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Tuesday, November 03, 2015

November 3, 1990

Welcome to the first Tuesday Timeline (and first post) of November!  We're into the final stretch of 2015, and I hope that you're in for the ride because I've got some fun stuff planned for the last part of the year!

But before we get started on all that, I want to take the time to wish my mother a very happy birthday today!  I won't reveal the age here, but let's just say that it is a milestone of a birthday!  That's all I'm going to say though.

So, what subject have I chosen for today's Tuesday Timeline entry?  Well, I can tell you that while the following events for November 3 are interesting, none of them are the main topic.  These are merely for fun.

1493 - Christopher Columbus sights the island of Domenica in the Caribbean Sea

1534 - English parliament passes the Act of Supremacy

1793 - French playwright/feminist Olympe de Gouges is guillotined

1817 - Canada's oldest chartered bank, The Bank of Montreal, opens in Montreal, Quebec

1883 - "Black Bart the poet" gets away with his final stagecoach robbery during the American Old West

1911 - Chevrolet introduces its first automobile

1918 - Austria-Hungary enters into armistice with the Allied Forces

1943 - Wilhelmshaven Harbor in Germany is devastated by an attack by five hundred aircraft of the United States 8th Air Force during World War II

1954 - The first Godzilla movie is released

1957 - The first animal - a dog named Laika - goes into outer space, aboard Sputnik 2

1964 - Washington D.C. residents are finally able to vote in a presidential election

1979 - The Greensboro Massacre takes place in North Carolina, which sees five members of the Communist Workers Party shot dead by members of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis

1986 - Lebanese magazine "Ash-Shiraa" reports that the United States has been secretly selling weapons to Iran to secure the release of seven hostages taken prisoner in Lebanon

1991 - Singer Chris Bender is shot and killed in Brockton, Massachusetts - he was only 19 years old

2002 - Actor Jonathan Harris passes away at age 87

2013 - Africa, Europe, and parts of the United States bear witness to a solar eclipse

2014 - One World Trade Center opens to the public - thirteen years after the original World Trade Center was destroyed

And here are the people who like my mom are turning one year older today; Peggy McCay, Mable John, Lois Smith, Ken Berry, Roy Emerson, Tom Savini, Lulu, Larry Holmes, Anna Wintour, Roseanne Barr, Jim Cummings, Kate Capshaw, Dennis Miller, Adam Ant, Phil Simms, Kevin Murphy, Dolph Lundgren, Mike O'Neill, Robert Miles, Sticky Fingaz, Jane Monheit, Sean Ringgold, Julie Marie Berman, LaMarr Woodley, Beth Kingston, Gemma Ward, Angus McLaren, and Kendall Jenner.

So, for today's topic, I've chosen a date that could be considered a sad day, given that this date was the last day that a talented actress passed away...but at the same time, I have a good story to tell you that is related to a production that made this actress a star.



First though, let's set the clock back twenty-five years to November 3, 1990.  And, I think it was right around this time that this memory occurred.

I remember this date quite well.  After all, it was my mom's birthday.  But I was also nine years old and if I remember correctly, our NBC affiliate was broadcasting a television special right around this time of year.  Upon retrospect, I suppose the network could have aired this as a tribute to the actress who passed away, but it could also have been an anniversary tribute for the special itself.  The original did air on December 8, 1960.

(Okay, I just looked it up, and I was close.  The rebroadcast of this special was on March 31, 1991 - about three months afterwards.  I was close though!)

Anyway, the special that was broadcast was a re-telling of the 1954 Broadway musical based on the story of "Peter Pan".  And I'm sure that many probably remember the Disney film of the same name, or have read several interpretations of the story.  But the main gist of it all is that a young boy gifted with the power of flight and the inability to grow old takes Wendy, John, and Michael Darling to Neverland where they face adventures and take on the evil Captain Hook.

What made the NBC special from 1960 special was that the whole show was done in live-action.  Which meant that you had to have some incredible talent to make the production run smoothly.



And certainly the actress who played Peter Pan - Mary Martin - did just that.  I still remember watching her on television being Peter Pan, and I tell you, she was so good in the role that at times I completely forgot that she was played by a female performer!  I was actually quite sad to learn from my parents that she had passed on not long after I watched the encore performance of the Peter Pan show during the spring of 1991.

So, who was Mary Martin?  Well, let me share a few things about her with you.  She was born on December 1, 1913 in Weatherford, Texas, and she had a very happy childhood being very close to her parents and siblings.  And she developed a love for singing from a very early age - after all, some of her first experiences with singing involved performing outside of a courtroom where her father worked as well as singing outside of a fire hall.  But singing always came natural for her.  She had a photographic memory which allowed her to memorize lyrics with hardly any trouble, and she had the gift of being able to mimic celebrity voices as well through their singing styles.

It almost seemed destined that she would be a star from the very beginning!

She married fairly young, and gave birth to her first child when she was just seventeen years old - a boy that was given the name of Larry Hagman. 

Larry Hagman...where have I heard that name before?

Anyway, back to Mary Martin.  Even though Mary had gotten married and had a child, she wasn't happy in the marriage at all.  It was suggested to her by her older sister that she try to teach people how to dance so that she could have a creative outlet to vent her frustrations, and it lead to her opening up her own dance studio which was successful - until her studio became the victim of an arsonist whose motive was that he felt that dancing was a sin.

But it was this fire that sparked something in Mary.  And it caused her to reevaluate everything about her life and how she wanted more out of it.  And in 1936, with her divorce from her first husband finalized, she relocated to Hollywood and tried out for everything and anything she could get.  She tried out for so many projects that she was given a nickname - "Audition Mary".  And let's just say that for the first few years of her time in Hollywood, she really struggled to get noticed.

That is, until 1938 - when she was cast in Cole Porter's "Leave It To Me".  That was the year that she made her Broadway debut, and she did it by singing the song "My Heart Belongs To Daddy".  It was a song that could have been considered autobiographical, as Mary had a very special relationship with her own father.  She reportedly sang it to him at the hospital while he was comatose just before he passed away.

She would eventually appear in several other Broadway musicals, such as "South Pacific" (where she played Nellie Forbush), "Annie Get Your Gun", "The Sound of Music", and "I Do, I Do".  But she never played any of the characters on film.  Although Mary Martin did do a few films during her Hollywood career, she actually preferred to be on stage, saying that she felt closer to her audience in a theatre setting, rather than on a Hollywood soundstage.

And this brings us to "Peter Pan", the role that most associate with her.  She first started playing the role in 1954, and as mentioned above, she reprised the role in 1960 where it was rebroadcast in 1989 and 1991.  And, if you click HERE, you can have a chance to watch that performance.  Just enjoy it while you can.  You never know how long videos stay up online!

Throughout her whole career though, Mary Martin earned several accolades and awards.  She was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1973, and received the Kennedy Center Honours in 1989.  She is also one of the rare people to have two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - one for recording, and one for radio.  And that's not even counting the number of Tony Awards that she won throughout her entire career - a total of four in all.

Oh, and that television performance of "Peter Pan"?  She won an Emmy for that.

In her later years though, Mary still acted - one of her last roles was in a 1986 performance of "Legends", where she acted alongside Broadway legend Carol Channing - but her career significantly slowed down following a car accident in 1982 which saw Mary sustaining a punctured lung, a fractured pelvis, and two fractured ribs.

And just a year after receiving the Kennedy Center Honours, on November 3, 1990, Mary Martin passed away at the age of 77 from colorectal cancer.  And with that, a Broadway legend faded into the sky forever.

But you know...her work will forever be immortalized in so many people.  After all, her son carried on the acting tradition in the family and played an astronaut attracted to a genie and the most heartless oil tycoon in Texas, amongst other roles.

Thank you for sharing your gift with all of us, Mary Martin.

Saturday, October 31, 2015

A Spook-Tacular Halloween Soundtrack!

BOO!

Did I scare you?  Not so much?  Oh well.



I'd just like to take the time to wish every single ghost, ghoul, monster, vampire, and mummy a very Happy Halloween!

I hope that all of you little kids who are going out trick-or-treating get lots of candy and treats tonight!  I know that I'm very excited to be handing out candy at my new place!  You realize that this is the first time I'll be handing out candy in fourteen years?  I hope I'll get at least a couple at my door!  If not, I'm gonna have a whole lot of candy to eat!

Regardless, I hope that anyone who is going out tonight does so safely.  This means wearing costumes that can be seen in the dark, carrying flashlights or glowsticks, and going out with either a parent or in a group.  Remember, there is safety in numbers.

Oh, and I also want to remind everyone that this is the weekend in which we set our clocks BACK due to Daylight Savings Time.  I know most of us think that it is a huge pain in the neck, but look at it this way.  You have an extra hour of Halloween fun this weekend!  Take advantage!

So, what am I going to talk about today?  Well, on account that it's Halloween, I imagine that some of us will be going out to parties or celebrations.  And maybe you're planning on having a party of your own.  Or, maybe you just want some tunes that will put you in a Halloween mood.

Well, you happen to be in luck because I've combed through the Billboard Top 100 charts of the last 60 years, as well as through my own iPod to come up with singles that are sure to make you feel scared...or at the very least bust a move on the dance floor like a Walking Dead zombie.

So, how should we kick this off?



Um...yeah...NOT that one!  Though it IS a rather scary song, wouldn't you agree?



THE PURPLE PEOPLE EATER (1958)

Would you believe that this song by Sheb Wooley topped the Billboard Charts for six weeks?  Although, given some of the stuff that has topped the charts in 2015, maybe this doesn't surprise me.

Anyway, this is the oldest song on my list, released in 1958, and it is about an alien who comes down to Earth to be in a rock band...but there's just one little snag.  He's a carnivore in the worst way.  Now, the song is a little bit tricky because you don't know whether the alien is purple and likes to eat all people, or if the alien is a random colour and just eats people dressed in purple.  I'll let you make that call.



MONSTER MASH (1962)

Now this is a single that I remember doing a full blog entry on years ago, but I think it's worth posting again.  I don't think one can have a Halloween party without playing this single by Bobby "Boris" Pickett.  It too was a novelty song that managed to top the charts just before Halloween 1962.  I think the Boris Karloff impersonation was what won people over!



TIME WARP (1975)

Okay, seriously, ANY song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show would be an excellent song to play at any spooky party.  But dammit, Janet, I love this song!  This is the best song to get your Jockeys on the dance floor by far!  Just keep your robe closed.  Nobody wants to see that!



ABRACADABRA (1982)

You know, not all Halloween songs have to be scary.  After all, a good part of Halloween happens to involve magic.  In fact, Harry Houdini - one of the greatest magicians to have ever lived - died on Halloween night!  So, I thought that I would feature this Steve Miller Band song in our Halloween soundtrack just because of the magic theme.  And, well...music videos from the 1980s are scary by themselves!



THRILLER (1984)

Okay, so obviously we can't have a Halloween party without the man who made one of the most memorable and longest music videos of all time.  The late Michael Jackson really showcased why he was the King of Pop all those years ago.  From the zombie choreography to director John Landis' incredible directing techniques to the ear-shattering screams of actress Ola Ray and cameo by Vincent Price, the song and video remain a masterpiece over thirty years later!



SOMEBODY'S WATCHING ME (1984)

Ah, another Motown classic that was also released in January 1984.  This one features Rockwell in what is widely considered to be a Halloween themed one-hit-wonder.  After all, Halloween is all about scaring people and making people paranoid that someone is watching them.  Certainly the music video presented that with flying colours.



GHOSTBUSTERS (1984)

Okay, can we just say that 1984 was the year of the scary song?  Do I really need to explain why this song is so appropriate for Halloween?  No?  Okay then.  Just enjoy!



DEAD MAN'S PARTY (1986)

You know, I almost contemplated putting Oingo Boingo's "Weird Science" on this list, but this single is easily the more scary of the two.  I mean, both can easily be used, but if your goal is to make your Halloween scary, I'd go with this one.



EVERYBODY (BACKSTREET'S BACK) (1997)

Yes, I know...I know.  Why do I have a boy band on this list?  Well, for one, I have to admit that the music video is why I have this on my list of Halloween songs that need to be played.  You have to give the Backstreet Boys credit...the costumes they wore were fantastic.  And, at least this video had a little bit of plot behind it which is more than I can say for videos by LFO, O-Town, and any other boy band that crashed and burned.

And besides...I could have said Justin Bieber's "Baby".  That would have made people really scared.



DU HAST (1997)

I don't understand German, so I have no idea what they're singing.  For all I know, the lyrics could be the Care Bears theme song put to intense music and boisterous vocals.  But this song definitely can be used for your Halloween festivities.  After all, it was used in the promo for the latest "American Horror Story" series which stars Lady Gaga.



DRAGULA (1998)

Finally, we have this Rob Zombie single, which the title was inspired by Grandpa Munster's dragster.  Rob Zombie in this video looks like someone that small children would run away from, so bonus points there for authenticity.  But the whole song from its powerful guitar and its strongly delivered vocals just makes even the stiffest stiff get up and move.



So, that's my list of Halloween songs to play today!  What are some of yours that I may have missed?

Friday, October 30, 2015

New Archies Reviewed - Episode 8A: Telegraph, Telephone, Tell Reggie

Have any of you ever played the broken telephone game?  It's a game that a lot of summer camps play around a campfire.  One person whispers a message inside of someone else's ear and then they have to whisper it in the ear of the person next to you until the last person is left.  The funny part is that depending on the tone of the whisper as well as the way people pronounce words, that message can be completely garbled by the time it reaches the end, completely changing the message around.

This week's episode of New Archies Reviewed definitely showcases a broken telephone moment if ever I say so myself.  And it also stars our lovable rogue character Reggie Mantle.  Seriously, his name is in the title!



It's an episode I like to call Episode 8A:  Telegraph, Telephone, Tell Reggie.



We don't start the episode with Reggie though.  Instead we get a nice aerial shot of Riverdale where Betty and Veronica are jogging through the park complaining about how much of a jerk Reggie is.



I mean, there were Betty and Veronica drowning in the middle of the street and Reggie's limo just drives past both of them without even giving them a lift home!  How dare he?  I wonder if this took place during "Red To The Rescue"?  It was raining in that episode!



Oh, and on the other side of the park, Jughead and Archie are skateboarding down the street with Hot Dog and Red leading the way.  Surprise, surprise, they're busy complaining about Reggie too.  They think back to the time in which Reggie got so mad that he couldn't control the football game that he was playing with the gang that he grabbed his ball and ran home.

Wait.  People actually do that?  Man, what a jerk Reggie is.  I could use stronger language here, but I made it a point not to for these reviews.  After all, kids may be reading this.



Ah, but look.  Here comes Reggie with his dalmatian Lance - a dog with just as black a heart as its owner.  And it seems that Reggie is carrying a little present with him.  But I wonder what the occasion is?  It's not anyone's birthday, is it?



Wow...that's a lot of sausage links!  It's a good thing this show was made in 1987.  That many sausage links are basically equivalent to being a three pack a day smoker given the latest news that processed meats cause cancer.  Better stock up on bacon, boys!



Oh, but the sausage links are being used in Reggie's evil plan.  Knowing that dogs cannot resist the plump and juicy sausages from a butcher shop, Reggie gets Lance to run past Hot Dog and Red, which cause both dogs to run towards Lance...



...and causing Jughead and Archie to sail into the bushes as a result.  Ouch.

At some point, Jughead and Archie meet up with Betty and Veronica, and they gather around the kitchen table to grab a cheesecake while Betty shares stories of St. Olaf and Jughead calls Veronica a dirty old prostitute.

Or, maybe that was an episode of The Golden Girls.



Anyway, MS. Grundy happens to be jogging through the park at that moment and sees the four bitter seventh graders on a park bench.  She asks what is going on and all four of them tell her that Reggie is evil, needs to be stopped, and that he should be burned alive in boiling oil be punished for his evil deeds. 

This causes MS. Grundy to stare at them, call them all whiny little brats, and tells them that if they tried being nice to him, then maybe it will infect Reggie like the yeast infection that she's currently experiencing and cause Reggie to be nice to them right back. 



At first, all four of them laugh off the idea, thinking that it would be easier to get Donald Trump to fix his hair.  But the more they think of it, they feel that it's worth a shot, and they make plans to throw Reggie a surprise party in hopes that decorations, balloons, and a cake that says "Please Don't Be You, Reggie" will cause him to be nicer to everyone.  Well, at least it's not completely contrived...yet.

And it is here where the broken telephone game goes into play.  You might want to get a pen and a pad of paper to keep up.



So, the party is being held at Archie's house, which I think is really generous, given that Archie is Reggie's number one enemy!  But hey, Archie always did have a heart of gold - well, when he wasn't toying with Betty and Veronica's emotions, that is - so I can see Archie stepping up.  And, naturally, Jughead is in charge of providing the cake.

But Jughead didn't count on Hot Dog being around while he's trying to bake the cake, and as Jughead tries frosting the cake, he has to try and shoo Hot Dog away.  Hilariously, Jughead actually drops the phone receiver inside of the cake which gets covered in icing, and Jughead decides to clean the phone off the only way he knows how.



Remind me to use this screenshot more often.

Jughead manages to successfully end the call to Archie, but he is distracted by someone at the door!  It's Reggie!  And Jughead has a cake that he is not only trying to get Hot Dog to not eat, but to make sure that Reggie doesn't see it before his party starts!



Jughead manages to hide the cake underneath a dish towel, but it doesn't work as Hot Dog happens to eat half of it while Jughead is seeing what Reggie wants.  Turns out that Reggie has an extra ticket to a sporting event and wants to know if Jughead would like to come.  But Jughead is so paranoid about Hot Dog scarfing down the cake that he practically throws Reggie out on his butt and slams the door right in his face.  Yeah, that's subtle.



A suspicious Reggie leaves Jughead's house while Jughead calls up Eugene while surveying the damage that Hot Dog did to the cake.  Turns out that thanks to Jughead's stupidity, Jughead now has to make another cake.  At the same time, Eugene is planning on supplying the music for the party on these brand new things called cassette tapes.  They're so compact and versatile that they have songs on both sides!  Weren't the 1980s wonderful?



Of course, Reggie decides that since Jughead isn't going to be cooperative, he may as well try someone else.  He arrives at Eugene's house just in time to see Moose arrive at the front door.  Eugene gives him the message that the party is in Archie's backyard and that Eugene was bringing the tapes and that the girls should bring some balloons for the decorations and plates and forks for the cake that Jughead is baking.



At least that's the way the message is supposed to go.  Eugene made two costly mistakes.  First, he whispered the message in Moose's ear too softly.  And secondly, he told MOOSE of all people.

Sure enough, as Moose is trying to remember what Eugene told him, Reggie comes out and shocks poor Moose so much that you can actually freeze frame the moment his brain shorts out.

And after sputtering out some nonsense about cake and grapes (broken telephone starts already), he runs away screaming and Reggie is left more confused.

Reggie follows Moose to Lodge Mansion where Eugene has apparently directed Moose to share the message to Veronica so that Veronica can share the news with Betty, Amani, and Ethel.  But Moose's message to Veronica is even more garbled than what he told Reggie.  Now apparently Eugene and Jughead are bringing a baboon to Archie's party and that she should bring the baboon some bananas and grapes for it to eat.



Yeah, your facial expression is about the same as Veronica's, I'm sure.



Meanwhile, Reggie is absolutely gobsmacked that Archie invited a baboon to his party but not Reggie and plans to make Archie and his friends pay for snubbing him.  Okay, has Reggie suffered brain damage from that episode where he sabotaged that royal event or what?  Seriously, why would he assume that Moose relayed the message correctly? 



Meanwhile, Betty and Amani are laughing their butts off over the message that Veronica left for them on Betty's answering machine about how she bought enough bananas to feed the baboon that Eugene is bringing with him, and that they should focus on buying food for them to eat.  Obviously Amani and Betty think that Veronica's been drinking again and that she needs to rest.  But give it to Betty for trying to make sense of the message and turning it into a brilliant idea.  Betty seems to think that Veronica meant that they should bring balloons for the party, and Amani thinks that Veronica bought bananas so that they could use them for banana splits.  The two decide to head down to Pop's so they can buy ice cream and sprinkles from him...because Riverdale apparently doesn't have any supermarkets.



But while everyone is making their plans come together - without the baboon - the mischievous monkey known as Reggie Mantle sneaks into Archie's backyard and makes plans to sabotage the party before it happens not realizing that the party is IN HIS HONOUR!!!  Oh, this should be good.



And while Reggie is placing booby traps all over Archie's backyard, the rest of the guests begin arriving.  Ethel's painted a rather awesome looking poster that looks exactly like Reggie - right down to the fact that his head is three times the size of his body.  Veronica comes around with enough bananas to feed every single person in Africa, and when Jughead and Eugene react with surprise, Veronica becomes angry and curses Moose out - well, as much as she can, given that it's a children's cartoon.



Luckily Betty and Amani arrive with the ice cream and toppings, and Veronica takes credit for the banana split idea.  But, at least she credits Moose for it as well.



Meanwhile, Reggie is busy loading up a net with water balloons.  Okay, what is Reggie's obsession with water balloons?  This is the second episode in a row where he's used them to attack his friends.  Is this a fetish?

Reggie, of course, immediately notices that Jughead has opened up the door to the basement...which apparently looks like a storm cellar that people would hide in if a tornado struck.  Now wouldn't THAT make a great episode?  And with the door open, Reggie can hear everything that the people can say inside the house - which proves that Reggie must have the hearing of a bloodhound!  Most of it is just childish blathering, but he does hear one thing that causes his heart to grow three sizes larger.

"Save some of that for Reggie.  It's HIS party!"



And this is the "oh my god, I really AM evil if I'm doing this to the people who are throwing me a party!" face.

And as Archie goes outside to look for Reggie, the outdoor lights kick on and an alarm sounds which sends everyone to the window just in time for Archie to become the unwilling victim of Reggie's cruel and immature pranks...

...or, maybe Reggie's had a change of heart and he decided that Archie can't be victimized by his stupid pranks, and he decides to rush out to save him.



But then Reggie trips over his own trip wire which has him drenched by falling water balloons.



Then he nearly drowns when he sets off the sprinkler system.

And he nearly loses his lunch when he sails head first into the spinning clothesline.



And before you know it, Reggie's showing off his new Halloween costume as that fruity mummy from the range of Count Chocula/Boo Berry cereals.  I think his name was Yummy Mummy, but I can't seem to remember. 

Of course, Reggie's friends are cheering for Reggie, thinking that his stunts were some of the best that they have ever seen, and Archie pulls up a sopping wet, humble pie swallowing, embarrassed and dejected Reggie from the ground where Reggie admits that he was a huge jerk.



Archie nods his head, and smiles, basically agreeing with him.  But hey, there's a banana split waiting for the big baboon so Reggie should go ahead and eat it.  Gee, I sure hope Archie has dry clothes for Reggie to wear.

You know this episode was brilliant in showing just how the broken telephone game works.  Poor Moose never did get the grasp of it.  At the same time, this episode was sort of boring to watch.  It's not the worst episode that was ever made, but any other character could have been substituted for Reggie in this episode.  Hell, I think had Veronica been the subject matter, it would have been a hundred times funnier.  But that's just me, I guess.

Next week, the gang decides to save a tree.  Believe me, I'm NOT kidding.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

October 27, 1958

Can you believe that we are almost at the end of October?  What, did this month just disappear into nothingness or what? 

With just four days left to go until Halloween, and less than sixty days left until Christmas, it seems as though we are in the middle of 2015's last hurrah.  As it stands, we have exactly ten Tuesday Timelines left in the year!

Now, as for the subject of today's timeline...let's just say that he is the frontman of one of the most successful bands to come out of the New Wave era, and almost three and a half decades since the band's first album was released, this group is still just as relevant today.

But that's all I can say for now.  First, we need to have a look at what happened on this date in history.

1682 - The city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded

1795 - Spain and the United States sign the Treaty of Madrid

1810 - The United States annexes the former Spanish colony of West Florida

1838 - Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which forces Mormons within the state to make a choice - leave or be exterminated

1872 - Author and etiquette expert Emily Post (d. 1960) is born in Baltimore, Maryland

1904 - The first New York City Subway line opens

1914 - British super-dreadnought HMS Audacious is sunk off the coast of Tory Island

1922 - Actress Ruby Dee (d. 2014) is born in Cleveland, Ohio

1954 - Benjamin O. Davis Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force

1961 - NASA tests the first Saturn I rocket

1964 - Ronald Reagan delivers a speech on presidential candidate Barry Goldwater's behalf, which kicks off Reagan's political career

1971 - The Democratic Republic of Congo is given a new name - Zaire

1973 - A chondrite-type meteorite weighing almost one and a half kilograms strikes in Canon City, California

1986 - The British government deregulates financial markets in an event known country wide as "The Big Bang"

1988 - Ronald Reagan orders the new American embassy based in Moscow, Russia to be knocked down due to Soviet listening devices being planted within

1992 - Terry M. Helvey murders United States Navy radioman Allen R. Schindler Jr. for being gay which ultimately leads to the military policy "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

2003 - Game show announcer Rod Roddy passes away of cancer at age 66

2005 - Following the deaths of two Muslim teenagers, citizens in France, particularly within the city of Paris, begin to riot

2013 - Singer/songwriter Lou Reed passes away, aged 71

And celebrating a birthday this October 27 are the following celebrities; Paul Fox, Monica Sims, Lara Parker, John Cleese, Lee Greenwood, Carmen Argenziano, Ivan Reitman, K.K. Downing, Jayne Kennedy, Roberto Benigni, Peter Firth, Jeff East, Peter Marc Jacobson, David Hazeltine, Marla Maples, Matt Drudge, Scott Weiland, Peter O'Meara, Evan Coyne Maloney, Brad Radke, Jason Johnson, Elias Toufexis, Sheeri Rappaport, Stephanie Abrams, Vanessa-Mae, Patrick Fugit, Kelly Osbourne, Sebastian Gacki, and Eddie Alderson.

Okay, so what date will we be flashing back to this week?



Ah, October 27, 1958.  Wow, was 1958 really fifty-seven years ago?  Many of my classmates in school had parents that were born around that time!  It's wild how time passes by, huh?

I will say this.  Today's Tuesday Timeline subject was born on the date above.  And I'll say this.  He does NOT look 57 at all!

Seriously.  Have a look at the latest music video from the band that he has been a part of since the late 1970s.  He's the guy singing lead.



ARTIST:  Duran Duran f. Janelle Monet and Nile Rodgers
SONG:  Pressure Off
ALBUM:  Paper Gods
DATE RELEASED:  June 19, 2015
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:  N/A

The first single from the band's fourteenth studio album (which was released on September 11, 2015) definitely shows that this band is in no danger of slowing down.  These wild boys continue to get everybody's reflexes going and continue to make their fans hungry like wolves for more.

Yes, the band's lineup - which consists of Nick Rhodes, John Taylor, Roger Taylor, and Simon Le Bon - still perform and release music long after their 1981 debut album.  And one of these members is turning 57 today!



Happy birthday, Simon Le Bon!

Remember last week when I was saying that 1977 was the year that musicians died?  Well, I think 1958 was the year in which the music was born.  I can't believe how many singers were born during the year 1958!  Let's see, you have Prince, you have Madonna, there's Belinda Carlisle, and of course, the late Michael Jackson.  That's quite a lot of talent and frankly all of those artists were a huge part of my childhood soundtrack.

And certainly Simon Le Bon and Duran Duran were a huge part of my childhood soundtrack as well - albeit through osmosis, as my sister was a huge fan of the band and had a huge crush on one of the Taylors...I think it was John.

Anyway, Simon Le Bon's childhood was quite ordinary, although he did get his first taste of the entertainment industry at the ripe old age of six by appearing in a commercial for laundry detergent.

But as we well know, it wasn't until the 1980s that people really took notice of Duran Duran and Simon Le Bon.  The group was formed in 1978 by Nick Rhodes, John Taylor, and Stephen Duffy, but by 1979, Duffy was gone.  Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor joined the group not long afterwards, but the group still needed a lead singer, one that could get everybody's attention and really deliver the songs with style and finesse.

It was at the Rum Runner nightclub in Birmingham one night in May 1980 that Duran Duran found its lead singer.  Interestingly enough, it was Le Bon's ex-girlfriend who recommended him for the gig.  And rumour had it that Le Bon first met the band carrying a book of poetry wearing hot pink leopard pants!  How very 1980s!  But when Simon took his poems and put it to the backing music of the band and found that the combination worked, Le Bon officially joined the band in mid-1980, thinking that it would be a gig that would last six months to a year.

I bet he never thought he would still be with the band thirty-five years later!  Seriously, Le Bon and Nick Rhodes are the only two band members to stick with Duran Duran since the band released their first single, which happens to be this one.



ARTIST:  Duran Duran
SONG:  Planet Earth
ALBUM:  Duran Duran
DATE RELEASED:  February 2, 1981
PEAK POSITION ON THE UK CHARTS:  #12

It did take a little longer for the band to make it big in North America, but by 1984, the group had released several hit singles and had gone on tours all over the world.  By the middle of 1984 though, the band was exhausted and there were rumours of in-fighting within the band, so the group temporarily called it quits right around that time.

That's not to say that the members of Duran Duran did nothing in between.  John Taylor and Andy Taylor formed The Power Station with Robert Palmer, while Le Bon, Roger Taylor, and Nick Rhodes went on to put together this band in 1985.



ARTIST:  Arcadia
SONG:  Election Day
ALBUM:  So Red The Rose
DATE RELEASED:  October 1985
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:  #6

Of course, by 1986, the band Duran Duran re-formed - minus Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor - and went on to release several more albums.  The original line-up briefly reunited in 2004, where they had a hit single with "Reach Up For The Sunrise", but Andy Taylor left the group for good, making Duran Duran the quartet it is today.

Now, since this post is about the lead singer of Duran Duran, I should mention that Simon Le Bon has had a fantastic run as lead singer.  How many other people can boast that they've been the lead singer of a band for thirty-five years other than say Mick Jagger?  Not many, I bet.

He's also done thousands of concerts and still has the energy to perform as if he were forever twenty-three...though he was sidelined for a couple of months in 1993 to recover from a torn vocal cord.  A similar instance occurred in 2011 where he had to cancel the rest of a summer tour.

He also survived a yachting accident when his maxi yacht capsized during a race, trapping him and his crew underwater for nearly three-quarters of an hour!  Despite this, he went on to compete in the Whitbread Round The World Race where he placed third!

Gotta admire his perseverance!