The Cleveland Heights, Ohio restaurant and jazz nightclub Nighttown is named after the red-light district of Dublin, as mentioned in James Joyce’s Ulysses.
One year ago today, on 12/12/11, Cleveland laws aimed at curbing flash mob chaos took effect. Ordinances adopted by City Council prohibit acts that incite riots and specifically listed “electronic media devices” such as computers and cell phones as criminal tools. Mayor Jackson, who vetoed council’s earlier attempt to directly ban the use of Internet sites such as Facebook and Twitter to organize flash mobs, refused to sign the latest ordinances. But he didn’t veto them either, and under the city charter, measures the mayor simply ignores become law.
Larry Niven predicted the concept of a flash mob in his short story “Flash Crowd,” where people showed up at a location in the news via teleportation.
Flash memory was invented in the 1980s by Toshiba. The first commercial flash memory chip was produced by Intel in 1988.
The original Flash’s secret identity was Jay Garrick.
Flash Comics first appeared in 1940. After WWII, superhero comics popularity declined.
Sheriff Rosco Coltrane’s dog on “The Dukes of Hazzard” was a nearly-immobile basset hound named Flash.
Ted Nugent scored his first hit single, “Journey to the Center of the Mind,” while playing guitar for a band called the Amboy Dukes.
The sports arena in Albany, NY was originally called the Knickerbocker Arena, until they sold the naming rights to Pepsi in 1997 and became the Pepsi Arena. The Albany Times Union newspaper bought naming rights in 2006 and renamed it the Times Union Center. It is home of the Albany Devils in the AHL and the Siena College Saints.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was a member of New York’s Knickerbocker Club. He was also an Odd Fellow, and one of the 14 Presidents who were Freemasons. (Ronald Reagan was never inducted as a Freemason, though he was an Honorary Member of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.)
Theodore Roosevelt is the only president on Mt. Rushmore who never worked as a surveyor.
Ross Bagdasarian, who performed and wrote songs under the alias David Seville, named his “Chipmunks” Alvin, Simon and Theodore after three executives at Liberty Records: Al Bennett, Si Waronker and Ted Keep.
In the film Rear Window, Ross Bagdasarian plays a songwriter who is heard singing and playing a tune called “Lisa”. Because the picture is shot through the perspective of a voyeur, Bagdasarian is never clearly seen nor heard, but he does stand next to Alfred Hitchcock during the director’s cameo appearance in the movie.
Voyeurism is apparently more common in men, but does occasionally occur in women. However, the prevalence of voyeurism is not known. Contemporary U.S. society is increasingly voyeuristic (as in the example of “real” television); however diagnosis is made only when this is a preferred or exclusive means of sexual gratification.
The onset of voyeuristic activity is usually prior to the age of 15 years. There are no reliable statistics pertaining to the incidence of voyeurism in adulthood.
Walt Disney World originally had two hotels on the property (there was also a campground): the Polynesian Resort and the Contemporary Resort Hotel. Both were connected to the park and its parking lot via monorail, which actually traveled inside the Contemporary Resort. There were two monorail routes: one had only two stops – the parking lot and the Magic Kingdom. The other went in the opposite direction and also stopped at the two hotels.
The Seventies TV series ***Room 222 ***took place on the campus of Walt Whitman High School.
Walt Whitman saw President Abraham Lincoln in the streets of Washington from time to time, according to his letters, and greatly admired him, but as far as we know they never actually met.
Whitman Mayo was only 42 when he first started playing Fred’s elderly pal Grady on the sitcom Sanford and Son.
By an odd coincidence, he died of a heart attack at… Grady Hospital in Atlanta.
Cinco de Mayo – Spanish for “fifth of May” – is a celebration held on, surprise, May 5, across the US and regionally in Mexico, but primarily in the state of Puebla, where the holiday is called El Día de la Batalla de Puebla (The Day of the Battle of Puebla). It commemorates the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Contrary to popular belief outside of Mexico, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico’s Independence Day — the most important national patriotic holiday in Mexico — which is actually celebrated on September 16.
Although born in Washington D.C., comedian Louie C.K. lived in Mexico until age 7 and still holds Mexican citizenship.