I for one dislike the media as much as anyone. Not that they’ve ever had anything bad to say about me personally but I hate how they consistently mislead the public by slanting their stories either to the left or to the right. I think the leftwing as it currently exists is pitiful and vicious. What gets ratings pleases their corporate owners and their promotion of inhouse biases. The right wing is just as bad, and they never hesitate to pull the same lame stunts that the left wing uses. The victims in all of this are “We the People”. I thought I’d do a little research and look back through the records to see how other people thought and felt about the media in years past. Some of these posted opinions remain anonymous and with good reason. Many of the others are opinions about the media by some of their other victims, primarily celebrities and people of wealth. Let’s see what you think.
“The mission of the modern newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Anonymous
“I always said that when we don’t have to go through you bastards, we can really get our story over to the American people.” John Fitzgerald Kennedy – 1962
“The press is like the peculiar uncle you keep in the attic – just one of those unfortunate things.” G. Gordon Liddy
“Tabloids are fast reading for the slow thinking.” Anonymous
“The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.” Samuel Butler
“An editor should have a pimp for a brother, so he’d have someone to look up to.” Gene Fowler
“The freedom of the press works in such a way that there is not much freedom from it.” Princess Grace of Monaco
“The most truthful part of a newspaper is the advertisements.” Thomas Jefferson
“The most guileful among the reporters are those who appear friendly and smile and seem to be supportive. They are the ones who seek to gut you on every occasion.” Mayor Ed Koch – 1984
“Mother (Bess Truman) considered a press conference on a par with a visit to a cage of cobras.” Margaret Truman
And here’s one of my all-time favorite quotes about the media. This is from the man who received the ultimate media related colonoscopy and deserved every minute and inch of it.
“People in the media say they must look at the president with
a microscope. Now I don’t mind a microscope, but boy, when
It’s been said too many times that everyone is constantly looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. It probably explains the popularity of much of social media and especially Tik Tok. I’m not saying that it’s a good thing or a bad thing because who really cares what I think. True fame is achieved in other ways after you’ve proven yourself over a number of years or decades and the then almost certainly after your death. Here are a number of examples of delayed fame, for what it’s worth.
Jonas Bronck, a Swedish settler, lends his name to a section of New York City called the Bronx.
The dance called the Lindy Hop was named after famous American aviator Charles Lindbergh.
One of Florida’s most populous cities, Jacksonville, was named for its former territorial governor, Andrew Jackson.
Block Island in the state of Rhode Island was named for Dutch explorer Adrien Block.
The Metrodome in Minneapolis is named for Hubert Humphrey, a famous Minnesota senator and presidential candidate.
The city of Chicago has a natural history museum and a department store chain named for Marshall Field. It is the Field Museum of Natural History and the retail chain, Marshalls.
Kentucky’s favorite son, Davy Crockett, has a national forest appropriately named for the legendary frontiersman.
The city of Santa Anna, California, named their airport to honor the “Duke”, John Wayne.
Cleveland Ohio’s best-known city park was named for one of the city’s best-known and richest residents, John D. Rockefeller.
The Harvard School of Government in Boston was named for John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a Massachusetts-born president.
I’ve already established my fame hundreds and thousands of times all across this country and the world. Every time you say the words, “I’m going to the john”, you’ll be carrying on my legacy and fame forever.
It seems that sports are on everyone’s mind currently between basketball finals, the NFL draft, and the newly published NFL season schedules for 2024. I thought I’d participate a little myself. I like some sports but not all, but I like humorous and odd stories regardless of the sport even more. Today I’m going to touch on golf and baseball for some interesting trivia and a few smiles and laughs.
Harpo Marx
George Burns
Hillcrest Country Club in California has long been a favorite of Hollywood entertainers. One August day comedians George Burns and Harpo Marx came to the club to play a round of golf. The thermometer registered over 100° and the two decided to play without their shirts. But then the course officials heard about the shirtless golfers and rushed out to find them. “Rules are rules, you can’t play without a shirt and there are no exceptions.” they exclaimed. The comedians put their shirts back on and started to play. The officials made their way back to the clubhouse. A few minutes later, someone came rushing in with the news, “Burns and Marx are playing without their pants!” Again, the committee raced out to the course and sure enough Burns and Marx had their shirts on, but they had removed her pants were playing in their undershorts. Harpo Marx reminded the committee of the rulebook. It says we can’t play without shirts. But show me the rule that says we can’t play without pants. The officials were licked, and they knew it. There and then a new rule was made: All-male players could take off their shirts, but they had to wear pants at all times. I love it when a plan comes together.
Henry Heitman
If there is a record for the shortest major league career by a pitcher, it belongs to a right-handed pitcher named Henry Heitman. On July 27, 1918, Heitmann started a game for the Brooklyn Dodgers against the St. Louis Cardinals. The first four batters all hit safely and Heitmann was sent to the showers immediately. A few days later he enlisted in the United States Navy and never played major-league baseball again. That’s what I call a short career.
Bobby Jones
Bobby Jones was one of the greatest golfers ever, winning dozens of tournaments before he retired in 1930. One day in 1920, playing in the Southern Amateur Tournament at New Orleans, Jones found himself with an unexpected problem. One of his drives landed inside an old shoe that was resting on top of a workman’s wheelbarrow. After deciding not to take a penalty for dropping the ball out of the shoe, he found a novel solution to his problem. He played the shoe. The immortal Bobby smacked the shoe which flew off the wheelbarrow and the ball flew out of the shoe and kept rolling, finally stopping only a few feet from the green. Jones chipped onto the green and holed out for a par. Professionals always find a way.
I’m feeling especially nostalgic today and I’m not sure exactly why. I do enjoy looking back to times that make me smile or laugh out loud which brings me immediately back to the 1990’s. I’m going to relive a few things concerning the 42nd President, Wild Bill Clinton, and his charming yet annoying pant-suited wife Hilary. I admit that Joe Biden is something of an idiot but not in a good way. Clinton was up front about most of his idiotic proclivities because we all knew he was just a six-foot-tall penis looking for a place to play. Also, being married to Hilary garnered him a great deal of sympathy from both the Right and the Left. As a couple they were the best targets for ridicule in decades. Never let it be said that I didn’t give an appropriate mention of his favorite cigar toting pal, Monica Lewinsky (the human humidifier).
Here are a few interesting quotes that will bring back all of the memories of those disturbing years.
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Bill, referring to an excavated Incan mummy.
“You know, if I were a single man, I might ask that mummy out. That’s a good looking mummy!”
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Bill, after receiving the Romanian flag while visiting there.
“Thanks for the poncho.”
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Bill, on the UN operation in Bosnia.
“It has not worked. No one can say it has worked, so I decided that we’re either going to do what we said we’re going to do with the UN, or we’re going to do something else.”
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Now for a couple pearls of wisdom from his loving yet understanding better-half.
“I’m not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the President.”
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“Give Bill a second term, and Al Gore and I will be turned loose to do what we really want to do.”
Actual geniuses are rare. While most people hold them in awe after their deaths, they’re lives are sometimes difficult and a little strange. They are usually so involved with their projects and inventions, that everything else is no longer something that interests them. Many are anti-social and virtual recluses. There always seems to be a balance of sorts. Super intelligence balanced with a lack of social graces or concerns with others. It’s a terrible price to pay. Here are a few trivia tidbits of some of our better-known geniuses.
Thomas Edison established an “invention factory” with the hope of producing one new invention every ten days. In one four year period he obtained 300 patents, or one every five days. In all he patented nearly 1300 inventions.
Alexander Graham Bell was working to improve the telegraph when he invented the telephone.
Charles Dickens believed that to get a really good night’s sleep the bed must be aligned north to south. In this manner, he thought, the magnetic currents would flow straight through the recumbent body.
The botanist, George Washington Carver, who is best known for his pioneering work with peanuts, developed 536 dyes when experimenting with plant leaves, fruits, stems, and roots.
Ben Franklin
Margaret Mead’s first foray into the observation of human behavior occurred before she was a teenager. As a young person of eight or nine years, she recorded the patterns of speech of her younger sisters.
Ben Franklin was cautious in performing his famous kite experiment in which he charged a Leyden jar with electricity drawn from the clouds. The first two men who tried to duplicate his experiment were electrocuted.
Lewis Carroll, by his own account, wrote 98,721 letters in the last thirty-seven years of his life.
There was an intention in 1912 of giving a Nobel Prize jointly to Nickola Tesla and Thomas Edison. Both were deserving of the honor but Tesla refused because of his intense dislike of Edison. The Nobel Prize was instead given to a Swedish inventor of lesser merit.
Born: December 10, 1830, Died: May 15, 1886 (aged 55)
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I’m something of a fan of serious poetry and an even bigger fan of those bawdy limericks I post so often. I guess I’m simply a fan of creative people who aren’t afraid to bare their souls to us. I’ve noticed over the years that creative types are a breed all their own. Many are looked upon as being a little strange or weird which has always seemed unfair. Being strange or weird for me is a badge of honor. Let me share the following with you.
Emily Dickinson, whose poetry thrills millions today, fantasized about the earth and sky and heaven itself, but left her home state, Massachusetts, exactly once, and that was to visit her father in Washington DC. She became such a recluse that she would not stay in the same room with her guests but would speak to them from an adjoining room.
Only seven of her poems were published in her lifetime. After her death in 1886, over 1,000 poems were discovered in a bureau. They were subsequently published, but often after word and punctuation changes were made by overzealous editors. A definitive edition of her works did not appear until the 1950’s.
As with all artists and other creative types, you never seem to get the recognition and fame you deserve until you’re dead.
I’m fairly certain that most women in this county at one time or another have drooled over Brad Pitt. He’s been the epitome of male sexuality for many years and many women. I’ve even heard a large number of female celebrities gushing over him on the endless talk shows that fill the TV air. I’m also willing to bet he’s had his fill of the notoriety as reflected by some of his statements over the years. Thanks to Uncle John for supplying me with the following quotes of a few male celebrities who’ve stated, “I’m no Brad Pitt”.
“I’m certainly not Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt.” Jason Stratham
“The real challenge is if you don’t look super sexy, like Brad Pitt, you’re going to have to try harder.” Jack Black
“If I could be anyone, it would be Brad Pitt.” David Fincher
“I’m clearly not Brad Pitt, and I’m never going to be Brad Pitt.” Paul Giamatti
“Unless you look like Brad Pitt, it’s really hard to have full control of your character.” Vincent Donofrio
“No matter what heights you achieve, even if you are Brad Pitt, the slide is coming, sure as death and taxes.” James Caan
“In this business, you’re either Brad Pitt right away, or you’re already going down the ladder.” Skeet Ulrich
“For me, personally, I’m a 5’5″ leading man. I’m no Brad Pitt or anything.” Jeremy Luke
And last but not least a quote from the famous and handsome Brad Pitt.
I thought I’d pander to my readership today since so many of you love information about celebrities and Hollywood and blah, blah, blah. I won’t be writing too much on the current list of celebrities that everyone seems to adore but will step back into the near past for some actual interesting trivia. I don’t care who they’re currently dating, I don’t care what they have to say about anything, and least of all who they might or might not be sleeping with. I find historical trivia when it comes to the Entertainment industry much more interesting. Here we go . . .
The American chemist Robert Hare discovered that a blow pipe flame acting upon a block of calcium oxide, which is lime, produces a brilliant white light that can be used to illuminate theater stages. We speak of someone who faces the glare of publicity as being in the “limelight”.
In the mid-1960’s, the motion picture director-producer Stanley Kubrick wanted from Lloyds of London an insurance policy protecting against losses should extraterrestrial intelligences be discovered before completion and release of his far-out motion picture 2001: A Space Odyssey. Lloyds declined.
By 1929, two years after the introduction of the “talkies”, motion pictures in the United States were attracting 100 million patrons every week.
Northwestern University once conferred an honorary degree on a dummy of the wooden variety. On ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s dummy, Charlie McCarthy.
The English indirectly owe the preservation of Shakespeare’s birthplace to P. T. Barnum. In 1850’s, the Stratford-on-Avon cottage was neglected, and Barnum began to negotiate to acquire the house and have it shipped to his museum. The English were horrified and banded together to buy it and turned it into a national monument.
In the 1920’s and 1930’s, Charlie Chaplin was probably the most celebrated man in the world. During a visit to his native London, the motion picture comedian received 73,000 letters in just two days.
Acting was once considered so frivolous an occupation that authorities in Virginia, in 1610, forbade immigration of actors from England. Because of the evils that were thought to be associated with the craft, the cast of the first English play in colonial America in 1665 was arrested in Virginia, but later acquitted.
The stellar cataclysm in the motion picture 2001: A Space Odyssey was filmed by Stanley Kubrick in an abandoned corset factory in New York City. The cataclysm was a close-up shot of paint dripping in a bucket.
There are songs in all of Shakespeare’s plays except for Comedy of Errors. That play was the basis for a Broadway musical in 1938 that won the Pulitzer Prize: The Boys from Syracuse, by Richard Rogers and Larry Hart.
In 1957, Frank Sinatra was quoted as describing “rock-and-roll” as “funny and false and written and played for the most part by cretinous goons”. But when Elvis Presley finished his Army stint three or so years later, Sinatra paid him $125,000 to appear for 6 minutes on a television special.
In the past I’ve had my fun with statements made by baseball players, football players, and basketball players. Just to be fair I thought today would be a good day for some ridiculous statements from an assortment of other sports to include some of their genius sportscasters and their pearls of wisdom.
And he’s got the ice pack on his groin him there, so it’s possibly not the old shoulder injury. -Ray French, rugby sportscaster
Venezuela! Great, that’s the Italian city with the guys in the boats, right? -Murad Muhammad, on being told about a boxing match in South America
And for those of you watching on black-and-white, the pink ball is the one behind the blue. -TV billiards commentator
I don’t want to tell you any half-truths unless they’re completely accurate. -Dennis Rapoport, boxing manager
It’s about 90% strength and 40% technique. -Johnny Walker, world middleweight wrist wrestling champion
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Cycling is a good thing for the youngsters, because it keeps them off the streets. -Daniel Mean, commentator
It’s a catch he would’ve caught 99 times out of 1000. -Henry Blofeld
I was in a no-win situation, so I’m glad that I won rather than lost. -Frank Bruno, boxer
The lead car is absolutely unique, except for the one behind it which is identical. -Murray Walker
There have been injuries and deaths in boxing, but none of them serious. -Alan Minter, former prizefighter
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We have only one person to blame, and that’s each other. -Barry Back, New York Ranger, explaining a championship game brawl
If I wasn’t talking, I wouldn’t know what to say. -Chico Resch, New York Islanders goalie
He called me a rapist and a recluse. I’m not a recluse. -Mike Tyson, boxer
On what? -boxer Chris Eubank, when asked whether he thought about writing his autobiography.
It’s basically the same, just darker. -Alan Kulwicki, Stock-car racer, on racing at night instead of during the afternoon
I’ve considered myself an artist beginning at age five or six. I love creating art but I’m also a student of art history and read any and all information I can find. Here are a few samples of art history covering many decades and artists.
The world’s largest art gallery is the Winter Palace and the neighboring Hermitage in Leningrad, Russia. One has to walk 15 miles to visit each of the 322 galleries, which house nearly 3,000,000 works of art and archaeological remains.
The largest painting in the world is The Battle of Gettysburg, painted in 1883 by Paul Philippoteaux and 16 assistants, who worked for 2 1/2 years. It is 410 feet long, 70 feet high, and weighs 11,792 pounds. In 1964, the painting was bought by Joe King of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Henri Matisse’s La Bateau, hung in New York’s Museum of modern Art for 47 days in 1961 before someone noticed it was upside down. About 116,000 people had passed in front of the painting before the error was noted.
Vincent Van Gogh is known to have sold only one painting.
In 1930, during the depths of the depression, Andrew Mellon, the American financier, bought 21 paintings from Russia’s Hermitage Museum for $7 million. The Russians needed the cash, and this American millionaire has lots of it, even during the depression.
As penance for a quarrel with Pope Julius II, Michelangelo, in 1505, began a more than year-long project creating a gigantic bronze portrait of His Holiness. Later, the portrait was melted down for cannon.
“I am so rich that I just wiped out 100,000 francs,” said Picasso, after making a new picture he didn’t like disappear from his canvas.
The genre of art known as Cubism derived its name from a belittling remark made by Henri Matisse in reference to a Braque painting. Matisse said that the landscape looked as though it were wholly made up of little cubes.
In his earliest and poverty-stricken days, Pablo Picasso kept warm by burning his drawings.
Pablo Picasso, when he died in 1973, left in for repositories in the South of France the following: 1876 paintings, 1355 sculptures, 2,880 ceramic pieces, more than 11,000 drawings and sketches, and some 27,000 etchings, engravings, and lithographs in various stages of completion.
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