Let's all take care of our home

In 1994, the UN General Assembly proclaimed September 16, the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, commemorating the date of the signing, in 1987, of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.



This year marks the 36th anniversary of the signing of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer following the 1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (it was at this meeting, that the famous 'hole in the ozone' above the Arctic was announced,) an important milestone in the protection of the ozone layer. This year's theme is supported by the slogan, “Montreal Protocol: fixing the ozone layer and reducing climate change.”

(This will be on the test)


September 16, 1932 -
RKO released the B-film thriller, The Most Dangerous Game, which was shot alongside King Kong, using the same sets and much of the same talent in order to defray costs.



This film was released before the Hays Code was used on American movies. This being the case, both Joel McCrea and Fay Wray were able to get away with wearing relatively little clothing in comparison to other films of the era.


September 16, 1953 -
The first movie filmed in the widescreen process CinemaScope, The Robe, premiered at the Roxy Theater in New York on this date.



Richard Burton hated making the film so much that he turned down a contract from 20th Century Fox. He was amazed to receive an Oscar nomination after critics had almost universally described his performance as "wooden". Still, Burton would make more films at Fox than at any other studio.


Sept 16, 1964 -
The first of Sergio Leone’s “Man with No Name” westerns, Fistful of Dollars, opened in Italy, three years before it would arrive in the United States. The term 'Spaghetti Westerns' was coined by Spanish journalist Alfonso Sánchez. As pointed out by one of our more astute bunkies, most 'Spaghetti Westerns' were shot in Spain.



The film was a remake of Yojimbo, which itself was based on the as yet unadapted 1929 novel Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett. In fact, the film's US release was delayed when Yojimbo's screenwriters Akira Kurosawa and Ryûzô Kikushima sued the filmmakers for breach of copyright. Kurosawa and Kikushima won, and as a result received 15% of the film's worldwide gross and exclusive distribution rights for Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Kurosawa said later he made more money off of this project than he did on Yojimbo.
https://youtu.be/y_1iT_GmHTE?feature=shared

September 16, 1963 -

The science-fiction anthology series The Outer Limits premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



The original title for this series was Please Stand By, but because the Cuban Missile Crisis had happened less than a year earlier, executives thought it might make people fearful of an air raid. As a reference to this, when the 1995 revival of the series would cut to a commercial, the Control Voice said, "Please stand by."


September 16, 1965 -
NBC-TV finally put that little ole' wine drinker ... on the air when The Dean Martin Show premiered on this date.



Throughout the run, Dean Martin never knew who would come walking through the door at the beginning of each show. This was to make it a lot funnier.


September 16, 1967 -
The TV series Mannix, starring Mike Connors, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



The role of Peggy Fair was intended for Nichelle Nichols, but she was forced to withdraw due to her commitment to Star Trek: The Original Series .


September 16, 1969 -
The hardest working person in Hollywood had her series, The Debbie Reynolds Show, starring (besides her,) Don Chastain, Patricia Smith, Tom Bosley, and Debbie Thompson debut, on NBC TV, on this date



Debbie Reynolds' contract with NBC guaranteed a two season run, promised her a starring role in a feature film to be produced by the network and would also have given her partial ownership of a future series in which she needn't star. But the adverse publicity resultant from Reynolds' vociferous objections to a cigarette ad appearing on the initial broadcast caused that sponsor to withdraw their advertising from the network and eventually resulted in a lawsuit which gave NBC the right to revoke the guaranteed second season, cancel the proposed feature film and void the entire deal. Reynolds' career never fully recovered, and at one point she found herself homeless and literally living in her car.


September 16, 1971 -
The Western series Bearcats! starring Rod Taylor and Dennis Cole, aired on CBS TV on this date.



Hollywood car builder/customizer George Barris made two replica 1914 Bearcats for the series. A period TV Guide article said they cost $25,000 for the pair, this at a time when a new Corvette was about $5,000. The cars were full scale metal bodied replicas mounted on custom frames and powered by Ford engines and transmissions (out of (then) late model pickups. For safety they featured four wheel brakes, which were not on a genuine Bearcat. The brass radiator is interchangeable with a genuine Stutz unit.


September 16, 1972 -

Everybody's favorite therapist, before Frasier (see below) walked through his front door as The Bob Newhart Show premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Actor Peter Bonerz who played Jerry the dentist learned how to direct on the set of this show and went on to become an award-winning director of other comedy series.


September 16, 1977 -
The eponymously named debut LP, Talking Heads: 77, was released on this date.



It has long been considered one of the best debut albums of the CBGB habitués


September 16, 1984 -
In case you you looking for the official date that the 80s began - Miami Vice premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



The series' commitment to the visual quality of every episode made it one of the most expensive shows to produce at the time. In fact, the cost to produce one episode of the show was greater than that of the entire annual budget of the Miami Police Department's Vice Unit.


September 16, 1993 -
Kelsey Grammer continued playing Dr. Fraiser Crane as Frasier, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



David Hyde Pierce has said that, prior to this series, he had no strong interest in wine nor opera. Ironically, he was introduced to both by John Mahoney, whose Martin Crane character eschews anything cultured.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
September 16, 1498 -
Tomas de Torquemada, the notorious Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, died in Avila, Spain on this date.

More than 2,000 heretics were burned to death and 9,654 otherwise tortured under his aegis before all the Jews were expelled in 1492. In 1836, vandals break into Torquemada's tomb, cremate the bones, and scatter his ashes upon the winds.


At precisely twelve noon on September 16, 1893 a cannon's boom unleashed the largest land rush America ever saw.



Carried by all kinds of transportation - horses, wagons, trains, bicycles or on foot - an estimated 100,000 raced to claim plots of land in an area of land in northern Oklahoma Territory known as the Cherokee Strip.


September 16, 1810 -
No tequila for you if you thought Mexican Independence Day was Cinco de Mayo.



Today is Independence Day in Mexico.



Mexico began its revolt against Spanish rule on this date. Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla issued "El Grito de Dolores" (Cry of Freedom), which claimed the end of Spanish rule.


September 16, 1908 -
General Motors Holding Company was formed in Flint, Mich., by William Durant on this date. (Within 12 days the company generated stocks that generated $12,000,000 cash.)



Psst, something else your teachers didn't tell you - Nazi armaments chief Albert Speer told a congressional investigator in 1974 that Germany could not have attempted its September 1939 Blitzkrieg of Poland without the performance-boosting additive technology provided by Alfred P. Sloan (long-time president, chairman, and CEO of General Motors Corporation.)


September 16, 1920 -
A horse-drawn carriage loaded with dynamite exploded in front of the J.P. Morgan and Company headquarters at 23 Wall Street in New York's financial district, on this date. 30 people were killed in the blast. More than 400 were injured.



Although the crime was never solved, it was believed to have been the work of the Anarchists, angry internationalists who believed the only good institutions were smoldering ruins. Anarchist Leon Czolgosz had assassinated President McKinley two decades earlier, on September 6, 1901, in Buffalo - an assassination that caused Teddy Roosevelt and the bully pulpit.

(Despite similarities in spelling, Anarchists should not be confused with Antichrists, Arachnids or Pimentos.)

It was perhaps no accident that the Morgan bombing took place on the 300th anniversary of the Mayflower's departure from England. Passengers were mostly members of a separatist Protestant congregation (Puritan Party Poopers) separating from the Church of England. They were from the English Midlands. They had gone at first to a village near Amsterdam, lived in Holland for ten years (generally bringing everybody down) and then decided to start their own society from scratch. They had two boats for the trip across the Atlantic: the Speedwell and the Mayflower. The Speedwell was leaky, and they spent time trying to repair it.



So when they finally set sail on September 16 (September 6th on the OC), they were way behind schedule. The journey took 66 days. It was rainy, it was cold, and the ocean was rough (They loved it). The boat was 90 feet long and carried 102 passengers. There were no separate cabins. They all had to live in the cargo area. But the Mayflower had previously been used to transport wine, and so the hold smelled wonderful (They hated it).



The Mayflower (and the Speedwell) carried its cargo of Puritan Party Poopers (Pilgrims) to Massachusetts, where they became the first tourists in history to visit Plymouth Rock.

Anarchists hate tourists.


September 16th 1959 -
A live television demonstration made the Xerox 914 the first successful photocopier. It took the Xerox machine around 25 seconds to make one copy – not too bad considering it was the first machine of it’s kind.



One little side note about the machine is that if too many copies were made during one period of time, it would overheat. As a result this overheating would lead to the machine catching fire. So that made photocopying your butt a risky business.


September 16, 1968 -
Presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon appears on the NBC comedy show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and asks Sock it to me? on this date.



George Schlatter, the creator of Laugh-In, unsuccessfully chased after Vice-President Hubert Humphrey to offer him the same opportunity to appear on the show. Humphrey was unable to make room in his schedule and always regretted it, stating that he believed it was one of the reasons he lost the election.


September 16, 1977 -
Maria Callas, American-born prima donna famed for her lyric soprano and fiery temperament, died in Paris on this date.





From October 1971 to March 1972, Callas gave a series of master classes to 25 students at The Juilliard School in New York, who auditioned for the opportunity to be critiqued by her. They were open to the public and the sold-out crowds included opera greats Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Tito Gobbi, Plácido Domingo, Grace Bumbry, and Bidu Sayão, actors Lillian Gish and Ben Gazzara, and director Franco Zeffirelli.



And so it goes

Remember, he's the Great Uncle of The Green Hornet

September 15, 1949 -
The Lone Ranger, the masked hero rode onto the fledgling ABC network for the first time on this date



In the early 1950s, the show was so popular that ABC briefly repeated it late on Friday nights for those who missed the Thursday night broadcast.



Oh, Lenny Bruce had something to say on the subject


September 15, 1957 -
Bachelor Father, starring John Forsythe, Noreen Corcoran and Sammee Tong, premiered on CBS-TV on this date. It has the destinction of being the only primetime series ever to run in consecutive years on the three major television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC).



Despite his character's accent on the show, Sammee Tong (who played Peter, the Chinese houseboy) was actually born in the United States, and graduated from Stanford University.


September 15, 1965 -
This was an incredibly busy day in TV History:

Danger Will Robinson, danger. Dr. Smith is attempting to inappropriately stimulate your young pulsating bulbous nether region!

The Robinson Family gets Lost in Space for the first time on CBS-TV on this date.



The Robinsons' robot was created by Robert Kinoshita, the same man who designed Robby the Robot for Forbidden Planet. Indeed, Robbie the Robot makes a guest appearance in Lost in Space: War of the Robots.


The Big Valley premiered on this date.



Linda Evans went to Barbara Stanwyck's house every Saturday to work on the scenes together, to the point where Linda began to think of Barbara as her mother.


American started really liking Sally Fields when Gidget premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Sally Field has said that she and Don Porter had a father/daughter-like relationship off screen as well. Field was new to professional acting and, due to nerves and inexperience, sometimes made mistakes that caused others to laugh at her. Acting veteran Porter not only took time to explain things to Field, but often sensed things she didn't know. In one instance during a cold read of the script, the word "symbiosis" appeared in one of Field's lines. Porter pronounced the word quietly so Field would know how to pronounce it.


Green Acres premiered on this date.



Pat Buttram based his portrayal of Mr. Haney on Tom Parker-- aka "Col. Tom Parker", Elvis Presley's manager--whom he met a decade or so earlier when Parker was a carnival barker.


And last, but not least, the first American television drama to feature an African-American actor in a lead role, I Spy, starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



The first American dramatic TV series to feature a black actor in a lead role. Scripts were peppered with unique lingo. One catchphrase, "wonderfulness," became popular and was later used by Bill Cosby for the title of one of his comedy albums.


September 15, 1967 -
The Star Trek episode Amok Time aired on this date. In the episode, Kirk and Spock are pitted in a fight to the death against each other by Spock’s wife-to-be when Spock suffers his first pon farr (the Vulcan time of mating).



The episode is the first in which Spock uses either the phrase “live long and prosper” and makes the “Vulcan salute” gesture for the first time.


September 15, 1969 -
The gentle comedy based on the humor of James Thurber, My World ... and Welcome to It, starring William Windom, Lisa Gerritsen, Joan Hotchkis, Harold J. Stone, and Henry Morgan, premiered on CBS TV on this date.



Prior to working on this series, William Windom and Lisa Gerritsen appeared as father and daughter on the series Lancer.


September 15, 1971 -
Just one more thing...

The first episode of the Columbo series, Murder By The Book, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Bochco, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



The original plan was for a new episode to air every week, which would have meant shooting an episode every five days. As a motion picture star, Peter Falk refused to commit to such an busy schedule. The network arranged for the Columbo segments to air once a month on Wednesday nights.


September 15, 1983 -
Chrysalis Records released Huey Lewis and the News' third album, Sports, on this date.



Huey Lewis & the News had lots of goofy fun in their videos, which was exactly what MTV was looking for. They would often star Lewis as a normal guy surrounded by lunatics played by his bandmates.


September 15, 1986 –
Los Angeles law firm McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney and Kuzak first opened their doors to television viewer when LA Law premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Stephen Bochco had wanted Kiel Martin to play the role of Arnie Becker, having worked with Martin on Hill Street Blues where Martin had played Det. J.D. LaRue and knowing that Martin's mix of acting skill and personal issues (he had battled alcoholism for a long time and successfully dealt with his addiction to stay in the Det. LaRue role) would be a great fit for a character with Arnie's mix of success and demons. Unfortunately, Martin has serious health problems that meant he was unable to do the role, so Bochco cast Corbin Bernsen instead.


Another book from the The ACME Library.


Today in History:
September 15, 1776 -
The British, led by General Howe, occupied Manhattan, capturing Kip's Bay, on this date.

Outraged by the rents, discouraged by the lack of parking and homesick for bubble and squeak and spotted dick, however, they left shortly afterwards, leaving only drunken journalists behind.


September 15, 1830 -
British MP William Huskisson was chatting amiably with the Duke of Wellington at the grand opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, when all at once the right honorable gentleman distinguished himself for posterity by becoming the first human being in history to be run over by a train.

Apparently, Mr. Huskisson's number was up.



(The Duke of Wellington, on the other hand, is remembered for his Beef.)


September 15, 1864 -
Thirty-four years later, on this date, another hardy British soul, the explorer John Speke, distinguished himself by becoming the first European to see Africa's Lake Victoria, and then accidentally killing himself while hunting partridges.

(conveniently, the day before he was to debate his finding with his famous exploration partner, Richard Burton (the man who invented sex) - no, not that Richard Burton, the other one, the famous self circumciser, and translator of 1001 Arabian Nights, The Perfumed Garden, and the Kama Sutra.)


September 15, 1885 -
Goodbye Jumbo.



Circus showman P.T. Barnum's prize elephant Jumbo was struck dead by a freight train in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada. It took 150 men to haul the carcass up an embankment, from whence it is taken to a taxidermist.



The stuffed Jumbo became a featured attraction in Barnum's circus.



Afterwards, P.T. Barnum was an early trustee and benefactor of Tufts and he donated the stuffed hide of Jumbo to the university. On April 14, 1975, Barnum Hall and the beloved elephant were consumed in an electrical fire. Some of his ashes were recovered in a peanut butter jar that has remained in the athletics director’s office where students continue to rub it for good luck.


September 15, 1890 -
It's the birthday of Agatha Christie (Vanessa Redgrave), born in Devon, England. She was a Red Cross nurse during World War I. She started reading detective novels because she found they took her mind off her troubles (her husband couldn't help sleeping with other women) and soon after, started writing her own.



Her big breakthrough book was her novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which came out in 1926. It was the same year in which Christie had a fight with her husband, fled her own home, and was missing for ten days. There was a nationwide search. It was on the front pages of all the papers. And when she finally turned up, she was famous and all of her books were best-sellers.


September 15, 1922 -
According to fashion arbiters from days gone by - you should not be wearing your straw hats any longer this season -

In the early 20th Century, tradition held that a man switch from straw hats to felt ones on September 15th. If he wore “the taboo headgear” after that date, hooligans were free to smash it to bits.



In 1922, a group of men and boy, 1,000 strong from the Five Points neighborhood sparked a bizarre riot that shook New York City from the Battery to the Bronx, as they prowled the city, beating men, who refused to remove their straw hats.



And whatever you do, don't mention The Susquehanna Hat Company.


September 15, 1928 -
Scottish bacteriologist and noted slob Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered that the mold penicillin had an antibiotic effect, on this date. Had he cleaned his laboratory every night and put all his things away like a good little boy, he never would have discovered penicillin, and half of us would be dead right now.



As I am deathly allergic to penicillin, his discovery has done little for me but I pass this along to you all.


September 15, 1954 -
In front of thousands of spectating New Yorkers at 51st and Lexington, Marilyn Monroe performed the now-famous skirt blowing scene during filming for The Seven Year Itch. The event basically boils down to a publicity stunt, as the whole thing was reshot later on a Hollywood soundstage.



Unfortunately, this event is the final straw in the Monroe - Dimaggio marriage and it soon comes undone.


September 15, 1963 -
In Birmingham, Alabama, Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton, Herman Frank Cash and Robert Chambliss planted 15 dynamite sticks in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church, below the women's restroom. When the dynamite exploded, four little girls in the bathroom and were killed (Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley); more than 20 other parishioners also were injured.



Chambliss was later tried and convicted of murder; he was sentenced to life in prison in 1977. Two of his accomplices also were later sentenced to life in prison (Herman Cash died in 1994 without having been charged.)


September 15, 1972 -

Indictments were brought against the seven Watergate burglars: James McCord, Frank Sturgis, Bernard L. Barker, Eugenio R. Martinez, Virgilio R. Gonzales, E. Howard Hunt (noted spy, novelist and possible Kennedy assassin, rumored to have been the man on the grassy knoll) and G. Gordon Liddy (noted rat connoisseur), on this date.


September 15, 2008 -
16 years ago, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy (the largest so far in the United States) on this date and is seen as the beginning of the global financial crisis (The Great Recession.)



I'm not sure what the correct anniversary gift should be - but once again, may I suggest, just find a banker or hedge fund manager and take a sock full of nickels to his groin (repeatedly.)


And so it goes

Off to the races

if you find yourself in Westporttoday:

Check out The 12th Annual Food Tasting and Retail Experience - Slice of Saugatuck. The proceeds benefit the Gillespie Food Pantry. You might even see yours truly working the event.


September 14, 1964 -
The Irwin Allen sci-fi series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, starring Gypsy (from MST3K's) love god, Richard Basehart, premiered on the ABC-TV on this date.



The props used in this show, (such as the computers and guns) also were used in Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel , Land of the Giants, and Batman.


September 14, 1965 -
The end of the Civil War was near ...

F-Troop premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Many viewers thought that because "Old Charlie" the town drunk would usually be thrown through the saloon doors (or window), bounce off a support post, fall face forward over the hitching rail, spin around and land on his face or back that he was actually a young stuntman in "old man" make-up. In reality, "Charlie" was ace stuntman Harvey Parry, who at that time was 65 years old and had been a stuntman for almost 45 years.


September 14, 1965 -
One of the more bizarre sitcoms, My Mother the Car starring Jerry Van Dyke and Ann Sothern (as the car), premiered on this date.



Jerry Van Dyke agreed to star on the series after turning down the lead role on Gilligan's Island and an offer to join the cast of The Andy Griffith Show.


September 14, 1967 -
Raymond Burr cruised the San Francisco streets with his muscular bodyguard when Ironside premiered on this date (there is no word on whether or not he or any of the cast members were wearing his eponymously named nipple rouge during the shoot.)



Raymond Burr injured his eyes working on the series. Being in a wheelchair, he had to look up directly into the hot lights used to film his scenes, and his eyes were slightly burned.


September 14, 1968 -
Yes kids, years before Riverdale, there was The Archies - The Archie Show, based on the comic book series, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



The success of this animated series with its musical numbers drew the attention of Hanna-Barbera Productions. Through the early 1970s, many of their series would have young characters with a rock band. As in this series, the musical sequences gave them the opportunity to use cycle animation. The cycle animation could be varied by simply re-shooting the cels over different backgrounds.


September 14, 1972 -
America went up Walton's Mountain to visit with The Waltons on CBS-TV for the first time on this date.



The "goodnight" routine at the end of each show was an actual activity in creator Earl Hamner, Jr.s home when he was a child. He said the activity would go on until his father finally told them to be quiet.


September 14, 1973 -
The short lived comedy series based of the classic Tracy/ Hepburn movie of the same name, Adam's Rib, starring Ken Howard and Blythe Danner aired on ABC TV on this date.



Ken Howard and Blythe Danner had previously played a husband and wife, Thomas and Martha Jefferson, in the movie 1776.


September 14, 1974 -
Eric Clapton's cover of the Bob Marley song, I Shot The Sheriff, went to the top of the Billboard Charts on this date.



It is Clapton's only top #1 hit, either as a solo artist or with one of his bands (Cream, The Yardbirds, Derek & the Dominos...)



September 14, 1978 -
The TV show that helped launch Robin Williams career, Mork & Mindy, premiered on this date.



Pam Dawber did not personally audition for the role of Mindy. To sell the show to the network, producer Garry Marshall edited clips together of Dawber's performance from a failed ABC series of Sister Terri, with existing footage of Robin Williams' two earlier guest-appearances as Mork on Happy Days. ABC was sold on the idea and the show was picked up. Dawber learned she had been cast in the series via industry trade paper, Variety. It came to Pam Dawber as an expected surprise.


September 14, 1984 –
Bette Midler & Dan Aykroyd hosted the first VMAs (Video Music Awards) on MTV, on this date.



You may not know that at one time, MTV was a 24-hour music video channel.



Madonna had her career-defining performance at the first VMAs when she sang Like A Virgin.


September 14, 1985 -
Everybody started hanging out on the lanai when NBC premiered The Golden Girls on this date.



The actresses consumed over 100 cheesecakes during the show's seven-year run. Bakeries from around the USA would send in cheesecakes for them. Bea Arthur hated cheesecake in real life.

Don't forget to tune intoThe ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today


Today in History:
September 14, 1752 –
The British Empire finally adopted the Gregorian calendar, skipping eleven days (the previous day was September 2), on this date.

The changes affected festivals, saint’s days and birthdays, including that of Samuel Johnson, as well as the dates of payments of wages, rents and interest, contracts for delivery of goods, military discharges and prison releases.

So now you know.


September 14, 1814 -
Francis Scott Key had composed the lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner after witnessing the massive British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812, on this date. Key, an American lawyer and social worker, watches the siege while under detainment on a British ship, and pens the famous words after observing that the US flag over Fort McHenry had survived the 1,800-bomb assault.



The lyrics were alter adopted to the British tune To Anacreon in Heaven, which had also served as Irish drinking song and a number of other songs. The Star-Spangled Banner was officially recognized as the national anthem in 1931.



The 40 feet long flag had been made by Baltimore widow Mary Young Pickersgill and her 13-year-old daughter just a month before the attack. In 1907 the flag was donated to the Smithsonian.


September 14 1849 -
Ivan Pavlov was born on this date.



Pavlov was a Russian scientist who discovered that dogs drooled whenever bells were rung. Only after his death were his ideas discredited by a group of Swedish scientists who determined that dogs also drooled when a nice juicy steak was dangled in front of them.



In the decades since, science has repeatedly and conclusively demonstrated that dogs will sometimes drool and sometimes not drool and a cat may or not be dead in a box, but who knows.


September 14, 1812 -
Napoleon's army invaded the city of Moscow, on this date. He began the invasion of Russia in June of that year, hoping to continue his "One Europe, One Cuisine" Tour. The Russian forces kept retreating, burning the farmland as they went so the French wouldn't be able to draw provisions from the land.



The troops were exhausted and hungry by the time they reached Moscow on this day, in 1812. The gates of the city were left wide open. And as the French came through, they noticed that all over the city small fires had begun. The Russians had set fire to their own city. By that night, the fires were out of control.



Napoleon watched the burning of the city from inside the Kremlin, and barely escaped the city alive. The retreat began across the snow - covered plains, one of the great disasters of military history. Thousands of troops died from starvation and hypothermia. Of the nearly half million French soldiers who had set out in June on the invasion, fewer than 20,000 staggered back across the border in December.


September 14, 1901 -
President William McKinley succumbs to his gunshot wound, on this date - the third American president to be assassinated. He had won a landslide victory in the election of 1900. He had gone on a tour of the country, a victory tour, which he ended in Buffalo, New York, where the Pan-American Exposition was being held near Niagara Falls.



McKinley was shaking hands with a long line of people on September 6, when a 28-year-old anarchist from Cleveland named Leon Czolgosz came up to shake his hand. Czolgosz's right hand was wrapped in a handkerchief which concealed a gun. He shot the president twice, hitting him in the abdomen. At first it seemed as though the wound was minor and that McKinley would recover, but he died on this day in 1901. He died, historians believe, because he needed an infusion of fluids and nutrients, and the IV had not been invented yet.



It didn't help matters that Teddy Roosevelt kept peeking into his hospital room, shouting, "Is he dead yet? Am I president yet? Bully, bully!!!"


September 14, 1927 -
Kids, remember what Gertrude Stein said, "affectations can be dangerous and Alice, where the hell is my hash pipe?"



Legendary dancer Isadora Duncan was killed in Nice, France when her long silk scarf got tangled in the rear wheel of the convertible she's riding in on this date. Her neck was broken and an artery severed. Some accounts have her thrown against the pavement and dragged for 100 feet. The freak accident occurred in full view of a number of friends.



Strange but true fact - the mother of famed 40s comedy director Preston Sturges, who was known for her friendship with Isadora Duncan, gave her the very scarf that led to Duncan's freakish death.


September 14, 1936 -
Surgeons Walter Freeman and James W. Watts performed America's first prefrontal lobotomy on a depressed, 63-year-old Kansas woman in Washington, D.C. They successfully create a lethargic dullard, and the duo hails the result for years to come as a medical triumph, despite the fact that two of their next twenty lobotomy subjects end as fatalities.



Here's a easy way you can remember this, "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."


September 14, 1938 -
Graf Zeppelin II, world's largest airship, (LZ 130) was the sister ship of the Hindenburg (LZ 129). Her design and construction were nearly identical to her predecessor: at 804 feet in length, these two ships remain the largest flying craft in history. By the time the Graf Zeppelin was completed, it was one of the largest flying craft in history. The ship was christened and made her first flight on this date.



The Graf Zeppelin ultimately flew a total of thirty missions, many for the Luftwaffe. She touched down on her last flight at 9:38 p.m. on August 20, 1939, ending the age of rigid airships.


September 14, 1952 -
Years ago I realized that maybe I made mistake, politically, when I turned a lot of that stuff down. I would go off to obscure places and make movies that six people went to see..



Philip Andre Mickey Rourke, actor, boxer, and small dog fancier, was born on this date.


September 14, 1954 -
The Totskoye nuclear exercise was a military exercise, involving an aerial detonation of a 40 kt RDS-4 nuclear bomb, undertaken by the Soviet Army to explore defensive and offensive warfare during nuclear war. The stated goal of the operation was military training for breaking through heavily fortified defensive lines of a military opponent using nuclear weapons.



An army of 45,000 soldiers, under the command of Marshal Georgy Zhukov, marched through the area around the hypocenter soon after the nuclear blast. Thousands who are believed to have sought help in local hospitals would later be surprised to find that their medical cards, containing their histories of sickness, had disappeared from the regional hospital. The epicenter of the detonation is marked with a memorial.


September 14th, 1959 -
The satellite Luna II, thirty-six hours after its launch, crash landed on the Moon, east of the Sea of Serenity, on this date.



Luna II became the first man made object to reach the Moon, ratcheding the space race between the worlds two superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union.


September 14, 1982 -
Grace Kelly, American-born princess of Monaco, died after a high speed car crash the previous day. She and daughter Princess Stephanie were badly injured when their British Rover 3500 plunged into a ravine, tumbling 45 feet.



In the official version of events, Grace suffered a mild stroke while driving; however, although rumors persist that 17-year-old Princess Stephanie was actually behind the wheel. There is no truth to the rumor that she was engaging in an unnatural act with club-footed Portuguese ballroom dancer with a speech impediment, a three legged farm animal and a water-based lubricant.

So dammit, please stop printing these lies.


Before you go - This may or may not be meaningful to you, but -

There are 102 days until Christmas.

The presidential election is in 52 days



And so it goes

Bad luck never lost a race.

It's Friday the 13th.



In most large cities in the United States, many building don't have 13th floors. In Japan, they don't have 4th floors, because the word for four sounds similar to the word for DEATH! Some say that the modern basis for Friday the 13th phobia dates back to Friday, October 13, 1307.



On this date, Pope Clement in conjunction with the King Philip of France secretly ordered the mass arrest of all the Knights Templar in France. The Templars were terminated with extreme prejudice (burned to a crisp) for apostasy, idolatry, heresy, "obscene rituals" and homosexuality, corruption and fraud, and secrecy, never again to hold the power that they had held for so long.

Those wacky Knights were such party animals.



Nathaniel Lachenmeyer, author of 13: The Story of the World's Most Popular Superstition, suggests in his book that references to Friday the 13th were practically nonexistent before 1907; the popularity of the superstition must come from the publication of Thomas W. Lawson's successful novel (of it's day,) Friday, the Thirteenth. In the novel, a stock broker takes advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on Friday the 13th.

If it gives you some comfort, there is the only more Friday the 13th this year.


On this date in 1989, this day officially became knowm as Uncle Sam Day.



The day commemorates Sam Wilson, born on September 13, 1766, (a meatpacker from New York,) the man behind the iconic image and fascinating nickname for the United States government.


September 13, 1965 -
The Beatles released the single Yesterday in the US on this date (Act Naturally was on the B side.)



This was the first Beatles song to capture a mass adult market. Most of their fans were young people to this point, but this song gave the band a great deal of credibility among the older crowd. It also became one of their "Muzak" classics, as companies recorded instrumental versions as soothing background noise for shopping centers and elevators. Another Beatles song that lived on in this form is Here Comes The Sun.


September 13, 1965 -
Ben Gazzara's series about a wealthy, successful lawyer, Paul Bryan, who quits his practice after learning he has a terminal illness, Run for Your Life, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Some sources claim that Ben Gazzara's character suffered from leukemia. However, in a 1998 interview conducted by television book writer Ed Robinson, Executive Producer Roy Huggins indicated that the affliction from which Paul Bryan suffered was never mentioned on the program and does not exist.


September 13, 1969 -
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! made its CBS network debut on this date.



Shaggy is the only character (apart from Scooby himself) to be in every incarnation of the series.


September 13, 1974 -
The science fiction/ horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Darren McGavin is often incorrectly considered to be, and listed in many official references guides, as the show's Executive Producer. In fact, he never held the position, although he unofficially assumed many of the duties. This put him at odds with Paul Playdon and then Cy Chermak, the official producers appointed by Universal.


September 13, 1974 -
The first regularly scheduled episode of The Rockford Files, starring James Garner, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Co-writer/co-producer David Chase would go on afterwards to create another famous series, The Sopranos . As a little tribute to this series, a scene in a first season episode of The Sopranos is set in a retirement home where the residents are watching television. Though the picture can't be seen, the theme music for The Rockford Files can be heard.


September 13, 1977 -
The nighttime parody of daytime soap operas, Soap, starring Jimmy Baio, Rebecca Balding, Roscoe Lee Browne, John Byner, Diana Canova, Billy Crystal, Cathryn Damon, Nancy Dolman, Robert Guillaume, and Katherine Helmond premiered on ABC TV, on this date.



Soap was actually the working title for the show, while the producers tried to come up with a better name, and was used all through pre-production. No better name was ever decided upon, so Soap became the formal title when the show went into production.


September 13, 1979 -
A spin-off of the series Soap, Benson, starring Robert Guillaume, James Noble, Inga Swenson, and Missy Gold premiered on ABC TV, on this date.



The series was on the air seven years, longer than the show from which it was spun off, Soap, which lasted four years.


September 13, 1980 -
The musical variety show, Solid Gold, featuring Dionne Warwick and the Solid Gold dancers, premiered in syndication on this date.



Rumor has it that Wayland Flowers, whose scene-stealing puppet, Madame, was a recurring guest, was so high on cocaine that he frequently had to be carried on and off the set. Theme composer/musical director Michael K. Miller disagreed, "I was at all the tapings of Solid Gold (and a lot of the Madame's Place tapings too) and I never once witnessed him as being anything other than fully focused and healthy."


September 13, 1986 -
CBS allowed a strange, pale man, in an ill-fitting suit to come into their viewers homes (to scream really loud) when Pee-Wee's Playhouse premiered on this date.



Throughout the entire series run, the closing credits have never credited Paul Reubens as Peewee Herman, but instead would display the other cast & guest stars first and then would display "and Peewee Herman as Himself".


September 13, 1993 -
Coco, a Simpson TV writer, was snatched from obscurity to replace David Letterman on the newly rebranded Late Night with Conan O'Brien on NBC-TV on this date.



According to O'Brien, the show was cancelled during the first season, but NBC realized that they had nothing to replace it. NBC renewed the show a few weeks at a time.


September 13, 1996 -
The family comedy based on the stand-up routines of Ray Romano, Everybody Loves Raymond, starring Ray Romano, Patricia Heaton, Brad Garrett, Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



The three Barone children, Ally, Geoffrey, and Michael, were played by real-life siblings Madylin Sweeten, Sawyer Sweeten, and Sullivan Sweeten.


September 13, 2000 -
Cameron Crowe's autobiographic film, Almost Famous, was released on this date.



The film is director Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical account of life as a young Rolling Stone reporter. The actual group Crowe first toured with was The Allman Brothers Band. Gregg Allman distrusted him, and kept asking if he was a narc. Crowe was in a near-fatal plane crash while traveling with The Who. The character of Russell Hammond is partially based on Glenn Frey of The Eagles.


Another unimportant moment in history


Today in History:
September 13, 1848 -
A 13-pound tamping iron is blown through the head of railroad construction foreman Phineas P. Gage, entering beneath the left cheekbone and exiting the top of his head. The metal bar landed 30 yards away, taking with it much of his left frontal lobe.



Gage never loses consciousness, even while the doctors examine his wound. Two months later, he was well enough to return home and resume an active life of work and travel.



The steel rod, along with a cast of Gage's head, and his skull, are now on display at Harvard Medical School's Warren Anatomical Museum.


September 13, 1899 -
Henry M. Bliss was coming home from work today and never came back. Mr. Bliss was enjoying his ride home near Central Park and 74th Street, when he stepped out of a streetcar and into the street and was struck by a taxicab. Bliss was rushed to a hospital but died from his injuries the next morning.

The cab driver Arthur Smith was arrested and charged with manslaughter. The charges were dropped after it was determined that Bliss’ death was unintentional. Bliss became the first pedestrian to be killed by an automobile in the United States.

On September 13, 1999, a hundred years to the day, Citystreets unveiled a historical marker at the site of the first "American Pedestrian Fatality".


September 13, 1916 -
Give the people what they want ....

Mary the circus elephant was publicly executed in the Erwin, Tennessee rail-yard, after killing a drifter named Walter "Red" Eldridge the previous day.



The five-ton animal was hanged from a derrick car in front of 3,000 onlookers, and left hanging for half an hour.

(Please folks, I am not encouraging the execution of any animal, especially mammals weighing over five tons.)


September 13, 1916 -
Roald Dahl was born on this date in Llandaff, South Wales.



He was sent off to private boarding schools as a kid, which he hated except for the chocolates, Cadbury chocolates. The Cadbury chocolate company had chosen his school as a focus group for new candies they were developing. Every so often, a plain gray cardboard box was issued to each child, filled with eleven chocolate bars. It was the children's task to rate the candy, and Dahl took his job very seriously. About one of the sample candy bars, he wrote, "Too subtle for the common palate." He later said that the experience got him thinking about candy as something manufactured in a factory, and he spent a lot of time imagining what a candy factory might be like.



Today, he's best known for his children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and for the fact he ran off with his children's nanny after his wife, the actress Patricia Neal, recovered from a stroke. But even more interesting, a recently published biography of Dahl, purports that he was a spy for the British government during World War II, paid to sleep with wealthy U. S. women to gain information for the British government.

And you thought only 007 had a way with women.


September 13, 1940 -
The German Luftwaffe directly targeted Buckingham Palace during 'the Blitz' and dropped a bomb into the palace courtyard and detonated on impact on this date. The force of the explosion blew out all the inside windows of the palace.



No one was seriously hurt and had the unintended effect of bonding the Royal Family with the people of England, as the Windsors did not evacuate London.



Queen Elizabeth (the queen's mother) narrowly averted serious injury.



When asked about the incident said, "I am glad we have been bombed….it makes me feel like I can look the [heavily bombed] East End in the face."


September 13, 1948 -
Republican Margaret Chase Smith of Maine was elected to the U.S. Senate, on this date, becoming the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.



A moderate Republican, she was among the first to criticize the tactics of Joseph McCarthy in her 1950 speech, "Declaration of Conscience". Smith was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in the 1964 election; she was the first woman to be placed in nomination for the presidency at a major party's convention.


September 13, 1956 -
IBM introduced the worlds first production hard disk the "IBM 305", on this date, which stored five megabytes of data.



To put this in perspective a modern USB drive stores 2 gig or more (400 times more than the first hard drive just 50 years ago) and fits on a keychain , the first IBM weighed over a ton and needed a fork lift to move it.


September 13, 2001 -
While the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were still smoldering, President Bush asked Congress for powers to wage war, following the 9/11 attack, against an unidentified enemy.

Bush called the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington "the first war of the 21st century" as his administration labeled fugitive Osama bin Laden a prime suspect.



And so it goes

I had a stress-free day

I locked Timmy in his room

September 12, 1954 -
What girl - Jeff's trapped in a mine; fell into a well; considering early withdrawal of his principle from an IRA; worried about the the Haitians in Ohio ...

Lassie (or Jeff's Collie - how many of you remember Jeff's Collie) premiered on on CBS-TV on this date.



Although it has been the subject of many spoofs and misquotes, the one situation that Timmy never needed saving from in the entire history of the show was falling down a well.


September 12, 1955 -
Another of Orson Welles' great Shakespearean films, Othello, finally opened in New York City on this date.



The movie was shot over three years and production was stopped twice, mainly because Welles ran out of money. He then starred in the films The Third Man and Prince of Foxes. When he made The Black Rose, Orson Welles insisted that the coat his character wore be lined with mink, even though the lining would never be visible in the finished film. The producers acquiesced to this demand. When the shoot was over, the coat disappeared. In Othello, Orson Welles can be seen wearing the same coat, complete with mink lining.


September 12, 1958 -
The ultimate drive-in movie, The Blob, premiered on this date. (Great bar bet - the movie's theme song was written by Burt Bacharach and Mack David (Hal David's brother))



The actual Blob, a mixture of red dye and silicone, has never dried out and is still kept in the original five-gallon pail in which it was shipped to the production company in 1958 from Union Carbide. It was put on display over the years as a part of the annual Blobfest, held over a three-day period each summer in Phoenixville, PA, which provided a number of the shooting locales for the film. In addition to displaying the Blob and miniatures used in the shooting, the event features a reenactment of the famous scene in which panicked theatergoers rush to exit the town's still-functioning Colonial Theater, as well as several showings of the film.


September 12, 1959 -
That's why we call it Bonanza...Bonanza...Bonanza...

Bonanza, the first US television series to be broadcast in color, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Most viewers have only heard the famous theme song by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans played as an instrumental. The theme song actually had lyrics and there is footage of the lead actors singing those lyrics. Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker and Michael Landon sang a lyric version of this famous instrumental theme for the pilot, but it never aired.



Johnny Cash recorded his own version of the theme song.


September 12, 1966 -
CBS-TV premiered Family Affair on this date.



The show almost moved to ABC following its cancellation, but the idea was nixed because that network already had a show with a similar theme, The Brady Bunch.



(come on you want to sing it: Buffy, Buffy come back to me ...)


September 12, 1966 -
NBC television premiered The Monkees, a sitcom about four guys in a rock band on this date.



When the TV series was about to be renewed for a third season, The Monkees wanted to change it from a half-hour sitcom to an hour-long variety show where they would introduce new artists. However, NBC gave the group an ultimatum: stick with the format as it was or be cancelled. They stuck to their guns and, as a result, the series was cancelled after two seasons on the air.


September 12, 1970 -
Long tails and and ears for hats...

Josie and the Pussycats premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Hanna-Barbera wanted to change Valerie to a Caucasian even though she was already established as African-American in the Archie comics, so they wanted to fire Patrice Holloway who had been cast as Valerie's singing voice. But Danny Janssen, who was producing the real-life group's Capitol album, refused to fire Holloway and Hanna-Barbera relented.


September 12, 1972 -
Another spin-off from the All In The Family Series, Maude premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Maude was Norman Lear's favorite show from his own production company.


September 12, 1978 -
The show James L. Brooks and friends created after the Mary Tylet Moore series ended, Taxi, starring Judd Hirsch, Jeff Conaway, Marilu Henner, Tony Danza, Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, and Andy Kaufman premiered on this date.



Andy Kaufman had invented the persona for his character in his comedy act prior to working on the show, including the famous line "tank-you-veddy-much". It was the show's writers that came up with the name of Latka Gravas. Kaufman created Latka's language, which he taught to Carol Kane for her role as Simka, by inviting her to dinner, and refusing to let her speak English.


September 12, 1986 -
Captain EO, starring Michael Jackson and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, made its gala premiere at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA and at Disney's Epcot Center in Orlando, FL on this date.



At a cost of about one million dollars per minute of film, this was, minute for minute, the most expensive motion picture of all time.


Another ACME Safety Film


Today in History -
September 12, 490 B.C. -
It looked like it was going to be a pretty bleak day for Western Civilization. The Greeks, who were not yet Ancient or Classical, were facing a massive invasion of Persians. Persia was not yet part of the Axis of Evil, but was pretty nasty just the same. They had more soldiers than the Greeks, better cavalry, and better weapons. (They did not have ouzo, moussaka or the mastery of sodomy however; it may have been envy of those quintessentially Greek achievements that drove them to invade.)

The General in charge of the Greeks was the Athenian Miltiades, also known as Uncle Milti.

In addition to his own Athenians, he had been given Plataean soldiers and the promised support of Spartans. It was the first time the various city-states had prepared to fight together against a common enemy.

Despite his strong defensive footing, entrenched in the hilly terrain of Marathon, Uncle Milti was afraid that the superior numbers of the Persians would allow them to fight through the Greek defenses and destroy Western Civilization. In order to prevent this, he launched an offensive.

It caught the Persians off guard, driving them off the land, into their ships, and back to Persia.



This was the Battle of Marathon, at which Western Civilization was saved for the first time - ensuring a future for diet cola, fat-free potato chips, and pay-per-view sports. (The Battle of Marathon is not related to the Marathon Bar or Marathon Man, but neither of them could have come about without it.)

Here is a special note to the strange people who run marathons. After winning this battle, a runner, the soldier Pheidippides, was send back to Athens to announce the victory.

Racing about 140 miles to get back to Athens, Pheidippides delivered the momentous message Niki! (victory), then promptly collapsed and died, thereby setting a precedent for dramatic conclusions to the marathon and the first sports product endorsement.

The modern Olympic Games introduced a "marathon" race of (40,000 meters or 24.85 miles). The winner was Spiridon Louis, a Greek postal worker from village of Marusi and veteran of several long military marches , His time was 2 hours, 58 minutes, 50 seconds for the 40 kilometer distance (average pace of  7:11 minutes per mile).



At the 1908 Olympic Games in London, the marathon distance was changed to 26 miles to cover the ground from Windsor Castle to White City stadium, with 385 yards added on so the race could finish in front of King Edward VII's royal box. After 16 years of extremely heated discussion, this 26.2 mile distance was established at the 1924 Olympics in Paris as the official marathon distance.



Remember all this, the next time you run a race.


September 12, 1609 -
The explorer Henry Hudson sailed up the river which eventually came to be called the Hudson River, on this date. He was on an expedition for the Dutch East India Company, trying to find a passage to Asia - the Northwest Passage. This was back when Europeans believed that North America was a rather small land mass, and if they could just find a way through it, they could get to the Asian markets. The Dutch were not great masterminds it appears.



Henry Hudson sailed up the river, anchoring his ship at what is now West 42nd Street and the Hudson River (which was curiously named after him.) He was hoping to get tickets to see Six or at least Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes before it closed. When he discovered that he was at least 350 years too earlier and that the only tickets available were the all - Native American version of Strange Interludes, he immediately got back on his boat and went up as far as the site of modern day Albany, turned around, and went back to Amsterdam.


September 12, 1683 -
Friar Marco d'Aviano, sent by Pope Innocent XI to unite the outnumbered Christian troops in the besieged city of Vienna, spurred them to victory on this date. The Turks left behind sacks of coffee which the Christians found too bitter, so they sweetened it with honey and milk and named the drink cappuccino after the Capuchin order of monks to which d'Aviano belonged.



An Austrian baker created a crescent-shaped roll, the Kipfel, to celebrate the victory. Empress Marie Antoinette later took it to France where it became the croissant.


September 12, 1878 -
The magnificent phallic symbol was erected on the bank of the Thames on this date. It doesn't really have anything to do with Cleopatra.



The obelisk has a twin in New York's Central Park, also named Cleopatra's Needle.



It has nothing to do with Cleopatra, either.



There's one in Paris. It's not the twin of either the London nor New York one (that would have made it a triplet) and it has nothing to do with Cleopatra either.


September 12, 1940 -
The Lascaux Caves in France, with their prehistoric wall paintings, were discovered outside Montignac, France, in the Dordogne region by four teenagers who stumble upon the ancient artwork (15,000 to 17,000 years old) after following their dog down a narrow entrance into a cavern, on this date.



There are more than 600 paintings and 1,500 engravings in the cave. The paintings consisting mostly of animal representations (horses), are among the finest examples of art from the Paleolithic period. It was opened to the public at one point, but closed in 1963 because the paintings were fading due to the artificial light used to illuminate the cave.


September 12, 1959 -
While Americans were home watching Bonanza on this date, the Soviet Union launched Lunik II toward the Moon aboard a Luna 8K72 carrier rocket. It was the first man-made object to reach the Moon from Earth.



It was the Soviet's second attempt to launch a rocket to the moon and the first successful attempt when it landed two days later. It's data-collecting mission lasted 33.5 hours.


September 12, 1977 -
The body of Stephen Biko was discovered on the floor of a jail cell in Pretoria on this date. The South African civil rights activist had been beaten and tortured six days earlier, during an interrogation in Port Elizabeth.



Police officials claim that Biko probably suffered the fatal injuries when he "fell out of bed."


September 12, 1993 –
I don't overeat. I only eat one meal a day... but my body has been one of those that has almost perfect assimilation, so everything I eat is assimilated, not lost.



Famous Godzilla, Perry Mason and Ironside actor and Nipple Rouge entrepreneur Raymond Burr died after a battle with liver cancer on this date.


September 12, 1994 -
After a night of boozing and smoking crack, Frank Corder stole a Cessna P150 and crashed it into the south lawn of the White House on this date.



The wreckage tumbles over a tree and a hedge before coming to rest against the West Wing of the Executive Mansion. Corder's flamboyant suicide attack never actually imperiled President Clinton's life, since the First Family was sleeping elsewhere at the time.

I used to say that there was no truth to the rumor that Newt Gingrich bought Frank the boozes and the crack but now after all that occurred after January 6th, I'm not so sure.



And so it goes