Radio Show for June 24, 2022
Special Holidays
National Food Truck Day..June 24
Today is the day to celebrate delicious food on wheels!! In the United States the Texas chuck wagon was a precursor to the American food truck. In 1866 a Texas cattle rancher fitted a sturdy old United States Army wagon with interior shelving and drawers with kitchenware, food and medical supplies. The food consisted of dried beans, coffee, cornmeal, greasy cloth wrapped bacon and beef. It was also stocked with a water barrel and wood to heat and cook food.
Later in 1872 Walter Scott cut windows in a small covered wagon and parked it in front of a newspaper office in Providence, Rhode Island and sold sandwiches, pies and coffee to pressmen and journalists. By the 1880’s former lunch-counter boy, Thomas Buckley, was manufacturing lunch wagons in Massachusetts and introduced various types such as ‘The Owl’ and ‘The White House Café’ with sinks, stoves and refrigerators.
Food trucks are now commonplace in American big cities and suburbs across the country. They are being hired for special events weddings, movie shoots and corporate gatherings. Gourmet food trucks offer a unique dining experience, one truck may specialize in outlandish burgers and another may serve only lobster rolls. There are food truck rallies, food truck parks and in many ways they can launch off a chef’s career without the need for a brick and mortar location, and some have participated in tv food truck competitions as well.
World UFO Day..June 24
World UFO Day commemorates two historical dates, today June 24 (the Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting) and July 2nd (the Roswell, New Mexico UFO crash)
I WANT TO BELIEVE!! These are the words of Fox Mulder (our hero from The X-Files) who convinced us that the truth is out there! Today is World UFO Day! It is an awareness day for people to gather together and watch the skies for unidentified flying objects.
Yes, UFOs do exist! The Congress meeting in May showed that top Pentagon officials are talking about them. The “Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group” claims their goal is to declassify files on UFO sightings, to investigate and to report. What stirred up the forming of this committee were all the “tic-tac” videos that have been made public by the military.
So when we stare into the stars late at night someone or something is certainly staring back.
How to celebrate? Have a “Welcome to Earth” Party with Alien costumes. Or, you can have a UFO movie marathon. If you’re watching a mediocre movie and it turns out to be an alien movie its automatically a million times better. You can start with Alien, Men in Black, Arrival or Independence Day, Close Encounters of the Third Kind or Invasion of the Body Snatchers… the list goes on and on.
So today is a chance to celebrate the strange, and it is okay for our minds to be off in outer space.
You will have a second chance to ‘space-out’ as the next World UFO Day is July 2nd.
National Catfish Day..June 25tional Catfish Day
This day is to highlight the value of farm-raised catfish and was designated in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan.
These nocturnal swimmers don’t have scales and are a good source of Vitamin D. It’s a favorite fish of many Americans and can be prepared several ways but can also be considered as some of the weirdest fish out there. Some have multiple rows of needle-sharp teeth and some give off electricity, swim upside down or have razors on their sides.
The catfish can weigh in as much as 660 lbs. and up to 10 ½ feet long. A catfish caught in Thailand was 646 lbs. about the size of a grizzly bear, it took 10 men to lift it.
A popular way to catch these fish in the southern United States is called “noodling” which is when the fishermen use their bare hands, no bait, rod and reel or spear-gun. The practice is illegal in some states due to concerns over the safety of the noodler (as the fish are very strong and can easily pull a person down under the water) and there are also concerns about the sustainability of the fish.
The best way to acknowledge this holiday is to enjoy catfish on a plate deep fried, baked or grilled. Or you can watch “killer fish” movies like “Leviathan”, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, It Came From Beneath the Sea”, “Piranha” or “Jaws”. We are approaching Shark Week (late July) so get ready for big bites!!
Nasa Nelly….*The Kenneth Arnold UFO Sighting
*Update on China’s “Sky Eye” telescope
*Crisman and the JFK connection
Birthdays
Michael Gross …June 21, 1947 (74 yrs)
Michael is an American television movie and stage actor. He is notable for playing Steven Keaton on the sitcom “Family Ties” (with Michael J. Fox). He also played the survivalist Burt Gummer in the “Tremors” film franchise, and, who was the only actor to appear in all those films.
What is most interesting about him is that he is a huge rail fan with an extensive collection of railroad antiques. He is not only an amateur railroad historian, photographer and modeler but also part owner in a working railroad the Sante Fe Southern Railway. He has narrated several railroad films as well.
Gross is the spokesman for the World’s Greatest Hobby campaign sponsored by The Model Railroad Industry association that promotes Model railroading. He also has been the spokesperson for Operation Lifesaver, a campaign promoting safety at railroad grade crossings, as well as the celebrity spokesperson for the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.
For Michael, ‘Santa Fe’ means Grandpa, as, he owes his dedication to railroading to his Grandfather Chester Gross, who he himself was a second-generation railroader, his father worked as a boilermaker for several railroad lines. Chester spent most of his working life at Fort Madison, Iowa working for Santa Fe.
Michael said, “I rarely saw him on the job, as I would only have been in the way….he would let me through the yard office, roundhouse, and run through the numerous cabooses on the caboose track….in the mid-1950’s I recall riding a Fairbanks Morse diesel switcher and Grandpa hoisted me up to the crew and I spent a couple of hours with them”. Once accompanying him to the yards where a steam locomotive was taking on coal and water, the safety valve erupted with an explosive shot of steam and I plastered myself against my grandfather’s pant leg, an effort to protect myself”.
Michael and his wife invested in the Santa Fe Southern and organized to save the former AT & SF Branch between Lamy, New Mexico and Santa Fe, which was headed for abandonment. He said..”I did not care to own a railroad but the only way to save the damned thing was to buy the damn thing”.
Peter Weller….June 24, 1947..(74 yrs)
Peter is an American film and stage actor starring in over 70 films. He is also a television director of television films and shows such as Dexter, Sons of Anarchy, Hawaii 5-0, and The Strain.
Peter Weller trivia
*Peter is a huge fan of ‘cigar smoking’, he plays the trumpet and is a jazz aficionado.
*He has performed in jazz band “The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra” with actor Jeff Goldblum at local clubs in Los Angeles.
*Peter is an art historian. At 57 he went back to school and earned a Master’s degree in Roman and Renaissance Art at Syracuse University followed by a PhD in Italian Renaissance art history at UCLA.
Short List Peter Weller films
Robocop…1987, director Paul Verhoeven (also directed Starship Troopers and Total Recall). Other actors that were considered for the starring role included Rutger Hauer (Bladerunner) and Arnold Schwarzenegger
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension…1984, director W. D. Richter
Naked Lunch…1991, director David Cronenberg, music Howard Shore and Ornette Coleman
Leviathan….1989, director George P. Cosmatos (Rambo, Tombstone)
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 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 become 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, the Daily News, Life Magazine and photographic agencies. His photographs centered around the Manhattan police headquarters. 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 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). It was based on a story about the investigation into a model’s murder in NY and it was later used for the tv police drama series “Naked City” which ran 4 seasons 1958-63.
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 New York City tabloid freelance crime photographer 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”.
Honorable Mentions
Bruce Campbell…June 22, 1958 (63 yrs)
Bruce is an American actor and director, he is known for portraying Ash Williams in San Raimi’s Evil Dead franchise.
Campbell was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, his mother was a homemaker and his father worked in advertising for 35 years in traveling billboard inspector to company vice-president and was also an actor in a local theatre.
Bruce began acting as a teenager and began making short Super 8 movies with friends. He met Sam Raimi in high school and the two became very good friends and collaborated on a 30 minute Super 8 version of the first “Evil Dead” film.
Bruce has starred in close to 55 films. He has won 4 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards and one Saturn Award. Bruce also starred as Commander Samuel Axe in television’s “Burn Notice” which ran from 2007 to 2013.
Short list of Bruce Campbell films
The Evil Dead..1981, director Sam Raimi
Evil Dead 2…1987, director Sam Raimi
Army of Darkness…1992, director Sam Raimi
Joss Whedon…June 23, 1964 (57 yrs)
Joseph Hill Whedon is an American filmmaker, composer, screenwriter and comic book writer and is best known as the creator of several television series including “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and it spinoff “Angel”.
“Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” ran from 1997 to 2003. The show starred Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy. “Angel” ran from 1999 to 2004 and starred David Boreanaz as Angel the Vampire with a Soul, and Buffy’s boyfriend.
Joss directed “The Avengers”, “The Avengers: The Age of Ultron”, and he co-wrote “The Cabin in the Woods” and “Toy Story” to name a few.
On This Day
Bladerunner released… June 25, 1982, directed by Ridley Scott, and was nominated for two Oscars, though it was criticized for slow pace and lack of action it became an acclaimed cult film and regarded as one of the all-time best science fiction films
Independence Day released… June 25, 1996 at the Mann Plaza Theatre, Los Angeles, directed by Roland Emmerich and starred Jeff Goldblum, Will Smith and Bill Pullman, film won AA award for Best Effects
Jaws released… June 20, 1975, directed by Steven Spielberg, film won 3 AA awards for Best Sound, Best Film Editing and Best Music (Original Dramatic Score) and nominated for AA award for Best Picture
