Author Archives: dcaligari

April 28, 2009 –A TV commercial for the UK car insurance company, Swiftcover featuring Iggy Pop was ruled as misleading by the Advertising Standards Authority. In the ad, Iggy was seen exclaiming that he had an insurance policy with Swiftcover but the company did not cover musicians at the time of the ad being shown.Continue reading “Iggy tells a fib”

April 28, 1967 –Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the army because of religious reasons on this date, and was stripped of his boxing titles and sentenced to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine for draft evasion. The conviction was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court

April 27, 2001 –I can think of younger days when living for my life … The Bee Gees performed audience and viewer requests for tunes from their long career in a concert at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom on the A&E series, Live By Request, on this date.

April 27, 1971 – CBS executives finally sobered up and the last episode of Green Acres aired on this date. This was to have been the pilot for a proposed spin off featuring Elaine Joyce as Carol. Oliver and Lisa only appear briefly in the beginning as an excuse to introduce Carol and the pilot.Continue reading “Good Bye Green Acres”

April 27, 1969 –Joe Cocker made his first U.S. TV appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, on this date. Together with the Grease Band, Cocker performed a cover of Dave Mason’s Feelin’ Alright. The song would end up being a two-time charting hit for Cocker — in 1969 and again in 1972. Cocker included aContinue reading “Joe Cocker’s first time”

Today is Arbor Day. The holiday is celebrated on the last Friday of April  – The first Arbor Day took place on April 10, 1872 in Nebraska. It was the brainchild of Julius Sterling Morton (1832-1902), a Nebraska journalist and politician originally from Michigan.  Throughout his long and productive career, Morton worked to improve agriculturalContinue reading “The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn”

April 26, 1978 – The concert billed as The Band’s “farewell concert appearance“, was held on November 25, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. The concert film, The Last Waltz, directed by Martin Scorsese, starring members of the band and many of their friends, opened in the US on this date. The Band’s managementContinue reading “The Last Waltz premiered”

April 26, 1956 –Godzilla debuted in America on this date. (Gojira premiered in Japan on November 3, 1954.) The American version of the film had 40 minutes of the original excised (mostly the content dealing with World War II or the anti-nuclear message,) and had 20 minutes of the masterful deadpan stylings of Raymond Burr.Continue reading “It’s clearly a red letter day at our house”

April 26, 1988 – The pilot episode of China Beach, starring Dana Delaney, Nan Woods, Michael Boatman, and Marg Helgenberger, premiered on ABC TV on this date. (For some reason this series has almost faded into obscurity.) Several of the storylines, and even some of the dialogue were taken directly from the experiences and recollectionsContinue reading “We were back in Nam (again)”

April 26, 1967 –CBS broadcast the documentary, Inside Pop – The Rock Revolution, with the host Leonard Bernstein, on this date. The program marked the first time that television presented pop music as a legitimate art form.