Thursday, April 22, 2010

Remember, this is the only home we have.

It's Earth Day today, everybody goes out and hug a tree. If you don't want to be that familiar with nature, give a warm but firm shake hands to your house plants.

Here's a little poem you can remember to help on this Earth Day -

If it's yellow, let it mellow,
If it's brown, flush it down,
And if it's blue, seek medical attention.


April 22, 1935 -
Universal Studios released the sequel to the original Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, and Elsa Lanchester was release on this date.



Elsa Lanchester was only 5'4" but for the role was placed on stilts that made her 7' tall. The bandages were placed so tightly on her that she was unable to move and had to be carried about the studio and fed through a straw.


April 22, 1939 -
One of Bette Davis' favorite performances in the film Dark Victory, opened on this date.



While filming the dramatic scene at the end of Dark Victory, Bette Davis stopped and asked the director, "Who's scoring this film? Max Steiner?" The director said he thought so. "Well," Bette declared, "either I am going up those stairs or Max Steiner is going up those stairs, but not the two of us together."


April 22, 1942 -
One of Hitchcock's brilliant World War II efforts, Saboteur, premiered in Washington DC on this date.



The shot of the ship on its side toward the end was an actual shot of the ocean liner SS Normandie, which had caught fire and capsized at its pier in New York. The fire was an accident, not sabotage (a cutting torch accidently set a fire), though there were rumors of sabotage at the time.


April 22, 1950 -
Peter Frampton, musician, singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, was born on this date.



If you were a teenager in the mid 70's, you were issued your standard copy of Frampton Comes Alive to face your 'awkward' years.

Today in History -
April 22, 1451 -
Isabella I, Queen of Castille, was born. She also became Queen of Aragon in 1479.

She was Christopher Columbus' patron, and must therefore share some of the responsibility for the many thousands of casinos across America.


April 22, 1870 -
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was born on this date He later became Lenin, invented the Communist Party in Russia, and made himself first Head Bastard of the Soviet Union.

It's interesting that Alexander Kerensky, the leader of Russia's provisional revolutionary government in 1917 until overthrown by Lenin, was born on the same day as Lenin, only eleven years later.

Well, it's interesting to some people.


April 22, 1904 - Robert Oppenheimer was born on this date. Mr. Oppenheimer is known as the father of the atomic bomb.



The bomb's mother has never been identified to anyone's satisfaction, which only underscores the lax security at Los Alamos.


April 22, 1923 -
Kinky center fold model Bettie Mae Page born in Nashville, Tennessee.



As she describes herself, "I was never the girl next door."


April 22, 1946 -
John Waters, famed indie film director, was born on this date.



It's a sad day in America when John Waters doesn't have a movie coming out.


April 22, 1964 -
President Johnson opened the New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadow, Corona Park, New York, on this date.



The Fair also is remembered as the vehicle Walt Disney utilized to design and perfect the system of "audio-animatronics," in which a combination of sound and computers control the movement of life-like robots to act out scenes. In the It's a Small World attraction at the Pepsi pavilion, animated dolls and animals frolicked in a spirit of international unity on a boat-ride around the world.

Once the fair was over, Walt feverishly pushed his Imagineers to build him an 'actual' President. Historians argue that this was the beginning of Ronald Reagan campaign for the Presidency.


April 22, 1994 -
Richard M. Nixon suffers a fatal stroke. His body is laid to rest in the unhallowed grounds of his Presidential Library.

His head was severed from his body and wooden stakes were driven through his heart to make sure he is dead.


Finally, it' s take your kid to work day. In my case, my girls would much rather go to their school than crawl into the underground bunker I call an office. Being snarky every morning doesn't get you glamorous digs.



And so it goes

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