Zip and I think that Schopenhauer was right

October 25, 1971 -
Hey you guys - The TV show The Electric Company premiered on this date.



Each episode of the pseudo-soap opera Love of Chair ended with the narrator (Ken Roberts) asking the cryptic question "And what about...Naomi?" referring to Naomi Foner-Gyllenhall, an associate producer of the show during its first two seasons. She is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter (for Running on Empty (1988)), and the mother of actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Maggie Gyllenhaal.


October 25, 1982 -
Bob Newhart's second successful-sitcom Newhart, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



The series was set in Vermont, although its exterior scenes were shot in New Hampshire.


It's Saints Crispin and Crispinian's Day

They are the patron saints of cobblers, tanners and leather workers. So remember, when you see someone stagger home, dressed all in leather making their way home this morning, wish them a Happy St. Crispin's Day


October 25, 1957 -
One of Frank Sinatra's best movie performances, Pal Joey was released on this date.



Billy Wilder was the original choice to direct. He discussed it with Columbia studio head Harry Cohn over lunch one day. Not only did Cohn turn down him as director, but he later sent Wilder a bill for their lunch.


October 25, 1957 -
Another classic 50's Drive-in movie, The Amazing Colossal Man, opened in NYC on this date.



So you may ask, did the Colossal Man date the 50 foot Woman? Yes, but ended badly.


October 25, 1965 -
Jean-Luc Godard's take on Sci-Fi Film Noir, Alphaville, opened in NYC on this date.



Keep an eye out for the fact that the film is set in the future, but all the weapons are conventional firearms.


Today in History -
It's 1415, as it has been often said, times were hard - the only way to tell who the king was in England was looking for the person with the least amount of crap on him. The wastrel son of a usurping King leads a ragtag army into another sovereign nation.



After giving a stirring speech, the outnumbered army beats the far superior and well fortified army and wins the decisive Battle of Agincourt on this day. More than one hundred years later, either Wm. Shakespeare and a bunch of other people wrote a slew of Henry plays


It's 1854, this time. The British want to maintain their naval superiority of the globe and continue to enjoy the thrill of sodomy on the open seas. The Russian Tsar (or Czar, as most monarchs are to busy to get a proper education, so they could barely figure out what type of monarch they are) decided that the Russian naval needed to get into a little of those high seas hijicks, began moving his army towards Turkey, hoping for a Russian port in the black sea. Thus, buggery is one of the underlying causes of The Crimean War.

It typical British fashion, On the morning of October 25, 1854, the English were winning the Battle of Balaclava (not Baklava, the delicious Greek pastry wars, to be described at a future date, but the goofy hat war with the ear flaps) when Lord Cardigan (yes, of sweater fame) received his order to attack the Russians fortifications.



Unfortunately for the Light Brigade, the Russian army was also on the other side of the valley that they were charging towards. The brigade was decimated by the heavy Russian guns, suffering 40 percent casualties.



It was later revealed that the order was the result of Alfred Lord Tennyson needing a new hit poem and not intentional.


October 25, 1881 -
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso, the Spanish-born doodler and noted womanizer (considered the most influential artist of the 20th century) was born on this date.

I wonder if his pictures are still worth anything?


October 25, 1931 -
This story is truly not for the faint of heart.

Elena Hoyos, a pretty and vivacious 21 year old Cuban-American girl died from tuberculosis in Florida on this date. While this is sad, it wouldn't be noteworthy other than for her middle aged neighbor with a strange infatuation with Elena. Carl Tanzler (also known as Carl von Cosel), German-born radiologist became obsessed with his young neighbor. Not only did Mr. Tanzler attempted to treat and cure Hoyos with a variety of medicines, as well as x-ray and electrical equipment, that were brought to the Hoyos' home but Tanzler showered Hoyos with gifts of jewelry and clothing, and allegedly professed his love to her.



In April, 1933, Tanzler removed Hoyos' body from the mausoleum, carted it through the cemetery after dark on a toy wagon, and transported it to his home. Carl, with a little help from some home embalming, lived with Hoyos' corpse until October, 1940, when Elena's sister Florinda heard rumors of Tanzler (now known as Von Cosel) sleeping with the disinterred body of her sister, and confronted Tanzler at his home, where Hoyos' body was eventually discovered. Von Cosel was not charged with a crime because the statute of limitations on grave robbing had expired. Elena Hoyos was eventually buried at a secret location. Von Cosel, separated from his love, used a death mask to create a life-sized dummy of her, and lived with it until his death in 1952.


All of love's in vain

October 25, 1938 -
The Archbishop of Dubuque, the Most Reverend Francis J.L. Beckman, denounces the newfangled Swing music

-- the latest craze -- as nothing more than "a degenerated musical system... turned loose to gnaw away the moral fiber of young people."



Its cannibalistic rhythms are said to lead one down the "primrose path to Hell."


October 25, 1955 - Sadako Sasaki was a Japanese girl who lived near Hiroshima, Japan. She was only two years old when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. As she grew up, Sadako was a strong, courageous and athletic girl. In 1954, at age eleven, she became dizzy and fell to the ground. Sadako was diagnosed with leukemia, the "atom bomb disease".



While in the hospital, a friend gave her a golden paper crane and retold the story about the paper cranes (one who folded 1,000 cranes was granted a wish.) She may or may not have completed her goal in August of 1955, reports vary, and continued to fold cranes.

During her time in the hospital her condition progressively worsened. Around mid-October her left leg became swollen and turned purple. After her family urged her to eat something, Sadako requested tea on rice and remarked "It's good." Those were her last words. With her family around her, Sadako died on the morning of October 25, 1955 at the age of 12.


October 25, 1957 -
In chair number four of the barber shop at the Park Sheraton hotel in Manhattan, Mafia don Albert Anastasia is shot five times by the Gallo Brothers, under orders from Carlo Gambino.

The barber shop is now a Starbucks.


October 25, 1983 -
In order to maintain an uninterrupted supply of nutmeg to satisfy global demand, the United States of America invades the Caribbean island of Grenada.

The invasion is rationalized as a rescue mission for the American medical students at the local school. A good friend of mine was at the school at the time and was widely quoted in the media.


October 25, 1991 -
On the way back from a Huey Lewis concert, rock promoter Bill Graham is killed when his helicopter hits high-voltage power lines in Vallejo, California.

Wow, he died because of Huey Lewis.



And so it goes