"Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen" by Baz Luhrmann

When Australian director Baz Luhrmann adapted a two year-old newspaper column entitled Wear Sunscreen by Chicago Tribune journalist Mary Schmich in 1999 surely even he couldn't have known the global reach those words - alongside Bill Barminski's video - would soon have.

In the days leading up to Y2K, when seemingly half the world had the other half convinced it was all going to come an end because of a single line of programming somewhere on a computer, those of us in the latter group clung to whatever soothing words we could get our ears around, and not just to drown out the blathering of apocalyptards* either.

It's posted here today on the occasion of Luhrmann's birthday, as well as in honour of the delightful second summer that September often brings to Vancouver - a time in which it's important to remember that even though it's cooler, it's still important to wear sunscreen...

*Apocalyptard - any damn fool who thinks the world's gonna end while I still have outstanding student loans.
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Cassandra Peterson: Mistress of Elvira

Two paragraphs into Cassandra Peterson's bio I was blown away by the abundance of information contained therein; there's too much of it, in fact, to include here. For a dozen years before her Elvira persona was born and made her famous she'd already lived an awesome life. Although she is best known as a witchy, bitchy horror host the fame it afforded her was more a reward for an interesting and varied career than a premeditated act.

Born on this day in 1951, by 1969, at the age of 17, she'd become the youngest showgirl in Las Vegas - as confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Records - when she worked at The Dunes. She briefly dated Elvis Presley, appeared in the 1971 film Diamonds Are Forever playing - what else? - a showgirl, and even moved to Italy to front a rock band called I Latins Ochanats. That's where she met director Federico Fellini who cast her in his 1972 film Roma; she also appeared in the 1974 film The Working Girls, and posed for the cover of Tom Waits' 1976 album Small Change.

Returning Stateside she toured gay clubs with a novelty act called Mamma's Boys before joining famed LA-based comedy troupe The Groundlings in 1979; it was there the personality of Elvira was more or less born. At the same time she was an on-air personality at LA radio station KROQ.

The story of the creation of the Elvira character resides at the eye of a veritable pop culture hurricane; while Elvira was ostensibly based on Maila Nurmi's Vampira (brilliantly lampooned paid tribute to by Lisa Marie in Tim Burton's 1994 film Ed Wood) Vampira was herself based on Charles Addams' Morticia Addams, although the television version of Morticia (played by Carolyn Jones from 1964-6) and the movie version (popularized by Anjelica Huston) both imbued her with Nurmi's sexiness which was not present in the original Addams Family cartoons as they appeared in The New Yorker*.

Elvira was clearly an idea whose time had come; not only had punk given way to goth as the principal costume of disaffected teenagers, but the exploitation movies of the previous three decades were then being embraced ironically by jaded Baby Boomers and the up-and-coming cynics of Generation X alike. Elvira presided over all of it with a campy quip and a killer cleavage, having shot to almost instant fame simply by being at the right place at the right time. Her persona, though, had at least one unintended benefit; owing to the heavy makeup and wig she wore, at the height of the ensuing craziness Peterson was able to go out in public as herself without being bothered in the least!

*No one's quite sure what Daryl Hannah was getting at when she played Morticia in the 1998 film Addams Family Reunion, although Ellie Harvie did better with the character on TV in The New Addams Family. But I digress...
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Rita Rudner on "The Late, Late Show" with Craig Ferguson

Birthday wishes go out today to Rita Rudner, who started out in show business as a dancer, appearing in the original productions of such shows as Follies and Mack & Mabel; at the age of 25 she switched to comedy, and the rest is the stuff of legend. As one of the few clean comics working, Rudner's wide-eyed ditzy persona is belied by the laser-sharpness of her logic.

Since 2001, Rudner has performed almost exclusively in Las Vegas, where her shows have sold nearly a million tickets; seeing as I cannot get to Vegas to see her, I thought I'd post this clip of her in conversation with TV's Craig Ferguson instead.
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In Memoriam: Anne Bancroft

In Mike Nichols' 1967 film The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman as Ben Braddock uttered the famous line 'Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?' to Anne Bancroft, who famously played Mrs. Robinson. Even without her intentionally provocative answer, it should have been patently obvious to everyone in the audience that Anne Bancroft had spent her entire career trying to seduce us - and succeeded at every attempt.

From her 1952 debut in the film Don't Bother to Knock (opposite such big guns as Marilyn Monroe, Richard Widmark, Jim Backus, and Lurene Tuttle) through The Miracle Worker, The Pumpkin Eater, The Turning Point, Agnes of God, and Torch Song Trilogy (with many stops along the way and since besides) it's clear that Anne Bancroft not only managed to seduce us onscreen but off it as well.

Born on this day in 1931, Anne Bancroft's death in June 2005 was met with all the usual lamentations that generally accompany a star's death, only with actual sincerity; it's at this time the Pop Culture Institute would like to once again extend its condolences to her widower, Mel Brooks.
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"She's A Beauty" by The Tubes

Birthday wishes go out today to Fee Waybill - not only a founding member of The Tubes but possessed of one of the more fascinating names in American music; to my mind a Fee Waybill either belongs in the exotic bird house of your local zoo or ought to be signed in the presence of the UPS driver.

A n y w a y... She's a Beauty was the band's biggest hit, appearing first on their 1983 album Outside Inside; oddly enough for a song this cool, it was produced by noted Canadian schlockmeister David Foster. Naturally the original video is unavailable - thanks this time to the visionaries at Virgin-EMI - but I guess this live performance sums up the experience of the song pretty well. Appropriately enough, it can easily be dedicated to the women whose birthdays we also celebrate today: Anne Bancroft, Rita Rudner, Cassandra Peterson, and even Hildegard von Bingen!
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Remembering... Hildegard von Bingen

Hildegard von Bingen is frequently cited as the world's first composer, and she certainly is history's first if not the world's; as the first composer whose biographical details are well-known (or indeed, known at all) she was also the first one who had the bright idea to stop signing her works Anon., for which act of extreme hubris she is still remembered today.

Born sometime in 1098, I'd like to say she rose above the constraints of her noble birth to pursue a life in the Church. Alas, the truth is considerably sadder... A sickly child - her parents' tenth, in fact - from a young age she began to experience visions; on All Saint's Day 1112 she was abandoned at the convent of Disibodenberg and thereafter raised by the abbess, Jutta.

After Jutta's death in 1136 Hildegard was unanimously elected abbess in her stead; as Mother Superior she founded the convents of Saint Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. She also corresponded with popes Eugene III and Anastasius IV, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, and her male colleagues in the clergy such as Bernard of Clairvaux. She was also widely traveled - another unusual pastime for a woman of the Middle Ages - and spread her teachings across Europe as a kind of early evangelist.

Owing to the superstitious tenor of the times, Hildegard was reticent when it came to discussing her visions; after her confidante Jutta died she only shared her experiences with Volmar, who served at one time or another as her tutor, confessor, secretary, and scribe. One such vision she received exhorted her to 'See and speak! Hear and write!' and so she did; makes a nice change from those people who hear voices telling them to chop up the dog into small bits or else become lawyers. Of her works, about 80 survive; one of the best known of these is a morality play called Ordo Virtutum, or Play of the Virtues, which is unique in that it is written entirely for the female voice and has just one male part - the Devil, who cannot sing because he is corrupt. Sounds like just the thing for the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival...

Interest in her was revived in the 1990s, when it was decided that all the women written out of history should be written back in again. That's when celebrity neurologist Oliver Sacks diagnosed Hildegard as suffering from migraines - which can cause hallucinations if severe enough - in his book Migraine. Ah, but who or what gave her the migraines? And why did she channel her pain into works of uncommon beauty? Science, for all its answers, still cannot fathom the least part of the human soul...
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POPnews: September 17th

[September 17th has been Constitution Day in the United States since 2004; which is ironic, seeing that since George W. Bush took office in 2001 (and I do mean took) the Constitution hasn't been observed - along with the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Convention, and most of the Ten Commandments... I could go on but thankfully he didn't!]
1577 - Following the sixth phase of the French Wars of Religion the Peace of Bergerac was signed between France's King Henri III and the Huguenots; it replaced the Edict of Beaulieu, which was thought to be too favourable to Protestants.

1630 - The city of Boston, Massachusetts was founded, ten days after having its name changed from Shawmut.

1778 - The Treaty of Fort Pitt was signed, making it the first formal treaty between the United States and an American First Nation - in this case the Lenape or Delaware tribe.

1787 - The US Constitution was signed at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

1859 - Joshua A. Norton proclaimed himself Emperor Norton I of the United States in - where else? - San Francisco.

1862 - The Allegheny Arsenal explosion resulted in the single largest civilian disaster during the American Civil War.

1900 - Filipinos under Juan Cailles defeated Colonel Benjamin F. Cheatham's Americans at Mabitac during the Philippine-American War.

1908 - Lt. Thomas Selfridge became the first airplane fatality when the Wright Flyer piloted by Orville Wright crashed at Fort Myer, Virginia.

1914 - Andrew Fisher became Prime Minister of Australia for a third term.

1916 - Baron Manfred von Richthofen - the famous Red Baron - won the first of more than 80 aerial victories over the French town of Cambrai.

1920 - The National Football League was organized in Canton, Ohio.

1939 - German U-boat U 29 sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous.

1948 - The Lehi - radical Zionists who were also known as the Stern Gang after their founder, Avraham Stern - assassinated the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte, who was appointed by the United Nations to mediate between Arab nations and Israel during that phase of the Arab-Israeli conflict marked by the establishment of the Jewish state. The killing was directed by Yehoshua Zettler and carried out by a team led by Meshulam Makover, although the fatal shots were fired by Yehoshua Cohen; also thought to be involved were Shmuel Rosenblum, David Ephrati, and Yitzhak Markovitz.

1949 - The Canadian steamship and passenger liner SS Noronic caught fire while docked at Pier 9 in Toronto Harbour shortly after 2:30 AM, with an eventual loss of between 118 and 139 lives; most of the 524 passengers and 171 crew on board were American.

1956 - Television was first shown in Australia, apparently.

1972 - The first episode of the television series M*A*S*H - appropriately enough, entitled M*A*S*H the Pilot - aired on CBS; based on the Robert Altman film of the same name (which was itself based on a book by Richard Hooker), the series eventually aired 251 half-hour episodes over 11 years. Many of the episodes, including the pilot, were written by the late Larry Gelbart.

1978 - The Camp David Accords were signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt's President Anwar El Sadat, as facilitated and witnessed by US President Jimmy Carter.

1983 - Vanessa Williams became the first black Miss America.

1993 - The blatantly racist British National Party's Derek Beackon won a council seat in the East London district of Millwall.
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"The Closest Thing To Crazy" by Katie Melua

This seems as apt an anthem as possible for life around the Pop Culture Institute, as scrambling to stay caught up with the frankly insane posting schedule I've set myself often brings me closer to crazy than, say, waking up or just being myself. At the risk of making light of mental illness* I really do feel that every so often my galloping neurosis gets the better of me, even if the rest of the time it gives me a unique perspective I wouldn't trade for anything - not even six-pack abs.

The Closest Thing to Crazy originally appeared on Katie Melua's 2003 debut album, Call Off the Search, which was so hugely popular that pundits across the pond have been slagging her off in force ever since. The song was written by Mike Batt, and his version originally appeared on his 1995 album Arabesque, which doesn't appear to be for sale anywhere.

Melua, disconcertingly enough, was born on this day in 1984 - making her just 19 when she released this - which brings me even closer to crazy...

*I'd have to be cuckoo to do that! I mean really off my nut, y'know? Proper mental.  Bonkers, even...
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Pop History Moment: The Wall Street Bombing (1920)

It's a scene all-too-familiar to New Yorkers: a lovely late summer's day, a rush of people from all walks of life going about their business on one of the busiest corners in Manhattan... Then a deafening explosion and a street littered with the dead and dying amid a scene of unimaginable chaos and truly grotesque carnage.

Those who buy the Republican Party's line of bull that terrorism in America began on 9-11* will be shocked to learn that the attack I've just described occurred on this day in 1920, when a horse-drawn wagon left unattended outside the headquarters of J.P. Morgan Inc. at 23 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan exploded just before noon. Packed with 45 kg (100 pounds) of dynamite and 230 kg (500 pounds) of cast iron slugs, the explosion - detonated with the aid of a timer - vaporized the wagon as well as the horse; 30 people - many of them stenographers, messengers, and the like on their lunch breaks - died instantly. Owing to the unusual congestion of the city's Financial District the blast damaged an area of ten square blocks, shattered windows half a mile away, badly injured people even six stories up, set fires, and caused $2-3 million in property damage.

All told there were 38 casualties and as many as 400 others suffered crushed skulls, lost limbs, or were otherwise permanently maimed; seeing as those were the days before counseling, we may never know the psychic cost of the attack. Surrounding buildings were also heavily damaged - some of which still bear their scars to this day - the 'stigmata of capitalism', in the words of historian John Steele Gordon.

The Wall Street Bombing, as it came to be called, was investigated for three years, but remains unsolved; although no one took credit for the blast, it is now thought that the anarchist followers of Luigi Galleani committed the crime in retaliation for the indictment of Sacco and Vanzetti. Far from furthering the cause of the Galleanists, the US Justice Department stepped up its series of Palmer Raids in the aftermath of the explosion; wrongly convicted or not, Sacco and Vanzetti met their fate regardless in August 1927. The more than 10,000 immigrants (most of them from Sicily) deported as a result of the raids meant that by 1932 bombings of this nature - which had become fairly widespread in the years immediately following the First World War - had become a thing of the past. Yet how many lives were needlessly ruined by such ethnic profiling? If the Galleanists had truly wanted to end discrimination against immigrants, their bombs had in fact had the exact opposite effect.

*What are you doing here anyway? Shouldn't you be whacking off to FOXnews or drinking that Kool-Aid of Bill O'Reilly's?
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"Mississippi Goddam" by Nina Simone

Throughout the 1960s the American South was rocked by an ongoing campaign of terror aimed at blacks; churches and homes were bombed and burned, and the culprits usually got away with it because they were often committed by the very people sworn to investigate such crimes. Either that or a jury of the culprit's peers - twelve white men - couldn't bring themselves to see justice done.

Nina Simone, the fiery singer-songwriter and pianist, wrote the song Mississippi Goddamn to commemorate and excoriate the terrible racism of the times, specifically the murder of Medgar Evers and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
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Pop History Moment: The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing

Like so many of the pivotal events in the US Civil Rights movement, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on this day in 1963 was intended to strike fear into the hearts of the black community...

At about 10:25 AM that Sunday morning four girls - Addie Mae Collins (aged 14), Denise McNair (11), Carole Robertson (14), and Cynthia Wesley (14) - were killed, and 22 more were injured, when 19 sticks of dynamite hidden in the basement exploded, causing the kind of mayhem and suffering that no one ought to have to live through - and causing significant property damage besides.

Ironically, every one of those bombs backfired into the faces of those who were evil enough to place bombs in a church in the first place, people like Bobby Frank Cherry and Robert Chambliss (both members of that fine, Christian organization the Ku Klux Klan).

Instead of leaving blacks cowed, though, it made them defiant; instead of isolating blacks, it drew their white allies closer, although in certain segments of society it was said that blacks had set the bombs themselves to earn themselves sympathy; certainly that was the opinion of Bull Connor, who was the Chief of Police in Birmingham at the time.

It seems strange to think that there was a time in history when the aims and intentions of the Civil Rights Movement seemed nebulous, so vague that it took events like this to demonstrate the peril entailed in the lives of black Americans. Stranger still is that there were then - as there likely still are today - people who felt that killing was too good for blacks.

Even stranger - and perhaps just as ironic - is the role Southern Baptists now play in hate crimes of their own every day, condemning homosexuals to the same acts of terror their own parishioners had once been.
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Happy Birthday Your Royal Highness

When Spain's Crown Prince Felipe, Prince of Asturias, made up his mind to marry Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano in November 2003 not only did he connect with the Spanish people by marrying a commoner but he also ensured the country had one less working journalist. Smart fellow...

Princess Letizia, in fact, comes from a long line of journalists: not only her father, Jesús Ortiz Álvarez, but her paternal grandmother, Menchu Álvarez del Valle, worked in media. Her stepmother, Ana Togores, is also a journalist. The moral of the story is, should the Asturias' marriage go south like that of the Duque and Duques de Lugo expect a really awesome expose.

She and the prince have two children - Infantas Leonor and Sofía - and undertake a wide range of public activities both in Spain and overseas on behalf of various charities and the King, Juan Carlos I.
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The Comedy Stylings Of Mr Jimmy Carr

Birthday boy Jimmy Carr has been a ubiquitous presence on British telly for several years now, and shows no signs of declining in ubiquity. The King of the panel and quiz show, not only has he presented Distraction, Your Face or Mine? and 8 Out of 10 Cats, he's guest presented Have I Got News For You as well as appearing on it*, and also appeared on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, QI, TV Heaven, Telly Hell, and Top Gear among possibly thousands of others, including this blog. Further padding his resume are six consecutive instalments of Big Fat Quiz of the Year...

All of which, naturally, I have watched on YouTube as part of an ongoing effort to cram all of British pop culture into my head alongside the American and Canadian stuff I grew up with, before I move on to Australian pop culture immediately prior to suffering the world's first learning-related stroke. So look forward to that.

Jimmy Carr started out, though, as a stand-up comedian; shown above is a clip of his dark humour on Live at the Apollo, complete with trademark rapid-fire pace and deadpan supercilious delivery. Delish!

*During which he flirted outrageously with Tory bigot and old boot Ann Widdecombe, after which she announced she is permanently boycotting the show - surely grounds for his OBE!
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Happy Birthday Your Royal Highness

Any day I get to indulge in one of my private (or in this case, not so private) obsessions is a good day. In the case of Prince Harry, though, several obsessions come clattering together into one irresistible, er, package. Sorry... What was I talking about?

Oh yeah. Royalty, cute men, redheads... It's all good.

Anyway, having done my bit over the past years to save him from a fate worse than deployment to Iraq - although he was sent to Afghanistan, he returned to Britain ahead of schedule after the Drudge Report spilled the beans - I feel extra qualified to celebrate his birthday this year.

Good on yer, mate, and many more!
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Remembering... Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Britain's road and rail infrastructure owes a massive debt to that country's greatest engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel; in addition to the massive public works projects he undertook, he was a noted innovator, finding simple solutions to long-standing problems again and again over the course of his too-short life and career.

Brunel's first project was the Thames Tunnel, on which he was appointed his father Sir Marc Isambard Brunel's chief assistant; the year was 1826, and he was just 20. It would take years to join the London boroughs of Rotherhithe and Wapping, and when it opened in March 1843 the tunnel was an instant sensation whose many setbacks would help to perfect the technology which would one day be used to dig the Channel Tunnel.

Brunel built his reputation on bridges: the Royal Albert Bridge, the Windsor Railway Bridge, the Maidenhead Railway Bridge, and the short-lived Hungerford Bridge over the Thames to name just four. His most famous, though, is probably the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the River Severn near Bristol.

For all that he is probably best known, though, for the monumental effort he put into the Great Western Railway; not only did he survey the entire length of the route himself, he made several controversial decisions in order to facilitate it, namely the switch from standard gauge to broad gauge track. Still in service (albeit under another name), the Great Western Railway runs from its terminus at London's Paddington Station to Penzance, with spurs throughout the West Country and South Wales.

Born in April 1806, Isambard Kingdom Brunel died of a stroke on this day in 1859, having left an indelible legacy upon Britain, including his own favourite corner of it, Brunel Manor which, alas, he didn't live to see completed.
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"Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand

Birthday wishes go out today to Paul Thomson, drummer for Scottish wunderkinds Franz Ferdinand, whose self-titled debut album spawned a massive hit with Take Me Out. Its super-trippy video was directed by Jonas Odell as an homage to the iconic animations of Terry Gilliam.

In my career as a night porter I once met Franz Ferdinand at the height of their fame; I can report that not only are they super cute in person, they're also wee - but they were perfectly lovely to me. I stored their gear for them in a board room, and even though I didn't get a tip - something about it not being in their tour budget - they all thanked me. When you're the night porter, politeness is worth more than mere money.
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POPnews: September 15th

[The Galápagos Islands are a unique ecosystem of unparalleled beauty - only be careful not to tell anyone or they'll soon have it covered it in condos, golf courses, and mini-malls!]
668 CE - Constans II - ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire - was assassinated in his bath at the Italian town of Syracuse; he was succeeded by the usurper Mezezius (who may have been implicit in the killing), who was in turn dealt with by the rightful heir, Constans' son, who became Constantine IV.

921 CE - Saint Ludmila was murdered at the command of her daughter-in-law Drahomíra in the Czech town of Tetin.  Among St Ludmila's more illustrious offspring is King Wenceslas - the 'Good King' of that famous Christmas carol - who was her grandson.

1440 - Gilles de Rais - the man often cited as the principal inspiration for Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale Bluebeard - was finally taken into custody upon an accusation brought against him by the Bishop of Nantes.  No one knows how many children de Rais may have molested and killed in the last eight years of his life, but it could have been hundreds...  He would be burned at the stake on October 26th along with two of his servants who acted as accomplices.

1500 - John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury since January 1479, died; he was succeeded by Thomas Langton, who was consecrated in January 1501.

1762 - An English victory by Lieutenant Colonel William Amherst at the Battle of Signal Hill forced French commander Guillaume de Bellecombe to surrender the Newfoundland capital of St. John's during the French and Indian War.

1789 - The US Department of State was re-named, and given greater powers; although approved by Congress and the Senate on July 21st and signed into law by President George Washington on July 27th, it was originally called the Department of Foreign Affairs. The first Secretary of State was John Jay.

1830 - The world's first intercity passenger railway line, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened; on the same day William Huskisson, MP, became the first person to ever die in a railway accident when he was struck by George Stephenson's Rocket and suffered a crushed leg near Newton-le-Willows. He later succumbed to his injuries at the vicarage in Eccles. There is a monument to Huskisson at the place where he was struck.

1835 - The HMS Beagle - with Charles Darwin aboard - arrived at the Galápagos Islands.

1883 - The Bombay Natural History Society was founded in the Indian city of Bombay (now Mumbai.)

1885 - Jumbo, circus impresario P. T. Barnum's famed elephant, was struck by a train and killed in a classification yard in St. Thomas, Ontario; while Jumbo's skeleton was sold to the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, his hide was stuffed and continued touring with Barnum until 1889, during which time he made more money for Barnum than he had before - on account of needing neither a trainer nor feeding.  Jumbo remained on display at Tufts University until he was destroyed by a fire in 1975.

1917 - The first issue of Forbes magazine was published.

1928 - Sir Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin.

1935 - The Nazi Party's banner - the swastika flag - was adopted as the flag of Germany.

1955 - Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita was published in Paris by Olympia Press; it would finally be published in the United States in 1958 and the United Kingdom in 1959.

1959 - Nikita Khrushchev arrived in the United States, the first time a Soviet official had ever come to the US on an official visit; he stayed for 13 days, during which time he was famously refused entrance to Disneyland. Khrushchev's visit humanized his capitalist enemies, and this change in his attitude may have been as much to blame for the subsequent Sino-Soviet split as Mao's diplomatic arrogance.

1968 - The Soviet Union's Zond 5 spaceship was launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and safely re-enter the Earth's atmosphere; the Zond 5 was later retrieved from the Indian Ocean, where it splashed down on September 21st.  Its 'biological payload', including several turtles, were unharmed.

1973 - Sweden's King Gustaf VI Adolf died; he was succeeded by his grandson, who has reigned as Carl XVI Gustaf ever since.

1981 - The John Bull became the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution operated it under its own power on the 150th anniversary of its first run; it remains on display at the National Museum of American History while a replica is on display at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.

1982 - The first issue of USA Today went on sale.

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Pop History Moment: 'The Golden Girls' Debuts

It was on this day in 1985 when television viewers first got a glimpse into the lives of four women sharing a house together in Miami...  Over the next seven years the exploits of Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur), Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan), Rose Nylund (Betty White), and Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty) made it one of the most consistently popular shows on TV; in addition to strong performances by its four leads, the series also featured the talents of Herb Edelman as Dorothy's philandering ex-husband, Stan*.

The years have not diminished its viewers' enthusiasm, and it would be safe to say that The Golden Girls is today one of the most popular programs to have ever aired.  Proof that the show's success was due to its entire ensemble came with the short run of a spin-off, The Golden Palace, which lasted only the 1992-3 season** without the anchor of Dorothy's commonsense.  Two other spin-offs - Empty Nest and its spin-off Nurses - were more successful; most successful of all was the character of Sophia Petrillo, whom Getty portrayed in a total of five different series (the fifth was Blossom!)

*Edelman appeared in just 27 of the show's 180 episodes, but it was enough to make him its most prolific guest star; TV veteran Harold Gould actually played two of Rose's boyfriends - Arnie Peterson in 1 episode and Miles Webber in 14.
** The Golden Palace - which co-starred Cheech Marin and Don Cheadle - had been greenlighted for a second season, but was cancelled the day before NBC announced its new season.

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Gratuitous Brunette: Ben Cohen

At the risk of having him step on my neck, I first decided to name professional rugby player Ben Cohen as today's Gratuitous Brunette in 2008, on his thirtieth birthday. It went so well that first year, in fact, that I've just let it ride!

In point of fact, Cohen has been known to embrace his substantial gay following, alas just not in the fun way; still, following him is its own reward, since given how good he looks from the front he looks even better from behind. Besides which, I really need to up the sports coverage here, despite the fact that I know nothing about sports; the fact that Ben Cohen is a genuine pop culture icon helps.

Having spent the bulk of his career playing for the Northampton Saints, Cohen now plays for Brive in France, despite the fact that he's got a Jewish name - even though he's only culturally (rather than religiously) Jewish. The French - it needs to be said - are well known for their anti-Semitism; just ask Bernard-Henri Lévy.
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"Tears Dry On Their Own" by Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse's song Tears Dry on Their Own - the fourth single from her second album Back to Black - features a sample of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's classic 1967 Motown hit Ain't No Mountain High Enough (which itself was written by Ashford & Simpson); so subtle is that sample used by producer Salaam Remi that even after learning it was in there I still can't hear it, which makes a nice change from the sort of sampling the likes of P. Diddy practice wherein the listener is hit over the head repeatedly with the same line 200 times in three minutes.

The video was directed by photograstar David LaChapelle.
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