from Bruce
Anecdotes
Mishaps
• George Burns and Gracie Allen had years of experience performing in vaudeville before they started doing their radio show. This long experience came in handy when mishaps occurred on their show. One day, the lights in the studio went out, and no one could read the script. On another occasion, Gracie accidentally dropped her script, and the pages scattered everywhere. Both times, they ignored the script. George simply asked, “Gracie, how’s your brother?” — and Gracie started one of their well-memorized and very funny vaudeville routines.
• Archeologist Brian Rose lectured in 1996 at Ohio University, where he told this story about excavating the site of Troy in Turkey: At the site is a huge wooden horse that was built by the BBC for a documentary on the Trojan War. Today the horse is a tourist attraction, as people can go inside the horse and look out through shuttered windows. One day, members of Mr. Rose’s crew were inside the Trojan horse smoking with the shutters closed. This alarmed the Turkish security guards because they noticed smoke coming out of the horse’s nostrils.
• British broadcaster Magnus Magnusson once invited some archeologists to appear on his television program because they had discovered evidence that the headquarters of the Roman fleet in Britain (Classis Britannicus) had been located at Dover. The most important evidence they had found was a red slate marked with the Roman initials “C.B.” The archeologists brought the red slate with them and handed it to Mr. Magnusson, who promptly dropped it, breaking it in two, in between the initials.
• While working as a co-anchor at WJZ-TV in Baltimore, Maryland, Oprah Winfrey ran into problems when the assistant news director decided to change Ms. Winfrey’s appearance. Ms. Winfrey went to a beauty parlor and got a permanent, but it made all of her hair fall out. She was totally bald! Worse, she couldn’t find a wig that fit while her hair grew back, so she was forced to wear scarves. She said, “All my self-esteem was gone. My whole self-image. I cried constantly.
• Ralph Edwards used to surprise celebrities on his TV show, This is Your Life, in which he would bring on friends and family of the celebrity to reminisce about the celebrity’s life. Many celebrities — but not all — enjoyed this. Newsman Lowell Thomas was one who did not. On air, he referred to the proceedings as “a sinister conspiracy.” When Mr. Edwards said to him, “Lowell, I know you are going to enjoy tonight’s surprise,” an irritated Mr. Thomas replied, “I doubt it.”
• In one episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Tyler Moore (who played Laura Petrie) was required to make some eggs. The scene was supposed to last five minutes, but unfortunately the actors worked faster than that, and when the eggs were supposed to be done, they were runny. According to Ms. Moore, “It was quite a problem — what I really needed was a soup bowl! But Dick ate them, bless him, and only turned a little green.”
• The first episode of The Simpsons was supposed to air on Fox in the fall of 1989, but it was delayed because its executive producers — Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon — discovered that the first episode contained several unauthorized tasteless jokes. (Apparently, authorized tasteless jokes are OK.) The Simpsons premiered as a Christmas special in 1989, and the actual series started in January 1990.
• Tracey Ullman is a comedian who is known for her ability to create characters with her incredible acting talent and the aid of costumes, wigs, rubber masks, etc. While filming The Tracey Ullman Show for the Fox network, she changed characters so often that she once passed out in her dressing room from accidentally inhaling the chemicals used to remove her makeup.
• Kristen Bell, star of the TV series Veronica Mars, says that she once “fell madly in love” with Saturday Night Live star Amy Poehler because of her petiteness and sense of comedy. On a red carpet, she saw Ms. Poehler’s husband, actor Will Arnett, and told him, “I’m absolutely in love with your wife.” He replied, “I’m so glad you didn’t say me. That would have been awkward.”
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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: "Met Myself Coming Back"
Album: BACK, BEHIND, AND IN FRONT EP
Artist: The Beatpack
Artist Location: London, England
Info:
“The Beatpack are London's prime purveyors of brutal 60's garage R'n'B.”
Back, Behind And In Front EP released on State Records
Recorded in glorious Mono.
Hugh Dellar - Vocal, Harp
Simon Harvey - Electric\Acoustic Guitars, Vocal
Adrian Smith - Electric\12-String Guitar, Vocal
AJW Bourton - Bass, Organ, Autoharp, Vocal
Charlie Gurney - Drums
Price: £1 (GBP) for track; £4 for four-track EP
Genre: Rhythm and Blues
Links:
BACK, BEHIND, AND IN FRONT EP
The Beatpack on Bandcamp
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Texas cops
Disgusting. I do hope some heads will roll; this was a disgrace.
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Vinnie the shitten is collecting sticks again - there's a small pile by the bathroom door.
Other Plans
Todd Rundgren
Todd Rundgren has been an individualist for most of his career, and that's not going to change even though his long-overdue induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is finally taking place this weekend. Rundgren will be in Ohio Saturday, but will be performing in Cincinnati instead of Cleveland, where the Rock Hall is located. In a new interview with TMZ, Rundgren said he doesn't think the HAll of Fame idea works for musicians in the way it does for sports stars, whose greatness can be calculated with stats.
"You're retired from the game, all of your stats are there for everybody to judge, and they can measure you against other players in real terms - and not in subjective terms - and you're done with your career," Rundgren told TMZ. For musicians, the goal is to perform for the rest of your life, he said.
Rundgren's road to the Rock Hall has been long. After scoring mainstream hits like "Hello It's Me" and "I Saw The Light" in the early 1970s, Rundgren began focusing on less-commercial music. Although he didn't earn many hits, he continued to be held in high regard by music lovers, and produced several important albums, including Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell and the New York Dolls' first album. He is now on the road performing the entirety of his influential 1973 album A Wizard, A True Star. Despite his importance for many musicians, Rundgren wasn't included on the Rock Hall ballot until 2019, over 25 years after he was eligible.
When Rundgren was first included in 2019, he placed third in the fan vote, but he still wasn't included in the induction class that year. There were some acts that placed lower than he did but were still inducted, Rundgren told TMZ. "The fans have practically no power to influence who gets into the hall," he said, later adding that he hates the competitive nature of the hall. "I'm not into the whole sense that there's some sort of competition between musicians to get into it,' he said. "I kind of abhor that idea that musicians are meant to compete with each other."
Todd Rundgren
Promises
Maher
Bill Maher was in a sparring mood on Friday night’s “Real Time,” confronting former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer about Donald Trump’s election lies, asking if Spicer thought the 2020 election was rigged and if he’s QAnon.
Although their interaction began cordially enough, with a smile and handshake, Spicer sat across from Maher and casually placed his book that he was there to plug, “Radical Nation,” on his lap. “I noticed you have your book there over your nuts,” Maher joked. “I’m not gonna — don’t worry, Sean, this is not a hostile interview.”
Maher, however, went right in on Spicer about his book’s subtitle, “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s Dangerous Plan for America.”
“‘Dangerous Plan for America’ — it seems like all the conservative books are alike– you’re always playing this ‘dangerous radical card.’ Is it really dangerous?” Maher asked.
“You’re out of office two days and the country is an irretrievable s—hole,” Maher said. “Trump’s slogan is ‘Make America Great Again, Again.’ I couldn’t have written that, it’s such a parody of itself.” Maher pointed out that since in office, the administration has lifted millions of children out of poverty and doesn’t understand why Republicans voted down giving senior citizens dental coverage.
Maher
Orchestra of Electronic Devices
Ghostbusters
If you never thought a steam iron—yes, you read that right—could deliver a stellar performance of the iconic Ghostbusters theme song, you’re in for quite a treat this Halloween.
A googly-eyed steam iron—joined with a slew of googly-eyed bandmates including electric toothbrushes, credit card readers, typewriters, a body trimmer, an epilator, and a nail polishing device—played its inanimate little heart out on Saturday during a rendition of “Ghostbusters” by YouTuber Device Orchestra.
The cover was a delightful reminder that there are still good and wonderful things in the world, despite the current stream of seemingly never-ending disasters. One of the electric toothbrushes even dressed up as a ghost for Halloween. In addition, I never thought I would say that inanimate electronic devices are cute, but googly eyes and pipe cleaner arms are bound to make anyone’s heart twinge.
The cover is the work of Device Orchestra, whose name is pretty self-explanatory: He make covers of popular songs using the sounds made by electronic devices. While we only hear the song and see the video, there are a lot of electronics at work “under the hood,” as he puts it, such as microcontrollers, circuit boards, wires, and power supplies.
Ghostbusters
House On Market
Robert E Lee
The house at 607-601 Oronoco Street in Alexandria, Virginia – a 226-year-old, six-bedroom, 8,145 sq ft mansion – appears by every measure a highly desirable place to live, if at an asking price of $5.9m.
But in a listing, the realtor selling the house fails to mention one thing.
It was once home of Robert E Lee, the Confederate general who enslaved people and fought to preserve slavery in the American civil war.
Furthermore, as the Washington Post noted, a photo in the listing appears to have been altered to edit out a large plaque in front of the property which marks it as “Lee’s boyhood home”.
Amid a national atmosphere of reckoning over systemic racism triggered by the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, statues of Lee have been the targets of protests and the subjects of removals.
Robert E Lee
Eastman Email Exchange
'Siege'
As Vice President Mike Pence hid from the mob entering the Capitol on January 6, Trump attorney John Eastman told Pence's team that they were to blame for the riot, a new report from The Washington Post says.
Eastman made the comments in an email exchange with top Pence aide Greg Jacob, who described the riot as a "siege" while he sheltered with the vice-president in a secure area.
"Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege," Jacob wrote, according to the paper.
"The 'siege' is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened," Eastman replied, referring to Trump's false claims about the 2020 election being fraudulent.
In the days and weeks leading up to the election certification, conservative legal scholar John Eastman took an active role in urging Pence to overturn the election by concocting various legal theories.
'Siege'
Inside The Plot
‘A Roadmap For A Coup’
On 4 January, the conservative lawyer John Eastman was summoned to the Oval Office to meet Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) and Vice-President Mike Pence. Within 48 hours, Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election would formally be certified by Congress, sealing Trump’s fate and removing him from the White House.
The atmosphere in the room was tense. The then US president was “fired up” to make what amounted to a last-ditch effort to overturn the election results and snatch a second term in office in the most powerful job on Earth.
Eastman’s by now notorious memo, and the surreal encounter in the Oval Office, are among the central twists in the unfolding story of Trump’s audacious bid to hang on to power. They form the basis of what critics argue was nothing less than an attempted electoral coup.
Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, a leading authority on US election issues, sees Eastman’s set of alternative scenarios as nothing less than a “fairly detailed roadmap for a constitutional coup d’état. That memo was a plan for a series of tricks to steal the presidency for Trump.”
The 2020 presidential election was the largest in US history, with a record 156 million votes cast and the highest turnout of eligible voters since 1900. By all official accounts, it was also among the most secure and well-conducted in US history.
‘A Roadmap For A Coup’
'Missing' Genes
Vampire Bats
Vampire bats have an unusual, blood-only diet that's high in protein but lacking in other nutrients. Now, a new study hints that "missing" genes may explain how the flying mammals survive on nothing but blood meals, lapped from their victims' open wounds in the dead of night, The Scientist Magazine reported.
In the new study, posted Oct. 19 to the preprint database bioRxiv, researchers compared the genome of the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) with those of 25 other bat species. The analysis revealed that D. rotundus lacks functional copies of 13 genes that appear in the other bats; these missing genes are either completely absent from the vampires' genome, or they contain so many mutations that they likely can't produce functional proteins, study co-author Michael Hiller, a genomicist at the LOEWE Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics in Germany, told The Scientist.
And it turns out, vampire bats might benefit from having ditched these 13 genes. Losing the genes may help them extract nutrients from blood in ways other bats can't, according to the study, which has not been peer-reviewed.
For example, two of the missing genes drive the secretion of insulin from the pancreas, with insulin being a hormone that regulates the amount of sugar in the blood by moving glucose into cells. Past studies have shown that vampire bats secrete little insulin, which makes sense given that the blood they drink contains few carbohydrates, Hiller told The Scientist. This lack of insulin secretion may help the bats conserve what little sugar they consume, by keeping that sugar available in the bloodstream, he said.
Vampire Bats
Microscopic Nanotech Color Slides
NanoMslide
It's called the NanoMslide: Five years in development, it's able to work in tandem with a conventional microscope to bring cancer cells out in distinct colors, enabling experts to spot signs of the disease much more easily.
The new technology is based on the physics of plasmons – oscillations in charged particles, such as electrons. Thin layers of silver provide whole fields of free-roaming electrons, which, when stimulated by light, line up in a specific fashion.
Poking tiny, nanosized pores into the silver manipulates the light's structure, so as it passes up through tissue, certain colors will be selected, producing a spectrum that depends on subtle differences in the sample's structure and – importantly – its own electron configurations.
Effectively, the microscope slide becomes a sensor, revealing the composition of the cells placed on it through a color-coded light show. It promises to enable disease diagnosis that's made earlier and quicker than before, without the labor-intensive application of stains that risk damaging samples.
Parker and her colleagues describe the difference as going from black and white television to color – so quite a jump. With existing techniques, trying to identify cancer cells under a microscope can be a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack.
NanoMslide
New Study
Chaco Canyon
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati say they have more evidence that Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico was more than just an ancient gathering spot for Indigenous ceremonies and rituals.
The researchers analyzed pollen content and the chemical composition of soils to help document environmental impacts of the early residents who called the area home, which is now a national park and UNESCO World Heritage site.
Their findings, published this week in the journal PLOS ONE, focus on changes resulting from tree harvesting that sustained daily life at Chaco.
The researchers reported a gradual degradation of the surrounding woodlands beginning around 600 B.C., much earlier than previously thought.
While some of the mysteries surrounding Chaco are still debated in academic circles, there’s agreement that the massive stone buildings, ceremonial structures called kivas and other features that dot the landscape offered a religious or ritualistic experience for the ancestors of today’s Native American pueblos. Many of Chaco's structures are aligned with celestial events, such as the summer solstice.
Chaco Canyon
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