And no, it's not a mini guitar

The Ukulele is the opposite of overwhelming







Today is Play Your Ukulele Day!


May 2, 1932 -
Walt Disney released another animated-cartoon, Mickey's Revue, on this date.



Goofy (then known as Dippy Dawg) makes his debut in this cartoon.


May 2, 1936 -
Sergei Prokofiev was commissioned by The Central Children's Theatre of Moscow to create a symphonic tale for children. Peter and the Wolf had its world premiere in Moscow on this date.



Prokofiev felt, in his own words, the work had an inauspicious opening at best: "...[attendance] was poor and failed to attract much attention."



If you listen very carefully you'd hear the duck quacking inside the wolf's belly, because the wolf in his hurry had swallowed her alive.


May 2, 1946 -
James M. Cain's excellent crime thriller, The Postman Always Rings Twice, opened on this date.



The on-set sexual tension between John Garfield and Lana Turner was clear to all involved with the film. Their first day together, he called out to her, "Hey, Lana, how's about a little quickie?" to which she replied "You bastard!"



I guess the postman does really ring twice.


May 2, 1957 -
The first color film from the Hammer studio, The Curse of Frankenstein, opened on this date.



Although they had appeared in Hamlet and Moulin Rouge, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing met on the set of the film for the first time. They would pass the time between shots by exchanging Looney Tunes phrases and quickly developed a fast friendship, which lasted until Cushing's death in 1994.


May 2, 1965 -
The Rolling Stones made their second appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on this date.



The Stones performed three songs: The Last Time, Little Red Rooster, and Everybody Need Somebody To Love.


May 2, 1979 -
The film Quadrophenia, based on The Who's album and featuring Sting, premiered in London on this date



In the original script, the sex scene between Jimmy and Steph took place in a basement and detailed that she would be shown naked. Leslie Ash made it clear she wouldn't do nudity, even if it meant losing the part. In the end the producers agreed to shoot the scene clothed - and changed the location to an alleyway.


May 2, 1997 -
New Line Cinema released Jay Roach's mega-hit Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery starring Mike Myers, Elizabeth Hurley, and Michael York, on this date.



Mike Myers has revealed in interviews that the Austin Powers character was created based on a couple of instances involving his family. His father loved watching British comedies with actors like Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness, so Myers always wanted to play an English character in a comedy. Myers also said that one night after coming home from hockey practice, he started flirting with his wife in an English accent. His wife laughed and told him to write the routine down, so he could do it again. Writing the routine down led to this script.


May 2, 2008 -
Jon Favreau's first dip into the marvel universe, Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Shaun Toub, Gwyneth Paltrow and a cameo by Stan Lee premiered in the US on this date.



The script was not completely finished when filming began, since the filmmakers were more focused on the story and the action, so the dialogue was mostly ad-libbed throughout filming. Director Jon Favreau acknowledged this made the film feel more natural.


Another book from the back shelf of the ACME Library


Today in History:
On May 2, 1729, Catherine the Great was born. More than any Russian head of state before her, she embraced a closer union with Europe.



And please people, let's stop it with all this talk about the horses - she died of a stroke while sitting on the toilet.

Let's give the woman some dignity.


May 2 1863 -
At the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate general Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson was accidentally shot three times by his own men. Jackson's left arm is amputated and Jackson died of complications of pneumonia on May 10, 1863. In his delirium, his dying words were, "Let us cross over the river and rest in the shade of the trees." His body was moved to the Governor's Mansion in Richmond for the public to mourn, and he was then moved to be buried in the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia. However, the arm that was amputated on May 2 was buried separately by Jackson's chaplain, at the J. Horace Lacy house, "Ellwood", in the Wilderness of Spotsylvania County, near the field hospital.



Upon hearing of Jackson's death, Robert E. Lee mourned the loss of both a friend and a trusted commander. The night Lee learned of Jackson's death, he told his cook, "William, I have lost my right arm" (deliberately in contrast to Jackson's left arm) and "I'm bleeding at the heart."


Baron Manfred von Richtofen was also born on May 2, but in 1892. The World War I flying ace, better known to students of military history as the Red Baron, shot down over 80 enemy aircraft in World War I, sending dozens of handsome young men to fiery, terrible deaths and thereby earning himself a place in the Peanuts comic strip.



(Which hardly excuses Snoopy's reprehensible bloodlust. But then again, we all know that Snoopy was a sociopath with a multiple personality disorder.)


May 2, 1915 -
Clara Immerwahr, in 1900, was the first woman to ever receive a doctorate in Chemistry in Germany.



Her opposition of the war in Germany led her to clash with her chemist husband and German war supporter Fritz Haber. Clara took her life following an argument with her husband about his work on poison gases for the German war effort.


May 2, 1921 -
There's always some room for improvisation.



The eminent Indian film director, Satyajit Ray, was born on this date.


May 2 1946 -
Six prisoners attempt to escape the federal prison on Alcatraz island. They take over their cellblock but fail to gain access to the outside. One guard held hostage is executed by prisoners, and another dies in the attempt to retake the cellblock.



The Battle of Alcatraz ended only after the deaths of three prisoners, and two others are subsequently executed at San Quentin.

I bet there was a lot of angry after-riot prison sex that night.


May 2, 1957 -
Senator Joseph McCarthy died of hepatitis on this date, brought about by unabated alcoholism. Two and a half years prior he had been censured by the Senate for his "inexcusable" and "reprehensible" conduct during his highly-publicized Communist witch-hunt.



McCarthy eventually discovered that it was far more effective to have private industry oppress its workforce, rather than the government oppress its citizenry.


May 2 1957 -
Vincent 'the Chin' Gigante approached Mob Figure Frank Costello and shot him in the head, first shouting “This is for you, Frank,” on this date. Instead of killing him, the bullet circumnavigates between his skin and cranium, exiting through the original wound.



Costello retires from the Mafia soon thereafter.

The Mafia was practicing using 'magic' bullets.


May 2, 1972 -
World famous old paranoid drag queen and longtime G-man died in his sleep at the age of 77 on this date.



Most of Washington insiders breathe a huge sigh of relief. (During the Watergate hearings, it was subsequently revealed that the FBI had illegally protected President Richard Nixon from investigation.)


It's my friend Sharon's birthday today. And there is no truth to the rumor that she personally loaned Divine Mr. Hoover's cha-cha heels that she had purchased at a Baltimore Flea Market.



And so it goes.