February 22nd, 2009 sun
February 22nd, 2009

Quiz: Why is the Presidential retreat called Camp David?

Yesterday’s question answered below: According to the Catholic Church, where do unbaptized babies go if they die?
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History for 2/22/2009
Birthdays: Hungarian King Ladislas the Posthumous-1440, Shah Tahmasp Ist-1514, George Washington, Frederic Chopin, Edward St. Vincent Millay, John Mills, Edward Gorey, Luis Bunuel, Ted Kennedy, Dr. J- Julius Erving, Dwight Frye- Renfield in Dracula,Sheldon Leonard,Nicky Lauda, Don Pardo the voice of Saturday Night Live is 91!,Jonathan Demme, Jeri Ryan, Kyle McLachlan is 50, Rachael Dratch, Steve Erwin, Drew Barrymore is 34

Happy Birthday! Actor James Hong is 80

David Morse rocked the house with an amazing GW impression in the HBO special John Adams.

1732-GEORGE WASHINGTON born- Until 1969 Washington’s Birthday was a national holiday in the USA. Despite his immense reputation George Washington is still quite an enigmatic figure. You can remember great sayings of Kennedy -"Ask not what your country can do for you..") and Lincoln "Government by the people, for the people, etc." but can you recall anything of Washington's? That's because he was a stuffy, by-the-book type who used XVIII Century prose." Conscript Fathers, it would behoove me greatly if you wouldst see fit to provide victuals whereof..".Alexander Hamilton, called him "Talented but Dull". Thomas Paine's opinion: "A compleate hippocryte". John Adams came to call him “Old Muttonhead” that he’d rather strike leadership poses than actually lead, But Thomas Jefferson called him the" Indispensable Man" who assured that this strange new system of elected president would not lapse into a dictatorship or royalty.
SO HERE’S TO a General who lost more battles than won them,
-Who donated much of his personal fortune to the Revolution, accepted no pay, yet ended the war with a profit;
-who had a whiskey still behind Mt.Vernon and grew hemp -for rope;
-Who had few close friends and despised people touching him;
-Who’s first real ambition was to be an officer in the British Army.
-Who much preferred conversation about methods of raising squash to discussing his military campaigns.
-Who never went to college.
- Who was turned down for a bank loan the day he was elected President.
-Who went to Church every Sunday but never used the word God or quoted the Bible in any of his letters, and refused Last Rites at his deathbed...
- And without whom the U.S. would not be the same. Happy Birthday G.W. !..

1774- The English House of Lords announced that authors do not have a perpetual copyright on their works but it must be periodically renewed.

1775- The first IPO- the American Manufactuary of Woolins, Linens & Cottons became the first U.S. company to offer stock to the public- ten English pounds a share.

1836- Texans defending the Alamo held a big fiesta in San Antonio to celebrate Washington’s Birthday. Dancing, tequila and corn whisky flowed. Davey Cockett played his fiddle. But the party was interrupted when scouts brought word that the first elements of General Santa Anna’s huge Mexican Army were coming, only 8 miles away.

1848- John Quincy Adams had a stroke on the floor of Congress and died shortly after. He was the son of John Adams and was one of the only U.S. presidents to go back to being a congressman after losing his re-election bid. I believe the only other was Andrew Johnson re-entered the Senate. Quincy Adams got his stroke speaking out on a bill to award Mexican War officers a ceremonial sword -he was anti-war.

1879- Frank Winfield Woolworth opened his first Five & Ten Cent-store in Utica, New York.

1909- The White Fleet returned to Norfolk Virginia after circumnavigating the world. At a time when battleships were the nukes of international policy the US sending this fleet around was making the statement that the U.S planned to be a world player.

1912-”MY HAT IS IN THE RING!” Teddy Roosevelt announced his intention to challenge for the Republican Presidential nomination against his own hand picked successor William Howard Taft. Roosevelt and Taft were once close friends but now Teddy called Taft a “Puzzlewit” and “Fathead”. The Taft -Roosevelt feud split the Republican party and allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to defeat them both. Roosevelt also split the progressive left wing off the Republicans that completed the process began in the Gilded Age of turning the radical party of Lincoln into America’s Tory conservatives. When Theodore Roosevelt was buried in 1919 the last mourner to linger weeping over his grave was William Howard Taft.

1924- President Coolidge becomes first president to address the nation over the radio.

1946- THE KENNAN REPORT- U. S. charges des affaires in Moscow George Kennan sent a long telegram to Washington in which he analyzed Soviet foreign policy. "Soviet Power is impervious to the logic of Reason, but responds to Force, and when confronted by sufficient force and determination it usually backs down." Kennan's report created the US strategic policy to confront global Communism with direct force. It gave philosophical justification to the client wars in Greece, Korea, Cuba and Vietnam , as well as the support of Spain’s Franco, Indonesia’s Suharto, Pinochet’s Chile and Iran’s Shah Reza Pahlevi because of their anti-Communist stances.

1980-Underdog U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated Soviet team 4-3 for the gold medal. The summer games in Moscow were boycotted, not the winter. The two teams did not meet again until the 2002 games in Utah where they skated to a 2-2 tie.
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Yesterday’s question below: According to the Catholic Church, where do unbaptized babies go if they die?

Answer: If they die before baptism, they go to Limbo, where virtuous pagans who lived before knowing Christ like Socrates, reside. Limbo was considered the ante-room to hell, but according to a recent Vatican encyclical, not all that bad, really.


February 21th, 2009 sat
February 21st, 2009

Quiz: According to the Catholic Church, where do unbaptized babies go if they die?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: : In live action movies, why do you strike a set, when you take it down?
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HISTORY for 2/21/2009
Birthdays: Leopold Delibes, C. Brancusi, Anais Ninn, W.H. Auden, Hubert de Givenchy, Era Bombeck, Sam Peckinpah, Nina Simone, Robert Mugabe, Joe Oriolo, David Geffen, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kelsey Grammar is 54, Jennifer Love Hewitt is 30, Alan Rickman is 63, Ellen Page is 22

1719- A London weekly announced “Mr Handel, a Famous Master of Music, is gone beyond the sea, by order of His Majesty , to collect a company of the choicest singers in Europe for the Opera in the Haymarket.” The London Opera is born. On his recruiting trip George Frederich Handel passed through his hometown of Halle. A few hours after he was gone another musician came to town having walked 25 miles to meet this great German who had conquered England. He was Johann Sebastian Bach. But he was too late. The two giants of classical music would never meet.

1814- LONG BEFORE BERNIE MADDOW- This day Captain De Berenger, a French exile aristocrat in the British Army, arrived in London with amazing news from the Continent- that Napoleon had been defeated in battle and had been killed by Russian Cossacks. The war was over! London went wild with celebrations and exiled King Louis XVIII held a celebratory ball. But the news was false. Napoleon was alive and would wage war for two more years. De Berenger was part of an elaborate stock fraud. His partners Andrew Butt, Richard Cochrane-Johnstone and Thomas Cobbett waited until the London Stock Market boomed with the news, then sold their shares at top price. When the truth came out and the market crashed, they had made a fortune. Soon a stock fraud investigation was convened and all the conspirators rounded up.
The only good thing from this was for America. Cochrane-Johnstones cousin Admiral Lord Thomas Cochrane was also implicated in the scheme and this prevented him from sailing to America with the British fleet. Cochrane-The Sea Wolf” was one of the best fighting admirals since Nelson and the model for fictional salts like Horatio Hornblower and Lucky Jack Aubrey. He would not be at Baltimore when the “Rockets Red Glare, the Bombs Bursting in Air..”etc.

1838- The first telegraph message sent by Samuel Morse "What hath God wrought?" He strung electric cables up and down several floors of his art studio using wood stretchers normally used for oil paintings. Morse was an artist and never wanted to be an inventor, he just did it to finance his painting.

1848- THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO- In Brussels Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published their revolutionary work the Communist Manifesto, redefining history in terms of economic class warfare and creating the terms communist and communism. Interestingly enough they picked Brussels to publish because that year 1848 there were revolutions happening in most of the other cities in Europe. In the 1998 to celebrate it’s anniversary an international publishing conglomerate issued a deluxe designer edition complete with trendy graphics and gilt cover. What would Marx have thought?

1885- The completed Washington Monument was dedicated by Pres Chester Allan Arthur. Plans for the obelisk were first drawn up in 1792 by Pierre L’Enfant and the cornerstone laid in 1840 but construction was constantly suspended. For a time because of the Civil War, another time because strict Presbyterian workers refused to handle Italian marble blocks donated by the Vatican.

1901- Yankee outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with prostitute Hedda Place, sometimes called Mrs. Sundance, left New York City by ship for Latin America and hopefully a new life. They built a ranch in the Patagonian foothills of Argentina, but 4 years later took up their outlaw ways again, eventually fleeing to Bolivia. Hedda Place returned to the US and disappeared from history.

1916-VERDUN began- One of the most horrible battles in world history. World War One German commander Eric Von Falkynhen had planned to draw France into a battle that would ‘bleed her white”, but he wound up bleeding his German Army just as badly. German and French troops battled over some stone fortresses for ten months. Hundreds of thousands of men died in one battle. Names like Petain, Rommel, DeGaulle, the Red Baron, even Bavarian Lance-Corporal Adolf Hitler were all there. The French fired 1 1/2 million shells in this thirty mile square area and the Germans even more. Regiments would be marched into the trenches, blown to bits, then another marched in. One whole French regiment was buried alive by shellfire. Today in a shrine you can see their bayonets sticking out of the soil, still in a straight line waiting to attack.

In the fortresses like Donaumont and Vaux men fought underground in 12 foot high concrete tunnels in total darkness with grenades and flamethrowers, their ears bleeding from the concussions and choking on the fumes and stench of rotting corpses. The French commander of Douamount went mad after the war and shot himself. The surrounding countryside was turned into a shellhole pocked lunar hell. Frenchmen are still digging up unexploded bombs 90 years later. It is said even birds would not fly over Verdun and nothing could grow there. Even their monument by Rodin is macabre. The Verdun Tourist Office was trying to emphasize the positive sites of the city, like they are the birthplace of those candy-covered almonds you get at weddings.

1942- After the port of Darwin was bombed by the Japanese, President Roosevelt ordered General Douglas MacArthur, trapped on Corregidor, not to go down fighting but escape and organize the defense of Australia.
Generals Eisenhower and George Marshal, who knew MacArthur, really didn't mind the idea of him dying in battle, but Roosevelt felt it would be too big a propaganda victory for the Japanese. MacArthur slipped away in the dead of night by PT boat with his wife and four year old son. He vowed to the Philippine people:"I Shall Return !" The army press liaison tried to change the press release to We Shall Return, but MacArthur insisted it remain as is.

1945-During the Battle of Iwo Jima the Marines raise the flag on Mt. Suribachi. Associate Press photographer Joe Rosenthal takes the most famous image of the war. It's now the Marine monument at Arlington Cemetery. Actually, he photographed the second flag raising. The first was a small flag stuck on a piece of pipe to get the artillery below to stop shelling and to give the Marines pinned down on the beach some hope. The second larger flag raising was done for the press. It was still plenty dangerous, two of the six flag raisers were later killed in battle that same day. Rosenthal almost missed the shot because he turned around momentarily to see if he was in the way of another cameraman.

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1965- MALCOLM X was assassinated at the Audubon Meeting Hall in Washington Heights Manhattan. His last words were trying to quiet the crowd he was about to address-"Brothers, be cool." Three men then stood up and fired pistols and a shotgun killing him instantly. It has never been proven who ordered the killing. Popular sentiment says it was his enemies in the Black Muslim movement like leader the Honorable Elijah Mohammed, with whom he had broken.

1988- Televangelist Jimmy Swaggert tearfully confessed to his Baton Rouge congregation “Ah Have Sinned!!”. He had been busted for soliciting a prostitute. They forgave him, A year later he was busted again for the same reason but continues to preach morality on t.v. today.
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Yesterday’s Question: : In live action movies, why do you strike a set, when you take it down?

Answer: Circus tent handlers used to work early movies when the big top was in winter quarters. The term goes back even further to Elizabethan sailors. To strike the sails, means to undo the ropes and lower them. So also to strike the tents means to undo the ropes and lower them, Likewise to strike the sets.


February 20th, 2009 fri.
February 20th, 2009

The First Symposium of nominated Animated Features was a big success. A sellout crowd heard me interview the directors of BOLT, KING FU PANDA and WALL-E. Thanks to all who made it happen, I had a great time.

You want this?Eh? you want this..?

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Question: In live action movies, why do you strike a set, when you take it down?

Yesterdays Quiz answered below: President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama plan a series of regular Weds night cocktail receptions at the White House. Who originated the idea?
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History for 2/20/2009
Birthdays: Honore' Daumier, Nancy Wilson, Ansel Adams, Sidney Poitier, Cindy Crawford, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Robert Altman, Roger Penske. Phil Esposito, Jennifer O’Neill, Ivanna Trump, Mike Leigh, Lili Taylor

1258- The Mongol horde under Hulugau stormed Baghdad. They were ordered by Genghis Khan not to spill any royal blood so they took the last Caliph, Al Mostassim- Billah, rolled him in a blanket then galloped the Mongol Horde over him. Ouch. The beautiful city of the Arabian Nights was sacked and burned for 40 straight days. Chroniclers said 800,000 died and the streets ran with rivulets of liquid gold- melting from the gilded books in the burning libraries. To the Europeans who had just lost the Crusades, this new force from the East was first thought to be the armies of Prester John, the magical-mythical monk-king of Cathay. St. Louis of France even sent envoys for an alliance. But after word came of that northern pincer of the Mongol army had destroyed Budapest, Moscow, Kiev and Cracow they changed their minds. The knights of the west called them Tartars after the ancient Greek name for hell, Tartarus.

1702-British King William III goes riding around Hampton Court when his horse Sorrel steps in a molehole and threw him. William of Orange suffered a broken collarbone but being already elderly, tuberculant and asthmatic, died within a week. Friends of his enemy the exiled Stuart King James II drank a toast to the 'Little man in the velvet coat', meaning the mole who dug the hole.

1725- FIRST DOCUMENTED SCALPINGS- British militia scalped ten Indians in New Hampshire. Indians of the Eastern seaboard and Caribbean had done the practice before. Now colonial authorities encouraged allied tribes to bring in scalps as a way of proving how many of the enemy they had killed, before they were paid a cash bounty. Scalps soon became a fashionable novelty item in for sale in London. Tribes adopted different scalp cuts so you would know who did it -the Cheyenne preferred a diamond cut, Sioux an oval pattern.

1816- "Fee-Garr-Row! Fig-Ar- Roww- Figaro-Figaro,Figaro,Figaro"- Giacomo Rossini's opera 'The Barber of Seville' premiered. Rossini endured bad press and heavy criticism at the time because the another opera of the Marriage of Figaro had just been premiered by Paisiello, an inferior composer who was much more popular than he.

1845- The Battle of the Cahuenga Pass-Angry Spanish Californians led by ranchero Juan de Alvarado clashed with the regular Mexican governor Miguel de Micheltorena. The only casualty was a mule. The story of Alvarado may be one of the origins of Zorro.

1925- Willis O’Brien’s silent movie the Lost World premiered. The stop motion animation of dinosaurs and exploding volcanoes issued in a new era of special effects films.

1936- The film “Follow the Fleet” with Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers premiered.

1939- The American Nazi Party held their largest rally in Madison Square Garden in New York City. 20,000 Americans goose-stepped and Sieg-Heiled under a huge portrait of George Washington, while angry anti-Fascist and Jewish groups rioted outside. By 1941 most of the German American Bund dissolved. During the war 10,000 German Americans were interned along with the Japanese and Italians. Fritz Kuhn, the organizer of the rally was jailed for embezzling his organizations funds and deported to Germany in 1946

1962- "God Go with You, John Glenn !" Mercury -7 sends the first American into orbit.
Glenn later became a Democratic senator and in his 70’s went into space a second time on a space shuttle in 1998. His first words upon emerging from the space capsule were:”It was hot in there.” John Glenn was a combat Marine pilot, test pilot and astronaut but even he sometimes got the willies. In 1968 while traveling with the Robert Kennedy for President entourage their chartered plane hit turbulence. Bobby Kennedy undid his seat belt, stood up and said to the cabin “ I have an announcement- Colonel Glenn is Scared!”

1980- Bon Scott, vocalist for the band AC/DC, was found dead in a friend’s automobile choked in his own vomit.

1986- The Soviets launch the first permanent orbiting space station, Mir, which means Peace. After a long career in which 7 US astronauts among many others spent time there in 2001 it finally was brought down to burn up in orbit.

2006- The animated film Wallace & Gromet: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, won the British Academy Award (BAFTA) for the best British Film of the year. It beat out the Constant Gardner, and Pride & Prejudice.
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Yesterdays Question: President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama plan a series of regular Weds night cocktail receptions at the White House. Who originated the idea?

Answer: First Lady Dolly Madison in 1805. President Madison was a low-key bookish type. Modern scholars liken him to a Bill Gates of the quill-pen set. Dolly thought these informal weds night mixers would be a way for powerful congressmen to mingle and she could build a constituency for her husband.


Save the Motion Picture Hospital.
February 19th, 2009

Last week, the Hollywood entertainment industry was rocked by the news that the Motion Picture Fund Hospital and Residence was broke and was closing.

the late Roddy McDowell at a fundraiser for the MPH

The fund was started in 1940 and to retire to the home all you needed was twenty years in show-business, union or non-union, performer, technician or executive. Past residents included Max Fleischer, Larry Fine, Cal Howard and Looney Tunes director Art Davis. Currently I stop in to visit Chris Jenkins, who directed many of Rocky & Bullwinkle Show episodes and created Super Chicken for the Tom Slick Show.
They run a great Hospital Clinic which Pat & I have used in the past, as well as many other industry people.

Today The Motion Picture & Television Fund Long-Term Care unit is planning
to evict 130+ of its oldest, weakest, most needy and disabled
residents beginning in mid-March. This decision affects not only
those residents in Long-Term Care, but every resident in assisted and
residential care on the Wasserman Campus who may one day require the
next level of care.

When asked by members of Saving the Lives of Our Own, CEO Dr. David Tillman responded that no amount of money could be raised that would change the decision to close the facilities.

The Motion Picture Home was supported by Hollywood biggies like Bob Hope, John Ford, Sam Goldwyn and Walt Disney. It survived the collapse of the old studio system in the 1960s, and every financial crisis since. It seems strange that an industry that can give $20 million to one actor and routinely float budgets up to $200 million a movie, suddenly can't afford enough to keep this great institution going.

Spencer Tracy and Walt Disney at a celebrity polo match at the Will Rogers estate to benefit the Motion Picture Fund. Courtesy of Corbis images.

Humphrey Bogart once said of our industry:"These guys love ya, so long as you can make them a buck. Soon as that's over, they forget you ever existed..."

The motto of the Home was " We Take Care of Our Own." Now grass-roots movements are starting to rally among filmdom's denizens to do something to save the hospital. check out their site:

http://www.savingthelivesofourown.org/




See you tonight at the Anim Feature nom Directors Symposium at the Academy.

http://www.oscars.org/events-exhibitions/events/2009/animatedfeature.html

I'm cramming today, so I don't sound stoopid when I talk to deeze folks.


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