September 5: Elvis Presley's Pink Cadillac & The Phrenology Of Music

On September 5 in 1956 Elvis Presley gave his mother a pink Cadillac, painted pink by his neighbor who mixed the color now known as 'Elvis Rose', although his mother never had a driver's license in her life. The car is now on display at Graceland in Memphis Tennessee.

Psychology of Music 
On September 5 in 2008 Professor Adrian North of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK, published a psychology of music study that found classical music fans to be shy, heavy metal fans are gentle and at ease with themselves, Indie music listeners had low self-esteem and are not hard working, fans of Rap music as well as Country & Western fans had high self-esteem and are outgoing (with Country fans being hard workers) while Reggae fans are creative but not hardworking, and fans of pop had high self-esteem, but are not creative.

Born on September 5:
Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara), singer of the band Queen.

March 28: Hip Hop Becomes The New Wave

On this date in 1980 the Punk/New Band 'Blondie' hit number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the song Rapture, making it the first rap song to hit top of the charts. Written by Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie, this seemingly unlikely pairing of Punk and Rap is the product of the two genres being born and brought to popularity in 1970s New York. The two genres shared early champions such as Malcolm McLaren, Bruce Springsteen,  and Rick Rubin.

The video for Rapture spotlights graffiti artist Fab 5 Freddy, as well as early hip hop visionary Grandmaster Flash.  The video for "Rapture" was also the first rap video to air on the MTV channel.

September 8: Birth of Star Trek and the Space Cowboy Genre

On September 8 in 1966 the very first episode of Star Trek was aired on NBC in the US (the first international airing of the show actually took place two days earlier on Canada's CTV network) beginning with the now famous phrase "Space; the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise."
    The series, pitched to network executives as a Western in Space by creator Gene Roddenberry, followed the Starship Enterprise (an exploration spaceship  in the "United Federation of Planets" fleet) through the Milky Way with Captain James Tiberius Kirk at the helm and first officer Spock at his side.
    The series was canceled after 3 seasons (79 episodes) despite campaigns by fans to save the show, but found new life in syndication in the 1970s and eventually becoming a franchise with five additional television series and thirteen feature films by it's 50th anniversary in 2016 and is now considered one of the most popular and influential television series of all time.

August 10th: Beetle Mania (Nazis, UFOs, And Vanishing Folksingers)

On August 10th, 1974, in Ann Arbor Michigan, 50 year old Connie Converse wrote a letter to her brother that included the sentences “Let Me Go. Let me be if I can. Let me not be if I can’t” and packed up her Volkswagen Beetle and disappeared. Like a specter she had vanished and what happened to her remains a mystery. Converse had been a folk singer in New York in the 1950s but gave it up without finding much success. Her only brush with fame was a television appearance in 1954 on The Morning Show on CBS with Walter Cronkite, but in 1961 she gave it up and moved to Michigan only to see Bob Dylan and other folk artists find fame.

Her last known sighting was when she packed up her Beetle and drove away from her family home in 1974. Less than a year a later, on March 4, 1975, another folk singing hopeful, Jim Sullivan, left Los Angeles in his Volkswagen Beetle to head to Nashville to find his lucky break but disappeared in the New Mexico desert. His car was found with his clothes, guitar, and money in it (as well as a box of his unsold solo album) but Sullivan had vanished. Given that his only recorded album was called U.F.O. some speculate he may have been abducted by aliens.

News source MSN ranked the Volkswagen Beetle as 15th in the 20 most recognizable cars in history. Over 20 million Beetles have been produced since its inception in 1938, when the car was first introduced from a concept thought up by the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, who wanted a cheap, simple car to be mass-produced for his country's new road network.

Volkswagen discontinued the Beetle in 2019 after more than 80 years in production.

April 6: New York Slave Revolt & American Chattel Brutalism

On April 6, 1712,  in New York City, an uprising of 23 enslaved Africans set fire to a building and when colonists tried to put out the fire the slaves, armed with guns and hatchets attacked them, killing nine and injuring six more. 70 slaves were arrested, 27 were put on trial, and 21 convicted and executed. Laws were enacted making it illegal for slaves to carry guns or congregate in groups of 3 or more.

September 7: Tupac Shakur And What Happens in Vegas

Statue of Shakur at the MARTa museum in Herford, Germany.
Photo by Paolo Chiasera

On September 7 in 1996 rap artist Tupac Shakur was shot 6 times in a drive-by shooting at the intersection of Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in Las Vegas, Nevada. He died of his wounds 6 days later at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada.

Although many conspiracies surround his death including East Coast/West Coast rivalries, retribution for sex crimes committed by Shakur, as well as a hit placed by fellow rap artist The Notorious B.I.G. no one has yet to be charged with his murder. in 2002 after a year long investigation, the LA Times published a two-part story by investigative reporter Chuck Philips, titled "Who Killed Tupac Shakur?" claiming that a Southside Crip member named Orlando Anderson fired the shots that killed Shakur as retribution for an earlier attack  committed by Shakur. Anderson was later murdered in an unrelated incident.
To make matters more confusing, the FBI in 2011 released documents revealing its investigation of the Jewish Defense League for making death threats against Shakur and other artists.

 Shakur survived a previous murder attempt on November 30, 1994, when he was robbed and shot five times by three men in the lobby of Quad Recording Studios in Manhattan. This attack occured the night before his verdict was read in a sexual assault case. Shakur checked out of Bellevue Hospital just three hours after surgery and entered the courthouse in a wheelchair. Shakur was found guilty of three counts of sexual-assault and served 9 months in the Clinton Correctional Facility.
While incarcerated he released his multi-platinum album Me Against the World. Shakur became the first artist to have an album at number one on the Billboard 200 while serving a prison sentence.

May 10: A Jackass Dies A War Hero

In June of 1916 the soldiers of the 1st Scottish (Cameronian) Rifles Regiment were pinned in a trench on the Somme river in France during one of the bloodiest battles of the Great War. A German shell fatally wounded a pregnant donkey and the soldiers quickly cut out and saved the baby that they named Jimmy. 

Feeding him condensed milk and army rations Jimmy became a beloved member of the regiment even learning to salute by raising his hoof. Jimmy was a war hero, being wounded 3 times in battle and being promoted to the rank of Sergeant. He wore his stripes and chevrons on a browband. 

After the war Jimmy was brought to Peterborough, where he became the mascot for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) raising donations by giving children (and dogs) rides on his tiny cart. The Peterborough Advertiser newspaper even ran a weekly column detailing how many donations had been made thanks to Jimmy.

He died on May 10th, 1943, and was buried in Peterborough’s Central Park. A monument was erected to commemorate him.

December 14th: Bland Cereal And Sugar Free Anti-Masturbation Techniques

On December 14, 1943 in Battle Creek, Michigan, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg died at the age of 91.
Dr Kellogg fervently believed that sex, even masturbation, was so bad for the body that he never engaged in sexual intercourse, even with his wife, and adopted all of his children. As a medical doctor he prescribed treatments included threading silver wire through the foreskin to stop erections and rubbing carbolic acid, which caused chemical burns, on the clitoris.

Kellogg also felt flavorful foods brought sexual desire so he set out to create a food to keep desire to a minimum, and so Kellogg's Corn Flakes was born. Kellogg fought with his brother, W.K. Kellogg, over W.K. wanting to add sugar to the recipe, causing a feud that lasted the rest of their lives.

September 27: Murder And Mysticism Die Hard Style

On September 27, 1977  in Los Angeles, California, Maria Rasputin (AKA Matryona Grigorievna Rasputina) died at the age of 79. She was the daughter of Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin who gained considerable influence with the Tsar Nicholas II, the last monarch of Russia, due to the belief that Grigori Rasputin could heal the Tsar's son,  Alexei, who was a hemophiliac.

Grigori Rasputin had survived a murder attempt in 1914 by a noseless woman named Chionya Guseva; but 2 years later he was assassinated by a group of noblemen who opposed his influence over the Tsar. Grigori Rasputin was poisoned, and when he would not die was shot three times, rolled up in a carpet and thrown off a bridge into the icy Malaya Nevka River.

Maria fled Russia and became a cabaret dancer. One of her dancing acts included actors impersonating her father being murdered. After that Maria became a lion tamer in the Busch Circus, under the title "the daughter of the famous mad monk whose feats in Russia astonished the world" but was mauled by a bear. She survived the bear attack and quit the circus working as a  riveter in Miami and Los Angeles before retiring in 1955.

Later in life she claimed to be psychic after Betty Ford had come to her in a dream. She is buried in Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery.

September 6: Piggly Wiggly And The First Final Frontier Of Canada

On September 6  in 1916 the first self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, opened its doors. Founded by by Clarence Saunders at 79 Jefferson Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, it was the first grocery that allowed customers to browse the isles and pick from a selection of items creating the modern style of consumer demand. The first Piggly Wiggly had a little over 200 items to choose from. The modern Grocery store has an average of more than 35,000 items (with the average consumer buying more than 250 individual band items per year).
   Mr. Saunders never explained how he came up with the Piggly Wiggly name. His second grocery store was called  Keydoozle, and was a fully automated store that acted like a giant vending machine. Saunders opened 3 Keydoozle stores, each time having to close for failure to keep up with high consumer traffic of his extremely popular concept.
   'Automated Retailing' and Automats (automated restaurants) can still be found around the globe especially in Japan, where 'Conveyer Belt Sushi' restaurants are common.

Star Trek in Canada

On this day in 1966 the very first episode of Star Trek was aired on Canada's CTV network (a full two days earlier than in the U.S.) beginning with the now famous phrase "Space; the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise."

June 1st: The Secret Destruction Of America's Musical History

On June 1st, 2008, at At 4:43 a.m. a fire started on a rooftop in the backlot of Universal Studios in Hollywood due to maintenance workers using blowtorches to heat asphalt shingles to repair the roof of a building on the set known as New England Street. The fire quickly spread across the backlot destroying American icons such as 'Courthouse Square' featured in “Back to the Future” as well as the King Kong Encounter from Universal Studios theme park.

In an effort to quell the blaze fire fighters tapped into the man made lake created for the film Creature From the Black Lagoon. Fire crews began drafting water from the lake. Nearly 24 hours later the fire had been subdued and made headlines around the world. News reports reported the damage done,  including the destruction of the warehouse known as 'The video Vault' and the loss of film and video masters stored there, but Universal never made known the list of lost films. More curious than that, Universal failed to mention that the Video Vault also contained 1000s of master audio recordings from Decca, Chess, MCA, ABC, A&M, Geffen, Interscope, and other music labels that had been destroyed.

Of all the reporting on the day after the fire, only one reporter had speculated on the destruction of the audio recordings, Nikki Finke of Deadline. The following day Deadline offered a retraction, quoting a representative from Universal Music Group in saying “Thankfully, there was little lost from UMG’s vault. A majority of what was formerly stored there was moved earlier this year to our other facilities. Of the small amount that was still there and waiting to be moved, it had already been digitized so the music will still be around for many years to come.” Another news source quoted an UMG spokesperson in saying “We had no loss.”

But in a March 2009 UMG document marked “CONFIDENTIAL” the term “assets destroyed”  was used to detail an estimated 500,000 song masters that were lost, and valued this loss at $150 million. As the Video Vault had no real Inventory list, it is unknown exactly what songs were lost, but the list of artists' master recordings destroyed is staggering; including recordings by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Bo Diddley, Etta James, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, Little Walter, Aretha Franklin, Buddy Holly, John Coltrane, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, Tupac Shakur, Eminem, 50 Cent, the Roots, Eric B. and Rakim, Bobby Brown, Guns N’ Roses, Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, Sonic Youth, No Doubt, Nine Inch Nails, Snoop Dogg, Nirvana, Soundgarden and other American music icons.

May 10: Jesse Owens Defeats Hitler And Races A Horse

Owens atop the Podium at 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
Image by the German Federal Archive
(Deutsches Bundesarchiv) 

On this day in 1935 black American athlete Jesse Owens executes "the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport"by setting three world records and tying for a fourth in less than an hour at the Big Ten Track Meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

His achievements at Big Ten landed him on the U.S. Track & Field team at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Arriving in Berlin as a track star Owens was met by throngs of young girls screaming for him and cutting pieces of his clothing off for keepsakes in a display rivaling the frenzied girls infected by beatlemania decades later. Durning his time at the Olympics (August 3rd-August 9th) Owens was escorted by soldiers to protect him from his fans. Winning four Olympic gold medals for the U.S.  Owens is credited for single handedly disproving Hitler's Aryan Racial Superiority Theory.   Hitler's response to Owens victory was to say the physiques of black athletes were stronger than those of whites and hence should be excluded from future games. It was reported that Hitler left the games early so that he would not have to congratulate Owens, as was customary for the leaders of the host nation to do. But Owens himself contradicted this by saying that Hitler had waived to Owens, and Owens waived back.

Even in Nazi Germany Owens was allowed to travel with and stay at the same hotels as whites, but not back home in the United States. At a Manhattan ticker-tape parade along Broadway's Canyon of Heroes and the following reception honoring him at the Waldorf Astoria Owens was still subjected to Racial Segregation, and was not allowed to use the front entrance of the hotel. Angered by this and that U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (a democrat) never congratulated Owens on his olympic victory, Owens campaigned for the Republican Party during the 1936 Presidential Elections. At speaking engagements Owens spoke against Rosevelt saying "Some people say Hitler snubbed me. But I tell you, Hitler did not snub me... but remember that the President did not send me a message of congratulations because, people said, he was too busy." Adding that Rosevelt "didn't even send me a telegram." Several reports stated that Owens carried a photograph in his wallet of himself and Hitler shaking hands; if true this photo has yet to be publicly released.

In later life Jesse Owens struggled with bankruptcy stating that "There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway." and had to resort to paid public appearances where he entertained audiences with gimmicks such as racing horses (which he routinely won).  To criticism of this line of work Owens said, "People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals."
In 1966 The U.S. government appointed Owens a US goodwill ambassador in which he traveled the globe conducting speaking engagements. He was eventually able to retire and even kept race horses. Owens died of lung cancer on on March 31, 1980, his heavy smoking habit listed as a contributor.

April 30: Voices From The Past Tell The Real History Of The Phonograph

On April 30, 1877 French poet Charles Cros deposited a sealed envelope at the French Academy of Sciences (a standard procedure used by inventors to defend their work against any later dispute) containing a summary of his idea to record sounds and play it back. 

The concept of recording sound was not new; In 1857 another  Frenchman  named Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville designed a way to reproduce sound waves by way of a vibrating parchment diaphragm which allowed a bristle to trace lines on a sheet of paper wrapped around a rotating cylinder, which he aptly called a phonautograph. His goal was to visually study sound waves, audio playback, however, was apparently not considered.

20 years later Cros figured out how it could be done. But, as a poet, he did not have the means to build his machine, and apparently was happy enough to open it up to public domain.

On October 10, 1877, An account of his invention was published in the periodical La Semaine du Clergé.  Cros called his invention the paleophone, derived from the phrase "voix du passé" (voice of the past) But the author of the article instead called the device a phonographe.

On November 21, 1877, American inventor Thomas Edison announced his invention that he called the phonograph and gave a demonstration one week later.

On December 3, 1877,  the French Academy of Sciences opened and read Cos' letter gaining due scientific credit for conception of the phonograph.

 By 1890 the phonograph would become a massive success on both side of the Atlantic, but Cros would not witness this, as he died in 1888 at the age of 45.

January 30th: From Coney Island Baby to a Mass Grave on Hart Island - The Mysterious life of Rachel

on January 30, 1990, a woman known only as Rachel died at Saint Clare’s Hospital, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan. Although Saint Clare’s specialized in treating AIDS patients Rachel's cause of death is not known.

Rachel's body was placed in a wooden box and taken on a ferry off the coast of the Bronx to Hart Island where New York City buries its unclaimed dead by the hundreds in mass graves dug by Riker's Island prison inmates. Ceremonies are not held, and no grave stones are set, only numbered markers.

Hart island's was first used as a training ground for the United States Colored Troops in 1864 and has since been the site of a Union Civil War prison camp, a psychiatric institution, a tuberculosis sanatorium, a homeless shelter, a boys' reformatory, a jail, a cold war defense missile silo,  a drug rehabilitation center, and now a potter's field where over one million unclaimed bodies are interred.

In 2013 Department of Correction began making the Hart Island burial records public, and it was discovered that Hart Island was the final resting place of a man named Richard Humphrys. Little was known of Humphrys, but the world knew of Rachel, Velvet Underground singer Lou Reed's live in girlfriend who was famous for being the inspiration behind Reed's 1976 album Coney Island Baby, and her wish to remain anonymous.

Rachel and Reed lived together for four years in the 1970s, after having met in 1974 at Club 82 in the East Village. Rachel was living as a transgendered woman, although Reed frequently referred to her as his 'boyfriend.' Rachel took hormone treatments but wanted a full sex change which caused problems between the two. When they broke up Rachel disappeared from the public and her life after Reed was a mystery until a New  York Times examination uncovered  her name in the Hart Island burial records.

December 30th: Perfection Is Perfected With The Perfecto

On December 30th, 1953, the now classic film, The Wild One, hit the movie screens and actor Marlon Brando introduced the world to the Outlaw Biker genre and also to the Perfecto Jacket.
Now firmly cemented into the fabric of Western culture, for many Americans this was the first view of the classic biker look, including the black leather jacket that gained popularity in the 1970s punk scene.

But the jacket, called Perfecto, has more in common with an 18th century military epauletted Lancer's jacket, and was first produced 25 years before The Wild One by Irving Schott, a Jewish Russian immigrant in New York City, who began fabricating motorcycle clothing in 1913. Schott named the brand Perfecto after his favorite cigar believing that having his Jewish family name on the garment wouldn't help sales.

The all black leather garment was the first jacket to employ a zipper instead of buttons. The 1940s saw the  production of an updated jacket (model number 613) based on the original, made from horsehide and had stars on the epaulettes causing it to gain the nickname 'One Star'. By the time The Wild One was filmed, Schott had once again updated the jacket (to model number 618),  removing the stars, but for the film they added stars to Brando's jacket giving it the classic Perfecto look. Moving to steer-hide in the 1960s, the Perfecto has seen minor changes but is still in production after more than 90 years, and is still associated with both biker and punk culture.

September 28: Zulu Heritage and Legalizing Coconuts

On September 28, 1916, the The Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club became an officially incorporated social club in New Orleans, Louisiana. The club puts on the Zulu parade each Mardi Gras Day and is New Orleans' largest African American carnival organization known for its blackface and grass skirt costumes, a crowned Zulu King, and for tossing hand-painted coconuts into the crowds (early blackface performances were not seen as racist and even respected black entertainers preformed blackface shows).

The Zulus got their start around 1908 when a social club called The Tramps were inspired by the costumes and pageantry of Vaudeville shows and reorganized it's marching troupe for Mardi Gras to include costumes, floats, and tossing coconuts to the crowd (as beaded necklaces where too costly for the working class club).After several years the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club became incorporated in 1916 with a social mission and dedication to benevolence and goodwill.
Over the years changing social values threatened the club's popularity and future, especially during the 1960s when civil rights activists protested the club's parade on the grounds that 'Negroes wander through the city drinking to excess, dressed as uncivilized savages and throwing cocoanuts like monkeys.' did not represent black Americans and their fight for equality. There were also lawsuits from bystanders injured from tossed coconuts. By the end of the 1960s the membership dropped to 15, and the blackface and grass skirt costumes were dropped.
By the early 1970s an effort was made to save the club and its traditions. The club became integrated and actively recruited prominent members of New Orleans. The club reclaimed its traditions of the  traditional blackface and grass skirt costumes and in 1988 New Orleans passed the “Coconut Bill” removing liability from injuries resulting from thrown coconuts and enabling the tradition to resume.

September 18: A Champion Athlete's Diet: Beer, Bacon, and Candy

 On September 18th in 2016 ultra-runner Karl Meltzer set a record for running the complete Appalachian Trail (2,190 miles across14 states) in just 45 days 22 hours 38 minutes. The previous record was set by Scott Jurek, who completed the trail in 46 days 8 hours 7 minutes.
Jurek, the former record holder, was 41 at the time of his record setting run and ran the trail on an exclusively vegan diet. Meltzer, who broke Jurek's record by several hours, was 48 at the time and completed the trail on a diet that included Red Bull, bacon, 3 Musketeers bars, and Beer. Meltzer ran the final 83 miles non-stop to complete the race. At the time of his record setting Appalachian Trail run Meltzer had won 38 100 mile trail races.

September 10: Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau is born Twice

Born on September 10th in 1794 was the renowned practitioner of Louisiana Voodoo Marie Laveau in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Laveau was born to a free creole woman and one time acting Mayor of New Orleans (about 5 months), Charles Laveau Trudeau  (AKA Don Carlos Trudeau).
   In 1819 She married Jaques Paris, a French Creole, who had fled as a refugee from the black Haitian massacre during the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804. He disappeared soon after their wedding and was presumed dead. She then took up with Louis Christope Dominick Duminy de Glapion, a white man of noble french descent and lived with him until his death in 1835. They had 7 children, but only two lived to adulthood; 2 girls both also named Marie.
   Laveau and her daughter, Marie Laveau II, had both earned the title of Voodoo Queen, most accounts are nearly indistinguishable between the two Laveaus, as many regarded them as the same person. Voodoo Queens had great power in their communities, and had the role of leading many of the ceremonial meetings and ritual dances.
   As many as 12,000 people at a time (both black and white) would attend Laveau's St. John's Eve (June 23) rituals, usually held in the Voudoun (Haitian Voodou) tradition.
Voudoun is a religion of belief in "mysterious forces or powers that govern the world and the lives of those who reside within it." rooted in African religious practices and is similar to but separate from Louisiana Voodoo, which incorporates elements of Catholicism as well as the Francophone culture of south Louisiana. The South Eastern American religion of Hoodoo is also similar to Louisiana Voodoo as it also uses elements of Catholicism including the Holy Bible.
   It is said that Laveau tended more toward Louisiana Voodoo and Marie Laveau II more to Voodoun practices, But the first Laveau often carried a snake named after Li Grand Zombi (or Damballa), an important spirit in Voodoun.

Marie Laveau died on June 17, 1881, but many witnessed her walking through New Orleans in the days following. Some of this may be on account of Laveau II taking her place as Voodoo Queen, but to this day Many seek the magical help from Marie Laveau by visiting her grave at Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans. By local folklore, a visitor can mark an "X" on her tomb, turn around three times, knock on the tomb, yell a wish, and if it was granted  come back, circle their X, and leave an offering for Laveau including jewelry and drink.
   As of March 1, 2015 there is no longer public access to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. without a tour guide due in large part to protecting Laveau's mausoleum. There have been several highly publicized vandalizations of her grave including the Horror Punk band The Misfits being arrested for attempting to rob her grave as well as an event in 2013 of someone painting the entire mausoleum pink.

Photo credit: Marie Laveau's mausoleum in Saint Louis no. I, New Orleans

 (public domain photo).

August 28: Diana The Huntress of Bus Drivers

On August 28th, 2013, in Juárez, Mexico, a woman calling herself "Diana" shot and killed a bus driver, and repeating this act by killing a second driver the following day on August 29th.
These killings were made in response to a growing epidemic of women being raped and killed in Juárez after boarding city buses alone. In 2010 over 300 women in Juarez were found raped and murdered; many of the attacks are assumed to be carried out by bus drivers preying on women who ride alone at night coming home from work.

The woman, still only known as Diana, with dyed blonde hair (or wearing a blonde wig), boarded the buses in August of 2013 and shot the drivers point blank. After the second shooting, several media outlets in Juárez reported receiving an e-mail from a sender claiming to be the killer. In the e-mail, she calls herself "Diana, the hunter of drivers."

The name Diana was borrowed from the Roman Goddess Diana The Huntress, virgin goddess of the hunt and of women. Juárez' Diana, protector of women, said in her email "I am an instrument that will take revenge for many women. For we are seen as weak, but in reality we are not. We are brave. And if we don't get respect, we will earn that respect with our own hands. We the women of Juárez are strong."

  Diana, the Hunter of Bus Drivers has not reemerged since the second shooting death in 2013, but as the epidemic continues (over 2,500 murders of women annually in Mexico)  her name has not been forgotten.

Image: Sculpture of Diana The Huntress by Raymond Graf (2014)

June 28th: From Messiah to Masochist - The Life and Death of GG Allin

GG Allin's last day on Earth

On June 28th, 1993, GG Allin, referred to by AllMusic magazine as "the most spectacular degenerate in rock & roll history" died of a heroin overdose in New York City.

GG Allin was born Jesus Christ Allin in Lancaster, New Hampshire, to a religious fanatic named Merle Allin, Sr. and his wife Arleta Gunther.
His father named him Jesus Christ due to a visit from God who told him that his newborn son would become the Messiah.

GG's older brother, Merle Jr., who was three at the time of GG's birth, was unable to pronounce "Jesus" and instead called him "Je- Je", which was how he got the name "GG", although once his mother was able to escape the abusive confines of Merle Sr., she legally changed his name to Kevin Micheal when he was 6 years old.

The Allin family lived in a log cabin with no running water or electricity in Groveton, New Hampshire, as Merle Sr. was a mentally unstable recluse, who routinely threatened to kill his family, even digging their graves in the cellar.

His mother relocated to Vermont with Merle Jr., and GG. Of their childhood GG said that it was "very chaotic. Full of chances and dangers. We sold drugs, stole, broke into houses, cars. Did whatever we wanted to for the most part." GG attended high school cross-dressed, which he said was inspired by the New York Dolls, his brother Merle said GG was bullied constantly.

After graduating high school GG and Merle began their life long adventure in the music business, playing together in bands such as The Jabbers (1977-1984) The Murder Junkies (formed in 1990), as well as performances and albums billed as a GG Allin solo act but including Merle as part of the backing band, with GG almost decidedly setting out to prove his father's premonition absolutely wrong.

By the mid 1980s Allin had a reputation for outlandish stage shows that regularly included self mutilation, defecating and eating or slinging his own feces onto the crowd, as well as attacking and physically assaulting audience members. By the late 1980s Allin began hinting to wanting to kill himself onstage, culminating in a promise to commit suicide on stage on October 31st 1989 but before Halloween of that year Allin was imprisoned for cutting, burning, and drinking the blood of a young woman, to which admitted for a reduced sentence.
Allin was released March 26, 1991, being quite possibly the only person to admit to feeling ''re-energized" by prison. It was during his incarceration that he wrote the  "GG Allin Mission", recommitting himself to his on stage suicide promise:

"Time to get Rock 'N' Roll out of the hands of the masses and back to the people who will not accept comfort or conformity at any cost. Then I will commit suicide on stage and the blood of Rock 'N' Roll will become the poison of the Universe forever.."

Wether it was an affirmation of intent, or a ploy to sell tickets, Allin's wish would not come true.
Unbeknownst to GG, his last show was on June 27, 1993 at a punk club in Manhattan called The Gas Station. GG's friend, Johnny Puke, lived across the street from the club and around noon invited the band to his place before the show to drink and do cocaine.   By the time Allin took to the stage he was "super-wired" from the drugs and immediately broke the microphone. By the third song Allin had defecated on himself and began attacking the audience, which sent about 200 people stampeding for the courtyard, which Allin followed throwing glass bottles at them.

After GG finally left the club, he was covered in blood and feces, wearing only boots, walking aimlessly through the streets followed by a crowd of fans. After the police were called, Allin was somehow able to hail a cab, completely naked and smelling like human waste. Finally Allin and his girlfriend made it back to Johnny Puke's apartment, where they drank and snorted 10 bags of heroin that the show promoter paid Allin with.

At some point around 2 a.m. Allin passed out, or so the partygoers thought, and they posed for pictures with Allin's corpse covered in blood and feces and wearing a skirt.  

GG Allin's funeral took place on July 3, 1993 in his native New Hampshire. GG's brother Merle forbade the undertaker from washing or preserving the body,  so at his funeral, Allin's bloated, unpreserved corpse still covered in feces was dressed in his black leather jacket and jock strap. Friends posed for pictures with his corpse and shoved drugs and whiskey into his mouth, and he was laid to rest in the plot reserved for his mother.

GG Allin's tombstone read 'Live Fast Die - Rock N Roll Terrorist' but was removed because the grave was frequently vandalized with urine, cigarette butts, and feces by fans.

Despite Johnny Puke's efforts to reclaim the photographs of Allin's corpse confiscated by the police, they refused and are presumably still at Manhattan's 9th precinct.

Painting of Allin in his casket by friend and serial killer John Wayne Gacy