Marked This Day

On this day in 2012, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes announced that after five years of marriage they would be getting a divorce, proving that sometimes even true love can end. That's sarcasm. Not sure if this demise was shocking news to anyone, considering that Tom Cruise believes there are extraterrestrials that inhabit everyone’s bodies. I’m more concerned about Katie Holmes. I mean she had to know Tom was nuttier than a PayDay Bar. You cannot look at him jumping on that chair on Oprah and think, “That dude’s normal.” Katie was deer-in-headlights. You can see it. She was already like the old lady in Happy Gilmore--"Mista, mista. Get me outta here." I don’t want to speculate that True Love wasn’t her motive, but the only publicity she has gotten since Dawson’s Creek is getting married to Tom Cruise, getting replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Dark Knight , and getting divorced from Tom Cruise. Of course, I would have to imagine that Cruise is a fairly charismatic person....

On this day in 1997, Mike Tyson and fought Evander Holyfield for the second time. Oh, and Tyson bit Holyfield’s ear. Like a full chunk of his ear. He either momentarily became a zombie, or he just got tired of being outclassed by Evander. I’m not sure what is more believable. Tyson had already gotten beaten in the first fight with Holyfield getting TKOed in 11 rounds. He couldn’t do anything he wanted to do, and that continued in the second fight. So the frustration thing--seems plausible. But I’m not ready to take momentary zombie off the table just yet. First off, I wouldn’t put it past Tyson to have ingested some type of mind-altering drug like bath salts and they kicked into overdrive in that third round after Holyfield had barraged him with body shots. Or the maybe he ate an Angel’s Trumpet flower. There was a kid who tried to eat his own arm because he thought it was a roast beef sandwich after ingesting that thing. And while Tyson eventually pulled his life together after boxing...

On this day in 2011, Whitey Bulger was finally arrested in Santa Monica, California after 16 years on the lam. He was on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list and there was a reward of 2 million dollars for information leading to his capture--which I’ve always wondered about. It’s a fairly vague statement. I mean if authorities are looking for a fugitive in El Paso, and I call up and say, “Hey fellas, that guy ain’t in El Paso anymore. He was heading to Albuquerque.” And then let’s say they capture this guy in Tucson, do I get the full reward? I sent them on the right track. Bastards were sitting around in El Paso with their thumbs up their asses chasing a guy who was long gone. That info is worth a little scrilla. Does it get superseded? Like if some goober in Tucson calls the FBI and says, “Yo, yo, yo, homeboy is holed up at the King’s Inn on the west side of the interstate,” does he get all the money because his information was closer to the actual capture? Do we split it? Who deems whic...

Carlisle D. Graham was just a regular English cooper who came to America in the late 1800’s looking to continue making his barrels. But Graham must have had higher aspirations for himself and his barrels. And he was probably a bit of an adrenaline junkie. And probably a little bit crazy. Ole Carlisle got the grand idea that he was going to shoot the rapids of Niagara Falls in one of the barrels he had made. He did so for the first time 1886. Then he did it again later that year, this time leaving his head out of the barrel and subsequently impairing his hearing. On this day in 1887, Graham made his third trip in his barrel. He made two more trips after that, almost suffocating on the last one in 1901, when he got caught in a whirlpool. Graham didn’t go down the falls, as apparently his craziness had some bounds. But he did get that ball rolling--Annie Taylor became the first to try it 1901. Frankly, I think they’re all nuts. Apparently, people still try this. They build special barrels...

On this day in 1954, America held a nationwide civil defense drill in which there was a mock nuclear attack. It was estimated that over 12 million Americans would have died if this mock nuclear attack by air and sea had been the real thing, yet because the government has the ability to spin anything, they called the drill a success. Or maybe our government just had a wonderful case of the glass-half-fulls. America’s population in 1954 was approximately 163 million, meaning that 151 million people survived the fake nuclear holocaust. I mean that is certainly better than vice-versa. Though I do wonder exactly how scientific these estimates were. As Lewis Black noted, drills preparing for nuclear fallout consisted of children hiding under their desks. And while I’m by no means a fallout expert, I don’t think that wooden desks in the 50’s had secret nuclear-fallout preventing abilities. At least the government was trying though. That’s what America is all about, right? Trying. Giving it y...

For a year span in the 80’s, the date of June 8th was pretty impressive for movie releases. In 1983, Trading Places came out. Then a year later, Ghostbusters and Gremlins were released. That’s three classics for June 8th. Trading Places was a very smart, very funny movie about nature vs. nurture and how much opportunity has to do with success. And it also starred Jamie Lee Curtis, and more specifically her bare breasts, which when viewing the movie as a horny adolescent boy, was pretty monumental stuff. Eddie and Dan brought their A-Games and audiences were rewarded. Aykroyd wasn’t done--the next year he was in Ghostbusters , which if you don’t think is a classic movie then you probably poke puppies with sticks. Speaking of puppies, mogwais kind of looked like strange, cute puppies and Gizmo the mogwai was the star of another classic that came out on the same day as Ghostbusters--Gremlins. That’s three must-see movies on June 8th in a year. You've got humor, socio-economic expe...

This day in 1938 was the cover-date of Action Comics #1, also known as the 1st Superman comic ever published. The publishing date was actually back on April 18, but it was a June issue. The famous cover of Superman holding up the car above his head was drawn by Joe Shuster and the story written by Jerry Siegel. It is seen as the dawn of the comic-book superhero which currently dominates so much of today’s pop culture. Plus it could draw a pretty penny at auction if you were lucky enough to get your grubby little paws on one of the fifty or so unrestored copies still around. 3.2 million dollars worth of pretty pennies actually. But, as always, I’m more interested in Superman, the character. Granted, I was never a comic book collector, though I’ve read them casually. Back when I was discussing The Dark Knight on the 1st of last month, I noted that Batman is seen as the cool character from DC. He’s brooding, he’s dark, he’s a billionaire playboy. And he’s human. He could exist in our worl...