Thursday, October 4, 2001 Edition: #2146
We’re Full o’ Sheet!
BS WAYS TO DRIVE A MAN CRAZY:
• Invite your mother to come for a visit . . . unannounced . . . for a month.
• Replace the fresh batteries in the TV remote with dead ones . . . each day.
• Shrink his underwear in the dryer and when he complains, innocently suggest that he’s gained a few pounds.
• Organize his workshop, bedroom, garage or other special place.
• ‘Accidentally’ fill the gas tank of his new Porsche with diesel.
• Snip a small hole in his fishing waders, then follow him on his fishing trip . . . with a camera.
• Stare at his forehead and when he notices, casually ask if there is any history of male pattern baldness on his mother’s side.
BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
TODAY in London, a Christie’s auction of 5 decades of pop memorabilia includes the profanity-laced draft of a cranky letter from John Lennon to Paul & Linda McCartney (expected to fetch $120,000), a 1958 note from Elvis Presley to girlfriend Anita Wood in which he promises to marry her (he lied), and Madonna’s 1988-89 appointment diary, full of entries for workouts, massages and leg waxes (not to mention NBA stats — 8 inches, 10 inches . . .) . . . TODAY in Nashville, 12 new members will be formally inducted into the ‘Country Music Hall of Fame’, including Bill Anderson, the Everly Bros, Waylon Jennings, and the Jordanaires (Elvis’ back-up) . . . TONIGHT CBS-TV airs an hour-long “Survivor” special setting up “Survivor 3” with a preview of the show’s location and contestants (“Survivor: Africa” debuts 1-week today at 8 pm) . . . Mr & Mrs J-Lo are honeymooning at Donatella Versace’s luxury Italian villa near Lake Como, where 150 guests reportedly gathered to celebrate at a 15-course dinner served up by more than 100 waiters and decorated with more than 3,000 roses and 1,000 golden candles (other newlyweds who’ve been feted there include Mr & Mrs Madonna and Sting and his bride) . . . Word is Madonna quietly checked into LA’s Cedars-Sinai Hospital for surgery to repair an abdominal hernia, possibly caused by riding that mechanical bull in her “Drowned World Tour” shows (wow, even Madonna’s getting old!) . . . THIS WEEK Mariah Carey has jetted off to Japan and will go on to Australia to promote her new “Glitter” CD in spite of her doctors’ orders . . . Jon Bon Jovi has postponed shooting his 9-episode guest shot on “Ally McBeal” in order to play 9/11 benefit concerts.
MOVIES GETTING MADE:
Sony Pictures has pushed back the release of its Muhammad Ali bio-pic “Ali”, starring Will Smith, from December 7 to December 25 (this is actually a good sign — movies opening Christmas Day are usually blockbusters) . . . A movie is in development based on the 1999 novel “Crisis Four”, written by former Brit SAS elite force member Andy McNab, in which Osama bin Laden orders an attack on the White House – amazingly prophetic (while the movie will still get made, references to bin Laden and the White House will be dropped).
YOU CAN’T LICK THESE:
THIS WEEK Britain’s Royal Mail released the world’s first ‘interactive stamps’ to celebrate a century of Nobel Prizes. Each of the 6 stamps in the series has hi-tech features representing each of the Nobel Prize categories . . .
• Chemistry – Releases an electrically-charged particle when in contact with heat from a finger.
• Economics – Features a printing process used in 1840 to create the ‘Penny Black’, the world’s first (and most valuable) stamp.
• Literature – Imprinted with 32 lines of the TS Eliot poem “The Addressing of Cats” in words 20 times smaller than a grain of sand. You’ll need more than bifocals to read it.
• Medicine – A ‘scratch-‘n’-sniff’ stamp that has thousands of minuscule gelatin capsules which release the scent of eucalyptus.
• Peace — Embossed with the image of a dove carrying an olive branch.
• Physics — Impregnated with a hologram, just like your VISA card.
BEWARE, THE END IS NEAR:
Despite recent world events, the so-called ‘Doomsday Clock’ remains set at 9 minutes to midnight (doom). Since it was created in 1947, the fictional clock has been reset 16 times by the “Bulletin of Atomic Scientists”. The closest it came to midnight was in 1953, when it was set at 11:58 after both the US and Soviet Union developed the ‘H’ bomb. The furthest from midnight, 11:43, was 10 years ago in 1991. However, depending on what happens in the near future, it may be reset again. (Quick, yank its batteries!)
ALL MEN ARE PERVS:
A new study in “Men’s Health” magazine suggests the reason women have ended up less hairy than men is because — men like them that way. Professor Robin Dunbar of Liverpool University says that it’s a primordial trait for men to seek younger, more fertile women. Over the process of time, men have tended to be attracted to women with more childlike, babyish features. Centerfold models, for instance, tend to have faces characteristic of 7-year-olds. (And in many cases, the brains.)
NEWS OF THE WEIRD:
• Due to the high failure rate of condoms in India, the local Health Ministry has launched a project to study the size of male organs across the country and make condoms of different sizes instead of the single size now available. (Gee, who gets that lucky assignment? And will the new condoms come with tweezers?)
• 18-year-old Dutch teenager Marc ter Heegde has won a contest for looking the most like his — dog. Judges decided he’s the spitting image of his Bordeaux. (Had I only heard of this in advance — the boss and his Rottweiler would’ve been a shoo-in.)
• Hundreds of shoppers invaded a clothing store in Heide, Germany – wearing nothing but underwear. The store offered free jeans to the first 100 who showed up. The rest received free T-shirts. (Sounds like a cool radio promotion, don’t it?)
THE BULL SHEET 10.04.01
TODAY’S CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS . . .
1924 [77] Charlton Heston (John Charles Carter), Evanston IL, 2nd-term National Rifle Association President/movie actor (original & update of “Planet of the Apes”, “The Ten Commandments”, Oscar-“Ben Hur”)
1944 [57] Tony LaRussa, MLB manager (St Louis Cardinals, hottest team in baseball over the past week)
1946 [55] Susan Sarandon (Tomalin), NYC, film actress (“Thelma & Louise”, “Bull Durham”, Oscar-“Dead Man Walking”) NEXT FILM: Co-stars with Dustin Hoffman in “Baby’s in Black”, coming NEXT YEAR
1976 [25] Alicia Silverstone, San Francisco CA, movie actress (“Batman & Robin”, “Clueless”)/Broadway actress (soon to co-star in “The Graduate”)
1979 [22] Rachael Leigh Cook, Minneapolis MN, movie actress (“She’s All That”, “Josie and the Pussycats”)
BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
TODAY is “National Golf Day”. While much of the modern game is attributed to Scottish origins, the very first version of the game can be traced back much earlier. During the days of the Roman Empire, they played a game that involved hitting feather-stuffed balls with club-shaped branches. The oldest established golf club in North America is the Royal Montréal, officially founded in 1873.
The first 18-hole course in the USA was the Chicago Golf Club founded in 1893.
TODAY Paul McCartney reads from his own poetry as part of “National Poetry Day” celebrations in London ENG. He’ll feature new material at the “21st Poetry Olympics”.
TODAY is “International Toot Your Flute Day”, to encourage the idea of selling yourself and telling others how good you are, while rejecting the idea that self-promotion is ‘bragging’. (Well, I sense that [your co-host] at least has the ‘toot’ part down.)
TODAY’S FIRSTS . . .
1957 [44] 1st man-made satellite orbits Earth, beginning the ‘Space Age’ (‘Sputnik’-Russia)
1976 [25] 1st female network TV news anchor (Barbara Walters joins Harry Reasoner on “ABC Evening News” for then-record $1 million/year)
AND REMEMBER . . .
[Sat] Cal Ripkin Jr’s final game (thousands bought tickets at inflated prices and booked trips to Baltimore for what was to be his final game a week ago, then the 9/11 crisis postponed it)
[Sun] Emmy Awards
[Mon] Thanksgiving Day (no BS service)
[Mon] Columbus Day
No Salt Week / National Skin Care Awareness Week
Auto Battery Safety Month / Dryer Vent Safety Month (oh no, more things to worry about!)
BULL’S BITS . . .
BS CAR POOL GAME:
You’re looking for a contestant with a cell phone riding in the PASSENGER seat of a vehicle. In order not to cause an accident, specify that drivers MAY NOT play. The contestant roots through the glove compartment and scores points (or prizes) for each of the following . . .
• Used lollipop, candy, chewing gum. (Extra points for teeth marks or if it’s now covered in blue fluff.)
• Foreign coins. (Perfect for unsuspecting ‘squeegee kids’.)
• A road map that hasn’t been folded properly. (Make them re-fold it.)
• Unpaid parking tickets. (Points for each one.)
• Really bad CDs and/or tapes. (Award points based on how awful they are.)
• Facial tissues. (Bonus if they’re used.)
• Something to keep kids quiet. (Travel games, a pack of cards, a pint of vodka . . . a gun.)
• A book to read during traffic gridlock. (Bonus points for “War and Peace”.)
• Furry dice. (Points for being prepared in case they come back into fashion again.)
• Points for anything embarrassing. (Underwear, condoms, tampons . . . body parts.)
• And 1000 bonus points if they look in the ‘glove compartment’ and find – gloves!
BS TAKE YOU PICK:
• What is the official name for a unit of time equal to 1/100th of a second – a ‘tick’, a ‘jiffy’, or an ‘instant’? [A ‘jiffy’. Yup, it really is an actual unit of time.]
• Up to the age of 6 or 7 months, a child can perform these 2 body functions simultaneously which an adult cannot – breathe and swallow, blow and drool, or sleep and poop? [Breathe and swallow. Try it!]
• In 24 hours the average human heart beats – 10,000 times, 100,000 times, or 1 million times? [100,000]
• The first Internet domain name ever registered was — Yahoo.com, Symbolics.com, or HotBabes.com? [Symbolics.com]
• Your ability to taste this decreases with age — spicy food, sour food, or sweet food. [Sweets. So mow down on chocolate while you can still taste it!]
• These human traces are said to be as unique as fingerprints — nose prints, tongue prints, or butt prints? [Tongue prints]
• What do the letters ‘Rx’ mean on prescription drugs — ‘recipe’, ‘caution’, or ‘expensive’? [Recipe]
• 31 years ago TODAY [1970], she died of a drug overdose at the Landmark Hotel in Hollywood. Was it – Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, or Janis Joplin? [Rocker Joplin died at 27 from heroin.]
• Migrating Canada Geese fly in a ‘V’ pattern in order to – follow the one that knows where they’re going, conserve energy, or to rank themselves in order of age. [To conserve energy. Each gets a lift from the air current left by the bird in front of it, except for the poor slob in the lead.]
BS TAG LINE:
Do not take life too seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive.
