M Is FOR MASHUP - January 26th, 2022
DRA’man Mashups On High Gear
By DJ Useo
For years I’ve held the belief that the best bootlegger is DRA’man
( sowndhaus.audio/profile/draman ) .
From my earliest experiences with his tracks, I’ve loved them tons.
Once I was a judge in a mashup contest & saw firsthand how great he mixes his stuff.
I will admit I have no idea why he’s named “DRA’man”.
DRA’man is on a huge roll of posting voluminous amounts of killer blends
( sowndhaus.audio/profile/draman ) .
Grab, or stream as much as you can. It’s very fulfilling.
Later - DJ Konrad Useo
groovytimewithdjuseo.blogspot.com/
from Bruce
Anecdotes
Critics
• The person who discovered author Anita Loos in England and helped make her comic novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes popular there was poet A.E. Housman. He read the novel, then told all his friends and fellow professors at Cambridge University about it. Soon everyone in Cambridge was reading it and thereafter the novel became popular throughout England.
• Some people find unusual ways to die. William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, married a woman to help her escape from the Nazis. She worked for a playwright named Ernst Toller, and she always returned promptly from lunch at 1 p.m. However, one day she met and spoke to a fellow refugee she knew and so she arrived back from lunch 10 minutes late and discovered that Mr. Toller had hung himself. It turned out that he had attempted suicide at other times, but he had always been careful to do so at a time and place where he knew that someone would rescue him. Because Mrs. Burroughs arrived 10 minutes late from her lunch, he succeeded this time in killing himself. OK, that is morbid, but this is cool (and it’s about life): Mr. Burroughs is well aware that children find it easy to pick up languages. When he was living in Mexico, he would speak to a shopkeeper, who would then ask Mr. Burroughs’ four-year-old son, “What did he say?” And his four-year-old son would tell the shopkeeper, in Spanish, what his father had said.
• Studs Terkel remembers that when he met his wife, Ida, she was wearing a maroon dress. He also remembers that she made a lot more money than he did: “It was like dating a CEO. I borrowed 20 bucks from her for our first date. I never paid her back.” Unfortunately for Studs, his wife died first: “She was seven days older than me, and I would always joke that I married an older woman. That’s the thing: Who’s gonna laugh at my jokes? At those jokes I’ve told a million times? […] Who’s gonna be there to laugh?” When Studs died, he had planned for his cremated ashes to be mixed with his wife’s ashes and then to be scattered on Bughouse Square, a park. He said, laughing, “Scatter us there. It’s against the law. Let ’em sue us.”
• After John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, 11-year-old Karen Hess, a future author of young readers’ books, watched his funeral on television. She was so affected by the assassination and funeral that she started folding everything — towels, clothing, etc. — into a tight triangle like the American flag that was given to President Kennedy’s widow, Jackie.
Editors
• Cynthia Ozick labored long over her first first novel, writing 300,000 words over seven years before abandoning the too-ambitious project. She then labored long over her second first novel, writing more than 800 pages over seven years before sending it to an editor who marked the first 100 pages before sending it back to her with this note: “If you do everything my red pencil suggests, and of course there will be more in this vein, we will accept your novel for publication. But if you decline to follow my red pencil’s indispensable advice, then we will decline to publish.” Ms. Ozick declined to make the changes and she says that she sent back this note: “Seven years have I labored for these words, and yet another seven years; so I say unto you, Nay, not one jot or tittle will I alter or undo.” To which the editor — she calls him “blessed editor” — responded, “OK, we’ll take it anyway.” Good choice. Ms. Ozick outlived the editor by decades, but he accepted her first novel that was published, and in 2008 she won the 2008 PEN/Nabokov Lifetime Achievement Award.
• Comic writer Robert Benchley was frequently late in delivering his writing, but he always took the time to make up some excuse for why it was late. Once, he used the excuse that his mother was ill and he had to leave town to stay with her. Unfortunately, Art Shields, the editor of Harper’s Bazaar, found out that Mr. Benchley was still in town. Mr. Benchley then swung into action, sending telegrams to his friends around the country and asking them to send telegrams in his name to Mr. Shields. Telegrams arrived saying that Mr. Benchley was in Hollywood making a movie with Greta Garbo, in Sante Fe becoming a member of the Navajo Indian tribe, in Maine working as a guide for a group of hunters, etc. Eventually, Mr. Shields sent Mr. Benchley a telegram: “I GATHER YOU HAVEN’T DONE THE PIECE.”
***
© 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: "Tank"
Album: ROADKILLER
Artist: Volcano Kings
Artist Location: Providence, Rhode Island
Info:
John Val Jean Adams - Organ, Guitar, Cello, Samples, Percussion, Rhodes, Trumpets, Moog.
John Javert Quincy Adams - Guitars
Alec Tisdale - Drums and Percussion
Kyle Stumpe - Bass
DeMello (himself), a fan, wrote, “The band's darkest and starkest arrangements yet. It's hard to imagine a band as insulated as Volcano Kings having much of a radar even for the pandemic in their music. But at its best, ROADKILLER both reflects and resists the zeitgeist via metal-adjacent riffage and a tonal pessimism perfect for any and all doomscrolling.”
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $3.50 (USD) for 13-track album
Genre: Dark and Heavy.
Links:
ROADKILLER
Volcano Kings on Bandcamp
Volcanic Kings on YouTube
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Threefer
New Venture
Michael Egan
Reader Question
Schadenfreude
Hey Y'all - Do any of youse feel a little guilty lol'ing at the constant influx of bad news for the insurrectionists?
I do, but it passes quickly. I've asked some pals if they experience similar response, & to a person, all replied Yes!".
DJ Useo
Thanks, Konrad!
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
Extra foggy night.
To Celebrate ‘Late Night’ Anniversary With Seth Meyers
David Letterman
David Letterman will celebrate the 40th anniversary of NBC‘s Late Night with Seth Meyers on Feb. 1. Late Night With David Letterman premiered on the same date in 1982.
The pair will be joined by musical guest Adam Duritz of Counting Crows.
The first iteration of the Late Night franchise ran for 11 seasons until he moved to CBS in 1993 after Jay Leno took over The Tonight Show after Johnny Carson’s retirement—a gig Letterman was expected to get.
Comedian Conan O’Brien took over Late Night after Letterman’s departure where he stayed until 2009 when Jimmy Fallon took over hosting duties. Meyers came aboard in 2014 after Fallon moved to The Tonight Show.
David Letterman
Donates $15 Million To Climate Justice
Rihanna
Rihanna is backing her belief that climate change is a social-justice issue by pledging $15 million to the movement through her Clara Lionel Foundation.
The “We Found Love” singer on Tuesday announced the donation to 18 climate justice organizations doing work in seven Caribbean nations and the United States. They include the Climate Justice Alliance, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and the Movement for Black Lives.
“Climate disasters, which are growing in frequency and intensity, do not impact all communities equally, with communities of color and island nations facing the brunt of climate change,” Rihanna, who is from the eastern Caribbean island of Barbados, said in a statement. She noted that disparity is the reason her foundation, which is named after her grandparents, prioritizes both climate resilience and climate justice work.
The grants, made in partnership with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s #StartSmall philanthropic initiative, are focused on groups with female, LGBT, and Black and Indigenous leaders because their communities are at the greatest risk.
Rihanna
Ratings
NFL Playoffs: Buffalo at Kansas City
The epic football playoff game between Buffalo and Kansas City reached nearly 43 million television viewers on Sunday, the most for any event since last year’s Super Bowl as the NFL struck gold with its rousing weekend.
The four games averaged 38.2 TV and digital viewers, up 20% over last year and the best ever for the league’s divisional round of playoffs, the Nielsen company said on Tuesday.
Similarly, the Los Angeles Rams-Tampa Bay Buccaneers game averaged 40 million viewers, but after Tom Brady helped the Bucs back from a 27-3 deficit to a tie, the audience jumped to 49.2 million people.
Fox News Channel led the cable networks with an average of 2.38 million viewers in prime time. ESPN had 1.85 million, MSNBC had 1.15 million, HGTV had 1.13 million and Hallmark had 951,000.
For the week of Jan. 17-23, the top 20 broadcasts in prime time, their networks and viewerships:
1. NFL Playoffs: Buffalo at Kansas City, CBS, 42.74 million.
2. NFL Playoffs: San Francisco at Green Bay, Fox, 36.92 million.
3. “NFL Pregame,” Fox, 26.94 million.
4. “NFL Postgame,” CBS, 26.91 million.
5. NFL Playoffs: Arizona at L.A. Rams, ABC, 12.78 million.
6. “NCIS: Hawai’i,” CBS, 9.79 million.
7. NFL Playoffs: Arizona at L.A. Rams, ESPN, 8.83 million.
8. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 7.98 million.
9. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 7.45 million.
10. “NFL Pregame,” ABC, 7.41 million.
11. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 7.27 million.
12. “NCIS,” CBS, 7.26 million.
13. “Ghosts,” CBS, 6.68 million.
14. “Blue Bloods,” CBS, 6.27 million.
15. “Chicago PD,” NBC, 5.79 million.
16. “The Neighborhood,” CBS, 5.78 million.
17. “NFL Pregame,” ESPN, 5.74 million.
18. ““Bob Hearts Abishola,” CBS, 5.49 million.
19. “United States of Al,” CBS, 5.44 million.
20. “Magnum, P.I.,” CBS, 5.43 million.
NFL Playoffs: Buffalo at Kansas City
Disney & Fox War Ends
Alf Clausen
The legal war between The Simpsons former composer Alf Clausen and the corporate overlords of the long running animated satire is over.
Yesterday Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp lawyers for Disney & its Fox subsidiaries filed paperwork in LA Superior Court to end the two and a half year long matter. “The undersigned appellant hereby requests that the appeal filed on 10/16/2020 in the above entitled action be dismissed,” said the document placed in the docket by attorney Stephen Ross on January 24 (read it here).
The case was first filed by the now-80 years old Clausen in August 2019 over his 2017 pink slipping from the Matt Groening-created Simpsons due to what the musician alleged was his age and medical conditions.
Crashing through the courts the past couple of years, the move this week to end the matter came after the composer’s team realized they were unlikely to succeed at the appellate court level after oral arguments were made in December. “It was pretty evident that we weren’t going to prevail and defense counsel reached out to suggest that we should resolve to not risk being forced to pay case and attorney fees,” Clausen’s primary lawyer Ebby Bakhtiar says.
The filing by Disney outside counsel still has to be approved by a LASC judge, but that is as much a done deal as Homer saying “D’oh!”
Alf Clausen
Sanctimoniously Legalizes Religious Bigotry
Michigan
Faith-based adoption agencies that contract with the state of Michigan can refuse to place children in LGBT homes under a settlement filed in federal court Tuesday, months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for a Catholic charity in a similar case.
The state Department of Health and Human Services said the high court’s ruling against Philadelphia is binding on the state and limits its ability to enforce a non-discrimination policy.
In 2019, Lansing-based St. Vincent Catholic Charities sued the state, challenging a deal Attorney General Dana Nessel brokered to resolve an earlier lawsuit brought by two lesbian couples in 2017. The agreement said a 2015 Republican-backed law letting child-placement agencies deny services that conflict with their sincerely held religious beliefs does not apply if they are under contract with the state.
A judge blocked the attorney general from prohibiting faith-based agencies from excluding LGBT couples from services — saying her action conflicted with state law, contracts and established practice. Settlement talks began after the Supreme Court in June said Philadelphia wrongly limited its relationship with a Catholic foster care agency that says its religious views prevent it from working with same-sex couples.
Michigan
3rd Leading Global Cause of Death
Antibiotic Resistance
Antibiotic resistance is often seen as a 'future problem', but newly published data have revealed it's affecting far, far more lives than you might imagine.
In fact, the new estimates show that in 2019, there were 4.95 million deaths associated with bacterial antimicrobial resistance, making it the third leading cause of death worldwide.
Drugs that kill bacteria are undeniably one of humanity's greatest discoveries. Since Alexander Fleming discovered antibacterial activity in the fungi Penicillium all the way back in 1928, we no longer have to worry about death from rose bush scratches or gonorrhea. In the decades following, antibiotics have saved millions and millions of lives worldwide.
But bacteria have been developing resistance to antibiotics long before we started using them, as they're a naturally evolved biological weapon for warfare between microbes. Continually using the same antibiotics over and over provides bacteria with the opportunity to adapt to them even faster, leading to an increasing number of infections no longer responding to traditional (or even last-resort) antibiotics.
Unfortunately, the more bacterial species don't respond to antibiotics, the more patients will succumb to resistant infections – and researchers are sounding the alarm that we're now annually losing more people to antimicrobial resistance than to HIV/AIDS or malaria.
Antibiotic Resistance
Redwood Forest Returned
California
The descendants of Native American tribes on the Northern California coast are reclaiming a bit of their heritage that includes ancient redwoods that have stood since their ancestors walked the land.
Save the Redwoods League planned to announce Tuesday that it is transferring more than 500 acres (202 hectares) on the Lost Coast to the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council.
The group of 10 tribes that have inhabited the area for thousands of years will be responsible for protecting the land dubbed Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ, or “Fish Run Place,” in the Sinkyone language.
The transfer marks a step in the growing Land Back movement to return Indigenous homelands to the descendants of those who lived there for millennia before European settlers arrived.
The league recently paid $37 million for a scenic 5-mile (8-kilometer) stretch of the rugged and forbidding Lost Coast from a lumber company to protect it from logging and eventually open it up to the public.
California
224 New Species
World Wildlife Fund
A monkey with ghostly white circles around its eyes is among 224 new species listed in the World Wildlife Fund’s latest update on the greater Mekong region.
The conservation group’s report, released Wednesday, highlights the need to protect the rich biodiversity and habitats in the region, which includes Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.
The species listed were found in 2020 but last year’s report was delayed. The monkey, a new species of Popa langur found on the extinct Mt. Popa volcano in Myanmar, was the only new mammal. There are also dozens of newly identified reptiles, frogs and newts, fish and 155 plant species, including the only known succulent bamboo species, found in Laos.
The Mekong region is a biodiversity hotspot and home to tigers, Asian elephants, saola — an extremely rare animal also called the Asian unicorn or spindlehorn — and thousands of other species.
Including this latest list, scientists have identified more than 3,000 new species in the region since 1997, the WWF said.
World Wildlife Fund
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