I heard that our old comrade Raul Garcia has won the Goya Award, Spain's Oscar, for his feature film the Missing Lynx, co-produced by Antonio Banderas.

Raul Garcia is an animator who has worked on films around the world such as Lucky Luke, Bluth's Land Before Time, Disney's Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and more. He directed an Award winning short of the TellTale Heart, and this is his first major feature film direction. We hope it is first of many.
You'd be hard put to find anyone important in animation who does not know Raul and even more rare to find someone who does not like him.

Here is the movie trailor in English.
http://www.themissinglynxmovie.com/

Congratulations and Felicitaciones from all your old friends across the globe, especially in El Pueblo Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles de Porcincula (aka LA)
I'm sure Melon is very proud. Glory to you!

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Quiz: What are French Fries called in France, English Muffins in England, Buffalo Wings in Buffalo, and American Cheese in America?

Yesterdays question answered below: If you recently saw the Sergio Leone classic spaghetti western- The Good the Bad and the Ugly, did you know the action takes place around one real historical event? What was it?
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History for 2/2/2009
Birthdays: Tallyrand, Charlie Halas a co-founder of the NFL, James Joyce, Ayn Rand, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifitz, Abba Eban, Garth Brooks, Christie Brinkley, Tommy Smothers, Stan Getz, James Dickey, Liz Smith, Elaine Stritch, Brent Spinner is 60, Shakira, Farrah Fawcett is 62

Happy Groundhog Day. This morning if Paxatawney Phil sees his shadow, it means 6 more weeks of winter.

In ancient Rome it was the day for the lesser Eleusinian Mysteries. Part of the ceremony was you were given a bowl of wine with certain herbs in it. After drinking it you saw the gods. In 1946 experimenting to find the nature of these ancient herbs led Dr. Albert Hoffman to discover LSD.

12-1300's-In the middle Ages this was the day of the Winter Reysa- when Crusader Knights of the Teutonic Order would venture into the Lithuanian forest, find a village of pagans, and chop them up for the Christian Faith. There were two expeditions a year, this one and in the summer. The Prussian Knights ran a sort of Club-Med for northern knights who wanted to crusade but not risk the dangerous journey to Palestine.

1536- The City of Buenos Aires founded.

1565- CZAR IVAN THE TERRIBLE exhibited the first signs of mental unbalance. Without warning, he abandoned his capitol Moscow in December. It took several weeks for the Russian court to find him at a little village named Alexandrov, 350 miles away. A procession waving incense and icons came out to beg him to return. He said he would return only if he were allowed to deal with his enemies ruthlessly. This day he returned to the Kremlin with a private army called the Oprichina, 6000 criminals and peasants dressed as monks to help Ivan torture people.


When once asked if a group of Jews from Lithuania could settle in Muscovite lands, Ivan explained his opposition: “ Jews would bring strange herbs into our realm and lead astray Russians from Christianity.”

1709- William Dampier was a reformed buccaneer who wrote books about his travels. This day while cruising the South Seas he rescued a man named Sir William Selkirk, who had been marooned on an otherwise uninhabited island for two years. It seems Selkirk had gotten into an argument with the captain of a Chilean schooner who left him there. Upon returning to London Capt. Dampier mentioned the incident to his friend writer Daniel DeFoe, who used it to create his most memorable novel- Robinson Crusoe.

1848- TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO signed, which ended the U.S.-Mexican War. Ambassador Nicholas Trist was given the dangerous assignment of finding the Mexican Government fleeing the American assault on Mexico City, then convincing them to sign away California and the Southwest, approximately 40% of their national territory. Just when negotiations in the little village of Guadalupe Hidalgo were about to conclude successfully, he got a message from Washington to break off talks and return. President Polk had changed his mind and now wanted the complete annexation of Mexico down to the Yucatan! Trist knew if he did this, the war party in Mexico would keep up a guerrilla war for decades afterwards. So he ignored the message, signed for the U.S. and fixed our southern border.

When Trist got home, instead of thanks, he was arrested for treason. But President Polk couldn't convince his war-weary people to continue the war. So the treaty was upheld. The French tried conquering Mexico twenty years later and got the Mexican national uprising Trist avoided. Nicolas Trist was released from prison, but he never got his back pay until President Lincoln awarded it to him on his deathbed 16 years later.

1852- London’s first public toilet was dedicated- near 95 Fleet St.

1870- Samuel Clemens also known as Mark Twain, married Olivia Langdon or Livy.

1870-The first international news agency. Reuters, Havas and Wolf News Agencies agree to pool their resources to cover the world. United Press International.

1910- D.W. Griffith's' In Old California', sometimes called the first Hollywood film.

1912- New York’s Grand Central Station opened.

1920- Admiral Kolchak, leader of the anti-communist (White) Russian armies in the civil war that followed the Bolshevik Revolution, was shot by firing squad and chucked into a dry canal. For a year Kolchak was defacto dictator of all Russia from the Ural mountains to the Pacific.

1922- the novel "Ulysses" is published. James Joyce had finished the book months earlier but delayed publishing until his birthday, when it would be 2/2/22, which he considered lucky.

1922-Twenty one year old Walt Disney founds Newman's Laff-O-Grams in Kansas City.

1925- IDITEROD- THE SERUM RUN COMPLETED- Nome Alaska at this time was a town totally depended upon supplies from the outside world traveling in by sled dog teams. When a serious epidemic of diptheria threatened the population the call went to the ‘Outside” as Alaskans called the rest of the world, for help. It normally took a musher 18-20 days to cover the 650 miles from the coast to Nome, now a relay of 20 teams in short sprints would attempt to do it in 5 days in the depth of winter. One musher reported blizzard conditions so bad he couldn’t see the end of his team. While the press kept the world waiting breathlessly on this day Charlie Evans and his malamute team led by his lead dog Balto got into Nome with the serum in a metal cylinder wrapped in fur. At one point two of his dogs froze to death in harness and Evans took up their place himself and ran alongside the dogs the balance of the trip. It took 5 days and 7 hours. The epidemic was limited to five deaths. The 20 men and their teams were hailed as heroes. Although the dog Balto got most of the credit and has a statue and a movie about him, experts say a 48 pound Siberian husky named Togo did the greatest exertion, going 200 miles in the first leg. The Iditerod sled race is today run in commemoration of this event. The last surviving musher of the original race, Edgar Nollner, died in 1999 at 94 years old

1940- Soviet dictator Stalin had famed futurist theater director Vselevod Meyerhold shot.
At the time of his arrest Meyerhold’s wife Zinaida was stabbed to death. Neighbors who heard her screams assumed they were rehearsing a new play.

1957- Elizabeth Taylor married producer Mike Todd. Todd was killed in a plane crash a year later. Despite her famous association with Richard Burton, Taylor later said Mike Todd was the only one she ever truly loved.

1961- In a little Greenwich Village nightclub called the Blue Angel, a young television writer turned stand up comic made his first debut. His name was Woody Allen.

1963- In England, singer Helen Schapiro was on tour. On the lower end of her program card was a new band called the Beatles.

1966- Woody Allen married Louise Lasser.

1971- After a coup toppled legal President Milton Obote former British colonial sergeant Idi Amin was inaugurated as president in Uganda. Before being driven out in 1979 by the Tanzanian army Dr.Idi Amin Dada was one of the more outrageous dictators of post colonial Africa. He declared himself Conquerer of the British Empire, led his pitiful little army in mock invasions of Israel even though it was thousands of miles away and he was surrounded by hostile nations. He played drums in his own rock band, wrestled crocodiles, and once reputedly killed and ate one of his sons.

1979- Lead singer for the punk band Sid Vicious found dead of a drug overdose. The 21 year old was awaiting trial for the stabbing death of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen.

1985- O.J. Simpson married Nicole Brown Simpson.

2006-The Cartoon Riots. A Danish newspaper printed a political cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed with his turban shaped like a bomb. This so offended the Moslem world that rioting broke out in Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jakharta and European capitols. Grenades were thrown at Danish embassies and Danish nationals made to flee.
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Yesterdays question: If you recently saw the 1967 Sergio Leone classic spaghetti western- The Good the Bad and the Ugly, did you know the action takes place around one real historical event? What was it?

Answer: Sibley’s Raid was the one attempt to extend the Civil War into the Southwest. In the film you heard the characters refer to Rebel General Sibley. Henry Sibley led a regiment of Confederate cavalry out of Texas to try and conquer the California goldfields. They were stopped outside of Santa Fe New Mexico territory by militia from Colorado, California and Utah at the battle of La Glorieta, also called the battle of Apache Pass. Confederates scouts reached as far west as Phoenix, Arizona.

Quiz: If you recently saw the Sergio Leone classic spaghetti western- The Good the Bad and the Ugly, did you know the action takes place around one real historical event? What was it?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Thinking of modern problems, what U.S. President said to the CEO of U.S. Steel:” My father warned me that all businessmen are sons of bitches, but I never believed it until I met you!”
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History for 2/1/2009
Birthdays: Victor Herbert, Langston Hughes, Renata Tebaldi, Clark Gable, John Ford, George Pal, Terry Jones, Jim Thorpe, Sherman Helmsley, Lisa Marie Presley, Garrett Morris, Boris Yeltsin, Pauly Shore, Sherilyn Fenn

Welcome to February from Februarius, named for Februus, a Sabine god of the underworld called the Purifier. Another theory is this month is named for Febis, the Latin for fever, this being a time in the Roman climate when fevers were most common.

570 AD- Today is the Feast Day of Saint Brigid, an Irish saint who gave beer to the poor.

1733- Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland died. Described as Half-Bull- Half Cock, he could break horseshoes with his bare hands and drink anyone under the table. He wasted his kingdom’s treasury indulging his vices and filling his palace at Dresden with bejeweled treasures and porcelains, which make it such a cool tourist destination today. One of the horniest monarchs of Europe, his reputation for fornication would be unbelievable, had he not left behind regiments of bastard children. His last words were “My entire life has been one long act of Sin.”

1887- California land Developer Harvey Wilcox takes out a county deed for a new ranch he calls 'Hollywoodland' after the name of an estate his wife admired back in Connecticut. It gave its name to the new Los Angeles town- Hollywood.

1893- In New Jersey Thomas Edison and his engineer W. K. Dickson built the FIRST MOTION PICTURE STUDIO in New Jersey. It was covered with black tar paper and nicknamed"The Black Mariah" because that was the nickname of police paddy wagons that it resembled. It's debatable how much of the inventing effort was more Dickson than Edison. Edison was only marginally interested in the movies. He was more concerned with how to extract New Jersey iron ore from rocks using magnets. Dickson worked himself into the hospital to make the studio work, and resenting Edison’s apathy started experimenting on his own. When Edison found out he fired him.

1896- Puccini's opera "La Boheme" debuts in Turin. It was based on Prosper Merimee’s popular book Bohemian Sketches. Puccini's old roommate Piero Mascagni (Cavaleria Rusticana) with whom Puccini and he once lived like Bohemian artists, tried to sue because he was writing a Boheme' also. The suit failed and Mascagni released his rival version but it didn't hold up in comparison with Puccini's.

1901- Outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with prostitute Hedda Place, sometimes referred to as Mrs.Sundance, escape the law back in Wyoming and arrive in New York City to relax. After a month of sightseeing they take a ship to Bolivia.

1943- At his headquarters at the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia, Adolf Hitler received the news of the Nazi disaster at Stalingrad. Hitler was furious. Not that he lost 250,000 of his best men but that their commander Field Marshal Von Paulus surrendered instead of committing suicide.”This hurts me so much that the heroism of so many soldiers was nullified by one single characterless weakling.” Then Hitler said in a foreshadowing of his own fate:”When the nerves break down, there is nothing left but to admit one can’t handle the situation and to shoot oneself.”

1964- Indiana Governor Matthew Walsh declares that the Rock & Roll song “Louie-Louie” by the Kingsmen was pornographic and should be banned. The FCC investigated and their conclusion was that the “lyrics are unintelligible at any speed”. The song remained a major hit. In the 1980’s several schools in Northern Cal held Louie-Louie Marathons-96 straight hours of Louie-Louie, played by Punk bands, polka bands, string quartets, folk trios and marching bands. Whoah whoah, Me gotta go-yo,yo yo yo.

1968- During the Vietnamese Tet Lunar Offensive-as cameras rolled South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan put a snub nosed pistol to the head of a Vietcong prisoner and pulled the trigger. The photo of the young mans death grimace became one of the more disturbing images of the 1960’s.

1979- The Ayatollah Khomeni returned to Teheran Iran after a 15 year exile.

1990- Siegfried & Roy open their exclusive show at the Mirage Casino in Las Vegas. They and their white tigers have performed for Hollywood stars, presidents and Pope John Paul II. One Vegas columnist notes: “When Elvis performed in Vegas there were some empty seats. But there are nothing but full houses when Siegfreid & Roy perform.” The act was finally ended by Roy’s throat being slashed by a tiger in 2003.

2003-“ Columbia this is Houston on UHF, Houston, Columbia on UHF…” NASA’s first spaceshuttle- the Columbia, broke up and disintegrated upon reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. All seven astronauts were killed. The Columbia had flown 26 missions since 1981. On board was the first woman astronaut born in India and the first Israeli in Space, Col. Llan Ramon.

2004- At a Superbowl live halftime show pop star Justin Timberlake pulled the bra cup off of singer Janet Jackson exposing her right breast with a starburst stud on it. Named “the Wardrobe Malfunction”, the incident sent America into another one of its periodic paroxysms of Puritan censorship.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What U.S. President said to the CEO of U.S. Steel:” My father warned me that all businessmen are sons of bitches, but I never believed it until I met you!”

Answer: John F. Kennedy. US Steel promised to not raise prices if they got JFK to force concessions from the Steelworkers unions. After he did, they raised prices anyway, eliciting this outburst from the President. Kennedy’s father, Joe Sr. was himself a Wall St buccaneer, so he oughta know.