click on image to enlarge

I had a great time last Saturday at the Creative Talent Network-Van Eaton Gallery hosted Book Look II. Forty stalwart authors braved triple digit heat to sign books under a broad tent in Sherman Oaks. I was curious how many folks would show up, but I was surprised to see the event was packed most of the day. Estimates were that about 500 people strolled through, met the authors and bought some books. It became a big boisterous, sweaty, block party!

When they asked me, I thought everyone who wanted my book already had one already. I even brought something to read so I wouldn't be bored.

Instead I had a great time seeing old friends and making new ones. I even sold about a dozen books. Gloriouskies!

Thanks to Tina, Mike and Jeanine, Nicole, and all the wonderful volunteers for doing such a great job!

vital equipment at the event.

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Quiz: Name the Three Musketeers.

Yesterday’s Question: Where does Denim come from?
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history for 5/21/2008
Birthdays: Plato, Fats Waller, Albrecht Durer, Andre Sakharov, Armand Hammer, Raymond Burr, John Hubley, Dennis Day, Al Franken, Harold Robbins, Judge Reinhold, Larry Terro called Mr. T.

1540- Hernand DeSoto discovers the Mississippi River , the "Father of the Waters."

1661- BLIMEY! TEA COMES TO ENGLAND- King Charles II of England the Merry Monarch, married Catherine of Braganza, the Princess of Portugal. Her dowry included Tangiers and Bombay India. Poor Catherine never gave Charles any children, and she had to endure his constant philandering with a steady stream of mistresses. But she did introduce Britain to a new custom. She preferred drinking tea to the more traditional English Ale. Soon everyone had to have some.

1674- COSSACKS AND BAGELS- Hetman of the Ukraine Jan III Sobieski crowned king of Poland. He replaced King Michael Wisnoiecki, of whom it was said ' He could speak nine languages, but had nothing intelligent to say in any of them!'. Jan Sobieski became a warrior king, some speculate that the Bagel was invented to celebrate his victories over the Turks. It's supposedly shaped like his stirrup. Others say baloney, the hole is in the bagel so you can stack them on a stick and sell them on the street.

1800- Napoleon crossed the Alps into Italy at the Great Saint Bernard Pass. Napoleon waited for his last troops to complete the crossing, then thanked the monks who aided his men and crossed himself. Artist David portrayed Napoleon as crossing on a fierce white charger. In actuality he did the crossing on a donkey and at one point tucked his big gray overcoat between his legs and slid down a snowy mountain slope on his butt.



1881- Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross as a branch of the International Red Cross.

1885- The pieces of the Statue of Liberty leave for the U.S. I wonder if the crates said "Some Assembly Required"?

1878- Mr. D.A. Buck of Waterbury Conn. received a patent for a low cost mass produced watch. Within a few years he was selling half a million Waterbury Watches a year at $3.50 each.

1892- Leoncavallo's opera "I Pagliacci" debuts at La Scala.

1906 - Louis H Perlman patents a de-mountable tire carrying rim for cars.

1914 - Greyhound Bus Co begins in Minnesota.

1921- LEOPOLD & LOEB- Two preppie millionaire's sons who were pumped up on Nietzches theory of the superman decided to commit the perfect murder. They lured Loeb's 15 year old cousin into their car, bludgeoned him to death with a chisel then had lunch. Despite their confidence in their superior intellects they were quickly indentified and tried for murder. The rich families hired famed social-progressive lawyer Clarence Darrow for the defense. He made no attempt to prove their innocence but got them off on a life sentence. In 1936 Loeb was cut up with a razor while trying to rape another prisoner, Leopold was paroled in 1958 and died in 1971. The pointless cold bloodedness of the murder today would seem like just another Jerry Springer show, but it horrified 1920's America. F.Scott Fitzgerald said the Jazz Age lost some of it's innocent fun after Leopold & Loeb.

1927-LINDBERGH- Charles Lindbergh-Lucky Lindy, The Lone Eagle, etc. reaches a field outside Paris called Le Bourget after flying nonstop across the Atlantic. In a recent biography Lindbergh’s letters reveal he owed his life to specteral appartitions he imagined he saw in the back of his plane. There was no such thing as an auto-pilot yet and he had to stay awake and alert for 55 hours straight. His fatigue would have let him crash if the gremlin ghoulies he was hallucinating hadn’t kept him company. Over Paris as soon as he was sighted huge searchlights were beamed on his plane and the light temporarily blinded him so that he almost crashed. Also as he landed people swarmed around the whirring propellor, narrowly missing another tragedy. But Lindy was down and history made. He said he had never been to Europe and had wanted to see the sights but almost immediately he was whisked by battleship back to the U.S. for tumultuous ovations and parades.



1945- BOGEY LOVES BABY-Humphrey Bogart married Lauren Bacall on a friend’s farm in Ohio. He was 48 and she was 21. Her real name was Betty Persky, but she passed for WASP. So when the publicity photographers came, they were under strict instructions from Jack Warner to frame out of the shots Bacall’s more Jewish-looking relatives.

1952- Actor John Garfield died. Some say he died in the midst of wild fornications; in truth he died alone of alcohol abuse at 40. The matinee idol of “The Postman Rings Twice” and “Kid Galahad” was too politically left for the conservative postwar age. When a young stage actor he had run guns to the IRA, later he supported progressive union movements, anti-fascism and desegregation. His outspoken politics got him blacklisted in Hollywood, his friends deserted him and he was ruined.

1952- Famed writer Lillian Hellman testified before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee HUAC but refused to name names. “I cannot cut my conscience to fit the fashions of the day.” She escaped a contempt of Congress wrap but she was blacklisted and at one point was reduced to working in a department store.

1968 - Paul McCartney & Jane Asher attend an Andy Williams concert. This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs.

1968- Future President George W. Bush graduated Yale with a C Average.

1972- A Hungarian lunatic shouting I am Jesus Christ attacked Michelangelo’s statue La Pieta with a hammer. He is the reason why today we can only enjoy this beautiful sculpture from behind 3 inch thick bulletproof glass.

1980 – Star Wars “The Empire Strikes Back" premiered.

1983 - David Bowie's "Let's "Dance," single goes #1. The tracks featured a then little know guitarist named Stevie-Ray Vaughn.

1991- Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi was blown up by a suicide bomber girl carrying a bomb in a bunch of flowers. She was believed to be one of the Tamil Tiger separatists.

1992- Tonight Show host Johnny Carson did his last show “I bid you a very heartfelt goodnight.” After a behind the scenes political tussle with David Letterman, comic Jay Leno became the permanent Tonight Show host. Johnny spent his remaining years in privacy, even ignoring an invitation to the NBC 75th anniversary spectacular.
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Yesterday’s Question: Where does Denim come from?

Answer: The tough cotton weave that is denim is the most durable
ever used was produced in the French city of Nimes. It was originally to make ship sails in the days of wind powered ships. The Levi family bought bolts of the material when it's value was dropping, because of the use of steam power at sea. They made workpants from the material, called Serge DeNimes..
ey voila !

Question: What is the origin of Denim?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who were the Picts?
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History for 5/20/2008
Birthdays: Honore Balzac, Jimmy Stewart, Leon Schlesinger, William Fargo of Wells Fargo, Moshe Dayan, Henri Rousseau, Dave Thomas, Ted Bessell (Donald to Marlo Thomas’ “That Girl”), Japanese baseball great Sadaharu Oh, Antony Zerbe- the badguy vampire in the Omega Man, Bronson Pichot, Joe Cocker, Cher, Busta Rhymes

1520- A violent young Spanish mercenary soldier named Ignacio was hit by a cannonball. When he recovered he underwent a spiritual conversion and became St. Ignatius Loyola. Loyola founded a religious order called the Society of Jesus or Jesuits. Instead of acting like monks the Jesuits were organized on military discipline. Their leader is not called an abbot but the Secretary General. He is nicknamed “the Black Pope”.

1621- The Sack of Magdeburg-During the Thirty Years War Catholic armies captured this Protestant German city. They stabbed the surrendering Dutch commander Dietrich Von Falkenberg and committed horrible atrocities on the population. The medieval cry "Cria Havoc!" was the signal for the pent up soldiers to run amuck. According to the rules of war they have the right to rape, pillage and destroy for three days then discipline is restored. But at Magdeburg they burned the city down and for 14 days the victors dumped the bodies of the innocent in the Elbe River. The army’s commander Johan Tserclas von Tilly explained: “ The soldier must get something for his toil and trouble.” The incident galvanized Protestant resistance. Ironically a lot of the troops in the Catholic army were protestant mercenaries who figured the religious questions were for kings to worry about, they just thought the catholic side had better benefits.(401k, Good dental, the usual..)

1830 - D Hyde patented the fountain pen,replacing the sharpened goose feather.

1862-Congress passed the Homestead Act. 250 million acres of Free Land to all families who move west and build a home. Of course nobody told the Indians about this plan…

1873- Mr. Levi Strauss of San Francisco patents Jacob Davis’ process of riveted blue jeans. One alteration he made was to remove a rivet that was at the base of a cowboys crotch. It seems when they squatted around the campfire that rivet got red hot and caused much whoopin’ an a’ dancin’.

1891- Thomas Edison demonstrated an early prototype of kinetoscope- a motion picture machine- to his wife's friends at a party. The footage was of engineer W.K.L. Dickson and his associates dancing. Edison that night writes a letter about his movie machine to photographer Edweard Muybridge: " I doubt it will ever have any commercial value.."

1892- J.P. Morgan creates the General Electric Company and maneuvers inventor Thomas Edison off the board of directors.

1916- Polar Explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton set off in 1914 to cross the continent of Antartica. No one had heard from his party for two years and everyone assumed he was dead like Scott of the Antarctic 4 years before. This day Shackleton and two survivors reached a Norwegian Whaling Station on South Georgia Island ahead of the rest of his party. Sir Ernest asked about the Great War in Europe and assumed that by now the war was probably over. “Who won that war?” he asked. He was told: “It is still going on. Europe has gone mad. The World has Gone Mad.”

1916- Artist Norman Rockwell sold his first painting for a Saturday Evening Post cover.

1926 - Thomas Edison says Americans prefer silent movies over talking pictures. He also thought the flat record disc could never replace the cylinder.

1927- Charles Lindbergh took off for France in his little plane The Spirit of Saint Louis. The day before two pilots died when their plane failed to clear some power lines. Lindbergh barely cleared them himself. By attempting the trip alone it meant he would have to stay awake and alert for 33 1/2 hours with no company but a Felix the Cat doll for good luck.

1937- Bob Clampett promoted to director at Leon Schlesinger’s Looney Tunes Studio. Clampett, whose mother hand sewed the first Mickey Mouse dolls for Walt Disney. After leaving Looney Tunes Clampett created the Beany & Cecil Show for early television.

1939- Pan Am establishes "Yankee Clipper"" flying boat passenger service across the Atlantic. From Long Island New York to Lisbon Portugal in 22 hours. For awhile it was thought flying boats would be the future of civilian aviation because they land in water so save land for airports and runways. Also safer because if there was any kind of engine trouble they could just put down in water and bob around until help arrived.

1943- Admiral Yamamoto shot down and killed in transit by American pursuit squadron tipped off by the broken Japanese code. Ironically the mastermind of Pearl Harbor was against the war with America and predicted: " If I can knock out the American fleet early I can raise hell in the Pacific for two years. If you don't negotiate after that we will eventually lose." I recently read a theory of one historian who said that right around this time Prime Minister Hideki Tojo's government had fallen over the conduct of the war and Yamamoto, as Japan’s most popular soldier, could have been the next Prime Minister. In which case he would have opened peace talks as early as 1943, long before Okinawa, Iwo Jima and Hiroshima ! It’s a stretch, but one of the intriguing “what if’s” of history.

1975- In a small warehouse in Van Nuys California, George Lucas assembled an effects crew to create the film Star Wars. It is the birth of Industrial Light & Magic, or ILM.

1979- The last Saturday Night Live show done by the original cast. Many of them had their 5 year contracts up and wanted to do something else. Plus producer Lorne Michaels was feuding with NBC chairman Fred Silverman and wanted to leave. So goodbye Lorne Michaels, Gilda Radner, Lorraine Newman, Garret Morris, Bill Murray and Al Franken, Hello Jean Doumainian and Joe Piscopo! Lorne Michaels came back to the show a few years later and has produced it ever since.

1984- Hanna Barbera’s “The Smurfic Games”.

1993 - Max Klein, the inventor of Paint by Numbers sets, died at 77. President Eisenhower once passed out paint-by-numbers sets to his senior cabinet so their paintings could adorn the West Wing offices. Imagine seeing on your wall an original artwork by VP Nixon or Curtis LeMay!
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who were the Picts?

Answer: In ancient times the Celtic people who became the Scots covered themselves in blue dye, called Woad, and tattoos when they went into battle. The Romans’ called them the Picts, from Picti, the Painted People. The same Latin route of the word Picture.

Quiz: Who were the Picts?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What does the phrase mean ” Sometimes, you gotta drink the Kool-Aid” ?
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History for 5/19/2007
Birthdays: Malcolm X- real name Malcolm Little, Ho Chi Minh- real name Ngyun Tat Tanth- Ho Chi Minh means the Enlightener, Giovanni Della Robbia, John Hopkins, Lord Waldorf Astor, Dame Nelly Melba –Australian opera singer for whom Melba Toast, Peach Melba and the cocktail the "Manhattan" were created, Frank Capra, Wilson Mizner, Elena Poniatowska, Jim Lehrer, Nora Ephron, Grace Jones, Peter Mayhew, Nancy Kwan, Pete Townshend, Pol Pot, Joey Ramone, Jimmy Hoffa Jr., Voice Talent Jim Ward, animator Andreas Wessel-Therhorn, and Tom Sito, aka me, your author.

988-Today is the Feast of Saint Dunstan, who pulled the Devil’s nose with hot tongs.

1536- Anne Boleyn beheaded-King Henry VIII's second queen was executed not by axe but by a French swordsman with a sort of golf-swing. The king was playing tennis at Hampton court but had a relay signal of cannons fired from the Tower of London so he would know the minute he was a bachelor again.

1571- Spaniard Miguel Lopez de Lagazpi founded the town of Manila in the Philippines.

1649- Oliver Cromwell’s victorious Puritan Parliament declared the British Monarchy extinct. England was to be a Commonwealth. They also stipulated that all nobles who had been for the King in the just-completed Civil Wars would be tax assessed to one-half the value of their properties. This tax drove many cash poor noble families to emigrate to American where they set up homes in Virginia- The Washingtons, Lees, Randolphs, Livingstons and Madisons. In the US Civil War many Southerners flattered themselves as being the descendents of the Cavaliers and the Yankees of New England the heirs of the Puritan Roundheads.

1798- Napoleon embarks to invade Egypt, trying to thereby cut off England's easy access to India and if possible conquering his way across Turkey and Persia to join forces with Tippoo Sahib, the Indian Sultan fighting against British rule. On the boat to pass the time Nappy played cards with his generals. Everyone noticed he was cheating. When a brave soul finally pointed this out he replied:" I know. I never leave anything to chance. I'll return everyone's money later."

1812-U.S. declared War on Britain, the War of 1812- The U.S. government tired of having it's shipping harassed by the British and having ambitions of conquering Canada sent off a declaration of war. Two weeks later a Royal Navy vessel landed in Baltimore with concessions to most U.S. demands. Doh! Napoleon, retreating from Moscow when he received the news, calculated that because the American Navy had had success against the British Navy during their Revolution they were the perfect ones to ferry his army across the Channel so he could get at England! He didn't know that after the Revolution most of the American Navy was scrapped and the Yankees weren't that thrilled with him anyway.

1857 -William Francis Channing & Moses G Farmer patents electric fire alarm.

1892 - Charles Brady King invented the pneumatic jackhammer- sleeping city dwellers rejoice.

1927- Sid Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood opened. Ushers and doorman were dressed in imported Mandarin silk robes and wall hangings were painted by young artist/actor Key Luke. Sid Grauman was the showman who also invented the Hollywood premiere with spotlights and limo's pulling up to red carpets, etc.

1934- Mickey Mouse short cartoon Gulliver Mickey.

1935- T.E. Lawrence "Lawrence of Arabia" died of injuries after a high speed motorcycle crash. The motorcycle was a gift from George Bernard Shaw. Lawrence of Arabia’s opinion of heterosexual relations: "I've never experienced, it and hope never to in the future."

1945- The German U-boat U-232 surfaced and surrendered in the harbor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire eleven days after the official surrender of Nazi Germany. Just before the fall of Berlin, they had been sent on a long-distance trip to Tokyo carrying military secrets, a disassembled jet fighter and a store of fission quality uranium. In the mid-Atlantic, the crew got the news of Hitler’s death and Germany’s surrender. An argument broke out between the crew, officers and two Japanese liaison officers about whether to proceed. The decision was made to sail to America and surrender. When in port it was discovered the two Japanese officers were missing. The Germans said “ they decided to walk home".

1956-Cecil B. deMilles film " The Ten Commandments" premiered. Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter and Edward G, Robinson.

1960 - DJ Alan Freed is accused of bribery in the radio payola scandal, the first scandal to hit the new world of Rock & Roll.

1962- Giant birthday party and rally held for President John F. Kennedy in New York's Madison Square Garden -his birthday was actually the following week. What made it memorable was Marilyn Monroe in a dress so tight she had to be sewn into it, singing her sexy version of the Happy Birthday song. 'Haapie (exhale) Burth- Day, Mister - Prezz- a -dent (sigh), Happy, etc. "



1970- Al Gore married Tipper Gore.

1977- Smokey and the Bandit with Burt Reynolds premiered.

1990-Amy Fisher 16,the "Long Island Lolita" shot the wife of her lover, Midas muffler salesman Joseph Buttafuco. Mary Jo Buttafuco survived the attack, and Amy went to jail. This case titillates the sensationalist media of New York City for the next three years to the amazement of the rest of the U.S.

1997- Matthew Broderick married Sarah Jessica Parker.

1998- George Lucas much anticipated film Star Wars Episode One the Phantom Menace premiered, the first Star Wars sequel in 20 years. It featured Jarr Jarr Binks, a character so annoying that web sites like www.I Want Jarr-Jarr to Die-Die.Com soon racked up tens of thousands of hits.

2005- Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith premiered.

2006- Dreamworks animated film ‘Over the Hedge’ premiered.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does the phrase mean ” Sometimes, you gotta drink the Kool-Aid” ?

Answer: It’s a phrase inspired by the tragedy at Jonestown Guyana in 1978. Where a thousand cultists of the People's Temple when ordered committed mass suicide. They used tubs of cyanide poisoned Kool-Aid and everyone drank it.

These days Drinking the KoolAid is generally used to indicate a following a mandated company policy that you personally believe is terminally stupid. Like releasing Surf’s Up not 6 months after Happy Feet and March of the Penguins. Or working on Son of the Mask with Jaimie Kennedy instead of Jim Carrey.

QUIZ: What does the phrase mean ” Sometimes, you gotta drink the Kool-Aid” ?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Who were the Magyars?
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History for 5/18/2008
Birthdays: Pope John Paul II, President Grover Cleveland, Ezio Pinza, Tsar Nicholas II, Omar Khayam, Walter Gropius, Reggie Jackson, Margot Fonteyn, Robert Morse, Perry Como, Dwayne Hickman aka Dobie Gillis, Big Joe Turner, Miriam Margolyes, Chow Yung Fat., Tina Fey is 38

331 B.C. -ALEXANDER THE GREAT DIES IN BABYLON. By age 31 he had conquered most of the known world and was planning a campaign to Arabia then west when he fell ill. When asked "To whom do you leave your empire? He replied- "Hoti to Kratisto- To the Strongest". Some historians speculate he actually meant :"Hoti to Kratero" to Craterus, one of his trusted companions, but the generals in the room had their own ideas and didn't want to hear that. They carved up his Empire into their own kingdoms-Ptolemey became Pharoah of Egypt, Seleucus king of Syria and Antigonus One-Eye & Cassander divided up Greece. They started fighting with each other almost immediately. Alexander grimly joked: "There will be great games at my funeral". The Successor kings even fought over his corpse, carrying it around with the army in a huge rolling shrine, until Ptolomey brought it to Alexandria and embalmed it in a solid block of honey. Caesar and Marc Anthony were able to gaze upon Alexander’s face three hundred years later.(imagine today being able to look at the undecayed face of George Washington! )The final fate of the honey pickled corpse is unknown.

323BC- Greek sources claim that Diogenes the Cynic philosopher died on the same day as Alexander. Diogenes had lived into his 90s. He only met Alexander once. Alexander came up to him seated upon the ground, stood over him and said:"I am Alexander the King of Macedon". Diogenes countered:" And I am Diogenes the Dog". Alexander said:"If there is anything in the world you desire of me, just ask and I shall do it!" Diogenes replied:" yes, there is something, you are standing in my sunlight."

257 a.d.- Today is the Feast of Saint Venantius. Little is known of him except his endurance record for being martyred. His persecutors flogged him, burned him with torches, hanged him upside down over a fire, knocked his teeth out, broke his jaw, and threw him to the lions, who merely licked his feet. Then they threw him off a cliff, and finally cut his head off. You should qualify for workman’s comp after all that.

1291- The Last Christian stronghold in Middle East, St. Jean D'Acre fell to the Mamelukes under Al Khalil. Official end of the Crusades.

1512- IRON HAND- German knight Gotz von Berlichingen spent his 81 years fighting and raiding throughout Germany. When his hand was blown off by a cannonball he had a mechanical one built for him out of metal. This day Gotz and one legged Hans von Selbitz raided 55 Nuremburg merchants and carried off their gold. Goethe and other German writers made Gotz into a Robin Hood type folk hero. In answering a challenge to personal combat, Iron Hand was credited with uttering the famous epithet "Er aber sag seinem Herren, er kann mich im Arsche lecken!" Go tell your master he can kiss my ass!"

1642- Huron village of Hochelaga was rededicated as the city of Montreal.

1778-THE MESCHIANZA- Before the British Army evacuated the rebel capitol of Philadelphia they threw a grand farewell ball. Beautiful American loyalist girls and dashing young redcoat officers danced the night away under a spectacle of fireworks. There was a waterborne parade, medieval tournament and a huge dinner. Nothing this lavish had ever been staged in the American Colonies. One of the belles was Peggy Shippen, who would marry General Benedict Arnold and turn him from the American patriot cause. That night her dance partner was Major John Andre’, who art directed and designed the event. He even designed Peggy’s costume. The men had costumes as Knights and the women as Turkish damsels, symbolizing the civilizing influence of art on barbaric peoples. The next day the British began their withdrawal to New York and abandoning Philadelphia to Washington’s army camped at Valley Forge. Two years later Major Andre hanged by George Washington as a spy.

1781- The last fighting king of the Inca, TUPU AMARU II is executed by the Spanish conquistadors. They tried to tear him apart with horses, but he was too pliable so they cut him up. Inca resistance to the Spaniards didn't end when Pizzarro left. They abandoned Cuzco and fled deeper into the Andes and continued to struggle for another 150 years.
The Inca believed the world periodically is overthrown and another takes it's place, so the European invasion was seen as a part of this cycle. The Inca word for earthquake also means revolution. In the 1980s the rebels fighting the Peruvian government forces called themselves the Tupu-Amaru Liberation front.

1896- The US Supreme Court in the decision Plessy Vs Ferguson upheld the concept of Separate-But-Equal facilities and laws. This racial separation called Segregation or Jim Crow, was not reversed until the 1950’s.

1905- MORROCCAN CRISIS OF 1905- A Moroccan desert sherif, El Raisuli, kidnapped a small Greek-American businessman named George Pedicaris for ransom and because he wanted someone new to play chess with. Pedicaris was ransomed but the incident became a major international showdown between with Germany, Britain, France and the U.S. ready to go to war. The incident was romanticized in the John Milius film "The Wind and the Lion", with Raisuli played by Sean Connery and Pedicaris turned into the beautiful Candice Bergen.

1911- Composer Gustav Mahler died of heart disease shortly before his 51st birthday. He had completed his Ninth Symphony with dread, because he knew Beethoven and Bruckner had never lived beyond nine symphonies. On his table were preliminary sketches for his tenth.

1926- L.A. evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson shocked the nation when she mysteriously disappeared on a beach near Venice Cal. After an exhaustive search she turned up a month later with a lame story of being kidnapped. Truth was she ran off with a boyfriend to party in Monterrey. Haleileiuyah!

1976- The filming of Francis Ford Coppolla's Apocalypse Now was disrupted when the Philippines was hit by a major typhoon. Francis rides out the storm cooking pasta, smoking weed and listening to records of La Boheme.

1980-Mt. St. Helens explodes in Washington State. The volcano was always thought to be safely extinct but Mother Nature had other plans. I was in Toronto thousands of miles away and noticed volcanic ash floating in Lake Ontario. The eruption and earthquake killed 57 people and destroyed 24 square miles around the mountain. A lone eccentric named Harry Truman refused to be evacuated and stayed in his home. He was interviewed by Sixty Minutes and other programs. After the explosion Truman disappeared and is assumed killed.

2001- Dreamworks animated hit SHREK opened. The voice of Shrek was originally planned to be Chris Farley but the obese comedian died of a drug overdose and was replaced by Mike Myers. I’m serving Waffles!
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who were the Magyars?

Answer: The Hungarians. In the 5th Century the Roman Province of Pannonia was overrun by the Huns and called the Hunlands for awhile. Around 896 the migratory peoples called Magyars settled there to become the people we know as Hungarians. Their name for Hungary is Magayorszag.

The Production Design show at the Motion Picture Academy was a great success. Lots of discussion of Pre-Visualization software and the digital arts in Art Direction. My friend Ralph Eggleston, the Art Director of the Incredibles and Finding Nemo did a wonderful demonstration on the continued importance of traditional drawing and painting and cinema in computer generated films.

But the evening belonged to legendary art director Robert Boyle, the art director of Hitchcock's Psycho and the Birds. He talked of the original studio system and it's challenges. He said he had studied art and architecture and could draw Chartres Cathedral from memory, but his first picture was Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. It was a Depression era comedy with Zazu Pitts and W.C. Fields. He had to learn how to draw run down shantys and shacks. He said to be a designer you have to know how to draw a Colosseum, but also how to make a house out of cardboard boxes to sleep under a bridge overpass.

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Quiz: Who were the Magyars?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who was Stuart Sutcliffe, and what did he mean to the Beatles?
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History for 5/17/2008
Birthdays: Sandro Botticelli, Eric Satie, Ayatollah Khomeni, Edmiond Jenner, Archibald Cox, Sugar Ray Leonard, Maureen O'Sullivan, Bill Paxton is 53, Dennis Hopper is 72, Enya is 47- born Eithne Patricia Ni’ Bhraonain

1488- Vasco DeGama reached India from sailing around the horn of Africa.
This fulfilled the master plan of Prince Henry the Navigator to outflank the Moslem world, providing an alternative to the ancient Silk Road land route caravans that connected the world’s trade. It was the beginning of the Age of Exploration and the rise of Western Europe. Both Columbus and Magellan learned their stuff studying in Prince Henry’s Portugal. Ironically legend has it that DeGama’s navigator was an Arab.

1792- In New York twenty-four investors meet under a buttonwood tree on the street where the old city wall once stood and formed the first New York Stock Exchange. Then they all went to the Merchant’s Coffee House for lunch.

1802- Meriwhether Lewis went to Philadelphia to meet Dr. Benjamin Rush to get advice for his Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific. Rush was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the most famous doctor in America. Dr. Rush gave Lewis a list of questions he had about the West, such as asking the Plains Indians if they practiced the religion of the Hebrews ? Were the Sioux or Cheyenne the Lost Tribes of Israel? If you think that’s silly Thomas Jefferson told Lewis to look for living Mastodons. When Lewis asked what medical supplies were needed Rush said unhesitatingly that he should lay in a good supply of Rush’s Purgative Pills, nicknamed ‘thunderclappers’ for the effect they had on your system.

1826- Artist-Naturalist John James Audubon departs for England ”in deep sorrow” because he could find no publisher in America for his masterpiece the “Birds of North America”.

1845 - Rubber bands invented!

1860- At the second presidential convention of the Republican Party former Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln is nominated on the second ballot, beating out William Seward and John Freemont, aka the Pathfinder.

1875 –The First Kentucky Derby. Winning horse was Aristides.

1890 - Comic Cuts, 1st weekly comic paper, published in London.

1924- Marcus Loew of the Loew's theater chain buys Metro Pictures and combines them with Sam Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer’s studio to form Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

1931- Vaudeville dancer James Cagney became a tough guy movie star when the Wild Bill Wellman’s film Public Enemy debuted. “I wish you wuz a wishing well… so I could tie a bucket to ya and sink ya!”

1941- The Looney Toon Lockout. Producer Leon Schlesinger tries to forestall the unionization of his Bugs Bunny cartoonists by locking them out. After a week he relents and recognizes the cartoonist guild. Chuck Jones called it “our own little six-day war.”

1954-" Brown vs. Board of Ed" Supreme Court ruled segregation illegal. Future justice Thurgood Marshal was the successful attorney.

1970 - Thor Heyerdahl crosses Atlantic on reed raft Ra, proving the ancient Egyptians could have reached South America.

1971 - Stephen Schwartz' musical "Godspell," premiered off-Broadway

1973 - Stevie Wonder releases "You are the Sunshine of my Love"

1973- the Senate Watergate Committee convenes.

1978- Sony and Phillips Electronics introduce the Compact Disc, where the music is played by a laser instead of a needle.

2004- Massachusetts becomes the first US State to legalize gay marriage.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who was Stuart Sutcliffe, and what did he mean to the Beatles?

Answer: Sometimes known as The Fifth Beatle, Stuart Sutcliffe was the bands original bass player and a close friend of John Lennons’. Legend has it Sutcliffe was the one who proposed the unique name for the band, because he and Lennon were fans of Buddy Holly's band the Crickets. Sutcliffe left just as the Beatles greatest successes were beginning. He collapsed while studying art in Hamburg and died of a brain aneurism at age 22.