Wednesday, July 13, 2011 Edition: #4548
Thanks For Being a Bull Market!
BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
Ryan Seacrest has announced ‘the biggest live music event in radio history’, the “iHeart Radio Music Festival” September 23rd-24th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, featuring oodles of top pop and country acts (NET: http://www.iheartradio.com) . . . 85-year-old “Playboy” founder Hugh Hefner has dismissed Internet rumors that he has died by tweeting: “I’m very much alive and kicking!” (some parts only through pharmaceuticals) . . . Ricky Gervais, who created the original UK version of “The Office”, is defending his new TV comedy “Life’s Too Short”, about a dwarf actor running a struggling show biz agency, by saying the show’s gags have nothing to do with the character’s height (‘Harry Potter’ movie actor Warwick Davis is scheduled to star) . . . ‘Harry Potter’ star Emma Watson says she has not quit Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island but is transferring to Britain’s Oxford University this fall to complete her 3rd year ‘at home’ (BS translation: You’ll never have ‘Hermoine’ to kick around again, you Brown bullies!) . . . 47-year-old TV actress Courteney Cox is staying busy while “Cougar Town” is on hiatus, moonlighting as ‘Home Editor’ of a new women’s lifestyle website (NET: http://www.xojane.com), where she’ll offer beauty and decorating tips (but not marital advice) . . . 27-year-old movie actress Mila Kunis has agreed to accompany a guy she’s never even met, a US sergeant currently serving in Afghanistan, to the annual Marine Corps Ball in November after he asked her last week by posting a video on YouTube (of course the PR doesn’t hurt her new movie, “Friends With Benefits”, opening July 22nd) . . . And now-31-year-old Jessica Simpson claims that her fiancé Eric Johnson surprised her with a $15,000-Birkin handbag for her birthday on the weekend (an unemployed football player? – sure he did).
TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “Conan” (TBS/CTV) – The Strokes (“Angles”).
• “ESPY Awards” (ESPN) – Seth Meyers (“Saturday Night Live”) hosts the annual salute to the past year’s major achievements in sports.
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC/CHCH) – Hannibal Buress (“My Name is Hannibal”).
• “Last Call With Carson Daly” (NBC) – Airborne Toxic Event (“All at Once”).
• “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” (NBC/A Channel) – Blake Shelton (“Red River Blue”); Joe Jonas (“Fastlife”).
• “Late Show With David Letterman” (CBS/NTV/Omni) – Gomez (“A New Tide”).
• “Live With Regis & Kelly” (syndicated/CTV) – Blake Shelton (“Red River Blue”).
• “So You Think You Can Dance” (FOX/CTV) – The remaining 12 contestants perform for the judges, including guest judge Jesse Tyler Ferguson (“Modern Family”).
• “The View” (ABC/CTV) – Billy Ray Cyrus (“I’m American”)
BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Adam Levine/Christina Aguilera – Word has it that Mick Jagger himself takes part in the upcoming video for their collaborative duet “Moves Like Jagger”.
• Beyoncé – Her father & former manager, Mathew Knowles, has filed legal papers in a bid to clear his name. He accuses Live Nation Entertainment of erroneously telling his daughter he’d taken funds to which he was not entitled. They parted as business partners earlier this year.
• Brad Paisley/Carrie Underwood – They’ll return as hosts of this year’s “CMA Awards” on November 9th. They first co-hosted the gala in 2008.
• Bush – Gavin Rossdale is set to officially bring his band back to life in September with the first album since it disbanded in 2002. “The Sea of Memories” will be released September 13th.
• CCR – John Fogerty is now hinting he might be open to a Creedence Clearwater Revival reunion. He’s been at war with his former bandmates for most of the 39 years since he quit as frontman, even refusing to join them at their Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1993.
• Rihanna – It’s been announced she’ll be taking take over for actress Megan Fox as the spokes-T&A for Emporio Armani Underwear and Armani Jeans. Her ad campaign, which was recently shot in NYC, will debut in September. It’s her first fashion endorsement deal.
• Sheryl Crow – She’s donating proceeds from her July 22nd concert at “Cheyenne Frontier Days” to an organization lobbying for protection of wild horses. But advocacy group Showing Animals Respect & Kindness is calling her a hypocrite for performing at the Wyoming rodeo, claiming wild horses are abused at the event.
RANDOM THINGS THAT REDUCE PAIN:
There are all kinds of fake pain remedies, from shoe magnets to magical ground-up shark bones, but there are a number of legit ways you can control pain without swallowing a pill. Among them …
• Eating – ‘Comfort Eating’ has become a familiar concept and it seems it actually does work. We can apparently thank evolution for that. (But isn’t it hard to swallow while choking back tears?)
• Imagination – According to one study, getting a child to imagine that he/she is floating on a cloud is actually a more effective pain reliever than prescription drugs. (And on the plus side … more pills for us.)
• Music – Listening to your favorite music (whatever it is) has been proven to help you tolerate up to twice your normal threshold of pain. (Unless you listen to Slayer, which can actually cause bleeding eardrum pain.)
• Religion – Researchers have found that devout Catholics are better able to handle electrical shocks than atheists or agnostics. (Was this during the Inquisition? We’ll stick with Vicodin and sloe gin.)
• Your Hands – Touching our own wounds helps our bodies deal with pain as it allows our brains to better map out where it is coming from, enabling the brain to more effectively deal with it. (So touching yourself is therapeutic? Who knew.)
– Condensed from Cracked.com
HE’S HUG HAPPY:
When it comes to cuddling conventional thinking is that women want to cuddle, while men roll their eyes and go along with it. Well, a new international survey by Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute has turned that idea upside down. The poll of couples in 5 countries who have been together for an average of 25 years has found that hugging & kissing are more important for men’s happiness than women’s. And men who report that regular cuddling is a part of their relationship are, on average, 3 times happier than those who don’t. (The husbands were interviewed in front of their wives, right?)
– CBC.ca
TOO STUPID FOR US TO MAKE UP:
• A bloodhound has such a keen nose that she has landed a job … as a wine taster. ‘Louisa Bella’ has been trained to spot wine that has been tainted, even through the bottle. And her sensitive nose can also sniff out faulty corks which her Australian owners who run a boutique winery in Melbourne say saves them a fortune. (Why is there drool on this label?)
– Orange.co.uk
• Afghanistan would like its centuries-old national game ‘buzkashi’ (goat-grabbing) to become … an Olympic event. One of the world’s wildest games, it involves riders on horseback competing to grab a goat carcass, then galloping clear of the others to drop it in a chalked circle. The game used to be the sport of rich warlords but is now financed by mobile phone companies and private airlines. (What other country would have Olympic athletes that haul animal parts?)
– BBC News
• The Phoenix, Arizona suburb of Gilbert is considering using a so-called ‘Dog Waste Digester’ designed by Arizona State University students to create enough electricity to run at least one street lamp. The ‘raw material’ would be collected from a local park, but at this point it’s unclear who would have that unfortunate job. (Hey, don’t pooh-pooh this idea until we see if it works!)
– NYPost.com
BS BUZZWORDS:
New cutting-edge vocab …
• ‘Flash Crash’ – An extremely rapid decline in the stock market. (“Yesterday you were looking like Facebook. Thanks to the flash crash, today you’re looking like MySpace.”)
• ‘Last Name Effect’ – The closer a person’s childhood surname is to the end of the alphabet, the faster that person tends to make purchase decisions. (Because in roll calls during their entire lives, the ‘Zimmers’ of this world have been waiting and waiting and …)
• ‘Municide’ – The economic or political death of a city. (“The city of Buffalo committed municide years ago but thanks to Canadians cross-border shopping, it manages to maintain a heartbeat.”)
SCIENTISTS SAY:
A BS compendium of recent ‘discoveries’ …
• Scientists say … men with wide faces are more likely to lie and cheat than narrow-faced men. The University of Wisconsin findings suggest that the face’s width-to-height ratio could be an ancient evolutionary signal of a man’s aggressiveness when dealing with competitors. On the upside, they say, wide-faced guys make better businessmen. (Yeah, it’s the lying and cheating.)
– “The Independent”
• Scientists say … we can train our mind to forget embarrassing moments completely. Lund University researchers in Sweden have confirmed that ‘selective memory’ actually exists. Repressing memories for long enough can lead to erasing them completely. (But while that embarrassing incident at the office party involving the boss’ husband and a rubber chicken may be dead to your mind, it still lives on YouTube.)
– “The Telegraph”
• Scientists say … half of college-age drinkers have had at least one alcohol-induced memory blackout in the past year due to binge drinking. Northwestern University researchers say that despite being fully conscious during such blackouts, students who were interviewed could not recall specific events. The study concludes that students who black out need to cut back on drinking because the next time it happens they might be driving a car. (As if they could find it.)
– UPI.com
BS AMAZING FACTS:
• 60% of the world’s population lives in the least developed countries.
• 1 billion people go hungry every day and lack access to clean drinking water.
• 2 billion live on less than $2-a-day.
• 1,000 women die daily during pregnancy or childbirth.
– United Nations Population Fund
BS CHRONOMETER 07.13.11
TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1942 [69] Harrison Ford, Chicago, IL, movie actor (“Indiana Jones” movies, “Star Wars”)
1957 [54] Cameron Crowe, Palm Springs CA, movie director/screenwriter (“Almost Famous”, “Jerry Maguire”)/musical documentary maker (“Pearl Jam Twenty”, “The Union”)
1963 [48] Fatboy Slim (Norman Cook), Bromley UK, club DJ/pop musician (“Praise You”, “Funk Soul Brother”)
1974 [37] Deborah Cox, Toronto ON, club/dance/R&B singer (“Beautiful U R”, “A House Is Not a Home”)
1988 [23] Steven R McQueen, LA CA, TV actor (‘Jeremy Gilbert’ on “Vampire Diaries” since 2009)/grandson of legendary late actor Steve McQueen
TODAY’S BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
• “Embrace Your Geekness Day”, a great day to be a Geek … or to know a Geek. Some people view the term with a negative connotation. Are they jealous of your knowledge and skills, perhaps? Yeah, that’s it.
• “French Fries Day”. The ‘french’ has nothing to do with France, but the method of preparation. Food that’s chipped into pieces is said to be ‘frenched’. It’s thought that french fries most likely originated in Belgium.
• “Gruntled Workers Day”. We always hear about ‘disgruntled’ workers, but what about people who are happy with their jobs and can’t wait to go to work each day? Gruntled workers, this is your day … ya eager-beaver keeners.
THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
2010 [01] Legendary New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner dies in Tampa FL at age 80 (the day of the 81st MLB All-Star Game)
TODAY’S MUSIC EVENT . . .
1985 [26] An estimated 2 billion worldwide watch or listen to “Live Aid” rock concerts in Philadelphia PA and London UK, donating more than $225 million to the cause of Ethiopian famine relief
TODAY’S FIRST . . .
1930 [71] 1st ‘World Cup’ soccer competition begins in Montevideo, Uruguay with 14 countries participating (2 weeks later Uruguay takes the championship, defeating Argentina)
TODAY’S RECORDS . . .
1976 [35] ‘Longest Bagpipe Concert’, featuring 4 student pipers from Churchill School, ends after 100 hours (Salisbury, Rhodesia)
1991 [20] Timothy Badyana sets a Guinness World Record by running 10 km (6 mi) in 45 minutes, 37 seconds … backwards (Dayton, Ohio)
COMING UP . . .
[Thurs] Primetime Emmy Awards nominations announced
[Fri] “Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows: Part 2”; “Winnie the Pooh” open in movie theaters
[Fri] Full ‘Buck’ Moon
[Fri] Gummi Worm Day
[Fri] Saint Swithin’s Day
[Sat] Hot Dog Night
[Sat] Woodie Wagon Day
[Sun] Ice Cream Sunday
This Week Is … Farriers Week
This Month Is … Family Reunion Month
BULL’S BITS
BS REASONS WHY GUYS GOLF:
• It’s nice to get out and see some grass that’s actually been mowed.
• If you hang around the house you end up having to fix something.
• The feeling of accomplishment when hitting the ball 20 yards into the rough.
• The need for more frustration in life.
• Too old for baseball, too young for checkers.
BS PHONE STARTER:
Today is “Childhood Memories Day”, so what is your earliest TV memory?
BS DEFINITIONS BY GENDER:
• ‘THINGY’
Female: Any part under a car’s hood.
Male: The fastener on a woman’s bra.
• ‘COMMITMENT’
Female: A desire to get married and raise a family.
Male: Trying not to pick up other women while out with one’s girlfriend.
• ‘ENTERTAINMENT’
Female: A good movie, concert, play, or book.
Male: Anything that can be done while drinking.
• ‘MAKING LOVE’
Female: The greatest expression of intimacy a couple can achieve.
Male: Call it whatever you want just as long as we end up in the sack.
BS WEB GOODIE:
The new season of “Breaking Bad” premieres Sunday on AMC. But you can play the online videogame right now …
NET: http://www.amctv.com/shows/breaking-bad/cost-of-doing-business
BS RANDOM JOKE:
I busted a mirror and got 7 years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me 5.
BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Today’s Question: Half of all moms do THIS at some point during the day.
Answer to Give Out Next Show: Lose it.
BS DEEP THOUGHT:
So long as there’s a jingle in your head, TV is not free.
