CelticCurls's blog
Hug a Ginger Day / Kick a Ginger Day
As Violence Continues, Countermovement Strengthens
I didn't blog about "Kick a Ginger Day" earlier last week. I was hoping that the day of gingerism spawned from a Facebook group spawned from a stupid intrepretation of the South Park episode "Ginger Kids" would quietly die out after its mild commotion in Canada last year. (Some background on "Kick a Ginger Day" and a clip from the inspiring South Park episode can be found here.) Unfortunately, it seems we've had something of a second annual event.
Violence against redheads continued this November 20, 2009, possibly worse the the inaugural 2008 event:
- More than 24 students were suspended at a Canadian school for allegedly beating 4 redhead students.
- Up to 14 students in Calabasas, California, United States beat up a 12-year-old redhead boy.
Apparently, the phenomenon is not being contained within English language countries.
Articles in other languges:
- 14-year-old Redhead Girl Takes Taxi Home from School after Pushing and Kicking (English Auto-Translation)
- Redheads taunted by peers that Friday will be the day in Bergen, Norway (English Auto-Translation)
- Uakseptabel netthets mot rødhårede (Norwegian / norsk)
- Skämt blev till hot Otryggt för rödhåriga (Swedish / Svenska)
Universal Hug a Ginger Day
Fortunately a redhead woman Gillian stepped in and turned the Facebook group around, creating "Hug a Ginger Day" in its place. While the "Kick a Ginger Day" group peaked at 5,000, the new "Hug a Ginger Day" has a very respectable following of 1,300 members. The group asks, "Next November 20th why not give a red head friend a hug instead of a kick?"
Facebook Group: Universal Hug a Ginger Day
Let's hope 2010 brings more peace to gingers. 
Jesse Sheehan of Wellington College in New Zealand won 1st place in the Smokefree Rockquest, a battle of the bands of sorts that has been going on for a number of years. The musician with a head of poofy red hair sung and played acoustic guitar for three original songs that wowed the judges.
One of those songs is entitled, "Brothers and Sisters" ("Brothers"), and its music video will be one of redheads' new favorites. The reason? Director Ivan Barge and Jesse realized when working on the music video for the winning song that they both had red hair. So why not make a music video with a bunch of redheads!
By the looks of it, they gathered close to 20 redheads from social networking and people on the street to appear in the video.
Jesse's Webpages:
You can see a live performance of "Brothers and Sisters" here. I'm eagerly awaiting the finished music video. 
Very cool.
Redhead You Didn't Know!
Cassandra Peterson
by CelticCurls
CelticCurls Author's Note: This is a timely Halloween repeat of a blog from May on another site. I'm already researching another fun one and hope to make "Redhead You Didn't Know" a semi-regular feature.
Have you ever heard of this redhead? She was born in 1951 and still looks remarkable in the recent photo shown below. She holds the Guinness Book of World Record's title for youngest show-girl ever in Las Vegas, starting that job days after graduation in 1969. She makes two small appearances as a redhead showgirl in James Bond 007 movie, Diamonds are Forever. She even was part of an Italian band and had a small role in film. Elvis dated her for awhile!
But...do you really know who this fabulous redhead is?? (scroll down for the answer)
Keep scrolling...
And scrolling....
That's right! None other than Elvira, Mistress of the Dark!
The campy, valley-girl/goth-influencing woman with the quick-sarcastic wit, hosting awful B-films from her red Victorian couch during the 1980's. Her Los Angeles-based show became syndicated nationwide in the U.S., with tons of talk show appearances, and even a few movies. She's the one who's become a sort of unofficial hostess of all things horror and halloween.
Couldn't wait until Halloween to share this with all of you - I never would have guessed, but in retrospect, it all makes sense.
Here's a sample from her tv show:
Elvira Introduces B-Film Eegah on "Midnight Madness"
or Watch Full Episodes of Elvira Movie Macabre on Hulu.com
Until next time, "unpleasant dreams..."
Wow!
That's about all I can say. If you had told me 2 weeks ago, that next week I and my fellow Dutch redhead geek friend would build an entire social network in about a week, I wouldn't have believed it.
But here we are, using some off-the-shelf components, some decent hosting, fiddling and debugging, a little programming here and there to smooth things out, and just hours and hours of work: it's here.
Not to say there isn't plenty of work left ahead, and due to that, I must keep this blog short.
Wouter705 & I welcome all you redheads and redhead lovers! I hope that this free network will meet and exceed your needs!
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