Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Be nice to this planet

For the moment, it's the only one you're ever going to have - Happy Earth Day!



So go outside and hug a tree. If you don't want to be this familiar with nature, give a warm but firm shake hands to your house plants.



Here's a little poem you can remember to help on this Earth Day -

Choosing to let it mellow can make a difference in water usage, and save you some money long term, depending on the part of the country you live in.


April 22, 1935 -
Universal Studios
released the sequel to the original Frankenstein movie, Bride of Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff, Colin Clive and Elsa Lanchester on this date.



"The Bride", the most obscure of Universal Studios' Classic Monsters, is on screen for less than five minutes and is the only "Classic Monster" never to have killed anyone.


April 22, 1939 -
Warner Bros
. released the film, Dark Victory, starring Bette Davis (in one of her favorite roles) and George Brent on this date.



George Brent
and Bette Davis were having an affair during the making of this film. Brent, uncharacteristically gave Davis a bracelet, B-E-T-T-E spelled out in diamonds (George Brent was notorious in Hollywood at the time, for being 'very cheap'.)  He made a half-hearted joke with Miss Davis about being thankfully that she had such a short name. She laughed and said, "Well it's really E-L-I-Z-A-B-E-T-H, you know!" He didn't think it was funny.   (This is my second favorite Bette Davis stories.)


April 22, 1942 -
One of Hitchcock's brilliant World War II efforts, Saboteur, premiered in Washington DC on this date.



The shot of the ship on its side toward the end was an actual shot of the ocean liner SS Normandie, which had caught fire and capsized at its pier in New York. The fire was an accident, not sabotage, though there were rumors of sabotage at the time.


April 22, 1950 -
Peter Frampton
, musician, singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, was born on this date.



If you were a teenager in the mid 70's, you were issued your standard copy of Frampton Comes Alive to face your 'awkward' years.


April 22, 1953 -
Twentieth Century Fox
releases the surrealistic science fiction film Invaders from Mars, directed by William Cameron Menzies on this date.



This was actually one of the first science fiction scripts written in the 1950s. The revised version of the script was completed in September 1950. The film wasn't produced until 1952 and released in early 1953.


Today in History:
April 22, 1451
-
Isabella I, Queen of Castille, was born on this date. She also became Queen of Aragon in 1479.

She was Christopher Columbus' patron, and must therefore share some of the responsibility for the many thousands of casinos across America.


April 22, 1870 -
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
was born on this date He later became Lenin, invented the Communist Party in Russia and made himself first Head Bastard of the Soviet Union.



It's interesting to note that Alexander Kerensky, the leader of Russia's provisional revolutionary government in 1917 until overthrown by Lenin, was born on the same day as Lenin, only eleven years later.



Well, it's interesting to some people.


April 22, 1904 -
Robert Oppenheimer
was born on this date. Mr. Oppenheimer is known as the father of the atomic bomb.



The bomb's mother has never been identified to anyone's satisfaction, which only underscores the lax security at Los Alamos.


April 22, 1923 -
I love to swim in the nude and roam around the house in the nude. You're just as free as a bird!




Bettie Mae Page was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on this date.


April 22, 1946 -
If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em!



John Waters, film director, actor and raconteur, was born on this date.


April 22, 1964 -
President Johnson
opened the New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadow, Corona Park, New York, on this date.



The Fair also is remembered as the vehicle Walt Disney utilized to design and perfect the system of "audio-animatronics," in which a combination of sound and computers control the movement of life-like robots to act out scenes. In the It's a Small World attraction at the Pepsi pavilion, animated dolls and animals frolicked in a spirit of racially-insensitive  unity on a boat-ride around the world.



Once the fair was over, Walt feverishly pushed his Imagineers to build him an 'actual' President. Historians argue that this was the beginning of Ronald Reagan campaign for the Presidency.


April 22, 1994 -
Richard M. Nixon
suffered a fatal stroke on this date. His body was laid to rest in the unhallowed grounds of his Presidential Library.



His head was severed from his body and wooden stakes were driven through his heart to make sure he was dead.



And so it goes

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