This Date in History - May 7

Don't we all feel like this sometimes?   What does this painting have to do with May 7?   Well, keep reading.

351:  THE JEWISH REVOLT AGAINST GALLUS BREAKS OUT.  THE JEWS BEGIN A REBELLION IN PALESTINE.

Which has lasted to this day 1663 years later.

1274:  IN FRANCE, THE SECOND COUNCIL OF LYON OPENS TO REGULATE THE ELECTION OF THE POPE.

For a quick second, I thought this said that the Pope needs to be regular.  I was going to suggest Duclolax.

1429:  JOAN OF ARC ENDS THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS, PULLING AN ARROW FROM HER OWN SHOULDER AND RETURNING TO LEAD THE FINAL CHARGE.

Tough old broad.

1664:  LOUIS XIV OF FRANCE INAUGURATES THE PALACE OF VERSAILLES.

Complete with gift shop, no doubt.

1718:  THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS IS FOUNDED.

We're a little French-heavy today, n'est-ce-pas?

1763:  PONTIAC'S WAR BEGINS WITH PONTIAC'S ATTEMPT TO SEIZE FORT DETROIT FROM THE BRITISH.

Insert your favorite car joke here.

1824:  THE WORLD PREMIERE OF LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN'S NINTH SYMPHONY IN VIENNA, AUSTRIA.  

Good seats still available.

1847:  THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION IS FOUNDED IN PHILADELPHIA.

This is for those who thought this was started by that quack, Dr. Oz.

1864:  DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, UNDER GENERAL ULYSSES ST. GRANT, BREAKS OFF FROM THE BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS.

Insert your favorite Ulysses S. Grant joke here.

1901:  ACTOR GARY COOPER IS BORN.

Yup.

1915:  DURING WORLD WAR I, A GERMAN SUBMARINE SINKS THE RMS LUSITANIA, KILLING 1,198 PEOPLE.

Some really sour Krauts.

1915:  JAPANESE 21 DEMANDS ULTIMATUM TO CHINA.  IT IS COMMEMORATED AS THE NATIONAL DAY OF HUMILATION.

Also known as the day every baseball season when the Mets are eliminated from the pennant race.

1917:  ACTOR DAVID TOMLINSON IS BORN.

Mr. Banks, you're saved.

1919:  FIRST LADY OF ARGENTINA, EVA PERON, IS BORN.

We're not crying yet.

1923:  ACTRESS ANNE BAXTER IS BORN.

All About Labor.

1930:  COMIC TOTIE FIELDS IS BORN.

My grandmother loved her.  Even when she was missing a leg.  Totie, I mean.  Not my grandmother.

1931:  SINGER TERESA BREWER IS BORN.

We're putting another nickel in.

1933:  FOOTBALL STAR JOHNNY UNITAS IS BORN.

Came off the bench to play the Jets in Super Bowl III.  A fat lot of good that did.  Ha!

1937:   DURING THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR, THE GERMAN CONDOR LEGION ARRIVES IN SPAIN TO ASSIST FRANCISCO FRANCO'S FORCES.

This is when Franco was still alive.

1940:  THE NORWAY DEBATE IN THE BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS BEGINS AND LEADS TO THE REPLACEMENT OF PRIME MINISTER NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN WITH WINSTON CHURCHILL THREE DAYS LATER.

Well, we know this wasn't a contest based on looks.

1945:  DURING WORLD WAR II, GENERAL AFLRED JODL SIGNS A SURRENDER IN FRANCE, ENDING GERMANY'S PARTICIPATION IN THE WAR.

You lose!

1946:  TOKYO TELECOMMUNICATIONS ENGINEERING, LATER RENAMED SONY, IS FOUNDED.

Good thing they changed the name.  That first one would never have fit on a Walkman.

1954:  DURING THE INDOCHINA WAR, THE BATTLE OF DIEN BIEN PHU ENDS IN A FRENCH DEFEAT.

Phew!

1960:  SOVIET LEADER NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV ANNOUNCES THAT HIS NATION IS HOLDING AMERICAN U-2 PILOT GARY POWERS.

Talk about your ill-advised flyover.

1986:  CANADIAN PATRICK MORROW BECOMES THE FIRST PERSON TO CLIMB EACH OF THE SEVEN SUMMITS.

Insert your favorite Patrick Morrow joke here.  But, first, tell me who the hell he is.

1989:  ACTOR GUY WILLIAMS DIES.

Now lost in a lot more than just space.

1992:  MICHIGAN RATIFIES A 203-YEAR-OLD PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO THE US CONSTITUTION.  THIS AMENDMENT BARS THE US CONGRESS FROM GIVING ITSELF A MID-TERM PAY RAISE.

Yeah, like that will never happen.

1992:  THREE EMPLOYEES AT A CANADIAN MCDONALD'S ARE BRUTALLY MURDERED.  

I guess you don't want to supersize those fries.

1994:  EDWARD MUNCH'S PAINTING "THE SCREAM" IS RECOVERED UNDAMAGED AFTER BEING STOLEN FROM A NORWAY GALLERY IN FEBRUARY.

Doesn't that make you just want to....oh, never mind.

1998:  MERCEDES-BENZ BUYS CHRYSLER FOR 40 BILLION DOLLARS.

In 2014, that's called Robinson Cano's last contract.

2000:  VLADIMIR PUTIN IS INAUGURATED AS PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA.

Shitheadski.

2002:  RACE HORSE SEATTLE SLEW DIES.

Twenty five years to the day that the horse won the Kentucky Derby.  Meanwhile, if you're in the vicinity around this time, I wouldn't order the hamburger for a few days.

2013:  FILMMAKER RAY HARRYHAUSEN DIES.

This is no special effect.   He's really dead.

Dinner last night:  Leftover tortellini.

Morons of the Month - May 2014

I suppose I could jump on the bandwagon, light my pitchfork, and go with the obvious.  Donald Sterling, who clearly is an asshole and with a bloated belly to boot.

Sure, the guy is a moron and a racist and a person who has an incredible bad sense when it comes to choosing prostitutes.  The owner of the Klu Klux Clippers has been tarred and feathered when it comes to the liberal media.  Hand wringing all around.  Oh, my God.  Oh, my God.  Donald Sterling is in this world.  What will become of the children?  We must think of the children.

Yeah, sure. 

Okay, the guy is a jerk and there's no place for him in society.  But I could say the same for about a thousand other people in the public eye and that pretty much includes every politician from the President of the United States to the local dog catcher.  In this emerging scandal called Sterling-gate, there is blatant hypocrisy afoot.  Because as this schmuck is destroyed by all around him,  you hear the words of others who are equally stupid.  Except they don't know it.

Take, for instance, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.  Since I pay zero attention to pro basketball, I didn't know who the league commissioner even was before last week.  Now I do and that's a face only a blind mother could love.

When I first saw this guy at the press conference last week, all I could think about was that silent horror movie "Nosferatu" and the main vampire in it.

Yikes.  Hello, County Hospital?  You've separated a set of twins.

But I digress....

So, this Adam Silver mounts a microphone and pretty much ties Donald Sterling to his car bumper and then drives through a series of potholes.  He is fined.  He is banned from going to any NBA events, which would be a snap for me if I was in his shoes.  He is also told to sell the team.

Comparatively, Jesus got off easier on Good Friday.  Yes, there is no place in any portion of 2014 society where Sterling's racist comments can live.  Certainly, not even in the privacy of your own home where some skank of a girlfriend has a secret recording device.

Silver stood above the fray and was roundly applauded by the idiots in the media.  I mean, everybody had something to say about Donald Sterling.  Even President Obama weighed in with a comment and I'm still waiting to hear his thoughts on that poor Australian baseball player who was senselessly killed by two bored Black kids last summer.  But that's fodder for another blog piece. 

Commissioner Adam Silver was revered for his swift and decisive action.  Except, in his role as the moral compass of society, he neglected to address about two thousand other infractions and injustices committed by players in his league.

What do you mean, Len?   NBA players are stars.  They're our heroes.  The model citizens.

One of the reasons why I can't stand pro basketball is the level of intelligence of its players.  In all of sports, I think NBA players are probably the stupidest of all.  And that's a valid statement regardless of skin color.  Most of them rode through college scholarships because they could run, dribble, and shoot.  Find them in a classroom.  It's impossible.  I saw it in my own college.  I've heard about it at others.  Dumb as posts.  All of them.

And that carries over to their super-rich pro careers.  Driving Escalades while drunk.  Knocking up their girlfriends repeatedly.  I heard a stat that there were over 700 babies born to NBA players out of wedlock over the last five years.  I can't believe that stat.  Personally, I think it's low.

And, of course, we have the rape accusations and the like.  This has happened over and over and over.

Yep, it's Donald Sterling that's the worst thing in the NBA.  Perhaps in his category of hatred and racism.  But, Commissioner Nosferatu, there are plenty of ways to find just how immoral your league is.

And, of course, let's not forget the NAACP.  They chimed in on Donald Sterling and nothing was more ridiculous than that.  The Los Angeles chapter of that archaic organization named Sterling as its man of the year several years ago.  Right in the middle of some court proceedings where Sterling was up against charges that he was a biased landlord.  Hello?  Is this mike on??

These dopes were going to give Sterling the same award again this year and 10 million dollar donations will do that.  The NAACP, under the direction of some bozo named Leon Jenkins, cashed those checks gladly.  

Now, with their benefactor in the limelight, it's all of a sudden dirty money.  But that's always been the way of the NAACP.  A place where racism is accepted as long as there's money attached.  Luckily, the Sterling affair took its toll here and Jenkins had a great fall.  By now, he's probably salting French fries at In N' Out Burger.  And even that's likely too advanced a career for him.

So, as you see, it's easy to adopt Donald Sterling as this month's special Moron.  But, when you dig down, you realize there's plenty of clowns who can climb into the Volkswagen.

Dinner last night:  Chicken and proscuitto tortellini and salad.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - May 5, 2014

I am revisiting the Murphy Brown series right now and here's one of the more legendary "secretaries" that lasted only one episode each.

Dinner last night:  Coffee-rubbed beef filet with ancho-mushroom sauce at the home of good friends Kevin and Amir.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - Baseball on the Radio

It has come to this.   Again.

My only access to Los Angeles Dodgers baseball these days is via the radio.  Not necessarily these transistors which fans toted into Chavez Ravine back in the 60s to hear their beloved Vin Scully.  But I have a nice Bose radio on the desk in my bedroom.   And that's where I am whenever the Dodgers are playing.

The reasons why the Dodgers are not that available on TV are too numerous to mention.  The team did a megadeal with Time Warner Cable and now that service is holding up other television providers over very expensive rights fees.   It is a clusterf*&k of mega-proportions and, for a myriad of good excuses, I'm not going to write more about it here.  Just suffice to say that 70% of the Los Angeles marketplace has been reduced to connecting with their team via that great household appliance of the 20s.  I'm a Direct TV subscriber myself.  I welcome myself to the club.

So, I sit at my desk at night and imagine what's happening through the words of Vin Scully, Charlie Steiner, and Rick Monday.   I do some paperwork there to justify the time I languish in front of my computer.   The sensation is akin to my life in the fourth grade.  When I would listen to Mets games on my transistor radio.  The voices of Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy, and Ralph Kiner easing my way through another dreary Social Studies homework assignment.

And I've had plenty of time to think about that illustrious past as Matt Kemp has just lunged for a ball in the dirt again. Indeed, this baseball fan emerged just as thousands of others did.  The initial contact we all had to the national pastime was the radio.  Letting us all think about the color of the grass and the color of the team caps and the wind that is howling all around the Shea Stadium upper deck.  Lindsey tells me that there are hot dog wrappers blowing all over the outfield.  I close my eyes and can see this.

To grow a young baseball fan, you need the radio.  It acts as an incubator.  It singlehandedly grew the Dodger fan base in Los Angeles.   There was virtually no TV coverage of the Dodgers when they first moved West.   Only nine games a season were televised---the ones when they played the Giants in San Francisco.  If you wanted to see the team, you had to buy a ticket into the park.  Or close your eyes and let it all play out on the stadium located conveniently on the back of your eyelids.

Growing up in New York, we were luckier.  The Mets and the Yankees were on television quite a bit.   That often did me little good.  In my pre-portable-TV-in-my-room days, we had two television consoles in our house.  Grandma and Grandpa commandeered theirs downstairs.  My parents controlled upstairs. 

So I would tune to WHN in my room.  And "watch" baseball.

The first time I ever saw the Mets, it was on TV.   But the way I learned all about them night after night was on radio.  And also the way that I began to understand...and love baseball.

The transistor and I and the Mets were inseparable.  Home games.  Away games.  Spring training games.  I had stayed home "sick" from school one Wednesday afternoon so I could listen to a meaningless exhibition game from Florida.  I just happened to be home that day when my grandfather died.  I was the one who had to run to the grocery store to get my mother when my grandmother called for me upstairs.   I was there as our family changed that day.  

And it was all because I was listening to the Mets on the radio.

Now, back in the day, night games started at 8PM.  The real problem came when the Mets made one of their three West Coast trips every season.   That meant game time on the radio for me was 11PM and I was in bed asleep.

Um, not so much.  Thank God for transistor radios with earpieces.  Upstairs, I really only had my mother to worry about it and she was already zonked out.  My dad worked nights and wasn't home from Connecticut till 1AM.  So, it was free and clear for me to curl up under the covers with the radio earpiece transporting me to places like San Francisco and Los Angeles.  LA?  As far as I knew, the place was on the moon. 

Of course, during the summer months, lying under the bed sheets proved to be a sweaty proposition.  New York humidity doesn't call for multi-layered linens on top of you.  It became a little perilous to go undetected staying connected to my Mets.

My dad liked to provide me with a little public service.  Since he was driving home from work during those West Coast late games, he'd listen on the car radio.   And then leave me a note on the kitchen table that I would see when I got up for school in the morning.

METS UP 3-2 IN THE EIGHTH. 

That's the point where my father turned off the car radio and retired for the night.  I would then add an addendum to the note on my way out for him to see when he got up.

METS WIN 4-3 IN TEN INNINGS.

For years, my father didn't know that I wasn't pulling the final score from the morning news on the radio.   It was because I had listened to the whole damn thing!

When you spend that much time listening to your team on the radio, you start to know how it will sound in your head.   You had the favorite phrases of the announcers engrained in your noggin.  You knew how Ralph Kiner would call a home run ("it is gone, goodbye") and how, after a Met victory, Bob Murphy would take you through the "happy recap."

So, of course, I would become the announcer whenever I staged my pretend baseball games in the backyard.  I'd be the Met pitcher, throwing strikes against the back brick stoop.  Whoosh.  Whoosh.  Whoosh.  All the while, I was the lone soundtrack.   I was the P.A. announcer, introducing the line-ups just like Jack Lightcap did at Shea Stadium.  And then I would call the game just like Lindsey, Ralph, or Bob. 

I was one noisy kid for somebody who was playing by himself in the backyard.  This would go on until Grandma on the first floor in her kitchen had heard enough.

"Oh, shaddap already."

That would end my baseball announcing career.  Until the very next afternoon.

My baseball announcing career ended for good in college.  WFUV broadcast all the games of the Fordham Rams baseball squad and those of us in the sports department took turns calling the games.  One chilly afternoon on Jack Coffey Field, it was my chance to do three innings of baseball play-by-play.  In the same spot where perhaps Vin Scully himself had sat decades earlier.

If my grandmother was tuned in, she would have said it all over again with the rest of the New York metropolitan area.

"Oh, shaddap already."

I was that bad.  I suddenly couldn't tell the difference between a fast ball and a curve.  I had the wrong players in the wrong positions.  I couldn't see if that was a bunt single or a deep fly to the warning track.   If the college station's license was up for renewal, I would not have been surprised if the FCC had intervened.

I went off onto other career paths.  But continued to listen to baseball games on the radio. 

Thanks to the Dodger TV snafu, I still am.  And it's not so bad. 

Oh, who am I kidding?  It sucks.  But, at the very least, there is still that audio connection.  I can picture the stadium.  The clouds the way Vin Scully colorfully describes them.  And just where that home run landed.

"She is.....gone."

Dinner last night:  Beef with garlic sauce from Century Dragon.

Classic TV Commercial of the Month - May 2014

What?????  Granny smokes????

Dinner last night:  Chinese appetizers at P.F. Chang's.

The Merry Mugs of May

I wonder if Remington makes electric sickles?

Good news!  The inmates host Bingo every Thursday night.

There's more written on him than on the cell wall.

Arrested for trying to buy a black market chin.

Those ink teardrops will be real soon.

Melanie's eyes will soon be replaced by Bubba's Broomstick.

Pippi Bluestocking.

Guy?  Girl?  Transgendering?  Anybody?

The hair stood up when the judge entered and never sat down.

Michelle Obama's Throwback Thursday photo on Facebook.

She got into prison easier than she got into the Affordable Health Care website.

And, speaking of Throwback Thursday.....

Dinner last night:  Bacon-wrapped meat loaf at LA Farm.

Lions and Tigers and....

Oh, my.

When Walt Disney wanted to break away from cartoons and into some life action stuff back in the 40s and 50s, he started this True Life Adventure series.   Short films that focused on nature and won a slew of Academy Awards.  Plus it was probably good practice for him.   Once you can direct a possum or a squirrel, Hayley Mills and Fred MacMurray are a piece of cake.

So, flash forward to modern day and Disney Studios is at it again.  They now have a Disney Nature division and are producing some documentaries on...wait for it...nature.   With today's technology and high-def cameras, these movies are real stunners.   You feel like you're up close and personal with these creatures.

In the case of "Bears," the cameras zoom in so much that you can see all the flies and bugs circling these sloppy animals.  While it's great to look at it, you shouldn't forget for one moment that bears are dangerous wild animals that will literally rip your head right off your neck.   And swallow it whole like a canape at your last New Year's Eve party.  The filmmakers here go out of their way to glorify these bears and that is the big problem with the movie.

"Bears" opens at the end of winter in Alaska.  Mama bear Sky (yes, they have names) wakes up from a long hibernation with her two cubs, Amber and Scout.  They've been living in her fur for months and you know that must smell bad.  There is no mention of Papa, so I am thinking he is one deadbeat bear.  

Sky and her children begin the long trek to water where they will feed off some salmon and store that fat for the next winter.  It's tough to find food as there is apparently no bear edition of Yelp.  And, if the salmon are late coming upstream, the bears have to eat grass.  Or each other.  

The perils for this little family are many.  They run into some male bears named Magnus and Chinook who like to snack on the young.   Oh, and there's a wolf along for the ride and he steals food.  A wolf in wolf's clothing.  You watch it all and it's damn pretty but little else.  

Ultimately, you and the critters get to the salmon smorgasbord and you realize that Disney Nature won't be producing "Salmon" any time soon.  There is countless screen time devoted to the bears tearing apart salmon.  For those parents who think this is a cute little movie to take the youngsters to, forget it.    One of the bear meals is so graphic you expect Freddie Krueger to show up.

"Bears" pushes the adorable envelope constantly and it doesn't work.  The script seems to have been written with a "Leave It to Beaver" cadence.  Gee, what are these little bear cubs going to do next?  Ugh.  Meanwhile, the narration by John C. Reilly is equally cutesy-poo.   He gives the animals some voices and it's like he wants you to hug them.   Yeah, if you do, that'll happen just once.   These are killers and, to pretend otherwise, is a complete disservice to anybody seeing this film.

Frankly, I want nothing more to do with bears unless it's the mail order stuffed variety you get shipped from the state of Vermont.   After seeing this mess, I don't even want to visit Wrigley Field again.   

And, if you're wondering how the hell I wound up seeing "Bears" in the first place, well, the 87 minute running time was ideal for me.   I was waiting for Culver City Toyota next door to finish servicing my car.

LEN'S RATING:  One and a half stars.

Dinner last night:  McDonald's Big Mac.