Fact of the Day

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - HANDHELD RECORDER

Did you know.... Some begged. Some tried bribes. Then came the lies. In the fall of 1993, between 300 and 500 calls a day came in to the operators answering phones at Tiger Electronics, the company behind the season’s hottest toy: The Talkboy, a handheld recording device that could change the sound of a child’s voice. It was wielded by Kevin McCallister, the kid hero of the hit sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

 

Most of the calls were from frantic parents looking for leads on retailers who might carry the toy. But a few were willing to go to extremes. One man offered to travel anywhere in the country so long as he could buy 10 of them. Some callers offered operators $20 if they could ship a Talkboy right away. But at least one went a step further. According to a Tiger spokesperson, one adult placed three different calls. During their final conversation, they made the dubious claim their child had a brain tumor. Couldn’t Tiger accommodate this ailing Home Alone fan?

 

They couldn’t: Tiger didn’t sell directly to consumers. But a bigger question loomed. Why was a major toymaker unable to satisfy the demand for the Talkboy? And why were kids so anxious for a toy that had appeared in a movie that had been released during the 1992 holiday season—a full year earlier?

 

Alone Again
Home Alone (1990), written by John Hughes and directed by Chris Columbus, was the kind of success studio executives dream of: It was a modestly-budgeted comedy about a kid named Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) whose parents inadvertently leave him at their house when they head to France for the holiday. With no trustworthy adults around, Kevin has to outwit burglars Harry and Marv (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) using booby traps and heaps of sadistic cartoon violence.

 

The film was a smash, taking in nearly $286 million. But 20th Century Fox came up short in one respect: There was little interest from licensees, who didn’t see much value in the premise and didn’t back its release with a lot of tie-in merchandise.

 

“You couldn’t sell the idea that an 8-year-old kid left at home would be appealing,” Fox Licensing and Merchandising President Al Ovadia told The Los Angeles Times in 1992.

 

 

That changed for the sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which was quickly put into production for a 1992 holiday debut. This time, Fox corralled 35 licensees to make as many as 100 products, from shirts to video games to Home Alone-branded boxes of Raisin Bran. All told, the marketing push meant an additional $25 million worth of advertising for the movie in addition to revenue from the licensees—in some cases, up to 33 percent of their projected sales figures plus royalties.

 

But Fox was unable to come to terms with one key partner. Mattel, the toy giant behind Barbie and Masters of the Universe, was in negotiations to obtain the Home Alone license before talks fell through at the last minute. With little time left before production on the movie began, Fox aligned with Tiger Electronics. Compared to Mattel, Tiger was a smaller enterprise, known mainly for handheld games.

 

It was a big opportunity for Tiger, which would be taking more of an active role in the film than most tie-in product licensees. In the script, Hughes had Kevin using a device to modulate his voice so he could pretend to be an adult on the telephone, among other antics.

 

According to a 2022 Vanity Fair piece, Hughes didn’t want to use anything currently on the market. Kevin, he believed, should be a step ahead of trends. The three parties—Hughes, Fox, and Tiger—quickly conceptualized the Talkboy, a recording device that satisfied the needs of the script. The device could be held comfortably in one child-sized hand with a handle; a telescoping microphone added some novelty; it was finished in silver, a color popular with electronics equipment of the era. True to Hughes’s vision, it was a James Bond gadget for pre-adolescents.

 

 

 

The Talkboy got premium product placement in the film, appearing in the opening sequence and even providing the distraction that prompts Kevin to take the wrong airplane and wind up alone and unsupervised in New York City.

 

Tiger, of course, was prepared with plenty of Talkboy inventory for the 1992 holiday season to coincide with the film’s release. It seemed inevitable that a movie prop that could be purchased by kids flocking to the movie—which made a hefty $174 million—would fly off shelves.

 

Yet the Talkboy languished, and for one simple reason: It wasn’t really a Talkboy.

 

Requiem for a Talkboy
The first retail iteration of the Talkboy looked very much like the prop seen in the film. (To help create brand awareness, the camera even focuses on the device—and its Talkboy logo—just so kids knew just what to ask their parents for.) But it lacked one key feature: It wasn’t able to slow down playback, which created the voice-deepening effect that Kevin uses to mimic an adult’s speech in the movie.

 

Instead, the 1992 Talkboy offered little more than standard voice recording. (Kids, some perhaps peeved and others just delinquent, took to utilizing the “Try Me” button in stores to record profanity for the unsuspecting consumers who might bring it home later. When Tiger got wise to the prank, they discontinued the try-out button.)

 

It wasn’t until the 1993 holiday season that Tiger had implemented the voice modulation feature, dubbing the second generation the Deluxe Talkboy. It was now identical to the one featured in the movie. But that was a full year after the film’s release—an eternity in the toy world.

 

 

 

Tiger had a strategy. Home Alone 2 was released on VHS in the summer of 1993, which rekindled interest in the movie. It was priced for purchase at $19.98 and came with an in-box advertisement for the Deluxe Talkboy. Fox sold 10 million copies of the film, which was like selling 10 million movie-length commercials for Tiger’s product.

 

The plan worked—a little too well. Come the 1993 holiday gift season, demand for the improved Talkboy soared. Tiger’s customer service number was flooded with calls asking about the device, which was sold out at retail. Children wrote letters to Santa bleating about the Talkboy that were published in newspapers. Some unscrupulous retailers were charging $50, well above its $30 retail price.

 

The media only helped further the demand. “Video recorder can change boy’s voice into man’s,” read one headline, erroneously stating the Talkboy could both capture video and hasten puberty.

 

Because retailers tend to forecast what toys will be hot months in advance, few if any ordered enough Talkboy inventory to satiate demand. The product had a tepid reception in 1992 and stores didn’t have reason to think it was going to be any different in 1993. As a result, Tiger was left scrambling to greet the frenzy. Their plant in Hong Kong, a spokesperson stated, was running 24 hours a day and airlifting inventory to meet demand. They pulled advertising after Thanksgiving to try and reduce awareness.

 

Ultimately, the company sold hundreds of thousands of Talkboys. If their production was scaled, the number would have been closer to 2 million.

 

The Talkboy remained a solid performer in 1994, though it was overshadowed by the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers phenomenon. It also inspired at least one derivative toy, the Yak Bak, which recorded six seconds of audio for playback. (A second version, the Yak Bak 2, added distortion effects.) But by 1996, it had fallen out of the top 10 most popular toys. Despite newer models, including the Talkgirl (which was the Talkboy with a pink paint job) and a portable Talkboy F/X+ Pen, the brand had largely cooled off by 1999, when Hasbro, which had acquired Tiger, let the Talkboy trademark lapse. By that point, kids were obsessed with another Tiger creation: the chirping Furby.

 

Though the technology has largely been subsumed by the smartphone, the Talkboy remains one of the more iconic film props of recent memory. In 2017, Thrillist ranked it 38 on their top 100 screen props; Culkin himself got one at the premiere of the sequel; a Talkboy autographed by the actor netted $1100 in a 2023 auction. If you’re nostalgic but not that nostalgic, you can grab a vintage device on eBay for as little as $50.

 

 

Source: When the ‘Home Alone 2’ Talkboy Turned Into a Real-Life Toy Craze

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - POISON IVY

Did you know.... Poison ivy may not irritate a dog’s skin as easily as it would a person’s, but the plant can still be dangerous to your pets. Strolling through the woods with your best furry friend can seem like a great idea … at first. Dogs adore rolling around in nature—but no one wants to spot them having a field day in those infamous shiny, three-leaved plants. While dogs can get poison ivy, their reaction to it can actually be a bit more complicated than you might think.

 

What to Do After Your Dog Gets Into Poison Ivy
The most important thing to do is stay calm. Though your dog may contract a rash after touching poison ivy, their fur is actually a great form of protection. If your pet is a breed with a thick coat, like a Labrador retriever, that alone may be enough of a protective barrier; those with thinner coats have a higher chance of contracting a rash.

 

 

 

Make sure you don’t make contact with your dog’s fur after they roll in poison ivy. Unlike them, you don’t have a protective coat of fur. Get your pup inside and into the bath ASAP. Wear gloves while giving them a good cleaning, and try using a pet-safe shampoo with anti-inflammatory ingredients like oatmeal. Be sure to throw all towels or clothing that might have come into contact with the plant’s oil into the wash to remove any remaining residue.

 

Is eating poison ivy bad for dogs?
This is a bit trickier. The good news is that there’s a strong chance that the worst that will happen if your dog eats poison ivy is that they’ll develop a bit of an upset stomach. The bad news is that this isn’t the only possible outcome, so you should always call your vet to be safe.

 

 

A dog who happens to be severely allergic to poison ivy could go into anaphylactic shock or have trouble breathing after eating it. If you notice they’re heaving, vomiting, or having diarrhea, this means that you should quickly seek veterinary attention.

 

Can cats get poison ivy?
It’s also important to pay attention to your outdoor cats (though, ideally, cats will be kept indoors for their safety and the safety of the local wildlife). They have just as good of a chance of getting into troublesome plants as your pooch, and can transfer those oils to you just as easily. If you notice your kitty hanging around a patch of poison ivy, clean them off as you would a dog—though, unfortunately, they probably won’t take to the bath as kindly as Fido.

 

Source: Can Dogs Get Poison Ivy?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CROWS

Did you know.... Calling someone a “bird brain” isn’t really much of an insult. Birds possess extraordinary intelligence, and crows, in particular, have demonstrated keen abilities that continue to surprise researchers. The latest discovery: carrion crows can count out loud.

 

In a paper [PDF] published in the journal Science, researchers at the University of Tubingen in Germany recruited three Corvus corone subjects to analyze whether they could comprehend and vocalize numerical values in objects and sounds. The crows responded to these cues with anywhere from one to four “caws.” It’s a counting behavior similar to toddlers, in which the human children might single out three LEGO bricks by saying “one” three times, a kind of bridge approach to counting before they’re able to count to a total in their heads.

 

The crows were shown a numeral as well as a distinctive sound (like a guitar or drum roll) and were trained to respond to each with a set number of caws. Then, when shown the prompt again, the crows were expected to make the same number of sounds in order to get a reward. The idea was to get the crow to assess how many inflections were needed to reach their goal.

 

The crows performed the task successfully, but researchers were concerned the birds might just be cawing until their treat was delivered. So they added what amounted to a “submit” button, tasking the crows with pecking it after cawing as a way of saying they were done.

 

In the experiment, the crows demonstrated accuracy above the threshold of mere chance. When they got an answer wrong, it was typically within one caw, meaning the mistake was more likely a lapse in concentration rather than confusion.

 

But isn’t it possible the crows are simply mimicking the desired sound without truly understanding numbers? Researchers also observed a kind of tell: When more caws were expected, the crows hesitated before vocalizing, signaling they had to weigh the number needed.

 

In the past, crows have displayed abilities ranging from recognizing traffic lights to human faces. New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) can even craft simple tools—a tiny hook made from a twig that helps root out insects from crevices.

 

Proportionally, their brains are significantly larger than their interrogators’ at an average of 2.7 percent of its body weight compared to 1.9 percent for humans. So long as researchers continue studying crows, the more they’ll likely continue to surprise us.

 

 

Source: Counting Crows: These Smart Birds Can Count Out Loud, According to Science

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - NAUTICAL TERMS

Did you know.... Languages in general are perpetually evolving entities, and English is no exception. Ever-changing, over the years the English language has adopted words and phrases from other languages and even completely invented slang. Many idioms, sayings, and figures of speech like "batten down the hatches" or "hunky-dory" that we still use in the 21st century, actually have a nautical origin, from the golden days of sailing. You may already be using many of them in your everyday conversations, not knowing the true meaning behind them. That's why we've put together a list of ten naval sayings and sailing phrases to let you know the history behind them. So hoist the mainsail and set course for discovery!

 

1. Long Shot

There’s little chance you’ve never used this expression, by a long shot. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a long shot means "a venture involving great risk but promising a great reward if successful" . It is an idiom we also use regularly to express "by a great deal". Its origin can be traced back to early naval guns from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, whose accuracy left a lot to be desired. Apparently, these weapons were effective only at close range and weren’t very good for targets placed at great distances. So if a long shot managed to hit its target, it was considered out of the ordinary and something to celebrate.

 

2. Batten Down The Hatches

The literal meaning of this expression is "to fasten the entrances to the lower part of a ship using wooden boards". However, in our everyday conversations, we use it when we want to prepare ourselves or others for a difficult or dangerous situation. The term batten was originated in the 18th century. It refers to an iron bar used to secure the covering of a hatchway on a ship when bad weather was expected. **The earliest record of the expression** "batten down the hatches" was found on Vocabulaire des Termes de Marine, a French-English dictionary of sailing terms published in 1799. The first example of a colloquial use of the phrase, similar to the one we have now, appears as recently as 1955, in an article published in the Bulletin of the General Contractors Association of New York.

 

3. All Hands On Deck

Name one TV crime series where the phrase "all hands on deck" has never been used. There probably isn’t a single one! Today we use this figure of speech in an informal way to call for everyone available to get involved in a group task or an urgent situation. However, a long time ago it had a more straightforward meaning. In times of pirates, captains would urge their crew to help whenever a storm was coming or if enemies were attacking the ship. It literally meant "All available sailors come to the deck". Over the years, as the English language evolved, it just became the expression we use when we need as much help as we can get.

 

4. Loose Cannon

We all have at least one family member or friend who is uncontrollable and unpredictable. In our everyday vocabulary, we usually call this type of person a "loose cannon", although perhaps we’ve never stopped to think about what it really means or where it comes from. The origin of this metaphoric expression can be sourced from the cannons that used to be mounted on the decks of warships in the early 1900s. During combat or a storm, these big and heavy weapons sometimes got dislodged, causing serious damage to the vessel and its crew. We can say that something similar happens when people with erratic behavior are around.

 

5. Hunky-Dory

The origin of this cute little slang phrase meaning "quite satisfactory, fine" is a bit obscure. There are a few theories that explain where "hunky-dory" was first coined, but our favorite has nautical connotations. Legend has it, the expression comes from "Honcho dori" , a term that means something like "main street" in Japanese, where lonely American sailors allegedly went for all sorts of diversions and services in the 1860s. This Japanese influence was first suggested by American historian and linguist John Russell Bartlett in the 4th edition of the Dictionary of Americanisms of 1877. His theory, although picturesque and with some historical merit, can’t be 100% proven. But for the moment let’s just say: it’s all hunky-dory!

 

6. Tight Ship

Yes, the word ship has given us away. As you can imagine, this commonly used expression has a clear naval origin. The term can be traced back to when ships were made out of wood and needed to be properly sealed to prevent any leaks. Captains used to supervise this operation and apparently were very rigorous about it. In its more metaphorical sense, it alludes to a ship in which the ropes are taut, meaning it is strictly managed. In a tight ship the crew and officers work well together, that is to say, the phrase has a very similar meaning to the one we give it today. In informal and colloquial situations we now use it to refer to an institution or business that is highly organized and running efficiently.

 

7. To Show One's True Colors

Once upon a time, when battles were fought in faraway seas, ships would heave their national flag before a battle. However, some captains were known to be swindlers. To have an advantage over their enemies, they would carry flags of other countries in order to confuse them on the high seas. This practice was especially common in the 17th century among Spanish sailors and it was referred to as bamboozle (sounds familiar?). Nowadays, we use this expression to describe a dishonest person who eventually reveals who he or she really is. It would be great if some people came with flags, don’t you think?

 

8. Learn The Ropes

Starting at a new job can feel overwhelming until you finally learn the ropes. That’s probably how rookie sailors felt like in times before steam or fossil fuel ships. A long time ago, when almost all ships had sails, new recruits had to learn how to manipulate ropes and tie knots. The nautical origin of the expression, therefore, is very clear. It is true that ropes are rarely used in modern jobs, but the phrase has survived for centuries and we still use it today to refer to the special way things are done in a particular activity. So now that you know, you’ll never be able to teach someone to do something again without thinking of a poor young sailor handling ropes out in the cold sea.

 

9. Sink or Swim

Not surprisingly, the origin of the idiom "sink or swim" is nautical. Today, we use it to mean that a specific situation will fail or succeed. The source of this expression, however, is purely literal and a bit bleak. In Medieval times, suspected witches were thrown into deep waters to prove their condition. If the victim sank, she would die, but if she managed to swim, she was considered evil and therefore executed. The first written example of the idiom, as we use it today, can be found in Shakespeare’s play Henry IV: "If he fall in, goodnight! Or sink or swim!".

 

10. Scraping The Barrel

In the 17th century, sailors would rub empty barrels used to store food to recover any remaining scraps and not waste anything. These leftovers were presumably of inferior quality, giving the expression the negative connotation it has today. This metaphorical usage, to be forced to use one’s last and weakest resource, might have originated in the US in the 1930s, but it certainly never gets old. We’ve reached the end of this ranking but that doesn’t mean we are scraping the barrel! There are a lot more idioms and figures of speech of nautical origin that you can explore. Can you think of any other examples? Now that you have a snapshot of what nautical expressions look like, you won't stop finding them!

 

 

Source: Do You Know What Hunky Dory Means? Discover 10 Nautical Terms!

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CRIMINALS' NICKNAMES

Did you know... Just like an artist chooses a stage name, criminals have long used aliases to instill fear and avoid capture. These pseudonyms often embody part of the essence of the individual behind the mask, or are related in some way or another to their past. Let's delve into the stories behind these 10 infamous criminal aliases and the individuals who wielded them.

 

1. Scarface

Al Capone, dubbed "Scarface" for the distinctive scar on his face, was one of America's most notorious gangsters during the Prohibition era. He earned the scar during his time in the Five Points Gang of New York. Capone insulted a woman while working in a gang-operated dance hall, only to be viciously attacked by her brother, who slashed his face with a knife. In time, his hair-raising alias became synonymous with organized crime in Chicago, where he ran speakeasies and engaged in bootlegging.

 

2. The Skyway Man

Frank Abagnale, an American con artist famous for his many frauds against individuals and small businesses during the ‘60s, earned the alias "The Skyway Man" for his audacious scheme of impersonating a Pan Am pilot and using his status to cash fraudulent checks without suspicion everywhere in the world. His life was later portrayed in the acclaimed Steven Spielberg film "Catch Me If You Can."

 

3. Jackrabbit

John Dillinger was a notorious bank robber during the Great Depression, known for his brazen heists and daring escapes from the police. His dangerous exploits earned him the nickname "Jackrabbit" due to his graceful movements during heists, such as leaping over the counter - something he allegedly copied from the movies. The FBI also dubbed him "Public Enemy Number One," and his larger-than-life figure epitomized the glamorization of outlaws in American folklore.

 

4. The Zodiac Killer

The Zodiac Killer, an unidentified serial killer active in California during the late 1960s and early 1970s, earned his alias for his taunting letters sent to newspapers and police, filled with cryptic ciphers and threats and signed under the "Zodiac" pseudonym. Though the police identified a series of potential suspects, the killer behind the letters was never positively identified, leaving behind an enduring mystery surrounding his identity and motives.

 

5. Blackbeard

Blackbeard was the nickname of Edward Teach, a notorious English pirate who roamed the Caribbean during the early 18th century. He earned his alias for his fearsome appearance and ruthless tactics. The pirate was described as a tall man with a thick black beard, often braided into pigtails. During battles, he often stuck lighted slow matches under his hat to scare his enemies. However, despite his appearance and reputation, most historians believe that Blackbeard never murdered or harmed those he held captive.

 

6. The Teflon Don

John Gotti, a powerful Mafia boss in New York City during the 80s, earned the alias "The Teflon Don" for his ability to evade conviction despite numerous charges against him. His apparent legal invincibility was achieved by intimidating witnesses and buying jury members with the help of the Gambino crime family. However, he was eventually convicted by the FBI after a lengthy investigation, receiving life in prison without parole.

 

7. The Black Widow

Griselda Blanco, a Colombian drug lord known for her ruthlessness, earned the alias "The Black Widow" for reportedly ordering the killing of each of her husbands. Also known as the "Godmother", she rose to prominence in the underworld of Miami during the 1970s and was known for her penchant for eliminating rivals who dared cross her path.

 

8. The Mob's Accountant

Meyer Lansky was a key figure in organized crime during the Prohibition era, as he earned his alias "The Mob's Accountant" for his financial prowess in managing illicit enterprises. Lansky’s alias reflected his strategic role in introducing money laundering and offshore banking in 1932 to the American criminal underworld. However, until his death in 1983, he was never found guilty of anything more than illegal gambling.

 

9. The Unabomber

Ted Kaczynski, an American domestic terrorist and mathematician, gained notoriety as "The Unabomber" for his targeting of universities and airlines with homemade bombs. But before his real identity was known, the FBI internally used the name UNABOM (meaning University and Airline Bomber) to refer to his case. The media soon picked up the FBI identifier and creatively transformed it into the "Unabomber."

 

10. Pretty Boy Floyd
Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, a Depression-era bank robber and folk hero, earned his alias for his youthful appearance and charm. His exploits and story contributed to the romanticized image of the outlaw as a Robin Hood figure, as he was believed to burn mortgage documents during robberies, in theory freeing many people from life-long debts.

 

 

Source: How Did Scarface Get His Scar? Learn The Origin of Criminals' Nicknames!

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CATS AND LASAGNA?

Did you know... When a comic strip about a cat who eats lasagna has been running for decades and is probably the most popular thing ever written about a cat, it creates the impression that every section of the feline food pyramid features pasta.

 

But tempting as it might be, enthusiastic Garfield fans may want to hold off before they host a lasagna party for their kitties. While it’s clear that a cat probably would eat the dish by pawing it one layer at a time, what’s not so clear is whether he should be eating it in the first place. Meow Mix doesn’t appear to sell an Italian line.

 

The safest outright answer is no: your cat should not be secretly eating lasagna off your plate while the dog distracts you. But it’s a little more complicated than that. The pasta in lasagna is not inherently toxic to cats, and they can handle it in small doses; it just may end up on your carpet afterward. That’s because cats are known as obligate carnivores, meaning their diet is composed almost entirely of meat. While they can nibble on plain pasta from time to time, they won’t get much nutritional value from it because they need protein to thrive, not carbohydrates. (They were onto the keto thing way before it became cool amongst people.)

 

It’s everything else in the lasagna that may be the real problem. A proper one tends to feature onions, garlic, tomatoes, and various spices, all of which are toxic to a cat’s digestive system. Serving a human a plate of lasagna with only plain cooked pasta and pieces of meat will result in a pretty lousy tip, but it’s the only version you should be giving your cat. Many of them are lactose intolerant, so all that wonderful gooey cheese won’t be doing them any favors, either.

 

Did this stop Garfield from inhaling pan after pan of what he described as “nature’s most perfect food”? Of course not. Good cartoons don’t show the consequences, which is why you never look down when running off a cliff.

 

If you’re still keeping track, the aforementioned issues pretty much eliminate all the core elements of a good lasagna. But this doesn’t have to ruin all the fun. You can still celebrate The Garfield Movie, which just arrived in theaters, and do something funny on social media with your cat, you just need to think outside the box a bit. Instead of a classic lasagna, consider altering the recipe. A small piece layered with ground beef and wet cat food for the sauce will be as safe and delicious to the cat as it is disgusting to everyone else.

 

Still, even if you do make a healthy feline-friendly version of lasagna, it’s worth noting a few things: this probably won’t lead to your cat getting a syndicated comic strip, animated series, three-picture movie deal, or a line of merchandise and memorabilia based on their likeness. But it might make them happy, and that’s all that really counts in the end.

 

 

Source: Can Cats Actually Eat Lasagna?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - KRISS KROSS

Did you know... Good looks and the right gimmick can take you far in the music business, but throw in a great song—something the average person might still be able to recite from memory three decades later—and you’ve got a recipe for ridiculous levels of success. This is one lesson to be gleaned from the story of Kris Kross, the teen rap duo that ruled the world for a little while in the ’90s.

 

Featuring rappers Chris “Mac Daddy” Kelly and Chris “Daddy Mac” Smith, Kris Kross rose to international fame with their infectious 1992 debut single, “Jump.” It took just four weeks to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and it propelled their debut album, Totally Krossed Out, to the top of the Billboard 200. In less than a year, the LP went quadruple platinum.

 

 

 

“Jump” was a super-catchy song built on samples of several songs, including The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” and when the “Jump! Jump!” part of the chorus hit, it was virtually impossible to keep your feet planted. And then there was the duo’s look: Smith and Kelly rocked mega-baggy jeans, baseball caps, and oversized sports jerseys—all worn backward.

 

Kris Kross managed to avoid becoming a one-hit wonder. Their second album, 1993’s Da Bomb, went platinum, while 1996’s Young, Rich & Dangerous, their third and final LP, went gold, spawning one last Top 20 hit, “Tonite’s Tha Night.” But changing tastes and the natural life cycle of artists meant that the pair’s time in the limelight was brief. 

 

When Chris Kelly died of a drug overdose on May 1, 2013, at the age of 34, it had been years since most people had thought about Kris Kross. And yet news of his passing instantly made millions of thirty-somethings nostalgic for the days when the Mac Daddy and Daddy Mac had everyone airborne. 

 

Made In the Mall
Chris Kelly and Chris Smith met as first graders in the Atlanta area. “We’re twins who don’t look like each other,” Smith told The New York Times in 1992. They grew to be close friends with a shared love of hip-hop, rapping along to records by Eric B & Rakim and Run-DMC. While they were interested in show business, they never really thought it was possible—until one day when they went sneaker shopping at the Greenbriar Mall and spotted the local female rap trio Silk Tymes Leather.

 

 

Smith and Kelly asked for an autograph and immediately caught the eye of the group’s producer, Jermaine Dupri, an ambitious music-biz climber whose father had been road manager for the likes of the S.O.S. Band and Cameo. Dupri couldn’t help but notice everyone in the mall staring at the well-dressed preteens as if they were already famous.

 

“I had never seen no little kids look like me,” Dupri told The Washington Post. “That’s what it was. They had on almost better gear than me. Almost. Fresh new sneakers. I was like, ‘Wait a minute. How old are these kids?’”

 

Dupri took the boys’ phone numbers, even though they told him they didn’t really rap and only sort of danced. He was convinced they had star quality, and over the next couple of years, he began cultivating their talent as rappers. In Dupri’s estimation, their skills “went from terrible to excellent,” and in the spring of 1991, he landed them a deal with Ruffhouse Records, a label distributed by Columbia. 

 

Ruffhouse boss Joe Nicolo was apparently impressed by “Lil’ Boys In Da Hood,” a song about the harsh realities of inner-city life, as experienced by a couple fresh-faced kids who could rap without cursing.

 

Totally Krossed Out
Dupri wrote and produced almost all of the boys’ debut, Totally Krossed Out. It took him about two years, though he admits to spending only 30 minutes on “Jump,” the song that would make Kris Kross a global phenomenon.

 

“It was an idea to try to create a call-and-response record, something that everybody could be a part of,” Dupri told Complex in 2013. “They were kids, and I knew that it needed a thing to attach to it. It was an overall idea. I saw everybody jumping at most of the concerts at this time of me going to concerts. It was like, I should make a song about what I see.”

 

The last piece of the puzzle was the group’s style. In interviews, Kelly and Smith said they worked with Dupri to develop their everything-backwards aesthetic, the “totally krossed out” look, as they called it. (Angela Smith, Chris’s mother, told The Washington Post that she came up with the duo’s name, as she remembered that a teacher used to call Kelly “Chrissy Crossy Apple Saucy” because he only ate applesauce.)

 

“Kris Kross means up is down, left is right, and the inverse is the adverse,” Smith told The New York Times. “That’s who we are. That’s why we wear our clothes this way.”

 

That look was on full display on March 29, 1992, when Kris Kross delivered a spirited performance of “Jump” on the popular Fox sketch comedy show In Living Color. The single had been out since February and failed to make much noise, but buoyed by the prime-time TV appearance, it debuted at No. 61 on the Billboard Hot 100 and shot to No. 12 the following week. Two weeks later, on April 25, it was the No. 1 song in America.

 

 

Even critics were on board. Robert Christgau, the so-called “Dean of American Rock Critics,” praised “Jump,” calling it “one of those works of art that makes rock and roll worth living for, a trifle that sweeps all questions of import and integrity aside.” “Jump” wound up placing third on The Village Voice’s prestigious Pazz & Jop year-end critics poll.

 

 

 

“Jump” remained at No. 1 for eight weeks, during which time Totally Krossed Out topped the Billboard 200 album chart for two nonconsecutive weeks. The album yielded a second Top 20 single in “Warm It Up,” and in June 1992, Michael Jackson released his “Jam” music video, which featured a cameo by Kris Kross. The duo joined the King of Pop on the European leg of his Dangerous World Tour that summer.

 

A Side of Beef
A minor subplot in Kris Kross’s rise to stardom was their involvement in a four-way beef involving fellow Atlanta heartthrobs Another Bad Creation, a.k.a. ABC; Philly upstarts Da Youngsta’s; and the duo Illegal, featuring Mr. Malik, a cousin of Snoop Dogg. In the opening verse of “Jump,” Kelly raps, “Don’t try to compare us to another bad little fad,” which was a blatant jab at ABC. 

 

In April 1993, Da Youngsta’s hopped into the fray with “Crewz Pop,” featuring the anti-Kris Kross line: “I pray for the chump that bumps me or plays me like a punk / So jump, jump if you want me.”

 

 

 

Kris Kross fired back in August 1993 with “Alright,” featuring Smith rapping, “See, I ain’t come out wack I came out right / Unlike those moles who tried to ‘Pass Da Mic.’ ” (“Pass Da Mic” was a Youngsta’s single from 1992.) Also in 1993, Illegal dropped “We Getz Busy,” in which Mr. Malik mentions Kris Kross by name and chides them for rapping words they didn’t write: “Can’t write ya own rhymes, sellin’ Jermaine’s life stories.” 

 

 

 

Malik later told 4080 magazine that he and his bandmate, Jamal Phillips, got into a fistfight with Kris Kross at MTV personality Ed Lover’s birthday party. Whatever happened, Kris Kross lived to fight another day, and the other groups more or less faded into obscurity. 

 

Jumping Back to Earth
Rap fame in the ’90s could be incredibly fleeting (see: MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice), but Kris Kross stuck around longer than some might have expected. With their 1993 sophomore album, Da Bomb, the teens adopted the West Coast hip-hop sound popularized by Dr. Dre and turned in a slightly more mature collection of songs. The single “Alright,” featuring Jamaican dancehall artist Super Cat, cracked the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the album went platinum. 

 

 

 

The duo followed it up with 1996’s Young, Rich & Dangerous, featuring the single “Tonite’s Tha Night,” which reached No. 12 on the Hot 100, their highest placement since “Jump.” The track “Live and Die for Hip Hop” features vocals from Aaliyah, and while the album only went gold, Jermaine Dupri praised it years later in an interview with okayplayer.

 

 

 

“Those are hood-classic records on that album,” Dupri said. “I feel like when we make music or rap records, we always try not to copy somebody. That third Kris Kross album, Young, Rich & Dangerous, it don’t sound like nobody else’s records. And we were doing things that still were ahead of its time that people were even doing.”

 

Kris Kross split up following that album, and Smith and Kelly largely disappeared from the public eye. In later years, Smith started the fashion and lifestyle brand Urbane Muse, where he sells all kinds of clothing and accessories, as well as his latest album, 2023’s SMITH, Vol. 1.

 

 

 

Kelly spent his post-fame years studying audio engineering, operating his own indie record label, and running a daycare facility with his mother, according to The New York Times. He reportedly still wore his pants backward. Somewhere along the way, like so many teen stars before him, Kelly developed a drug habit. On May 1, 2013, he died of an overdose. He was just 34. 

 

“Our friendship began as little boys in first grade,” Smith said in a statement. “We grew up together. It was a blessing to achieve the success, travel the world and entertain Kris Kross fans all around the world with my best friend.”

 

Before Kelly’s untimely passing, Kris Kross performed one last time. The duo took the stage at Atlanta’s Fox Theater on February 23, 2013, at a concert celebrating the 20th anniversary of So So Def, the label founded by Jermaine Dupri. By this time—thanks partly to Kris Kross paving the way—Atlanta had become a hotbed for rap music. Their setlist included “Warm It Up,” “Jump,” and “Live and Die for Hip Hop.” 

 

 

 

In light of what happened less than three months later, Kelly’s opening lines on the first verse of “Live and Die for Hip Hop” seem to punctuate the entire Kris Kross saga. “I devoted my whole life to rockin’ mics, gettin’ crowds lifted,” Kelly rapped that night in Atlanta. “Put my pants on backwards ’cause I wanted to be different.”

 

 

Source: When Kriss Kross Launched a Backward Clothing Trend

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - LATIN PHRASES

Did you know.... There’s a common misconception that Latin is a dead language. While nowadays no one gets caught in a pleasant conversation in Latin about the weather, the truth is that this ancient language is by no means completely extinct. For instance, it is still routinely used by the scientific world: the scientific names of animals and plants are strictly written in Latin. And, perhaps more importantly for this article, there are a myriad of Latin phrases that we still employ in our everyday lives.

 

1. Carpe Diem

We’ll start with a classic. This Latin phrase was made famous by Robin Williams in the 1989 film "Dead Poets Society", in which he plays a literature teacher committed to imparting his love of poetry to his students. Williams’ character uses this expression to encourage his students to "seize the day", and to make the most of what life has to offer. With all due respect to this iconic film, it seems a more acceptable translation to this phrase would be to "pluck the day". The first written use of Carpe Diem comes from the Roman poet Horace, who lived during the 1st century B.C. Horace wrote, " Seize the day; put no trust in the morrow."

 

2. Semper Fidelis

This Latin phrase, which means "always faithful", is mostly associated with the United States Marine Corps , since Semper Fidelis has been this military branch’s official motto since 1983. Usually shortened to "Semper Fi", this maxim is meant to reflect the marine’s devotion to the safety of their country. Moreover, Semper Fidelis is also the official motto of cities like Abbeville in France and Exeter in England. It has also been the motto of several European families since the 16th century, particularly in England, Ireland, and France.

 

3. In Vino Veritas

Having a few glasses of wine with some friends can definitively be a pleasant experience, but this Latin phrase serves as a reminder of what can happen when we have too much to drink. In Vino Veritas translates to "there’s truth in wine", which is a classier description of that feeling we can get the morning after when we grasp our heads in shock and think "Did I really say that?" The first written record of this phrase dates back to the first century AD and was recollected by Roman author and philosopher Pliny the Elder. However, since Pliny classifies this saying as a popular proverb, it is likely that the origins of In Vino Veritas are even older.

 

4. Per Angusta Ad Augusta

Just like with Carpe Diem, this Latin phrase can be an excellent piece of advice and motivation for those times when we need a little pick-me-up. Per Angusta Ad Augusta translates to "through difficulties to honors" or "through trial to triumph". Whichever version you prefer, every meaning attributed to this expression seems to encourage us to push forward through adversity, with the promise of greater things on the horizon. Per Angusta Ad Augusta is a phrase particularly popular among those whose everyday lives include facing obstacles, such as soldiers, boxers, and first responders.

 

5. Veni, Vidi, Vici

Veni, vidi, vici is attributed to Roman emperor Julius Caesar, and the story behind it reveals the leader’s more boastful side. Allegedly, Caesar wrote this phrase in a letter to the Roman senate informing victory by the Roman army in Zile, Turkey. In his letter, Caesar brags about the quick triumph achieved by simply stating "I came, I saw, I conquered". Veni, vidi, vici is one of the most popular Latin phrases. From Caesar’s time until the late 17th century, it was mostly used in military contexts. Since then, it has been featured in several popular films, songs, and books.

 

6. Si Monumentum Requiris, Circumspice

If you ever find yourself visiting London’s stunning St. Paul’s Cathedral, go pay your respects to Sir Christopher Wren, the Cathedral’s architect, by visiting his tomb. You’ll come across a simple slab of black marble with an engraved inscription written by Wren’s son: Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice. This short phrase translates to "Reader, if you seek a monument, look around you". Just by looking at this architectural masterpiece, we realize that these engraved words are truly a wonderful tribute to Wren’s legacy.

 

7. Caveat Emptor

Let’s travel back in history, to the dark and mysterious ages before we were able to return purchased items back to the store. In Ancient Rome, a common law advised buyers to thoroughly inspect the products they were buying before the transaction was completed since there was little to no recourse they could take against the sellers. This rule of thumb was known as caveat emptor, which loosely translates to "let the buyer beware". Interestingly, the word "caveat" has been adopted by the English language, and it has retained a slightly similar meaning to caveat emptor.

 

8. Cogito Ergo Sum

This entry might feel a little bit like cheating, but it is too iconic to ignore it. When Rene Descartes introduced the first principle of his philosophy in 1637, he meant for it to reach a wider audience: Therefore, his now iconic principle, "I think therefore I am" , was originally written in French. However, in 1644, Descartes published his "Principles of Philosophy" completely in Latin, coining the famous expression Cogito Ergo Sum . This particular phrasing would later become the essential philosophical concept still studied to this day.

 

9. Aere Perennius

Bronze can surely last a long time: Many museums proudly exhibit bronze statues, sculptures, and artworks made thousands of years ago by ancient civilizations. In that sense, Roman poet Horace was fully aware of this fact when he boasted about the quality of his prose. After all, he chose bronze to illustrate the timelessness of his poetry. In his "Odes", Horace stated Exegi monumentum aere perennius. This pompous phrase literally translates to "I have made a monument more lasting than bronze". That being said, Horace’s bragging might be very well-deserved, considering we still read his contributions to poetry over 2000 years after his death.

 

10. Amor Vincit Omnia

We’ll end with our favorite phrase, or at the very least the one we believe has the most powerful message. Amor Vincit Omnia is an expression first coined by Roman poet Virgil, and it can be translated to the simple yet deeply moving message "love conquers all things". This phrase was popularized by timeless English authors, including the Bard himself: Shakespeare included Amor Vincit Omnia in his play "King John". It also appears in Chaucer’s iconic "Canterbury Tales", on which a character wears a distinctive brooch engraved with Amor Vincit Omnia.

 

 

Source: Latin Phrases You Can Add to Your Personal Vocabulary!

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - FLASHDANCE

 

Did you know.... Legend has it that the song was written for the 1980 grindhouse classic “Maniac.” But as it turns out, the true story is even weirder. The history of the 1983 pop-culture touchstone Flashdance is a long and tangled affair. But one urban legend of sorts has long captured the imaginations of horror fans: that Michael Sembello’s synth-driven soundtrack cut “Maniac,” which rose to No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100, was initially written for the grisly grindhouse staple Maniac from 1980, about a serial killer who scalps his young, female victims.

 

Rumor has it that the song’s original lyrics included the verse, “He’s a maniac, maniac, that’s for sure / He’ll kill your cat and nail him to the floor.” (Or possibly “door”; accounts vary.) According to a 1998 episode of VH1’s Pop Up Video, the first version of the song was “about a maniac who hacked off people’s arms and feet.” The problem is, only part of that story is true—and it’s not even the most reasonable part. 

 

Nail It to the Floor
Michael Sembello was an accomplished session musician and songwriter in his late twenties when cameras started rolling on Flashdance in October of 1982. He’d spent eight years playing guitar for Stevie Wonder—a gig he’d landed when he was just 17 years old. (Sembello also came from a musical family. His older brother, John, co-wrote songs for the Lovin’ Spoonful and Chaka Khan; his younger brother, Daniel, co-wrote the Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance,” which would also become an ’80s soundtrack classic courtesy of Beverly Hills Cop.) 

 

Sembello’s work with Wonder, which included co-writing a track on the latter’s 1976 Grammy-winning double LP Songs in the Key of Life, opened the door for studio and songwriting work with other major artists, including Donna Summer, Diana Ross, Art Garfunkel, and Michael Jackson. But the Philadelphia native wasn’t happy playing on other people’s records. “[Y]ou give up part of yourself to make someone else’s record happy,” he told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1983. 

 

Determined to pursue a solo career, Sembello set up a recording studio in his Los Angeles home. By 1982, he was planning the solo album that would become the following year’s Bossa Nova Hotel. His childhood friend and fellow Philly transplant Dennis Matkosky, with whom Sembello had co-written the Diana Ross Top 10 hit “Mirror, Mirror,” was helping him write songs.

 

 

As Matkosky recalled in a 2022 installment of the YouTube series Starting Small Music, he was watching television one evening when a disturbing news report kicked his imagination into overdrive.

 

“They found all these bodies in ... Gacy’s backyard,” Matkosky said, “and I just wrote down on a piece of paper, ‘He’s a maniac, he just moved next door. He’ll kill your cat and nail it to the floor. He’ll rape your mother and screw your wife. He’s a maniac.’ ” (John Wayne Gacy was arrested in 1978 and convicted in 1980, so it’s possible Matkosky was misremembering exactly which maniac inspired “Maniac.” But a lengthy appeals process, the public’s fascination with Gacy’s crimes, and the killer’s proclivity for giving self-serving interviews meant Gacy was still in the news in 1982 and 1983 when Flashdance and its soon-to-be-iconic soundtrack were coming together.)

 

Matkosky showed the lyrics and title to his wife, who politely suggested he seek counseling. The following day, Matkosky took his hastily scribbled lyrics to Sembello—who was, incidentally, a lifelong horror fan who was tired of writing love songs. And then things got weird.

 

The Devil’s Interval
A few years before Sembello and Matkosky started working on their most famous collaboration, a different type of Maniac would capture the public’s attention. Marked by gory violence, a screeching synth soundtrack, and an almost tangible atmosphere of grime, Maniac the movie arrived to a spate of controversy upon its wide release in theaters in 1981.

To avoid the dreaded X rating, the American distributor—along with director William Lustig and Joe Spinell, the film’s co-writer, co-producer, and star—opted to release the film with a “For Adults Only” warning rather than an MPAA rating, meaning most mainstream theaters wouldn’t show it. Feminist groups reportedly picketed theaters that did screen it, and the LA Times refused to run ads for the movie, citing its depictions of sadistic violence.

 

Even the poster had to be censored; the original illustration of a man holding a woman’s bloody scalp in one hand and a dripping knife in the other while standing in a puddle of blood and visibly sporting an erection was deemed inappropriate for public display. Grindhouse theaters welcomed it with open arms, though, lifting it to a reported $10 million return on its $350,000 budget. 

 

 

 

One thing the film was missing, at least in the eyes of Spinell, was a good theme song. A prolific character actor whose credits included The Godfather and Taxi Driver, Spinell was also a horror enthusiast determined to make his mark on the genre. Citing the chart-topping success of Michael Jackson’s single “Ben” from the 1972 killer-rat movie of the same title, Spinell had been adamant that Maniac needed a signature pop song for its soundtrack. Though the film featured music by Jay Chattaway, there were no breakaway hits, and certainly nothing to rival the success that the Flashdance soundtrack would enjoy just a few years later.

 

By the time Maniac hit the home video market, Sembello and Matkosky were plugging away at their own graphic ditty. “I figured, ‘Why not write a song about a mass murderer who goes around chopping people’s heads off, like in Halloween III?’ ” Sembello said in his 1983 interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer. (Note: This is not what happens in Halloween III.) The pair fleshed out the song while marinating in Sembello’s Jacuzzi, with Matkosky playing “the weirdest chord [he] knew.” The song took shape in about 15 minutes. 

 

They primarily took inspiration from a grisly 1971 track called “D.O.A.” by Texas-based rock band Bloodrock, about a man who’s dying from injuries sustained in a plane crash. That song’s use of an ambulance siren led to the discordant musical interval that drives “Maniac”: a tritone, traditionally made up of two notes that are three distinct tones apart. In fact, the interval is so famously dissonant that in medieval times it was known as diabolus in musica, or “devil in music.” 

 

 

According to Matkosky, he and Sembello never had grand plans for their song—or any plans at all, for that matter. While Matkosky did rent 1980’s Maniac while they were writing the song, apparently because it shared the same title as his and Sembello’s composition, it doesn’t seem to have had any real influence on the pair and was not written for the film. In fact, they never even finished the song, recording a partial version as a joke to play for friends.

 

But, to mix metaphors inspired by other problematic ’80s movies directed by Adrian Lyne, “Maniac” was not going to be ignored. Sembello accidentally sent it to producer Phil Ramone when the latter was looking for music for the Flashdance soundtrack. According to a 1983 interview Sembello gave The Los Angeles Times, Ramone wanted the song for the movie, provided the songwriters could “drop the horror angle” and write something a little more in line with the saga of Alex Owens, a Pittsburgh welder-slash-exotic dancer who dreams of becoming a ballerina. 

 

Stretching for the Beat
Flashdance was released to little fanfare in April 1983. Critics were unimpressed, and Paramount was so underwhelmed by the movie that it essentially wrote it off as a financial failure before it even premiered. Audiences saw the film differently, though; Flashdance would earn nearly $93 million at the domestic box office by the end of December—only Return of the Jedi and Tootsie made more money that year. 

 

The soundtrack LP, released by PolyGram, was received just as warmly, with the label scrambling to fill orders and flooding record stores with marketing materials and displays. Paramount quickly ushered Flashdance director Adrian Lyne into an editing booth and tasked him with compiling his outtakes into music videos for four songs, including “Maniac.” The video went into heavy rotation on MTV and in dance clubs across the country, boosting the single’s popularity and providing ample free advertising for the movie. In fact, in an essay for the 2011 book Celluloid Symphonies, music critic Marianne Meyer credits those videos with changing the way studios marketed films. 

 

 

By September, “Maniac”—the second single from the movie, following Irene Cara’s anthemic “Flashdance... What a Feeling” [PDF]—was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1984, the track was even nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song (though Sembello ultimately lost to Cara at the 56th Academy Awards). Sembello would go on to contribute songs to other soundtracks, including “Mega Madness” for 1984’s Gremlins and “Rock Until You Drop” for 1986’s The Monster Squad, but he’d never again come close to the success of “Maniac.”

 

And over time, a certain lore surrounding the song’s origins began to take root. When “Maniac” was released in 1983, Spinell called Lustig and insisted it had been written for their film. Lustig dismissed the claim, chalking it up to Spinell’s use of recreational drugs—until years later when the filmmaker was watching an episode of VH1’s One-Hit Wonders where Sembello seemed to confirm Spinell’s theory. 

 

In May 2010, Lustig traveled to Sembello’s home to determine, once and for all, when, why, and how the song was written. Their conversation, which would later be included on a special-edition Blu-ray release of Maniac, finally set the record straight. The song did start out as a bizarre ditty about a deranged killer—but it had almost nothing to do with Lustig’s movie. 

 

 

 

As for Spinell, the actor was determined to produce and star in a sequel to his notorious slasher flick, even though his character, Frank Zito, appears to die by suicide at the end. Lustig wasn’t interested, but according to Dave Alexander’s 2023 book Untold Horror, Spinell spent the next several years developing a pair of ill-fated follow-ups. Supposedly chastened by the reaction of women’s groups to Maniac, he first sought to build a sequel around a kids’ show host who murdered child abusers. An eight-minute promo reel titled Maniac 2: Mr. Robbie was produced in 1986, but the project fell through sometime after Spinell and his chosen director lost their only copy of the script. 

 

Spinell moved on to Lone Star Maniac, which would have cast him as a murderous Texas DJ. On January 13, 1989, three weeks before shooting was set to begin, Spinell died in his Queens apartment. His death was widely attributed to a heart attack, but some sources claim he suffered from hemophilia and bled to death after sustaining a head wound in a fall. Attempts at an official Maniac sequel died along with him. Still, the film was remade in 2012 by French director Franck Khalfoun, this time featuring Elijah Wood in the title role—and still no catchy pop song to anchor its decidedly more sophisticated synth soundtrack. 

 

Source: The Maniac Next Door: The Surprisingly Bizarre Origins of Michael Sembello’s Pop Hit From ‘Flashdance’

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ROCK GARDENS

Did you know.... New satellite data of ancient rock gardens on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is countering the “ecocide” narrative of the population’s supposed collapse—and offering a clue to a historical mystery

 

When British explorer James Cook arrived at Rapa Nui — known to him as Easter Island — in 1774, he described small bands of malnourished people barely sustained by a barren, treeless strip of rock in the Pacific Ocean. “Nature has been exceedingly sparing of her favours to this spot,” he wrote. Yet, Cook had gone there to obtain supplies and to see marvels described by the two previous European expeditions to the island, the towering stone statues with oversized heads known as moai. 

 

Rapa Nui presented an archeological mystery: The moai stand as high as 33 feet, weigh about 14 tons each, and were transported for display around the island. How did people on the remote volcanic outcrop, where day-to-day survival was a challenge, produce more than 900 of them? It seemed an almost impossible feat for a society separated from global technological development, 2300 kilometers from the nearest continent.

 

Some scholars have suggested a narrative of ecocide: Sometime before first contact with Europeans, a thriving Rapanui civilization rapidly consumed the island’s limited natural resources—explaining the lack of trees—perhaps to sustain the operation that created the moai. This, scholars say, led to a societal collapse that depopulated Rapa Nui and hastened its ruin before the European diseases and raids by Peruvian enslavers that decimated the island’s people in the 19th century. 

 

 

New research from Binghamton University, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, and other institutions casts doubts on the ecocide story. Researchers say that a survey of ancient rock gardens using satellite imagery indicates that Rapa Nui never had a population much larger than it did when a Dutch sailing crew became the first Europeans to reach the island in 1722.

 

Less Farming, Fewer People
To understand their conclusion, you might need a crash course in agriculture on volcanic islands. The first settlers arrived on Rapa Nui sometime before 800 CE. Farming conditions were harsh, and the population relied on a “soil” of plant waste and rock mulch to grow root vegetables. 

 

Rapa Nui is about 40,500 acres, a little smaller than the land area of Washington, D.C. Determining how much of it was used for rock gardens is a way to estimate its peak population, and past scholars came up with ranges. A 2012 study by the University of Auckland used weaker satellite data and estimated between 2.5 and 12.7 percent of the island. The paper admitted that some areas could have been roads or other structures. But this earlier research left open the possibility that Rapa Nui’s peak population was as high as 17,000—which could support the theory that ecocide reduced the population to the 3000 people whom archeologists agree were on the island at the time of first contact.

 

The authors of the new paper, published in Science Advances, used satellite data that could detect moisture and soil components and claim that only 180 acres—or 0.4 percent of the island—was used for rock gardening. This would have supported only about 3000 people, perpetually. 

 

Countering Collapse
The ecocide theory was first proposed in the early 1990s and popularized in historian Jared Diamond’s 2004 book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed [PDF]. It seemed like a perfect cautionary tale for a world on the brink of climate change: A proud society capable of producing art and engineering wonders over-harvesting itself to a state of scarcity and tribal warfare. As Diamond wrote, “What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it? Like modern loggers, did he shout, ‘Jobs, not trees!?’

Several archeologists and other researchers pushed back, citing radiocarbon dating and other methods of tracking human activity, to argue that the population of Rapa Nui grew or remained stable until first contact. Some of their evidence suggested the island had been deforested for as long as humans had lived on it. (One theory supposes that a breed of rat that came over with the first settlers destroyed the forests and native fauna.) 

 

Some argue the ecocide theory paints the Rapanui people as ignorant and diminishes the impact of colonialism on their history. One prominent anthropologist wrote that it “turned the victims of cultural and physical extermination into the perpetrators of their own demise.” Now, with new scientific evidence, that narrative is changing.

 

 

Source: Rock Gardens Contradict Easter Island “Ecocide” Theory, Study Finds

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - 'MIKEY LIKES IT'

 

Did you know... Say the phrase Mikey likes it to anyone between the ages of 40 and 100, and chances are good they’ll get the reference. It immediately brings to mind an incredibly popular commercial from the 1970s of a cute, round-faced toddler shoveling down Life cereal. 

 

The slogan was never actually uttered in the original 1972 commercial, though. Instead, it’s a blend of the actual verbiage of the ad, which starred actor John Gilchrist, then nearly 4 years old, as Mikey.

 

In the clip, Gilchrist’s two real-life brothers, Michael and Tommy, push a bowl of the mysterious, supposedly good-for-you cereal at him, saying, “Give it to Mikey. He won’t eat it. He hates everything.” When the little guy ends up chowing down, the more antic of the two older brothers exclaims, “He likes it! Hey Mikey!” before an announcer intones, “When you bring Life home, don’t tell the kids it’s one of those nutritional cereals you’ve been trying to get them to eat. You’re the only one who has to know.” 

 

First introduced in 1961, Life—a brown, checkered, square cereal produced by Quaker Oats and mainly made of oats, corn, whole wheat flour, and some added sugar—was far from the first breakfast cereal. Those had been around since the 1860s, when health zealots sang the praises of eating mostly flavorless bran, oats, and corn flakes. But Life, billed as having “the most useful protein ever in a ready-to-eat cereal,” was part of the larger movement toward food convenience, with cereals like Life, Sugar Smacks, and Cocoa Puffs debuting in the ‘50s and ‘60s. And the impact that the Mikey Likes It slogan would end up having on pop culture would stretch far beyond the breakfast aisle at the grocery store.

 

How “Mikey” Came to Be
Life’s first mascots were little sprites who extolled the virtues of “the good oat cereal,” which included “tiny bite-sized pieces of shredded oats with sugar crystals locked inside.” But in the early ‘70s, following some work by the ad firm Doyle, Dane and Bernbach, Quaker Oats launched the “Little Mikey” commercial, which would run from 1972 to 1986, becoming one of the longest-running advertisements in TV history. Millions of people saw Mikey scoop up spoonful after spoonful over those 14 years, making Gilchrist’s mini-mug one of the best-known faces on television at the time.

 

Gilchrist and his six siblings appeared in 600 or so commercials over the course of their young lives—John alone did about 150, and the “Mikey” ad was one of his first—though only this Life commercial really popped off. Gilchrist’s parents also refused press requests for their son, which might have been part of how he became the subject of urban legends. In the ‘70s, for instance, rumors started to swirl that he’d died from a stomach rupture after ingesting a lethal combination of carbonated soda and the fizzy candy Pop Rocks. That’s impossible, of course—the combination would maybe give you a slight tummy ache if anything at all—but the schoolyard rumors were so widely believed that it seriously impacted sales of the once-skyrocketing candy. 

 

In 1979, Gilchrist’s own mother received a condolence call from a stranger offering sympathies for the loss of her son, to which she reportedly replied, “He just came home from school.” General Foods, which owned Pop Rocks at the time, appealed to Gilchrist’s parents, offering to pay him to appear in a commercial disputing the claims, but they refused. The child star was still under contract with Life and the company threatened to pull the deal if he did the Pop Rocks campaign. 

 

General Foods discontinued the treat in 1982, but the rumors about Pop Rocks’ supposed danger persisted for years. They’ve since come back to stores, though, should you want to tempt (a totally fictional) fate.

 

As for Gilchrist, he is still very much alive and liking things in New York, where he parlayed his early commercial fame into a career in advertising sales, first in radio, then at ESPN, and now for MSG Networks, where he has worked as director of media sales since 2011.

 

Source: ‘Mikey Likes It’: The Origins of Life Cereal’s Most Famous Slogan

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

Did you know.... In about 10,000 years, the dog days will shift so far back that they’ll actually happen in winter.

 

When you think of the dog days of summer, your mind will probably conjure images of hot, lazy days, or perhaps the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series or the Florence + the Machine song. This phrase has long been a common part of our warm-weather vocabulary—but what does it actually mean (and what does it have to do with dogs)? 

 

When Are the Dog Days of Summer?
The dog days of summer happen between July 3 and August 11. A common folk belief claims that this stretch of summer got its name because the heat associated with it could drive dogs mad. But sorry, animal lovers: The term dog days actually doesn’t have any relation to our furry friends at all, and was instead inspired by the sky. 

 

 

They refer to roughly 40 days when Sirius—commonly known as the Dog Star—rises and sets with the sun. Sirius is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major, Latin for “Greater Dog,” where the term’s relation to canines comes from.

 

The ancient Greeks, then later the Romans, realized the hottest days of summer occurred when Sirius rose near the sun. The star’s name even derives from the Greek word for “scorching,” and the Romans thought Sirius gave off heat when it and the sun were in conjunction. The Egyptians also noticed the Dog Star’s position in the sky often heralded the Nile River’s annual floods.

 

The actual timing of the dog days of summer has shifted since then due to how the Earth’s wobbly rotation makes the stars’ placements in the sky change over time. Sirius once rose with the sun closer to the summer solstice, but now the yearly celestial phenomenon takes place in July and August. Enjoy their association with summer fun while you can: In about 10,000 years, the dog days will shift so far back that they’ll actually happen in winter. 

 

How to Keep Your Pets Cool During the Hottest Summer Weather
Even though there might not be a direct connection between the dog days of summer and our actual pets, it’s worth noting that this phrase can serve as a warning that things are starting to heat up in the Northern Hemisphere in a major—and potentially dangerous—way. Here are a few things pet owners should keep in mind:

 

• Never leave your pet unattended in a warm, parked vehicle—even if the window is rolled down.
• Place the back of your hand on the asphalt for a few seconds before taking your pet on a walk. If it feels too hot for you, it’s definitely too hot for their paws.
• Make sure your pet is properly hydrated throughout the day. The general hydration recommendation for animals is about one ounce per pound of body weight daily. 
• If you have a dog that’s prone to sunburn, stock up on canine sunscreen and plan to spend most of your time outdoors in the shade.

 

As long as you do so safely, the dog days are a great opportunity to take advantage of the summer sun. Use this sweltering season to brush off those old swim trunks and bring your pup to a dog-friendly beach or pool. 

 

 

Source: What Are The Dog Days of Summer?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - MOVIE PROPS TRASHED

Did you know... In the early days of Hollywood, it was impossible to predict there would be any financial or historical reason for saving movie props. Later, even when collectors began to show interest and film conservationists implored filmmakers to hold on to materials, studios found it too expensive to try and keep set decorations in storage. And if the memorabilia somehow found its way out into the world, its owners had little idea of the cinematic history they held in their hands. Check out eight iconic props that wound up in a dumpster.

 

1. THE MAP // THE GOONIES (1985)

Sean Astin is careful with the terminology he uses to describe how he came to own the treasure map from The Goonies. “I don’t believe we were formally gifted those items,” he told an audience after a 30th anniversary screening in 2015. When Astin was 18, he left a number of personal possessions behind in the house owned by his mother, actress Patty Duke. When he returned, many of the items—including the map—were no longer there. “It’s an item that would probably be worth like $100,000 now,” he said. “And I think my mom threw it out.” 

 

2. EMERALD CITY // THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)

While Dorothy’s ruby slippers have experienced enough theft, misplacement, and intrigue to fill a movie, MGM hasn't had much luck with the rest of the Oz iconography, either. One of the matte paintings—a hand-illustrated background that created the illusion of depth prior to computer graphics—used to depict Emerald City was tossed out after the studio hired a salvage company to clear out their back lot in the mid-1970s. Fortunately, one of the garbage men realized the painting might have been more valuable than that. The business held on to it until the piece entered the auction circuit in 1980, where they netted $44,000 for their conservation efforts.

 

3. THE SCRUMDIDILYUMPTIOUS BARS // WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971)

Candy peddler Willy Wonka’s sugar drug of choice from 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was the Scrumdidilyumptious chocolate bar. Though thousands were made for the production, virtually all of them were thrown out when the Munich-based crew had to quickly make room for the filming of Cabaret on the same lot. Wonka collector Gee Gregor says only one Scrumdidilyumptious bar survived the sweet massacre. “I am very proud to have it,” he told the BBC in 2014.

 

4. THE DEATH STAR // STAR WARS (1977)

While George Lucas and Lucasfilm would later have the resources to curate the extensive number of props and costumes from the Star Wars trilogy, not all of the models used in the original film were so lucky. After filming was completed, the single Death Star created for screen use was moved to a storage facility. Fox soon decided they were tired of paying rent, so the contents were ordered to be thrown out. A storage unit employee noticed the Death Star, plucked it from the trash, and hung on to it for the next decade before displaying it in his mother’s Missouri antique shop. The store sold it to a musician who used it as a trash can, stuffing waste through a hole where the radar dish had been. A collector later rescued it, giving the planet-destroying superweapon a life of dignity as a public display.

 

5. SCARLETT O’HARA’S DRESS // GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)

Beginning in the 1960s, Universal Studios employee James Tumblin began compiling props and costumes from Gone with the Wind. By chance, he visited the Western Costume Company and noticed that one of Vivien Leigh’s screen-used dresses was in a pile on the floor. Recognizing it immediately, Tumblin asked about it; he was told it was being thrown away. Aghast, he offered the owners $20. In 2015, Tumblin sold it at auction for $137,000.

 

6. NEW YORK // KING KONG (1933)

While Peter Jackson owns a small portion of the stop-motion models used for the original King Kong film, he’s not likely to be able to pair them with a scale model of New York. The Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, and other sets that were owned by RKO eventually wound up on the Desilu Studios lot. According to Barry Livingston, who played Ernie Douglas on My Three Sons, he and his brother would play with the props during shooting. One day, they arrived to find them gone—everything from the film had been thrown away to make more room for the needs of the TV production.

 

7. THE LEG LAMP // A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983)

Ralphie’s father had questionable taste in home décor, but that hasn’t stopped fans of the holiday classic from buying replica lamps shaped like a seductive female leg. Unfortunately, getting the real thing is impossible: according to Peter Jones, who operates a tourist business out of the house used in the film, all of the leg lamps were discarded by the 1990s.

 

8. THE THEATER CHAIRS // SISKEL & EBERT (1977-1999)

Though they were never featured in a movie, the balcony seats occupied by dueling film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert might be some of the film industry’s most important pieces of furniture. When Siskel died in 1999, Ebert continued co-hosting with guests—including tenured critic Richard Roeper—until 2006. Just before Disney canceled the show in 2010 amid some acrimonious business dealings with Ebert, he alleged workers destroyed the original set and the chairs with sledgehammers. Ebert felt they belonged in the Smithsonian.

 

 

Source: Classic Movie Props That Were Tossed in the Trash

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - LOST GUITARS

Did you know.... Clothes may make the man, but when it comes to rock music, it’s all about the guitar. Many famous guitarists—including Eddie Van Halen, Brian May of Queen, Trey Anastasio of Phish, and Annie Clark (a.k.a. St. Vincent)—use a particular one to play most of their music. But what happens when they lose their trusty ax? Here are six notable instances of musicians losing their instruments—some went missing for as little as a day, while other guitars were gone for as long as half a century. There are a couple that even remain missing to this day.

 

1. Paul McCartney’s Höfner 500/1 Violin Bass

 

 

In February 2024, a woman named Cathy Guest returned Paul McCartney’s famous Höfner 500/1 violin-shaped electric bass guitar, which made headlines because the instrument had been missing for decades.

 

Sir Paul bought the legendary bass in 1961, using it on early Beatles hits like “She Loves You,” “Twist and Shout,” and “Love Me Do.” (Incidentally, John Lennon’s J-160E Gibson acoustic guitar from the “Love Me Do” sessions also disappeared, resurfacing in San Diego in 2015.) McCartney even had the Höfner 500/1 during the Beatles’ explosive U.S. television debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. “It’s an iconic instrument,” said Nick Wass, a semi-retired consultant for Höfner who has worked with Mr. McCartney. “It started Beatlemania.”

 

Macca continued to use the Höfner bass regularly through the writing and recording of Let it Be—until it was stolen in 1969. Three years later, the thief allegedly sold it to the landlord of a London pub for some quick cash and a few pints of beer, after which its new owner gifted the bass to his brother, Guest’s late husband. It collected dust in the loft of her East Sussex, England, home for years, mere hours from where the ex-Beatle had last used it in London.

 

Guest discovered the instrument’s true identity through The Lost Bass Project, launched in 2018 by a pair of journalists and a Höfner bass expert to track it down. She returned it to McCartney, who reportedly gave her a six-figure reward for her troubles.

 

2. George Harrison’s “Lucy” and the “Ransom” Les Paul Guitar

 

 

Paul McCartney wasn’t the only Beatle to lose an instrument. In 1968, Eric Clapton gifted George Harrison a red 1957 Gibson Les Paul, which Harrison named “Lucy” after Lucille Ball.

 

Five short years later, Harrison lost Lucy after a robbery at his Beverly Hills home. Soon after, it was sold to a music shop in Los Angeles. Musician Mighel Ochoa bought it and took it to his home in Mexico. Harrison later contacted him, and Ochoa agreed to return Lucy in exchange for a Fender Precision Bass and a sunburst 1958 Gibson Les Paul. About a decade later, Ochoa sold the so-called “ransom” Les Paul, which was later bought at auction for $312,500 in 2022. Harrison’s estate still has possession of Lucy.

 

3. Eric Clapton’s Gibson Les Paul Standard “Beano ‘Burst” Guitar

 

 

What is it about Eric Clapton and stolen guitars? Years before gifting Lucy to George Harrison, Clapton lost his own iconic Gibson Les Paul guitar, which remains missing to this day.

 

It all goes back to 1966, when Clapton was featured on the debut studio album by John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. While he’s been known for playing Fender Stratocasters since 1970, he generated a new and distinctive sound on the Bluesbreakers album thanks to his Les Paul (believed to have been from either 1959 or 1960, although there is some dispute among fans). The guitar was nicknamed the “Beano ’Burst” because of its sunburst-colored paint finish and the Beano children’s comic that Clapton is reading on the album’s cover. 

 

Unfortunately, the Beano ’Burst was stolen within days of the album’s release. At the time, Clapton was forming his next band, Cream, which would further propel Slowhand to legendary status and influence legions of electric guitarists. Before fans could hear that Les Paul on any Cream tracks, the Beano ’Burst was gone; according to Clapton, it was stolen right out of Cream’s rehearsal room, never to be seen again. There is a rumor that it currently resides in a private collection in the U.S., but the search for this one still lingers.

 

4. Lee Ranaldo’s Fender “Jazzblaster” Jazzmaster Guitar

 

 

Noise-rock pioneers Sonic Youth have used guitars in novel and highly experimental ways for decades. Lee Ranaldo, one of the band’s founding guitarists, is known for playing a wide variety of guitars, but began to favor a heavily modified 1965 sunburst Fender “Jazzblaster” Jazzmaster around 1996. 

 

He used this guitar, both live and in the studio, through the summer of 1999, when the band’s moving truck was stolen in Orange County, California, with all their one-of-a-kind, custom gear still inside. The truck turned up in Los Angeles a few days later, but the instruments did not. Guitarist Thurston Moore, another co-founder of the band, recovered his missing white Fender Jazzmaster in 2005, but Ranaldo’s sunburst Jazzblaster, regarded as the original Jazzblaster among fans, remains at large.

 

5. Jerry Cantrell’s G&L Rampage “Blue Dress” Guitar

 

 

Jerry Cantrell, the revered guitarist and songwriter for Alice in Chains, recently reported that his beloved 1984 G&L Rampage, purchased secondhand in 1985, had been stolen from his car in southern California. Cantrell has used the uniquely adorned “Blue Dress” guitar, named after the prominent pinup decal near the bridge, on nearly everything he’s recorded.

 

The music community rallied to support Cantrell once he revealed the loss. The day after his post, he released a follow-up video announcing that the guitar wasn’t actually gone after all: It had been misplaced between a photo shoot and a studio session. Cantrell also shared that he’s working on a new record featuring that famous Blue Dress guitar. 

 

6. Steve Vai’s “Swiss Cheese” Guitar

 

 

In 1986, musician Steve Vai lost a custom-built guitar by renowned luthier Joe “Jem” Despagni. (Between its wild paint job and holes in the body, they nicknamed it the “Swiss Cheese” guitar.) The Swiss Cheese guitar was the first JEM guitar to have a handle-like grip carved into its body, which would become a key feature of future models. 

 

Vai, who began his career with Frank Zappa, used the Swiss Cheese guitar on David Lee Roth’s debut solo album, Eat ‘Em and Smile, and the 1986 music video for the single “Yankee Rose.” Soon after, it was stolen during a recording session in Pasadena and remained missing until 2023, when Iván Gonzáles Acosta found the guitar in his grandparents’ attic in Tijuana, Mexico, and posted a picture of it on social media.

 

One of Vai’s associates saw the pictures online and arranged to have it returned to the guitarist. “Receiving this guitar feels like an old friend has returned home after so many years to jam with me,” Vai said. “I believe that we will make a wonderful Ham and Swiss sandwich.”

 

 

Source: Famous Guitarists Who Lost Their Instruments

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - VITAMIN OVERDOSE?

Did you know... Medication? Definitely. Water? Absolutely. Exercise? You bet. Vitamins? Quite possibly.

 

Scientifically speaking, a vitamin is any one of a number of chemical compounds that help organisms stay healthy and grow. They may appear naturally in our bodies or in our food, or we may get them in the form of a pill, chewable cartoon-character-shaped tablet, or gummy.

 

We all need vitamins to survive—but that doesn’t mean we need to take vitamins. In fact, just about everyone (with a few exceptions, including pregnant people and those with absorption issues) can get all the vitamins they need by eating a balanced diet. Fruits and vegetables are naturally rich in vitamins, as are nuts, dairy products, eggs, and meat. On top of that, many of the foods on our supermarket shelves, like breakfast cereal, have been fortified with additional vitamins. 

 

Vitamin deficiencies do occur, and they can cause health problems. But these deficiencies are far less common than vitamin peddlers would have us believe. Today, more than half of Americans take at least one vitamin or supplement, and most of us don’t actually need them.

 

What happens if you overdose on vitamins?
If you’re eating a varied and healthy diet and consuming fortified foods and taking a vitamin, you could be overdoing it. This might seem like a good thing—if having enough vitamin D is good, having more must be better, right?—but it really isn’t. Your body requires a set quantity of each vitamin. Exceeding that quantity won’t make you healthier, but it could make you sick. 

 

Over-consuming vitamin C could lead to nausea, diarrhea, and stomach cramps. Too much vitamin D can cause vomiting, a loss of appetite, and kidney problems. An excess of B vitamins may cause nerve damage. You get the idea.

 

Still, to reach dangerous levels of any vitamin, you’d need to be hitting it pretty hard. A lethal overdose of vitamins is highly unlikely, but it is technically possible, the same way a lethal overdose of orange juice or black licorice is possible. 

 

Still not sure if you’re getting enough? Check out the U.S. Food and Drug Administration table of Reference Daily Intake (formerly Recommended Daily Allowance, or RDA) recommendations. Like most FDA guidelines, the RDIs are based on a 2000-calorie diet, so you may need a little more or a little less. If you’re really concerned, talk to your doctor or a registered dietitian for more personalized recommendations.

 

Source: Is It Possible to Overdose on Vitamins?

[Arisien]

7 hours ago, DarkRavie said:

But these deficiencies are far less common than vitamin peddlers would have us believe. Today, more than half of Americans take at least one vitamin or supplement, and most of us don’t actually need them.

 

Wow! I heard about the supplement craze being a thing out west, but the majority of the population? Talk about a successful marketing campaign to invent a problem and then sell the solution.

[Zemekis]

5 hours ago, Arisien said:

 

Wow! I heard about the supplement craze being a thing out west, but the majority of the population? Talk about a successful marketing campaign to invent a problem and then sell the solution.

It's a pretty big thing out here. Most people take supplements of some sort. Are you in Europe? Our food & drug checks aren't very robust, so you can get all kinds of supplements as long as they aren't specifically outlawed. They make all kinds of zany claims too.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - IT STINKS?

Did you know... 

Fun though it would be, PU does not stand for “Pretty unsavory!”, “Putrid, ugh!”, or even “Please use (deodorant)!”

 

In fact, it’s not an initialism at all. According to Grammarphobia, the exclamation likely derives from the early 17th-century word pew, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “expressing contempt, disgust, or derision.” It’s also been spelled pue, peuh, peugh, and even pyoo. While all those iterations are technically pronounced as one syllable, the leading theory is that people drew it out over two syllables—“pee-YOO”—for added flair.

 

As The Phrase Finder points out, this is not unlike how you might say “Bee-YOO-ti-ful!” instead of “Beautiful!” when you spot, for example, a fancy pigeon. Since “Pee-YOO!” sounds exactly like the letters PU, it’s not hard to believe that everyone eventually started thinking that’s how it was spelled.

 

That said, the pew-to-PU pipeline isn’t the only theory behind the expression. It’s also been suggested that it comes from the Indo-European word pu, meaning “to rot or decay”; or the Latin verb putere, meaning “to stink.” There are quite a few terms with ties to putere and other related Latin words (like putrere, meaning “to rot,” and puter or putridus for “rotten”). These include, among others, pus, putrid, and the 16th-century noun putor, meaning “a bad or unpleasant smell.” And those words trace back (along with a lot of words in many Indo-European languages, like English foul) to the Proto-Indo-European *pu-, meaning “to rot.”

 

In short, the letters pu have been associated with stench for a long time. As for whether the expression PU came directly from there or arose in England (or somewhere else) much later, we can’t be sure.

 

 

Source: Why Do We Say “PU” When Something Stinks?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - PAY PHONE BANDIT

Did you know.... A rogue genius figured out how to breach coin boxes on the phones, with his haul adding up to as much as $1 million.

 

Most of the sightings were the same. Standing in front of the motel clerk or convenience store worker was a man, roughly 5 feet, 9 inches tall, wearing a baseball cap pulled low and almost touching a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses. A ponytail stuck out from the back of the hat. A button-down shirt was left untucked. Cowboy boots protruded from under his pant cuffs.

Most importantly, the man liked to pay for his food or his room in quarters—rolls and rolls of quarters.

 

In the 1980s, police in Ohio as well as the FBI spent years chasing the man with the ponytail. Unlike a lot of criminals, he didn’t brandish a gun, resort to violence, or put innocent people in his crosshairs. What he did instead was become the most prolific safecracker in modern times, able to breach what was once believed to be the impenetrable, unbreakable strongbox housed in the country’s 1.8 million pay phones. Using means that baffled even security experts, the “pay phone bandit” or “telephone bandit” eluded capture. Quarter by quarter and year after year, he collected an estimated $500,000 to $1 million from these tiny safes. The question was how anyone was ever going to find him.

 

“Unless somebody gets lucky, he’ll probably never get caught,” Ohio Bell Telephone security official Robert Cooperider told The Los Angeles Times in 1987. “He’s well-organized, he’s smart, and he’s not greedy. He only hits a few widely spaced spots each day. He’s always looking over his shoulder, to see if there is a police car, or a telephone company vehicle.”

 

Lock and Key
Though it’s hard to imagine today, there was once a time when making a telephone call meant going home, asking to use someone’s phone, or plunking a quarter into a freestanding pay phone. (Or more than one, depending on where you were calling and for how long.)

 

The first public pay-to-use coin-operated phone debuted in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1889. It relied on the honor system, with users depositing coins owed after their call was done. Over the next century, they appeared everywhere, from convenience stores to diners to bus stations. Some were freestanding; others were located inside of a booth to give callers some privacy.

 

While the phones varied somewhat in design, virtually all of them took care to make the coin box virtually impregnable. Bell, then the world’s largest phone carrier, reportedly spent years refining a lock on their box that was thought to be unpickable. If a would-be thief wanted to even have a shot at getting into the box, they’d have to try smashing it open with a sledge hammer or knock it out of the ground with a tractor. Given that the boxes only held about $150 when full, few criminals thought it was worth the effort.

 

 

James Clark wasn’t one of those people. The Akron, Ohio, native was a machinist by trade, but he had a nebulous history. According to the Associated Press, in 1968 he was arrested for attempting to arrange a massive counterfeit money deal with contacts in Europe that would have put $50 million phony bills into circulation. He was caught and sentenced to three years in prison.

 

Roughly a decade later, in the early 1980s, Clark devised a new scheme. According to authorities, Clark obtained locks like the ones found on pay phones and created a set of specialized locksmith tools that allowed him to pick the lock. Though different operators had somewhat different lock configurations, Clark zeroed in on specific designs to breach. (His exact tool set and technique has never been publicly disclosed, likely due to security concerns.)

 

Clark’s strategy was simple. Upon arriving at a pay phone, he used a custom tool that he could slip into the margins of the coin box to gauge how much money was inside and whether it was worth pursuing. If it was full, he’d pick up the receiver and pretend to be deep in a conversation. While hunched over the phone, he’d grab his lockpicking tools—which he concealed with an untucked shirttail—and get to work on the lock. Picking one took about 15 minutes. When he got it, the faceplate in front of the coin receptacle came off. Clark would take the box full of change and then replace the faceplate.

 

This last step was key: The phone would continue to operate without the box, giving no physical or mechanical clue it had been tampered with. No one would realize the box was missing until a phone company employee came to retrieve the money—in some cases a week or so later. By that point, Clark would be long gone.

 

Clark ransacked pay phones in Ohio, but he soon branched out to other states. By one estimate, he hit phones in 30 of them, mostly in the South and West. He preferred to stick to phones near the interstate so he could leave in a hurry if he had to. He also seemed to favor phones near country and Western bars, either because he liked the entertainment or because he knew businesses would have profitable phones nearby. He stopped off for lodging and food using his stolen quarters as payment, though he was also known to exchange the coins for bills at banks. He was also seemingly cocky. He used the name James Bell when registering for rooms, a nod to the phone giant he was ripping off on a regular basis.

 

Disconnected
Bell was wise to Clark’s scheme early on. As his spree grew, there was a question of whether he was acting alone or whether the phone thefts were part of some interstate crime ring.

 

But closer inspection of the locks revealed a clue. In picking them, Clark left behind a telltale series of scratches that authorities considered almost as good as a fingerprint. It was the one piece of evidence officials had to go on, though there was nothing to compare it to—no national database of lockpicking marks.

 

It wasn’t until 1985 that investigators in Ohio and the FBI got their first real break in the case. A person that news media described as an “informer” told them to look closely at Clark, the Akron native who had once been embroiled in the counterfeit ring of the late 1960s. Clark’s family—his wife and a grown daughter—were still in the Akron area, but Clark himself was nowhere to be found. He had apparently broken off ties with his relatives.

 

Armed with a search warrant, police searched a trailer belonging to Clark and found a smoking gun of sorts: parts of a Bell lock, which they inferred had been used as a practice lock.

 

 

While there was no sign of Clark, at least they could put a face to their suspect’s name. A sketch artist developed a likeness that was used for wanted posters; police approached convenience store workers and motel workers asking if they had seen him. Some had, including one witness who believed they had seen Clark working a phone while being obscured from view by a blue van. The phone’s contents were believed to have been stolen around the time of the sighting. One Bell employee even related a story of confronting Clark while he was in the middle of a heist; Clark, in a rare moment of animus, warned the worker off. Though he apparently never brandished it, Clark was known to carry a .38 revolver. He was seemingly prepared for a confrontation.

 

A warrant was issued for Clark’s arrest in Ohio as well as nationally: The FBI sought him in conjunction with unlawful flight from the state. Bell and other phone operators offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to his arrest. Tips continued to come in, though Clark, sticking close to the interstate, was always a day or so ahead of the law. Not even two appearances on America’s Most Wanted resulted in any meaningful leads. Some officials doubted he would ever be caught. If he wasn’t, there really wasn’t anything Bell or other operators could practically do. Even if he were costing them $70,000 annually, that was still cheaper than trying to replace locks on 1.8 million phones.

 

But in August 1988, Clark’s run came to an end. Acting on another tip, the FBI arrested him in Buena Park, California. True to Clark’s subversive style, there was no protracted struggle: He surrendered without incident; unique lockpicking tools were found in his apartment. Though law enforcement didn’t divulge who or what led them to Buena Park, they indicated Clark’s decision to stay in one place may have helped them catch up to him.

 

Speaking with the press, his attorney, Paul Potter, said Clark had admitted to being the man police had been searching for in 1985 and characterized his client as “an American tinkerer.”

 

Bell’s national spree was a logistically messy one for the criminal justice system. Any one of dozens of states could bring charges. Initially, he was extradited back to Ohio, where he pled guilty in Summit County to five counts of grand theft and another five counts of tampering with coin machines, crimes with a loss valued at just $500. In consideration for the plea, the judge dropped other charges and took a potential 10-year prison sentence off the table. Clark got three years.

 

In 1990, Clark got another sentence in Ohio, this one in Columbus after pleading to one count of theft and two counts of tampering. He got a three-year sentence. Whether he received additional time in other states is unclear.

 

Clark was roughly 50 years old when he was caught. He died in 2012. In a guestbook marking his passing, a commenter observed that Clark was a “thinker and a doer,” which is probably as fitting a eulogy as he could hope for. It’s also unlikely the FBI’s fears of a copycat will ever materialize: As of 2018, there were less than 100,000 pay phones in the country and likely even fewer today.

 

Source: King of Quarters: The ‘Pay Phone Bandit’ Who Baffled the FBI in the ’80s

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ONE-HIT WONDERS

Did you know.... Every band dreams of making it big. But among those that do, some can’t seem to replicate their success more than just once. Popular culture has deemed these bands “one-hit wonders” — groups that recorded hits we all know and love, some of which have defined their genres. Some, such as the 2011 hit “Somebody That I Used To Know,” are considered an important cultural expression from their native country. You know these ten one-hit wonders, but you probably don’t know the stories behind them.

 

1. “Come On Eileen” — Dexys Midnight Runners, 1982

 

An essential song of the 1980s was the catchy, Celtic-influenced “Come On Eileen.” Yet the band that recorded it was virtually unknown. Dexys Midnight Runners landed solidly on the list of bands influencing the Second British Invasion of the 1980s. The song resulted from an exhausting writing process that caused tension in the band and caused one member to quit. Ultimately, “Come On Eileen” was the group’s only major hit.

 

2. “Rock Me Amadeus” — Falco, 1986

 

A song about the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart doesn’t sound like a great rock hit. Yet “Rock Me Amadeus,” recorded by Austrian punk rocker Falco, was one of the biggest releases of the decade. While the stanzas are in German, the hypnotic, repeated English chorus became the song’s hallmark. The song climbed to No. 1 on charts around the world, the first German-language song to do so. Though Falco had other modest successes in Europe, he never had another global hit.

 

3. “Video Killed The Radio Star” — The Buggles, 1979 

 

Almost any list of one-hit wonders will include the 1979 hit “Video Killed The Radio Star” by new wave pop band The Buggles. In some ways, it has come to be considered the quintessential one-hit wonder. Its prescient lyrics came true when the song’s music video became the first to air on MTV, ushering in an age of music videos as art. Its intensely nostalgic lyrics and high energy-rhythm landed it at the top of the charts in 16 countries.

 

4. “Take On Me” — a-ha, 1985

 

“Take On Me,” the 1985 hit from Norwegian pop band a-ha, has become known as the quintessential sound of the 1980s music scene. The track pioneered several digital recording techniques that would become popular throughout the decade. It reached No. 1 on the charts worldwide, including the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. But it was MTV that bolstered the supreme popularity of “Take On Me.” a-ha’s innovative music video, featuring the singers imposed into an animated story, has become one of the most famous music videos of all time and was nominated for eight MTV Video Music Awards.

 

5. Tubthumping — Chumbawumba, 1997

Mention the name of British rock band Chumbawumba; the first song that will come to anyone’s mind is 1997’s “Tubthumping.” But the track came from their eighth studio album, recorded when the band members felt deeply discouraged about their future. The repeated chorus of “I get knocked down, but I get up again” was intensely autobiographical. “Tubthumping” became an anthem of resilience and flew to the top of the charts, peaking at No. 6 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

 

6. “Tainted Love” — Soft Cell, 1981

 

The Eurocentric synth-pop wave of the 1980s was perfectly encapsulated in “Tainted Love,” released in 1981 by British band Soft Cell. However, the duo was not the original performer. The song was an adaptation of a Gloria Jones song from 1964. “Tainted Love” underwent many adaptations throughout the 1960s and 1970s, but none proved successful. It wasn’t until Soft Cell adapted it as a slower, electronic song that it became known as a dance hit. 

 

7. “Somebody That I Used To Know” — Gotye, 2011

 

Australian musician Gotye had released several successful hits in Europe and Australia, but it wasn’t until he recorded “Somebody That I Used To Know” that he became a worldwide hit. It has become known as his signature song. The song won two Grammy Awards and topped charts worldwide, even becoming one of the best-selling digital singles in history. Gotye retired as a solo artist in 2014, having never replicated the success of “Somebody That I Used To Know.” 

 

8. “Baby Got Back” — Sir Mix-a-Lot, 1992

 

Hip-hop was still in its early days as a mainstream genre when Sir Mix-a-Lot released “Baby Got Back” in 1992. The song drew ire from people who objected to its sexual content, even describing it as misogynistic. However, the rapper said he intended it to be a rebuttal to unhealthy body image and a redefinition of beauty as something more than thin and European. The music video featured plus-sized women of color. “Baby Got Back” peaked at No. 1 on the US charts and won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance.

 

9. “Eye of The Tiger” — Survivor, 1982

 

Survivor’s now-legendary hit “Eye of The Tiger” rose to fame as the soundtrack of the 1982 movie Rocky III, but it wasn’t originally slated to be in the film. Director Sylvester Stallone wanted to use “Another One Bites The Dust,” but Queen refused him permission. The resulting track won a Grammy Award and an Academy Award nomination, maintaining the No. 1 spot on the US charts for six weeks. “Eye of The Tiger” remains irrevocably linked with the training montage of Rocky III and has been parodied countless times. 

 

10. “Macarena” — Los Del Rio, 1996

 

“Macarena” took the world by storm in 1996 thanks to its infectious beat and the accompanying dance craze. Though it was released in 1993, it was until a remix three years later that it became an international hit. The members of Los Del Rio were inspired to write the song after seeing a Flamenco dancer perform in Venezuela in 1992. They immediately came up with the opening line of the chorus. “Macarena” was an international dance hit and broke records for remaining in the top 100 for 60 weeks. It was later voted No. 1 on VH1’s 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders list.

 

 

Source: One-Hit Wonders and the Stories Behind Their Brief Fame

Edited June 30 by DarkRavie