the basement. Mavis, you're singing with the boys.' I said, 'Mr. Finch, my voice isn't soprano. I can't sing up there with the girls.' So I just got out of the choir..



Happy Birthday to the gospel and blues singer Mavis Staples born in Chicago on this date. She started singing with her family’s band The Staple Singers as a young girl, and her deep-throated voice catapulted the group to the top of the charts eight times between 1971 and 1975, with songs like I’ll Take You There, Let’s Do It Again, and Respect Yourself.


July 10, 1954 -
I'm always uneasy with messages. I think if there is a message, it's about taking control of your life. Not becoming a victim. Be true to yourself. In essence it's about love in the drug culture.



Neil Tennant, musician, singer and songwriter and the other half of the electronic dance music duo Pet Shop Boys, was born on this date.


July 10, 1958 –
The first parking meter was installed in London, England, on this date in 1958—along with the second through the 625th. It took nearly two dozen years for the parking meter to make its way across the Atlantic: the first American parking meter had been installed in Oklahoma City on July 16, 1935.

It was invented by Oklahoma City’s Carl C. Magee, the head of that city’s chamber of commerce, as part of an effort to free up more parking spaces for daytime shoppers. Downtown spaces had typically been taken by office workers, who left their cars parked on the street all day, making it difficult for shoppers to find open spots and thereby causing incalculable pain and suffering. (Double-parking was not invented until 1963.)



I, personally, consider the parking meter one of the great instruments of totalitarian control, and cannot understand how conspiracy theorists who lose sleep over Roswell, the Masons, and black-hawk helicopters can walk blithely past dozens of parking meters every day.



Current estimates (“wild guesses”) suggest that there are now more than five million of these coercive devil machines deployed across the United States. They absorb millions of dollars in small change every day and generate still more ill-gotten revenue by means of fines levied against persons who refuse to kneel before them.



I urge my readers to recall the words of Alexander Hamilton, who observed in the Federalist Papers that “no people are free who must pay for municipal parking.”

Coincidentally, the first concrete-paved street was built 133 years ago today in Bellefontaine, Ohio.

Paved streets are good. I have no problem with paved streets—unless they’re lined with parking meters.


July 10, 1958 -
My most powerful memory was hearing Earl Scruggs on 'The Beverly Hillbillies' as a 5 or 6 year old. That sound just blew me away, shook my head up.




Béla Fleck, American banjo player extraordinaire and songwriter was born on this date.


July 10, 1962 –
Launched by NASA aboard a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral, Telstar, was launched into orbit, becoming the world's first communications satellite, on this date.



Telstar 1 was placed in low Earth orbit and circled the planet every two and a half hours, only in the right position to beam transmissions between Europe and the U.S. for 20 minutes each orbit. This is in contrast to contemporary communications satellites, which fly in geosynchronous orbit, staying above one spot on the Earth.


July 10, 1985 -
Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was blown up by in Auckland Harbor, killing a photographer, Fernando Pereira, on this date.


After the New Zealand government determines that French secret agents were responsible, the French Defense Minister Pierre Lacoste, resigned and agents, Captain Dominique Prieur and Commander Alain Mafart, were jailed.


July 10, 1989 -
Mel Blanc, whose career spanned over 60 years doing voice over work for many Warner Brothers characters died on this date.




Shortly before his death, executives of Time Warner (owners of Warner Brothers) asked him if there was anything, literally anything, that they could give him to thank him for his life's body of work. He asked for--and received - a Ford Edsel.


Nope

No thank you (I don't even appreciate the effort.)



And so it goes.