"Among the early regulars was a group from the Second City comic troupe, including Don Novello, John Belushi and Bill Murray. They downed beer and coffee..."

"... and marveled at Mr. Sianis’s kind but firm handling of first-timers who expected his tiny grill to turn out anything other than cheeseburgers...."

I'm reading "Sam Sianis, ‘Cheezborger’-Flipping Owner of Chicago’s Billy Goat Tavern, Dies at 91/His dive bar became famous thanks to Mike Royko’s columns, a baseball curse and a 'Saturday Night Live' skit" (NYT).

"The phrase 'cheezborger cheezborger' entered the pop-culture lexicon and made the Billy Goat and Mr. Sianis a tourist attraction. During the summer of 1978, at the inaugural ChicagoFest festival on Navy Pier, Mr. Sianis set up a booth where he and Mr. Belushi recreated his quirky grill for thousands of fans."

50 years ago today: "ROME, MAY 21—Michelangelo's Pieta, one of the world's most celebrated sculptures, was severely damaged today when a man attacked it with a hammer in St. Peter's Basilica."

"Hundreds of Whitsunday worshipers, pilgrims and tourists watched in horror as a young man with long reddish hair and a beard pushed into the side chapel to the right of the main entrance to St. Peter's, where the Pieta is on display over, an altar. He climbed over a marble balustrade, went up the stairs to the platform on which the sculpture rests, pulled out a hammer from under a raincoat he had over his arm and started battering the marble, shouting, 'I'm Jesus Christ.' The blows shattered the left arm of the figure of the Virgin Mary in the marble group and also chipped the nose, the left eye and the veil covering the hair... The assailant, who was identified as Laszlo Toth, 33 years old, of Sydney, Australia, was able to strike four or five hammer blows amid the gasps and shouts of the crowd before an Italian fireman ran up to him and pulled him down by his hair.... A Vatican spokesman said later that Mr. Toth had told Archbishop Benelli in English: 'If you kill me, so much the better, because I'll go straight to heaven.' The Hungarian‐born Mr. Toth had been living in Rome for some time and had acquired some notoriety for bizarre conduct. In an interview last November, II Messaggero of Rome presented him as a 'local character of sorts,' quoting Mr. Toth as saying that he was a geologist and had left Australia two years ago to return to Europe because 'I have seven mysteries to reveal.'"

The NYT reported, 50 years ago.

We're told that Pope Paul inspected the damage, knelt and prayed in front of it, and was overheard saying "Also most serious moral damage."

cc Stanislav Traykov.

ADDED: "Lazlo Toth" was used as a pen name by the comedian Don Novello (who played Father Guido Sarducci on "Saturday Night Live").

In the 1970s, Novello started to write letters to famous people under the pen name of Lazlo Toth (after Laszlo Toth, a deranged man who vandalized Michelangelo's Pietà in Rome). The letters, written to suggest a serious but misinformed and obtuse correspondent, were designed to tweak the noses of politicians and corporations. Many of them received serious responses; Novello sometimes continued the charade correspondence at length, with humorous results. The letters and responses were published in the books The Lazlo Letters, Citizen Lazlo!, and From Bush to Bush: The Lazlo Toth Letters.

Here's the Wikipedia article for Lazlo Toth, the vandal: 

He was not charged with a criminal offence after the incident, but was hospitalized in Italy for two years. On his release, he was immediately deported to Australia.... In June 1971 he moved to Rome, Italy, knowing no Italian, intending to become recognized as Christ.

The correct spelling of the name is Laszlo Toth.

Toth is on Wikipedia's "List of people claimed to be Jesus."