Tag Archives: EmTV

Some More Coconut Grove(s) History

Cocoanut Grove is a 1938 movie, made well
after Coconut Grove lost the “A” in its name

I’ve been collecting historic pictures of Coconut Grove as long as I’ve been researching and taking pictures of the E.W.F. Stirrup House. For the past several years whenever I stumbled over a new old picture of Coconut Grove on the innertubes, I save it to my hard drive. I have built up a pretty fair collection, but I am always looking for more. 

Direct searches for pictures, or articles, on historic Coconut Grove, Florida can be an exercise in frustration. All searches are complicated by how many things have been named Coconut/Cocoanut Grove over the years, how often the generic term “coconut grove” has appeared in print over the years, and how often things have been misspelled on the internet over the years.

The candy bar is not the village

There’s the candy bar, of course, but that’s just the beginning. High up on any Googalizer list is the famous Cocoanut Grove nightclub in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. During Hollywood’s heyday the nightclub drew celebrities and Hollywood royalty to witness shows that featured performers such as Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Dorothy Dandridge, Benny Goodman, and Sammy Davis, Jr., just to name a few. Long before the Oscars were ever televised, six Academy Award ceremonies were held at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub. Incidentally, Robert Kennedy gave his last speech at the Ambassador Hotel and was gunned down in the kitchen on his way out of the hotel. The kitchen, the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, and the Ambassador Hotel no longer exist, but they live on on the internet.

The Cocoanut Grove nightclub in the Ambassador
Hotel during happier and kitchier times:

Another Cocoanut Grove nightclub was built as a roof garden atop the Century Theatre by impresario Florenz Ziegfeld — who had taken over the struggling theater built a mile north of the actual Theater District — with partner and Broadway producer Charles Dilligham. Even this couldn’t save the building, which also suffered from poor acoustics, and it was knocked down to build the Art Deco Century Apartments in 1931.

The aftermath of the horrific Cocoanut Grove fire in Boston, 1942

While there’s a Cocoanut Grove ballroom and conference center on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, the most famous Cocoanut Grove nightclub was the site of the deadliest nightclub fire in history. On that night in 1942, 492 people were killed, and hundreds injured,as a fire tore through the Boston nightclub during Thanksgiving celebrations. From the WikiWhackyWoo:

As is common in panic situations, many patrons attempted to exit through the main entrance, the same way they had entered. The building’s main entrance was a single revolving door, rendered useless as the panicked crowd scrambled for safety. Bodies piled up behind both sides of the revolving door, jamming it to the extent that firefighters had to dismantle it to enter. Later, after fire laws had tightened, it would become illegal to have only one revolving door as a main entrance without being flanked by outward opening doors with panic bar openers attached, or have the revolving doors set up so that the doors could fold against themselves in emergency situations.

A lot of laws were changed in the wake of the Cocoanut Grove fire and whenever there’s another fire in a nightclub, newspapers have to make reference to the tragedy in Boston. It’s in their contract.

At least on Google video searches I’ll always stumble across one of my favourite Marx Brothers movies. While the first Marx Brothers release, “The Cocoanuts” took place in Cocoanut Grove, Florida, it was filmed in Astoria, Queens between performances of their smash hit musical Animal Crackers. It was based on the earlier Broadway hit, The Cocoanuts, something that also crops up in many Google searches; which always find Gus Arheim and His Cocoanut Grove Orchestra; Judy Garland’s opening night at Cocoanut Grove; Mercury at the Cocoanut Grove; not to mention Phil Harris and His Cocoanut Grove Orchestra. Adding to the confusion is an episode of The First 48, called Gangs of Little Havana/Execution in Coconut Grove, which pops up; as does an episode of Sell This House, when Cesar and Lisa Verde tried to unload their Coconut Grove house. Both get posted on the YouTubery occasionally, but are always removed by a copyright take-down order.

Liverpool had a nightclub called Coconut Grove; as does Sacramento; as did Dundee, Scotland; and Buffalo, New York; while a cartoon I’ve never been able to find is called The Coo-Coo Nut Grove, and spoofs the famous Hollywood nightclub; a suburb of Darwin, in the Northern Territories of Austrailia, is called Coconut Grove; not to mention a song I have yet to hear, written for the Fred McMurray movie Cocoanut Grove [poster above] by Harry Owen, of Harry Owen and his Royal Hawaiians, who also wrote one of my favourite tunes, “Sweet Leilani.” [A long time ago I created a Spotify playlist with about 100 versions of Sweet Leilani.]

Which brings us full circle. Harry Owen was able to write music for and appear in a Fred McMurray movie was because Hawaiian Music was a hot a craze in “Merka at one time. From there the interest went World Wide and now there are many several whole bucketfuls of stuff named Coconut Grove all around the world, from carpet cleaners to hole-in-the-wall diners to motels. Sometimes they make the news. Sometimes my Google ‘As It Happens’ Alerts go haywire for nothing to do with the Coconut Grove I’m monitoring. F’rinstance, remember that recent crazy FloriDuh story, that broke national, because the two convicts escaped using forged release papers, like recently when those two escaped convicts were nabbed at the Coconut Grove Motor Court.

If you think all of that makes a search for Coconut Grove complicated, I have been adding my own to the Googleopolis. All my Not Now Silly posts on Coconut Grove rank fairly high on the Googalizer now andI have to weed through those now to find anyting worthwhile.

ANd, Because I have been trying to become more multi-media savvy here at Not Now Silly, for the last week I have been learning how to use a movie making program. When I realized I had all the makings for a pretty little montage, I created my latest entry to the Google Coconut Grove search engine confusion.

Play this movie full screen for the best effect

If I still have your attention, here are a couple of other montages I’ve put together:


As always, comments welcome.

EmTV Presents: The E.W.F. Stirrup House

The E.W.F. Stirrup House in the background, as
seen from the Charles Avenue Historical Marker.
Photograph by author.

This blog is moving into the digital age today with the official launch of EmTV. See? Now I’m just like Glenn Beck.

I thought I’d test the video recorder in my new camera on the historical 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House. Surprised at how good it turned out, I decided to post it to my blog.

Aries Development, owned in part by Gino Falsetto, has a 50-year lease on the E.W.F. Stirrup property. Rather than take the most minimal actions to preserve the house, Falsetto is allowing the E.W.F. Stirrup House to fall into Demolition By Neglect. Since 2009, when I began writing about, researching, and documenting the E.W.F. Stirrup House, it has only gotten worse.

Miami has had a law against Demolition By Neglect. City inspectors are falling down on their jobs.

Please watch:

You can see my entire series in my Unpacking Coconut Grove Compendium.

Unpacking the Aunty Em Ericann Blog

Welcome to my occasional entry of Unpacking the Aunty Em Ericann Blog, where I ask my readers to pay attention to the man behind the curtain, who used to be “Aunty Em Ericann,” the woman behind the curtain.

Before I left Canada, 7 years ago, I told several people (who may now be too embarrassed to admit to knowing me) that I was going to become a nationally-known pundit in ‘Merka under the nom de plume “Aunty Em Ericann.” To that end I created the meta-character named Aunty Em Ericann, who eventually came to write at NewsHounds. The back story for Aunty Em was deceptively simple. Here’s her biographical profile:

Emily Ericann. That’s my real name. Well it was, before I went back to my maiden name after the divorce. My ex and I were dating for 2 months before we realized that if we got married my name could be pronounced “american” (Em Ericann). After it all went bad, I realized that’s the only real reason we got married. Ironically, I am a former American. However, I lived in Canada three and a half decades and became a Canadian citizen along the way. And yet, I recently returned to The Land of My Birth to take care of my aged father. Shocked by the before and after differences in America, I will use this forum to speak out. 

Some members of the Miklós Rózsa Society. Miklós
Rózsa
is in the center. The sack of shit who hides
behind the name of Johnny Dollar is on the far left.

I got away with the nom de plume for a number of years before the two-legged piece of excrement named Johnny Dollar decided it was his mission in life to expose Aunty Em’s identity, along with my sex life. That story is outlined in Johnny Dollar Has Proven Himself To Be A Very Dangerous Person, the very first post on this blog.

However, my long-time readers already know that story. If they’ve been paying attention they also know that my Unpacking Aunty Em Ericann Blog series is merely an excuse to find clever ways to remind them to click on some of the advertising, so I can keep the Aunty Em Ericann Blog rolling. It won’t cost you anything, but will add a few pennies (and I do mean few) to my coffers, helping to support this enterprise.

I’m looking at YOU!

Meanwhile, one statistic I can access through the Blogger platform is
what search terms people have used to find their way to the Aunty Em Ericann Blog. Take a look at this chart for this week:

Top Ten search terms delivering readers to the “Aunty Em Ericann” blog this week. They all make sense except #8.

I don’t know what disturbs me the most: That this week one of the search terms that people used to arrive here was “boy staked to the ground”; that three separate people used the search term “boy staked to the ground”; or that, somehow, “boy staked to the ground” brings people to my blog, even though I’ve tried it without any luck. While I’m thinking about it, I’m not so sure of Arawak People being on this blog either.

From time to time I also like to review what my Top Ten posts are. I can see which ones are highly-rated at any given moment in time, or by the day, by the week, by the month, and of all time since the Aunty Em Ericann Blog launched.

My Top Ten most popular posts of All Time

My Top Ten Posts of All Time™ in handy clickable hypertext:

 

Click on one of the links above to read one of my Top Ten blog entries, or just go exploring from the front page. There’s guaranteed to be a story or two you like, or maybe something that merely pisses you off. However, just keep in mind that it would be a small favour to me for you to click on one of the adverts . . . or two . . . on the Aunty Em Ericann Blog.

Judge Not 7 ► This Week’s Libertarian Lie

Unretouched pic of Judge Andy from my tee vee screen

Another week has passed, as has some more hot air from our favourite Libertarian, Judge “Andy” Andrew Napolitano, the resident Fox “News” Senior Judicial Analyst and Scaremonger.

I’m doing the best that I can, but once again Judge Nap fell down on his end of the bargain. I was only able to collect 27 posts from the Laughing Libertarian this week, which makes it that much harder to bring the Fox “News” Snark. However, it also makes it that much faster to compile Judge Not.

I need to take the good with the bad. So do you. Here’s this week’s Judge Not.

Taxation can only be theft or slavery? Those are our only choices, Judge? What about the price of living in a free country? Notice that this is how Judge Nap chooses to promote his own his book. This is not merely publisher’s publicity bumph. He really believes that shit.

I’d sign a petition to outlaw lies on so-called “news” networks like the one they have in Canada. Are you with me, Judge? Judge? Are you there? Whaddaya say? No more lies?

Because asking millionaires and billionares to chip in a little more is tantamount to theft or slavery. Right, Judge?

As we have discussed before, Judge Nap: facebook is a private company and can do what it wants. Mostly it reacts to user complaints and some faceless bureaucrat is forced to make a snap decision, some of which are just plain wrong. So, whaddaya wanna do about it, Judge?

An interesting question: Can parents violate the privacy rights of their own children? Judge Nap seems to think it’s boilerplate unconstitutional. I think it’s a question worth exploring.

Because we all know that President Obama is coming for your guns. Just ask Bully Boy Bolling.

Because a pledge to Grover Norquist is more important than his pledge to the Senate and/or his constituents.

One school district in FloriDuh has instituted a unique way to charge students for lunch. Judge Nap wants you to believe it’s the first step towards One World Government™. Next they will be installing RFID chips in newborns and in the upper arms of those who won’t willingly go off to the FEMA detention camps.

At the beginning of the week Judge Nap was calling this bill and end to our liberties and freedoms, even though the lawmaker who wrote it debunked that notion LAST WEEK. It’s not just that Judge Nap was wrong about this proposed law, but he was “fiery” wrong. The law that was passed was the EXACT opposite of what Judge Andy claimed.

Sometimes Fox “News” brings Judge Andy silly questions and he always seems willing to pick the low-hanging fruit.

Let’s start with education and prisons and then . . . Wait!!! What??? They already have? Never mind. 

This was debunked almost immediately. However, that didn’t stop Judge Nap from passing it along to his brain-dead followers. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if this gives Loofah Lad at Fox “News,” whose corporate parent hacked into a dead girl’s cell phone, a whole new idea for news gathering. No longer will The Falafel King have to send Jesse Watters out with a camera to follow and ambush people on vacation. He’ll just use the Fox “News” drone that Roger Ailes is buying.

Many of the secessionist comments I have read online were clearly racist. However, the general idea of Secession is not racist, just the sign of a sore loser. Are you a racist or a sore loser, Judge? Where do you stand?
Oh, Canada! Canada also has that dreaded Socialism of Universal Health Care. Now THAT’S Freedom!

Whatever happened to the right to be told the truth by a so-called “news” channel? Oh! That’s right! There is no right to the truth from a so called “news” station. Wanna start a petition with me, Judge Nap? We can model it after the Canadian law. Then we’ll do the same with Health Care. Whaddaya say, Judge Nap?

Let’s talk about drone strikes, Judge Nap. While I find them troubling, what would you do?

Wait!!! What??? Isn’t this the bill you were claiming at the beginning of the week would be the end of all of our rights and freedoms? However, it says the EXACT opposite of what you claimed, Judge Andy. Why is that?

A bit of return snark: Which freedom of yours has the government molested, Judge Nap? Name one.

By the end of the week Judge Andy is praising the bill he was against at the beginning of the week, even though his interpretation of the law was debunked by the lawmaker who wrote it last week. Way to flip flop, Judge Nap. Next Fox “News” will credit its opposition as having saved the day for Truth, Justice and the ‘Merkin Way™.

This is the opening line of a piece of poetry Judge Andy is working on. I can’t wait until it becomes a sentence.

Then shave your mustache; it makes you look like a ’80s porn star. Personally I think it’s HIGH-LARRY-US that Judge Andy identifies with a thoroughly dislikable sitcom character enough to pass along the stupid shit the character says.

Inflation anyone?

I guess that makes me a slave. I guess I have been a slave my entire life. Thanks for opening my eyes to my shackles, Judge Nap.

WE GET LETTERS: I was asked why the tallies in the early paragraphs of Judge Not do not match the posts below. It’s because I cull duplicates and those that are not snarkable (such as soldier’s suicides). Also to my OTHER correspondent: It’s not a conspiracy if I don’t use every one of Judge Andy’s posts. I may not even see all of his posts. I am not in front of my conputer 24 hours a day, even though it sometimes seems like it.

Don’t forget to join us next week for another exciting episode of Judge Not. Now, everybody
D A N C E ! ! !

Unpacking The Aunty Em Ericann Blog ► Shit Just Got Real

Pictures in the public domain stitched together by author

From time to time I like to unpeel the onion and reveal a bit of what it takes to put this blog together. I call the series “Unpacking The Aunty Em Ericann Blog,” Aunty Em being my nom de plume when I was writing at NewsHounds.

However, as I have explained to my faithful readers, this series has always been nothing more than an excuse to find clever ways to beg my readers to click on an advert or two (in the right-hand column) while they are here. When someone clicks on an advert, I get a few pennies . . . and I do mean “a few.” Finding clever ways to get my readers to click on the adverts has become more crucial than ever. Yesterday I learned two things simultaneously:

  1. Blogger has a limit for FREE data storage;
  2. I had JUST reached that upper limit.

I felt as if someone had just said to me, “Psst! Hey kid! The first one’s free! Now it’ll cost you.”

Faced with this dilemma there was only one practical thing to do: So that I can continue to bring to my vast reading audience all its favourite series, I’ll start to pay the monthly fee for the data storage.

All your favourites are here: Unpacking Coconut Grove, Unpacking My Detroit, Another Magical Tee Vee Moment, The Fox “News” Spin Cycle, Judge Not, Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be, Fox “News” Snark, Music Reviews, Chow Mein and Bolling, and my other various looks at various topics, as varied as Watergate right up to Today in History.

Think of this series like a PBS Pledge Break: If you want to see your favourite EmTV series to continue, call the number at the bottom of your . . . Wait!!! What??? There’s no number? Then click on several ads while you’re here and keep this blog in data storage.

Pretty please with sugar on top?

You can also connect with me at facebook and Twitter. The more the merrier.

Judge Not 6 ► This Week’s Pop Quiz

“Give your tired, poor snark to the
huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Each week, as my Judge Not series has grown in popularity, Judge Nap’s output has declined considerably.  I sure hope I have not been inhibiting him.

Judge Nap knows the only reason I spun him off into his own HIGH-LARRY-US sitcom/blog series was because he was so damned prolific. When compiling screen caps for The Fox “News” Spin Cycle, Judge Nap was the single most verbose Foxite, with more than 100 posts in one week, which was a third of the output of everyone else at the station combined. That’s why this Fox Snark Series™ seemed like a good idea. Comedy gold.

However, this week: just 22 measly captures, several of which were duplicates.

I’m warning you now, Judge Andy. If you won’t cooperate in matching the output of those earlier, happier, halcyon days of President Obama’s 1st term, EmTV will drop this series like a bad Glenn Beck Conspiracy Theory.

Yes. Next question.

How did they do that, Judge?

Secession is all the rage now that President Obama has been reelected. There are certainly a lot of sore losers.

President? Really?

Here’s the deal, Judge Nap: It’s not George Soro’s MoveOn and this is bullshit. Furthermore: you know it’s bullshit. Will you correct the record or are you content to leave the lie?

The lawmaker who wrote that bill says it was designed to do just the opposite.

Buy Judge Nap’s book and save ‘Merka.

Who cut the cheese? I’m surprised Judge Nap is still pushing this false narrative.

Kilemeade: “If this catches on, I want to get paid in zinc.”

Chief among them: Are there really that many sore losers in ‘Merka?

Reclaim? I hadn’t realized my right to buy books had been taken away. God given rights? Are you one of those who say the Constitution was divinely inspired, Judge? I’m not sure how you can square rational Libertarianism with belief in a Sky God.

I’d take away the Fox “News” White House Press Pass entirely, but that’s just me.

HAW!!! HAW!!! HAW!!! HAW!!!

Get out your Number Two pencil and answer this one, Judge Nap. Which laws should rule supreme?
A. The various states which have relaxed marijuana laws?
B. The Feds, which classifies weed as a Class One Narcotic.
C. The United Nations, which has its own concerns about legalization?
D. None of the above?
E. All of the above?
Take your time.

The TSA is the agency everybody loves to hate. Get out your Number Two pencil and answer this one, Judge Nap. Essay question. What would you would replace it with? Take your time.

Get out your Number Two pencil and answer this one, Judge Nap. Explain in 25 words or less the difference between a police helicopter and a police drone. Take your time.

Get out your Number Two pencil and answer this one, Judge Nap. Is the Constitution divinely inspired? Bonus question: By which God?

HAW!!! HAW!!! HAW!!! HAW!!!

What do you think about the subsidies taxpayers give to Wal*Mart workers in things like Health Care and Food Stamps because working at Wal*Mart doesn’t pay a livable wage?

Who cut the cheese? Be afraid!!! Be very afraid!!! The extreme right and Libertarians want everyone to think social safety nets and Health Care reform is Socialism and the destruction of ‘Merka. Be afraid of the 47%!!! Be very afraid of the 47%!!!