Twenty years ago, a guy named Dave Hall started MotoArt, where he recycled old airplane parts into pieces of functional art such as desks, conference tables, and even beds. He realized quite soon that the average person on a budget could not afford to buy his art, so he began offering PlaneTags (PlaneTags.com), where he takes the skins/metal of retired aircraft and etches them with the tail numbers of the planes. They can be used for luggage tags, keychains, or whatever, but so far, they have become more like baseball cards or other collectible memorabilia, and now have quite a fanbase that is continuing to grow. Once you buy a PlaneTag (what a great gift), you can Google the tail number and it will tell you the whole history of the airplane. There is even a PlaneTag made from the NASA MLP-2 mobile launch platform. There is also a Grumman G-21A Goose, Douglas A-4 SkyHawk, Boeing 747, F-14A TomCat, and about 100 more. I know Father’s Day is behind us, but what great conversation pieces!
The manager of a northern California gas station was fired after he accidentally set the gas price to 69 cents a gallon instead of $6.99. The pricing error reportedly cost the gas station $16,000, as hundreds of drivers realized the mistake and filled their tanks. His family created a GoFundMe to help repay the lost money.
What’s the difference between a Bear Market and a Bull Market? The bear represents a paw swiping DOWN, and the bull represents a thrust UP with his horns. Good visual analogy. The stock market tends to drop by 5% or more about three times per year, and by about 10% or more about once per year, and by 20% or more (a bear market), once every 3-4 years. A bull market follows a bear market, and it does not end until another bear market is confirmed. So, the market moves in cycles. Over an average 60-year investing career (30 years working and 30 years in retirement), you will go through about 20 bear markets. Normal market behavior. According to many, the current bull market started in March 2009 near the end of the great recession which ran from December 2007 to June 2009. A Bear Market is not what we want to see happen because we are spoiled. But every bull market must come to an end. So far this century we have had a bear market in 2000-2002 (Clinton & Bush), in 2008-2009 (Bush), and in 2011 (Clinton).
“Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered.” – Unknown
Cooking Hint: This makes so much sense. Use fettuccine noodles instead of toothpicks to skewer stuffed chicken or meats together during cooking. Cook’s Illustrated
Hong Kong’s 260-foot-long Jumbo Floating Restaurant was a popular tourist attraction that served Cantonese food to more than 30 million visitors including Jimmy Carter, Tom Cruise and Queen Elizabeth II, and had appeared in several movies since it opened in 1952. The restaurant had been closed since COVID restrictions, struggling with financial problems and high maintenance costs. After offering, without success, to donate the floating restaurant for free, preparations began, to tow the restaurant to a less expensive but unannounced location to park the vessel. The kitchen boat was left behind because of a recent fire, then only one week after leaving, the Jumbo Kingdom experienced bad weather and capsized in the South China Sea. Hmmm.
Don’t forget: The Grand Ol’ Americana Show is a one-of-a-kind tribute to the original, traditional, family-truckster, holiday-roading, red-blooded, two-fisted, route 66-ing, All-American Summer; celebrating the culture, comedy, and music that define the American spirit. June 24th. 7:30 p.m. Tickets: 979-230-3156.
RECENT BIRTHDAYS: Country singer Kathy Mattea is 62. Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses. Singer-actor Kris Kristofferson is 85. Singer Peter Asher of Peter and Gordon is 77. Singer Howard “Eddie” Kaylan of The Turtles is 74. Happy Together. Singer Todd Rundgren is 73. Hello, It’s Me, Can We Still Be Friends, Love is the Answer, We Gotta Get You a Woman. Singer Alan Osmond of The Osmond’s is 72. Actor Meryl Streep is 72. Actor Lindsay Wagner of The Bionic Woman is 72. Singer Cyndi Lauper is 68. Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Actor Frances McDormand is 64. Actor Michele Lee is 79. Knots Landing. Guitarist Jeff Beck is 77.
Singer Deborah Harry of Blondie is 77. Singer Fred Schneider of the B-52′s is 71. Singer Victor Willis of the Village People is 71. He performed costumed as a policeman or a naval officer. Keyboardist David Paich of Toto is 67. Actor-comedian Jimmie Walker is 74. Good Times. Jazz pianist Dave Grusin is 88. Singer Billy Davis Jr. of the Fifth Dimension is 84. Singer Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys is 80. Country singer Lorrie Morgan is 63. Comedian-director Mel Brooks is 96. Actor Gary Busey is 78. Drummer Ian Paice of Deep Purple is 74. Actor Leslie Caron is 91. Actor Jamie Farr is 88. Dancer Twyla Tharp is 81. Actor Genevieve Bujold is 80. Actor Dan Aykroyd is 70. Actor Pamela Anderson is 55. Jazz pianist Dave Grusin is 87. Model-actor Jerry Hall is 66. Actor Kathy Bates is 74. Misery.
Actor Mariette Hartley is 81. Her celebrity got a significant boost from a series of television commercials and print ads for Polaroid cameras and film, with James Garner that ran from 1977-1984. She and Garner were so naturally convincing as a married couple that she had a variety of t-shirts made, proclaiming “I am not James Garner’s wife!”; “I am not James Garner” (for her husband) and “I am not James Garner’s son!” (for her son). In response, James Garner’s real-life wife had a shirt made that declared “I am James Garner’s wife!” More than 250 commercials were produced.
Shop Local Weekend is June 24th to 26th. Brazosport Area Chamber of Commerce. See ad page 8 in this week’s edition.
Tony Bennett’s Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album “Love for Sale” with Lady Gaga, was delivered to him by mail this week. Tony has Alzheimer’s and has stepped back from the spotlight at almost age 96 (August 3, 1926). The story of how Tony met his wife is pretty sweet. Susan Crow was only 19, and president of his fan club in San Francisco. Tony was 40 years older, when they met backstage after one of his shows. The two dated for nearly 20 years before marrying. Actually, they had met previously when Susan’s parents were pregnant with her… in the singer’s backstage dressing room, in 1966. They have a photo to prove it. Good story. The two founded Exploring the Arts and the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts high school in Queens.
Jerry Seinfeld the television character was very interested in dating women. In fact, Jerry the character dated 73 different women throughout the show’s legendary run according to Wikipedia. Three years after French’s teamed up with NYC ice-cream maker Coolhaus, mustard Grey Poupon partnered with Van Leeuwen ice cream for a limited-edition Dijon ice cream with salted pretzels. There’s going to be a prequel to the Hunger Games movie series. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes movie is due out November 2023, starring Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird, and Tom Blyth as young Coriolanus Snow. Yes, it’s a young adult series, but I loved them when my kids were growing up. I was always reading something they were interested in, so we had things to talk about. For Star Wars fans, 91-year-old James Earl Jones is reprising his role as the voice of the powerful Sith Lord on Disney+’s new Obi-Wan Kenobi series.
Doo-dle. verb. 1. a rough drawing made absentmindedly – to write untidy. scratch. scrawl. jot. We have all doodled. It is a very private act, one that we don’t always choose to share with everyone around us. Some have a private meaning, and some, we have no idea what we were working towards. President Andrew Jackson drew faces and animals, especially alligators and tortoises. Herbert Hoover preferred elaborate geometric designs on White House stationary. FDR enjoyed sketching ships. Ronald Reagan drew cowboys, football players and horses. But LBJ had drawings of Bobby Kennedy (the hair is unmistakable), a 3-eyed octopus smoking a cigarette, or how about a 4-legged beast with a human face, wide eyes, tears streaking down its cheeks and a goatee. There were even fence posts with alien heads drawn on Senate letterhead. I love Texas Monthly, and I love my job!
Former 19 Kids and Counting star Josh Duggar has been sentenced to 151 months, or 12 years and seven months, in prison for receiving and possessing child porn. TLC canceled the family’s show in 2015 following allegations that the oldest Duggar boy molested four of his sisters and a baby-sitter, years earlier. He publicly apologized for his actions. Wow. That makes it better. I am sorry, but what mother would stand by a husband who molested 4 of his sisters, cheated with prostitutes, then downloaded and viewed horrible child porn? Porn, which included toddlers. She didn’t put him in timeout, she had two more kids with him for a total of 7 children. Duggar sought a sentence that is “sufficient, but not greater than necessary,” and goes on to claim he’s “lived an admirable life while navigating unique challenges associated with being in the public spotlight since childhood.” Oh, I get it. It’s not his fault. And while we are on this subject, a California jury found that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted 16-year-old Judy Huth at the Playboy Mansion in 1975. Huth, now 64, was awarded $500,000. Cosby has now been accused of sexual misconduct by 60 women, but this was the first civil case to reach trial. Kevin Spacey, in the news again and was charged with four counts of sexual assault in the U.K.
The Rolling Stones will resume their “Sixty” tour in Milan following Mick Jagger’s recovery from Covid. Beyonce released her first single this week from her new (#7) album called Renaissance, which is supposed to be available on July 29th. The single is Break My Soul. It is definitely a Beyonce song and catchy. Her last album was Lemonade in 2016. The Chicks, aka Dixie Chicks, were about a half-hour into their concert when Natalie Maines said she was having such bad allergies that they were going to stop the show and come back to Indianapolis another time.
An 18-foot, 215-pound state record Burmese python was caught in Florida, carrying 122 eggs. A normal clutch is 50 to 100 eggs, so she was one fertile momma. An average length of a Florida python is between 6 and 9 feet. This one was discovered using a program that captures male pythons, fits them with radio transmitters to track them. These guys are called scout snakes, this one was named Dion, and he had been hanging around in the same area for several weeks, so you know the reason. Males are way more attracted to the biggest females they can find. You know their type. Her last meal had been an adult white-tailed deer. Adult, meaning full size. So, could she eat a person? Hmmm. The 2022 Python Challenge in Florida runs from August 5 to August 14. Hunters are paid for every python they kill (humanly, they say, but isn’t that an oxymoron). $1,500 cash prize for the longest python caught and $2,500 prize for the most pythons caught, and if you happen to have a python-sniffing dog, you might get some great boots out of the deal. They caught 232 snakes last year but believe there are an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 snakes still roaming freely where they have no natural predators. Pet owners released them in the wild, too afraid they would wake up as a tasty morsel the next morning, like the poor deer. The wetlands must be restored. Have a great weekend and thanks for sharing a few moments with us. We appreciate you.
LISA
Send comments to Lisa Baker at lisa@thesourceweekly.com
