from Bruce
Anecdotes
Ad-Libs
• Back when vaudeville was alive and well, Eddie Cantor and George Jessel were performing together. Mr. Cantor made an ad-lib that got a big laugh, and then Mr. Jessel made an ad-lib that got an even bigger laugh. Not knowing anything to say to get a bigger laugh than Mr. Jessel, Mr. Cantor took off a shoe and hit Mr. Jessel on the head with it. Upset, in part because of the huge laugh that Mr. Cantor had gotten by hitting him, Mr. Jessel started complaining to the audience, “Ladies and gentlemen, this so-called grown-up man, whom I have the misfortune to be working with, is so lacking in decorum, breeding, and intelligence, that when he was unable to think of a clever retort he had to descend to the lowest form of humor by taking off his shoe and striking me on the head. Only an insensitive oaf would sink so low.” Mr. Cantor had the perfect response to Mr. Jessel’s speech. He hit Mr. Jessel on the head with his shoe again.
• Being an insult comedian has its advantages. Comedians Don Rickles and Joan Rivers performed together in Miami, Florida. A Florida judge asked, “Mr. Rickles, why don’t you come have lunch and play golf tomorrow?” If he had asked Ms. Rivers, she would have politely replied, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I have a prior family engagement and I can’t get out of it, but thank you.” Mr. Rickles, on the other hand, is an insult comedian, so he replied, “Listen: One, I’m leaving town. Two, you’re a putz. You’re loud, obnoxious, incredibly boring, and I wouldn’t play golf with you because I don’t live here and you couldn’t fix a ticket. No.” What was the judge’s response to being insulted by a famous insult comedian? He laughed.
• Comedian Joey Bishop was quick with an ad-lib and with a joke. One evening he was performing in a nightclub when glamorous actress Marilyn Monroe came in wearing very expensive furs. Mr. Bishop said to her, “Marilyn, I told you to sit in the truck.” And after he got a small part in the movie The Naked and the Dead, he told an audience, “I played both parts.” Mr. Bishop didn’t mind making fun of his good friend Frank Sinatra, who did mind when people other than Mr. Bishop made fun of him. Mr. Bishop once said about his good friend, “Frank regularly calls Dial-A-Prayer to pick up his messages.”
• One of stand-up comedian Greg Dean’s students made the mistake of rehearsing her act silently instead of out loud, with the result that, as Mr. Dean had predicted, she forgot her act when she got up in front of a nightclub audience. Fortunately, she maintained a playful attitude and got a few laughs ad-libbing a few jokes about forgetting her act. When Mr. Dean yelled out a few words to remind her of the topic of one of her funniest bits, she got a laugh by saying to him, “Thanks, Greg, now I have to stay up here and actually do my show.”
• On Jack Benny’s radio show, Virgil Reimer, the show’s sound-effects man, ran into a problem. A telephone was supposed to ring on the show, and he had just discovered that the machine that was supposed to make the sound of a telephone had weak batteries and wasn’t working. Therefore, Mr. Reimer said into a microphone, “Ding-a-ling-ling.” The audience in the radio studio laughed, and Mr. Benny ad-libbed, “I’ll get it — it sounds like a person-to-person call.”
• British comedian Danny La Rue performed in drag, and he was very funny. One night, a woman in the audience was annoyed that her boyfriend was paying attention to Mr. La Rue’s performance instead of paying attention to her, so she bared her breasts and told her boyfriend, “Look — these are real.” From the stage, Mr. La Rue said, “Yes, darling, they are — but I can hang mine up when it’s hot!”
Advertising
• The profit motive makes many retailers feel kindly toward men who like to dress like women. Joan Rivers was selling some of her bejeweled products on the Home Shopping Network when a person named “Margaret” telephoned to rave about a certain bejeweled product she had previously purchased. Based on the sound of Margaret’s voice, Miss Veronica Vera, founder of Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to be Girls, wondered whether Margaret’s real name might be Pete rather than Peggy. Ms. Rivers didn’t care either way — she kept on plugging her bejeweled products.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: “Bar do Zé” [“Joee’s Bar”]
Album: HENRIQUE SAN PRESENTS: FOOTSTEP SURF MUSIC BAND ACOUSTIC SESSION
Artist: Footstep Surf Music Band
Artist Location: Campinas, Brazil
Info: Instrumental surf music band, formed in September 2007 - Campinas - São Paulo - Brazil
Check out Footstep Surf Music Band on Bandcamp; they have lots of FREE music.
Price: Name Your Price (Includes FREE)
Genre: Instrumental. Surf.
Links:
HENRIQUE SAN PRESENTS: FOOTSTEP SURF MUSIC BAND ACOUSTIC SESSION
Footstep Surf Music Band
Footstep Surf Music Band on YouTube
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Reader Comment
Current Events
Cruz shoots himself in the foot
Gets DRAGGED for being an ass:
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny but extra brisk, again.
Thieves Steal Antique Props
‘The Crown’
Thieves have stolen over $200,000 worth of props from the set of Netflix series “The Crown” while the production was shooting nearby.
Over 350 items were taken during the heist, including a replica Fabergé egg, a grandfather clock clockface, a dressing table, crystal glassware and silver and gold candelabras.
South Yorkshire police are investigating the theft, which occurred when three vehicles were broken into in a lorry park in Mexborough in Yorkshire while a unit were shooting nearby.
Although the incident will not affect production, Netflix have issued a plea to help recover the items.
In a bid to recover the items should the thieves attempt to sell them, the studio gave a description of some of them to weekly publication Antiques Trade Gazette. They include:
‘The Crown’
Engaged
Amy Schneider
Amy Schneider is engaged to her girlfriend Genevieve Davis!
On Thursday, the Jeopardy! champion, 42, announced her engagement on Twitter, along with a photo of their rings. The couple lives together in Oakland, California.
During her time competing on Jeopardy!, Schneider became the most successful female contender in the show's history and the first woman to surpass $1 million in earnings. She is also the first transgender contestant to compete on Jeopardy!'s Tournament of Champions.
On the show, Schneider often wore a pearl necklace, which was gifted to her by Davis on Schneider's first birthday after they began dating. "[Being on Jeopardy!] was the first significant time I'd spent apart from her since we'd started dating. And so having that was just a nice, just sort of comforting reminder that, that she was at home waiting for me," the contestant told USA Today.
Amy Schneider
Image Awards
NAACP
Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, will receive the President’s Award during the 53rd NAACP Image Awards this weekend.
The NAACP announced Thursday that it had selected Prince Harry and Meghan who have “heeded the call to social justice” and joined the “struggle for equity” in the U.S. and around the world.
The couple will be given the award during the Feb. 26 ceremony that will be televised on BET.
Previous recipients include Jay-Z, Muhammad Ali, Rihanna, LeBron James and Jesse Jackson.
NAACP
Forced To Quit Smoking
The Penguin
For more than 80 years, The Penguin has smoked like a chimney. As anatomically confusing as always, his classic look was that of a 1920s socialite: Top hat, monocle, and, yes, cigarette clutched by elongated cigarette holder. Smoking is to Oswald Cobblepot what breaking the legs of a desperate, hungry criminal is to Batman. And yet, for The Batman, Matt Reeves’ authoritatively titled entry to the canon, the Penguin is left looking for an ashtray.
In a recent interview with Jake’s Takes, Colin Farrell confirmed that The Penguin has given up his trademark habit for this grittier, more noir version of the character. “Big studios make big decisions around such things as the presence of cigarettes in films,” Farrell said.
It’s clear from the interview that this was a sticking point on set. When YouTube host Jake Hamilton asks about the cigarette holder, Farrell’s costar John Tuttoro begins to cackle. Cobblepott must’ve been fiending for a drag between takes.
Farrell looked to compromise—what would he do with his flippers between lines? “I fought valiantly for a cigar,” he continued. “At one stage I said, ‘I can have it unlit! Just let me have it unlit.’ They were like, ‘No.’ Like a bunch of 12-year-olds are going to start smoking Cuban cigars.”
A Penguin without smoking? Obviously, not the biggest deal in the world. Disney managed a Cruella movie without a cigarette, and that worked out ok, right? Of course, Disney has a mandate against smoking in their films, which extends across brands. But it begs the question: Why make a children’s movie about a woman who skins dogs for fur, then draw the line at her puffing a sweet Macanudo?
The Penguin
Sale Of Venetian Properties Complete
Vegas Strip
The new and old owners of the Venetian and Palazzo casino resorts and former Sands Expo and Convention Center announced Wednesday they have completed the sale of the iconic Las Vegas Strip properties for $6.25 billion.
Apollo Global Management and Las Vegas Sands Corp. said in separate statements that gamblers, conventioneers and hotel guests should see few changes at the luxury hotel complex including the renamed Venetian Expo.
The names will remain the same and George Markantonis, CEO of The Venetian Resort, said the management team will stay in place.
Apollo executives told Nevada casino regulators last week the company will step into an ongoing partnership with Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. to continue development of the $1.9 billion, 17,500-seat MSG Sphere being built just east of The Venetian Expo, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Sands, the company led by Sheldon Adelson until his death last year, will effectively cease U.S. operations to focus on operations in Asia.
Vegas Strip
‘Buck the CDC’
Florida
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Lumpy Light) and state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo (R-Sock Puppet) on Thursday announced new coronavirus policy recommendations that discourage mask wearing and push physicians to use off-label medications to treat the virus.
The guidance, titled “Buck the CDC,” is the Republican governor’s latest break with federal officials over COVID-19 rules, a feud that has boosted his prominence in the GOP as he eyes a 2024 presidential bid.
“People want to live freely in Florida, without corporate masking creating a two-tier society and without overbearing isolation for children,” DeSantis said in a statement. “We are empowering health care practitioners to follow science, not (Dr. Anthony) Fauci’s status quo.”
In addition, the DeSantis administration is directing physicians to exercise their own judgment when treating virus patients, telling them to consider “emerging treatments backed by quality evidence, with appropriate patient informed consent, including off-label use or as part of a clinical trial.”
“It’s really been a tragedy that my colleagues, my physician colleagues, have decided that it’s more important to stick with whatever the CDC or Dr. Fauci is saying than relying on their clinical wisdom, experience and scientific expertise, which is what doctors usually do,” Ladapo said.
Florida
Yellowstone Starts Cull
Bison
Yellowstone National Park captured 37 bison that were migrating outside the park and sent most to slaughter under a program that seeks to prevent the animals from spreading disease to cattle in neighboring Montana, a park official said Thursday.
Officials are aiming to remove up to 900 of Yellowstone’s 5,000 bison this winter through slaughter, relocations and hunting. The goal is to keep the park’s herds from growing and prevent the spread of the disease brucellosis, under an agreement between state, federal and tribal officials.
Twenty-seven of the bison captured over the past week were sent to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes for slaughter and will provide food for tribal members, Yellowstone bison coordinator Tim Reid said Thursday.
Six of the captured bison will be held in quarantine for future relocation to tribal lands and four calves were released, Reid said.
Separately, two bison have been shot by hunters so far this winter, said Greg Lemon with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
Bison
231 Million Ancestral Lineages
'Family Tree'
In June 2000, two rival groups of researchers shook hands in the shared success of a milestone in biology – the delivery of a rough draft of the human genome.
What started with an incomplete map of our chromosomes has since bloomed into a vast trove of individualized sequences from all corners of the globe, and in many cases stretching far back in time.
Now researchers from the Big Data Institute (BDI) at the University of Oxford in the UK have made a significant start, by merging a forest of more than 3,600 individual sequences from 215 populations into a single, enormous tree.
The tree's branches comprise of a mind-blowing 231 million ancestral lineages. At its base is a spread of roots represented by eight ancient, highly detailed human genome sequences, with thousands of smaller snippets used to confirm their place deep in our past.
Among them are three Neanderthal genomes, one genome from a Denisovan, and a small family who lived in Siberia more than four thousand years ago.
'Family Tree'
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