Author Archives: dcaligari

April 23, 1958 –Orson Welles‘ noir thriller Touch of Evil, starring Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh, was released on this date. Orson Welles initially despised the title Touch of Evil, having had nothing to do with its conception. Over the years, however, he grew to like it, and eventually considered it the best title outContinue reading “Today in Film History”

On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Happy Earth Day! Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, rawContinue reading “Start investing in a secure climate future right now”

April 21, 1990 –Sinead O’Connor topped the charts with a cover of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2U on this date. The video was the first time most people saw what O’Connor looked like and were surprised that she was bald. She shaved her head when she first started recording because she wanted to make a statementContinue reading “Today in Rock History”

Once again, I can’t make the usual jokes about if you or your kid cut school or work today; they’re already home and they’ve broken into the snacks. Or they’re not out celebrating the anniversary of the birth of Klara Hitler’s bouncing baby little evil bastard named Adolf on this date in 1889, (smack themContinue reading “It’s 420 Louis”

April 19, 1986 –Prince’s single Kiss hits #1 on the US Billboard Charts, on this date. The #2 song is Manic Monday by the Bangles, which was written by Prince. The band Mazarati, which was formed by Prince’s bass player Brown Mark and signed to his Paisley Park record label, asked Prince for a songContinue reading “Today in Rock History”

Today is Velociraptor Awareness Day. Velociraptors are small vicious dinosaurs that usually ruin everyone’s day at your local millionaire’s amusement park. Remember large windows and doorways are Velociraptor points of entries. Mark them accordingly and avoid at all cost. Once you’ve finished locating possible velociraptor entry points within your building, you can mark those areasContinue reading “Celebrate very responsibly”

It was a tense April in Boston in 1775. The colonists were simmering with resentment toward the motherland, on account of King George III having strewn the colonies with excessive tacks, painful to step on and bothersome to the horses. Furthermore, British cabbies had refused to unionize, and the colonists were adamantly opposed to taxisContinue reading “Listen my children”

April 17, 1960 – Eddie Cochran, the man behind Summertime Blues and C’mon Everybody, was killed, and Gene Vincent was injured, when the taxi carrying them from a show in Bristol, England, crashed en route to the airport in London, where he was to catch a flight back home to the US. The taxi driverContinue reading “Today in Rock History”

April 16, 1943 –LSD was first synthesized on April 7, 1938 by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, as part of a large research program searching for medically useful ergot alkaloid derivatives. Its psychedelic properties were unknown until five years later, when Hofmann, acting on what he has calledContinue reading “This may be on the test”

April 16, 1178 BC –… The sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world. – Theoclymenus A solar eclipse may have marked the return of Odysseus, legendary King of Ithaca and one of the most recurrent characters in Western literature, to his kingdom after the Trojan War on thisContinue reading “Tell me. O Muse”