TomSito.com - TOM'S BLOG

Me old comrade Ron Barbagallo told me that his website has a bigass exclusive interview up with WALL-E production designer Ralph Eggleston.

http://www.animationartconservation.com/wall_e_design_with_a_purpose.html

It features a lot of rare production art of the film. Ralph-E is a great friend and has certainly put his time in- remember Pound Puppies? Ferngully, Toy Story, The Incredibles and his short "For the Birds". Read some insight from one of the most important members of PIXAR's amazing bench of .400 hitters in the Art Direction Dept.

Michelangelo got his nose broken by another artist who was jealous of his talent.
Then Ralph Eggleston is definitely a candidate for a Knuckle-Sandwich!

Quiz: What cast included B.O. Plenty, Gravel Gertie, Diet Smith and the Moon Maid?

Answer to yesterdays question below- On the 12th the world will note two bicentennial birth anniversaries. Who are they?
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History for 2/11/2009
Birthdays: Thomas Edison, Leslie Nielsen is 83, Eva Gabor, Tina Louise-Ginger on Gilligan’s Island, Rudolph Firkusny, Joe Mankewicz, Sidney Sheldon, Burt Reynolds, Sergio Mendes of the band Brazil 66, Al Eugster, Brandy Norwood, Bobby Picket -who recorded the Monster Mash, Jennifer Aniston is 40, Sheryl Crow is 47

11AD- In order to become his heir, Augustus’ stepson Tiberius married Augustus’ daughter Julia. Tiberius was angry he had to divorce his wife Druxilla whom he actually loved, and Julia despised Tiberius and slept with everyone in Rome but him.

1759- A Danish importer in the Caribbean Island of Saint Croix named Johann Michael Lavien filed for divorce against his estranged wife Rachael Faucette. She had been living on the isle of Navis with a James Hamilton and had two children with him. Johann Lavien asserted in the court papers that his wife was a Scarlet Woman and that her spawn were "Whore-Children". The divorce was granted and James Hamilton abandoned his little family. One of the little ‘whore-children" was Alexander Hamilton- future American patriot, founder of the US economy and the fellow on your ten dollar bill.

1789- In Italy William Short wrote his friend Thomas Jefferson that as per his request he had obtained for him a pasta mold. The first known introduction of pasta in America.

1801- THE FIRST DEADLOCKED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION decided in the House of Representatives after 35 separate votes were held. Upstart Aaron Burr managed to come out of nowhere and put together enough anti-Jefferson and anti-Adams votes to tie the election with Thomas Jefferson. President John Adams and Senator Charles Pickney were a distant 3rd and 4th. Former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton was furious that fellow New Yorker Burr threatened to eclipse his power. New York and Pennsylvania were the swing votes in any deal between Yankee New England and the Aristocratic South. Since foreign born Hamilton could never be President, he liked to play kingmaker. So in retaliation Hamilton gave Adam's 36 votes to Thomas Jefferson, not out of any love for his old enemy, but just to screw Burr. Cranky old John Adams was furious that he was rejected by the public: "Damn Them! Damn Them! Anyone can see this elective government won’t work!" He took his sweet time moving out of the White House, making the president-elect wait in a tavern. All this political chicanery doomed the Federalists, the first American political party, and Burr would get his revenge on Hamilton with pistols in 1804.

1854- A young novice nun named Bernadette Soubiron began seeing visions of the Virgin Mary at a small grotto near the French town of Lourdes. Lourdes became one of the most famous pilgrimage sites in Europe.

1936- Famed German Expressionist animator Oscar Fishinger fled Germany for the U.S.

1945- Yalta agreement signed. If you were and Eastern European like a Czech or Hungarian it meant Roosevelt and Churchill had just traded you to Stalin for the next fifty years.

1948- Famed Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein died of a heart attack.

1963- Bell Jar author Sylvia Plath laid out bread and butter and two glasses of milk for her children, then stuck her head into an oven and committed suicide. Her poet husband Ted Hughes who had abandoned her waited until 1998 to tell his side of the story. Hughes wrote stories for his children like The Iron Giant.

1975- Margaret Thatcher became the first woman to lead the Tory Party in England. The green-grocers daughter from Finchley became the Iron Lady and dominated British politics until 1990.

1976-Chuck Jone’s tv special "Mowgli’s Brothers."

1979 - The Iranian Revolution Day. With Shah Reza Pahlevi fled, the fundamentalist Shiite mullahs led by Ayatollah Khomeni declare Iran an Islamic Republic.

1990- Nelson Mandela was freed by South African authorities after 27 years in prison. He was jailed in 1962 for a life sentence and became the conscience and symbol of the black resistance to white South African rule, called Apartheid.

1995- Disney Studios planned neighborhood suburban community Celebration opened.

2003- A small satellite named U-Map, while studying the faint glow at the center of the Universe, calculated the exact age of the Universe to be 13.7 billion years old. That stars first appeared at 200 million years after the Big Bang, and that the Universe will ultimately expand forever, not crunch back in on itself or explode in one big cataclysm.

2005- Playwright Arthur Miller died at 90.

2006- While hunting for quail, Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot his hunting partner. After being treated for buckshot in his face, the victim, an attorney named Whittington, went before the press and apologized to Cheney. Cheney became the first Vice President since Aaron Burr in 1804 to shoot someone while in office. Nothing happened to Burr either.
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Yesterday’s Question: On the 12th the world will note two bicentennial birth anniversaries. Who are they?

Answer : Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were both born Feb 12th, 1809.

The Afternoon of Remembrance came off very nicely at the Hollywood Museum last Saturday. My gratitude and thanks to all the volunteers and Hollywood Heritage who worked so diligently to make it all run smoothly. Thank you also to all the speakers who contributed and sent in reminiscence of their friends and colleagues.

We had to honor a record 54 people who passed on in 2008, including Ollie Johnston, Bill Melendez, the composer of the first Spider Man theme, the creator of Bagpuss and the Clangers, The creator of the Rocketeer and Bozo the CLown.

I heard later that one or two bloggers complained that the ceremony was too long. Well, all I can say is if everyone stopped dying,it wouldn't be so long!

So, for this year, please stay off my list!
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Quiz: On the 12th the world will note two bicentennial birth anniversaries. Who are they?

Answer to yesterdays question below: What is the term for American politicians re-drawing borders of a district to heavily favor one party? In England it is called a rotten borough.
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History for 2/10/2009
Birthdays: Former British PM Harold Macmillan, Jimmy Durante, Bertholdt Brecht, Leontyne Price, Roberta Flack, tennis great Bill Tilden, Lon Chaney Jr., Stella Adler, Mark Spitz, Boris Pasternak, Dame Judith Anderson, Greg Norman, Donavan, Dr Alex Comfort author of the Joy of Sex, Michael Apted, Jerry Goldsmith, Robert Wagner, Laura Dern is 42

1531- King Henry VIII demanded the Convocation of English Bishops acknowledge him as “only Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy of England” After much dallying, rejected compromises and threats the Bishops agreed. Their spokesman archbishop Warham later denounced the decision on his deathbed.

1763- THE TREATY OF PARIS- Ending the Seven Years War ( or French and Indian War in the U.S.). Europe makes peace and England wins an empire. France cedes her territory in India and all of Canada. Spain gets Louisiana. “Half a continent changed hands with the scratch of a pen”. To ensure speedy approval of the treaty, Prime Minister Pitt the Elder set up a booth outside the Parliament to distribute cash bribes to the members as they went in to vote.
The French were bitter but philosophical. Minister Choiseul predicted:" With our threat removed the Americans will try for independence in ten years." American colonial representative Benjamin Franklin assured London:" Freedom is the last thing Americans want...."

1799- Napoleon marched out of Cairo at the head of his French expeditionary Army. He headed north towards Jerusalem and Syria but was stopped at the city of Jaffa. Around this time French soldiers discovered marijuana. The tough old soldiers thought it cheaper than brandy and didn’t leave you hung-over the next morning.

1814- THE GREAT WEEK- Napoleon's enemies, figuring the little bastard can't be everywhere at once, invade France from five directions with five armies, all aimed at Paris. Napoleon with a small force of 15-year-old draftee’s defeated all five spearheads in one week. Today was the Battle of Champaubert.

1825- Gideon Mantell reported the discovery of an Iguanadon from the sandstone in Tilgate Sussex. He called it such because the teeth of the fossil resembled to him those of a large iguana.

1837- Russian poet Alexander Pushkin dies of wounds from fighting a duel defending his wife's honor. His last words were to his books "Farewell, my friends..." Pushkin was the great, great grandson of a black man sent to serve Czar Peter the Great in his Moorish Guard.

1840- English Queen Victoria marries a minor German prince named Albert of Saxe Coburg-Gotha. It becomes a real love-match and they produce children who will occupy the thrones of Europe. Their common belief in strong moral values above all transform English society into something truly Victorian. Albert set men’s fashion trends like tuxedos, neckties and sideburns; he also introduced to Britain and later to America the German custom of Christmas trees. He also is the origin of the famous dumb joke: "Do you have Prince Albert in a can? Well, Let him out!! " yuk, yuk...

1846- After their temples in Navoo Illinois were burned by mobs, the Mormons under Brigham Young leave for their trek to Utah.

1862- After a hard night partying with fellow poet Swinburne, pre-Raphaelite Dante Rossetti returned home to find his wife dead of an opium overdose.

1863- Alanson Crane invented the Fire Extinguisher.

1907- THE EUHLENDBERG SCANDAL- Three of Kaiser Wilhelm's closest aides are accused by a socialist newspaper of being homosexuals. The aides, including the Kaiser's personal friend Count Phillip zu Euhlenburg, sue in court but are disgraced and ostracized in the way writer Oscar Wilde was suffering in England. The scandal shocked German society and the Kaiser suffered a nervous breakdown.
Discreet approval of gays in the military was common in the pre-war Austro-German officer corps. Around this same time Wilhelm witnessed the spectacle of one of his top generals, 56 year old Count von Hulsen-Haesler, did a dance for the army general staff in a pink ballet tutu and rose hair garland ! The general had done these pirouettes before but this time he suddenly seized up and dropped stone dead of heart failure. The generals in a panic squeezed his stiff body back into his uniform and monocle before calling the doctor.

1920- Major League Baseball banned the spitball pitch.

1929- Elsa Lanchester married Charles Laughton.

1938- RKO screwball comedy with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant “ Bringing Up Baby” premiered.

1940-MGM's "Puss gets the boot" the first Tom and Jerry cartoon and the first collaboration of the team of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.

1949- The premiere of Arthur Miller’s play "Death of a Salesman".

1966- CBS co-ops broadcasting the senate Kennan Hearings on the conduct of the Vietnam War with reruns of "I Love Lucy'. CBS news division president Fred Friendly quits in protest.

1966-Jaqueline Susanne’s novel The Valley of the Dolls first published. Although critics considered it cheap and trashy- Time Magazine called it “Dirty Book of the Month” and Truman Capote called Susanne in her heavy sixties eye shadow a “Truck Driver in Drag” Valley of the Dolls sold like wildfire. Its frank portrayal of single women enjoying casual sex and taking drugs was a big step in the sexual revolution of the 1960’s.

1966- Author Ralph Nader gained national fame when he testified to the Senate about the lax standards of auto safety. His greatest criticism was for GM’s Corvair. General Motors responded with a smear campaign trying to paint Nader as gay and anti-Semitic. Nader successfully sued them in court and many of the consumer advocates ideas are mandatory today like seat belts and listing gas efficiency on the sales sticker.

1993- Former black man Michael Jackson told Oprah Winfrey in a television interview that he wasn’t deliberately trying to whiten his skin, but he was suffering from a rare pigment disease. And what about that nose?

1992- The children’s book- The Stinky Cheese Man debuted.
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Yesterday’s question: What is the term for American politicians re-drawing borders of a district to heavily favor one party? In England it is called a rotten borough.

Answer:. Gerrymandering, Elbridge Gerry. IN 1812 while Gov of Massachusetts Gerry redrew all the political districts to suit his party.

Quiz, What is the term for American politicians re-drawing borders of a district to heavily favor one party? In England it is called a rotten borough.

Answer to yesterdays question below-: What is the origin of the term “to whip up the crowd?”
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History for 2/9/2009
Birthdays: Constantine XI Paleaologus- the last Byzantine Emperor 1404, President William Henry Harrison, Samuel Tilden, Carmen Miranda, Alban Berg, Ronald Colman, Mia Farrow, Ernest Tubb, King Vidor, Mamie Van Doren, Roger Mudd, Illustrator Alberto Vargas, Carole King, Bill Veeck, Fred Harman, Joe Pesci is 66, Zhang Zhi-Yi., Painter Frank Frazetta is 81, Mena Suvari is 30

Today is the Feast of St. Appollonia, who wore a necklace of her own teeth, yanked out by her torturers. She is the patron saint of Dentists. She finished the session by throwing herself on the bonfire prepared for her. I wonder if she paused to rinse...

1567- Young, sexy Mary Queen of Scots had tired of her abusive, husband Lord Darnley and had the hots for macho Lord Bothwell. Darnley was convalescing from the Pox in a small cottage outside Edinburgh castle, annoyed that the Scottish parliament refused to confirm him as king. Mary had the cellar filled with gunpowder, so she could say he accidentally exploded -after all, isn't everybody’s basement filled with gunpowder? The scheme didn't work. After the explosion Darnley staggered out of the smoldering ruins alive. So Lord Bothwell had to "accidentally " throttle him. Hoot-Man!

1674- The British had taken New Amsterdam from the Dutch and renamed it New York in 1661. In 1671 a Dutch battle fleet came back, recaptured the port and renamed it New Orange. Today another British fleet arrived and made it New York again. Oy! Make up yer minds!

1800- France first received news of the death of American leader George Washington who had died December 14th. Napoleon ordered all French flags at half mast and ten days of official mourning in honor of "This great champion of the rights of man".

1807-THE GREAT SANHEDRIN- The French Revolution had finally given its Jewish citizens political rights and spread these rights throughout Europe as the French armies conquered. This day Napoleon had called for a grand council of European rabbis to discuss issues dividing Christians and Jews. A Sanhedrin (Greek for sitting together) of the Jews had not met since 66AD. Napoleon himself wanted to attend but at the time he was busy in Poland conquering more people.

1856- An early tabloid The London Illustrated News reported a live Pterodactyl dinosaur popped out of a rock and flew away when workers were excavating a railroad tunnel in Culmont France. Believe it or Not!

1861- The new Confederate States elected as their first and only president former US secretary of state Jefferson Davis. Among other projects Davis was once in charge of introducing Egyptian camels to the Southwestern deserts and creating the First US Army Camel-Corps. When the Southern states seceded Davis was hoping to become a general of Mississippi volunteers since he went to West Point, but not be made president. Old Sam Houston said Davis was "cold as a lizard and ambitious of Lucifer". Former Republican Senate leader Trent Lott has said Jeff Davis was his role model.

1864- George Armstrong Custer married Miss Elizabeth Bacon. Despite Custer’s reported taking Indian women as mistresses he remained wildly in love with his Libby. He once risked a court martial for leaving his post to go see her. After Custer was killed at the Little Big Horn Libby Custer became the custodian of his memory. She created the romantic image of him with books like "Mornings on Horseback" and " They Died With Their Boots On". She lived for 60 years and met President Franklin Roosevelt before dying in 1933 in her 80s.

1909- The First US narcotics legislation, this one against opium. At this time heroin, morphine and cocaine were all available in patent medicines. Marijuana wasn’t outlawed until 1939. Cab Calloway reminisced about the Reefer Man on the streets of Harlem selling marijuana cigarettes 3 for 25 cents.

1923- Russia’s passenger airlines Aeroflot established.

1932- Mobster Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll was a hit man for Dutch Schultz when he decided to go freelance and start shooting up New York. He earned the name "Mad Dog" for once gunning down school children who accidentally strayed into his crossfire. Finally he was so violent even the underworld couldn't stand him any more. This day Mad Dog Coll was waiting for a meeting in a soda shoppe on 23rd and 7th in Manhattan. Some one called him to the phone. While waiting on the line two gunmen jumped out and sprayed the phone booth with tommy gun fire. Dutch disliked freelancers...

1945- The US Air Force drops tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo, destroying the city in a firestorm and killing more people than Hiroshima (130,000 to Hiroshima’s 90,000)

1950- THE WHEELING SPEECH- Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy "Tail-Gunner Joe" delivered his speech in Wheeling West Virginia in which he blamed Communist subversion for all the ills of American society: the Soviet atomic bomb, the loss of China, fluoridated water, post nasal drip, the works. He dramatically waved a paper:" I have in my hand a list of 205 names- names given to the Secretary of State of known Communists who continue nevertheless to work and shape policy in the State Department !" The paper was blank, he had no such list. But the effect was electric. From 1950-1956 McCarthy’s anticommie witchhunt ruined hundreds of careers and elevated to national status folks like Richard Nixon, Whittiker Chambers, Roy Cohn and Bobby Kennedy.

1964- Ed Sullivan introduced the English rock band the Beatles to a nationwide TV audience. It was a "Rrrreally Big Shewww!" ( Sullivan’s signature line)

1967- The" Lindsay Snowstorm". John Lindsay was the handsome if confused mayor of New York in the sixties of whom the Robert Redford character in "The Candidate" was partially based. He tried to cut budget expenses by stripping New York of it's snowplow fleet, thinking they were unnecessary. The city was immediately paralyzed by 14 inches of snow. Plows had to be brought from as far as Montreal.

1968-"You did it! You Finally did it! Oh, Damn you all to Hell!!" the film the Planet of the Apes with Charlton Heston premiered.

1971- The Sylmar Quake (6.8) rocks L.A.

1989- In testimony before the New Jersey State Senate World Wrestling Federation officials including President Vince McMahon admit that the sport of wrestling is purely entertainment and no one actually gets hurt. I’m shocked, shocked!

1990- Singer Del Shannon, who had a hit with the 1961 song Runaway, shot himself with a 22 rifle. Del Shannon was supposed to replace Roy Orbison in the Travelling Wilbury's, the group that featured Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynn. Orbison had died the previous year of heart failure and the Wilburys were starting to rehearse with Del Shannon. After Shannon's suicide, the group decided to disband.

1991- Lithuania voted for independence from the crumbling Soviet Union.

1996- German World War II fighter ace Adolf Galland died at age 86. While other aces had skulls or dice painted on their planes, Galland preferred a Mickey Mouse on the tail of his Messerschmidt ME109F. Ach Adolf, ist dat der RAF on your tail? Nein, izt der Disney Legal Department! Himmel!

2001- Actor Tom Cruise filed for divorce from Nicole Kidman.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is the origin of the term “to whip up the crowd?”

Answer: In Czarist Russia , when crowds in the streets grew unruly, the Czarist police sent out mounted Cossacks wielding a small whip called a Nagaika. It was a thin leather strap with a lead ball at the end. They would ride into the crowd, whipping up enthusiasm for the government.