On a personal note

(As you are reading this, I am in the hospital having some corrective surgery. My posts may be abbreviated and delayed over the next few day. But bunkies don't worry, your ole doc is strong like bull.)


Each year on June 12, people in the United States observe National Red Rose Day. The day is honors the red rose, the flower that is a symbol of love and romance.



Apparent the other color roses don't have as strong a lobby.



Today is also Crowded Nest Awareness Day. While this holiday has been celebrated for years, once again this obscure holiday has never seemed more appropriate, since COVID, many family began multi-generational living together again.



Crowded Nest Syndrome (sometimes referred to as CNS by people not suffering from it) occurs when you have children who have moved out of the house and you've gone through Empty Nest Syndrome only to have your children (and possibly their children) come back home again and/or having your parents or in-laws move in with you so you can care for them.


June 12, 1913 -
Pathé Frères studios releases Dachshund (also known as The Artists Dream,) the first animated cartoon made in the U.S. with modern techniques.



John Randolph Bray invented and patented the process while producing the film. He patented many of his improvements on the animation process, realizing early on the business potential of these developments.


June 12, 1950 -
Elia Kazan's film-noir thriller, Panic In The Streets, opened on this date.



In the scene where Palance hits Widmark on the head with a gun, the actors rehearsed it with a rubber gun, but when the cameras rolled, Palance substituted a real gun. Widmark, who wasn't expecting it was out for twenty minutes. According to Widmark "Why did he switch? Who knows?" In a 1986 interview Widmark also recalled how Palance got into the mood of his character by beating on flunky Zero Mostel off-screen. A black and blue Mostel had to go to the hospital after his first week on the movie. "They had to soak him in epsom pads."


June 12, 1963 -
The four-hour film spectacle, Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, premiered in New York City, on this date.



A clerical error by Twentieth Century Fox probably cost Roddy McDowall a Best Actor in a Supporting Role Academy Award nomination for his performance in this movie. The studio erroneously listed him as a leading player rather than a supporting one. When Fox asked the Academy to correct the error, it refused, saying the ballots were already at the printer. Fox then published an open letter in the trade papers, apologizing to McDowall: "We feel that it is important that the industry realize that your electric performance as Octavian in 'Cleopatra,' which was unanimously singled out by the critics as one of the best supporting performances by an actor this year, is not eligible for an Academy Award nomination in that category . . . due to a regrettable error on the part of Twentieth Century Fox."


June 12, 1967 -
The fifth James Bond film, You Only Live Twice, starring Sean Connery, (screenplay by Roald Dahl,) premiered in London, on this date.



The atmosphere during the production was reportedly chilly. Sean Connery had grown bored with the Bond role and frustrated with the public fascination with the franchise. The movie posters declaring that "Sean Connery IS James Bond" didn't help. Furthermore, Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell were appearing in the James Bond knock-off Operation Kid Brother with Neil Connery, Sean's younger brother, and the elder Connery let them know he was not happy about it.


June 12, 1968 -
Roman Polanksi's horror classic Rosemary's Baby, premiered on this date.



Many scenes are shot in one continuous unbroken take or with minimal cuts in an unnoticeable way, such as the opening scene where Rosemary and Guy first tour their apartment (two cuts), the laundry room scene (only one cut), the "let's have a baby" scene, the New Year's Eve party, Rosemary's and Guy's argument after their party, Rosemary's getting the unfortunate phone call about Hutch, the final scene at Dr. Sapirstein's office where she tells him of Adrian Marcoto, Rosemary's phone call with Baumgard, and the famous phone booth scene.


June 12, 1972 -
The film Deep Throat was released in NYC on this date. You look for longer clips, I'm not taking you there.



The total box office of this movie has often been stated to be $600 million. As noted by Roger Ebert in his review of Inside Deep Throat, most of the porn theaters in the pre-video days were owned by the mob. Inflating box office receipts could have been one of their ways of laundering income from drugs and prostitution, so the $600 million figure may have been a gross overestimation. More conservative estimates would put the figure somewhere around $100 million. Whatever may be the case, very few of the people directly involved in the making of the film saw a big piece of the earnings. As stated in Inside Deep Throat, much of the box office disappeared when mobsters came to cinemas to collect all the cash profits, with no one being able to do something about it.


June 12, 1981 -
MGM released the fantasy film Clash of the Titans, directed by Desmond Davis, special effect by Ray Harryhausen, and starring Laurence Olivier, Harry Hamlin, Maggie Smith, with a cameo by Ursula Andress, in the U.S. on this date.



Laurence Olivier was so ill during the making of the film, he would often go and lean on his tall, burly co-star Pat Roach, saying, "Let me draw some of your strength, dear boy."


June 12, 1981 -
A bizarre coincidence but Mel Brooks' History of the World Part 1 and Lucas/ Spielberg's Raiders Of The Lost Ark both premiered on this date.



According to Mel Brooks, the Moses scene was a last minute addition. "Sometimes, you will get very lucky, and the set will give you ideas for jokes", Brooks said in a 2012 interview with the Directors Guild of America. One day, he was gazing out at the scenery that had been built for the caveman segments, when the gears in his head started turning. "I immediately thought, 'Well, where do I go from here?'" Brooks recalled. Heading into the shoot, his plan was to "skip the Bible and go to Rome." But eventually, he realized that the Stone Age set might enable him to explore another chapter in world history. With a few minor alterations, Brooks converted his fake caves into a mountaintop, and the Moses bit was born.



The famous scene in which Indy shoots a marauding and flamboyant swordsman was not in the original script. Harrison Ford was supposed to use his whip to get the sword out of his attacker's hands, but the food poisoning he and the rest of the crew had gotten made him too sick to perform the stunt. After several unsuccessful tries, Ford suggested "shooting the sucker". Steven Spielberg immediately took him up on the idea, and the scene was successfully filmed.

Aren't you glad that you know all of this.


June 12, 1987 -
20th Century Fox releases the science fiction action film Predator, directed John McTiernan and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Elpidia Carrillo, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, and Kevin Peter Hall, in the U.S. on this date.



Jesse Ventura was delighted to find out from the wardrobe department that his arms were one inch bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger's. He suggested to Schwarzenegger that they measure arms, with the winner getting a bottle of champagne. Ventura lost, because Schwarzenegger had told the wardrobe department to tell Ventura that his arms were bigger.


June 12, 1989 -
The short lived TV comedy series Doctor, Doctor starring Matt Frewer, premiered on CBS TV on this date



It series was picked up for a full season the following fall. A second season followed in fall 1990, but the show was cancelled at the end of the 1990-1991 season, due to low ratings.


June 12, 1997 -
Joel Schumacher's 'odd' take on the Batman story, Batman and Robin, starring the engorged nipple clad George Clooney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman, Alicia Silverstone, and Chris O'Donnell premieres in Los Angeles, on this date.



Most of the scenes with Batgirl were cut, because Alicia Silverstone had gained a few pounds during production and the wardrobe team had to refit her costume. When the press discovered the news, they slammed Silverstone's weight gain and mocked the actress for being "too fat" to fit into her costume. Director Joel Schumacher publicly defended Silverstone during interviews and press meetings, joking "What is this girl's big sin - that she ate some pizza?" When the taunting continued, Schumacher lashed out at the reporters that taunted her. He said in a magazine interview, "It was horrible. I thought it was very cruel. She was a teenager who gained a few pounds - like all of us do at certain times. I would confront female journalists and I'd say, 'With so many young people suffering from anorexia and bulimia, why are you crucifying this girl?'"


Word of the Day


Today in History -
In early 1381 England imposed a new tax, which was called the "Pole Tax" because everyone got the shaft.

Peats, led by Wat Tyler marched on London, on this date, where they destroyed the houses of government ministers.


June 12, 1839 -
Alexander Cartwright, and not, Abner Doubleday, should be credited with the invention of Baseball.



On the one hundredth anniversary of the apocryphal story, the National Baseball Hall of Fame opened in Cooperstown, New York (in an effort to bring tourists to town.)



The first five inductees were Walter Johnson, Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson and Babe Ruth.


The Swiss Army Knife was patented on June 12, 1897. It was the fruit of centuries of Swiss research, development, and testing. Its release was heralded as the dawn of a golden age of Swiss technology.



Switzerland may not have won a war since, but they've never been caught without a corkscrew.


June 12, 1923 –
In New York City on this date, Harry Houdini performed one of his most famous stunts - escaping from a straitjacket, suspended 40 feet in the air, from a crane being used to build the New York subway.



Starting from when he was hoisted up in the air by the crane, to when the straitjacket was completely off, it took him two minutes and thirty-seven seconds.


June 12, 1942 -
A young Dutch girl received the crappy gift of a diary as a birthday present on this date.

She natters on for a little more than two years of small, inconsequential things young girls usually do in their diaries and then she abruptly stops writing. Today, her diary has been published in over 30 languages.



So parents, chose wisely when giving your children birthday gifts.


June 12, 1963 -
Civil rights leader and NAACP official, Medgar Evers was fatally shot in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi by the KKK.



An informant in the KKK, Delmar Dennis, later served as a key prosecution witness in convicting Byron De La Beckwith for the slaying. Beckwith was convicted of murdering Evers and sentenced to life in prison; he died in 2001 at age 80.


June 12, 1967 -
56 years ago today, the US Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, struck down state laws prohibiting interracial marriages.



Mildred Jeter and her white husband, Richard Loving, married in 1958, had been arrested in Virginia within weeks of arriving from Washington DC and convicted on charges of "cohabiting as man and wife."


June 12, 1978 -
David Berkowitz was sentenced to a maximum of 315 years in prison without the possibility of parole on this date.

Berkowitz killed six New Yorkers between 1976 and 1977, known collectively as the Son of Sam murders.

Harvey, Sam Carr's dog, was not charged with any crime.


June 12, 1982 -
The largest anti-nuclear protest, with some one million anti-nuclear demonstrators rallied in Central Park, NYC on this date.



At the time, it was also the largest political demonstration, of any kind, in American history.


June 12, 1987 -
President Ronald Reagan publicly challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall at Brandenburg Gate.



Although there is some disagreement over how much influence, if any, Reagan's words had on the destruction of the wall, the speech is remembered as an important moment in Cold War history.



And so it goes.