RE: Dick Cavett remembers Johnathan Winters / "The Stick"

"Robin Williams's fine piece on Jonathan told of the legendary Night of the Stick. Jack, perhaps thinking he might stump Jonny, handed him a two-foot plain stick of polished wood, and a classic was born. Instantly it became a fishing pole, Jonathan orally supplying authentic sounds of the reel and the splash. "
 
...and more.
PLENTY more.

Watch it at

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwWDa1xPTPA

Four minutes of comic brilliance

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Dick Cavett remembers Johnathan Winters

I'm just antique enough to remember when Jonathan first hit. Or at least for me. It was the Jack Paar "Tonight Show" and no one had ever seen anything remotely like it.

A slightly chubby, amiable, Midwesternly looking man who could have been an accountant or a bus driver, nicely dressed in dark suit and tie, stepped out, a bit timorously, from behind the curtain and, on the spot and before our eyes, created a whole mad little world.

There were sudden, instant changes of character, gender and manner, each with a new face, a different voice, even different physique, it seemed.

Make that lightning character changes, switching in less than an eye wink from an old person to a juvenile, from tough drill sergeant to mincing hairdresser, from adult human to feisty feline, from bumpkin to society type to rube to sophisticate; from iron-jawed right winger to gelatinous liberal, from adult to child to repellently cute baby; each change so fast and total it was as if frames had been cut from a film.

Here was originality personified. And unprecedented.

Never had a comic done anything remotely like this. Jonathan was born full-blown from the head of no one. He was in no known comic tradition. No familiar style. No pre-existing category of humor. He stood on no predecessors' shoulders.

Here, suddenly, was a comedian who never told a joke.

Into the world of humor a new planet had been born.


full @ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/with-winters-gone-can-we-be-far-behind

Comedy: Der Fuehrer's FARBY freak-out.

Hitler rants about the state of Civil War and World War II reenacting... all in good fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rPmUO_QEHI

seen on FB

 

Bacon: the Other White Heat

You know bacon is delicious, but did you know it contains enough energy to melt metal?

I recently committed myself to the goal, before the weekend was out, of creating a device entirely from bacon and using it to cut a steel pan in half. My initial attempts were failures, but I knew success was within reach when I was able to ignite and melt the pan using seven beef sticks and a cucumber.

No, seriously. The device I built was a form of thermal lance. A thermal lance, typically made of iron instead of bacon, is used to cut up scrap metal and rescue people from collapsed buildings. It works by blowing pure oxygen gas through a pipe packed with iron and magnesium rods. These metals are surprisingly flammable in pure oxygen, releasing a huge amount of heat as they are consumed. The result is a jet of superheated iron plasma coming out of the end of the pipe. For sheer destructive force, few tools match a thermal lance. But iron isn't the only thing that's flammable in a stream of pure oxygen.

I used prosciutto (Italian for "expensive bacon") because it is a superior engineering grade of meat.

http://www.popsci.com/bacon

Bacon: the Other White Heat

You know bacon is delicious, but did you know it contains enough energy to melt metal?

I recently committed myself to the goal, before the weekend was out, of creating a device entirely from bacon and using it to cut a steel pan in half. My initial attempts were failures, but I knew success was within reach when I was able to ignite and melt the pan using seven beef sticks and a cucumber.

No, seriously. The device I built was a form of thermal lance. A thermal lance, typically made of iron instead of bacon, is used to cut up scrap metal and rescue people from collapsed buildings. It works by blowing pure oxygen gas through a pipe packed with iron and magnesium rods. These metals are surprisingly flammable in pure oxygen, releasing a huge amount of heat as they are consumed. The result is a jet of superheated iron plasma coming out of the end of the pipe. For sheer destructive force, few tools match a thermal lance. But iron isn't the only thing that's flammable in a stream of pure oxygen.

I used prosciutto (Italian for "expensive bacon") because it is a superior engineering grade of meat.

http://www.popsci.com/bacon

Rolf Harris in sex offence inquiry

Rolf Harris is the previously unnamed entertainer arrested in the UK as part of an inquiry into historical allegations of sexual offences.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22212131

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I don't want to know what kinky stuff he did after he tied his kangaroo down...

A bit of Nostalgic Fun to commemorate the Events of April 19, 1775

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ikO6LMxF4&sns=em


Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem! 
(Massachusetts state motto)

Raj Koothrappali has his REVENGE!

 Aquaman no longer sucks.

Damn you, Science!

A final toast for the Doolittle Raiders

On Tuesday, in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, the surviving Doolittle Raiders will gather publicly for the last time.

They once were among the most universally admired and revered men in the United States. There were 80 of the Raiders in April 1942, when they carried out one of the most courageous and heart-stirring military operations in this nation's history. The mere mention of their unit's name, in those years, would bring tears to the eyes of grateful Americans.

Now only four survive.

After Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, with the United States reeling and wounded, something dramatic was needed to turn the war effort around.

Even though there were no friendly airfields close enough to Japan for the United States to launch a retaliation, a daring plan was devised. Sixteen B-25s were modified so that they could take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier. This had never before been tried -- sending such big, heavy bombers from a carrier.

The 16 five-man crews, under the command of Lt. Col. James Doolittle, who himself flew the lead plane off the USS Hornet, knew that they would not be able to return to the carrier. They would have to hit Japan and then hope to make it to China for a safe landing.

But on the day of the raid, the Japanese military caught wind of the plan. The Raiders were told that they would have to take off from much farther out in the Pacific Ocean than they had counted on. They were told that because of this they would not have enough fuel to make it to safety.

And those men went anyway.

full @ http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/14/opinion/greene-doolittle-raiders

Seen on Facebook

Patton Oswalt posted:

Boston. Fucking horrible.


I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."


But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.


But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.


But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.


So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

The many varieties of Eppendorfasaurus.

 

Time for some Friday silliness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qnydFmqHuVo

Reasons My Son Is Crying

A dad documents his son's tantrums, and the reason for them.

(e.g., " I wouldn't let him drown in this pond. ")

http://reasonsmysoniscrying.tumblr.com/

Don't daydream—success in science depends on focus

 

Gomer Pyle

 

10 Movies Roger Ebert Really Hated

http://m.mentalfloss.com/article.php?id=49913

When Roger Ebert hates a film, he really doesn't mince words about it. Here are 10 films he absolutely loathed (including a couple of surprises) and his dry assessments of their value.

samples:

7. North, zero stars.
I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.


10. Freddy Got Fingered, zero stars.
This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.

Famous Scientists

Scientists discover green meteorite

http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/scientists-discover-green-meteorite-from-mercury/
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It's Kryptonite!

Stonehenge Site of First 'Rock' Concert

Today's Science Now website reports latest archaeological findings from Stonehenge:


[quote]. . . an interdisciplinary research team working at Stonehenge, the iconic megalithic monument in south England, claims to have found [evidence of] . . . large gatherings of people interested in hearing loud noise. The find could push the origin of [rock] concerts back thousands of years...

"All of these lines of evidence converge on only one likely conclusion," says Nigel Tufnel, an anthropologist at the University of Witney in the United Kingdom who was not involved in the excavations. "Young people came to Stonehenge to listen to loud music with a strong beat. Some went back home, but others stayed and were buried here." As for the monument itself, Tufnel has his own thoughts about its creators. "No one knows who they were, or what they were doing," he says. "But their legacy remains." [/quote]

Stonehenge Site of First 'Rock' Concert

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/04/stonehenge-site-of-first-rock-co.html