Happy Birthday Dave Foley

For all his excellent work over the years - be it in obscure Canadian movies or the combination cult classic yet simultaneously middle of the road American sitcom NewsRadio - there's really only one reason Dave Foley's birthday is being celebrated here today and that's for his part in the revolutionary sketch comedy program The Kids in the Hall...

From the first time the opening notes of Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet's theme Having an Average Weekend played until the final credit rolled away 102 episodes later, I never once encountered a bad moment anywhere in a Kids in the Hall episode - and I've seen all of them, many times over. Quirky without being inaccessible, innovative without being pretentious, respectful of its genre without being derivative, as well as being oddball, surreal, and a laugh-riot, Foley and his castmates - Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson - seemingly did the impossible, by producing a funny Canadian television show and thereby keeping some of this country's burgeoning comedic talent at home before the inevitable brain drain could sweep them inexorably south.

Even their 1996 movie Brain Candy - which suffered somewhat in the transition of their unique skills from sitcom with live studio audience to film - pushed the envelope of what could be done in cinema by having five people playing all the major characters in what would otherwise have been a cast of dozens; following its poor performance at the box office but before its cult status could kick in, the troupe undertook a tour with a live show and an appearance at the 25th Annual Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal, as well as pursuing their own careers.

In this instance, Foley could be seen as the early victor, as NewsRadio managed to limp through five seasons despite the network's constant changes to the show's time slot and the devastating loss of the cast's biggest star, Phil Hartman, who my regular readers will remember was murdered by his sick bitch of a cokehead wife in May 1998*; had NewsRadio been on during the Internet era, I feel certain the fans could have preserved it.

In recent years, Foley has appeared in another Canadian sitcom (the tragically short-lived Robson Arms) and turns up regularly on The Late Late Show with TV's Craig Ferguson; he's also had memorable roles on Celebrity Poker Showdown, Blast from the Past, and Sky High - as well as providing his voice to such animated features as South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and Pixar's A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2 and Cars. More recently, Foley reunited with his old troupe-mates in an eight-part series on Canadian television, entitled Death Comes to Town.

*I'm not over it yet, and I may choose to never get over it.
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Last Of The Summer Wine: "Of Funerals and Fish"

On this day in 1973 began the longest-running sitcom in television history in terms of consecutive years on the air, Last of the Summer Wine; written by comedy legend Roy Clarke - who has to date written all 295 episodes! - Of Funerals and Fish originally aired as part of the BBC's Comedy Playhouse. Set in the West Yorkshire village of Holmfirth, the show concerns a group of late middle-aged eccentrics whose cast has changed over the years as costars have died or otherwise left, even as the antics of their group have remained consistently amusing.



The original trio consisted of Bill Owen as the scruffy and child-like Compo, Peter Sallis* as meek philosopher Clegg, and Michael Bates as authoritarian and snobbish Blamire; they are joined in this episode by Rosemary Martin as Mrs. Partridge, Kathy Staff as Compo's perennial love object Nora Batty, Blake Butler as the librarian Mr. Wainwright, John Comer as Sid, and Jane Freeman as Ivy.



Everything about the show has militated against its success - its un-vulgar humour, its elderly cast, its northern setting, even its low-key music by Ronnie Hazlehurst; clearly the best way to succeed is to try and fail, then, for its 31st consecutive annual appearance aired in 2010, as dark rumours set a-swirling by producer Alan J. W. Bell were later confirmed...  Never ones to let a pesky thing like popularity get in the way of their whim, executives pulled the plug; the show's final appearance, entitled How Not to Cry at Weddings, was aired in August 2010.

*Who went on to greater fame as the voice of Wallace in Aardman Animations' Wallace and Gromit films.
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Pop History Moment: The Election of Nancy Pelosi

On this day in 2007 Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, was elected Speaker of the House for the 110th United States Congress, making her the first women to hold the post at a federal level*; previously she was the House Minority Leader. Pelosi represents the 8th Congressional District of California, which encompasses San Francisco.

Her appointment came amid disastrous mid-term election results for the Republicans in 2006, and persists as things get even worse for the so-called Grand Old Party, whose attachment to neoconservatism and religious evangelism cost them control of the White House, Congress, and the Senate in 2008. Good times...

Pelosi lost her position after Blue Dog Democrats lost their House majority by turning their back on progressive ideals during the 2010 midterm elections, and is once again the House minority leader, having ceded her position to the sniveling Oompa-Loompa John Boehner.

*Minnie D. Craig, of course, became the first female House Speaker in the US in 1933, fulfilling that role at the state level in North Dakota.
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POPnews - January 4th

[At its apex the Palace of Whitehall was both the largest royal residence in Europe and indeed the largest building in the world, comprising more than 1500 rooms in a hodge-podge of styles; following a fire on this day in 1698 it was reduced to this single structure, the exquisite Banqueting House, built in a revolutionary style inspired by Andrea Palladio. King Charles I commissioned it, at a cost of £15,618; 27 years later he was executed in front of it.]
46 BCE – Titus Labienus defeated Julius Caesar at the Battle of Ruspina.

871 CE - At the Battle of Reading Ethelred of Wessex and his brother Alfred the Great attacked and were defeated by a Danish invasion army.

1698 - Most of the Palace of Whitehall in London, the main residence of the English monarchs through the previous 2 centuries, was destroyed by fire; only Inigo Jones' Banqueting House of 1622 survived.

1854 - The McDonald Islands were discovered by Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang.

1878 - Sofia was emancipated from Ottoman rule by the Imperial Russian Army during the Russo-Turkish War; it was later made capital of the Principality of Bulgaria.

1884 - The Fabian Society - itself an offshoot of The Fellowship of the New Life - was founded in London to advance the socialist cause by gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary means; while it is considered the forerunner of the Labour Party it is still in existence today as its own entity.

1896 - Utah became the 45th US state.

1903 - Topsy the Elephant was electrocuted by Thomas Edison during the War of Currents campaign.

1912 - The Scout Association was incorporated throughout the British Commonwealth by a Royal Charter granted by King George V.

1936 - Billboard magazine published its first pop music charts.

1948 - Burma regained its independence from the United Kingdom.

1958 - The Soviet-built Sputnik 1 - launched in October 1957 - fell to Earth.

1972 - Rose Heilbron became the first woman to preside over a courtroom at the Old Bailey in London.

1973 - The world's longest running sitcom (in terms of consecutive years on the air) Roy Clarke's Last of the Summer Wine was first broadcast on the BBC's Comedy Playhouse and is still running on this, its 37th anniversary; at nearly 290 episodes it is minor league compared to American sitcoms, but in British terms has set a record never likely to be beaten.

1974 - Serial killer Ted Bundy attacked his first known victim when he entered the basement bedroom of 18-year-old 'Joni Lenz' through an unlocked window before viciously raping her; although she survived the attack, because of it she suffered horrific internal injuries and brain damage.

1989 - The so-called Second Gulf of Sidra incident occurred when a pair of Libyan MiG-23 'Floggers' were shot down by a pair of US Navy F-14 Tomcats during an air-to-air confrontation.

1999 - Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura was sworn in as governor of Minnesota.

2006 - Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a second, apparently more serious, stroke - whereupon his authority was transferred to acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

2007 - The 110th United States Congress convened, electing Nancy Pelosi its first female Speaker of the House.
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"Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin

Try as I might to find depth in Led Zeppelin, as often as not the song I'm reading into is about having sex and not much else. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

The same goes for Black Dog, which I so wanted to have folkloric or psychological underpinnings, but turns out has a good beat and you can fuck to it; about all the depth it needs for that is the length of a good cock-stroke. Turns out the black dog in the title refers to an actual black dog who wandered into the studio where the band was recording the then still-unnamed song.

Birthday wishes go out today to Zep's bassist John Paul Jones, who's got his work cut out for him here; fortunately he's more than up to the job. The song, of course, is taken from their 1971 album Led Zeppelin IV while the footage is from the band's legendary gig at Earls Court in May 1975.
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Gratuitous Brunette: Dominic Wood

As if Dominic Wood isn't cute enough on his own, his day job as a TV presenter means he educates kids for a living - if that doesn't add value to the total package I don't know what will...


Best known as one half of comedy duo Dick and Dom (along with Richard McCourt) it seems apt that he's cast a spell on me today, as he was at one time the youngest member of The Magic Circle, an association of British magicians which nevertheless cast an Expelliarmus on him for publishing a book in which the secrets behind various magic tricks were revealed. Frankly, he's lucky not to have ended up a squib...

Of course, the secret to quality kids TV is a host who's young at heart; alas, the old at heart executives who run the business haven't always appreciated his cheekiness. The diminutive stunner was disciplined by the BBC for sporting a t-shirt on air bearing the slogan 'Morning Wood' - a sentiment his core audience wouldn't have understood but one which might have given their minders a bit of a chuckle. Which is yet another secret to good kids TV - if you throw in something for the parents maybe they'll watch it with their kids, instead of merely using the thing as an electronic babysitter.

So what's up next for the award winning Dominic Wood, who's already dom-inated radio, television, and publishing? Well, fatherhood - with his wife Sandi Lee Hughes of the (now defunct) band allSTARS* - for starters; his son Tommy turns 2 next week. Now can you say Dick and Dom in da Bungalow:The Movie boys and girls? I thought you could...

Not that such a thing is in the works, but it never hurts to plant a seed, now does it?
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Gratuitous Brunette: Liya Kebede

Having just returned from the front (ie: Facebook), where I've been treated to a litany of reasons why Hitler's handling of the Jews was not only apt but necessary, I've decided to retreat for awhile to the comparative safety of the Pop Culture Institute, where for the most part the closest we get to current events is a pretty lady having a birthday...

In this instance, my saviour from anti-Semitism disguised as geopolitics is Liya Kebede, the Ethiopian born model who has cat-walked her way from Addis Ababa to Manhattan via the fashion capitals of Europe. Along the way she's accumulated such accolades as an exclusive contract with Gucci (courtesy of Tom Ford) in 2000, having had an entire issue of French Vogue dedicated to her in 2002, and appointment as a WHO Goodwill Ambassador for her work with maternal, newborn, and childhood health. She's also one of only a handful of black women featured on the cover of American Vogue, most of whom are actresses.

Yet she seems aware of the transient nature of modelling, so even while she's still getting bookings - including regular high profile gigs with Estee Lauder - it's relieving the suffering of mothers and children that inspires this mother of two herself...
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Sexy Beijing: Discovering Anna May Wong

Here is Sexy Beijing's take on the woman of the hour: Anna May Wong.
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Remembering... Anna May Wong

One of the reasons I began this blog was to draw attention to those obscure figures from history - regardless of their field of endeavour - whose obscurity I consider unfair; I'd like to think that, fifty or a hundred years from now, some uppity know-it-all will do the same for me...

In many ways, Anna May Wong is the ideal candidate for the Pop Culture Institute treatment; not only was she the first Asian-American actress of any note in the Hollywood cinema as far back as 1921, but until the 1970s almost the only one as well.

Born in Los Angeles on this day in 1905 (her family having settled in the US in 1855), Wong's first film role was in the Alla Nazimova silent The Red Lantern (1919). Despite the clout a friendship with such an august presence ought to have given her, Wong struggled. This wasn't due to any lack of parts for exotic temptresses, but rather to anti-miscegenation laws in the US; she could have had her choice of parts if only they didn't require her to be romantic which, let's face it, meant that as a romantic leading lady she remained underemployed.

She did act, though, here and there: in The Toll of the Sea (1921) opposite Kenneth Harlan, in the British silent Piccadilly (1929), most famously with Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express (1932), and opposite George Raft in Limehouse Blues (1934). However, when she was offered the villain's part in The Good Earth (1937), and it became obvious she would be the only Asian in the cast, she balked. One of her final film roles was in the camp classic Impact (1949).

Despite romantic entanglements with director Marshall Neilan and writer Eric Maschwitz - who apparently wrote his famous song These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You) about her - she never married; interestingly, another of Hollywood's pioneering Chinese was her cousin, famed cinematographer James Wong Howe. (For obvious reasons, he did better at the studios than she did.)

Anna May Wong died in 1961, but has since been given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; as well, Frosted Yellow Willows - a documentary by Elaine May Woo and narrated by Nancy Kwan - which had its American debut in January 2008, in Los Angeles, and The Anna May Wong Society, not to mention two new biographies, have done their part to rescue her from the footnotes of Hollywood history and restore her to her rightful place among the industry's pioneers. Anna May Wong: A Complete Guide to Her Film, Stage, Radio and Television Work was written by Philip Leibfried and Chei Mi Lane and Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend is by Graham Russell Gao Hodges.
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The House of Grimaldi: The Death of Louis I

It would be just my luck that the first entry in this new ongoing series of posts on the House of Grimaldi would concern one of history's least written about - not to mention least portraited - Princes of Monaco, Louis I. Despite being Europe's oldest royal family, tracing its lineage back to Grimaldo - who served as the consul of Genoa beginning in 1162 - a highly acquiescent Monegasque press has been as scrupulous in its protection of the Grimaldi's privacy as the neighbouring French media has been fervent in reporting it. Either that or yet again my fondness for the obscure has rendered the vast content of the Internet as puny as this picture...

Born in July 1642 to the ill-fated Prince Hercule of Monaco and Aurelia Spinola, the man who would succeed his grandfather Honoré II to become the second Prince of Monaco first served France's King Louis XIV as an ambassador; while at Versailles with his lusty wife Catherine-Charlotte de Gramont*, whom he married in May 1660, the princely couple threw themselves into the social whirl of court, which essentially involved throwing themselves into other people's beds. His brother-in-law, the well-rounded debauché the comte de Guiche, scored the one-two punch of sleeping with both halves of one married couple - Philippe I of Orléans and Henrietta Anne Stuart - so you get some idea of what a fun place it was.

The so-called 'glorious and avaricious Italian' Duc de Valentinois ascended his throne as Louis I in 1662; despite his newly assumed princely status, and a lovely hillside domain where he could reign supreme, he and his wife preferred to spend most of their time at Versailles. In all the couple had six children: his heir, who succeeded him as Antonio I, Maria Teresa Carlotta, Anna Hippolyte, François Honoré (who became Archbishop of Besançon), Giovanna Maria, and Aurelia.

Louis I died in Rome on this day in 1701, but was buried in Monaco's St. Nicholas Cathedral, ensuring he'd more than make up for all the time he should have spent there as prince and ruler rather than wallowing in the fleshly pleasures of the French court.

*The daughter of Marshal Antoine III de Gramont, who was the King's mistress between Louise de la Vallière and Madame de Montespan, and described by Madame de Sévigné as 'greedy for pleasure'.
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Ben's Tours: The Brooklyn Bridge

From Ben's Tours, it's a glimpse at the modern-day Brooklyn Bridge...
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"To Brooklyn Bridge" by Hart Crane

How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull's wings shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty--

Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
As apparitional as sails that cross
Some page of figures to be filed away;
--Till elevators drop us from our day . . .

I think of cinemas, panoramic sleights
With multitudes bent toward some flashing scene
Never disclosed, but hastened to again,
Foretold to other eyes on the same screen;

And Thee, across the harbor, silver-paced
As though the sun took step of thee, yet left
Some motion ever unspent in thy stride,--
Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!

Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft
A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets,
Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,
A jest falls from the speechless caravan.

Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks,
A rip-tooth of the sky's acetylene;
All afternoon the cloud-flown derricks turn . . .
Thy cables breathe the North Atlantic still.

And obscure as that heaven of the Jews,
Thy guerdon . . . Accolade thou dost bestow
Of anonymity time cannot raise:
Vibrant reprieve and pardon thou dost show.

O harp and altar, of the fury fused,
(How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!)
Terrific threshold of the prophet's pledge,
Prayer of pariah, and the lover's cry,--

Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift
Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars,
Beading thy path--condense eternity:
And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.

Under thy shadow by the piers I waited;
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.
The City's fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year . . .

O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies' dreaming sod,
Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God.
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Pop History Moment: Building The Brooklyn Bridge

Connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan over 486.5 m of swirling water where the East River meets New York Harbour using the relatively new technology of the suspension bridge was never going to be an easy task, but fortunately when its construction began on this day in 1870 it was being handled by the nation's foremost builder of such spans...

The bridge was designed by John Augustus Roebling, who was injured during the survey of the site; his foot crushed, he later died of tetanus, and work had to be completed by his son, Washington Roebling. In addition to its designer, construction on the bridge claimed 27 lives, and nearly killed his son as well; while constructing the caissons, the younger Roebling developed the bends, and thereafter his wife Emily Warren Roebling acted as his go-between.

Plagued by difficulties throughout its construction, the Brooklyn Bridge was finally opened in May 1883; it is not only still standing, but the iconic structure was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964, a National Historic Engineering Landmark in 1983, and was scheduled to receive a $725 million facelift in 2009.

There are two very different books in the collection of the Pop Culture Institute which (naturally) give two very different impressions of the construction of such an important span...  One is The Great Bridge, by the popular historian David G McCullough, which traces the elder Roebling's career from its earliest beginnings to its greatest posthumous triumph; the other is Brookland, a novel by Emily Barton, which isn't really about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge at all but rather about its unrealized predecessor Thomas Pope’s Rainbow Bridge and yet in an illusory way exclusive to fiction sort of is anyway.
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Stars Come Out For The March Of Dimes

In the course of my research for posting on this blog I occasionally come across a hidden gem or two, and it makes my day in a way which is borderline erotic; then there are those times when I do a face plant into a treasure trove worthy of any pirate, a transcendant experience the likes of which cannot be explained to non-bloggers. This is one such time...

While looking for something to post on the March of Dimes, I found a series of public service announcements from the 1950s featuring some of the biggest names of our times, all united behind the common cause of relieving the suffering of children. The worst part of it was choosing only three, meaning I had to pass up those made by Ella Fitzgerald, Gogi Grant, Roy Campanella, Hazel Scott, and Cecil B. DeMille among many others.



Here we see the multi-talented Sammy Davis, Jr. demonstrate even more of his talents in 1955, by singing My Romance as a raft of mid-century celebrities, including Jimmy Cagney, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Edward G. Robinson, and himself, as well as both halves of the then-ubiquitous comedy duo Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin.



Sitcom legends Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz used their fame to attract attention to the elimination of childhood illness in 1954, by introducing their real-life Little Ricky to television audiences - Desi Arnaz, Jr. - in addition to their daughter Lucie Arnaz. Their message came in 1954, just a year before the introduction of the Salk Vaccine.



And finally, sultry songstress Eartha Kitt has long been one of our favourite people here at the Pop Culture Institute, and this clip shows why; while she could deliver a song as freighted with innuendo as Just An Old-Fashioned Girl - as she did here in 1957 - she could just as easily transition into the sincerity necessary for a charitable appeal. Thanks to the efforts of millions of people - some of them famous but most of them not - not only was polio defeated by the March of Dimes but who knows what affliction they might eliminate next?
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FDR and The March of Dimes

The March of Dimes was established on this day in 1938, during the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and was named by popular entertainer Eddie Cantor as a spoof on The March of Time series of newsreels.

The thought was that the donation of a single dime by everyone in the country could make the research possible to relieve the suffering of millions. Originally created to assist those with infantile paralysis (or poliomyelitis) it was later expanded to include all childhood illness once the Salk Vaccine had eradicated polio after 1955.

FDR contracted what was thought to be polio as an adult in 1921, although recent evidence suggests that diagnosis may have been mistaken; for his efforts, FDR's portrait was put on the American dime following his death in April 1946.
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Christopher Durang Explains It All For You

It's the playwright Christopher Durang; having turned the tables on himself, here he plays Victor J. Fleck, an advocate of the lie-detector test, on Al Franken's short-lived* sitcom LateLine. Appearing also are Alan Dershowitz (as himself), Robert Foxworth (doing the interviewing), and Miguel Ferrer (in the booth). Did anyone follow that?

*19 episodes on NBC from March 1998-9 - 7 of them unaired - and all now available on DVD!
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Happy Birthday Christopher Durang

From the wildly absurdist imagination of Christopher Durang (born on this day in 1949) comes the plays Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You (1979) for which he won an Obie Award, Beyond Therapy (1981), Baby With the Bathwater (1983), and Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge (2002).

Durang's works are frequently mounted in regional theatres across the US and Canada, but he hasn't allowed any of them to be adapted for the movies since Robert Altman savaged Beyond Therapy in 1987.

Durang's work often explores the cognitive dissonance between what the Catholic Church says (ie: the teachings of Christ) and what it does (the exact opposite of what it says); one of the first playwrights to show gay men being sensible (as opposed to walking punch-lines), of course Durang is gay himself, having lived with his partner John Augustine for more than 20 years.

Durang continues to write, and is co-chair of the playwriting program at Juilliard.
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Pop History Moment: The Lindbergh Baby Trial Opened

The justice system, in its own way, is responsible for a great portion of my cynicism; often, in their zeal to catch anyone for some crime or other, court officials toss aside rational thought and concrete evidence in favour of whatever poor schmuck they happen to have in custody. I've seen (or, more often, read about) it happening again and again, and each time it does it reduces my faith in so-called justice. On the plus side, though, it does keep me on my best behaviour...

On this day in 1935 one such trial opened in Flemington, New Jersey; it involved the most sensational news story of its time, the March 1932 kidnap of the son of one of America's heroes - aviator Charles Lindbergh - and his wife, the author Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The baby's corpse was discovered in May of that same year; his infant's death was the impetus behind the Lindbergh Law, which made kidnapping a federal offense.

Collared for the crime after more than two-and-a-half years of investigation was one Bruno Hauptmann, a German World War I veteran and would-be carpenter; unable to find work in Germany, Hauptmann embraced a life of crime (including break-and enter and armed robbery) which eventually saw him incarcerated at Bautzen. It took three attempts, but Hauptmann eventually landed in the United States in November 1923, under an assumed identity, following which he married Anna Schoeffler; together they had a son.

Hauptmann was arrested in September 1934, and held on $100,000 bail; Lindbergh, who attended every day of the trial in person, was represented in court by Col. Henry S. Breckinridge, who had also acted as the intermediary in the ransom negotiations. Hauptmann was represented by Edward J. Reilly (called the 'Bull of Brooklyn'), the prosecution by David Wilentz (then the Attorney-General of New Jersey) in front of Judge Thomas Trenchard.

The usual string of witnesses were brought forth, including the Lindberghs themselves, various of their servants, state troopers (including Norman Schwarzkopf, father of the American general), and several eye-witnesses. The most damning of the evidence was largely circumstantial, and some of it was later revealed to have been planted.

Following 11 hours and 24 minutes of deliberation in February 1935, a jury found Hauptmann guilty despite major gaps in the evidence, including no credible witnesses able to put him near the Lindbergh's estate at Hopewell at any time. He was executed by an electric chair called Old Smokey at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton in April 1936, still proclaiming his innocence; a more likely candidate for guilt, the shadowy figure of Isidor Fisch, had already returned to Germany, where he died in March 1934.
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POPnews (EU) - January 1st

[The elevation of Sweden's Princess Victoria to the status of Crown Princess was the source of some controversy, even within the Royal Family itself; her father, King Carl XVI Gustaf - although said not to be opposed to women taking the throne nevertheless wasn't happy about having his son Carl Philip, Duke of Värmland, set aside in the process. Currently the only female heir to any throne in the world (notwithstanding Monaco's Princess Caroline, who is that country's de facto heir, being heiress presumptive rather than heiress apparent) Princess Victoria married personal trainer Daniel Westling in a lavish ceremony in June 2010.]
1438 - Albert II, the Habsburg Duke of Austria, was crowned King of Hungary.

1515 - France's King Francis I succeeded to the throne, filling the vacancy there left by the death of his first cousin, Louis XII.

1527 - Croatia's nobility elected Austria's Ferdinand I King of Croatia in the Parliament on Cetin.

1707 - John V was crowned King of Portugal.

1739 - Bouvet Island was discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier.

1801 - The dwarf planet Ceres was discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi.

1822 - The Greek Constitution of 1822 was adopted by the First National Assembly of Epidaurus.

1876 - The Reichsbank opened in Berlin.

1945 - In retaliation for the Malmedy massacre, US troops massacred 30 SS prisoners at Chenogne; on the same day the German Luftwaffe launched Unternehmen Bodenplatte, a massive but ultimately failed attempt to knock out Allied air power in northern Europe in a single blow.

1958 - The European Community was established.

1973 - Denmark and the Republic of Ireland were admitted into the European Community, on the same day as the UK.

1980 - Sweden's three-year-old Princess Victoria was made that country's Crown Princess in accordance with changes made to that country's Successionsordningen, or Act of Succession, in 1979.

1981 - The Republic of Greece was admitted into the European Community.

1986 - The Kingdom of Spain and the Portuguese Republic were admitted into the European Community.

1993 - Czechoslovakia was divided into the Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

1995 - The Kingdom of Sweden and the republics of Austria and Finland were admitted into the European Union.

1998 - The European Central Bank was established.

1999 - The Euro currency was introduced.

2007 - Bulgaria and Romania officially joined the European Union; also, Bulgarian, Romanian, and Irish became official languages of the European Union, joining 20 others.
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POPnews (US) - January 1st

[The first Rose Queen was Hallie Woods in 1905; this one is Joan Culver, from 1956, while in 2009 (the first year I posted this) the Rose Queen was Courtney Chou Lee. Despite my ambivalence towards beauty pageants - an attitude that would no doubt be different if I were eligible for one - who am I not to post a photo of six fuschia organdy dresses?]
1845 - Brooklyn's Cobble Hill Tunnel was finished, running beneath Atlantic Avenue from Hicks Street to Boerum Place.

1863 - Daniel Freeman made the first claim under the Homestead Act, for a farm in Nebraska.

1890 - The first Tournament of Roses Parade was held in Pasadena, California - twelve years before the first Rose Bowl game in 1902.

1892 - Ellis Island opened its doors to new immigrants.

1898 - New York City annexed land from its surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York; the four initial boroughs, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx, were joined later that month by Staten Island to create the modern city of five boroughs.

1908 - For the first time, a ball was dropped in New York City's Times Square to signify the start of the New Year at midnight.

1909 - Drilling began on the Lakeview Gusher in California's Midway-Sunset Oil Field; regarded as the largest oil well gusher in the world, it was drained after just 18 months, having produced 90,000 barrels a day at its peak.

1934 - Alcatraz Island became a US federal prison; it had previously served as a military prison during the US Civil War.

1939 - William Hewlett and David Packard founded Hewlett-Packard.

1942 - The Declaration by the United Nations was signed by twenty-six nations during the Arcadia Conference in Washington, DC.

1962 - US Navy SEALs were established.

1983 - The ARPANET officially changed to using the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.

1990 - David Dinkins was sworn in as New York City's first black mayor.
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Father Guido Sarducci Explains The Five Minute University

Here one of the Pop Culture Institute's spiritual leaders, Father Guido Sarducci, pitches his idea for the Five Minute University to the audience of Gilda Live, a concert recorded by Gilda Radner both in Boston and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1980, directed (for stage and screen) by Mike Nichols and produced by Lorne Michaels.

Sarducci, of course, is the creation (rather than the evolution) of comedian Don Novello - born on this day in 1943; the fact that he is not yet Pope dismays me more than I can say. And yes, I know he's not a real priest - I'm just saying, he'd have to be better at it than the current guy, is all...
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Joey Stefano: Chachi Loves Chachi

Ever since the quintessential Chachi - the inimitable Scott Baio - first sashayed across the soundstage of Happy Days, there's been a soft spot in my brain for cute, tough, little Italian guys; of course, I'd hate to meet an actual one in person, for fear of earning myself a thumping*, but from the convenient distance of a telephoto lens or thanks to the intercession of modern consumer electronics there's nothing with quite the same combination of tough and tender...

That must have been what first attracted me to Joey Stefano. Yeah, that must have been it. Not the heroic manner with which he entertained Ryan Idol's member in 1990's beachfront all-male epic Idol Eyes, and certainly not for the electrifying performance he gave in Chi Chi LaRue's ground-breaking More of a Man...

Of course, porn stars are intended to evoke archetypes, so as to enrichen the otherwise quotidian purpose of the material; in quite the opposite way grimy setting, poor lighting, paper-thin plot, and cheesy music take away from the experience, once the action is got down to the model is free to inhabit the viewer's imagination, which can whisk him unimpeded back through memory, to some glancing encounter with an unobtainable beauty, and evoke something that never was but that needed to be and make it so in some small way. Either that, or he's just a hot guy I like rubbing one out to before overthinking my justification for the whole exhilarating process!

For whatever reason, there was something fascinating about Joey Stefano, and the same cannot be said for all of his costars; honestly, he was eminently watchable, even with his clothes on. Tragedy, of course, plays as great a part in his star quality as the versatility of his performances; born on this day in 1968, his was a short, brutal life which ended with a whimper in November 1994, whereas it had been lived with considerable banging.

I've recommended Charles Isherwood's book Wonder Bread and Ecstasy: The Life and Death of Joey Stefano to my readers before, but I also believe that it should be read by anyone bent on a career in gay porno. Not that everyone contemplating such a move necessarily came from such a shitty home as he did, raised within a culture of addiction and violence, dogged by the shame that only dogma brings. Still, for an industry whose reputation for eating its young is scarcely ameliorated by its filming of the process, I say the best thing they could do in future is provide their prospectives with the shining example of his worst-case scenario and thereby possibly prevent such a thing from happening again, if only once...

*Or worse, for fear of enjoying said thumping.
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In Memoriam: Alfred Stieglitz

His early photographs of New York City continue to exert an influence over the practice of street photography, and his nudes, so revolutionary in their day, still have the power to awe...

For elevating photography to an art form, photographers should be forever grateful to Alfred Stieglitz; in 1902 he co-founded the Photo-Secession movement with Edward Steichen, Gertrude Kasebier, Clarence White and Alvin Langdon Coburn to insist that photography should have its own aesthetic, that 'a photograph should look like a photograph' and not a painting, which was a revolutionary moment in the earliest days of the art form.

In later life, Steiglitz would be better known for his relationship with the much younger Georgia O'Keeffe, the scandal of which was sweetened by their fruitful collaboration as artists.

Alfred Stieglitz was born on this day in 1864.
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"Roll Away The Stone" by Mott The Hoople

Birthday wishes go out today to Morgan Fisher, who joined British glam rock band Mott the Hoople as its keyboardist at the apex of their success; in other words, at just about the time it would be rent asunder by the egos of its members and the greed of their label... Not that I'm bitter.

Roll Away the Stone originally appeared on the band's 1974 album The Hoople; to me the band's sound is a melding* of Ray Davies of The Kinks and David Bowie**. Their real claim to fame, though, wasn't Fisher but Ian Hunter, who went on to pen the iconic song Cleveland Rocks - which has been used as the theme tune for The Drew Carey Show, albeit in a cover version recorded by Presidents of the United States of America.

*Which I'd have been well into watching at the time, since back then they were both still hot...
**Who actually produced the band's earlier albums (including 1972's All the Young Dudes, a personal favourite of mine).
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POPnews (UK) - January 1st

[Although it wouldn't be officially opened by Queen Victoria until May 21st (not coincidentally her birthday) the Manchester Ship Canal opened to traffic on this day in 1894; the 36-mile (58 km) long waterway - known in the charming local patois as the 'Big Ditch' - made the rivers Irwell and Mersey navigable for seagoing ships from the Mersey Estuary to Salford Docks, transforming what was then a landlocked industrial powerhouse into an international port.]
1651 - England's exiled King Charles II was crowned King of Scotland at Scone.

1772 - The first traveler's cheques - which could be used in 90 European cities - went on sale at the London Credit Exchange Company in London, more than a century before Thomas Cook made a name for himself doing that very thing; American Express, now the largest issuer of traveler's cheques, was a latecomer to the game, beginning operations only in 1891.

1788 - The first edition of The Times of London - previously The Daily Universal Register - was published.

1818 - Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus was published anonymously by the publishing firm of Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones of London.

1877 - England's Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India.

1894 - The Manchester Ship Canal opened.

1901 - The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia federated as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton was appointed the new country's first Prime Minister.

1906 - British India officially adopted Indian Standard Time.

1948 - British railways were nationalized to form British Rail.

1957 - An Irish Republican Army unit attacked the Brookeborough barracks of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in one of the most famous incidents of the IRA's Operation Harvest.

1973 - The United Kingdom joined the European Union.

1978 - South African Donald Woods, former editor of the East London Daily Dispatch, arrived in London having fled the apartheid regime after he and his family were targeted for his controversial friendship with Steve Biko; he was later portrayed by Kevin Kline in Sir Richard Attenborough's 1987 film Cry Freedom.

1984 - The Sultanate of Brunei gained its independence from the United Kingdom.

1985 - Britain's first mobile phone call was made by television comedian Ernie Wise - out of Morecambe and Wise - to Vodafone.

1995 - Gloucester builder turned serial killer Fred West was found hanging in his cell at Winson Green prison near Birmingham.
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Pop History Moment: Samuel Pepys Begins His Diary

Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain but upon taking of cold. I lived in Axe yard, having my wife and servant Jane, and no more in family than us three. My wife, after the absence of her terms for seven weeks, gave me hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year she hath them again...

When, on this day in 1660, Samuel Pepys of London began keeping a diary with those very words, nobody - least of all him - could have predicted the sweep of history he'd end up recording there during the nine-and-a-half years he kept at it.

While his take on the current events of the day - the Interregnum and the failure of Cromwell's Protectorate, the restoration of Charles II (at which he was present, having accompanied Sir Edward Montagu to the place of the King's exile at Breda, in the Netherlands), the Second Dutch War, the Great Plague of 1665, and the following year's Great Fire of London - make for an interesting enough read, it's the minutiae of his own life, from his illnesses to his petty squabbles to his lusty embraces, which are most enlightening, rendered as they are by him with great wit and extraordinary empathy.

Pepys protected his musings from prying eyes by keeping them in shorthand, which would take their eventual translator three years to decipher. Although the diary was initially begun for personal reasons, Pepys later rewrote and bound the pages he'd made, as well as indexing them in amongst his rather substantial library (which contained 3,000 volumes at his death, including the diary) as though he expected they would one day be published.

For all his modesty, Pepys was as illustrious as his colleagues in the Royal Society, men such as Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Christopher Wren; his friend John Evelyn remembered him as 'universally beloved, hospitable, generous, learned in many things'. First a civil servant and later an MP, Samuel Pepys walked amongst some of the most illustrious people of any age as one of their own. For all his erudition, though, Pepys could never have foreseen that one day his old words would be given new life on a thing called the Internet in a thing called a blog, which it is; the link is on the blogroll here at the Pop Culture Institute, as well as behind the picture, but I'll include it here too.

Pepys - born in February 1633 - abandoned his diary in May 1669; he died in May 1703.
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"Happy New Year" by ABBA

Happy New Year, which appears on ABBA's 1980 album Super Trouper, is not a song with which I was familiar before I first posted it on this day in 2008; I find it oddly reassuring that, as much as I know about ABBA, there is still so much left to learn... Others of you - Mr. Barr, for instance - might find this possibility disturbing, I know, which I find hilarious.

Here, then, are Agnetha, Benny, Anni-Frid, and Bjorn working their usual magic...
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POPnews - January 1st

[Vancouver's sylvan Point Grey neighbourhood (in the foreground) is possessed of some of the city's finest homes, which are themselves occupied by some of the city's most insufferably stuck-up people - and that's really saying something, given the massive influx of nouveau-riche douchebags the city as a whole has seen over the last decade.]
1804 - French rule ended in Haiti, which became the world's first black republic and the first colony in the West Indies to gain its independence, under Jean-Jacques Dessalines - one of two generals who served under Toussaint L'Ouverture. (The other was Henri Christophe.)

1810 - Major-General Lachlan Macquarie officially became Governor of New South Wales.

1880 - Ferdinand de Lesseps began the French phase of construction on the Panama Canal.

1912 - The Republic of China was established.

1929 - The former municipalities of Point Grey and South Vancouver were amalgamated into Vancouver.

1950 - The state of Ajaigarh was ceded to the Government of India.

1956 - The Republic of the Sudan gained its independence from the Egyptian Republic and the United Kingdom.

1959 - Fulgencio Batista, president of Cuba, was overthrown by Fidel Castro's forces during the Cuban Revolution.

1960 - The Republic of Cameroon gained its independence from France and the United Kingdom.

1962 - Western Samoa gained its independence from New Zealand and changed its name to the Independent State of Western Samoa.

1965 - The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan was founded in Kabul.

1966 - Following a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa assumed power as president of the Central African Republic.

1982 - Peruvian Javier Pérez de Cuéllar became the first Latin American to hold the title of Secretary General of the United Nations.

1986 - Aruba gained its independence from Curaçao, though it remains in free association with the Kingdom of the Netherlands to this day.

1994 - The Zapatista Army of National Liberation initiated twelve days of armed conflict in the Mexican State of Chiapas.

1997 - Ghanaian diplomat Kofi Annan was appointed Secretary General of the United Nations.

2000 - As the world celebrated, no major crisis arose from the dreaded Y2K computer 'millennium bug'.
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Happy 2011!

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