I say smack her and let it go at that.

July 16, 1948 -
John Huston's version of Maxwell Anderson's play, Key Largo, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall premiered in New York on this date.



Apart from the opening shots, the movie was filmed entirely at Warner Bros. Studio head Jack L. Warner - still reeling from the cost of shooting John Huston's previous film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, on location - refused to approve any more location filming for the director. The pier scenes were filmed using the studio tank with miniature boats in the background to give an illusion of depth. The shipboard shots at the end were also filmed using the studio tank, with fog used to mask the artifice.


July 16, 1951 -
One of the best adaptations of a Charles Dickens' novel, David Lean's Oliver Twist was released in the US on this date.



The film was released in England in 1948. The film's release in the US was delayed until 1951 because of protests from Jewish pressure groups, who judged Alec Guinness' portrayal of Fagin to be anti-Semitic


July 16, 1958 -
The classic Vincent Price Sci-Fi film, The Fly, opened in San Francisco on this date.



This became the biggest box-office of director Kurt Neumann's career, but he never knew it. He died a month after the premiere, and only a week before it went into general release.


July 16, 1999 -
Stanley Kubrick final film, Eyes Wide Shut, was released on this date.



Though often referred to as Stanley Kubrick's "unfinished masterpiece", the final edit of the film was actually presented to Warner Bros. (by Kubrick) a full four days before his death, though the score and other aspects were not finalized.


Word of the day


Today in History:
July 16, 1054 -
The 'Great Schism' between the Western and Eastern churches began over rival claims of universal pre-eminence.

Remember kids, there's no schism like a great schism.

(In 1965, 911 years later, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I met to declare an end to the schism.)


Mary Baker Eddy was born on this date in 1821.



Ms. Eddy invented Christian Science, and was elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1995 for having been the only American woman to found a worldwide religion without exposing her breasts.


July 16, 1860 -
A decree from Emperor Norton I of San Francisco, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, ordered the dissolution of the United States of America on this date.

(More on the good Emperor next month.)


July 16, 1945 -
...If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One - I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds....



Code-named Trinity, the first experimental plutonium bomb (The Gadget) was detonated in a United States test of an atomic explosion at Alamogordo Air Base, Los Alamos, New Mexico on this date. The explosion yields the equivalent 18,000 tons of TNT.


July 16, 1951 -
The Catcher in the Rye was published 67 years ago today. The book contained secret code words by means of which its author, J.D. Salinger, was able to communicate diabolical commands to his evil minions. (Exactly fourteen years later, the tunnel connecting France and Italy through Mont Blanc was opened to the public.



Draw your own conclusions.)

Salinger was a one-hit wonder. (He did write several other books, but these are of interest only to insomniacs and those with wobbly furniture.) The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951, and Salinger subsequently hid himself away in the hills of Vermont, emerging from this self-imposed cloister only briefly, to serve as Prime Minister of Canada and then again, to appear as a corpse at his own funeral. For nearly half a century, The Catcher in the Rye has captured the imagination of the American teenager like no other book without pictures.



Holden Caulfield, the hero and narrator of Salinger's slim classic, may be the finest portrait of twentieth-century American teenage angst bequeathed to posterity.



Either him or Archie, it's hard to say.

(although Archie gave up his life to save a friend.)


July 16, 1964 -
In accepting the Republican presidential nomination in San Francisco, Barry M. Goldwater said "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and that "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."



Goldwater's speech ultimately doomed his candidacy but revived the American Conservative movement and gave birth to the political rise of Ronald Reagan.


July 16, 1969 -
49 years ago on this date, the 363-foot-tall Apollo 11 space vehicle was launched from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, at 9:37 a.m. (As I have gotten older, I have only now  put it together that some sick puppies at NASA (probably some of the 'Good Germans') arranged to have the launch on the anniversary of the Trinity test.)



It carried Mission Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr.

I couldn't afford the Revell kit, so I had to satisfy myself with working on my 18-inch-tall Gulf Oil cardboard lunar module model kit while watching the launch.


July 16, 1973 -
In testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (the Ervin Committee on Watergate), former presidential assistant Alexander Butterfield disclosed that President Richard Nixon had tape recorded all of his conversations in the White House and Executive Office Building.



Bad, Nixon, bad.


July 16, 1999 -
19 years ago today, John F.Kennedy Jr. was killed along with his wife Carolyn and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette when the aircraft he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. (Don't hitch a ride with a Kennedy.)



He was flying a Piper Saratoga II HP from Essex County Airport in New Jersey to Martha's Vineyard. Kennedy and his wife were traveling together to the wedding of his cousin Rory in Hyannis, Massachusetts, while Lauren was to have been dropped off at Martha's Vineyard en route.



And so it goes.


922


Before you go - I hadn't check onto the CineFix site in a while and I saw this good video essay on their Top 10 Musical Moments of All Time -



I'm sure you can think of some others that were left off the list.

I'll see you in Hell first!

July 15 1956 -
Although not in the same league as Plan 9 from Outer Space, It Conquered the World was released upon an unsuspecting public on this date.



Paul Blaisdell, who designed, built and portrayed the alien in the movie, affectionately dubbed his creation "Beluah". It is easily the most popular monster of Blaisdell's oeuvre among his fans as well.  American International released the film on a double bill with The She-Creature.


July 15, 1983 -
Woody Allen's technically inventive and very funny mocumentary, Zelig starring Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, premiered on this date.



Silent screen legend, Lillian Gish, was filmed for a scene in Zelig. She scolded director of photography, Gordon Willis, on his lighting set-up and, while the crew watched aghast, gave Willis step by step instructions on how to re-light the scene. Willis complied. The scene did not make it into the final version of the film. Willis has said of this film: "There was a point when I thought we were never going to finish, a point when I thought I was going to go nuts. I have never worked so hard at making something difficult look so simple".


July 15, 1988 -
The film that made Bruce Willis a star, Die Hard, co-starring Alan Rickman, and Bonnie Bedelia opened in limited release in the US on this date.



Bruce Willis received a then-unheard of five million dollars, a fee that was approved by Fox President Rupert Murdoch. 


July 15, 1998 -
The Farrelly Brothers career saving romantic comedy, There's Something About Mary premiered on this date.



Dropping Ted on the stretcher wasn't scripted. When it happened, they cut to make sure Ben Stiller was okay and then thought it was so funny they left it in.


July 15, 2005 -
The Tim Burton remake of Roald Dahl's classic children's story, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, starring Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, Helena Bonham Carter, James Fox, Deep Roy, and Christopher Lee, went into general release in the US on this date.



To his surprise, Deep Roy played every Oompa-Loompa himself, repeating the same movements several hundred times. While these were then put together digitally, each Oompa-Loompa represents a separate performance by Roy. In recognition of this, Roy's salary was raised to one million dollars.


Another Book I've never read


Today in History:
July 15, 1606 -
Rembrandt van Rijn was born in Leiden, Holland, on this date.

His father was a miller and his mother was a stay-at-home mom.



He is best known for his mastery of chiaroscuro and impasto, but his calamari was nothing to sneeze at.


July 15, 1799 -
The Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian artifact which was instrumental in advancing modern understanding of hieroglyphic writing. The stone is a Ptolemaic era stele with carved text. The text is made up of three translations of a single passage, written in two Egyptian language scripts (hieroglyphic and Demotic), and in classical Greek.



It was created in 196 BC, discovered by the Napoleonic expeditionary forces in 1799 at Rashid (a harbor on the Mediterranean coast in Egypt which the French referred to Rosetta) and contributed greatly to the decipherment of the principles of hieroglyphic writing in 1822 by the British polymath Thomas Young and the French scholar Jean-François Champollion.

Feel free to impress your friends with this bit of knowledge.


July 15, 1857 -
During an uprising, the group of British women and children being held by rebels in Chawnpore, India were cut to pieces with knives and hatchets. Then their remains are tossed into a well.



When British forces finally retook Chawnpore, the captured rebels are taken back to the house where the slaughter took place. Then they are forced to lick the floors clean, after which they are hanged.

I hate to think what the penalty was for early withdrawal from your IRA.


July 15 1864 -
A train containing hundreds of Confederate prisoners passing through Shohola, PA crashed head on with a coal train on this date.

The trains were off schedule because of an escape attempt. 74 people, mostly prisoners, died.


July 15, 1869 -
During war with Prussia, French ruler Napoleon III commissions Hippolye Mege Mouries to find a butter substitute. A patent for margarine was issued on this date, it being based on beef fat instead of milk fat.

He called it Margarine (but you can call it Oleo) because the French word for pearl was margarite and he apparently had difficulty distinguishing butter from pearls -



a handicap that goes a long way toward explaining his many divorces.



But even with the tactically superior spread, the war was still lost.


July 15, 1904 -
A small town Russian alcoholic doctor quietly succumbed to consumption, while in another room, his relatives sat around the house and wistfully bemoaned the lost opportunities of their lives. An old family retainer served tea to the unknowing mourners. Off in the distance, the guitar string of a peasant guitar broke, all on this date.



Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, died on this date but not as described above. As he lay dying of tuberculosis, in a German Spa, Chekhov called out for his doctor. The doctor examined him and prescribed him a glass of champagne. Chekhov finished his glass, commented on the taste, lay back down and died.

All in all, not a bad way to go.


July 15, 1946 -
You don't forget you have Parkinson's disease, believe me, especially in the shower. If you are not paying attention, you fall down.







Linda Maria Ronstadt, singer and actress was born in Tucson, Arizona on this date. (Hopefully Linda is feeling well these days. Send her your good thoughts)


July 15, 1979 -
President Jimmy Carter addressed the energy crisis and subsequent recession by discussing what he felt was the greatest threat to the United States in a speech later called the 'malaise' speech, on this date.



He believed that a lack of "moral and spiritual confidence" prevented the American people from recovering from the economic hardships and said, "this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation" were the basis for the negative economic climate.


On July 15, 2007 -

The Philadelphia Phillies lost their 10,000th Major League Baseball game.



As of last night, (and this is a crude estimate) the team still holds the record for the most games lost by any professional American sports team in history with 10,877.



And so it goes


Before you go - I nearly forgot:
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month. He also declared that the third Sunday in July would be National Ice Cream Day.



You may begin screaming for your ice cream now but heed this story - my late father-in-law threatened to shoot the local Mr. Softie man if he continued to drive his truck past the house during dinnertime.



923

For most of you, PLEASE leave your hat on!

It's National Nude day. I would say for the most part, there are very few people who should actually celebrate the holiday in public. You know whether or not you should celebrate

Please feel free to celebrate responsibly within the confines of your own home.


July 14, 1918 -
Arguably one the the greatest film directors ever, Ingmar Bergman, was born on this date.





In an interview in 2004, Bergman said that he was "depressed" by his own films and could not watch them anymore.


July 14, 1933 -
The iconic Popeye the Sailor, appeared in his first eponymous titled cartoon, on this date.  (Kids, Betty, who is probably underage in this film, is not wearing a bra - so avert your eyes.)



Popeye's appearance is based on that of a fighter named Francis "Rocky" Fiegel whom his creator, Elzie Segar, used to know. Because of this, a tombstone was put on his hitherto unmarked grave in 1996. Segar paid Fiegel a small fee for the use of his likeness, as he was still alive when Popeye first appeared.


July 14, 1989 -
Rob Reiner iconic rom-com , written by iconic writer, Nora Ephron, When Harry Met Sally, starring, Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, and Bruno Kirby, opened in limited release on this date.



The segments of married couples telling the stories of how they met are real stories that director Rob Reiner collected for the film. The actors related the stories.


July 14, 2000 –
20th Century Fox's first film of the successful franchise series, X-Men, starring the large  snsemble cast, including - Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Bruce Davison, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, and Anna Paquin, premiered in the US on this date.



Hugh Jackman took ice cold showers every morning of filming, in order to help get into character. This tradition started when jumping into the shower at 5 a.m., before realizing there was no hot water. Shocked awake, but not wanting to wake his sleeping wife, he gritted his teeth and bore it, before realizing that this mindset, wanting to scream and lash out at something, but having to hold it in, was the mentality that Wolverine is in constantly. He then made cold showers his Wolverine preparation routine for each film featuring the character.


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


Today in History:
July 14 1789 -
Paris was not a happy city in 1789. Paris has never been an especially happy city, especially for those who don't speak French, but in that fateful year, it was especially grouchy. And it wasn't just the city, but the whole country. All of France was being cranky and irritable, and all the other countries were like, "What?"



Finally the queen said they should eat cake and the nation snapped. The people rose up in protest and, it being time for the French Revolution, they stormed the Bastille (Bastille) on July 14, 1789.



A mob of 20,000 people storms the Bastille Prison in Paris, killing its personnel and freeing all seven prisoners incarcerated therein: four forgers, an accomplice to murder, the Marquis de Sade (yes that guy), and an insane Irishman. The warden was decapitated and his head carried around on a pike. So begins the French Revolution.



It quickly became clear that the peasants were revolting. (Not that anyone ever thought they were all that attractive.) The storming of the Bastille gave way to a Rain of Terror, a meteorological cataclysm in its own right, which eventually caused Napoleon and led to both Waterloo and Able Was I Ere I Saw Elba, all of which have been covered in previous postings and can therefore be ignored for the time being. Eventually the French (who had always been whiners) immersed themselves in Bourbon.


On July 14, 1867, Alfred Nobel first demonstrated his newest invention: dynamite. Mr Nobel spent the rest of his life blowing things up in the interests of world peace.



Sadly, world peace was not achieved in his lifetime. Upon his death he therefore endowed a foundation with billions of dollars to give prizes to men and women of future generations who brought the world closer to peace by blowing things up.

At the rate things have been blowing up lately, world peace is obviously just around the corner.


July 14, 1881 -
In the Summer of '81, at the New Mexico home of his friend Pete Maxwell, notorious outlaw Billy the Kid (Paul Newman/ Kris Kristofferson) stepped into a darkened bedroom and was shot dead by sheriff Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell/ James Coburn). Billy's last words were "Quién es?" (Who is it?).



How Jane Russell's breasts are involved in this story is another matter completely.


July 14, 1902 -
One day after workmen noticed a large crack in the structure, the Belltower of St. Mark's collapsed into a hill of white dust, on this date.

Ten years later, the city of Venice erected an exact duplicate of the tower on the same spot.


July 14, 1906 -
Tom Carvel, the gravelly-voiced ice cream mogul, was born on this date.



Please order a Cookie Puss or Fudgie the Whale ice cream cake in his honor.


July 14, 1943 -
Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 to the George Washington Carver National Monument, on this date, the first US National Monument honoring a black man. The site, near Diamond, Missouri, is housed on the former plantation where Carver lived as a child.

It not only was the first US National Monument to honor a black man, but also only one of three to honor a non-president.


July 14, 1963 -
The Soviet spacecraft Vostok 5 was launched into orbit on this date. Over the course of the next five days, Cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky would set a new record for the longest manned space flight in history.



The record would later be broken by the crew of Gemini 7, but Bykovsky will continue to hold the endurance record for a solo flight.


July 14, 1969 -
The United States government eliminated $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 US Dollar bills from circulation on this date.

(There also was a $100,000 gold certificate in 1934 which featured Woodrow Wilson.)



Although they are still technically legal tender in the United States, they have virtually disappeared from everyday use. I would be happy to give a home to any wayward $1,000 bills.


July 14, 1986 -
The best time to wear a striped sweater is all the time.

Today is Spongebob's birthday.



And so it goes.


924

Hope you all had a fine time yesterday

Cause we had a grand time ourselves.

Thanks to all of you who DM'd yesterday with birthday wishes.


If you missed seeing Manhattanhenge last night, you get one more chance this evening.

Those Illuminati are generous, aren't they?


July 13, 1959 -
Dedicated to the One I Love, by The Shirelles, was released on this date.



This was originally recorded by The 5 Royales in 1958. The Shirelles' version first peaked at #83 in 1959, but when it was re-released in 1961 it went to #3.  Normally, Shirley Owens Alston was the Shirelles' lead singer. However, on this song, Doris Coley Kenner sang lead.


July 13, 1960 -
20th Century Fox released the sci-fi adventure film The Lost World (based on the novel by Arthur Conan Doyle), directed by Irwin Allen and starring Michael Rennie, Jill St. John, Claude Rains and Fernando Lamas (who looked marvelous), to U.S. theaters on this date.



Director Irwin Allen wanted to use stop-motion dinosaurs for this film, but due to budget reasons he had to use lizards - mainly monitor lizards - as dinosaurs. Plastic horns and spikes were attached to them to make them look more like dinosaurs.  The technique will later be dubbed Slurpasaur by fans.


July 13, 1972 -
The Japanese sci-fi film The X from Outer Space (Uchū Daikaijū Girara or Giant Space Monster Guilala,) directed by Eiji Okada, released in 1967 in Japan (and 1968 in the US) for some reason was finally released to in Europe on this date. This is all very confusing.



This was the movie studio Shochiku's first monster movie.


July 13, 1985 -
33 years ago, I had only recently patented the long birthday weekend....



(I could make this an all David Bowie weekend if I let myself)



(still the greatest recorded live rock & roll performance of all time.)



We brought the 'big TV' out into my father-in-law's backyard and joined the other 1.5 billion people who tuned into Live Aid on this date.


5 PM somewhere in the world


Today in History
July 13, 1793 (Décade III, Quintidi de Messidor de l'Année 213 de la Révolution) -



French revolutionary writer Jean Paul Marat was stabbed to death in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, on this date, as she gives him a list of names to be guillotined. The assassination inspired the famous painting by Jacques Louis David; Corday was executed four days after slaying Marat.



After the heavy blade fell, an executioner's assistant named Francois le Gros (Fat Frank) picked up the severed head by the hair and brimming with Revolutionary fervor slapped Corday's cheek. Several eyewitnesses saw her face flush red with anger, not just one cheek but both cheeks. Some though they perceived disgust curl her lips.


July 13, 1846 -
Horace Greeley advises his readers to 'Go west young man'  on this date.

Cynics note that he owns stock in a company that manufactures compasses.



I'm not sure but I don't think this is what Mr. Greeley had in mind.


July 13, 1946 -
Smoke 'em if you got 'em.



It's Richard Anthony Marin's birthday today.


July 13, 1955 -
Ruth Ellis was last English woman executed by hanging on this date.



Ten days before she had shot her lover, race car driver David Blakely, Ellis suffered a miscarriage after Blakely, the baby's father, punched her in the stomach.

She was having a bad day.


July 13, 1977 -
Starting at about 9 PM on this date, four lightning struck high-voltage transmission lines within the course of about half-an-hour, knocking out electricity and plunging millions of residents of New York City into a 25 hour black-out .



The 1977 blackout, unlike the 1965 and 2003 blackouts, resulted in city-wide looting and other disorder, including arson. About 4,500 people were arrested during the riots, which resulted in damage estimated at $61 million.


July 13, 1985 -
President Ronald Reagan has a polyp removed from his colon on this date.

The polyp, named Larry, lived comfortable at the Reagan ranch, keeping Nancy company until the end. George H.W. Bush got his first taste of the Presidency for a day and got hooked.


July 13, 1994 -
Jeff Gillooly (and his fabulous 70s porn 'stache,) Tonya Harding's ex-husband, was sentenced to two years in prison for his role in the attack on Nancy Kerrigan.

He served six months.


On July 13, 1994, Germany's Constitutional Court ended the ban on German troops fighting outside the country.

(On July 14, 1994, France's Constitutional Court ended their ban on running like hell.)



And so it goes.


925


Happy Birthday Debbie Finn, where ever you are.

Don't let the sun catch you crying on Manhattanhenge

It was great foresight on the part of our beloved city forefathers to lay out the city in such a way that this happens every year just around my birthday.

Once again, the sun will be perfectly lined up with the east-west streets of New York.



So get outside and enjoy it. (You can catch it one more time tomorrow night.  And hey, pay attention to the traffic lights.  Don't ruin my birthday by getting run over by a car!)



July 12, 1912 -
The first foreign-made film to premiere in America, Queen Elizabeth (Les Amours de la Reine Élisabeth), starring Sarah Bernhardt premiered on this date in NYC.



Rumors that Bernhardt performed in the film uniped are untrue.  Bernhardt did lose her leg to gangrene in 1915.


July 12, 1962 -
The Rolling Stones, (or more precisely, the group that they became) gave their first concert on this date. The concert was held in London at the Marquee Club.

At the time, the band was called The Rollin' Stones - they got their current name in 1963. One of the most successful groups in history, the band has sold more than 200 million albums and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.


July 12, 1984 -
Madonna's Like a Virgin video premiered on MTV on this date and became an instant hit.



The title and lyrics were very racy for a pop song, which made it more difficult to find someone to record it. Madonna had released only one album and was known as a dance singer, so her record company didn't mind having her record a song that would generate some controversy. It became a huge hit and created a new image for Madonna that set her apart from other singers.


July 12, 1986 -
The band, Simply Red's hit Holding Back the Years topped the charts on this date.



Simply Red's singer Mick Hucknall ("Red" was his nickname because of his red hair) originally recorded this in 1979 with his band The Frantic Elevators. Hucknall wrote this in his bedroom at his father's house while he was still a teenager.


Desert Island Disc (or something close to it.)


Today in History:
July 12, 100 BCE -
Julius Caesar was born on this date. He is famous for fighting the Garlic Wars and dying of the unkindest cut. His death so shocked the people of Rome that they buried him instead of praising him, although this may have been because he was a Proud Man.



Interesting to note that in between, fighting across most of Europe, Caesar was quoted as saying, It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.


July 12, 1908 -
Milton Berle was an Emmy-winning American comedian who was born Milton Berlinger, on this date. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater (1948-1955), he was the first major star of television. He became known as Uncle Miltie to millions during TV's Golden Age.



That's all well and good but the real thing you want to know about Uncle Miltie is his prodigious member.



Now try getting that out of your mind's eye.


Other notable July 12 birthdays include:
Henry David Thoreau (1817)




George Washington Carver (1861 - there is no actual documentation on his exact birth date)



(God bless you Dr. Carver, for your work on alcohol.)


Oscar Hammerstein II (1895)




R. Buckminster Fuller (1895)




"Curly" Joe DeRita (1909)




Christine McVie (1943)




Richard Simmons (1948)

Me (1960)

Kristi Yamaguchi (1971)




July 12, 1843 -
Mormon numero uno Joseph Smith discloses a divine revelation instructing his followers to take multiple wives, in what the LDS Church calls "plural marriage" but everyone else calls polygamy.



The Mormons are ultimately forced to disclaim the practice in September 1890.


On July 12, 1957, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first president to employ a helicopter while in office. The first helicopter put into presidential service was the HMX-1 "Nighthawks."

Though helicopters had been in operational use by the American military since 1944, concerns over their safety caused the Secret Service to bar their use for the nation’s chief executive except in case of emergency.


July 12, 1960 -
In 1955, a French electrician named André Cassagnes got an idea for a new toy after seeing how an electrostatic charge could hold aluminum powder to glass. He worked up a prototype for the toy—based on the design of a television screen—in his basement workshop and called it L’Ecran Magique, or the Magic Screen.



The first Etch-A-Sketch went on sale on this date.


July 12, 1979 -
Bonanno crime boss Carmine Galante, the "cigar problem", was whacked at Joe and Mary's Restaurant in Brooklyn on this date. Galante died with a cigar still in his mouth.

Almost everyone in the New York mob feared the ruthless crime boss, so the killing was sanctioned by the consensus of Paul Castellano, Joe Bonanno and Santo Trafficante.


July 12, 1979 -
Bill Veeck, owner of the White Sox, decided to have "Disco Demolition Night" at Chicago's Comiskey Park, where baseball tickets cost only $.98 if the purchaser brought along a disco record for the bonfire on this date.



During the second game of the doubleheader, thousands of vinyl LPs flew onto the field, generating enough chaos that the White Sox are forced to forfeit.



And so it goes.


926

Once again, an important message from our sponsor:

Before we speak about Brain Freeze on this day -

Now to the point at hand -



Why bring this up? The date today is 7/11 (at least in this country. Foreigners and other degenerates refer to the day as 11/7 but that's another story...)

The convenience store 7-11 is celebrating their name day (so to speak) and 91st birthday by giving away Slurpees to the "brain freeze" fearless public.



July 11, 1937  -
Life is a lot like jazz... it's best when you improvise.









Jacob Gershowitz, one of the greatest writers of the American songbook, died of a brain tumor at age 38 in Beverly Hills, Ca. on this date.


July 11, 1942 -
A classic 40s Merrie Melodies cartoon, Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid was released on this date.



Beaky Buzzard's voice and mannerisms are modeled after radio character and ventriloquist dummy Mortimer Snerd, created by Edgar Bergen. Because of this, he was originally given the informal name of 'Snerd Bird' before he acquired the name of Beaky Buzzard.


July 11, 1965 -
One of the 60s best Beach movies, Beach Blanket Bingo opened today.



Nancy Sinatra was the original choice to play Sugar Kane. However, she backed out just before production was supposed to begin because a few months earlier her brother Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped and when she found out that part of the plot involved a kidnapping she decided to back out.


July 11, 1969 -
The Rolling Stones released Honky Tonk Women on this date.



Like many Rolling Stones songs, it has highly suggestive lyrics, but they are just subtle enough to keep it from getting banned by radio stations. British rock bands often wrote lyrics that were ambiguously offensive, falling just in line with BBC guidelines for airplay. A good example in this song is "She blew my nose and then she blew my mind," which implies both cocaine and sex, but didn't give the BBC any specific reason to ban it.


July 11, 1969 -
Co-incidentally, David Bowie, released his single Space Oddity,  supposedly in conjunction with the July 20th Apollo 11 moon landing, on this date.



When the BBC used this during coverage of the moon landing, there was a great fear that if the missions in space didn't go well, this song would suddenly become inappropriate.


Another failed ACME product


Today in History:
July 11, 1533 -
The Church of England came into being on this date. The story of its origins is shrouded in sex and therefore important.

Henry VIII assumed the English throne in 1509, an energetic young man of seventeen. He immediately decided to have a male heir. This became the enduring theme of his reign and he consequently came to be known as The Son King (or, to his detractors, The Heir Head.)



Henry such a devout Catholic that he earned the title "Defender of the Faith" without even stepping into the ring. His first wife, whom he'd married before taking the throne, was Catherine of Aragon, who earned the nickname "Catherine of Aragon." Catherine was an excellent queen until she didn't have a son, at which point things changed.



By the 1530s Henry had realized he was married to a bad queen. He was now about 40 years old and therefore decided to get a convertible couch and a new wife.

The convertible caused no problems, but the changing of wives required the official permission of the Pope, who, being Catholic himself, refused to grant a divorce.

Henry divorced her anyway, and on July 11, 1533, the Catholic Church seceded from the Church of England in retaliation.



The Pope having withdrawn, Henry made himself the head of the Church of England. Because he was still the Defender of the Faith, he wrote the Act of Supremacy. This Act proved that the Church of England was better than the Catholic Church, that King Henry VIII was better than any Pope, and that a Single White King was back in the market.

Sir Thomas More had been the Lord Chancellor of England, and knew Henry as well as any man alive. He therefore refused to swear to the Act of Supremacy, and on July 6, 1535, became Sir Thomas Somewhat Less.

At this point in his career, Henry began marrying and divorcing women on a regular basis. The divorce process was expedited now that Papal authority was no longer a consideration. In fact, Henry turned the entire process into a game: his wives would be blindfolded and asked to produce a male heir.



It came to be known as "Bluff King Hal," and several centuries later it served as the inspiration for the popular French game, "Hungry Hungry Guillotine."


July 11 1804 -



Former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and sitting Vice President Aaron Burr duel in Weehawken, New Jersey after Hamilton allegedly slandered Burr during a political dinner in New York. Hamilton was shot in the liver and died the next day.



Meanwhile, Burr lives on to finish his term in office and is eventually tried for treason after attempting to raise an army and seize land for himself, either in Mexico or the Louisiana Territory.


July 11, 1859 -
Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities was published on this date.



The book, would become the best-selling, original English language novel of all time, with more than 200 million copies sold.


July 11, 1893 -
Japanese businessman Kokichi Mikimoto perfected his technique for creating hemispherical cultured pearls, producing the world's first cultured pearl on this day.



In the next 12 years, he would hone his technique, making spherical pearls that were indistinguishable from the perfect specimens rarely found in nature.


July 11, 1936 -
The Triborough Bridge in New York City was opened to traffic, on this date.



Built at the height of the Great Depression, the creation of the Triborough Bridge put thousands of struggling people to work. It also was New York City’s first bridge specifically designed for automobiles.


July 11, 1979 -
The derelict space station Skylab finally returned to Earth, ignominiously breaking into 500 separate fragments which are swallowed by the Indian Ocean. That was, except for the ones which crashed into Woorlba Sheep Station, near Balladonia in Western Australia.



Shortly thereafter, President Jimmy Carter telephoned the prime minister of that country to apologized for scattering NASA litter on his nation.

Oops.


July 11, 1960 -
The novel To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee (the book is her only published work, until recently) was published, on this date.



The novel quickly became a classic and won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1961.


July 11, 1997 -
Bodybuilder and wannabe actor Jonathan Norman was arrested for trespassing on Steven Spielberg's estate in Malibu, California on this date. Believing that the film director "wanted to be raped," Norman had brought along a kit containing handcuffs, duct tape, nipple clamps, chloroform, and a stun gun.

I never realized that Steven liked nipple clamps, he seemed more like a fleshlight man to me. And I like to think he enjoys ACME Mentholated Bung Balm.


And so it goes.



Before you go - It's Manhattanhenge time once again - tomorrow the sun will be perfectly lined up with the east-west streets of New York.



(If you miss it on the 12th, you get another shot the next date on the 13th.)


927

You're sure of a big surprise.

Today is Teddy Bear Picnic Day - a day set aside for you to take a stroll in the woods with your favorite bears.

Perhaps I'm mistaken in which bears you should be taking with you.


July 10, 1916 -
Charlie Chaplin further develops his 'Tramp' character with the release of The Vagabond, on this date.



Look for this - Charlie loses his hat outside the bar, is seen inside wearing it, then picks it up where he lost it when he leaves. When he escapes from the gypsy, he is hatless at first, but the next shot shows the hat suddenly back in place.


July 10, 1942 -
RKO Pictures released Orson Welles' butchered masterpiece, The Magnificent Ambersons, on this date. (Like El Dorado or Shangri-La, a work print of Welles' version supposedly exists in a vault somewhere in Brazil, tantalizingly, just out of reach.)



Orson Welles demanded that the inside of the Ambersons' mansion be built as if it was a real house, with continuous rooms of four walls and ceilings. This enabled his camera to roam around the house freely and shoot from any angle. The set for the Ambersons mansion was one of the most elaborate and expensive sets ever built at the time. RKO would utilize the standing set for other films.


July 10, 1965 -
The Rolling Stones topped the pop-music charts with (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, on this date.



The song was released in the United States on June 6, 1965, just a month after Keith Richards woke up with the guitar riff in his head. In the UK, it wasn't issued until August 20, since The Stones did not want to release it in England until they were there to support it. While they were touring in America, they became very popular in England, so they kept recording singles in the States to keep their momentum until they could return for a tour.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
July 10, 1553 –
Lady Jane Grey, the great-granddaughter of Henry VII, ill-advisedly took the throne of England, upon the death of Edward VI, on this date.



Hopefully she didn't buy any green bananas. She wasn't going to be in the position to see them ripen.


July 10, 1559 -
Heed the prophecies of Nostradamus!

Henry II of France had a splitting headache today. Henry was having a friendly joust with the captain of the Scottish Guards, Gabriel de Lorges de Montgomery,  when he was momentarily blinded by the visor on the captain's helmet.



The captain's lance was somehow broken and Henry II was pierced through the eye socket and temple on June 30 (Ouch!). The King writhed in agony until he died from his wounds on this date.  Nostradamus wrote a poem about a lion and a cage and somehow that tripe predicted Henry II's death


July 10, 1856 -
Inventor and electromechanical genius Nikola Tesla, the man who invented the 20th Century, was born to Serbian parents in what is now Croatia on this date.



Remember, if we could only harness the free floating electricity,



we could do away with the electric companies.


July 10, 1871 -
We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.



Marcel Proust, French novelist, tea enthusiast and master procrastinator was born on this date.


July 10, 1938 -
Aviator Howard Hughes (you know his C.V.) made a record flight around the world on this date, completing the trip in just 91 hours, breaking the previous record by more than four days.



Taking off from New York City in a Lockheed Super Electra he continued to Paris, Moscow, Omsk, Yakutsk, Anchorage, Minneapolis, ending back at New York City.


July 10, 1954 -
I think the world should be one community.



Neil Tennant, musician, singer and songwriter and the other half of the electronic dance music duo Pet Shop Boys, was born on this date.


July 10, 1958 -
The first parking meter was installed in London, England on this date in 1958, along with the second through 625th. It took nearly two dozen years for the parking meter to travel across the Atlantic: the first American parking meter had been installed in Oklahoma City on July 16, 1935.



It was invented by Oklahoma City's Carl C. Magee, the head of that city's chamber of commerce, as part of an effort to free more parking spaces for daytime shoppers. Downtown parking spaces had typically been taken by office workers who left their cars parked on the street all day, making it difficult for shoppers to find open spaces and thereby causing incalculable pain and suffering. (Double-parking was not invented until 1963.)



I, personally, considers the parking meter one of the great instruments of totalitarian control, and cannot understand how conspiracy theorists who lose sleep over Roswell, the Masons, and black helicopters can walk blithely past dozens of parking meters every day.



Current estimates ("wild guesses") suggest there are now more than five million of these coercive devil machines deployed across the United States. They absorb millions of dollars in small change every day, and generate still more ill-gotten revenue by means of fines levied against persons who refuse to kneel before them.



I urge my readers to recall the words of Alexander Hamilton, who observed in the Federalist Papers that "no people are free who must pay for municipal parking."

The first concrete-paved street was built 127 years ago today in Bellefountaine, Ohio.

Paved streets are good. I have no problem with paved streets, unless they're lined with parking meters.


July 10, 1962 –
Launched by NASA aboard a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral, Telstar, was launched into orbit, becoming the world's first communications satellite, on this date.



Telstar 1 was placed in low Earth orbit and circled the planet every two and a half hours, only in the right position to beam transmissions between Europe and the U.S. for 20 minutes each orbit. This is in contrast to contemporary communications satellites, which fly in geosynchronous orbit, staying above one spot on the Earth.


July 10, 1985 -
Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was blown up by in Auckland Harbor, killing a photographer, Fernando Pereira, on this date.



After the New Zealand government determines that French secret agents were responsible, the French Defense Minister Pierre Lacoste, resigned and agents, Captain Dominique Prieur and Commander Alain Mafart, were jailed.


July 10, 1989 -
Mel Blanc, whose career spanned over 60 years doing voice over work for many Warner Brothers characters died on this date.



Shortly before his death, executives of Time Warner (owners of Warner Brothers) asked him if there was anything, literally anything, that they could give him to thank him for his life's body of work. He asked for--and received - a Ford Edsel.



And so it goes.


928

This may come up in conversation today

(The apartment was completely re-wired this weekend. I think Verizon has finally solved my internet connectivity problems.)


My birthday is in just three days

I am never insulted by the gift of cash (even bagfuls of change are OK by me.) Cash is the gift that shows you care.


July 9, 1966 -
The Beatles song Paperback Writer, topped the charts on this date.



The B-side to this single was John Lennon's Rain. Paul and John would always compete for the A-side of The Beatles singles.


July 9, 1983 -
The Police song Every Breath You Take topped the charts on this date.



This is one of the most misinterpreted songs ever. It is about an obsessive stalker, but it sounds like a love song. Some people even used it as their wedding song.


July 9, 1995 -
The Grateful Dead, who had been performing for 30 years, gave their last performance on this day, when they performed at Soldier Field in Chicago. During their 30 years, they performed more than 2,300 live concerts.



The lead guitarist and backbone of the band, Jerry Garcia, died one month after the final show.


July 9, 2010 -
The world was introduced to Minions, when Universal Pictured released Dispicable Me, voiced by Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Kristen Wiig, Miranda Cosgrove, Will Arnett, and Julie Andrews, on this date.



Directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud wrote a language for the gibberish the minions speak throughout the film. They called it "minion-ese". Each word the minions speak in the film translates into an actual word.


Word of the day


Today in History:
July 9, 1776  -
New York finally got around to ratifying the Declaration of Independence on this date, making it the 13th colony to do so. The document was read aloud to Gen. George Washington's troops stationed in New York City.

Later that night, American troops destroyed a bronze-lead statue of Great Britain's King George III that stood at the foot of Broadway on the Bowling Green. Most of the statue pieces were sent to Connecticut where munitions makers turned them into 42,000 bullets.


On the Fourth of July in 1850, President Zachary Taylor snacked on cherries and milk while attending a ceremony at the Washington Monument. It was a hot day, and the heat made him sick.

He got sicker and sicker and died on July 9.

He remains the only U.S. president to have died from indigestion (with the possible exception of Warren G Harding, who may or may not have been poisoned by his wife - which could be considered death by extreme indigestion - but that's another story.)



His last words were, "I regret nothing, but I am sorry to leave my friends."

I firmly believe he actually regretted eating the cherries-and-milk that caused his fatal indigestion, but I'm not going to quibble with a man's dying words. He was succeeded by Millard Fillmore, possibly one of the worse president.


July 9, 1918 -
Two passenger trains crossing the Dutchman's Curve in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, collided at speeds of 50 to 60 miles per hour killing 101 people and leaving 171 injured, on this date.



The great wreck of 1918 is still considered the worst rail disaster in US history.


July 9, 1926  -
Mathilde Krim, geneticist, founder of the AIDS foundation, was born on this date.



Just want to remind folks that one of America's most famous women doctors was in the Israeli military.


July 9, 1933  -
I often feel that life is about to begin, only to realize it is almost over.


Oliver Sacks, neurologist, was born on this date.


July 9, 1945 -
... dirty money always brings sorrow and sadness and misery and disgrace. Said by a man who never took a bribe.



During a newspaper strike, New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia read the daily comic strips aloud on WNYC radio on this date.

Co-incidentially or not, yesterday was the 94th anniversary of WNYC, which began as an AM radio station, 570 AM.


July 9, 1956 -
America's favorite actor, Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born on this date.



Let's hope someday, Tom finds himself and successes in a career.


July 9, 1958 -
A tsunami wave struck Lituya Bay in southeast Alaska on this date. The tsunami wave was 1,719 feet high - taller than the Empire State Building (1,470 feet tall). It was caused by an earthquake and descriptions by witnesses as moving at 600 miles per hour. It was later determined that this was the largest wave to ever strike land in history.



The wave destroyed 6-foot trees and stripped the shore down to bedrock. It killed two people when it sank their boat, while two other boats rode it out with all passengers surviving.


July 9, 1964 -
I'm ultimately a widow and a single mother, who's not even getting to be a mother right now. I am so alone, it's freaky.



Courtney Michelle Love, rock musician and actress, was born on this date.


July 9, 1982 -
Michael Fagan, dressed in jeans and a dirty t-shirt, and bleeding from a fresh cut on his hand, walks into the private bedroom of Queen Elizabeth II while she was asleep and her personal guard out walking her dogs. Fagan had scaled the wall surrounding Buckingham Palace and gained entry without triggering any alarms. The two carried on a 12-minute conversation, while the intruder holds a jagged broken ashtray, before somebody finally apprehended him.



Who knew that the Queen could carry on a 12 minute conversation with one of her subjects?


July 9, 2005 -
Danny Way, a daredevil skateboarder, rolled down a large ramp and jumped across the Great Wall of China on this date.



He was the first person to clear the wall without motorized aid.



And so it goes.


929