Thursday, February 21, 2019 – Edition: #6398
Here, Have Another Sheetload!
BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
★ HBO has released the first trailer for the controversial Michael Jackson documentary, “Leaving Neverland.” The two-part documentary, which drew a slew of media attention after it premiered at Sundance, tells the story of Jackson’s most outspoken sexual abuse accusers, James Safechuck and Wade Robson. At one point in the trailer, Robson says of Jackson, “He told me if they ever found out what we were doing, he and I would go to jail for the rest of our lives.” The Jackson estate has trashed HBO for their decision to air the film, calling it a “one-sided, sensationalist program.”
-TheBlast
★ Netflix has finally set the premiere date for the second half of Season 5 of “Arrested Development.” The Bluth family will return to the streaming service with the final eight episodes of the comedy’s fifth season on March 15. While it may seem like you’ve been waiting forever for the second half to drop since the first part of Season 5 launched last May, just remember how long you’d been waiting for THAT since Season 4 premiered in 2013…
-TheWrap
★ HGTV duo Jonathan and Drew Scott apparently, somehow, have time to do yet another show. The latest “Property Brothers” installment, “Property Brothers: Forever Home” is set to premiere on May 29. The subjects of this new show aren’t looking to flip their property for profit, because they know this place is “the one” where they can put down roots and happily spend their lives. To unlock a home’s full potential, Jonathan and Drew will focus on overhauling the house to suit the families’ needs and wishes.
-TheWrap
★ Gwyneth Paltrow is planning to quit making Marvel films. Paltrow, who portrays Pepper Potts in the “Iron Man” and “Avengers” films – has revealed she wants to quit the series because she thinks she is a “bit old to be in a suit” now that she is in her mid-40s. She will be seen as Pepper Potts for the seventh, and presumably final time, in “Avengers: Endgame”, out April 26.
(Too old to be in a suit? Tell that to Robert Downey Jr.!)
-DailyMail
TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC/Global): Viola Davis, Charles P. Pierce, Cypress Hill (R)
• “The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon” (NBC/CTV): Ken Jeong, Kate Upton, Anderson Paak
• “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” (CBS/Global): Annette Bening, Ana Navarro, Ben Platt
• “Late Night with Seth Meyers” (NBC/CTV): James Spader, Glenda Jackson, Brad Leone, Jeff Friedl
• “The Late Late Show with James Corden” (CBS/CTV): Kal Penn, Chris O’Dowd
• “Conan” (TBS): Steven Yeun, Corey Rodrigues (R)
• “Watch What Happens Live” (Bravo): Reba McEntire, Morris Chestnut
• “The View” (ABC/CTV): Day of Hot Topics
• “The Talk” (CBS): Wendi McLendon-Covey
• “Live with Kelly and Ryan” (ABC/CTV): Alex Trebek, Lisa Rinna
• “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” (NBC/CTV): Milo Ventimiglia, Florida Georgia Line
• “Desus & Mero” (SHOWTIME): The TV/podcast duo bring their topical, comedic talk show from Viceland to Showtime, where it will air weekly on Thursday nights.
• “Game of Clones’ (MTV): In each episode, MTV stars will date seven clones of their celebrity crush — and when they look beyond those pretty (identical) faces, each dater will discover which of these famous doppelgangers melts their heart and which just makes their skin crawl.
BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Ariana Grande — has accomplished something no other artist has been able to achieve in 55 years. She’s the first artist since the Beatles to sit in the No. 1, 2 and 3 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with the songs ‘7 Rings’, ‘Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored’ and ‘Thank U, Next’. The Beatles achieved the feat over a five-week span in March and April 1964.
• Lady Gaga — has confirmed her split from her talent agent fiancé Christian Carino, one year after he proposed with $400K diamond ring. Fans speculated the end of their relationship when she was spotted without her engagement ring at The Grammys last weekend.
• Jonas Brothers – are reportedly planning a reunion that includes new music and a documentary. British tabloids say that six years after their split, Nick, Joe and Kevin have secretly flown into London to plot the reunion.
• Mötley Crüe — Their biopic “The Dirt” will launch on Netflix on March 22, and the soundtrack will be released the same day, featuring 14 classic Crüe tunes, plus four new songs, one of them featuring Machine Gun Kelly. MOVIE TRAILER HERE
• Ozzy Osbourne — has been forced to cancel more tour dates amid his recovery from pneumonia. After previously scrapping the UK and European legs of “No More Tours 2”, he’s now also had to cancel shows in Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
• Randy Bachman – A full-length feature documentary of his career will be released March 26. “Bachman” will cover his early days in Winnipeg and his worldwide success in both The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive.
• Darius Rucker — will receive the Harry Chapin Memorial Humanitarian Award from the Music Business Association on May 7. Rucker has long supported MUSC Children’s Hospital in his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. He has also raised millions of dollars for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital with his annual Darius & Friends benefit concert and golf tournament.
• Zac Brown Band – Their next album might be a bit different…in fact, it might not be country. Brown says the still-untitled record is “going to be exploratory. There’s some songs that are so personal and so real that some of them I couldn’t even imagine having to play six months ago when we were writing them.”
WRITING RIGHT:
A new artificial intelligence system is so good at composing text that the researchers behind it say they won’t release it for fear of how it could be misused. Created by the research company OpenAI, the text-generating system can write page-long responses to different types of prompts, creating everything from fantasy fiction to homework assignments. Researchers have used AI to generate text for decades, but the technology has developed rapidly in recent years. OpenAI’s goal was for the system to come up with the next word in a sentence by considering the words that came before it. The system was “trained” on 8 million web pages. While the technology could be useful for a number of everyday applications — such a assisting writers or improving voice assistants in smart speakers — it could also be used for potentially dangerous purposes, like creating false but true-sounding news stories and social-media posts.
(Aren’t people already doing a good job of writing fake news stories?)
(My high school English teacher would still give it a “C”…)
(I’m a bit creeped out here because it says this story was written by someone called “Art Intel”…)
-CNN
28 DAYS HATH FEBRUARY:
But why? Why do all the other months have 30 or 31 days, and February has 28, 29 in a good year? In the 8th century BC, they used the Calendar of Romulus, a 10-month calendar that kicked the year off in March and ended in December. January and February didn’t even exist. The problem? At that point, the year was only 304 days long. Winter was a nameless, monthless period that no one bothered to name or count. In 713 BC, King Numa Pompilius decided there needed to be a name for the period of time in winter, so he split the calendar into 12 lunar cycles—about 355 days—and introduced January and February. They were added to the end of the calendar, making February the last month of the year. The Romans believed even numbers were unlucky, so Numa tried to make each month contain an odd number of days. But to reach the quota of 355, one month had to have an even number of days. February ended up pulling the short stick, probably because it was the last month. After a few more adjustments over the years, we eventually arrived at a 365-day calendar, but February stayed at 28 days (29 in leap years).
(Probably because nobody wanted it to last any longer.)
(But when you think about it, ALL the months have 28 days!)
-MentalFloss, first published in ‘BS’ in 2018
WORDS THAT WERE INVENTED BY ACCIDENT:
☞ Sneeze: It was originally spelled with an F, not an S—as in ‘fneze’. Why the change? People often misread the long old-school lowercase f as the old-fashioned long S character. (But really, how often did they need to write “fneze’?)
☞ Algorithm: The original Medieval Latin version of this word, ‘algorismus’, was named after a famous Arab mathematician. Algorithm is actually just a bad translation of his last name, ‘al-Khwarizmi’. (No matter what they eventually called it, I’d still be getting pop-ups for hair replacement potions on my Facebook feed!)
☞ Nickname: A secondary or unofficial name in the late Middle Ages was an ‘ekename’—which literally meant “also-name.” Frequent references to “an ekename” eventually turned into “a nickname.” (and ruined thousands of childhoods…)
☞ Tornado: This is actually a mistaken rendering of the Spanish term ‘tronada’, which means ‘thunderstorm’. Over time, speakers switched the “r” and “o,” creating the modern word tornado.
☞ Apron: In the Middle Ages, the French called it a ‘naperon’. But once English speakers adopted the word, the phrase “a napron” often blended together. Thus, “a napron” became “an apron,” instead—and we have spelled it that way ever since. (So where did the “kiss the cook” part come from?)
(No truth to the rumor that “African elephant” came from a frustrated tour guide who referred to it as “a frikin’ elephant…”)
-Reader’sDigest
DID YOU KNOW?
Just like people should when they are sick, ants take “sick days” to avoid the spread of potentially fatal disease throughout their colony. When exposed to a type of fungus that can act as a pathogen, ants were found to alter their interactions with other ants to protect their cohorts, especially valuable members like the queen and nurse ants.
-MentalFloss
BS CHRONOMETER 02.21.19
TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1955 [64] Kelsey Grammar, St Thomas, US Virgin Islands, TV actor (5 Emmy Awards-“Frasier” 1993-2004), “Cheers” 1984-93/movie actor (“X-Men: The Last Stand”)
1979 [40] Tituss Burgess, Athens GA, TV actor (‘Titus Andromedon’ on “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” 2015-19)
1979 [40] Jennifer Love Hewitt, Waco TX, TV actress (“The Client List” 2012-13, “Ghost Whisperer” 2005-10)/movie actress (“Garfield”, “I Know What You Did Last Summer”)
1979 [40] Jordan Peele, New York City NY, comedian (Key and Peele” 2012-2015, “MADtv” 2003-2008)/director (“Get Out”) COMING UP…”The Twilight Zone”, 2019
1987 [32] Ellen Page, Halifax NS, movie actress (“Inception”, “Juno”) COMING UP… “Naya Legend of the Golden Dolphins”, 2019
1987 [32] Ashley Greene, Jacksonville FL, movie actress (“Twilight” franchise)
1996 [23] Sophie Turner, Northampton UK, TV actress (‘Sansa Stark’ on “Game of Thrones” 2011-17) COMING UP…”Dark Phoenix”, 2019
2002 [17] Blanket Jackson (Prince Michael Jackson II), San Diego CA, (youngest child of the late pop legend Michael Jackson)
TODAY’S BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
• “Card Reading Day”, a day to have your future foretold with tarot cards. Or to go to the store and read a bunch of greeting cards…
• “Single Tasking Day”, a day to focus on one project at a time. Studies show you’ll likely end up accomplishing more. (But good luck telling that to a multi-tasker!)
• “Sticky Bun Day”, an annual food holiday saluting the ooey-gooey buns you just can’t turn down (or let go of…)
• “UN International Mother Language Day”. (In school, Latin was always a real mother.)
• “The Great American Spit Out”, raises awareness about the harmful effects of smokeless tobacco. Users are to quit for at least the day, with the ultimate goal of quitting for good.
COMING UP . . .
[Fri] Be Humble Day
[Fri] Margarita Day
[Sat] Curling is Cool Day
[Sat] Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day
THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
2003 [15] Bill Maher’s political talk show “Real Time with Bill Maher” debuts on HBO
2018 [01] Evangelist Billy Graham, described as 1 of the 20th century’s most influential Christian leaders, dies at 99.
TODAY’S MUSIC EVENTS . . .
1977 [42] At a concert stop at the Nassau Coliseum, every member of Kiss has some blood drawn. It’s not for the Red Cross: the blood will be mixed with ink used to print the first Kiss comic book, which appears in June
1997 [22] Spice Girls’ ‘Wannabe’ becomes the 1st debut single by a British group to top North American charts since The Beatles
2012 [07] Adele flips off producers at the “Brit Awards” when she is ushered off stage before finishing her acceptance speech for her ‘Album Of the Year’ win for “21”
2014 [05] A statue of Kurt Cobain crying a single tear is unveiled in the late Nirvana frontman’s hometown of Aberdeen WA
TODAY’S FIRST . . .
2011 [08] An NYU professor has an experimental life-blogging camera removed from his head after his immune system rejects the implant
TODAY’S RECORD . . .
2008 [11] In one of eBay’s most expensive sales to date, the online auction house brokers a deal between an American music collector and an Irish buyer for 3 million albums & singles in various formats at a cost of about $1 per item
BULL’S BITS
BS WACK FACTS:
✓ Green peppers turn yellow, then orange, then red, depending on how ripe they are.
✓ In 2014, McDonalds engineered bubble-gum-flavored broccoli to make Happy Meals healthier.
✓ After the release of “The Lion King”, a hyena researcher sued Disney for ‘defamation of character’.
✓ Only 5 percent of people wash their hands correctly.
✓ In the 1600s, Londoners were advised to keep jars of human bodily gas (“fart jars”) on hand to combat bubonic plague.
✓ Dead bodies can get goosebumps.
-OMGFacts
BS WHEN MOM IS MAD . . .
• She stops speaking English and starts swearing in her mother tongue.
• Quickly hide all the slippers in the house.
• …is the only time I ever hear my middle name.
• Pack your bags because you’re about to go on a guilt trip.
• Never let her brush your hair.
• Do not, under any circumstances, ask her if it’s “that time of month”.
• She yells so loud that the neighbors brush their teeth and go to bed.
• I have to come up from the basement and get my own snacks.
• Tell her how pretty she is and hand her a glass of wine.
• Dad is scared.
-Twitter
Best of BS . . .
BS MAKE A BAND HEALTHIER:
• Tofu Fighters
• Frankie Goes to the Gym
• Low fat OREO Speedwagon
• Soy Loaf
• Lead-Free Zeppelin
• Stone Temple Pilates
• Low Fat Boy Slim
• Vitamin B-Gees
• Collard Green Day
• The Steve Treadmiller Band
• Florence and the Rowing Machine
• Pearl Jam (with no sugar added)
• Red Hot Organic Chili Peppers
• The Real Slim-Fast Shady
-Twitter, first published in ‘BS’ in 2018
BS PHONE STARTER:
What TV show title best describes your life?
BS U-PICK TRIVIA:
• In the UK, what is a “lollipop man” — or lady?
a. Ice cream salesperson
b. School crossing guard [CORRECT]
c. Popsicle
d. The flag used on the holes of a golf course
• If a ‘procyon lotor’ sinks its dentition into your gluteus maximus, what has happened to you?
a. You were bitten on the backside by a raccoon [CORRECT]
b. You sat on Grandma’s false teeth
c. You dreamed all your teeth fell out
d. You used toilet paper for its intended purpose.
-TriviaCrack
BS RANDOM JOKE:
One good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when to cringe.
BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Question: More than 35% of men can’t tell you THIS about their wife. What?
Answer: Her shoe size
BS DEEP THOUGHT:
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
