Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Someday this will be over (I hope.)

13 years ago today, the US launched Operation Enduring Freedom, hunting for the terrorist in Afghanistan, that brought down the World Trade Center Towers. The US is scheduled to withdraw  it's troop in December of this year.

Last week, the 2348th US soldier died; there have been 3475 coalition deaths.  Please take a moment out of your day today to consider the sacrifices, warranted or not, that the men and woman of the US military (and their families) have made.


Completely changing the topic - I love my penis as much as the next guy but ...



I've never felt the need to wave it on National TV (but then again I'm not Australian.)


October 7, 1950 -
The character of Granny appeared for the first time in a Looney Tunes Cartoon when Canary Row premiered on this date.



The title of this cartoon is a play of words on the 1945 John Steinbeck novel, Cannery Row.


October 7, 1952 -
A little TV show called American Bandstand premiered on this date, 62 years ago.



It premiered locally as a live show, Bandstand, on Philadelphia television station WFIL-TV (Channel 6, now WPVI-TV) on this date in Studio 'B', which was located in their just-completed addition to the original 1947 building (4548 Market Street) and was hosted by Bob Horn, with Lee Stewart as co-host. Dick Clark did not become associated with the show until 1956.


October 7, 1960 -
Kirk Douglas
in his magnificent leather thong, starred in Spartacus, which premiered in the US on this date.



For a while the studio did not want to give the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo screen credit for his work. Stanley Kubrick said that he would accept the credit. Kirk Douglas was so appalled by Kubrick's attempt to claim credit for someone else's work that he used his clout to ensure that Trumbo received his due credit - and in doing so effectively ended the Hollywood blacklist.


October 7, 1960 -
Route 66
premiered on this date.



According to Glenn Corbett, none of the episodes he appeared in were shot along the real Route 66. When he asked the producers why, he was told that the scenery along the actual highway wasn't considered interesting enough.


October 7, 1971 -
William Friedkin's
taut policier, The French Connection, opened in NYC on this date.



The early scene where Doyle and Russo chase down a drug dealer with Doyle dressed in a Santa Claus suit is based on a real-life tactic used by Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso. While on stakeouts in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Egan and Grosso discovered that drug dealers could easily spot undercover cops, and would often flee the scene before the cops could arrest them. One Christmas, Egan came up with the idea of dressing in a Santa Claus suit, figuring that drug dealers would never suspect Santa Claus of being a cop. As depicted in the film, Egan walked the neighborhood streets as Santa Claus, singing Christmas carols with local kids. When he saw a drug deal going down, Egan sang "Jingle Bells" as a signal to his partners to move in and make the arrest. The tactic worked beautifully, and Egan and his partners made dozens of Christmas arrests over several years.


Today in History:
October 7, 1849
-
On this date, Edgar Allen Poe was found in a delirious state (Maryland) outside a Baltimore voting place (saloon).



Mr. Poe was often found delirious, especially outside voting places,



but this time his delirium was serious and he died.


October 7, 1952 -
It's Vladimir Putin's 62th birthday.

Somebody please check what the Russian people are drinking; in the six months since Russia annexed Crimea, and transformed what had been a domestic Ukrainian crisis an international one, Putin’s approval numbers have never been higher (domestically.)


October 7, 1955 -
It was on this day in San Francisco at the Six Gallery, the poet Allen Ginsberg read his poem Howl for the first time.



The poem begins, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness." His friend Jack Kerouac sat on the edge of the stage and when Ginsberg was done, the audience exploded in applause.



When Lawrence Ferlinghetti published the poem Howl out of his City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, he was arrested and tried for obscenity, but he was found not guilty.


October 7, 1964 -
Walter W. Jenkins
, chief White House aide and longtime friend of President Lyndon B. Johnson, was arrested for disorderly conduct two blocks from the White House on this date. Jenkins was discovered in a YMCA pay toilet with another man.

Ultimately, Jenkins is forced to resign, so as not to jeopardize Johnson's re-election campaign. Jenkins stated that during his arrest, his mind had been "befuddled by fatigue, alcohol, physical illness, and lack of food."

Yeah, that's it, befuddled by fatigue... yeah, that and a wide stance will get you in trouble in a mens public restroom all the time.


Before you go - here's a wonderful commercial featuring Mr. Bean





And so it goes

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