12,128 stories from Trav S.D.
Born of August 18, Tin Pan Alley songwriter Al Piantadosi (John Alberto Piantadosi, 1882-1955). Al Piantadosi's early career reminds me a lot of those of Irving Berlin and Jimmy Durante; at …
Yesterday was National Roller Coaster Day, and as luck would have it I had several Coney Island appointments planned that day, so I thought I would film a little greeting from the foot of th…
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the seminal sixties rock band The Fugs. Today happens to be the birthday of one of its two main founders Ed Sanders (b. 1939) and we just passed the 1…
Bernarr MacFadden (Bernard McFadden, 1868-1955) was at least twice as interesting as the most interesting person you can think of. Fame and accomplishment in one field (physical culture) led…
How perfect that the birthday of Hal Foster (1892-1982), creator of Prince Valiant, falls the day after that of Sir Walter Scott? (I wonder if Foster got Scott's books as birthday presents a…
For many of you, perhaps most, the topic of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) will be deemed the ultimate snooze. There's nothing for it, he was important. If he has fallen out of failure as lite…
The story of showgirl and stripper Honey Harlow (Harriett Jolliff, 1927-2005) is usually told from the perspective of her husband, comedian Lenny Bruce; today we place the focus primarily on…
Good news " even to me! It seems the audiobook version of my 2013 book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube has been out for two weeks, and nobody told…
Born of an August 14, the great Jazz Age figure known as Bricktop (Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith, 1894-1984). Bricktop was a queer woman of color. Two colors, not just bl…
Born of an August 14, John Henry "Doc" Holliday (1851-1887): gunfighter, gambler, dentist, and TB sufferer. Holliday was a classically educated son of Georgia, who got his dentistry degree i…
Born this day in 1946, Melinda Marx. Groucho's youngest child was briefly the most public of her generation of Marxes, by virtue of the fact that she was a performer who appeared in films an…
Something unprecedented happened this past weekend " I lucked into one of the hottest tickets in town. Also unprecedented: that I would want one the hottest tickets in town. But in this case…
I haven't tons to say about the English literary figure Robert Southey (1774-1843), but the fact that he was born a quarter of a millennium ago on this day seemed worth marking. Southey is i…
It's instructive to measure off anniversaries. Four years ago I wrote a piece noting the 60th anniversary of the "Birth of the Beatles". Brian Epstein began to manage them a year after that.…
This weekend I had an opportunity to catch an exhibition I'd been wanting to see at The Society of Illustrators, and wound up seeing three, two of which I didn't know I wanted to see, but it…
Today a celebration of music hall and vaudeville (and early screen) performer Ena Bertoldi (Beatrice Mary Claxton (1876-1906). Raised in a family of acrobats, Bertoldi made her debut at age …
Okay it's probably unseemly to be doing my third post about Illeana Douglas, the most recent having been about a month ago, but honestly it just shook out that way. And each post had a reaso…
The above depicts my much older first cousin in civvies outside his barracks during his tour of Vietnam, taken in 1972. I didn't ask permission to share it, so I won't name him, but since I …
On this day in 1974 (50 years ago today), Canadian comedian David Steinberg (b. 1942) got an excellent 32nd birthday present " Richard Nixon resigned. Despite having been inspired to become …
Today is opening day of the National Hobo Convention, a.k.a. Britt Hobo Days in the town of Britt, Iowa. The Convention was first held there in 1900, but first became an annual tradition in …
Fifty years ago today, when Philippe Petit made his famous tightrope walk between the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center, I find it probable that he didn't do know that another a…
"I believe nothing of my own that I have ever written" " Charles Fort, 1874-1932 Yes, Charles Fort died in 1932. He is only "still living" in the sense that "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa …
August 5 was the birthday of Hollywood actor Robert Taylor (Spangler Brugh, 1911-1969) and, having mentioned him a couple of dozen times on this blog I feel obligated to give him his own ent…
Pin-up model, movie starlet, and golf hustler Jeanne Carmen (1930-2007) sometimes went as a blonde, sometimes as a brunette, but wherever she went, she was all gal! Haha, I made that up all …
August 4 was my late mother's birthday; it also happens to be National Psychics Day, which facts combine to remind me of the occasion when I was in my late teens, during which my mother and …
