Saturday, December 12, 2015

Be good, for goodness sake

It's Santacon today



I've calmed down since last year. I'll make not rants. I'm very happy that Brooklyn has allowed amateur drinkers a home base to put on Santa suits to get shitfaced.


It's also the seventh night of Hanukkah.



Tonight is known as the Festival of the Daughters (Chag haBanot.)  In parts of Northern Africa countries, such as Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco, tonight is celebrated as commemoration of Judith's beheading of the General Holofernes (impress your friends with that one.)


December 12, 1915 -
It's the 100 anniversary of the birth of Francis Albert Sinatra today. This year, I'm making no jokes about Mr. Sinatra's alleged organized crime connection (Please note - I did not us the word, mafia.)





And once again, We here at ACME would to remind the various gentlemen from Bensonhurst who came to visit us last year, we did not resort to any cheap gimmicks to slander the Chairman of the Board, greatest singer of the 20th century. (Now will you please release our employees - their families miss them.)


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



When first screened by the BBC there were numerous public complaints and these led to questions being asked in the House of Commons. Although, following remarks by the Duke of Edinburgh that he and the Queen had "thoroughly enjoyed" the broadcast, the live repeat, four days later, attracted the largest television audience since the Coronation.


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



Red Buttons and Carol Lynley, whose characters fall in love in the movie, actually disliked each other intensely during filming. They refused to have anything to do with each other except when the cameras were rolling. Ironically, after being constantly reminded of this, they ended up becoming great friends in later years.


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



Nancy Allen was originally offered the part of the Young Whore. But she turned it down because she felt she would be too nervous to speak while being nude on-camera.


December 12, 1980 -
Well, whip it good!




Whip It
earned Devo a gold record on this date. It is the first distinction of its kind for any song about masturbation to earn a gold record.


Today's holiday special:  Judah Macabee could kick Frosty's butt


Today in History:
December 12, 1531
-
It's the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

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

So now you know.


December 12, 1899 -
Dentist George Grant was granted a patent for the modern golf tee on this date. The design, basically, lifts a golf ball slightly off the ground.

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


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



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


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



You think we might have seen something was brewing.


December 12, 1968 -
I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late start without me.





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

Her last coherent words reportedly were "Codeine... bourbon." (I must remember that, except substitute gin for bourbon at the end.)



And so it goes.

There are 13 days until Christmas.

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