Radio Show for June 11, 2021
Special Holidays…. June 11
National Corn On The Cob Day
As we approach the first day of summer and picnic season we honor fresh corn on the cob as a summertime food. As the flavor of fresh corn on the cob calls to us and whether you boil or grill this treat get that butter, salt shaker, or chili powder ready.
Corn and its by-products are used for cereals, potato chips, soups, mayonnaise, chewing gum, masa and, of course, popcorn. It is also found in non-food items such as fireworks, rust preventatives, glue, paint, laundry detergent, shoe polish, ink, cosmetics, the manufacturing of film for photography, and even Corn Whiskey!
Corn is also used as feeding fodder for livestock and poultry.
Corn Jokes
*How is an ear of corn like an army?
It has lots of kernals.
*What do you call a buccaneer?
A good price for corn
*Why couldn’t the corn answer the door?
It was in the can.
I was going to tell you another joke but it was too corny.
King Kamehameha Day....This is a public holiday in the state of Hawaii. It honors Kamehameha the Great, the monarch who first established the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1810. He was destined for greatness as it is said that Halley’s Comet shot across the sky the night he was born, like writer Mark Twain in 1835. In the late 19th century this holiday was celebrated by carnivals, foot races and horse races. Now it is geared towards the storytelling dance of the islands…The Hula. Hula groups from all over the world attend the festivities to compete for prizes. There are draping ceremonies (draping the King’s statue with flowers) and floral parades and block parties with food and music.
National German Chocolate Cake Day
Today we recognize this cake with American roots. It happens to be one of the top 10 favorite cakes in America. Although the name may sound like the cake originated in Germany, it did not. The cake’s roots can be traced back to 1852 when American Sam German made a type of dark baking chocolate for American Bakers Chocolate Company. Over 100 years later a recipe for German’s Chocolate Cake appeared as the recipe of the day in the Dallas Morning Star. It was a recipe created by Mrs. George Clay who used the Bakers German’s Sweet Chocolate. The recipe became quite popular and was distributed to other newspapers around the country. Eventually over the years the publications began dropping the letter “s”. German chocolate cake is traditionally topped with a rich coconut icing.
Record Store Day….June 12 Record Store Day is an event that gathers independent record store owners, their staff and customers as a way to spread the word about the unique culture of the record collecting community. Activities include performances, meet and greets with artists and lists of special titles of vinyl and CDs that are to be released. The event was conceived in 2007. On the first Record Store Day ‘Metallica’ spent hours at Rasputin Music in San Francisco meeting their fans. Record stores participate on every continent except Antarctica. Check in your area to see who would be open for business and any specials.
Birthdays…. June 11
Gene Wilder..June 11, 1933-2016
Gene Wilder was an American actor, writer, and filmmaker.
Wilder was born Jerome Silberman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and of Russian Jewish descent. His father was a manufacturer and salesman of novelty items. He became interested in acting at age eight when his mother was diagnosed with rheumatic fever and the doctor told him to try and make her laugh.
At age 11 he saw his sister (who was studying acting) perform a monologue onstage. He noticed how the audience grew silent when the lights turned off and the spotlight fell on his sister. He had asked her teacher if he could become his student and the teacher said that if he was still interested at age 13 he would take him on as a student. The day after he turned 13 he called the teacher and he was accepted to study with him for 2 years. He claimed he always wanted to be a comedian like Sid Caesar.
Gene became involved with a local theatre community. Following his graduation he was accepted at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, England where he studied fencing and became the first freshman to win the All School Fencing Championship.
After he served in the Army he returned to New York and became a full time student as well as a fencing choreographer to the HB Studio (Herbert Berghof Studio). Living on unemployment insurance and some savings he began to support himself as a limousine driver. He was later accepted to the Actors Studio and began to be noticed in the ‘off Broadway’ scene.
Wilder met Anne Bancroft who introduced him to Mel Brooks who thought Gene would be perfect for a role in his screenplay ‘Springtime for Hitler’. Soon he was cast for his first leading role in that screenplay turned to feature film “The Producers” which eventually became a cult comedy classic. Later he starred in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”, “Young Frankenstein”, “Silver Streak” and “Stir Crazy.”
His directorial debut was for the film “The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother”, 1975. He also directed “The Woman in Red” and “Haunted Honeymoon” both co-starred Gilda Radner (from original cast of Saturday Night Live) who eventually became Gene’s wife.
Wilder starred in over 20 films.
Short List of Wilder’s films
The Producers…1967, directed by Mel Brooks (his directorial debut) film won AA award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay, Gene was nominated for AA award for Best Actor
Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory…1971, directed by Mel Stuart (who directed and produced several documentaries and the television series Ripley’s Believe It or Not) Willy Wonka was nominated for AA award for Best Music
Young Frankenstein…1974, directed by Mel Brooks, co-written by Wilder, film nominated for 2 AA awards. Brooks used much of the faux lab equipment used in the original 1931 film. Gene Hackman learned about Young Frankenstein through his tennis partner Wilder and requested a role thus created “Harold, the blind hermit/violinist” which sparked one of the most memorable sequences in comedic history. According to Cloris Leachman many shots would frequently have to be repeated as many as 15 times before Wilder would stop laughing and summon a straight face.
Blazing Saddles…1971, directed by Mel Brooks, co-written by Richard Pryor, film nominated for 3 AA awards. John Wayne was asked to read the script for Wilder’s role and he apparently chose not to join the cast as he was fearing for his career. Johnny Carson turned it down as well.
Silver Streak..1976, directed by Arthur Hiller, co-starred Richard Pryor and Patrick McGoohan (The Prisoner), film was nominated for 1 AA award for Best Sound
Jerry Uelsmann…June 11, 1934
Jerry is an American photographer and was an early exponent of photomontage in the 20th Century America.
Jerry was born in Detroit. While attending public schools at the age of 14 he became interested in photography. He believed that through photography he could exist outside of himself to live in a world captured through the lens. Despite poor grades he managed to land a few jobs primarily photographs of models. Jerry eventually went on to earn a BA from Rochester Institute of Technology and degrees from Indiana University and taught photography at the University of Florida. He had his first solo exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.
Uelsmann produces composite black and white photographs with multiple negatives and extensive ‘old school’ darkroom work. He uses up to a dozen photo enlargers at a time to produce his final images and has a large archive of negatives that he has shot over the years. The final image can be composed of many negatives not just one. He seamlessly blends multiple photographs into one image. His work in the darkroom effects foreshadowed the use of Adobe Photoshop to make surrealistic images.
Regarding digital techniques Uelsmann says…”I am sympathetic to the current digital revolution and excited by the visual options created by the computer; however, I feel my creative process remains linked to the alchemy of the darkroom.”
Uelsmann’s work has been exhibited in over 100 one-person shows across the US and abroad including Stockholm, Australia, Canada, Scotland, London, South Korea and Paris.
Jerry received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1967, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1972 and is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain.
Chick Corea…June 12, 1941-2021
Corea was an American Jazz composer, keyboardist, bandleader and occasional percussionist.
Armando Anthony “Chick” Corea was born in Massachusetts of Southern Italian descent. His father was a jazz trumpeter who led a Dixieland band in the 30’s and 40’s and acquainted him with the piano at the age of four. Since he was surrounded by jazz he was influenced by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Lester Young. When he was eight he took up drums which would motivate his use of the piano as a percussion instrument.
Chick took lessons and discovered classical music and began an interest in composition. He spent several years as a performer and soloist for the St. Rose Scarlet Lancers, (a drum and bugle corps).
He was given a black tuxedo by his father and started playing gigs in high school and eventually moved to NYC and studied music at Juilliard, and quit as he said he was disappointed.
Chick began a professional career in the 60’s and recorded his first album in 1966.
His compositions “Spain”, “500 Miles High”, “La Fiesta” and “Windows” are widely considered jazz standards. He was a member of Miles Davis’ band in the late 60’s and participated in the birth of jazz fusion. In the 70’s he formed the band ‘Return To Forever’ along with Herbie Hancock, Mc Coy Tyner, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Stanley Clarke and others. Later he formed an avant-garde jazz band ‘Circle’ with Anthony Braxton.
Through the years he produced over 100 albums, won 25 Grammy Awards and was nominated over 60 times. Chick was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Weegee…June 12, 1899-1968
Weegee was a photographer and photojournalist known for his stark black and white street photography in New York City.
Ascher Fellig was born near Lemberg in Austrian Poland. His first name was changed to Arthur after his family moved to NYC in 1909 and later settled in Brooklyn.
He took numerous odd jobs, worked as a street photographer and as an assistant to a commercial photographer. In 1924 he was hired as a darkroom technician by Acme Newspictures (later known as United Press International Photos) and went on to became a freelance photographer.
He worked at night, listened mostly to broadcasts and competed with the police to be first at the scene of a crime selling his photographs to tabloids and photographic agencies. His photographs centered around Manhattan police headquarters and were published by the Daily News and Life Magazine. He said “I didn’t wait til somebody gave me a job, I went and created a job for myself as a freelance photographer. When a story came over a police teletype I would go to it. The idea was.. I sold the pictures to the newspapers and naturally I picked a story that meant something.”
Regarding his name: at one of his earliest jobs in a photo lab of the New York Times he was nicknamed “squeegee boy”…(a reference to the tool to wipe down prints) then “Mr. Squeegee” and then dubbed “Weegee” a sound-alike of ouija because of his instant arrival at the scene of crimes ‘magically’ as a ouija board.
He was a self-taught photographer with no formal training and developed his photographs in a make shift darkroom in the trunk of his car. His first book of photographs “Naked City” which and was formed into the film “The Naked City” (starred Howard Duff) that was based on a story about the investigation into a model’s murder in NY and later used for the tv police drama series “Naked City” which ran 4 seasons 1958-63 and starred James Franciscus, William Shatner, Christopher Walken, Diahann Carroll, Jack Klugman and Robert Duvall to name a few.
After his death over 16,000 photographs and 7,000 negatives were donated to the Weegee Archive to the International Center of Photography in NY. While most famous for his images of brutal and bloody endings of gangsters he claimed to have shot over 5,000 murders and was known for his shots of people just acting human on the gritty streets of New York.
Weegee in Hollywood Trivia
Peter Sellers mimicked Weegee’s voice and gave it a German accent when playing the title role in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” where Weegee himself was on the set taking pictures during the production of the film.
An “X-files” episode highlights the investigation of a named Alfred Fellig having photographed crime scenes prior to the arrival of emergency services.
The 1992 film “The Public Eye” with Joe Pesci and Stanley Tucci was loosely based on Weegee. Joe played Leon ‘Bernzy’ Bernstein a freelance crime and street photographer for the New York City tabloids….saying “Nobody does what I do…Nobody!”
In the film “Watchmen”…the minutemen had their photograph taken in 1940 and Nite Owl shakes hands with the photographer and says “Thank you, Weegee”.
A Weegee quote ..”Whadda you kidding? It’s a zoo out there. Two deli stickups at 12 on the dot…one of the perps getting plugged. I got the picture. Roulette joint bust on East 68th. Society types. You shoulda seen the penguins run. Four AM…bars close. Guys asleep in Bowery doorways. But just before dawn is the worst. Despair City! The jumpers start, out the window, off the roof. I can’t even look. So that’s the night, New York. Ain’t it grand? What a life!”
On This Day…June 11
“E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” released on June 11, 1982….directed by Steven Spielberg. It became an immediate blockbuster, the highest grossing film of all time surpassing Star Wars and a record that was held for 11 years until Jurassic Park arrived on the scene. The film won 4 AA awards for Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Music and nominated for 4 Oscars.
“Jurassic Park” released June 11, 1993, directed by Steven Spielberg and became the highest grossing film ever at the time until the release of Titanic in 1997. It won 3 AA awards for Best Sound, Best Sound Effects and Best Visual Effects..this was the same year for films “Schindler’s List” and “The Piano”and “The Fugitive.”
Nasa Nelly….TBA
