from Bruce
Anecdotes
Work
• Stand-up comedians need to have a lot of confidence that they can “get” an audience — that is, make an audience laugh. When Judy Carter worked as the opening act for Loggins and Messina, sometimes the music-loving audience did NOT want to hear her. Once, the opening of the show was delayed for an hour, so the audience was even more impatient than usual to hear the band. Things got so bad that a druggie member of the audience came up on stage, threw a tablecloth over Ms. Carter’s head — then SET IT ON FIRE. As Ms. Carter was being carried off the stage to safety, she kept saying, “Put me down. I know I can get them.”
• Comedian Jimmy Durante started out in show business as a piano player. Singer and comedian Eddie Cantor was the first person to urge Jimmy to get up on stage and away from the piano: “Piano playing is going to get you nothing. You’ll be a piano player till you’re a hundred years old. You gotta look further than that. People like you a whole lot. So why don’t you get up on the floor and say something to the people?” Eventually, of course, Mr. Durante took Mr. Cantor’s advice. However, his immediate reaction was, “Gee, Eddie, I wouldn’t do that. I’d be afraid that people would laugh at me.”
• Lesbian comedian Judy Gold once worked on the New Jersey turnpike as a toll collector. The job had its interesting moments. She points out, “It was the ’80s, and people going to concerts at the Garden State Arts Center would give me joints.” However, she also remembers a time when she had 12 trucks backed up in her lane. Why? She explains, “The guys would get on the CB and be like, ‘Chick in lane four.’”
Actors and Acting
• English actor Stanley Holloway, who created the role of Eliza Doolittle’s father in My Fair Lady on Broadway, almost didn’t. He felt ignored during rehearsals, although he later realized that that was a compliment. The director and everyone else were concentrating on Rex Harrison, who was unknown—at that time—as a musical comedy star. Knowing that Mr. Holloway was an extremely competent actor, they left him to his own devices. Mr. Holloway called the play’s producer, Herman Levin, and asked to be released from his contract because no one was even saying hello when he arrived at the theater. Mr. Levin talked him out of immediately quitting and the next morning when Mr. Holloway arrived at the theater, everyone crowded around him to say hello. Even though Mr. Holloway knew that it was a put-up job, he felt better.
• When Marilyn Monroe showed up to act the part of an aging jewel thief’s girlfriend in The Asphalt Jungle, she told the director, John Huston, how nervous she was. He replied, “If you’re not nervous, you might as well give up!” By the way, Ms. Monroe was known for being late everywhere. She once stopped to apply more lipstick—and missed her plane. Also by the way, one of the most famous scenes in Ms. Monroe’s movies occurs in The Seven Year Itch, where she stands on a grating above a subway on a hot night and the subway train causes a cooling breeze that makes her skirt fly into the air. This scene was filmed at 2 in the morning; nevertheless, over 2,000 people were on hand to watch it.
• John Barrymore was noted as much for his dissipation as for his acting. While acting in Hamlet after a night of revelry, he began the “To be or not to be” soliloquy, but in the middle of the speech found it necessary to retire to the side of the stage so he could vomit. Later, he was complimented for this innovation: “I say, Barrymore, that was the most daring and perhaps the most effective innovation ever offered. I refer to your deliberate pausing in the midst of the soliloquy to retire, almost, from the scene. May I congratulate you upon such imaginative business? You seemed quite distraught. But it was effective!”
• The famous actor Edmund Kean idolized fellow actor George Frederick Cooke. He even had a monument erected over Mr. Cooke’s grave in New York and carried away one of Mr. Cooke’s finger bones, which he displayed on a mantle. Mr. Kean’s wife, however, objected to the display of the finger bone, and so one day it became “lost.” Like many other actors, Mr. Kean studied life to gain effects to use in acting. Once, he was wounded while fencing, and he fainted. When he regained consciousness, his first words were, “How did I fall?”
***
© 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: "It’s Never Christmas"
Album: POP PUNK X-MAS
Artist: The Lousekateers
Artist Location: New York, New York
Music: "Merry Christmas Really Sux"
Artist: The 99ers
Artist Location: St. Paul, Minnesota
Record Company: RTTB Records
Record Company Location: SH, Germany
Info: RTTB = Ramone To The Bone
“The Lousekateers were a Craig’s List and Bohemian Makeout party miracle. These audacious forces combined to create the sweet and sour sounds of pop punk for your listening pleasure (or displeasure). Straight from the funky town of New York, this trio guarantees high-energy silliness and will force you to release the teenage angst you had back in high school.”
“3 rules of The 99ers:
KEEP IT SHORT !!
“BANG IT OUT !!
“NO MESSING ABOUT !!”
Price: Name Your Price (Includes FREE) for 30-track compilation
Genre: Pop Punk. Christmas.
Links:
POP PUNK X-MAS
The Lousekateers on Bandcamp
The Lousekateers on YouTube
The 99ers on Bandcamp
The 99ers Band on YouTube
Jon E Jamendo Music TV
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
davidbrucebooks: EDUCATE YOURSELF - Free PDFs
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Slappy
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
Bit of rain this morning.
‘Into The Woods’
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton will play the offstage role of the Giant in a production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Into The Woods” in her onetime home state of Arkansas, the Arkansas Repertory Theatre announced on Monday.
“Real news, and I’m really excited! Check out the production if you’re in Little Rock,” Clinton tweeted and her spokesperson confirmed to The Associated Press. Clinton was the first lady of Arkansas before she was the first lady of the United States, a senator representing New York, secretary of state and then presidential candidate.
The “Into The Woods” Giant is the vengeful widow of the giant who Jack killed after climbing the beanstalk. The Giant does not appear on stage, and the voice part is usually prerecorded.
The show runs April 19 to May 15.
Hillary Clinton
Better Ratings
Oscars
Television ratings for the Oscars rebounded somewhat from last year’s record low, but the event clearly doesn’t have the appeal to viewers that it once had.
Sunday’s ceremony reached an estimated 15.36 million viewers, according to preliminary Nielsen company numbers released on Monday by ABC. A more detailed estimate is expected Tuesday, with elements like out-of-home viewing added.
“CODA” won best picture in Sunday’s ceremony, but all of the winners and losers were overshadowed by best actor winner Will Smith storming the stage to slap comic Chris Rock because of a joke Rock made about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
Held in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 ceremony had reached a startlingly low 9.85 million viewers. That led to several changes in the Oscars going into this year, including the addition of hosts and awarding eight categories ahead of the broadcast and editing them into the live show.
While that clearly seemed to help, an audience of 15 million is still below the 23.6 million people who watched the Oscars in 2020. Until last year, that was the smallest-ever audience for an Oscars ceremony.
Oscars
Prince Photo
Andy Warhol
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to review a copyright dispute involving works of art by the artist Andy Warhol that were based on a photograph of the musician Prince.
A lower court had at first said the artwork created before Warhol’s 1987 death was “fair use” of the photograph by Lynn Goldsmith because it had transformed the original work. But the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. The Supreme Court said it would review that ruling. The case will be argued sometime after the court begins its new term in October.
Warhol created a series of 16 artworks based on a 1981 photo of Prince taken by Goldsmith, a pioneering photographer known for portraits of famous musicians. The series came about after Vanity Fair commissioned Warhol to create an illustration of Prince in 1984 to accompany a magazine article.
The magazine paid $400 to license Goldsmith’s photograph for Warhol to use as a reference to create his own work. The agreement limited the use of the photograph to the single instance in the magazine and required Vanity Fair to give credit to Goldsmith, among other things. In 2016, after Prince’s death, the magazine published a tribute issue with one of Warhol’s works on the cover. It did not include credit to Goldsmith. Goldsmith has said it was only then that she became aware of the Prince series.
The dispute the court agreed to hear is between the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, which now licenses Warhol’s works, and Goldsmith.
Andy Warhol
‘In Memoriam’
Oscars
As with all Oscars “In Memoriam” segments since time immemorial, there was a heartfelt speech, melancholy music, a video montage and … outrage over who was left out.
Some 55 entertainment industry notables who passed away in 2022 made Sunday night’s six-and-a-half-minute cut, from household names like Sidney Poitier, Olympia Dukakis, Betty White and Ivan Reitman, to behind-the-scenes bigs like super-agent Chris Huvane and character actors Ned Beatty and Charles Grodin.
Perhaps most notably was Bob Saget, himself a Student Academy Award winner for his 1977 black-and-white documentary (and his first-ever credited project) “Through Adam’s Eyes.” Saget, who was also Grammy-nominated for his 2013 comedy album “That’s What I’m Talking About,” was better known as a TV star (“Full House,” “America’s Funniest Home Videos”), but did have 16 film acting credits (including the upcoming posthumous release “Killing Daniel”), and directed the 1998 comedy “Dirty Work,” which starred Norm MacDonald.
Speaking of MacDonald – Saget’s close friend and fellow actor/comedian, who died in September of last year, was also left off the list. As were well-knowns like Ed Asner, Louie Anderson, director Richard Donner, and writers Anne Rice (“Interview With the Vampire,” “Queen of the Damned”) and Joan Didion (“Play it as it Lays,” and the 1976 version of “A Star is Born”).
Oscars
Glaring Divide
COVID-19
Political polarization in the U.S. was evident and intensifying long before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, two years ago.
Polling shows that the emergence of the novel coronavirus in 2020 exacerbated the rift, pushing Americans further apart on key pandemic response efforts.
Surveys from Pew Research Center, last year, found that in the early months of the pandemic, about 6 in 10 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents believed the virus was a major threat to the health of the U.S. population, compared to only a third of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents. That 26-point gap would ultimately grow to approximately 40 points by the fall, researchers found.
An ABC News analysis of federal data found that on average, the death rates in states that voted for Trump were more than 38% higher than in states that voted for Biden, post widespread vaccine availability.
In addition, in the 10 states with the lowest percentage of full vaccinations, death rates were almost twice as high as that of states with the highest vaccination rates, the analysis found.
COVID-19
Suggests Theory Is a Hoax
Lara Logan
It wasn’t long ago that Lara Logan was a correspondent for CBS News, which is a little hard to believe considering the types of conspiracy theories she’s been pushing since she left the network. The latest came during an appearance on the right-wing podcast “And We Know,” during which Logan suggested that the theory of evolution is the result of a wealthy Jewish family paying Charles Darwin to devise an explanation for what gave rise to humanity.
“Does anyone know who employed Darwin, where Darwinism comes from?” Logan, now with Fox News’ streaming service Fox Nation, asked. “Look it up: The Rothschilds. It goes back to 10 Downing Street. The same people who employed Darwin, and his theory of evolution and so on and so on. I’m not saying that none of that is true. I’m just saying Darwin was hired by someone to come up with a theory — based on evidence, OK, fine.”
The Rothschilds, who Logan says is responsible for the theory of evolution, are a Jewish family that often shows up in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) famously wrote on Facebook that the Rothschilds funded a space laser that started the California wildfires.
Logan and Greene share more in common than anti-Semitic comments. Both the Fox Nation host and the bigoted, virulent conspiracy theorist lawmaker have pushed Russian propaganda since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine last month. Greene has blamed Ukraine for the invasion, while suggesting the nation’s military is rife with Nazis. Greene, however, at least made some sort of superficial effort to insist she’s not a Putin supporter. Logan made no such effort.
“Whether you like Putin or don’t like him, Putin is not willing to be a part of whatever global governing structure is coming our way,” Logan said last week on a right-wing podcast. “Vladimir Putin has been very calculating, he’s been very careful … he’s said for 15 years that he would not tolerate NATO expansion.”
Lara Logan
Debunked Litter Box Claim
Nebraska
A Nebraska state lawmaker apologized on Monday after he publicly cited a persistent but debunked rumor alleging that schools are placing litter boxes in school bathrooms to accommodate children who self-identify as cats.
Sen. Bruce Bostelman, a conservative Republican, repeated the false claim during a public, televised debate on a bill intended to help school children who have behavioral problems. His comments quickly went viral, with one Twitter video garnering more than 300,000 views as of Monday afternoon, and drew an onslaught of online criticism and ridicule.
“They meow and they bark and they interact with their teachers in this fashion,” Bostelman said during legislative debate. “And now schools are wanting to put litter boxes in the schools for these children to use. How is this sanitary?”
The claim was debunked by the district’s superintendent, who issued a statement that said there had “never been litter boxes within MPS schools.”
Hours after his remarks, Bostelman backtracked and acknowledged that the story wasn't true. He said he checked into the claims with state Sen. Lynne Walz, a Democrat who leads the Legislature's Education Committee, and confirmed there were no such incidents.
Nebraska
Inching Closer
Hypoallergenic Cats
A team of researchers say they’ve found an effective way to block the most common source of cat allergies using the gene-editing technology CRISPR. Their findings also suggest that hypoallergenic cats can be just as healthy as the typical feline.
Allergies are most associated with the fur and dander that cats shed into the environment, but those aren’t the true culprit. A protein produced by cats called Fel d 1—which ends up in their saliva and tears and, by extension, the fur that they’re constantly cleaning—is thought to cause over 90% of cat allergies. This has made the protein an appealing target for scientists trying to reduce the burden of cat allergies, which may affect up to 20% of people.
Researchers at the Virginia-based biotech company InBio (previously called Indoor Biotechnologies) have been working on their own approach. They’re hoping to use CRISPR, the Nobel Prize-winning gene editing tech, to produce cats that simply make little to no Fel d 1. In their latest research, published Monday in The CRISPR Journal, they say they’ve collected evidence that this can be done effectively and safely.
Analyzing the DNA of 50 domestic cats, they found regions along two genes primarily involved in producing Fel d 1 that would be suitable for editing with CRISPR. When they compared the genes of these cats to those from eight wild cat species, they also found that there was a lot of variation between the groups. That could indicate, as other research has suggested, that Fel d 1 is non-essential to cat biology and can thus be eliminated without any health risks. (Some cat breeds, like the Russian blue and Balinese, are often touted as being better for people with allergies because they may naturally produce less Fel d 1.) Lastly, the team used CRISPR on cat cells in the lab, which seemed to be effective at knocking out Fel d 1 and appeared to produce no off-target edits in the areas they predicted that edits would most likely happen.
Hypoallergenic Cats
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