Pop History Moment: Howard Hughes Crashed And Burned

On this day in 1946 eccentric industrialist and zillionaire Howard Hughes nearly died when the XF-11 spy plane prototype he was piloting plummeted into a Beverly Hills neighborhood shortly after 7:20 in the evening; having developed a technical difficulty during the flight, Hughes had been aiming the doomed plane for the golf course at the Los Angeles Country Club to minimize damage to both the aircraft and surrounding properties, but fell about three hundred yards short, crashing into three nearby homes.

The first of these - at 802 North Linden Drive, belonging to Dr. Jules Zimmerman, the 'dentist to the stars' - had its red-tiled roof sheared off; the second, belonging to film star Rosemary DeCamp and her husband Municipal Justice John Astin Shidler, sustained damage to its master bedroom and lost both its garage and a row of poplar trees. The third home - at 808 North Whittier, belonging to Lt. Col. Charles A. Meyer, known for his role in the Nuremberg Trials - was destroyed by a subsequent fire (caused by the explosion of the plane's fuel tank). Amazingly, no one was killed in the accident.

It was actor Dennis O'Keefe who summoned the police and fire department to the scene, although no one had to summon the crowds of eager on-lookers who themselves came from miles around to survey the devastation. Hughes was rescued from the wreckage by Master Sergeant William L. Durkin, of the US Marine Corps, and later taken to Good Samaritan Hospital where although he survived his grievous injuries his life definitely took a turn for the worse; friends and family later cited this event as to blame for his morphine addiction and well-documented freakiness later in life.

The entire scene was re-enacted in Martin Scorsese's 2004 biopic The Aviator, in which Hughes was of course played by Leonardo DiCaprio.
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In Memoriam: Virginia Rappe

Despite her thin biography it's pretty obvious that Virginia Rappe - born on this day in 1891 - was a level-headed, mature young woman. She'd approached her career as an actress with determination, starting as a model at the age of 14 she later found work as a dress designer while rising steadily through the ranks; at the age of 26, she got her first big break in movies opposite Harold Lockwood in Fred Balshofer's Paradise Garden.

All of which makes whatever she got up to in Room 1220 at San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel on one particular Labour Day weekend in 1921 all the more tragic; not only was the poised, vivacious starlet denied the chance to see her own life played through to the last reel, but today she is more remembered as a footnote in the story of a much bigger star, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, whose career pretty much ended at the same moment her life did.

That three subsequent trials absolved Arbuckle in the death of Rappe did not satisfy the public, nor would they have satisfied Rappe, whose last words before she died a few days after a sexual assault left her fatally injured were reportedly 'Get Roscoe'. Whether or not you believe his account, Kenneth Anger paints a pretty lurid picture of Rappe's final scene inside the St. Francis in his salacious 1959 book Hollywood Babylon.
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"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" by Pink Floyd

The song Shine On You Crazy Diamond was first composed by Pink Floyd for their 1975 concept album Wish You Were Here; it was intended as a tribute to founding member Syd Barrett - whose life had gone awry thanks as much to his inability to cope with fame as to his heroic appetite for LSD - and whose struggle provided the album's thematic basis. The accompanying video is derived from the band's 1995 film Pulse. While Barrett officially left the band in 1968, he contributed with his old bandmates Roger Waters, Richard Wright, Nick Mason, and his replacement David Gilmour (et al.) on this, their first notable reunion since going their separate ways.

The phrase Wish You Were Here took on a deeper meaning on this day in 2006, which was arguably the second time Syd Barrett died; while I would never suggest to anyone that they should drop a hit of acid, I might say that if they're Pink Floyd fans they should remember him today in whatever way they feel is appropriate, and that if it involves the taking of drugs then to please use them in the least Syd Barrett-y way possible. Thanks.
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Pop History Moment: London Was Bombed (Yet Again)

Not for the first time and not for the last, on this day in 2005 London was rocked by bombs; as these things go, London gets bombed more than Phil Mitchell, and Londoners carried on with life just as they've always done. Something tells me if Hitler couldn't get the best of them by raining tons of ordnance on their heads almost every night for months, Osama's got no chance even getting a reaction out of that jaded lot with an occasional firecracker.


Terrorists Mohammad Sidique Khan*, Shehzad Tanweer, Germaine Lindsay, and Hasib Hussain targeted 3 Underground trains within 50 seconds of one another just after 8:50 AM and a bus an hour later, at 9:47 AM; two of the three bombs on the Tube were on the Circle Line with the other on the Piccadilly Line while the bus exploded near Tavistock Square. The attacks occurred over a fairly wide area just to the north of central London.

The blasts killed 52 commuters (plus the four suicide bombers) and injured 700, disrupted traffic throughout the city, and much less importantly violated just about every tenet of their religion. So much for those 72 virgins in Heaven, boys...

*Whose wife, Hasina Patel, miscarried their child the following month - leaving even more blood on his hands.
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POPnews - July 7th

[Although the US government now maintains that the strange craft seen above New Mexico on this day in 1947 was a spy balloon known as Mogul, at a press conference the following day an official with the Roswell Army Air Field referred to the materials recovered as being from 'a flying disc'; it wasn't until noted ufologist Stanton T. Friedman interviewed Major Jesse Marcel in 1978, however, that the conspiracy theories began flying almost as fast as those crazy flying saucers the kids are so wild about...]
1456 - At the insistence of France's King Charles VII Joan of Arc was acquitted of heresy by the Inquisitor-General Jean Brehal at a so-called 'nullification retrial' authorized by Pope Callixtus III; held 25 years after an ecclesiastical trial called by her English captors and presided over by Bishop Pierre Cauchon found her guilty and ordered her burned at the stake, the phrase 'too little too late' leaps immediately to mind...

1585 - The Treaty of Nemours - signed by Queen Mother Catherine de' Medici and representatives of the House of Guise - abolished what little tolerance (official or otherwise) that had once been shown toward the Huguenots of France.

1777 - During the American Revolution the Battle of Hubbardton pitted the American forces of Seth Warner, Ebenezer Francis, and Nathan Hale against the British, commanded by Simon Fraser and Baron Friedrich Adolf Riedesel of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in the territory of the New Hampshire Grants (modern-day Vermont). Both an American strategic victory and a British tactical victory, the engagement (near the middle of the Saratoga campaign, following the withdrawal from Fort Ticonderoga) cost the Americans a commander in Francis, who died in battle, and saw Hale surrender both himself and a detachment of 70 men to the British; it did, however, convince the French to enjoin the battle on the American side, giving them and their cause a much needed boost when it mattered most.

1798 - The US Congress rescinded its various treaties with France, sparking the Quasi-War.

1807 - The Peace of Tilsit between France, Prussia and Russia ended the Fourth Coalition, marking the start of a new phase in the Napoleonic Wars.

1846 - Near the outset of the Mexican-American War American troops occupied Monterey and Yerba Buena (modern-day San Francisco), while Commodore John Drake Sloat undertook a naval blockade of the harbour at Yerba Buena - thus beginning the US conquest of Alta California.

1865 - Four of the co-conspirators in the assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln - Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt - were hanged before an audience of more than 1,000 at the Old Arsenal Penitentiary in Washington, DC; Suratt, in fact, was the first woman in US history to be executed by the federal government.

1892 - The Revolutionary Philippine Brotherhood known as Katipunan was established; their activities would contribute to the fall of the Spanish Empire in Asia.

1898 - US President William McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution, annexing the sovereign nation of Hawaii as a territory of the United States.

1915 - A Great Gorge and International Railway trolley with an extreme overload of 157 passengers crashed near Queenston, Ontario, killing 15.

1928 - Sliced bread was sold for the first time by Missouri's Chillicothe Baking Company; described as 'the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped', this little bit of advertising hyperbole gave rise to the expression 'the greatest thing since sliced bread'.

1930 - Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser began construction of the Boulder Dam, which is now known as Hoover Dam.

1937 - During the Battle of Lugou Bridge, the Imperial Japanese Army overwhelmed China's National Revolutionary Army and invaded Beijing, provoking the Second Sino-Japanese War.

1946 - Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini was canonized by Pope Pius XII, the first American to be so honoured.

1947 - The alleged and disputed Roswell UFO Incident took place... Or did it?

1953 - Ernesto 'Che' Guevara set out on a trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador... Although less well-known than the nine-month journey around South America in 1952 which later became famous when its exploits were published as The Motorcycle Diaries, the 1953 trip was equally crucial in the development of Guevara as a committed foe of imperialism and capitalism - embodied throughout this particular journey by the United Fruit Company. It was also during this trip that Che married his first wife, Hilda Gadea Acosta.

1978 - The Solomon Islands became independent from the United Kingdom.

1983 - At the height of the Cold War, Samantha Smith, an American schoolgirl, visited the Soviet Union at the invitation of Secretary General Yuri Andropov; Smith had written a letter to Andropov which captured his - and shortly thereafter the world's - attention.

2007 - Pope Benedict XVI issued an Apostolic Letter entitled Summorum Pontificum, removing restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass - all part of a modernization campaign by a hip, cutting-edge papacy*.

*Uh, yeah... Sarcasm!
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"Absolutely Fabulous" by Pet Shop Boys

Even though the ground-breaking sitcom Absolutely Fabulous has a perfectly good theme song - This Wheel's on Fire written by Bob Dylan and Rick Danko, performed by Julie Driscoll and Mr. Jennifer Saunders himself Adrian Edmondson - it was decided that Pet Shop Boys should then record a charity single inspired by the show for Comic Relief in 1994.

Containing sound and video clips from the show in addition to new dialogue specially recorded by Jennifer Saunders, the song exists in a peculiar kind of netherworld; it is not considered a Pet Shop Boys single and appears on none of their compilations, yet in many ways is the band's quintessential song, defining their sound and their ethos succinctly as well as their relationship with pop culture.
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Happy Birthday Jennifer Saunders

There are those of us who'll always think of her as the emotional trainwreck that was (and is) Edina Monsoon; maybe we're being small-minded about it, but when a show like the legendary sitcom Absolutely Fabulous is that good, its legacy tends to crowd out everything else...

Yet prior to walking a mile in Edina's pumps, Jennifer Saunders had made a pretty good go of it goofing around with Dawn French - first as part of The Comic Strip* and then latterly on the pivotal sketch show French & Saunders...  And she's not done too badly since Patsy Stone snorted her way into perpetual syndication either, if we do say so ourselves!

Not content to rest on her laurels (not even if they'd been designed by Lacroix, sweetie!) Saunders has been madly scribbling - in between high-profile appearances on American sitcoms like Roseanne and Friends and lending her silky voice to Fairy Godmother in Shrek 2, that is - producing such varied works as Jam & Jerusalem and The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle.

*The seminal comedy troupe which launched all of its members' television careers and Saunders' own marriage - to fellow member Adrian Edmondson - as well!

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"What A Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong

Of him, Dizzy Gillespie once said: 'he was born poor, died rich, and made no enemies along the way'; I can think of no better epitaph with which to honour Louis Armstrong today.

When he died on this day in 1971 it was a loss acutely felt by the many millions of people who'd been touched by his music and its inherent humanitarianism; besides which, after the previous post, I figured my readers would appreciate something (not to mention someone) whose message, persona, and affect was entirely positive.

It's so easy to look at the world as a vast pit of entropy; the harder thing is to look at the beauty that's still there, to take pleasure in those people and even things in the world you love, and wherever possible continue to find new challenges and fresh vistas. Most difficult of all is to try and keep an unjaded perspective on it; if you can do that, only then can you sincerely agree with the message of the song - What a Wonderful World.
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It's My Birthday Today... Who Am I?

• Every company I ever ran went bankrupt, including the United States, which racked up a trillion dollar debt on my watch despite having a massive budget surplus when I was elected.
• I wanted to be commissioner of baseball, but my mother told me I should run for Governor of Texas instead so I did, because I always do what my mommy tells me.
  
• I executed more teenagers, retards, and women than any other governor in the history of my state.
• I let my campaign tell outrageous lies about my nearest opponent so I could win the pivotal South Carolina primary.
• I let my cronies steal the election for me because I knew my opponents would play fair.
• I never left the United States until after I was 'elected'.
• I sat on my ass reading a children's book when my country was under attack because that's what I was told to do.
• I was the first President to come to office with a criminal record.
• I declared war on a sovereign nation based on a lie so that the Pentagon could burn off its surplus of five year old ordnance.
• I staunchly defend the criminals I choose to serve under me.
• I took more vacations than the past three presidents combined, one of whom is my Poppy.

Can you guess whose birthday it is today, boys and girls?
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In Memoriam: Frida Kahlo

It's hard not to admire the scrappy surrealist Frida Kahlo - born on this day in 1907 - who, despite being a woman of her times as well as crippled by both illness and injury, painted with such honesty and verve; because her principal subject matter was often herself, her cult is still thriving today, as witnessed by the extraordinary success of the 2002 film Frida.  The film starred Salma Hayek as Kahlo and Alfred Molina as her husband Diego Rivera, with whom she had a famously stormy relationship.

This particular painting Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird depicts its artist as the Aztec Earth Goddess Coatlicue arriving at the opera; it was made in 1940.  Kahlo died in July 1954, one week after her 47th birthday.  Her ashes remain on display in La Casa Azul (The Blue House) - the home she and Rivera shared in Mexico City's Coyoacán neighbourhood, which since 1958 has served as a museum to her life and work.
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Brian Posehn on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien"

Comedian Brian Posehn - born on this day in 1966 - is an actor and stand-up comedian who has parlayed his geeky fanboy image into a bonafide archetype; in sitcoms such as Just Shoot Me!, Mr. Show, and The Sarah Silverman Program, Posehn became known for affecting a deadpan demeanour, but as the clip shows in person he is far from it. An outspoken fan of comic books and heavy metal music, Posehn has also expressed a fondness for marijuana.

Here's a clip from Late Night with Conan O'Brien - actually Posehn's first appearance on the show - in which he and host Conan O'Brien amusingly discuss many hilarious issues of the day, circa 2004.
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POPnews - July 6th

[The life span of the American dollar bill is estimated at 21 months, during which time it accrues a great deal of cocaine, ends up in more than one g-string, and generally makes itself ubiquitous; given that, maybe Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington upon it should be replaced by one of William Jefferson Clinton.]

1415 - Jan Hus, a philosopher and theologian whose works were later studied and adapted by Protestants, was burned at the stake in Prague; in retaliation his followers, known as Hussites, started what is known as the Hussite Wars (since starting a war is what Jesus would have done.) This day is commemorated as a holiday in the Czech Republic.

1483 - Richard III was crowned king of England.

1535 - Sir Thomas More was executed for committing acts of treason against England's King Henry VIII.

1573 - Córdoba, Argentina was founded by Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera.

1785 - The dollar was unanimously chosen by Congress as the unit of currency for the United States.

1854 - The first convention of the Republican Party was held, in Jackson, Michigan, giving Satan a little something to smile about.

1887 - David Kalakaua, hereditary King of Hawai'i, was forced to sign the Bayonet Constitution at gunpoint; the document ceded more power to the occupiers of Hawaii while stripping native Hawai'ians of rights.

1892 - Dadabhai Naoroji became the first Indian ever elected to serve in the British Parliament.

1919 - The British dirigible R34 landed near New York City following a 108-hour flight, completing the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by air.

1933 - The first Major League Baseball All-Star Game was played, in Chicago's Comiskey Park, in which the American League defeated the National League, 4 to 2.

1942 - Anne Frank and her family were forced into hiding, events vividly described in her book The Diary of a Young Girl.

1944 - The Hartford Circus Fire killed approximately 168 and injured more than 700; among those spared, of course, was Charles Nelson Reilly, who later recounted his experience on stage.

1957 - John Lennon met Paul McCartney.

1964 - Malawi declared its independence from the United Kingdom.

1966 - Malawi became a republic; Hastings Banda served as the country's first President.

1975 - The Comoros declared their independence from France.

1978 - A fire broke out on England's Penzance to Paddington overnight train, killing twelve people.

1998 - Hong Kong's Kai Tak Airport was closed when the new Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok became operational.

2000 - 16 year-old Euan Blair, son of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and [redacted] Cherie Booth Blair, was arrested for being drunk and disorderly in London's Leicester Square.
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The History of Sex: Porfirio Rubirosa

Aside from having one of the best names in history - a name so sexy not even an unaccented voice like mine can wreck it, so you can imagine how hot it would sound whispered in your ear by a Hispanic gigolo - Porfirio Rubirosa had a highly publicized reputation as a lothario; in his hey-day, which likely began in his early teens and continued until his death, Rubirosa bedded some of the most famous and beautiful women in the world, many of whom were both.

Born in January 1909 in the Dominican Republic, Rubirosa's climb began when he climbed into the bed of Flor de Oro Trujillo, daughter of Dominican strongman Rafael Trujillo, in 1934; although soon divorced (on account of Rubirosa's numerous infidelities), he remained in the service of his country and his ex-father-in-law as 'Ambassador plenipotentiary' until Trujillo's assassination in May 1961.

What we all really want to know about though, is his cock. Within his lifetime, pepper grinders the world over were nicknamed 'rubirosas' in his honour by his jet-set buddies. No less a penis expert than Truman Capote described it thusly: 'an 11-inch cafe au lait sinker as thick as a man's wrist', which makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Length and girth - a deadly combination...

As to its victims, they included Dolores Del Rio, Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Soraya Esfandiary, Veronica Lake, Kim Novak, Eva Peron, Doris Duke, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Barbara Hutton, and Danielle Darrieux among many hundreds of others; while in most cases these relationships ended badly, while they were going they went exceptionally well, since he was reportedly an expert swordsman as well, which well-endowed men often aren't*.

The death of a truly exceptional cock is always a tragic one; the end came for Rubirosa's when he crashed his Ferrari near Paris' Bois de Boulogne on this day in 1965. Clearly, he'd been reaching for the gear shift and missed - an honest mistake - and realized his error too late, by which time all the blood had rushed out of his brain. Thanks to gossipy women and the gay dudes who love them, however, the name Porfirio Rubirosa will continue to resonate forever as one of the greatest lovers in the history of sex.

*Because they don't need to be!
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"Walking In Memphis" by Marc Cohn

Birthday wishes go out today to Marc Cohn, whose 1991 hit Walking in Memphis climbed record charts around the world; the song has also been covered by another singer with a famously husky voice - namely Cher.  Alas, Cohn was the victim of the Grammy Curse* and has been little heard from since...

Cohn has, however, made news for reasons other than his musical prowess; in August 2005 he was shot in the head as part of an attempted carjacking.  The story, horrifying as it was, probably got picked up because a) it took place in the middle of the summer**, and b) Cohn is married to ABC television journalist Elizabeth Vargas.  Fortunately Cohn's injuries were minor and he continues to perform and tour to this day.

FOR MORE INFO...

*Winning Best New Artist for 1991.
**Which is known - somewhat inappropriately in this case - as the 'silly season', a time of the year when few newsworthy occurrences take place.
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Remembering... Carole Landis

Like many beautiful young people running after the fame and adulation promised by Hollywood, Carole Landis was also running from something much worse - namely her own past. As hard as it may be for those who believe in the power of beauty to comprehend, beauty is as much a curse as it is a gift - which is a lesson Carole Landis would spend her entire life learning the hard way...

Born in Wisconsin on New Year's Day 1919, Landis never knew the man she thought was her father, Alfred Ridste, who walked out on the family before Carole was born; the man who actually might have been Carole's father, Charles Fenner, eventually became her stepfather. The youngest of five children, two of Carole's brothers died in childhood - one was scalded, the other shot - which may have had something to do with the climate of abuse in the household. Landis herself was molested from an early age, likely by one of a series of putative 'uncles' courting her mother.

With her sunny good looks and friendly disposition, Landis alternated between winning beauty contests and making feminist statements as a teenager, such as trying to start a girls' football team at her high school. By the mid-1930s she'd escaped (or thought she had) and found herself singing in nightclubs in San Francisco; her first film appearance came shortly thereafter in 1937, although like fully half of the entries in her filmography, she was unbilled for her performance.

Unsatisfied with just being a pretty girl in a sweater*, Landis managed to get a contract with 20th Century Fox, and not just because she was sleeping with Darryl F. Zanuck either, although after their relationship ended the good parts she'd gotten in the early 1940s evaporated, and she was back to making B-movies. Having dated a string of Hollywood notables - Franchot Tone, Charlie Chaplin, and George Montgomery to name just three - Landis threw herself into the war effort, even traveling overseas to perform for the troops; during one trip she nearly died of amoebic dysentery and malaria. She later wrote a book about her experiences, which was later made into the movie Four Jills in a Jeep, which costarred such other USO notables as Mitzi Mayfair, Kay Francis, and Martha Raye.

By the early-1940s it might have seemed like Landis had finally beaten back her demons; depression, though, is a wily foe. Treating it is as individual as those who live with the condition, a concept scarcely given credence today, and one which certainly wouldn't have even occurred to anyone then. Landis had previously attempted suicide in 1944 and 1946, and her attempt on this day in 1948 might have failed as well if only her then-boyfriend Rex Harrison hadn't wasted so much time attempting damage control. When he found her she was still alive, albeit with a weak pulse; by the time he'd wasted half an hour looking through her address book for the phone number of her doctor the Seconal she'd taken had done their work, and she was gone.

Carole Landis was buried at Forest Lawn in Los Angeles, and was posthumously awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In pop culture terms, though, her most enduring memorial came when Jacqueline Susann based the character Jennifer North - from her 1966 novel Valley of the Dolls - on Landis; in the 1967 movie version Jennifer North was played by another Hollywood beauty with an entirely different tragedy on her horizon, Sharon Tate.

*Despite being awfully good at it, as the photo shows.
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Happy Birthday Bill Watterson

Even though Bill Watterson* only drew Calvin and Hobbes for ten years, what a decade it was!

At a time when the comics page was at its most moribund** the antics of bratty six-year old Calvin and his imaginary friend/stuffed tiger Hobbes could be counted on to brighten any day. The amusing scrapes they frequently found themselves in were belied by their philosophical perspective on them; small wonder, since Watterson named Calvin for John Calvin and Hobbes for Thomas Hobbes, both of whom were philosophers - although surely the two never once went tobogganing together!

Watterson cited Charles Schulz as among his prime influences, and there is definitely some similarity between the combination of antics and angst found in Calvin and Hobbes in Peanuts as well; unlike his idol, though, Watterson refused to allow Calvin to exist in any other medium - no Saturday morning cartoon, no Happy Meal Toys, major motion pictures, or television ads. In fact, Watterson has never had kind words for fellow cartoonist Jim Davis, who whored his strip Garfield out to such an extreme that it probably did, in the end, lessen the strip's impact.

Still, for someone with a major knick-knack fetish like myself, a few Calvin and Hobbes figurines would fit nicely into the menagerie of Peanuts, Muppets, and Smurfs which coat the shelves of the Pop Culture Institute like so many barnacles. Nevertheless, I appreciate his decision, and turn to the books again and again whenever I'm in need of the wisdom of a little kid with a big imagination. In fact, one of these days I may even take the plunge and splash out on The Complete Calvin and Hobbes - a 10.2 kilo (22.5 pound) behemoth containing every single strip***.

*Who was born on this day in 1958.
**Which is, let's face it, more often than not.
***Despite the poor reviews the book has received for the quality (indeed, for the lack thereof) of its binding.
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"Cabo Verde" by Cesaria Evora

In honour of Cape Verde's independence day*, the Pop Culture Institute is proud to feature the work of one of that tiny country's greatest exports: Cesária Évora. The song she sings here, Cabo Verde, is from her 1991 album Mar Azul, and its video shows images of both Évora and her stark homeland.

I had the pleasure of seeing her perform this, and many others besides, live at the Vancouver Jazz Festival in July 2000. It was an evening both electric and laid-back; normally, the elaborate interior of the Orpheum sends me so spinny you could run a generator off me, but that night I kept my cool and was rewarded in kind with an evening of sweet dusky vocals that are themselves the essence of cool. So carried away was I that when, in the middle of the show, the Barefoot Diva took her trademark smoke break onstage I found myself, along with the rest of the capacity crowd, applauding her despite how I feel about cigarettes**.

Some five years later our paths crossed again when she was a guest in the hotel where I was working; I'm ashamed to say the couple of times I found myself in her presence I just stood there grinning like a dumb-ass. I don't know if she's been back since, but if she hasn't I'm sure it's my fault. I imagine she still has nightmares about the enormous grinning bellhop; I know I would.

*Today!
**I don't like them.
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Pop History Moment: John Guy Sails For Newfoundland

On this day in 1610 John Guy sailed from Bristol* with 39 colonists, intent on creating the first permanent colony and plantation in Newfoundland on behalf of Britain's Society of Merchant Venturers. He'd already received his charter from James I in 1607, and explored the coastline of Conception Bay - scouting for a town site - in 1608.

The colonists arrived in August, too late in the year to do much but build their homes and ride out the winter, but survive it they did; in fact, Cuper's Cove was only the second New World colony (after the Jamestown Settlement) to survive for more than a year after its establishment. It was also there where, in March 1613, the first white baby in Newfoundland was born to the wife of Nicholas Guy.

Steadily occupied for the rest of the century, the site was abandoned early in the 18th Century; today a village known as Cupids - home to some 800 people - stands near where Guy's original colony stood.

*Where he'd once served on the Common Council and as sheriff before being named Governor of Newfoundland by the London and Bristol Company.
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POPnews - July 5th

[Although she lived just six years, Dolly the sheep's brief life raised all sorts of ethical questions about cloning, in addition to raising hopes that such a technique might one day be used to bring species such as the Pyrenean ibex back from extinction - which in itself is bound to raise a whole other set of issues... Aside from that the only ethical issue I have with Dolly is in regards to her name; since the cell used to replicate her was taken from a mammary gland, the first cloned mammal in history was named after the famously busty entertainer and humanitarian Dolly Parton - which I think says more about Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell and their colleagues at Edinburgh's Roslin Institute than I dare to!]
1687 - Isaac Newton published his three-volume Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which he'd written over the previous two years.

1775 - The Second Continental Congress adopted the Olive Branch Petition, a letter written to George III in a last-ditch effort to prevent bloodshed in the looming American Revolution; it was sent three days later, and when it was received by the King six weeks after that it was discarded and its requests ignored.

1809 - The Battle of Wagram began, near Vienna, pitting the Duke of Teschen against the Corsican Over-Compensator himself; when it ended the following day it had become the largest battle yet of the Napoleonic Wars, and ended the War of the Fifth Coalition.

1811 - Venezuela's Congress declared independence from Spain by ratifying a document written by Juan Germán Roscio, precipitating the Venezuelan War of Independence, which lasted until the Spanish were soundly defeated by José Prudencio Padilla at the Battle of Lake Maracaibo in July 1823. Today is celebrated as Independence Day in Venezuela.

1814 - During the War of 1812 American Major General Jacob Brown defeated British General Phineas Riall at the Battle of Chippawa.

1830 - France invaded Algeria, thereby inflicting 132 years of French colonial rule on that North African country.

1833 - Admiral Charles Napier defeated the navy of the Portuguese usurper Dom Miguel at the third Battle of Cape St. Vincent.

1934 - At an incident which came to be known as Bloody Thursday police opened fire on striking longshoremen in San Francisco, killing Nicholas Bordois and Howard Sperry.

1937 - Spam, the luncheon meat, was first offered for sale by the Hormel Foods Corporation.

1946 - The bikini was introduced during a fashion show at Piscine Molitor in Paris; allegedly invented by engineer Louis Réard and designer Jacques Helm, there are depictions of similar garments from Ancient Rome.

1947 - Larry Doby signed a contract with Bill Veeck and the Cleveland Indians, making him the first black player in the American League... Unfortunately for Doby Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the National League just 11 weeks earlier, which pretty much stole all of Doby's thunder. Doby was, however, the first black man to hit a home run during a World Series game - which he did in 1948, the year Cleveland trounced the Boston Braves. Previously a member of the Newark Eagles of the Negro Leagues, Doby ended his American playing career in June 1959 with the Chicago White Sox, passing through the locker room of the Detroit Tigers along the way; following his retirement from the majors state-side, Doby played with the Chunichi Dragons of Nippon Professional Baseball in Nagoya, Japan. He also coached for the Montreal Expos and the Indians, and later served as manager for the White Sox in 1978 - ironically making him the second black manager in the majors, following a different Robinson (Frank Robinson) into the record books! Doby was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998.

1950 - The Knesset passed the Law of Return, granting all Jews the right to immigrate to Israel.

1954 - India's Andhra Pradesh High Court was established.

1962 - Following the Algerian War of Independence that country declared its own independence from France, two days after French President Charles de Gaulle had declared it for them and 132 years to the day after the French initially invaded.

1970 - During a stopover en route from Montreal to Los Angeles Air Canada Flight 621 crashed near Toronto International Airport, killing 109 people.

1975 - Cape Verde gained its independence from Portugal following the fall of the latter's dictator António de Oliveira Salazar - whose hardline approach to the independence of Portugese colonies caused the majority of them to be lost anyway following his ouster.

1977 - During a military coup in Pakistan, that country's first democratically elected Prime Minister - Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto - was overthrown.

1989 - Oliver North was sentenced by US District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell to a three-year suspended prison term, two years probation, $150,000 in fines and 1,200 hours community service for his part in the Iran-Contra Affair.

1996 - Dolly the sheep became the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell.
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Bonus Video: "America" from "West Side Story"

I've posted it before, and I'm likely to post it again, but when a thing is as excellent as this - containing, as it does, three kinds of win: the Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim collaboration America, a scene from the 1961 film West Side Story, and Rita Moreno* - you know I'm gonna continue to look for reasons to post it again and again!

*Oh, and the altogether scrumptious George Chakiris as well!
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Pop History Moment: Lou Gehrig Announces His Retirement

Throughout his career in baseball, Lou Gehrig was known as 'the Iron Horse' for both his speed and strength; over the course of 15 consecutive seasons with the New York Yankees he was a reliable hitter - and not just because of his reliability in the dugout. All told, Gehrig played in 2,130 consecutive games* during which he racked up an amazing 23 career grand slams, a record which still stands more than 70 years after his retirement. His lifetime batting average was .340, lifetime on-base percentage .447, and lifetime slugging percentage was .632; these are the kind of stats that aren't found too readily in the game today - and are even more incredible when considering that they were achieved without either performance enhancing drugs or the benefit of modern sports medicine and/or the rest of the rigamarole** currently available to professional athletes.

All of which made his retirement - on this day in 1939 - the more shocking; he was, after all, just 36 years old and otherwise at the top of his game, although his final season had been off, especially compared to the performance he turned in during 1937. Gehrig had been stricken by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) - a disease which would forever after bear his name; it would take just under two years for the disease to render the once-superlative athlete a withered corpse...

In all 61,808 fans - including his one-time rival Babe Ruth and New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia - gathered at Yankee Stadium on 'Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day', as witnessed by the footage posted above. Between games of an Independence Day double header with the Washington Senators Gehrig was hailed by all and sundry, presented with a trophy by team manager Joe McCarthy, became the first player in the history of major league baseball to have his number (4) retired, and made a speech which has continued to resonate ever since, in which he left no gut unwrenched by categorizing himself as 'the luckiest man on the face of the Earth'...



When it comes to history Hollywood often doesn't get it right; when they do, though, do they ever - and they really knocked one out of the park with The Pride of the Yankees. Starring Gary Cooper, an actor every bit as revered for his low-key nature and quiet masculinity as Gehrig was, director Sam Wood's 1942 biopic managed to be hyperbolic and accurate simultaneously, mainly because his subject was just that good a man. Teresa Wright co-starred as Gehrig's wife Eleanor, and Gehrig's team-mates Babe Ruth, Bob Meusel, Mark Koenig and Bill Dickey appeared in the film as themselves, so as to honour the memory of their fallen colleague.

*A record only broken by Cal Ripken, Jr., of the Baltimore Orioles in September 1995.
**Diet, exercise, massage, acupuncture, dating Madonna, and so on and so forth...
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"America" by Allen Ginsberg

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for
murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over
from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie
producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals
an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and
twentyfivethousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underpriviliged who live in
my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.

America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his
automobiles more so they're all different sexes
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they
sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the
workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party
was in 1935 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother
Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have
been a spy.
America you don're really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take
our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our
auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him makes Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers.
Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.
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POPnews - July 4th

[Located midway between Montreal and Quebec City - where the Saint-Maurice River empties into the St. Lawrence River across from the city of Bécancour - Trois-Rivières is Canada's oldest industrial city; a foundry known as Forges du Saint-Maurice existed there as early as March 1730, although today the city is better known as the 'National Poetry Capital of Quebec'.]

836 CE - Pactum Sicardi - a peace treaty between the Principality of Benevento and the Duchy of Naples - was signed.

993 CE - On the authority of Pope John XV Ulrich of Augsburg became the first Catholic saint to be officially canonized by the Vatican (rather than by public acclaim), twenty years to the day after his martyrdom.

1120 - Jordan II of Capua was anointed as prince after the death of his infant nephew, Richard III of Capua.

1187 - At the Battle of Hattin the Ayyubid commander Saladin defeated Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem.

1253 - At the Battle of West-Capelle, John I of Avesnes defeated Guy of Dampierre.

1359 - Francesco II Ordelaffi surrendered the fortified town of Forlì to the Papal commander Gil de Albornoz.

1456 - As part of the Ottoman invasion of Europe, the Siege of Belgrade began; defense of the city was prepared by John Hunyadi, who was ultimately successful in repelling the forces of Mehmed II but not so fortunate in warding off the plague, which would claim his life in August.

1534 - Christian III was elected King of Denmark and Norway in the town of Rye.

1634 - The city of Trois-Rivières - only the second permanent settlement in New France - was founded by the Sieur of Laviolette.

1837 - The Grand Junction Railway - the world's first long-distance railway - opened between Birmingham and Liverpool.

1840 - The Cunard Line's 700-ton wooden paddle steamer RMS Britannia departed from Liverpool bound for Halifax on the first transatlantic crossing with a scheduled end.

1879 - During the final battle of the Anglo-Zulu War the Zululand capital of Ulundi was captured by British troops and burnt to the ground, forcing King Cetshwayo to flee.

1886 - The first scheduled Canadian transcontinental train arrived in the British Columbia town of Port Moody, an event still celebrated there as Golden Spike Days.

1918 - Sultan Mehmed VI ascended to the throne of the Ottoman Empire, little knowing he would be the last to do so.

1941 - Nazi Germany's massacre of Polish scientists and writers occurred in the captured Ukrainian city of Lwów.

1950 - Radio Free Europe made its first broadcast - from Munich, into Czechoslovakia.

1976 - Israeli commandos raided Uganda's Entebbe Airport, rescuing all but four of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized there by Palestinian terrorists the previous week.

1982 - Four Iranian diplomats - Ahmad Motevaselian, Seyed Mohsen Mousavi, Taghi Rastegar Moghadam, and Kazem Akhavan - were kidnapped by militia at a checkpoint in northern Lebanon; they were never released, nor were their remains ever found, and no one ever claimed responsibility for their deaths.

1987 - In France, former Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie (also known as the 'Butcher of Lyon') was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment; he died four years later of leukemia, still a kinder death than any of the 4,000 he personally committed.
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