TomSito.com - TOM SITO'S BLOG

January 6th, 2009 tues.

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:00:00 PST

Amid Amidi on yesterdays' Cartoon Brew Blog did a thorough run down of all the cool new animation books that are going to weigh down our shelves and run up our Visa cards this year. Included is Disney Producer Don Hahn's two volumes of the lectures of Disney drawing tutor Walt Stanchfield.

Also John Canemaker's done a comparative history of two of Disney's great story artists, Joe Grant and Joe Ranft.

Check them out by going to my links.

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Quiz: What is the origin of the term “ He’s on the level”?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Name the Three Kings. Los Tres Reyes
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History for 1/6/2009
Birthdays: St. Joan of Arc, Mountain man Jedediah Smith, Tom Mix, Alexander Scriabin, Gustav Dore', Loretta Young, Earl Skruggs. Carl Sandburg, Danny Thomas, Nancy Lopez, John DeLorean, Alan Watts, John Singleton, Rowan Atkinson, Anthony Minghella

Happy Feast Of Epiphany, Twelfthnight and The Eastern Orthodox Christmas.
Today is the end of the twelve days of Christmas when the Magi, the three kings- Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, visited the Holy Family. The Magi were the priestly caste of ancient Persia and the Zoroastrian religion. They were believed to predate the Persians and come from the Chaldaeans, the people who invented the western branch of the science of astronomy. The Maya and Chinese were doing astronomy on their sides of the world. A lot of the Magi ritual concerned observation of the stars. Some astronomers theorize the Star of Bethlehem was a rare planetary alignment that created a bright spot the Magi weren't used to or a close orbit of Jupiter. Others have calculated that there was a supernova around 6 BC which is more or less the right time, Jesus birth is by modern estimate around 4 BC. or Four before Himself. In many countries the Three Kings, not Christmas, is when children get their presents, because that’s when JC got his.

1759- George Washington and Martha Custis marry. Washington first loved another woman who refused him, a Sally Fairfax who married a prominent English loyalist plantation owner. They fled to Europe when the Revolution began and never returned. When George married Martha she was a very rich widow, but beyond childbearing years. This might have been a factor in Washington's decision later not to be King of America, for he would have no direct heirs. Imagine the complications in the young democracy trying to establish this concept of an elective President if there was a George Washington Jr. to contend with.
-Or a George W. Washington?

1842- THE RETREAT FROM KABUL - This day15,000 British troops and their dependants march out of Kabul, Afghanistan on the road to Jellallabad. They were attacked by Afghan Ghilzais tribesmen all along the route through the Khyber Pass. Only one man, regimental surgeon William Brydon,survived because he got lost on the road.

1872- Millionaire robber-baron Big Jim Fisk was shot dead by Ned Stokes, his rival for the affections of beautiful actress Josie Mansfield. It was one of the big scandals of the Guilded Age.

1912- Scientist Alfred Wegener presented his paper to the German Geological Society in Frankfurt. In it he theorized that the Earth’s continents are not fixed in place but moving. He named it Continental Drift. This was dismissed as nonsense until after WWII when submarines charting the ocean floor discovered tectonic plates. Today it is accepted that the continents move at the speed with which you grow a fingernail. About 6 feet a century.

1919- Teddy Roosevelt died peacefully at Oyster Bay ,N.Y. at 60. He was never expected to survive childhood asthma, was wounded in Spanish American War, thrown 40 feet in a streetcar wreck, got a dangerous leg abscess while on safari, almost died of malaria in the Amazon and was shot by an assassin while giving a political speech, which he finished anyway. His daughter Alice said: " The problem with daddy is at every wedding he wants to be the bride and at every funeral the corpse."

1945- First Pepe Le Pew cartoon, "Odorable Kitty". When the Warners producer who replaced Leon Schlesinger, Eddie Selzer, heard the plans to do a short about a skunk he thundered: "Absolutely Not! Nobody will like a cartoon skunk!" Chuck Jones recalled: "As soon as he said no, I knew we just had to do it." Selzer's final opinion:" Nobody'll laugh at that sh*t!" The short won an Oscar. Selzer later went on into network T.V.

1945- Navy Lt. George H. W. Bush married Barbara Pierce. Despite Barbara’s mother’s opinion of Bush “Singularly Unimpressive” Poppy Bush made Barbara First Lady and the mother of another president.

1949- Composer Leonard Bernstein noted in his diary that “JR (Jerome Robbins) called today with a novel idea- a modern version of Romeo and Juliet set in the slums.” At first the musical was going to be called East Side Story, then GangWay, finally West Side Story.

1956- Prince Rainier of Monaco announced his engagement to movie star Grace Kelly.

1962- Bob Clampett's Beany and Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent. This was the animated version of his popular puppet show.“So Long Kids,Wind Up Your Lids, We’ll look for You Real Soooooon.”

1975-“ Ease on Down the Road.-“ The musical The Wiz premiered on Broadway.

1993- Ballet star Rudolf Nureyev, the most famous male dancer since Nijinsky, died of HIV/AIDS.

1994- “WHY ME, WHY ME?” Shortly after a practice in a Detroit skating rink Olympic hopeful Nancy Kerrigan was attacked by a man trying to smash her knees with a steel pipe. The man Derrick Smith later confessed to the FBI that he was paid $6500 to do the deed by Jeff Gilhooly, the ex-husband and manager of Kerrigan’s rival skater Tanya Harding. Despite all the intense media coverage in the end Kerrigan got one Silver medal, Harding nothing and the Olympic gold in Figure Skating went to Ukrainian Oksana Baiul, who was later busted for drunk driving.

1995- In another great leap forward for trash journalism CBS anchor Connie Chung gets Kathleen Gingrich, the mother of Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, to call First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton a “bitch”. In an earlier time such gutter utterances would have been politely edited, but this was given wide national coverage.

1996- In Gaza, Hamas leader Yahya Ayyash called the Engineer, dialed his cellphone and it blew his head off. It was a remote control bomb set by Israeli intelligence Mossad. 100,000 attended Ayyash’s funeral.
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Yesterday’s Question: Name the Three Kings. Los Tres Reyes

Answer: : Answer above- Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar or Baalshazzer.

Posted by:Tom

January 5th, 2009 mon

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:00:00 PST

Bronny Barry and Joe Campana sent me this link to an old U-Tube clip of the production of the Flintstones in the heyday of Hanna & Barbera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg1PWkN-51E

The artist seen drawing Fred is assistant Ron Westlund, funny to think the H&B building had to be preserved as an LA historic landmark!

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QUIZ: Name the Three Kings. Los Tres Reyes.

Yesterday¹s Quiz answered below: Why are a group of artillery pieces called a battery?
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History for 1/5/2009
Birthdays: Zebulon Pike, Stephen Decatur, Alven Ailey,J. Stuart Blackton (the first American animator, born in Lincolnshire, England ), W.D. Snodgrass, Jack Norworth -composer of " Take Me out to the Ballgame' , Konrad Adenauer, Astrologist Jean Dixon, Umberto Ecco, Yves Tanguy, Walter Mondale, George Reeves, Roger Spottiswoode, Hiyao Miyazaki, Robert Duval is 78, Dianne Keaton is 63, Spanish King Juan Carlos

1463- French poet Francois Villon was kicked out of Paris.

1477- THE BATTLE OF NANCY- The Duke of Burgundy Charles the Rash dreamed of turning his duchy between France and Germany into one of the great powers of Europe. In the process he managed to annoy just about all his neighbors with his constant wars. This day Charles found out why the Swiss are left alone by most European powers. Upon invading Switzerland his army was cut to pieces. His body was found naked in a ditch with his head stuck fast in a puddle of ice. two spears were sticking out of his butt. These were seen as being for insults sake.

1825- Writer Alexander Dumas fought a duel with the Chevalier Saint George, a black duelist from Martinique, who played violin so well he helped Beethoven write his Violin Concerto. Neither man was seriously hurt and Dumas went on to write the Three Musketeers. Saint George also once fought a duel with the enigmatic Monsieur d¹Eon, a transvestite who fought his duels in a womens¹ ballgown.

1896- A Vienna newspaper announced the invention by Dr. Wilhelm Roentgen of a machine that produces "X-Rays" to see inside the body. In England, scientist Lord Kelvin, who invented the Celsius temperature scales, declared x-rays a " ridiculous hoax "

1896- Josef Pulitzers’ New York World began printing the Sunday Yellow Kid comic strip with a yellow color on his shirt. The strip gave the name to the sensationalist tabloid press 'Yellow Journalism".

1914- The Ford Motor Company shocked the captains of American Industry by raising it¹s wage rates for work shift from $2.40 a day to $5.00 a day and adopting the new 8 hour work day. Henry Ford¹s idea was ³when workers have more money they buy cars². The idea worked and sales of cars quadrupled and the economic climate of Detroit boomed.

I wonder what Henry Ford would have thought of today¹s companies who lay off thousands of workers and move plants overseas to make their stock rise, then seem perplexed by the stagnant rate of consumer spending?

1921- Famous Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton was preparing one last expedition to the South Pole. This day on his ship anchored in South Georgian Island Bay, he complained he felt ill. He said to his doctor ³Oh, what do you want me to give up now?² then he fell over dead of a heart attack. He was 47.

1924- William Chrysler introduced his first automobile featuring an all steel chassis frame instead of wood. He created it for the failing Maxwell Car Company and in 1925 changed the name to the Chrysler Car Company.

1925- Nellie Taylor Ross was inaugurated as the Governor of Wyoming, the first woman to hold such an office.

1933- First day of construction on San Francisco¹s Golden Gate Bridge.

1933- Calvin Coolidge died peacefully. The laconic Coolidge was so low key and stand offish that he was a favorite target for political writers. H.L.Mencken said "Being fanatical for Coolidge is like being fanatical for double entry Bookkeeping". Will Rogers said:" The convention nominating Coolidge was so dull there was a call to open up the Churches early to liven things up". Dorothy Parker had the final word. When told that Coolidge had died she replied:" How could you tell?"

1934- Both the American and National Baseball Leagues agreed upon a standard size for a baseball.

1953- Samuel Beckett¹s play Waiting for Godot ( En attendant Godot ) first premiered in Paris.

1959- Buddy Holly released his last single, It Doesn¹t Matter Anymore.

1959- The first Bozo the Clown TV show premiered on TV. Larry Harmon invented and played the famous children¹s clown.

1961- “Hello Wilbur” Mr Ed the Talking Horse appeared on TV for the first time.
Veteran Western actor Chill Wills provided the voice.

1968- A Boston grand jury indicted famous baby doctor Benjamin Spock for conspiring to abet violation of draft laws. The great scientist had come out as a vocal opponent of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War. "I helped them be born. I'm not going to abandon them now."

1970- Soap opera “All My Children” premiered.

1979- EMI Records ended their contracts with the punk band the Sex Pistols. They felt their outrageous behavior had gone just too far.

1980- The first Hewlett Packard Personal Computer or PC goes on the market.

1998-At the Heavenly Valley Ski Resort former pop singer turned Neocon Congressman Sonny Bono died, when he skied headlong into a tree.
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Yesterday¹s Quiz: Why are a group of artillery pieces called a battery?

Answer: The original purpose of cannons were to batter down castle walls and fortress gates. The French term Batterie became the term for a unit of cannon, anywhere from 3 to 6.

Posted by:Tom

January 4th, 2009 sunday

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: Why are a group of artillery pieces called a battery?

Yesterdays Quiz answered below: Which space mission won the Space Race, between the U.S. and Soviet Union? Apollo 8, Apollo 13, Apollo 11, Gemini 1…?
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History for 1/4/2009
Burthdaze: Sir Issac Newton, Emile Cohl the first animator, Louis Braille, General Tom Thumb, Jane Wyman, Jacob Grimm of the Brothers Grimm, Sterling Holloway the voice of Winnie the Pooh and Kaa, Francios Rude, Dyan Cannon is 72, Floyd Patterson, Don Shula, Barbara Rush, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Julia Ormond is 41

1642-English King Charles Ist, egged on by his pushy French queen Hennrietta Maria, attempts to squash his uppity Puritan enemies in Parliament with one stroke. He personally marched troops into the House of Commons and demanded the arrest of five ringleaders, John Pym, Sir Arthur Hazelrig and others. They had already fled. When he ordered the Speaker of the House to identify the men, the speaker bowed and politely refused: "Sire, I have neither eyes to see nor lips to speak say as this House biddeth me". The King left empty-handed and the people of London raining garbage and abuse down on him. He quit London to travel north and raise troops. The English Civil War is recorded as beginning in September, but from this moment on King Charles considered no other remedy but force.

1725- American colonist Benjamin Franklin first arrived in London.

1861- As the Civil War was breaking out, Missouri inaugurated it’s new Governor, Claiborne Jackson. Gov. Jackson in his inaugural speech declared Missouri would stand by her sister slaveholding states in the Confederacy, but the city dwelling people of Missouri had a different idea. They were for the Union. The farming population were pro Dixie. Already wracked by years of violence Missouri would collapse into an anarchy of roving paramilitary gangs robbing, hanging and shooting the innocent. Bushwhackers and Redlegs. Missouri suffered more than any state in the US. One tenth of the population would die or move away.

1881- Johannes Brahms Academic Festival Overture premiered in Breslau. Modern audiences would recognize it as the theme song to National Lampoons Animal House.

1885- The first appendectomy operation.

1904- The Supreme Court ruled that Puerto Ricans are not aliens but American citizens. Full citizenship rights were still delayed until 1917.

1904, Thomas Edison's movie crew filmed the electrocution of an elephant. Topsy, was being destroyed by its owners after she killed three men in as many years. (The third was a man who fed her a lit cigarette.) The event was a public spectacle to a paying audience of 1500 people at Coney Island, where the elephant had actually helped build the attraction. Edison was the consultant chosen to arrange the electrocution after feeding Topsy cyanide-laced carrots had failed to kill her.

1943- Josef Stalin named Time Magazines Man of the Year.

1946- Terrytoons "The Talking Magpies" the first Heckle and Jeckle cartoons.

1954- Young truck driver Elvis Presley went into Sun Records recording studio in Memphis. He plunked down $4 to record two demos for his mothers’ birthday. " Casual Love Affair" and "I’ll Never Stand in your Way". The studio technician was impressed enough to play the demo for his manager who called back Presley for an audition.

1956- In the Peanuts comic strip Charles Schulz first had Snoopy stand up on two legs.

1956- Walt Disney had lunch with his old nemesis Max Fleischer, now retired. The meeting was arranged by Max’s son Richard Fleischer, who was working for Disney directing Twenty Thousand Leagues. Although everyone had a nice time, Richard later admitted he found the whole event depressing. Seeing his dad humbled:” It was like seeing David vanquished by Goliath..”

1960- Writer Albert Camus was killed in a car accident. He was 46.

1964- The Boston Strangler murdered his last victim, 19 year old Mary Sullivan. The family of Albert DeSalvo, the man who confessed and was convicted as the Strangler, still claim today that he was innocent because the pattern of this killing didn’t match the others.

1973- In San Francisco scientists from several top food companies like Proctor & Gamble, Heinz and Del Monte began work inventing the Universal Product Code, or the Bar Code now seen on everything you buy. The first product to sport the bar code was Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum.

1973- President Nixon informs the Senate committee investigating the Watergate break-in that he refuses to yield to them his taped conversations, citing "executive privilege".

1995- Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House of Representatives. In the Washington atmosphere of congenial deal making, Gingrich was the philosopher of the scorched earth, no-compromise style of politics. Even after he stepped down, and Obama is calling for reaching-across-the-aisle, this philosophy is still very much in politics today.

1997- Spoon bending psychic Uri Geller predicted a UFO would land in Tel Aviv. Israelis watched the skies, but in the end, nothing appeared.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Which space mission won the Space Race, between the U.S. and Soviet Union? Apollo 8, Apollo 13, Apollo 11, Gemini 1…?

Answer: This was a bit of a tricky one. Apollo 11 did indeed land on the Moon, but Apollo 8 was the first manned craft to reach the moon. It was the one that orbited but didn't land and Jim Lowell read from Genesis on Christmas Night. After Apollo 8, the Russians admitted defeat, and announced they were shifting their efforts to unmanned probes of Mars.
So Apollo 8 is actually considered the mission that won the Space Race.

Posted by:Tom

January 3rd, 2009 sat

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:00:00 PST

Karl Cohen of ASIFA/San Francisco sent me an amusing website.

Instead of Walk Like an Egyptian, try this link and Draw Like John Whitney.

http://www.zefrank.com/shelda/

John Whitney Sr(1917-1995)was considered the Father of Computer Animation. His experiments with WWII army surplus gunsights in the 1950s became the forerunner of the tools we use today to make Shrek, Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda.

I'm not sure if this person was aware he was channeling Whitney, but the kaleidoscope images are reminiscent of Whitney's CATALOG (1961), and James Whitney's LAPIS(1975). It's a bit fast, but amusing.

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Quiz: Which space mission won the Space Race, between the U.S. and Soviet Union?
Apollo 8, Apollo 13, Apollo 11, Gemini 1…?

Yesterdays question answered below: In Chuck Jone’s cartoon Inky and the Mynah Bird, composer Carl Stalling gave the birds a theme from a famous piece of classical music. What is it?
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History for 1/3/2009
Birthdays: Marcus Tullius Cicero, John Paul Jones, Victor Borge, Zazu Pitts, Sergio Leone, Hank Stramm, Bobby Hull, Robert Loggia, Maxene Andrews of the Andrews Sisters, Ray Milland, Anna Mae Wong, Steven Stills, J.R.R. Tolkein, Victoria Principal, Mel Gibson is 54.

1777- BATTLE OF PRINCETON- After the Christmas victory at Trenton George Washington’s little army gives the main British army the slip, wheels around behind them and surprise attacks another redcoat regiment at Princeton New Jersey. Years before young student Alexander Hamilton had failed the entrance requirements to study at Princeton University and instead went to Kings College, later renamed Columbia. Now artillery major Hamilton had a pleasure rare among rejected college applicants- that of being allowed to fire a few cannon rounds into the college’s admissions building.

1868- the MEIJI RESTORATION- In Japan the Tokugawa family had ruled as Shoguns since winning Japans internal civil wars in1603, keeping the Emperor as a figurehead. On this date a revolution occurred when radical samurai seized Kyoto Palace and overthrew the Shogunate. Japan would be under the direct control of the Emperor and Japan would now end her enforced isolation and modernize her society. The Emperor Meiji would also move the capitol from Kyoto to Yedo, already being called Tokyo.

1871- Henry Bradley patents Oleomargerine in the U.S.. It had been demonstrated in the Paris Exhibition of 1867 as a butter that didn't spoil, so it could be used by armies in the field.

1899- An editorial in the New York Times refers to the horseless carriage as an “Automobile”. This is the earliest known use of the word.

1925-Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini suspended democracy and his black shirted followers declared him Il Duce, or the leader. He became dictator of Italy.

1926- General Motors introduced the Pontiac brand of automobile.

1933- MGM hired producer David O. Selznick to produce movies. His father-in-law Louis B. Mayer set his salary at $4000 a week. Newspapers joked “The Son-In-Law Also Rises”

1946- Lord Haw-Haw ,William Joyce, the English voice of Nazi radio propaganda broadcast from Berlin, was hanged for treason. English Fascist Joyce was actually born in Brooklyn but moved to England at an early age. He was nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw because of his stuffy upper class accent.

1952-The T.V. series DRAGNET premiered today. “The story you have seen is true, the names have been changed to protect the innocent.” Star Jack Webb produced and wrote most of the scripts and oversaw the deadpan acting style.”Just the facts, Mam..”

1958- Howard Rushmore was the editor of Confidential, one of the most ruthless scandal magazines in show business. This day for reasons never explained Rushmore murdered his wife then took his own life in the back of a NYC taxicab. Today Howard Rushmore would probably be considered a serious journalist.

1959-FIFTY YEARS AGO- Alaska became the 50th state.

1967- Jack Ruby, real name Jacob Rubenstein, the murderer of Lee Harvey Oswald, died of lung cancer in prison. To the end he was refused a meeting with Congress where he claimed he could discuss his patriotic motives for killing Oswald. Retired Mafia don Bill Bonano said Ruby being Jewish and not Sicilian, was the type of hood the mob used for clean-up jobs. That he was a soldier for Chicago boss Sam Giancana. Others say Ruby was just a two bit hood who claimed he was more important than he actually was.

2004- The first of two Mars Rovers landed safely on Mars and began transmitting photos. JPL Mission leader announced "We're Back...We're on Mars.." Originally only supposed to last 90 days, the rovers are still working today.

2004- After partying hard all New Years in Las Vegas, 22 year old pop singer Britney Spears married friend Jay Alexander for a laugh. Later after she woke up, she realized the jokes on her. Because the marriage was legal. She annulled it a day later. Alexander, who listed himself as unemployed, was soon seen driving around rural Louisiana in a $90,000 BMW.
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Yesterdays question answered below: In Chuck Jone’s cartoon Inky and the Mynah Bird, composer Carl Stalling gave the birds a theme from a famous piece of classical music. What is it?

ANSWER: Fingal’s Cave by Felix Mendelssohn.

Posted by:Tom

January 2nd 2009 fri Here's to the Winners...

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:00:00 PST

Tom Sito's Winners for 2008.

The turn of a New Year makes one want to review the Winners and Losers of the previous year. I won’t list all the losers from 2008, because the weight of the file would crash the Web. So I’ll mention who I thought were Winners in the World of Animation in 2008. ( in no particular order of preference. )

Jennifer Yuh Nelson- Jenny storyboarded a lot of the opening 2D sequence for KUNG FU PANDA. I worked with her on SPIRIT. It was great to finally see the energy of her work really come through on the screen. I hear she is now tapped to direct the sequel. Good choice.

courtesy of Dreamworks Animation

James Baxter- With ENCHANTED and the 2d animation in KUNG FU PANDA and SECRETS OF THE FURIOUS FIVE, James has managed to lift up the worn battle-flag of 2D hand drawn Animation. He has become the champion of all of us who still might want to occasionally use a pencil to draw cartoons.

Seth McFarland- Bringing FAMILY GUY back from Cancellation Land, selling THE CLEVELAND SHOW and a 100 kazillion buck development deal with Fox, Seth has become one of the most successful “creatives” ( the word suits use for artists) in ToonTown.

Raul Garcia- Former Disney/Bluth animator Raul has spend the last few years scrimping, saving and hustling around the world taking meetings to launch his idea of a Spanish-language based animation production. At last, in cooperation with Antonio Banderas and Placido Domingo, Raul’s first feature THE MISSING LYNX has opened in Madrid to great acclaim and has been nominated for the Spanish Oscar. I look forward to seeing it here en Eengleesh.

Francis Glebas for his well done book DIRECTING FOR ANIMATION.

Eric Goldberg for revealing his deepest darkest secrets on making animation- Focal Press’ CHARACTER ANIMATION CRASH COURSE.

Nancy Beiman has a new steady teaching gig at Sheridan College and her PREPARE TO BOARD has been approved for a second printing.

PIXAR for making yet another &%#$ hit movie, WALL-E. I don’t know how they do it.

Simon Tofield of Simon’s Cat, a very clever and well animated web-toon that has established a following for the young Brit, getting him almost as many downloads as porn.

June Foray, the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Natasha, took a bad fall and busted her hip, which at age 90, can be something that is tough to recover from. But two months later she was out of hospital, partying with the best of us and driving her Jaguar around town.

Ari Folmen of WALTZING WITH BASHIR, for suddenly making Israel an animation filmmaking power.

John Stevenson and Mark Osborne the directors of KUNG FU PANDA, Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino the directors of HORTON HEARS A WHO.

For me old Roger Rabbit mates Rob Stevenhagen and David Bowers, for getting the direction bug.

For me other old Roger buddies Roger Chiasson, Chuck Gamage, Uli Meyer and Ken Duncan for opening animation studios and keeping them open through a tough year.

To Rob Davies and the gang at Atomic Cartoons for some fun times working together.

To all my students who have entered the business, especially my USC grad Shih Ting who’s film VIOLA won a Student Academy Award, and was featured on the cover of the MP Academy Bulletin.

The FJIORG! student CGI competition at Siggraph. Pat Beckman, Becky Weible and Arno through their energy have made it a Siggraph tradition.

All my animation friends from other lands who became American Citizens just so they could vote in the Presidential Election. They all picked the winner.

I could think of more, but these are my picks so far. You notice, I am talking about people instead of films. If you’ve ever read my writings, I consider animation a PERFORMANCE, I celebrate the animator as an INDIVIDUAL, not a magician or elf in a tree, but a working pro who works for a paycheck and figures out how to pay taxes too. And I leave film crit to the film critics.

A New Years Toast to all my animation Kameraden!May we have a good year this year!
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Quiz: In Chuck Jones shorts of Inky and the Mynah Bird, whenever the strange bird appeared, composer Carl Stalling gave him a signature tune. What piece of classical music is that tune based on?

Yesterday: No quiz yesterday, because I was too hung over and you probably were too!
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History for 1/2/2009
Birthdays: Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV-1642, Frederic Opper the cartoonist of Happy Hooligan, Phillip Freneau, Roger Miller, Issac Asimov, Julius LaRosa, Tito Schipa, Renata Tebaldi, Tex Ritter, Cuba Gooding Jr, is 41, Tia Carrere

1492- Sultan Abu-Abdallah called Boabdil surrendered the Emirate of Grenada, the last stronghold of the Moslem Moors in Spain to Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Boabdil's mother, the Sultana Ayeesha, scolded him for weeping while surrendering the keys of the city. " I should have smothered you as an infant, rather than watch you live like a degenerate and surrender like a whore...!" Thanks Mom…

1496- Did Leonardo da Vinci try to fly? Leonardo studied the motor actions of birds and sketched numerous flying machines. In one of his notebooks Leonardo had written:” On the second day of January, I will make the attempt.” When one of his aides Antonio broke his leg it was said he broke it trying to pilot one of his masters flying machines.

1522- Adrian VI, a Dutchman was elected Pope. He was the first non Italian since 1378 and the last non-Italian until John Paul II in 1978. He really tried to be a true Christian spiritual guide and agreed with Martin Luther that the church was too corrupt and sinful in it’s ways. He demanded he and his cardinals live on only one ducat a day, about $12.50, he walled up the Belvedere Palace and it’s collection of ancient Greek and Roman art as pagan idolatry. Poets and artists were furious that this Pope cancelled all their rich contracts. The unemployed poet Aretino called the cardinals “miserable rabble” and that they should all be buried alive for electing this lousy pope. After three months Adrian died. This time the cardinals elected a Medici Pope who loved art, music and parties. The people of Rome sent flowers to Adrian’s doctor to congratulate him for losing his patient.

1611-THE BLOOD COUNTESS- Beautiful Transylvanian Countess Elizabeth Bathory was indicted for the murder of 610 people. She apparently believed that bathing in the blood of virgin girls would keep her skin beautiful- remember Oil of Olay wasn’t invented yet. The crimes of the Medieval nobility were often winked at until like Count Giles de Rais-Bluebeard in France they become so outrageous they couldn’t be ignored any longer. When peasant girls kept disappearing around Csejthe Castle word got back to her big uncle King Sigmund Bathory of Poland, the nemesis of Ivan the Terrible. When King Sigmund discovered the full horror of her story he had Elizabeth walled up alive in her chamber. Daily food passed through a slit in the wall. When after a few years the empty dishes stopped being passed through that slit was bricked up as well.

1757- British redcoats first march into Calcutta. They don't leave until 1947.

1785- Austrian Emperor Joseph II ordered the Jews throughout his empire to adopt family names. A similar law was passed in the rest of Germany ten years later. Most Jews created surnames out of their profession. This was when someone like Ystchak the diamond dealer became Issac Diamondstein and Jakob the butcher became Jacob Fleischman.

1837- It was the custom at New Years for the Mayor of New York to hold an open house. Average citizens could pay a call, have a glass of sherry and pound cake and express good wishes for the New Year. But Mayor Cornelius Lawrence was a Tammany politician who had been elected with the help of hooligans from the Bowery and Five Points. When he held an open house this day all these gang toughs stormed in, got drunk, wiped their fingers on the curtains and pocketed the silverware. It quickly became bedlam. In desperation Mayor Lawrence got the police and militia troops to push the mob out and lock the doors.

1843- Richard Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman premiered in Dresden.

1873- Richard Connolly becomes the first American to embezzle a million dollars -he actually embezzled four million. He was the financial controller for the City of New York under Boss Tweed. Together the Tweed ring bilked New York City out of $60 million dollars. Today he fled abroad ahead of the police. Tweed was nabbed and died in jail but Slippery Dick Connolly lived in Europe happily ever after.

1878- Farmer John Martin thought he saw something shiny flying in the sky above Denizen Texas. He is the first person to describe it as a “flying saucer.”

1882- John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil company controlled almost 90% of the U.S. crude oil output but the government seemed poised to hit it with anti-monopoly laws. So anticipating this move he reorganized Standard Oil into a Trust with himself as chief Trustee. Standard Oil later became ESSO (S-O) then EXXON.

1904- The Russians surrender their big Pacific base of Port Arthur to the Japanese after a one year siege. During the boredom of the siege the game Russian Roulette was invented- of putting a six shooter to your head with one bullet in a spun chamber. When their men kept dying for no reason the Stavka-High Command were at a loss how to stop it. When they caught men playing this lethal game they courts martialed them for illegal use of government property- i.e. the bullets.

1909- Aimie Semple MacPherson was given her ordination by the Evangelical community of Chicago to go preach the Good News! MacPherson moved to California and became one of the first great broadcast evangelists, entertaining millions with salvation and sin, while keeping toy-boys and popping pills on the side.

1937- Hollywood actor Ross Alexander had hit on tough times. He had been in a few movies like Captain Blood and Max Reinhardt’s A Midsummer Nights’s Dream but his career seemed to be stalled and he was deeply in debt. This day the 29 year old went into the barn behind his Valley ranch home and shot himself. The Warner Bros. Studio looked around for a replacement to refill their roster of male leads. They replaced Alexander with a Illinois college sportscaster named “Dutch”- Ronald Reagan.

1960- Young Mass. Senator John F. Kennedy announced he was a candidate for president. When asked why do you want to be president? Kennedy replied:” Because it’s the best job there is.”

1971- Israeli archaeologists in Jerusalem discovered the 2000 year old remains of a crucified man. No, they didn’t think it was You-Know-Who. But it did provide the first physical proof that Romans really used that method of execution.

1984- The Zenith Corporation announced it would stop selling video recorders in Betamax format and go over wholly to VHS. Other electronics giants followed suit and VHS won out over the higher quality Beta system. A week ago the largest maker of blank VHS cassettes announced they were ceasing production, since everyone is doing DVDs.

1995- Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry was inaugurated for a second term after winning election despite his conviction of smoking crack cocaine. As comedian Chris Rock said: “Who ran against him? Who was such a bad choice that he lost to a crackhead? “

Posted by:Tom

January 1st, 2009 New Years Day

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 12:00:00 PST

Well, we survived 2008 somehow, and we enter 2009 with a new President , a new spirit, and the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. Every New Year’s Day, all of us non-jocks can pretend for a little while we actually care about watching football. And, while the rest of North America shivers in the winter that came on much too fast, here in Southern Cal have our own curious custom for New Year’s. The Rose Parade.

courtesy calonlinearchives.com

The Rose Parade is the annual event where all those whose families who came to LA from little towns can pretend for a day, that we don’t live in a major cosmopolitan megalopolis, but we’re still the little Podunk train crossing in the bean fields that those East Coast movie folk scouted out in 1913. For a day, we forget that David Hockney, Arnold Schoenberg, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Chandler, and Charles Bukowski all lived here once.

No, we camp out all night, so next day we get a good spot on the curb to applaud the Chairman of the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce driving by, followed by Miss City of Industry, the owner of a dental clinic decked out in Western attire from Nudies riding a Palomino that costs more than your Honda, all covered in plastic rhinestones, The Fighting Manatees All Varsity Marching Band and a representation of Shrek done in thousands of hand-glued chick peas and yellow dwarf rose petals.

I’ve lived in LA for 25 years now, and I still don’t quite get all the fuss. Back in New York City, parades, since the Irish marched St Patty’s Day in 1765, were all about one ethnic group getting together to drink a lot and march down the street giving a big one- fingered-salute to the rest of their city. Hah, Look how many of us there are! Look at the power of numbers of all the Irish, or Poles, or Puerto Ricans, or Gays & Lesbians, whatever.

Maybe the Rose Parade is the Small-Town LA giving the finger to the big cultured Metropolis LA.

If any of you animation folk happen to be watching, this year’s parade will feature two floats designed by Iron Giant artist John Ramirez and a Warner Bros Anim tribute Float that Chuck Jones daughter, Producer Linda Jones Clough will be riding.

Anyway, I gotta go. USC-Penn State is about to kick off and I have to go get more Doritos Smoky Barbeque flavored chips and Coors Lite. Happy New Year!
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Jan. 1st 2009 A.D. or 2009 of the Common Era- New Year's Day
It’s also the Hebrew year 5,767 AM or Year of the World Anno Mundane ,
in the Moslem calendar 1430 A.H. or Al Hajira –since the Haj,
And the Year 1387 in the Zoroastrian Calendar
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Yesterday’s Quiz question: Why is December the twelfth month when Decembrius means number ten in old Latin? For the answer look at 45 BC.
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Happy Last Day of Kwanza

Birthdays: Duke Lorenzo”the Magnificent” De Medici, Pope Alexander VI Borgia, Paul Revere, Betsy Ross, Mad Anthony Wayne, E.M. Forrester, J.Edgar Hoover, Xavier Cugat, Frank Langella is 70, Barry Goldwater, Kuniyoshi Utagawa, Dana Andrews, Idi Amin Dada, Kliban, Verne Troyer (Mini-Me) is 39

Welcome to the month January from IANUARIUS, the old Roman god Janus, the two faced god of doorways and portals who looks forward and back, symbolizing new beginnings. Not to be confused of course with Terminus the god of boundaries and borders.

Janus’ temple was dominated by a large doorway in the Roman Forum. Whenever the temple doors were closed, it meant Rome was at peace with the world. Unfortunately, this was hardly ever the case.

45 BC.- By edict of Julius Caesar the Roman Empire adopts the 12 month 366 day calendar Caesar ordered developed by the Alexandrian scientist Sosigenes. This was an improvement from the ten month, ten day week system. The ten month system is why December, which means ten, is counted as the twelfth month. The system had become so lopsided that the Roman civil service had to open a special office just to tell you what day it was! In order to pull the calendar back in line with the solar seasonal year Caesar decreed the last year of the old system 46 b.c. would have to be 445 days long! He called it Ultimus Annus Confusionis. Roman merchants, bankers and shippers called it the Year of Confusion.

Happy Feast of the Holy Circumcision, when baby Jesus had his…well,…you know…..

69AD- The Roman legion at the Rhine frontier fort of Mainz rose in rebellion under their general Marius Vindex. This is the first act of defiance that would overthrow the Emperor Nero. By years end four men would be Emperor until only one –Vespasian, remained.

1525- Despite the pleadings of Hernando Cortez to respect Aztec institutions, twelve Franciscan missionaries began to close down Aztec temples, and conducted mass baptisms of Indians at gunpoint.

1531- French King Louis XII died of sexual exhaustion from too many evenings spent with his new English queen, the sister of Henry VIII. His nephew Francis was next in line. The dying king lamented. “That big nosed boy will ruin everything we tried to accomplish!” Actually, Francis Ist turned out to be one of France’s best kings.

1776- The first U.S. invasion of Canada is defeated, Benedict Arnold and William Montgomery's colonial army attacks Quebec City in a snowstorm and are repulsed. Montgomery is killed and Arnold takes a bullet severing his thigh bone. Aware of the Puritan New Englanders contempt for Roman Catholics most French Canadians did not rise up as expected to help 'Les Bostonnais', as they called the minutemen.

1788- THE LONDON TIMES is born. Daily newspapers had appeared in Europe in the early 1600s. Publisher John Walters had started a small one sheet in 1785 called the Daily Universal Register. In 1788 he changed the name to the simpler "The Times" and created the format for newspapers around the world for centuries to come. The Walters family ran the newspaper for 125 years and Walters even had to edit it for two years while serving a prison term for libel.

1801- Toussaint L’Overture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines declare the Republic of Haiti, only the second independent republic in the Americas.

1831- William Lloyd Garrison first began publishing his newspaper The Liberator, openly calling for the end to black slavery in the U.S. ‘ I will not Equivocate, I will not Retreat, and I Will Be Heard!”

1850- The TaiPing Rebellion began in China. Hung tsu Tsuan listened to a Christian Missionary. Later he decided he was the son of Jesus Christ come to Earth to right all wrongs. He led millions, until he was crushed by the Manchu Emperor’s foreign led army- the Ever Victorious Army.

1863- Poet Walt Whitman visited Washington D.C., but skipped a chance to meet Abraham Lincoln. Whitman was looking for his brother, and the New Years reception line in front of the White House was just too long to bother. Lincoln is young and there will be plenty of other occasions to meet him....

1876- The first Mummers Parade in Philadelphia. Philadelphia created a fusion of Swedish custom of celebrating New Years with masquerade and noisemaking with a British custom of mummery- reciting doggerel and ribald songs in exchange for cakes and ale. George Washington received mummers when the US capitol was in Philadelphia in 1790. The large Mummers parade that continues to this date began to welcome the US Centennial year in 1876.

1881- Eastman Kodak Company formed. Kodak supposedly was named from the sound of the snapping camera shutter.

1890- The First Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena California.

1909- London astronomers say they had detected signs of a planet further out than Neptune, the furthest known planet in our little solar system. The theoretical body was called Planet -X until in 1930 an amateur astronomer named Clyde Tumbaugh found it and named it Pluto.

1914- The Archbishop of Paris threatens with excommunication young people who dance the Tango. "It's lascivious nature offends morality."

1939-ANOTHER BIRTHDAY OF T.V.. Vladimir Zworkin patented the Iconoscope ( the eye of a TV camera ) and the Kinescope. The television process evolved over many years: there were experimental TV stations in 1923, and the Berlin Olympics of 1936 were televised. So you can't really point to one Tom Edison type inventor, although Zworkin, Englishman James Logie Baird in 1924, Philo Farnsworth, and Dr. Lee DeForest all at one time tried to take the full credit.

1942-Young French Resistance leader Jean Moulin parachuted back into Nazi-occupied France to unify the scattered resistance groups under DeGaulle.

1942- Because of the fear of a Japanese attack on the California coastline, the Rose Bowl that year was played in North Carolina.

1943- Walt Disney's wartime Donald Duck cartoon- Der Fuehrer's Face, premiered. Working title- Donald Duck in Naziland, it was changed when they decided to include the hit song by comedy band Spike Jones.

1953- 29 year old country music star Hank Williams had spent the night drinking whiskey and doing chloral hydrate. When a West Virginia policeman pulled over his car he remarked to the driver that Williams looked dead, he was. The driver said Hank was just sleeping it off, and drove on. Williams last song was “I’ll Never get out of this World Alive.”

1959- As Fidel Castro’s guerillas roll into Havana, Cubans celebrate the fall of dictator Fulgensio Batista. Fidel is proclaimed the leader of Cuba.

1959- The Chipmunk Song by David Seville (aka Ross Bagdassarian) tops the pop charts..

1963- Tetsuwan Atomu or Atom Boy, an animated television show by Osamu Tezuka premiered on Japanese t.v. As Astro Boy it became the first Japanese anime show to break into the mainstream American market.

1966- An ailing Walt Disney was the Grand Marshal for that years Rose Parade. Standing in the crowd with his mother was a little kid named John Lasseter.

1976- Potheads sneak up to the Hollywood Sign and change the two “O’s to “E’s so the sign reads HOLLYWEED. Awright Dudes!

1984- By court order, the phone system AT&T also called the Bell System which had dominated telephone communication exclusively since Alexander Graham Bell spilled carbolic acid on his lap, was ordered broken up into 22 regional companies, the Baby Bells. The explosion of telecommunications, portable phones and bigger phone bills result.

1998- Michael Kennedy, a son of Robert F. Kennedy was killed in Aspen Colorado during a freak skiing accident. He was playing ski-football and while handling a video camera he struck a tree.
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For the Trivia Answer look above at 45BC, and have a Happy New Year!

.

Posted by:Tom

December 31st, 2008 New Year's Eve.

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:00:00 PST

QUIZ: If there are twelve months to the calendar, why is December ancient Latin for Number Ten?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question below: Why does lowering a glass ball from a flagpole on top of a building signal the New Year?
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History for New Years Eve 12/31/2008

Birthdays: Henri Matisse, General George C. Marshall, Odetta (real name Holmes Felicious Gordon) , Simon Weisenthal, , Pola Negri, Anthony Hopkins is 71, Jules Styne, Ben Kingsley-born Khrishna Banji is 65, Sarah Miles, Donna Summer, Patti Smith, Elizabeth Arden, Tim Matheson, John Denver, Dianne Von Furstenberg, Bebe Neuwirth, Val Kilmer is 49, Gong Li is 43

192-193 A.D.- The Roman Emperor Commodus assassinated. The natural son of the great philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius turned out to be just another sicko tyrant in the mold of Nero and Caligula. This night during a wild New Years Party he drunkenly challenged a top wrestler named Narcissus. Narcissus had been bribed by Commodus's Preatorian Prefect Laetus and head of the Imperial Household Eclectus. So instead of just pinning him down, Narcissus broke Commodus’neck. Made for one hell of a party.

314 AD-This was the Feast Day of Saint Sylvester, the Pope who baptized the Roman Emperor Constantine who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.
Legend had it Sylvester miraculously cured Constantine of leprosy, and in reward Constantine gave the Roman Pontiff dominion over all the world. This Donation of Constantine was the philosophical reason the Pope in Rome became the supreme head of the Christian Church over any other bishop. In the 1440’s Italian humanist scholar Lorenzo Valla proved the Donation story was a myth forged in the 700s by a Vatican clerk named Christophorous. But no one listened to him.

406AD- Huge hordes or Goths, Alemanni and Vandals trudge across the frozen Rhine River and invade the Roman Empire. This biggest migration of barbarians is the beginning of the Fall of Rome.

1502- Renaissance Prince Caesar Borgia was besieging the Adriatic town of Senigalia. Caesar invited the enemy leaders Vitelli and Oliverotto to a conference with him at the Governors Palace. After dinner and drinks Caesar had them strangled. Machiavelli praised Caesar Borgia for a “most lovely ruse”. Leonardo DaVinci was among the Borgias’ retinue at the time.

1600- England starts thinking about India... Queen Elizabeth grants a charter for exploration to the Honorable East India Company.

1711- Queen Ann of England dismissed the Duke of Marlborough from command of the British Army and from all his cabinet and government posts. John Churchill the Duke of Marlborough was one of the greatest English soldiers, ranked with Wellington, Nelson and Henry V. Yet, by now the Queen found him and his pushy wife Sarah annoying.

1772-3 THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. STROHENSEE-The King of Denmark, Christian VII was slowly devolving into insanity from syphilis. In 1770 he hired a doctor named Strohensee to try to alleviate his pain. The Doctor became more and more influential at the Danish Court as the king withdrew into seclusion. Strohensee was made a count and to top it all off he became the lover of the Queen! Soon Count Dr.Strohensee was defacto ruling Denmark. In the name of Queen Caroline he passed 1,000 acts of enlightened reform, updating the Danish civil service and outlawed torture. Finally the Royal Court couldn't stand being dictated to by a low born sawbones anymore. At a New Years ball Strohensee was overthrown and arrested by order of the Queen Mother Juliana Maria. He was quickly tried and beheaded. The King's care devolved to several regents until his son took over after his death. Queen Mum Juliana Maria said one of the greatest pleasures of her old age was looking out her window and watching the birds peck at the bones of Doctor Strohensee.

1862- The U.S.S. Monitor, the little ship that fought the Confederate Merrimac in the first great contest of iron warships, sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras. Her inventor John Ericsson had boasted, 'the waves shall pass over her and she shall ride the sea like a duck', but in rough seas she sank like a rock. The Monitor has recently been discovered on the ocean floor. In 2002 sections of the turret and a propeller have been recovered.

1862-3 - SLAVERY ENDS IN THE UNITED STATES-In a service at Boston's Music Hall Abolitionist leaders Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubmann, Harriet Beecher Stowe and William Lloyd Garrison sang 'Battle Hymn of the Republic" and celebrated midnight when the Emancipation Proclamation would officially take effect.

1879- Thomas Edison did a public demonstration of his new invention the Light Bulb. Special commuter trains brought people to Menlo Park New Jersey for the show.

1909- The Manhattan Bridge, the second span across the East River after the Brooklyn Bridge, opened to the public.

1911-12 Dr. Sun Yat Sen elected first President of the Republic of China, replacing the 256 year reign of the Manchu Dynasty. One of his first acts was to abolish the Chinese calendar and go on to the western one for 1912. He also went to the Shrine of the Ming Emperors to tell their spirits that the Manchus had fallen. Dr Sen was a Methodist who no longer followed Chinese religious beliefs, but he was honoring a pledge to political allies.

1917- EUROPE DISCOVERED JAZZ- As the first American units entered Paris to help in World War One the New York 15th Colored Regiment serenaded the city. The band of the 15th was made up of top Harlem jazz musicians led by band leader James Europe. The French were amazed as the band performed ragtime riffs that only gradually they understood to be La Marsaillaise and Le Marche Sambre et Meuse. Local musicians accused the Harlemites of using trick instruments since no one could make sounds like that. Lieutenant Europe went on tour with the band and Europe the continent embraced the new modern sound.

1923-24-BBC overseas radio service first broadcast the Chimes of Big Ben around the world.

1929-30- New York's "21" Club opened as a speakeasy. Barkeep Jack Kramer opened the hangout at 21 west 52nd street. With a wine cellar hidden behind a two-foot thick stone wall door. The feds raided 21 once and found nothing after hours of searching. When they went back outside all their cars had been towed away by NYPD traffic cops. It seems the Mayor of New York Jimmy Walker was having dinner in the wine celler and was annoyed by the intrusion. In subsequent years it was normal to see movie stars, Lucky Lucciano, J.Edgar Hoover and John F. Kennedy eating side by side. Richard Nixon loved their tater-tots called potato souffle.

1929- Guy Lombardo and his big band the Royal Canadians first played Auld Lang Syne at midnight for New Years.

1940-41- Avant Garde artists John Sloan and Marcel Duchamp break into the Washington Square Arch in and declare Greenwich Village the Republic of New Bohemia. Like coool, daddy.

1941- A Warner Bros memo dated this day from producer Hal Wallis office announced that the movie to be made from a play by Murray Bennett called “Everybody Goes to Rick’s” has been renamed “Casablanca”. This was to capitalize on an already popular film title “Algiers” with Charles Boyer “come with me to ze Casbah” etc.. Humphrey Bogart got the lead after George raft first turned it down. Bogie told a friend about his new project: “It’s just some more sh*t like Algiers.”

1943-44- In occupied Europe U.S. Navy frogmen sneak over to the future Normandy beachhead and take sand samplings to analyze if the beach could take the weight of heavy tanks and ordnance. The samples were sent to Detroit so companies could design customized tank-tread teeth. Ironically when the D-Day invasion happened a storm had washed all the sand out to sea and the tanks slipped around helplessly on gravel.
As the frogmen swam back to their midget submarine they could hear the Germans celebrating in their bunkers. One frogman yelled out "HAPPY NEW YEAR !"

1943- Four hundred policemen are called out to control frenzied crowds of bobbysoxers as Frank Sinatra played the Paramount Theater in Times Square. OOHH FRANKIE !!

1946- The first Pismo Beach Clam Festival.

1947- Roy Rogers married Dale Evans.

1958-59- As Fidel Castro's cigar smoking, hairy-ass guerrillas close in on Havana, dictator Fulgensio Batista slipped out of a New Year's Party and boarded a plane for Miami arranged by the CIA.

1962- Romanoffs closed. One of the premier hot spots on the Sunset Strip, it was the preferred hangout of Humphrey Bogart, who liked to play chess in the afternoon with Nick Romanoff when he was between films.

1967- The Ice Bowl- Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers defeated the Dallas Cowboys 21-17 for the NFL championship. It was nicknamed the Ice Bowl because the game was played in GreenBay in the out doors in below zero weather, with a wind chill of 40 below zero. Referees whistles froze to their lips.

1977- President Jimmy Carter in Teheran toasts Iran under the Shah as :“ An Island of Stability in a Troubled Middle East .” Within a year the Shah was overthrown.

1985- Singer Ricky Nelson died when his band's converted old DC-9 airplane crashed near DeKalb, Texas. Nelson it was said had been living on a steady diet of cheeseburgers and Snicker's bars.

1995- The last Calvin and Hobbes comic strip by Bill Waterston

1997- Will Smith and Jaeda Pinkett marry.

1999-2000 - The Y2K MANIA. While the world prepared to celebrate the new century and the Third Millenium the American media whipped up paranoia over a theory that the change from 1999-2000 would cause most computers to crash. Planes would fall out of the sky, nuclear missiles would launch themselves and marauders would rule the streets like something out of Mad Max. The US Government spent $65 million to prepare for the crisis. But at midnight absolutely nothing of the kind happened. Even older less sophisticated computers in Russia and China were unaffected and everything ran normally. Meanwhile many of the US public stayed home and watched the rest of the world have fun on television.

2001-2002- The European Union currency exchange went into effect. Adieu, Adios and Ciao to the French Franc, Belgian Franc, Italian Lire, German Deutchmark, Austrian Schilling, Dutch Guldin, Greek Drachma, Irish Pound, Portuguese Escudo and Spanish Peseta. Welcome the Euro.

2006- Saddam Hussein hanged. ( I listed it yesterday, without taking into account the time difference, it was already the 31st over there.)

2008- Dedication in Baghdad of the Killing Saddam Museum. I wonder what the gift shop is like..?
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Yesterday’s question: Why does lowering a glass ball from a flagpole on top of a building signal the New Year?

Answer: In the 1700-1800s Newspaper services like Reuters and the London Times would post headlines and important news on large signboards in front of their offices for people on the street to see. Some times they would mark an important event like the death of a monarch by dropping a lantern, raising a flag, or firing a signal gun.

In New York City in 1905-6- THE FIRST BALL DROPPING CEREMONY- The New York Times hosted the first of it's giant news years party's from it's new office tower at #1 Longacre Square, now renamed in their honor Times Square. Midnight was signaled to the crowd outside by the lowering of a lantern on it's roof. -In 1907 an ironworker created a large ball covered with electric light bulbs that was lowered from a flagpole. The Ball-dropping ceremony was only interrupted twice in 1942-43 for World War Two blackout rules. The Times Building was later sold and renamed the Allied Chemical Building, the Sony Building and the Time/Warner building. I don’t know who owns it now.
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THANKS FOR READING MY LITTLE HISTORIES. I HOPE YOU HAVE AS MUCH FUN READING THEM AS I DO WRITING THEM.
HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009!

me by Hans Bacher

Posted by:Tom

Dec 30th, 2008 tues.

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 12:00:00 PST

QUIZ: Why does lowering a glass ball from a flagpole on top of a building signal the New Year?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What does it mean when you have Carte Blanche?
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History for 12/30/2008
Birthdays: Rudyard Kipling, Gen. Hideki Tojo, W. Eugene Smith, Luther Burbank, Anna Magnani, Bo Diddley, Sir Carol Reed, Sandy Koufax, Solomon Guggenheim, Jeanette Nolan -Granny from the Beverly Hillbillys, Jack Lord, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann, Joseph Bologna, Fred Ward, Tracey Ullman. Tiger Woods is 34, Heidi Fleiss, Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul & Mary

1370- Pope Gregory XI is an example of the rather unconventional path one could take to the Throne of Peter in the Middle Ages. His genial uncle Pope Clement VI had made him a cardinal at age 18. Upon his election as Pope at age 39 someone noticed that he had never taken Holy Orders to become a Priest! So yesterday he was ordained a priest and today became Pope.

1672- Violinist John Bannister and his orchestra held a concert at Whitefriars chapel in London. It’s the oldest known music concert given not to a royalty, but to the general paying public.

1689- The opera Dido & Aeneas by Henry Purcell premiered in London.

1816- Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley married Frankenstein author Mary Wollenstonecraft Shelley.

1817- Coffee beans first planted on the Kona coast of Hawaii.

1853- The Gadsen Purchase- After the Mexican-American War the U.S. bought an additional 45,000 square miles from Mexico and finally settled the US border at the Rio Grande. The deal was brokered by U.S. Secretary of War and later President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis.

1862- During the Civil War the day before the Battle of Stone's River, Tennessee, Union and Confederate armies spent the day quietly facing each other across a creek under an icy rain. A battle of the bands started up. Blue and gray musicians serenaded each other across no-mans land with patriotic songs like Dixie and John Brown's Body, while the men sang along. Finally both bands synched up with a spontaneous rendition of " Be It Ever so Humble, There's No Place Like Home..". Thousands of throats from both sides took up the chorus.

1884- Anton Bruckner’s 7th Symphony premiered in Leipzig.

1894- Suffragette Amelia Jenks Bloomer died; she had gained notoriety for inventing "bloomers" a way for women to ride horses and do other physical actions without cumbersome hoops skirts.

1903 - A fire broke out in the crowded Iroquois Theater in Chicago killing 571.The Iroquois had a sign over the door that read “Absolutely Fireproof”.

1936- The Great General Motors Strike. The strike was violent and tied up steel, rubber tires and other manufactures for months. United Auto Workers invent the first "sit-down" strike at the Fisher Body Plant in Flint, Mich. "When they tie a can to the Union man-Sit Down, Sit Down! When the Boss won't talk, don't take a walk- Sit Down, Sit Down !"

1940- The Arroyo-Seco, the First L.A. Freeway opened by Mayor Fletchor Bowron, connecting downtown and Pasadena. ( interstate U.S. route 66 is in 1932, and The Imperial Highway opened in 1936., the Ventura freeway in 1958.)

1944- Manhattan project director Gen. Leslie Groves has a private meeting with FDR at the White House. Groves tells the President the two "cosmic bombs" (Atomic Bombs) they are building will end the war. The reason they were making two was one was uranium based and the other was plutonium based. Franklin Roosevelt wanted one dropped on Germany immediately to stop the Battle of the Bulge and kill Hitler. But Groves argued the A-bomb hadn’t been tested yet. He worried that if the bomb was a dud, the Germans were smart enough to take it apart and build their own from the fissionable material, which they might shoot in a V-2 at London.

1941- “I Vant to be Alone..” Film Star Greta Garbo announced she was retiring from motion pictures and all public appearances. She made her disappearing act complete and was only seen fleeting on the streets of New York until her death in 1990.

1963- T.V. game show "Let's Make a Deal" with Monty Hall premieres.

1965- Ferdinand Marcos became president of the Philippines.

1988- Col. Oliver North, on trial for the Iran Contra Scandal, subpoenaed former President Ronald Reagan and then President-elect George Bush. Bush declined and Reagan testified on videotape.

2006- Saddam Hussein was hanged.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean when you have Carte Blanche?

Answer: Carte Blanche came from the 1700s when a vote of no contest was signaled with a white ballot submitted. Carte Blanche means you have the right to do something at your discression with no argument. It became one of the first popular credit cards, Diners Club being the oldest- about 1950.

Posted by:Tom

December 29th, 2008 mon

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What does it mean when you have Carte Blanche?

Yesterday’s question answered below: What does YMCA mean?
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History for 12/29/2008
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Flavius Titus, Pablo Casals, Madame de Pompadour, Andrew Johnson, Charles Goodyear, Gelsey Kirkland, Dina Merrill, Tom Bradley, Mary Tyler Moore, Jon Voight, Charles Goodyear, Ray Nitschke, Viveca Lindfors, Ed Flanders, Ted Danson, Marianne Faithful, Paula Poundstone, Jude Law is 35

1172- ST. THOMAS BECKET murdered. A debate that raged throughout the Europe in the Middle Ages was whether the Church could boss around Kings or visa-versa.
In England when a vacancy opened up for Archbishop of Canterbury, King Henry II arranged to get his old drinking bud, Sir Thomas Beckett elected. However Beckett took his new job so seriously he became the English Churches strongest champion. On this night Henry was so fed up with Beckett that he shouted to his court:" Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest ?!!" Two of Henry's dim bulb knights took this as a hint and went over to Canterbury and stabbed the Archbishop while at prayers. The Pope in Rome excommunicated Henry and placed England under the Writ of Interdict, which meant no local priest could administer baptism, marriage or last rites to anyone. They even took down the church bells so you didn’t know what time it was. King Henry apologized, and Beckett was made a Saint.

1851- Lola Montez dances on tour in America. Lola Montez was originally an Irish lass named Betty James who created her persona as an Argentine Flamenco star. She became mistress to the King Ludwig Ist of Bavaria, who I guess couldn’t tell between a dancer from Buenos Aires or County Cork but knew a hot babe when he saw one.

Ludwig was so besotted with her that he bankrupted his country and had anybody she didn’t care for horsewhipped. He finally had to abdicate his throne rather than give her up. She did dancing and lecture tours to support herself and even published books on beauty secrets. If there had been a nineteenth century Oprah show, she would have been on it. She died an elderly social worker in New York and is buried in Green Wood Cemetery. Her ghost is sometimes seen on the Lower East Side of Manhattan I’m told.

1890- WOUNDED KNEE- The last battle of the Indian Wars. The US government reacted violently to the Ghost Dance Movement then sweeping the reservations. But the Ghost Dance was not calling for physical rebellion against the US but for a spiritual attack. Ghost dancers believed if they danced with the spirits of their ancestors then the white man would be driven back across the seas by a centennial cataclysm and their towns and cities buried under 6 inches of fresh soil. Then the buffalo and deer would return.
But to the US Department of the Interior even a metaphysical rebellion is rebellion enough. Sitting Bull was arrested and killed. The army was sent to Wounded Knee reservation to demand a disarming of a few braves. When shooting broke out, the army opened up with modern rapid firing cannon and rifles. To 30 US casualties 300 Sioux, mostly women and children were killed. Reports abound of troops shooting the survivors asking for help. Ironically the unit was the Seventh Cavalry and soldiers considered it the revenge of Custer.

1913- Cecil B.DeMille telegraphed his partners back in New York:” Flagstaff no good for our purpose. Have proceeded to California. Want authority to rent a barn in a place called Hollywood for $75 a month.” His partner Sam Goldwyn cabled back: “ Rent barn on month to month basis. Do not make long commitment.” DeMille began shooting the Squaw Man, the first Hollywood Film.

1916-James Joyce’s novel “the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” published.

1940- Nazi planes firebomb London, causing 1500 fires. At one point they hit St. Paul's Cathedral. CBS correspondent Edward R. Murrow achieved national fame in the US by standing on a rooftop and reporting live on the radio even as the bombs fell around him.

1941- Disney animator Bill Tytla tells Time Magazine in an interview about creating "Dumbo": "I don't know a damn thing about elephants!"

1950-Congress passed the Celler-Kefhauver Act, which sought to reign in global companies mega-merger mania. It was the last major piece of legislation to try and regulate corporate monopolies in the U.S. So…… what happened?

1972- LIFE Magazine ended publication.

1975- Euell Gibbons, natural foods advocate, died of a stomach ailment.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does the YMCA stand for?

Answer: The Young Men’s Christian Association. In 1844 the first was opened in London by a consortium of drapers led by George Williams. It was seen as something for a place for idle youth to go to, instead of the filthy, crime infested streets. An American named Thomas Sullivan was inspired by this idea. This day in 1851 the first American YMCA meeting was held in the Old South Church in Boston. The idea soon spread across the United States. In 1979 the YMCA tried to sue the disco group the Village People over the song of the same name, not appreciating the fact that it gave them the best publicity they’ve had in years.

Posted by:Tom

December 28th, 2008 sun

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What does YMCA mean?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: When George Washington entertained at Christmas, he was particularly proud of sharing something with his guests. What was it?
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History for 12/28/2008
birthdays: Woodrow Wilson, Robert Sessions, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Hildegarde Neff,
Maggie Smith is 74, Edgar Winter, Stan “The Man” Lee, Martin Branner the creator of Winnie Winkle, Denzel Washington is 54, Johnny Otis, Martin Milner (1-Adam-12),Lew Ayres, Lou Jacobi, Terri Garber, Sienna Miller is 27

Feast of the Innocents-commemorates the Massacre of the Innocents, when King Herod the Great ordered the first born of Nazareth slain. In Spain and many Latin American countries this is a kind of April Fools Day, the victim of a practical joke being proclaimed an "innocent".

1065- English King Edward the Confessor dedicated a new abbey church west of London. Since in those days a church was also called a minister, it was soon known as the West-minster Abbey.

1734- ROB ROY- Scottish nationalist guerrilla Robert McGregor, called Rob Roy, died peacefully of old age in his cottage in the Highlands. Made famous by Daniel Defoe’s novel about him, he spent his last hours making peace with former enemies. His last wish was for a bagpiper to be brought in and pipe a tune his wife wrote. Hoot-Man!

1847- Peace Conference of Guadalupe Hidalgo began to try to end the U.S war with Mexico. Diplomat Nicholas Trist was given the tricky assignment of alone seeking out the Mexican authorities, although their government structure was in chaos at the time, and convincing them to sign away half their country while hostile American armies roamed their heartland. At one point President Polk and the war-hawks in the U.S. Government wanted to annex all of Mexico down to Panama! Trist ignored their orders to break off negotiations, signed the treaty and committed the U.S. and Mexico to fix their border as the Rio Grande.

1869- CHEWING GUM- William Semple of Mount Vernon Ohio received a patent for chewing gum. Since early times frontiersmen and Indians had the habit of chewing on a piece of pine resin or sap. The oldest chewed piece of gum was found in Sweden in a glacier in 1993. It is 9,000 years old and no, it wasn’t found under a theater seat. As early as 1842 Charles Curtis was selling spruce chewing gum from his home in Bangor Maine.
In 1869 a Staten Island photographer named Thomas Adams made friends with exiled Mexican dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, he of Alamo fame. Adams noticed the old general didn’t smoke but liked to chew a plug of tree sap he called “Chicle”. Adams took the chicle and put a candy shell around it, getting rich on the invention of Gum Balls. Santa Anna hoped the invention would finance his return to power in Mexico City but that never occurred. Gumball machines appeared in 1918, Bubble Gum in 1928.

1895- THE BIRTHDAY OF CINEMA- In Paris at the Grande Cafe des Capuchines the Lumiere brothers combined Edison's kinetoscope using George Eastman’s roll film with a magic lantern projector and showed a motion picture to an audience in a theater. Back in the U.S. Thomas Edison thought the idea of projecting film in a theater was foolish and would never catch on. They called their device a Cinematograph, hence the word Cinema is born. The screening included dancers and people leaving a factory but the biggest reaction out of the audience was from shots of waves crashing on a rocky beach. The audience jumped for fear of getting wet. In the audience was a magician named George Melies who was inspired to use the new device to invent motion picture special effects.

1897- Edmond Rostands famous play CYRANO DE BERGERAC premiered in Paris. There really was a poet-duelist in the 1640’s named Cyrano de Bergerac-Servigan but little was known about him. Rostand created the hopelessly big nosed hero who helps another man romance his true love. DEGUISE: “Have you read Don Quixote? Reread the part about tilting the windmills. One who tilts with windmills can be cast down into the mud.” CYRANO:” Or up into the stars!”

1914- THE FIRST TRUE CHARACTER ANIMATION- Windsor McCay's "Gertie the Dinosaur" premieres as part of a vaudeville act. Up to then most U.S. animations were attempts to bring popular newspaper comic characters to life, but Gertie was a new character never before seen. Some critics had wondered if animated characters weren’t some kind of man in a special suit, so McCay drew a dinosaur, a character that couldn’t possibly be impersonated by a living thing. The brilliant draftsmanship and timing of this film would inspire the generation of Animation artists of the Golden Age of the 1930's-40s.

1928- Last recording of Ma Rainey, The Mother of the Blues.

1928- Louis Armstrong recorded West End Blues.

1944- ON THE TOWN, a musical written by Betty Comden & Adolf Green and young composer Leonard Bernstein premiered in NY. "New York, New York's a Helluva Town. The Bronx is up and the Battery's down. The People ride in a hole in the ground..."

1958- Cuban Communist forces under Che Guevara won the Battle of Santa Clara. It was a decisive battle in Fidel Castro's campaign to overthrow the dictator Fulgensio Batista. In 1997 when Che's remains were discovered in Bolivia they were reburied with great ceremony in Santa Clara.

1968- The Beatles White Album goes to number one of pop charts.

1973-Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s book “The Gulag Archipelego” first published in Paris. The exposing of the Soviet prison camp and police system was a great success in the west. It gave the word for prison camp-“Gulag” into popular parlance.

1983- Dennis Wilson was the original drummer of the Beach Boys but he had a pretty bad drug habit and was once involved with the Manson Family. Taking time off from rehab for Christmas he and some friends sat on a yacht doing more drugs and booze near Marquesas Pier. Wilson recalled this very spot was where after breaking up with his first wife he threw her mementos overboard. He wondered if he could get them back and started “pearl-diving “i.e.-diving holding your breath without any scuba equipment. But being stoned, he miscalculated the depth he had gone to and couldn't get back to the surface before he drowned. Dennis Wilson was 37. Of all the Beach Boys he was the only one who actually surfed.
_____________________________________________

Yesterday’s Question: When George Washington entertained at Christmas, he was particularly proud of sharing something with his guests. What was it?

Answer: George Washington loved to mix the egg-nog himself and was very proud of it. He spiked it with so much liquor that people said it was an achievement if you could even finish one cup.

I don't know about you guys, but Jeez, I really need to get hammered tonight!

Posted by:Tom

December 27th, 2008 sat John Ramirez

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:00:00 PST

Dave Master just told me cool news about our friend John Ramirez.

Just in case you watch the Rose Parade on TV on New Year's day, I thought you might enjoy learning that one of the float designers is an animation person- John Ramirez. John was one of Dave Master's students, he did great design work for Disney and Warner Bros on The Iron Giant, Osmosis Jones, Looney Tunes Back in Action and a bunch of other projects.

http://www.hbindependent.com/articles/2008/12/25/features/hbi-float121808.txt

Check out the link to an article regarding one of John's designs for this year's parade. John designed two additional floats for this year's Rose Parade. He has designed one for a clothing design company and another for a fast food chain. Last year John designed the LA Dodger's float and the float sponsored by the Chinese Olympics. The year before, John designed the elaborate "Star Wars" float for Lucasfilm.

Congrats John!!
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Question: When George Washington entertained at Christmas, he was particularly proud of sharing something with his guests. What was it?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Why do we call the salutation before drinking together, a toast?
_____________________________________________________
History for 12/27/2008
Birthdays: Johannes Kepler, Linwood Dunn, Marlene Dietrich, Louis Pasteur, Oscar Levant, Sidney Greenstreet, Anna Russell, William Masters of Masters & Johnson, Leslie Maguire, John Amos, Tovah Feldshuh, Heather O’Rourke, Bollywood star Salman Khan is 43, Gerard Depardieu is 60

1820- John Quincy Adams wrote a friend that he was sad that Washington DC didn’t have any good monuments. It could use one to George Washington and a cathedral like Westminster Abbey. If John Q. could only see DC today, it’s a rock garden of statuary, including one to the inventor of the screw propeller.

1831- Charles Darwin sets sail for the Pacific on board the HMS Beagle. The observations he made of exotic species while on this voyage formed the basis of his theories on evolution and natural selection.

1871- The world’s first cat show opened at the Crystal Palace in London.

1887- Beginning of the Sherlock Holmes adventure the Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.

1900- Temperance crusader Carrie Nation staged her first public axe attack on a saloon, the bar at the Carey Hotel in Witchita, Kansas. She shattered a large mirror behind the bar and threw rocks at a titillating picture of Cleopatra nude bathing. She called her actions not vandalism, but “hatchetation”.

1903- The Barbershop Quartet favorite “Sweet Adeline” sung for the first time. It was written in praise of opera star Adelina Patti.

1904-PETER PAN, a play by James Barrie, opened at the Duke of York Theatre in London. Barrie reserved seats in the opening night performance for orphaned children who laughed and cheered all night. Peter llewlyn Davies, the little boy Barrie befriended who was the basis for Pan used to say:” I am not Peter Pan. Mr Barrie is.”, He committed suicide in 1960 when he was 75. James Barrie once said to H.G.Wells:” It’s all right and good to write books, but can you wiggle your ears?”

1927- Broadway musical "ShowBoat" debuts at the Ziegfeld theater. Based on a story by Edna Ferber the music was written by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein. The play made a star out of a tall black baritone named Paul Robeson.” Ol’ Man River..”

1934- The Shah declared the nation of Persia would now be known as Iran.

1935- Radio City Music Hall opened. The Art Deco masterpiece was for many years the largest indoor theater in the world, seating over 6,000. Cole Porter sang” They all laughed at Rockefeller Center, now they clamor to get in…..”

1940- Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler announced their separation.

1942-THE SMOLENSK COMMITTEES- The Nazis begin a recruiting campaign in the vast camps of Russian POWs to set up an Anti-Communist Russian Army. They had already had good results the previous April recruiting among the Soviet hating nationalist Cossack groups of the Don, Tartar, Kuban and the Ukraine. These men hated Stalin worse than Hitler so they signed up. Anti-Communist Russian armies eventually numbered as high as 100,00 men under their generals Vlasov, Komorov and Bach-Zelewski. After the war they tried to surrender to the Americans but by secret agreement they were all repatriated to Russia. Most were executed or died in Siberian labor camps.

1943- The movie The Song of Bernadette premiered.

1945- Eleven nations sign the Bretton Woods agreement creating the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

1947- The "Howdy-Doody" show debuts on NBC. Buffalo Bob, Howdy and Clarabell the Clown, also known as the Puppet Playhouse.

1951- The Crosley car goes into service for the post office in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is a little jeep with the steering wheel on the right side so the mail deliverer didn’t have to get out of his vehicle to reach every curbside mailbox.

1954- The" Disneyland" television show premieres. Up until then the major Hollywood Studios were all boycotting the new upstart medium of television, then mostly done in New York by blacklisted stage actors and writers. Walt Disney is the first to break ranks with the major film studios and get into television production and even films the show in Technicolor, figuring television will develop color broadcasting eventually.

1968- Apollo 8 landed safely on Earth after being the first ship to reach the Moon and come back. The brought back spectacular photos of the Earth from space. When orbiting the Moon on Christmas Eve astronaut Frank Borman sent a message back to Earth reading from the first book of Genesis. One of the three astronauts was also the first to barf in deep space, but they aren’t saying which.

2007- Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan. She had been leading the opposition to the government of General Pervhez Musharraf.
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Yesterday’s question: Why is an oath or dedication upon drinking called a toast?

Answer: Anglo-Saxons brewed a hot ale at Christmas time called Wassel. Pieces of toast were floating in the bowl. You were invited to dip your ale horn in the brew and pick up a bit of toast, then “toast” by saying Vas-Heil, Wassel, or Hail to You!

Posted by:Tom

Calvin Explains the Wall St Crisis

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:00:00 PST

Drawn 15 years ago, yet eerily relevant.

Posted by:Tom

December 26th, 2009 fri Kwanza

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 12:00:00 PST

Today’s Quiz: Why do we call the salutation before drinking together, a toast?

Yesterday’s question answered below: In Britain, why do they call the day after Christmas, Boxing Day?
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History for 12/26/2008
Birthdays: Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen, Charles Babbage, Admiral Dewey, Mao Tse Tung, Richard Widmark, Steve Allen, Henry Miller, Carlton Fisk, Chris Chambliss, Alan King, Phil Spector is 67, Fred Schepsi

St. Stephen’s Day- Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Steven…

First Day of the Kwanza Festival. Kwanza is from the Swahili words “Matunda ya kwanzaa” meaning “first fruits” of the harvest. See below-1966.

In the Middle Ages this was the Feast Day of the Pagan god Jul, when good Guildsmen would gather in their Guild Halls to eat themselves sick and drink themselves silly. Then in a total stupor they would swear oaths on their patron saints to stick by and protect each other in the new year. Churchmen bristled at the licentious nature of the festival and tried to ban it, but there was no stopping a good rowdy party. Nobody really knew who the pagan god Jul was, just that it was fun to see the priests get so annoyed.

527AD-HAGIA SOPHIA- The Byzantine Emperor Justinian dedicated the newly completed basilica the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople in a grand ceremony. Sometimes called St. Sophia, the real name was not for this saint but Hagia Sophia is Greek for The Holy Wisdom or Creative Logos, in other words, God himself. It was then the biggest Church in the world, surmounted by a great dome. Emperor Justinian walked alone to the altar and raised his arms up to heaven:” Glory be to God who has thought me worthy to accomplish so great a work. Solomon, I have vanquished thee!” He was referring to Solomon’s great temple in Jerusalem. Centuries later when Byzantine Empire was conquered by the Turks and Constantinople’s name was changed to Istanbul, the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque and four complimentary minarets were added to it’s design.

1492- Columbus founded the first European settlement in the New World on the beach on San Salvador. He called it La Natividad because it was founded on Christmas.

1776- THE BATTLE OF TRENTON- George Washington was desperate for a victory against a huge British Army that had chased him from New York. He crossed the Delaware and at dawn surprise attacked a Hessian regiment while they were still waking up from their Christmas hangovers. As the dazed Hessians ran out of their barracks and tried to form a battle line, Washington positioned his troops so they would be have to face into a snow storm.

The Americans captured 1,000 Hessians to just 4 casualties, and killed their commander Colonel Johann Rall. Just before the fatal musket ball entered his chest, Colonel Rall said to his aide: “Fu*k , a bunch of country clowns cannot beat us!” Because part of his army got lost in the dark Washington couldn’t hold Trenton and had to retreat. But the news of the rebel attack made other British units fell back to the Jersey Coast and abandoned the Delaware line.

This was the first true offensive action of the American Army in the Revolutionary War. British commander Lord Howe, when hearing the news, exclaimed:” It seems inconceivable that three venerable old regiments made up of men who make war their profession, should lay down their arms to a rabble of ragged, undisciplined militia!”

1799- In the still unfinished Washington D.C. this day saw the huge memorial in honor of the recently deceased George Washington. All of the US government was there except President John Adams. Adams was still angry at him.

1908- Jack Johnson knocked out Canadian Tommy Burns in the 15th round to become the first African American heavyweight boxing champ. Few of the 20,000 white people in the Australian arena cheered. Johnson’s flaunting of racist attitudes and segregation laws drove mainstream America nuts. Johnson drove race cars, flashed gold teeth and made love to many white women. Muhammad Ali said:” He did this all in the time of Jim Crow and Lynching. I was outspoken, but Jack Johnson was Crazy!” Jack Johnson held the heavyweight title until 1915.

1924- Baby Frances Gumm first appeared on a stage at 2 1/2 years old. Grown up she would change her name to Judy Garland.

1926- Young artist Al Hirschfeld had made his first regular caricature for the Broadway Stage. A drawing of actor Sasha Guitry. A friend took it to The New York Tribune and sold it. He figured here's a nifty way to make a living, so soon he was selling to all the papers including the New York Times. He will keep doing caricatures of Broadway greats into the millennium and has become a legend himself. In the American Theater a Hirschfeld caricature of you meant you had arrived and were a real star. At age 94 he remarried and drew the cast of Ally McBeal for TV Guide. In 2003 he died just shy of age 100, drawing to the end.

1938- Young playwright Thomas Williams moved from Saint Louis to New Orleans and changed his name to Tennessee Williams.

1939- Walt Disney Animation moves from Hyperion to the new Burbank Studio lot. The buildings are designed like hospital wards, so in case he hits economic trouble, Disney could sell them to the planned St. Joseph's Hospital across the street. Animator Ward Kimball said it was the first time he worked in a studio where all the furniture matched. The old Hyperion Studio was bulldozed in 1966, the year of Walt Disney’s death.

1944- Patton's Third Army breaks through to the besieged city of Bastogne. This was the turning of the tide in the Battle of the Bulge

1944- Tennessee Williams play the Glass Menagerie premiered in Chicago.

1946- The Gala Opening day of the Flamingo Casino in Las Vegas. Mobster Bugsy Siegel's $ 4 million dollar gamble in the desert. Despite booking top talent like Jimmy Durante and Xavier Cugat the promised Hollywood society types failed to materialize. The hotel part of the casino wasn't ready for guests yet so the high rollers couldn't see making the long trip. A violent rainstorm kept still more people away. Also the casinos formal dresscode discouraged the local yokels who liked to gamble in ten gallon hats and bluejeans. The Flamingo casino made a profit eventually but not before the angry Mafia riddled Siegel with bullets and cut the throat of his manager, Moe Greenberg.

1963- The death of Gorgeous George Wagner, the first wrestler to adopt a flamboyant character.

1966- The first Kwanzaa Festival was organized by African studies professor Dr Marulanga Karenga at Cal State Long Beach to celebrate African-American culture.

1973- Murakami-Wolf's t.v. special "The Point" with Dustin Hoffman narrating and Harry Nilsson's music. Hoffman's track was later rerecorded by Ringo Starr for some reason. “Me and my Ar-row…”

1973- The horror film The Exorcist starring Linda Blair premiered. Merry Christmas! Have some pea soup!

1979- The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The Moslem fundamentalist tribesmen called Mujahadin, who hadn’t submitted to any foreign conqueror since Alexander the Great, began a ten year long guerrilla war that became the Russian Vietnam. The Russians quit Afghanistan in 1989 and the veterans of that war, called the “Afghansi” suffer the same post traumatic depression and societal ostracism American Vietnam vets suffered.
Soon after the Soviets began their invasion all President Jimmy Carter could think of doing was to boycott the Olympics, western European countries worried that the US would not respond with nuclear force if the Russians launched a conventional military invasion of them. -i.e. they wouldn’t risk Kansas City for Bonn. So they asked for Pershing-2 nuclear cruise missiles, and the Russians responded with moving Soviet nuclear submarines closer to US coastal cities and the 80’s became one last chapter of the Cold War delighting spy novelists like Tom Clancy and John Le Carre’. After the Russians left the Fundamentalist Mujahadin changed their focus to the US.

1985- Gorillas in the Mist author and ape anthropologist Diane Fossey was murdered by machete in her lab in Africa.

1985- Ford introduced the Taurus motorcar.

2003- As part of a promotion for a NJ Islanders-NY Rangers Hockey Game the Nassau Coliseum invited all the fans dressed as Santa Claus to parade on the ice. As the hundreds of Santas marched on to the rink several opened their coats to reveal they were actually Rangers supporters. The Islander Santas objected, some shoving ensued and pretty soon the Nassau Coliseum was packed with fistfighting Santas.

2004-TSUNAMI- One of the stronger earthquakes 9.1, recorded in the last 100 years hit the Indian Ocean. The earthquake sent giant tidal waves covering the coastlines of Sumatra, Thailand, the Maldives and Sri Lanka, killing over 215,000. Whole beach communities were wiped out without warning.
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Question: In Britain, why do they call the day after Christmas, Boxing Day?

Answer: It is from the Victorian custom of boxing up the leftovers of your Christmas feast and giving it to the poor.

Posted by:Tom

December 25th, 2008 CHRISTMAS DAY.

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 12:00:00 PST

Pat and me before moving to LA

and after

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Quiz: why is the day after Christmas called Boxing Day in Britain?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: who was Old and Good King Wenceslas?
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History for 12/25/2008
Birthdays: Emanuel Ben Joseph, or Yesuah. Called in Greek Jesus the Christ, 2-4 BC? or Four Before Himself- traditional date.( The whole BC-AD system has about 6 years leeway, more or less.)

Sir Issac Newton, Clara Barton, Humphrey Bogart, Cab Calloway, Helena Rubinstein,, Rod Serling, Charles Pathe, Jimmie Buffet, Quentin Crisp, Mike Mazurki, Conrad Hilton- Paris’ granddad, Anwar El Sadat. Alice Cooper, Sissie Spacek, Larry Csonka, Burne Hogarth, Ishmail Merchant, Maurice Utrillo, Kid Ory , Ken Stabler, Barbara Mandrell, Dame Rebecca West , Clark Clifford, Dick Miller, Annie Lennox, Howard Beckerman, Karl Rove is 58

Today is Constitution Day in Republic of China/Taiwan and
Taisho Tenno-Sai (Anniversary of Death of Emperor Taisho) in Japan

272 A.D. To the Ancient Romans this date was the feast day of SOL INVICTUS, the "Invincible Sun", a hybrid religion popular just before Christianity that attempted an early form of monotheism, worship of the sun. The Roman Emperor Constantine, whose conversion lifted the ban on Christianity, was originally a devotee.

495 A.D.- Clovis, first King of the Franks (French), is baptized. St. Remi said while pouring the Holy water on the old barbarian's head:" Kneel Sicambrian, and adore what thou once had Burned: and burn what thou once hath Adored."

800AD- In old Saint Peters Basilica in Rome Frankish King Charles or Charlemagne knelt in prayer with Pope Leo III celebrating the Christmas feast. The King of the Franks had just come over the Alps to defeat the threat to the Vatican from the Lombard Kings. During the service on a signal Pope Leo whipped out a big jeweled crown and plopped it on Charlemagne’s head and the audience cried out three times in unison the ancient formula:"HAIL CHARLES THE AUGUSTUS, CROWNED BY GOD THE GREAT EMPEROR OF THE ROMANS!" Charles had said he did not want the Imperial crown and was surprised but nobody believed such an important step was taken without his consent. Charlemagne ruled a European Empire almost as large as the Old Roman Empire of the West, from Spain to Hungary and Denmark to Sicily.

885AD- Pope Gregory I formalized what Christians had already been doing for 500 years, namely celebrating the birth festival of Jesus or "Christ’s Mass", on December 25th.

1066- After the great victory of Hastings William the Conquerer had himself crowned King of England in London. Outside when his nervous Norman knights heard the loud shouts of celebration they mistook them for an uprising and attacked the crowd. They slaughtered many and burned down most of the neighborhood around Westminster Abbey.

1428- During the Hundred Years War, at the siege of the city of Orleans, a six hour truce was declared for Christmas. English warlords Sir William Gladesdale and Sir John Talbot expressed a wish to hear French music, so a band of enemy trumpeters serenaded them from the city walls.

1497-Natal South Africa discovered by Vasco da Gama. It was called Natal because it was discovered on Christmas.

1541- After the Christmas services, Michelangelo’s fresco The Last Judgement was unveiled, done for the Altar wall of the Sistine Chapel beneath his famous ceiling.

1734- Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio first performed at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. Bach pioneered writing sacred music in German instead of Latin or Italian.

1758- HALLEY’S COMET- Sixteen Years after his death the comet Sir Edmund Halley had predicted showed up right on schedule. This event was seen as significant because for centuries the random unexplained appearance of a comet in the sky seemed to be a direct sign from God. Halley proved once and for all that comets were not supernatural sign from God. That they had an erratic orbit, but were otherwise natural phenomena.

1776- WASHINGTON CROSSES THE DELAWARE-
The closest the American Revolution came to being lost. George Washington's bedraggled minutemen had had their butts kicked by a massive British Army from Brooklyn across New Jersey to Philadelphia. The British Navy controlled the coastline. Washington had lost every battle, lost Americas’ largest city and was about to lose the capitol. From 23,000 men in July he now commanded a paltry 4,000 cold dispirited scarecrows.

Washington wrote his family advising them to flee to the Blue Ridge Mountains if the British came their way. His generals openly complained to Congress that Washington was an incompetent and should be replaced. And now the soldier’s 6-month enlistments were up! Who would re-up with a defeated shambles of an army?

The American Revolution was in danger of complete disintegration.

Washington knew he had to do something soon or else it was all over. He drew a line in the snow with his sword and begged the men for one more battle, appealing to their patriotism and the great cause of independence. The response was only a few men crossed the line to volunteer. Frustrated, Washington gave a second speech, the contents of which are hidden from history but eyewitnesses said was more to the point: a lot of swearing and descriptions of how they would be hanged, and their wives and daughters raped by foreign mercenaries, etc.. This time a larger crowd of sulky troops crossed the line.
Washington spent this night ferrying his men across the Delaware at McKonkey’s Ferry to attack a Hessian regiment in their Christmas beds. The boatmen were all from one town, Marblehead Mass, under their Quaker leader John Glover.

The famous painting, Emmanuel Leutze's "Washington Crossing the Delaware" was painted in Dusseldorf Germany in 1894. The painter omitted details like Washington sat down all the way across, and there were two black men in the boat, Oliver Cromwell the ships pilot, and Washington's bodyguard.

1836- According to the novel Moby Dick, today is the day the Pequod set sail from Natucket.

1855- Ice hockey first played in North America at Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

1869- In Towash Texas John Wesley Hardin went into town for a friendly game of cards. He quarreled over the game with a man named Bradley. The two went out into the street to shoot it out in classic gunfighter style. Bradley’s shot missed but Hardin drilled him dead. John Wesley Hardin wasn’t as famous as Jesses James or Billy the Kid but he was one of the deadliest gunfighters of the west. His business card read J. Wesley Hardin, shootist.

1914- During World War One German and British soldiers facing each other across the Western Front held a spontaneous Christmas truce. After midnight the German guns ceased and the sounds of Christmas Carols drifted over the barbed wire. The British and French responded with serenades from their regimental bands. At dawn without any official sanction or orders the soldiers of both sides came out of their trenches and in the middle of No-Man's Land exchanged laughter, Schnapps, Scotch, tobacco and even played a good natured English football or soccer game together. Next morning the shooting resumed and the officers who allowed the fraternization were reprimanded.

1917-"Why Marry?" by Jesse Lynch Williams opened. The first play to win a Pulitzer Prize.

1927- Japanese Emperor Hirohito crowned.

1929- The Fox Atlanta Theater opened on Peachtree St. A wild Moorish fantasy in part financed by the Shriners so they could use it for their meetings.

1931-The first BBC World Service Network broadcast. An address by King George V called "Around the Empire".

1937-NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the legendary Arturo Toscanini premieres with its first radio broadcast.

1946-Comedian W.C. Fields died of alcoholism at 67. While in his hospital bed someone saw him reading a Bible. They said:" W.C. what are you doing with that? "
Fields replied:" Looking for loopholes!"

1955- Chuck Jone's 'One Froggy Evening' premiered. Director Steven Speilberg calls it the "Citizen Kane of Cartoons." If you wonder why you never heard the old time ditty 'The Michigan Rag' anywhere else but here, was because Carl Stalling wrote it specifically for the cartoon.

1977- Charlie Chaplin died quietly in his sleep at Vevey, Switzerland. He was 86.

1980- Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns finished reading Simon Schaara’s novel about the Battle of Gettysburg called The Killer Angels. He tells his father he is inspired to make a documentary about the Civil War. The Civil War took six years to make and ran in 1990, but it was one of the most popular documentary films in the US and redefined the medium of documentary filmmaking.

1989- Romanian Communist dictator Nicholai Cercescu and his wife were executed on live television. Cercescu ran the last mad-Stalinist tyranny in Eastern Europe. Finally the army joined the people and overthrew Cercescu. Madame Cercescu, unrepentant, bellowed defiance at the cameras as they were stood up against the wall. They were so hated that the presiding officer barely had time to get out of the way of the firing squad and say "Ready..Aim.." before the troops started shooting. Instead of being given one round each with the Unknown Blank Cartridge, the men had asked for extra clips. The death penalty was abolished in Romania immediately afterwards.

1989- Hot tempered NY Yankees manager Billy Martin died in a car accident.

1991- General Party Secretary and Premier Mikhail Gorbachov resigned and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, aka the Soviet Union, ceased to exist. In it's place is the Confederation of Independent States led by the Federation of Russia under Boris Yeltsin.

1998- Fidel Castro allowed the resumption of Christmas celebrations in Cuba, outlawed since 1960.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: Okay, just who the heck is Old and Good King Wenceslas?

Answer: Wenceslas was the king of the pagan West Slavs ( Czechs) who accepted baptism in the 970s AD. The Czechs refused to cooperate with the new faith unless they made their recently assassinated Chieftan a Saint. So Rome was obliging. Later miracles were attributed to him. One was about his walking barefoot in the snow to help the poor on the Feast of Stephen ( Day after Christmas). The Christmas Carol was written in the 1800s by an English music teacher.

Merry Christmas everyone. -Tom & Pat Sito

Posted by:Tom