Bummer August 28 with Disaster Area Podcast

August 28, 1943: A housekeeper enters Room 729 of the Claypool Hotel in downtown Indianapolis and discovers the body of 28-year-old Cpl. Maoma L. Ridings of the Women’s Army Corps (WACs). Partially dressed in her WAC uniform, Ridings appears to have been beaten with the half-empty whiskey bottle found in her room. The case is never solved. 

August 28, 1988: More than 300 people are injured and 75 are killed when three aircraft collide at an air show in Rammstein, Germany.

August 28, 2003: 46-year-old pizza delivery driver Brian Wells dies in Erie, Pennsylvania, after robbing a PNC Bank branch. His cause of death is by an explosive collar around his neck rigged to explode. Four people are charged with conspiring to commit the crime; Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong receives a life sentence for being the mastermind behind the strange crime. Investigators suspect Wells may have been a willing participant in the robbery, possibly under the impression that the bomb wasn’t real, although Wells’s family disputes this accusation.

August 28, 2004: 23-year-old Francis Brohm has been drinking and watching NASCAR in a bar with his friend John Hutcherson. Hutcherson drives them home in his truck. On the ride home, Brohm feels nauseated and sticks his head out the window. His head strikes a telephone pole support wire, decapitating and killing him instantly. Hutcherson continues to drive 12 miles home and goes to bed with Brohm’s headless body in his truck. 

Brohm’s death is reported to police the next morning when one of Hutcherson’s neighbors, out for a walk with his one-year-old daughter, sees it inside the truck. Police arrive at Hutcherson’s home to find him in bed, still intoxicated and apparently unaware of what’s happened the night before.

August 28, 2020: 43-year-old actor Chadwick Boseman passes away from colon cancer.

https://amzn.to/44O6Ldn

If you enjoy the Disaster Area podcast and want to support author/podcaster Jennifer Matarese, the following are some links to her social media accounts. I want her to be able to afford to write her next book, because I really want to read it. Become her patron on Patreon; you'll feel like a Renaissance-era Venetian arts patron, turning your money into art.

Tumblr: trollprincess

Instagram: disasterareapod

Patreon: disasterareapodcast 

Mastodon: trollprincess@ohai.social

Twitter: https://twitter.com/trollprincess

Hive: trollprincess

If you don't have money--this is quite understandable--the best free way to support Jennifer and her research, writing, and podcasting is to give Disaster Area a 5-star review on any podcast platform that allows reviews. Especially Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disaster-area/id1071491908). Giving a podcaster a 5-star review on Apple increases their podcast's visibility to new potential listeners.

https://amzn.to/43VYG5c

August 2023 Deals on Audible.com

While your humble blogger (that's me) is (still) in between day jobs, I've signed up to try my hand as an Amazon affiliate. As my loyal readers know, I'm a big reader and listener-to of podcasts, so it seems like a natural fit for me to recommend some audiobooks. These books are on sale through September 1, 2023 at midnight. 

These are affiliate links, so if you click through and purchase something, I may earn a small commission on your purchase. Hopefully you have some Audible credits!

Link: https://amzn.to/3rUMc0m

Link: https://amzn.to/3OmO2il

Link: https://amzn.to/3rWBQNL

Link: https://amzn.to/43NkEHH

You can read my review of Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman here.

Link: https://amzn.to/3YlQABy

Not just any major motion picture, but a major motion picture starring sexy Lady Gaga and sexy Adam Driver.

Link: https://amzn.to/44P1Qcr

I have a copy of this audiobook; I haven't listened to it yet:

Link: https://amzn.to/44J865j

Bahni Turpin is a legendary audiobook narrator whose many, many credits include The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Hate U Give, Children of Blood and Bone, Hidden Figures, and The Twelve Tribes of Hattie.

Link: https://amzn.to/3OhEMf7

Link: https://amzn.to/43SfKJi

Bummer August 12 with Disaster Area Podcast

August 12, 1964: Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels and of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, dies of a heart attack.

August 12, 1982: Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into a mountain after the pilots lose the ability to steer the plane. Of the 509 passengers and 15 crew members, only three passengers and one crew member survive. Rescue operations are delayed due to darkness and mountainous terrain, which means many people who may have initially had non-fatal injuries died of exposure, blood loss, and other conditions. 

August 12, 1988: Haitian-American Neo-Expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is pronounced dead at the hospital after being found unresponsive at his home in Manhattan. His cause of death is heroin overdose. Basquiat is 27 years old.

August 12, 2022: Indian-British author Salman Rushdie is stabbed ten times at an event in Chautauqua, New York, allegedly by a 24-year-old man from New Jersey. Rushdie suffers nerve damage to one arm, one eye, and his liver. The attacker was apparently motivated by a late Iranian religious leader’s description of Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses as blasphemous since it depicted the prophet Muhammad as a fictional character. Rushdie is an atheist. The attacker had not read The Satanic Verses.

https://amzn.to/3YkAOHu

If you enjoy the Disaster Area podcast and want to support author/podcaster Jennifer Matarese, the following are some links to her social media accounts. I want her to be able to afford to write her next book, because I really want to read it. Become her patron on Patreon; you'll feel like a Renaissance-era Venetian arts patron, turning your money into art.

Tumblr: trollprincess

Instagram: disasterareapod

Patreon: disasterareapodcast 

Mastodon: trollprincess@ohai.social

Twitter: https://twitter.com/trollprincess

Hive: trollprincess

If you don't have money--this is quite understandable--the best free way to support Jennifer and her research, writing, and podcasting is to give Disaster Area a 5-star review on any podcast platform that allows reviews. Especially Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disaster-area/id1071491908). Giving a podcaster a 5-star review on Apple increases their podcast's visibility to new potential listeners.

Out Now from Viva Editions: School Insecurity

eBook Links:

Amazon/Kindle: https://amzn.to/45kC5Av - affiliate link

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/school-insecurity-wayne-black/1143126510?ean=9781632281463

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Wayne_Black_School_Insecurity?id=aBmyEAAAQBAJ&pli=1

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/school-insecurity/id6446096837

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/school-insecurity

Audiobook Link - Audible: https://amzn.to/45GwOUb - affiliate link

August Is Black Business Month

POWERHANDZ is a business that makes products for athletic rehabilitation and training. They make products for all kinds of sports, but of course my favorite is basketball.

https://amzn.to/3O2upwX

If you're not into basketball, maybe a vegan, cruelty-free makeup kit from Bossy Cosmetics is more your style. 

https://amzn.to/3XGnFrC

The Josephine candle, inspired by Josephine Baker, has top notes of citrus and bergamot.

https://amzn.to/3O4nPpv

Harlem Candle Co.'s other scents include Lady Day, with top notes of neroli blossom and lush green leaves. 

https://amzn.to/44xvKkL

There's also a candle scent inspired by Langston Hughes.

https://amzn.to/44rLZ2O

I've been to Venice Beach, but I've never been to the Venice Beach Beverage Store. If I had been, I surely would have had one of these delicious-sounding ginger teas. Probably the chai.

https://amzn.to/44xQ5X6

Bummer August: The Update

In August 2022, I saw Jordan Peele's Nope and had the idea for a spin-off almanac of just the bad stuff. As a preview of my work in progress, I've been bringing you, the reader, posts about the most unpleasant historical happenings I come across, with a literary focus. 

The following is additional material that's gone into the August entries since last year. In other words, there are some of the things I missed in last August's post.

August 1, 1994: An electrical fault sparks a fire at Norwich Central Library in Norwich, England, that destroys an estimated 100,000 books and historical papers.

August 1, 2018: 32-year-old Canadian model, artist, and actor Rick Genest, known as Zombie Boy for his numerous bone- and viscera-themed tattoos, dies from an accidental fall from an icy balcony where he has apparently gone to smoke a cigarette.

August 3, 1924: Author Joseph Conrad dies of a heart attack at age 66.

August 3, 1966: 40-year-old comedian Lenny Bruce is found dead of an apparently accidental morphine overdose.

August 4, 1875: Hans Christian Andersen dies, possibly suffering from liver cancer and never having recovered from injuries from falling out of his bed.

August 4, 1962: Marilyn Monroe dies, apparently by suicide, of an overdose of prescription sleeping medicine.

August 8, 1965: American author Shirley Jackson dies at age 48 of cardiac arrest, possibly brought on by her alcoholism and use of a variety of prescription medicines. 

August 12, 2022: Indian-British author Salman Rushdie is stabbed ten times at an event in Chautauqua, New York, allegedly by a 24-year-old man from New Jersey. Rushdie suffers nerve damage to one arm, one eye, and his liver. The attacker was apparently motivated by a late Iranian religious leader’s description of Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses as blasphemous since it depicted the prophet Muhammad as a fictional character. 

Rushdie is an atheist. The attacker had not read The Satanic Verses.

August 16, 1949: Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell dies in the hospital of injuries she sustained on August 11th when she was struck by a speeding car with an intoxicated driver. The driver was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served 11 months in jail.

August 18, 1992: On or around this date, 24-year-old adventurer Christopher McCandless dies of apparent starvation in the Alaskan wilderness. The story of his nomadic, short life is the basis of the book and film Into the Wild. 

Find on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1845.Into_the_Wild

August 19, 1936: According to LitHub, “Federico García Lorca—the Spanish avant-garde poet, playwright, and ardent socialist—was shot and killed by Nationalist militia before being buried in an unmarked mass grave somewhere outside Granada, where he remains to this day.”

Lorca had predicted his manner of death in his 1929 poem “The Fable And Round of the Three Friends:”

“Then I realized I had been murdered.

They looked for me in cafes, cemeteries and churches

…. but they did not find me.

They never found me?

No. They never found me.”

https://www.redbubble.com/i/sticker/Federico-Garc%C3%ADa-Lorca-FIGHT-FASCISTS-by-ErinORiordan/142424208.EJUG5

August 23, 1981: East German comedic actor Rolf Herricht suffers a heart attack and dies while performing in Kiss Me Kate at Berlin’s Metropol theatre.

August 25, 1914: During World War I, German troops occupying Leuven, Belgium, set fire to the city and destroying almost half of it. 300 civilians die. Included in the burning and destruction is the library of the Catholic University of Leuven, which loses approximately 230,000 materials, including priceless medieval manuscripts.

August 25, 1992: The National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina is destroyed by Serbian bombing during the Siege of Sarajevo.