Just stay indoors today - it better for your blood pressure

The 'supposed' charity event - the 15th annual Santa-con in NYC today. (It may be the 17th one, but who cares, I don't.)



The amateur drinkers (in various states of holiday undress) are once again back in Manhattan this year: they will be in Midtown and Lower Manhattan, stating at 10 AM. I can take comfort that some of them may die, choking on their own (or someone else's) vomit later in the day. (Ask me how I feel about Santacon.)

I implore all who live along the route to begin collecting buckets of waste (both pet or otherwise) to rain down upon the drunken revelers. I am always, absolutely, in cranky old man mood when this event comes around - be warned!


Christmas trees are known to have been popular in Germany as far back as the sixteenth century.

In England, they became popular after Queen Victoria's husband Albert, who came from Germany, made a tree part of the celebrations at Windsor Castle.



In the United States, the earliest known mention of a Christmas tree is in the diary of a German who settled in Pennsylvania.

Don't even ask about the legacy of Prince Albert and his snug trousers.


December 13, 303 -
It the feast of St. Lucy (Santa Lucia) today. (Early depictions show Lucy offering her eyes on a platter; she is now the patron saint of Sicily and of Opticians.)

Because her extreme beauty attracted too many admirers, Lucy gouged her own eyes out (she had body issues). Miraculously they grew back. After refusing to marry, the Romans forced her to become a whore. She wasn't particularly thrilled with that choice, so she went for door number two and her Roman guards stabbed her to death but not before gouging out her eyes, again.



She wasn't particularly thrilled with that choice, so she went for door number two and her Roman guards stabbed her to death but not before gouging out her eyes, again.


December 13, 1950 -
James Dean begins his career with an appearance in a Pepsi commercial on this date.



From the amount of energy all the performers have, it appears they were drinking the original Coke formula.


December 13, 1956 -
The comeback film for Ingrid Bergman, Anastasia, co-starring Yul Brynner, Helen Hayes, and Akim Tamiroff premiered in the US, on this date.



This movie was based on the story of Anna Anderson, a woman who claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia. It was later discovered that, in fact, she was not who she claimed to be; the mystery was solved through DNA examination of a small piece of tissue cut from Anna in an operation years before.


December 13, 1975 -
Patti Smith released her debut studio album Horses on this date.



Produced by John Cale, Horses has since been viewed by critics as one of the greatest and most influential albums in the history of the American punk rock movement, as well as one of the greatest albums of all time.


December 13, 1975 -
Richard Pryor hosted NBC-TV's Saturday Night Live on this date.



Fearing Pryor would say things that were too offensive for television at the time, the show was placed on seven-second delay for the very first time



Pryor requested in the opening sketch that Garrett Morris say "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" instead of Chevy Chase. Morris' was the only cast member besides Chase to say it during the entire first season.



Gil Scott-Heron was the musical guest that evening.


December 13, 1985 -
The very silly comedy, base on the board game of the same name, Clue, starring Eileen Brennan, Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, and Lesley Ann Warren premiered on this date. (Another fav of our daughters.)



Three endings were shot, and a different one shown at each theater. All three are included on video. The DVD, however, aside from all three endings, also offers the option to play the movie with one randomly selected ending. In some cities, the newspaper print ads indicated which version ("Ending A", "Ending B", or "Ending C") was being shown at each theater.


December 13, 1995 -
Ang Lee's superb adaptation of Jane Austen's 1811 novel, Sense and Sensibility, starring Emma Thompson (who also wrote the screenplay,) Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, and Alan Rickman, opened in Canada on this date.



Ang Lee originally was considering Kate Winslet only for the smaller part of Lucy Steele, even though she really wanted to play Marianne. When Winslet arrived at her audition she pretended that her agent had sent her to read for Marianne, and her reading won her the role.


December 13, 1996 -
Cameron Crowe's romantic comedy, Jerry Maguire, starring Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr., Bonnie Hunt, and Renée Zellweger premiered on this date.



Jonathan Lipnicki showed up on the set one day telling everyone that "the human head weighs eight pounds". Writer, producer, and director Cameron Crowe liked it so much he wrote it into the script.


December 13, 2003 –
Shake it like a polaroid!

Outkast's single Hey Ya! hit #1 on the Billboard charts on this date.



Andre 3000 wrote the first version of the song around 1999, and it almost made it onto their 2000 album Stankonia. At the time the song was called Thank God For Mom And Dad. He started working on it again in 2002, doing lots of experimentation along the way. A lot of lyrics he wrote for the song didn't make the cut.


December 13, 2013 -
David O. Russell's comic take on the ABSCAM sting of the late 70's, American Hustle, starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner, and Jennifer Lawrence opened in limited release in the US on this date.



According to Christian Bale, much of the movie was improvised. So during the shooting of the film, he noted to writer and director David O. Russell, "You realize that this is going to change the plot greatly down track." To which Russell replied, "Christian, I hate plots. I am all about characters, that's it."


December 13, 2008 –
Beyonce's song, Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) hit #1 on the Billboard charts on this date.



The video has become an internet phenomenon with thousands of homemade versions posted on YouTube. Beyoncé explained to The Sunday Times May 10, 2009 that the idea for the promo was a 1960s film of a Bob Fosse routine, Mexican Breakfast, which featured his wife, Gwen Verdon. She recalled; "I saw a video on YouTube. They had a plain background and it was shot on the crane; it was 360 degrees, they could move around. And I said, 'This is genius.' We kept a lot of the Fosse choreography and added the down-south thing - it's called J-setting, where one person does something and the next person follows. So it was a strange mixture, kind of like the song, which is almost like a nursery rhyme, the 'oh-oh-oh's, and the sinister chords. So it's like the most urban choreography, mixed with Fosse - very modern and very vintage. We'd spent all the budget on the video for (the previous single) If I Were a Boy, and with this song, we didn't even have a treatment. So, it's the least expensive video I've done. Not for a moment did I think, 'This is going to be a movement.'"

Don't forget to tune in to another holiday edition of The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today


Today in History:
December 13, 1577 -
Sir Francis Drake set out on a three year (and not three hour) long journey around the world, on this date. He had started his career as a sailor in the slave trading business, but after some run-ins with the Spanish, he decided to devote his life to taking vengeance on the Spanish by disrupting their trade routes.



He became a semi-official pirate for Queen Elizabeth I, plundering Spanish ships, gathering intelligence about their naval activities and creating delicious little dessert cakes.


December 13, 1809 -
The first successful abdominal surgery procedure was performed in the US on this date. Dr. Ephraim McDowell removed a 22 pound (about 10 kg) tumor from the ovary of Jane Todd Crawford. Crawford had previously been misdiagnosed as being pregnant with twins. The surgery was performed without anesthetic or antiseptics, but Crawford made a complete and quick recovery.

(Now that you've gotten up off the floor, clutching you belly, as I had one of my many abdominal surgeries last year, you know I was when I first read about this,) McDowell was called the "father of the ovariotomy," after that and went on to perform similar surgeries, including a hernia repair for President James Polk.


December 13, 1913 -
The initial section of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile road across United States, was dedicated on this date.



It ran from Newark, New Jersey, to Jersey City, New Jersey. On completion, the Lincoln Highway ran coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City west to Lincoln Park in San Francisco.


December 13, 1928 -
The Clip-on tie was invented on this date. Productivity soars as time lost in tying knots is made up and accidental strangulation rates drop as fewer workers ties are caught in the gears.



Legend has it that it was a mortician who had too hard of a time tying ties onto his corpses.

Little know fact - the term, Dork, was also coined on this date.


December 13, 1962 -
NASA launches Relay I, the first active repeater communications satellite, aboard a Thor-Delta rocket from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral.

It would transmit its first test patterns on January 3, 1963, once its solar cells are fully charged. Once in service, it would transmit facsimile, telephone, television, and teleprinter signals.


December 13, 1972 -
Astronaut Gene Cernan climbed into his Lunar Module Challenger on the Moon and prepared to lift off on this date. He currently is the last man to set foot on the moon. Besides his footprints, the astronaut left his daughter's initials scrawled in the lunar dust.



The last official words on the moon, as Cernan climbed the ladder, were "God willing, we shall return," he said. What Cernan to his crew, as they prepared to launch from the lunar surface: "All right, let's get this mother out of here and go home."


December 13, 1973 -
Claude Vorilhon, former French race car driver, began the Rael movement in France on this date.

While commuting to his job as a sportswriter, he decided to drive past the office and stop at a nearby volcano in Auvergne. During his stop, Vorilhon saw the flashing red light of a space ship, which opened its hatch to reveal a green alien with longish dark hair. Once aboard the spaceship, he said he was entertained by voluptuous female robots and learned that the first human beings were created by aliens called Elohim, who cloned themselves.



Vorilhon said that he was instructed to take the name Rael and spread the news that humans were placed on Earth by extraterrestrials who had engineered our DNA. In 1997 Rael founded Clonaid, a company dedicated to cloning people. In 2013 the Raelian movement numbered about 90,000 members world-wide.

The French, they are a funny race.


December 13, 1989 -
Taylor Swift was born in West Reading, Pennsylvania on this date. She was named after musician James Taylor.



Swift's mother believed that a gender-neutral name would help forge a business career. Taylor Swift's maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was a professional opera singer, and inspired Taylor to become a singer. (Both the Caligari girls are hard core Swifties.)


December 13, 2003 -
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s nine-month long run from the US military finally came to an end when he was discovered hiding in a hole just nine miles away from his hometown of Tikri, five months after his sons Uday and Kusay were killed in a raid in Mosul.



Following his capture, Saddam was put in Iraqi custody and charged with the deaths of nine villagers, the razing of farmlands, the wrongful arrest of almost 400 Dujail residents and the torture of women and children. He was sentenced to death.


Before you go - more useless trivia: Christmas: The first Christmas-themed sweaters made an appearance in 1950, produced on a grand scale and quickly becoming popular, but it wasn‘t until the 1980s that the unique piece of clothing made a cultural impact, after appearing in different TV sitcoms.



Shockingly, nearly six million dollars are spent during the holiday season on ugly Christmas sweaters.

And so it goes

Stand by for an important message

ACME would like to bring you another in a series of holiday safety tips:



Holiday tip No. 195 - Giants monsters are attracted to bright lights and decorations, so please turn off your lights and stay inside!


December 12, 1531-
It's the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, an indigenous peasant, had visions of the Virgin Mary. Legend held that the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego outside Mexico City and left an imprint on his cactus-fiber poncho. The poncho became an icon for the Virgin of Guadalupe.

It's early and I'll stop hurting your brain with too much info but go impress the St. John's Rosary Altar Society with your new found knowledge later.


December 12, 1954 -
BBC Television aired the landmark adaptation of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four on this date. It was the most expensive drama produced to date.



Unusually for a British TV production of that era, this story survives as a telerecording. At the time, the majority of television was transmitted live, and most shows were not recorded. However, the original transmission had been so successful that this restaged version was kept in the hope it could be sold to foreign networks.


December 12, 1966 -
Fred Zinnemann's adaptation of Robert Bolt's play about Sir Thomas More, A Man for All Seasons starring Paul Scofield premiered in New York on this date.



Playwright and screenwriter Robert Bolt borrowed the title from Robert Whittington, a contemporary of Sir Thomas More, who in 1520 wrote of him: "More is a man of an angel's wit and singular learning; I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness, and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity: a man for all seasons."


December 12, 1966 -
Supermarionation was on full display when Thunderbirds are GO, based on the successful TV series, was released in the UK on this date. While the film received good reviews, it was not a box office success.



The first feature film to be shot using the Livingston Electronic Viewfinder Unit, also known as Add-a-Vision. This was basically an electronic viewfinder that could be used in conjunction with a Mitchell BNC Camera to take a television picture directly from the camera, enabling the staff of the entire unit to watch any scene being filmed on the television monitors. This also allowed the puppeteers to better control their puppets and keep them on their marks in the frame.


December 12, 1967 -
Stanley Kramer's controversial film (for the time,) Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, starring Spencer Tracy (in his last role), Sidney Poitier, and Katharine Hepburn, was released on this date.



In the scene near the end where Spencer Tracy gives his memorable soliloquy, Katharine Hepburn can be seen crying in the background. This was not acting: she knew how gravely ill her longtime friend was and was moved by his remarks about how true love endures through the years.


December 12, 1972 -
Irwin Allen's ocean disaster movie, The Poseidon Adventure, premiered in NYC on this date.



Paul Gallico was inspired to write his novel by a voyage he made on the Queen Mary. When he was having breakfast in the dining room, the liner was hit by a large wave, sending people and furniture crashing to the other side of the vessel. He was further inspired by a true incident which occurred aboard the Queen Mary during World War II. Packed with American troops bound for Europe, the ship was struck by a gargantuan freak wave in the North Atlantic. It was calculated that if the ship had rolled another five inches, she would have capsized like the Poseidon.


December 12, 1973 -
Columbia Picture released the Hal Ashby film The Last Detail, starring Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid, Carol Kane and Michael Moriarty, on this date.



Jack Nicholson turned down the role of Johnny Hooker in The Sting, which he thought was too commercial, to appear in this film, which was written by his good friend Robert Towne. Nicholson and Redford were nominated as Best Actor of 1973 at the Academy Awards, losing out to Jack Lemmon in Save the Tiger.


December 12, 1980 -
Whip It earned Devo a gold record on this date. It is the first distinction of its kind for any song about masturbation to earn a gold record. Well, whip it good!



When MTV launched in 1981, they had very few videos to choose from. Some European and Australian artists had been making videos, but very few came from US artists, and most of those were concert videos. Devo had been making interesting videos for a while because they thought Laser Discs were going to catch on and wanted to make film shorts with music soundtracks that people could watch on them. Laser Discs never caught on, but MTV did, which gave this video lots of exposure.


Hey Jilly, that guy didn't check out the next episode of the Holiday Spectacular! Go punch him.


Today in History:
December 12, 1870 -
Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina was sworn in as the second African American congressman (after Hiram Revels) in the U.S. House of Representatives, on this date.

Born into slavery in South Carolina, he was freed in the 1840s by his father, a slave who had been allowed to work as a barber and split the profits with his “master”. With his savings, he purchased the freedom of his entire family.

As a respectable leader in Charleston, Joseph Rainey joined the Republican Party and eventually won four elections to Congress, where he worked hard to gain passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1875.


December 12, 1899 -
Dentist George Grant was granted a patent (U.S. patent No. 638,920) for the modern golf tee on this date. The design, basically, lifts a golf ball slightly off the ground.

This additional height gives the golfer better control in his hit. Before the invention of the golf tee, golfers would often make a small mound of dirt or sand to serve as a tee. Groundskeepers everywhere rejoice.


December 12, 1915 -
It's the birthday of Francis Albert today. Once again, under advise of legal council, I have make no jokes or innuendos about Mr. Sinatra's alleged organized crime connection, especially since I work at a union facility (Please note - I did not use the word, Mafia.)



And once again, We here at ACME would like to remind the various gentlemen from Bensonhurst with whom we had occasion to speak with - we did not resort to any cheap gimmicks to slander the Chairman of the Board, greatest singer of the 20th century. (Now will you please return the keys to our home - I need to use the bathroom and the cat is quite old and needs to be fed.)


December 12, 1917 -
With a rent payment of $90 borrowed from a friend, Father Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town outside Omaha, NE in an old Victorian mansion on this date.



Flanagan's archbishop allowed Flanagan to focus on the boy's home and assigned nuns to help him.


December 12, 1937 -
Japanese aircraft shell and sink US gunboat Panay on the Yangtze River in China. Japan apologized, disciplining those involved and paying $2.2M reparations.



You think we might have seen something was brewing.


December 12, 1968 -
Here's a rule I recommend: Never practice two vices at once.



After a long and well enjoyed life, Tallulah Bankhead died in St. Luke's Hospital in New York City of double pneumonia, complicated by emphysema and malnutrition, on this date.



Her last coherent words reportedly were "Codeine... bourbon." (I absolutely will be stealing that, except substituting gin for bourbon at the end.)


Before you go - The 20th of March is Snowman Burning Day, (in 100 days.)



Snowman Burning Day is a celebration that marks the ends of winter and the beginning of spring. The holiday was first celebrated in 1971. The Unicorn Hunters at the Lake Superior State University (LSSU) have established the holiday. The idea for Snowman Burning Day came from Germany's Rose Sunday Festival, where the mayor of each town burns a straw snowman to welcome spring, but only if the children of the town have been good all year. It has been in celebration on the first day of Spring since then.

And so it goes

All you need is love... and a bagel

Today is Have a Bagel Day. as opposed to National Bagel Day which is January 15th.



Whichever day you celebrate, remember the salmon and a smear.


December 11, 1957 -
The movie Peyton Place, based on the novel by Grace Metalious, had its world premiere in Camden, Maine, on this date, where most of it had been filmed.



Susan Strasberg was initially set to play Allison. However, when she upped her salary, she was fired. For a short period, Debbie Reynolds was set to replace her. Eventually, 20 famous actresses were screen tested before the unknown Diane Varsi got the role.


December 11, 1961 -
Please, Mr. Postman by the Marvelettes was released on this date



Marvin Gaye played drums on this song. He was 22 at the time and trying to break into the business.


December 11, 1968 –
Filming begins on The Rolling Stones‘ Rock And Roll Circus movie. Conceived by Mick Jagger, the event was comprised of two concerts on a circus stage and included such acts as John Lennon and his fiancée Yoko Ono performing as part of a supergroup called The Dirty Mac, along with Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell, Keith Richards, Jethro Tull and The Who, as well as clowns and acrobats.



Filmed at a studio in Wembley using an unusual hybrid type of camera, supporting both 16mm film and monochrome video. The idea was that TV production techniques could be used, with the cameramen framing shots on the video camera viewfinders, whilst a vision mixer inter-cut the camera feeds "on the fly", simultaneously controlling the film stop/start mechanisms in the cameras. Output was thus on film and could be easily edited, and prepared for final program sales. However the system was still in development and was unreliable. Equipment problems caused the tight filming schedule to overrun and the Stones finally went on stage in the small hours of the morning, after much delay. It was originally meant to be aired on the BBC, but the Rolling Stones withheld it because they were unhappy with their performance. The film was eventually released in 1996.


December 11, 1980 -
Hawaiian shirts and free mustache rides abound when Magnum PI, starring Tom Selleck, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



This is one of a very small number of shows in which an actor "breaks the fourth wall" and looks right into the camera. Thomas Magnum does this on occasion when presented with a ridiculous situation.


December 11, 1982 –
Toni Basil's surprise hit Mickey reached No. 1 of the Billboard charts on this date.



This was originally recorded as Kitty by a group called Racey, which released it in 1979. In the original lyric, Kitty is a girl. Toni Basil changed the title from Kitty to Mickey and the gender from female to male. Basil choreographed the 1968 Monkees movie Head, but insists the song is not named after group member Micky Dolenz. She also says there's nothing dirty about the song - it's just a peppy tune about a girl who really likes a guy.


December 11, 1987 -
Greed is Good.

20th Century Fox released Oliver Stone's drama, Wall Street, starring Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, and Daryl Hannah on this date.



Oliver Stone later admitted that everyone involved told him Daryl Hannah was miscast, but he was too proud to replace her. This caused tension on set, particularly with Sean Young who wanted the role herself.


December 11, 1981 -
The final film directed and written by Billy Wilder, Buddy Buddy, based on the french film film L'emmerdeur, starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Paula Prentiss, and Klaus Kinski, premiered on this date.



Two weeks into principal photography, co-writer/director Billy Wilder felt he had miscast the hit-man character with Walter Matthau, that the picture did not work with two comic leads, the Matthau part needed to be in a serious mold, like with a Clint Eastwood.


December 11, 1992 -
Walt Disney Pictures and Jim Henson Productions' musical comedy adaptation of Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol, The Muppet Christmas Carol, directed by Brian Henson (in his feature directorial debut) and starring Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge, alongside Muppet performers Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Jerry Nelson, and Frank Oz, premiered on this date in the US.



This was the first major Muppet project after creator Jim Henson's death. The role of Kermit the Frog was handed down to Steve Whitmire. He said he was incredibly nervous about taking over such an iconic character. The night before he recorded Kermit's songs for the movie, he had a dream where he met Henson in a hotel lobby and told him how unsure he was. In the dream, Henson reassured Whitmire that the feeling would pass. After waking up, Whitmire was confident and able to do the part.


Another Guest Programmer


Today in History:
December 11, 1688 -
King James II attempting to flee London as the "Glorious Revolution" replaced him with King William (of Orange) and Queen Mary, threw the Great Seal of the Realm into the River Thames.

He was, however, caught in Kent. Having no desire to make James a martyr, the Prince of Orange let him escape on December 23, 1688. James was received by his cousin, Louis XIV, who offered him a palace and a generous pension.


December 11, 1882 -
Fiorello Enrico La Guardia, Mayor of New York for three terms from 1934 to 1945, was born on this date.



With a boundless enthusiasm and energy to match that of Teddy Roosevelt, La Guardia could be the last Mayor of NYC who really loved his job.


December 11, 1919 -
The citizens of Enterprise, Alabama, erected a monument to the boll weevil. The only monument dedicated to an agricultural pest!!

The invasive insect devastated their fields but forced residents to end their dependence on cotton and to pursue mixed farming and manufacturing.


December 11, 1931 -
Rita Moreno (Rosa Dolores Alverio,) winner of an Peabody, Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony, was born on this date.



She is currently one of only three PEGOT winners; she is the only Puerto Rican PEGOT winner.


December 11, 1936 -
Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated the throne in order to marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson. Edward VIII had been king of Great Britain and Ireland for less than a year when he abdicated the throne to marry "the woman I love."



After his abdication, Albert Frederick Arthur George Windsor became George VI, King of the United Kingdom and Edward was awarded the title Duke of Windsor by his brother, the king. Edward and Mrs. Simpson married on June 3, 1937.


The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was created by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946, to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II.



UNICEF provides many types of assistance and help to children and mothers. It receives money from different governments and private persons. It works in almost all countries of the world.


December 11, 1964 -
Sam Cooke, popular singer, was shot to death by Bertha Franklin, manager of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, California. Franklin claimed that he had threatened her, and that she killed him in self-defense.



The shooting was ultimately ruled to be a justifiable homicide, though there have been arguments that crucial details did not come out in court, or were buried afterward.


December 11, 1967 -
The Beatles' Apple Music signs its first group - Grapefruit, on this date.



With unwise business decisions like this, I'm sure the Beatles must have gone broke very shortly after this.


More Christmas Trivia:
According to a National Geographic Kids report, during the Christmas season, almost 28 Lego sets are sold each second.



However, the company has not revealed its sales on its website or any social media platforms, the claim is unverifiable.

So now you know.


And on a personal note: Happy Birthday Julietta

(Hope you have a great one this year.)

And so it goes