This Date in History - November 20

 

Happy birthday in heaven for Kaye Ballard.  A lady who actually hosted me for lunch at her home.

284:  DIOCLETIAN IS CHOSEN AS ROMAN EMPEROR.

Diocletian sounds like something you would take for allergies.

1194:  PALERMO IS CONQUERED BY EMPEROR HENRY VI.

Hey, if you want to conquer some place, Palermo is really nice.

1407:  A TRUCE BETWEEN JOHN THE FEARLESS, DUKE OF BURGUNDY AND LOUIS OF VALOIS, DUKE OF ORLEANS IS AGREED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF JOHN, DUKE OF BERRY.

The Duke of Earl was busy?

1518:  SOLDIER MARMADUKE CONSTABLE DIES.

Do I actually need to type the obvious joke here?

1739:  START OF THE BATTLE OF PORTO BELLO BETWEEN BRITISH AND SPANISH FORCES DURING THE WAR OF JENKINS' EAR.

Why fight over somebody's ear?  Especially in a town famous for mushrooms.

1789:  NEW JERSEY BECOMES THE FIRST US STATE TO RATIFY THE BILL OF RIGHTS.

As if they're smarter than anybody else.

1820:  AN 80 TON SPERM WHALE ATTACKS THE ESSEX.  THIS INSPIRES THE WRITING OF "MOBY DICK."

You're gonna need a bigger book.

1861:  DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, SECESSION ORDINANCE IS FILED BY KENTUCKY.  

Well, then fine.  Go.  We'll hold the Derby elsewhere.

1900:  CARTOONIST CHESTER GOULD IS BORN.

Calling Dick Tracy.

1907:  ACTRESS FRAN ALLISON IS BORN.

Paging Kukla and Ollie.

1913:  COMIC JUDY CANOVA IS BORN.

She was Minnie Pearl before Minnie Pearl was Minnie Pearl.

1917:  UKRAINE IS DECLARED A REPUBLIC.

You care?   Anybody?

1921:  LAWYER JIM GARRISON IS BORN.

Back and to the left.  Back and to the left.  Two days and forty two years later, this guy's career got a big boost.

1923:  RENTENMARK REPLACES THE PAPIERMARK AS THE OFFICIAL CURRENCY OF GERMANY.

And the official grocery store would be Pathmark.

1925:  ACTRESS KAYE BALLARD IS BORN.

Nice lady.  I was on her Christmas card list for two years.  I peed in her guest bathroom while staring at a Red Skelton original painting that was hung over the toilet.

1925:  ROBERT F. KENNEDY IS BORN.

Gee, his 38th birthday weekend really sucked.

1932:  GAME SHOW HOST RICHARD DAWSON IS BORN.

Survey says!!!!!

1942:  VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN IS BORN.

Yes, Dan Quayle was a dummy.  But this guy just might be the most stupid Vice President ever.  Google his mistakes.  Your computer will crash.

1945:  BASEBALL STAR/ANNOUNCER RICK MONDAY IS BORN.

And don't ever try to burn an American flag in front of him.

1945:   AT NUREMBERG, TRIALS AGAINST 24 NAZI WAR CRIMINALS BEGIN.

I smell a movie.

1947:  THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH MARRIES LIEUTENANT PHILIP MOUNTBATTEN, WHO BECOMES THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH IN LONDON.

The crown's in the mail.

1962:  THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS OFFICIALLY ENDS WHEN PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ENDS THE QUARANTINE OF CUBA.

I thought it was 13 days in October.   At least, that was the title of the movie.

1969:  THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER PUBLISHES EXPLICIT PHOTOGRAPHS OF DEAD VILLAGES FROM THE MY LAI MASSACRE IN VIETNAM.

That's not My Lai, it's yours.

1973:  COMIC ALLAN SHERMAN DIES.

Hello Rigor.  Hello Mortis.

1977:  EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT ANWAR SADAT BECOMES THE FIRST ARAB LEADER TO OFFICIALLY VISIT ISRAEL WHEN HE MEETS MENACHEM BEGIN TO DISCUSS A PEACE SETTLEMENT.

How many times have I typed a sentence like this over the years?  And still no peace.

1985:  MICROSOFT WINDOWS 1.0 IS RELEASED.

Well, there had to be a first version at some point.

1992:  IN ENGLAND, A FIRE BREAKS OUT IN WINDSOR CASTLE, BADLY DAMAGING THE CASTLE.

What's London's version of State Farm?

1998:  A COURT IN AFGHANISTAN DECLARES ACCUSED TERRORIST OSAMA BIN LADEN A "MAN WITHOUT SIN" IN REGARD TO THE 1998 US EMBASSY BOMBINGS IN KENYA AND TANZANIA.

That's a good lawyer for you.

2001:  IN WASHINGTON DC, US PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH DEDICATES THE US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE HEADQUARTERS AS THE ROBERT F. KENNEDY BUILDING.

Aw, how nice.  And on his birthday.

2006:  DIRECTOR ROBERT ALTMAN DIES.

D*E*A*D*.

2008:  AFTER THE US FINANCIAL SYSTEM COLLAPSE, THE DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE REACHES ITS LOWEST LEVEL SINCE 1997.

When everybody's 401 K became a 201 J.

2010:  BASEBALL PLAYER DANNY MCDEVITT DIES.

He pitched and won the last game ever to played in Brooklyn's Ebbets Field.

Dinner last night:   Chef's salad.

Clouded

 

That would describe "The View."   A show that ABC persists on showing despite the fact that the main audience is in an assisted living facility.  Or sitting in a car dealer reception area waiting for oil to be changed.   I can't believe there are allegedly smart people who buy into this "see you next Tuesday" gabfest.   But there are.   And, inexplicably, it's produced by the ABC News department.   As if these idiots actually are journalists.

They have gone into hyper overdrive of late as they weighed in daily on the recent Presidential election.   Of course, their opinions on the matter were worn on their sleeves.   Specifically, Trump is a fascist and a dictator and the second coming of Adolf Hitler.   Indeed, these clowns actually contributed to the electoral demise of their chosen candidate, Kamala Harris, who they indirectly exposed as a lunkhead when she failed to answer some pretty simple questions when she appeared on the show.   

But I digress...

Because the worst is yet to come.  As these hags lick their electoral wounds, one host...namely Whoopi Goldberg AKA former welfare recipient Karen Johnson...got into a row over some cupcakes she ordered from a Staten Island family-owned bakery.  The business, which has been around for about 150 years, had boiler and machinery problems that day and couldn't fulfill fat ass Whoopi's order.   So Her Majesty took it to mean that the family didn't agree with her political views!

Yeah, that went over well.   As if anybody cares what these old fossils think about anything.

Well, the good news is that the community behind this bakery took Whoopi and this show to task.   I doubt anybody will be fired over this, but we can all hope so.  Our lives need to be put out of misery.   And, let's face it, those TVs in the community room of Happy Acres must be able to tune to other channels.

If there is such a thing as TV euthanasia, it's time for it to be administered to "The View."

Dinner last night:  Hamburger and fries.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - November 18,. 2024

 And there she goes...

Dinner last night:  Fried chicken sandwich at Connie and Ted's.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - Football Fandom In The Past

 

Well, that's one long title.

The NFL football season is in full swing and, frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn.  I started losing interest in pro football about a decade ago.  The players seemed to become more intense and increasingly cartoonish with their histrionics in the end zone and the manner in a tackle has to completely demolish the other guy.  Admittedly, American society has gotten much darker and sinister, which explains why football is now so revered in this country.

But my ambivalence wasn't always like this.  Back when I was a kid, I wandered from baseball to football as soon as the leaves started to become a crispy gold and brown.  I think this pleased my father who was a big fan. 

Now, in those days, pro football wasn't much of a sport you could watch on television.  Well, the road games of your favorite team were televised.  But blackout rules prevailed and any home games were not shown.  You had to listen to them on...gasp...the radio.  Or, if you lived in New York, you drove up to Connecticut and, provided you were close enough to the Hartford-New Haven TV market, you watched games there.  Some pulled up bar stools.  Others actually rented motel rooms to see their beloved Jets and Giants.  Hopefully, the sheets cooled off after a robust Saturday night.

As for my house, my first foray into football fandom was for the Jets as I was again adopting the allegiance of the new kids in town.  I remember my dad always listening to the New York Giant games on WNEW AM Radio, but, just as he with baseball, he gravitated to my team as well.  Fathers make those kinds of sacrifices.  Plus I previously have written about the year I spent going to Jet games at Shea Stadium with my mom's boss and her boyfriend, who were season ticket holders.   So, I suppose that I was a major part of the Jet faithful.

But, almost as soon as I became a Jet fan, they won the Super Bowl and they got a little boring as a result.  Of course, at the time, nobody knew that they wouldn't get another shot at it for the next two centuries.  So, my love for a football team wasn't as deep as it was for the New York Mets.  I could be easily pulled away.

Back in the day, it was virtually impossible to get tickets to New York Giant football games.  Most of the patrons were season ticket holders since the 1800s and seat plans were often included in last wills and testaments.  There were 60,000 privileged people every Sunday who got to enter their then-home of Yankee Stadium.

The prospect of going to a New York Giant game was about as alien to me as a trip to the Moon.  And, hell, there were people going there back then.  So, you can imagine my surprise when, on one September Saturday, I got a call from my best friend at school, Danny.

"A guy my dad knows is offering us his two season tickets for tomorrow's Giant game."

Huh?

I never turned down any invitations to any sporting event at that age.  And, since my friends and I were already well versed in traveling to Shea and Yankee Stadium by ourselves, I didn't foresee any parental opposition.

Surprise.  My dad, who probably had never been to a Giant football game himself, was a bit defensive.  And probably a little bit envious.

"What do you want to go down there for?   A lot of nuts in that place."

Well, yeah.  So? 

"It's too damn crowded.  You'll get lost."

Well, maybe.  So?

"Lots of traffic down there.  The two of you will get clipped."

I doubt it.  So?

But, as most fathers always do, my dad caved in.  As long as he could orchestrate the whole day.  He'd drive me and Danny to the Jerome Avenue subway train which would let us off right in from of the stadium.   He'd listen to the game and then time our return home and wait for us at the train station. 

And so he did. 

Meanwhile, Danny and I walked into that stadium like kings on that Sunday.  We felt like we belonged to the most elite group in the world.  The seats sucked.  Actually, the view at the top of this blog was pretty much our POV.  But, we didn't care.  And we rooted for the home team because, heck, everybody around us had owned their season tickets the turn of the century.

Yes, we became Giant fans.  And, you can imagine our euphoria when Danny got the call one Saturday later about tickets to the very next game.  

As it turns out, because the season ticket owner was having some business issues, we got to go to four of the seven home games that year.  He let us know on Saturday and, when the call came, we were delirious.  It was great.   We started to be on a first-name basis with the folks around us.   And my father's transport service and our Sunday schedule became almost robotic.

These days, football teams can make the playoffs if they score more than three touchdowns all season.  But, back then, it was a more prestigious group that moved forward.  And the Giants had to win on the last home Sunday to go into the playoffs.   This was the game everybody in town was talking about.

Danny and I waited eagerly for the Saturday call.  That never came.

Now, I was desperate to see this damn game.  So, I really pushed the envelope with my father.   

I suggested we drive to Connecticut and find a motel or bar that was airing the game.

"What are you, some kind of nut??"

I listened on the radio.  The Giants lost.   They didn't make the playoffs.  

And, since there were never any tickets in any subsequent year, my Giant fan days were done.

Dinner last night:  Patty melt at Cafe 50s.

Classic TV Theme of the Month - November 2024

Sixty years ago, this was playing on TVs every Sunday night.   With three different openings.

Dinner last night:  Pizza at the Courtyard Kitchen.

Get Your Holiday Camera Ready

 

Smoked turkey.

I'll pass the cranberries.   You pass me the baby.

Don't you love Grandma's ink?

 I'll have some stuffing, Norman.  Norman?  Norman?

 The original Pilgrims probably had to pee in the woods.  Not so in this century.

Thanksgiving at the home of teen-age Jerry Lewis.

Why buy a real pilgrim hat when some cardboard will do?

Voted Most Likely to Drown Her Children When She Turns 30.

 Straight from the beauty parlor to your Thanksgiving table.

God, I hate my mother-in-law.

 I can see his giblets.

Some watch the parade.   Others tune into football.  And there are some homes that settle down for some old fashioned Thanksgiving porn.

Dinner last night: Leftover chili.

The Maestro of the Movies

 

The annual John Williams concert at the Hollywood Bowl is such a steady ritual in my summer.   That's why it was so devastating when an illness bumped him from his baton last summer.   The actual health issue is still being kept quiet. which is never a good sign.

Feeling a little blue over this, the new Disney documentary "Music By John Williams" helps to fill the void.   Produced in a joint venture by Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard, a lot of the talking head footage of Mr. Williams was clearly done right before his illness.  That said, it's a wonderful ending to his career if, by chance, we don't get to enjoy him again.

This is your standard linear documentary that shows all the developments in his astounding career.   From working on TV as "Johnny Williams" to "Jaws" to "Star Wars" and countless others, the documentary highlights the music and that's the way it should be.  There was little here I didn't already know, but, with this film, it's great to be reminded of the obvious.

Here's hoping this documentary doesn't serve as a cinematic eulogy.  Looking forward to seeing his name on the Hollywood Bowl calendar in 2024.

LEN'S RATING:  Four stars.

Dinner last night:  Salad.