Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Andrew Tobias: Why "Income Distribution" Is Not A Four-Letter Word
Imagine a world in which a single mammoth machine, controlled by a single operator, handles . . . everything.
Daniel Boffey: "Revealed: class divide at the heart of unpaid internships" (Guardian)
Survey shows how employers are able to exploit graduates' desperation to find work.
Mark Morford: All Your Heroes are Perverts (SF Gate)
The greatest military leader in a generation. The greatest cyclist of all time. The greatest college football coach and assistant on American record. The guy who does the voice for Elmo for the past -whatnow? - 28 years? Jesus, really? Him too?
Dorian Lynskey: "Robert Greene on his 48 laws of power: 'I'm not evil - I'm a realist'" (Guardian)
His first book has been called a 'psychopath's bible', and its fans include Will Smith and Jay-Z. So is the author actually some sort of malevolent mastermind?
J.F. Sargent: 6 Ill-Advised Marketing Campaigns That Backfired Hilariously (Cracked)
Marketing professionals are always looking for clever new strategies to burrow inside your brain and lay eggs that will eventually hatch into impulse purchases. But whether they are deliberately courting controversy (there's no such thing as bad publicity, right?) or just didn't think it through enough, advertising campaigns occasionally backfire in hilarious ways. These are some of those ways.
Connie Schultz: More Hope and a Little Less Worry at Donna's Diner (Creators Syndicate)
Donna Dove has been running Donna's Diner for 13 years in downtown Elyria, Ohio, on the corner of Middle Avenue and Second Street. Like so many small towns, Elyria has been hit hard by changing times, and Donna has struggled mightily to keep her diner afloat.
Marc Dion: In Praise of Uninvolved Parents (Creators Syndicate)
I'd like to thank my parents for staying the hell out of my school.
Farhad Manjoo: Stop Calling Me a Troll (Slate)
Just because you disagree with me doesn't mean I am one.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Lulu Storefront
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog
David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
said:
wrote:
answered:
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Infographic
Your Smartphone or Your Dinner
Thanks, Peter!
BadtotheboneBob's Occasional Poll
New Question
If you could take a phone picture of yourself and somebody else like Meryl did with the Madame Secretary, who would it be?
Send your response to
BadToTheBoneBob
( BCEpoll 'at' aol.com )
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
PURPLE GENE MINI REVIEW
Victoria's Secret Fashion Show
OH OH OH OH MY GAWD.....HELP ME ...IT'S THE "SEXIEST NIGHT ON TELEVISION" (CBS)..."ANGEL FANTASIES"
IT IS "VICTORIA SECRETS FASHION SHOW 2012" OR AS I CALL IT.... "STUPID HOE NIGHT"
"SOFT PORN...CIRCUS SEX...BITCHES WITH WINGS...HOLY UNDERWEAR SALESMEN BATMAN !"
THE SHOW STARTS WITH....HOLY FUCK...JIM MORRISON AND THE DOORS SING ING "BREAK ON THRU TO THE OTHER SIDE" MASHING INTO "MISERLOO"...MIXING INTO "GET YER FREAK ON" ...FINISHING WITH BILLY IDOLS..."WITH A REBEL YELL...SHE CRIED MORE..MORE...MORE"....AND OUT COME THE SCANTILLY CLAD AIR HEAD FASHION WHORES ...WITH ALL KINDA WINGS ON....OH ...I GET IT..."ANGEL FANTASY.....WOW...AMAZING PRODUCTION...
BUMP BUMP BUMP GOES THE BASS LINE AND OUT COMES RIHANNA WITH DIAMOND STUDDED GLASSES AND A PEARL NECKLACE (I WONDER IF SHE KNOWS WHAT A PEARL NECKLACE IS ?) SINGING .."SHINING BRIGHT...LIKE DIAMONDS IN THE SKY" SHE'S GOT GREAT CHEEKBONES ..AND SEXY LIPS...OH AND A FINE FINE BOOTY....
MORE SKINNY LARGE BREASTED ..LONG LEGGED POUTY LIPPED MODELS WITH RIDICULOUS WINGS WALKING THE "TRACK" (I MEAN THE RUNWAY) (WHO GETS MY FUNNY PUNNY ???)
HOLY LITTLE WHITE DUDE IN WHITER SPACE OUTFIT AND SILVER GLOVES ???? IT'S JUSTIN BEIBER FEVER TIME...SO FUCKING WHITE (NOT A SINGLE ERSON OF COLOR IN ANY PART OF THIS SHOW.....HE SINGS "LA LA LA LA...AS LONG AS U LUV ME"...WITH V S GIRLS STORMING THE STAGE ...THEY THINK HE'S TOOOOO CUUUTE"
HOLY "PROTEST SONG PORN" ITS BOB DYLAN (WITH HIS COWBOY HAT ON ) AT A FASHION SHOOT IN VENICE ...GNARLY OLD FUCK WITH SKINNY YOUNG MODELS...PERFECT...
THEN WE HAVE A PARADE OF MODELS....ALEXANDRA...ADRIANA...LINDSAY...ERIN...DOUTSEN...BEHATI...MIRANDA...AND CANDY ALL SUPER SEXY GIRLS JUST HAVING SOOOO MUCH FUN...IN THEIR UNDER WEAR...
I LIVE FOR THIS KINDA CRAP...ALL THE WAY OVER THE TOP PRODUCTION...WITH THE CHEEZIEST CHEAP FAUX PORN...WOW...DID ANYBODY ELSE SEE THIS EXTRAVAGANZA ????
WE FINISHING WITH A RED WHITE AND BLUE WINGED WOMAN BRINGING OUT RIHANNA FOR A FINAL SONG...THEN ALL THE DUMB OUTAKES AND ......THE END (PRODUCED BY "DONE & DUSTED ")
I WENT TO MY TRUSTY DVD COLLECTION AND PULLED OUT "BELADONNA GANG BANG" RELAXED AND WATCHED SOME REAL PORN.
Victoria's Secret
You Tube
Article
Team Coco - Serious Jibber-Jabber Web Series
Conan
The first preview of Conan's extended Nate Silver interview, part of our Serious Jibber-Jabber web series:
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Kinda soupy morning, sorta sunny afternoon.
Sherry Lansing Leadership Award
Diane Keaton
When Diane Keaton learned she would receive the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, the 66-year-old actress immediately began panicking about her speech.
Keaton accepted the diamond-and-ruby-encrusted prize Wednesday at the Hollywood Reporter's 21st annual Women in Entertainment breakfast honoring the most powerful women in Hollywood.
She opened by warning that her speech wasn't funny, then proceeded to crack up the crowd inside the ballroom of the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Wednesday's breakfast coincides with the publication of the Hollywood Reporter's Power 100 ranking of entertainment's most influential women.
Diane Keaton
Rediscovering New Voice
Julie Andrews
It may take a big spoonful of sugar to make this go down: Julie Andrews says that her four-octave voice is not coming back.
The Oscar and Tony Award-winning actress said in a recent interview that a botched operation to remove non-cancerous throat nodules in 1997 hasn't gotten better. It has permanently limited her range and her ability to hold notes.
The actress says she can still speak "pretty well" and can still hit a few bass notes, "So if you wanted a rendition of 'Old Man River' you might get it, but I'm not singing as much these days."
Andrews has sung publicly several times since then including a performance in the 2004 film "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement" and in a 2010 London concert, but called those "speak-singing."
The 77-year old, however, says she has rediscovered her voice in her books and in directing theater.
Julie Andrews
Museum Reopens
Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens' London home has gone from "Bleak House" to "Great Expectations."
For years, the four-story brick row house where the author lived with his young family was a dusty and slightly neglected museum, a mecca for Dickens scholars but overlooked by most visitors to London.
Now, after a 3 million pound ($4.8 million) makeover, it has been restored to bring the writer's world to life. The house reopens next week, and its director says it aims to look "as if Dickens had just stepped out."
Dickens lived in the house between 1837 and 1839, a short but fruitful period that saw the birth of his first two children. It's the site where he wrote "Nicholas Nickleby" and "Oliver Twist," going in the process from jobbing journalist to rising author whose serialized stories were gobbled up by a growing fan base.
Dickens leased the simple but elegant Georgian house, built in 1807, for 80 pounds a year.
Charles Dickens
Berlin Marks Centenary
Nefertiti
A famed bust of Egypt's Queen Nefertiti is getting some new company to mark the centenary of its discovery: an exhibition of works giving a taste of the site where it was found.
The show, "In the Light of Amarna - 100 Years of the Nefertiti Discovery," opens at Berlin's Neues Museum on Thursday - a century to the day after a German excavator unearthed the 3,300-year-old limestone bust of the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaton in southern Egypt.
Nefertiti is the centerpiece of the show of some 600 objects - many held in the Berlin museum's stories over the decades.
They range from a bust of Akhenaton himself, through fragments from the workshop where Nefertiti was found, to remains of ancient Egyptian homes.
Nefertiti
West Point Cadet Quits, Cites Overt Religion
Blake Page
A cadet quitting West Point less than six months before graduation says he could no longer be part of a culture that promotes prayers and religious activities and disrespects nonreligious cadets.
Blake Page announced his decision to quit the U.S. Military Academy this week in a Huffington Postessay.
The 24-year-old cadet says a determination earlier this semester that he could not become an officer due to clinical depression played a role in his public protest. He says he sees religion playing an unconstitutional role in the military.
Page, who is from Stockbridge, Ga., said he was notified Tuesday of his honorable discharge. He faces no military commitment and will not have to reimburse the cost of his education.
Blake Page
Claim Disputed
'Spamalot' Suit
Michael Palin has rejected a movie producer's claim that the producer was the unofficial seventh member of the Monty Python comedy troupe and is entitled to more royalties from the musical "Spamalot."
Mark Forstater has sued over the show, which is based on the 1975 movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."
Forstater produced the film and his lawyer claims it was agreed that he would be "treated as the seventh Python" financially.
Palin told a hearing at London's High Court on Wednesday that the idea of a seventh member "was never going to be accepted by the Pythons."
And he disputed Forstater's claim to have helped written the film, saying: "There were six of us. We were a tight group. We wrote our own material."
'Spamalot' Suit
Alternate 'Reality' Show
"Pursuit of Truth"
Glenn Beck (R-Unstable) is launching a reality show with Vince Vaughn (R-Unfunny) and Peter Billingsley (R-BB Gun) to find great documentary filmmakers.
Vaughn is one of Hollywood's highest profile conservatives, and a recent Ron Paul supporter. Billingsley, a producer and director who often works with Vaughn, is celebrated this time of year for his childhood role in the classic film "A Christmas Story."
The new reality show, called "Pursuit of Truth," will air on Beck's TheBlazeTV. It will feature documentaries submitted to the show as it seeks "the world's next great documentary filmmaker." Twenty competitors will see the ultimate prize of financing and worldwide distribution.
Filmmakers can submit their work at the new show's website until January 31. The show will air in the spring.
The films will be reviewed by Vaughn, Billingsley, Beck and Go Go Luckey Entertainment's Gary Auerbach.
"Pursuit of Truth"
BBC Presenter Charged
Stuart Hall
A veteran BBC TV and radio presenter was charged with three counts of indecent assault by British police on Wednesday, the latest high-profile figure to be questioned since a sex scandal erupted at Britain's publicly funded broadcaster.
The charges will be a further embarrassment for the BBC, which was thrown into turmoil when it was revealed in October that one of its former top stars, the late Jimmy Savile, had been one of Britain's most prolific child sex offenders.
Stuart Hall, 82, best known for hosting the popular TV programme "It's a Knockout" in the 1970s and 80s and who still appears on radio, was not charged with rape, police said.
"The offences are alleged to have been committed between 1974 and 1984 and to involve three girls aged between 9 and 16 years," police said in a statement.
Stuart Hall
Rupert Buying Sports Channel
Cleveland Indians
News Corp is expected to announce as early as this week that it will buy SportsTime Ohio, a TV channel owned by the Cleveland Indians baseball team, for around $230 million, sources told Reuters, marking its second acquisition of a regional sports channel since late last month.
The deal would give News Corp's Fox Sports unit the rights to broadcast the Major League Baseball team's games, according to two sources with knowledge of the negotiations. That would add to the games that its Fox Sports Ohio channel carries from basketball's Cleveland Cavaliers, the Cincinnati Reds baseball team and others.
The move underscores a push by media companies to target regional sports channels as broadcast rights for many major sporting events are already sewn up for years. Such channels show games from local colleges and professional teams that heavyweight ESPN, owned by Walt Disney Co, or other national channels do not carry.
Last month, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp said it would buy a 49 percent stake in the YES network, a sports channel controlled by the New York Yankees baseball team, in a deal that sources said was valued at $3 billion. Fox is also negotiating a 25-year extension of its existing agreement to carry Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games, said one of the people, and could pay as much as $6 billion for those rights.
New York-based News Corp has been stepping up its efforts to control the rights to key sports teams in response to Time Warner Cable Inc's deal in February 2011 to pay $3 billion to carry the Los Angeles Lakers basketball games for its Time Warner SportsNet Channel.
Cleveland Indians
Razed 'By Mistake'
Chateau de Bellevue
Residents of a sleepy French village in Bordeaux have been left dumbfounded after discovering their local 18th-century chateau was completely bulldozed "by mistake."
The mayor's office in Yvrac said Wednesday that workers who were hired to renovate the grand 13,000-square-meter (140,000-square-foot) manor and raze a small building on the same estate in southwest France mixed them up.
Local media reported that the construction company misunderstood the renovation plans of the current owner, Russian businessman Dmitry Stroskin, to clean up the manor and restore it to its former baroque glory.
Stroskin was away when the calamity occurred and returned home to discover his chateau, a local treasure boasting a grand hall that could host some 200 people, as well as a sweeping stone staircase - was nothing but rubble.
Chateau de Bellevue
Rare Drawing Raises Record $48 Million
Raphael
One of the greatest drawings by Renaissance master Raphael still in private hands sold for 29.7 million pounds ($47.9 million) on Wednesday, an auction record for the artist in sterling terms and double pre-sale expectations.
Sotheby's auctioneers had high hopes for the 16th century "Head of an Apostle", a study for Raphael's last painting "Transfiguration" which is on display at the Vatican Museum in Rome.
When the artist died in 1520, his body was laid out in state in his studio with the Transfiguration hanging at his head.
Measuring roughly 15 inches by 11 inches, the picture drawn in black chalk went on a mini-world tour prior to the London auction in a bid to drum up interest from Asia as well as Europe and North America.
According to Sotheby's, only two other Raphael drawings of the same caliber have been auctioned in the last 50 years - in 2009, Raphael's black chalk "Head of a Muse" sold for 29.2 million pounds at Christie's in London.
Raphael
In Memory
Dave Brubeck
Jazz composer and pianist Dave Brubeck, whose pioneering style in pieces such as "Take Five" caught listeners' ears with exotic, challenging rhythms, has died. He was 91.
Brubeck, who lived in Wilton, died Wednesday morning at Norwalk Hospital of heart failure after being stricken while on his way to a cardiology appointment with his son Darius, said his manager Russell Gloyd. Brubeck would have turned 92 on Thursday.
Brubeck had a career that spanned almost all American jazz since World War II. He formed The Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1951 and was the first modern jazz musician to be pictured on the cover of Time magazine - on Nov. 8, 1954 - and he helped define the swinging, smoky rhythms of 1950s and '60s club jazz.
The seminal album "Time Out," released by the quartet in 1959, was the first ever million-selling jazz LP, and is still among the best-selling jazz albums of all time. It opens with "Blue Rondo a la Turk" in 9/8 time - nine beats to the measure instead of the customary two, three or four beats.
A piano-and-saxophone whirlwind based loosely on a Mozart piece, "Blue Rondo" eventually intercuts between Brubeck's piano and a more traditional 4/4 jazz rhythm.
The album also features "Take Five" - in 5/4 time - which became the Quartet's signature theme and even made the Billboard singles chart in 1961. It was composed by Brubeck's longtime saxophonist, Paul Desmond.
After service in World War II and study at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., Brubeck formed an octet including Desmond on alto sax and Dave van Kreidt on tenor, Cal Tjader on drums and Bill Smith on clarinet. The group played Brubeck originals and standards by other composers, including some early experimentation in unusual time signatures. Their groundbreaking album "Dave Brubeck Octet" was recorded in 1946.
The group evolved into the Quartet, which played colleges and universities. The Quartet's first album, "Jazz at Oberlin," was recorded live at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1953.
Ten years later, Joe Morello on drums and Eugene Wright on bass joined with Brubeck and Desmond to produce "Time Out."
In later years Brubeck composed music for operas, ballet, even a contemporary Mass.
In the late 1980s, Brubeck contributed music for one episode of an eight-part series of television specials, "This Is America, Charlie Brown."
His music was for an episode involving NASA and the space station. He worked with three of his sons - Chris on bass trombone and electric bass, Dan on drums and Matthew on cello - and included excerpts from his Mass "To Hope! A Celebration," his oratorio "A Light in the Wilderness," and a piece he had composed but never recorded, "Quiet As the Moon."
In 1996, he won a lifetime achievement award from the Grammys and in 2009 he was a Kennedy Center Honors recipient.
Numerous jazz musicians were scheduled to participate in a birthday concert in Brubeck's honor that had been scheduled for Thursday in Waterbury. The show will go on as a tribute concert. Darius, an acclaimed pianist, was among those scheduled to perform along with saxophonist Richie Cannata, and Bernie Williams, former New York Yankees star and a jazz guitarist.
Born in Concord, Calif., on Dec. 6, 1920, Brubeck actually had planned to become a rancher like his father. He attended the College of the Pacific (now the University of the Pacific) in 1938, intending to major in veterinary medicine and return to the family's 45,000-acre spread.
But within a year Brubeck was drawn to music. He graduated in 1942 and was drafted by the Army, where he served - mostly as a musician - under Gen. George S. Patton in Europe. At the time, his Wolfpack Band was the only racially integrated unit in the military.
Brubeck and his wife, Iola, had five sons and a daughter. Four of his sons - Chris on trombone and electric bass, Dan on drums, Darius on keyboards and Matthew on cello - played with the London Symphony Orchestra in a birthday tribute to Brubeck in December 2000.
Dave Brubeck
In Memory
Kanzaburo Nakamura
One of Japan's top kabuki actors, who worked hard to modernize the centuries-old theater form and performed around the world, died on Wednesday after a five-month battle with cancer, Japanese media reported.
Kanzaburo Nakamura, 57, was born to a family of longstanding performers in the ancient kabuki theatre - known for elaborate make-up, extravagant costumes and all-male casts - and began performing at the age of three.
He sought to modernize kabuki, which dates back 400 years, and to introduce Western audiences to the colorful art form through packed performances in New York, Paris and Berlin.
"I love Kabuki and it's a good thing I love it. If I hadn't loved it, I would have just gone mad, given the family I was born to," he told Reuters in 2008 before a performance in Berlin.
Diagnosed with esophageal cancer in June, he underwent surgery a month later but contracted pneumonia and was in and out of hospital after that, with women's magazines following his illness closely.
Born Noriaki Namino, he took the stage name of Kankuro Nakamura at his first performance, and then officially inherited the revered stage name Kanzaburo Nakamura in 2005, becoming the 18th person to bear it.
Kanzaburo Nakamura
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
