Some of the Greatest Things, and Worst Things, In the World

Martin Luther King Jr. joined us on this day in 1929.

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

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Albert Einstein- "It is harder to crack prejudice than an atom."

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Jean-Luc Picard- "Change always comes later than we think it should."

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I knew about this before it was on Drunk History, and before the internet I'd tell people about it but they wouldn't believe me... and what was I going to do, take them to the library and look it up in an encyclopedia?

From PBS:

On January 15, 1919, Patrolman Frank McManus was making a duty call in Boston's North End neighborhood when he heard a "grinding, rumbling noise." "The next moment," The Boston Globe reported, "he saw the sea of molasses rush forth in all directions."  

http://to.pbs.org/2jkZSwa

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We had a Twilight Zone marathon on New Year's Eve and one of the episodes was The Jungle, episode 12 from season 3. A guy had become convinced that the jungle was closing in on him, but he's really just trying to navigate his way through the city back to his house. He keeps hearing these tribal drum beats and the sounds of lions. He makes it back to his apartment and a lion attacks him in his bedroom.

For some reason that drum beat has been in my mind for weeks now, and I'll be damned if I didn't just hear a car drive by playing it, as I'm sitting here this evening, minding my own business, trying to read Joan Didion.

That's all I came here to write, and I was done. But then I got a text from Sloth, a link to Instagram. It seemed to be a video from some kind of zoo, and it looked like a person sticking his finger in a lion cage. It's certainly a video of that guy getting his finger bit off. I'm not watching it!

What a coincidence.

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My butternut squash must have taken the same career path as the old woman from The Shining. I tossed it out back a couple months ago.

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Nothing makes sense 

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I just ran 2 miles in 9 degree windchill weather. That's a great way to see how fast you can run!

I'm glad I went on that run too. On the way back I stopped at one of those little front yard free libraries and got an Edward Hopper book that had an unbelievably good short story by Norman Mailer, the Greatest Thing in the World. It was his first publication. He said that from that moment on, he knew he was a writer.

Good run.

January 15, 2022

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Best news I've heard in ages. Trump's approval went from a solid 40% down to 29%. It's nice to know that a quarter of that 40% where indeed breakable. The unbreakable 29% though... they would fail the Milgram Experiment. If you don't believe me, ask Mike Pence.

January 15, 2021

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I keep thinking about the absurd but expected result of all the prayers for overturning the election outcome on January 6th. Remember all those people praying for that day? I don't know what God they were praying to, or what country they think they live in where God's single vote trumps 150 million of our votes. I mean if THAT was the best their God could muster, a bunch of halfwits literally fighting to take their country back after months of prodding by a quarterwit, that doesn't say so much for their God. I guess "these are the kinds of things and events that happen" when they pray for a free and legal election to be overturned, when they think that religion trumps democracy. Maybe they were hoping God would hit the Capitol with a lightning bolt instead, I don't really know. Or maybe they we're all just praying for the truth to finally come out. If so, prayers answered I guess, but what a cost.

January 15, 2021

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Apparently Trump is upset by comparisons to Nixon. They are absurd, no doubt. Get out a new pencil and tally up Nixon's major scandals. You get about ten. Now tally up Trump's major scandals. You'll need more pencils.

January 15, 2021

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Herzog fish, corn, and peas.

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Gretel told me Donald Trump is mean because he was saying "hi butthole" to everybody.

January 15, 2018

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Priebus just pointed out that John Lewis outrageously call Trump an illegitimate president, and he called on Obama to help reach out to his constituency to help mend the fence... yep, they are looking for illegimate Kenya-born Muslim Obama's help.

January 15, 2017

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The Male Burqa

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Thanks to Emma Eck for the best sandwich since Scooby-Doo was canceled.

January 15, 2015

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Happy 80th birthday to my good friend Phil Zeigler. His sister was was really tight with money. Boy was she tight! She'd squeeze a buffalo nickel until it shit 15 cents.

January 15, 2011

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I was just going to go look at the stars through a telescope but how can I when an ancient cat is begging for me to pet her?

January 15, 2011

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Tonight I'm reflecting on the fact that Dennis Hopper is still alive" was my September 30 profile heading, and tonight I'm doing the same. I hate to tell you this, but the word is that he doesn't have much longer...

January 15, 2010

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It's Coca-Cola's birthday, born on this day in 1889, known at the time as the Pemberton Medicine Company.

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On this day in 1934, in East Chicago, Indiana, John
Dillinger and his gang robbed the First National Bank of $20,000. Hamilton was wounded and Patrolman William Patrick O'Malley was killed.

In my mind, Dillinger regretted his death. If O'Mallet hadn't shot, he wouldn't have shot.

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Shadow of a Doubt was released on this day in 1943. This was Hitchcock's favorite of his films, he loved the idea of menace coming to an idyllic small town. A perfect film. 

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The dismembered corpse of Elizabeth Short was found in Los Angeles on this day in 1947. It became known as the Black Dahlia murder, still unsolved.

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Errol Morris's Vernon, FL was released on this day in 1982. I love every second of that film. That shot of the beginning is literally transcendent. It takes you from this world into the world of the film, as all the best films do.

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French actor and playwright, Molière, was born on this day in 1622.

"Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money."

Ummm, that has not been my experience.

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Nuclear physicist, Edward Teller, was born on this day in 1908. From The Pursuit Of Simplicity: 

"Two paradoxes are better than one they may even suggest a solution."

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Charlatan Ben Shapiro was born on this day in 1984. I don't know how he made it through the Trump years without saying one thing that he believed about Trump. He knew he was a disaster, and simultaneously knew that he would lose his audience if he said it out loud. He focused exclusively on peripheral issues. 

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Chinese general Wang Jingchong, died on this day in 950. That's all. What?

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Jimmy Snuka left us on this day in 2017.

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Cranberry singer, Dolores O'Riordan, somehow left us on this day in 2018, still makes me sad.

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Huffington Post- 'Making A Murderer' Left Out Disturbing Details Of Steven Avery's Past

Alright, he did it. And, yes, the police planted some evidence. I'm done thinking about this. Maybe.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/steven-avery-making-a-murderer_56992180e4b0ce4964243136

January 15, 2016

Postscript- Done thinking about it? I think about that type of thing all the time. If a person did commit a crime, and ended up paying for that crime based partially on inaccurate police work, is that bad? Remember that I'm prefacing this on the fact that somebody did indeed with the crime. You don't want bad police work sending innocent people to jail. But if someone did commit a crime, wouldn't it be more of an assault on justice if that person went free? The question is how somebody knows that somebody is guilty to begin with. If that person is evidence, that evidence can be shared.

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Politico- No transition honeymoon for Trump

Should we give Trump a chance? It's a strange question, every day he has the chance to be a decent human being and every day he fails.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/donald-trump-polling-transition-232656

January 15, 2017

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USA Today- Scientists say they may have new evidence in D.B. Cooper case

I love this case.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/01/13/scientists-say-they-may-have-new-evidence-db-cooper-case/96575858/

January 15, 2017

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Wow, scientists estimated that there were 2.5 billion T-Rexes in history.

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Aristotle- "To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing"

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Joyce, Ulysses- "Love loves to love love."

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Robert Anton Wilson:

"Every fact of science was once damned. Every invention was considered impossible. Every discovery was a nervous shock to some orthodoxy. Every artistic innovation was denounced as fraud and folly. The entire web of culture and ‘progress,’ everything on earth that is man-made and not given to us by nature, is the concrete manifestation of some man’s refusal to bow to Authority. We would own no more, know no more, and be no more than the first apelike hominids if it were not for the rebellious, the recalcitrant, and the intransigent. As Oscar Wilde truly said, ‘Disobedience was man’s Original Virtue.'"

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Camus- "I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

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Asimov- "Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night."

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Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez- "Men really do need sea-monsters in their personal oceans."

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Hawking- "I think computer viruses should count as life ... I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image."

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For his comedy special, Homefield Advantage, shot in his hometown of Chicago, Andrew Santino takes us on a quick tour around the city. He goes up to a hot dog stand and tells them he wants the regular. They seem annoyed and they say, "Up your ass or down your fucking throat???" One of the workers pleads for him to just order the correct way.

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