M Is FOR MASHUP - July 30th, 2021
Bartcop E 20th Anniversary show
By DJ Useo
City-wide net outage here in Austin from all servers just stopped, after a week.
Net's not working right yet, though, in most cases.
Even phones were out, or working poorly.
So sorry, I missed your 20th. I had this show ready to go since the net went off
( hearthis.at/vxmfxz7w/dj-useo-bartcop-e-20th-anniversary-podcast/ ) .
DJ Konrad Useo
from Bruce
Anecdotes
Media
• Jack Murphy, a sportswriter for the San Diego Union, was assigned to cover the Rose Bowl, but he decided to first do some skiing in the mountains above Lake Arrowhead. He had a grand time and waited until the last minute before heading to the Rose Bowl. Fortunately, he was able to drive fast and — despite a snowstorm — make it to the Rose Bowl in time to cover it. However, he startled many football fans who stood in the warm sun and stared at Mr. Murphy’s car, which was covered with snow and ice.
• The New York Times hired its first woman sports editor in the late 1970s, and women’s sports began to get considerably more coverage than when the Times had a male sports editor. On June 1, 1980, this headline appeared in the Times: “Massachusetts Woman Takes Weight-Lifting Title.” The article reported that Leslie Sewall had won the 114-pound national AAU title. Unfortunately, the headline had gotten one thing wrong — Leslie Sewall is a man.
• Olga Korbut astonished the world at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich with her revolutionary and high-risk gymnastics feats. As she performed a back somersault and recatch on the uneven bars, news commentator George Madux could say only, “Oh! My! Wow!” When he was asked if Olga’s feat had ever been accomplished before, he replied, “Not by any human.”
• Ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean received over 100 perfect 6’s in their career, but their first perfect 6 came in the 1979 British championships and was given to them by an octogenarian named Molly Phillips, who was rumored to give perfect 6’s so that her face would appear on TV.
• In a column he wrote for Catholic New York, Cardinal John O’Connor criticized the playing of professional baseball games on Sunday. The New York Post covered the controversy in an article headlined “Sermon on the Mound.”
• Chess world champion Gary Kasparov has an interesting way of dealing with reporters he doesn’t want to talk to — he ignores them. Eventually, the reporters go away.
Mishaps
• Some members of Charlie Barnet’s jazz band decided to go swimming in San Francisco on a very hot day, so they plugged the cracks under the doors of their hotel room, turned on the water full force in the bathtub and let the water overflow. Eventually, they had a foot and a half or two feet of water on the floor, and they had a grand time “swimming” until the water leaked through the floor into the hotel room below. The hotel management, of course, was upset and brought in Mr. Barnet to see the damage. Mr. Barnet was also upset, and after calling his band members a few unprintable names, said, “The least you could have done was invite me.”
• Years ago, sportscasters Chris Schenkel, Bud Wilkerson, and O.J. Simpson were on TV commenting on the Hula Bowl, which is played in Hawaii. At a pause in the game, a TV camera showed a young lady, and Mr. Schenkel asked, “Bud, isn’t that the young lady who gave us a lei before the game?”
Money
• When professional baseball teams started to pay for the wives of All-Stars to attend the All-Star game, the single All-Stars complained, and so they were allowed to bring along a parent, sibling, or friend at the team’s expense. In 1984, Damaso Garcia was an All-Star, and he asked his friend Alfredo Griffin, an infielder, to go with him. When they arrived at the All-Star game, they discovered that infielder Alan Trammel had been hurt, and Mr. Griffin, since he was already there, was asked to take his place. Ironically, Mr. Griffin could never become an All-Star on his own merits, but he had an incentive clause in his contract saying he would receive a $25,000 bonus if he became an All-Star. Since he indisputably was on an All-Star team, he received his $25,000.
• Willie Johnson, a caddie of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews in Scotland, got his nickname of “Trap Door” because of how he used to make extra income. Claiming that one leg was shorter than the other, he had a special boot made with a hollow sole and a metal door. Inside the sole he used to trap the “lost” golf balls of the people he caddied for. His special boot could hold up to six “lost” balls, which he would resell for extra income.
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
The Funniest People in Sports: 250 Anecdotes — Buy
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The Funniest People in Sports: 250 Anecdotes — Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PFD
Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Moves"
Album: LORD
Artist: Near Death Experience (NDX)
Artist Location: London, UK
Info: “Near Death Experience (NDX) are based in West London, England. Their hook-filled songs draw on '60s garage, rock, indie & psychedelia with a hint of soul and blues.”
“Near Death Experience (NDX) are a four-piece band from Ealing, London. They formed in 2016 and began writing songs and performing across the UK capital. NDX established a reputation for powerful, emotive live performances and a ‘shimmering psyche-tinged rock 'n' soul" sound, securing a spot on one of Glastonbury 2017's smaller stages.’
Price: £1(GBP) for track; £6 (GBP) for 4-track album
Genre: Blues. Rock.
Links:
LORD
Near Death Experience
Near Death Experience Official Website
Near Death Experience YouTube
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
One of the lizards laid an egg!
Sues Di$ney
Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson is suing the Walt Disney Co. over its streaming release of “Black Widow,” which she said breached her contract and deprived her of potential earnings.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday morning in Los Angeles Superior Court, the “Black Widow” star and executive producer said her contract guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news of the lawsuit.
Johansson’s potential earnings were tied to the box office performance of the film, which the company released simultaneously in theaters and on its streaming service Disney+ for a $30 rental.
“In the months leading up to this lawsuit, Ms. Johansson gave Disney and Marvel every opportunity to right their wrong and make good on Marvel’s promise,” the lawsuit said. “Disney intentionally induced Marvel’s breach of the Agreement, without justification, in order to prevent Ms. Johansson from realizing the full benefit of her bargain with Marvel.”
After its release was delayed more than a year because of COVID-19, “Black Widow” debuted to a pandemic-best of $80 million in North America and $78 million from international theaters three weeks ago, but theatrical grosses declined sharply after that. In its second weekend in release, the National Association of Theater Owners issued a rare statement criticizing the strategy asserting that simultaneous release lends itself only to lost profits and higher quality piracy.
Scarlett Johansson
1 Billion YouTube Views
Rick Astley
The official video for Rick Astley’s 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” — uploaded almost 12 years ago — surpassed 1 billion lifetime views on YouTube on Wednesday.
The video has benefited from one of the earliest YouTube memes: “Rickrolling,” a prank in which someone shares a link promising one thing — but which, in fact, launches the red-headed Brit’s dance-pop iconic music video. The indestructible Rickrolling meme has generated untold millions of views for Astley’s video: On April Fool’s Day 2021 alone, it topped 2.3 million views, according to YouTube.
“Never Gonna Give You Up” is only the fourth music video from the 1980s to join YouTube’s Billion Views Club, behind Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” A-ha’s “Take on Me,” and Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.”
Astley, 55, celebrated the milestone in a tweet, saying in a video, “So I’ve just been told that ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ has been streamed a billion times on YouTube. That is mind-blowing. The world is a wonderful and beautiful place, and I am very lucky.”
“Never Gonna Give You Up,” Astley’s best-known song, hit No. 1 on singles charts in 25 countries when it was first released. Thanks to Rickrolling, Astley in 2008 won the MTV Europe Music Award for Best Act Ever for the song after a crowd-sourced internet voting effort.
Rick Astley
Wedding Cake For Sale
Princess Di
A slice of one of Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding cakes is up for auction 40 years after the nuptials watched around the world.
The iced slice came from one of the 23 official wedding cakes marking the July 29, 1981 marriage of the heir to the British throne and his shy 20-year-old bride. It features a marzipan base and a sugar onlay coat-of-arms, colored in gold, red, blue, and silver, on top.
The piece of cake was given to Moyra Smith, a member of the Queen Mother’s household at Clarence House. Smith kept it in a floral cake tin and with a handmade label on the lid reading: “Handle with Care - Prince Charles & Princess Diane’s (sic) Wedding Cake” which she signed and dated 29/7/81.
Smith’s family sold the cake to a collector in 2008, but it is up for auction again Aug. 11. It is expected to fetch between 300 pounds ($418) and 500 pounds ($697), together with an order of service, ceremonial details and a royal wedding breakfast program.
“It appears to be in exactly the same good condition as when originally sold,? Chris Albury, auctioneer and senior valuer at Dominic Winter Auctioneers, said. “But we advise against eating it.”
Princess Di
Court Sides With Lindt
Gold Bunny
A German federal court ruled Thursday that the golden shade of the foil wrap on Lindt & Spruengli’s Gold Bunny, a popular chocolate Easter bunny, enjoys protected status.
The Federal Court of Justice delivered its verdict in a battle between Switzerland’s Lindt and a German company, Heilemann, which in 2018 also marketed a chocolate bunny in a gold foil wrap. Lindt argued that it had a trademark on the color acquired by use, that its rival had infringed that trademark and that Heilemann should be prevented from selling its product.
A state court in Munich ruled against Lindt last year. But the federal court found the Swiss company had proven that the gold shade of its bunny had acquired trademark status by reputation, citing a survey presented by the manufacturer showing that 70% of respondents associated the hue with the Lindt product.
The court said it didn’t matter that the company didn’t use the gold color for all or most of its products, or that the Lindt bunny has other distinguishing features, such as a red collar.
Lindt has sold its Gold Bunny in Germany since 1952, and the product has had its current gold shade since 1994. It is by some distance the best-selling chocolate Easter bunny in Germany, with a market share over 40% in 2017, according to the court.
Gold Bunny
Yipped Off To 'Risks'
Mo
Republican lawmaker Mo Brooks said he wore body armor to former US President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up)'s rally at the Ellipse on January 6, claiming he was tipped off about "risks" in the days leading up to the event, reported Slate.
"I was warned on Monday [Jan. 4] that there might be risks associated with the next few days," Brooks told Slate politics writer, Jim Newell.
"And as a consequence of those warnings, I did not go to my condo. Instead, I slept on the floor of my office. And when I gave my speech at the Ellipse, I was wearing body armor," the Alabama Congressman added.
"That's why I was wearing that nice little windbreaker," he continued. "To cover up the body armor."
It is unclear whether Brooks warned other lawmakers of "risks." Brooks also declined to name who had warned him.
Mo
Nothing Fishy Here
Arizona
Groups connected to prominent supporters of former President Donald Trump's movement to cast doubt on the 2020 election results have raised $5.7 million for Arizona Republicans' election audit.
Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the little-known firm hired to lead the audit, ended months of silence about who was paying for it and how much it cost Wednesday night. The money from pro-Trump groups dwarfs the $150,000 contributed by the Arizona Senate, which commissioned the audit and hired Cyber Ninjas.
Among those leading the fundraising groups are Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security advisor; Sydney Powell, his attorney who filed a number of baseless lawsuits challenging election results; Patrick Byrne, a former chief executive of Overstock.com; and correspondents from the pro-Trump One America News Network.
The confirmation that the audit is being overwhelmingly funded by groups promoting false narratives about the election will raise further questions about the validity of the final report. The audit has already been widely discredited by election experts who say Cyber Ninjas and other contractors are biased and using unusual procedures that won’t produce reliable results.
Before he was hired to lead the audit, Logan promoted Trump’s false narrative that the election was stolen from him, and pro-Trump media has aggressively promoted the effort.
Arizona
Jetpack Man Is Back
LAX
Nearly a year after a man was first spotted flying around Los Angeles International Airport on a jetpack, it appears that he may be making a return trip.
Pilots in the L.A. area were warned of another possible jet pack sighting on Wednesday evening near LAX, the Federal Aviation Administration told multiple news outlets in a statement.
The person was flying thousands of feet in the air, leading air traffic control to compare him to the Marvel superhero Iron Man, KCBS reported, citing recordings.
"A Boeing 747 pilot reported seeing an object that might have resembled a jet pack 15 miles east of LAX at 5,000 feet altitude," the FAA said. "Out of an abundance of caution, air traffic controllers alerted other pilots in the vicinity."
The sighting comes after a flight school instructor first reported spotting someone flying on a jetpack off the coast of Los Angeles County in August 2020, posting a video that led to more reports. In total, at least four pilots reported spotting a similar flying mystery last year, CBS News News reported.
LAX
YouTuber Bet A Physicist
Land Yacht
When Derek Muller took an experimental land yacht for a spin this spring, he wasn't aiming to stir up scientific controversy. He certainly wasn't trying to win $10,000 in a bet.
Muller, the creator of the Veritasium YouTube channel, likes to break down funky science concepts for his 9.5 million subscribers. So in May, he published a video about a vehicle called Blackbird that runs on wind power.
Created by Rick Cavallaro, a former aerospace engineer, Blackbird is unique because it can move directly downwind faster than the wind itself for a sustained period. Any sailor worth their salt can tell you that a boat can travel faster than the wind by cutting zigzag patterns; that's called tacking. But the idea that a vehicle can beat the breeze traveling straight downwind, no tacking involved, is controversial.
Blackbird is so counterintuitive, in fact, that less than a week after Muller released his video, Alexander Kusenko, a professor of physics at UCLA, emailed to inform him that it had to be wrong. A vehicle like that would break the laws of physics, Kusenko said.
"I said, 'Look, if you don't believe this, let's put some money on this,'" Muller said. He suggested a wager of $10,000, never imagining Kusenko would take it.
Land Yacht
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