Happy Deathday, Tight Lips

If you're looking for sanctuary from pink glitter hearts today, welcome.

Today is Valentine's Day, but the only red hearts here are bleeding ones. Bleeding from bullets. Bleeding from murder. Murder by gansters.
Yep, today is the 78th anniversary of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, when Al Capone's South Side gang went and shot up "Bugs" Moran's North Side gang.
Just to keep my balance on this sugar-coated, red wine and roses day, I did a little reading on this bootlegging business bloodshed. While it is a somewhat interesting story that I've known for years, I think the trivial facts I learned today are more entertaining.

Where once stood the SMC Cartage Company building, where these dirty deeds took place, is now a parking lot for a nursing home.
The former garage was torn down brick by brick in 1967, and rebuilt as a wall in the men's restroom of a bar called the Banjo Palace. Used as a urinal, the wall was painted with targets which drunken patrons would try pissing on. If they were successful, a waterfall would flush away the piss.
When the bar closed, owner George Patey tried to auction the bricks off on a website called, Jet Set on the Net. When that didn't work, he tried selling them himself, brick by brick, but I think he died before he finished.

Feel better now? I sure do.