Marked This Day

On this day in 1979, baseball killed disco. You wouldn’t normally associate sports with musical trends, but this day was a convergence of multiple opportunities which turned a silly promotion into a free fall death knell for disco music. It was the Disco Demolition. A simple idea. Bring your disco records to Comisky to get a cheap ticket, and they’d blow up your crappy disco records. They didn’t really think it was going to be that big a deal. And I get it. Cause people had to buy those records at some point, right? They liked the music at some point. It made them happy. I’m not particularly proud of the PM Dawn (who remembers them?) CD I bought back in grammar school, but I never felt the need to blow it up. Hey, “I’d Die Without You” was a jam. But people underestimated the hatred that disco can ignite. Which I can also understand. I’m glad we got Bee Gees, and I guess Travolta was okay before he went Clear with Scientology, but other than that...not much. Still, what happened at D...

On this day in 1989, Rod Stewart was doing his thing on stage. Prancing around. All high energy, Rod-the-Mod like and trying to be all overtly-sexy and what not. I’d imagine. I wasn’t there. I was six. But at some point of the performance he bonked his head. I didn’t imagine that. Bonked it so hard that he knocked himself out. I wonder if he were in the middle of “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” I’m sure knocking yourself out during a performance is rather embarrassing, but if it happened during that song he may never have found out she, in fact, wanted his body. Truth is, you need to be careful dealing with an abundance of overt sexiness. Because, let’s face that is what knocked Rod out. Sexiness. I’m not positive it was his own sexiness--never really got the Sexy Rod thing. But let’s just suppose he was in fact singing “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy.” That’s a lot of overt-sexiness build-up. And do you know what happens when there is too much of an overt-sexiness build up? People start getting knocked...

On this day in 1971, Ken Harrelson decided to retire from baseball to pursue a professional golf career. This wasn’t exactly a Michael Jordan situation. Harrelson was never considered to be the best in the game, he had recently suffered a broken leg, and a rookie had been called up to replace him. But you have to admire his gumption. "Later baseball, I’m gonna go be a golfer now." He did alright. Missing the cut for ‘72 British Open by a stroke probably being his biggest highlight. But don’t go feeling sorry for ol' Hawk, as he is better known. Legend has made him the father of the modern batting glove when he wore--you guessed it--a golf glove to the plate. He also went back to baseball after his brief golf career and is one of the longest tenured and better known announcers currently working in baseball. Some of this has to do with the absolutely epic rants he can go on, but that’s neither here nor there. Because ol’ Hawk Harrelson is a perfect example that our lives ...

Numbers are important. I’m not very good with them, but that doesn’t mean I discount their importance. For one, they give value. A five dollar bill doesn’t mean much without the 5 on it. They differentiate players in sports and can become iconic. Every basketball fan can tell you that Jordan was 23, Bird was 33, Magic 32, and Irving 6. And some people really dig numbers. Dan Brown basically wrote a bestseller about them. Okay, most of that book was about religion and Jesus and Mary Magdalene, but there were a lot of numbers in there. And numbers help designate time. They are how we know age and how we can remember important events. But sometimes, every so often, the numbers themselves can become the important event. Like on this day in 1989. For one second on this day the clock looked like this: 1:23:45, 6-7-89. I know! Isn’t that amazing? Numerical order from 1 to 9. Crazy! What’s even more amazing? If you were a child born at that exact time, and statistically speaking there had to h...

On this day in 1937 the Keys sisters graduated from Baylor University. There was Roberta. And Mona. And Leota. And Mary. And in case you haven’t figured it out yet, they were quadruplets. While these days this might not be anything more than a curiosity with modern advances in fertility, natural quadruplets in 1915 (the year they were born) were probably akin to...I dunno, finding an albino midget. Those poor parents. Thought they were having one kid, and then three more popped out. Surprise! The Keys girls were a big deal too. Thousands of people came to visit them after they were born. They even got a telegraph from Teddy Roosevelt. Couple that with the fact that women graduating from college in the 1930’s wasn’t all that frequent to begin with, and you have an occurrence that was about as common as...finding an albino midget. Except this actually happened. Roberta and Mona and Leota and Mary spent four years at Baylor and engaged in multiple goodwill campaigns, even meeting the Dion...

On this day in 1863 the fine folk of Bannack, Montana elected a criminal to public office. I promise I’m not trying to draw to modern-day political parallels (though some could be made for multiple presidential candidates). Back in 1863, Bannack made Henry Plummer their sheriff. Problem was Plummer was kind of a bad guy. Like the killing-other-people kind of bad guy. Not the kind of guy you want as the sheriff of your town. Plummer used the office to start an organized crime ring that terrorized Bannack and nearby Virginia City for over six months, stealing gold and murdering miners. So the citizens of Bannack hadn’t made a good decision. But they didn’t sit back and let the corruption and crime decimate their home either. Plummer done messed with the wrong folk. Instead they organized a vigilante committee of over 2,000 members. So basically they elected the Joker as sheriff and once they realized he was crazy they decided to become a bunch of Batmen. So how did this all wind up? Well...

On this day in 1965, the FBI Lab declared that the lyrics of The Kingsmen’s “Louie, Louie” were unintelligible. Thank Heavens the FBI was there to weigh in on such all-important topics as whether or not The Kingsmen were trying to slip a few naughty words and suggestive images into the lyrics. Forget about the Civil Rights Movement and race relations; they might be singing about sex! Nevermind that nobody can understand what the hell they are saying, and nevermind that kids always find a way to get their hands on naughty stuff. They might be singing about sex! It’s part of being a kid. Kids are inquisitive. They like to test rules. So kids will always get their hands on albums with curse words or suggestive lyrics. And I realize we are a country founded by Puritans, but our lack of openness about sex and sexuality has created a colossal porn industry. Why we have placed so much shame and humiliation on a natural act is beyond me. (Putting my soapbox away now.) But they might be singing...