It's not quite Life in the Margins Day

Every year March 10th is the Festival of Life in the Cracks Day, celebrating the first signs of spring weather, such as the green sprouts sprouting from cracks in the pavement.

It a nice way to honor the rebirth and renewal in life, and see beauty and life everywhere as well. It's also the birthday of Chuck Norris



Remember, Chuck Norris has a diary, it is called the Guinness Book Of World Records.


March 10, 1938 -
Bette Davis won her second Academy Award and re-ignited her sagging career when Jezebel, premiered in New York City on this date.



Bette Davis first met William Wyler in 1931 when she auditioned for a part in his film A House Divided. She was late and had hurriedly put on a size 8 dress that was cut very low. As she walked by she heard Wyler say to one of his crew members "What do you think of these dames who show their tits and think they can get jobs?". Davis was completely humiliated by his comment and hadn't forgotten it when they later met to discuss working on Jezebel. The irony was that Davis had a reputation for foregoing her sex appeal - often appearing without makeup. 


March 10, 1958 -
Big Records released the single, Our Song, by a teenage duo from Queens, New York, Tom and Jerry, on this date.



The duo in a few years will become famous in the '60s under their real names, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.


March 10, 1972 -
Peter Bogdanovich's valentine to screwball comedies, What's Up, Doc?, starring Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Kenneth Mars, and Madeline Kahn, premiered in the US on this date



Peter Bogdanovich did not get permission from the city of San Francisco to drive cars down the concrete steps in Alta Plaza Park; these were badly damaged during filming and still show the scars today. Because of the damage to city property during the filming of this movie, San Francisco now requires productions to provide with its filming permit application a very detailed scene-by-scene breakdown of everything that the company is asking permission to film.


March 10, 1972 -
Universal Pictures released the science fiction film Silent Running, directed by Douglas Trumbull (who just passed away last week,) and starring Bruce Dern, on this date.



The model of the Valley Forge space freighter was 26 feet in length and was constructed with steel, wood, plastic, and over 650 army tank model kits. After filming was completed, the model was placed into storage. However, as the expense to store the model continued to mount, it was later disassembled and destroyed in the mid-1970s. The bulk of the model was sent to a landfill in the Sepulveda Pass next to Interstate 405 in Los Angeles, but several large pieces survived, including at least two of the domes, one of which is in the collection of the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, Washington, USA.


March 10, 1978 -
TV audiences get to see for the first time, the trials and tribulations of Dr David (and not Bruce) Banner and his travels to find the cure for his gamma ray exposure accident when The Incredible Hulk, starring Bill Bixby, Jack Colvin and Lou Ferrigno, premiered on CBS TV on this date.



First appearance of the Hulk making his escape by breaking through a wall and running down an alley (wearing blue pants). This scene was re-used many times over the course of the series.


March 10, 1989 -
Terry Gilliam's fourth film, The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen, starring John Neville, Eric Idle, Uma Thurman, and a whole bunch of other people, premiered on this date.



According to Eric Idle when he was told to shave his head for the role he responded that he didn't want to. So, the director Terry Gilliam said that he would shave his as well. Idle agreed but when he did it, Gilliam didn't keep his promise. 


March 10, 1994 -
The surprise Australian independent hit, Muriel's Wedding, starring Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths, and Bill Hunter went into limited release in the US on this date.



Bill Hunter was filming The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Muriel's Wedding at the same time, each requiring him to have different length hair, beard and to be in different parts of the country. Both films developed international cult followings and prominently featured the music of ABBA.


March 10, 1997 -
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon and starring Sarah Michelle Geller premiered on WB Television Network on this date.



In 2010, Entertainment Weekly magazine named Buffy the number three character of all time, coming behind Homer Simpson and Harry Potter.


Another moment of edifying culture


Today in History:
March 10, 1876 -
It was on this date in 1876 that Alexander Graham Bell (Don Ameche) conducted the first successful experiment on a radical new technology. He put a "transmitter" in one room of his home and a "receiver" in another. He connected them with wire. He then shouted into the mouthpiece of the transmitter, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you."



A moment later, his assistant, who had been waiting in the room with the receiver, came into Bell's room and said he had heard and understood everything.



When Alexander Graham Bell finished his invention of the telephone, he noticed he had two missed calls from Chuck Norris.



The invention didn't enjoy much commercial success because the market for persons with out-of-earshot assistants named Watson was not as large as Bell had hoped, but it did serve as a major stepping-stone to one of Bell's most significant inventions, the Watson Detonator.


March 10, 1948 -
The State owned Communist newspaper reported that the Czech foreign minister Jan Masaryk was thrown from a window at his apartment in Prague under mysterious circumstances on this date.

Authorities rule his death was a "suicide" and then decide to rule the death as accidentally because he seems to have "fallen while sitting in a yoga position on a window sill to combat insomnia". But most likely he was suffocated first, judging from the fact that he had lost control of his bowels and the deep nail marks on the window sill.

I hate when that happens.


March 10, 1948 -
... Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold ....

Author and artist, Zelda Fitzgerald died in a fire at Highland Hospital, NC, along with eight other inmates on this date.



She was locked in on the 3rd floor while undergoing insulin-induced coma therapy.

I really hate when that happens.


March 10, 1951 -
FBI director J. Edgar Hoover announces that he has turned down an offer to become commissioner of baseball on this date.

The governor of California, Earl Warren, (and soon to be proponent of 'The Magic Single Bullet Theory',) had previously rejected an offer to become baseball's leader. Think how the nation would be different if baseball was able to fit Hoover with a pair of high heel cleats.


March 10, 1974 -
Second Lt. Hiroo Onoda of the Imperial Japanese Army surrenders to Philippine authorities on this date. He believed World War II was still underway and continued a 30 year guerrilla battle with other islanders. His final capitulation came when his senior officer, Maj. Taniguchi, ordered his surrender.



Upon return to the Japanese homeland, Onoda was treated as a hero, but had difficulty coping with his "postwar" life. Mr. Omoda died on January 16, 2014.


March 10, 1977 -
Roman Polanski gave a 13 year old girl Quaaludes and has sex with her during a photo shoot at Jack Nicholson's home on this date. He later fled the country to avoid statutory rape charges.

He would currently be living in Los Angeles (and probably having more fun) if he just went into the bathroom and auditioned his hand puppet alone.


March 10, 1977 -
Astronomers James L. Elliot, Edward W. Dunham and Douglas J. Mink discover rings around Uranus on this date.

Allow yourself to titter and guffaw like a school boy.


March 10, 1980 -
Jean Harris shot and killed her unfaithful lover, cardiologist Herman Tarnower, co-author of The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet in his Purchase N.Y. home on this date.



She was granted clemency on December 31, 1992 by Governor Mario Cuomo after she served 12 years of a 15 year sentence. Harris was released in January 1993. Mrs Harris died in December 2013.

Sometimes, diets make you a little hangry



And so it goes.