I don't normally find her funny

but Kathy Griffin is very spot on in this clip



She still is two plastic surgeries away from Joan Rivers though


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





A valuable lessen can be learned from this film, don't confess to any deep dark secret unless you are absolutely positive everyone is going to die in that plane crash.


September 13 1848 -
A 13-pound tamping iron is blown through the head of railroad construction foreman Phineas P. Gage, entering beneath the left cheekbone and exiting the top of his head. The metal bar lands 30 yards away, taking with it much of his left frontal lobe. Gage never loses consciousness, even while the doctors examine his wound. Two months later, he is well enough to return home and resume an active life of work and travel.


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


September 13 1916 -
Mary the circus elephant is publicly executed in the Erwin, Tennessee railyard, after killing a drifter named Red Eldridge the previous day.


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

Give the people what they want ...


September 13 1916 -

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



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

And you thought only 007 had a way with women.


September 13 1971 -
After 1,300 rioting prisoners reject a list of proposed concessions because it lacks immunity from prosecution, New York Governor orders an attack to retake Attica prison.


In all, 29 prisoners die and 85 are wounded; and 10 hostages are killed. For months thereafter, prisoners receive inhumane beatings from guards.



And so it goes

Good Night Mr Walters

September 12, 1978 -
Taxi started looking for fares on this date.



Tony Danza drove the cab for the opening sequence; he was in New York to shoot a scene that would air in the first season finale. It ended up being the whole series' only scene filmed in New York.


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





The movie was shot over three years and production was stopped twice, mainly because Wells ran out of money. He then starred in the films The Third Man (1949) and Prince of Foxes (1949). He took his payment from those films and used them as money for "Othello".


September 12, 1958 -
The ultimate drive-in movie, The Blob, premiered on this date.



The title song "The Blob" was co-written by Burt Bacharach


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

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


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

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

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


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

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


Racing over 26 miles to get back to Athens, Pheidippides delivered the momentous message "Niki!" ("victory"), then promptly collapsed and died, thereby setting a precedent for dramatic conclusions to the marathon and the first sports product endorsement.

Remember that, the next time you run.


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


Henry Hudson sailed up the river, anchoring his ship at what is now West 42nd Street and the Hudson. He was hoping to get tickets to see Mary Poppins or at least the Lion King When he discovered that he was at least 350 years too earlier and that the only tickets available were the all - Indian version of Fiddler on the Roof, he immediately got back on his boat and went up as far as the site of modern day Albany, turned around, and went back to Amsterdam.


September 12 1878 -
The magnificent phallic symbol Cleopatra's Needle is erected in London on the bank of the Thames. It doesn't really have anything to do with Cleopatra.


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


It has nothing to do with Cleopatra, either.


September 12 1966 -
NBC television premieres The Monkees, a sitcom about four guys in a rock band.



When the show becomes a hit, the fictional Monkees somehow release a string of albums, even though three of the actors can't even play their instruments.


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



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


September 12 1994 -
After a night of boozing and smoking crack, Frank Corder steals a Cessna P150 and crashes it into the south lawn of the White House.


The wreckage tumbles over a tree and a hedge before coming to rest against the West Wing of the Executive Mansion. Corder's flamboyant suicide attack never actually imperiled President Clinton's life, since the First Family was sleeping elsewhere at the time. There is no truth to the rumour that Newt Gingrich bought Frank the boozes and the crack.






And so it goes.

Riding the Elevator into the Sky

As the fireman said:
Don't book a room over the fifth floor
in any hotel in New York.
They have ladders that will reach further
but no one will climb them.
As the New York Times said:
The elevator always seeks out
the floor of the fire
and automatically opens
and won't shut.
These are the warnings
that you must forget
if you're climbing out of yourself.
If you're going to smash into the sky.


Many times I've gone past
the fifth floor,
cranking upward,
but only once
have I gone all the way up.
Sixtieth floor:
small plants and swans bending
into their grave.
Floor two hundred:
mountains with the patience of a cat,
silence wearing its sneakers.
Floor five hundred:
messages and letters centuries old,
birds to drink,
a kitchen of clouds.
Floor six thousand:
the stars,
skeletons on fire,
their arms singing.
And a key,
a very large key,
that opens something —
some useful door —
somewhere —
up there.

- Anne Sexton






"Hold fast the time! Guard it, watch over it, every hour, every minute! Unguarded, it will slip away. Hold every moment sacred. Give each one clarity and meaning, each one its true and due fulfillment."

- Thomas Mann



Today, remember to hug your friends and family, call or write an old friend you haven't spoken to in awhile, say, "hello" to your neighbors or a least say, "Good Morning" to a stranger on the street.





And so it goes.

Meet the Elements

They might be Giants new video from their new kids album, release, Here Comes Science.



You and I are complicated but made of elements - It will happily rattle around in your head the rest of the day.


Today in History -
On September 10, 1419, supporters of the French Dolphin murdered John the Fearless.


John's brothers, Thomas the Prudent and Henry the Wary, lived on into old age.


On September 10, 1623, a cargo load of lumber and fur became the first exports in history from North America to England. This ensured the commercial success of the new world, as Europe had long been paralyzed by a shortage of sticks and hair.


September 10, 1898 -
Empress Elizabeth of Austria was not a particularly happy royal. Known as the Princess Diana of her day, she was estranged from her husband, Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria (because of the stifling nature of court life) she lost her daughter, Sophie, in 1857, and her favourite cousin, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, in a tragic fashion. Her brother-in-law, Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was shot by revolutionaries. She never was able to get over her most terrible tragedy, the suicide of her son, Rudolph, in 1889.



She was still known as one of the most beautiful women in Europe well into her 60's. Her decades-long hunger diets coupled with a need for movement and exercise which compelled her to undertake lengthy and strenuous hikes, caused malnutrition and depressions and led finally to suicidal fantasies. The sixty-year old empress was stabbed with a file by a twenty-four year old anarchist, Luigi Lucheni, shortly after noon on September 10, 1898 on the promenade of Lake Geneva as she boarded a steamship for Montreux. After the incident the Empress still walked for a few minutes. Because she was so strictly corseted, she was unaware how seriously she had been wounded.

Her last words were "What happened to me?"


September 10, 1932 -
"You must take the A Train
To go to Sugar Hill way up in Harlem..."



It's the 77th Anniversary of the famed NYC transit line.


September 10, 1951 -
The underrated classic film (in spectacular Technicolor) by Jean Renoir, The River, was released in the USA on this date.



The producer, Kenneth McEldowney, a successful florist and real estate agent in Los Angeles, never produced a movie before this one. He sold his home and floral shops, and from 1947 to 1951 worked on producing the film. The film was a huge success yet he then returned to real estate and never made another movie, because, he said "I did it once. I proved my point."


September 10, 1953 -
Brothers Gilbert and Clark Swanson contributed to an American food revolution by selling their first TV dinner, for 98 cents, on this date.



It let customers feast on turkey with corn bread stuffing, buttered peas, and sweet potatoes - right in front of their television screens. Americans eating habits and health would never be the same.


September 10, 1955 -
"Gunsmoke" premieres on CBS TV. The television series ran from September 10, 1955 to September 1, 1975 on CBS for 635 episodes. It had the longest run of any scripted series with continuing characters in American primetime television. William Conrad was the first choice to play Marshall Matt Dillon on TV, having established the role on radio, but his increasing obesity led to more photogenic actors being considered. Losing the role embittered Conrad for years, though he later starred in another CBS television series, Cannon (1971-1975). Denver Pyle was also considered for the role, as was Raymond Burr who was ultimately seen as too heavy-set for the part.



Rumors that the role was offered to John Wayne have been largely debunked, although he did apparent in an opening promotional video for the program.

Ah, if only Raymond Burr.


Believe it or not, Mike the Headless Chicken (April 1945 – March 1947) was a Wyandotte rooster (cockerel) that lived for 18 months after its head had been cut off. Thought by many to be a hoax, the bird was taken by its owner to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to establish its authenticity.


On Monday, September 10, 1945, farmer Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorado, had his mother-in-law around for supper and was sent out to the yard by his wife to bring back a chicken. Olsen failed to completely decapitate the five-and-a-half month old bird named Mike. The axe missed the jugular vein, leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact. Lloyd wasn't trusted with the knife on the farm after that.



On the first night after the decapitation Mike slept with his severed head under his wing.


September 10, 1977 -
Convicted torture-killer Hamida Djandoubi, an immigrant from Tunisia, becomes the last person executed by France when he is guillotined in Marseilles.


He did not survive his execution and there are no notes as to whether or not Djandoubi was buried with his head under his arm.



And so it goes

9/9/09 (All Beatles, All the Time)

Rather than try to avoid it, let's embrace that it's Everything Beatles day.



























The Beatles (and their heirs) will now be printing money.


It's back to school with you NYC kids



I'm already chilling the 'good' gin.


Today in History -
September 9 1087 -
William the Conqueror dies of internal injuries, sustained six weeks prior in a horse riding accident at Mantes-la-Jolie.


The king's funeral did not go well - according to some sources, a fire broke out during the funeral; the original owner of the land on which the church was built claimed he had not been paid yet, demanding 60 shillings, which William's son Henry had to pay on the spot. When the corpulent king was later laid to rest in the foundations of a church, his corpse would not fit in the stone sarcophagus. William's "swollen bowels burst, and an intolerable stench assailed the nostrils of the by-standers and the whole crowd."

Don't you just wish they had television back then.


September 9 1890 -
119 years ago today a little boy named Harland was born in Kentucky.


When Harland was six, his father died and his mother was forced to go to work. Little Harland did most of the cooking for his younger siblings. By the age of seven he was a master of the local cuisine.

There was no stopping the ambitious Harland, who had his own highway service station in Corbin, Kentucky, by the time he was forty.

He began cooking for hungry travelers who stopped at his service station. He didn't own a restaurant, so he served them at his own dining table. Word of his excellent cooking spread (secret combination of eleven herbs and spices) , and soon he moved across the street to a restaurant that seated 142 people.

His cooking soon became so well known that his state's governor, Ruby Laffoon, made him a colonel.



In an independent 1976 survey, Colonel Harland Sanders was ranked as the world's second most recognizable figure.


September 9 1956 -
Elvis Presley makes his first-ever appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, performing four songs for guest host Charles Laughton.



Ed himself had vowed never to have Presley on his show, but Sullivan is at home, recuperating from a severe head injury, from a drunken fall.


September 9 1971 -
1,300 inmates riot inside the Attica Correctional Facility in western New York state, commandeering the prison and taking 40 guards hostage.



The national guard stages an assault five days later, killing 42 people in the process (10 of them being captives).


September 9 2003 -
Edward Teller, the "Father of the Hydrogen Bomb" and purported model for Dr. Strangelove (or Kissinger was, take your pick), dies at the age of 95 at his home on the Stanford University campus.



His role in the destruction of colleague J. Robert Oppenheimer's career during the McCarthy era resulted in his own ostracism by many of his peers.

And no, he didn't utter, "Mein Fuhrer, I can walk" just before his death.


And so it goes

Have you read anything interesting lately?

It's International Literacy Day


Please read a newspaper, a magazine, even some graffiti today.


Today in History -
Constantine the Great's three sons, Constantine II, Constans, and Constantius II, named themselves Caesars and divided the Roman Empire between them on this date in the year 337.


But it was nearly sixteen hundred years before Sid Caesar himself was born, on September 8, 1922.


September 8, 1504 -
Michelangelo's David, was unveiled in Florence on this date.


If you were staring too hard, you'll notice that Dave has got a turtleneck. The apparently uncircumcised form would be at odds with Judaic practice, but would be consistent with the conventions of Renaissance art.

Now put your eyes back in your head.


John Endicott arrived in Naumkeag, Massachusetts, as the leader of a group of Puritan Bastards who had purchased land patents from the Plymouth Council in England.


A previous group of settlers had established themselves in Naumkeag in 1626 but had no patent and were therefore Villainous Heretics. They gladly surrendered their claim in the face of the newcomers' Superior Moral Virtue, which came in a variety of gauges.



Later Naumkeag became Salem and developed witches, ultimately resulting in a profitable cottage industry.


September 8 1644 -
The Dutch surrendered the city of New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York, on this day. The English navigator Henry Hudson claimed credit as the city's discoverer in 1609, when he sailed into its harbor and up the river that now bears his name, looking for a passage to India. Hudson was sailing for the Dutch West India Company, so it was the Dutch who moved in and settled the area in 1614, six years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.



Forty years later, New Amsterdam became a city; its population, 800. In the 1660s the Dutch and English were at war, and on September 8, 1664, a fleet sent by the Duke of York seized the city and changed the name to New York.

There are many in the Congress who have been trying to give the city back to the Dutch, the English or the Indians for that matter ever since.


September 8 1935 -


Dr. Carl Austin Weiss confronts Senator Huey Long in a narrow corridor of the State House in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Weiss draws a .32 caliber pistol and fires one slug into Long's abdomen.


The Senator's bodyguards immediately make Swiss cheese out of Weiss, riddling him with 61 bullets. Long is rushed to the hospital, where he dies two days later.


September 8 1966 -
Star Trek debuts on NBC, with the airing of an episode titled "The Man Trap."



The science fiction show proceeds to suffer in the ratings against established sitcoms Bewitched and My Three Sons. I guess space wasn't the final frontier - TV is.


September 8 1974 -
President Gerald Ford pardons Richard M. Nixon, out of respect for Nixon's family. "Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."



Not to add to any sort of conspiracy theory or anything but 10 years earlier, Gerald Ford served on the Warren Commission.


September 8 1974 -
In Idaho, daredevil Evel Knievel climbs into his X-2 Skycycle (really just a rocket on wheels) and hits the ignition.



The vehicle manages to clear the quarter-mile-wide Snake River Canyon, but then the parachute deploys prematurely and prevailing winds push him back into the chasm. Total ripoff.


September 8 1993 -
The refrigerated remains of President Ferdinand Marcos, whose corpse spent several years exiled in Hawaii, returns to the Philippines for its final resting place.


Luckily, Imelda had preserved her husband, so they are finally able to put him on display just like Lenin, Stalin, and Pol Pot -- under glass in a mausoleum of his very own.


And so it goes

It's Labor Day in the USA (and summer's over.)

Grover Cleveland was a very unpopular man back in 1896. He had broken up the Pullman Car strike using United States Marshals and some 2,000 United States Army troops, on the premise that the strike interfered with the delivery of U.S. Mail. During the course of the strike, 13 strikers were killed and 57 were wounded. It didn't win him any friends with the fledgling labor movement in America.


In order to throw a bone to Labor, Cleveland supported a holiday honoring workers on the first Monday in September, hoping it would help Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections. May 1st was initially proposed but was then rejected because government leaders believed that commemorating Labor Day on May 1 could become an opportunity to commemorate the Chicago Haymarket riots which had occurred in early May of 1886.

Cleveland was proven wrong and the Democratic party suffered their worse defeat ever.


So remember the cynical origins of the holiday while you are BBQ'ing this afternoon.

"Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country," explained Samuel Gompers, founder of the American Federation of Labor. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Mr. Gompers elaborated further: "All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day. . . is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation."

And yet, despite Mr. Gompers's assertions, Labor Day is not a Seinfeldian holiday about nothing. It is, according to Department of Labor, "dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country."

Workers being whom, exactly?



Whenever someone talks about Labor with an audible capital L, I picture a bunch of sweaty, grease-stained steelworkers, or guys in blue overalls and goggles with soldering irons. Their contribution is the oft-cited "sweat of their brows." Union regulations being what they are, though, they seem to be pretty well compensated for that sweat.

The term "Workers" has to include more than steelworkers and welders—otherwise we could just call it "Steelworkers and Welders Day." After all, a worker is just "one who works." I'm a worker (until recently, I was a worker). Almost everyone I know is or was a worker.

The difference seems to be unions. If you belong to a union, you're a Worker or a Laborer (I'm not sure if they have different unions). If you don't belong to a union, you're a lousy lazy-ass—an exploiting bourgeois bastard.

Think what this means: Heidi Montag, Tyra Banks, Glenn Beck and Megan Fox are Workers. Your friends who work awful hours at lousy jobs in wretched offices—they're bourgeois scum.


Warren Zevon, Grammy Award-winning American rock singer-songwriter and musician, died at age 56, on this date.









Enjoy every sandwich


Today in History -
September 7 1533 -
Elizabeth I was born on on this date. She was coronated at twenty-five and remained on the throne for 44 years, which helps explain why she remained a virgin all her life.



She is best known for having ordered the destruction of the Spanish Armadillo and the invention of Shakespeare.


It's the birthday of singer and songwriter Charles Hardin "Buddy" Holly, born in Lubbock, Texas, in 1936. By the age of 13, Holly was playing what he called "Western Bop" at local clubs. He was 19 when an agent discovered him and signed him to a contract with Decca records.



The following year, Holly returned to Lubbock and, with three friends, formed The Crickets, who then released "That'll Be The Day," which sold over a million copies. Buddy Holly's career was short: He died in February of 1959 in a plane crash in northern Iowa. Soon after, an English band that admired The Crickets decided to call themselves The Beatles.


September 7 1978 -
Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, dies in his London residence from an overdose of chlormethiazole edisylate, a prescription drug used to treat alcoholism.



Moon's flat, #12 Curzon Place, was the same spot where Mama Cass died of a heart attack in 1974



(and not from choking on a ham sandwich, smarty pants.)


September 7 1978 -
Walking to the bus stop, BBC journalist Georgi Markov suddenly feels a sharp pain in his right calf. A KGB assassin had jabbed him with an umbrella tip, rigged to inject a tiny platinum sphere. The pellet is laden with ricin, a castor-based toxin with no known antidote. Markov dies in the hospital four agonizing days later.



Oh those wacky KGB agents.


September 7 1996
Standing up through the open sunroof of a BMW 750 sedan, rap artist Tupac Shakur is talking to some women at a Las Vegas street intersection when a white Cadillac pulls alongside. Gunfire erupts, and Shakur is shot four times. He dies in the hospital a week later.



Although quite dead, he continued releasing new albums for many years.



And so it goes

God (and Donald Trump) save the Queen

September 6, 1935 -
This great Astaire and Rogers film, Top Hat, was released on this date.



This was the first film written specifically for Fred and Ginger.


September 6, 1936 -
The classic screwball comedy, My Man Godfrey, premiered on this date.



This is the only movie to ever get Oscar nominations for writing, directing and all four acting awards without being nominated for Best Picture. It's also the only movie to ever get those six nominations and lose them all.


September 6, 1946 -
One of the most fully realized middle period Hitchcock films, Notorious, was released on this date.



At the time, it was not common knowledge that uranium was being used in the development of the atomic bomb and Hitchcock claimed that he was trailed by the FBI for several months during the filming.


Today in History -
Although there can be no royalty in the United States, one young woman is crowned each year as Miss America. The first such coronation was held on September 6, 1921.



Miss America reigns for one year, at which point she must retire-unless she removes her clothing, in which case she's deposed. (Or is that denuded?)


Today in History
September 6 1901 -
While shaking hands at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, President William McKinley is shot twice in the abdomen at point-blank range with a .32 caliber revolver.


He dies a week later. The assassin, an anarchist by the name of Leon Frank Czolgosz, actually is a lone gunman (for once).




September 6 1951 -
During a drinking party in Mexico City, author William S. Burroughs instructs his wife Joan to balance a glass of gin on her head. He then takes careful aim with his new .38 pistol, and unintentionally blows her brains out in front of their friends. The Mexican authorities later charge Burroughs with criminal imprudence.



So kids remember, when a drunken Beat drug addict writer asks you to play "William Tell", Just Say No!!!




September 6 1966 -
Parliamentary messenger Demetrios Tsafendas assassinates Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, considered to be the primary architect of apartheid, by stabbing him in his chest on the floor of the South African legislature.


While Verwoerd died shortly thereafter, Apartheid tenaciously clung to life until 1994.


And so it goes

Mark this date in your calendar

This could be a red letter day for a more 'green' environment. Farting cows produce about 20 per cent of global methane emissions (insert all jokes here.) An Australian nutritionist, Dr. Tony Parker, thinks that changing the bovine's feed to
seaweed could change that problem. The sea grass contains less cellulose and therefore is more digestible.


Now if we could work on the diners at Taco Bell.


Today in History:
September 5, 1638 -
King Louis XIV of France was born on this date.


Like Elizabeth I in England, Louis inherited a struggling kingdom and built it into a major power. Unlike Elizabeth, Louis did not remain a virgin. On the contrary, he produced so many little bastards that he came to be known as the "Son King," which led him to conclude famously "L'etat, c'est moi." ("Kid, I'm your father.")

September 5 1921 -
Undiscovered actress Virginia Rappe somehow ruptures her bladder during actor-comedian Fatty Arbuckle's party at the Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco.



Three days later, the feverish woman is checked into a maternity hospital, where she dies from peritonitis. Arbuckle is eventually tried for murder, but acquitted. The surrounding scandal virtually destroys Arbuckle's career.


September 5 1972 -
Five Palestinians armed with machine guns sneak into the Olympic Village in Munich. There they take nine Israeli athletes hostage, killing two others in the process. Later, they demand safe passage out of the country and the release of 200
Palestinians from prison in Israel. Ultimately, none of the athletes makes it out alive.

September 5 1975 -
Manson Family member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme almost assassinates President Gerald Ford with a .45 automatic in Sacramento, California.



But Fromme is tackled by a Secret Service agent before she can remember to rack a round into the firing chamber.


September 5 1990 -
In his testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, LAPD chief Daryl Gates opines: "Casual drug users should be taken out and shot."


Note to self: remember not to invite Mr. Gates to any social events.


September 5 1991 -
Disgraced children's television star Pee-wee Herman returns to the public eye for the first time after his masturbation arrest, appearing on the MTV Video Music Awards.


He opens with the line: "Heard any good jokes lately?"


September 5 2003 -
It wasn't so happy at the happiest place in the world when one Disneyland guest is killed and 10 others injured when the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad coaster jumps the tracks in Frontierland.


Did they get their money back?



And so it goes.

Don't let your kids on this ride!

There really is something quite wrong with what is happening here.



I'm trying to figure out what Coke is advertising with with slide?


Someone please sedate Glenn Beck and take him back to the home

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Today in History:
September 4, 1882 -
Thomas Edison displayed the first practical electrical lighting system.


He successfully turned on the lights in a one square mile area of New York City (NY's Pearl Street Station).


September 4, 1885 -
The world's first cafeteria, The Exchange Buffet, catering to an exclusively male clientele, opens in New York. And if you hurry, there's still some of the original luncheon special available.


September 4, 1886 -
Geronimo was a prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who warred against the encroachment of the United States on his tribal lands and people for over 25 years.


While outnumbered, Geronimo fought against both Mexican and United States troops and became famous for his daring exploits and numerous escapes from capture from 1858 to 1886. At the end of his military career, he led a small band of 38 men, women, and children. They evaded 5,000 U.S. troops (one fourth of the army at the time) and many units of the Mexican army for a year. His band was one of the last major forces of independent Indian warriors who refused to acknowledge the United States Government in the American West. This came to an end on this date, when Geronimo surrendered to United States Army General Nelson A. Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona.


Dubya's grandpappy, the anti-Indiana Jones, somehow figures into this story (you knew he would). In 1918, certain remains of Geronimo were apparently stolen in a grave robbery. Three members of the Yale secret society of Skull and Bones served as Army volunteers at Fort Sill during World War I; one of those three members was Prescott Bush, grandfather of the forty-third President of the United States George W. Bush. They reportedly stole Geronimo's skull, some bones, and other items, including Geronimo's prized silver bridle, from the Apache Indian Prisoner of War Cemetery. The stolen items were alleged to have been taken to the society's tomb-like headquarters on the Yale University campus, and are supposedly used in rituals practiced by the group, one of which is said to be kissing the skull of Geronimo as an initiation.


September 4, 1888 -
George Eastman patents first rollfilm camera and registers "Kodak" on this date


Remember, You press the button, we do the rest.


September 4, 1957 -
The Ford Motor Company introduces the Edsel.



The brand is known best as one of the biggest commercial failures in the history of American business.


September 4, 1972 -
American swimmer Mark Spitz became the first athlete to win seven Olympic gold medals .



For his all of his effort, he is forced to walk around in a Speedo for years - the chafing was horrible.


September 4, 1976 -
George W Bush is arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine for driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.10 percent. He pays the $150 fine and has his driving privileges suspended for a month.



Years later, during Bush's 2000 campaign for President, a WPXT-TV reporter from Portland, Maine uncovers the arrest record just one week prior to election day. It is also revealed that Bush's V.P. candidate, Dick Cheney, had arrests for drunken driving in 1962 and 1963.



And so it goes

Happy Birthday Charlie

Carlos Irwin Estévez, actor and noted Hobby horse man (look it up) was born on this date.





Kids remember, you too can get kicked out of High School, use drugs and spend a massive amount of money on prostitutes and still be one of the highest paid actors on TV.


Today in History:
On September 3, 301, during an epic game of hide-and-seek, St. Marinus the Stonemason ran up Mount Titano in Italy to hide from the Roman Emperor Diocletian.


It was a good hiding spot and he was never found.



He started his own country to pass the time and the Republic of San Marino survives to this day.


On September 3, 1189, Richard Lionheart, an enthusiastic sodomite, was crowned King of England.


The son of Henry II (no relation to Rocky II) and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard spent most of his ten-year reign abroad. For two of these years he was imprisoned by the Holy Roman Emperor, who was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an emperor, but a nasty little man just the same.



When Richard finally returned to English soil he discovered there had been Intrigues, some of which involved his brothers. He therefore crossed the channel and defeated France before dying from an arrow wound to the neck inflincted by an 11 year old boy.

He had only produced one son, and the most crushing defeat of Richard's tragic life was his discovery that the child was a little bastard.


On September 3, 1838, Frederick Douglass escaped slavery disguised as a sailor. Later he wrote about his experiences in a book called The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, the title of which may have diminished the effectiveness of his disguise.


(Publishers thought The Narrative Life of a Burly Black Guy Dressed in a Tight Fitting Sailor Suit would have limited appeal outside certain fetishist circles.)


On September 3, 1939, Germany continued its invasion of Poland even though Britain had asked it very nicely to stop.



This upset the British sensibility. They declared war on Germany, the official launch of World War II in Europe.



And so it goes

Some commercials you'll never see in the US.

While no one in their right mind would drink vermouth on the rocks (disgusting), George is great.





You have to love George - doesn't take himself seriously at all.


September 2, 1950 -
In my humble opinion, moment for moment, the funniest non-Bugs Bunny Looney Tunes cartoon, The Ducksters, is released on this date.



On the game show Porky Pig wins:
1. The Rocky Mountains
2. A 17- Jewel half Nelson
3. The La Brea Tar Pits
4. The Rock of Gibraltar
5. 600 gallons of genuine Niagara Falls
6. $26,000,000.03


Here's your Today in History -
On this date in 1666, Thomass Farrinor forgot to put out his oven at the end of his shift.


Unfortunately, the resulting fire cost him his job as official baker to King Charles II of England and started the Great Fire of London.



On the plus side, it burned out of control and destroyed four-fifths of London, thereby ending the Black Plague.


Lydia Kamekeha Liliuokalani was born on this date in 1838.


Upon the death of her brother in 1891, she became sovereign Queen of Hawaii. This was considered posing by the American colonials of Hawaii, who reminded her that monarchy was unconstitutional in the United States.



She reminded them that Hawaii was not part of the United States. This was more than unconstitutional: it was cheeky. She was immediately deposed, then wrote wrote "Aloha Oe" and retired.


USS Shenandoah was the first of four United States Navy rigid airships. She was built from 1922 to 1923 at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, and first flew in September, 1923. She developed the Navy's experience with rigid airships, even making the first crossing of the North American continent by airship.


On 2 September 1925, Shenandoah departed Lakehurst on a promotional flight to the Midwest which would include flyovers of 40 cities and visits to state fairs. Testing of a new mooring mast at Dearborn, Michigan was included in the schedule.



While passing through an area of thunderstorms and turbulence over Ohio early in the morning of the 3rd, the airship was torn apart and crashed in several pieces near Caldwell, Ohio. Shenandoah's commanding officer, Commander Zachary Lansdowne, and 13 other officers and men were killed.


Russ Columbo, was an American singer, violinist and actor, most famous for his signature tune, "Prisoner of Love," and the legend surrounding his early death.



On September 2, 1934, Columbo was shot under peculiar circumstances by his longtime friend, photographer Lansing Brown. Columbo was visiting him at the studio one day. In lighting a cigarette, Brown lit the match by striking it against the wooden stock of an antique French dueling pistol. The flame set off a long-forgotten charge in the gun, and a lead pistol ball was fired. The pistol ball ricocheted off a nearby table and hit Columbo in the left eye, killing him almost instantly. Columbo's death was ruled an accident, and Brown exonerated from blame. His funeral mass was attended by numerous Hollywood luminaries, including Bing Crosby and Carole Lombard.



Literally, with friends like this, who needs enemies.


And soon it goes.

The Summer's nearly done

September is the ninth month of the year, which is why its name is derived from the Latin septum, meaning seven. (We have previously addressed this problem last month; see "August, the Sixth Month.")

September is Classical Music Month, Fall Hat Month, Honey Month, Baby Safety Month, and Chicken Month, as well as International Square Dancing Month, National Piano Month and Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. So remember, if you notice someone with their thumbs up their ass, they may just be celebrating.

It's Emma M. Nutt Day, the first woman telephone operator, 1878. She was hired personally by Alexander Graham Bell. A few hours after Emma started work her sister Stella Nutt became the world's second female telephone operator.


She loved the job, and worked at it for 33 years.


September 1, 1939
How appropriate then that Mary Jean Tomlin, Academy Award nominated, Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award winning actress, comedian, writer and producer was born on this date.









AT&T once offered Tomlin $500,000 to play her character Ernestine in a commercial, but she declined saying it would compromise her artistic integrity.


September 1, 1914 –
The last passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, dies in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo. There are various reasons for the extinction of the passenger pigeon - the main one unfortunately was they tasted so damn good broasted.



Her body was frozen into a block of ice and sent to the Smithsonian Institution, where it was skinned and mounted. Currently, Martha (named after Martha Washington) is in the museum's archived collection, and not on display.


A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la lune),written and directed by Georges Méliès, assisted by his brother Gaston, is a 1902 French black and white silent film, considered to be the first science fiction movie, was released on this date.



It is loosely based on two popular novels of the time: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells.


September 1, 1939 -
Germany, ever eager to start their Second World War Tour, began, it at 5:30AM on this date when German troops invade Poland.



Hitler was so happy that day, he orders extermination of mentally ill.



And so it goes.