Let there be dancing in the streets

Yesterday was not a great day - my office got flooded for the third time in six years. I wasn't in a great mood.



For no particular reason, when I woke up this morning, I remembered this quote - I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day. - Frank Sinatra


It's Manhattanhenge time again. 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 and enjoy it.


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



So many jokes could be made but it is still a fact - if you were born when this song first came out, you'd be almost 30.


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, Julie baby was quoted as saying, "It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life."


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.


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 reason you want to know about Uncle Miltie is his prodigious member.



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


July 12, 1912 -
The French silent-film Queen Elizabeth (Les Amours de la Reine Élisabeth), starring Sarah Bernhardt and Albert Decoeur, became the first foreign feature exhibited in NYC.




July 12, 1979 -
Bonanno boss Carmine Galante, the "cigar problem", was whacked at Joe and Mary's Restaurant in Brooklyn. Galante dies 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 -
It is "Disco Demolition Night" at Chicago's Comiskey Park, where baseball tickets cost only $.98 if the purchaser brings along a disco record for the bonfire.



During the second game of the doubleheader, thousands of vinyl LPs fly onto the field, generating enough chaos that the White Sox are forced to forfeit.


July 12 birthdays include:
Henry David Thoreau (1817)




George Washington Carver (1861)




Oscar Hammerstein II (1895)




R. Buckminster Fuller (1895)




"Curly" Joe DeRita (1909)




Bill Cosby (1937)




Richard Simmons (1948)




Me (1960)




Kristi Yamaguchi (1971)




On a personal note: It's another anniversary of my 39th birthday. Hopefully this birthday will be less hot and sticky than the moment of my birth.



And so it goes.