Cloud Nine was a 1987 album by George Harrison. After taking a five-year break from the music industry, Harrison collaborated with Jeff Lynne (of Electric Light Orchestra) to produce a new album. Cloud Nine’s success – it made the top 10 in the U.S. and UK, among other countries – reinvigorated Harrison’s career, and directly led to the creation of the supergroup The Traveling Wilburys.
The album featured the hit singles “Got My Mind Set On You,” “When We Was Fab,” and “This is Love,” as well as songs such as “Wreck of the Hesperus,” “Devil’s Radio,” and the title track.
The Traveling Wilburys, consisting of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison, was formed in April of 1988. In October of that year, the group released an album, entitled Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1. The album achieved both critical and commercial success, and won a Grammy in 1990.
Orbison died in December of 1988, and the band recorded another album without him, this one being titled Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3. It was released in October of 1990 and was also well received.
Although there had been talk of a tour, that never happened and the group released no more music. Harrison died in 2007 and Petty passed away in 2017.
(Not really in play, it’s more gossip than trivia)
Jeff Lynne raised the possibility of reforming the Willburys, with Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Morello, and Vernon Reid. Bob Dylan was asked, but declined to rejoin the lineup.
Asteroid 17024 Costello (1999 EJ5) is named in association with the surname Costello and likely references comedian Lou Costello of Abbott and Costello fame. Its discoverer, Australian amateur astronomer John Broughton, has named other asteroids after comedy duos.
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, a 1948 film produced by Universal Studios, revived the lagging careers of both the comedy duo and the studio’s stable of monsters. Originally, the Frankenstein monster, Dracula, the Wolf Man, and the Invisible Man were to be joined with Kharis the Mummy and Count Alucard (son of Dracula), but the latter two were dropped and the Invisible Man “appeared” in a cameo at the end of the film. Boris Karloff refused the role of the Monster because of his ongoing feud with Bela Lugosi, who appeared as Count Dracula, but agreed to doing publicity for the film after Universal paid his outstanding hotel bills in NYC.
The movie set a precedent in Hollywood that whenever Universal Studios monsters appeared together, Dracula would always be the de facto leader of them. Lugosi was emphatically proud of the movie, claiming it did nothing to blemish Dracula’s character. Lon Chaney, Jr., who played the Wolf Man, dismissed the movie, stating it made buffoons of the monsters, who were previously shown in a sympathetic light. Boris Karloff would appear in subsequent sequels with Abbott and Costello, albeit without the other monsters.
In the late 2010s Universal Studios (the filmmaking company, not any of its theme parks) launched an ambitious plan to bring back its “classic” monsters from the early half of the 20th century – The Mummy, Dracula, The Wolf Man, etc. - in an extended, shared universe, not unlike the MCU. A great idea on paper, but Tom Cruise demanded almost total creative control of the “anchor” project - the revival of The Mummy - and the movie tanked, killing the idea. Universal hasn’t fully given up, however, as many of its ancient properties have come back through standalone films rather than parts of a shared universe. One rather well-received film in this (for lack of a better choice of words) “revival” was The Invisible Man. Meanwhile, plans are afoot to reboot The Mummy again, and possibly a sequel, bringing back Brendan Fraser.
When the first railroads came to Egypt in the later 1800s, some conductors used mummies as fuel to fire their boilers.
So many mummies were sent to Europe and the US that the market was glutted, and paper-makers started buying them in bulk and pulping the bandages to make reams. In 1855, New York state alone imported over 2 million pounds of mummy bandages for paper.
Mummies were also used as fertilizer, called mummy mulch. It was rich in nitrogen and phosphorus. Most of the cat mummies shipped to Liverpool in 1890 ended up as fertilizer.
Standardized time zones were initially introduced in the United States and Canada on November 18th, 1883, by a consortium of railroads in the two countries, in an effort to simply and standardize timekeeping for railroad operations. The agreement set up five time zones across North America, but it took 35 years for the standardized time zones to be adopted as U.S. law, by the Standard Time Act of 1918.
Below is a railway map, showing the original time zones as established in 1883.
A political union of Canada and the United States, is often discussed as a “North American Union”, and potentially includes Mexico. Annexation ideas date back to 1849, but Canada has consistently maintained its own identity and sovereignty. Proponents often cite increased economic prosperity, lower taxes, and greater security, particularly in the Arctic.
One day in the 1940s, a Mexican farmer named Dionisio Pulido was tending his field when the earth split open, revealing escaping gases and terrifying the fuck out of the poor granjero. Within a few days a volcano had sprung forth from the ground and had grown to several hundred meters tall and had become a tourist attraction. Within nine years, it had gone dormant. This was and is the only time in recorded history (so far) wherein geologists were able to witness and document the birth, life, and (kind of) death of a volcano.
That would be the volcano Parícutin. Which I visited as part of a college class on Mexican history and archaeology back in 1976. We rented horses in a nearby small village and rode for a few hours to the volcano cinder cone, stopping by a church nearly covered in lava along the way. A very cool experience!
A friend of mine honeymooned in Mexico, and he and his wife rented horses. For reasons I’ll never understand, his horse was named “Marijuana.” Fast forward a few scenes, and my friend, his wife, and horse are all separated and he is all alone in some random Mexican village. Fortunately, he speaks Spanish*, so he was able to ask for help. He gets a kick to this day of telling his hearers that he told a Mexican villager, “Yo busco Marijuana” (“I’m looking for Marijuana”).
Cesar Chavez lived from 1927-1993. He was a union labor supporter for migrant workers, and a political activist. In September 1965, Filipino American farm workers initiated the Delano grape strike to protest for higher wages. Cesar Chavez supported them.
In 1995, Army Street in San Francisco was renamed to Cesar Chavez Street. The former Army Street in San Francisco is near to Navy Road in San Francisco.
Cesar Chavez’s recent sexual abuse allegations were added to his wiki page.
Sen. Robert F Kennedy was a prominent supporter of the United Farm Workers and the Delano grape strike. Kennedy spoke at UFW rallies, and later conducted a hearing on migrant farm workers situations. Kennedy’s connection to and support of the UFW helped to give national momentum to the grape strike. When Kennedy began to campaign in the Democratic primary, the UFW suspended all strikes to campaign alongside him, leading to high turnout amongst them and their allies.
Robert F. Kennedy served in the U.S. Navy from 1943-46; Cesar Chavez served from 1944-46. Kennedy has not yet had a warship named after him; Chavez had a Navy dry cargo ship named after him in 2012, but it now seems likely to be renamed.
Many sailors believe that renaming a ship will bring bad luck to the vessel and those who sail on her unless it is done in accordance with maritime tradition in order to appease the gods of the winds and the sea.
To properly rename a ship without incurring the wrath of Poseidon et all, the following process is followed —
First, remove all traces of the old name – Erase the old name from the ship completely (logs, lifebuoys, bell, transom) before applying the new one.
Next, perform a Purging Ceremony – Officially ask Poseidon/Neptune to remove the old name from his records.
Then, appease the Wind Gods – Acknowledge the gods of the four winds (Boreas, Zephyrus, Eurus, and Notus) for safe passage.
Finally, a formal renaming ceremony, in whiich the new name of the vessel is toasted with champagne, usually splashing some on the bow.
