BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
★ Actor/singer Jared Leto has been named the new face of Gucci’s Guilty fragrance. The “Dallas Buyers Club” actor has been handpicked by Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele to appear in an upcoming ad campaign, which will be shot in Venice, Italy. He replaces “Captain America” star Chris Evans. As part of his involvement with the company, Leto took over the fashion house’s Snapchat social media page for the weekend and posted videos of himself. This is the 2nd fragrance ad campaign for Leto; he also fronted Hugo Boss Red.
– WENN.com
★ Will the Beckhams become Floridians? David Beckham may finally have a site for his Miami soccer club. So after striking out 3 times what’s changed? To quote the Miami City Commissioner: “I think they finally figured out you don’t lead with the press conference.” And it seems Beckham and his backers have agreed to own the stadium. Previous proposals relied on the local government owning it. The difference? If the city was the landlord, the franchise wouldn’t have had to pay property tax.
– “Miami Herald”
★ And with the announcement of several critics awards last week, as well as the Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe nominations, the awards season is finally beginning to take shape. There are prestige movies featured across the board, including “Spotlight”, “Carol”, “The Big Short”, “The Revenant”, and “Bridge of Spies”. But the surprise leader of the pack is the Summer action blockbuster “Mad Max: Fury Road”. It’s already won 2 Australian Film Institute awards and has been named ‘Film Of the Year’ by both the National Board of Review and Boston Online Film Critics.
– ContactMusic.com

TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “Adele Live in New York City” (NBC) – An hour-long primetime concert special at Radio City Music Hall recorded November 17th, 3 days prior to the release of her monster album “25”. It’s her first North American gig since 2011.
• “Ellen DeGeneres Show” (syndicated/CTV2) – Idina Menzel (“Holiday Wishes”).
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC/CityTV) – Jeff Lynne’s ELO (“Alone In the Universe”).
• “Late Late Show With James Corden” (CBS/M3) – Josh Groban (“Stages”).
• “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (NBC/CTV) – The Struts (“Everybody Wants”).
• “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” (CBS/Global) – Sleater-Kinney (“No Cities to Love”).
• “Live With Kelly & Michael” (syndicated/CTV) – Sara Bareilles (“What’s Inside: Songs from Waitress”).
• “Merry Christmas Mr Bean” (CBC) – Rowan Atkinson’s hilarious seasonal special gets another airing. First broadcast in 1992.
• “Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” (NBC/CTV2) – Kenny Rogers (“Once Again It’s Christmas”).
• “The Voice” (NBC/CTV2) – The final four competitors perform.

BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Adele – “Billboard” notes that “25” is the first album to surpass 5 million copies in one year since … Adele’s album “21” back in 2011.
• Bruce Springsteen – As well as next year’s “River Tour” (beginning January 16th in Pittsburgh PA) with the E Street Band, he’s also revealed that he has a new solo album in the works.
• Jason Mraz – His 2003 hit “The Remedy” was inspired by his childhood friend Charlie Mingroni’s struggle with cancer.
• Linkin Park – They were once forced to defend their 2001 hit “In the End” after it was alleged that California school shooter Charles Andrew Williams was influenced by the song’s lyrics.
• Metallica – After playing a gig in Antarctica in 2013, they received verification from Guinness World Records they are the only band to play on all 7 continents.
• Miranda Lambert – She tells “Cosmopolitan”: “I live big and happy. I go out with friends all the time. I love to drink and eat and enjoy things. It’s important to me. I want to be healthy and fit, but it shouldn’t be that big of a damn deal.”
• REM – Former frontman Michael Stipe is reportedly using ‘art teacher’ as his job description these days.
• Taylor Swift – This month she’s filed an application to trademark “A Girl Named Girl”, the title of her unpublished novel … which she wrote at age 14. Other things she’s attempting to patent: “Swiftmas” (a fan term for when she surprises them with gifts); the album title “1989” (in its ‘stylized form’); the song title “Blank Space”; and the track’s lyric, “And I’ll write your name”.

SADNESS WON’T KILL YOU:
Being miserable or stressed will not increase your risk of dying, according to the new ‘Million Women Study’ in the UK. It had been thought that being unhappy was bad for health, particularly for the heart. But the decade-long analysis says previous studies had just confused cause and effect. The joint UK-Australia research team claims those studies failed to deal with reverse causality, in other words … illness can make you unhappy, but unhappiness itself doesn’t make you ill. The bottom line of this study: there seems to be no direct effect of unhappiness or stress on mortality, even in a 10-year study of a million women. (You may feel like you’re dying inside … but you are not.)
– “The Lancet”

BS AMAZING FACTS ABOUT MUSIC:
• Your heart beat adjusts according to the music you are listening to.
• Loud music can cause you to drink more alcohol in less time
• Music triggers activity in the same part of the brain that releases the ‘pleasure chemical’ dopamine.
• Studies have shown that you don’t like the original version of a song because it is better, only because you heard it first (in experiments people rating the same song twice typically prefer the first play, even though it is the exact same track).
• A person’s favorite song is usually strongly associated with an emotional event in their life.
• Listening to music while working out has been show to significantly increase physical performance.
• Flowers grow faster when they are exposed to music.
• The type of music you listen to affects how you perceive the world (happy, sad, etc).
– List25.com

TEXT FAUX PAS:
Bad news for the grammar purists among us; text messages that end with a period are seen to be less sincere or even rude compared to those that don’t. That’s according to a new survey conducted by Binghamton University. This response is not replicated in handwritten correspondence, suggesting the rules only apply to online communication. Researchers thank that may be because tone is hard to judge online, with the vital non-verbal cues that punctuate face-to-face communication missing. So texters rely on emojis, deliberate misspellings that mimic speech sounds, and use of punctuation or the lack thereof. Exclamation points, for instance, make texters seem more sincere and engaged!!!! Periods, however, are a no-go ☻
– “Wired”

ODD SUBJECTS FOR MUSICALS:
Weird-yet-real stage musicals from the past …
• “Ben Franklin in Paris” (1964) – Included such show-stopping tunes as “I Invented Myself” and “God Bless the Human Elbow”.
• “Carrie” (1988) – Stephen King’s horror thriller set to music didn’t fare well on Broadway. An off-Broadway revival didn’t fare much better.
• “Charles Darwin: Live and In Concert” (2001) – A one-man show that featured singer-anthropologist Richard Milner.
• “Hope! Das Obama Musical” (2010) – A German musical about the political rise of Barack Obama.
• “Jerry Springer: The Opera” (2003) – Who’d have thought a musical about the tackiest guy on TV wouldn’t be a hit? It included 8,000 cases of swearing.
• “Moby Dick” (1992) – No dancing whales, just a group of scantily-clad schoolgirls trying to rescue their struggling academy by staging the Herman Melville story in a local swimming pool.
• “Silence! The Musical” (2005) – This unauthorized parody of “The Silence Of the Lambs” included songs about nether-regions, gratuitous violence, and tap-dancing sheep.
• “Via Galactia” (1972) – With UFOs and lasers and a plot set 1,000 years in the future, this strange show turned out to be the first Broadway production to lose over $1 million.
– MentalFloss.com

ANNOYING OFFICE JARGON THAT NEEDS TO DIE IN 2016:
✗ ‘Blue sky thinking’ (freedom to think without influence or preconception).
✗ ”Think outside the box’ (think creatively).
✗ ‘Going forward’ (from now on).
✗ ‘Action that’ (put it into practice).
✗ ‘Thought shower’ (fancy new word for a brainstorm).
✗ ‘Bring to the table’ (the contribution offered to the group).
✗ ‘Game changer’ (something that causes a fundamental shift).
✗ ‘Low hanging fruit’ (easy win business).
✗ ‘Reach out’ (contact).
✗ ‘This idea has legs’ (it has lasting appeal).
✗ ‘It’s a win-win’ (it’s good for both sides).
– “Metro”

DID YOU KNOW?
An anagram of Donald Trump is Damp Old Runt.
– PopBitch.com

BS CHRONOMETER 12.14.15

TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1949 [66] Cliff Williams, Romford UK, rock bassst (AC/DC-“Rock ‘n Roll Train”, “Moneytalks”)/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (2003)

1988 [27] Vanessa Hudgens, Salinas CA, movie actress (“High School Musical” movies, “Thirteen”)

1992 [23] Tori Kelly, Wildomar CA, singer-songwriter (“Should’ve Been Us”, “Nobody Love”)

TODAY’S BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
• “Bouillabaisse Day”, a day to throw some shellfish in a pot with some finely-chopped onion, celery, and tomato; a little white wine, a little more white wine; and a whole mess of garlic. Nummers, instant heaven!

• “Green Monday”, usually the 2nd Monday of December, an online retail term similar to “Cyber Monday”, as coined by eBay to describe its best sales day in December. “Market Watch” ranks it the 3rd-biggest online shopping day of the year.

• “Halcyon Days” begin, the 7 days before and 7 days after the Winter Solstice. According to ancient tradition, it’s a time of peace and tranquillity. (That’s because they didn’t have malls.)

• “Midwinter Horn Blowing” begins in Twente, Netherlands. The annual Christmas tradition  continues each and every morning through January 4th. (And there’s no snooze button!)

• “Monkey Day”, to raise awareness about monkey issues, monkeys in the news, and ways you can help monkeys (apes and other primates included).
NET: http://www.monkeyday.com

THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
2005 [10] Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” remake, starring Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, and Jack Black, opens in movie theaters

TODAY’S RECORD . . .
2004 [11] The Millau Viaduct, tallest bridge in the world (343 m or 1,125 ft) is inaugurated near Millau, France

AND REMEMBER . . .
[Tues] Cat Herders Day
[Wed] Chocolate-Covered Anything Day
[Thurs] “Canada’s Walk of Fame 2015 Gala” (Global)
[Thurs] Clean Air Day
[Thurs] Free Shipping Day
[Thurs] Re-Gifting Day

THIS WEEK IS . . .
Christmas Bird Count Week / Gluten-free Baking Week / Halcyon Days / Human Rights Week

BULL’S BITS

BEST OF BS:
Highlight bits culled from 22 years of “Bull Sheet” back issues …
BS REASONS DOGS DON’T LIKE USING COMPUTERS:
• Can’t stick their heads out of Windows 10.
• It’s tough to read the screen with your head cocked to one side.
• Too difficult to ‘mark’ every single website visited.
• Saliva-coated mouse difficult to maneuver.
• Excitement just too hard to bear when visiting MyMastersLeg.com.
• An app for virtual butt-sniffing is yet to be developed.
• Carpal Paw Syndrome.
– First published in “BS” 1999.

LEAST-LOVED BS CHRISTMAS SPECIALS:
✗ “Santa’s 3-Day Eggnog Bender”
✗ “A Holiday Visit from Salmonella”
✗ “UFC Fighter José Aldo Hurts Santa Real Bad”
✗ “My Christmas Sauna with Burl Ives”
✗ “Jack Frost Loses All Feeling in His Extremities”
✗ “The Sweatiest Angel”
– First published in “BS” 2012.
NET: http://www.FreeRadioPrep.com

BS RANDOM JOKE:
Why did Adele cross the road? To say hello from the other side.

BS PHONE STARTER:
☎ What’s the sexiest holiday gift you’ve ever gotten?

BS WEB GOODIE:
An amusing breakdown of swearwords vs deaths in Quentin Tarantino movies. Spoiler: swearwords win 1704 to 190.
NET: http://53eig.ht/1NVwDKS

BS U-PICK TRIVIA:
• In what year was Christmas first celebrated as a holiday?
a. 1 AD
b. 336 AD [CORRECT 336 AD, when Christianity became the official religion in Rome. It wasn’t until the year 440 that December 25th became the official date of Christmas.]
c. 1103 AD
– History.com

• Which traditional Christmas carol is actually set on December 26?
a. “Jingle Bells”
b. “Good King Wenceslas”. [CORRECT. “… on the feast of Stephen” refers to St Stephen’s Day, observed December 26th.]
c. “We Three Kings”
(The song “Jingle Bells” was originally written for Thanksgiving.)
– Wikipedia.org

BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Question: Even though we pay good money for it, the average person ends up throwing out almost a quarter of it.
Answer: A loaf of bread.

BS DEEP THOUGHT:
Smartphones are pacifiers for adults.

LOOK WHO’S BS-ING NOW!
Joe Augustin @ Gold 905 Singapore; Susy Solis @ WatchOnAirLive.com Dallas TX; Jennifer Rodriguez @ The New 97.7 [KAFA] USAF Academy, Colorado Springs CO; Natalie Price @ Dubai 92, Dubai UAE; and Graham Smith @ EveryHitRadio.com London UK.