Wednesday, April 26, 2006        Edition: #3269
Here’s More Bull Roar!

BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
TONIGHT Andrea Bocelli performs as this week’s special guest advisor on “American Idol” . . . Meantime, online bookmaker PinnacleSports.com has placed 1-to-1 odds that “American Idol” hopeful Paris Bennett will be next to get the ax (if Seacrest says one more time “We’ll find out … after the break”, a brick is going through the screen) . . . TONIGHT Tom Cruise is attending the Paris premiere of “Mission: Impossible III”, something he claims is all new mommy Kate’s idea (so she can escape while he’s gone … oops … sh, sh, SH!) . . . TONIGHT “Invasion”, ABC-TV’s sci-fi drama about a town recovering from the aftermath of a hurricane, is back from hiatus – and rumor has it another storm may be on the way (as we’ve learned from Katrina, it’s tough to maintain focus public attention on a single storm for more than 13 weeks – no matter how bad) . . . The long-delayed “Lost Video Diaries”, mini-episodes of “Lost” intended for cellphone download, will finally resume in LATE SUMMER, about the same time as ABC-TV plans to finally air a new TV episode . . . The increasingly nasty Denise Richards-Charlie Sheen divorce has taken another twist – she’s apparently seeing Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, the soon-to-be-ex-husband of actress Heather Locklear (apparently they like kibitzing about whose ex- was the biggest stinker) . . . Former “Frasier” star & long-time Republican Kelsey Grammar is considering a run for public office (certainly qualified – he’s been in rehab numerous times) . . . And 87-year-old former “60 Minutes” correspondent Mike Wallace has confirmed that he is being wooed by NBC-TV (who are apparently in need of a doorstop).

BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Beyoncé – She’s currently spending 12 hours-a-day in the studio with producer Sean Garrett, working on her 2nd solo album. He says she’s ‘in a zone’. Guess that’s a good thing.
• Black Eyed Peas – They’re organizing a “Peapod Benefit Concert” to be held NEXT MONTH in Johannesburg Stadium, South Africa. It’s a free show for those who might not be able to afford to see them otherwise.
• Bubba Sparxxx/Ying Yang Twins – TONIGHT the “Ms New Booty” guys guest on NBC-TV’s “Last Call With Carson Daly”.
• George Michael – His cousin claims George’s drug abuse stems from the loss of his mother and his late lover Anselmo Feleppa. Meantime, tickets to his newly-announced European tour are selling like … er, cannabis.
• Godsmack – TONIGHT they perform “Speak” on the “Tonight Show With Jay Leno”.
• Gretchen Wilson – The “Redneck Woman” is writing a book, not a memoir but a collection of stories about women who inspired her. She describes it as a ‘feel-good book for women’.
• Ludacris – TONIGHT he’s a guest on ABC-TV’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live”.
• Yellowcard – They’re going on hiatus after MAY 7 to allow frontman Ryan Key to undergo and recover from surgery to remove a cyst from his vocal cords. In the meantime, it’s biz as usual.

FENG SHUI TIPS FOR THE OFFICE:
• Cover your back. Sit with your back to a wall. If there is activity going on behind your
back and you can‘t see it, you won’t be able to relax on-the-job.
• Get out of the line of fire! Don’t sit directly across from the entrance door. Make sure you are
sitting off to one side of the door.
• The pointed corners of furniture and walls send harsh energy so don’t sit with a corner pointed at you.
• Reduce your exposure to EMFS. Electromagnetic Frequencies from computers and other electronic equipment in the office lower your body’s melatonin levels, a hormone that controls mood and sleep.
• Remember you are not your job. Work is just one part of your life and its important to remember while performing it that you also have a life outside of your job.
– Robyn Bentley, “Feng Shui Diva”
PHONER: 804.241.1685

FREE SHEET:
If you find “The Bull Sheet” a useful part of your everyday prep, pass the word along to someone in another radio market. You’ll be doing them a favor, and if they subscribe, we’ll say thanks by adding another month to your expiry date.

FROM THE BS POLL VAULT:
Breaking down who we are and what we do …
• 60% of us lie at least once during a 10-minute conversation.
• 50% of workers polled in a recent survey say they are not happy with their jobs.
• 35% of us keep in touch with a former lover.
• 24% of bosses look for another job while on company time.
• 22% of women keep a pair of underwear in their glove compartment.
• 20% of children are chronically bullied.

NEED A REMINDER OF WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO?
Post a magazine pic of a typical person in your target audience (ie: a 35-year-old professional woman sitting on the backyard deck of her suburban home) somewhere in the studio where you’ll see it (by the clock?). It’ll serve as a regular reminder before you crack the mike. Be sure to rotate pictures to keep ‘em fresh.

WORD OF THE DAY:
Today’s new cutting-edge vocab …
• ‘Transplant Tourism’, a new term for visiting other countries in search of a needed organ transplant. China, for instance, is accused of selling thousands of organs from executed prisoners to patients who need heart transplants. Some are reportedly sold before the execution takes place.
• ‘VOD’ (‘Video-on-Demand’) – Seemingly the way TV’s going in the near future. A cable honcho predicts that within 6 months, all 4 major US networks will be offering programming on demand the day after their original broadcasts, typically priced at 99 cents per show and still including ads.

SCIENTISTS SAY:
• Wearing ‘compression stockings’ on long-haul flights can cut the risk of developing Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), blood clots that block veins, by as much as 90% according to a new Oxford University study. (Now there’s just what you wanna see in business class … a bunch of guys lounging in support hose.)
• Blowing off anger boosts your risk of injury by as much as 60% according to a study published in the “Annals of Family Medicine”. And compared with women, furious men face double the danger of getting hurt. (And we’re guessing someone jumping in front of a Mack truck would be less likely to get injured than a really keyed-up guy … with a few beers in him.)
• Fear of losing your job is more harmful to you than losing it. A new University of Michigan study concludes that long-term job insecurity is more strongly linked to poor health and depression than some of  life’s other big blows … actually being fired, getting a divorce, the death of someone close, or a brush with life-threatening illness. (But slightly less than a Habs loss in the playoffs.)

NEED TO CORRECT A BAD ON-AIR HABIT?
Post a sign somewhere where you’ll see it (on the mike?) with a succinct reminder to yourself, ie: “Quit saying ‘um’, bud!”

NEW BS GIZMOS & GADGETS:
• The “Dixie Chopper Xtreme” is the world’s fastest lawnmower. It has a 990-cc, 33-hp engine with the capability to mow grass at 15 mph. Given it can take either a 60- or 72-inch cut, that’s a lawnmower capable of mowing a football field in under 10 minutes or turning 8.7 acres of grass into lawn every hour.
– “Gizmag”
• UK scientists are developing a space ram called “Hidalgo” to be fired into any large asteroid that threatens Earth at speeds of over 32,000 km/hr (19,200 mph). Although it will only be the size of a domestic stove, the force of its high-speed impact should be enough to deflect an asteroid far enough off course to pass by harmlessly. A test launch is scheduled for 2011.
– “Times of London”
• In an attempt to reach a more upscale, sophisticated adult market, Budweiser is suggesting new ways of drinking beer to make the experience ‘more exciting’, including ‘The Orangutang’ – a mixture of beer, orange juice, simple syrup and a dash of Grenadine. Ergh!
– “GQ”

DID YOU KNOW?
The average speed of a golf ball in flight on the PGA tour is 160 mph.

AND WE QUOTE:
“I looked hideous. It was in the middle of my chubby phase and I had lopsided pigtails with overalls on, no make-up.”
– Pop singer Christina Milian, telling “Blender” magazine how dorky she looked in her film debut, a bit part in the opening scene of “American Pie”.

THE BULL SHEET 04.26.2K6

TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1963 [43] Jet Li, Beijing, China, movie actor (“Danny the Dog”, “Romeo Must Die”)

1964 [42] Jimmy Stafford, San Francisco CA, pop guitarist (Train-“Calling All Angels”, “Drops Of Jupiter”)

1965 [41] Kevin James, Stony Brook NY, TV sitcom actor (‘Doug Heffernan’ on “The King of Queens” since 1998)/movie actor (“Hitched”, “50 First Dates”)

1970 [36] Tionne ‘T-Boz’ Watkins, Des Moines IA, pop singer (TLC-“Scrubs”, “Waterfalls”)/TV reality show personality (“R U The Girl?”)

1971 [35] Jay DeMarcus, Columbus OH, country musician (Rascal Flatts-“What Hurts The Most”, “Fast Cars & Freedom”)

1977 [29] Tom Welling, NYC, TV actor (‘Clark Kent’ on “Smallville” since 2001)

BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
• “Administrative Professionals Day” (formerly “Secretaries’ Day”), originally created in 1952 by ad agency exec Harry F Klemfuss to encourage more women to become secretaries. The name change recognizes that the role has also changed and broadened significantly. The official theme for the 2006 observance is ‘Creating Excellence’.
NET: http://www.iaap-hq.org/apw/apwindex.htm

• “International Noise Awareness Day”, the 11th annual originally started by NYC’s ‘League for the Hard of Hearing’ in 1996 and now observed in more than 20 countries. In celebration, we are encouraged to observe the ‘Quiet Diet’ – 1 minute of quiet, regardless of where we are from 2:15 to 2:16 pm.
NET: http://www.lhh.org/noise

• “Pretzel Day”, honoring the world’s oldest snack food. Pretzels were made as early as 610 AD by monks in France and Italy using scraps of dough formed into strips to represent a child’s arms folded in prayer.

• “Richter Scale Day”, saluting the open-ended earthquake scale invented by American seismologist Charles Richter, born 106 years ago TODAY (1900). Technically an earthquake could be a ‘10′, though none has ever been measured. The strongest ever recorded occurred off the coast off Chile in 1960, measuring 9.5 on the scale. The December 26, 2004 quake off  Sumatra, Indonesia that caused the devastating tsunami measured  9.0, while its March 28, 2005 ‘aftershock’ measured 8.7.

• “Tell A Story Day”, which either refers to reading to children or lying to your significant other about where you were Saturday night.

THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
1999 [07] “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” begins airing in HDTV

TODAY’S FIRSTS . . .
1921 [85] 1st ‘Weather Reports’ on radio (WEW, St Louis MO)

1930 [76] 1st ‘Twin Popsicle’ marketed, so Depression-era kids could split a treat

1941 [65] Chicago Cubs use 1st organ in a baseball park (duh duh duh duh da duuuuuh CHARGE!!)

COMING UP . . .
[Thurs] Take Our Daughters & Sons to Work Day
[Thurs] Child Care Professionals Day
[Thurs] Hairball Awareness Day
[Thurs] Sense of Smell Day
[Fri] “2006 Daytime Emmy Awards”
[Fri] Kiss Your Mate Day
[Fri] Great Poetry Reading Day
This Week Is . . . Consumer Protection Week / Teacher Appreciation Week
This Month Is . . . Holy Humor Month / Child Abuse Prevention Month

BULL’S BITS

WHAT WOMEN ARE READING THIS MONTH:
• “Spotting Sneaky Fat” [“Ladies’ Home Journal”]
• “How to Handle Rude Questions” [“Redbook”]
• “Cure Closet Chaos!” [“Chatelaine”]
• “Touch Him There!” [“Cosmopolitan”]
• “No-Fail Weight Loss Plan” AND, in the same issue, “Luscious Chocolate Desserts” [“Woman’s Day”]

WHAT MEN ARE READING THIS MONTH:
• “These Jocks Just Do It … For Their Wives” [“Maxim”]
• “The 20 Coolest Old-School Wrestlers” [“Stuff”]
• “Things a Man Should Never Do Past 30″ [“Esquire”]
• “The 10 Commandments of Style” [“GQ”]
• “Avoid Cheating While Doing Squats” [“Men’s Health”]

BS ARGUMENT STARTER:
If Administrative Professionals were treated with respect and were fairly paid according to their workload, they wouldn’t need a special day in their honor and gifts of flowers, cards, lunch, etc. And, by the way, they should quit referring to themselves as the ‘girls in the office’.

BS MORNING SHOW SEANCE:
The shysters behind MONDAY’s ‘seance’ that claimed to contact John Lennon via ‘Electronic Voice Phenomenon’, a technique which supposedly picks up voices behind radio & TV broadcast signals, managed to convince suckers to pay $9.95 to watch the experience on PPV. So why not throw your own seance … for free? After all, you’re making the EVP broadcast signal. All you need are some other-worldly SFX and a few snippets from an old recorded interview with a dead star (Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Johhny Cash, etc). Add a little reverb and voila … instant on-air seance!

BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Today’s Question: Experts say that if you try to stop THIS everyday occurrence, it can be dangerous to your health.
Answer to Give Out Next Show: A sneeze.

BS DEEP THOUGHT:
If you put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.

BULL’S EYE:
57 years ago on April 26, 1949 an article in “Look” magazine suggested that radio was doomed because its entire audience would be lost to TV. Here we are more than a half-century later hearing those same kind of dire predictions about broadcast radio due to satellite radio, the iPod and [your new techno gadget here]. Well, it’s simply not true. Yes, the audio media market is becoming more fragmented, in the same way that TV now entails hundreds of channels. But there will always be room for radio broadcasters if we listen to what our audience wants. Engage your listeners by talking TO them, not AT them. That means less use of the word ‘I’ and more use of the word ‘you’. And as we’ve advised numerous times before: make sure you have something worthwhile to say; say it clearly and concisely; then shut the heck up!