Do be do be do, that how we do the do that we be do, Torn Slatterns and Nugget RanchersGet it?The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Anna Nicole Smith; I think the case is known as ‘Ho versus Paid.
This decision revives Anna Nicole’s right to claim $89 million of her late 89 year-old husband, J. Howard Marshall II’s billion dollar estate. That’s about $1 million for every time Anna did not have sex with him.
No small taskThe investigation into the millions in bribes taken by convicted congressman Randal “Duke” Cunningham now reveal that Cunningham also accepted prostitutes. If Cunningham isn’t careful, he might even start to give congressmen a bad name.
Spanking going onA woman in California was awarded $1.7 million in damages for being spanked in public. As opposed to Exxon which was awarded $8 billion in quarterly profits for spanking the public.
OK, this one is a stretchThe new Italian Prime minister is Romano Prodi. It was a little awkward when they asked President Bush what he thought of Prodi, Bush replied; “I don’t have me one of them Apple eye-Prodis, I still can’t figure out my Walkman.”
Falling StoneKeith Richards was treated for a mild concussion after falling out of a tree on vacation in Fiji; they were initially were worried when Richards hit his head and suddenly they could understand what he said.
That’s when you know you’re partying too much, when you’re so high you end up in a tree.
Why was the 62-year-old Keith Richards climbing a tree? Apparently he was rehearsing for the Rolling Stones song “Monkey Man” and got carried away.
How appropriateKatie Holmes announced she is changing her name to Kate; yeah, and she’s changing to an unlisted number and enlisting in the witness protection program.
A published report claims Tom Cruise is planning to have a Beatles tribute band play at a July wedding to Katie Holmes. It will be great, a band will be pretending to be the Beatles while Katie and Tom will be pretending to get married.
Or something like thatGeorge W. Bush look-alike Steve Bridges appeared with President Bush at the White House Correspondence Dinner. The resemblance between Bush and Bridges was uncanny. Bridges looks so much like Bush he calls himself a George W. Bush impersonerator.
Correspondence danceGeorge W. Bush look-alike Bridges appeared with President Bush at the White House Correspondence Dinner. Bridges looked so much like Bush that, by the time the dinner was over, Bridges had fired four White House staff members.
Bridges looked so much like Bush that Dick Cheney didn’t know who to throw his voice to.
At the White House correspondence dinner, Comedy Central’s Steven Colbert insulted the President and President Bush did not look happy about it. In fact, after Colbert’s speech, Bush told Vice President Cheney to invite Colbert quail hunting.
Fox News reported that Comedy Central’s Steven Colbert “bombed” with his scathing Bush jokes at the White House correspondence dinner. To be fair to Colbert, it is not easy to tell jokes to President Bush. It’s a thin line between jokes that upset Bush and jokes he doesn’t understand.
In attendance at the White House correspondents dinner was Jeff “Skunk” Baxter. Baxter was the lead guitarist for “Steely Dan” and “The Doobie Brothers” and now he is the Pentagon’s expert on unconventional weapons. And now Keith Richards is the Pentagon’s number one consultant on gravity’s effect on aging.
More useless information supposed to drive my imaginationAs I am working on a piece on Babe Ruth, my grandfather’s old drinking buddy, did you know that the Baby Ruth candy bar was named after the Babe and not the then- reported President Garfield’s granddaughter? That granddaughter story was cooked up – sorry – by the candy bar maker so they wouldn’t have to pay Ruth for the rights. The candy exec who thought of it confessed about the scam years later.
And while we are on the subject of Baby Ruths, did you know that the famous Baby Ruth in the pool “Caddy Shack” scene was inspired by a real incident at my high school? Brian Doyle Murray, Bill Murray’s older brother and “Caddy Shack” co-author, went to New Trier East which had the world’s nuttiest O.C.D.-inflicted swim instructor named Dave Robertson.
(As I was too young to have witnessed this, the famous story was told to me by my then best buddy, Howie Detmer’s swimming star older brother, Tommy Detmer. A legend in his own right, but I digress. Howie’s older sister, Debbie, is the mother of Houston Astros star reliever, Brad Lidge, but I digress again).
Dave Robertson was an amazing swim coach. His 1961 Illinois State Championship high school team finished third at the National AAU meet to the university powerhouses USC and Yale. This got them a five page spread in “Sports Illustrated.” Robinson invented interval training for swimming – patterned after the training runs of first four-minute-mile-breaker-Roger Bannister - when plodding long distance grinding was the only method used back then.
But Robertson was also a swimming pool dictator that non-swimmers despised for the Nazi water torturing germaphobe that he was. It was an unwritten rule that everyone who took a class with Robertson, and everyone had to, must imitate his affected staccato high-voiced speech pattern;
“Boyccce, no spitting in the pool, boycce, (boys) we will have no gaboons (snot) in the pool, boycce.”
(To this day, I practically start shivering when I hear that voice echoing off the chlorine smelling sterile tiles. But I liked Robertson and found him engaging and smart, even if he was a little nuts. OK, a lot nuts)
Anyway, this Robertson guy was so despised by the unruly authority hating anti-jock late Sixty pre-hippy types – of which I am sure Murray was at the time - that they lay awake at night and fantasized of ways to make him miserable. Thus the plan of throwing a Baby Ruth in the pool was spawned.
The famous day arrived and somebody threw a Baby Ruth in the pool. When Robertson saw it, naturally thinking it to be fecal material, he ordered the offender to dive in and retrieve it. As legend had it, whoever the long-forgotten-named hero was, not only did he retrieve it but he emerged with the soaking Baby Ruth bar in his mouth.
Robinson blew a gasket. That HAZMAT team you see in “Caddy Shack” is no exaggeration. Robertson had the pool drained and disinfected back when nobody knew what disinfecting was.
When I worked on Wall Street in the eighties, that Baby Ruth pool scene was marked so indelibly on the fabric of our culture, that when a trader wanted to cause a stir and generate action in the bond markets, it was called “Launching a Baby Ruth in the pool.”
Tah dahhhhhhhh. Didn’t think I could tie it all together, did you?
