Dave Master just told me cool news about our friend John Ramirez.

Just in case you watch the Rose Parade on TV on New Year's day, I thought you might enjoy learning that one of the float designers is an animation person- John Ramirez. John was one of Dave Master's students, he did great design work for Disney and Warner Bros on The Iron Giant, Osmosis Jones, Looney Tunes Back in Action and a bunch of other projects.

http://www.hbindependent.com/articles/2008/12/25/features/hbi-float121808.txt

Check out the link to an article regarding one of John's designs for this year's parade. John designed two additional floats for this year's Rose Parade. He has designed one for a clothing design company and another for a fast food chain. Last year John designed the LA Dodger's float and the float sponsored by the Chinese Olympics. The year before, John designed the elaborate "Star Wars" float for Lucasfilm.

Congrats John!!
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Question: When George Washington entertained at Christmas, he was particularly proud of sharing something with his guests. What was it?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Why do we call the salutation before drinking together, a toast?
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History for 12/27/2008
Birthdays: Johannes Kepler, Linwood Dunn, Marlene Dietrich, Louis Pasteur, Oscar Levant, Sidney Greenstreet, Anna Russell, William Masters of Masters & Johnson, Leslie Maguire, John Amos, Tovah Feldshuh, Heather O’Rourke, Bollywood star Salman Khan is 43, Gerard Depardieu is 60

1820- John Quincy Adams wrote a friend that he was sad that Washington DC didn’t have any good monuments. It could use one to George Washington and a cathedral like Westminster Abbey. If John Q. could only see DC today, it’s a rock garden of statuary, including one to the inventor of the screw propeller.

1831- Charles Darwin sets sail for the Pacific on board the HMS Beagle. The observations he made of exotic species while on this voyage formed the basis of his theories on evolution and natural selection.

1871- The world’s first cat show opened at the Crystal Palace in London.

1887- Beginning of the Sherlock Holmes adventure the Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.

1900- Temperance crusader Carrie Nation staged her first public axe attack on a saloon, the bar at the Carey Hotel in Witchita, Kansas. She shattered a large mirror behind the bar and threw rocks at a titillating picture of Cleopatra nude bathing. She called her actions not vandalism, but “hatchetation”.

1903- The Barbershop Quartet favorite “Sweet Adeline” sung for the first time. It was written in praise of opera star Adelina Patti.

1904-PETER PAN, a play by James Barrie, opened at the Duke of York Theatre in London. Barrie reserved seats in the opening night performance for orphaned children who laughed and cheered all night. Peter llewlyn Davies, the little boy Barrie befriended who was the basis for Pan used to say:” I am not Peter Pan. Mr Barrie is.”, He committed suicide in 1960 when he was 75. James Barrie once said to H.G.Wells:” It’s all right and good to write books, but can you wiggle your ears?”

1927- Broadway musical "ShowBoat" debuts at the Ziegfeld theater. Based on a story by Edna Ferber the music was written by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein. The play made a star out of a tall black baritone named Paul Robeson.” Ol’ Man River..”

1934- The Shah declared the nation of Persia would now be known as Iran.

1935- Radio City Music Hall opened. The Art Deco masterpiece was for many years the largest indoor theater in the world, seating over 6,000. Cole Porter sang” They all laughed at Rockefeller Center, now they clamor to get in…..”

1940- Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler announced their separation.

1942-THE SMOLENSK COMMITTEES- The Nazis begin a recruiting campaign in the vast camps of Russian POWs to set up an Anti-Communist Russian Army. They had already had good results the previous April recruiting among the Soviet hating nationalist Cossack groups of the Don, Tartar, Kuban and the Ukraine. These men hated Stalin worse than Hitler so they signed up. Anti-Communist Russian armies eventually numbered as high as 100,00 men under their generals Vlasov, Komorov and Bach-Zelewski. After the war they tried to surrender to the Americans but by secret agreement they were all repatriated to Russia. Most were executed or died in Siberian labor camps.

1943- The movie The Song of Bernadette premiered.

1945- Eleven nations sign the Bretton Woods agreement creating the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

1947- The "Howdy-Doody" show debuts on NBC. Buffalo Bob, Howdy and Clarabell the Clown, also known as the Puppet Playhouse.

1951- The Crosley car goes into service for the post office in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is a little jeep with the steering wheel on the right side so the mail deliverer didn’t have to get out of his vehicle to reach every curbside mailbox.

1954- The" Disneyland" television show premieres. Up until then the major Hollywood Studios were all boycotting the new upstart medium of television, then mostly done in New York by blacklisted stage actors and writers. Walt Disney is the first to break ranks with the major film studios and get into television production and even films the show in Technicolor, figuring television will develop color broadcasting eventually.

1968- Apollo 8 landed safely on Earth after being the first ship to reach the Moon and come back. The brought back spectacular photos of the Earth from space. When orbiting the Moon on Christmas Eve astronaut Frank Borman sent a message back to Earth reading from the first book of Genesis. One of the three astronauts was also the first to barf in deep space, but they aren’t saying which.

2007- Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan. She had been leading the opposition to the government of General Pervhez Musharraf.
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Yesterday’s question: Why is an oath or dedication upon drinking called a toast?

Answer: Anglo-Saxons brewed a hot ale at Christmas time called Wassel. Pieces of toast were floating in the bowl. You were invited to dip your ale horn in the brew and pick up a bit of toast, then “toast” by saying Vas-Heil, Wassel, or Hail to You!

Today’s Quiz: Why do we call the salutation before drinking together, a toast?

Yesterday’s question answered below: In Britain, why do they call the day after Christmas, Boxing Day?
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History for 12/26/2008
Birthdays: Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen, Charles Babbage, Admiral Dewey, Mao Tse Tung, Richard Widmark, Steve Allen, Henry Miller, Carlton Fisk, Chris Chambliss, Alan King, Phil Spector is 67, Fred Schepsi

St. Stephen’s Day- Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Steven…

First Day of the Kwanza Festival. Kwanza is from the Swahili words “Matunda ya kwanzaa” meaning “first fruits” of the harvest. See below-1966.

In the Middle Ages this was the Feast Day of the Pagan god Jul, when good Guildsmen would gather in their Guild Halls to eat themselves sick and drink themselves silly. Then in a total stupor they would swear oaths on their patron saints to stick by and protect each other in the new year. Churchmen bristled at the licentious nature of the festival and tried to ban it, but there was no stopping a good rowdy party. Nobody really knew who the pagan god Jul was, just that it was fun to see the priests get so annoyed.

527AD-HAGIA SOPHIA- The Byzantine Emperor Justinian dedicated the newly completed basilica the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople in a grand ceremony. Sometimes called St. Sophia, the real name was not for this saint but Hagia Sophia is Greek for The Holy Wisdom or Creative Logos, in other words, God himself. It was then the biggest Church in the world, surmounted by a great dome. Emperor Justinian walked alone to the altar and raised his arms up to heaven:” Glory be to God who has thought me worthy to accomplish so great a work. Solomon, I have vanquished thee!” He was referring to Solomon’s great temple in Jerusalem. Centuries later when Byzantine Empire was conquered by the Turks and Constantinople’s name was changed to Istanbul, the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque and four complimentary minarets were added to it’s design.

1492- Columbus founded the first European settlement in the New World on the beach on San Salvador. He called it La Natividad because it was founded on Christmas.

1776- THE BATTLE OF TRENTON- George Washington was desperate for a victory against a huge British Army that had chased him from New York. He crossed the Delaware and at dawn surprise attacked a Hessian regiment while they were still waking up from their Christmas hangovers. As the dazed Hessians ran out of their barracks and tried to form a battle line, Washington positioned his troops so they would be have to face into a snow storm.

The Americans captured 1,000 Hessians to just 4 casualties, and killed their commander Colonel Johann Rall. Just before the fatal musket ball entered his chest, Colonel Rall said to his aide: “Fu*k , a bunch of country clowns cannot beat us!” Because part of his army got lost in the dark Washington couldn’t hold Trenton and had to retreat. But the news of the rebel attack made other British units fell back to the Jersey Coast and abandoned the Delaware line.

This was the first true offensive action of the American Army in the Revolutionary War. British commander Lord Howe, when hearing the news, exclaimed:” It seems inconceivable that three venerable old regiments made up of men who make war their profession, should lay down their arms to a rabble of ragged, undisciplined militia!”

1799- In the still unfinished Washington D.C. this day saw the huge memorial in honor of the recently deceased George Washington. All of the US government was there except President John Adams. Adams was still angry at him.

1908- Jack Johnson knocked out Canadian Tommy Burns in the 15th round to become the first African American heavyweight boxing champ. Few of the 20,000 white people in the Australian arena cheered. Johnson’s flaunting of racist attitudes and segregation laws drove mainstream America nuts. Johnson drove race cars, flashed gold teeth and made love to many white women. Muhammad Ali said:” He did this all in the time of Jim Crow and Lynching. I was outspoken, but Jack Johnson was Crazy!” Jack Johnson held the heavyweight title until 1915.

1924- Baby Frances Gumm first appeared on a stage at 2 1/2 years old. Grown up she would change her name to Judy Garland.

1926- Young artist Al Hirschfeld had made his first regular caricature for the Broadway Stage. A drawing of actor Sasha Guitry. A friend took it to The New York Tribune and sold it. He figured here's a nifty way to make a living, so soon he was selling to all the papers including the New York Times. He will keep doing caricatures of Broadway greats into the millennium and has become a legend himself. In the American Theater a Hirschfeld caricature of you meant you had arrived and were a real star. At age 94 he remarried and drew the cast of Ally McBeal for TV Guide. In 2003 he died just shy of age 100, drawing to the end.

1938- Young playwright Thomas Williams moved from Saint Louis to New Orleans and changed his name to Tennessee Williams.

1939- Walt Disney Animation moves from Hyperion to the new Burbank Studio lot. The buildings are designed like hospital wards, so in case he hits economic trouble, Disney could sell them to the planned St. Joseph's Hospital across the street. Animator Ward Kimball said it was the first time he worked in a studio where all the furniture matched. The old Hyperion Studio was bulldozed in 1966, the year of Walt Disney’s death.

1944- Patton's Third Army breaks through to the besieged city of Bastogne. This was the turning of the tide in the Battle of the Bulge

1944- Tennessee Williams play the Glass Menagerie premiered in Chicago.

1946- The Gala Opening day of the Flamingo Casino in Las Vegas. Mobster Bugsy Siegel's $ 4 million dollar gamble in the desert. Despite booking top talent like Jimmy Durante and Xavier Cugat the promised Hollywood society types failed to materialize. The hotel part of the casino wasn't ready for guests yet so the high rollers couldn't see making the long trip. A violent rainstorm kept still more people away. Also the casinos formal dresscode discouraged the local yokels who liked to gamble in ten gallon hats and bluejeans. The Flamingo casino made a profit eventually but not before the angry Mafia riddled Siegel with bullets and cut the throat of his manager, Moe Greenberg.

1963- The death of Gorgeous George Wagner, the first wrestler to adopt a flamboyant character.

1966- The first Kwanzaa Festival was organized by African studies professor Dr Marulanga Karenga at Cal State Long Beach to celebrate African-American culture.

1973- Murakami-Wolf's t.v. special "The Point" with Dustin Hoffman narrating and Harry Nilsson's music. Hoffman's track was later rerecorded by Ringo Starr for some reason. “Me and my Ar-row…”

1973- The horror film The Exorcist starring Linda Blair premiered. Merry Christmas! Have some pea soup!

1979- The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The Moslem fundamentalist tribesmen called Mujahadin, who hadn’t submitted to any foreign conqueror since Alexander the Great, began a ten year long guerrilla war that became the Russian Vietnam. The Russians quit Afghanistan in 1989 and the veterans of that war, called the “Afghansi” suffer the same post traumatic depression and societal ostracism American Vietnam vets suffered.
Soon after the Soviets began their invasion all President Jimmy Carter could think of doing was to boycott the Olympics, western European countries worried that the US would not respond with nuclear force if the Russians launched a conventional military invasion of them. -i.e. they wouldn’t risk Kansas City for Bonn. So they asked for Pershing-2 nuclear cruise missiles, and the Russians responded with moving Soviet nuclear submarines closer to US coastal cities and the 80’s became one last chapter of the Cold War delighting spy novelists like Tom Clancy and John Le Carre’. After the Russians left the Fundamentalist Mujahadin changed their focus to the US.

1985- Gorillas in the Mist author and ape anthropologist Diane Fossey was murdered by machete in her lab in Africa.

1985- Ford introduced the Taurus motorcar.

2003- As part of a promotion for a NJ Islanders-NY Rangers Hockey Game the Nassau Coliseum invited all the fans dressed as Santa Claus to parade on the ice. As the hundreds of Santas marched on to the rink several opened their coats to reveal they were actually Rangers supporters. The Islander Santas objected, some shoving ensued and pretty soon the Nassau Coliseum was packed with fistfighting Santas.

2004-TSUNAMI- One of the stronger earthquakes 9.1, recorded in the last 100 years hit the Indian Ocean. The earthquake sent giant tidal waves covering the coastlines of Sumatra, Thailand, the Maldives and Sri Lanka, killing over 215,000. Whole beach communities were wiped out without warning.
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Question: In Britain, why do they call the day after Christmas, Boxing Day?

Answer: It is from the Victorian custom of boxing up the leftovers of your Christmas feast and giving it to the poor.

Pat and me before moving to LA

and after

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Quiz: why is the day after Christmas called Boxing Day in Britain?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: who was Old and Good King Wenceslas?
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History for 12/25/2008
Birthdays: Emanuel Ben Joseph, or Yesuah. Called in Greek Jesus the Christ, 2-4 BC? or Four Before Himself- traditional date.( The whole BC-AD system has about 6 years leeway, more or less.)

Sir Issac Newton, Clara Barton, Humphrey Bogart, Cab Calloway, Helena Rubinstein,, Rod Serling, Charles Pathe, Jimmie Buffet, Quentin Crisp, Mike Mazurki, Conrad Hilton- Paris’ granddad, Anwar El Sadat. Alice Cooper, Sissie Spacek, Larry Csonka, Burne Hogarth, Ishmail Merchant, Maurice Utrillo, Kid Ory , Ken Stabler, Barbara Mandrell, Dame Rebecca West , Clark Clifford, Dick Miller, Annie Lennox, Howard Beckerman, Karl Rove is 58

Today is Constitution Day in Republic of China/Taiwan and
Taisho Tenno-Sai (Anniversary of Death of Emperor Taisho) in Japan

272 A.D. To the Ancient Romans this date was the feast day of SOL INVICTUS, the "Invincible Sun", a hybrid religion popular just before Christianity that attempted an early form of monotheism, worship of the sun. The Roman Emperor Constantine, whose conversion lifted the ban on Christianity, was originally a devotee.

495 A.D.- Clovis, first King of the Franks (French), is baptized. St. Remi said while pouring the Holy water on the old barbarian's head:" Kneel Sicambrian, and adore what thou once had Burned: and burn what thou once hath Adored."

800AD- In old Saint Peters Basilica in Rome Frankish King Charles or Charlemagne knelt in prayer with Pope Leo III celebrating the Christmas feast. The King of the Franks had just come over the Alps to defeat the threat to the Vatican from the Lombard Kings. During the service on a signal Pope Leo whipped out a big jeweled crown and plopped it on Charlemagne’s head and the audience cried out three times in unison the ancient formula:"HAIL CHARLES THE AUGUSTUS, CROWNED BY GOD THE GREAT EMPEROR OF THE ROMANS!" Charles had said he did not want the Imperial crown and was surprised but nobody believed such an important step was taken without his consent. Charlemagne ruled a European Empire almost as large as the Old Roman Empire of the West, from Spain to Hungary and Denmark to Sicily.

885AD- Pope Gregory I formalized what Christians had already been doing for 500 years, namely celebrating the birth festival of Jesus or "Christ’s Mass", on December 25th.

1066- After the great victory of Hastings William the Conquerer had himself crowned King of England in London. Outside when his nervous Norman knights heard the loud shouts of celebration they mistook them for an uprising and attacked the crowd. They slaughtered many and burned down most of the neighborhood around Westminster Abbey.

1428- During the Hundred Years War, at the siege of the city of Orleans, a six hour truce was declared for Christmas. English warlords Sir William Gladesdale and Sir John Talbot expressed a wish to hear French music, so a band of enemy trumpeters serenaded them from the city walls.

1497-Natal South Africa discovered by Vasco da Gama. It was called Natal because it was discovered on Christmas.

1541- After the Christmas services, Michelangelo’s fresco The Last Judgement was unveiled, done for the Altar wall of the Sistine Chapel beneath his famous ceiling.

1734- Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio first performed at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. Bach pioneered writing sacred music in German instead of Latin or Italian.

1758- HALLEY’S COMET- Sixteen Years after his death the comet Sir Edmund Halley had predicted showed up right on schedule. This event was seen as significant because for centuries the random unexplained appearance of a comet in the sky seemed to be a direct sign from God. Halley proved once and for all that comets were not supernatural sign from God. That they had an erratic orbit, but were otherwise natural phenomena.

1776- WASHINGTON CROSSES THE DELAWARE-
The closest the American Revolution came to being lost. George Washington's bedraggled minutemen had had their butts kicked by a massive British Army from Brooklyn across New Jersey to Philadelphia. The British Navy controlled the coastline. Washington had lost every battle, lost Americas’ largest city and was about to lose the capitol. From 23,000 men in July he now commanded a paltry 4,000 cold dispirited scarecrows.

Washington wrote his family advising them to flee to the Blue Ridge Mountains if the British came their way. His generals openly complained to Congress that Washington was an incompetent and should be replaced. And now the soldier’s 6-month enlistments were up! Who would re-up with a defeated shambles of an army?

The American Revolution was in danger of complete disintegration.

Washington knew he had to do something soon or else it was all over. He drew a line in the snow with his sword and begged the men for one more battle, appealing to their patriotism and the great cause of independence. The response was only a few men crossed the line to volunteer. Frustrated, Washington gave a second speech, the contents of which are hidden from history but eyewitnesses said was more to the point: a lot of swearing and descriptions of how they would be hanged, and their wives and daughters raped by foreign mercenaries, etc.. This time a larger crowd of sulky troops crossed the line.
Washington spent this night ferrying his men across the Delaware at McKonkey’s Ferry to attack a Hessian regiment in their Christmas beds. The boatmen were all from one town, Marblehead Mass, under their Quaker leader John Glover.


The famous painting, Emmanuel Leutze's "Washington Crossing the Delaware" was painted in Dusseldorf Germany in 1894. The painter omitted details like Washington sat down all the way across, and there were two black men in the boat, Oliver Cromwell the ships pilot, and Washington's bodyguard.

1836- According to the novel Moby Dick, today is the day the Pequod set sail from Natucket.

1855- Ice hockey first played in North America at Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

1869- In Towash Texas John Wesley Hardin went into town for a friendly game of cards. He quarreled over the game with a man named Bradley. The two went out into the street to shoot it out in classic gunfighter style. Bradley’s shot missed but Hardin drilled him dead. John Wesley Hardin wasn’t as famous as Jesses James or Billy the Kid but he was one of the deadliest gunfighters of the west. His business card read J. Wesley Hardin, shootist.

1914- During World War One German and British soldiers facing each other across the Western Front held a spontaneous Christmas truce. After midnight the German guns ceased and the sounds of Christmas Carols drifted over the barbed wire. The British and French responded with serenades from their regimental bands. At dawn without any official sanction or orders the soldiers of both sides came out of their trenches and in the middle of No-Man's Land exchanged laughter, Schnapps, Scotch, tobacco and even played a good natured English football or soccer game together. Next morning the shooting resumed and the officers who allowed the fraternization were reprimanded.

1917-"Why Marry?" by Jesse Lynch Williams opened. The first play to win a Pulitzer Prize.

1927- Japanese Emperor Hirohito crowned.

1929- The Fox Atlanta Theater opened on Peachtree St. A wild Moorish fantasy in part financed by the Shriners so they could use it for their meetings.

1931-The first BBC World Service Network broadcast. An address by King George V called "Around the Empire".

1937-NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the legendary Arturo Toscanini premieres with its first radio broadcast.

1946-Comedian W.C. Fields died of alcoholism at 67. While in his hospital bed someone saw him reading a Bible. They said:" W.C. what are you doing with that? "
Fields replied:" Looking for loopholes!"

1955- Chuck Jone's 'One Froggy Evening' premiered. Director Steven Speilberg calls it the "Citizen Kane of Cartoons." If you wonder why you never heard the old time ditty 'The Michigan Rag' anywhere else but here, was because Carl Stalling wrote it specifically for the cartoon.

1977- Charlie Chaplin died quietly in his sleep at Vevey, Switzerland. He was 86.

1980- Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns finished reading Simon Schaara’s novel about the Battle of Gettysburg called The Killer Angels. He tells his father he is inspired to make a documentary about the Civil War. The Civil War took six years to make and ran in 1990, but it was one of the most popular documentary films in the US and redefined the medium of documentary filmmaking.

1989- Romanian Communist dictator Nicholai Cercescu and his wife were executed on live television. Cercescu ran the last mad-Stalinist tyranny in Eastern Europe. Finally the army joined the people and overthrew Cercescu. Madame Cercescu, unrepentant, bellowed defiance at the cameras as they were stood up against the wall. They were so hated that the presiding officer barely had time to get out of the way of the firing squad and say "Ready..Aim.." before the troops started shooting. Instead of being given one round each with the Unknown Blank Cartridge, the men had asked for extra clips. The death penalty was abolished in Romania immediately afterwards.

1989- Hot tempered NY Yankees manager Billy Martin died in a car accident.

1991- General Party Secretary and Premier Mikhail Gorbachov resigned and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, aka the Soviet Union, ceased to exist. In it's place is the Confederation of Independent States led by the Federation of Russia under Boris Yeltsin.

1998- Fidel Castro allowed the resumption of Christmas celebrations in Cuba, outlawed since 1960.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: Okay, just who the heck is Old and Good King Wenceslas?

Answer: Wenceslas was the king of the pagan West Slavs ( Czechs) who accepted baptism in the 970s AD. The Czechs refused to cooperate with the new faith unless they made their recently assassinated Chieftan a Saint. So Rome was obliging. Later miracles were attributed to him. One was about his walking barefoot in the snow to help the poor on the Feast of Stephen ( Day after Christmas). The Christmas Carol was written in the 1800s by an English music teacher.


Merry Christmas everyone. -Tom & Pat Sito

Quiz: Okay, just who the heck is Old and Good King Wenceslas?

Yesterday’s Answer below: Who first decided that Santa Claus is from the North Pole?
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History for 12/24/2008
Birthdays:, Roman Emperor Servius Galba, English King John Lackland, Revolutionary Patriot Dr Benjamin Rush, Kit Carson, Howard Hughes, Ava Gardner, Michael Curtiz real name Mikali Kertesz, I.F.Stone, Robert Joffrey of the Joffrey Ballet, Mean Joe Green, John Matusak, Susan Lucci, Nicholas Meyer, Ricky Martin is 38

This was the birth festival of Mithras, the Persian sun god.


Mithraism was Christianity's chief competitor for converts during the late Roman Empire. It professed a dualistic theology, that God and the Devil battled equally for the souls of men: light and dark, hot and cold, day and night, etc. It was very popular among the troops of Rome’s Legions. There were Mithraic temples from Scotland to Iran, and even into the Middle Ages it resurfaced as a Christian heresy, Manichaeism and later Catharism. There are 200,000 Zoroastrians around today and 18,000 in North America.

In the Middle Ages this was the Feast of Saints Adam and Eve. The western theatrical tradition survived in the form of Mystery Plays, acting out stories from the Bible. So this day they would do a play about the temptation and expulsion from the Garden of Eden. A tree was brought into the church and decorated to represent the Tree of Life, glass balls representing the fruit. This is one of the origins of the Christmas Tree. The Feast of Adam and Eve was dispensed with during the Reformation.

1247- Sir Robin of Loxley, called Robin Hood, died. Legend has it that he fired an arrow out his window with instructions to bury him where it fell.

1652- In England the Puritan Parliament of Oliver Cromwell forbade any celebration of Christmas. Their brethren the Puritans of Massachusetts would arrest anyone found making merry and fine them three shillings. But after the restoration of King Charles II the partying came back.

1783 - the American Revolution concluded, General George Washington arrived home at Mt. Vernon :" The scene is at last closed. I feel myself eased of the load of public care."

1814- U.S. and Great Britain sign the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812. John Quincy Adams headed the American negotiation team. The British had demanded a independent Indian buffer state in the Great Lakes between the US and Canada, and the US demanded the Pacific Northwest, but all they got was the status quo before the war started. The news wouldn't get across the Atlantic for two months, and in the meantime Americans and Englishmen would murder each other one last time at the Battle of New Orleans (Jan 8th).

1818-the song Silent Night was composed by an Austrian priest named Joseph Mohr for a Midnight Mass in Obersdorf. The church organ was broken, so it was first performed accompanied by a guitar.

1865- THE KU KLUX KLAN BORN. Before the Civil War white plantation owners rode together at night to patrol their fields chasing runaway slaves. After the South’s defeat, in Pulaski Tennessee in the law offices of Thomas M. Jones some disaffected Confederate veterans formed a secret society of night riders. They named it based on the Greek letter fraternities just gaining popularity in universities- Kappa-Alpha or Kuklos Adelphon.- Kuklos meaning Circle. Another version is that it came from a lost Indian tribe called the Kawklats. It corrupted into the Ku Klux Klan. They donned white sheets and hoods to portray themselves as the avenging ghosts of dead rebel soldiers. They played up the mystical images to terrify the superstitious-Grand Wizards, Cyclops. Ghouls. The first Grand Wizard was General Nathan Bedford Forrest, but he resigned after he felt their violence had become counterproductive.
There is a hotly disputed version that the Klan first offered their leadership to Robert E. Lee but he declined in a letter suggesting they should be an "Invisible Empire". After Congress outlawed them in 1871 the Invisible Empire went underground to thwart reconstruction and Black Civil Rights.

1888- Vincent Van Gogh cuts off a piece of his left ear after an argument with Paul Gaugin over the affection of a prostitute named Rachel. He sent his ear to the prostitute. She fainted.

1889- Daniel Stover & W. Hance of Freeport Ill. invented the bicycle backpedal brake.

1922- The BBC presented it’s first radio play:" The truth about Father Christmas."

1934-GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR DUMPED HIS GIRLFRIEND-For two years the divorced general had kept a beautiful young Eurasian mistress he met in Manila. But when he accepted the posting back in Washington she insisted on coming with him. Today he sent an aide to intercept her in the lobby of the Willard Hotel in Washington and buy her off with a newly minted sheet of 100 dollar bills. His chief reason for giving her the boot was the 54 year old four star general was afraid his mother would find out.

1941- General MacArthur had to abandon the Philippine capitol Manila to the advancing Japanese army. He withdrew to the island fortress of Corregidor, while his exhausted Philippine-American troops set up a last line of defense on the Bataan Peninsula.

1941- German Admiral Doenitz dispatched advanced 5 long range U-Boats to attack ships off the American Coast. Operation Drumroll.

1944- In some of the last big V-1 attacks on London the Nazis added a sick twist- they filled the buzz bombs with letters home from British POWs. As the bombs exploded in Oldham and Gravesend killing women and children the letters blew out like confetti.

1951- Gina Carlo Menotti’s opera "Amal and the Night Visitors" premiered on NBC TV..

1964- First day shooting on the “Cage” a pilot for a new TV show called Star Trek. Jeffrey Hunter was the first captain, later replaced by William Shatner when Hunter’s wife advised him to skip the series. She was worried he’d be typecast.

1968- Apollo 8 went into orbit around the Moon. Astronauts Jim Lovell, Frank Borman and William Anders become the first men to reach the moon and win the Space Race. They orbited but did not land, that was for Apollo 11 next year. Borman sent a message to Earth Christmas night by reading from Genesis as they sent back the first images of Earth, a little blue gem in a black cosmos: "And God said: Let there be Light, etc." To a world traumatized by the riots and assassinations of 1968, Apollo 8’s message ended the year on a positive note. That humans could still dream to be better than they were.

1968- Twentieth Century Fox announced that legendary Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa had been fired from the production of TORA-TORA-TORA. Producer Darryl Zanuck’s original concept was the story of Pearl Harbor told by Kurosawa from the Japanese side and David Lean from the American side. But Lean passed and Richard Fleischer stepped in. Kurosawa spent a year in research, which meant fighting his crew and Japanese conservatives over Japanese culpability in the surprise attack. By now was physically and emotionally exhausted. He once assaulted the clapper boy because he clapped the scene title board sticks too loud. Kursosawa was fired this day and the Japanese sections were directed by Toshio Fukusaku and Masuda, who’s previous credit was the Green Slime. Years later when Francis Coppola and George Lucas helped him finance his masterpiece Kagemusha, the Japanese film commission refused to enter it in the Oscars. It was entered as a Canadian film.

Ahhh,The Green Slime. Remakes of Day the Earth Stood Still and Forbidden PLanet going ahead, when will they revisit this old chestnut?

1985- Fidel Castro gives up smoking cigars, on doctors’ orders.

1990- Tom Cruise married Nicole Kidman.

1992- Outgoing President George Bush Ist announced Presidential Pardons for all the former Reagan Whitehouse staff implicated in the Iran Contra Scandal. Caspar Weinberger, Bud McFarlane and probably himself.

1997- 62 year old Film director Woody Allen married 27 year old Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his former lover Mia Farrow. When asked to explain himself the director said: " The Heart wants what it Wants.."
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Yesterday’s Question: Who first decided that Santa Claus is from the North Pole?

Answer: Cartoonist Thomas Nast had created the image of Jolly St Nick, since first illustrating Clement Moore’s poem a Visit From St. Nicholas. After the Civil War ended, Nast grew tired of endless arguments whether the Jolly Old Elf was a Southerner or a Yankee. So in 1866 he declared that Santa Claus lived in the North Pole, and thus was a citizen of the World.


Merry Christmas!—ts

{courtesy BV}

SPOILER ALERT---IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT, AVERT THINE EYES LEST YE BE CORRUPTED!

Well, I finally saw Bolt last night. It was very nice, with some great character work, particularly the pigeons and the hamster. The art direction was pretty striking in the more urban settings. The country stuff was bland. The last ten years of Disney films and I've never seen a cloudy day. I know we live in SoCal, where the sky is blue 300 days of the year, but the rest of the world does not. So how about a cloudy day sometimes?
The moving across the retro map of the US was cute. Overall I felt it could have been funnier, and I never quite got into Bolt's head enough to feel I knew him. I wanted the network exec-director thread to be paid off somehow the way the agent was. They just disappeared from the end of the film. There wasn't enough pipe laid to understand Mom, especially when SHE is the one who has the turn of heart and ends things. I am also surprised that there were not more movie-TV parody jokes, especially since you went through so much trouble to set up the Hollywood theme. The Pigeons doing the pitch was the closest, and it was funny.

But I agree with the common reaction among my colleagues that it came out better than expected.

My own personal request to our industry is to now please retire the idiomatic expletive "AWESOME!"

In recent films it's become as over-used as McCauley Culkin's " YESSSS" was in the 1990's.

In fact, all the male-adolescent-Surfer-Valspeak is getting kinda old. I last liked it in the turtle in Finding Nemo. Storypeople and writers, mark me well. Time to move on!

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Question: Who first decided that Santa Claus is from the North Pole?

Yesterday’s Quiz: :” There’s a method to his madness..”?
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History for 12/23/2008
Birthdays; Joseph Smith -Founder of Mormonism, Paul Hornung, Ruth Roman, Otto Soglow -cartoonist creator of 'the Little King', Frank Morgan (the Wizard of Oz actor was also the first president of the Screen Actor's Guild) Jose Greco,Elizabeth Hartmann, Harry Guardino, Claudio Scimone, Vincent Sardi of Sardi’s restaurant in NY, Harry Shearer is 65, Bob Barker is 86, Japanese Emperor Akihito is 75

According to the TV show Seinfeld, today is the holiday FESTIVUS- So Happy FESTIVUS for the RESTOF-US! Time to perform feats of strength around the Festivus Pole.

1740-King Frederick the Great of Prussia attended a masked ball. He finished his coffee, said good night, mounted his horse and invaded Silesia. He described it as “my own little masquerade".

1753- A twenty year old buckskin clad surveyor from Virginia almost drowned when a raft his party was pulling across the Allegheny River capsized. Miraculously, despite his inability to swim and the icy water, he made it to safety. His name was George Washington.

1786- HMS Bounty sets sail from Portsmouth. Their mission to the South Seas was to bring back breadfruit plants and see if the breadfruit could be a cheap dietary staple like potatoes from America, except these would be used to extend the lives of the slaves in Jamaica and Barbados tending the sugar cane fields. But Mr. Christian and the crew would mutiny against tyrannical Captain Bligh and set him adrift in a rowboat.

1823- SANTA CLAUS BORN. This day the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" was published anonymously in The Troy Sentinel, a New York newspaper. . Several years after the authorship was claimed by a Bronx Bible teacher, the Reverend Clement Clarke Moore, and he was celebrated in his time as the father of Santa Claus until his death in 1863.The poem completed the synthesis of English and Dutch folk traditions that were merging in New York into our modern concept of Santa. The Dutch Klaus-in-the-Cinders" or Kris Kringle was an elf who climbed down chimneys to give children toys. He merged with the British Father Christmas or Saint Nicholas who was a big fat jolly bishop with a white beard in a red suit. In an 1859 reprint of the famous poem famed cartoonist Thomas Nast (who created the Republican elephant and Democratic donkey) drew the first likeness of Santa Claus. The likeness we all recognize was created by illustrator Haddon Sundblom for a Coca-Cola ad campaign in 1934.



1834- In London Joseph Hansom patented Hansom cabs. This is the one horse, two wheeled cab with the driver in back. Cab is shortened from Cabriolet.

1857- Ex-army officer, failed businessman and town drunk Ulysses Grant pawned his watch so he could buy Christmas presents for his wife and kids. From this rock bottom he would eventually rise to win the Civil War, become President of the United States and the most famous American of his time.

1893- Humperdinck's opera "Hansel und Gretel" debuts in Weimar Germany.

1894- Claude DeBussey’s “Afternoon of a Faun” premiered in Paris.

1912- France’s leading literary magazine Nouvelle Revue Francaise rejected a new novel by an author named Marcel Proust “A La Recherche du Temps Perdu” “Remembrance of Things Past”. One critic wrote: “Maybe I’m dead from the neck up, but I can’t see why the author needed 20 pages to describe how he got out of bed in the morning!” Remembrance of Things Past became one of the great works of the Twentieth Century.

1912- The Max Sennett short comedy “Hoffmeyer’s Release” premiered, the first comedy featuring the Keystone Cops.

1913- Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act, creating the first federal banking reserve since the Bank of the United States was dismantled by Andrew Jackson in the 1830's.

1913- Young Italian Rudolph Valentino arrived in America to seek his fortune. He was so poor that after a year he sent his parents a photo of himself in a borrowed tuxedo to allay their fears. He worked as a nightclub dancer and gigolo until becoming a Hollywood film star in 1921.

1930- Young actress Betty Davis signed her first contract with Universal Studio.

1935- Walt Disney sent a detailed memo to art teacher Don Graham outlining his plans for retraining his animators to do realistic feature films.

circa-1935- This was the traditional day for Republic Pictures to fire all their employees and hire them back after New Years so they wouldn't have to pay them holiday pay. Republic billed itself on it’s business cards as The Friendly Studio.

1941- WAKE ISLAND FELL. A large Japanese invasion force finally overwhelmed the tiny garrison of Marines and construction workers defending Wake Island. The hopeless stand of Col. Devereux , Hammerin-Hank Elrod and their men inspired the country still shocked by the relentless Japanese advance across the Pacific since the Pearl Harbor attack. The Marines were shipped to POW camps in Korea but civilian construction workers were kept on the island to build an airbase for the Japanese. After they finished they were all executed. The Japanese commander responsible was hanged for war crimes in 1948.

1941- A meeting of business leaders and union officials make a deal that there would be no strikes or lockouts in American industry for the duration of World War Two.

1942- The German Sixth Army was surrounded at Stalingrad and could not hold out much longer. General Von Manstein’s 16th Panzer Division was trying to break through and rescue them. But after two weeks of heavy fighting in blizzard like conditions, the 16th was bogged down. Hitler ordered Von Manstein to break off the attempt and stabilize the front in other areas, in effect, abandoning 250,000 men to their deaths. This day while frozen, hollowed eyed men scanned the horizon for some sign of rescue, the tanks of the 16th Panzer turned back. The commander of the last tank stood in his turret, solemnly snapped a crisp salute in the direction of his doomed comrades, then dropped down the hatch and drove off.

1944-The Germans had timed their surprise offensive “The Battle of the Bulge” to coincide with a heavy storm system over northern Europe. The snow and poor visibility kept Allied airforces helpless and grounded. As Third Army was moving northward to rescue soldiers trapped in the surrounded Belgian town of Bastogne General Patton called the Third Army’s chaplain to him. “Captain!” Old Blood & Guts growled:” I want a prayer for good weather! Have it in my hands in an hour!” Dutifully the prayer was written and recited throughout the army. This day on cue the sky cleared and the sun shined for the first time in a week. The slow moving German Tiger Tanks proved easy pickings for Allied fighter planes. Gen. Patton’s reaction: “That chaplain! Make him a Major!”

1947- Two Bell laboratory scientists invent the Transistor. Nobody was quite sure what to do with the little thing until Texas Instruments invented the portable radio in 1954.

1954-the First Organ Transplant. 23 year old Richard Herrick was dying of kidney disease. Dr Joseph Murray of Harvard removed a kidney from his brother Ronald Herrick and used it to replace his brothers diseased one. The idea of operating on a healthy person just so he could help someone else was a radical idea. Tens of thousand of organ transplants of kidneys, hearts, livers and corneas followed.

1972- The Immaculate Reception. Football’s Pittsburgh Steelers were trailing the Oakland Raiders 7-6 with one second to go when they scored a touchdown and won.

1973- Soap Opera “the Young and The Restless” premiered.
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Yesterday’s Question” There’s a method to his madness..”?

Answer: In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. When Hamlet feigns madness, Polonius is dubious- ”Though this be madness, yet there is method in it…”