Nevermore

Forgive my recent absence, but I just wanted to wish a happy birthday to Edgar Allan Poe, who would be 201 years old today. He would have been the best creepy old man ever, but sadly it was not to be.

To celebrate this great man and his work, I present the following. Sweet dreams.

Bully Birthday to You

Today is an important Fake Holiday: the 151st birthday of the great Theodore Roosevelt.

ABOVE: That's right, the man killed an elephant.
Probably lots of them, and not necessarily
with a gun. You have a problem with that?

TR was maybe not our greatest president, but he was hands down the coolest. Let's review:

• The first sitting president to win a Nobel Peace Prize, and arguably the only one to deserve it (sorry, Wilson and Obama).
• The only president to be awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor.
• The only person ever to have both of the above awards.
• The only president ever to stab a mountain lion.
• He was a cowboy.
• He was a cop.
• He was a war hero.
  
• He was an award-winning historian.
• He was an award-winning nature writer.
• He was an explorer.
  
• He was a hardass.
• He was a philosopher of hardassness.

And now for something completely different

Today is an important Fake Holiday. It was 40 years ago today that Monty Python's Flying Circus first aired on the BBC. To honor that landmark in history, we present you with the following.

Birth of the Genius (fake holiday)

I haven't done a post for one of my patented Fake Holidays in a while, but this one truly should be a national holiday. Today would have been the 79th birthday of Ray Charles. He more or less invented soul music, and at the same time was one a master of jazz, blues, and classical. He even played both kinds of music: country AND western. They called him The Genius for a reason.

He also, of course, was briefly known as the proprietor of Ray's Music Exchange on the south side of Chicago:

On this day in history (July 20)

Today, July 20, is one of the most important days on my Fake Holiday calendar, for a number of reasons.

It's been mentioned once or twice in the news recently that the first Moon landing was 40 years ago today. We at the Daily Marmoset most proudly honor astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins on the anniversary of their achivement, a true high point in human history:



And, on a personal note, special thanks to Col. Aldrin. Youtube just wouldn't be the same without him.

But that's not all, folks. This is a busy day in history:

• 65 years ago today, some of Hitler's own people came extremely close to killing him with a briefcase full of explosives.
  
• 86 years ago today, Pancho Villa, the legendary Mexican revolutionary, was killed in an ambush. According to legend, his last words were "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."
• 36 years ago today, Bruce Lee died of an unclear medical condition, possibly an allergic reaction to medicine.
  

To honor all these remarkable events, I leave you with Bruce Lee doing what he did best: tearing Chuck Norris a new one.

Vee Germans are not all smiles und sunshine (Friday WTF)

Today is another of my infamous quasi-holidays: it's St. Boniface Day.

Saint Boniface (c.675-754) is the patron saint of Germany. To make a long story short, he was the missionary who brought Christianity to Germany in the 8th Century, much like St. Patrick brought it to Ireland about 300 years earlier. No offense to Paddy, but why should he get all the parties and fun for his feast day, while Boniface, apostle to the other half of my beer-loving ancestry, gets nothing? I say it's time we showed a little more fairness in the saints we drink to/for/with.

Therefore, this Friday WTF video is dedicated to the Apostle of the Germans:



BONUS VIDEOS: This great scene, as well as the title of this post, comes from a classic German-themed episode of the Simpsons:



Speaking of the Simpsons:

There is trouble in the forest... (Friday WTF)

This week's Friday WTF is a rockin' tribute to that great American holiday, Arbor Day.

Enjoy:



(EDITOR'S NOTE: Please do Skippy a favor and disregard the fact that Arbor day was last Friday.)

Skippy's Fake Holiday File: Charlie Chaplin's Birthday

Today is an extra special one of my Fake Holidays. It's the 120th birthday of the great Charlie Chaplin.

ABOVE: from "The Kid", Charlie
Chaplin and the future Uncle Fester

When I was about 8 or 9, my grandfather, appalled that we didn't know who Charlie Chaplin was, rushed the Marmoset and I to the video store to get a copy of The Gold Rush. I thought it was just about the funniest thing I had ever seen.

To make a long story short, Chaplin was a genius several times over, and if you haven't seen any of his movies you really should try them. He was great for a very wide variety of reasons, but here are two of the big ones:

1. The Potato Dance


2. The Dictator Speech

Friday the 13th WTF Part II: The Revenge

This is the second Friday the 13th in a row, with a third to come later this year. Since we already covered the zany antics of Jason Voorhees, this time I went with one of the more, um, colorful members of Jason's endless horde of imitators.



Yes, believe it or not that was a real movie. Not to be confused with this equally real movie.

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 9/9/81

My general dislike of math-related things has been canceled out by my love of stupid holidays. Therefore, I would like to wish you and your loved ones a safe and happy Square Root Day today.

Because it's 3/3/09, get it?



The best thing about Square Root Day is that they will be spaced increasingly far apart for the rest of the century. See you in 2016.

Ten score and zero years ago...

Today is the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. While my inner history nerd would love to write a long post about these great men and how they changed the world, I'm kind of in a hurry, so instead I'll just demonstrate my theory that there is a Simpsons quote for absolutely every occasion:





I would have preferred the scene of Lisa trying to talk to the Lincoln Memorial, but you really can't go wrong with Ralph. (Unless, of course, you vote for him.)

Lightning in a Bottle (Friday WTF)

Today, according to my calendar, is Alliance Day. 231 years ago today, the United States was officially recognized by a foreign government for the very first time, as the U.S. and France formed an alliance against the British.

And now, for your Friday WTF, let's learn a little something about the great man who made that alliance possible.



Wasn't that educational and stuff?

BONUS VIDEO: The saga continues

A long, long time ago...

And in the streets the children screamed
the lovers cried and the poets dreamed,
but not a word was spoken,
the church bells all were broken.

--Don McLean, American Pie

It's a good thing I mentioned the whole Fake Holidays thing in yesterday's post, because today is one of the most important. Today is The Day the Music Died. Fifty years ago today, a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson.

As the son of Buddy Holly's biggest fan, I've known his music and heard the stories about the plane crash my whole life. As a kid, I constantly made fun of Buddy Holly, mostly as an easy way to irritate my Dad, but my appreciation of his music (not to mention his influence on others' music) has steadily increased with age. He was 22 years old and at the very beginning of his career when he died, and could easily have been performing today.

Anyway, you can celebrate this fake holiday the way my Dad usually does: listen to the Oldies station all day, then call in the late afternoon and complain that they haven't mentioned Buddy Holly. Or, if you prefer something a little more low-key, try some of these:

Buddy Holly performing "Peggy Sue" live on TV, circa 1958. (If you only watch one thing in this post, I suggest it be the old lady who introduces Buddy as a "Rock and Roll specialist")


Ritchie Valens was even younger than Buddy (only 17!), but still had 3-4 decent sized hits. This is him performing "Ooh, My Head" in some terrible-looking 1950s movie. Plus a highly entertaining cameo by Chuck Berry!

Ritchie Valens MTV Music

Last but not least (well, OK, I guess he is sort of least), here's the Big Bopper on American Bandstand performing what just might be the worst lip-synch of all time:


Finally, because I can't think of a clever way to work it in elsewhere, here's one of my personal favorite tributes to Buddy Holly:

Weezer |MTV Music

On psychic rodents and fake holidays

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Groundhog Day. May Punxsutawney Phil bring you much cheer (and, God willing, an early spring.)

(Above image courtesy of someecards.com)

As we celebrate this day, which has brought so much joy into the world through questionable methods of weather forecasting and one of Bill Murray's better movies, this seems like a good time to discuss something I've been thinking about lately...

I have been arguing for years that, simply put, the world needs more and better holidays. There are all manner of weird, interesting, funny, and/or stupid things out there that deserve more attention. To this end, about 10 years ago I created my own personal set of holidays, which is now updated and available on Google Calendar (available in HTML, RSS, or ICAL).

The holidays on my calendar basically fall into four categories:

• anniversaries of under-appreciated events in history
• birthdays of people I like, primarily blues or soul musicians I was obsessively listening to when I started this. (A few people, mostly due to scheduling conflicts, are celebrated on the anniversary of their death instead.)
  
• certain Catholic saints' feast days (I probably should have written this post yesterday, when Super Bowl Sunday happened to fall on the feast of St. Brigid, patron saint of beer drinkers.)
• a few fake holidays started by other people. (Festivus being by far the most famous)
  

Anyway, this calendar (much like this blog) is filled with dumb things that I celebrate strictly for my own amusement. Everyone else, if they are so inclined, are hereby invited to join or not join me for any that catch their interest.