Remember, hide all your important ideas

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - Thomas Edison didn’t invent most of the stuff he patented.



It’s fair to say that Edison was one of the world’s most notorious intellectual property thieves.  Of the 1,093 things he smashed a patent on, he stole near enough most of them off real geniuses like Nikola Tesla, Wilhelm Rontgen and Joseph Swan – the latter of whom originally invented the lightbulb!


Today is the Feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit order of Catholic priests and brothers, died in Rome on this date in 1556.


July 31, 1928 -
MGM’s Leo the lion roared for the first time on this date.



He introduced MGM’s first talking picture, White Shadows on the South Seas. The film was directed by W.S. Van Dyke and starred Monte Blue. It won an Oscar in 1928-29 for Best Cinematography


July 31, 1971 -
James Taylor's cover of the Carole King song, You've Got A Friend hit #1 on the Billboard charts on this date.



Taylor heard this song for the first time in November 1970, when he played a week of shows at The Troubadour in Los Angeles. By this time, his album Sweet Baby James had taken off, and Taylor was drawing large crowds. He asked his good friend Carole King to be his opening act, and King grudgingly accepted - she wasn't used to playing her own songs live and was very nervous.


July 31, 1987 -
Timothy Dalton took on the mantle of James Bond in the John Glen helmed, The Living Daylights, also starring Maryam d'Abo and Joe Don Baker, which premiered in the US on this date. (Depending on how you are counting, this was the fifteenth entry in the film series.)



A stuntman was originally going to play the role of The Impostor, the Russian assassin in Gibraltar at the beginning, but after watching rushes, director John Glen decided that they needed a real actor for the part, and it was given to Carl Rigg. At the time, Rigg was out of work and staying home, taking care of his baby, while his wife was away on business. Upon getting the call, Rigg left the baby with a neighbor, left his wife a note telling her he'd gone to be in a James Bond movie, and caught the next plane to Gibraltar to start filming.


July 31, 1991 -
The Jim Abrahams spoof of Top Gun, Hot Shots!, starring Charlie Sheen, Cary Elwes, Valeria Golino, Lloyd Bridges, and Jon Cryer, premiered on this date.



The aircraft carrier on which the movie takes place is actually a wooden deck built on the edge of a cliff at a deserted Marineland facility. The film was shot at an angle that made the deck look like a ship at sea.


July 31, 1992 -
Miramax Films released the Mike Newell's film Enchanted April, starring Miranda Richardson, Josie Lawrence, Joan Plowright, Alfred Molina, and Jim Broadbent in the US on this date.



When she was cast as Mrs. Fisher, Dame Joan Plowright said that about twenty years earlier she and Dame Maggie Smith had planned an adaption of the same novel in which they would play the parts of Lottie Wilkins and Rose Arbuthnot.


It's been another tough week for many; 5 pm can't get here soon enough


Today in History:
July 31, 1485 -
Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, was first published on this date.



Malory wrote this classic tale of knightly love and chivalry while in prison for armed assault and rape.


July 31, 1790 -
Samuel Hopkins was issued the first patent for a process of making potash, potassium carbonate, an ingredient used in fertilizer. The patent was signed by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and President George Washington.

Since then, over 6 million patents have been granted by the US PTO.


July 31, 1944 -
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French aviator and author best know for his novella The Little Prince, went missing while flying in a Lockheed P-38 Lightning on a reconnaissance mission over Marseilles, on this date.



In the days and weeks that followed, various parties speculated that Saint Exupéry was shot down over the Mediterranean, had a flight accident, or even committed suicide. The latter theory grew out of the fact that the flyer had felt isolated from his squadron and was pessimistic about the future.


July 31, 1945 -
Wearing a stolen army uniform, prisoner John Giles attempted to escape from Alcatraz island by boarding an outbound cargo boat. But instead of San Francisco, the vessel heads for Angel Island, where Giles was promptly captured.



When attempting your escape from prison, do not attempt to save money by purchasing a round trip ticket. Please confirm that you have boarded the correct escape craft.


It was on this day in 1954 that human feet first stood upon the summit of Pakistan's K2 mountain, the second-tallest mountain in the world.

K2 was known to the Chinese as "Great Mountain" and to Indian and Pakistani locals as "That Big Thing Over There." It was not until 1856, when T.G. Montgomerie of Britain's Survey of India was logging the mountains of the Karakorum range, that it was dubbed K2. This helped distinguish it from K1, to its left, and K3, to its right.

(K1 was later named Mount Masherbrum. K3 moved to Arizona, where ICE agents believed the mountain was assisting underage children to sneak into the country across the border.)

It was an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio that first succeeded in ascending to the peak of K2. Team members Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni achieved that distinction on July 31, 1954.

The summit wasn't reached again until 1977, when a Japanese team with more than 1500 porters found their way to the top.

The first American expedition reached the top in 1978 without the aid of any stinking porters.


July 31, 1948  –
At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport was dedicated by President Harry Truman on this date.



A 30 year old Congressman John F. Kennedy suddenly had a blinding headache that day and didn't know why.


July 31, 1964 -
The American space probe Ranger 7 transmitted the first photo moon’s surface ever taken by a U.S. spacecraft, mapping the surface for a future lunar landing, on this date. Ranger 7 carried six slow-scan vidicon TV cameras capable of transmitting high-resolution television pictures of the lunar surface.



A total of 4,308 photographs were taken before Ranger 7 crashed in Mare Cognitum (Sea of Clouds). The total cost of the mission was about $170 million (your tax dollars at work.)


July 31, 1966 -
The Beatles records were burned in Birmingham, Alabama on this date -- only because John Lennon innocently declared that the band happens to be "more popular than Jesus."



The record burning of course has the opposite effect, as sales of Beatles records dramatically increase (in part to burn them.)


July 31, 1971 -
One of the most expensive car rides occurred on this date,



Apollo 15 crew members, James B. Irwin and David R. Scott took the Lunar Roving Vehicle or "Moon Buggy" on its premiere jaunt on the surface of the Moon.


July 31, 1976 -
NASA released the famous Face on Mars photo taken by the Viking 1, on this date.

Later, after analysis of higher resolution photos from the Mars Global Surveyor, the face would be determined to be an optical illusion,



but until then, the face would spark imaginations and lead to rampant conspiracy theories.


Tomorrow is the festival of Lammas, an ancient harvest festival, (which we will have more to say about tomorrow.)



According to Shakespeare, Guiletta Capulet was born on "Lammas Eve at night," so Juliet's birthday is July 31st (sharing her birthday with Harry Potter and his creator, J. K. Rowlings.)


July 31, 1980 (I'm going with 1980 and not getting involved in the 1979 controversy) -
Harry Potter, an orphan who discovers that he is a wizard was born on this dates.



J K Rowlings, the Harry Potter brand author, and unfortunately loony bigot, shares a birthday with her creation (born 1965). Her 'children's stories' have made her a billionaire.

Who knew an orphaned kid with a facial birthmark could make someone so much money?


July 31, 2003 -
Felix Baumgartner, became the first man to glide across the English Channel without an aircraft when he jumped from a plane thirty thousand feet above Dover, England wearing carbon fiber wings attached to his back.

He glided 23 miles across the Channel in ten minutes at a starting speed of 220 mph and slowing to a speed of 135 mph. Baumgartner finished his flight using a parachute landing in Cap Blanc-Nez, France.


And so it goes.


173

Oh, the drums go bang and the cymbals clash

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - So you think your corner deli has been around for a long time?



Zildjian, a manufacturer of cymbals for drum kits, was founded in 1623 in Constantinope and is still in business today. At four centuries old, it's one of the oldest continually operated companies in the world.


I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.  - Don DeLillo



Today is Paperback Book Day. The reason for the celebration today is that Sir Allen Lane started what would become Penguin Books, and they published their first paperback book on July 30, 1935.  I just finished reading The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero by William Kalush and Larry Sloman.


Flowers and Trees is a 1932 Silly Symphonies cartoon produced by Walt Disney, directed by Burt Gillett and released to theatres by United Artists on this date. It was the first commercially released film to be produced in the full-color three-strip Technicolor process, after several years of two-color Technicolor films.



The original work was started in black and white. The black and white footage was scrapped when the decision was made to try Technicolor.


July 30, 1966 -
The Dynamic Duo made the jump from the TV scene to the movie scene - Batman, The Movie, premiered in Austin, Texas on this date.



A follow up film was at one point considered. The film would have been released between seasons two and three, and would have been used to introduce Barbara Gordon/Bat Girl, and make use of a Batplane. Due to waning interest in the series during season two, which resulted in budget cuts, plans for a second film were scratched.


July 30, 1966 -
The Beatles' album Yesterday... and Today,  went #1 and stayed #1 for five weeks, on this date.



The record was released just after John's infamous interview in which he stated that the Beatles were "bigger than Jesus", which angered Americans and provoked many bans on their music and public incinerations of memorabilia. But Yesterday And Today would take public disapproval to a whole new level, as the original cover featured the band in butcher's smocks with baby doll parts and raw meat covering them. The record was pulled almost immediately - creating an instant collector's item - and in the confusion that followed, several replacement covers were issued.


July 30, 1977 -
Andy Gibb's song, I Just Want to Be Your Everything, reached no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, on this date.



This was the first of three #1 singles for Gibb, which made him the first male solo artist with three consecutive #1 singles in the US. The next single was (Love Is) Thicker Than Water, which was released when The Bee Gees were scoring huge hits from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. That song replaced Stayin' Alive at #1 and was bumped by Night Fever. Gibb's next single was Shadow Dancing, which he wrote with his brothers and also went to #1.


July 30, 1982 -
One of Ron Howard's early movie directorial efforts Night Shift, premiered on this date.



Early screen roles for Kevin Costner and Shannen Doherty. Costner as a frat boy in the morgue party scene (a non-speaking bit part), and Doherty plays a "Blue Bell" (liken to a "Girl Scout") in an elevator scene (with one line).


July 30, 1991 -
Metallica released one of their biggest hits Enter Sandman, on this date.



James Hetfield's original lyric was about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Crib Death), when a baby dies inexplicably in its crib. The line, "Off to never never land" was, "Disrupt the perfect family," and the "sandman" kills the baby. The record company found the lyrics too disturbing, so their producer Bob Rock convinced him to change it to make it more accessible and meaningful. The band had a policy of not commenting on each other's individual contributions, but Rock was an outsider and felt free to speak up. To his surprise, Hetfield took it well and altered the lyric accordingly.


July 30, 1999 -
Paramount Picture released the Gary Marshall rom com, Runaway Bride (a semi-remake of the Capra classic It Happened One Night) featuring the re-teaming of Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, and featuring the always funny Joan Cusack, on this date.



In development for 10 years. Actors attached at various times: Geena Davis, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Michael Douglas, Demi Moore, Sandra Bullock, Ellen DeGeneres, Ben Affleck, Téa Leoni. Director Michael Hoffman was attached. Writers Elaine May and Leslie Dixon did unused rewrites.


July 30, 2004 -
The surprise hit stoner film, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, starring John Cho, Kal Penn, and the very funny Neil Patrick Harris, opened on this date.



Neil Patrick Harris plays a character named "Neil Patrick Harris" and is billed as such rather than being billed "as himself." According to an interview on NPR, this was done to make clear that he plays a parody of himself.


Another court ordered ACME PSA


Today in History:
Prague has always been a tough town for elected officials.



On July 30, 1419, Jan Zelivsky, a Hussite priest at the church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows, led his congregation on a procession through the streets of Prague to the Town Hall. The town council members had refused to exchange their Hussite prisoners, and an anti-Hussite threw a rock at one of the protesters. Enraged, the crowd stormed the town hall and threw seven of the council members from the windows onto the spears of the armed congregation below. Thus, the First Defenestration of Prague occurred.



Less you think that was the only defenestration in that tough old town, at Prague Castle on May 23, 1618, an assembly of Protestants tried two Imperial governors, Wilhelm Grav Slavata (1572 - 1652) and Jaroslav Borzita Graf Von Martinicz (1582 - 1649), for violating the Letter of Majesty (Right of Freedom of Religion), found them guilty, and threw them, together with their scribe Philip Fabricius, out of the high windows of the Bohemian Chancellery. They landed on a large pile of manure and all survived unharmed. Philip Fabricius was later ennobled by the emperor and granted the title "von Hohenfall" (lit. translating to "of Highfall").

Apparently, the streets of Prague were literally full of crap.

But what there were more, a defenestration (chronologically the Second Defenestration of Prague) happened on September 24, 1483, when a violent overthrow of the municipal governments of the Old and New Towns ended with throwing the Old-Town portreeve and the bodies of seven killed aldermen out of the windows of the respective townhalls.

Sometimes, the name the Third Defenestration of Prague is used, although it has no standard meaning. For example, it has been used to describe the death of Jan Masaryk, who was found under the bathroom window of the building of the Czechoslovakian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on March 10, 1948, allegedly murdered by Communists, though the official Communist line claimed this to be a suicide.

It's tough to be an elected official in Prague.



So, here are some quick rules for avoiding defenestration:

7. Don't throw stones at angry mobs.
6. Watch out for Catholics.
5. Watch out for Protestants.
4. Don't piss off really powerful people.
3. Surround tall buildings with piles of manure.
2. Never go to Prague.

And, of course,



1. Never leave home.

Again, it's a tough town for politicians but it's the gravy train for glazers.


July 30, 1729 -
Since we can't travel there this year, let us all wish the happiest of Birthdays to the Crab Cake Capital of the World



The city of Baltimore was founded on this date and is named after Lord Baltimore (Cecilius Calvert).


July 30, 1818 -
It's Emily Bronte's birthday.



The Brontes were three hideous sisters who dwelt in a cave and had to share a single eyeball between them. They were eventually outwitted and slain by wily Odysseus. (Unless that was the Gorgons, in which case the Emily Brontes were three Englishwomen who wrote poetry and novels in the middle nineteenth century.)



Women were not allowed to write books at the time because novels were still being written in the formal style, and it was feared that women would corrupt that classic form with their penchant for multiple climaxes. The Brontes therefore wrote under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Charlotte got to be Currer and this made the other girls jealous: Currer was the handsome and swarthy sailor, while Ellis was the stuttering librarian and Acton was the simpleminded shepherd.

As authors, the Emily Brontes were heavily influenced by the Romantics (What I Like About You), but most scholars contend that Emily's Wuthering Heights owes more to the Meteorologists.



She is perhaps best known for her invention of Heathcliff, most recently popularized by American cartoonist George Gately.


July 30, 1865 -
The Brother Jonathan, a paddle wheel steamer, sank off the coast of Northern California after it hit a rock near Crescent City, on this date. 225 passengers and crew died during the ensuing panic. There were only 19 survivors. It has been considered the worst US steamship disaster that had occurred.

The 220-foot, side-wheeled steamer was on route to Puget Sound and reportedly carried as much as $2 million in gold. In the 1990s, Deep Sea Research found and salvaged 1,207 gold coins from the ship. California received 20% of the treasure and the rest was put up for auction in 1999.


July 30, 1871 -
The boiler on the Staten Island Ferry Westfield exploded, killing as many as 100 people and  injured hundreds of others as well, on this date.

The ferry was owned by the president of the Staten Island Railway, Jacob Vanderbilt, who was arrested for murder, but was not convicted.


July 30, 1938 -
In his Dearborn, Michigan office Henry Ford proudly accepts a Nazi medal on his 75th birthday, on this date. The Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle was the highest award the Reich can bestow on foreigners. The medal arrives with a note of personal greetings from Adolf Hitler.

A rabid anti-semite, Ford paid for copies of the racist hoax Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion to be deposited in major U.S. libraries.

Hopefully, there isn't a Ford in your future.


July 30, 1947 -
As the 'Siegfried' leitmotif from Act III of Wagner's opera played in the background - Arnold Schwarzenegger, the last gasp of the dream of the Aryan 'Uberman', was spawned on this date.



I'm not quite sure that an overly greased muscle man in a speedo (who would become the governor of a bankrupt US state and fathered children out of wed-lock ) was what Hitler had in mind, but who knows.


July 30, 1965 -
As part of President Johnson's Great Society program, the president signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law established Medicare and Medicaid in the United States, on this date.



Both older Americans and people living in poverty benefited from passage of the Social Security amendments. Medicare initiated a basic program of insurance for those aged 65 and over, funded by a tax on employees wages and matched by employer contributions. Medicaid provided grants to states to establish health care programs for low-income individuals and families. The act also lowered the age at which widows could begin collecting benefits and added certain divorced women to the list of benefit recipients.


July 30, 1975 -
Jimmy Hoffa was or wasn't killed on this date.



Jimmy is or isn't buried somewhere in the Meadowlands or a horse farm or was made into ground meat and consumed at some very unfortunate barbecue (the FBI still continue to try to sort it all out.)



And so it goes.


174

Smile, if you can, for the camera

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - During the Victorian period, it was normal to photograph relatives after they died.



Photographs of loved ones taken after they died may seem morbid to modern sensibilities. But in Victorian England, they became a way of commemorating the dead and blunting the sharpness of grief. People would dress their newly-deceased relatives in their best clothing, and then put them in lifelike poses and photograph them. They did this to preserve one last image of their dead loved one in a strange form of commemoration.


Today is Lasagna Day. I'm not going to lie to you - I don't believe you can just whip up a lasagna together in a day. It's going to take you a day or two just to collect all of the ingredients. Why not have a nice family dinner this coming weekend by planning on making a nice tray of fresh homemade Lasagna this week. (Watch this video or check out the box of pasta on how to assemble it, if you don't know; I've linked my recipe for gravy.)



Start shopping for you ingredients today and enjoy your family this upcoming weekend


July 29, 1957 -
Jack Paar took over as new host of The Jack Paar Tonight Show on this date. Paar brought the show back to its in-studio interview format.



More a conversationalist than comedian, audiences were drawn to Paar's show because of the interesting guests be brought on, from entertainers to politicians, and for the controversy that occasionally erupted there.


July 29, 1959 -
Another campy cult classic William Castle flick (this time featuring 'Percepto',) The Tingler opened on this date.



Pamela Lincoln and Darryl Hickman, who play the young suitors, actually got married on November 28th after The Tingler release on July 29th 1959. They had two children, and divorced on December 8th, 1982.


July 29, 1965 -
The Beatles movie Help! premiered in London on this date.



By Paul McCartney's and Ringo Starr's own admission, they were so stoned on pot the day they shot the scene where Dr. Foot (Victor Spinetti) and Algernon (Roy Kinnear) tried to blow them up in the Austrian Alps, that when George Harrison screamed his line "It's an fiendish thingy! Run Ringo!" both Ringo and Paul ran over the next hill.


July 29, 1972 -
Gilbert O'Sullivan topped the charts with his hit Alone Again (Naturally) on this date.



One of the most depressing songs ever written, Alone Again (Naturally) tells a rather sad tale of a lonely, suicidal man being left at the altar and then telling the listener about the death of his parents. The song connected with listeners on various levels: the downtrodden could commiserate with the singer, and the lucky ones who were not in this position were reminded of their good fortune.

(I will not take responsibility for the following ear worm; listen to the clip at your own risk.)


July 29, 1982 –
Professional wrestler Jerry Lawler slapped actor Andy Kaufman in the face on the program Late Night with David Letterman, a staged event that prompted a several month ‘war’ between the two of them.



It remains among the greatest Letterman moments of all time. The video went viral long before the Internet gave rise to the term, with people across the country clamoring for bootlegged VHS and Beta tapes of the incident.


Another failed ACME Products


Today in History:
July 29, 1588 -
Phillip II of Spain sent his armadillo to invade England. This Spanish armadillo was defeated by the belly-buttons of Lord Howard and Sir Francis Drake in one of the greatest navel engagements of all time.



The defeat altered the balance of power in Europe irreversibly and marked the last use of armadillos in navel warfare.


July 29, 1900 -
Italian King Umberto I thought he was have a good day. It was a warm summer evening and he had just finished distributing prizes to athletes after a sporting competition. Umberto got back into his carriage and Gaetano Bresci, an Italian-born anarchist who had resided in America, burst from the crowd brandishing a revolver and fired four times, killing the king instantly.

The murder was believed to be due to the king’s decision to fire cannon rounds into a crowd of starving peasants and workers that had assembled asking the king for assistance; 100s were killed; Bresci was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to a life of hard labor at Santo Stefano Prison on Ventotene Island. Umberto was succeeded by his son, Victor Emmanuel III. After serving less than a year of his life sentence, Bresci was found dead in his cell, in extremely suspicious circumstances. (One might suspect that you could get a passable lasagna at the prison.)


July 29, 1921 -
The Council on Foreign Relations was incorporated in New York City on this date by a group of bankers and other influential people, including John D Rockefeller. The CFR remains a vital component of the New World Order, and is surpassed in importance only by the Trilateral Commission.

Now that you have this information, you know too much and you'll probably have to be killed.


July 29, 1921 -
Adolf Hitler was selected as leader of the National Socialist Party on this date.

I'm guessing there are still a scant few Germans of a certain age that have regrets concerning this election.


July 29, 1945 -
After delivering parts of the first atomic bomb to the island of Tinian, the cruiser U.S.S. Indianapolis was torpedoed and sunk by the I-58 Japanese submarine around midnight on this date.



Some 900 survivors jumped into the sea and were adrift for four days. Nearly 600 died before help arrived. Most of its crew was ravaged by sharks.

Talk about karma.


July 29, 1948 –
After a hiatus of 12 years caused by World War II, Britain's King George VI opened the first Summer Olympics to be held since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, in London, on this date.



Germany and Japan were not invited and the Soviet Union chose not to attend.

Alice Coachman of the US team was the first black woman to win a gold medal when she triumphed in the high jump.


July 29, 1958 -
President Eisenhower stopped playing golf long enough to sign the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which created NASA on this date.

Richard Nixon immediately gave Ike a rum toddy and let him take his afternoon nap.


July 29, 1966 -
Returning home from his manager Albert Grossman's house, Bob Dylan had some sort of motorcycle accident, on this date.  The accident, which has become somewhat mythic, purportedly left Dylan with a broken vertebrae in his neck, but no ambulance was called and he was not admitted to a hospital. Dylan spent years recuperating and became something of a recluse, disappearing from the public spotlight for eight years.

He continued to write and record music, but with only a few exceptions, did not appear in public again until January 1974, when he launched his "North American Tour."


July 29, 1968 -
Pope Paul VI issues encyclical Humanae Vitae, prohibiting all unnatural forms of birth control.



This did not please many practicing Catholics, although it answers the age-old question ever priest knows - Altar boys can't get pregnant.


July 29, 1974 -
Cass Elliot (Ellen Naomi Cohen,) a very large part of The Mamas and the Papas, died in London on this date.



Although initial reports ascribe the cause of death to choking on a ham sandwich, in actuality it was a heart attack.


July 29, 1981 -
In the fairy tale wedding of the century, Britain's Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in an internationally televised ceremony at Saint Paul's Cathedral in London, England on this date.



The couple was later divorced in 1996, Diana was 'killed' in a car accident in 1997, and Charles fulfilled his long time fantasy and became a feminine hygiene product when he married his mistress Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005.

Hey, fairy tales don't always have happy endings.


July 29, 1987 –
Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream signed a licensing agreement for their Cherry Garcia flavor, named after the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia, with Mr. Garcia on this date.

Ben and Jerry’s agreed to donate a portion of the proceeds to the Rex Foundation, the Grateful Dead Band's primary philanthropic outlet since 1984. For a month following the musician's death in 1995, the ice cream was made with black cherries instead of Bing Cherries as a show of mourning.



And so it goes.


175

Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - 4% of the Normandy beaches is made up of shrapnel from the D-Day Landings.



More than 5,000 tons of bombs were dropped by the Allies on the Axis powers as part of the prelude to the Normandy landings. Scientists have studied the sand on the beaches of Normandy and they’ve found microscopic bits of smoothed down shrapnel from the landings. They estimate that, within 150 years, the beach will have fully lost any remaining shrapnel to rust and erosion.


Today is Milk Chocolate Day - what evil mind would celebrate it during the summer? American eat on average 12 lbs of chocolate per year; The Swiss on the other hand eat a little more than 26 lbs a year (that works out to about 450 bars of chocolate.)



If you don't keep this increase in choco-gorging, the terrorist have won.



(Psst, I've mentioned this before - it is a conspiracy organized by a large Mid Western Syndicate of Big Sugar corporations and dentists.)


July 28, 1932 -
The first film to feature the theme of Zombie-ism, White Zombie starring Béla Lugosi premiered in NYC on this date.



The film was thought lost until its rediscovery in the 1960s. A court battle was fought between film distributor Frank Storace and the estate of Stanley Krellberg, the copyright owner of the film. Storace had wished to produce a restored version of the film but the estate refused him access to original footage in their possession. Storace gave up the court battle and did not win his access to his original footage.


July 28, 1948 -
Bud and Lou's biggest box-office success, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, opened on this date, (this was one of my favorite childhood films.)



The scene in which Wilbur (Lou Costello) is unknowingly sitting on the lap of Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange) required multiple takes. The scene allowed Costello to improvise wildly, which caused Strange to constantly break up laughing during the takes.


July 28, 1954 -
The Elia Kazan classic, On the Waterfront, premiered in New York on this date.



As part of his contract, Marlon Brando only worked till 4 every day and then he would leave to go see his analyst. Brando's mother had recently died and the conflicted young actor was in therapy to resolve his issues with his parents.


July 28, 1954 -
One of Humphrey Bogart's best late work, The Caine Mutiny, premiered in New York on this date. (Bogart was already seriously ill with esophageal cancer, although it would not be diagnosed until January 1956.)



The US Navy was never happy about the depiction of Capt. Queeg as a madman in the novel, with the implication that it would hire or keep in place someone so clearly deranged. The film version skirted around that rather contentious issue by making Queeg a victim of battle fatigue or PTSD.


July 28, 1973 -
Bill Graham produced the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen Rock Festival at the Watkins Glen International Raceway, that featured the Allman Brothers, the Band, and the Grateful Dead.



The concert drew some 650,000 people, the single largest paying crowd in concert history.


July 28, 1973 -
Grand Funk Railroad releases their biggest hit We're An American Band on this date.



Grand Funk was one of the best-selling bands of the '70s, and this was their biggest hit. Critics were often very harsh, especially Rolling Stone magazine, but they had a huge fan base and got lots of radio play.


July 28, 1988 -
The second film in the autobiographical series ('Trilogy', 'The Long Day Closes') from the phenomenal Terence Davies, Distant Voices, Still Lives opened in the US on this date.  Please find time to watch this film.



Pete Poslethwaite found it hard to believe that Terence Davies' father (on whom his character was based) could have been so violent and cruel to his family. It wasn't until Davies asked his sister to tell him about being beaten in the cellar with a broomstick by their father (which is depicted in the film) that he accepted it was true.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
July 28, 1540 -
King Henry VIII married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard on this date.



To celebrate his nuptials, Henry had his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, executed.



It must have been some reception.


July 28, 1794 -
Maximilien "The Incorruptible" Robespierre who had dominated the Committee of Public Safety during the 'Reign of Terror,' was having an extremely bad day. The day before, lobsters throughout France drove around Paris, protesting of his dictatorial ways and staged the Coupe of Thermidor, relieving him of his power.



Maximilien Robespierre was relieved of his head and guillotined for having ravaged the French meteorological cycle with his nefarious Rain of Terror on this date.


July 28, 1835 -
King Louis Philippe of France survived an assassination attempt by Giuseppe Maria Fieschi, who rigged 25 guns together and fired them all with the pull of a single trigger, killing approximately 18 people but not his intended target

Fieschi was wounded in the attack and the King spared no expense in tending to the other victims of his trigger happy would be assassin. Once Fieschi was deemed medically fit, he was tried, condemned to death and was guillotined on February 19, 1836.

Perhaps he should have spent more time on the practice range.


July 28, 1841 -
James Boulard and Henry Mallin pull the decomposed body of a young woman from the Hudson River near Hoboken, New Jersey. Mary Cecilia Rogers, who worked at a popular cigar store, is initially thought to have been killed in the course of a brutal gang rape, but ultimately it seems more likely that she died from a botched abortion.

Years later, novelist Edgar Allen Poe adapts the sensational news story about 'The Beautiful Cigar Girl' into the short story The Mystery of Marie Roget.


July 28, 1914 -
One month after the recent assassination of the Archduck Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, on this date.

World War One was underway. In just four years, it would claim 8.5 million lives and leave 21.2 million wounded, and lay the groundwork for an eventual rematch.

Sometimes family feuds just get out of hand.


July 28, 1945 -
A US Army B-25 bomber crashes into the Empire State Building between the 78th and 79th floors. An engine plunges down an elevator shaft, sparking a fire in the basement. Eleven people in the building were killed, in addition to the three man bomber crew. Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a plunge of 75 stories inside an elevator, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded. (Kids, please, do not try this at home.)



And as of this morning, from down the street from my home, I can see that it's still standing.

(And folks - Please, this clip doesn't prove or disprove any 9/11 Conspiracies.)


July 28, 1957 -
A C-124 Globemaster II cargo plane of the US Air Force left Dover AFB in Delaware, carrying three nuclear weapons jettisoned its precious cargo into the Atlantic, somewhere east of Delaware and New Jersey, on this date. The bombs were never recovered.



Remember every time you go to a beach off the Jersey Shore, a 200 foot radioactive mutant Blue Crab is lurking somewhere, beneath the waves.



And so it goes.


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The more you know

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - Venomous and poisonous do not mean the same thing.



A venomous creature injects its venom using fangs or a stinger - likes snakes and scorpions.  A poisonous creature will make you sick or kill you if you eat it, because its flesh is poisonous - like puffer fish or some mushrooms. Finally, toxic refers to the uniformed political opinions infesting your social media newsfeed.


July 27, 1940 -
Bugs Bunny made his debut in a cartoon called A Wild Hare, on this day. Warner Brothers' writers and animators set out to make a rabbit who would be the epitome of cool. They modeled bugs on Groucho Marx with a carrot instead of a cigar. Mel Blanc gave him a Brooklyn accent.



This cartoon is considered the first to feature both Bugs' and Elmer's catchphrases - "What's Up, Doc?" and "Be vewy quiet...I'm hunting wabbits" respectively.



As of January 2013, he has appeared in more films than any other cartoon character. More than 175 films, to be exact.


July 27, 1949 -
Mighty Joe Young, an RKO Radio Picture made by the same creative team responsible for King Kong, premiered in New York City on this date, (in fact, when Joe smashes through the facade during the nightclub riot, the first scream you hear is that of Fay Wray, stock audio from the original King Kong.)



Second-unit director David Sharpe recalled an incident that happened on the nightclub set: "We were shooting some action stuff . . . which featured lions, tigers, elephants, and apes in cages around the table area. We had trained lions to run from one side of the set to the other. One of them broke loose, jumped onto the top of his cage and grabbed the trainer by the throat. I was in the camera cage. I pushed the iron door open, raced across the set and punched the lion in the face. I guess I shocked him so badly he let go, turned tail and ran into his cage."

(Remember, I'm no longer going to direct you to Terry Moore's photo spread in Playboy.  You go on ahead and find it yourself.)


July 27, 1978 -
National Lampoon's Animal House, the grandfather of all gross-out comedies, premiered in New York City on this date. (Food fight, anyone?)



Donald Sutherland was so convinced of the movie's lack of potential that, when offered a percent of the gross or a flat fee of $75,000 for his three days' work, he took the upfront payment. Had he taken the gross percentage, he would have been worth an additional $3-4 million.


July 27, 1983 -
Little Tommy's break out film, Risky Business, opened on this date. This film is not, as usually noted, an above average teenage sex comedy but the precursor to 'Greed is Good' mantra that sunk this country for years to come.



The sunglasses Joel wears are the Ray-Ban Wayfarer model. Annual sales of Wayfarers were languishing as of 1983 but skyrocketed 2,000 percent after the movie's release. This film and The Blues Brothers have contributed to the popularity of the Wayfarers since.


July 27, 1984 -
Warner Bros. gift to an unsuspecting world, Purple Rain, starring Prince, premiered on this date.



A few days before the premiere, Prince had a nightmare that Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert despised the film, with Ebert ripping the film apart. He said, "I dreamed those two guys on the TV were reviewing the movie and that fat guy was tearing me up!" Siskel and Ebert both loved the film in their reviews.



(you may put your arms down now, dab your eyes, and resume your day.)


July 27, 1985 -   
The Eurythmics' song There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) went to No.1 on the UK singles chart on this date, the duo's only UK No.1 single.



The song features Stevie Wonder, who provides the harmonica solo. Wonder worked on this own schedule, so when Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart went to Los Angeles to record the song, they weren't sure if or when he would show up. "It was getting very late and we were getting pessimistic whether he'd even turn up at all," Lennox recalled in Q magazine. "Finally he showed up, and he was really an adorable person. He had these braids on his hair with beautiful gold beads, and when he plays he shakes his head so the beads make a loud noise. But his assistant, who takes care of him, took out this beanbag thing and gently tied Stevie's hair into it so it didn't make a sound down the mikes. The man is a supreme musician, worth waiting for."


July 27, 2007 -
20 Century Fox finally go around to releasing the film version of the very long running series, the Simpsons, The Simpsons Movie, featuring the voices of the regular television cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer, on this date.



In total, The Simpsons Movie took nine years to complete. This is because Fox greenlit the project back in 1997 but in the years up until release, they had to get the voice cast to sign deals, which they didn't do up until 2001. Producing a final script also took several years because almost 160 different versions were written before choosing the final one as plots were continuously being repurposed for the television episodes.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
July 27, 1586 -
Sir Walter Raleigh and some of his men returned to England and disembarked at Plymouth smoking tobacco from pipes, which caused a sensation, on this date.



William Camden, a contemporary witness, reports that "These men who were thus brought back were the first that I know of that brought into England that Indian plant which they call Tabacca and Nicotia, or Tobacco" Tobacco in the Elizabethan age was known as "sotweed."

President Johnson celebrated this momentous date in history by signed the 1965 Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act on this date (in 1965); it required cigarette makers to print health warnings on all cigarette packages about the effects of smoking.


July 27, 1890 -
At the Chateau d'Auvers, Vincent van Gogh presses a revolver to his chest and pulls the trigger.(Or did he?) Somehow the bullet misses the vital organs, and the painter manages to stumble over to a friend's house.



The following night, Van Gogh died of an infection in the arms of his brother Theo.


July 27, 1953 -
The armistice that ended the Korean War was signed on this date. It was a war that began in June 1950 when North Korea invaded the south. Almost 35,000 Americans were killed in the conflict, more than 5,000 captured or went missing. A corporal in the 1st Marine Division named Anthony Ebron said, "Those last few days were pretty bloody. Each time we thought the war was over we'd go out and fight again. The day it ended we shot off so much artillery that the ground shook. Then, that night, the noise just stopped. We knew it was over."



Harry Truman said that if he had signed the same armistice, the Republicans would have drawn and quartered him, but Dwight D. Eisenhower had run for president on the platform that he would end the war, and when he was elected, that's what he did.

Unfortunately, someone forgot to inform the North Koreans that they, in fact, signed the armistice, because technically, they are still at war with someone, until the president has solved all of this.


July 27, 1980 -
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the exiled Shah of Iran, died of lymphatic cancer in Cairo on this date.

Maybe we can borrow Mr. Peabody's Wayback machine and send the former Shah somewhere else for his surgery other than New York–Weill Cornell Medical Hospital.


July 27, 1996 -
During a celebration for the Atlanta Olympics, security guard Richard Jewell notices a suspicious green knapsack in Centennial Park. He immediately alerts police and helps to clear people from the area shortly before the pipe bomb explodes. For his trouble, Jewell becomes the FBI's preliminary suspect and news organizations ran wild with the story.



Because he didn't do it, numerous media outlets end up paying him large undisclosed settlements. Eric Rudolph was later charged with the bombing. He was arrested May 31, 2003. Rudolph later pleaded guilty to the bombing.



And so it goes.


Before you go - An infrequent guest programmer suggested that I play this video -



Season 11 begins in September


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Oh, for the want of a cuppa

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - Since 1945, all British tanks are equipped with tea-making facilities.



Before this time, British tank crews had to exit their armored vehicles when they wanted to make a quick coffee. On the road to Caen in 1944, a German Tiger tank ambushed and destroyed a parked column of almost thirty armored British vehicles in 15 minutes whilst the crew were having an impromptu tea break.

This made the British high command realize if tank crews could make a brew on the go, then they wouldn’t be susceptible to being caught with their pants down and their kettles out by the enemy. So after this, the next British-designed battle tank, the Centurion, came with a boiler fitted to the interior powered by the tank’s electric circuits so the crew would never be short of a lovely warm cup of tea!


For some reason, today is All or Nothing Day. All or Nothing Day is a time to take risks and live on the edge.



Live like today is your last day on earth and let your inner daredevil shine.


July 26, 1951 -
Walt Disney's 13th animated feature, Alice in Wonderland, premiered in the UK and New York City on this date.





Continuing the pattern of film versions of  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland not being commercially successful, this movie was a huge box office failure. However, it did become something of a cult film during the 1960s, where it was viewed as a "head film". Several years later it became the Disney studio's most requested 16mm film rental title for colleges and private individuals. In 1974, the studio took note of this fact, withdrew the rental prints, and reissued the film nationally themselves


July 26, 1969 -   
Johnny Cash released the single, A Boy Named Sue, written by Shel Silverstein, on this date



Cash was at the height of his popularity when he recorded the song live at California's San Quentin State Prison at a concert on February 24, 1969.


July 26, 1980 -
The Rolling Stones started a seven week run at No.1 (the group's eighth US No.1,) on the US album chart with Emotional Rescue, on this date.



Emotional Rescue was the first Rolling Stones album recorded following Keith Richards' exoneration from a Toronto drugs charge that could have landed him in jail for years.


July 26, 1986 -
Peter Gabriel's song Sledgehammer went to No.1 on the US singles chart, No.4 hit in the UK, on this date.



The wildly innovative video was directed by Stephen R. Johnson and featured stop-motion claymation techniques. The video has won a number of awards, including a record nine MTV Awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards, and Best British Video at the 1987 Brit Awards.


July 26, 1991 -
One of Mel Brooks non-film parody movies, Life Stinks, starring Mel, Leslie Ann Warren, Howard Morris, and Jeffrey Tambor premiered on this date. (This was one of my father-in-law's favorite movies.)



Whoopi Goldberg was considered for role of Molly but Mel Brooks was not confident that he could believably play her love interest opposite her. The part in the end went to Lesley Ann Warren.


July 26, 2006 –
The directorial debut of the husband-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Little Miss Sunshine, starring Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin, and Alan Arkin, went into limited release on this date.



All of the girls acting as participants in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant, except Abigail Breslin, were veterans of real beauty pageants. They wore the same costumes, including hair and makeup, and performed the same talent routines as they had in their real-life pageants.


July 26, 2015 -
In a field just outside of Cesena, Italy, 1000 musicians and singers play Foo Fighters Learn to Fly simultaneously with the dream of attracting the band to play a show in their city for the first time in nearly 20 years.





On November 3, 2015, the Foo Fighters performed a 27-song set for the for the Rockin’ 1000, starting with Learn to Fly.


A book I'm sure many of you have read


Today in History:
July 26, 1753 O.S. (August 6, 1753 N.S.) -
Professor Georg Wilhelm Richmann, German physicist, died of electrocution in St. Petersburg, Russia on this date. He was attending a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, when he heard thunder. The Professor ran home with his engraver to capture the event for posterity. While the experiment was underway, a supposed ball lightning appeared and collided with Richmann's head leaving him dead in a red spot. His shoes were blown open, parts of his clothes singed, the engraver knocked out; the door frame of the room was split, and the door itself torn off its hinges.

Beside not telling him that hemlock was poison, his mother did not sit Little Georg upon her knee and tell him about the evils of electricity. He was apparently the first person in history to die while conducting electrical experiments.


July 26, 1775 -
The Continental Congress established a postal system for the colonies with Benjamin Franklin as the first postmaster general in Philadelphia on this date.

Franklin also established the standardized method of charging for mail delivery based on weight and distance.


July 26, 1826 -
Schoolmaster Cayetano Ripoll was hanged in Valencia, Spain after uttering his last words: "I die reconciled to God and to man," on this date. He was the last person executed by the Spanish Inquisition.

Gee, I guess at that point everybody should have expected the Spanish Inquisition. (I promise I won't mention the Inquisition for a while.)


Winsor McCay, an American cartoonist and animator, died on this date in 1934. A prolific artist, McCay's pioneering early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set a standard followed by Walt Disney and others in later decades.



His two best-known creations are the newspaper comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, which ran from 1905 to 1914, and the animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur, which he created in 1914.


July 26, 1943 -
Michael Philip Jagger, Golden Globe and Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter, occasional film producer and actor, was born on this date.



Deveraux Octavian Basil Jagger, Mick's eighth child (who is almost four years old) is the grand uncle to his half sister Jade Jagger Fillary's first granddaughter, Ezra Key, who is six (although it is impolite to tell a lady's age.)


July 26, 1947 -
President Harry Truman signed the National Security Act, creating the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The act forbade the CIA from operating within the US.

With the NSA surveillance program, that's not quite working out at the moment, is it?


July 26, 1956 -
A little more than 11 hours after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm, the Italian liner Andrea Doria, carrying 1,134 passengers and 572 crew, sank off New England coast.



46 people on the Andrea Doria and 5 crew members of the Stockholm died as a result of the crash. The SS Ile de France had been near the collision site and was able to assist in the rescue of many of the passengers of the Andrea Doria.  Within four years, the Ile de France was used as a floating prop for the nautical disaster film, The Last Voyage, which had some plot similarities to the disaster involving the Italian liner SS Andrea Doria.


July 26, 1959 -
There was a partial nuclear reactor meltdown at Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, on this date. Little known outside of the area, the nuclear accident released far more radiation that the Three Mile Island accident.



A report in 2006 said it may have caused hundreds of cases of cancer in the community, and that chemicals threatened to contaminate ground and water.


July 26, 1984 -
Serial killer, cannibal and flesh suit wearer Ed Gein died at the Mendota Mental Health Institute, a home for the criminally insane on this date.

Gein inspired the films Psycho and Silence of the Lambs.  Bunkies, please follow this advice from your old Doctor - DON'T go looking for any of the true crime scene photos attached to Mr. Gein's name unless you'd like the truly grizzly.


July 26, 1991 -

Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman) was arrested in Florida, for exposing himself at the South Trail XXX Cinema on this date.

For several years following the incident, Reubens lost his children's television show and product endorsements.



And so it goes.


Before you go - Here's another perfect meeting of the performer and the song - Puddles Pity Party singing Smile -



Please get another slice of apple pie for my friend there.


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