Today is National Grab Some Nuts Day.
(How you celebrate is between you and your god.)
August 3, 1926 -
I have a simple life. I mean, you just give me a drum roll, they announce my name, and I come out and sing. In my job I have a contract that says I'm a singer. So I sing.
Apparent Mr. Bennett is like the old dog you can't keep on the front porch.
Cent'anni Tony!
August 3, 1929 -
Four famous vaudevillian performers took a chance on the new medium of 'talking pictures' with the general release of the film, The Cocoanuts, starring the Four Marx Brothers --
Chico, Groucho, Harpo and Zeppo, on this date,.
Filmed on a stage in New York City. Sound films were still so new that soundproofing was not installed, so the film had to be shot in the early hours of the morning to reduce outside traffic noise. (The studio is still in use and when not closed due to COVID, is where I now pretend to earn a living.)
August 3, 1941 -
Martha Kostyra, business magnate, television host, author, magazine publisher and ex-con was born on this date.
Remember folks, please don't piss off Martha - she's a woman of a certain age, who raises her own poultry, hold her hard liquor, hangs out with rappers, and has her own line of CBD products.
August 3, 1963 -
Allan Sherman released Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah (A Letter from Camp), in the US on this date.
Sherman was a writer on The Steve Allen Show and created the game show I've Got a Secret. He went on to record comedy albums. The song won a 1964 Grammy Award for comedy.
And somehow in the same universe, The Beach Boys’ Surfer Girl was released on this date as well. (This is the first song Brian Wilson ever wrote and the first one he produced.)
The B-side of the single was Little Deuce Coupe.
Ah, sweet mysteries of life.
August 3, 1970 -
Shelved for two years after a disastrous test screening at which audiences yelled at the screen and walked out of the theater, Warner Brothers finally released Performance, directed by Donald Cammell, and Nicolas Roeg, and starring James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, and Michèle Breton, on this date in New York City. (Bunkies, please check with your folks before you click on the link above, the film contains nekked people engaging in adult behaviour.)
Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg (mainly responsible for the 'look' of the film) also benefited from a lack of interference from Warner Bros. studio executives, who believed they were getting a Rolling Stones equivalent of A Hard Day's Night (1964). Instead, they delivered a dark, experimental film which included graphic depictions of violence, sex and drug use.
August 3, 1979 -
The Talking Heads release their third album, Fear of Music, on this date.
The album, produced by Brian Eno, was recorded in Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth's New York City loft where the band often rehearsed. They parked a mobile recording unit outside to record the tracks as they played from the loft.
August 3, 1985 -
Tears For Fears found themselves again on the Billboard charts when Shout hit No.1 on this date, (Everybody Wants To Rule The World was their first hit.)
Tears for Fears were followers of American psychologist Arthur Janov's school of Primal Therapy. This song was inspired by his primal therapy treatment, which worked by getting people to confront their fears by shouting and screaming. The name of the group came from Janov's book Prisoners Of Pain.
August 3, 1991 –
Pearl Jam plays the club RKCNDY in Seattle on this date. The show is filmed and used to create their first video for the song Alive. The audio from the show was used in the video, as the band hated the idea of lip-synching.
The instrumental demo of this song was titled Dollar Short. Eddie Vedder's lyrics went in a direction the band didn't expect, but they loved what they heard and quickly agreed that he should be their lead singer - only one other guy had been auditioned. Reflecting on how everything came together so quickly, the band credited timing and fate for Vedder's arrival. Eddie said that it took him 12 hours to write and record the songs for the demo, and he could have easily blown it off.
August 3, 1996 -
The Macarena by Los Del Rio appeared at #1 on the pop charts on this date. (For God sake, please don't listen. Save yourself from the ensuing madness.)
This was originally released on a local label in Spain in 1993, where it did fairly well. The next year, the American label BMG bought the Spanish label and set out to make Macarena a hit in America. They marketed an English language version to dance clubs and cruise ships, then released it as a single in 1995. It was a minor hit until the summer of 1996, when the Macarena dance craze hit America.
August 3, 2001 -
Disney's surprise comedy hit, The Princess Diaries, directed by Gary Marshall and starring Julie Andrews, Héctor Elizondo, and introducing Anne Hathaway, went into general release in the US on this date.
One of the waiters in the dinner scene when Mia breaks the water glass says, "It happens all the time." The same actor played a waiter in Pretty Woman, and said the same line when Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) flings the snail and the waiter catches it. Both movies were directed by Garry Marshall, as well as featured Hector Elizondo and Larry Miller.
Another job posting from The ACME Employment Agency
Today in History:
August 3, 1492 -
File this under: more lies my teacher told me.
Christopher Columbus famously sailed from the port of Palos de la Frontera, in southern Spain across the ocean blue in a fleet of three ships: one ship was owned by Juan Niño, and was named the Santa Clara, but became known by its nickname, the Nina , the second ship was owned by Cristóbal Quintero, and was named the Pinta and the third, Santa Maria de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula.
(Every thing else you think you know about Columbus is a lie.)
August 3, 1921 –
Under the direction of the Ohio Department of Agriculture, Lt. John A. Macready, a U.S. Army pilot, made the first application of 175 pounds of lead arsenate pesticide with a modified Curtiss JN-6 "Super Jenny.", thus creating crop dusting.
August 3, 1943 (I have seen this event posted as happening on August 30th)-
Gen George Patton bitch slapped shell-shocked private Charles Kuhl, in the hospital accusing him of cowardice, on this date.
The incident nearly ended Patton's career; he was ordered by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to apologize for this and a second, similar episode. It seemed to help Francis Ford Coppola's career though.
August 3, 1946 -
Santa Claus Land, the world's first themed amusement park, opened in Santa Claus, Indiana, on this date.
The park offered a Santa, a toy shop, toy displays, a restaurant, and themed children's rides, one of which was The Freedom Train. Santa Claus Land didn't charge admission until 1955 and changed its name to Holiday World & Splashin' Safari in 1984.
On August 3, 1958, the U.S. nuclear submarine Nautilus accomplished the first undersea voyage to the geographic North Pole.
The world's first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus dove at Point Barrow, Alaska, and traveled nearly 1,000 miles under the Arctic ice cap to reach the top of the world.
August 3, 1966 -
Comedian and social critic Lenny Bruce died of a morphine overdose in his Hollywood Hills home on this date, two years after his original obituary was published in The Realist.
At the time of his death, Bruce was being maliciously harassed by police and districts attorney in various states for his groundbreaking standup performances, causing great difficulty in finding venues at which to perform. After his death, he became a cult hero, many other comics, like George Carlin and Richard Pryor, considering him a martyr to the cause of free speech.
August 3, 1977 –
Tandy Corporation announced the TRS-80, one of the world’s first mass-produced personal computers.
The basic model originally shipped with 4 KB of RAM.
And so it goes.
Santa Maria de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula? Indeed.
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