It is love alone that gives worth to all things

It's the Feast Day of one of my favorite saints - Saint Teresa of Avila (I've mentioned her at least twice this year.)

She is also known as the Roving Nun (but should not be confused with the Wandering Nun, the Meandering Nun, or the Hopelessly Disoriented Nun). In case you still don't know who this Saint is - she's the one who was repeatedly pierced by God's golden shaft of light, again and again and again. She is the patron saint not only of Spain, but also bodily ills, headaches, laceworkers, opposition to Church Authorities and people ridiculed for their piety.



She died in the arms of her close friend Anne of Saint Bartholomew, allegedly from Transverberation ("the crossing of verbs"). Her pierced heart is on display at Alba de Tormes, so if you're the kind of person that's interested in 400-year-old pierced human hearts you'll probably want to pay a visit. (You'll probably find it in the "Pierced Internal Organ Room" of the "Three-to-Five Hundred Estactic Orgasm Wing.")

Saint Teresa famously said , "There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers", (Truman Capote took this quote very seriously.) "God," she famously prayed, "deliver me from sullen saints!"



Friedrich Nietzsche, who was born on this day in 1844, apparently shared her sentiments if not her tactics. Being Germanic in nature, he though God was dead so he could not experience his golden shaft of light, but that's another story.


We here at ACME love to remind people that today is Evacuation Day. They're celebrating it in Tunisia. It turns out that Evacuation Day recognizes the important contributions made to the world of science by Tunisian proctologists, (it actually commemorates the 1963 withdrawal of the last French troops from the naval port of Bizerte.)

The less said about the gastroenterological rituals performed on this holiday the better.

Which leads us to the fact that today is Global Handwashing Day. It is a campaign to motivate and mobilize millions around the world to wash their hands with soap, the campaign is dedicated to raising awareness of handwashing with soap as a key approach to disease prevention (now, more important than ever.) This years theme is - Clean hands are within reach..



Children suffer disproportionately from diarrheal diseases – with more than 3.5 million children under five dying every year from diarrhea and pneumonia-related diseases. The simple act of washing hands with soap can reduce the incidence of diarrhea rates among children under five by almost 50 %, and respiratory infections by nearly 25 %. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends washing for at least 20 seconds and suggests singing Happy Birthday twice to allow enough time to remove and rinse off germs.

Remind me not to shake hands with any children, people from Tunisia (or anyone, who has not gotten their boosters, for that matter.)


October 15, 1932 -
The Merrie Melodies short, I Wish I Had Wings, directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising was released on this date.



The rooster barks orders in German to geese who march in a goose step. This film was released during Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany.


October 15, 1938 -
The Looney Tunes short, Porky's Naughty Nephew, directed by Bob Clampett and starring Porky Pig, was released on this date.



Introducing nephews and nieces of an established cartoon character was common at the time. It was a way around the Hayes Code, which required marriage to be shown before children appeared...even in animated features..


October 15, 1940 -
Two of the most famous men in the world, not only had superficially similar looks, most famously their mustaches, but were born only four days apart in April of 1889 and both grew up in relative poverty. One of them decides to take a huge risk and release a film taking advantage of this freakish similarity, The Great Dictator, on this date.



When Charles Chaplin first announced that he was going to make this film, the British government, whose policy at the time was one of appeasement towards Nazi Germany (remember peas in our time), announced that they would ban it. By the time of the film's release though, Britain was at war with Germany and in the midst of the blitz, so the government's attitude towards the film had completely changed toward a film with such obvious value as propaganda.


October 15, 1951 -
A former starlet convinced the alcoholic, womanizing head of a television network to run the TV version of her somewhat successful radio program.



I Love Lucy, the television situation comedy, starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, also featuring Vivian Vance and William Frawley, went on to run on CBS for 181 episodes (including the "lost" Christmas episode and original pilot).



Then, the show introduced three more seasons, running from 1957 to 1960, known as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (while Ball and Arnaz go through an acrimonious divorce). I Love Lucy won five Emmy Awards and received numerous nominations. In 2002, it was ranked #2 on TV Guide's top 50 greatest shows of all time, behind Seinfeld and ahead of The Honeymooners. In 2007, it was placed on Time Magazine's (unranked) list of "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME".



I Love Lucy was the most-watched show in the United States in four of its six seasons, and was the first to end its run at the top of the ratings (to be matched only by The Andy Griffith Show and Seinfeld), although it did not have a formal series finale episode. Episodes of I Love Lucy are still syndicated in dozens of languages across the world.


October 15, 1959 -
(Speaking of Desilu,) The TV show The Untouchables with Robert Stack as Eliot Ness, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



This series was (very loosely) based on the book Ness co-wrote with journalist Oscar Fraley (who, in turn, confessedly "embellished" Ness' role into the fall of Capone). In spite of Fraley's additions, in the book, Ness and his eleven agents are not reported as doing much more than busting alcohol shipments and depots, yet the series had Ness intervening in dozens of totally fictional events. As a witness of the time put it about the series, "not even two percent of it is true".


October 15, 1954 -
The eponymously named series The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



A popular children's record titled Rinny and Rusty and Rip was released in the 1950's about the three lead characters. It was a 78 rpm Golden Records release, sung by Anne Lloyd and The Sandpipers, with Mitch Miller and his orchestra.


October 15, 1965 -
The poker playing version of The Hustler, The Cincinnati Kid, directed by Norman Jewison, and starring Steve McQueen, Ann-Margret, Karl Malden, Tuesday Weld, Edward G. Robinson, Joan Blondell, Rip Torn, and Cab Calloway premiered in New Orleans on this date.



This was Ring Lardner Jr.'s (one of the screen writers) first major studio work since his 1947 blacklisting as one of The Hollywood Ten.


October 15, 1974 -
Tom Waits releases his second album, The Heart of Saturday Night, on this date, written as a tribute to Beat novelist Jack Kerouac.



Speaking before the first-ever performance of the title song, which appeared on radio station KFPK, Waits said it was a tribute to "Kerouacians," meaning fans of American novelist Jack Kerouac. Kerouac's rambling, plain-language style, which sometimes incorporated elements of jazz improvisation, gave a mystical shine to the simplest aspects of American life. Other than Charles Bukowski, no other literary influence is more obvious to Waits' work, especially his earlier stuff.


October 15, 1981 -
New Line Cinema released the comedy horror film The Evil Dead, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, and Betsy Baker, on this date in the US.



Bruce Campbell put up his family's property in Northern Michigan as collateral so that Sam Raimi not only could finish the film, but also blow it up to 35 mm film which was required for theatrical release. Raimi was so grateful for his financial contribution, he credited him as co-producer.


October 15, 1988 –
UB40's cover of Neil Diamond's Red Red Wine reached the top of the Billboard Charts on this date.



UB40 recorded this as a cover of the Tony Tribe 1969 reggae version, which reached #46 in the UK charts. The band did not realize until after it topped the charts that Neil Diamond wrote it and originally recorded it.


October 15, 1994 -
R.E.M.'s ninth studio album, Monster, released by Warner Bros., went to No. 1 on the Billboard Charts, on this date.



After releasing two consecutive slow-paced albums, Out Of Time and Automatic For The People, R.E.M really wanted to rock out on their album Monster. They were also trying to find their place in the alternative landscape as the early '90s saw grunge explode out of Seattle, and U2 reinventing their sound with the theatrical Achtung Baby.


October 15, 1995 -
Paul McCartney and his wife Linda appear on an episode of The Simpsons where they help Lisa become a vegetarian.



Paul explains that if you play Maybe I'm Amazed backwards, you'll hear a recipe for lentil soup. (Now with less pork in it!)


October 15, 2006 -
Patti Smith closed down the celebrated Manhattan music club CBGB, playing the last show at the venue.



The club closes after an extended dispute between club owner Hilly Kristal and the Bowery Residents Committee. Rock fans try to preserve the building as a historical landmark, but those efforts fail and a men's clothing store moves in.


Another little known Monopoly card


Today in History:
October 15, 1582 -
Finally, with the formal implementation of the Gregorian calendar by Pope Gregory XIII, this day actually exists in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

The calendar jumped from October 4 directly to October 15. People are generally relieved but never quite get over the feeling that they missed something during those 11 days.


October 15, 1783 -
Frenchman Jean Pilâtre de Rozier made a tethered, captive-balloon ascent, in the gardens of La Muette on this date. The Montgolfier (of Monty Python fame)-made balloon, Aerostat Reveillon, carrying Pilâtre, first man to leave the earth, rose to the end of its 250 ft tether.

It stayed aloft for 15 minutes, then landed safely nearby.


October 15, 1893 -
The New York Times declared Coney Island “Sodom-by-the-Sea" for the thrilling rides that let men and women clutch each other.



The Elephantine Colossus, a 200-foot-tall elephant-shaped hotel had a howdah on its back, topped with a gilded crescent was built on Surf Avenue, in 1885. It housed a concert hall and events bazaar in its belly, a museum in what would be its left lung. Its head was an observatory and its eyes were telescopes; you could climb up and peer out at the surrounding city. With 31 rooms and 12 stories, its front legs housed a cigar store and diorama, and its hind legs had spiral staircases leading to the rooms contained above. By 1893, though, tourists got tired of the gimmick, and prostitutes started moving in. It became a giant elephant-shaped brothel. “Seeing the elephant” became local parlance for picking up prostitutes.


October 15, 1917 -
The German spy Mata Hari, a Dutchwoman named Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, was executed by the French on this date. There wasn't much actual evidence of espionage, but she had been seen naked with German officers and the French considered this distasteful enough to kill her.



(I think finally this appears to be the actual date of her execution. Sorry about that, Margaretha.)


October 15, 1924 -
President Calvin Coolidge declared the Statue of Liberty to be a national monument on this date.

Previously, the statue had been considered merely a large French broad oxidizing in New York Harbor.


October 15, 1928 -
The airship LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin completed its first transatlantic crossing when it arrives in the United States at NAS Lakehurst, New Jersey four days after leaving Friedrichshafen, Germany on this date.



The Naval Air Station Lakehurst, located in Lakehurst, New Jersey, was the western terminus for the commercial transatlantic flights of the German dirigibles Graf Zeppelin and, later, the Hindenburg.


October 15, 1964 -
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was too busy pounding his shoe at every official meeting to realize that he was ousted

and replaced by Alexei N. Kosygin as premier and by Leonid I. Brezhnev as Communist Party secretary.


October 15, 1990 -
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev gave up the practice of shoe banging practices of the Soviet Premier all together



and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on this date.


October 15, 1991 -
Despite sexual harassment allegations by Anita Hill, The Senate confirmed Judge Clarence Thomas as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by a vote of 52-48, the closest confirmation vote in court history (at the time.)

Given all that came down from the court this past calendar year - pray for the United States.


October 15, 2002 -
Former ImClone Chief Executive Officer Samuel Waksal pleaded guilty to insider trading as part of an ongoing investigation into the trading of shares from his biotech company on this date.

And this wasn't a good thing for his friend, home decor diva, Martha Stewart.



And so it goes

Experience is like a comb that life gives you when you are bald

A bald head is better than a bald mind



Today is Be Bald and Free day!


October 14, 1888 -
French inventor Louis Le Prince shot a brief film which lasted for about two seconds, in Leeds, England, he called Roundhay Garden Scene, on this date.



The footage is thought to be the oldest surviving film footage in world history.


October 14, 1944 -
The Looney Tunes short, Booby Hatched, directed by Frank Tashlin was released on this date.



The annual return of the swallows falls on the feast of St. Joseph, March 19th.


October 14, 1949 -
The Looney Tunes short, Swallow the Leader, directed by Bob McKimson and starring Porky Pig and Sylvester the Cat, was released on this date.



The unhatched egg manages to break the fourth wall in this short. And so does the hibernating bear, the skinny mean wolf, and the duck mom, all very cleverly done.


October 14, 1953 -
Possibly the ultimate film noir, Fritz Lang's The Big Heat opens in NYC on this date.



Typical of the heavily sanitized film making of the 40s and 50s, when Thomas Duncan shoots himself in the head with a .38 revolver there's no wound, no splattering of blood, and in death he simply leans over his desk as if he'd decided to take a nap.


October 14, 1954 -
Michael Curtiz’s holiday musical White Christmas starring Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Vera Ellen, and Danny Kaye premiered in New York City on this date.



According to Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye's "Sisters" performance was not originally in the script. They were clowning around on the set, and director Michael Curtiz thought it was so funny that he decided to film it. In the scene, Crosby's laughs are genuine and unscripted, as he was unable to hold a straight face due to Kaye's comedic dancing. Clooney said the filmmakers had a better take where Crosby didn't laugh, but when they ran them both, people liked the laughing version better.


October 14, 1972 -
Last Tango in Paris, starring Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider and that infamous stick of butter premiered in New York City, on this date.



According to his autobiography Brando: Songs My Mother Taught Me, the reason why Marlon Brando refused to do a full frontal nude scene was because his "penis shrank to the size of a peanut on set."


October 14, 1972 -
The TV-series Kung Fu, starring David Carridine, debuted on ABC-TV on this date.



The only reason this show went off the air was because David Carradine quit the series. He had sustained so many injuries, he felt he could not go on. The show got high ratings for all three seasons that it aired.


October 14, 1978 -
The gang finally got off the damn island (sort of) when the first TV movie from a TV series, Rescue from Gilligan's Island, premiered on CBS-TV with all of the original cast except Tina Louise (who wanted too much money,) on this date.



The scene in which the rescued castaways are towed into harbor to a hero's welcome was filmed in Los Angeles' Marina Del Rey. According to Sherwood Schwartz, the extras hired to play the crowd were soon joined by countless onlookers, all of them ecstatic to see the familiar characters finally rescued. The crowd's enthusiasm was so overwhelming that the cast members were moved to tears.


October 14, 1979 -
NBC premiered a new TV adaptation of Helen Keller's life story The Miracle Worker, starring Melissa Gilbert, Patty Duke, Charles Siebert, Stanley Wells, and Diana Muldaur, on this date.



Melissa Gilbert originally wanted to offer the part of Annie Sullivan to Meredith Baxter, but the adults working on the project suggested offering the part to Patty Duke, who had played Helen Keller in the film version of The Miracle Worker. Patty Duke won an Oscar as young Helen Keller in the 1962 version, played Anne Sullivan in this TV version and won an Emmy for it.


October 14, 1983 -
Cyndi Lauper, formerly a member of the group Blue Angel, issues her first solo album, She's So Unusual. With the MTV hits Girls Just Want To Have Fun and Time After Time, the album becomes an '80s touchstone.



On the strength of her breakout solo album She's So Unusual, Lauper won the Grammy for Best New Artist in 1984. She won four more Grammy Awards in 1986, including one for her work on the collaboration fundraiser song We Are The World. In total, her recordings have garnered six wins and 13 nominations at the Grammy Awards.


October 14, 1994 -
Quentin Tarantino's brilliant crime drama, Pulp Fiction, starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Ving Rhames, and Uma Thurman, opened in the US on this date.



The word "fuck" is used two hundred sixty-five times.

Another episode of ACME's Little Known Animal Facts


Today in History:
October 14, 430 BC -
The ancient philosopher Empedocles believed he was not human, but a Greek god. To prove this fact to skeptics, he vowed to jump into a volcano and return unscathed.



He made good on his first promise but never followed though on the second. He was an early Darwin award winner


October 14, 1066 -
As bad as King Harold's day yesterday; today was worse, much worse. The King and his army were locked in a massive battle and faced Duke William, William the Conqueror, and his mounted knights near the town of Hastings.

Taillefer, William of Normandy’s minstrel, asked for the honour of charging the Saxon lines first. His request duly granted, he rode towards the enemy singing The Song of Roland, a tale of bravery of a Frankish general in the service of Charlemagne. Taillefer cut down his first two opponents but was soon dashed to pieces by the Saxons.



Duke William planned a three point attack plan that included a) heavy archery b) attack by foot soldiers c) attack by mounted knights at any weak point of defense. The Normans routed the Saxons and won out after Harold was killed by a stray arrow. This placed William on the throne of England. There is nothing worse than losing the throne of England to a stray arrow which appears to have happened far more frequently than thought.


October 14, 1651 -
Massachusetts passed laws prohibiting the poor from dressing excessively, on this date.

It was felt that persons of limited means should save their money and learn to get by with simple vinaigrettes.


October 14, 1893 -
You can get through life with bad manners, but it's easier with good manners.



Lillian Diana Gish, was born on this date. Although she was the archetypal silent film heroine, she was a star of movies, television, radio, and the stage for nearly all of the 20th century. She closed her career in the 1987 film The Whales of August.


October 14, 1912 -
Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for a return to office, was shot in Milwaukee by a saloon keeper named John Schrank on this date.

What saves Teddy was the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after hitting both his steel eyeglass case and a copy of his speech he was carrying in his jacket. Roosevelt declined suggestions that he go to the hospital, and delivered his scheduled speech.

He spoke vigorously for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined that he was not seriously wounded and that it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in his chest. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died.



Schrank was captured and uttered the now famous words "any man looking for a third term ought to be shot."

Teddy Roosevelt, one of America's First Superheroes.


October 14, 1944 -
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (James Mason) of Germany was visited by two of Hitler's personal staff on this date in history.



They informed him that he was suspected of involvement in the July 20th plot to assassinate the Fuhrer and that he would therefore be required either to: (a) stand trial and die, or (b) just die. They brought some poison along to facilitate his decision.



Hitler always liked him.


October 14, 1947 -
American pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in a rocket-powered airplane, on this date. Yeager insisted it was already broken and consequently refused to repair it despite repeated admonitions by his mother.



It remains broken to this day. (The sound barrier should not be confused with the Long Island Sound barrier, sometimes referred to as the Throg's Neck Bridge.)


October 14, 1959 -
Omni-sexual actor and Nazi sympathizer Errol Flynn, dubbed "the most despicable human being yet born" (and that was by a friend), died of a heart attack in Vancouver on this date. Flynn reported didn't have a sexual preference, he merely slept with anything with an orifice (and possibly a pulse) including (but not limited to) Truman Capote, Howard Hughes, as well as countless Hollywood starlets.



Presumably, not at the same time.


October 14, 1962 -
The US collected photographic evidence that the Soviet Union had positioned missiles about 90 miles off the US coast, in Cuba. The missiles were capable of transporting nuclear warheads.



The tense situation that arose in the next two weeks would bring the US and Soviet Union the closest the two countries had ever been to nuclear war.


October 14, 1968 -
Captain Walter Schirra, Jr., Major Donn Eisele and Major Walt Cunningham, gave the American public a tour of the spacecraft and showed the view through their craft’s windows on this date.



The crew on NASA's Apollo 7 mission, the first successful manned mission to the Moon, broadcast the first live transmission from their spacecraft.


October 14, 1968 -
Sprinter Jim Hines became the first human to run a 100-meter race in under 10 seconds (9.95). What was once thought to be impossible suddenly became possible - and soon it became routine - because the psychological barrier of unattainability was dissolved.



Jim held the 100-meter world record for 15 years after breaking the 10-second milestone at the US national championships, and later won two gold medals in the ’68 Olympics. In later years Hines worked with inner-city youth in Houston.


October 14, 1977 -
Linda Ronstadt sang The National Anthem prior to World Series Game Three at Dodger Stadium, on this date.



She was heavily criticized at the time, for casual attire - (the ever solid Dodger fan, Linda only requested a Dodger jacket as her fee for singing the anthem.) Many consider her rendition of the anthem one of the best ever at a sporting event.



And so it goes

21 seconds rule

Across almost all large mammals weighing over 3 kilograms (about 6.5 to 7 pounds) - from cats and dogs to humans and elephants - empty a full bladder in approximately 21 seconds It is also known as the Law of Urination.



Larger animals have longer, wider urethras, and gravity speeds up the flow.

You know you're going to time yourself.


October 13, 1934 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Miller's Daughter, directed by Friz Freleng was released on this date.


(sorry for the poor condition of this clip)

Caricatures of The Three Stooges appear as the Three Wise Monkeys (See No Evil / Speak No Evil / Hear No Evil) statue and join in the musical number.


October 13, 1947 -
Kids, back when the earth cooled and formed a hard crust, there was a very popular TV series featuring two puppets and a very polite lady that ad-libbed the entire show - Junior Jamboree - a version which ultimately became Kukla, Fran and Ollie premiered on this date.

(this is not the premiere episode, but it is from 1949!)

One episode of the show was broadcast in color in fall 1949, in Washington, D.C., as a demonstration to the FCC of RCA's line-sequential color TV system. The same episode was performed live a second time the same afternoon, for network broadcast in black and white, but using the experimental color cameras.


October 13, 1950 -
Joseph L. Mankiewicz's brilliantly caustic valentine to Broadway, All About Eve premiered in NYC on this date.



Margo Channing's famous cocktail dress was an Edith Head creation. To Head's horror, just as they were about to go film the cocktail party, she found that the dress didn't quite fit Bette Davis in the shoulders. There was no time to fix the dress, but fortunately Davis hit on the bright idea of simply slipping the dress off her shoulders.


October 13, 1955 - The Merrie Melodies short, Yankee Dood It , directed by Friz Freleng was released on this date.



In the late 40s through the 50s, the CIA led a top secret campaign, called Militant Liberty that encouraged studios to insert the theme of freedom into Hollywood movies. Alfred P. Sloan (think about the name and it will come to you) the recently retired head of of General Motors from 1923 to 1946, was recruited to head the cause. Sloan hired George Stewart Benson, president of Harding College to produce a series of cartoons to promote anti-Communist, pro-free enterprise themes.

At least three other Warner Bros. cartoons during the period, Make Mine Freedom,Heir Conditioned, and By Word of Mouse, were probably produced under this program. And the famous Duck and Cover as well as Disney's Our Friend the Atom have the fingerprints of the program all over them. (We don't even have time to discuss the CIA's involvement with the live action studios during the time.)


October 13, 1957 -
CBS-TV broadcasts The Edsel Show, a one-hour live special starring Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong, designed to promote the new, ill-fated Ford automobile, on this date.



It is the first and currently the oldest surviving show on videotape. It was aired live on this date in prime time, and simultaneously taped and filmed in kinescope for the sole purpose of broadcasting for the three-hour time delay on the West Coast.


October 13, 1966 -
The sixth episode of Star Trek, Mudd’s Women premiered on this date. In it, The Enterprise picks up a traveling con man, Harry Mudd, and his “beautiful” female cargo; the females seem to have a strange effect on the male crew.



This is the first episode in which the Enterprise's power source is named, however, they are called simply "lithium crystals", and not "dilithium" as was done in all later episodes of this and all later incarnations of Star Trek.


October 13, 1973 -
Terrence Malick directorial debut, Badlands starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek premiered at the New York Film Festival on this date.



The film's plot and lead characters are based on Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate. In 1958, they embarked on a murder spree that horrified the country.


October 13, 1978 -
Queen released their double A sided single Fat Bottomed Girls/ Bicycle Race on this date.





The songs ran together on the album, and were often played that way by radio stations. The year before, Queen released We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions as a double A-side. They are still usually played together by radio stations. Each song has a reference to the other in the lyrics: in Bicycle Race, a lyric runs: Fat bottomed girls, they'll be riding today, so look out for those beauties, oh yeah. In Fat Bottomed Girls the closing call shouts get on your bikes and ride!, linking the two songs together.


October 13, 1979 -
The Police's second album Reggatta De Blanc started a four-week run at No.1 in the UK on this date.



The first three Police albums, Outlandos d'Amour, Reggatta de Blanc, and Zenyatta Mondatta, were named by their manager, Miles Copeland (Police drummer Stewart Copeland's brother), using words he made up. Reggatta de Blanc is the only one that is also the name of a song. In Copeland's language, it translates to "White Reggae," indicating the reggae rhythms the band was using. The fourth and fifth Police albums got away from this naming convention and were titled by Sting: Ghost in the Machine and Synchronicity.


October 13, 1984 -
Stevie Wonder's song I Just Called To Say I Love You gets to the No. 1 slot on the Billboard chart on this date. It goes on to become his best-selling single worldwide.



This was featured in the movie The Woman In Red, starring Kelly LeBrock as the woman and Gene Wilder as the married man mesmerized by her. Stevie wrote most of the soundtrack for the movie; he got the gig after Dionne Warwick, who was the "song coordinator" on the film, suggested him to the producers.


October 13, 1989 -
One of Woody Allen’s more serious films, Crimes and Misdemeanors, starring Martin Landau, Claire Bloom, Anjelica Huston and Alan Alda, premiered on this date.



Woody Allen has said of this film: "Crimes And Misdemeanors is about people who don't see. They don't see themselves as others see them. They don't see the right and wrong situations. And that was a strong metaphor in the movie".


October 13, 2000 -
Universal Pictures' Stephen Daldry comedy-drama, Billy Elliot, starring Jamie Bell, Gary Lewis, and Julie Waters, went into limited release in the US, on this date.



Jamie Bell was going through puberty at the time of filming. Some of his dialogue had to be post-synched as his voice had broken. And the opening scene in which he jumps up and down on a bed to T. Rex's Cosmic Dancer was shot over a lengthy period of time. For the latter takes, Bell had acquired hair on his legs and had to have them shaved.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
October 13, 54 -
Roman Emperor Claudius I (Derek Jacobi) consumes a favorite mushroom dish prepared by his fourth wife, Agrippina. What he does not know is that the meal is laced with the toxin of the Amanita phalloides mushroom. Feeling ill the next morning, Claudius summons his personal physician. Unfortunately, the doctor happened to be a co-conspirator in the scheme, administering a colocynth enema which killed Claudius instantly.



So remember kids - avoid all doctor prescribed poisoned enemas.


October 13, 1066 -
King Harold II was not having a really good day. William of Normandy (who was so important as not to need a last name, just an address) gave him the opportunity to relinquish his crown, and therefore England. Harold refused, which was not a good choice for him. The next day William took it by force at the Battle of Hastings, causing Harold’s demise.

Somehow this led to Friday the 13th being unlucky for everyone else, who is not a monarch of an island nation.


Ocotober 13, 1492 -
Psst, bunkies, remember today is really the day that Columbus' ships really landed in the Bahamas.



So remember kids - avoid all doctor prescribed poisoned enemas.


October 13, 1660 -
Major General Thomas Harrison, a leading member of the republican regime and signatory to Charles I’s death warrant, discovered that karma is a bitch today.

He was found guilty of regicide and was hanged, drawn and quartered by the Restoration government on this date; a spectacle witnessed by Samuel Pepys who recorded him ‘looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition’.


October 13, 1792 -

It was on this day in Washington D.C. that the cornerstone was laid for the presidential residence, now known as the White House. The Frenchman, Pierre L'Enfant, who designed Washington, D.C. wanted the residence to look like the palace of Versailles. George Washington thought that was a little too fancy, so he got an Irish architect named James Hoban to reduce the design to one-fifth of its original size. Washington, once again in his Masonic sexual frenzy, laid the cornerstone and supervised the construction. John Adams was the first president to call it home.



People nicknamed it the White House from the very beginning. There was a coat of whitewash brushed on the sandstone to protect it against winter. Thomas Jefferson was the one who installed flushing toilets. Andrew Jackson got the first shower. Martin Van Buren brought in central heating. Rutherford B. Hayes introduced the telephone. Benjamin Harrison had it wired for electricity. President Truman brought in the first TV set.


October 13, 1812 -
Sir Isaac Brock, British Army Officer who fought with famous chief Tecumseh, died in Canada during the War of 1812, on this date. He became know as the Savior of Upper Canada. He and his aide-de camp, Lieutenant Colonel John Macdonell (who also died at the same battle, were buried with great military ceremony near Fort George on October 16. Thus began his zombie-like entombment (he was buried four times!)



Canada decided to built a war memorial to General Brock in 1814, so they got around to re-interring Brock and his pal Macdonell in 1824. In 1840, somehow an Irish-Canadian named Benjamin Lett, angry with the British, blew up Brock's monument. In a lightening speed response by Canadian officials, plans were drawn up to build a second memorial to Brock and Macdonell (I'm sure Macdonell was sorry he ever went to work for Brock.) Their unrested corpses were moved to a third burial site in Queenston village, near the site of their demise.



October 13, 1853 marks the fourth and final burial for these men. About fifteen thousand attended the event, some of whom were veterans of the War of 1812. The structure was inaugurated on October 13, 1859!


October 13, 1884 -
With worldwide travel becoming more common, an international time standard was in high demand. At the behest of the International Meridian Conference and the urging of President Chester A. Arthur, the longitudinal Universal Time meridian was established on this date.

The International Meridian Conference established the meridian as the local time at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in England.


October 13, 1914 -
Garrett Morgan invented and patented a gas mask, (U.S. patent 1,113,675) consisting of a canvas hood placed over the head on this date. A double tube extended from the hood and merged into a single tube at the back. The open end held a sponge soaked with water to filter out smoke and to cool incoming air.



On July 25, 1916, Morgan made national news for using the gas mask to recover several men trapped after an explosion at a new waterworks tunnel beneath Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio. After the rescue, Morgan's company received requests from fire departments around the country who wished to purchase the new masks. The Morgan gas mask was later refined for use by U.S. Army during World War I.


October 13, 1959 -
Olive Marie Osmond, actress, singer, doll designer, Nutrisystem junkie and Osmonds family survivor, was born on this date.



Hey let's all cut Marie a break, she's had to carry Donnie's sorry ass her whole life. (I'll say once again - Marie, you do you.)


October 13, 1968 -
Melvin, what are you going to do with that gun!





Bea Benaderet, radio and television actress and voice actress, died on this day.


October 13, 1969 -
The USSR launched a third spacecraft, Soyuz 8, in as many days, on this date. Soyuz 8 was part of a joint mission with Soyuz 6 and Soyuz 7 that saw three Soyuz spacecraft in orbit together at the same time, carrying a total of seven cosmonauts. The crew consisted of commander Vladimir Shatalov and flight engineer Aleksei Yeliseyev, whose mission was to dock with Soyuz 7 and transfer crew.



The main goal was to get Soyuz 8 rendezvoused with Soyuz 7 (transferring at least one cosmonaut by a spacewalk) and to have taken spectacular motion pictures of the Soyuz 7 - Soyuz 8 docking from Soyuz 6. Unfortunately, due to a failure in the electronics on all three spacecrafts, no rendezvous was able to be carried out.


October 13, 1972 -

Due to poor visibility, a Uruguayan Air Force plane carrying the Montevideo Old Christians Rugby Club, crashed high in the Chilean Andes. Of the 45 people aboard the flight, only 27 survived the crash and just 16 made it to their rescue 72 days later.



How did they do it? Cannibalism. According to one survivor, "the slight browning of the flesh gave it an immeasurably better flavor, softer than beef but with much the same taste."

So there you go - it doesn't taste just like chicken.


October 13, 1988 -
A report published in the journal Nature declared the Turin Shroud to be a 13th century fake. Although carbon-14 testing places the shroud's fabrication somewhere between 1260 and 1390 AD, true believers spend much of the next several years attempting to explain away the radiocarbon test results.



And yet, a British art historian in 2010, re-opened the whole can of worms again by suggesting that the shroud is in fact the actual burial cloth of a man who underwent a similar execution, much like Christ, around 33 AD.


October 13, 2010 -
33 Chilean miners were trapped deep underground for a record 69 days made the 17-minute journey to the surface, one by one, after surviving the best they could until the international team of rescuers were able to drill a passage and provide an escape pod, on this date.



The world was glued to their television screens for two months as engineers worked to devise a plan, and NASA provided the pod that would lift them to the surface. Never had anyone been rescued from such a depth—more than a third of a mile (622-meters) underground.



And so it goes