from Bruce
Anecdotes
Prejudice
• Brett Butler, star of TV’s Grace Under Fire, once heard a bigot engaging in gay-bashing in a public place. She followed him outside and told him, “You’ve got to be really careful where you gay-bash.” Of course, he asked, “Why?” She replied, “Because I know a lot of faggots who can kick your *ss — if the dykes don’t get you first.”
• Stand-up comedian Laura Kightlinger has had nights when she has been on stage and men in the audience have called out to her such things as “Sit on my face” and “Show us your tits.” Ms. Kightlinger says, “In other words, I’m no different from any woman walking down the street.”
Problem-Solving
• Comedian Bill Hicks started performing before he could drive. He heard about amateur night at a club called the Comedy Workshop, so he called, asked for, and got permission to perform from the manager. Unfortunately, his parents told him that he couldn’t perform. Not an insoluble problem. Bill sneaked out of the house through his second-story window and met a friend who was old enough to drive him to the club. Bill was popular with the comedians at the Comedy Workshop and with his classmates, but a principal heard his act, then told him, “You have the sense of humor of a 3rd-grader.” Bill replied, “Well, then, you must have the comprehension of a 2nd-grader.”
• In 1965, the Friars Club, whose members are comedians, roasted Soupy Sales with comic insults. Mr. Sales and everybody else enjoyed themselves, but Friars Club member Brian Dougherty ran into a problem: He had to go to the bathroom, but he didn’t want to miss any of the jokes. Fortunately, Mr. Dougherty is a problem-solver. He whispered to Marty Allen, who was sitting next to him at a table with an overhanging tablecloth, “Hand me that pitcher.” With a relieved bladder, Mr. Dougherty was able to laugh even harder.
• Early in his career, comedian Tim Conway worked with his friend Ernie Anderson in television in Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Anderson had a locally produced, low-budget show called Ernie’s Place; unfortunately, people did not want to appear on the show as guests. No problem. Mr. Conway simply appeared as the guest for each episode. His occupation changed from episode to episode, but his name remained the same — Dag Herford.
• When country comedian Jerry Clower started to make it big in show business, he decided to get a fancy Rolex watch, but he discovered that all of them had Roman numerals on the watch face, and he didn’t like Roman numerals. Fortunately, he was able to easily solve that problem. He hired a watchmaker to take a watch face from an inexpensive Sears and Roebuck watch and put it on the expensive Rolex watch.
• Bob Woodruff, who once headed Coca-Cola, and ventriloquist Edgar Bergen went hunting. Both shot at a wild turkey, which fell dead, but both claimed to have made the shot that killed the turkey. Mr. Bergen said, “There’s only one way to settle this.” He picked up the dead turkey and asked, “Who shot you, turkey?” The turkey replied, “You did, Bergen.”
• When African-American comedian Chris Rock joined the cast of Saturday Night Live, he noticed that when he wore such clothing as jeans and a T-shirt or sweats, the security guards would often ask him to show his ID. To solve that problem, Mr. Rock started dressing up in suits whenever he was around the set of Saturday Night Live.
• Carl Reiner, creator, writer, and producer of The Dick Van Dyke Show, sometimes wanted an extra 15 seconds to save a good joke when an episode was a little too long. He once saved a good joke by going through an episode and cutting a single frame from each scene.
• The Domestic Resurrection Circus ends each year with an exorcism of one of the forces of evil. One year, a Mother Earth puppet set the military-industrial complex on fire. Another year, the Specter of Hunger succumbed to a fiery death. Art and activism can make us feel better.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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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: "Laserblast"
Album: RISE AND SHINE
Artist: The Putz
Artist Location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Info:
The Putz is a pop punk rock band mostly from Indiana … mostly ….
Billy Putz- Bass, vocals.
Dougie Tangent- Drums, backing vocals.
Patrick McVay- Guitar, backing vocals.
Dylan Thomas, a fan, wrote, “I've bought some new releases on vinyl that were really poorly mastered and sounded awful. I'm happy to say this record is NOT one of them, it sounds absolutely awesome! Great like every other Eccentric Pop record I own. Favorite track: Laserblast.”
Dino Ramone, a fan, wrote, “100% undiluted Putz. The Queers for the younger generation. Magnificent Favorite track: Laserblast.”
Price: $1 for track; $8 for 14-track album
Genre: Pop Punk.
Links:
RISE AND SHINE
The Putz on Bandcamp
The Putz on YouTube
Other Links:
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Reader Comment
Current Events
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We are all only temporarily able bodied.
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Hot, windy, and dry. Very, very dry.
Planned Parenthood
MacKenzie Scott
MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has donated $275 million to Planned Parenthood, a leading advocate for abortion rights in the United States.
Planned Parenthood said Scott's donation to the group's national office and 21 affiliates was the largest gift from a single donor in the history of the organization, which operates clinics focused on reproductive and sexual health across the country.
Planned Parenthood noted that the gift comes as conservative states roll back abortion rights and the US Supreme Court is poised to potentially overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that held that access to abortion is a woman's constitutional right.
The donation to Planned Parenthood was announced one day after Scott donated $436 million to Habitat for Humanity and dozens of affiliates of the homebuilding non-governmental organization.
MacKenzie Scott
Music Hall of Fame
Memphis
Singers Mavis Staples and Ronnie Milsap and keyboardist Booker T. Jones lead a versatile group of musicians named to this year’s class of the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.
The hall said it announced its newest members during a ceremony Tuesday. Established in 2012, the hall includes members of the music world with ties to Memphis, including B.B. King, Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, Tina Turner, Three 6 Mafia and Elvis Presley.
Staples was part of The Staples Singers at Stax Records in Memphis with hits like “I’ll Take You There,” and she later embarked on a successful solo career. Milsap was a keyboard session musician in Memphis before becoming a country music star.
Before going solo, Booker T. Jones was the front man for the influential group Booker T. and the MGs, which also served as the house band for Stax and had several instrumental hits, including “Green Onions.”
The hall is administered by the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum, which was developed by the Smithsonian Institution.
Memphis
Adds Nearly 4,000 Free TV Episodes
YouTube
You might consider opening the YouTube app the next time you’re mindlessly scanning streaming apps for the next TV show to watch. At least, so long as you can stomach ads.
Google’s popular video platform announced today that users can now stream nearly 4,000 episodes of various TV shows for free with ads. You can browse the full list in the “Free to watch shows” section of the “Movies and shows” category on YouTube. Some of the more popular titles of the 100 or so shows available include Hell’s Kitchen, Andromeda, Heartland, Ascension, and Kitchen Nightmares. Older releases include Unsolved Mysteries, 21 Jump Street, The Carol Burnett Show, The Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, and The Dick Van Dyke Show.
The shows join some 1,500 ad-supported movies from companies like Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate, FilmRise, and others. New additions to the platform include Gone in Sixty Seconds, Runaway Bridge, and Legally Blonde.
Now YouTube is shifting strategies and going after the growing segment of ad-supported offerings referred to as FAST, or free ad-supported streaming TV services. So far, Tubi, Xumo, Plex, Roku, and even a few TV makers give users access to free content. YouTube is behind the times but can take advantage of having 2 billion active users who are already browsing the app or webpage.
YouTube
'I Wasn't'
Sally Field
Sally Field was not the love of Burt Reynolds's life.
That was what Reynolds publicly dubbed her in 2015 — three years before his death. He said one of his biggest regrets in life was not making their relationship, which began on the set of 1977's Smokey and the Bandit, work and he gushed about how much he missed her.
The actress's take is decidedly different.
As for his public proclamations, Field, 75, said, Reynolds, who died from a heart attack at age 82, "somehow invented in his rethinking of everything that I was more important to him than he had thought, but I wasn’t. He just wanted to have the thing he didn’t have. I just didn't want to deal with that."
In the interview, Field — who is working on the road-trip movie 80 for Brady with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Rita Moreno — spoke about her long career in Hollywood, calling it a business that "can really kick the poop out of you."
Sally Field
Ex-Prosecutor
Manhattan
A prosecutor who had been leading a criminal investigation into Donald Trump the failed game-show host before quitting last month said in his resignation letter that he believes the former president is “guilty of numerous felony violations” and he disagreed with the Manhattan district attorney’s decision not to seek an indictment.
In the letter, published Wednesday by The New York Times, Mark Pomerantz told District Attorney Alvin Bragg there was “evidence sufficient to establish Mr. Trump the conman’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” of allegations he falsified financial statements to secure loans and burnish his image as a wealthy businessman.
Pomerantz and his former co-leader on the Trump known liar's probe, Carey Dunne, resigned on Feb. 23 after clashing with Bragg over the future of the case.
So far, the three-year investigation has resulted only in tax fraud charges against Trump the unindicted conspirator’s company, the Trump Loser Organization, and its longtime finance chief Allen Weisselberg relating to lucrative fringe benefits such as rent, car payments and school tuition.
Pomerantz, a former mafia prosecutor, was brought out of private practice by Vance to add his expertise in white collar investigations to the Trump loser's probe. Dunne argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in a successful, multiyear fight for Trump Individual #1’s tax records.
Manhattan
Dutch Publisher Pulls Book
Anne Frank
The publisher of a new and controversial work about Anne Frank is pulling the book after a group of Dutch historians released an in-depth criticism of its “most likely scenario” of who betrayed the Jewish teenage diarist and her family in German-occupied Amsterdam during World War II.
Meanwhile, the U.S. publisher of “The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation” announced Wednesday that it will continue to sell the book.
The cold case team’s research, published early this year in a book by Canadian academic and author Rosemary Sullivan, immediately drew criticism in the Netherlands.
In a 69-page written “refutation,” six historians and academics describe the cold case team’s findings as “a shaky house of cards.” The book’s Dutch publisher, Ambo Anthos, repeated an earlier apology and announced Tuesday night it was withdrawing “The Betrayal of Anne Frank.”
The historians said the book “displays a distinct pattern in which assumptions are made by the CCT (Cold Case Team), held to be true a moment later, and then used as a building block for the next step in the train of logic. This makes the entire book a shaky house of cards, because if any single step turns out to be wrong, the cards above also collapse.”
Anne Frank
‘Law Enforcement Gangs’
L.A.
The gang scandal within the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has flared up again, with the county’s top watchdog accusing LASD brass of stonewalling its investigation into tattooed gang members within the department, and the department accusing the inspector general of an “unhealthy obsession to attack” the LASD.
A new letter to Sheriff Alex Villanueva from Los Angeles County Inspector General Max Huntsman reveals that Huntsman’s office is investigating at least 41 deputies for their alleged membership in tattooed “law enforcement gangs.” The letter cites a “partial list of deputies whom the Sheriffs Department itself has identified as allegedly being tattooed members,” a list that includes “eleven alleged Banditos and thirty alleged Executioners.”
The alleged deputy gangs within the LASD operate out of the department’s precincts, called “stations” in LASD lingo. The Banditos are linked to the East Los Angeles station, while the Executioners, according to Huntsman’s letter, are “a deputy gang based out of the Sheriff’s Department’s Compton Station.”
Deputy gangs have plagued the LASD for decades — as detailed by a county-commissioned 2021 report by the RAND corporation — and members have been accused of violence, discrimination, harassment, and intimidation, not only against members of the public but fellow members of the department. The county has paid out at least $55 million in settlements to resolve claims linked to alleged deputy gangs.
Not unlike in street gangs, sheriff-deputy gang members receive matching tattoos. The Bandidos emblem is a skeleton with a sombrero and a handlebar mustache holding a smoking revolver. As described by Huntsman, the Executioners’ tattoo features “a skeleton with a Nazi-style military helmet.”
L.A.
New Trial Data
MDMA Therapy
Follow-up data from a Phase III trial is the latest to suggest that MDMA—also known as ecstasy—could improve mental health when combined with therapy. The study found that MDMA-assisted therapy was better than talk therapy alone in relieving the symptoms of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, and that this relief remained durable months later. The results from this trial and others will likely pave the way to a formal approval of MDMA by the Food and Drug Administration in the near future.
MDMA, formally called 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine, is a synthetic drug with both stimulant and psychedelic effects. It can produce feelings of increased elation, empathy, and a distorted sense of time and space. These properties made it a popular club drug, which led to its designation as an illegal substance by the U.S. federal government in the 1980s. But even before then, a small group of psychologists had experimented with using MDMA as a way to boost the effects of talk therapy sessions.
MDMA-assisted therapy has received renewed attention from the scientific world as of late, buoyed by new research and a successful push for the legalization of drugs in general. And in the last few years, the FDA has agreed to consider a formal approval of MDMA for PTSD, pending positive results from randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase III trials, which are considered the gold standard of clinical research.
Last year, a team led by University of California, San Francisco researcher Jennifer Mitchell published the first results from their Phase III trial of 90 patients with severe PTSD. Compared to placebo, MDMA-assisted therapy was highly effective and well tolerated, they found, even among patients with other relevant health conditions, such as depression and a history of substance use disorder. Specifically, two months after the last therapy session, about two-thirds of patients who took MDMA no longer fit the criteria for active PTSD.
On Tuesday, at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society, Mitchell and her team reported follow-up data from the study, which showed that these improvements seem to last longer still after the initial treatment.
MDMA Therapy
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