from Bruce
Anecdotes
Letters
• Hunter “Patch” Adams, M.D., once wrote a fund-raising letter for a charity. The 2-page letter, which was actually mailed and which was successful in raising funds, was entirely written in Greek. Why did he do this? He explains that he gets “so many fund-raising letters that they all start to look the same and they might as well be in Greek.”
Media
• When Kathryn Grant — the future Mrs. Bing Crosby — was 18 years old, she had a chance to interview famous stars Bob Hope and Joan Fonteyn. Unfortunately, she nearly caused a disaster by asking Ms. Fonteyn how old she was. Fortunately, Mr. Hope smoothed things over by saying, “Making allowances for your youth and inexperience, we still can’t let you talk to a great star that way. Now, here’s what you should have asked.” Mr. Hope then asked Ms. Fonteyn a series of questions that both elicited the information needed for the future Ms. Crosby to write an interesting newspaper column and flattered Ms. Fonteyn at the same time. Ms. Crosby writes, “It was a gentle and instructive rebuke from a master craftsman, and I never forgot the lesson that it instilled. Months later, when the callow teenager interviewed Bing for her paper, she was ready to snare a superstar and a husband with a far more subtle approach.”
• As a boy, W.C. Fields had a unique way of peddling newspapers. He juggled the folded newspapers, and he yelled out teasers about the stories inside the newspapers. However, he ignored regular news stories and instead boosted unusual stories, such as “Bronislaw Gimp acquires license for two-year-old sheepdog. Details on page 26.”
• Lesbian comic Robin Tyler had an interesting early career. She became a Judy Garland impersonator at a bar for gay men in New York. After the police raided the bar, she was arrested along with several men in drag. The New York Post ran this odd headline: “44 Men and 1 Woman Arrested for Female Impersonation.”
Mishaps
• Being one of the Three Stooges — Moe, Larry, and Curly — sometimes involved sacrifice. In 1936, the Stooges made the comedy short Ants in the Pantry. In it, the Stooges are pest exterminators, but business is slow, so their boss finds a way to get more customers: “If they don’t have any bugs, give them some!” Therefore, the Three Stooges start putting mice, ants, and moths in future customers’ houses. During filming, a container of red ants broke in Moe’s pocket, and they started swarming inside his clothing, leading to a lot of squirming by Moe. The director, Preston Black, loved it, saying, “Great, Moe! Keep up that squirming!” Moe remembers, “It was very funny — to everyone but me.” Also in 1936, the Stooges made Slippery Silks. In this short, over 150 pies were thrown, and Moe ended up with a sore arm and a sore face because the pies that he did not throw were thrown at him. The other Stooges also suffered injuries: Larry lost a tooth while making one short, and Curly once got hit in the head while making a short and had to be attended to by a doctor. The doctor cut away some of Curly’s hair so he could attend to his wound, and then he glued back the hair so Curly could resume shooting the short. (Curly is usually bald, but in a few shorts he has hair.)
• Jane Russell and Bob Hope once entertained at the Paramount Theater in New York. Ms. Russell had trouble dropping off to sleep — too many drunks made noise in the hallways of her hotel across the street. One day she overslept, threw a fur coat across her nightgown, and then ran across the street where Mr. Hope was getting ready to introduce her. Standing in the wings, Ms. Russell threw open her fur coat, showing Mr. Hope her nightgown. Mr. Hope giggled, then told several more jokes, giving Ms. Russell time to put on a sequined gown and some lipstick.
• Christa Miller co-starred as the character Kate in The Drew Carey Show. One day, she complained about an odor in her trailer. She had checked the refrigerator, but the odor was not coming from there. Another co-star of the show, Ryan Stiles, asked whether she had checked the microwave. She had not, and when she did check the microwave, she found roast beef that had been sitting there — and rotting — for over a week.
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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: "Punta San Gabor"
EP: DAWN PATROL AT EBERSWALDE DELTA
Artist: If Mars Had Waves
Artist Location: Sebastopol, California
Info: “Some call it Surf. Almost always instrumental.”
Punta San Gabor, Rumbalone, Move In Day, and Moody Teen written, performed, and recorded by Daniel Carls, James Snyder, Matthew Murray, and Robert Loeper.
Special Thanks to Neil Pinkerton for his valuable input; even though we didn't keep his tambourine parts.
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $4 (USD) for five-track EP; one track is free — “SKWT”
Genre: Surf.
Links:
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If Mars Had Waves on Bandcamp
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Nature
New Venture
Michael Egan
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
Recommended
PUTIN: NO to FREE SPPEECH, YES to DEAD MOMS and DEAD BABIES
A disturbing video shows a Russian anti-war protester being bundled away by police (news.com.au)
In Russia it is forbidden to write “stop the war” (which is two words in Russian), so it is understood she literally wrote “two words” on the card.
Pregnant woman and baby die after attack on hospital in Mariupol (Guardian)
Woman was taken to another hospital in city in south-east Ukraine where medics could not save her or her child
Russian TV News Hit By Anti-War Protest In Studio
Betty Bowers
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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
Back to sunny and seasonal.
Thanks But No Thanks
Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton has announced she is pulling out of this year’s nominations for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, saying she hasn’t “earned that right.”
The music icon who has been elected into the Country Music Hall of Fame explained her decision in a statement posted on her official social media pages Monday, noting she did not want to take votes away from the remaining nominees.
“Even though I am extremely flattered and grateful to be nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, I don’t feel that I have earned that right. I really do not want votes to be split because of me, so I must respectfully bow out,” she wrote.
Other artists who have made both the Rock Hall and Country Hall of Fame include Brenda Lee, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Chet Atkins, Hank Williams and the Everly Brothers
Dolly Parton
Charity Album
“Rockers On Broadway: Live”
A clutch of live performances by Tony and Grammy Award-nominated artists — including Micky Dolenz, Paul Williams, Michael Cerveris and LaChanze — have been collected into a benefit album for arts education.
“Rockers On Broadway: Live” features Alex Brightman and Cervaris belting out “Under Pressure,” Dolenz of The Monkees singing “I’m a Believer,” LaChanze doing “Purple Rain,” Alice Ripley singing “Hallelujah,” Constantine Maroulis singing “No Rain” and Williams performing his signature “The Rainbow Connection.”
Others songs on the album include “What About Us” by Isabelle Gottfried, “December 1963 (Oh What a Night)” by Christian Hoff and Donnie Kehr, “Dream a Little Dream” by Emma Hunton, “The Show Must Go On” by Morgan James, “Space Captain” by Michael Lanning and “Thugz Mansion/A Change Is Gonna Come” by Donald Webber.
The album is a selection of live performances from Rockers On Broadway concerts over the past 28 years. Proceeds will support ongoing initiatives for The PATH Fund, dedicated to supporting arts education with scholarship and program funding.
“Rockers On Broadway: Live”
Apologizes
Jane Campion
Power of the Dog director Jane Campion garnered the full spectrum of internet love and hate over the weekend, first with her necessary quip about Sam Elliott, and then with an unnecessary quip about Venus and Serena Williams.
On Saturday, March 12, Campion was on the red carpet for the Directors Guild of America Awards, when she was asked about some disparaging comments Elliott made about her film on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. Elliott — who’s acted in his fair share of Westerns — criticized the film for its “allusions to homosexuality,” complained about the costumes, and wondered, “Where’s the Western in this Western?”
In response, Campion said Elliott was “being a little bit of a B-I-T-C-H,” spelling out the word for added effect. “He’s not a cowboy, he’s an actor,” she added. “The West is a mythic space and there’s a lot of room on the range. I think it’s a little bit sexist.”
Alas, the good energy Campion garnered Saturday went out the window Sunday as she accepted the award for Best Director at the Critics Choice Awards. During her speech, Campion praised nominees and winners in other categories, including Will Smith, who’d picked up the Best Actor prize for his turn in King Richard, the biopic about the Williams sisters’ father/coach. Campion then turned to her “fellow fellow” nominees in the best directing category, but appeared to still have tennis on the brain as she remarked that all the other Best Director nominees were men.
“Venus and Serena, you’re such marvels,” Campion said. “However, you don’t play against the guys, like I have to.”
Jane Campion
KISS Fan
Tommy Sedlock
Tommy Sedlock's neighbors looked out their windows Saturday morning and saw something more than just the freshly fallen snow.
The first notes of "Rock and Roll All Nite" rang out from across the street as a snow blower sprang to life and Sedlock, dressed as Gene Simmons, strode out to the sidewalk.
Sedlock traded his winter coat and snow boots for silver studded bat wings and a mask donning Simmons' signature outstretched tongue.
"I'm a huge KISS fan," Sedlock said. "I figured I'd entertain the neighbors and have a little fun, put a little smile on everybody's face and make them laugh."
A video of the local drummer's snow clearing effort was posted on YouTube, topping 4,000 views within the first 24 hours, and even catching the attention of the rock star himself.
Tommy Sedlock
Manipulation Of Language
Orwellian
If you’ve been paying attention to how Russian President Vladimir Putin talks about the war in Ukraine, you may have noticed a pattern. Putin often uses words to mean exactly the opposite of what they normally do.
He labels acts of war “peacekeeping duties.” He claims to be engaging in “denazification” of Ukraine while seeking to overthrow or even kill Ukraine’s Jewish president, who is the grandson of a Holocaust survivor.
He claims that Ukraine is plotting to create nuclear weapons, while the greatest current threat of nuclear war appears to be Putin himself.
Putin’s brazen manipulation of language is drawing attention. Kira Rudik, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, recently said of Putin in a CNN interview:
“When he says, ‘I want peace,’ this means, ‘I’m gathering my troops to kill you.’ If he says, ‘It’s not my troops,’ he means ‘It’s my troops and I’m gathering them.’ And if he says, ‘OK, I’m retreating,’ this means ‘I’m regrouping and gathering more troops to kill you.’”
Orwellian
Pet Conspiracies
Flynn
Michael Flynn, Donald Trump the disgraced former president’s disgraced former national security advisor, wants you to know he’s the “last guy” who would be an apologist for Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader currently conducting a murderous attack on Ukraine.
Flynn would also like you to know, however, that Putin’s invasion “has now upset” plans for a “New World Order” organized by people like billionaire Bill Gates, who are (somehow) pushing to eliminate “God and a soul.”
That is a conspiracy theory word salad from Flynn, but it goes toward a dangerous end: setting up Putin as a hero to a host of conspiracy theorists and covering for an invasion that has caused mass death and suffering in Ukraine.
“Someone like Vladimir Putin has upset this balance of the New World Order they were trying to achieve by going into Ukraine. And you know, I’m probably the last person that’s going to be a Putin apologist. I won’t be, but what I do understand are the dynamics that are playing out in Ukraine right now,” Flynn said on March 8 during an appearance on Thrivetime Show, a podcast hosted by anti-vaxx commentator Clay Clark. Together, Flynn and Clark have organized the Reawaken America tour, a far-right event traveling to cities across the U.S. featuring conspiracy-pushing speakers such as Eric Trump, Roger Stone, and MeinPillow Guy Mike Lindell.
Flynn’s attempt to link Ukraine back to his pet conspiracies muddies the waters, painting Putin as a resistor of global elites, rather than a cruel autocrat invading a sovereign nation to secure his legacy, no matter how many people die as a result.
Flynn
She Says
Ginni
Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence "Slappy" Thomas (R-Long Dong Silver), says she attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021, that preceded the deadly assault carried out by supporters of the then-President Donald Trump on the U.S. Capitol.
In an interview published Monday by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication, Thomas said she attended the rally but got cold and left before the riot took place. She rebutted reporting from the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine about her efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, including the claim that she was a key figure in planning the events that led to the storming of the Capitol building.
Thomas added that she was “disappointed and frustrated that there was violence that happened following a peaceful gathering of Trump supporters on the Ellipse on Jan. 6” because she feared it hurt the ability to look into “important and legitimate substantive questions about achieving goals like electoral integrity, racial equality, and political accountability that a democratic system like ours needs to be able to discuss and debate rationally in the political square.”
Despite Thomas’s long history of conservative activism, her husband has never recused himself from a case due to her involvement, according to the Washington Post. Under the rules of the Supreme Court, there is no mechanism to force a recusal, meaning the decision to recuse is left up to each individual justice. Clarence Thomas, who was appointed in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush, is considered one of if not the most conservative justices on the panel.
In 2021, Ginni Thomas apologized to her husband’s former clerks for the rift that her support of Trump a known grifter and the Jan. 6 rally had caused. She had been outspoken in her belief delusion that the 2020 election was marred by fraud, and had regularly promoted the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, posting messages on Facebook such as “LOVE MAGA people!!!!” and “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP or PRAYING” on the morning of the event.
Ginni
Lure With Sex
Murder Hornets
Birds do it, bees do it—even the wasps that kill bees do it. A clever team of scientists now has an idea to use the Asian giant hornets’ horniness against them, in hopes of stopping the invasive species from decimating U.S. bee populations. They’ve identified the sex pheromones of the queen and propose trapping the hornet drones that are lured in by the pheromones.
The Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia) preys on bees, and its stings are pretty painful to humans (they can kill people who are allergic to their venom). The hornets are native to Asia but have recently spread into the U.S.; they were first caught in Washington State in August 2020, and since then, they’ve spread across the American northwest. This invasion is worrying, since the hornets can slaughter a honeybee hive in a matter of hours.
Recently, a team of entomologists caught a bunch of virgin giant hornet queens and their drones from colonies in Yunnan, China. They swabbed the queens’ sex glands and used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to identify pheromone compounds from six of the queens. The team’s findings were published today in Current Biology.
“We were able to isolate the major components of the female sex pheromone, a odor blend that is highly attractive to males who compete to mate with virgin queens,” said James Nieh, an entomologist at the University of California at San Diego and co-author of the recent paper, in an email to Gizmodo. “When these components or their blend was tested in sticky traps, they captured thousands of males.”
“Such traps are also usually highly specific, as we found in our study,” Nieh added. “We did not capture any other insects or even female giant hornets. This reduces their ecological impact.”
Murder Hornets
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