History of the Day: 10/9

Happy Leif Ericson Day!! Hanga danga durgen ... Let's all get drunk on mead and race our longboats.

On this day in 1635, Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts colony as a religious dissident for (sit down, this is really bad) speaking out against punishments for religious offenses, espousing religious tolerance and spreading the unfounded rumor that the natives were the true owners of the land. Here's some of his heretical speechifying:

If the civil magistrates be Christians or members of the church, able to prophesy in the church of Christ, ... they are bound by the command of Christ to suffer opposition to their doctrine with meekness and gentleness, and to be so far from striving to subdue their opposites with the civil sword, that they are bound with patience and meekness to wait if God peradventure will please to grant repentance unto their opposites...

The sword may make a whole nation of hypocrites. But to recover a soul from Satan by repentance, and to bring them from anti-Christian doctrine or worship to the Christian doctrine and worship, in the least true internal or external submission, is only worked by the all-powerful God through the sword of the Spirit in the hand of His spiritual officers.

So, he purchased some land from the tribes and founded Rhode Island, the first colony to banish slavery and allow Quakers, Jews and Christians to live together which; I suppose, is why it's the smallest.

The Phaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaantom of the Opera premieeeeeeeeeeered in 1986....... and still, Cats tries to outdo it.

Happy Birthday to Camille Saint-Saëns who, with a name like Camille, you know must be French. One of his best pieces, and potentially one of the best classical works of all time, is his Organ Symphony. This melody was used in the movie Babe when Farmer Hoggett sings If I Had Words to his sherpherd pig. I love that song. Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre is featured in Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book. By the way, did you hear that in the graveyard that contains Bach, Beethoven and Brahms; at night they all sit up and are furiously erasing manuscript paper? When the keeper of the cemetery was asked what was happening, he replied, "Oh, they're just decomposing."

Speaking of death, today is the birthday of Jim Starlin. What does this have to do with death, you ask? Well, I answer, he created the Marvel charachter Thanos (from the Greek "thanatos", or death) who was in lurve with Lady Death (the cosmic personification of death) and then steals all the soul gems to make the Infinity Gauntlet so he can start wiping out the population of the universe as an offering to death and it was, like, this HUGE crossover series in Marvel which totally changed the entire industry and ... ummm .... I guess I should stop, now. Anyway, I MET Jim Starlin, but DIDN'T KNOW IT!!! When I got interviewed for the Gilgamesh video thingie in NY, he was the guy who was interviewed after me and he was right there and I didn't know it was HIM! AUGH!!! It's probably for the best, 'cause I probably would have had a total, fanboy meltdown right there. 'Cause, you know, he also wrote the Death of Captain Marvel . Oh, and he also did Death in the Family in which Jason Todd (the third Robin) gets beat up and killed by the Joker. And he ...

Wait ... what were we doing? Oh, right, history ... sorry.

Happy birthday to John Lennon, who is big, but never quite got as big as Jesus. He was a funny guy. When performing I Want to Hold Your Hand, he changed the words to "I want to hold your gland" because no one could hear him anyway for all the screaming and fainting. And when they performed at the Royal Variety Show (in front of the Queen), he said:

For our next song, I'd like to ask for your help. For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands... and the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelery.

His song, Imagine (which sounds like a 4 minute Communist Manifesto) is the 3rd greatest song of all time (according to Rolling Stone). In it, he describes what he called Nutopia. When criticized for his own millions of dollars, he said:

What would you suggest I do? Give everything away and walk the streets? The Buddhist says, 'Get rid of the possessions of the mind.' Walking away from all the money would not accomplish that. It's like the Beatles. I couldn't walk away from the Beatles. That's one possession that's still tagging along, right? If I walk away from one house or 400 houses, I'm not gonna escape it.

Speaking of sellouts, today is the birthday of Brian Lamb of The Who. In addition to a rock opera and such notable songs as Teenage Wasteland and My Generation, they did an album titled The Who Sell Out. Here's my favorite song of theirs, Behind Blue Eyes. I also especially enjoy their eerily prophetic We Won't Get Fooled Again.

Jackson Browne is 61 today. He wrote the Eagle's song Take It Easy, The Pretender, Barricades of Heaven and a bunch of other cool songs, including one of the greatest Christmas song of all time, The Rebel Jesus. Here is a collage of many of his songs.

Finally, today is the feastday of St. Denis. Remember St. Osyth, who had her head cut off and walked to her abbey with it? Denis is another one of those. It reminds me of Mike, the headless chicken (who lived for several years after his head was removed).