This Date in History - July 7

Happy birthday to everybody's favorite Beatles drummer.   Wait.  There was only one.

1456:  A RETRIAL VERDICT ACQUITS JOAN OF ARC OF HERESY 25 YEARS AFTER HER DEATH.

Too late to stop that weenie roast.

1534:  JACQUES CARTIER MAKES HIS FIRST CONTACT WITH ABORIGINAL PEOPLE IN WHAT IS NOW CANADA.

And gave them gold watches.

1585:  THE TREATY OF NEMOURS ABOLISHES TOLERANCE TO PROTESTANTS IN FRANCE.

Another reason not to like the scummy French.

1834:  IN NEW YORK CITY, FOUR NIGHTS OF RIOTING AGAINST ABOLITIONISTS BEGAN.

A record broken in June 2020.

1863:  THE UNITED STATES BEGINS ITS FIRST MILITARY DRAFT.  EXEMPTIONS COSTS $300.

$250 on Amazon.

1865:  FOUR CONSPIRATORS IN THE ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN ARE HANGED.

To all those who still say Lee Harvey Oswald worked alone.

1898:  US PRESIDENT WILLIAM MCKINLEY SIGNS THE NEWLANDS RESOLUTION ANNEXING HAWAII AS TERRITORY OF THE US.

Book 'em, Dan-O.

1899:  MOVIE DIRECTOR GEORGE CUKOR IS BORN.

A Director is Born.

1907:  FLORENZ ZIEGFELD JR STAGES HIS FIRST FOLLIES IN NEW YORK CITY.

That must have been some casting couch.

1927:  MUSICIAN DOC SEVERINSEN IS BORN.

Still blowing after all these years.

1928:  SLICED BREAD IS SOLD FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MISSOURI.

What was the biggest thing to happen before this?

1930:  INDUSTRIALIST HENRY KAISER BEGINS CONSTRUCTION OF BOULDER DAM.

That must have taken a lot of beavers.

1930:  AUTHOR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE DIES.

No mystery here.

1937:  THE PEEL COMMISSION REPORT RECOMMENDS THE PARTITION OF PALESTINE.

And that shit keeps going on to this day.

1940:  BEATLE RINGO STARR IS BORN.

Uh uh, yeah.

1946:  HOWARD HUGHES NEARLY DIES WHEN HIS PLANE CRASHES IN BEVERLY HILLS.

Undershot LAX for sure.

1954:  ELVIS PRESLEY MAKES HIS RADIO DEBUT IN MEMPHIS WITH HIS RECORDING OF "THAT'S ALL RIGHT."

You can't see his hips just yet.

1958:  US PRESIDENT DWIGHT EISENHOWER SIGNS THE ALASKA STATEHOOD ACT INTO LAW.

Now he can see Russia, too.

1981:  US PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN APPOINTS SANDRA DAY O;CONNOR TO BECOME THE FIRST FEMALE MEMBER OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE US.

So, watch your language, guys.

1983:  US SCHOOLGIRL SAMANTA SMITH FLIES TO THE SOVIET UNION AT THE INVITATION OF SECRETARY GENERAL YURO ANDROPOV.

She took his advice "and dropped over."

1985:  BORIS BECKER BECOMES THE YOUNGEST PLAY EVER TO WIN WIMBLEDON AT THE AGE OF 17.

Wunderbar.

1990:  TV HOST BILL CULLEN DIES.

Appeared on or hosted every TV game show in history.

1992:  THE NEW YORK COURT OF APPEALS RULES THAT WOMEN HAVE THE SAME RIGHT AS MEN TO GO TOPLESS IN PUBLIC.

Hey, now.

2007:  THE FIRST LIVE EARTH BENEFIT IS HELD IN 11 LOCATIONS AROUND THE WORLD.

Back when the Earth was...well...live.

2011:  BASEBALL MANAGER DICK WILLIAMS DIES.

I interviewed once in college.   I mean, I was in college.   I'm not that old.

2016:  EX-US ARMY SOLDIER MICAH XAVIER JOHNSON SHOOTS FOURTEEN COPS IN DALLAS.   

Shithead.

Dinner last night:  Scrambled eggs and Taylor Ham.
 

RIP COVID: The Sequel

 

Well, there you are.

With a wave of a baton by LA Philharmonic conductor Thomas Wilkins, the Hollywood Bowl re-opened to a completely sold out crowd on July 4th weekend.  The only real acknowledgement of what had kept us all apart since 2019 was in two words.

"Welcome Home."

For me, this was the last piece of my pandemic puzzle.  The final connection to a normal world.  It was remarkable how everything simply fell back into place with an Independence Day Hollywood Bowl.   The patriotic offerings in the first half of the show.   The usual salute to the Armed Forces.   And the second half of the evening being supplied by a rock group from previous decades that would appeal to a 50-plus crowd and perhaps result in a torn meniscus or three.  In this 2021 case, it was Kool and the Gang or whatever amounts to the V2.0 of that musical group.  When they concluded with "Celebration," it suddenly, for me, was more than the 1986 victory song of the New York Mets.

And, of course, the usual fireworks.

It all seemed to be right where they left off.  In 2019.  Good friends enjoying each other's company.  Great food.   Dancing in the aisles.  

I surveyed the crowd.   Very few masks.  Virtually no social distancing.   Two rows away, I saw three people passing a bottle of wine between them.  Obviously, folks in a respective bubble.  Or not.

As I did with the almost sudden return to full capacity baseball at Dodger Stadium, I questioned what we had just gone through in 2020.   Essentially house arrest.  The Hollywood Bowl also returned to its jam-packed glory virtually over night.  The parole board had met and let 15,000 people go free all at once.

Yep, I continue to say....Hmmmmmm.

Again, don't get me wrong.   I know it was all legit.   I have friends who were impacted in some fashion by the Chinese virus...yes, I said it.  But the sudden return to normalcy still is startling to me.  I truly wonder if the response we endured as a nation was overkill.   I mean, in Los Angeles, we used to be daily sermonized by some glorified registered nurse named Barbara Ferrer who resembled Benjamin Franklin on a bad hair day.   She was the epidemic's poster child of death.   The stern third-grade teacher nobody wants.  Listening to her, I was convinced we were all doomed.

Oddly enough, I saw this very woman several weeks later on my church grounds as some musical organization she is part of was meeting.   You can't miss the look.   Ben Franklin in drag.   Well, there was this human sword of Damocles running around the facilities.  Maskless.   Gleefully hugging others.

Yep, she was suddenly back to normal, too.   Like the rest of us.  

I thought about that again as Kool and his current Gang sang "Hollywood Swinging."   With people dancing shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip.

Hmmmm.

Dinner last night:  Steak and salad.

                                                                        

Monday Morning Video Laugh - July 5, 2021

Six Flags, One Wig.

 

Dinner last night:  Barbecue at the home of good friends Connie and Leo.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - Remembering Pre-COVID Independence Days

 

Last year, the holiday was a dud of a firecracker.   This year is likely to be a little better.   Heck, I might even leave the house.  But I can also remember those July 4th day that were pandemic-free.  And I've come a long way from running up and down 15th Avenue in Mount Vernon with a sparkler in my hand.

Over the course of my life, I've gone through several series of different celebrations for Independence Day, which is really one of the only holidays everybody in this country can celebrate together. There are no religious overtones like Christmas, Easter, or Yom Kippur. It is all about freedom and being an American. Except maybe for your crazy Communist Uncle Oscar, who can't get into that?

So, there were the years for me when I was a kid and I did the sparkler routine like I was some lunatic Rockette on fire. While the other kids in the neighborhood were shooting off cherry bombs, sky rockets, and a very inappropriately named explosive called a "chaser" (with that pesky N word attached---nobody knew any better then), I was relegated to nothing more inflammable than my mother's ash tray. Of course, years later, I still had the ability to attempt to play the piano, while I'm not so sure some of my goofball friends could count their fingers up to ten.

Truth be told, my folks didn't want me anywhere near this stuff.   And, frankly, neither did I.   Around the age of five, I had one previous experience playing with matches.   And the pain has lingered for many, many years.

So we made our own fun in the backyard usually with some relatives over to celebrate.  A big deal was a croquet set that got dragged out as if we were on the Downton Abbey grounds.   This was a big deal for my older cousins to play.   I, however, didn't realize that the object of the game was to tap the ball lightly with your mallet.  This was not a sport where Willie Mays power should have been employed as our broken garage window will attest.

Those July 4 family gatherings in the yard usually found a bunch of relatives lounging in a long line of beach chairs as you see above.   That's my grandfather with the can of beer.   That's me in summer attire with my mom in the background.   The chrome dome is one of my dad's childhood chums.   

This photo of our lawn furniture evokes one of the more ghastly memories.   One year, some screwy distant relative was probably loaded up on Miller High Life and was telling dirty jokes.   Well, I am guessing they were dirty because I didn't understand them.  Nevertheless, raucous laughter erupted from the others.   One lady got so hysterical that she literally shit right through her shorts.   And a mound of crap wound up on that beach chair and it would have made a German Shepherd proud.   In my family, you never threw anything out.  Dad simply washed off the chair and made it "as good as new." For years, I saw that lawn chair with its big, brown stain.   And I never ever sat on it.

I know there were some families that regularly went to see fireworks on the night of July 4th.   Unfortunately, those events usually fell into the vortex of my father's travel restrictions.    All destinations could be ruled out by one of the following stipulations:

It's too far.

It's too crowded.

It's too hot/cold...depending upon the season.

Fireworks displays usually hit the latter two.  But, there was one year where Dad was feeling a little adventurous.

Apparently, the nearby town of Tuckahoe was shooting off some fireworks on a high school field.   Okay, that was close enough.   And how crowded could something in Tuckahoe get?  This excursion was going to be even more special. 

Even Grandma would come along.   

This was momentous as my grandmother never went any place that didn't involve either church, the A and P, or Suchy's Funeral Home in the Bronx. Invitations out of the realm usually got her tried-and-true response.

"I'll stay home."

Well, that July the Fourth, Grandma went with the rest of us to see fireworks. It looked like all of Westchester County had converged on the Tuckahoe High School football bleachers to watch this. The usual ooohs and aahs. When it was over, the throng exited en masse. There was no room to move. My mother instructed me to hold onto my grandmother's hand for dear life. I did so.

As I exited the crowd to meet the rest of my entourage, I was alone. Somehow, my hand was no longer attached to my grandmother's.

"Oh, great! You lost your grandmother!"

My fault again. Moments later, Grandma emerged from the melee. Unscathed and not amused.

"Next year, I stay home."

She turned to look at me.

"Dumkopf."

When I got older, I outgrew firecrackers and found myself spending the Fourth of July in some baseball park. And, to enjoy this truly American sport on this truly American holiday, I wasn't choosy about the stadium I would enter. Whoever was playing home was where I would be. Shea Stadium. Yankee Stadium. I didn't care. It was baseball and sometimes fireworks and always perfect. 

I can remember one year there was a doubleheader for the Mets and Tom Seaver took a no-hitter into the ninth inning. One other year, there was a day game at Yankee Stadium, where it was hotter than hell and there was an explosion of gnats on the field level.

Usually, I am now in my Hollywood Bowl/July 4 phase of life. Unless the Dodgers are home and shooting off some shit on the day, I am seated upon the hill that overlooks Highland. Listening. Absorbing. Enjoying.   Last year was a national washout.   And, this year, the Dodgers are actually in the nation's capital.  But, the Bowl was returned to me last night as a patron.   The musical act was Kool and the Gang.  Just to be in the building, I would have listened to somebody play a kazoo.  

Whatever.   I enjoyed once again the wonders of fireworks and July 4.   Hopefully, I didn't get so excited that I messed the seat I was sitting in.

Dinner last night:  Charcuterie box at the Hollywood Bowl.

Classic TV Commercial of the Month - July 2021

Remember when sponsors used to tailor commercials for the holidays.  No, not Christmas.  All year round.   Well, for the July 4 weekend, here's what Coke did...gulp...thirty years ago!

Dinner last night:  CPK pepperoni pizza.

Born on the Mug of July - 2021 Edition

 

Arrested for impersonating a cocker spaniel.

 Usually, those disposable razor blades do manage to last for the entire shave.

Is there a Bosley Hair representative working in this cell block?

 There is not a single hair on this head that is real.

Oh, my God!  They've arrested the late Ed Koch.

Just guessing.  Marijuana possession charge???

You think you're angry now?  Wait till Obamacare really kicks in next year.

He didn't see the cop standing on his left.

Who put this Band-Aid on?  The guy in the previous picture??

Follow me.  There's a pattern developing...

Can you guess what it is?

All those who guessed "bow tie on a t-shirt" can now report to the warden.  Your sentence has been suspended.

Dinner last night:  Hot dog at Pink's.

RIP COVID

 

As we wind our way into Independence Day Weekend, are you as mystified as I am?

We are completely back to normal as a nation.  Almost overnight.

In my private world, Dodger Stadium is back to full capacity.

The Stadium Club buffet has reopened and, save for some plexiglass, nothing has changed.   You still pick up the same fork or thongs that the last person handled.

This weekend, I will be heading to a full capacity Hollywood Bowl.   Shoulder-to-shoulder with unmasked faces ooh-ing and aah-ing at the fireworks.

Masks are also no longer required in super markets and restaurants, provided you are fully vaccinated.   Um, have you ever shown your vaccine card to anyone?  Has anybody been asked for one?

One of the jackasses on my Facebook "friends" list publicly thanked Joe Biden for making this all happen.  I wanted to respond by thanking the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, and Gavin Newsom for throwing us under the bus in the first place.  The latter has currently radio ads that talk about how he has California "roaring back" to life.

Oh, please.   While we were all under lock and key, he was sitting twenty to a table at the French Laundry dining on our tax dollars.

Don't get me wrong.  COVID-19 was real.  I know people who it affected.   But, in my heart of hearts, I also know that our national and state leaders didn't miss an opportunity to wield their power and shut us down so they could instigate their own initiatives.  And, hence, we reopened almost as quickly as we shut down.

Hmmmm.

But, one thing that hasn't changed is the number of homeless folks squirming around our big cities.   For them, normal is a far, far cry.  And nobody but nobody has an overnight solution for them.

Dinner last night:  BLT at Dupar's.