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Nostalgia for the August 6th Educated Retirement

August 4, 2021

   Radio Show for Aug. 6, 2021

Special Holidays

International Beer Day ..August 6

Beer is one of the oldest drinks and this day gives fans worldwide just one more excuse to have a round on the First Friday in August.  Beer has the reputation as the drink of choice for the ordinary worker and somehow manages to unite people in a common cause for good. Today’s beers continue to be brewed with hops, herbs, or fruits that add flavor.  There is over 100 different beer styles…the art of brewing beer today remains a skill that employs age-old techniques carefully perfected over centuries.

 

National Sea Serpent Day…August 7

Sea Serpents, also known as sea dragons, were common in ancient mythologies and are celebrated on August 7.  They may have been partially inspired by the giant oarfish which can grow up to fifty feet in length.

While outer space is often considered the final frontier it’s the mystery of the Earth’s oceans that still captivates explorers and scientists.

Celebrity sea serpents,…move over Nessie!

Gloucester Sea Serpent…1639 near Cape Cod, a large snake like creature with a stinger or spear extruding from it’s head

The Willatuk …travels between Lake Washington and Puget Sound, it’s Washington’s own version of the Loch Ness Monster

Colossal Claude….Columbia River first seen in 1934..40 feet long with an 8 foot neck, in 1963 oil workers recorded a video of what they thought was similar to Claude.. a 15 foot creature covered in barnacles, they named this one Marvin.

Ogopogo…(sacred creature of the water) lake monster living in the Okanagan Lake in British Colombia, Canada, the first sighting in 1872 and thru the years as recent as 2011.  The creature is said to be green with a snakelike body and a head like a horse, somewhat reptilian.

You can honor this holiday by reading books about sea serpents or watching movies highlighting monsters of the sea such as:

Leviathan, Deep Rising, Godzilla, The Host, The Creature of the Black Lagoon, The Abyss, It Came From Beneath the Sea, Jaws, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

 

Birthdays….August 6

Robert Mitchum…August 6, 1917-1997

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American actor, director, author, composer and singer.  He rose to fame for starring in  classic film noir; and, acting generally as the ‘anti-hero’ that was prevalent in film during the 50’s and 60’s.

Robert was born in Connecticut to his mother a (Norwegian immigrant and sea captain’s daughter) and to his father (an Irish shipyard railroad worker) who was crushed to death in a rail yard accident in South Carolina in 1919.  His Mother was awarded a government pension and remarried years later.

As a child, Mitchum was known as a prankster and often involved in fist fights and mischief.  When he was 12 his mother sent him to live with her parents where he was promptly expelled from school for scuffling with the principal.  He moved in with his older sister in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen and after being expelled from High School he left his sister and traveled throughout the country (similar to Darren Mc Gavin who played Kolchak?) hopping on railroad cars and taking a number of jobs like ditch-digging and professional boxing.  He said that at 14 in Georgia he was arrested for vagrancy and put in a local chain gang and later went back on the road on to California.

He arrived in Long Beach and became a ghostwriter for an astrologer.  He joined The Player’s Guild of Long Beach working as a stagehand and occasional bit player and wrote several short pieces that were performed by the group.  After getting married he found steady employment as a machine operator with Lockheed Aircraft but suffered a nervous breakdown due to job related stress which resulted in temporary blindness. He then sought work as a film actor starting with small parts in westerns and wound up signing contract with RKO Radio Pictures therefore beginning an acting career.

In 1948 after several successful films Mitchum was arrested for possession of marijuana which was part of a sting operation designed to capture other Hollywood partiers as well.  He spent 43 days in Castac Prison Farm (as he described.. “it was like Palm Springs but without the rif-raf “) and Life photographers were permitted to take photos of him mopping up in his prison uniform.  The conviction was later overturned after being exposed as a setup.

Mitchum was also a singer, his voice was used often instead of a professional to sing in his films such as in “River Of No Return” and “The Night of The Hunter”.

Mitchum starred in over 65 films and was nominated for one AA award for Best Supporting Role in “Story of G.I. Joe” and won the Golden Globe Cecil B. De Mille Award in 1992.

Short List of Robert Mitchum films

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo..1944, director Mervyn LeRoy, co-starred Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson, Robert Walker

Crossfire…1947, director Edward Dmytryk, co-starred Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame, Robert Young

Out of the Past…1947, director Jacques Tourneur, co-starred Rhonda Fleming, and Kirk Douglas

The Racket…1951, directors John Cromwell, Nicholas Ray, Sherman Todd, Mel Ferrer, Tay Garnett

River of No Return…1954, director Otto Preminger, co-starred Marilyn Monroe, and Rory Calhoun

The Night of the Hunter…1955, director Charles Laughton, co-starred Shelley Winters and Peter Graves

Cape Fear…1962, director J. Lee Thompson, co-starred Gregory Peck and Polly Bergen

Farewell, My Lovely…1975, director Dick Richards, story by Raymond Chandler, co-starred Charlotte Rampling, Harry Dean Stanton and John Ireland, film nominated for one AA award

The Big Sleep…1978, director Michael Winner. Story by Raymond Chandler, co-starred James Stewart, Richard Boone, Oliver Reed

Andy Warhol…August 6, 1928-1987

Andy was an American artist, film director and producer and was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as ‘pop art’.

Andy was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to working class emigrants, his father worked in a coal mine.  In the third grade Warhol had Sydenham’s Chorea which is a nervous system disease that caused involuntary movements of the extremities believed to be a complication of scarlet fever.  At times when he was confined to  bed he drew, listened to the radio and collected pictures of movie stars. When he was 13 his father died in an accident.

After High School he studied art and served as art director of the student art magazine, earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in pictorial design then moved to NYC and began a career in magazine illustration.  He did work for Glamour, Vogue, and Harper’s Bazzar magazines as well as book jackets, and greeting cards.

Warhol was dedicated to commercial and advertising art.  He was an early user of the silk screen printmaking process as a technique for making paintings.

He used tracing paper and ink as part of his printmaking process as well as tracing photographs, not only designed work for magazines but record covers as well.

Warhol exhibited his artwork in galleries one of which was highlighting the infamous Campbell’s Soup Cans.  He continued to make paintings of mushroom clouds, electric chairs, stars like Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Troy Donahue and Muhammad Ali. Using Dick Tracy comic strips he designed a window for Lord And Taylor Store.  He opened his studio “The Factory” and gathered about him writers, musicians, underground celebrities and other artists.

In 1968 Warhol was shot (along with an art critic) by a radical feminist author, Valerie Solanas.  She was convinced that they were conspiring to steal her work. The critic had only minor injuries, Warhol barely survived, injuries left him with complications that effected his life and art years later. The attacker was arrested after she turned herself into the police.

He became more entrepreneurial in the 70’s and concentrated on rich patrons for portrait commissions like the Shah of Iran and his wife, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Diana Ross and Brigitte Bardot.  He also founded ‘Interview’ magazine and socialized at various nightspots in New York City like Studio 54. He was known as the “white mole of Union Square” as he was regarded quiet and shy.

Warhol died 1987 from sudden post-operative irregular heartbeat.  His will dictated that most of his estate would go to create a foundation dedicated to the advancement of the visual arts, which is now the “Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts”.  He had so many possessions that it took Sotheby’s eight days to auction after his death.

 

Short list of Warhol’s honors:

35th Annual Art Award for Distinctive Merit for a shoe advertisement that he illustrated 

36th Annual Art Directors Club Medal and Award of Distinctive Merit for an ad posted in Life Magazine

In 2011 a chrome statue of Andy and his Polaroid camera was revealed in Union Square in NYC

In 2012 a crater on Planet Mercury was named after Andy Warhol

  1. Night Shyamalan…August 6, 1970
  2. Night is an American filmmaker and actor and is known for making original films with contemporary supernatural plots.

He was born in India, his parents were both doctors.  They immigrated to the US when he was six week old, he was raised in Penn Valley, Pennslvania.  Growing up he attended mostly private schools. 

He decided to become a filmmaker once he began to use his father’s Super 8 camera, tho his father wanted him to follow in the family practice of medicine.  By the time he was seventeen he had made forty five home movies.

Did you know?

*Among Shyamalan’s favorite movies are The Godfather, Jaws, The Exorcist, Being There and Rebecca.  One of his favorite directors is Alfred Hitchcock.

*He almost wrote an Indiana Jones Movie.

*M. Night has a fear of flying and mostly shoots his films close to home in Philadelphia where he has a 1937 Georgian Revival house part of a 125 acre estate. The exception was his latest film “Old”, as it required a tropical island location.

*He turned down the opportunity to direct movies from the Harry Potter series.

Short list of films of M. Night Shyamalan

The Sixth Sense…1999, starred Bruce Willis

Unbreakable…2000, starred Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson

Signs…2002, starred Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix

The Village…2004,  starred Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt, Brendan Gleeson

The Happening…2008, starred Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deshanel

The Last Airbender…2010, starred Noah Ringer and Dev Patel

Honorable Mentions

Lucille Ball…August 6, 1911-1989

Lucy starred in about 20 films, and is known for the “I Love Lucy” television series. Was nominated for 12 Emmy Awards (for I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show) and won 3.  She also received The Governor’s Award in 1989.

She helped “Star Trek” become a cultural icon.  At the time she was the head of Desilu Productions when Gene Roddenberry approached the company with an idea for the pilot for the show.  Even tho the board members were against it she stood by the show.  The pilot “The Cage” was shot and on a massive budget and so became the campy science fiction series with a huge following even to this day. Other shows that Desilu was well known for was “The Untouchables”, “Mission Impossible” and “Mannix”.

On This Day

Alice In Wonderland released… July 28, 1951 in New York

This is the 13th animated feature film produced by Walt Disney Productions.

Disney considered it a disappointment on its initial release which led him to show it on television as one of the first episodes of his show “Disneyland”.  It was so successful on that show that it was re-released in theatres and proved to become one of the biggest cult classics in animation.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture but lost to “An American in Paris”.

The ‘Very Un-birthday’ sequence inspired the Mad Tea Party spinning tea cup ride in Fantasyland at Disneyland which is still in operation and was one of the original rides in the park when it first opened in 1955.

 

Another version of this film was directed by Tim Burton in 2010 starring Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, followed by Alice Through the Looking Glass also directed by Tim Burton in 2016.

Lighthouse Act signed in 1789

It was on August 7th that Congress passed the resolution for the establishment and support of lighthouses, beacons, buoys and public piers. 

The nationwide lighthouse community continues to keep the flame of that heritage by celebrating on August 7th as National Lighthouse Day.  As America continues its technological progress it becomes easy to forget the serenity of preindustrial establishments such as lighthouses.

Lighthouse groups usually offer the general public tours, cruises and presentations that pay tribute to lighthouses and their grand history.

Did you know?

*The first American lighthouse built on the West Coast was Alcatraz Island in 1854.

*The only lighthouse equipped with an elevator is Sullivan’s Island, SC

*The state with the most lighthouses is Michigan with 124.

*The first American lighthouse to use electricity was the Statue of Liberty in 1886.

There are over 700 lighthouses in the US.  If you are unable to visit any of them on this day you can watch some movies that highlight lighthouses such as:

The Light at the Edge of the World, The Fog, Shutter Island, The Monster of Piedras Blancas, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and The Invasion of the Triffids.

As well as….

The Lighthouse (2019) that starred Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, an exceptional film about two lighthouse keepers try to maintain their sanity while living on this remote island in the 1890’s.  What makes it even more convincing is the glorious photography in black and white.

The Vanishing (2018) starred Gerard Butler is about three lighthouse keepers that find hidden trunk of gold which leads to their mysterious disappearance.

Nasa Nelly…TBA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jay Kaplan profile picture
Jay Kaplan
This is the place to share. Share news, updates and opinions. The reverse is the most misunderstood item in the lending and financial home ownership arena; we need more exchange of ideas. This area is for questions and, I hope; answers. Please keep the dialogue going in the name of education, and that goes both ways. Please see that I have added two categories from The Educated Retirement show for Nostalgia and Wisdom
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