Mark Damen birthday game in print

This week I'm going to place one of my YouTube games in print once again so that you can keep your brain cells active by engaging wildly.

I have nothing original going on in my own mind so I'm going this route. We took a week off here at the award-winning Community News and I'm still trying to get back into the swing of things. At any rate, we celebrated a fellow from across the pond named Mark during a recent live gig on the occasion of his birthday.

For those of you who are new to this space in the paper, I will simply plunk down a few questions from a game that I created for my YouTube channel right here. It usually amounts to about twenty questions when all is said and done as they won't all fit here.

Plus, I oft' use visual aids during the actual live gigs and clearly cannot do so here. The answers, plus any additional information pertaining to some questions, will be at the end of this piece. The questions will range from things that happened on his day and year of birth as well as items about his hobbies, etc. While I have you I guess I should say: Happy New Year—there I said it.

One: Mark Damen would be considered to be a Scouser because he comes from this particular city in England originally.

Two: The capital of Mark's country is Cardiff. What is this UK country?

Three: This person is well known for his rather magical wardrobe, to put it mildly. When I say “wardrobe,” I mean the kind that holds clothing, like a closet. Anyhow, he held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University and Cambridge University. He was born on November 29, 1898.

Four: On November 29, 1929, the first airplane flight over this region took place and was carried out by Commander Richard E. Byrd. A lot of so called conspiracies are linked to this region as well.

Five: Mark Damen enjoys 1930s comedy so here we go: The billing for this flick was The BLANK BLANK the maddest comics of them all, star in Animal Crackers. Fill in the blanks.

Six: A spoiled heiress elopes with a pilot and fortune-hunter against the wishes of her extremely wealthy father. Dad wants to have the marriage annulled because he knows the pilot is really only interested in her money. Jumping ship in Florida, she runs away and boards a Greyhound bus to New York City to reunite with her husband. She meets a fellow bus passenger who is a freshly out-of-work newspaper reporter. Soon he recognizes her and gives her a choice: If she will give him an exclusive on her story, he will help her reunite with hubby. If not, he will tell her father where she is. She agrees to the first choice and they end up falling madly in love. Of what 1934 romantic comedy do I speak?

Seven: What is the guiding principle of Starfleet which prohibits its members from interfering with the internal and natural development of alien civilizations? All EMPIRES like the US of A could take a page from this book, in my not-so-humble view.

Eight: A German professor believes there are volcanic tubes going toward the midst of the world so he and his nephew and a guide descend into an Icelandic volcano and encounter many adventures along the way including, but not limited to prehistoric animals and natural hazards. They finally surface again in southern Italy at yet another volcano. Yes, I put this into my own words. What on earth is this jazz?

Nine: In 1966, this person, who happens to hail from Mark Damen's old hometown across the pond, caused massive pearl clutching to ensue when he declared that a particular musical act was bigger than Jesus.

Ten: In 1967 this individual won the Grammy for Best Female R&B vocal performance. The category was created that year as well. She went on to win again in 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, and 1974.

Eleven: In October 1967, Roger Patterson recorded something at Bluff Creek, California. It has become one of the most viewed video clips in history. What did he film?

Twelve: In 1967 which company's slogan claimed that they had the loneliest repairmen in town?

Thirteen: In the UK in 1967 men over 21 were officially allowed to partake in something due to the Sexual Offenses Act of the same year. What was it?

Fourteen: Soldiers testing THIS in Canada were told that it was completely safe and sprayed it on each other to cool off. It is heavily associated with Vietnam and Monsanto.

Fifteen: Many who are into the “PRT” Paul Replacement Theory or PID, Paul is Dead jazz, (McCartney) noticed a total change by the time THIS 1967 album was launched. The artwork on the front clearly shows a funeral scene and other “eerie” things as well.

Sixteen: In 1967 the first hand held one of these was developed. Thank goodness as the subject matter with which it deals is my WORST, as many of you know.

Seventeen: This person was featured in over 80 films, received 5 academy nominations and was in 13 television productions. From going to DC to interacting with a rabbit, he seems to have covered all bases. Indiana PA is his hometown. Mark Damen lives for him.

Eighteen: Mark digs this type of dancing which developed into its most intricate form in the North of England, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Durham and the Lake District. It involves a certain type of inflexible wooded soled shoe. It's also a way to describe a drain that is stopped up!

Nineteen: In 1967 the Belly O the Beast and Russia signed a treaty agreeing to not NUKE this item. I'm sure the MAN on it was relieved!

Twenty: This person was an English writer who was prolific in many genres, writing dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, satire, biography, and autobiography, including even two books on war games. He might be best known for his book which was one of the first to tell a story of mankind having to fight against an ET presence. He's a biggie in the Sci Fi world, to say the least.

Answers: One, Liverpool. Two, Wales.

Three, C.S. Lewis. Four, South Pole.

Five, Marx Brothers. Six, “It Happened One Night.”

Seven, The Prime Directive. Eight, Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne.

Nine, John Lennon. Ten, Aretha Franklin.

Eleven, Big Foot. Twelve, Maytag.

Thirteen, Be gay, homosexuality legalized, anything along those lines is fine. A bit more info: The Sexual Offenses Act 1967 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It decriminalized homosexual acts in private between two men, both of whom had to have attained the age of 21. The Act applied only to England and Wales and did not cover the Merchant Navy or the Armed Forces.

Fourteen, Agent Orange. More info: Monsanto’s record in the country goes back at least a half century, when it was first called upon by the U.S. government to produce Agent Orange, used by U.S. troops to strip Vietnamese forces of ground cover and food. The organization was one of a handful of companies that supplied the U.S government with the chemical during the war. Between 1961 and 1971, the U.S. Army sprayed some 12 million gallons of Agent Orange containing the highly toxic substance dioxin over a large portion of southern Vietnam.

Fifteen, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Sixteen, Calculator. Seventeen, Jimmy Stewart, James Stewart. Eighteen, Clog, Clogging, Clog dancing.

Nineteen, The Moon. Twenty, HG Wells.

THE END (Interstate Crosscheck, War is a Racket by General Smedley Butler, Where did the Towers Go, by Dr. Judy Wood)