It’s the feel good hit of this endless summer

Here is your open thread for April 11, 2020.

It’s the birthday of Richard Berry Jr., who would have been 85 years old today. Berry sang with and led a lot of bands and doo-wop groups in the early days of rock and roll —  the Penguins, the Cadets and the Chimes, the Crowns, the Five Hearts, the Hunters, the Rams, the Whips, the Dreamers, the Debonaires, the Flairs, the Robins. But it’s the song he wrote and recorded with the Pharaohs that makes today, Richard Berry’s birthday, a day recognized by the National Special Events Registry as International Louie Louie Day.

April 11 is Juan Santamaria Day in Costa Rica. Santamaria was a drummer boy who was gunned down 164 while setting fire to the last hold-out of the mercenary army of human traffickers that was trying to take over Central America. No, really, this was a thing that happened.

An American freebooter named William Walker spent most of his miserable life trying to take over some region of Latin America where he could become emperor and create a plantation-slavery state. He and his army of thugs had taken over the Nicaraguan city of Rivas, but were chased out on April 11, 1856, by the Costa Rican military after Santamaria sacrificed himself to burn the mansion they had seized. Walker responded to this defeat by contaminating area wells by dumping corpses into them, spawning a cholera epidemic that wound up killing about a tenth of the population of Costa Rica.

Walker later succeeded in taking over Nicaragua, proclaiming himself its president and attempting to institute American-style plantation slavery there. He ruled Nicaragua for almost a year before he and his mercenary army were sent packing by armies from throughout Central America who didn’t want to be enslaved by depraved white sociopaths. Walker was executed by firing squad in Honduras in 1860.

Again, really, this was a thing that happened.

The BPOE — the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks — was founded on April 11, 1868. It was a “fraternal organization,” meaning mostly a collection of local “lodges” where you could have a beer in a private club. The BPOE in Dunellen was on my paper route growing up and I just thought of them as Boy Scouts for grown-ups and the sponsor of a not-very-good Little League team. I didn’t realize that the Elks were an explicitly whites only club and that even then, when I was a kid, they were still kicking out any local lodges that challenged that policy. I don’t mention that to take away from the Elks’ reputation as a red-blooded, all-American, mom-and-apple-pie institution, but rather to highlight that this is what being a red-blooded, All-American, mom-and-apple-pie institution always turns out to mean.

Jane Bolin was born 112 years ago today. She became the first black woman to graduate from Yale Law School (or, in other words, she was too impressive for Yale Law School to maintain any further excuses for its previous policy of not allowing black women to graduate) and went on to become the first black woman to serve as a judge in the United States.

Anton Szandor LaVey would have been 90 years old today. He was born Howard Stanton Levey, but had to change his name to make his High Priest of the Church of Satan bwaaah bwaaaaah shtick work. My favorite thing about Anton LaVey comes from Jon Trott and Mike Hertenstein’s Selling Satan, which I shared an excerpt from here. It involves Folger’s coffee and Gershwin tunes.

Mark Strand would have been 86 today.

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

Michael Callen, an AIDS activist who early on warned of the need for “safe sex,” would have been 65 today. He’s gone, but others are still here because of him.

Tony winner Joel Grey turns 88 today and Tony winner Bill Irwin turns 70. (Like many great stage actors, you might recognize them from their guest spots on various Law & Order shows.)

Lisa Stansfield turns 54 today and Joss Stone turns 33.

Here’s one more for International Louie Louie Day (wait for it …):

Talk amongst yourselves.