Tuesday, March 15, 2022

More things that you think would be common sense

People listening to music without headphones is just rude.



You think your music taste is great? Perfect, go study music, become a DJ or a producer, but please don’t shove your music taste onto other people who would rather listen to silence then the latest remix of DJ Khaled’s new song while sitting on a bus on their way to home.


March 15, 1941 -
The first of three appearances of Cecil Turtle, Tortoise Beats Hare, premiered on this date.



This is the first time Bugs Bunny loses in the end, proving that Bugs isn't completely indestructible; Cecil is one of the very few characters who was actually able to beat Bugs Bunny not once but three times in a row and at the rabbit's own game.


March 15, 1946 -
Columbia Pictures released Charles Vidor's film-noir classic, Gilda, starring Rita Hayworth and Glen Ford on this date.



Harry Cohn was worried about bad publicity affecting Rita Hayworth's box-office pull; her marriage to Orson Welles was a constant worry for him. Hayworth and Welles were, in fact, in the middle of one of their separations during the shooting, and the gossip magazines were full of stories of an affair between her and Glenn Ford. When the two weren't filming, the mogul would barrage the duo with angry phone calls and demand that Hayworth go home.


March 15, 1956 -
The landmark science-fiction film, Forbidden Planet (think The Tempest in Outer Space), premiered on this date.



The famous poster for the film shows a menacing robot carrying a struggling pretty girl - a staple of "monster movie" posters from the 1950's. In fact, no such scene occurs in the film itself and the robot portrayed in the poster is of course actually the very likeable Robby the Robot.


March 15, 1972 -
The greatest film ever about pasta sauce making and risk aversion management, The Godfather, premiered in New York City on this date.





Marlon Brando wanted to make Don Corleone "look like a bulldog," so he stuffed his cheeks with cotton wool for the audition. For the actual filming, he wore a mouthpiece made by a dentist. This appliance is on display in the American Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York.


March 15, 1975 -
The Doobie Brothers song Black Water hit the No. 1 position on the Billboard charts, on this date.



Black Water wasn't seen as having hit potential, so it was relegated to the B-side of Another Park, Another Sunday.


March 15, 1977 -
Everybody was first welcomed to The Regal Beagle when Three's Company, starring John Ritter, Joyce DeWitt, and Suzanne Somers, premiered on this date.



During the earlier seasons' opening credits, the brunette walking by the beach who causes Jack to fall off his bike is Suzanne Somers in a wig.


March 15, 1977 -
One of the first TV "dramedies", Eight Is Enough began airing on ABC-TV on this date.



Based on the 1975 autobiographical account of newspaper editor and columnist Thomas Braden, who also served as co-host, with Pat Buchanan, of CNN's Crossfire. They changed the name from Braden to Bradford because they thought Bradford sounded more likable, more all-American, less ethnic. But the first name of the book's hero, Tom, stayed the same, as did the first names of the mother and the eight children.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
March 15, 44 BC -
Julius Caesar, already warned to be wary on this the Ides of March by the astrologer Spurinna, was assassinated with pointy knives by a group of Senators, including Brutus and Cassius, at the Pompey theater.



They were angry at him because he had crossed the Rubicon. Later Marc Antony borrowed everyone's ears and told them that Brutus was an honorable man, which upset them so much they had a Civil War.



Sixteen centuries later, more or less, William Shakespeare immortalized the story and eventually Marlon Brando got to play Marc Antony, so everyone was happy in the end.



Caesar is also celebrated because he wrote a famous book called The Garlic Wars, which begins with the famous line, All garlic is divided into three cloves. It also includes the line - veni, vidi, vinci, the exact meaning of which is still a matter of debate but, if my own Latin studies are worth anything, probably involves Druids and hollandaise sauce.


March 15, 1812 -
Luddites attack Frank Vickerman's wool processing factory at Taylor Hill in West Yorkshire, on this date, resulting in general destruction and attempted arson.

The rampaging Luddites were incensed because his machines replaced workers, but Vickerman was primarily targeted because of involvement in an Anti-Luddite committee.

So now you know more about Luddites than you thought you ever would (remember, smash the fitbits.)


Today's episode of Oh, that Wacky Russian Revolution:
At two o'clock in the morning on March 15, 1917 the Tsar sent word to Petrograd that he was awfully sorry about the war and starvation and everything, but that he had some really good ideas about what they could do now, was looking forward to working with them, believed that healthy debate was a symptom of good government, and so on.

The new government (which had recently moved to Moscow) told him to blow it out his ass.



And so at three o'clock in the afternoon, Nicholas abdicated in favor of his son, Alexei (who had measles).

The new government told him and his son to blow it out their asses.



At 11:15 pm, Nicholas signed a proclamation that both he and his son (who had measles) would abdicate in favor of his brother, the Grand Duke Mikhail.



The next day, the new government told Nicholas, Alexei (who had measles), and the Grand Duke Mikhail to blow it out their asses. (It seems that they were anally fixated.)


March 15, 1950 -
New York City suffering through a persistent drought, hired for $100 a day - a very large sum in those times, particularly for a scientist - Dr. Wallace E. Howell, a meteorologist to make rain, on this date. Dr. Howell, who had participated in early scientific research into cloud seeding, set up shop at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, using a police airplane to sprinkle silver iodide crystals into clouds over the Catskill watershed.

The rains came and the reservoirs began to rise. There was even a mid-April snowstorm, referred to in the papers as ''Howell's snow.'' By 1951, the crisis had passed and Dr. Howell was laid off in February of 1951.


March 15, 1964 -
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, finally legitimized their scandalous affair and were married on this date.



Both were already married – he was married at the time to former actress Sybil Williams, she to her fourth husband Eddie Fisher, whom she had famously ‘stolen’ from Debbie Reynolds.


March 15, 2006 -
A stockpile of provisions that were made for the survival of residents if New York City had been hit by a nuclear attack has been found inside the masonry foundations of Brooklyn Bridge, on this date.



City workers had been conducting a regular structural inspection of the bridge when they came across the cold-war-era hoard of water drums, medical supplies, survivor blankets, drugs and food in the 350,000 Civil Defense All Purpose Survival Crackers. These are said to been put there in the 1950s. And if you hurry, some of those crackers are still on sale at Lots Less.



And so it goes.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

All garlic is divided into three cloves, indeed,
(kudos for this aromatic apophthegm)