September 9, 1992 - The tail end of the first Bush Presidency, what do you remember about it? If you are like millions of Americans, you will remember that on this day, Kurt Cobain wore a Daniel Johnston T-shirt to the MTV music awards. And then for weeks afterward, your hip, indie friends all-of-a-sudden started pretending that not only did they love Daniel Johnston, but also that they hadn’t first heard of Daniel Johnston because they saw Kurt Cobain wearing a Daniel Johnston T-shirt on the MTV music awards. They heard of Daniel Johnston in a ‘zine review and ordered a cassette. “Oh really? Where is that cassette,” you ask? Their car stereo ate it your hip, indie friend reports. Plausible deniability, the mainstay of the CIA and Hispters.

Call me crazy, but there really is a similarity in their appearance. To me, it seems like Daniel Johnston could have been the crazy big brother that Kurt Cobain clearly needed. Kurt Cobain died, as you may be aware, of an unfortunate self-inflicted shotgun wound (or was it a conspiracy of Andy Rooney fans?). Daniel Johnston inexplicably trundled along, writing music in his most unique style and triggering the “He’s got guts just to get up there” reflex among several generations of hipsters. Now that I think about it, I even think Andy Rooney looks like Cobain and Johnston. If it turns out that the three were triplets separated at birth and put into a time machine to be sent to different eras, you heard it here first.

September 9, 1982 - If you were to ask me how old the commercialization of space was, I’d instantly say, “Why exactly as old as Japanese Pop Star Ai Otsuka, of course.” And unfortunately, both are Too Old to Rock. While Ai Otsuka was busy being born in a manner that must have been impossibly cute–with rainbows, teddy bear nurses, and a doctor in the form of an anthropomorphic Rutabaga (Oh Japan, why are you so weird?)–the Conestoga I was being launched. It became the first privately funded rocket to reach space. Unfortunately, Space Services Inc. never really took off, so to speak. They did manage to launch several more rockets, but by the time they were really up and running the Soviet Union had collapsed and it was cheaper to pay the Russians to launch your satellite.

In Japan, I understand, this sort of image is completely innocent…
On this day as well, Justine Gabrielle Flynn was last seen in California, near the Golden Gate Bridge. She has been missing ever since. On September 3rd of this year a skull, several bones and some clothing fragments turned up on land on the Marin County side of the bridge. The remains are still in the process of being identified. 1,200 (or more) people have leaped to their deaths from the Golden Gate Bridge since it opened in 1937.
Justine Gabrielle Flynn

September 9, 1968 - As Arthur Ashe was winning the inaugural U.S. Open, he had no idea that “Saffy” of Absolutely Fabulous was being born. Julia Sawalha has survived the intervening 42 years, Arthur Ashe sadly passed away far too young, but not before bettering the lives of many. When he was denied admittance to South Africa to play in the open tournament, Ashe used this denial to bring attention to Apartheid policies. Ashe continued to focus on civil rights issues, and was arrested in front of the South African Embassy in Washington DC in 1985. He finally travelled to South Africa with a delegation to observe the transitional government near the end of his life. I am sure Saffron Monsoon would approve.
September 9, 1945 - Grace Hopper, who retired from the navy as an Admiral, on this day discovered a literal bug in a relay on Mark II computer. She taped the bug into a log and the terms “bug” and “debugging” have stuck in the computer world since then. Grace Hopper’s contributions to computer science are too numerous to mention, and frankly, too complicated for me to get. She developed the first compiler for a computer language, she conceptualized machine-independent programming languages which lead to COBOL and I suppose, things like Java. And she contributed to language testing standards.

September 9, 1926 - How old is NBC? How old is the concept of a “network”? Well, to answer that question, just ask Yusuf al-Qaradawi, as they were both born on the same day. Al-Qaradawi is the beneficiary of RCA’s innovation in creating the concept of the network, in that he has a popular program on Al Jazeera that is still going strong. I would guess that al-Qaradawi is to the Islamic World as someone like Pat Robertson is to US Christianity.
Quickly:
33 - The Jesus Year: First TRS-80 SOLD
35 - Old Enough to be President: Viking 2 Mars probe launched.
