Thursday, July 2, 2009
Bubbles Signs Book Deal
Jacko's Long-Time Animal Companion to Tell All in Forthcoming Memoir
MIAMI (AFA Newswire) After years out of the spotlight, Bubbles the chimp, Michael Jackson's long-time animal companion, has announced a book deal with Penquin Publishing for a memoir of his time and relationship with the King of Pop.
At a press conference held outside the Florida wildlife sanctuary in which Bubbles now resides with some 40 other chimpanzees and orangutans, his spokesman, Francis Aziz, told assembled reporters that, although Bubbles has enjoyed his years away from public scrutiny, he now feels, after Jackson's death, he should tell his side of the story.
Aziz, who brokered the book deal, said to be in the mid six figures, on behalf of Bubbles, also represents Leona Helmsley's dog, Trouble, Donald Trump's hairpiece and whatever that squeaky thing is in Paris Hilton's purse.
Asked if Bubbles would be getting any help with the book, Aziz candidly stated, "He's not a trained writer, so absolutely yes," adding, "We'll be giving typewriters to him and the other chimps. If they can stop grooming each other, taking naps and retyping the complete works of Shakespeare for long enough, it could save us a fortune on ghostwriters."
Due out in the summer of 2010, it is not known how the book will portray Jackson.
The pair's split was said to be amicable at the time, although Bubbles did later have to sign a non-disclosure agreement after he was overheard telling friends that Jackson was, "Six kinds of crazy."
At the very least, Aziz promised, Bubbles will finally address his "deep ambivalence" toward Jackson.
"It's complicated," said Azziz, "Bubbles lived an extraordinary life for a chimpanzee — the world travel, the glamour, the throwing his feces at celebrities he'd have never had in range otherwise," adding, "We should all be so fortunate."
Friday, June 26, 2009
Love Gov Takes Flack for Outsourcing Extramarital Affair
"We've got plenty of willing mistresses right here in the U.S. of A.," charge critics
COLUMBIA, SC (AFA Newswire) The harsh criticism of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford continues days after the revelation of his extramarital affair with an Argentine woman.
"There is no excuse for this insulting and deplorable behavior," said state assemblyman Kurt Manners, "We've got plenty of women right here in the great state of South Carolina — not to mention the rest of the country and various U.S. territories — there was simply no need for the governor to have taken his dalliance offshore."
The state legislature spent the day in vigorous debate over the proper response to the governor's actions.
One state senator drafted a bill to recognize only extramarital affairs between a man and a woman who are both U.S. citizens and another proposed building an impenetrable fence along the border between South Carolina and Argentina.
By the end of the day's session, the assembly had passed a resolution stating that the women of South Carolina are ". . . second to none in their abilities to be in political career-ending extramarital flings," and went on to honor them for ". . . the consistently high quality of their home-wrecking and hussying."
In other news: Madonna has filed court papers to legally adopt an undisclosed number of Jon & Kate Gosselin's eight children.
The Learning Channel has announced that it's pulled Jon & Kate Plus 8 from the fall schedule and will be replacing it with a reality/competition show called So You Think You Can Parent.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
CNBC Programming for Thursday, June 4, 2009
I Swear I Am Not Making This Up (Check Your Local Listings)
10:00 P.M. — Money.
11:00 P.M. — Mad Money.
12:00 A.M. — Fast Money.
1:00 A.M. — How I Made My Millions.
2:00 A.M. — Foreclosure.
7 Things You Didn't Know About:
THE MAYAN 2012 DOOMSDAY CALENDAR
1) Was created as a promotional advertisement for local dry cleaners.
2) Lists Cinco de Mayo, but on March 12th.
3) Consistently misspells "Quetzalcoatl."
4) Makes no mention of Columbus or conquistadors, but warns ominously of "The one with strange hair who builds shiny pyramids and has many apprentices."
5) Originally available in a Page-A-Day format.
6) Fine print includes the disclaimers, "Past performance is no guarantee of future results" and "Your mileage may vary."
7) Final entry for December 21, 2012 reads, "Partly Cloudy, Chance of Apocalypse."
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
This Week's Highlights in History
Selections from the May 2009 Ant Farmer's Almanac Calendar
25 Birthdays: 1803 Ralph Waldo Emerson; 1878 Bill "Bojangles" Robinson; 1889 Igor Sikorsky; 1898 Bennett Cerf; 1907 Rachel Carson; 1927 Robert Ludlum; 1929 Beverly Sills; 1938 Raymond Carver.
1895: Oscar Wilde is sentenced to 2 years hard labor for sodomy; sentence is extended when he giggles at the word "hard."
1961: JFK sets goal of putting a man on Moon before the end of decade and himself on Marilyn Monroe by the end of the week.
1986: "Hands Across America," an event in which 7 million people formed a human chain by holding hands from California to New York happens; there was a reason for this but we forget what it was.
1986: A 95-year-old woman scores a hole-in-one on a golf course in Florida; unfortunately, everyone else in the country is holding hands, so she doesn't get much in the way of applause.
26 Birthdays: 1877 Isadora Duncan; 1886 Al Jolson; 1903 Estes Kefauver; 1907 John Wayne; 1908 Robert Morley; 1910 Laurence Rockefeller; 1913 Peter Cushing; 1919 Jay Silverheels; 1920 Peggy Lee; 1923 James Arness; 1926 Miles Davis; 1939 Brent Musburger; 1942 Levon Helm; 1949 Pam Grier, Philip Michael Thomas, Hank Williams Jr.; 1951 Sally Ride; 1962 Bobcat Goldthwait; 1964 Lenny Kravitz.
1994: Michael Jackson marries Elvis Presley's daughter Lisa Marie. Yeah, we still can't figure that one out, either.
2002: NASA probe finds evidence of water on Mars; it is bottled and way overpriced.
27 Birthdays: 1819 Julia Ward Howe; 1837 "Wild Bill" Hickok; 1911 Hubert Humphrey, Vincent Price; 1912 John Cheever, Sam Snead; 1915 Herman Wouk; 1922 Christopher Lee; 1934 Harlan Ellison; 1936 Louis Gossett Jr.; 1944 Christopher Dodd.
1951: Chinese Communists force Dalai Lama to surrender his army to Beijing; Wait a minute... the Dalai Lama had an army?
28 Birthdays: 1738 Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin; 1807 Louis Agassiz; 1874 G.K. Chesterton; 1888 Jim Thorpe; 1910 T-Bone Walker; 1916 Walker Percy; 1931 Carroll Baker; 1938 Jerry West; 1944 Rudy Giuliani, Gladys Knight; 1945 John Fogerty; 1949 Wendy O. Williams; 1962 Brandon Cruz.
1961: After 78 years of operation, the Orient Express makes its final run; by tradition, just outside the last stop, suspects are gathered into the Parlor car and the murderer is revealed.
1997: Bob Dylan hospitalized in England with "histoplasmosis"; at least everbody thinks that's what he said.
29 Birthdays: 1736 Patrick Henry; 1894 Beatrice Lillie; 1894 Josef von Sternberg; 1903 Bob Hope; 1928 Felix Rohatyn; 1939 Al Unser; 1953 Danny Elfman; 1958 Annette Bening; 1959 Rupert Everett; 1961 Melissa Etheridge.
1138: Anti-Pope Victor IV (Gregorio) overthrows self for Innocentius II. What? You need a joke to go along with that?
1982: First papal visit to Britain since 1531; pontff remarks, "Love what you've done with the place."
1987: Michael Jackson attempts to buy Elephant Man's remains; incident is tipping point from "kinda eccentric" to "way creepy."
30 Birthdays: 1908 Mel Blanc; 1909 Benny Goodman; 1936 Keir Dullea; 1939 Michael J. Pollard; 1942 Lenny Davidson; 1943 Gale Sayers; 1945 Meredith MacRae.
1806: Andrew Jackson kills man in duel; Aaron Burr snips ‘Been there, done that.’
1889: The brassiere is invented.
1967: Evel Knievel jumps his motorcycle over 16 cars.
31 Birthdays: 1819 Walt Whitman; 1898 Norman Vincent Peale; 1912 Henry "Scoop" Jackson; 1930 Clint Eastwood; 1938 Peter Yarrow; 1941 Johnny Paycheck; 1943 Joe Namath; 1946 Rainer Werner Fassbinder; 1960 Chris Elliott; 1961 Lea Thompson.
1919: Mile High Club concept gets off to slow start with the first wedding held in an aircraft.
1969: John Lennon & Yoko Ono record Give Peace a Chance; world thinks it over for a moment then replies, "Nope. Not gonna happen."
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
This Week's Highlights in History
Selections from the May 2009 Ant Farmer's Almanac Calendar
17 Birthdays: 1444 Sandro Botticelli; 1911 Maureen O'Sullivan; 1912 Archibald Cox; 1936 Dennis Hopper; 1955 Bill Paxton; 1956 "Sugar" Ray Leonard, Bob Saget; 1963 Brigitte Nielsen.
1673: Joliet & Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi; expedition is marred by pair's constant bickering over whether the river is "Big" or "Muddy."
1932: Congress changes the name "Porto Rico" to "Puerto Rico" but does not stipulate any change of pronunciation.
1961: Fidel Castro offers to exchange Bay of Pigs prisoners for 500 bulldozers; "The pretty yellow ones," he specifies.
18 Birthdays: 1897 Frank Capra; 1928 Pernell Roberts; 1946 Reggie Jackson; 1949 Rick Wakeman.
1980: Mount St. Helens blows its top.
19 Birthdays: 1890 Ho Chi Minh; 1915 Pol Pot; 1925 Malcolm X; 1941 Nora Ephron; 1945 Peter Townshend; 1948 Grace Jones.
1792: Russian army enters Poland; Poles sigh and ask, "What is it this time?"
1977: Smokey & the Bandit premieres.
1979: In The Navy by the Village People hits #3 on the charts.
20 Birthdays: 1799 Honoré de Balzac; 1933 Danny Aiello; 1944 Joe Cocker; 1946 Cher; 1949 Dave Thomas.
1916 First Saturday Evening Post cover by Norman Rockwell; the "Good Old Days" officially begin.
21 Birthdays: 1904 Fats Waller; 1916 Harold Robbins; 1917 Raymond Burr; 1951 Al Franken; 1952 Mr T.
1602: Martha's Vineyard is first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold; when he tries to land there, local indians tell him it's too late for this season but that he can fill out an application for the summer of 1603.
22 Birthdays: 1813 Richard Wagner; 1859 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; 1907 Laurence Olivier; 1950 Bernie Taupin.
1954: Bob Dylan is Bar Mitzvahed; he keeps asking how many of these he has to go through before you can call him a man.
1961: First revolving restaurant, Top Of The Space Needle, in Seattle, opens; business improves once they slow it down from 78 rpm to 33 1/3.
23 Birthdays: 1883 Douglas Fairbanks; 1910 Artie Shaw, Scatman Crothers; 1928 Rosemary Clooney; 1947 Jonathan Pryce; 1961 Drew Carey; 1966 Helena Bonham Carter.
1908: Dirigible explodes over San Fransisco Bay, 16 passengers fall into the water, none die; although none delightedly squeals "Wheeeeee!" all the way down, either.
1939: Hitler proclaims he wants to move into Poland; sends in troops to look for a cozy three-bedroom, split-level rancher with a nice view of Russia.
24 Birthdays: 1938 Tommy Chong; 1939 Dixie Carter; 1941 Bob Dylan; 1943 Gary Burghoff, James Levine, Frank Oz; 1945 Priscilla Presley; 1955 Rosanne Cash.
1844: Samuel Morse sends first telegraph message, "What hath God wrought"; the second is, "Can you hear me now?"
Monday, May 11, 2009
This Week's Highlights in History
Selections from the Ant Farmer's Almanac Calendar
11
1968: Richard Harris releases MacArthur Park; listeners wonder if just maybe psychedelic rock hasn't gone too far.
1972: When, on the Dick Cavett Show, John Lennon claims that the FBI is tapping his phone, a voice offstage responds, "No we're not... oops."
12
1958: US performs a nuclear test at Enwetak; and by "test" we mean "Blew it to smithereens that will be radioactive for 6,000 years."
1963: Bob Dylan walks off the Ed Sullivan Show rather than sing duet with Topo Gigio.
1997: Tornado narrowly misses downtown Miami; is mercilessly teased by hurricanes for its poor aim.
13
1637: Cardinal Richelieu creates the table knife; meal-time sword mishaps become a thing of the past.
1958: Richard Nixon‘s car is attacked in Venezuela by anti-American demonstrators; this won’t happen to him in the US until 1971.
14
1894: A fire in the Boston stadium bleachers spreads to 170 adjoining buildings; officials blame the Yankees.
1998: Amid unprecedented hype, the last episode of Seinfeld airs.
1998: Frank Sinatra dies; overheard on a NYC subway the next morning, "At least he got everybody to stop talking about Seinfeld".
15
1905: Las Vegas, NV founded on 110 acres of land won in craps game.
1992: Part of Cruger Avenue in the Bronx is renamed "Regis Philbin Avenue," although exactly which part of the street or Philbin is never specified.
Monday, April 27, 2009
The Name Game: History Edition
On April 28, 1942, World War II was officially named World War II as the result of a Gallup Poll on what to call the widespread conflict America had recently entered.
Other contenders included:
- Another World War: Now Including Asia!
- The War to End All Wars That The War to End All Wars Before it Didn't
- Good v Evil: The Smackdown
- The World Wide War*
*Except for Switzerland, Sweden, Portugal, Central and South America, Greenland, Iceland, Antarctica, the North Pole and much of Africa.
- Again with the Fighting!
- The Global Conflict That Will End the Depression, Usher in Unimaginable American Prosperity and Provide The History Channel with a Seemingly Limitless Supply of Stock Combat Footage.
- Bob
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
This Week in Ant Farmer's Almanac History
21
1904: Ty Cobb's professional baseball debut; he goes 2 for 3 and shoots a guy in the dugout.
23
1616: William Shakespeare dies in Stratford-on-Avon. Many scholars now believe that someone else did the dying for him, and a few question whether he or Stratford-on-Avon ever even existed.
24
1897: William Price, of the Washington Star, is the first reporter assigned to cover White House. After weeks of his pestering, President McKinley has a junior staffer stand close by at all times and make helicopter noises over which he "can't hear" Price's shouted questions.
25
1886: Nestled between a cigar store and a donut shop, Sigmund Freud opens his first psychiatric practice in Vienna, Austria.
Monday, April 20, 2009
New from the makers of the Ant Farmer's Almanac!
Hey, kids! Like celebrities? Of course you do! Like haiku? Sure, why not.
Well, if you like your celebrities dead and your haiku snarky, our new website, Celebrity Death Haiku, is the place for you.
We'll be posting new haiku whenever a celebrity goes to that great after-party in the sky, and adding haiku about famous dead celebrities from history on a regular basis.
And you can haiku, too! Stop by the site to see how.
Monday, April 6, 2009
100 Years Ago Today in Ant Farmer's Almanac History
April 6, 1909: Americans Robert Peary & Matthew Henson reach the North Pole. Upon their return they steadfastly refuse to either confirm or deny that they found Santa Claus, but historians note that each of them got a shiny new bicycle every Christmas for the rest of their lives.
Contact us Here!
Monday, March 23, 2009
This Week in History
Selected Highlights from the March Edition of the Ant Farmer's Almanac Calendar
23
1708: English pretender to the throne James III lands at the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Unfortunately, his followers are waiting for him at the Firth of Fifth, so he waits alone and never takes power.
1775: Firebrand founding father Patrick Henry proclaims "Give me liberty or give me death!" British reply, "Okey dokey, then," and begin loading their muskets.
24
1935: Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour goes national on the NBC Radio Network; a young Simon Cowell amuses his friends with exaggerated eyerolls and snarky comments about the performances.
25
1960: D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover is ruled not obscene by a very disappointed New York appeals court.
1961: Russian satellite Sputnik 10 carries a dog into orbit; Soviet children are told that the dog returned safely and "was sent to live on very nice collective farm in country."
26
1804: U.S. Congress orders the removal of all Indians east of Mississippi to Louisiana; "Until we want that, too," they slip into the fine print when the Indians aren't looking.
27
1931: John McGraw predicts that night baseball will not catch on; "Because it's too dark at night to play baseball!" he exclaims, "Jeez, what is wrong with you people?"
Friday, February 6, 2009
Bitten by Toxic Groundhog, New York Mayor
Can Now "Do Whatever a Groundhog Can"
NEW YORK (AFA Newswire) Within 24 hours of being bitten by a highly toxic groundhog, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has gained groundhog-like abilities.
The odd turn events started at the Groundhog Day ceremony on Staten Island on Monday, after "Chuck," the city's official groundhog, was coaxed out to "see" his shadow, and bit the Mayor on the left index finger.
At the time, everyone laughed off the incident.
Shortly after returning to his office in Manhattan, however, the Mayor began to display such characteristic groundhog behaviors as digging out a burrow for hibernation and feeding on insects from the lawn outside City Hall. He also sprouted the dense grey undercoat of fur and longer coat of guard hairs that provide groundhogs' distinctive "frosted" appearance.
City Hall insiders report that Bloomberg has taken to peeking out of his office to check the length and direction of his shadow, after which he will either dart back inside or scurry out for the day's scheduled activities.
It is unclear what effect the Mayor's new talents will have on his running New York, although he did issue a harshly worded proclamation outlawing wolves, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, bears, owls and large hawks — all known groundhog predators.
"We remain hopeful that the Mayor will use his new powers for the forces of good," City Hall spokesman Phil Connors told reporters, adding, "Although it's hard to know how that would work, exactly."
Friday, January 16, 2009
Alternative Endings
"Wait, Pop! Old Yeller isn't rabid, he just ate some of this soap!"
• • •
"Private Ryan, all of your brothers have been killed in combat and
we're here to take you out of harm's way."
"Alrighty then. Let's get the hell out of here before any more shooting starts."
• • •
"We're outnumbered pretty bad here, Butch. Whaddaya say we give ourselves up and
take our chances with the Bolivian court system?"
• • •
"Hey, don't toss that in the furnace, it's Rosebud, Mr. Kane's beloved childhood sled!"
• • •
"Open the pod bay doors, Hal."
"Okey dokey, Dave!"
Saturday, January 3, 2009
White Stuff People Like
First in a Series
Snow
Paper
Cocaine
Whipped Cream (see also; Reddi-Wip and Cool-Whip)
Sheets
Shirts
Teeth
Sugar
Christmas
Noise
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Ant Farmer's Almanac Holiday Gift Guide
Our Guest Book Reviewer's Roundup for 2008
By Elliott Nook
Pop-Up Books on Tape, Vol. III. Edited by Gerald Bostock (Ear-Drum Audio Books, $24.95) Read by James Earl Jones.
Eat, Pay & Leave Tip. By Anonymous (Vainglory Publishing, $19.95) Restaurant etiquette as defined by the former maitre d' at several of New York's swankiest eateries.
Growth Careers for the New Depression. By Richard Saunders (Beech Books, $21.95) Hobo? Madcap heiress? Singing cowboy? Using films of the 1930s as its guide, this timely book offers practical tips for finding jobs in the current economic downturn.
Kerouac's Children. By Philip Valens (University of Inwood Online Press, $22.95) Rather than poetry by neo-beatniks, this book profiles three middle aged drifters, all claiming to be the illegitimate offspring of the On the Road author.
Madonna's "A Kabbalah Family Christmas." By Madonna (Random Hut, $14.95 OBO) They're practically giving it away. Just ask, they'll probably pay you to take one.
Woodstock 2019. By W.D. Forte (Nightflyer Press, $14.95) When everybody who's been fibbing about being at Woodstock in 1969 shows up for its 50th anniversary — along with everyone who really was there the first time around — the results are equal parts hilarity and disaster in this first-novelist's darkly comic sci-fi satire about gracelessly aging Baby Boomers.
This Was Supposed to be Out Like Four Months Ago! By Michael Phelps, with Bob Costas and NBC Sports (NBC Sports Publishing, $49.95) A heavily illustrated "memoir" made up of transcripts from NBC's color commentary about Phelps at the Beijing Olympics.
What the F*** Was I Thinking?!? By Guy Ritchie (Piquant Press, $11.95) A collection of blog entries in which the once promising British film director struggles to make sense of his eight-year marriage to Madonna.
Crash Tests for Dummies. By Norman L. Legg (Hat Trick Books, $16.95) We're not sure why the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's 5-Star Crash and Rollover Ratings needs to be presented in haiku. Nonetheless, we'll never look at our Corolla's airbag light again without thinking, Marshmallow embrace/Forward, backward, pushing hard/Yet still we remain.
Title. By Literary Heavyweight (TBA) The latest from [name here] will delight/disappoint long-time/first-time readers. This once/still great prose stylist has/hasn't lost his/her touch. [Note to Ed.: I'll send this one later. I'm off to Barnes & Noble to dig up something "more on the highbrow side," as you put it, but it's snowing pretty hard so if I'm not back by press time, just print what I've sent so far].
Elliott Nook's column "Book Nook" appears twice monthly in the Tri-County Courier-Journal's Weekend Arts & Literature Supplement Section.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
NY Gov. Nixes eBay Auction of Clinton Senate Seat
Scratch-Off Lottery Game Will Determine Next NY Senator
ALBANY, NY (AFA Newswire) New York Governor David Paterson has put the kibosh on a planned eBay auction of Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton's senate seat.
The no-reserve auction was to start Monday and run for five days with the highest bidder becoming the next junior senator from New York; providing that he or she was also at least 30 years old, has been a U.S. citizen for at least nine years and is a resident of New York State.
Explaining that, although money from the winning bid (excluding PayPal charges) was intended to help reduce the state's budget deficit, ever since the scandal broke over Governor Rod Blagojevich's attempts to sell president-elect Barack Obama's Illinois senate seat, "It began to seem like maybe not the best idea we've ever had," according to a spokesman for Paterson.
The same spokesman would neither confirm or deny that the auction was also called off over widespread fears that Donald Trump would wait until the last minute then outbid everybody else by a couple of million bucks.
Clinton's senate seat will instead be filled through a limited edition $5 scratch-off lottery game called "I See DC."
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
West Winging It
Aaron Sorkin Named White House Creative Consultant
WASHINGTON (AFA Newswire) President-elect Barack Obama's transition team confirmed today that award-winning television writer/producer Aaron Sorkin has been hired as a creative consultant.
"We already get compared to The West Wing," says an Obama spokesman, "So we thought, hey, that show got pretty good ratings and was on for two terms, so why not just run with it."
Immediately upon his arrival in Washington last Tuesday Mr. Sorkin began work plotting out the breed, name and story arc of the new First Dog. Although this task is said to now be complete (the smart money is on a dachshund), details are being kept under wraps until the dramatic reveal in a must-see, two-part press conference in prime time.
Mr. Sorkin next added a critical step to the Obama administration's already rigorous vetting process — the "pedeconferencing" audition.
Once a job applicant's closet is declared skeleton-free, they are paired up for a series of elimination rounds in which they run through a trademark West Wing Walk-and-Talk, spouting rapid-fire banter and extended soliloquies with a colleague on a serious topic but peppered with witty repartee and interjections of obscure historical and pop culture minutiae while walking non-stop at a brisk pace through a seemingly endless maze of hallways.
Their performances are scrutinized and scored by Sorkin, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a focus group and, for some reason, Heidi Klum.
"By now anyone hoping to work in the White House should be able to do this handily," says Mr. Emanuel, "What we're looking for is an exceptionally high skill level."
Those who make the cut advance to the next round, the rest are sent home. Insiders report that Hillary Clinton "Totally aced it; it was like she'd been doing this for years," whereas Bill Richardson is said to have squeaked by only because his scene partner spilled coffee.
Also taken into account is the ability to maintain years-long unrequited crushes on co-workers, as is remaining charmingly clueless about years-long crushes from co-workers, and the willingness to do the job day after day knowing that you will never receive an Emmy nomination for it.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
7 Things You Didn't Know About:
BEN FRANKLIN
1) That whole flying a kite in the lightning storm business — he was just really drunk.
2) When writing newspaper editorials under the pseudonym "Mrs. Silence Dogood" he wore a hoopskirt and corset to "get in character."
3) Didn't really need bifocals, just invented them to look twice as smart.
4) Started the rumor of a "Place Where the Naked Ladies Dance" as a favor to the French Torism Board.
5) Beat George Washington for the spot on the $100 bill in a best of three rock, paper, scissors.
6) Franklin did not "invent" electricity. That was Thomas Edison.
7) His motto, "Early to bed, early to rise..." had nothing to do with sleep.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Happy 5th Anniversary (to us)
Today marks the 5th Anniversary of the Ant Farmer's Almanac!
In honor of the occasion we're re-running our very first post from November 13, 2003.
Many thanks to Martin Kozlowski for making the site look better than it deserves, and thanks to all of you for stopping by.
1) "Video Killed the Radio Star."
2) Club Soda.
3) Some guy, you don't know him. Always wears sunglasses.
4) True Grit, although he really deserved it for The Searchers. Or Red River.
5) Take the 1, A, B, C or D train to Columbus Circle (59th St.), walk two blocks south to 57th, make a left and head to Seventh Avenue. It's on the southeast corner. Or "practice." Is that how you meant it?
Friday, October 24, 2008
The Man With the Gold-Plated Touch
Chapter five from the forthcoming book, "The Celebrity Child's Storybook: Fables, Folklore & Fairy Tales Retold for the Offspring of the Rich and Famous" by L.K. Peterson
ONCE UPON A TIME in the Woodland there lived a man named Midas.
Midas had the Golden Touch.
Okay, Gold-Plated touch is more like it, because what Midas did was to make stuff from the cheapest material he could find then gold-plate the dickens out of it. Nonetheless, everything he touched became very, very shiny.
One day, Midas decided he wanted a gold-plated boat.
He hired boat builders to build the biggest, most luxurious-looking boat anyone had ever seen, using only the crappiest material, then to gold-plate every nautical inch of the thing, stem to stern, crow's nest to keel. And to lay it on extra thick.
Midas named the boat Icarus because, well, because he was a little fuzzy on his Greek mythology.
He held a press conference to announce that he would be inviting only the A-est of Woodland's A-List to join him for the Icarus's maiden voyage. This, naturally, set off a flurry of publicity about and kissing up to Midas.
Finally, the big day finally arrived. As the select few who'd been selected went up the red-carpeted gangplank, each got a gift bag of gold-plated goodies that included a 1/32-scale model of the Icarus and an anchor-shaped keychain, both made from iron leftover from the boat's actual anchor and a hefty jewelry box stuffed with gift certificates to swanky hotels, resorts, casinos, spas and restaurants that Midas owned a piece of.
Midas's current wife christened the boat by breaking a bottle of ridiculously expensive champagne over its bow.
Nobody noticed the crack it made.
The crowd gathered on the dock cheered right on cue as the Icarus pulled away and headed across Woodland's harbor, glistening in the sunlight as it sailed toward the open sea.
Just as it passed the outer lighthouse, however, the crack in its bow split wide open and water began rushing in.
Fortunately, everyone made it into the lifeboats before the Icarus went under. Unfortunately, the lifeboats were just as crappy as the rest of the ship and now, filled with swells refusing to let go of their swag, went down like a gift bag of hammers.
A few of the passengers got back to shore using their trophy wives as floatation devices but most went down with the ship.
Midas was among the survivors and at the investigation claimed the incident was an "Act of God"; specifically, Neptune, god of the sea. Amazingly, this worked. Midas was found not liable for the sinking and went on to star as himself in two of the three movies made about the incident.
Last we heard, he was buying a blimp.
Moral: Not everything that glitters is worth holding onto, much less gold.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Heckuva Note
WASHINGTON (AFA Newswire) At a hastily called press briefing in Juneau today, embattled Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin announced she was resigning from the McCain campaign, effective immediately.
Palin cited the need to "spend more quality time with my family and the Alaska State attorney general."
Less than an hour after Palin's withdrawal, John McCain held a press conference in Washington, D.C. to introduce his new running mate, Arabian Horse expert and former FEMA Director Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown.
McCain spoke at length of Brown's abilities and judgement, noting, "He knows a disaster when he's in one," and "After 11 years of looking at horse's asses, he's well equipped to deal with congress."
The Arizona senator would not answer questions about the sudden departure of Governor Palin, stating only that, "From here on, she speaks for herself. Really, we've got nothing to do with it anymore."
Asked if Palin had been "thrown under the bus" for the good of the campaign, a highly placed McCain staffer, replied, "We thought of that, yeah, but decided it was too... Oh, you mean figuratively ... Eh, pfft, no. I mean, [cough]... This is off the record, right?"
Brown did not address the assembled reporters — he is scheduled for a round of interviews on Fox News over the next several days — but he did make dinner reservations and pick out half-a-dozen neckties while McCain spoke. A 3x5 note card found under his chair after the event contained doodles of horses on one side and the words "McCain/Brown '08," "Brown/? '12," and "72+4=76 +/-5yrs nv prsnr?" scribbled on the other.
Friday, September 26, 2008
You Might Be Elitist if: