"A Good Heart" by Feargal Sharkey

Birthday wishes go out today to the man partially responsible for one of the more wonderful one-hit wonders of the Eighties, Feargal Sharkey.

Written by accomplished hit-maker Maria McKee, it was nonetheless Sharkey's version of A Good Heart which went to the top of several international pop charts, including Australia and The Netherlands as well as the UK; although McKee wrote the song about her relationship with Benmont Tench - keyboard player with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - like any good pop song its message is universally relatable. It probably helps that for the first few weeks it was in heavy rotation almost everyone thought it was being sung by a woman, anyway.

The track achieved its greatest notoriety when Sarah Ferguson said it was her favourite in an interview on the eve of her wedding to Prince Andrew; the fact that it disappeared from the radio almost overnight is entirely a coincidence.

A n y w a y... Try as he might, Sharkey's quaver was unable to make so much as a peep with his follow up, You Little Thief, which - get this! - was written by Benmont Tench in reply to Maria McKee's original salvo and is also, in my arrogant opinion, a much better song. To quote Bart Simpson: 'George Burns was right... Show business is a hideous bitch goddess.'
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POPnews - August 13th

[As this map shows, the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan was a marvel of
civil engineering; alas, it was built by ignorant pagans, and so
it had to go. Currently it - and Lake Texcoco, in which it was
built - now reside several layers beneath Mexico City.]
1521 - Hernan Cortes finally succeeded in capturing the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, having destroyed much of it in the process of a ten-week siege; the city would be rebuilt - albeit far less efficiently - along the lines of a Spanish city, and many of Mexico City's problems today (chief among them a copious and stable water supply) can be traced to this event.

1553 - Michael Servetus was arrested for heresy in Geneva at the instigation of John Calvin; although Servetus was many things - including one of the most learned men of science and medicine of his day - he hadn't yet learned that being smart was (and still is) a pretty good way to fall foul of religious authorities, whatever their denomination. Following a brief show trial, Servetus would be burned at the stake on October 27th (which I'm sure is what Jesus would have done).

1704 - During the War of the Spanish Succession, English and Austrian forces commanded by the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy were victorious over those of France and Bavaria led by Duc de Tallard, Ferdinand de Marsin, and Maximilian II Emanuel at the Battle of Blenheim. For his efforts, Marlborough was awarded the Park of Woodstock by Queen Anne and given £240,000 to build a house within it; to this day Blenheim Palace is the only palace in Britain not held in trust for the Nation by the Royal Family, and still serves as the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough.

1792 - France's King Louis XVI was formally arrested by the National Tribunal, declared an enemy of the people, and imprisoned at the Temple; he would soon be joined there by his queen Marie Antoinette, his heir (the erstwhile Louis XVII), his daughter Princess Marie-Thérèse, and his sister Madame Élisabeth.

1814 - The Convention of London - a treaty between the United Kingdom and the United Provinces - was signed by Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and Hendrik Fagel in London.

1913 - Otto Witte may or may not have been crowned King of Albania; his training as an acrobat, which should have more than qualified him to rule, somehow didn't, although his megalomaniacal fantasies later made him something of a celebrity in Germany*.

*Who knew Germans could be so entertained by the megalomaniacal fantasies of a mad man? Go figure...

1918 - Opha Mae Johnson became the first woman to enlist in the United States Marine Corps; more than 300 others followed her on that first day alone.

1920 - During the Polish-Soviet War the Battle of Warsaw began; it took the army of the Second Polish Republic - commanded by Józef Piłsudski, Tadeusz Rozwadowski, and Władysław Sikorski - twelve days to defeat the Red Army troops of Leon Trotsky, Mikhail Tukhachevski, and Semyon Budyonny.

1937 - The Battle of Shanghai - the first of the twenty-two major engagements fought between China's National Revolutionary Army and the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War - began.

1940 - The second phase of the Battle of Britain began, when Luftwaffe fighters bombed British coastal airfields as part of Unternehmen Adlerangriff, or Operation Eagle Strike.

1960 - The Central African Republic declared its independence from France.

1961 - Berliners awoke to find their city divided.

1968 - Alexandros Panagoulis attempted to assassinate the Greek dictator Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos in the town of Varkiza, south of Athens.

1973 - Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.

1977 - At the so-called Battle of Lewisham protesters opposed to Britain's far-right National Front clashed with the neo-fascist group during an attempted march from New Cross to Lewisham in southeast London; despite employing their fancy new riot shields for the first time ever in the UK outside of Ulster - shields which would become a common enough sight in British streets over the next decade - 55 of the more than 3,000 members of the Metropolitan Police on hand that day were among the 111 injured, while more than 200 arrests were made from among the more than 5000 National Front supporters present and the 400 or so members of the Socialist Workers Party opposed to them taking their bigoted, ignorant hate-mongering to the streets.

1979 - The roof of the uncompleted Rosemont Horizon near Chicago collapsed, killing 5 workers and injuring 16.

1985 - Three-year-old Jamie Gavin became the youngest person ever to receive a heart-lung transplant, at London's Harefield Hospital.

1991 - The Prince of Wales resigned as patron of the Museum of Scotland all a-flap over architecture or some damn thing.

1996 - Belgian sex offender Marc Dutroux, his wife Michelle Martin, and Michel Lelièvre were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping 14-year-old Laetitia Delhez; all were eventually found guilty in June 2004, and sentenced to terms of life, 30, and 25 years, respectively.
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"Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits

Today's birthday wishes go out to Mark Knopfler, guitar god and lead singer of Dire Straits, who together almost single-handedly held back the simultaneous punk and New Wave onslaught on the record charts at the end of the 1970s...

Sultans of Swing was the first single from that band's eponymous* 1978 first album, Dire Straits, which began climbing the charts around the world early in 1979. The song features all of the hallmarks for which Dire Straits later became rightly famous, including a moody sound, literate lyrics, and of course the nimble fingers of one Mark Knopfler. His (and, indeed, their) ample abilities are on display here in their (and, indeed, his) performance from Wembley Stadium during Live Aid in July 1985.

*Not to mention redundant, much like this sentence.
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Pop History Moment: The Death of Cleopatra

On this day in 30 BCE the much-mythologized Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt, committed suicide following a series of military defeats during the Final War of the Roman Republic; these culminated with the Battle of Actium, following which her lover Mark Antony was also defeated by Octavian, who then invaded Egypt and became the first Roman Emperor for his trouble. Mark Antony beat her to the grave by a scant eleven days. Cleopatra took the extreme measure she did rather than being paraded through Rome in chains, which was the favoured means of pre-execution humiliation at the time; her fellow queen Boadicea did much the same thing, only without the same high-quality PR her Egyptian counterpart had.

It seems like ever since the moment she died, the greatest writers of their day (and the series of hacks who wrote the Bible besides) have fallen all over themselves describing her beauty, reign, and death; in fact, Cleopatra is one of a handful of historical figures for whom a pop culture cottage industry has been created.

Chief among her artistic champions is William Shakespeare, who fiddled with the facts so well he could have had a great career writing biopics in Hollywood; for instance, he's the one who first said that she died by pressing an asp to her breast. Prior to 1609's Antony and Cleopatra most chroniclers agree that the snake bit her on the arm. A close second - in terms of theatrical cachet, at least - is Caesar and Cleopatra, by George Bernard Shaw; like Shakespeare, Shaw's work was later adapted for the movies.

In addition to plays, numerous movies, operas, novels, poems, and paintings* have all extolled Cleopatra's supposedly extraordinary beauty; fittingly, she's also been portrayed in movies by some of the most beautiful actresses who've ever lived - women such as Theda Bara, Claudette Colbert, Vivien Leigh, Rhonda Fleming, Elizabeth Taylor, and Amanda Barrie - any of whom could have (and a number of whom actually did) cause great men to lose their minds over them. She was even played by both Ginger Grant and Lovey Howell in a single episode of the first season of Gilligan's Island, entitled Angel of the Island. Despite this, no contemporary descriptions of her appearance exist.

Still, living as she did at a time when few women exerted power, it's no wonder that we're still talking about her; accuracy aside, cultural depictions of Cleopatra have always been made to suit the political timbre of the times rather than from some slavish devotion to historical fact, and likely will be for a long time to come.

*Including the one shown above, by Reginald Arthur, painted in 1892.
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"Hazel" by Ronnie Dawson

Today's birthday wishes are also tinged with wishful thinking; rockabilly music legend Ronnie Dawson - born on this day in 1939 - died of throat cancer in 2003, having spent most of his life using it to help fill the world with music. How's that for irony?

Initially signed to Dick Clark's Swan Records, the so-called Blonde Bomber's career was almost ruined by the payola scandal in the 1950s; latterly he found a greater degree of fame in the UK, where considerable crossover between rockabilly and skiffle strengthened, rather than weakened, each genre. He was also a respected session musician, playing drums as well as guitar on such classic tunes as Hey! Baby by Bruce Channel and Hey Paula by Paul and Paula.

While Hazel was a Number One hit in Philadelphia, it was denied national exposure by coming out at just the wrong moment - namely when Dick Clark was forced to divest himself of all his music industry holdings aside from American Bandstand, leaving Dawson without a contract. Dawson later disowned the song, so strong was his lingering bitterness over the turns of events which had befallen him...
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POPnews - August 11th

[Despite a life lived with a zeal for dissipation, Babe Ruth was also the consummate athlete - which contradiction is as surely the source of his legend as his feats of prowess (whether on the field or the barstool) alone.]

3114 BCE - The Long Count calendar - used by several pre-Colombian Mesoamerican civilizations, notably the Mayans - began.

355 CE - Claudius Silvanus proclaimed himself Roman Emperor against Constantius II despite being accused of treason.

1711 - The first race meeting was held at Ascot; the first race run that day, with a purse of 100 guineas, was called 'Her Majesty's Plate'. In attendance, then as now, was the Queen; in this case, though, it was Queen Anne.

1755 - Charles Lawrence issued orders to remove the Acadians from Nova Scotia, beginning what we now know as the Great Upheaval.

1786 - Captain Francis Light established the British colony of Penang in Malaysia which, in that fine British tradition, he instantly renamed Prince of Wales Island.

1804 - Holy Roman Emperor Francis II assumed the title of the first Emperor of Austria.

1858 - The first ascent of the Eiger was made, by Christian Almer and Peter Bohren and Charles Barrington; the 3,970 m (13,025 ft) peak is one of the most famous in the Bernese Alps, and today features the Jungfraubahn railway, which runs along a tunnel inside the mountain and which terminates at Europe's highest railway station.

1918 - The Battle of Amiens - the opening operation of the Hundred Days Offensive that would bring about the end of World War I - ended.

1919 - The constitution of the Weimar Republic was adopted.

1929 - Babe Ruth became the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career when he knocked one over the fence at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.

1934 - Alcatraz opened as a federal prison; the island had previously been a military prison from the Civil War era forward, housing inmates as early as 1861.

1952 - Hussein was proclaimed King of Jordan.

1960 - Chad declared its independence from France.

1965 - Rioting began in Watts, a predominantly black neighbourhood in Los Angeles. The insurrection lasted 6 days in total, eventually claiming the lives of 34 people (28 of them black); the injured included 773 civilians, 90 LAPD officers, 136 firemen, 10 national guardsmen, and 23 persons from other governmental agencies. 118 of those injured were injured by firearms. In all 600 buildings were damaged or destroyed, and it took the involvement of the National Guard to bring the violence to an end.

^{Further reading...}

1970 - The spork was trademarked.

1971 - British Prime Minister Edward Heath captained his own 42-foot yacht Morning Cloud to victory in the Admiral's Cup; he'd previously won the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in 1969, the year he purchased the craft.

1982 - Britain's Ronnie and Reggie Kray - notorious gangsters and twin brothers - were released from jail under massive security to attend their mother's funeral at Chingford, in the London borough of Waltham Forest.

1984 - South African runner Zola Budd sparked an international controversy when she appeared to trip American Mary Decker during the final of the 3,000-metre race at the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

1999 - The so-called Salt Lake City Tornado - only the second tornado in the recorded history of Utah - tore through the downtown district of the city, killing one.
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Pop History Moment: The Queen Visits Ulster (1977)

[Hillsborough Castle is the official royal residence in Northern Ireland.]
Refusing to be dissuaded by threats of terrorist thuggery, the Queen was determined to visit Belfast and Coleraine during her Silver Jubilee tour; arriving on this day 1977 - her first visit to Northern Ireland since 1966 - it took as many as 35,000 auxiliary troops and police to protect her, making it the largest royal security operation to date.

While Her Majesty inspected an honour guard of the Ulster Defence Regiment, conducted an investiture, and attended a garden party for several thousand guests, the Duke of Edinburgh toured Belfast's legendary Harland and Wolff Shipyard on the first day of the two-day visit. Despite threats by the IRA to give the Queen 'a visit to remember' the goodwill tour - which began with a brief helicopter trip to Hillsborough Castle - went off without a hitch.

Her next visit to Ulster, however, wouldn't be until 1991...
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"Tshinanu" by Kashtin

Birthday wishes go out today to Florent Vollant*, one half of Canada's Innu blues-rock duo Kashtin (the other half being Claude McKenzie); although the band's name literally means 'tornado on the horizon' in the Innu-aimun language, it was chosen because it sounded like 'cashed in' - a reference to charges that they'd sold out, made mainly by jealous losers who had neither the ability nor the opportunity to do so themselves.

Though their career as a duo was short their influence has been mighty; formed on the Maliotenam reserve in northern Quebec prior to 1988, Vollant and McKenzie recorded their first album Kashtin together in 1989, a second entitled Innu in 1991, and a third Akua Tuta in 1994 before going their separate ways (although they have occasionally reunited to perform together). In that short span of years Kashtin toured the world, winning fans wherever they went.

Since the band's hiatus, Vollant has recorded two solo albums as well: Nipaiamianan in 1999, and Katak in 2003.

*In the video, he's the one with the mustache.
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In Memoriam: Norma Shearer

Born in Montreal on this day in 1902, young Norma left that fair city at the age of 16 when her mother, Mrs. Shearer - disgusted at the business reversals which had befallen Mr. Shearer and therefore all of them - took herself and her two daughters* and moved to New York to get into show business, leaving her son Douglas (eventually a Hollywood legend himself) behind with his father.

One of the first stars ever put under contract to MGM, Norma Shearer was signed by Irving Thalberg in 1924; she would later marry him, and together they would direct her career masterfully, taking her from 'girl next door' to 'good girl gone bad' to Queen of Hollywood until his own untimely death in September 1936.

Having made her last film in 1942, at the top of her career, Norma Shearer died in June 1983.

*The Shearer's other daughter was named Athole.
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Happy Birthday Justin Theroux

I could list Justin Theroux's film and television credits (which are extensive) here; I could also go into those causes he supports (which are good ones) here as well. I could even go so far as to attempt some fancy syntax about the actor's art or the beauty of a soul shining through, fooling myself into believing that I've pulled one over on you...

But let's face it. You all know why he's here. It's right there in that picture, as surely as it was in his guest appearance as one of Carrie Bradshaw's boyfriends (and Valerie Harper's son!) in a classic 1999 episode of Sex and the City entitled Shortcomings, or even in his combination star-turn cameo as a villainous DJ in the 2001 film Zoolander.

In my defense: if he wasn't talented or activist, he wouldn't be quite so hot. There's an awful lot of cute out there these days, and on its own it don't buy jack no more. Yes, I'm talking to you, Josh Hartnett...

Theroux looks to be joining what could be called his family business... His uncle is Paul Theroux, the esteemed travel writer whose novel The Mosquito Coast was later made into a film; one of the nephew's recent projects was the Ben Stiller vehicle Tropic Thunder, which screenplay Justin Theroux co-wrote, although there are no plans I can discover to turn it into a book.  He also wrote the screenplay to Iron Man 2; he was suggested for the job to director Jon Favreau by none other than its star Robert Downey, Jr..

Having played John Hancock in the HBO mini-series John Adams in 2008 and someone cleverly named Justin on NBC's sleeper hit sitcom Parks and Recreation, Theroux is scheduled to make a return to acting on the big screen with the film Your Highness, which is slated for release in April 2011.
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Happy Birthday Eric Bana

Equally skilled at comedy, drama, and action, Eric Bana is a very versatile* actor indeed...

Bana got his first break in 1993 courtesy of the sketch comedy show Full Frontal, which aired on Australia's Seven Network; after leaving that in 1996, he broke into movies with the biopic Chopper (2000) portraying Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read. Despite a role in Black Hawk Down (2001), most people first heard of Bana when he played Bruce Banner in the Ang Lee directed film Hulk (2003).

Since then he has leant considerable muscle - acting and otherwise - to such films as Troy (2004), Munich (2005), The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), and Star Trek (2009).

*Is it wrong that I had a little accident from describing Eric Bana as versatile? And if it was wrong, do I want to be right? ~ MSM
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POPnews - August 9th

[Such a douchebag was US President Richard Nixon that when he was finally driven from office, tainted by scandal - on this day in 1974 - he didn't even have the courtesy or good sense to look upset.]
48 BCE - During what was known as Caesar's Civil War the leader of the Roman Republic's Populares faction, Julius Caesar, decisively defeated Pompey and his Optimates faction at the Battle of Pharsalus - which had been conveniently located near Pharsalus, in central Greece - after which Pompey fled to Egypt.

378 CE - A large Roman army led by Emperor Valens was defeated by the Visigoths at the Battle of Adrianople; Valens was killed in battle on the day along with over half of his army, making the engagement a stunning victory for the Visigoth commanders Fritigern, Alatheus, and Saphrax in the ongoing Gothic War.

1048 - Pope Damasus II died in Rome, following a reign of only 23 days; he would be succeeded by Leo IX, who - say what you will about him - at least managed to hang on for five years.

1173 - Work began on the Tower of Pisa, which would take two centuries to complete; the amazing thing is that it was completed at all, seeing as it began to lean in 1178, following the completion of its third story.

1483 - The Sistine Chapel was opened in the Vatican; renowned for the quality of its decoration, the Sistine Chapel is also the site of the Papal conclave, at which every new Pope has been chosen since 1492.

1842 - The Webster-Ashburton Treaty was signed, establishing the US-Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains.

1877 - At the Battle of Big Hole a small band of Nez Percé Indians in Montana led by Chief Joseph and Chief Looking Glass clashed with the US Army commanded by John Gibbon and Oliver Otis Howard during the Nez Perce War, a smaller sub-war of the greater conflict called the Indian Wars.

1892 - Thomas Edison received US Patent 480,567 for a two-way telegraph.

1902 - Edward VII and Queen Alexandra were crowned in Westminster Abbey; their coronation, originally scheduled for June 26th, had to be postponed because of His Majesty's bout with appendicitis. The service would be the last major rite conducted by the aged Archbishop of Canterbury, Frederick Temple, who died just four months later.

1907 - Robert Baden-Powell's first Boy Scout encampment concluded at Brownsea Island in Dorset's Poole Harbour.

1930 - Betty Boop made her cartoon debut, in the Fleischer Studios's Talkartoon Dizzy Dishes, directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer.

1936 - Jesse Owens won the fourth and final of his gold medals at the Games of the XI Olympiad in Berlin, making him the first American to win four medals at an Olympiad.

1942 - Mahatma Gandhi was arrested in Mumbai for his involvement in Indian independence, having a movement called Quit India; held for two years at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune, it was during this incarceration that his wife Kasturba died.

1945 - The Japanese city of Nagasaki was devastated by an atomic bomb.

1965 - Singapore seceded from Malaysia, thus gaining its independence.

1969 - Charles Manson and his followers murdered Sharon Tate (the wife of director Roman Polanski), coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring, and Steven Parent at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles.

1974 - President Richard Nixon became the first US President to resign from office, due to his complicity in Watergate; his Vice-President, Gerald Ford, became President the same day.

1986 - Freddie Mercury played his final concert with Queen, at Knebworth.

1993 - Albert II was sworn is as Belgium's new king - having succeeded his father Baudouin I, who died on July 31st.
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"Numb" by U2

Birthday wishes go out today to The Edge*, for more than thirty years now a member of earnest stadium anthemizers U2... Despite the band's utterly Dublin-esque Irish cred The Edge was born at London's Barking Maternity Hospital to Welsh parents; he and his family moved to Ireland in 1962, when The Edge was just one year old (although he was then still too squishy to be The Edge, and so they called him David).

In addition to playing guitar for U2 - and thus being instrumental in imbuing the group with its distinctive sound, a clearly winning combination of soaring melodies and ringing chords - The Edge also plays keyboards and sings backing vocals. One time, though, when he performed lead vocals for the band is on the song Numb; taken from the band's 1993 album Zooropa, Numb was the album's lead single, and the song's video (directed by Kevin Godley of Godley & Creme fame) features him in all his scrummy goodness, being backed up (for a change) by Bono and Larry Mullen, Jr.. Oh yeah, and Adam Clayton's in there somewhere too, no doubt lurking behind the looped sample from the Leni Riefenstahl film Olympia which gives the tune its backbone.

*Or just 'Edge' - although I've made my feelings known in the past how much I love a name and/or title with a definite article in it...
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Happy Birthday Princess Beatrice

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I can scarcely believe it myself; the fifth lady in the Royal Family is 22 today! It seems like only yesterday I was sequestering myself indoors on a gorgeous summer's day alternately hunched over the radio or pacing my room, awaiting the news that she'd been born... In other words, my usual ritual when a royal birth is pending!

Having overcome her parents' divorce and dyslexia in the years since - all of which she had to do very much in the public eye - Princess Beatrice is poised to take on a role as a senior royal, unlike her shy younger sister Princess Eugenie, whose intentions toward her royal role have yet to be made clear. Much of the credit, it must be said, for her having turned out so well belongs with her parents - The Duke of York and Sarah, Duchess of York - whose divorce was probably among the most civil in British history, likely because they never once forgot that their primary responsibility having had children was being parents. It's enough to make one want to add a verse or two to that grand old nursery rhyme The Grand Old Duke of York...

At the time she was born much was made of how propitious was the birth of Princess Beatrice; having come into the world on the eighth day of the eighth month gave her at least as many advantages as being born royal - at least according to Chinese mythology, for whom the number eight is especially lucky; that she was also born in 1988 and the Year of the Dragon only confirmed it. The real confirmation, of course, has been the passage of years, and in watching her blossom from a rambunctious tot to a very regal yet very real young woman.
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"One Step Beyond" by Madness

Birthday wishes go out today to Chris Foreman (Chrissy Boy to his friends) guitarist and founding member - with Mike Barson and Lee Thompson, in 1976 - of second wave ska pioneers Madness.

One Step Beyond is the title track of the band's 1979 debut album, and was their first single; it was originally performed by ska musician Prince Buster as the b-side to his 1967 single Al Capone.

The video was primarily shot in the Hope and Anchor Pub, located in the London borough of Islington, which was at the time a prime venue in the pub rock movement; Chas Smash appears in the video, even though he was not then a member of the band, because he'd recorded the majority of the vocals in the song, including the intro (which sometimes was and sometimes wasn't included in radio play).
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In Memoriam: Ralph Bunche

'And so class will some day supplant race in world affairs. Race war will then be merely a side-show to the gigantic class war which will be waged in the big tent we call the world.'

So wrote diplomat and scholar Ralph Bunche, Ph.D, as long ago as 1936... His words have an eerie prescience to them, as the gap between rich and poor gets wider, and as battles between Islam and the West can be as easily categorized classist as they are racist and sectarian.

Bunche was the first person of colour to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize, which he did for his work towards peace in the Eastern Mediterranean in 1949. Yet this signal honour came at the mid-point in his career. Previously he had been a professor at Howard University (while earning his Ph.D at Harvard); latterly he worked for the United Nations, rising to the position of Under-secretary-General by the time of his retirement in 1968. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon Johnson in 1963.

Bunche - born on this day in 1903 - died in December 1971, at the age of 67, and is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
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"Fear Of The Dark" by Iron Maiden

Birthday wishes go out today to Bruce Dickinson, since 1981 lead singer of the band Iron Maiden - and formerly of Samson - whose distinctive vocal stylings energized the moribund prog rock genre of the late 1970s into a vibrant British metal scene in the early 1980s. Something of a Renaissance man, Dickinson is also an airline pilot, radio show host, DJ, historian, television presenter, fencer and songwriter.

Fear of the Dark is the title track of a 1992 effort by Iron Maiden; it's seen here being performed at the third Rock in Rio festival, held in 2001. Their set was recorded and released as Rock in Rio to benefit the band's former drummer - and Dickinson's fellow former Samson-ian - Clive Burr, who now lives with multiple sclerosis while managing the charitable appeal Clive Aid.

Actual fear of the dark is known either as nyctophobia, scotophobia, or lygophobia, and is largely considered to be a manifestation of separation anxiety, which I guess makes this a love song...
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"Walk On The Wild Side" by Lou Reed

Walk on the Wild Side was first recorded by Lou Reed for his 1972 album Transformer; the song is a thinly-veiled biography of the lives and loves of several of the regular superstars at Andy Warhol's New York studio, The Factory - namely Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling, Joe Dallesandro, Jackie Curtis and Joe Campbell (referred to in the song by his nickname Sugar Plum Fairy). Reed later confessed the inspiration for the song was Nelson Algren's 1956 novel, A Walk on the Wild Side.

Originally this post showed a clip of Reed performing the song on Late Night with David Letterman, sometime in the mid- to late-90s, complete with references to oral sex given by transsexuals and everything; this replacement clip is of a similar vintage, but taken from an unknown source.
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In Memoriam: Andy Warhol

The father of Pop, Andy Warhol, was both revered and reviled in his lifetime; how he was seen in the years between his birth - on this day in 1928 - and his untimely death in February 1987 is pretty much how he's been regarded ever since, although to be fair there's a little more reverence and a little less revulsion in the ongoing cultural assessment of him with each passing year. Not that we here at the Pop Culture Institute have ever been anything less than reverent towards him - in our own irreverent way, of course...

Because he took art seriously but refused to afford himself the same, because he skewered pomposity at every turn with a certain cheeky pomposity of his own, because he wouldn't kiss the ass of gallery directors and owners and the art buying elite but preferred to create and sell his art at his own Factory (let alone because he dared to call his studio - his sacred atelier! - anything as honest as a factory!) and because his earliest successes came as a commercial artist, the Art Establishment at the time often jeered at his work. Not that it mattered; the louder they jeered the more (and better) it sold! If anything he was living proof of the maxim 'you can't sell out if you don't buy in'.

It's just as likely, though, that because he never starved, never really visibly or outwardly suffered for his art*, both he and it lacked the necessary gravitas to be taken seriously by the same pretentious blowhards who shivered in garrets while living on a diet of coffee and cigarettes because they didn't understand art and culture (let alone how they could be marketed and sold) as well as Warhol did. Jealousy, pure jealousy, explains away so much...

Yet his influence on all aspects of culture - including of course pop culture, which he can be said to have founded - cannot be ignored. His famous maxim, stating that 'in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes' has been taken utterly to heart, at least on television, where legions of maladjusted attention whores routinely threaten to crowd out genuinely talented people whether with their head games, sociopathic neediness, and/or off-key warbling... Each of them dreaming of being famous not for their talent or achievements (which is as it should be) but simply for being famous. One wonders what Warhol would have thought of the world he has wrought; likely he'd think it was 'neat' - the most commonly used word in his diaries, which around here have taken on Biblical overtones since they were edited together by Pat Hackett and published in 1989**.

One also wonders what he'd have thought of the plethora of pop culture portrayals of him his extraordinary persona has yielded... Thanks to such performances as Crispin Glover in Oliver Stone's 1991 film The Doors, David Bowie in Julian Schnabel's 1996 film Basquiat, Jared Harris in Mary Harron's 1996 film I Shot Andy Warhol, or even Guy Pearce in George Hickenlooper's 2007 film Factory Girl, which was about the life of Warhol's brightest superstar (and Pop Culture Institute fave) Edie Sedgwick, Warhol's distinctive affect is as recognizable today as it ever was. I think he'd think that was 'neat'...
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*He was shot, by Valerie Solanas, in June 1968 - but he was already famous by then, so it sort of doesn't count.
**Plus, they have one all-important thing the Bible doesn't - an index!
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POPnews - August 6th

[Originally built as an exhibition hall by Czech architect Jan Letzel, the since-renamed Genbaku (or atomic bomb) Dome represents ground zero of the bombing of Hiroshima, even though the actual hypocentre of the blast was 150 m (490 feet) away and 600 m (1,968 feet) in the air. As the city was being rebuilt, debate raged over whether to leave the structure standing or demolish it; today its ruin serves as the centrepiece of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park - as well as an elegant tombstone for as many as 200,000 people killed either directly or indirectly by the blast (many of whom were simply vaporized) - making it a very poignant tribute to survival indeed...]

1284 - The Italian city-state of Pisa was defeated at the Battle of Meloria by Genoa - thereby ruining its once-mighty naval power over the issue of which city had sovereignty over the islands of Sardinia and Corsica.

1538 - Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada founded the Colombian city of Bogotá.

1661 - The Treaty of The Hague was signed by Portugal and the Dutch Republic, whereby the latter relinquished control over its South American holding of New Holland - better known today as Brazil - to the former.

1806 - Francis II - the last Holy Roman Emperor - abdicated; don't feel bad for him, though, as he was still Emperor of Austria.

1825 - Bolivia gained its independence from Spain.

1845 - The Russian Geographical Society was founded in Saint Petersburg.

1862 - During the American Civil War the Confederate ironclad warship CSS Arkansas was scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering damage in a battle with USS Essex at the Battle of Baton Rouge the previous day.

1870 - The Battle of Wörth was fought during the Franco-Prussian War, resulting in a decisive Prussian victory for Emperor Friedrich III over French commander Patrice MacMahon; the engagement could more rightly be called the Battle of Reichshoffen, however, or else the Second Battle of Wörth - the first one having been fought in December 1793, at which French general Lazare Hoche handed the Prussians a defeat during the Napoleonic Wars.

1890 - The first person ever to die in the electric chair, William Kemmler, was executed at New York state's Auburn Prison.

1926 - Gertrude Ederle became the first woman ever to swim the English Channel.

1930 - Judge Joseph Force Crater stepped into a taxi in New York City and was never seen again...

1942 - Wilhelmina of the Netherlands became the first reigning Queen ever to address a Joint Session of the US Congress.

1945 - The Japanese city of Hiroshima was devastated by an atomic bomb - nicknamed 'Little Boy' - dropped from the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay.

1956 - The DuMont Television Network made its final broadcast, which was a boxing match at the St. Nicholas Arena.

1961 - Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov spent the day in space on board Vostok 2, in the meantime orbiting the Earth 17 times; Titov's flight came just four months after Yuri Gagarin's historic single orbit aboard Vostok 1 on April 12th.

1962 - Jamaica gained its independence from the United Kingdom while remaining within the Commonwealth.

1987 - Dr David Owen resigned as leader of Britain's Social Democratic Party following a vote by party members to merge with the Liberal Party, with which it had sided during the 1983 and 1987 General Elections as the SDP-Liberal Alliance; following the merger the party called itself the Liberal Democrats, although a few stalwarts of the old party (including Owen himself) held out as the SDP throughout 1988.

1988 - The Tompkins Square Park Police Riot in New York City spurred reform of the NYPD, who were responsible for the melee that transpired that night.

1996 - Punk legends Ramones gave their final concert, at The Palace in Los Angeles.
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