Tequila: because adulting is hard

Today is National Tequila Day. Tequila originated from Mexico in the 1800s and is now one of the most popular alcohols worldwide, especially in America.



While I am not a tequila man myself, I would not turn a Frozen Margarita down on a hot and humid day.


July 24, 1939 -
Paramount Pictures' William Wellman's action adventure film, Beau Geste, starring Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, and Susan Hayward premiered in the US on this date.



Charles Barton, who has a small part as Buddy McMonigal, was, at the time, an assistant director at Paramount, having started his career as an actor. He had had a bad experience working as an A.D. to Paramount's top director, Cecil B. DeMille, on Union Pacific and refused to work with him again. Paramount demoted him to a bit actor on this picture as punishment. Barton soon left Paramount for Columbia where he was made a director and never worked for Paramount again.


July 24, 1946 -
Paramount Studios released the film-noir classic, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, starring Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott and Kirk Douglas (his film debut,) on this date.



Originally, Barbara Stanwyck was not pleased that Producer Hal B. Wallis gave her and Lizabeth Scott equal billing in this movie, since Stanwyck was clearly the star and deserved billing above the title. However, years later, Lizabeth Scott walked into a restaurant in Hollywood and was escorted to a table, just coincidentally, next to Stanwyck's. Stanwyck hugged her very affectionately, and said how very good it was to see her and how much she had enjoyed working with her on this movie.


July 24, 1948 -
... Crumbly Crunchies are the best
Look delicious on your vest
Serve them to unwanted guests
Stuff the mattress with the rest....



A great Warner Bros. cartoon directed by Chuck Jones, Haredevil Hare, was released on this date. (It was the first appearance of Marvin the Martian, though he wasn't named until decades later.)



Look for a photo of then freshman California Congressman Richard M. Nixon who appears in the faux newspaper The Daily Snooze under the headline "Heroic Rabbit Volunteers As First Passenger."


July 24, 1952 -
Fred Zinnemann's classic western, High Noon, starring Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, and Thomas Mitchell, premiered in New York City, on this date.



In 1951, after 25 years in show business, Gary Cooper's professional reputation was in decline, and he was dropped from the "Motion Picture Herald's" list of the top-ten box-office performers. In the following year, he made a big comeback, at the age of 51, with this film.


July 24, 1971 -
The Raiders' (formerly Paul Revere and the Raiders) song, Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian) reached No. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



The song was written by John D. Loudermilk, a singer/songwriter who recorded as "Johnny Dee". Loudermilk cut 10 of his own albums between the years 1961-1979; he hit the charts with 10 of his own singles between the years 1957-1967, and had tremendous success writing songs for other artists. Working from Nashville, Tennessee, he also wrote hit songs for the Chet Atkins, Johnny Cash, Stonewall Jackson, and Sue Thompson. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1976.


July 24, 1974 -
The controversial film Death Wish, based on the novel by Brian Garfield, directed by Michael Winner and starring Charles Bronson was released in the US on this date.



After the success of Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood was offered the role of Paul Kersey but declined, feeling he would be poorly cast. He also thought that Gregory Peck would have been right for the part.


July 24, 1976 -
Elton John's duet with Kiki Dee, Don't Go Breaking My Heart, reached No. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



This was the second-biggest-selling record of 1976 in both the UK and US (In the UK, Save Your Kisses for Me was #1; in the US it was Silly Love Songs by Wings.


July 24, 1976 -
The Manhattans' song Kiss And Say Goodbye hits #1 in the US on this date.



The song was produced by the Philadelphia-based record producer Bobby Martin, a former member of the MFSB band of session musicians and recorded in 1975 at Joe Tarsia's Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia. It would be a full year until it was released, possibly as the label was concerned about dropping a ballad during the disco explosion. "We thought that 'Kiss and Say Goodbye' would be the wrong song to release, and we were very much upset with Columbia choosing a R&B-Country song during the disco era," said Lovett. "And how wrong we were!"


July 24, 1978 -
The truly execrable Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band starring the Brothers Gibbs was released upon an unsuspecting public on this date.



Alice Cooper checked himself into a New York City rehab facility (which he quickly discovered was more of a mental asylum) for alcoholism. He was granted a temporary leave for three days (November 18 to 20, 1977) to record his vocals and shoot his scenes for the film.


July 24, 1977 -
Donna Summer's single I Feel Love, with producer Giorgio Moroder reached No. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



I Feel Love is an electronic music landmark, with a track built entirely on a Moog synthesizer. Giorgio Moroder, a leading light in the genre and a longtime collaborator with Donna Summer, came up with the music. His associate, Pete Bellotte, produced the track with him and wrote the lyrics with Summer. Moroder and Bellotte are responsible for most of Summer's early disco hits.


July 24, 1993 –
UB40's cover of the Elvis Presley song, Can’t Help Falling In Love, hits No. 1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



Elvis Presley originally recorded this in 1961. UB40 were asked to record an Elvis tune of their choice for a new film called Honeymoon In Vegas. The band's drummer, James Brown, suggested they record this song because it was one of his favorites. The band agreed but when they presented the song to the film director Andrew Bergman, they learned that a few other acts had recorded the same song, with Clarence Giddons and Bruno Hernandez's version making it into the film, whilst Bono's version ended up on the soundtrack album, even though it wasn't in the film. However it was included on the soundtrack for the movie Sliver, starring Sharon Stone and William Baldwin.


July 24, 1998 -
The unflinchingly gritty Steven Spielberg war flick, Saving Private Ryan premiered on this date.



The cast endured a grueling, week-long course at boot camp instructed by technical advisor Dale Dye. Tom Hanks, who had previously been trained by Dye for the Vietnam war scenes in Forrest Gump, was the only one of them who knew it would be a hard and uncompromising experience: "The other guys, I think, were expecting something like camping in the woods, and maybe learning things while sitting around the campfire."


Another job posting from The ACME Employment Agency


Today in History:
July 24, 1567 -

Prince Edward of England proposed marriage to the Queen immediately and his proposal is therefore known as the Rough Wooing. While the pedophile Prince waited for the Queen to acquire enough verbal skills to reply, the Scottish parliament annulled the engagement.

Edward's father, the English King Henry VIII, considered this an insult and declared war. Following an especially nasty Scottish defeat in 1547, Mary was sent to France. It was hoped she would learn to read and write there, and perhaps reach puberty.

She was raised in the court of Henry II, which ought to have taught her some manners, but instead inspired her to marry a dolphin. Eventually the dolphin became king and died, leaving Mary the dowager queen of France. She was 18. Her mother had meanwhile died in Scotland, which caused the Protestants to rebel. They imported the Reformation and banned the Pope. Mary, being Catholic, returned to Scotland to work out a compromise: the country could be Protestant as long as she was allowed to be Catholic.

Four years later she married her cousin, Lord Darnley, a Two-Door Steward. Unfortunately he turned out to be disgusting, and even the birth of a son could not induce Lord Darnley to behave. He was therefore struck by an explosion the following year and subsequently died of strangulation. She was then kidnapped by one of the men suspected of strangling Lord Darnley, a certain Earl of Bothwell, whom she therefore made a Duke and married.

This angered the Protestants, who rose up against her and, on this very day in 1567, made her abdicate in favor of her son, who was immediately crowned as James VI.



She then escaped, raised an army, and was promptly defeated. She became a guest (or, in English, "prisoner") of Queen Elizabeth, until she was caught writing letters asking friends to support (or, in Scottish, "kill") the English Queen.



She was therefore beheaded, and remains dead to this day.

(This will be on the test.)


343 years ago today, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded a trading post at Fort Ponchartrain for France on the future site of the city of Detroit, Michigan, in an attempt to halt the advance of the English into the western Great Lakes region.

Mr Cadillac himself thereby came to be known as "the Rolls Royce of settlers." M. Cadillac would be happy to see the improvements going on in Detroit today.


July 24, 1883 -
Captain Matthew Webb wasn't having a great day today. Webb, the first person to swim the English Channel in 1875, was attempting to swim across the Niagara River just below the falls.

The Captain was looking to collect a £12,000.00 fortune, when he jumped from his small boat into the raging torrent. He hit his head on jagged rocks and drowned while trying to swim across the Niagara River. His last words were (apparently,) "If I die, they will do something for my wife?"


July 24, 1908 -
Sometimes, it's good to be the king ... you get to decide the length of the Olympic marathon.

When the modern Olympics began in Athens in 1896, a race of 40 kilometers, or 24.85 miles, was held to commemorate the legend of Pheidippides. He is the guy who ran from Marathon to Athens, cried, 'Nike!', realized that he forgot to sign the endorsement contract, then promptly died. For the London 1908 Olympics race, on this date, the marathon was extended to 26 miles so that The Princess of Wales (the future Queen Mary, grandmother of Queen Elizabeth) and her childrn (King Edward VII's grandchildren) could watch the start of the marathon and Queen Alexandria could see the finish from the royal box. The organizers decided on a course of 26 miles and 385 yards from the start at Windsor Castle to the royal entrance to the White City Stadium, followed by a lap of the track, finishing in front of the Royal Box.



The race had a thrilling conclusion - entering the stadium first was Italian Dorando Pietri. But he was exhausted, delirious. He turned the wrong way on the track, reversed course and stumbled, according to news accounts, five times in the final quarter-mile. By assisting Pietri to his feet, race officials assisted Pietri to his feet, jeopardizing his gold medal. But as the official Olympic report said, “It was impossible to leave him there, for it looked as if he might die in the very presence of the Queen.”



Pietri reached the tape first, collapsed and was placed on a stretcher. Arriving second was John Hayes of the United States. The Americans protested the aid given to Pietri, and Hayes was declared the winner. Though he was disqualified, Pietri became a hero. Queen Alexandra presented him with a silver cup. He spurred an international marathon craze. Irving Berlin wrote a song about him. And finally in 1921, the official marathon distance became 26 miles 385 yards.

So now you know


July 24, 1915 -
Almost 850 Western Electric employees and their family members perish when the chartered steamer SS Eastland rolled over in Chicago harbor on this date. History blames the top-heaviness of the ship, exacerbated (ironically) by the recent addition of lifeboats.



Moral: Avoid company picnics.


July 24, 1959 -
While visiting a model kitchen in a U.S. exhibition in Moscow, Vice President Richard M. Nixon debated with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at a U.S. exhibition in the famous 'Kitchen' debate, on the merits of capitalism and communism



Nixon correctly said that the $100-a-month mortgage for the model ranch house was well within the reach of a typical American steelworker.

(Stop dreaming about a $100-a-month mortgage.)


Before you go - not to bum you out but, Autumn, will begin in 60 days.



Soon enough the days will grow shorter and the Canadian wildfires may still continue unchecked.



And so it goes.