from Bruce
Anecdotes
Wit
• Groucho Marx, master of insults, once toasted a socialite in this way: “I drink to your charm, your beauty, and your brains — which will give you a rough idea of how hard up I am for a drink.” His brother Chico Marx was a master of chasing skirts. When his wife caught him kissing another woman, he explained, “I wasn’t kissing her. I was whispering in her mouth.”
Work
• Chris Rock became a comedian almost as a fluke. In 1983, he wanted to see in person Eddie Murphy — a comedian whom he “totally idolized.” While standing in line at Radio City Music Hall to buy a ticket, he read a local paper that included information about comedy clubs. Mr. Rock says, “I don’t know what it was, but something in my head said [to] walk away, so I did.” He walked to the comedy club Catch a Rising Star. Fortunately, it was audition night, and fortunately he drew a lottery number that allowed him to be one of the people who auditioned that night. While waiting to go on stage, he wrote some jokes, and he succeeded so well that he was offered work at the club. This was fortunate. Mr. Rock says, “I knew nothing. If he hadn’t told me to come back, I never would have.” Of course, Mr. Rock rose in the comedy ranks, and a big break came when Eddie Murphy saw his act and hired him to play the role of a valet in Beverly Hills Cop II. What would Mr. Rock be doing now if he had not listened to the voice in his head telling him to walk away? He says, “I don’t know, driving a truck, something like that. But happy. I’d be a happy guy doing that.”
• In 1929, Laurel and Hardy made the short comedy film “Liberty,” for which a three-story building was constructed. At one point, the comedy team was working 200 feet above ground, but a wooden platform below them was supposed to provide them safety. Mr. Laurel expressed concern about the height the comedy team was working at, so to prove that they were safe, Mr. Hardy jumped down on the wooden platform. However, the wood was made of flimsy sugar pine, and he fell through the platform. Fortunately, a competent crewmember named Thomas Benton Roberts, who had unsuccessfully complained about the flimsiness of the safety platform, had gone to the trouble of putting up a safety net below the safety platform — something he was not required to do. Instead of falling 200 feet, Mr. Hardy fell only 20 feet. He was shaken by the fall, but he quickly went back to work.
• Bob and Ray, aka Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding, worked together for decades as comedians, and apparently the entire time they were trying to make each other laugh, and as a side effect they made their audiences laugh. According to Andy Rooney, who wrote a foreword to one of the collections of Bob and Ray’s scripts, the two men “have three distinct personalities. There’s Bob’s, there’s Ray’s, and then there’s Bob & Ray’s.” According to Mr. Rooney, when you met the two men separately, “two duller people you never talked to.” And Chris Elliott, Bob’s son, who is also a comedian, says that for years he thought his father was some kind of a businessman. Only at age 11 did Chris realize that his father worked as a comedian for a living. Of course, Bob and Ray were very close. Late in their career together, Ray joked, “I’ve been married to my wife for thirty-seven years, and to Bob for thirty-five.”
• Moe Howard of Three Stooges fame knew at an early age that he wanted to be in show business. When he was 17 years old, he ran across an advertisement in Billboard for an actor on a showboat. As part of the application process, he had to mail a photograph of himself. To improve his chances of getting a job, Moe did not use his own photo, but instead he sent the photo of a taller, more handsome friend. The plan worked — he got the job! Of course, the company manager who had advertised for the actor was surprised when Moe showed up — he did not at all look like the man in the photo he had mailed. But the company manager let Moe run errands for the actors, and when he did let Moe act in a few small roles, Moe was excellent.
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***
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Mills of Lawrence"
Album: RISE TO THE TOP
Artist: Frank Richard
Artist Location: Brattleboro, Vermont
Record Company: Aldora Britain Records
Record Company Location: Rothley, UK
Info:
“Mills of Lawrence” was written by Frank Cable.
This song also appears on Frank Richard’s album ROUGH ENOUGH.
“Aldora Britain Records is an e-zine and record label that promotes the music and work of authentic independent or underground artists from all around the world. Originally established in 2013, they revamped themselves in 2018 with a brand-new approach. Their first weekly compilation, aptly titled THE SECOND COMING, was released in late 2019. They now also release original singles, EPs and charity projects.”
The above is a live version by the songwriter Frank Cable.
The above is the version by Frank Richard.
Price: £2.60 (GBP)for 25 tracks
Genre: Folk. Various.
Links:
RISE TO THE TOP
ROUGH ENOUGH
Aldora Britain Records on Bandcamp
Aldora Britain Records on YouTube
Other Links:
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BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
Recommended
Other Links:
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Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
It can no longer be said that Allan Carr produced the worst Oscars of all time.
SpaceX's Starlink
Ukraine
SpaceX's satellite internet network, Starlink, presents risks for those using the system in Ukraine during the war against Russia, cybersecurity experts told Insider.
Elon Musk sent Starlink kits to Ukraine after Mykhailo Fedorov, the country's vice prime minister, requested help from the billionaire on February 26. Since then, three more batches of terminals have been sent.
Since SpaceX sent Starlink equipment to Ukraine, safety concerns have been raised for users in the country because of the threat of Russian troops — even Musk has warned Starlink users in Ukraine to use the system with caution.
"There are some features of Starlink that make it different from previous generations of satellite communications technology used in conflicts," John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk School, told Insider.
Ukraine
Weekend Box Office
‘The Lost City’
Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum led the action-adventure comedy throwback “The Lost City” to a $31 million debut in U.S. and Canadian theaters over the weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday, dethroning “The Batman” from the No. 1 spot the superhero film had held for most of March.
And theaters are hoping “The Lost City” kicks off a new period of stability. The first three months of 2022 have belonged overwhelming to “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (which crossed $800 million this week), “Uncharted” ($133.6 million) and “The Batman,” which fell to second in its fourth week of release and added $20.5 million to its domestic total of $332 million.
The specialty box office also got a lift from A24's “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which opened with $50,965 from 10 locations. The film, an existential sci-fi comedy starring Michelle Yeoh, first premiered — like “The Lost City” — at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, earlier this month.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. “The Lost City,” $31 million
2. “The Batman,” $20.5 million.
3. “RRR,” $9.5 million.
4. “Uncharted,” $5 million.
5. “Jujutsu Kaisen 0,” $4.6 million.
6. “X,” $2.2 million.
7. “Dog,” $2.1 million.
8. “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” $2 million.
9. “Sing 2,” $1.3 million.
10. “Infinite Storm,” $751,000.
‘The Lost City’
Phil Collins And Genesis
Bid Farewell
Genesis won’t turn it on again, staging what was billed as its final concert Saturday night at London’s 02 arena.
Phil Collins, the group’s former drummer, was joined by keyboardist Tony Banks and guitarist Mike Rutherford. Collins, age 71 and increasingly frail with back and hip issues, sat center stage throughout. He was in good humor, though, reportedly quipping at one point that he’ll now need to find a real job after the band’s demise.
Genesis’ “The Last Domino Tour” came after a 14-year live performance hiatus. It was also postponed during the pandemic. The group’s final tour included concerts in the U.K. last September and in North America last fall, concluding with another 14 concerts in Europe and the U.K.
The trio were joined on the tour by Collins’ son, Nic, who also filled in for his father behind the kit during his recent solo tours. Longtime touring member Daryl Stuermer returned on guitar and bass, joined by Daniel Pearce on backing vocals and percussion and Patrick Smyth on backing vocals and tambourine.
Bid Farewell
What Took So Long?
Chris Wallace
Explaining his decision to leave the network, former Fox News anchor Chris Wallace told The New York Times, “I just no longer felt comfortable with the programming at Fox.”
Wallace already stood out at Fox as an anchor who did not always push the blindly pro-Trump narrative favored by many at the channel. But Wallace said in an interview published Sunday that he knew it was time to leave when people at the network “began to question the truth.”
“I’m fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion,” Wallace told the Times’ Michael M. Grynbaum. “But when people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable.”
One clear example of Fox programming questioning the truth is Tucker Carlson’s documentary, Patriot Purge, which aired on Fox’s streaming platform and pushed the baseless conspiracy theory that the Jan. 6 insurrection was a “false flag” operation intended to demonize conservatives. Wallace confirmed to the Times that he went to Fox News management to express his discomfort with the Patriot Purge. In November, NPR’s David Folkenflik reported that both Wallace and anchor Bret Baier shared their concerns about the documentary with Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and Jay Wallace, president of news. Two commentators at the network also resigned over the film.
“Before, I found it was an environment in which I could do my job and feel good about my involvement at Fox,” Wallace said. “And since November of 2020, that just became unsustainable, increasingly unsustainable as time went on.”
Chris Wallace
Grifters Gonna Grift
Questions
Donald Trump The failed game show host’s ferocious money-raising machine, powered in equal measure by grassroots giving and large individual and corporate donations, has never really stopped turning – and it is currently raising huge sums of cash.
As of this month, Trump the loser has $108,046,100 saved in his Save America political fund, more than the Republican and Democratic national committees combined, and 12 times as much as the fund – Pac for the Future – for the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.
And all of that has been raised while Trump the grifter’s own ambitions remain unclear. Though his grip on the Republican party remains tight – and he has waged an endorsement war against his opponents – the big question over whether Trump the conman will run again for the White House remains unanswered.
Without any declared candidacy, his war chest’s purpose and thus also that of its master, is unclear – and deliberately so.
Questions
Can’t Even
Rupert-TV
Republican Sen. Rick Scott couldn’t convince Fox News host John Roberts to buy his ridiculous 11 point “Plan to Rescue America,” which includes proposals to force all Americans to pay income tax, sunset all federal legislation within five years, and complete the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico to name it after former President Donald Trump.
“You recently put out an 11-point plan to rescue America,” Roberts said when interviewing Scott on Fox News Sunday. “Two of the big points are, quote: ‘All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount.’ Currently, over half of Americans pay no income tax. It also says: ‘All federal legislation sunsets in five years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.'”
Roberts continued, “So, that would raise taxes on half of Americans and potentially sunset programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Why would you propose something like that in an election year?”
“Sure. John, that’s, of course, the Democrat talking points. It’s… ” Scott began, but Roberts interrupted.
“No, it’s in the plan. It’s in the plan,” Roberts insisted.
Rupert-TV
Issues "Notice of Trespass"
Great Sioux Nation
On Saturday, the Great Sioux Nation in South Dakota issued a “Notice of Trespass (Cease and Desist)” order against Connie Uhre-Grand Gateway Hotel and its subsidiaries with instructions to vacate the premises.
Connie Uhre is the 76-year-old owner of the Grand Gateway Hotel that posted on social media she would ban Native American from the property after a shooting took place in one of the hotel rooms in the early hours of March 19. Uhre wrote on Facebook: “Do [sic] to the killing that took place at the Grand Gateway Hotel on March 19, 2022 at 4 am, plus all the vandalism we have had since the Mayor and Police Department are working with the non-profit organization (Dark Money), we will no longer allow Native Americans on property, including Cheers.”
Uhre’s banning of Native Americans at the 132-room Grand Gateway Hotel that touts itself as the “best hotel” in Rapid City has sparked backlash by Native Americans throughout South Dakota.
As of Sunday morning, a notice on the Internet says the Grand Gateway Hotel says the hotel is “temporarily closed.” Calls to the hotel go to voicemail.
Great Sioux Nation
Keeps Shaking
Azores
Fatima Viveiros was a little girl when she decided to become a volcanologist. It was a dream come true and now, at age 44, she is putting her skills to use to protect her home in Portugal's Azores islands.
The lush mid-Atlantic volcanic island of Sao Jorge, where she grew up, has been rattled by more than 14,000 small earthquakes in the past seven days.
Viveiros and other experts fear the tremors, which have reached a magnitude of up to 3.3 on the Richter scale, could trigger a volcanic eruption for the first time since 1808, or a powerful earthquake.
The island's sudden increase in seismic activity is reminiscent of the earthquakes detected before the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on Spain's La Palma island last year, some 1,400 km (870 miles) southeast of the Azores.
Azores
Altering Earth's Mass?
Digital Data
In the past 24 hours, people uploaded more than 720,000 hours' worth of footage onto YouTube.
According to calculations made a few years ago by University of Portsmouth physicist Melvin Vopson, this literal mass of visual imagery – along with half a billion tweets, countless texts, billions of WhatsApp messages, and every other bit and byte of information we've created – could be making our planet a touch heavier.
It's a wild concept unlikely to be accepted without a ton of evidence. An experiment recently proposed by Vopson based on antimatter explosions might go some way in convincing the scientific community that information might not only have mass but that it could also be a strange new state of matter.
Information theory isn't an easy concept to digest. We can easily imagine the downloading of a code of ones and zeros that tells our computer what sounds and images to display, but information might also be applied to non-digital things, such as characteristics that tell particles how to behave.
In the early 1960s, the German-American physicist Rolf Landauer predicted a minimum change in energy for erasing information from any kind of system. While it might seem like a small realization, the implications are profound, linking the loss of information with the emission of heat radiation on a fundamental level.
Digital Data
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