Typical Union Meeting. Comrade Ivan, I heard they are hiring board artists on Family Guy..?

For you Animation Guild 839 members in the LA area, next Tuesday is the meeting for nomination of new officers for the union. They will serve a three year term. I hear a lot of top jobs may be up for grabs. Even if you usually can't be bothered going to these, THIS is always the most important General Membership meeting you can ever attend.

This is your chance to have a direct impact on how decisions are made by the local. The people you nominate will have the power over the financial health of LA animation, which has ramifications for the rest of the country. A bad or militant board can provoke major ruptures within the business which could bring on a strike or drive work out of town. A lazy or apathetic board can let the relevancy of the union movement fall away from the newer members and could cause management to ignore your rights under our contract.

Ignoring this meeting is like lending your wallet to a stranger.

Under my presidency (1992-2001) we organized big studios like Dreamworks, brought more CGI artists into the union than any other such organization in the world, built a multi-employer 401k plan and helped create complete medical coverage for same-sex couples. Under current President Koch retraining and user groups for traditional artists to CGI accellerated, big studios like the Simpsons now enjoy union benefits, the first games companies unionized and a new 839 headquarters is being built. We are the fifth largest union in the Hollywood backstage.

I salute all of those who donate their time and energies to making the local answerable to all and force for good for all our Toon Town family.

A corporation is not a democracy. A company is not a democracy. Our union is us, artists united. We are a democracy. For all our sakes and our families, please participate.



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Happy Yom Kippur

Birthdays: Louis Joliet as in the French explorers Marquette and Joliet, Gustav Holst, H.G. Wells, Stephen King,Cecil Fielder, Rob Morrow, Larry Hagman, Ricky Lake, Fanny Flagg, Ethan Coen of the Coen Brothers, Leonard Cohen not one of the Coen Brothers, Faith Hill, Bill Murray of Osmosis Jones is 57, legendary animation director Chuck Jones
courtesy toon images.

1327- English King Edward II was openly gay with his courtiers Piers Gaveston and later Hugh Despencer. In the Middle Ages it was okay to be gay if you were a big tough mo-fo killer like Richard Lionheart, but Edward was a weenie who lost battles to Scottish King Robert the Bruce. So he was overthrown by his own Queen Isabella the She-Wolf of France and her lover Roger Mortimer. This day Edward was murdered while being held in Berkeley Castle. The barons shoved a red hot spear up his butt. Edwards only son Edward III later killed everyone involved except his mom and became an utterly great king.

1589- During the French Religious Wars King Henry IV defeated a large Catholic League army at Arques. He wrote a friend later:”Go hang yourself my brave Creon, we were at Arques and you weren’t!”

1793- The French Revolutionary Government throws out the calendar and makes a new one. So today was the FIRST DAY OF THE FIRST DECADE (week) OF THE FIRST MONTH OF YEAR II OF THE REPUBLIC ! If you didn't get it you were guillotined.

1846- Drygoods dealer Mr. A.J. Stewart opened a store in New York City that was so large he put the various items in their own departments, the Department Store. He also had the first large glass display windows which one writer labeled “A useless extravagance.”

1897- The famous column by Frank Church in Joseph Pulitzer's New York World first appeared with the answer to 8 year old Virginia O’Hanlon’s question : " ...and yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus..."

1915- The British archaeological treasure Stonehenge was sold at auction to a Mr Chubb, who promptly donated it to the British nation.

1917-The Gulf Between, the first film shot in Technicolor. Because the process was more expensive than other processes in 1932 inventor Herbert Kalmus made a deal with Walt Disney to make his cartoons exclusively in technicolor to advertise to other studios the bold pure color.

1920- The Kimberly Clark Company introduces Kotex ladies napkins in a hospital-blue box. Before that women had to wear something like a linen diaper that they washed and re-used.

1938- It’s very rare for a hurricane to reach up into the colder Mid-Atlantic waters of the Eastern seacoast of the US. This day the Long Island Express- A force 3 Hurricane slammed into New England killing 600. The Boston area was hit with 120 mile an hour winds and downtown Providence was flooded under 13 feet of water. Hurricanes and Typhoons didn't start to get names until the 1960s when they began to be tracked on radar and satellite.

1944- An internal FBI memo concludes "Communist infiltration of the Hollywood Guilds and unions and the only organization that could stop them was the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals" a conservative publicity group that included Louis B. Mayer, John Wayne, Gary Cooper and Walt Disney.

1945- Disney short "Hockey Homicide" the first Sport-Goofy directed by Jack Kinney. Producer Harry Tytle mentioned in his memoirs that although Walt Disney didn’t complain about their success Walt never liked these cartoons and thought Goofy too stupid a character for the public to identify with.

1948- the first Texaco Star Theater television show featuring a minor nightclub comedian named Milton Berle. Berle’s antics make him a major star and with Arthur Godfrey’s show help grow television from a scientific curiosity to the entertainment every household had to have. For ten years the U.S. public never missed Uncle Miltie on t.v.

1950- General MacArthur’s UN Army fought their way into North Korean occupied Seoul. On a hilltop the First Marines Div raised a US flag on a loose drainpipe found near a local school. This caused one regular Army commander to complain: “Ever since Iwo Jima the Marines never pass up an opportunity to be photographed raising a flag over something!”

1954- The USS Nautilus, the first nuclear powered submarine, was launched in Groton Conn. The submarines in the Finding Nemo ride at Disneyland were originally painted to look like the USN nuclear ships Nautilus, Wasp and one other I can't recall.

1957- The Perry Mason tv show with Raymond Burr premiered.

1970-first ABC Monday Night Football - Cleveland Browns defeated the NY Jets led by Broadway Joe Namath, 24-21. Announcers- Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell and retired Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dandy Don Meredith. In 2006 the show moved to ESPN.

1985- “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straights hit #1 in the Billboard charts. Writer Mark Knopfler was inspired by a workman in an electronics store making fun of celebrities on MTV and wrote his discussion down.

Recently my Car Talk colleague Helen Jen has been experiencing the joys of the Los Angeles Municipal Bus System. She has resorted to this deperate act since her car is getting repaired. She listened to me waxing rhapsodically about my time riding the busses when I first hit town thrity years ago. So she created a funny entry on her blog today.

http://helenjenart.blogspot.com/2007/09/conversation-about-la-bus-system.html
The older man I'm talking to in the 1977 image is Don Duckwall, during my first job interview at Disney. Yes, that was really his name. I recall after being rejected thinking to myself " %$#! If you had been born with the name Popeye, you wouldn't have a job!" Back then, the joke among us young shavetails was Step 1-Fly to LA. Step 2-Apply at Disney for a job. Step 3- Get rejected. Step 4- Then get jet lag. I think I was in that office within 24 hours of landing.
And I took the RTD # 86 bus from Studio City to Burbank.



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Birthdays: Alexander the Great -356 BC, Upton Sinclair, Jelly Roll Morton, Red Auerbach, Guy Lafluer, Fernando Rey, Ann Meara, Rachel Roberts, Jonathan Hardy,Fran Drescher, Sophia Loren is 73

356BC- The Great Temple of Artemis of Ephesus was destroyed by fire. It was said to be the work of a lunatic arsonist from Hailicarnassus. The temple had been built as a gift to the goddess by Croesus the Lydian who was so had so much wealth the phrase “To be as rich as Croesus “ is still in use today. Why had the Goddess Artemis would allow her house to be consumed so cruelly? The priests explained that she was probably too busy overseeing the birth of Alexander the Great in Macedon to keep a watch on her house. The Ephesians rebuilt the huge temple and 400 year later Saint Paul was thrown out of it for preaching his weird new religion. The cult statue of Artemis or Diana had dozens of breasts, which some describe as maybe bull testicles. They are symbols of fertility.

1670- English poet John Milton published his last works “Paradise Regained” and “Samson Agonistes”. He was blind but dictated to a secretary who wrote down his poems. When he felt the inspiration he would call him by saying:” Come. I need to be milked.”

1803- Irish patriot Robert Emmett executed for leading an abortive uprising against the British. His final words became famous: “ Let no man write my epitaph. When my country takes her place among the nations of the Earth, then, and not till then, Let my epitaph be written.”

1814- A new poem by Georgetown lawyer Francis Scott Key was first published in the Baltimore Patriot. First called the Defense of Fort McHenry. Keys brother in law Judge Nicholson suggested it sounded good sung to the tune To Anacreon in Heaven’. Soon everyone was singing it as the Star Spangled Banner.

1839- The steamer British Queen first brought news of the invention of Photography and the Daguerreotype process to the U.S.. Soon everyone is happily snapping away.

1853- Elisha Otis revolutionized office building construction by demonstrating his elevator that didn’t fall when the cable was cut.

1944- Now that the Pacific War was winding down martial law was lifted on the Hawaiian Islands. It had been imposed since Pearl Harbor. One tragic result for the servicemen was that the first thing the restored chief of Honolulu police did was shut down the brothels of Waikiki. The area known as Hotel Street was ringed with houses of ill repute servicing servicemen for the duration. One sailor reminisced: I got stewed, screwed and tatooed, all in one night.” The quarters most famous hooker, Jean O’Hara said: “ I think I slept with the entire US Navy.”

1952- CBS premiered the Jackie Gleason Show- The Honeymooners".

1955- The Phil Silvers Show, originally entitled You’ll Never Get Rich” debuted on CBS. His character Sgt. Bilko was later the inspiration for the Hanna Berbera Show Top Cat.

1973- Musician Jim Croce (30) died in a charter plane crash near Natchitoches Louisiana.

1984- The Cosby Show premiered.

Birthdays: Salladin- Sa-Allah Al'Dhin, Brian Epstein, "Momma" Cass Elliot, Frank Tashlin, Dr. Ferry Porsche- inventor of the Porsche race car, Twiggy – real name Leslie Hornby, William Golding author of The Lord of the Flies, Paul Williams, Adam West is 79, Frances Farmer, David McCallum from the Man From Uncle, Duke Snyder, Mike Royko, Rosemary Harris, Jeremy Irons- Scar in Disney's the Lion King- is 59, Jimmy Fallon is 33.

1493- Pope Alexander VI had never made it a secret that he had a growing family of children. He wanted to make his son Caesar Borgia a Cardinal at 26 and his daughter Lucretzia a duchess but first there was the problem that they were illegitimate. But that’s no problem for the Vicar of Christ! Today he declared them legitimate offspring of a cousin and his wife. Everyone winked at the twisted logic and went along with it.

1580- The family of Miguel de Cervantes ransomed the writer from the Barbary Pirates. He wrote Don Quixote de la Mancha in 1604.

1692- One of the only men convicted in the Salem Witch Trials was executed. Pilgrim Giles Corey had a wooden board laid on top of him and his neighbors piled large stones on top until he was squished to death. At one point his tongue was sticking so grotesquely out of his head that the magistrate pushed it back in with the tip of his cane.

1777-First Battle of Saratoga, also called Freeman’s Farm- Gen. Johnny Burgoyne's British invasion down the Hudson was stopped. Burgoyne’s plan was to cut the rebel colonies in two with his thrust down from Canada being met from the South by Lord Howe coming up from New York City and another force east from Oswego. But Lord Howe disregarded the plan in favor of another shot at George Washington and Philadelphia. Back in London Lord Charles Germain neglected to write out the necessary orders for Howe to support Burgoyne because he was late to go on his Easter holiday and couldn’t be bothered. And the Oswego force was stopped by colonials using a lunatic hermit named Ute Schuyler who spooked the British allied Indians into deserting. Eastern Indians thought the mentally ill were possessed by Hipi-Manitou spirits and so were bad luck. The net result was Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne's army was alone in the forest, far from supplies and slowly being surrounded by the Americans.

1783- Jacques Montgolfier launches the first hot air balloon in Paris. The first aeronauts were a sheep, duck and rooster. Montgolfier made his fortune in paper. To this day if you get some high quality stationary with a balloon and French flag in the watermark that is Papier Canson et Montgolfier, his company.

1796-President George Washington’s farewell address was first published in Claypools American Daily Advertiser, then reprinted in other papers throughout the country. Washington warned to “avoid entangling foreign alliances and asked for national unity above partisan politics. But party politics in the new nation had firmly taken root. One opposition paper, the Aurora, called George Washington’s speech “-the last loathings of a sick mind..”

1819- On a beautiful English autumn day poet John Keats was moved to write his Ode to Autumn.

1827- Fight at the Vidalia Sandbar- Famous Mississippi gamblers brawl in which Jim Bowie uses his famous knife to carve up a gang of sore losers who shoot him twice. The Bowie knife may not have been designed by Jim Bowie but by his brother Rezin Bowie, who wanted an intimidating toothpick to brandish after he almost died in an earlier altercation. The Bowie knife was the Saturday night special of the early nineteenth century. In Brahm Stoker's Dracula, Van Helsing doesn't kill the count with a wooden stake but with a Bowie knife.

1849-First commercial laundry set up in Oakland Cal.

1864- Battle of Winchester- General Phil Sheridan's Yankees whup Jubal Early's Confederates. The feisty son of an Irish ditch digger, Abe Lincoln called Sheridan "A runty little man with a bullet shaped head and not enough neck to hang him." But he proved his value today. He rode fearlessly down the battle line shouting to his men:" Pour it into them boys! Knock every sonofabitch down before you !" One sonofabitch killed was Confederate General George S. Patton, the grandfather of the World War Two general.
Sheridan's army had no less than three future U.S. presidents on staff- Gen.James Garfield, Gen. Rutherford Hayes and Major William McKinley.

1876- Melvin Bissell of Grand Rapids Michigan invented his carpet sweeper.

1881- PRESIDENT JAMES GARFIELD DIED- Garfield was shot in the back at Washington rail station by Charles Guiteau on July 2nd.The President lingered these many weeks in agony before finally dying. Garfield might have lived had it not been for all the doctors poking around in his wound without antiseptic conditions. Even inventor Alexander Graham Bell was invited to search for the bullet with a new invented metal detector. James Garfield died of blood poisoning and infection. Interestingly enough, for the two and a half months the President was out of action and Congress was not called into session, yet the U.S.A. ran just fine.

1926- THE BIG ONE- Miami Florida was destroyed by a huge Hurricane. The storm stopped for a time the runaway boom in land investment then all the rage in South Florida. SnowBirds up north invested millions in land that turned out to be swamps . The Marx Brothers poked fun at the craze in their 1929 film Cocoanuts. As Groucho said:” Florida Folks. Sunshine, Sunshine , now let’s get the auction started before there is a tornado.”

1931- The Marx Brothers comedy “ Monkey Business” premiered.

1934- Bruno Richard Hauptman was arrested and charged with the kidnap murder of the Lindbergh baby. He pleaded innocence up until he fried in the electric chair, but he was found with a significant part of the ransom money on him.

1936- Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald record “Indian Love Call”. When I’m Calling You, Oooh-ohhoohhh, Ohhhh-ohhh-oohhhhhhh”, etc.

1945- Little Shirley Temple, now all grown up, married actor John Agar, who she met on the set of John Ford's film Fort Apache. The RKO studio turned the marriage into a media circus by inviting 12,000 people. John Ford teased Agar mercilessly, calling him Mr. Temple. John and Shirley divorced within two years. Shirley Temple did a few more small roles, remarried and became a diplomat and John Agar went on to star in a number of sci-fi flicks like 'Tarantula", The Brain from Planet Aurous" and built his own theme dinosaur park by an Arkansas freeway "John Agar's House of Kong'.

1945- Klaus Fuchs, a spy in the British delegation member of the Los Alamos Atomic bomb program, delivered the plans of the plutonium 'Nagasaki" bomb to a courier for Soviet intelligence in Moscow.

1961- This is the night Betty and Barney Hill claimed they were picked up by a flying saucer and experimented on. It is one of the more famous abduction stories because it holds up under hypnosis. Hey, what are you planning to do with that anal probe?

1970- The Mary Tyler Moore TV Show premiered.

1985- Mexico City devastated by a large earthquake 8.1 on the Richter scale. The next day the city was rocked again by a 7.5 earthquake. 10,000 people died. Curiously enough 80% of the cities ancient landmarks were undamaged, only modern buildings collapsed. People hid in Aztec ruins, figuring they’ve stood for centuries and would stand now.

1995- Orville Reddenbacher 'the Popcorn king' died.

1995-The NY Times and Washington Post printed the 35,000 word manifesto of the Unabomber. He promised to stop sending bombs to people if they printed his message. He accused technology of subverting American society and that the Democrats stoke the fears of the poor and the Republicans believe in nothing but pure self interest. Hmmm…

Birthdays: Roman Emperor Marcus Ulpius Trajan 53AD, Dr Samuel Johnson, Frankie Avalon, Greta Garbo, Claudette Colbert, Leon Foucault ( Foucault's Pendulum ), Jack Warden, Canadian PM John Diefenbaker, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Rossano Brazzi, Debbie Fields founder of Mrs. Field's Cookies, Jada Pinkett-Smith, James Gandolfini is 46,

Happy Birthday June Foray! June is the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Natasha Fatale, Granny, a founder of ASIFA-Hollywood, Motion Picture Academy Board of Governor and honors too numerous to mention- Happy Birthday!

1572-the painter El Greco first appeared in history in a document paying his union dues to the Guild of St. Lawrence, the artists guild of Rome. His real name was Domenico Theotocopoulos. People just called him 'the Greek Guy" -El Greco.

1804- Napoleon inspected Baron Gros new painting The Plague Victims of Jaffa and liked it. Nappy considered paintings part of propaganda and commissioned artists to project his image.

1811 A Portuguese 'Projectionist' (experimenter with Magic Lanterns) offers the Duke of Wellington to burn up Napoleon's army with a series of convex lenses and mirrors. Wellington says thanks, but no thanks...

1851-First issue of the New York Daily Times, later just the New York Times.

1870-THE SIEGE OF PARIS BEGAN- The main French armies defeated and Emperor Napoleon III a prisoner, Paris alone refused to surrender to Prussia. As the great Krupp guns boom shells into the city, American General Phil Sheridan stood as a tourist in between Chancellor Bismarck and the Kaiser. Painter August Renoir would go outside the city walls to sketch and was once picked up and accused of espionage. Parisians starved in the siege and elegant restaurants were soon offering 'roast cat in orange sauce with a decorative garnish of mice'. Top fashion guru Worth of Paris declared it chic' to have some decorative ruins in your garden. After the siege the Paris city walls were demolished. They were approximately where the freeway "peripherique" around the city is today. The fiercest fighting was where the suburb of La Defense is (hence the name).Young Emile Cohl was inspired by the military wall posters he saw to become an artist. He later became the first true animation artist.

1895- In Davenport Iowa Daniel David Liliiard invented the chiropractic adjustment session. Now just relax- CRACCCK!!

1917-Writer Aldous Huxley got a job teaching at Eton. One of his students was Eric Blair, who would write under the name George Orwell.

1927-The Columbia Broadcasting System-CBS broadcast its first program, an opera called the King’s Henchman.

1932-Frustrated movie actress Peggy Enwhistle jumped off the Hollywood Sign. In case you are curious she jumped off the “H”. She also didn’t hit the ground immediately but hit a cactus patch, dying slowly later in great pain. Ironically in her mail that day was a script and a job offer. The role was of a woman who commits suicide.

1965- I Dream of Jeannie debuted on television. Network Standards & Practices said Barbara Eden could wear the harem outfit so long as her belly-button didn’t show. At first the reviews were not good. Variety said: “The only star of this show is Barbera Edens cleavage.”

Around this same time Cartoonist Mort Walker, who drew the strip Beetle Bailey, was told by the syndicate that according to the Comic's Code, when he portrayed Gen. Halftrack's pretty secretary Miss Buxley in a bikini, he was not allowed to show her navel. He said he kept a drawer in his desk filled with little bits of cut out bellybuttons from the numerous daily strips he had to take an Xacto knife to.

1970- Jimi Hendrix (27) was found dead of drug and alcohol abuse. He had passed out and choked on his own vomit. Janis Joplin's reaction was -"G-ddammit! He beat me to it !" Joplin herself died three weeks afterwards.

1991- Comedian Redd Foxx ( Sanford and Son) was famous for doing bits like faking a heart attack. This day on the set of his new series the Royal Family while joking with Della Reese he clutched his chest and fell over dead. Everyone thought he was faking and laughed.

2003- In Scotland, paleontologists discover the world's oldest genitalia. From a dinosaur era insect ancestor of the preying mantis. Sounds like an old prospectors exclamation:” Great Giant Mantis Balls!”

Birthdays: Hank Williams, Spiro T. Agnew, Jerry Colonna, Roddy MacDowell, composer Wendy Carlos Williams, Elvira- real name Cassandra Peterson, Anne Bancroft, cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, Rita Rudner

Feast of Saint Hildegard of Bingen, the medieval female composer.
I don't know why an octopus is dropping on her head while she is eating chili, but that is a contemporary image of Hildegard. Courtesy of Wilson's Almanac.com

1630- Happy Birthday Beantown! The Puritan colonists of New England decide to name their new settlement Boston, after a town in Lincolnshire. The site was an Algonquin village called Shawmut.

1787- The U.S. Constitution signed by the representatives of 12 of the thirteen states. Rhode Island boycotted the convention. “The business is closed.” George Washington wrote in his diary. Alexander Hamilton signed as the only representative of New York since the others left in protest. He was a prime mover of the Constitutional rewrite but was unimpressed with the final result: “Just more pork with the same old sauce, but it might lead the way for a better one later.”Aaron Burr was more blunt” I doubt if it will last 50 years.” Yet the US Constitution became the bedrock of the American system and is viewed with an almost religious dedication. When Ben Franklin emerged from the chamber an old woman asked:’ Well, Dr Franklin, what have you given us now?” Franklin replied:” A nation, mam, if you can keep it.”

1859- JOSHUA NORTON of San Francisco, a well known rice merchant, suffered a mental breakdown under the strain of work, bought a tricycle and a marching band uniform and declared himself Joshua Ist, By God's Grace Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico! Everybody went along with the gag including Abraham Lincoln, who Joshua would write to as "My Prime Minister" and Abe would answer "Your Majesty". He once signed an order outlawing the Republican and Democratic parties. When Joshua died in 1875 35,000 people turned out for a state funeral befitting royalty.

1876- THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID-One old Hollywood myth is of the Western town cowering in fear while desperadoes shoot up the street whoopin and a’hollering. When the Jesse James & Cole Younger gang rode out of Missouri and tried to rob the Bank of Northfield they found a town full of old Civil War veterans, who hauled out their rifles and shot them to pieces from every window and doorway. Frank and Jesse are about the only ones who escaped. The laid low in Tennessee for three years until resuming their outlaw ways. Cole Younger was wounded, captured and did 25 years in prison. In 1903 Cole and Frank James went on tour with their own Wild West Show.

1880- The L.A. Athletic Club opened.

1965- If you ever wondered what could be funny about being held in a Nazi prison camp you could watch the TV sitcom HOGANS HEROES, which debuted this day. Nazi Commandant Colonel Klink was acted by Werner Klemperer, whose father was the famous orchestra conductor Otto Klemperer who had to flee Germany because they were Jewish. Sergeant Schulz and the Frenchman LeBeau were also played by actors who survived concentration camps- John Banner and Robert Clary.

1971- RCA pulled out of the computer market.

1972- Filmation's The Groovie Ghoulies" debuts. Some designs done by a Don Bluth.

1975- Psychotherapist Lucile Yaney opened one of LA’s most unusual restaurants- the Inn of the Seventh Ray in Topanga Canyon. Built on the site of a countryhouse 1920’s evangelist Aimee Semple MacPherson brought her lovers. Premiere organic cuisine with berry wines, then you can browse the store for power crystals.