Today is the birthday of a great comedian. The name is Jerome Lester Horwitz! And I can hear all of you saying "Who?" Well of course, he was better known as Curly Howard of the Three Stooges. Along with his brother Harry Moses Horwitz (better known as Moe Howard) and Larry Fine, they made the classically funny trio "The Three Stooges" Curly lived a relativerly short life (1903-1952) besieged by hypertension and other maladies and was brilliantly portrayed by Michael Chicklas ("The Shield") in the 2000 ABC TV movie "The Three Stooges" The group came about because of a child hood friendship that Moe had with a guy called Ted Healy. In 1922, Ted formed the group "Ted Healy and the Southern Gentlemen which was changed to "Ted Healy and the Racketeers "and finally (thank goodness) "Ted Healy and the Three Stooges" Their first short as simply "The Three Stooges came in 1930 for MGM called "Soup To Nuts". The Stooges themselves made 190 short films until they were unceremoniously fired from Columbia Pictures in 1957. Curly was always my favorite of the Stooges and he helped me laugh a lot in my childhood. Shemp replaced him after a stroke felled him in 1948, and Curly never recovered. Moe was very protective of his "baby brother" and called him "Babe". Funny, that was Oliver Hardy's nickname as well! The Stooges became popular again in 1959 when Columbia Pictures sold all of the Stooges shorts to television. But a wise Moe Howard bought all the trademarks and copyrights shortly thereafter in the mid 60's. Now the families of these great comedians own everything-- just as it should be! Another day at work and more marketing ahead this week-- I am going to submit like crazy. I have this wonderful book that cost me $70 and I'm going to use it well! I have new letterhead, an amazing new business card and I'm really got a heads up on a great packaging format. So with God's help-- maybe it will work big time! Anticipation of course on my part because in the coming weeks my niece is expecting a baby boy and my nephew and his wife are expecting another baby girl-- my family is growing yet once again! My sister Rosemary will be a grandmother at last!