6/10/22
Newsletter7
I woke up late today, at 5:30, and it’s already dawn. It appears to be another beautiful day.
My old girlfriend is an elementary school art teacher. She lets each class choose a song that she plays during class. One class (with good taste) chose John Lennon’s “Imagine,” a lovely, classic rock song. The kids’ parents got together an objected to the song. They couldn’t live with “Imagine no religion/It’s easy if you try.”
A hunter shoots a duck and it lands in a farmer’s field. The hunter hops the fence and goes to retrieve his duck, but encounters the farmer first, who says, “That’s my duck. It’s on my land.” The hunter says, “But I shot it, it’s mine.” The farmer says, “OK, this is how we solve disputes in the country. I kick you in the balls, you kick me in the balls, and we keep going until the last man standing gets the duck.” The hunter agrees. The farmer kicks the hunter in the balls as hard as he can. The hunter falls to the ground in severe agony. Finally he stands and says, “OK, now it’s my turn.” The farmer says, “It’s OK, you can have the duck.”
The only two sisters to win Oscars were Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine. They were from the De Havilland family that manufactured airplanes. Olivia and Joan deeply hated each other and didn’t speak from 70 years.
My sister Pam and I were driving in L.A. and listening to the radio. As Pam changed channels, as she often does, I said, “Wait, I like that song.” It was “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion. Pam looked at me in open-mouthed disbelief and said, “Do you listen to this when you’re alone, naked, with a ribbon tied around your penis, throwing potpourri in the air?”
The only brother and sister to win Oscars are Ethel and Lionel Barrymore. Their brother John, the most famous of them, never won one.
The two fathers and sons to win Oscars are: John and Walter Huston, and Francis and Carmine Coppola. So did Kirk and Michael Douglas, but Kirk’s is an honorary Oscar.
In 1783 in Geneva, Johan Jacob Schweppe began selling the first carbonated soft drink, mineral water. He was able to do this because he had a bottle made that would seal in the carbonation. Inside the bottle was a hollow glass marble. The pressure of the carbonation forced the marble up into a cavity in the bottle’s neck, sealing it.
It’s 7:04 and a sunny gorgeous day.
On June 6, 1944, an overcast morning on the coast of England, hundreds of thousands of allied troops waited to cross the English Channel and attack France. General Dwight D. Eisenhower looked at his watch, looked up at the grey sky that wasn’t clearing up, lit one of his 80-100 Camel cigarettes he smoked a day, and said, “Let ‘er rip.”