from Bruce
Anecdotes
Work
• Fred Astaire was a hard worker who believed in practicing even things that weren’t likely to appear in his movies. While rehearsing for Funny Face, he was dancing with an umbrella, and director Stanley Donen asked him to open the umbrella and dance with it to see if any moves happened that would look good in the movie. Mr. Astaire opened the umbrella, danced with it, then closed it again — all impeccably. Mr. Donen asked him how he was able to do that so well, and Mr. Astaire replied, “I’ve practiced it.” According to Mr. Donen, that was part of the secret of Mr. Astaire’s success: “He would practice things that didn’t have any immediate connection with anything.” Mr. Astaire often kept on dancing during pauses in the shooting of his films. Co-star Leslie Caron remembers going out for some air, then returning back to the studio to see Mr. Astaire dancing with a coat hanger.
• The Hasidim loved Israel. Rabbi Velvele of Zbaraz moved to Eretz Israel, but money was hard to come by and so his wife became a washerwoman in order for her and her husband to avoid taking money from charity to live. Rabbi Yaakov Shimshon of Sheptivka came to visit and he saw the rabbi’s wife washing laundry in the yard. Believing that the rabbi’s wife would feel humiliated if she knew that he had seen her washing her laundry, he attempted to leave quietly without being seen. However, the rabbi’s wife saw him. She knew why he had attempted to leave before revealing his presence, so she said to him, “Do not be concerned, Rabbi. This is not my personal wash, but rather work that I undertake, and which ensures our livelihood. Thank God that we are able to live in Eretz Israel and to live off our manual labor.”
• Rudolf Bing knew a man called Childs, whom he described as the “perfect butler.” Childs was a butler to John Christie, and he also helped to take care of Mr. Christie’s guests. He knew Mr. Bing liked to sleep later than the other guests and skip breakfast, and one morning he woke Mr. Bing with the announcement, “Breakfast at eight-thirty, sir.” Mr. Bing then asked him the time, and Childs replied, “Nine o’clock, sir.” Once, Mr. Bing asked where Mr. Christie was, and Childs told him — it was a place that surprised Mr. Bing. He asked Childs, “How do you know he is there? Did you ask him before he left?” Childs replied, “A good butler never asks his master where he is going, but he always knows.”
• Fred Astaire used the phrase “a good deed” to refer to a good step in his dancing. Sometimes he would worry that he had not accomplished much while working on a dance, so he would call co-choreographer Hermes Pan and ask, “Did we get a good deed today?” Frequently, Mr. Pan was able to reassure him and mention a certain step that they had worked out together. Fred Astaire once gave Mr. Pan one of his shoes and a note that said, “To Pan, in memory of those thousands of rotten hours in rotten rehearsal halls.” Mr. Astaire was sensitive to language and refused to say certain lines in his movies. For example, a script called for him to say, “My feet hurt.” Mr. Astaire read the script, saw the line, and said, “I won’t say it. I would never say it. My feet hurt? Never.”
• Albert E. Kahn spent several months photographing Soviet ballerina Galina Ulanova, always being careful not to interrupt her in her practices, performances, or teaching sessions. Once, he did interrupt. Ms. Ulanova had been teaching 19-year-old Katya Maximova to dance Giselle, and at one point she had embraced her. Mr. Kahn had not caught the moment with his camera, so he asked her to repeat the embrace, saying, “It was such a beautiful moment.” She replied, “That beautiful moment is gone forever. Now you mustn’t interrupt us. We’re working.”
• Country music singer Willie Nelson used to work at Texas Power and Light Company trimming tree branches away from around high line wires. One day he tried sliding down a rope to the ground, but his hand got caught in the rope. Because the pain was unbearable and he felt as if he were losing his fingers, he ordered his partner to cut the rope and let him drop to the ground, hoping that he would fall between the wires and not on one. Luckily, he fell exactly between the wires. He then picked himself up, walked off the job, and never returned.
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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
Track: "Surfin’ Cyborg Blues"
Album: PLANET BEACH
Artist: The Milk Lizards
Artist Location: Sunderland, UK
Info: “The North East Coast's premier instrumental surf band.”
Benjamin Straughair, a fan, wrote, “PLANET BEACH fizzes fearlessly atop frothy seascapes, packing a potent pineapple punch. Favorite track: ‘Underneath The Bunker.’”
Price: £2 (GBP) for nine-track album; tracks cannot be purchased separately
Genre: Instrumental Surf
Links:
PLANET BEACH
The Milk Lizards on Bandcamp
The Milk Lizards on YouTube
The Milk Lizards Official Website
BONUS: Not on Bandcamp, but Recommended — Frankenstein TNT
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
some guy Suggests
Jan 6th guide
New Venture
Michael Egan
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
Putin
Other Links:
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
davidbrucebooks: EDUCATE YOURSELF - Free PDFs
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
Reader Questions
2 Questions
2 Questions for my congress critters . . .
There are 2 questions I’d like to ask my Representative and Senators:
How much money have you taken from The Gun Lobby?
And
WHY are guns banned from the NRA convention?
Randall
Thanks, Randall!
Here's a fun link - Open Secrets - NRA Recipients
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Predator wants this trash piece of filth about "King Donald" written by lunatic and liar Patel in every school?
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and seasonal.
Wednesday Night
‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’
Another sign America’s entertainment landscape is returning to normal: President Joe Biden will make his first in-person appearance on a late-night talk show since taking office.
Biden will be a guest Wednesday night on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” the White House said.
Kimmel tweeted Sunday: “Our very elected President @JoeBiden visits @JimmyKimmelLive Wednesday night. No malarkey.”
Biden travels Wednesday to Los Angeles to host the Ninth Summit of the Americas, and Kimmel’s show tapes in Hollywood.
‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’
Sequel Hit With Lawsuit
‘Top Gun’
The heirs of the author of a magazine article that served as the basis for Top Gun have sued Paramount Pictures, claiming the studio went ahead with the new sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, despite knowingly no longer owning the copyright.
As noted in the lawsuit (which was shared by Variety), the original 1986 Top Gun was based on Ehud Yonay’s 1983 story for California magazine, entitled “Top Guns.” Paramount secured the exclusive movie rights to the story after it was published, and Yonay received a “based on” credit as well.
In 2018, Yonay’s children, Shosh and Yuval, retrieved the copyright to their father’s original story under Section 203 of the U.S. Copyright Act, which allows authors to get back the rights to their work after 35 years. Shosh and Yuval’s suit claims they “properly availed themselves” of this termination right, and the copyright to the “Top Guns” article reverted back to them on Jan. 24, 2020.
Nevertheless, the suit states, “Paramount deliberately ignored this, thumbing its nose at the statute. This case arises out of Paramount’s consciousness failure to re-acquire the requisite film and ancillary rights to the Yonays’ copyrighted Story prior to the completion and release of their derivative 2022 sequel.”
While Top Gun: Maverick went into production in May 2018, the lawsuit claims that it was not completed until May 2021, over a year after the Yonays retrieved the copyright. As such, the lawsuit states that Top Gun: Maverick “does not qualify for the ‘prior derivative works exception,’” and that Paramount went ahead with the film without securing a new license.
‘Top Gun’
Unreleased Song With Freddie Mercury
Queen
In 1988, Queen began recording The Miracle, their 13th studio album and what would become their penultimate release with late singer Freddie Mercury. Released the following year, the record featured 12 new recordings selected from a pool of songs from the sessions. The tracks that didn’t make the cut were mostly forgotten about, but a new interview with Roger Taylor and Brian May reveals that a hidden gem has been unearthed and repurposed for release later this year.
“We did find a little gem from Freddie, that we’d kind of forgotten about,” Taylor told BBC Radio 2 ahead of Queen’s performance with Adam Lambert at Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee concert last weekend. “It’s wonderful, actually. It was a real discovery. It’s from The Miracle sessions, and I think it’s going to be out in September.”
Queen had resolved that there wasn’t much they could do with the track in its previous state, but some slight tweaking by their engineering team breathed new life into the recording.
“It was kind of hiding in plain sight,” Brain May explained. “We looked at it many times and thought, ‘Oh no, we can’t really rescue that.’ But in fact, we went in there again and our wonderful engineering team went, OK, we can do this and this. It’s like kind of stitching bits together. But it’s beautiful, it’s touching.”
Queen
Donating Proceeds
Dave Chappelle
Comedian Dave Chappelle reportedly booked a last-minute show at Shea’s Performing Arts Center in Buffalo, NY. He did so, according to a spokesman for the venue and posts on social media from those who there there, to honor the families of the 10 who were killed and three who were wounded last month when a teen staged what police deem a racially-motivated attack at a Buffalo supermarket last month.
“He said, and I’m paraphrasing, ‘I came here to Buffalo to recognize the victims and for these families,'” recalled Shea’s director of marketing and communications Kevin Sweeney.
Chappelle also told those attending that some of the victims’ families were in the audience and that he was donating all proceeds from the show to them.
The comedian booked his appearance at the 3,000-plus-seat arena just four days prior, and tickets promptly sold out.
Dave Chappelle
Handmaid Cultist
Amy Coney Barrett
The founder of the People of Praise, a secretive charismatic Christian group that counts supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett as a member, was described in a sworn affidavit filed in the 1990s as exerting almost total control over one of the group’s female members, including making all decisions about her finances and dating relationships.
The court documents also described alleged instances of a sexualized atmosphere in the home of the founder, Kevin Ranaghan, and his wife, Dorothy Ranaghan.
The description of the Ranaghans and accusations involving their intimate behavior were contained in a 1993 proceeding in which a woman, Cynthia Carnick, said that she did not want her five minor children to have visitations with their father, John Roger Carnick, who was then a member of the People of Praise, in the Ranaghan household or in their presence, because she believed it was not in her children’s “best interest”. Cynthia Carnick also described inappropriate incidents involving the couple and the Ranaghan children. The matter was eventually settled between the parties.
Barrett, 50, lived with Dorothy and Kevin Ranaghan in their nine-bedroom South Bend, Indiana, home while she attended law school, according to public records. The justice – who was then known as Amy Coney – graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 1997 and two years later married her husband, Jesse Barrett, who also appears to have lived in the Ranaghan household. There is no indication that Amy Coney Barrett lived in the house at the time when the Carnick children were visiting or witnessed any of the alleged behavior described in the court documents.
The South Bend-based group is a covenanted community, which means that members have entered a “covenant commitment” to live together – sometimes families and single members can live in a single household – and are expected to share portions of their income and regularly attend hours-long private prayer meetings, which can include exorcisms and speaking in tongues. The group has about 1,700 members, is mostly Catholic but is open to all Christians, and espouses conservative views on gender. It opposes same-sex marriage and only men can serve on its board of governors or as coordinators, who lead different branches of the community.
Amy Coney Barrett
Five Sanctimonious Pitchers
Tampa Bay Rays
Five players on the Tampa Bay Rays roster opted not to wear a patch the team added to its uniforms intended to celebrate Pride month in Saturday's 3-2 loss to the Chicago White Sox. During the team's 16th annual Pride Night celebration Rays caps and uniforms had logos colored in the style of the modern LGBTQ+ pride flag, but not everyone in the clubhouse chose to participate.
Pitchers Jason Adam, Jalen Beeks, Brooks Raley, Jeffrey Springs and Ryan Thompson were among the players who did not wear the patch on their uniforms and chose to wear the team's standard caps for the June 4 home game.
Adam was selected by the organization to speak on behalf of the players who opted out, and called it a "faith-based decision" and that the decision wasn't "judgmental," per the Times:
"So it's a hard decision. Because ultimately we all said what we want is them to know that all are welcome and loved here. But when we put it on our bodies, I think a lot of guys decided that it's just a lifestyle that maybe — not that they look down on anybody or think differently — it's just that maybe we don't want to encourage it if we believe in Jesus, who's encouraged us to live a lifestyle that would abstain from that behavior, just like [Jesus] encourages me as a heterosexual male to abstain from sex outside of the confines of marriage. It's no different."
Tampa Bay Rays
Bikers Confront Journalists
Uvalde
A group of bikers — reportedly doing the bidding of police — obstructed the press during the funerals for many of the victims of the Uvalde mass shooting.
On Thursday, funerals were held for several of the 19 students and two faculty members of Robb Elementary School who were killed in a mass shooting last month. The funerals were private, but an area for reporters was established outside the cemetery where the press was ostensibly allowed to operate.
However, on the day of the funeral reporters found themselves being harassed by a group of bikers who claimed the Uvalde police asked them to block the press.
The Houston Chronicle reports that the Uvalde police and members of the biker groups threatened to arrest journalists if they left the designated press area. There were no reports that members of the press were attempting to leave the designated area.
Additionally, some bikers tried to block the camera of reporters on the scene and followed members of the press around, according to the outlet.
The executive editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Nora Lopez said that not only were the bikers trying to prevent reporters from doing their jobs, but they were also trying to prevent families who did want to speak to the press from speaking out, telling them to "move along."
Uvalde
Have To Accept
4 in 10
Republicans think mass shootings are 'unfortunately something we as part of a free society': CBS/YouGov poll
More than 4 in 10 Republicans think mass shootings are inevitable in a "free society," according to a new poll by CBS News and YouGov.
One of the questions in the poll asked respondents if they feel that mass shootings are "unfortunately something we have to accept as part of a free society" or "something we can prevent and stop if we really tried."
In response, 44% of Republicans said mass shootings are inevitable "as part of a free society." Meanwhile, 85% of Democrats and 73% of Independents said mass shootings are preventable "if we really tried."
The survey had a sample size of 2,021 US adults that were interviewed between June 1 and June 3, per CBS News, which noted the margin of error is ±2.6 points.
4 in 10
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