With the holidays coming up,

Remember to pick up those decorations.


November 10, 1953 -
Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom was an educational Adventures in Music animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions, and originally released to theaters by Buena Vista Distribution on this date.



This was the first animated cartoon in CinemaScope.


November 10, 1956 -
Billie Holiday returned to the stage at Carnegie Hall after a three-year absence on this date.



The concert was called, by some, a high point in jazz history .


November 10, 1967 -
The Moody Blues released their hit, Nights in White Satin, on this date. This was written by Justin Hayward, who joined the band the previous year. He got the idea for the song after someone gave him a set of white satin sheets - yes, sometimes, it's just that inane.



This song introduced a new sound for the band. When they formed, they were more of a Blues band, and had a hit in 1965 with a cover of Bessie Banks' Go Now. With the songs on Days of Future Passed, they distinguished themselves with original songs in a more psychedelic/orchestral sound.


November 10, 1969 -
Come and play. Even at 47, everything's still A-OK (even on HBO.)



Sesame Street premiered on PBS-TV on this date.


November 10, 1969 -
Just four months after the Apollo 11 moon landing, Columbia Pictures released the thriller Marooned, directed by John Sturges and starring Gregory Peck and Gene Hackman, in U.S. theaters on this date.



The Film Ventures International re-edit of this film (retitled Space Travelers) was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. This was also the only film featured on the show to have won an Academy Award.


Today in History:
November 10, 4004 BC -
Are you having that , "Gee, I'm feeling rather shamed about my engorged genitals today", here's the reason why:

Adam and Eve, all our forebearers, were driven from Paradise on this date, according to our good old friend Rev. Ussher.


November 10, 1871 -
New York Newspaperman Henry M. Stanley finally found Scottish explorer Dr. Livingstone at Ujiji near Lake Tanganyika (helpfully identified by some sources as being "near Unyanyembe"), and remarked, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?", on this date.



This was extremely witty and therefore historical.


November 10, 1903 -
U.S. patent  no. 743,801 was issued to Mary Anderson, a resident of Birmingham, Alabama. She tried to sell her invention to a manufacturing firm in Canada, but the offer was rejected as having no practical value.

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pages/US743801-0.png
Others belittled her creation as well, insisting it would distract drivers and result in accidents. In the end, her patent expired before she was able to profit from her invention.


November 10,  1911 -
The following entry was made by George Levick, a surgeon and the medical officer on Scott's famous 1910-1913 expedition to the South Pole: This afternoon I saw a most extraordinary site - A Penguin was actually engaged in sodomy upon the body of a dead white throated bird of its own species.



How I know this and why I though it important to note it in this blog speaks volumes to my education and general mental state.

(The rest of today's posting is dedicated to the 40th President of the United States:)

November 10, 1925 -
Richard Burton was born on this date.



No, not the Victorian international man of mystery, self-circumcisor and male brothel frequenter but Welsh actor with the greatest voice of the 20th Century.

 Ronald Reagan somehow figures into this story.


November 10, 1928 -
Playing against Army at Yankee Stadium, Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne gave what is considered the greatest locker room speeches of all time by saying "Win one for the Gipper."



Somehow Ronald Reagan got mixed up in all of this.


November 10, 1928 -
Michinomiya Hirohito was crowned the 124th Emperor of Japan, Emperor Showa on this date.

Some how Ronald Reagan got mixed up in this, as well.


November 10, 1938 -
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, one of the most extraordinary men of the 20th Century, statesman and first President of Modern Turkey, died of cirrhosis of the liver on this date.



Will Durant had said, "men devoted to war, politics, and public life wear out fast, and all three had been the passion of Atatürk."

Ronald Reagan makes a bizarre appearance here


November 10, 1940 -
Walt Disney begins serving as a secret informer for the Los Angeles office of the FBI, to report back information on Hollywood subversives. He was made a "Full Special Agent in Charge Contact" in 1954.

We should note that Disney was also atheist, Neo-Nazi, racist and possible child pornography collector, thus subversive in his own little way. Also remember that he reported in directly to a cross-dressing, homosexual who would never make left turns in his car.

You just knew Reagan was going to show up here.


November 10, 1954 -
The Iwo Jima Memorial, also known as the US Marine Corps (USMC) War Memorial, was dedicated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Arlington National Cemetery on this date.



the Marine Corps War Memorial is dedicated to all Marines who have served and given their lives in the defense of the United States since a resolution of the Second Continental Congress on this date in 1775 ordered their formation.

I'm not going to insult the Marines with any association with Mr. Reagan.


November 10, 1975 -
The 729-foot-long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew on board





and unfortunately is the subject of Gordon Lightfoot's annoying hit song, The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald.

Thankfully, Mr. Reagan was not in Canada at the time.



And so it goes.



x
getting on the 'Good' list might be a problem.

America appears to have spoken

But what it has said, I don't understand.

Let us pray the next four years past swiftly


November 9, 1946 -
Another classic yet surprisingly controversial Bugs Bunny outing, Rhapsody Rabbit, premiered on this date (We'll talk about the controversy later.)



A long-standing controversy exists between the previous cartoon and the Tom &Jerry short, The Cat Concerto (1946).



Both sides (WB and MGM) claim that theirs was the original, and the other was a rip-off. Nobody knows for sure who is correct and it is, of course, entirely conceivable that the similarities are pure coincidence.


November 9, 1951 -
The zenith of Hollywood Musical film making (I'll let you argue about whether this or Singing in the Rain is better), An American in Paris, opened in California on this date.



Even though Vincente Minnelli is credited as the sole director, he was sometimes tied up with his divorce from Judy Garland and other directing projects, leaving Gene Kelly to take over the directing duties.


November 9, 1964 -
Another under-appreciated film that you should see, The Pumpkin Eater, opened in the US on this date.



The film never explains its title, which refers to a traditional child's rhyme: "Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater/Had a wife, but couldn't keep her;/So he put her in a shell/And there he kept her very well." This serves as the epigraph of Penelope Mortimer's original novel.


(As I'm sure many of you are - I am tired, bone tired.  I can't call today an abbreviated version of Today in History, so much as auto-pilot.)
Today in History:
November 9, 1906 -
Teddy Roosevelt went against more than a century of tradition and became the first American president ever to leave the country while in office, on this date. He went to view the construction site of the Panama Canal.



Before Roosevelt, it was assumed that a President of the United States couldn't oversee the country effectively if he traveled abroad. It would take too long for him to communicate with government officials back home. But with the invention of the telegraph and then the telephone, high speed communication had grown much more feasible.



So on this day in 1906, Roosevelt and his wife climbed aboard the U.S.S. Louisiana and sailed south. The journey to Panama made Roosevelt happier than he'd been in a long while. He strolled the decks with his wife, read a stack of books he'd brought with him, including Tacitus and Milton, and the captain even let him steer the ship at one point. When he got to Panama itself, he was so impressed by the jungle and the tropical wildlife that he didn't even mind the torrential rains.



The chief engineer had the incredibly difficult task of accompanying Roosevelt everywhere he went. He said, "I have blisters on both feet and am worn out - Scaling a hill with Roosevelt is like taking a fort by storm." They took a train to the construction site, but when Roosevelt saw the first 95-ton steam shovel, he ordered that the train be stopped so that he could hike through the mud to see the steam shovel up close. It was a new invention at the time, and Roosevelt spent a half an hour asking about its operation. He then took a turn at the controls.

Although, King Louis (Mel Brooks) said, "It's good to be the king", it must have been a blast to be Teddy.

Bully, bully.


November 9, 1938 -
Today is the anniversary of Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass, literally, "Night of Crystal",) when waves of violent anti-Jewish pogroms took place throughout Germany and surrounding German territories. The incident was sparked after Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew, killed Ernst vom Rath, a Nazi diplomat, on November 7, 1938.



The Nazis began burning and vandalizing Jewish businesses, homes, synagogues and schools. More than 100 Jews were killed, and Nazi forces arrested more than 30,000 Jewish men over two days, sending most of them to concentration camps; many of the men were later released after promising to leave the country. The violence marks the unofficially beginning of the holocaust.


November 9, 1953 -

Dylan Thomas finally accomplished his goal of drinking himself to death (having had 18 straight whiskies at the White Horse Tavern, in Greenwich Village, several days previously) on this date.



Sometimes it is not good to be a drunken Welsh poet.


November 9, 1965 -
The Northeast Blackout of 1965 was a major power outage affecting parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, New Jersey  in the United States and portions of Canada on this date.



Around 25 million people and 80,000 square miles were left without electricity for up to twelve hours. Although human error was the official blame, there is another theory that UFO's visiting the Northeast were to blame.

That explains so much.


November 9, 1967 -
First issue of Rolling Stone Magazine was published on this date.

In the very first edition of the magazine, Jann Wenner wrote that Rolling Stone "is not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces."


When a government statement that crossing of the border would be permitted was broadcast on November 9, 1989, masses of East Germans approached and then crossed the wall, and were joined by crowds of West Germans in a celebratory atmosphere.



The Wall was subsequently destroyed by a euphoric public over a period of several weeks, and its fall was the first step toward German reunification, which was formally concluded on October 3, 1990.

The French are still casting a leery eye at their reunified neighbor.


November 9, 2346 -
Romulans commit an atrocity now known as the Khitomer Massacre, slaughtering over 4,000 Klingons on an agricultural colony on this date.



Worf and Kahlest are the only two to survive.



And so it goes

It's finally time

Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. - George Jean Nathan

Just Vote - you have no excuse today.



November 8, 1954 -
You can't break the rules until you know how to play the game.







Rickie Lee Jones, The Duchess of Coolsville, two-time Grammy Award-winning vocalist, musician, songwriter and producer, was born on this date.


November 8, 1971 -
Led Zeppelin released their untitled fourth album, on this date.



And kids remember, according to the Consumer Protection and Toxic Materials Committee of the California State Assembly, if you play Stairway to Heaven backwards, you can hear:



So, don't play you albums backwards (many of you have no idea what albums are.)


November 8, 1979 -
The program, The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



The show was planned to be temporary, but it evolved into Nightline in March of 1980.


Today in History:
November 8, 1431 -
Vlad III the Impaler (Vlad Dracula), Transylvanian prince, inspiring the name of the vampire in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, was probably born on this date.



People had better things to do back then (like find something to eat or keep warm) than keep track of the birth date of some sadistic royal person.


November 8, 1519 -
The Aztecs and their leader, Moctezuma, foolishly welcomed Hernando Cortez and about 300 Spanish soldiers, 18 horses and thousands of Mexico's native inhabitants who had grown resentful of Aztec rule marched unmolested into Tenochtitlán, the capital city of the Aztec empire, on this date.



The Aztec ruler Moctezuma, believing that Cortez could be the white-skinned deity Quetzalcoatl, whose return had been foretold for centuries, greeted the arrival of these strange visitors with courtesy--at least until it became clear that the Spaniards were all too human and bent on conquest.

Oops.


November 8, 1789 -
Elijah Craig, a Baptist minister, from Georgetown, Kentucky, distilled the first sour-mash whiskey for public sale on this date.

His customers from the surrounding area called his product Bourbon County Whiskey - after the county of its origin.


November 8th, 1895  -
Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays on this date, when he discovered treated cardboard he was using in routine experiments glowed in certain situations – the result of radiation hitting the surface.



During subsequent experiments he found that objects of different thicknesses interposed in the path of the rays showed variable transparency to them when recorded on a photographic plate.


November 8, 1923 -
Adolf Schicklgruber, failed artist and World War I veteran, launched his first attempt to seize power with a failed coup in Munich, Germany, that came to be known as the Beer-Hall Putsch. He proclaimed himself chancellor and General Erich Ludendorff dictator.



No one really taken him too seriously at the time. Unfortunately, he wasn't joking.


November 8, 1957 -
Britain tested its first hydrogen bomb, called Operation: Grapple X, over Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, on this date.  (The U.K. had become an actual thermonuclear power with the detonation of Grapple X.)



It was a bit more powerful than they expected and caused infrastructure damage and destroyed some buildings on the island.  I'm guessing this finally answers the question for me: No, I do not wish to spend Christmas (or any time for that matter) on Christmas Island.


November 8, 1994 -
Living well and ripping your enemy's still-beating heart out with your bare hands is the best revenge.



Michael O'Donoghue writer for National Lampoon magazine and the first head writer for Saturday Night Live, died on this date, of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 54, after a long history of what were thought to be chronic migraine headaches.


(Ok, I'm no longer going to be driven crazy - Hanukkah starts at sundown on the 24th of December at 4:34 pm. Once again, I believe if I were a child I would eagerly count the evening of the 24th as the start, so that's what I'm going with.)

There are 47 days until Christmas, which as any small child who has ever waited for the arrival of Santa begins at midnight.



And so it goes.

Hey, Did you know Election Day is Tomorrow?

No matter who you're going to vote for, even Vermin Supreme -

Remember that voting is one of the only civic responsibilities you have as a citizen. (a brief aside - one hundred years ago today, President Woodrow Wilson was re-elected over Charles Evans Hughes, but the race was so close that all votes had to be counted before an outcome could be determined, so the results were not known until November 11.)


Today is a celebration of Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds

November 7, 1955 -
The neo-realist film classic, Umberto D., was released in the US on this date.



There are two dogs used in the film. The trained one has a black head and its right side is white. Another dog, with a white muzzle and a black spot on its right flank, is used in two scenes - firstly, when Umberto is hiding from the police after the demonstration and, secondly, when he reclaims Flike from the pound.


November 7, 1956 -
An early masterpiece from Fellini, I Vitelloni, was released in the US on this date.



At the end of the film, when Moraldo is saying good-bye to the young boy from the train, his "Good-by, Guido" is actually the dubbed voice of director, Fredrico Fellini. It is believed that Fellini did this to emphasize the fact that the film was autobiographical.


November 7, 1963 -
The comedy that features one of the largest collections of American comedians ever brought together, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, premiered on this date.



Stan Laurel turned down an invitation to appear in this film. When his partner Oliver Hardy died in 1957, Laurel pledged never to perform again. He never did.


November 7, 1979 -
Loosely based on the life of Janis Joplin, the film, The Rose, starring Bette Midler, was released on this date.



The movie was originally entitled Pearl, which was a biographical movie based on Janis Joplin's life. When approached with the script for Pearl, Bette Midler believed it was too soon after Joplin's death to portray her life in a movie. Rewrites were then made, with Midler's guidance, that deleted some portions of the original script and embellished other parts of the story. Then the rewritten script was named The Rose and Midler agreed to the lead role.


Today in History:
Maria Sklodowski was born in Warsaw, Poland, on November 7, 1867. Poland was controlled by Russia at the time, so Maria was referred to as Manya, causing her mother to die. This left Manya and her four older siblings in care of their father, who was caught teaching Polish and therefore prohibited from earning money.

To help support her father, Manya began tutoring a family in the country outside Warsaw. Her sister Bronya moved to Paris to study medicine and become a famous doctor, so Manya sent money to her, also. This allowed Bronya to marry another medical student and begin practicing medicine in Paris.

Bronya and her husband invited Manya to live with them in Paris and study at the Sorbonne, where she could call herself Marie. This appealed to the young woman, who quickly earned master's degrees in physics and mathematics. She enjoyed Paris so much she couldn't bear to return to Poland and to understand her attraction to Paris she began a study of magnetism.

To conduct her magnetism research she needed a larger lab, however, so she married a Frenchman named Pierre and used his. One of Pierre's friends had been experimenting with Uranium, which piqued Marie's curiosity. She began experimenting with it herself, and ultimately discovered something she called "radio-activity." This eventually led to her discovery of Radium, for which she received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911.



Marie Curie's research would eventually culminate in the development of the atomic bomb, but unfortunately she died before having the opportunity to see the full flowering of her hard work.


November 7, 1872 -
The cargo ship Mary Celeste sailing from New York, never reached Genoa. Four weeks later it is found completely abandoned, whereabouts of the ten man crew unknown.



The ship's cargo was alcohol, so you decide.


November 7, 1874 -
The famous political cartoonist Thomas Nast (a staunch Republican) first used an elephant to symbol for the Republican Party on this date.

He choice the elephant because of the animal's great size, intelligence, strength, and dignity.


November 7, 1940 -
The newly completed Tacoma Narrows Bridge, opened barely four months before, swayed and collapsed in a 42 mile-per-hour wind on this date.



There were no casualties except a dog trapped in a car stranded on the bridge. A rescue was attempted (by the man with the pipe), but the frightened animal would not leave the car.


November 7, 1962  -
Richard M. Nixon, 49, who had been in politics for 16 years, failed in a bid to become governor of California, held what he called his last press conference, telling reporters, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore," on this date.



Nixon was able to come back from his defeat and be elected president of the United States just six years.


November 7, 1965 -
The Pillsbury Doughboy made its first appearance on this date.



You may refer to the creature as it; marketing may call it a Doughboy but there is no evidence of genitalia.


November 7, 1983 -
An anonymous phone called notified the White House authorities that a bomb had been placed close to the Senate chamber by the "Armed Resistance Unit" and was set to explode. The Senate chamber was empty at the time, and nobody was injured.

The bomb did, however, cause about $250,000  in damage. Six Resistance Conspiracy members were arrested for the bombing five years later.

A portrait of Daniel Webster, received the explosion’s full force.  The blast tore away Webster’s face and left it scattered across the Minton tiles in one-inch canvas shards.  Quick thinking Senate curators rescued the fragments from debris-filled trash bins.  Over the coming months, a capable conservator painstakingly restored the painting to a credible, if somewhat diminished, version of the original.

Shhh,



And so it goes.

Hopefully you enjoyed that extra hour

Did you remember to set all of the clocks back



- the VCR (does anyone still use their VCR?), the microwave, the automatic coffee pot in the kitchen?



If you already did so, you can watch this; we'll wait for the others.


Do you have friend running the Marathon today?



Don't forget to remind them that the first guy who ran one died at the finish line.


November 6, 1948 -
Sylvester in his prime - Kit for Cat, premiered on this date.



The actors in the radio drama, Mel Blanc and Bea Benaderet, call each other by their real first names, Melvin and Beatrice.


November 6, 1947 -
Meet the Press, the longest-running show on network TV, premiered on NBC-TV on this date .



Meet the Press made its initial debut two years earlier – as a radio program with Martha Rountree and Lawrence Spivak as producers.


November 6, 1981 -
One of Terry Gilliam's critically acclaimed features, Time Bandits, premiered on this date.



Ruth Gordon was cast as Mrs. Ogre but was injured before production. Katherine Helmond was originally slated to play the role in heavy make-up to look like her husband, but then decided it would be funnier if Mrs. Ogre was an ordinary person. Terry Gilliam agreed.


Today in History (There will be a quiz at the end) -
November 6, 1860 -
US President Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican to be elected President on this date. He beat out three other candidates and won 40 percent of the popular vote.



By the time he was inaugurated in March of 1861, however, seven states had seceded from the Union and had elected Jefferson Davis as their president. The American Civil War began about a month later.


November 6, 1893 -
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the greatest Russian composer of all time, was having the worst month in his life. Rumors of his homosexuality had become so well known that a coterie of his former classmates got together and forced him to drink cholera tainted (arsenic) water. Shortly after meeting with his 'old friends', Tchaikovsky suffered from acute diarrhea and stomach pains.



Tchaikovsky refused to call a doctor, and tried to carry on with his day, taking cod liver oil in an attempt to ease his stomach. Within days he was much worse, and a doctor diagnosed him with cholera. The mortality rate for cholera at that time was more than 40%, but he seemed to get better, then he would get worse again with more pains and cramps. Eventually his kidneys failed, a priest was called, and he died on this date.

The take away lesson from this is: avoid reunions with 'old friends'.


On November 6, 1911, Maine became a dry state on this date.

How a state with 3500 miles of shoreline could dry out in a single day is beyond me, but I can't always expect to understand the historical information I gather. It may just have been a really low tide.


November 6, 1917 -
Hey kids here another episode of the Wacky Russian Revolution:

For some reason, Lenin and Trotsky take control of Petrograd to direct the October Revolution (even though it's November in most of the world.)


On November 6, 1923, the price of a loaf of bread in Berlin was reported to be about 140 billion German marks.

And yet when we think of fine baking, we tend to think of France -

clearly, we have done the Germans wrong.


November 6, 1989 -
Today is the Feast of St. Kitty, the patron saint of the victims of long draw out campaign battles (see Pat Nixon, the Methodist saint.)

Kitty Dukakis, wife of Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, was hospitalized after ingesting rubbing alcohol on this date.


With 88 days between the equinox on September 23 and the solstice on December 21, we are considered halfway through the relevant seasons



(Autumn or Fall in the northern hemisphere; spring in the southern hemisphere) on this day.
While you are considering that, keep this in mind:

Make your plans, as you see fit.



And so it goes

Enjoy all that pasta tonight

Good Luck to all you NYC marathon runners tomorrow (traffic is going to be a mess.)

Just remember what happened to Pheidippides.


November 5, 1911 -
Roy Rogers, singing cowboy (Happy Trails, Roy Rogers Show), was born on this date.



He was born as Leonard Franklin Slye in Cincinnati where his father worked in a shoe factory. He died in 1998 at age 86.


November 5, 1932 -
Hollywood's love of Oriental Exoticism reached it full flower when MGM released the film The Mask Of Fu Manchu, starring Boris Karloff and Lewis Stone premiered on this date.



It took MGM makeup artist Cecil Holland 2.5 hours every morning to apply makeup to Boris Karloff for this role.


November 5, 1938 -
A very funny (but very un PC) B & W Looney Tunes Cartoon, Porky in Egypt, premiered on this date.



The camel steals the cartoon.


November 5, 1943 -
Robert  Siodmak first feature for Universal Studios, Son of Dracula, from a script by his brother Curt and starring Lon Chaney, Jr., premiered on this date.



In all prior films, vampires never display any fangs. Mexico's Germán Robles became the first actor to show fangs as a vampire, in El Vampiro in 1957, shortly before the British Hammer Studios' first Horror of Dracula in 1958.


November 5, 1956 -
The Nat King Cole Show debuted on NBC-TV on this date. The Cole program was the first of its kind hosted by an African-American.



In the 1956 season, the show had a 15-minute running time. It was expanded to a 30-minute segment in 1957. The show originally aired without a sponsor, but NBC agreed to pay for initial production costs; it was assumed that once the show actually aired and advertisers were able to see its sophistication, a national sponsor would emerge.Unfortunately, none did. Cole famously said of the doomed series, "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark."


November 5, 1964 -
An unsung minor masterpiece, Seance on a Wet Afternoon, premiered in the US on this date.



The film's director Bryan Forbes looked for that house with the turret as a film location; when he went to the owner for permission, she asked who was in the film. When told that an American actress named Kim Stanley, the woman blanched, stepped back, and said that Stanley was one of her oldest friends whom she had not seen in 17 years.


November 5, 1966 -
The Monkees' Last Train To Clarksville topped the pop-singles charts on this date.



This was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, a songwriting team who came up with many songs for the Monkees.  Boyce and Hart wrote this as a protest to the Vietnam War. They had to keep this quiet in order to get it recorded, but it is about a guy who gets drafted and goes to fight in the war. The train is taking him to an army base, and he knows he may die in Vietnam. At the end of the song he states, "I don't know if I'm ever coming home."


November 5, 1974 -
The Eagles hit, Best of My Love, was released on this date. It did not reach #1 spot until March 1, 1975.



According to Glenn Frey, he came up with the guitar part on this song when attempting to work with a tuning that Joni Mitchell showed him (he and Mitchell were a couple in 1973-1974). He ended up going into a totally different tuning and coming up with the sound.


November 5, 1993 -
James Ivory's masterful adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, Remains of the Day, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, premiered on this date.



It was while shooting Mr. and Mrs. Bridge in Kansas City, that actor Remak Ramsay, who was reading "The Remains of the Day" novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, while playing a part in the film, gave the book to James Ivory to read, thinking that its subject and setting might intrigue Ivory.


Today in History:
On November 5, 1492, Christopher Columbus wrote in his journal that, in the interior of Cuba, there was a great deal of land "sowed with a sort of beans and a sort of grain they call Mahiz, which was well tasted, baked, dried, and made into flour."



Given how things worked out for them, the Indians should have kept maize to themselves.


November 5, 1605 -
Remember, remember the 5th of November



The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, or the Powder Treason, as it was known at the time, was a failed attempt by Guy Fawkes and a group of provincial English Catholics to kill King James I of England, his family, and most of the Protestant aristocracy in a single attack by blowing up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening on this date.



The conspirators had also planned to abduct the royal children, (who were surprisingly Protestant, as well) not present in Parliament, and incite a revolt in the Midlands. the conspirators were captured before the plot could take place. They were all drawn and quartered.



On November 5th each year, people in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries and regions celebrate the failure of the plot on what is known as Guy Fawkes Night, Bonfire Night, Fireworks Night, Cracker Night or Plot Night by getting drunk and setting things on fire.


November 5, 1895 -
George B. Selden was a lawyer and inventor who was granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile, which he invented in 1877.

The idea of a horseless carriage was in the air during George's youth, but its practicality was uncertain. In 1859, his father, Judge Henry R. Selden, a prominent Republican attorney, moved to Rochester, New York, where George briefly attended the University of Rochester before dropping out to enlist in the Sixth U.S. Cavalry, Union Army. This was not to the liking of his father who after pulling some strings and having some earnest discussions with his son managed to have him released from duty and enrolled in Yale. George did not do well at Yale in his law studies, preferring the technical studies offered by the Sheffield Scientific School, but did manage to finish his course of study and pass the New York bar 1871 and joined his father's practice. He married shortly thereafter to Clara Drake Woodruff, with whom he had four children. He continued his hobby of inventing in a workshop in his father's basement, inventing a typewriter and a hoop making machine.

Selden's father, Henry Selden, was chosen by Abraham Lincoln to be Vice President, but he turned it down (and in light of Lincoln's assassination, Henry Selden would have otherwise been the next American President).

He defended Susan B. Anthony in her 1873 trial for unlawfully voting as a woman (had she only voted as a honey badger, there would have been no problem.)

Who knew?


November 5, 1895 -
On that same day, The Prince of Wales, shortly to become King Edward VII and master of almost one-fifth of the land area of the planet, was roused from a nap after a long afternoon of whore mongering and a heavy lunch, remarks in a speech, 'We are all socialists nowadays'.

As anticipated, his mother Queen Victoria was not amused.


November 5, 2007 -
China's first lunar satellite, Chang'e 1, was launched on October 24, 2007, and successfully entered the Moon orbit on this date.



It orbited the Moon for more than one year as part of the first stage of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program.


And so it goes


Don't forget to set you clocks back tonight -

you don't need to save anymore daylight.

Vote wisely this November

Hey, Jon Stewart came out of his mancave and spoke with some people the other day



It's nice to know that he's keeping himself busy.


Stop what you're doing - Once again it's time to celebrate National Chicken Lady Day.  I lost control of bodily functions - thoughts of the KITH Chicken Lady flooded my mind.



But it was not to be. The real Chicken Lady honored today is Dr. Marthenia "Tina" Dupree.

Dr. Dupree, who was formerly the Community Relations and Training Director for a large chicken restaurant, helps people learn public speaking through her not-for-profit organization - The Professional Speakers Network.


November 4, 1948,
The controversial (for the time) film about life inside a mental institution, the Snake Pit, starring  Olivia de Havilland premiered on this date.



Mary Jane Ward's book, the basis for this film, was an autobiographical account of the author's experiences in psychiatric hospitals. The book caused considerable controversy upon its publication in 1946, as it was a scathing indictment of the treatment of psychiatric patients, a subject considered taboo in the 1940s. Naturally, the book was a runaway bestseller.


November 4, 1960 -
The Daniel Mann’s adaptation of John O’Hara’s 1935 novel, Butterfield 8, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Laurence Harvey, and Eddie Fisher premiered on this date.



Elizabeth Taylor had stated many times over the years that Butterfield 8 was not one of her favorite films and that she felt she won the Oscar because of her recent illness rather than for the quality of her performance.


November 4, 1967 -
Motown released the Smokey Robinson and The Miracles hit, I Second That Emotion, on this date.



This was the first Top-10 hit for the group after their 1967 name change from The Miracles.


November 4, 1978 -
Let the warm feeling wash over you, even though the skinny white boy is singing,  -  place one hand on your monitor and the other hand upon the afflicted area. He is channeling the healing powers of Rev. Green. Feel his power emanate and pulsate through your loins.



The Talking Heads released their version of the Al Green classic Take Me To The River, on this date. (I need a moment to compose myself - someone fetch me a cold compress.)


November 4, 2005 -
Walt Disney Pictures released Chicken Little on this date. It was the first in-house Disney film completely created with computer animation.



There are 250,000 feathers on Chicken Little.


Today in History:
November 4, 1922 -
It was on this day that a British man named Howard Carter made one of the greatest archeological discoveries of all time by discovering the tomb of King Tutankhamen (Boris Karloff).



Tut has been making his tour and putting a curse on those damn limeys who disturbed his eternal rest for more than 90 years.


November 4, 1928 -
Arnold Rothstein, mobster and the man who fixed the 1919 World Series, was having a bit of bad luck. Rothstein had just finished playing a marathon three day game of poker with some 'business associates'.

Realizing that his losses totaled a staggering $320,000.00, Rothstein quit the game and refused to pay his debt. The Brain, as he was known by his associated suspected the game might not be on the up and up. His associates took umbrage at the accusation and 'arranged' to have Rothstein have an allergic reaction to some bullets at the Park Central Hotel in NYC on this date.

The gangster, a man of honor, refused to identify his killers on his deathbed. Had he only thought things might not be on the up and up playing cards with men named George "Hump" McManus and Titanic Thompson, things may have gone differently for him.


November 4, 1952 -
The US established the National Security Agency (NSA) on this date.

The NSA (is supposed to) serve as an intelligence agency of the US, gathering and analyzing foreign intelligence documentation and other forms of communication, usually involving encrypted information that requires decoding. (Just lift the receiver up off the phone and whisper, 'Happy Birthday', they'll hear you.)


November 4, 1963 -
At a Beatles command performance (present: Queen Elizabeth; the Queen Mother; Princess Margaret), John Lennon utters the remark: "Will the people in the cheaper seats clap their hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry."



If you look very closely behind the Queen Mother, I believe Princess Margaret flipped John off.


November 4, 1979 -
The US Embassy in Tehran was stormed by "students", holding 52 hostages for 444 days.



The incident propels Ted Koppel and his magnificent hair onto the national scene with a long series of repetitive Nightline: America Held Hostage specials.


November 4, 1995 -
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, 73 years old, was killed by a right-wing, 27 year old Israeli law student, Yigal Amir, at a Tel Aviv peace rally.



Shimon Peres assumed the post of acting Prime Minister.


November 4, 2008 -

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois was elected the 44th president of the United States, the first African American to hold that position, on this date.

And so it goes 

But did they serve a pickle on the side?

It's National Sandwich Day - observed on the birthday of John Montague, Fourth Earl of Sandwich, creator of the sandwich.



To celebrate, begin gambling heavily, don't get up from the table for several hours and call for your manservant to bring you a slab of beef and two pieces of bread (and a piss pot.)


It's also National Housewife Day. (Hey I didn't make up this holiday.)



So go ahead - put your feet up and take a break. You deserve it!


November 3, 1939 -
One of the crown jewels of the 'Golden Age' of Hollywood, Ninotchka opened in New York on this date.



Greta Garbo had her misgivings about appearing in a comedy and was particularly nervous about the drunk scene, which she considered to be highly vulgar.


Gojira premiered in Japan on this date in 1954.



In our house, this is reason enough to break out the hats and hooters. (if you must see Raymond Burr, check him out here )


November 3, 1955 -
Another highlight from the end of the Golden Age of Hollywood Musicals, Guys and Dolls, premiered in NYC on this date.



Frank Sinatra loathed the non-singing Marlon Brando for getting the starring role, while Sinatra got a lesser part. His nickname for the sometimes barely coherent Brando was "Mumbles."


November 3, 1971 -
Clint Eastwood's directorial debut, Play Misty For Me premiered in NYC on this date.



Jean Shepherd claimed that Play Misty for Me was based on a real-life incident in which he was stalked by a female fan, which culminated in her trying to stab him.


November 3, 1976 -
MGM released the horror classic, based on Stephen King’s best-selling first novel, Carrie, directed by  Brian De Palma and starring Sissy Spacek on this date.



Nancy Allen claims that she never realized that her character was going to be so evil until she saw the finished film, she thought that she and John Travolta were playing such self-centered, bickering morons that they were there for comic relief. Piper Laurie also thought that the character of Margaret White was so over the top that the film had to be a comedy.


November 3, 1978 -
Diff'rent Strokes premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



The original concept for the show was different from what would come on the air. The working title was "45 Minutes from Harlem." It would have been on ABC and set in a mansion in the upscale Westchester town of Hastings on Hudson, not in a Manhattan penthouse. There was no older brother, originally, and the housekeeper would have been younger and sexier. The production company balked at the changes the network suggested, and ABC lost interest.


November 3, 1993 -
Fran traveled for the first time over the bridge from Flushing to the Sheffield's door when, , The Nanny, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



When the show was still being developed, the Sheffield family only consisted of two children: Brighton and Grace. The networked wanted there to be an older daughter that Fran could become a mentor for, so the character of Maggie was created.


(Today is an abbreviated version, the stress of all the drinking to get to my happy place is getting to me.)
Today in History:
November 3, 1957 -
Laika the dog became the first living creature in space on this date. She asphyxiated when oxygen in the Soviet Sputnik 2 ran out. However, some western researchers speculate that Laika roasted when the satellite's heat shields were detached.



I wonder if the Explorer's club served Hot Dogs in her honor that year.


November 3, 1964 -
In 1801, the Washington D.C. district was established as a US Congressional jurisdiction; this meant residents of  Washington D.C. were unable to vote.



The passing of the 23rd Amendment to the US Constitution, in 1961, reversed this policy, allowing D.C. residents to vote. Residents of Washington D.C. were permitted to vote in a US Presidential election for the first time on this date.



And so it goes.

It's deviled egg day again (but no one gives a rat's ass.)

November 2, 1913 –
The love god of my 'other wife', former circus performer Burt Lancaster was born on this date.



He was an infamous ladies man in Hollywood, which eventually irritated his wife, Norma, enough for her to leave him.


November 2, 1934 -
Ernst Lubitsch charming adaptation of the famous Viennese operetta The Merry Widow starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald premiered on this date.



Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier did not get along on this film. He called her a "prude" and she called him "a bottom pincher". Their relationship had been deteriorating for some time and this was the final film collaboration between Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald and director Ernst Lubitsch.


November 2, 1940 -
Well now I've seen everything!



Another funny Porky Pig Looney Tunes, The Sour Puss, premiered on this date.


November 2, 1942 -
Another Preston Sturges laugh out loud comedy, The Palm Beach Story, opened on this date. (Sturges, himself, had to shove a handkerchief in his mouth to avoid ruining a take by laughing.)



Preston Sturges's perfectionism slowed down production. He refused to move on to close-ups until he had a perfect master shot, and he would stop and do a new take if an actor changed a word of the script. William Demarest, who appeared in eight Sturges films, would later say, "He had a great memory. If you changed anything, he'd say, 'Wait a minute,' and, goddamn, he was right."


November 2, 1946 -
Walt Disney's 'politically incorrect' feature, the partially- animated film, Song of the South, was released on this date.



Owing to the significant and continued controversy surrounding the film's treatment of slavery and the portrayal of its African American characters, Disney has been reluctant to reissue the film in the United States, having last been seen legally in said territory in 1986. The studio did make the film available on video in Europe and Asia, and bootleg copies are frequently derived from them.


November 2, 1957 -
The often edited for S & P (I definitely should know) Bugs vs. Daffy Looney Tunes cartoon, Show Biz Bugs, premiered on this date.



The segment when Bugs and Daffy were dancing to "Tea for Two" was used for the opening scene, (as other Warner Brothers' popular animation stars walked across from right to left behind Bugs and Daffy, during their dance) of the "Bugs Bunny and Friends" TV series on WNEW-TV in New York for much of the 1970s and into the early 1980s.


November 2, 2001 -
The Disney-Pixar computer-animated movie Monsters, Inc. opened in general release on this date.



Billy Crystal was originally offered the role of Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story and he declined. They offered Crystal a future role in a Pixar film that they would tailor to his talents. Crystal told them to "do what's best for your movie and don't forget me when something good comes around." They didn't and offered him the role in this film.


Today in History:
November 2, 1944 -
Thomas Midgley Jr., an American chemist who developed both leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), was notoriously known as "the one human responsible for more deaths than any other in history".



As if it was nature's idea to get revenge on him he was left disabled in his bed due to lead poisoning and polio at the age of 51.



Keeping his inventive juices flowing, he designed a complicated system of strings and pulleys on his bed so that he could lift himself up when needed. This invention was the cause of his death at the age of 55 when he was accidentally entangled in the ropes of his bed and died of strangulation.

Talk about double irony.


November 2, 1947 -
In California, industrialist, film producer/director, philanthropist, syphilitic bisexual germaphobe Howard Hughes flew the maiden (and only) flight of the Spruce Goose; the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.



The plane was crafted out of 200 tons of plywood. The war ended before the plane was deployed


November 2, 1948 -
President Harry S.Truman somehow roused himself from his alcoholic stupor and was re-elected in an upset victory over the presumptive winner, Republican Thomas E. Dewey.



The Chicago Tribune had printed a banner headline 'DEWEY WINS!' prematurely. Truman defeated Dewey by 2.2 million popular votes and 114 electoral votes.


November 2, 1959 -
Game show contestant Charles Van Doren admitted to a House subcommittee that he'd been given questions and answers prior to appearances on Twenty-One, the NBC game show.



Oops!


November 2, 1963 -
South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother were assassinated in a military coup. Coup leader Duong Van Minh explained that "They had to be killed - Pres. Diem was too much respected among simple, gullible people in the countryside."



A 3rd brother was later tricked into surrendering to US forces and was turned over to coup leaders and killed by firing squad. (President Johnson admitted the CIA's part in the coup.)

Once again, American diplomacy at work.


November 2, 1984 -
Velma Barfield became the first woman executed in the United States since 1962 for the murder of her mother, her boyfriend and two others with rat poison in their food.



That will learn her.


November 2, 1988 -
The Internet Worm was released by Cornell grad student Robert Morris on this date. His ingenious program was meant to explore the Internet harmlessly, but due to a bug, it crashed some 6,000 computers.



Morris parlayed the incident into a career, he is now an associate professor at MIT.

Kids, this is not the way to get ahead.


November 2, 2000 -
After the Soyuz spacecraft linked up to the International Space Station (ISS), William Shepherd, Sergei Krikalev, and Yuri Gidzenko boarded the station, turned on the lights and life support systems, and became the first crew to take up long term residence in space.



They will remain confined to two of the station’s three rooms until Space Shuttle Endeavor arrives in early December with giant solar panels to power the station.



And so it goes.

Time to take risks and do the unexpected

Happy November!



The name November comes from the Latin "novem" which is the Latin for the nine. In the early Roman calendar, it was the ninth month. According to the Gregorian calendar, November is the eleventh month of the year. Go figure.

The Roman Senate elected to name the eleventh month for Tiberus Caesar and since Augustus time, it has had only 30 days. Originally, there were 30 days, then 29, then 31. This is what comes from too much of a good time - poor calendar making.



(In England it's the first day of the fox-hunting season. Oscar Wilde called fox-hunting ‘the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable’. About 30,000 foxes die each year.  Just in case this comes up in conversation.)

November's Birthstone is the Topaz or Citrine.

November's Flower is the Chrysanthemum.



November comes between the fall and winter months. The leaves are almost completely gone from the trees, and the rest have lost most of their color. The Anglo-Saxons referred to November as the 'wind month' and the 'blood month' - probably because this is the month they killed their animals for food.



Lots of activities come to a halt in November. The crops have been harvested and either put in storage, or sent to processing plants or mills. Farmers already know if their year has been successful or not. Football is the main sport of the month. The weather is usually beautiful for this kind of sport.

November is:
Adoption Awareness Month, 
Alzheimer's Disease Month, 
Apple Month,
Aviation History Month, 
Change the Batteries In Your Vibrator Month, 
Impotency Month, 
Christmas Seals Month, 
Denounce your local Rotarian Month,
International Dental Dam Month, 
Epilepsy Month, 
Hospice Month, 
Native-American Heritage Month, 
Peanut Butter Lovers Month,
Real Jewelry Month (and not Real Jewry Month)
and Uvula Cleaning Month.



Oh yeah, Thanksgiving occurs during November as well.


Today is also All Saints Day, the feast celebrated on November 1 in Western Christianity, honoring all the saints, known and unknown.

It's also the first day of celebration The Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos in Spanish), a holiday celebrated mainly in Mexico and by people of Mexican heritage (and others) living in the United States and Canada.



The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and relatives who have died. The celebration occurs on the 1st and 2nd of November, in connection with the Catholic holy days of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day.

All Saints Day is a Holy Day of Obligation.  Sorry kids, you have to put you ass in a pew today.


November 1, 1938 -
The Alfred Hitchcock film, The Lady Vanished, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave premiered in the US on this date.



Charters and Caldicott (played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne) proved to be such popular characters that they were teamed up in other films. They reappeared in Night Train to Munich (also starring Margaret Lockwood) and Millions Like Us, two films also written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, the screenwriters of The Lady Vanished.


November 1, 1967 -
Warner Brothers released one of Paul Newman's signature films, Cool Hand Luke on this date.



A Southern prison camp was built for this movie just north of Stockton, California. A dozen buildings were constructed, including a barracks, mess hall, warden's quarters, guard shack, and dog kennels.


November 1, 1994 -
The first Nirvana album released following the death of Kurt Cobain, MTV Unplugged in New York was released on this date.



The following week, it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and sold 310,500 copies, which was the highest first-week sales of Nirvana's career.


Today in History:
November 1, 1512 -
Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) finally stops milking the job and the Sistine Chapel ceiling was finally exhibited to public.



Thus ended the largest padding of a rehab bill since the building of the Taj Mahal.


This was a very big day for William Shakespeare.

On November 1, 1604, his tragedy Othello was first presented.



On November 1, 1611, his romantic comedy The Tempest was first presented.



Unless, Edward DeVere wrote these plays. Then it would have been a big day for him.


November 1, 1800 -
President John Adams became the first US leader to move into the Executive Mansion, which later was called the White House, on this date.



Construction began on the White House in 1792, and it took eight years to complete. And as it has been observed, it wasn't trade unionist who built it.


November 1, 1870 -
In the United States, the Weather Bureau (later renamed the National Weather Service) made its first official meteorological forecast -



darkness approaching as night falls with a gradual increase of daylight as dawn comes on in the morning.


November 1, 1896 -
A picture showing the unclad (bare) breasts of a (Zulu) woman appears in National Geographic magazine for the first time,

starting a trend of providing masturbation material to youth for decades.


November 1, 1918 -
The worst accident in the history of the New York subway system - the Malbone Street wreck of 1918, which killed at least 93 people, occurred on this date. Motormen of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers went on strike against the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, the forerunner of the BMT. BRT officials decided to keep the trains running, using nonstriking workers to drive them.



An inexperienced strikebreaker drove a train too fast and the train derailed in tunnel underneath Malbone Street in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, shearing off the sides and roofs of four of the five cars. Dozens of passengers died immediately, many of them decapitated or impaled by shards of wood and glass. Rescuers rushed to the station, to help the dazed and injured and to carry away the dead. The power failure in the tunnel posed a problem for rescuers that was partially solved when automobiles pulled up near the entrance to the station to illuminate the ghastly scene.


November 1, 1939 -
The first animal, a rabbit, was conceived by artificial insemination on this date.



History does not record why anyone felt that rabbits needed any help in the procreation department.


November 1, 1950 -
Two Puerto Rican nationalists, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola tried to assassinate President Harry Truman while he was residing at the Blair House while the White House underwent renovations on this date. The two assailants were able to walk right up to the front door and open fire.



The President and his wife were upstairs and were not harmed. Torresola was killed by the US secret service during the unsuccessful attack, and Collazo was sentenced to life in prison after President Truman commuted his death sentence.


November 1, 1951 -

US Soldiers were exposed to an atomic explosion for the first time in training exercises, at Desert Rock, Nevada on this date.



Your tax dollars at work in 1951 - Participation was not voluntary and served both to train and indoctrinate.


November 1, 1952 -
The United States successfully detonated the first large hydrogen bomb, codenamed “Ivy Mike,” in the Eniwetok Atoll of the Marshall Islands, on this date. The bomb has a yield of ten megatons, a force a thousand times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.



Eighty million tons of soil were kicked into the air by the blast. The “mushroom” cloud rose to 135,000 feet and would eventually spread to 1,000 miles in width. It was the first time fusion occurred on Earth.


November 1, 1975 -
Italian film director, screen writer, essayist, poet, critic and novelist, Pier Paolo Pasolini was violently murdered on this date.

The circumstances surrounding Pasolini's death remain a mystery. A young male prostitute was tried and convicted for the murder in 1976. But it was widely believed that Pasolini was murdered by the Mafia because of his investigation of their involvement in the prostitution business.



And so it goes.


Before you go - My happy place song isn't about drinking today, I heard an interview with members of the bank The Frightnrs, a New York based rocksteady band.  Listen to their song, Nothing More to Say -







And now read about their rush to finish this album