If we were meant to be nude,

we would have been born that way.

Today is National Nude Day. I would say for the most part, there are very few people who should actually celebrate the holiday in public.

Please feel free to celebrate responsibly within the confines of your own home.


July 14, 1908 -
D.W. Griffith's first film, The Adventures of Dollie, opened in New York, on this date.



Although the location this film was shot is frequently given as Fort Lee, it was actually shot near Sound Beach in Connecticut.


July 14, 1933 -
The iconic Popeye the Sailor, appeared in his first eponymous titled cartoon, on this date. (Kids, Betty, who is probably underage in this film, is not wearing a bra - so avert your eyes.)



Popeye's appearance is based on that of a fighter named Francis "Rocky" Fiegel whom his creator, Elzie Segar, used to know. Because of this, a tombstone was put on his hitherto unmarked grave in 1996. Segar paid Fiegel a small fee for the use of his likeness, as he was still alive when Popeye first appeared.


July 14, 1951 -
The Looney Tunes short, The Wearing of the Grin, directed by Chuck Jones, and starring Porky Pig, was released on this date.



This was the final Porky Pig solo film of Warner Brother's Cartoons' classic period.


July 14, 1964 -
The Rolling Stones score their first #1 hit in the UK with their cover of Bobby Womack's It's All Over Now.



New York disc jockey Murray the K gave The Stones a copy of the original recording of the song by The Valentinos and suggested they record it. Murray was important enough to have the ear of The Rolling Stones and even The Beatles: Even before the British Invasion, Murray had been at the top of the rock station ratings for years.


July 14, 1969 -
Dennis Hopper's seminal '60s classic, Easy Rider, starring Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson, premiered in the US on this date.



Dennis Hopper was going through a very bad time during production (something he later put down to marijuana not being his "creative drug of choice"). He was in a state of drug-induced paranoia and he screamed at everyone. Crew members secretly recorded his tirades and sent the tapes to the production company in Los Angeles to explain why so many of them quit the film.


July 14, 1980 -
Glen Campbell and Tanya Tucker (his 21 year younger lover,) sang the national anthem at the Republican National Convention in Detroit, on this date. Also on the program were Pat Boone, Donny & Marie Osmond, Richard Petty and Vicki Lawrence.

Glen Campbell later admits they were "higher than the notes we were singing."


July 14, 1989 -
The 16th James Bond movies, License to Kill, starring Tomothy Dalton, Robert Brown, and Caroline Bliss in their final Bond appearance, premiered in the US on this date.



It was widely and incorrectly reported at the time that this was Timothy Dalton's last James Bond film due it being financially disappointing. In reality, Dalton was to star in a third James Bond film after this one, titled Property of a Lady, written by Michael G. Wilson and Alfonse Ruggiero and set to start shooting in 1990, with pre-production work having begun in May of that year. However legal issues with MGM beginning that year created long delays which eventually led Dalton to announce his retirement from the role in 1994, a year after his initial contract expired, paving the way for Pierce Brosnan's casting in GoldenEye.


July 14, 1989 -
Rob Reiner iconic rom-com , written by iconic writer, Nora Ephron, When Harry Met Sally, starring, Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, and Bruno Kirby, opened in limited release on this date.



The orgasm scene was filmed at Katz's Deli, an actual restaurant on New York's E. Houston Street. The table at which the scene was filmed now has a plaque on it that reads, "Where Harry met Sally...hope you have what she had!"


July 14, 2000 –
20th Century Fox's first film of the successful franchise series, X-Men, starring the large ensemble cast, including - Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Bruce Davison, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, and Anna Paquin, premiered in the US on this date.



Hugh Jackman took ice cold showers every morning of filming, in order to help get into character. This tradition started when jumping into the shower at 5 a.m., before realizing there was no hot water. Shocked awake, but not wanting to wake his sleeping wife, he gritted his teeth and bore it, before realizing that this mindset, wanting to scream and lash out at something, but having to hold it in, was the mentality that Wolverine is in constantly. He then made cold showers his Wolverine preparation routine for each movie featuring the character.


Today's moment of Zen.


Today in History:
July 14, 1789 –
Paris was not a happy city in 1789. Paris has never been an especially happy city, especially for those who don't speak French, but in that fateful year it was especially grouchy. And it wasn't just the city, but the whole country. All of France was cranky and irritable, and all the other countries were like, "What?"



Finally, the queen said they should eat cake, and the nation snapped. The people rose up in protest, and, it being time for the French Revolution, they stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789.



A mob of 20,000 people stormed the Bastille prison in Paris, killing several of its defenders and freeing all seven prisoners incarcerated therein: four forgers, two men judged insane, and an aristocrat imprisoned at his family's request. (The Marquis de Sade had actually been transferred to another prison ten days earlier. Yes, that guy.) The governor was decapitated, and his head was carried around on a pike. So began the French Revolution.



It quickly became clear that the peasants were revolting. (Not that anyone ever thought they were all that attractive.) The storming of the Bastille gave way to the Rain of Terror, a political cataclysm in its own right, which eventually led to Napoleon, Waterloo , and Able was I ere I saw Elba,, all of which have been covered in previous postings and can therefore be ignored for the time being. Eventually the French (who had always been whiners) immersed themselves in Bourbon.


On July 14, 1867, Alfred Nobel first demonstrated his newest invention: dynamite. Mr Nobel spent the rest of his life blowing things up in the interests of world peace.



Sadly, world peace was not achieved in his lifetime. Upon his death he therefore endowed a foundation with billions of dollars to give prizes to men and women of future generations who brought the world closer to peace by blowing things up. At the rate things have been blowing up lately, world peace is obviously just around the corner.


July 14, 1881 -
In the Summer of '81, at the New Mexico home of his friend Pete Maxwell, notorious outlaw Billy the Kid (Paul Newman/ Kris Kristofferson) stepped into a darkened bedroom and was shot dead by sheriff Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell/ James Coburn). Billy's last words were "Quién es?" (Who is it?).



How Jane Russell's breasts are involved in this story is another matter completely.


July 14, 1902 -
One day after workmen noticed a large crack in the structure, the Belltower of St. Mark's collapsed into a hill of white dust, on this date.

Ten years later, the city of Venice erected an exact duplicate of the tower on the same spot.


July 14, 1906 -
Tom Carvel, the gravelly-voiced ice cream mogul, was born on this date.



Please order a Cookie Puss or Fudgie the Whale ice cream cake in his honor.


July 14, 1913 -
Gerald Ford, 41st vice-president and 38th president of the United States, (having never been elected to either position) was born as Leslie King, Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska, on this date.



Gerald Rudolph Ford was age two when his mother divorced his father and moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. She remarried Gerald Ford, Sr., who adopted the young boy and gave him his name. He became vice- president upon Spiro Agnew's resignation from office. Ford assumed the presidency on August 9, 1974, upon the resignation of Richard M. Nixon.


July 14, 1918 -
Arguably one the the greatest film directors ever, Ingmar Bergman, was born on this date.





In an interview in 2004, Bergman said that he was "depressed" by his own films and could not watch them anymore.


July 14, 1933 -
German chancellor Adolf Hitler banned every political party on this date, except his own Evil Nazi Bastards from winning elections.



The Evil Nazi Bastards swept the next elections, demonstrating the public's strong support for this measure.


July 14, 1943 -
Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 to the George Washington Carver National Monument, on this date, the first US National Monument honoring a black man. The site, near Diamond, Missouri, is housed on the former plantation where Carver lived as a child.

It not only was the first US National Monument to honor a black man, but also only one of three to honor a non-president.


July 14, 1963 -
The Soviet spacecraft Vostok 5 is launched into orbit. Over the course of the next five days, Cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky will set a new record for the longest manned space flight in history.



The record will later be broken by the crew of Gemini 7, but Bykovsky will continue to hold the endurance record for a solo flight.


July 14, 1965 -
The space probe Mariner 4 flew by Mars, sending back the first photographs of the planet — they took eight hours to arrive.



They were the first ever close-up photos of another planet. The photos reveal that the planet’s surface is cratered.


July 14, 1969 -
El Salvador and Honduras fought a four-day conflict, known as The Football War, started on this date, which cost thousands of lives and displaced thousands more. The relationship between the two neighboring countries of El Salvador and Honduras was already acrimonious and it reached a low when El Salvador beat Honduras in an elimination football match as a preliminary to the World Cup.



Tensions escalated and on on this date, the Salvadoran army launched an attack on the Honduran army. The football war between El Salvador and Honduras was short, about 100 hours. But, it was no less a war for that. Men died, the property was destroyed, and refugees abandoned their homes.


July 14, 1969 -
The United States government, directed by President Nixon, eliminated $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 US Dollar bills from circulation on this date.

(There also was a $100,000 gold certificate in 1934 which featured Woodrow Wilson.)



Although they are still technically legal tender in the United States, they have virtually disappeared from everyday use. I would be happy to give a home to any wayward $1,000 bills.


July 14, 1986 -
You Don't Need a License to Drive a Sandwich.

I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready...



Today is Spongebob's birthday.



And so it goes.

Watching a sunset is to connect with the Divine

Hope you got to see Manhattanhenge last night,

If you missed it, fear not, you have reason enough to live - it comes around again next yearin late May.


July 13, 1935 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Country Mouse, directed by Friz Freleng, was released on this date.



In the opening, while Country Mouse is working the punching bag, a poster behind him advertises Battling Freleng. Freleng was the director of this cartoon.


July 13, 1939 —
When Frank Sinatra was just starting out as a singer, he carried his own P.A. system to the dives in which he typically performed. He got his big break when bandleader Harry James' wife heard him sing as a waiter and recommended him to her husband.





Sinatra made his first commercial recording on this date — Melancholy Mood and From The Bottom Of My Heart with Harry James and his Orchestra for the Brunswick label. No more than 8,000 copies of the record were sold.


July 13, 1946 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Eager Beaver, directed by Chuck Jones, was released on this date.



Lots of early versions of other castmate characterizations. Henry Hawk, Pepe le Pew, Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig can all be glimpsed or heard here.


July 13, 1949 -
Paramount Picture's releases second film adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic, The Great Gatsby, starring Alan Ladd, Betty Field, Macdonald Carey, Ruth Hussey, Barry Sullivan, Shelley Winters, and Howard Da Silva, premiered in the US on this date.



The original director was John Farrow. However, he was replaced with Elliott Nugent as he and the producer Richard Maibaum could not agree on the casting of Daisy Buchanan: Farrow wanted to cast Gene Tierney whereas Maibaum's choice for the role was Betty Field. Farrow's daughter Mia Farrow played Daisy in The Great Gatsby 25 years later.


July 13, 1953 -
The drama, Titanic, directed by Jean Negulesco and starring Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Wagner, Audrey Dalton, Harper Carter, Thelma Ritter, Brian Aherne, and Richard Basehart, set sail on this date.



The filming of the disaster had a powerful effect on Barbara Stanwyck, who recalled: "The night we were making the scene of the dying ship in the outdoor tank at Twentieth, it was bitter cold. I was 47 feet up in the air in a lifeboat swinging on the davits. The water below was agitated into a heavy rolling mass and it was thick with other lifeboats full of women and children. I looked down and thought: If one of these ropes snaps now, it's goodbye for you. Then I looked up at the faces lined along the rail - those left behind to die with the ship. I thought of the men and women who had been through this thing in our time. We were re-creating an actual tragedy and I burst into tears. I shook with great racking sobs and couldn't stop."


July 13, 1955 -
The Looney Tunes short, Double or Mutton, directed by Chuck Jones, and starring Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog, was released on this date.



Ralph Wolf resembles his cast mate cousin Wile E. Coyote, except for his bright red nose and the fact he speaks regularly. Wile rarely, if ever, spoke in his feature shorts.


July 13, 1959 -
Dedicated to the One I Love, by The Shirelles, was released on this date.



This was originally recorded by The 5 Royales in 1958. The Shirelles' version first peaked at #83 in 1959, but when it was re-released in 1961 it went to #3.  Normally, Shirley Owens Alston was the Shirelles' lead singer. However, on this song, Doris Coley Kenner sang lead.


July 13, 1960 -
20th Century Fox released the sci-fi adventure film The Lost World (based on the novel by Arthur Conan Doyle), directed by Irwin Allen and starring Michael Rennie, Jill St. John, Claude Rains and Fernando Lamas (who looked marvelous), to U.S. theaters on this date.



Director Irwin Allen wanted to use stop-motion dinosaurs for this film, but due to budget reasons he had to use lizards - mainly monitor lizards - as dinosaurs. Plastic horns and spikes were attached to them to make them look more like dinosaurs.  The technique will later be dubbed Slurpasaur by fans.


July 13, 1967 –
Pink Floyd made their second appearance on BBC Top Of The Pops to promote their new single See Emily Play which was hosted by Pete Murray (The BBC initially aired the broadcast on July 6th. The 13th was a rebroadcast.)



David Gilmour was asked by the members of Pink Floyd to join the band to supplement the guitar work of the increasingly erratic Syd Barrett. For a brief time, Syd and David were both members of Pink Floyd at the same time. When Barrett's mental breakdown made it impossible for him to continue with the group, Gilmour became a permanent, contributing member in time for their second album, 1968's A Saucerful of Secrets. Syd Barrett contributed one track to that album, his last with Pink Floyd. Syd departed the band soon after that.


July 13, 1974 –
Elton John's eighth studio Caribou went to No.1 on the Billboard Album Chart on this date, It became his third No.1 album.



Elton and his band toured the last five months of 1973 before heading into Caribou Ranch studios in Colorado in January 1974 to record their next album in a window of just 10 days. They had to cut some corners (fewer takes, less refinement), but still made a very impressive album, a testament to the creative energy of those involved (including Bernie Taupin, who had to write a lot of lyrics very quickly).


July 13, 1974 -
George McRae's single Rock Your Baby became the first disco song to hit #1 on this date.



The song was written by Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch of KC & The Sunshine Band, and it formed the basis for their wildly successful writing and performing partnership which yielded five more US #1 hits and pioneered the disco sound.


July 13, 1985 -
41 years ago, I had only recently patented the long birthday weekend....



(We weren't cool enough to get MTV in The Bronx at the time, so we had to settle for the local TV broadcast of Live Aid.)



(Find time to watch this short segment of a documentary about behind the scenes events of the Live Aid production.)



(still the greatest televised rock and roll performance of all time.)



We brought the 'big TV' out into my father-in-law's backyard and joined the other nearly 2 billion people who tuned into Live Aid on this date.


July 13, 1990 -
Jerry Zucker's romantic thriller Ghost, starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, and Tony Goldwyn, premiered in the US on this date.



The role of Oda Mae Brown was not written with Whoopi Goldberg in mind, but Patrick Swayze, an admirer of hers, convinced the producers that she would be right for the part.


Word of the Day.


Today in History
July 13, 1793 (Décade III, Quintidi de Messidor de l'Année 213 de la Révolution) -



French revolutionary writer Jean Paul Marat was stabbed to death in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, on this date, as she gives him a list of names to be guillotined. The assassination inspired the famous painting by Jacques Louis David; Corday was executed four days after slaying Marat.



After the heavy blade fell, an executioner's assistant named Francois le Gros (Fat Frank) picked up the severed head by the hair and brimming with Revolutionary fervor slapped Corday's cheek. Several eyewitnesses saw her face flush red with anger, not just one cheek but both cheeks. Some though they perceived disgust curl her lips.


July 13, 1846 -
Horace Greeley advises his readers to 'Go west young man'  on this date.

Cynics note that he owns stock in a company that manufactures compasses.



I'm not sure but I don't think this is what Mr. Greeley had in mind.


July 13, 1923 -
The Hollywood Sign was officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles on this date. It originally reads "Hollywoodland" but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949. Unfortunately it became a perennial favorite suicide location.



Over the years, the sign had fallen into disrepair. A public campaign to restore the landmark Hollywood Sign was spearheaded in 1978, in a large part by pornographer Hugh Hefner and shock rocker Alice Cooper.


July 13, 1946 -
Smoke 'em if you got 'em.



It's Richard Anthony Marin's birthday today.


July 13, 1955 -
Ruth Ellis was last English woman executed by hanging on this date.



Ten days before she had shot her lover, race car driver David Blakely, Ellis suffered a miscarriage after Blakely, the baby's father, punched her in the stomach. She was having a bad day.


July 13, 1977 -
Starting at about 9 PM on this date, four lightning struck high-voltage transmission lines within the course of about half-an-hour, knocking out electricity and plunging millions of residents of New York City into a 25 hour black-out .



The 1977 blackout, unlike the 1965 and 2003 blackouts, resulted in city-wide looting and other disorder, including arson. About 4,500 people were arrested during the riots, which resulted in damage estimated at $61 million.


July 13, 1985 -
President Ronald Reagan has a polyp removed from his colon on this date.

The polyp, named Larry, lived comfortable at the Reagan ranch, keeping Nancy company until the end. Recent declassified notes reveal that 'Larry' had actually been running the country during Reagan early undisclosed onset of Alzheimer's. George H.W. Bush got his first taste of the Presidency for a day and got hooked.


July 13, 1994 -
Jeff Gillooly (and his fabulous 70s porn 'stache,) Tonya Harding's ex-husband, was sentenced to two years in prison for his role in the attack on Nancy Kerrigan.

He served six months.


On July 13, 1994, Germany's Constitutional Court ended the ban on German troops fighting outside the country.

(On July 14, 1994, France's Constitutional Court ruled all of France needs to sleep with one eye open, turned towards the German border.)



And so it goes.


Happy Birthday Debbie Finn, where ever you are

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.