What I Heard This Week 03-24-2022
Hey, everyone. I’m going to start you off with a doozy this week. I hope I can get it right. A man and a woman who were NOT wearing life jackets, fell off their Jet Ski on a lake in NC. Another man and woman close by on a pontoon boat saw it happen, drove over and helped them onto their boat. The rescued man became agitated and began assaulting the couple that had saved him, so the woman who he was with (and had also been saved), pushed the saved guy back into the water thinking it would help de-escalate the situation. Then the kind pontoon people again helped him into the boat… and again, the man tried to assault the couple. So, the 74-year-old pontoon man said he feared for his and his wife’s life, so he pulled out a gun and shot the life-jacketless guy, and he died on the pontoon. It has been determined that the shooting was in self-defense. Another crazy story. I wonder if the innocent pontoon boat took any bullets.
Roberta Flack’s 1972 hit was The First Time Ever I saw Your Face. It is now (sigh) 50 years old and has been a wedding song staple ever since. But get this, it wasn’t written as a romantic song. Flack explained, “I sang it about my cat who had just died. I dug deep for the story I would tell when I sang the song. I loved that cat so much.”
The Godfather, the most iconic Mafia movie of all time, is now 50 years old. Director Francis Ford Coppola cast his sister, Talia Shire (Connie) as the abused wife (of a guy who murders her brother, then he gets murdered by another brother), and his father, Carmine Coppola composed music for the soundtrack. Michael (Al Pacino) and Kay’s (Diane Keaton) baby boy was actually the director’s daughter Sofia Coppola, who appeared in different roles in the sequels and is now a director in her own right with Marie Antoinette, The Bling Ring, Lost in Translation, The Beguiled, and others. Her two brothers also had small background roles. Interesting. It was a family affair. Paramount preferred that Burt Lancaster, Laurence Olivier or Anthony Quinn be cast as crime boss Don Vito Corleone, but Marlon Brando got the part. I can’t imagine it any other way. Paramount complained that the cast was all wrong, the tone was too somber, it needed to be shorter and questioned why it had to be set in the 1940’s. The studio thought Marlon Brando was toxic and would be a problem on the set… but he used shoe polish to transform his hair and stuffed his mouth with Kleenex for his audition tape and won them over. He also won the Academy Award for the part. Fifty years ago.
Don’t forget. The 94th Academy Awards is Sunday, March 27th, on ABC. This year will be hosted by Regina Hall, Amy Schumer, and Wanda Sykes. Three women! We slipped in a ballot form this week, just in case you want to try your hand and see how good you are at picking winners. To keep it humming along this year, they have eliminated eight categories, including film editing and original score from the live telecast. These awards will be presented one hour before the broadcast, and electric moments from these speeches will be edited down and incorporated into the live show.
Technically animals are not eligible to win Academy Awards… think Toto and Seabiscuit. Bart the Bear who appeared in Legends of the Fall helped present with host Billy Crystal in 1998, after which Crystal quipped, “I just soiled myself.” The first PATSY (Picture Animal Top Star of the Year) was awarded to Francis the Mule in 1951, which was hosted by famous actor, Ronald Reagan. In 1961, it was given to Orangey the cat for his portrayal of Cat in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Remember Arnold Ziffer (the pig in Green Acres – he won more than once), Mr. Ed, Ben the Rat, Higgins (Benji), Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Shaggy the Dog, Old Yeller, and Cleo the Basset Hound. Lassie won so many times that she was retired to the PATSY Hall of Fame. They eliminated the PATSY in 1986, then established the Pawscars in 2011. Read it one more time. They’re planning something really big in 2023. You heard it here first.
RECENT BIRTHDAYS: Actor Michael York is 80. Keyboardist Tony Banks of Genesis is 72. Jazz musician Dave Koz is 59. Country singer Reba McEntire is 67. Actor Vince Vaughn is 52. Singer Lady Gaga is 36. Comedian Eric Idle is 79. Singer Bobby Kimball of Toto is 75. Actor Bud Cort of Harold and Maude is 74. Model Elle Macpherson is 59. TV personality Peter Marshall is 96. Hollywood Squares. Actor John Astin is 92. Gomez Addams. Actor Warren Beatty is 85. Musician Eric Clapton is 77. Rapper MC Hammer is 60. Actor Ali MacGraw is 83. Actor Richard Chamberlain is 88. Dr. Kildare.
Singer Tracy Chapman is 58. Singer Celine Dion is 54. Singer Norah Jones is 43. Country singer Thomas Rhett is 31. Actor Shirley Jones is 88. Musician Herb Alpert is 87. Actor Christopher Walken is 79. Comedian Gabe Kaplan of Welcome Back Kotter is 78. Guitarist Mick Ralphs of Bad Company and of Mott the Hoople is 78. Actor Rhea Perlman of Cheers is 74. Actor Robbie Coltrane of Harry Potter is 72. Singer Rudolph Isley of Isley Brothers is 83. Actor Paul Reiser is 66. Singer Susan Boyle is 61.
Emilio Delgado died at 81. He joined Sesame Street in 1971 during the third season, as the friendly fix-it shop owner Luis, then stayed for 45 years. My son worked with him a few years back when he played the lead in a play, a reimagining of Don Quixote titled Quixote Nuevo, which was performed at The Alley in Houston. At the end of his performance, I was bawling like a baby. Gage would work on his mic each evening, saying that he was one of the most gentle, kind, and happy men that he’s ever had the pleasure to meet. Alan Ladd Jr. died at 84. He was President of 20th Century Fox and oversaw production of such hits as The Towering Inferno, Young Frankenstein, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Omen, Norma Rae, and All That Jazz. He approved a script by George Lucas about an adventure in outer space that no other studio was willing to risk making called Star Wars. Musician, songwriter and arranger Dick Halligan, a co-founder of the jazz-rock band Blood, Sweat & Tears died at 78. Hits included You’ve Made Me So Very Happy, Spinning Wheel, And When I Die, and Hi-De-Ho. Hero Raymond Washburn died in January at 75. I know you’re asking yourself, who is he? He owned and operated a snack bar on the fourth floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City when a truck bomb parked outside exploded in 1995, killing 168 people and destroying most of the building. Washburn, who was blind, rescued four customers and an employee who were in the snack bar when the blast occurred. Washburn instructed the others to place their hands on the person in front of them and led them through smoke and ash down a stairwell, telling them to march. He said, “I had the advantage over them because, not being able to see, I felt like that, you know, this is one time that, you know, you want to try to help somebody as much as you can. I knew how to get out. I just didn’t know what was going to be in our way.” One of his friends said that his heart “illuminated the darkness” on the day of the bombing and helped lead people to safety.
The Source Weekly just received in the mail, an envelope marked returned… stating it was not deliverable as addressed. As it turns out it was a ‘thank you for your business’ card that an employee in our office sent out in 2019. Actually, it was postmarked May 16, 2019. That’s three years old. If that letter could only talk and entertain us about where it has been. I’m not blaming the post office. Postal employees are doing the absolute best they can do now, with so very little.
Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth. Muhammad Ali
The LJ Library will be closed beginning Monday, March 28, 2022, for installation of new carpet and repainting and is scheduled to reopen on Wednesday, June 1. Although the building will be closed to the public during the renovations, they will be providing curbside service to pick up online requested items.
Tina and I somehow got on the subject of raincoats. We both remembered having a London Fog trench coat back in the 80’s. Did you have one, too? Studies have found that kissing can boost our immune system. It exposes us to new germs that help us fight infections we may encounter later on.
The world hasn’t come together like this since 9-11. It’s amazing to hear about how different notable people are using status and power for the good of Ukraine. Former England Football captain, David Beckham, who has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2005, handed over control of his Instagram account (with just a measly 71.6 million followers) to a doctor in Ukraine so she could show the actual conditions that her people are working in. The doctor was able to post clips and images revealing how the war is affecting her role, and the work of her team. Mila Kunis and husband Ashton Kutcher pledged to match up to $3 million in donations to aid Ukrainian refugees fleeing the invasion. Kunis said, “I was born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine in 1983. I came to America in 1991.” To date, more than 65,000 people have donated what they could, and over $35 million has been raised and sent to Flexport (to deliver global aid) and Airbnb (for housing). Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds also pledged to match donations for Ukrainian refugees, Gigi Hadid donated her fashion month earnings, J.K. Rowling will match up to $1.3 million, Bethenny Frankel has raised $6 million for survival kits, and so many more. An 8-year-old named Katie collected 371 coloring books and pencils. If you want to help, we have given you what we believe is accurate information on the front page today. Try to donate to familiar organizations, not door-to-door individuals. Ukraine is in desperate need of money right now, not clothing and such.
A bomb-sniffing Jack Russell terrier nicknamed, “the mascot of Chernihiv,” has found about 90 explosive devices since Russia invaded Ukraine. No survivors were found at the site of the Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 plane crash in southeast China. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is playing the co-founder and former CEO of Uber, in Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber. See it on Showtime. Troy Aikman says he was never given a reason and still doesn’t know why Fox let him go to ESPN to be the lead analyst on Monday Night Football. He didn’t know until his boss called to congratulate him. Hmmm. Nicolas Coppala Cage, 58, is vowing that marriage #5 to Riko Shibata, 27, will be his last. “It’s not happening again.” They are also expecting a baby.
Amanda Seyfried is starring in Dropout, the story of the rise and fall of biotechnology entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes, who dropped out of Stanford at age 19 to launch her health tech company. Recently, a jury found Holmes guilty on four counts of investor fraud while acquitting her on four other charges accusing her of duping patients about the effectiveness of Theranos’ blood tests. Holmes faces up to 20 years in prison but is free on $500,000 bail while awaiting her sentencing. Now, this week the trial of her former business partner and ex-boyfriend started. Was Sunny Balwani also her partner in crime? There is speculation that Holmes might agree to testify against Balwani in exchange for a recommendation of leniency. Oh, what tangled webs we weave.
Recently, my daughter used her airline miles and flew to NY, Boston, and NC, to visit colleges, museums, friends, brother, and whatever else she wanted and could do in the horrible cold rain and snow. While she was in NC, she was fortunate to meet and visit with a friend of mine that I haven’t seen in about 35 years. Susan and I keep in touch with each other, and it’s like no time has gone by at all. It reminds me that I need to take the time and airline miles to visit Jan, Susan, Terrie, Mom, sisters, brother, Kay, and Mac & Deb. Life is short. Where do you need to go and who do you need to see? Did I mention that life is short? Have a great week and thanks for reading us. Don’t forget! Sell something.
LISA
