from Mickey's Whoopee Party, 1932

Well, the Year 2007 has finally come to an end.

It's been a pretty difficult year. Without getting too personal, we've had a death in the family, legal hurdles and tougher and tougher deadlines.

On the plus side Pat and I came out of all of these trials OK. We made a lot of new, wonderful friends and we both have been privileged to work with some of the best artists, writers and musicians in our business. Pat had fun working on Bees and is now busy on Kung Fu Panda. Every year I am impressed with the caliber of students I get to work with at USC, UCLA and the other schools who invite me out to visit. My book Drawing the Line has been universally well received and was honored by Princeton University and the London Review of Books. I'm already signed up for a new book.

It seems to me that every five years I seem to get on a project that has it all, good idea, challenging work, good people and a good vibe. Car Talk is one of these projects. I count my self very lucky to have the helm of this project, and I am very grateful of the trust my producers Bill Kroyer, Howard Grossman, Linda Simenski and Doug Berman have in me. This coming June we'll see how the show is received by the audience, hopefully they'll find it as entertaining as I do.

The end of some things, the beginning of others. It's been a wild ride, Mr Toad, now it's on to 2008!
From Our Family to Yours, Have a Very Happy and Healthy New Year!

Tom & Pat Sito

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QUIZ: If there is twelve months to the calendar, why is December ancient Latin for Number Ten?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question below: Is there an ulterior meaning to the song The Twelve Days of Christmas?
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History for New Years Eve 12/31/2007
Birthdays: Henri Matisse, Odetta (real name Holmes Felicious Gordon) , Simon Weisenthal, Val Kilmer, Pola Negri, Anthony Hopkins, Jules Styne, Ben Kingsley -real name Khrishna Banji, Sarah Miles, Donna Summer, Patti Smith, Elizabeth Arden, Tim Matheson, John Denver, Dianne Von Furstenberg

192-193 A.D.- The Roman Emperor Commodus assassinated. The natural son of the great philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius turned out to be just another sicko tyrant in the mold of Nero and Caligula. While Nero liked to play his harp Commodus loved playing gladiator and at one point thought he was the god Hercules reborn. His opponents were always given blunt swords while he had the sharp ones. He also liked to behead ostriches in mock combat. Romans called him behind his back 'the Gladiator' and the Parricide, although it was never proven that he murdered his father. This night during a wild New Years Party he drunkenly challenged a top wrestler named Narcissus. Narcissus had been bribed by Commodus's Preatorian Prefect Laetus and head of the Imperial Household Eclectus. So instead of just pinning him down, Narcissus broke Commodus’ neck. Made for one hell of a party.

406AD- Huge hordes or Goths, Alemanni and Vandals trudge across the frozen Rhine River and invade the Roman Empire. This biggest migration of barbarians is the beginning of the Fall of Rome.

1502- Renaissance Prince Caesar Borgia was besieging the Adriatic town of Senigalia. Caesar invited the enemy leaders Vitelli and Oliverotto to a conference with him at the Governors Palace. After dinner and drinks Caesar had them strangled by garrot. Machiavelli among others praised Caesar Borgia for a “most lovely ruse”. Leonardo DaVinci was there on the Borgias payroll at the time.

1862- The U.S.S. Monitor, the little ship that fought the Confederate Merrimac in the first great contest of iron warships, sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras. Her inventor John Ericsson had boasted, 'the waves shall pass over her and she shall ride the sea like a duck', but in rough seas she sank like a rock. The Monitor has recently been discovered on the ocean floor. In 2002 sections of the turret and a propeller have been recovered.

1862-3 - SLAVERY ENDS IN THE UNITED STATES-In a service at Boston's Music Hall Abolitionist leaders Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubmann, Harriet Beecher Stowe and William Lloyd Garrison sang 'Battle Hymn of the Republic" and celebrated midnight when the Emancipation Proclamation would officially take effect.

1879- Thomas Edison did a public demonstration of his new invention the Light Bulb. Special commuter trains brought people to Menlo Park New Jersey for the show.

1881- Los Angeles becomes the first U.S. city to be lit entirely by electricity.

1905-6- THE FIRST BALL DROPPING CEREMONY- The New York Times hosts the first of it's giant news years party's from it's new office tower at #1 Longacre Square, now renamed in their honor Times Square. Midnight was signaled to the crowd outside by the lowering of a lantern on it's roof. ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO -In 1907 an ironworker created a large ball covered with electric light bulbs that was lowered from a flagpole. The Ball-dropping ceremony was only interrupted twice in 1942-43 for World War Two blackout rules. The Times Building was later sold and renamed the Allied Chemical Building, the Sony Building and the Time/Warner building.

1911-12 Dr. Sun Yat Sen elected first President of the Republic of China, replacing the 256 year reign of the Manchu Dynasty. One of his first acts was to abolish the Chinese calendar and go on to the western one for 1912. He also went to the Shrine of the Ming Emperors to tell their spirits that the Manchus had fallen. Dr Sen was a Methodist who no longer followed Chinese religious beliefs, but he was honoring a pledge to political allies.

1917- EUROPE DISCOVERED JAZZ- As the first American units entered Paris to help in World War One the New York 15th Colored Regiment serenaded the city. The regimental band was made up of top Harlem jazz musicians led by band leader James Europe. The French were amazed as the band performed ragtime riffs that only gradually they understood to be La Marsaillaise and Le Marche Sambre et Meuse. Local musicians accused the Harlemites of using trick instruments since no one could make sounds like that. Lieutenant Europe went on tour with the band and Europe the continent embraced the new modern sound.

1923-24-BBC overseas radio service first broadcast the Chimes of Big Ben around the world.

1929-30- New York's "21" Club opened as a speakeasy. Barkeep Jack Kramer opened the hangout at 21 west 52nd street. With a wine celler hidden behind a two foot thick stone wall door. The feds raided 21 once and found nothing after hours of searching. When they went back outside all their cars had been towed away by NYPD traffic cops. It seems the Mayor of New York Jimmy Walker was having dinner in the wine celler and was annoyed by the intrusion. In subsequent years it was normal to see movie stars, Lucky Lucciano, J.Edgar Hoover and John F. Kennedy eating side by side. Richard Nixon loved their tater-tots called potato souffle.

1929- Guy Lombardo and his big band the Royal Canadians first played Auld Lang Syne at midnight for New Years.

1940-41- Avant Garde artists John Sloan and Marcel Duchamp break into the Washington Square Arch in and declare Greenwich Village the Republic of New Bohemia. Like coool, daddy-o.

1943-44- In occupied Europe U.S. Navy frogmen sneak over to the future Normandy beachhead and take sand samplings to analyze if the beach could take the weight of heavy tanks and ordnance. The samples were sent to Detroit so companies could design customized tank-tread teeth. As the frogmen swam back to their midget submarine they could hear the Germans celebrating in their bunkers. One frogman yelled out "HAPPY NEW YEAR !"

1943- Four hundred policemen are called out to control frenzied crowds of bobbysoxers as Frank Sinatra played the Paramount Theater in Times Square. OOHH FRANKIE !!

1946- The first Pismo Beach Clam Festival.

1947- Roy Rogers married Dale Evans.

1958-59- As Fidel Castro's guerrillas close in on Havana, dictator Fulgensio Batista slips out of a New Year's Party and boards a plane for Miami.

1962- Romanoffs closed. One of the premier hot spots on the Sunset Strip, it was the preferred hangout of Humphrey Bogart, who liked to play chess in the afternoon with Nick Romanoff when he was between films.

1967- The Ice Bowl- Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers defeated the Dallas Cowboys 21-17 for the NFL championship. It was nicknamed the Ice Bowl because the game was played in GreenBay in the out doors in below zero weather, with a wind chill of 40 below zero fahreignheit. Referees whistles froze to their lips.

1970- The Beatles officially broke up when Paul MacCartney filed suit to dissolve their partnership. It took four years to complete the final legal separations and contractual commitments of the Fab Four.

1977- President Jimmy Carter in Teheran toasts Iran under the Shah as :“ An Island of Stability in a Troubled Middle East .” Within a year the Shah is overthrown.

1985- Singer Ricky Nelson died when his band's converted old DC-9 airplane crashed near DeKalb,Texas. Nelson it was said had been living on a steady diet of cheeseburgers and Snicker's bars.

1995- The last Calvin and Hobbes comic strip by Bill Waterston

1997- Will Smith and Jaeda Pinkett marry.

1999- Boris Yeltsin resigned as president of Russia after an 8 year rule administering the break up of the Soviet Union and the establishment of democracy in Russia. His successor was former KGB agent Vladimir Putin.

1999-2000 - The Y2K MANIA. While the world prepared to celebrate the new century and the Third Millenium the American media whipped up paranoia over a theory that the change from 1999-2000 would cause most computers to crash. Planes would fall out of the sky, nuclear missiles would launch themselves and marauders would rule the streets like something out of Mad Max. The US Government spent $65 million to prepare for the crisis. But at midnight absolutely nothing of the kind happened. Even older less sophisticated computers in Russia and China were unaffected and everything ran normally, although there was a rumor that the NORAD early warning system went kaphlooey for a few hours. Meanwhile many of the US public stayed home and watched the rest of the world have fun on television.

2001-2002- The European Union currency exchange went into effect. Adieu, Adios and Ciao to the French Franc, Belgian Franc, Italian Lire, German Deutchmark, Austrian Schilling, Dutch Guldin, Greek Drachma, Irish Pound, Portuguese Escudo and Spanish Peseta. Welcome the Euro.
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Yesterday’s Question: Is there an ulterior meaning to the song The Twelve Days of Christmas?

Answer: The Christmas Feast being Twelve Days comes from the Norse Winter Festival of Yule. It has been claimed that the song “THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS” was a secret code from an unknown author appearing in print in 1780. From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics. It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their Church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality.
The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ, don’t ask me why. Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments. Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love. The four calling or colley birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John. The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament. The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation. Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit: Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy. The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes. Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control. The ten lords a-leaping were the Ten Commandments. The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples. The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.
Recently skeptical scholars say this is all baloney and it’s just a silly song- see http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/12days.asp

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