In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.

1955's Montgomery Bus Boycott was a pivotal moment for civil rights in the United States not just because it began the long, slow process of breaking the back of racism in America, but because it propelled to prominence a Baptist minister by the name of Martin Luther King Jr.; only 26 years old at the time, King went on to found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference predicated on the belief that intolerance and bigotry are antithetical to religious practice.

Born on this day in 1929 in Atlanta, Mr. King became Dr. King just six months before his calling became a crusade; by then he'd already been pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, for two years.

As an activist, Dr. King's methods were modeled on those of India's Mohandas K. 'Mahatma' Gandhi, namely civil disobedience and peaceful protest to achieve stated goals. Gradually the violence with which these peaceful protests were met began to win more and more people to the cause of civil rights; among the earliest white supporters, the Quakers, threw the resources of their American Friends Service Committee behind the cause. The Quakers, it should be noted, had also been instrumental in abolitionism, which movement reached its zenith with the Underground Railroad of a century earlier.

From the early days of the movement, Dr. King's right hand man was the more overtly militant Bayard Rustin, who had campaigned to end discrimination in the US Armed Forces during World War II and later helped to organize the Freedom Rides of the late 1940s.

In the dozen years of his national prominence Dr. King achieved much, much of it as due to Rustin's persistence as his own; the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was attended by a quarter million people, who heard King announce 'I Have a Dream' and soon enough his dream was theirs. Despite attempts by Senator Strom Thurmond to slander King's relationship with Rustin - and by extension the entire movement - and the NAACP's chairman Roy Wilkins ironically bigoted refusal to give Rustin his due, King remained stalwart in his support of Rustin.

King, of course, never lived to see his dream realized; the cynical might say he never would, since such a high-flown ideal might seem well-nigh impossible. Despite the prickly issue that race remains in America today, though, one would have to be thoroughly blindered to say that African-Americans aren't better off today than they were in April 1968 on the day King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

Not only is King's birthday a national holiday (observed in all 50 states since 2000) it seems every item he touched is treated as a holy relic and every place with any connection to him is a National Monument, which is as it should be. While King had his faults - for which of us doesn't - his qualities far outshone his frailties, and the progress he set in motion wouldn't be halted by James Earl Ray's bullet but accelerated instead.
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Pop History Moment: The Coronation of Elizabeth I

Given the years of uncertainty that had preceded it, by the time the 25-year-old Elizabeth attained the throne following the death of her half-sister Mary she must have felt like the most vindicated person in the entire kingdom. From the sumptuously appointed Royal Apartments at the Tower of London - where her mother Anne Boleyn had slept the night before her execution and where Elizabeth herself had spent time as a prisoner - she rode out along the Strand to Westminster to show herself to her people, by tradition, on the day before her coronation.

Pausing beside the royal menagerie as she departed Tower Hill, for the crowd's benefit she compared herself to Daniel in the Lion's Den, a fitting metaphor for her life thus far, and (as it turned out) equally apt for the life she was about to undertake. Five pageants were performed for her benefit along the way - at Gracechurch Street, Cornhill, Soper's Lane, Little Conduit in Cheapside, and Fleet Street - and at each one she stopped the procession to watch; when each was done she offered her thanks and praise, which was inevitably met with cheers by the mighty crowds.

At the suggestion of Lord Robert Dudley (Elizabeth's newly appointed Master of the Horse and one of her favourites at court) the date of her coronation - January 15th - had been carefully chosen by the noted astrologer Dr. John Dee as the most propitious; given the way history played out (Elizabeth's reign would stretch to 45 years, one of the longest) it was one of the rare times Dee had been right. As for the coronation itself, the rite was laid out in the Liber Regalis, which didn't stop the Queen from adding her own reforming touches.

Owing to a sudden dearth of clergymen - some too old, some too Catholic, some too dead - the service would be conducted by Owen Oglethorpe, the Bishop of Carlisle, and one of the most junior clerics in the realm. There was tension between them; she had stormed out of a service he officiated three weeks earlier on Christmas morning because it had been too Papist. Suitably chastised, he behaved himself thereafter.

When her procession departed from Westminster Hall on this day in 1559 she was lavishly outfitted in her 'Parliament robes' of crimson; by the time she arrived at Westminster Abbey a short time later she was in tatters, her robes having been cut to ribbons by well-wishers seeking a good luck token. Once there she changed into golden robes for the coronation itself...

A coronation is a solemn enough religious ritual in itself, but there is every indication that Elizabeth regarded it as nothing short of a wedding to her people; having recently lived through her predecessor's disastrous (and disastrously unpopular) marriage to Philip II of Spain, not to mention her own recent entanglements with Thomas Seymour (the husband of her stepmother Catherine Parr) Elizabeth's resolve to remain unmarried in the traditional sense seems to have hardened early.

In due time she was anointed, then finally ornamented, appearing much as she does in the portrait above; once she was crowned she again exchanged her robes (this time for purple ones) and returned to Westminster Hall for the obligatory sumptuous banquet. Following the sombre occasion of the coronation, throughout the remainder of the evening she was laughing and joyous - which while it offended the older members of the nobility, gave her people immense pleasure, and they loved her for it.

Though it was her determination to rule by wise counsel, she knew well enough that it was the people for whom she reigned, and she always made sure they knew it as well.
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"Ghost" by Howie Day

Whatever ghosts have haunted Howie Day in the past, it's the sincere hope of the Pop Culture Institute that this year for his birthday - today, natch! - he exorcises the crap out of it and finally gets some peace of mind. Although, for a sensitive singer-songwriter* like him, the kind of troubles he's had aren't so much problems as solutions to the age-old dilemna of what to write about...

The song Ghost originally appeared on Day's self-released 2000 album Australia, which was re-released in 2002 after Day signed a contract with Epic Records; he's seen here performing it on The Late Late Show during the tenure of its second host, Craig Kilborn.

*Albeit a sensitive singer-songwriter with a propensity for some serious douchebaggery, given the nature of said troubles...
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POPnews - January 15th

[From its cramped if elegant riverside headquarters in Bloomsbury's Montagu House, the British Museum moved to South Kensington, where Sir Robert Smirke designed a vast neo-classical complex to house the nation's treasures; between 1825 and 1850 it would be the largest building site in Europe.]
69 CE - Otho seized power in Rome, making him the second in the so-called Year of the Four Emperors; he ruled for only three months before committing suicide.

1559 - Elizabeth I was crowned queen of England at Westminster Abbey in London.

1759 - The British Museum was opened to the public at Montagu House in the tony Bloomsbury section of London at the behest (and due to the bequest) of Sir Hans Sloane.

1777 - New Connecticut - better known these days as Vermont - declared its independence from the United Kingdom; it would not join the United States until March 1791, at which time it became the 14th state.

1822 - During the Greek War of Independence, Demetrius Ypsilantis was elected president of the legislative assembly.

1844 - The University of Notre Dame received its charter from the state of Indiana.

1885 - Wilson Bentley took his first photograph of a snowflake, which was the first one ever taken.

1919 - The Boston Molasses Disaster killed 21 people; meanwhile, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of Germany's most prominent socialists, were tortured and murdered by the Freikorps in Berlin.

1943 - The world's largest office building, The Pentagon, was dedicated in Arlington, Virginia.

1947 - The brutalized corpse of Elizabeth Short was found in Los Angeles' Leimert Park; her story has been told in James Ellroy's 1987 book The Black Dahlia as well as Brian De Palma's 2006 movie of the same name, which was based on it.

1951 - Ilse Koch, the Bitch of Buchenwald or Buchenwälder Schlampe, was sentenced to life in prison for her role as wife of Karl Otto Koch, commandant of the concentration camps Buchenwald (1937-41) and Majdanek (1941-3); having met and married in 1936 while she was working as a secretary at Sachsenhausen, near Berlin, they were soon embezzling from and murdering prisoners at their own whim.

1966 - The government of Nigeria's Abubakar Tafawa Balewa is overthrown in a military coup d’état.

1967 - The first Super Bowl was played - in Los Angeles, California - during which the Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10.

1969 - The Soviet Union launched Soyuz 5.

1974 - Dennis Rader (better known as the BTK Killer) claimed his first victims by binding, torturing and killing four members of the Otero family - Joseph, Joseph II, Josephine and Julie - in their Sedgwick County home, near Wichita.

1982 - Mark Thatcher, the son of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was found safe after going missing in the Sahara Desert during his inaugural Paris-Dakar Rally with co-driver Charlotte Verney and their mechanic, known only as Jackie.

1986 - The Living Seas exhibit opened at EPCOT Center in Florida's Walt Disney World.

1997 - Princess Diana caused a political firestorm - in the UK and throughout the world - by advocating against the use of anti-personnel ordnance, or land mines, during a visit to Angola; her actions are said to have shamed many nations into signing the Ottawa Treaty. Despite her efforts, though, the People's Republic of China, India, the United States and Russia have yet to sign the treaty, despite being amongst the foremost users of these devices.

2001 - Wikipedia, the free Wiki content encyclopedia, went online; despite numerous and often frustrating inconsistencies, the Pop Culture Institute is nevertheless grateful for its innovation.
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"San Francisco" by Jeanette MacDonald

Today we mark the passing - on this day in 1965 - of movie songstress Jeanette MacDonald, whose semi-operatic warblings (often opposite Maurice Chevalier or, more famously, Nelson Eddy) graced many a movie during her nearly forty year career...

One such film for which she was rightly acclaimed was the 1936 classic San Francisco, directed by WS 'Woody' Van Dyke and centered around the events of the April 1906 earthquake which devastated that city. Co-starring both Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, the clip shown here - of her singing the film's iconic title song - is as it appeared after undergoing the colorization process by order of Ted Turner in the 1980s; while I am not normally a fan of the process* in this instance I think it gives the proceedings the look of the era's hand-tinted postcards and the like.

*Which so offended the culturati - and rightly so - that it led to the creation of the National Film Registry, to preserve the work of filmmakers from any future ruination of the sort...
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Pop History Moment: The Ascension of Denmark's Queen Margrethe II

When on this day in 1972 Denmark's King Frederick IX died and his daughter succeeded him as Margrethe II, more than the orderly transition of constitutional authority was achieved; a referendum in 1953 had affirmed a major change to the country's Act of Succession, setting aside male preference primogeniture and therefore her uncle Prince Knud as heir apparent, destining her to become the first queen regnant in that Scandinavian country since the death of her namesake Margrethe I in October 1412.

Both down-to-Earth and intellectual, Her Majesty's popularity has remained consistently high throughout her reign; ably aided by her consort Prince Henrik and her heir, Crown Prince Frederik, Margrethe II has ensured the enduring success of the House of Glücksburg for more than 35 years, and thankfully she shows no sign of slowing down...

Længe leve Dronningen*!

*Long live the Queen!
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In Memoriam: Russ Columbo

When the hugely popular crooner Russ Columbo died as a result of an accidental shooting at the age of 26 in September 1934 it came as a shock to many Americans; one American who wasn't shocked in the least was his own mother, who spent the last ten years of her life believing her youngest son was still alive, thanks entirely to the subterfuge of her husband and other 11 children. It was thought the shock of the news would kill her, so she went to her grave merely believing her son couldn't be bothered to visit her, rather than that he had died...

Born on this day in 1908, Russ Columbo seemed to live his life as though he knew he didn't have long to live it; he began playing the violin as a child, made his professional debut as a singer at 13, and had dropped out of school to pursue a career by 17. In 1928, as the movies began to talk, he was one of the first people to whom they beckoned, and it was on celluloid that his angelic voice and matinee idol looks merged to create an icon.

So while he made the most of the time he was given - indeed, he took his final bow as one of the biggest stars in the world - Russ Columbo's legacy fell into neglect after not too many years as musical tastes and styles evolved; recently, though, scholars of the obscure (myself humbly included among their number) have sought to revive interest in the suave presence and smooth phrasing of a man praised by such longer-lived contemporaries as Rudy Vallee and Bing Crosby. Both Joseph Lanza and Dennis Penna's Russ Columbo and the Crooner Mystique and Russ Columbo: The Amazing Life and Mysterious Death of a Hollywood Singing Legend by Lou Miano explore the unique appeal and untimely end of this paragon of cool from a bygone age...
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Remembering... Ricardo Montalban

By the time he sashayed onto the immaculate lawn overlooking the float-plane launch on Fantasy Island, Ricardo Montalbán had already had a long career as a B-movie himbo in which he frequently played the quintessential gigolo with a swarthy hirsuteness and a tan like 'soft Corinthian leather'... In short, exactly the kind of man who is always appreciated here at the Pop Culture Institute.

So while playing Mr. Roarke may have given Montalbán a kind of pop immortality, it was his performance as Khan Noonien Singh in both a 1967 episode of Star Trek (entitled Space Seed) and the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan that best demonstrated his range, even though he'd previously played a samurai (in Sayonara), and an Indian in Westerns - in addition to the more expected bullfighters, flamenco dancers, and calypso singers.

In a movie career spanning seven decades, Montalbán did it all, but preserving his integrity seems to have been uppermost on his mind, despite the silliness inherent in acting (and the extreme silliness inherent in acting for minorities); in 1970 he co-founded the Nosotros Foundation (with Richard Hernandez, Val de Vargas, Rudolfo Hoyos Jr., Carlos Rivas, Tony de Marco, and Henry Darrow) in order to promote more positive portrayals of Mexicans in Hollywood. Although he claims the political stance cost him work, it garnered him a great deal of respect; to this day the Nosotros American Latino Film Festival (NALFF) is held annually at the Ricardo Montalbán Theater in Los Angeles.

He died on this day in 2009 at his home in Los Angeles of an undisclosed cause, predeceased by his wife Georgiana Young; he was 88.
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Pop History Moment: Joe DiMaggio Marries Marilyn Monroe

It is said that love is blind, but on this day in 1954 love also had to be deaf, for it was on just such a day that newly-retired baseball hero Joe DiMaggio married up-and-coming screen goddess Marilyn Monroe at San Francisco City Hall. There were howls of derision from every corner at the announcement that they had eloped - and this was in the days before the blogosphere!

Almost instantly, everything went wrong; in February, while on honeymoon in Japan, Monroe was invited to perform for American troops in Korea. She gladly went, and there worked her magic; DiMaggio, meanwhile, stayed behind in Japan and fumed while his bride - despite crippling stage fright - performed ten legendary shows for 100,000 soldiers over four days in subzero temperatures.

Not that he was ever out of the loop; wherever Marilyn went cameras followed, and her every move was reported as breathlessly as anything she performed in her act. By the time she filmed her famous scene over the subway grate in front of New York's Trans-Lux Theater in September 1954 (for Billy Wilder's classic film The Seven Year Itch) the marriage was effectively over, done in as much by his jealousy as her ambition.

The filming was entirely a publicity stunt, and quickly became a media circus; the scene eventually used in the movie had to be recreated in a studio as the crowds on the corner of 52nd Street and Lexington Avenue that night were vociferous in their admiration for that blondest of bombshells. DiMaggio, accompanied by Walter Winchell, stood by and glowered; every time her skirt blew up he looked away in disgust. The newlyweds later exchanged heated words in the lobby of the theater and he left early; she stayed and doled out smiles a-plenty to the crowd she'd drawn.

Marilyn and Joe's own seven-year itch proved to be a 274 day itch; Marilyn filed for divorce in October on the grounds of 'mental cruelty'. Still, the couple remained close until the day Marilyn died in August 1962, and for his part Joltin' Joe never kissed and told, taking their secrets to the grave with him in March 1999 despite numerous and increasingly lucrative offers for their story.
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POPnews - January 14th

[The Human Be-In expressed the highest ideals of the 1960s counterculture - ideals that would soon enough be undone by the highest members of the movement's leadership; still, people like artist Michael Bowen and poet Allen Ginsberg were definitely on to something... For liberating people unsuited to the treadmill of the bourgeoisie (myself included) they and their ilk will forever be considered heroes, at least by me.]
1301 - King Andrew III died, ending the Arpad dynasty in Hungary; he was succeeded there by Wenceslas III of Bohemia, who took the throne as Ladislaus V, and in Croatia by Charles I.

1639 - The Fundamental Orders, the first written constitution that created a government in Western history, was adopted by the council of the Connecticut Colony; to this day Connecticut is known as the Constitution State for this singular contribution to democracy.

1724 - Spain's King Philip V abdicated, only to be restored seven months later in August when his son and successor Louis died of smallpox six days after his 17th birthday.

1761 - The Third Battle of Panipat was fought in India between the Afghans under Ahmad Shah Durrani and the French-supplied Marathas; the Afghan victory changed the course of Indian history by allowing the British to gain a military advantage in the Subcontinent over the Marathas, who sustained heavy casualties.

1832 - Edgar Allan Poe published his first short story, Metzengerstein.

1858 - Emperor Napoleon III of France and his wife Eugénie escaped assassination while on their way to the opera in Paris; the botched attempt was plotted by Italian nationalist Felice Orsini and carried out with the assistance of Giuseppe Pieri, Antonio Gomez and Carlo di Rudio. While the royal couple were unhurt by the trio of bomb blasts, eight others were killed and 142 were injured in the attempt, including Orsini himself.

1939 - Norway claimed Queen Maud Land in Antarctica; this claim has never been universally recognized, and is subject to the Antarctic Treaty System.

1942 - The US government began its internment of Japanese-Americans; Japanese-Canadians experienced a similar atrocity on the same day in British Columbia.

1943 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met at the Casablanca Conference to discuss strategy and study the next phase of World War II.

1952 - The Today Show, the world's first morning/breakfast program, premiered on NBC.

1953 - Marshal Josip Broz Tito was elected President of Yugoslavia, replacing Ivan Ribar.

1954 - The Hudson Motor Car Company merged with Nash-Kelvinator Corporation to form the American Motors Corporation.

1967 - Between 20,000 and 30,000 people attended the Human Be-In in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, the event which launched that year's Summer of Love.

1972 - Queen Margrethe II ascended the throne of Denmark following the death of her father Frederick IX, thanks to a referendum in May 1953 which changed the rules of succession; not only was she the first queen regnant in that country since Margrethe I died in October 1412, she was the first Danish monarch not named Frederick or Christian since the death of King John in February 1513.

1975 - Teenage heiress Lesley Whittle was kidnapped by serial killer Donald Neilson, who was known as the Black Panther; her body was discovered seven weeks later, in March 1975.

1990 - L. Douglas Wilder became the first elected African-American governor when he took office in Richmond, Virginia.

1994 - US President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the Kremlin accords; on the same day, England's Duchess of Kent converted to Roman Catholicism, the first member of the Royal Family to do so for 300 years.

2004 - The so-called five cross flag of Georgia (the country, not the state) was restored to official use after a hiatus of some 500 years.

2005 - The European Space Agency's Huygens probe landed near the Xanadu region of Saturn's moon Titan, having been launched in October 1997.
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In Memoriam: Sophie Tucker

Rather than being stung by the criticism of theatre owners and vaudeville bookers, who frequently told her she was 'too fat and ugly' to appear onstage (exactly the kind of charming sentiment which is the downfall, rather than the uplift, of showbiz) Sophie Tucker persisted anyway, and soon enough won hearts and minds with a style of ribald self-deprecation which never lapsed into self-pity - probably because it was born of defiance!

Born on this day in 1884, Tucker was renowned for her ability to sing the blues in the style of such black divas as Bessie Smith, Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey, and Ethel Waters; although in her early career she was compelled to wear blackface, she found the practice distasteful and when she fought to wipe her face clean, she was one of the first to do so. After the theft of her makeup case prior to a 1909 performance, she was so hailed by audiences that she was never asked to wear it again, blazing a trail that would eventually see the disgraceful practice of minstrelsy abolished altogether.

Not content to merely mimic black performers - as was Kate Smith, for instance - Tucker took training from them, and was rewarded with their respect for having done so. Rising above her status as a so-called 'coon shouter' - which is such a lovely term* - Tucker also mined her Jewish heritage for material; one of her most famous songs was called My Yiddish Momme, a sentimental tribute to motherhood which routinely got everyone in the audience right in the heart.

Despite being 'fat and ugly' Tucker was known as 'The Last of the Red Hot Mamas', and not just because her jokes could scorch wallpaper at a dozen paces. One of her racier burlesque songs was called Bounce Your Boobies; given the copious and earthy sexuality on display in her act, I have no doubt that she bounced her boobies offstage as much or more than she did on.

Tucker's experiences in the early days of show business galvanized her politically in more ways than one; she was instrumental in the creation of unions to protect performers and was even elected President of the American Federation of Actors in 1938.

Sophie Tucker died in 1966, just in time for a certain frizzy-haired upstart from Hawai'i - herself a study in contradictions - to take up Tucker's considerable mantle...

*NOT!
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Happy Birthday Richard Moll

During an amazing nine-year run on NBC's Night Court - from 1984 to 1992 - Richard Moll's considerable presence could be counted on to liven up what was already a pretty lively proceeding; as bailiff Bull Shannon he used all of his six feet eight-and-a-half inches to intimidate suspects, but fortunately the show's writers decided to dispense with stereotypes when imbuing his character with hidden depths and gentle wisdom...

Born in Pasadena on this day in 1943, Moll's first film role was the 1981 film Hard Country, which starred Jan-Michael Vincent and Kim Basinger; the same year he voiced a beat poet in Ralph Bakshi's rotoscoped cult classic American Pop. For sheer camp appeal, though, neither of them had anything on his 1983 appearance in Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn.

It was his role in Night Court, however, that made Richard Moll a household name; for sheer visual amusement, nothing could beat his sparring with gravelly-voiced co-star Selma Diamond, who was seemingly as short as he is tall. Moll later relied on a similar effect when he co-hosted Friday Night Videos opposite ALF, making for one of the more indelible viewing experiences of my teenage years.

After Night Court went off the air, Moll returned to the life of the itinerant actor he had known before it, albeit now with an, er, even higher profile* and the sweet, sweet residuals that make the life of the working actor all the more bearable. Among his notable recent film roles was in the 1999 film But I'm a Cheerleader, in which he played against type as a gay man who, with Wesley Mann (as his partner) helps kids escape from an anti-gay re-education camp. Moll also works extensively as voice-over talent in the burgeoning field of animation.

*Higher than 6'8.5"?
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"Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash

It's not that Johnny Cash recording an album - even a live album - was such an achievement; Cash was - and still is - one of the most prolific recording artists in American history...

The fact that he not only recorded an album entitled At Folsom Prison - which he actually recorded live at the actual Folsom Prison, and for an audience of actual convicts, no less! - was something that the music press and the general public at the time had some trouble getting their heads around. Yet Cash had been sensitive to the plight of the incarcerated ever since seeing the film Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison (1951) while in the service, and it obviously made an impression on him; shortly thereafter he wrote this song, Folsom Prison Blues, which became a staple of his set list.

His appearance at Folsom Prison on this day in 1968 was not Cash's first prison concert nor would it be his last; in fact, At Folsom Prison was so popular the following year he recorded Johnny Cash at San Quentin*. Nor were his sympathies only with American prisoners; in 1972 Cash recorded På Österåker at Sweden's Österåker Prison - which was released the following year - and on which he can be heard speaking Swedish!

The secret to success in any field is consistency, and consistency is the hallmark of Johnny Cash's life and works; in his private life Cash advocated for prison reform, going so far as to use his fame to gain access to President Richard Nixon to discuss the cause in 1972.

*Which is where this clip comes from...
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Gratuitous Brunette: Orlando Bloom

It was several years ago now that Kingdom of Heaven, Sir Ridley Scott's epic film about the Crusades, found its way into the collection of the Pop Culture Institute; when the film was released in 2005, certain critics were heard to bemoan the sad state of the action film when someone like Orlando Bloom could be one of the genre's biggest stars.

It's too bad, really, that an addiction to bitch pills seems to be a prerequisite for becoming a movie critic...

The notion of a Stallone or a Schwarzeneggar portraying Legolas (for instance) is worse than laughable, it's nausea-inducing; alas, such is collective 'mind' of the criticocracy that progress and innovation are anathema to them, except in retrospect.

On this, his 34th birthday, just let me say that if there were more action films starring actors like Orlando Bloom - who can at least act - I might watch more of them myself. That way, even if the script is bad - a pretty good bet with most action films - at least there's someone to look at onscreen whose neck isn't wider than his head, and whose head is filled with more than sets and reps...
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POPnews - January 13th

[Johnny Cash first recorded Folsom Prison Blues in 1955, which is when his zeal for prison reform was born; he had to wait a dozen years, however, to see his dream of performing live for prisoners made a reality... That's when Columbia Records executive Bob Johnston finally let him do it, even going so far as to produce the groundbreaking album himself. Cash's empathy for that segment of the population least likely to receive it was a hallmark of his unique brand of humanism, and accounts for much of his popularity still.]
1435 - The papal bull Sicut Dudum was promulgated by Pope Eugene IV, banning the enslavement of baptized black natives in the Canary Islands by raiders from rivals Portugal and the Kingdom of Castile, who both laid claim to the mid-Atlantic island chain; it was intended to strengthen a previous encyclical, Creator Omnium, which he'd published in December 1434. Like most such documents it was largely ignored, even upon fear of excommunication, although it was later clarified in Pope Nicholas V's Romanus Pontifex of January 1455 that the enslavement of unbaptized blacks was still perfectly alright, since they were 'the enemies of Christ'... And because, y'know, that's what Jesus would do.

1547 - Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey was sentenced to death; the little-known life story of this 'flamboyant and controversial' courtier is told in the book Henry VIII's Last Victim: The Life and Times of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey by Jessie Childs.

1766 - Denmark's King Frederick V died; he was succeeded by his son, who reigned as Christian VII.

1822 - The design of the Greek flag was adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus.

1840 - The steamship Lexington caught fire four miles off the coast of Long Island, sinking early the next morning with the loss of 139 lives; there were just four survivors.

1842 - Dr. William Brydon, a surgeon in the British Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, became famous for being the sole survivor of an army of 16,500 when he reached the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad.

1847 - The Treaty of Cahuenga ended the Mexican-American War in California.

1898 - Emile Zola's open letter to the people of France entitled J'accuse exposed the Dreyfus Affair.

1908 - Pennsylvania's Rhoads Opera House in Boyertown caught fire, killing 171 people.

1913 - Delta Sigma Theta Sorority was founded on the campus of Howard University as the second black Greek letter organization for women; its mission from the beginning was to engage in social activism.

1915 - An earthquake in Avezzano, Italy, killed 29,800.

1939 - Australia's Black Friday bush fires burnt 20,000 square kilometres near Melbourne claiming the lives of 71 people.

1964 - Sectarian rioting erupted in the Indian city of Kolkata - resulting in the deaths of more than 100 people.

1968 - Johnny Cash recorded his landmark album At Folsom Prison live at California's Folsom State Prison backed by June Carter, Carl Perkins, and Cash's band, the Tennessee Three. Cash actually recorded two shows there that day, with 13 songs from the first show and two from the second eventually making it onto the album.

1972 - Prime Minister Kofi Busia and President Edward Akufo-Addo of Ghana were ousted in a bloodless military coup by Col. Ignatius Kutu Acheamphong.

1974 - Seraphim was elected Archbishop of Athens and All Greece.

1982 - Shortly after takeoff Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into Washington DC's 14th Street Bridge and fell into the Potomac River, killing 78 (including four motorists); the crash also caused a commuter train to derail, killing 3 more.

2001 - An earthquake struck El Salvador, killing more than 800.

2004 - Serial killer Harold Shipman - a medical doctor believed to be responsible for the deaths of between 218 and 450 of his patients during the Shipman Inquiry - was found hanging in his cell at Wakefield Prison - which action thrilled the tabloid press and Home Secretary David Blunkett but which dismayed the families of his many victims and potential victims.
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All In The Family: "Meet The Bunkers"

On this day in 1971 a show which was definitely not your parents' sitcom made its debut on CBS. Only to say that All in the Family 'made its debut' is like saying a hurricane or an earthquake made its debut; what it did accomplish was nothing short of a revolution, sweeping aside its anodyne predecessors like the dust in which it left them...



Not only did Meet The Bunkers introduce a more honest generation gap than had ever been seen on television before into American living rooms, it promoted dialogue on taboos on a scale and to a degree which had never even been attempted, and have rarely been handled so elegantly since. It was and is a show conservatives and liberals alike could and can watch, laugh at - even think it's on their side, and not be wrong in either case. The series' overall message seemed to be: isn't it better to laugh at our differences than come to blows over them? At a time in which young people and the authorities were clashing in the streets - sometimes fatally - a show like this, which could so effectively clear the air on the vital issues of the day, seemed less like a sitcom and more like a public service...



Initially, however, producer Norman Lear had to talk Carroll O'Connor into doing it; a lifelong liberal, O'Connor worried about what his portrayal of arch-conservative Archie Bunker would do to his reputation. So while he initially accepted the role to mock the kind of character Archie was, over time O'Connor came to understand the kind of fear and lack of critical thinking which goes into making any bigot; over the course of the series he even helped bring the character to a kind of rapprochement with the rapidly changing world in which he found himself stranded.

Ably aided here by Jean Stapleton as Edith Bunker, Rob Reiner as Mike Stivic, Sally Struthers as Gloria, and Mike Evans as Lionel Jefferson, they and the rest of the cast would eventually guide their massive audience through eight perilous years of the 1970s without either repressing or denying the volatility of the times, but rather by embracing it. Now, thanks to the magic of DVD, you too can embrace All in the Family all over again...
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Pop History Moment: "All In The Family" Debuts

On this day in 1971 the first episode of All in the Family - entitled Meet The Bunkers - introduced the world to five characters - Archie Bunker, Edith Bunker, Mike Stivic, Gloria Bunker-Stivic, and Lionel Jefferson - who in their way would encourage greater dialogue about social issues in America than ten times as many do-gooders and do-badders (also known as politicians) could ever dream of doing. No issue was too sacred for them - many even too taboo at that point for most living rooms - and the touchiest issue of them all (even to this day) race was discussed more than any other.

For the next eight seasons (including five consecutive years as the number one show in the country) the sitcom antics emanating from that drab lower-middle-class home in Astoria electrified viewers as Archie (played to the hilt by Carroll O'Connor) struggled to cope with a changing world and his own role in it as both a white male and paterfamilias.

By no means, though, were the uber-liberal Mike (Rob Reiner) and Gloria (Sally Struthers) always right, which is what made the show as great as it was (and still is); the show's break out character, however, was Edith. As portrayed by Jean Stapleton Edith was, in the words of series producer Norman Lear, a kind of Christ figure - long-suffering, wise and compassionate.

All in the Family was itself based on a British sitcom called Til Death Us Do Part, created by Johnny Speight and aired on the CBS television network. It spawned the equally popular spin-offs Maude and The Jeffersons, the less popular shows Gloria and 704 Hauser and inspired Hanna-Barbera's animated series Wait Till Your Father Gets Home; so popular was the show that even its spin-offs had spin-offs. Good Times spun off of Maude, and Checking In spun off of The Jeffersons.
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In Memoriam: John Singer Sargent

Proof of John Singer Sargent's genius is not in the pudding, but rather in the impasto; any further proof one might require should come from the envy of his success shown by his contemporaries and the critical drubbing his work received while he was alive. Indeed, the work which was Sargent's favourite and which is today considered his finest work - 1884's Portrait of Madame X - was widely panned when it was first shown. There's a lesson in there somewhere for today's cultural workers of all kinds, but I can't quite put my finger on it...

Sargent's career was prolific, resulting in more than 900 paintings, 2000 watercolours, and numerous drawings; he is renowned for his portraits - whether socialites, writers, or politicians - but he created landscapes as well. Later in life he also took up sculpture.

Born on this day in 1856, Sargent was fortunate enough to train in the progressive atelier of Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran; Sargent's mentor favoured the alla prima method of painting which freed painters from a hidebound methodology that had been in use ever since the Renaissance, and would give rise to Impressionism.

Although born in Italy to American parents, Sargent spent most of his professional life in England; when one of his better known patrons, Edward VII, recommended him for a knighthood, though, he declined the offer.

Since most of his work was generated for commission, successive generations of artists have not venerated Sargent or his work anything like his considerable skills would suggest; English art critic Roger Fry, of the Bloomsbury Group, sniffed at Sargent's work in 1926, saying it lacked aesthetic quality. Then, as now, the successful, popular artist (whose acclaim, in this case, protected a scandalous private life from public approbation) is seen as worse than useless, while the wretch in the garret is the only 'real' artist.

Yet surely an essential component of aesthetics is the desire of people to look at the work, and today - more than eighty years after his death - ordinary people are still looking at the work of John Singer Sargent, despite what the pretentious might perceive as its shortcomings.
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"Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean" by Ruth Brown

Once the most popular female R&B singer in the world, Ruth Brown led a famous battle against Atlantic Records and lost, following which her once-glittering career went into a sharp decline; rediscovered in the 1970s, her comeback included more than concerts, but TV and movies as well. In 1979 she appeared in the short-lived (and much-mocked) sitcom Hello, Larry, and in 1986 she portrayed Motormouth Maybelle in John Waters' classic movie Hairspray.

Although she died in November 2006, today would have been her eighty-second birthday; here we see her in an early performance, assaying one of her classics, Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean.
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Remembering... Texas Guinan

Already famous in vaudeville and silent films as America's first movie cowgirl - nicknamed 'Queen of the West' - shortly after Prohibition was introduced Texas Guinan opened a speakeasy called the 300 Club at 151 W. 54th St. in Manhattan...

Her clarion call - 'Hello suckers!' - greeted young and old, famous and obscure alike, and they not only loved it, they loved her for it. Her patrons didn't come for the caustic greeting or stay for the over-priced turpentine passing for hooch but to rub elbows with the cream of society and to rub far naughtier things with the parade of scantily-clad dancers she employed; Ruby Keeler and George Raft were just two of the future stars who found fame (and Heaven knows what else) while working for her...

Riding high on her newfound notoriety as a proprietress, Guinan returned to the movies. Queen of the Night Clubs (1929) and Broadway Through a Keyhole (1933) both saw her playing thinly veiled versions of herself; equally thinly veiled portrayals of her have been assayed by Mae West in the George Raft movie Night After Night (1932) and Gladys George in The Roaring Twenties (1939). She's also been portrayed on film by Betty Hutton in Incendiary Blonde (1945) and in Splendor in the Grass (1961) by Phyllis Diller.  Sadly, a rumoured musical of her life starring Madonna seems unlikely to surface...

Born on this day in 1884, Texas Guinan's life 'closed out of town' - to use the showbiz parlance - while on tour in Vancouver; it's there she contracted amoebic dysentery and died in November 1933, one month before the repeal of Prohibition.
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Now Showing - "A Fine Romance: First Meeting"

The husband and wife team of Michael Williams and Judi Dench were already well-respected actors when they decided to undertake Bob Larbey's sitcom A Fine Romance in 1981; it would prove a wise choice, as the 26 episodes over four series would eventually garner nine BAFTA award nominations and win two, for Dench's performance, in 1982 and 1985.



Concerning a very different kind of star-crossed lovers than Williams and Dench had been classically trained to portray, A Fine Romance handles the entirely modern subject of social ineptitude amongst the middle-aged with a typically British elan; acting as ideal foils for Laura (Dench) and Mike (Williams) are Laura's sister Helen (Susan Penhaligon) and brother-in-law Phil (Richard Warwick), whose own seemingly perfect marriage fuels much of Laura's insecurity...



This episode of A Fine Romance - which, appropriately enough, was the pilot - is posted here today in memory of Michael Williams, who died on this day in 2001.  In addition to various stage and screen collaborations, their 30 year marriage produced a daughter, known as Finty Williams; Williams also has a son named Sam.
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In Memoriam: Alexander Hamilton

The more I read of Ron Chernow's massive biography Alexander Hamilton - which is one of those books where the more you read the more it seems there is of it to read - the more obvious it becomes that Hamilton's life and achievements warrant every word; 300 pages in and I find myself dreading the arrival of page 731, where it ends, almost as much as I fear that once I get there the ending will have somehow been moved back another 200 pages!

Born on this day in either 1755 or 1757 (record-keeping in those days being so much more conducive to myth-making than it is today) Hamilton's shocking early life - he was born, for instance, out of wedlock - or rather his zeal to overcome its stigma, seems to have motivated him to achieve as much as he did. Fortunately, his ambition was wedded to precocity and he lived in such interesting times that he was able to; alas, his predilection for scandalous behaviour must have been inborn. Even today he is not as fondly remembered as he might be because of it.

Orphaned in 1768, he arrived in New York City to study at King's College (the forerunner to Columbia University) in 1773; there he was soon embroiled in the cause of American Independence following the Boston Tea Party, which occurred within months of his arrival in the Thirteen Colonies.

As the first shots were being fired at the Battle of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts he joined a New York militia company called the Hearts of Oak in 1775; the following year he distinguished himself at the Battle of Harlem Heights, and thereafter he became close friend and confidante of General George Washington, whom he served as Chief of Staff.

As one of the most learned and eloquent framers of the US Constitution, Hamilton's imprimatur was all over the new government after September 1789; though officially he was the first Secretary of the Treasury (and so one of only two non-Presidents still featured on US currency - the other being the redoubtable Benjamin Franklin) his vision of a strong central government, advocacy for the placement of the capital at the site where it is today, and push for the creation of the US Coast Guard, represent just some of his positive innovations. He was also one of the founders of the Federalist Party; the introduction of the partisan element to American politics can be considered one of his negative contributions.

Already the principal author of the Federalist Papers, a series of essays which went a long way toward defining the new nation, in 1801 Hamilton founded the New-York Evening Post.

Yet even at this pinnacle, scandal was waiting to unseat him; his reputation was badly damaged by a liaison he conducted with Maria Reynolds which at one point involved his being blackmailed by her husband. Already married to Elizabeth Schuyler himself (since 1780) the whole mess caused Hamilton's resignation, which became the young Republic's first sex scandal; fortunately his enemies (who by now were legion) had no access to the wartime letters Hamilton had exchanged with either John Laurens or the Marquis de Lafayette - laden as they were with allusions to 'the unspeakable vice of the Greeks*' - or things would have been much worse.

In the end, of course, it was yet another scandal which brought about Hamilton's death; easily the most famous duel in US history, in July 1804 tensions between himself and Vice-President Aaron Burr which had been simmering for years boiled over when Hamilton slandered Burr by implying he'd been involved in an act of incest. They met at the Heights of Weehawken (New York state had long since outlawed duelling, but New Jersey hadn't) where Burr fatally shot his nemesis.

Hamilton was removed to his country estate, The Grange, where he died of his injuries the following day, July 12th; he was 49. The home where he died is now preserved as a museum.

*Butt sex between two dudes.
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"No More Drama" by Mary J. Blige

While in the past the video for No More Drama had been unavailable to me for embedding - forcing me to rely on an entirely adequate live performance in lieu of it in 2009 - on this day in 2010 I received a pleasant surprise... As I was engaged in my usual hunting and gathering for the day's posts there, in all her diva glory, was Mary J. Blige and the embed code for her very moving video!

The title track of Blige's 2001 fifth album No More Drama, produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, was the second single from the album, and climbed charts around the world; featuring a sample of Nadia's Theme (more popularly known as the theme to the soap opera The Young and the Restless), the song's message is one which is eagerly embraced by the Pop Culture Institute, the majority of whose drama involves finding and keeping videos posted despite the constant depredation on them by various ill-willed record labels.
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