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Sept 3rd, 2007 Mon -Labor Day
September 3rd, 2007



This is Labor Day, yet it’s more than just a hot Summer day to barbeque and listen to pundits analyze Big Labor’s possible effects on next year's national elections. It’s a time to think about what labor means to you and me as animators.

A wise person once said “ it’s not called show-art, it’s show business!” Be an artist by all means, but never forget we are in a business for which we get paid and make a living. For all of us who like to make cartoons, there are plenty of people who want to get rich off you while you make cartoons. And those people who want your talents without respecting your right to earn a living, are not truly your friends or friends of Animation, no matter how nice they may sound or how exciting their project may be.

The great men and women of our business built the art of animation from a few experimental optical tricks to a multi-billion dollar business that entertains millions.
But they left us something else. They risked their livelihoods and reputations to build us unions so artists can demand a fair shake from their corporate overlords. If you think a union has no place in your life as an artist, then you have been successfully conned by the government-corporate media.

And we believe everything the government-corporate media tell us, don’t we, boys & girls?

Animator Art Babbitt is getting a Disney Legends Award posthumously this year.

Truth is, there has been a war on organized labor in America since 1980. Back then 27 % of America was union labor, over 55% of us had medical insurance and for every dollar you made your employer made $29. Today union membership is down to 8%, for every dollar you make your boss makes $365 dollars and over 47 million people have no health insurance at all. Which means if you lose your drawing fingers in a car door or need a major operation, you might as well go on Welfare. You’re finished. And talent has nothing to do with it. Mozart, Vermeer and Rembrandt died poor. I knew many of the old artists in retirement who created Bugs Bunny and Scooby Doo and Donald Duck. Most of them said without their union pension to supplement their social security they would really be in trouble by now.

The Hollywood animators have The Animation Guild, Local 839, which has an employer paid health insurance that is the envy of LA. Doctors drop to their knees in gratitude when they see your insurance. NY had good insurance when they had Local 841, but that went away in 1985. I don’t know what the situation has been since I relocated. I listen to many artists brag to me about how their companies have great health insurance, but that only lasts as you stay there, or they don’t send your job overseas.

Bart Simpson, SAG member, WGA member, TAG839 member, and somehow is still making a profit.

And the fact is, most companies don’t’ stay around long enough for you to retire. The Termite Terrace guys in 1969 got no retirement package from Warners, the Tom & Jerry guys in 1957 got no long term retirement package from MGM. They got a check, then a pink slip, and thanks for the memories. Hanna Barbera, UPA, once mighty factories employing hundreds, are now just memories. Walt Disney’s is the only studio that’s kept its’ doors open steady since 1923.

But the animators and their union go on.

So if you have a union, support it and contribute time to it. If you don’t have one, find out how to form one. If your employer doesn’t want one, ask them why? His recording actors are all SAG, his writers are WGA, his editors and post artists are all IATSE. Why not you? If you support political causes, if you support a Church, if you support your community, why not then do something for the industry that supports you? Do something for your animation community.
That’s a better way to celebrate Labor Day than grilling some Polish dogs.

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HAVE A NICE LABOR DAY....
The holiday was thanks to AF of L leader Samuel Gomper's convincing President Grover Cleveland that America needed a day to honor working people without the lefty- radical politics of May Day. And besides, there were no good holidays inbetween the 4th of July and Thanksgiving. So Labor Day was born in 1894. Shortly after signing the bill President Cleveland ordered U.S. troops to shoot down striking railroad workers.

Birthdays: Alan Ladd, Irene Papas, Memphis Slim, Eddie Stanky, Mort Walker the creator of Beetle Bailey, Mitzi Gaynor, Richard Tyler, Eileen Brennan, Valerie Perrine, Charlie Sheen is 42

1592- Retired London actor Richard Green wrote a letter to his fellow actors complaining of a newcomer becoming popular in their midst "A new upstart crow filled with Bombast" - Master William Shakespeare.

1777- In a small skirmish with British redcoats near Cooch, Maryland the American rebels raise their new Stars & Stripes banner for the first time in battle.
They are quickly defeated.

1833- The New York Sun began publication, the first mass circulation newspaper in the U.S..

1886- Geronimo gives up to the U.S. Army for the fourth and last time. He and his Chiracaua Apaches were promised no retribution would befall them. After they were disarmed they were packed up into railroad cars and shipped to prison in Ft. Myers, Florida to die in the malaria infested swamps. Geronimo in his time had as many Apache enemies as cavalry. The White Mountain Apaches helped guide the US cavalry in their pursuit. After Geronimo's Chiracaua's were exiled the White Mountain Apache were rewarded by also being transported to the Florida everglades. Geronimo survived all and after his release he retired to Santa Fe where he died in 1910.

1912- Los Angeles attraction Frazier's Million Dollar Pier destroyed by fire.

1930- The first issue of the Hollywood Reporter.

1937- Orson Welles Mercury Theater of the air produced its first play on nationwide radio- an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Mierables.

1939- Britain and France declare war on Nazi Germany over the invasion of Poland, World War Two results.

1939- British Prime Minister Chamberlain's war announcement interrupts a Disney Cartoon "Mickey's Gala Premiere" showing on the nascent BBC television service. Television shuts down for the duration.

1944- During the World War Two U.S. pilots shot down by the Japanese were rescued by submarines. The submariners called the pilots Zoomies. This day off the coast of Ichi Jima the submarine USS Tampico plucked out of the ocean a Zoomie who would one day be President of the United States. Second Lieutenant George Bush Sr.

1946- After the War, the BBC television service resumes and an announcer says:" Well now, where were we?" They continue the Mickey cartoon from where it was interrupted in 1939. World War Two probably held back for a decade the development of television.

1950- Mort Walker's "Beetle Bailey" comic strip first appeared.

1960- The Hanna-Barbera show 'Lippy the Lion and Hardy-Harr-Harr" premiered.

1967-Last broadcast of the game show What's My Line. Host John Daley led a panel of NY columnists and socialites in whitty banter- Bennett Cerf, Dorothy Kilgalen, Kitty Carlisle-Hart and Henry Morgan. Well....I'm going to turn over all the cards now...

2003- Two crooks in Detroit hijacked a Krispy Kreme truck and tried to hold three thousand donuts hostage.


September 2nd, 2007 sun
September 2nd, 2007

Animator-director Steve Moore has a great website by animators for animators called FLIP! For Labor Day he asked me for an excerpt from Drawing the Line to run. He asked for the controversy in 1969 about why animation artists are the only performing artists in Show Biz who don't get residuals for their work.

Eric Larson

There is also a nice piece by PIXAR artist Dan Jeup about being mentored by legendary Disney animator Eric Larson, and a book review by Brian McEntee, art director of Beauty & the Beast, Cats Don't Dance and Ice Age, who has been writing fiction lately.

Check it out-http://www.flipanimation.net/

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Birthdays: The last monarch of Hawaii Queen Lydia Kemehcka Liliuokalani, Yang Tsu Ching leader of the Taiping Rebellion, Cleveland Amory, Alfred Spaulding 1850, founder of Spaulding sports equipment, Martha Mitchell, Mark Harmon, Peter Uebberroth, Terry Bradshaw, Chrysta McAuliffe, Jimmy Connors, Eric Dickerson, Selma Hayek is 39, Keanu Reeves is 43, Marge Champion-famed dancer who was once married to Art Babbitt and was the live action model for Snow White and the Blue Fairy, is 88 today!
Thanks to animationartist.com

1609- HAPPY BIRTHDAY NEW YORK CITY. Henry Hudson and his Dutch ship "Half Moon" entered New York Harbor. Twenty canoes of Indians rowed out to welcome the strange looking craft. The French under Cartier and English under Cabot had cruised by decades earlier but had not bothered to settle there. Hudson sailed 100 miles up the Hudson looking for China but found just more river and forest. He turned around but reported home this "Great River not unlike the Rhine and this Great Natural Bay Wherein a Thousand Ships may Ride tranquilly in Harbor." New Yorkers like to point out that while other cities like Boston and Philadelphia were founded as great experiments in religious living the Dutch founded New York to make a buck and its been that way ever since.

1666- THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON- started in the bakery shop of Thomas Farynor on Pudding Lane. The Lord Mayor was woken up at 3:00AM. At first he was not impressed.:"Tosh, an old woman might piss it out!" Actually it burned down the city, including Old St.Paul's Cathedral. 200,000 Londoners were left homeless. King Charles and his brother James (James II) pitched in personally as firefighters. After several days struggle it was finally put out. Samuel Pepys climbed up the steeple of Old St.Brides and recorded his eyewitness account in his diary. It was a tough time to be a Londoner because shortly before the Great Fire was the Great Plague. But the great architect Christopher Wren rebuilt St. Pauls and other London monuments into the beautiful images we know today.

1795- Happy Birthday Cleveland. A group of Connecticut businessmen buy a tract of land on Lake Erie and lay out a new settlement. Their agent and project supervisor Moses Cleveland, names the place for himself.

1814- A landing party from the British warship HMS Hermes visited the Louisiana pirate Jean Lafitte in his lair at Barataria Island in the swamps near the Bayou St. Jean. They offered him a captaincy in the Royal Navy and $30,000 dollars in gold if he would aide the British in capturing New Orleans. Lafitte dismissed them with a promise to think about it, then passed on all he knew to Louisiana Governor Claiborne and the American authorities. It was the first warning the Americans had that the British planned to invade in force at the mouth of the Mississippi.

1864- "Luki Lock the Door! The Yankees are coming!" Sherman’s army entered Atlanta.

1901- In a speech Teddy Roosevelt said the U.S. should " Speak softly and carry a big stick!"

1909- On the three hundredth anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery New York City held a grand birthday party. Hundreds of ships and public spectacles capped off with Wilbur Wright flying his new aeroplane around the Statue of Liberty. Thomas Edison illuminating the entire skyline with the new electric bulbs- the first time a city was illuminated at night by electricity.

1923- Harold Lloyd’s comedy short "Why Worry?" released.

1930 - 1st non-stop airplane flight from Europe to US –only 37 hrs.

1931-Young new singer Bing Crosby sang for the first time on CBS radio.

1935- A huge hurricane submerged the Florida Keys, killing 443. They didn’t have names yet.

1945- WORLD WAR TWO OFFICIALLY ENDS. The Grand Surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay on board the U.S.S. Missouri. The Imperial Japanese forces sign the surrender documents before the representatives of the great powers. General Douglas MacArthur presided and his normally corny Victorian speaking style seemed appropriate for this historic moment:" These proceedings are now concluded. The most tragic era in human history has drawn to a close. We hope that future generations will not resort to war to resolve their problems." The only glitch in the ceremony was the Canadian representative signed the surrender in the space reserved for the Japanese ambassador, and MacArthur brought his own pens which he collected back for himself for souvenirs. General Claire Chennault, the leader of the Flying Tigers had an ego almost as big as MacArthur's. He was the American general most under enemy fire, but he was not invited to the ceremony because the top brass considered him a pain in the ass.

1946- "The Iceman Cometh" by Eugene O’Neill premiered at the Martin Beck Theater on Broadway.

1963 - CBS & NBC expand network news from 15 to 30 minutes. CBS names a new reporter to star in their broadcast with the title "news anchor" Walter Cronkite.

1964- Ten months after his brother’s assassination, Robert Kennedy resigned his post as attorney general of the United States to run for Senator of New York. Bobbie Kennedy and new president Lyndon Johnson hated one another. Johnson said he felt snubbed by that "Pipsqueak and his Massachusetts Mafia." Bobbie Kennedy referred to the President and First Lady as "Colonel Cornpone and the Little Piggy". Johnson’s decision not to run for re-election in 1968 in part was because he felt he would have to put his popularity up against Bobby’s, the first politician to flash a two fingered peace sign credibly.

1973- J.R.R. Tolkein died at age 81.

1985- A team of French and American oceanographers led by Dr. Robert Ballard discovered the final resting place of the HMS Titanic, which sank in 1912.


September 1st, 2007 sat
September 1st, 2007

Welcome to Septembrius, After August the Romans ran out of names for the months. Septembrius is from the Roman number 7, March being the first month.

Birthdays: Joachim Pachebel, Gentleman Jim Corbet, Sir Roger Casement, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Walter Reuther founder of the United Auto Workers, Englebert Humperdinck- the 19th century composer, Conway Twitty, Jack Hawkins, Leonard Slatkin, Seiji Ozawa, Yvonne DeCarlo, Gloria Estefan, Mike Lah, Boxcar Willie, Richard Farnsworth, Lily Tomlin is 68, Dr. Phil,

1661- King Charles II introduced England to a sport he picked up in Holland, Yacht racing. Yacght is Dutch for little ship. This day in front of the court the King and his brother James raced each other down the Thames.

1715- French King Louis XIV, the Sun King, died at 76. He said: "Idiots! Did you think I would live forever?" later " Hmmm, I thought dying would be harder." His mistress Madame DeMaintenon once complained to the Archbishop that the king still insisted on sex every day and at 68 she was tired. He replied :"It is all our duty to obey the king."

1730- Benjamin Franklin marries Deborah Regan, the supposed mother of his illegitimate son William. William nursed a lasting hatred of his father for his shoddy treatment of him. When the revolution broke out William Franklin was the Royalist Governor of New Jersey. When Ben Franklin died he left nothing in his will to his son: " It is as much as he would have left me were our roles reversed."

1852-The Hot Dog or Frankfurter was invented by a group of butchers in Frankfurt, Germany. It didn't catch on in the U.S until it was served at the opening the Coney Island Exhibition in 1894 where it was billed as a Vienna Sausage. Dog was one newspaper's speculation upon the origins of the meat. It was first served at a baseball game in 1910.

1864- After Sherman threatened his last escape route at Decatur rebel General John Bell Hood finally abandoned the City of Atlanta to the Yankees. By now the 34 year old Texas born General Hood had his arm amputated at Gettysburg and a leg blown off a Chickamagua. He required straps to hold him up in his saddle. Yet he survived the Civil War, became a US senator and fathered nine children. Eyewitnesses at this time said while on horseback his prosthetic leg stuck out at an odd angle and you had to duck to avoid being struck in the face by it as Hood galloped by.

1885- Mrs. Emma Nutt became the first telephone switchboard operator. At first telephone companies used telegraph errand boys to connect calls, but switched to women after customers complained of the boys saucy wisecracks and rude attitude on the phone.

1897- The Boston T-train opened. First subway line in the U.S.

1913 - George Bernard Shaw¹s play "Androcles & the Lion," premieres in London.

1919- Pat Sullivan's 'Feline Follies" cartoon staring Felix the Cat.
Felix is the first true animated star, not depended on a previous newspaper comic strip. His body prototype, a black peanut shape with four fingers, will be the standard for years to come and copied for characters like Oswald and Mickey Mouse. By 1926 he was the most popular star in Hollywood after Chaplin and Valentino. Lindbergh had a Felix doll in his plane and it has been speculated that Groucho Marx copied his famous strut. The first television image broadcast by scientists in 1926 was of a Felix doll.

1923- Tokyo and Yokohama are destroyed by the largest earthquake recorded in the twentieth century. 7.9 on the Richter Scale. 100,000 died and one million homeless.

1928- Paul Terry premiered his sound cartoon RCA Photophone system for a short called "Dinner Time". Young studio head Walt Disney came by train out from Los Angeles to see it. He telephoned his studio back in L.A." My Gosh, Terrible! A Lot of Racket and Nothing Else!" He said they could continue to complete their first sound cartoon "Steamboat Willie".

1932-Mayor Jimmy Walker resigned as Mayor of New York. The corrupt but colorful Walker was a former vaudeville hoofer who wrote a hit song "Will you love me in September like you do in May.?" and flouted his chorus girl mistress at social functions. The man who served out Walker's term was John P."Boo-Boo" O'Brian, another Tamany machine politician who was so corrupt that when a reporter asked who he planned to name as the new Sewer Commissioner O¹Brian said "A decision hasn't been given me yet.."

1939- FIRST CANNES FILM FESTIVAL- The premiere film event in Europe had been the Venice Film Festival but western democracies tired of the bias of the judges for Fascist and Nazi films. For example Walt Disney was annoyed his Snow White, the box office and critical champ of 1938, lost out to Leni Reifenstahl's Olympia. So the little French Riviera city was chosen as the site for a new festival. Two days after opening World War Two was declared and the festival shut down until 1946.

1939- WORLD WAR TWO BEGAN. The Nazi Army blitzkreigs into Poland. Britain and France declared war two days later. Blitzkreig meant Lightning War- heavy motorized tanks and troops moving at full speed into an enemies interior while the airforce destroyed most of the Polish airforce still on the ground. The outdated Polish Army still fought with cavalry. The Nazis propaganda Ministry rigged up a border incident to claim Polish troops had fired first. They put dead concentration camp victims in German uniforms in a plan called Operation Canned Goods. So all through the massive invasion the operation was referred to in the German media as the "Counter Offensive"

1939- Hitler ordered the mentally ill sent to concentration camps.

1939 ­ The Physical Review published the1st paper on a celestial phenomena called "black holes".

1955- Phillip Loeb was a radio/TV star, playing Papa on the popular show The Goldbergs. But the book Red Channels listed him as a Communist. He was blacklisted and the show dropped by CBS and NBC. This day Loeb checked into the Hotel Taft and swallowed a bottle full of sleeping pills..

1969- Col. Mohammar el Khaddafi seized power in Libya after deposing King Idris. The coup was code named Operation Jerusalem.

1972 - Bobby Fischer (US) defeats Boris Spassky (USSR) for the world chess title. The young eccentric genius Fischer was the Tiger Woods of chess and for a time a pop icon. After a few years of fame he dropped out of competition and went into seclusion.

1977 - 1st TRS-80 Model I computer sold

1978 - Last broadcast of "Columbo" on NBC TV

1979 - LA Court orders retired TV star Clayton Moore to stop wearing his Lone Ranger mask in public appearances. Paramount was pushing a bad remake the Legend of the Lone Ranger starring Klinton Spillsbury. So they wanted the old man to stop competing for the spotlight. But today that movie is forgotten while more remember the TV show,

1982 - Max US speedometer reading mandated at 85 MPH.

1983- A Korean KAL 747 passenger airliner had strayed into Russian airspace over the Sakhalin islands. Soviet authorities had the 747 shot down, killing 269 innocent people including 60 Americans and a US congressman. President Reagan decried this "barbarous act" and called for sanctions. Truth be told US and Korean allied intelligence did play chicken with the reds using civilian airliners and the KAL pilots were given monetary bonuses if they got to their destinations ahead of time, so this pilot used the Sakhalin shortcut. Passengers were kept unaware of this dangerous game.

1989 - Princess Anne of England & Mark Phillips announce their separation

1995 ­ The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame opens in Cleveland Ohio

1996 ­ The Baltimore Ravens, who were the old Cleveland Browns, played their 1st NFL game, beating Oakland Raiders, 17-14

1998- THE STARR REPORT- The full text of independent Special Counsel Kenneth Starr¹s investigation into the sexual wrongdoings of President Bill Clinton with his intern Monica Lewinsky was released on-line. It was the first major news story reported on the Internet first, a full day before the other media could get it. Twenty million log on¹s occurred in one days time. It caused huge internet user jams and sparked a furious response from millions of Americans, all on electronic mail. Americans learned of their Presidents many uses for his cigar and Monica snapping her thong underwear at him. Many felt the salacious details ranked as soft-core pornography but it was sent out without any child-proof guards anyway, championed by conservative politicians who normally cry for media censorship. Pornography publishing tycoon Larry Flynt jokingly offered Kenneth Starr a job."Heck, any man who could get that much porn into 50 million homes so quickly should be working for me!"Today Judge Starr is the dean of Pepperdine University in Malibu, which offers a major in Surfing.


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