Category: Uncategorized

Time Flies September 18

Arrivals:

1971 – The spectacular over-achiever Lance Armstrong (he won the Tour de France 7 consecutive times after battling cancer) whose mission in life seems to be to make the rest of us look like a bunch of wimps just standing around, talking about perseverance.

1940 – Frankie Avalon, 50s teen idol and the guy who filled in on “Winter Dance Party” after Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens were killed in that plane crash.  He is also instantly recognized as Annette Furnicello’s sidekick in about a hundred and fifty Bikini Beach movies.

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1932 – On September 18th, the body of 24 year old actress Peg Entwistle was found in the ravine below the Hollywoodland sign in Hollywood.  She had apparently committed suicide by jumping from the top of the ‘H’ in the sign.  The media, unable to control itself…again, turned her death into yet another cynical tale of sensitive youth destroyed by the ruthlessness of show business and then forgot about her.

1965 – The premiere of what may be one of the most improbable successes ever on television — Get Smart.  Surprisingly, this silliness — it wasn’t particularly funny — ran for 5 years and seeped so completely into our culture that thousands of granddads, all over the world, are still saying “Sorry about that, chief!”

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Departures:

1970 – Jimi Hendrix, another one of those talented artists who never make it out of the 60s alive.  Believe it or not he was the opening act for The Monkees on their first British tour — obviously booked by someone who’d never seen him play.

2001 – Mr. Dress-up, the real-life companion of Casey and Finnigan and pretty much every Canadian kid who grew up between 1967 and 1996.

Time Flies September 17

Arrivals:

1900 – John Willard Marriott, the guy who turned a single root beer stand into the international Marriott Hotel and Restaurant chain.  He also had the good sense not to have any idiot great grandchildren unlike his friend and fellow hotelier, Conrad Hilton.

1931 – Anne Bancroft, a very talented actress who will be forever known for one of the most famous legs in Hollywood and for the lines, spoken by Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me.” (pause) “Aren’t you?”

 1908 – During an aerial demonstration for the military near Fort Myers, Virginia, Orville Wright’s airplane, the Wright Flyer, crashed.   The pilot, Orville Wright was badly hurt but his passenger, Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, died from his injuries and thus became the first airplane fatality in history.

1776 – The Presidio of San Francisco opened in the California area of New Spain.  It took several months to build the fortifications which guarded the bay, and September 17th was the first day it was operational.

 Departures:

1996 – Spiro Agnew, vice president during most of Richard Nixon’s disastrous presidency.  He is the only Vice President (so far) to resign because of criminal charges and will always be remembered for calling members of the media “nattering nabobs of negativism.”

1899 – Charles Pillsbury, the founder of the original Pillsbury flour company and could probably be called the great great grandfather of The Pillsbury Doughboy.

Time Flies September 16

Arrivals:

1925 – B.B. (Riley) King, one of the greatest guitarists of all time, who was suddenly recognized as a Rock and Roll legend when he became the opening act for the Rolling Stones’ 1969 tour even though he’d been a successful Blues musician for over 20 years.

1387 – Henry V, the English king who beat the French at the Battle of Agincourt but probably never said “Once more into the breach…”  and may not have even have been born on September 16th .  However, Shakespeare turned him into a great king, and Lawrence Olivier and Kenneth Branaugh made great movies out of him.

 1630 – Legend has it that the village of Shawmut Massachusetts changed its name to Boston.  Good thing, too, otherwise we’d be cheering for the Shawmut Bruins and booing the Shawmut Red Sox.

1984 – Miami Vice premiered on NBC.  The first entry in the “new” style MTV cop shows, it influenced most of the TV crime dramas which followed it.  It also convinced Miami to preserve its historical neon electric Art Deco architecture and inspired a whole generation of unattractive men to wander around with a half-a-day’s growth of beard on their grubby little faces.

 Departures:

1498 – Tomas de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition.  In his day, Torquemada hunted heretics the way nerds hunt movie anomalies.  He worked on the simple principle that you were guilty until you confessed, and — to this day — still holds the World Record for “Most People Burned at the Stake.”

2003 – Sheb Wooley, the original Weird Al Yankovic.  He wrote and performed the one-hit-wonder, “One-eyed, One-horned, Flying Purple People Eater.”