Wednesday, July 6, 2005 Edition: #3071
Ah, Some BS You Actually Look Forward to in the Morning!
BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
TODAY Bill Haley & the Comets will be inducted onto Hollywood’s “Rock Walk”, 50 years after their landmark single “Rock Around the Clock” topped pop charts . . . TODAY Bob Woodward’s “The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat” hits bookstores, less than 6 weeks after former FBI official W Mark Felt was revealed as Woodward’s key source during the Watergate scandal (hmm, coincidence?) . . . TONIGHT the comic-book adventure film “Fantastic Four”, starring Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans & Julian McMahon, premieres in the shadow of NYC’s Statue of Liberty (Liberty Island & the statue play key roles in the film’s finalé) . . . TONIGHT a multimedia concert experience called “Video Games Live” kicks off an 18-city tour at the Hollywood Bowl in LA (the show ‘re-creates’ video-game environments with music, lasers, video & stunt performers) . . . Arabic news service Al-Jazeera is creating ‘Al-Jazeera International’, an English-language satellite channel to dish up broadcasts worldwide with an Arab perspective from its tiny base in Qatar (launches next MARCH) . . . Hollywood stars including the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Sting & Pierce Brosnan are avoiding beach crowds and trying to keep up with skyrocketing property taxes by renting out their Malibu properties in summer leases (Brosnan’s beach house, for instance, is renting for $85,000 – a month!) . . . 10.5 million Canadians watched at least some of “Live 8″ . . . MTV’s new reality show “The ’70s House” forces 12 modern kids to live as though it were the 1970s (unlike “That 70s Show” which has no resemblance to the decade) . . . TBS is shelling out $650,000 per episode to keep “Everbody Loves Raymond” re-running – for the next 11 years! . . . And Warner Bros has found out the hard way that the “Dukes of Hazzard” TV show was originally based on a 1975 movie called “Moonrunners”, and agreed to pay $17.5 million to the movie’s producer for copyright infringement before the new bigscreen version debuts (AUGUST 5th).
BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Bo Bice – TONIGHT he does the “Tonight Show With Jay Leno”.
• Britney Spears – She will NOT be appearing naked and pregnant on the cover of “Vanity Fair” after all, but her rep confirms she’ll appear on the mag’s OCTOBER cover … fully clothed.
• Dave Matthews Band – TONIGHT they’re on “Late Show With David Letterman”.
• Justin Timberlake – He’s said to be among those being considered for the role of villain ‘Two-Face’ in the next “Batman” movie.
• Pink Floyd – They’re donating all new profits from their “Greatest Hits” album to charity after sales soared following their “Live 8″ performance. They’re encouraging all the acts who played the super-gig to do the same.
• Queen – They’ve been named the most successful recording act in UK album chart history, ahead of The Beatles and Elvis, according to new figures released by the “Guinness Book of World Records”.
• Toby Keith – TONIGHT he’s on CBS-TV’s “The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson”.
• Will Smith – Word is he & others who appeared at “Live 8″ Philadelphia received a ‘goody bag’ valued at close to $13,000 for appearing at the charity event … to end poverty in Africa.
CUTTING-EDGE VOCAB:
• ‘Wedding Insurance’ – Newfangled insurance policies that typically cover things such as accidents, damage or destruction of wedding attire, lost wedding rings, theft of gifts or jewelry, vendors who don’t show up, illness among members of the wedding party, etc. (How about ‘return of the gifts’ if the marriage goes sour in less than a year?)
• ‘Hobo’ – It’s the trashy new look started by Mr Britney Spears, Kevin Federline, and now it seems Mr J-Lo, Marc Anthony, is trying it on for size. Other stars sporting dressed-down style of late include Orlando Bloom, David Arquette & Hilary Swank. (The look is also known as … ‘grubby’.)
BRAIN DRAIN:
Taking regular showers could lead to brain damage, a new Wake Forest University study claims. Scientists believe that breathing in small amounts of the manganese found in water may harm the brain’s central nervous system, leading to learning difficulties, tremors and behavioral changes. It seems that inhaling manganese, rather than eating or drinking it, is far more efficient at delivering it to the brain. The researchers say a 10-minute shower a day for 10 years would expose children to a dose 3 times higher than that needed to damage a rat’s brain. (And it seems a half-hour shower once a month for a lifetime will cause scientists to perform really wonky research.)
– “Daily Mirror”
BIGGEST BOOKWORMS:
People in India are the world’s most avid readers. A new survey shows that they spend twice as much time reading books, newspapers & magazines as the British and nearly 3 times more than the Japanese. Indians on average read for nearly 11 hours each week, according to NOP World, a market research organization that has looked at reading habits in 30 countries. (They have lots of time while waiting for the phone to ring at outsourced call centers.)
– “Sunday Times”
HOW TO SURVIVE WORKING THROUGH SUMMER:
1. Bring Summer Into the Office – put flowers on your desk, a beach screen-saver on your PC, play some summer music, etc.
2. Make the Most of Your Lunch Hour – Get outdoors in a nearby park and treat yourself to a business day picnic, or find a café with outdoor seating.
3. Take Your Work Outside – See if you can move a meeting outdoors, or try to steal some quiet moments outside with your laptop.
4. Look Into Flex Time – See if you can work longer hours Monday through Thursday in order to leave early on Friday, or come in earlier each day so you can leave earlier and enjoy summer afternoons.
5. Give Yourself a Break – Too many of us fail to take any vacation whatsoever. Commit to using at least part of your accumulated vacation time during summer.
– CareerBuilder.com
PLANT HOLIDAYS:
A British garden center has set up a ‘Plant Hotel’ for gardeners worried about leaving their prize blooms untended when they go away. Crowfoot Nurseries, near Norwich, England is charging to provide care to visiting plants. A spokesman says the only rule is they won’t babysit anything that’s already dead. (How sad is it when your houseplants have a more exciting vacation than you do?)
– “Leisure & Living”
TOP POPS:
The UK charity Fathers Direct has named the Aka Pygmies, a hunter-gatherer tribe from the northern Congo, as the world’s best fathers. Why? On average, Aka fathers are within reach of their infants 47% of the time, just ahead of Swedish fathers who perform 45% of the parental childcare on average. In fact, Aka dads are so dedicated that when moms are unavailable they actually calm their babies by offering them – a nipple. It’s a little known fact but men’s nipples are perfectly suited to soothing a crying baby until it can be fed. (Oh god, please let me get that mental picture out of my mind … now!)
– “Times of London”
YAK ATTACK:
Forget bungy-jumping, base-jumping or street luge, the world’s weirdest extreme sport just may be – ‘yak skiing’. In the village of Manali, India, enterprising Tibetan Peter Dorje offers thrill-seekers the chance to hurtle up a mountain attached to a yak. Here’s how it works: Dorje leads one of his yaks to the top of the ski hill where he ties it to a long rope looped around a tree to form a crude pulley. The skier is tied to the other end of the rope at the bottom of the hill. The skier then shakes a feed bucket, causing the hungry yak to charge downhill, thereby pulling the skier upward at breakneck speed. (Safety rule #1: try to avoid the charging half-ton yak as it goes by.)
– “Time Magazine”
BS AMAZING SUMMER VACATION FACTS:
• In some countries, vacations are a legal right. By law, the minimum number of vacation days in Sweden is 30, in France 25, and in Japan 19. Compare that to Canada or the USA, where the legal minimum is – zip!
• A survey by the American Management Association finds that 26% of executives contact their offices daily while vacationing in summer. Only 31% take the traditional 2 weeks off, the rest dividing their vacations into smaller portions.
THE BULL SHEET 07.06.2K5
TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1921 [84] Nancy Reagan (Anne Frances Robbins Davis Reagan), NYC, former US First Lady/Mrs Ronald Reagan (1952-2004)
1946 [59] George Walker Bush (aka ‘Dubya’, ‘George II’), New Haven CT, 43rd US President FACTOID: He’s the only US President to father twins.
1946 [59] Sylvester Stallone, NYC, movie actor (“Rambo I-III”, “Rocky I-V”)/TV personality (“The Contender”) FACTOID: He’s the all time “Razzie Award” champion (for bad acting), with a record 30 nominations and 10 ‘wins’.
1948 [57] Peter Mansbridge, London UK, TV journalist/anchor (“The National” since 1988) who began working at the CBC in 1969/Mr Cynthia Dale/ex-Mr Wendy Mesley
1951 [54] Geoffrey Rush, Toowoomba, Australia, movie actor (“Pirates of the Caribbean”, Academy Award-“Shine”)
1976 [29] 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson), Queens NY, rapper (“Just A Lil’ Bit”, “In Da Club”)
BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
TODAY the host city for the “2012 Summer Olympics” will be announced in Singapore. Paris is considered the 1-4 favorite to win the bid, followed by London at 11-4 odds. Madrid, NYC, and Moscow are the long-shots.
NET: http://www.olympic.org
TODAY through Friday at the Gleneagles resort in Scotland, the leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations gather for the annual “G-8 Conference”. TONIGHT is the Make Poverty History campaign’s “Edinburgh 50,000 – The Final Push”, culmination of the “Long Walk To Justice”, at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium, an attempt to further pressure the leaders to deal with poverty in Africa.
NET: http://www.g8.gov.uk
TODAY-July 31st the 22nd “Just For Laughs”, the world’s largest comedy festival, yuks it up in Montréal. Highlights include the “2005 World Stupidity Awards” (the ‘Oscars of Idiocy’) and appearances by “The Daily Show’s” Samantha Bee, Stephen Colbert & Lewis Black, Aussie cross-dresser Dame Edna Everage and several dozen other stand-up acts.
NET: http://www.hahaha.com
TODAY-July 14th is the “Fiesta de San Fermin” in Pamplona, Spain, infamous for its annual ‘Running of the Bulls’. The 9-day festival was made legendary by Ernest Hemingway in his book “The Sun Also Rises”.
NET: http://spainforvisitors.com/sections/sanfermin.htm
TODAY is “Fried Chicken Day”. Don’t know who started it; don’t know why. But then … who cares? Nummers!
THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
1994 [11] “Forrest Gump”, starring Tom Hanks, opens in movie theaters (goes on to earn $678 million in worldwide box office)
TODAY’S MUSIC EVENT . . .
1984 [21] Michael Jackson and his brothers begin their 5-month “Victory Tour” in Kansas City MO (the 55 concerts gross a then-record $75 million)
TODAY’S FIRST . . .
1933 [72] In 1st MLB “All-Star Game”, American League wins 4-2 as Babe Ruth connects for 1st “All-Star” home run (Comiskey Park, Chicago IL)
TODAY’S RECORD . . .
1928 [77] ‘World’s Largest Recorded Hailstone’, measuring 1.5 lbs and 17″ in diameter, falls in Potter NE
COMING UP . . .
[Thurs] Father-Daughter Take a Walk Together Day
[Fri] Video Games Day
[Fri] “Dark Water” & “Fantastic Four” open in movie theaters
[Fri-July 17] Calgary Stampede
[Fri] Intern Appreciation Day
[Sun] Barn Day
[Sun] Don’t Step on a Bee Day
This Week Is . . . Character Counts Week
This Month Is . . . Baked Bean Month
BULL’S BITS . . .
BS ‘TAKE YOUR MEASURE’ QUIZ:
What would you be sizing up when using each of the following units of measurement?
• ‘British Thermal Unit’ – Heating or cooling. 1 BTU is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 lb of water by 1 degree Fahrenheit. Air conditioners are rated this way; a typical window AC unit measuring 5000 to 10,000 BTUs.
• ‘Faggot’ – Firewood. A faggot is 3-ft-long and 2 ft in circumference. There are about 134 faggots in a cord.
• ‘Sabin’ – Soundproofing. Used in acoustical engineering, 1 sabin is the sound absorption of 1 sq ft of a perfectly absorbing surface, such as an open window.
• ‘Clo’ – The insulating value of clothing. With a rating of 0 clo you’d be naked; 1 clo would be the insulating value of the average business suit.
• ‘Balthazar’ – Wine. A balthazar is a large bottle holding about 12 liters, or 16 times the volume of a standard 750 ml bottle.
• ‘Scoville Heat Units’ – The heat in peppers. Sweet Bell peppers measure 0 SHU, the Jalapeno rates up to 5,000 SHU, while the fiery Red Savina Habanero pepper registers 350,000 SHU.
BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Today’s Question: Of all the different kinds of food on the market, THIS is the most profitable.
Answer to Give Out Next Show: Pet food.
BS DEEP THOUGHT:
Money is like a promise … easier made then kept.
BULL’S EAR:
‘Jack’ is the hottest new format to roll down the radio dial in a long time, the broadcast equivalent of an iPod Shuffle aimed directly at the 25-to-45 demographic. Here’s how it may affect you – about 60% of ‘Jack’ format radio stations operate without on-air personalities. That means fewer on-air jobs overall and far more competition for those that remain. So what to do? Concentrate on content! There will always be room for personality on radio (whether it’s delivered by airwaves, satellite, Internet … or Fedex). Loads of listeners want more than just music; they want information and entertainment. The cardinal rules of personality radio: 1. Have something to say. 2. Say it clearly and succinctly, then shut up. And oh, about ‘Jack’ – the format will need to evolve if it’s going to have any legs. It’s a real bang to hear a vintage tune that hasn’t been played for years (i.e.: Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy”), but not many will want to hear it in any kind of rotation. ‘Jack’ has taught us all a lesson about the value of expanded playlists, but the key to long-term radio success has always been – and we believe always will be – personality.
