from Bruce
Anecdotes
Fans
• Often, fans want to make friends with celebrities. Before starring in his sitcom, stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld was at a car wash when a man who had seen his act came up to him and asked, “Could we be friends?” Mr. Seinfeld replied, “Well, that’s really the nicest thing you can ever ask someone, but I’m a little busy.”
• Ann B. Davis first became famous as “Schultzy” on The Bob Cummings Show, then she became famous to a new generation of fans as Alice on The Brady Bunch. A friend once introduced her young daughter to Ms. Davis by saying, “You remember Schultzy.” The young daughter indignantly replied, “That’s not Schultzy — that’s Alice!”
• On The Dick Van Dyke Show, Rob and Laura Petrie lived at 448 Bonnie Meadow Road in New Rochelle, New York. This was the real-life address of series creator Carl Reiner — except that he added an extra number to the address so that fans of the series wouldn’t stop by and knock on his door.
• Orson Welles was such a huge (pun definitely intended) fan of The Dick Van Dyke Show that he once broke off an interview with director Peter Bogdanovich when he realized that a re-run of his favorite sitcom was on TV.
Fathers
• The father of Balanchine ballerina Allegra Kent once appeared on TV’s Gong Show. He dressed himself as an egg, and he recited some poetry he had written. He spoke eloquently, but every time he mentioned a rifle shot in his poetry, he cracked an egg over his head — this particular poem had lots of rifle shots. Eventually, he was gonged. Some people regarded it as a pitiful performance, but Ms. Kent was proud of her father for developing an offbeat act and for not being afraid to perform his act on TV.
• When comedian Morey Amsterdam appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time, using his cello as a comic prop, his father — a professional cellist — telegraphed him: “YOUR CELLO IS OUT OF TUNE.”
Food
• Many people’s favorite episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show is “It May Look Like a Walnut!” In this episode the Earth is invaded by aliens with no thumbs, an extra eye in the back of their head, and a taste for walnuts. Near the end of this episode, Rob Petrie opens a closet and Laura Petrie, played by Mary Tyler Moore, slides out on top of a huge pile of walnuts. Ms. Moore relates that the week the episode was being filmed, all the members of the cast were snacking on walnuts, which filled them with gas. As Ms. Moore slid down the pile of walnuts, she passed a little gas, but fortunately the sound was covered up by the laughter of the audience.
• On the TV series Goosebumps, a dedicated young actress named Kathryn Long played a role that required her to eat a sandwich in which a worm had been placed. Not knowing about the worm, the character takes a bite of the sandwich, chews it, and swallows it. Of course, the people behind the series wanted to use a fake worm for the scene, but being a dedicated young actress, Ms. Long said, “We need a real worm. I can’t really play the scene right unless we use a real worm.” So they used a real worm, and for the twelve takes it took to shoot the scene right, Ms. Long bit into a real worm, chewed it up, and swallowed it.
• As a teenager, Lucille Ball went to New York to try to get work as an actress and model. Frequently, after running out of money, she would have to come back home, but she kept going back to New York. One way that she survived was by finding “one-doughnut” men. In Lucy’s words: “This is a guy who sits at a counter and orders doughnuts and coffee. He drinks his coffee, eats one doughnut and puts down a nickel tip. I’d do a fast slide onto his stool, yell for a cup of coffee, pay for it with his nickel, and eat the other doughnut.”
• As a result of playing Laverne in the TV sitcom Laverne and Shirley (Cindy Williams played Shirley), Penny Marshall had many interesting experiences. One day, she got some cheesecake out of the refrigerator at home. When her husband asked where the cheesecake had come from, she was able to honestly reply, “A man in a bunny suit gave it to Cindy and me.”
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Pigrisia" [“Piggy”]
Album: LATIN AMERICAN SURF SAMPLER PT. 2: LA PLAYA
Artist: The Gasolines
Artist Location: Brazil
Record Company: North Sea Surf Radio
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Info:
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Price: €9 (EURO) for 23-track album by various artists; tracks cannot be purchased separately
Genre: Surf
Links:
LATIN AMERICAN SURF SAMPLER PT. 2: LA PLAYA
North Sea Surf Radio
Reverb Brasil
Other Links:
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Set Shooting
What is the likelihood that Alec Baldwin was set up by an NRA or TFG (the former guy) fanatic
to discredit him because of his Sat Nite Live impersonations??
Further backing this theory is that a real prop gun does not have a hole thru the barrel as shown..
some guy
Thanks, guy!
While this story has more angles than a Picasso, and all of them sad, the bottom line is guns.
Real effing guns for grown-ups playing make-believe?
Everything else can be faked in a film, but the effing guns have to be real?
Seriously?
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast and on the cool side - no rain, so far.
Weekend Update Record
Colin Jost
Colin Jost has surpassed Seth Meyers as the Saturday Night Live star who has appeared most on SNL’s Weekend Update.
Jost has hosted the iconic desk sketch on 155 episodes since he first took the chair in 2014.
Jost began hosting Weekend Update as co-anchor alongside Cecily Strong during Season 39, taking over from Meyers, who left SNL to host Late Night. For the second half of Season 39, he hosted with Strong, but starting in fall 2014, he began hosting it with Michael Che.
Jost began on SNL as a writer in Season 31 before becoming co-head writer in Season 38 alongside Meyers.
Meyers joined the cast of SNL in 2001 and became co-head writer in 2006 alongside Tina Fey and Andrew Steele, becoming co-anchor of Weekend Update in 2006 alongside Amy Poehler. He hosted Weekend Update alone between 2008, when Poehler left, before co-anchoring with Strong for half a season in 2013.
Colin Jost
Weekend Box Office
‘Dune’
Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” debuted with $40.1 million in ticket sales in its opening weekend in North America, drawing a large number of moviegoers to see the thundering sci-fi epic on the big screen despite it also being available to stream in homes.
Last week’s top film, Universal Pictures’ horror sequel “Halloween Kills,” also launched well while streaming at home, on Peacock. After debuting with $50.4 million, “Halloween Kills” slid steeply in its second week with $14.5 million, good for second place. In two weeks, it has grossed $73.1 million domestically.
“No Time to Die,” Cary Fukunaga’s James Bond film starring Daniel Craig, came in third with $11.9 million in its third week. Worldwide, the film has brought in more than $525 million. MGM, United Artists and Universal Pictures charted a theater-only release for “No Time to Die.”
The weekend’s biggest disappointment, albeit not unexpectedly, was “Ron’s Gone Wrong.” The lightly marketed Disney animated release, produced by 20th Century Fox before Disney acquired the studio, opened with a modest $7.3 million domestically and about the same internationally. But with good reviews and an “A” CinemaScore from audiences, the film could hold well in the coming weeks, with little family competition. “Ron’s Gone Wrong” is about a middle-schooler and his walking, talking digital device Ron (voiced by Zach Galifiniakis).
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. “Dune,” $40.1 million.
2. “Halloween Kills,” $14.5 million.
3. “No Time to Die,” $11.9 million.
4. “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” $9.1 million.
5. “Ron’s Gone Wrong,” $7.3 million.
6. “The Addams Family 2,” $4.3 million.
7. “The Last Duel,” $2.1 million.
8. “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” $2 million.
9. “The French Dispatch,” $1.3 million.
10. “Free Guy,” $258,000.
‘Dune’
Start An OnlyFans Account
Vienna Museums
At long last, another account devoted to nude images has been made at OnlyFans. This one, however, consists entirely of fine art and has been created by a group of museums in Vienna, Austria. The museums are tired of being banned from other social media platforms due to posting timeless works of, we guess, obscenity.
The City Of Vienna’s website has promoted the OnlyFans campaign with a video that shows glimpses of nude paintings by Egon Schiele, Peter Paul Rubens, Amedeo Modigliani, and others.
As the camera carefully pans by, avoiding any glimpses of the nipples or genitalia that would make a viewers’ tongue unravel from their mouths like a cartoon wolf, captions read, “Want to know every feature of a Rubenesque woman?” and “Want to see more of Egon Schiele’s ‘unique assets’?” before concluding on a close-up of a fertility statue and the title “Vienna Strips On OnlyFans.”
A page with further information explains that Vienna museums are coming together to combat “major social media channels like Instagram and Facebook [which] have nudity and ‘lewd’ content firmly in their sights.”
A Vienna Tourism Board spokesperson told Vice that the campaign is a response to local museums having their social media accounts “suspended for uploading nude artworks.” (The Albertina Museum “was banned for posting photographs from Japanese artist Nobuyoshi Araki depicting obscured breasts” in July.)
If you’re a nasty ol’ pervert and/or normal human being, you can see what all the fuss is about by looking at art over on the Vienna Tourist Board’s OnlyFans account.
Vienna Museums
Artwork Auctioned
Pablo Picasso
Eleven Pablo Picasso artworks have been sold for a combined $109 million in a Las Vegas auction coinciding with the artist’s 140th birthday.
The nine paintings and two ceramic pieces had been displayed inside the Picasso restaurant at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art for more than two decades until owner MGM Resorts decided earlier this year to sell them.
The Saturday event was organized by Sotheby’s and marked the first time the famed auction house staged an evening marquee sale in North America outside its New York saleroom. It featured Picasso artworks from 1917 to 1969.
Auction officials said Picasso’s 1938 portrait of his muse Marie-Thérèse Walter entitled “Femme au béret rouge-orange” (“Woman in a reddish-orange hat”) sold for $40.5 million after a bidding battle, well above estimates of $20 million to $30 million.
The painting last sold at auction in the 1980s for around $900,000 and was acquired by casino mogul Steve Wynn in 1998 and became MGM Resorts’ property when the company purchased The Mirage resort from Wynn.
Pablo Picasso
Planning Meetings
Jan. 6
As the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack heats up, some of the planners of the pro-Trump rallies that took place in Washington, D.C., have begun communicating with congressional investigators and sharing new information about what happened when the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Two of these people have spoken to Rolling Stone extensively in recent weeks and detailed explosive allegations that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent.
Rolling Stone separately confirmed a third person involved in the main Jan. 6 rally in D.C. has communicated with the committee. This is the first report that the committee is hearing major new allegations from potential cooperating witnesses. While there have been prior indications that members of Congress were involved, this is also the first account detailing their purported role and its scope. The two sources also claim they interacted with members of Trump’s team, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who they describe as having had an opportunity to prevent the violence.
The two sources, both of whom have been granted anonymity due to the ongoing investigation, describe participating in “dozens” of planning briefings ahead of that day when Trump supporters broke into the Capitol as his election loss to President Joe Biden was being certified.
“I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically,” the organizer says. “I remember talking to probably close to a dozen other members at one point or another or their staffs.”
Along with Greene, the conspiratorial pro-Trump Republican from Georgia who took office earlier this year, the pair both say the members who participated in these conversations or had top staffers join in included Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).
Jan. 6
Scab Bourbon Averted
Heaven Hill
Striking workers at one of the world's largest bourbon producers voted to a ratify a new contract Saturday, a day after announcing a tentative agreement with Heaven Hill.
About 420 members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 23D went on strike about six weeks ago, forming picket lines at the company's operations in Bardstown, Kentucky, after rejecting a previous contract proposal.
The tentative agreement came just days after the company signaled it intended to start hiring permanent replacement employees for bottling and warehouse operations. The workers then voted to ratify the five-year agreement Saturday, according to a statement from Heaven Hill.
The dispute revolved around health care and scheduling, the latter a sign of the bourbon industry’s growing pains as it tries to keep up with global demand.
Family-owned and operated Heaven Hill produces Evan Williams, one of the world’s top-selling bourbons. The spirits company’s other brands include Elijah Craig, Henry McKenna, Old Fitzgerald, Larceny and Parker’s Heritage Collection.
Heaven Hill
Trees To Be Removed
California
In the wake of California wildfires, upwards of 10,000 trees weakened by fires, drought, disease or age must be removed, work that will keep a nearby highway closed to visitors who seek the world’s two largest sequoia trees.
The hazard trees could potentially fall onto people and cars on the section of State Route 180 known as Generals Highway, or they could create barriers for emergency and fire response, the Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks said Friday.
The highway is closed due to the KNP Complex blaze, which was 60% contained after burning 138 square miles (357 square kilometers) of forest, and will remain blocked off to visitors after the fire is out while saw crews cut down trees and trim branches. Cooler weather has helped slow the flames and the area was expected to see rain starting Sunday.
The highway connects Giant Forest, home to the General Sherman Tree, which is considered the world’s largest by volume, and Grant Grove, home to the General Grant Tree, the second-largest tree in the world. The trees along the highway include sequoias, pine and conifer trees, said fire spokeswoman Kimberly Caschalk.
On Friday, forest staff unwrapped the base of the General Sherman tree after danger from the fire had passed.
California
Primeval Ruby
Greenland
Traces of ancient life were locked inside a 2.5 billion-year-old ruby from Greenland, according to a new study.
The planet's oldest rubies, sparkling red gemstones made up of a transparent red mineral called corundum, are found in Greenland. While searching for rubies in the North Atlantic Craton of southern Greenland, a group of researchers discovered a hidden surprise in one of them: graphite, a pure form of carbon, that may be the remains of ancient microbial life.
"The graphite inside this ruby is really unique," Chris Yakymchuk, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, said in a statement. "It's the first time we've seen evidence of ancient life in ruby-bearing rocks."
Though ancient, this graphite-containing ruby is hardly the oldest evidence of life found so far. In fact, there are many studies, a lot of them hotly debated, that claim to have found the oldest evidence of life dating back to over 3 billion years, Live Science previously reported.
This is however, the first time ancient life has been found inside rubies. "The presence of graphite also gives us more clues to determine how rubies formed at this location, something that is impossible to do directly based on a ruby's colour and chemical composition," Yakymchuk said
Greenland
Not Seen For 150 Years
Shelley’s Eagle Owl
A giant owl that has gone almost unseen in African rainforests for 150 years has been photographed in the wild for the first time by British scientists working in Ghana.
Shelley’s Eagle Owl was spotted on 16 October in what has been hailed as a “sensational discovery” by ecologists.
With only a few thousand thought to be in existence, the species is officially classified as being at risk of extinction.
A picture of the bird was taken by Dr Joseph Tobias, of the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London, and Dr Robert Williams, an ecologist from Somerset.
The pair discovered the owl, of which there have been no confirmed sightings since the 1870s, during its daytime roost earlier this month.
Shelley’s Eagle Owl
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