WA2K Radio is now on the air

we just finished watching "Harold and Maude" what a great (and bizarre) film from 1971 starring Ruth Gordon. Diane is now making popcorn while we wait for Ossobuco and our neighbor to show up to watch "Tosca's Kiss" This is a story about "Casa di Riposo in Milan, the world's first nursing home for retired opera singers founded by composer Giuseppe Verdi in 1896.

oops, missed your remark, hamburger. You are sooo right. The only thing that will really quinch one's thirst is water.

Poem for the day:

Flood curve, the edge of pure form, mutable,
The fluid self shaped by what is,
Not itself contained, unmoving, sculpted to hold,
Like a still symphony of bronze,
Held to the shape of image in one swept expression.
In its essence, the sea sings without score,
And, never defined, all blossoms,
Is a rose in turquoise, leaved with foam.
Surf flower, forever unfolding anew,
In clarity, glass petals intemperate, metamorphosis,
The sea sings without score, in many waters,
And is flooded, in hot translucence,
With the colors of air and sky,
Made fields of wild harmony,
Forever surges unwritten.

by Peter Gardner

I Am A Poor Wayfaring Stranger

I am a poor wayfaring stranger,
While traveling through this world of woe.
Yet there's no sickness, toil nor danger
In that bright world to which I go.
I'm going there to see my Father;
I'm going there no more to roam.

I'm only going over Jordan,
I'm only going over home.

I know dark clouds will gather round me;
I know my way is rough and steep.
But golden fields lie out before me
Where God's redeemed shall ever sleep.
I'm going there to see my mother,
She said she'd meet me when I come.

I'm only going over Jordan,
I'm only going over home.

I'll soon be free from every trial,
My body sleep in the churchyard;
I'll drop the cross of self denial
And enter on my great reward.
I'm going there to see my Savior,
To sing His praise forevermore.

I'm only going over Jordan,
I'm only going over home.

I am a poor wayfaring stranger,
While traveling through this world of woe.
Yet there's no sickness, toil nor danger
In that bright world to which I go.
I'm going there to see my Father;
I'm going there no more to roam.

I'm only going over Jordan,
I'm only going over home.


Author Unknown

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

dys, I missed your comment on Joe Green. <smile> How was the movie?

Rex, I love that old song as it is very plaintive and the minor key makes it more so. Plain songs have been described as a landscape set to music.

Here's one for all you Texans:

Wandering Boy" by Rodney Crowell
Album: "The Houston Kid"

Come in from the cold, you must be cold
Thread bare against a freezing wind is a short time getting old
Come and sit down, tell me where you've been
Rest your soul beside the fire 'til it's time to go again
Take me back one more time where the railroad tracks meet the kudzu vine
Wandering boy
The blood that's flowing through you flows through me
When I look in any mirror it's your face that I see
You're my only brother, I'm your twin
You've come home to rest awhile and shed your dying skin
Ease your mind, have no fear, when it comes your time I'll be here
Wandering Boy
We are two Houston kids selling mason jar lids with our pop bottles hid
By the bayous bend in the wild East End, we'll go back again
Wandering boy
I used to cast my judgments like a net
All those California boys deserve just what they get
Little did I know there would come a day
When my words would come back screaming like a debt I have to pay
Lean on me, I'll be strong, you're almost free, it won't be long
Wandering boy

I Walk The Line

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
I keep the ends out for the tie that binds
Because you're mine, I walk the line

I find it very, very easy to be true
I find myself alone when each day is through
Yes, I'll admit that I'm a fool for you
Because you're mine, I walk the line

As sure as night is dark and day is light
I keep you on my mind both day and night
And happiness I've known proves that it's right
Because you're mine, I walk the line

You've got a way to keep me on your side
You give me cause for love that I can't hide
For you I know I'd even try to turn the tide
Because you're mine, I walk the line

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
I keep the ends out for the tie that binds
Because you're mine, I walk the line

Johnny Cash

Robert Louis Stevenson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (November 13, 1850-December 3, 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of Neo-romanticism in English literature. He was the man who "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins", as G. K. Chesterton put it. He was also greatly admired by many authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Vladimir Nabokov and others[1]. Most modernist writers dismissed him, however, because he was popular and did not write within their narrow definition of literature. It is only recently that critics have begun to look beyond Stevenson's popularity and allow him a place in the canon.



Early life[2]

Stevenson was born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson,[3] in Edinburgh, Scotland, on November 13, 1850. His father was Thomas Stevenson, and his grandfather was Robert Stevenson; both were distinguished lighthouse designers and engineers, as was his great-grandfather. It was from this side of the family that he inherited his love of adventure, joy of the sea and for the open road. His maternal grandfather, Lewis Balfour, was a professor of moral philosophy and a minister, and Stevenson spent the greater part of his boyhood holidays in his house. "Now I often wonder", says Stevenson, "what I inherited from this old minister. I must suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them." From his mother, Margaret Balfour, he inherited weak lungs (perhaps tuberculosis), that kept him constantly in "the land of the counterpane" during the winter, where his nurse spent long hours by his bedside reading from the Bible, and lives of the old Covenanters. During the summer he was encouraged to play outside, where he proved to be a wild and carefree child, and by the age of eleven his health had improved so that his parents prepared him for the University of Edinburgh by attending Edinburgh Academy, planning for him to follow his father as a lighthouse engineer. During this period he read widely and especially enjoyed Shakespeare, Walter Scott, John Bunyan and The Arabian Nights.

He entered the University of Edinburgh at seventeen, but soon discovered he had neither the scientific mind nor physical endurance to succeed as an engineer. When his father took him for a voyage he found - instead of being interested in lighthouse construction - that his mind was teeming with wonderful romances about the coast and islands which they visited. Although his father was stern, he finally allowed him to decide upon a career in literature - but first he thought it wise to finish a degree in law, so that he might have something to fall back upon. Stevenson followed this course and by the age of twenty-five passed the examinations for admission to the bar, though not until he had nearly ruined his health through work and worry. His father's lack of understanding led him to write the following protest:

Say not of me that weakly I declined
The labours of my sires, and fled the sea
The towers we founded and the lamps we lit,
To play at home with paper like a child.

Marriage and travels

The next four years were spent mostly in travel, and in search of a climate that would be more beneficial for his health. He made long and frequent trips to Fontainebleau, Barbizon, Grez, and Nemours, becoming a member of the artists' colonies there. He made frequent trips to Paris visiting galleries and the theatres. It was during this period he first met his future wife Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne, and made most of his lasting friends. Among these included Sidney Colvin, his biographer and literary agent; William Henley, a collaborator in dramatic composition; Mrs. Sitwell, who helped him through a religious crisis; Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, and Leslie Stephen, all writers and critics. He also made the journeys described in An Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes. In addition he wrote twenty or more articles and essays which appeared in various magazines. Although it seemed to his parents he was wasting his time and being idle, he was in reality constantly studying to perfect his style of writing and broaden his knowledge of life, emerging as a man of letters.

When Stevenson and Fanny Vandegrift met in France in 1876 it was love at first sight. A few months later when she returned to her home in San Francisco, California, Stevenson was determined to follow when he learned that she was sick. His friends advised against the journey; knowing his father's temper, he sailed without even notifying his parents. He took steerage passage on the Devonian in part to save money but also to learn how others travelled, and to increase the adventure of the journey. From New York City he traveled overland by train to California. He later wrote about the experience in An Amateur Emigrant and Across the Plains. Although it was good experience for his literature, it broke his health, and he was near death when he arrived in Monterey. He was nursed back to his feet by some ranchers there.

In December 1879 he had recovered his health enough to continue to San Francisco, where for several months he struggled "all alone on forty-five cents a day, and sometimes less, with quantities of hard work and many thoughts," in an effort to support himself through his writing; but by the end of the winter his health was broken again, and he found himself at death's door. Vandegrift - now officially divorced from her husband and recovered from her own illness - came to Stevenson's bedside and nursed him to recovery. "After a while," he wrote, "my spirit got up again in divine frenzy, and has since kicked and spurred my vile body forward with great emphasis and success." When his father heard of his condition he cabled him money to help him through this period.

In May 1880 he was married, when, as he said, he was "a mere complication of cough and bones, much fitter for an emblem of mortality than a bridegroom." With his new wife and her son, Lloyd, he went into the mountains north of San Francisco in Napa Valley, and spent a summer honeymoon at an abandoned mining camp; this experience he published in The Silverado Squatters. At one point he met Charles Warren Stoddard, co-editor of the Overland Monthly and author of South Sea Idylls, who urged Stevenson to travel to the south Pacific, an idea which would return to him many years later. In August 1880 he sailed from New York with his family back to Great Britain, and found his parents and his friend Sidney Colvin, on the wharf at Liverpool happy to see him return home. Gradually his new wife was able to patch up differences between father and son and make herself a part of the new family through her charm and wit.


Journey to the Pacific

For the next seven years between 1880 and 1887 Stevenson searched in vain for a place of residence suitable to his state of health. He spent his summers at various places in Scotland and England; for his winters, he escaped to sunny France, and lived at Davos-Platz and the Chalet de Solitude at Hyeres, where, for a time, he enjoyed almost complete happiness. "I have so many things to make life sweet for me," he wrote, "it seems a pity I cannot have that other one thing - health. But though you will be angry to hear it, I believe for myself, at least, that is best. I believed it all through my worst days, and I am not ashamed to profess it now." In spite of the blood on his handkerchief and the medicine bottle at his elbow, his optimistic spirit kept him going, and he produced the bulk of his best known work: Treasure Island, his first widely popular book; Kidnapped; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the story which established his wider reputation; and two volumes of verse, A Child's Garden of Verses and Underwoods.

On the death of his father in 1887, Stevenson felt free to follow the advice of his physician to try a complete change of climate. He started with his mother and family for Colorado; but after landing in New York they decided to spend the winter at Saranac Lake, in the Adirondacks. During the intensely cold winter Stevenson wrote a number of his best essays, including Pulvis et Umbra, he began The Master of Ballantrae, and lightheartedly planned, for the following summer, a cruise to the southern Pacific Ocean. "The proudest moments of my life," he wrote, "have been passed in the stern-sheets of a boat with that romantic garment over my shoulders."

In June 1888, Stevenson chartered the yacht Casco and set sail with his family from San Francisco. The vessel "ploughed her path of snow across the empty deep, far from any hand of help." The salt sea air and thrill of adventure for a time restored his health; and for nearly three years he wandered the eastern and central Pacific, visiting important island groups, stopping for extended stays at the Hawaiian Islands where he became a good friend of King David Kalakaua with whom Stevenson spent much time. Stevenson also became best friends with the king's niece Princess Victoria Kaiulani, also of Scottish heritage. They also spent time at the Gilbert Islands, Tahiti and the Samoan Islands. During this period he completed The Master of Ballantrae, composed two ballads based on the legends of the islanders, and wrote The Bottle Imp. The experience of these years is preserved in his various letters and in The South Seas.


Last years

In 1890 he purchased four hundred acres (about 1.6 square kilometres) of land in Upolu, one of the Samoan Islands. Here, after two aborted attempts to visit Scotland, he established himself, after much work, upon his estate, which he named Vailima ("Five Rivers"). His influence spread to the natives who consulted him for advice, and he soon became involved in local politics. He was convinced the European officials appointed to rule the natives were incompetent, and after many futile attempts to resolve the matter, he published A Footnote to History. This was such a stinging protest against existing conditions that it resulted in the recall of two officials, and Stevenson feared for a time it would result in his own deportation. When things had finally blown over he wrote a friend, "I used to think meanly of the plumber; but now she shines beside the politician."

In addition to building his house and clearing his land and helping the natives in many ways, he found time to work at his writing. In his enthusiasm, he felt that "there was never any man had so many irons in the fire." He wrote The Beach of Falesa, David Balfour, and Ebb Tide, as well as the Vailima Letters, during this period.

For a time during 1894 Stevenson felt depressed; he wondered if he had exhausted his creative vein and completely worked himself out. He wrote that he had "overworked bitterly". He felt more clearly, with each fresh attempt, that the best he could write was "ditch water". He even feared that he might again become a helpless invalid. He rebelled against this idea: "I wish to die in my boots; no more land of counterpane for me. To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from a horse - ay, to be hanged rather than pass again through that slow dissolution." He then suddenly had a return of his old energy and he began work on Weir of Hermiston. "It's so good that it frightens me," he is reported to have exclaimed. He felt that this was the best work he had done. He was convinced, "sick and well, I have had splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret very little ... take it all over, I would hardly change with any man of my time."

Without knowing it, he was to have his wish fulfilled. During the morning of December 3, 1894, he had worked hard as usual on Weir of Hermiston. During the evening, while conversing with his wife and straining to open a bottle of wine, he suddenly fell to the ground, asking "What's the matter with me? What is this strangeness? Has my face changed?" He died within a few hours, probably of a cerebral hemorrhage, at the age of 44. The natives insisted on surrounding his body with a watch-guard during the night, and on bearing their Tusitala (Samoan language for "Teller of Tales") several miles upon their shoulders to the top of a cliff overlooking the sea, where he was buried.


Modern reception

Stevenson was a celebrity in his own time, but with the rise of modern literature after World War I, he was seen for much of the 20th century as a writer of the second class, relegated to childrens' literature and horror genres. Condemned by authors such as Virginia Woolf and Leonard Woolf, he was gradually excluded from the canon of literature taught in schools. His exclusion reached a height when in the 1973 2,000-page Oxford Anthology of English Literature Stevenson was entirely unmentioned. The late 20th century saw the start of a re-evaluation of Stevenson as an artist of great range and insight, a literary theorist, an essayist and social critic, a witness to the colonial history of the South Pacific, and a humanist. He is now being re-evaluated as a peer with authors such as Joseph Conrad (whom Stevenson influenced with his South Seas fiction) and Henry James, with new scholarly studies and organizations devoted to Stevenson.[4] No matter what the scholarly reception, Stevenson remains very popular. According to the Index Translationum, Stevenson is ranked the 25th most translated author in the world, ahead of Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe.

Jean Seberg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Born November 13, 1938
Marshalltown, Iowa
Died September 8, 1979




Jean Seberg (November 13, 1938 - September 8, 1979) was an American actress who spent an important part of her career in France.



Biography

Seberg was born in Marshalltown, Iowa. She was discovered by Otto Preminger, who directed her in her first two films. She made her film debut in 1957 in the title role of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan (1957 film). She would go on to star in 34 films in Hollywood and in France where she lived in Paris with her first husband, attorney François Moreuil. She became even more of an icon from her roles in numerous French films and the tragedy of her turbulent life. Among her roles, she co-starred with Jean-Paul Belmondo in Jean-Luc Godard's classic work of New Wave cinema, Breathless (original French title: A bout de souffle). She also appeared in the 1959 classic Peter Sellers comedy, The Mouse that Roared. In 1969, she appeared in her first and only musical film, Paint Your Wagon, based on Lerner and Loewe's stage musical. Her singing in the film, however, was dubbed. While many remember the film fondly, it was a box-office and critical disaster at the time. It also marked the first time that Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood had ever sung in a musical. And Seberg was one of the many stars in the 1970 film, Airport, which spawned all of the all-star disaster films that followed during the next decade.

During the latter part of the 1960s, Seberg used her high-profile image to voice support for the NAACP and supported Native American school groups such as the Mesquakie Bucks at the Tama settlement near her home town of Marshalltown, for whom she purchased $500 worth of basketball uniforms. She also supported the Black Panther Party. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover considered her a threat and in 1970, when she was seven months pregnant, created a story [1] to leak to the media that the child she was carrying was not fathered by her second husband, Romain Gary, but by a black civil rights activist. The story was reported by Joyce Haber of the Los Angeles Times newspaper, and Newsweek magazine. She miscarried shortly thereafter. In a press conference after the miscarriage she presented the press with a picture of her fetus to demonstrate that the child did not have a father of African heritage. Seberg stated that the trauma of this event brought on premature labor and her child was stillborn. The child was named Nina Gary; the baby was actually fathered by Carlos Navarra[1]. According to her husband, after the loss of their child she suffered from a deep depression and became suicidal. She also became dependent on alcohol and prescription drugs. She made several attempts to take her own life, including throwing herself under a train on the Paris Métro.

Seberg's problems were compounded when she went through a form of marriage to an Algerian playboy, Ahmed Hasni, on May 31, 1979. The brief ceremony had no legal force because she had taken film director Dennis Berry as her third husband in 1972 and the marriage was still valid. In July, Hasni persuaded her to sell her opulent apartment on the Rue du Bac, and he kept the proceeds (reportedly 11 million francs in cash), announcing that he would use the money to open a Barcelona restaurant. The couple departed for Spain but she was soon back in Paris alone, and went into hiding from Hasni, who she said had grievously abused her.

In August 1979, she went missing, and was found dead 11 days later in the back seat of her car in a Paris suburb. The police report stated that she had taken a massive overdose of barbiturates and alcohol (8g per litre). A suicide note ("Forgive me. I can no longer live with my nerves") was found in her hand, and suicide was ultimately ruled the official cause of death. However, it is often questioned how she could have driven to the address in the 16th arrondissement with that amount of alcohol in her body, and without the distance glasses she always maintained she absolutely needed for driving.


Grave of Jean SebergSeberg was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France.

Legacy

In 1995 a documentary of her life was made, titled Jean Seberg: American Actress. Mary Beth Hurt played Seberg in a voice-over.
A musical, Jean, by Marvin Hamlisch, based on the life of Jean Seberg, was presented in 1983 at the National Theatre in London.
The short 2000 film Je T'aime John Wayne is a tribute parody of Breathless, with Camilla Rutherford playing Seberg's role.
Actress Kirsten Dunst has proposed making a film about Seberg's life.
Her second husband, Romain Gary, with whom she had a son, Alexandre Diego Gary, also committed suicide a year after her death.
The Irish band, The Divine Comedy, make reference to 'Little Jean Seberg' in their song titled "Absent Friends".
She was actually dead on 8th of September, 1979.
She had got the role in Otto Preminger's Saint Joan, after she had been chosen from 18,000 hopeful actresses.
The role of Patricia Franchini in À bout de souffle (1960), which made her famous, was actually first offered to 1954 Turkish National Beauty Contest runner-up Tuana Altunbashian, whose father was an Armenian journalist in Metz, France.

Whoopi Goldberg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Caryn Elaine Johnson
Born November 13, 1955 (age 51)
USA

Whoopi Goldberg (born Caryn Elaine Johnson, November 13, 1955[1]), is an Academy Award, Daytime Emmy Award, Golden Globe, Tony, BAFTA and Grammy Award-winning American comedian, film actress and radio DJ.

Although her father was a Protestant preacher, Goldberg says that her family is of mixed religious heritage - including Catholic, Buddhist and Jewish traditions [citation needed], hailing from a "West Indian" immigrant community. Although she has a religious family heritage, she does not consider herself in any religious denomination. Her stage name was taken from 'whoopie cushion', which she initially wanted as her name, but chose the last moniker of Goldberg after her mother pointed out that her initial name pick would not look dignified enough to take seriously. According to an 2006 interview, she stated that, "If you get a little gassy, you've got to let it go. So people used to say to me, 'You are like a whoopee cushion.' And that's where the name came from."[2]

Whoopi is one of only a few individuals (including Barbra Streisand, Mel Brooks, Rita Moreno, Audrey Hepburn and Helen Hayes) who have won an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy, and a Grammy. She also is the second black female performer to win an Academy Award for acting (the first being Hattie McDaniel), and currently is the only black female performer to be nominated for an Oscar more than once.



Background

Goldberg was born in New York City. In childhood, she struggled as a student at Berkwood Hedge, a private school in Berkeley, California, due to dyslexia (though she would not be diagnosed as dyslexic until adulthood). Eventually the disorder troubled her so much she dropped out of high-school and, in the process, became addicted to heroin. She eventually cleaned up her act and married her drug counselor, with whom she had one child. They divorced within a matter of years; Whoopi would marry again twice. After succeeding as a stand-up comedian in the San Francisco Bay Area, Goldberg created a one-woman show in 1983 called The Spook Show. This show caught the attention of Mike Nichols who produced a one-woman show for Goldberg on Broadway, called simply Whoopi Goldberg, which ran from October 24, 1984 to March 10, 1985, for a total of 156 performances. Goldberg's performance caught the eye of Steven Spielberg, who was inspired to cast Goldberg in her major film debut: an adaptation of the award-winning novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker. This performance garnered her the 1986 Oscar nomination for best actress. Having previously read the book, Goldberg contacted Ms. Walker, offering to take any part in the movie - including dirt or a venetian rug - because she loved the script so dearly. Previously performing her comedy acts in front of such figures as Steven Spielberg, Michael Jackson and Alice Walker herself - who described Goldberg as "magical" - eventually won her the movie's lead role. She followed up this performance with a sell-out, highly acclaimed one-woman show on Broadway. The majority of the films she made in the 1980s featured her in tough-woman comedic roles (Burglar, Fatal Beauty, Jumpin' Jack Flash), though she regularly balanced them out by performing in family-oriented films (Clara's Heart).

Goldberg and long time friend Britni Moore came to the attention of much of the U.S. public when their two-woman Broadway show was broadcast as an HBO special in 1985. They played a number of characters in a series of sketches, which were humorous but also examined bigotry, sexism and other issues of the day.

In danger of fading from public acclaim, she revitalized her career in the tear-jerker Ghost as a fake "spiritualist" who actually manages to make contact with the dead, winning her the Oscar for best supporting actress. The role was listed #45 in a magazine's list of "50 best characters of all time"[citation needed]. She cemented her status as a comedienne in the 1992 box office smash Sister Act playing a lounge singer who hides in a convent and consequently revitalises its choir.

She had a recurring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation as Guinan, a role which she reprised in two of the Star Trek feature films. A life-long Star Trek fan, as a girl she saw Nichelle Nichols portraying Lieutenant Uhura, and exclaimed, "Momma! Everybody! Come quick - there's a black lady on television, and she ain't no maid!" When asked why she requested the role on Star Trek TNG, she explained that she could not manage to receive any other role at the time, and was a big fan of Star Trek, as mentioned before. It is rumored that she was not paid for this role. However, it made her fans quite happy, and ultimately three action figures were made that resembled Whoopi in her highly acclaimed costume.

Goldberg has appeared in 149 films as of October 2002. She has received two Oscar nominations and won one. She has received five Daytime Emmy nominations, winning one. She has received five Emmy nominations. She has received three Golden Globe nominations, winning two. She has won three People's Choice Awards. In 1999, she received the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Vanguard Award for her continued work in supporting the gay and lesbian community. She has been nominated for five American Comedy Awards with two wins. In 2001, she won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. She also hosted the Oscars in 1994, 1996, 1999 and 2002.

Goldberg was paired with Jean Stapleton in the CBS sitcom Bagdad Café (with a plot differing from the 1987 movie in several respects), which lasted two seasons (1990 - 1991). She hosted a syndicated talk show (The Whoopi Goldberg Show) in 1992 - 1993. She also starred in the sitcom Whoopi, which began broadcasting in fall 2003 on NBC. Whoopi starred as Mavis Rae, the owner of a small New York Hotel (called the Le Mont Hotel). An ex-singer in a girl group, Mavis was as much of a diva running the hotel as she was in the group's glory days. The sitcom was cancelled due to low ratings in May 2004.

Rather than the traditional autobiography, Goldberg wrote Book in October 1997, a collection of stories from her past and opinions. A variety of biographies and movies have been made about her, as well. She is a strong supporter of abortion rights. In August 2004, Goldberg announced that she would be reviving her one-woman show on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre.

Goldberg also hosts the Arts and Entertainment section of Trivial Pursuit Unhinged, the PC game from Atari.

Goldberg appeared in TV ads as a spokeswoman for Slim Fast diet shakes, but the company dropped her in July 2004 after she made crude comments about President George W. Bush's last name during a Democratic fund-raiser at New York's Radio City Music Hall.[3]

Her most recent appearance on film is in the very explicit The Aristocrats, which features over 100 comics doing their interpretations of an old, rather filthy joke.

For the 2006 PBS program African American Lives, she had her DNA analyzed, and discovered that she is likely descended from the Pepel and Bayote people of Guinea-Bissau. In May 2006, Clear Channel announced that Whoopi Goldberg would be hosting her own syndicated radio show titled Wake Up With Whoopi which debuted on July 31, 2006.[4] She briefly dated Ted Danson, her co-star in the 1993 movie Made in America. They made news when they appeared together with Danson in blackface.

In 2006 she hosted 'An evening with Harry, Carrie and Garp', a charity event in which famous authors JK Rowling, Stephen King and John Irving read out parts of their stories to raise money for Doctors Without Borders .


Trivia

Goldberg performed the role of Califia, the Queen of California, for a theater presentation called Golden Dreams at Disney's California Adventure, the second gate at the Disneyland Resort, in 2000. The show, which explains the history of the Golden State (California), opened on February 8, 2001, with the rest of the park.
In July 2006, Whoopi Goldberg became the main host of the Universal Studios Hollywood Backlot Tour, in which she appears multiple times in video clips shown to the guests on monitors placed on the trams.
In August 2006, after multiple disruptions of her radio show by the fanbase of the Opie and Anthony show on XM Satellite Radio and various terrestrial stations, primarily on CBS Radio, Goldberg had a good-natured on-air discussion with the "shock jocks," which immediately quelled any possible "war" between the two shows.[5]
In 2006 a Maxim magazine reader poll selected Goldberg as the "3rd Worst Comedian of All Time." Margaret Cho was selected as number two, and Sinbad was number one.[6]
Premiere Magazine named Oda Mae Brown (from Ghost) to be one of the best movie characters of all time at number 95.[7]
Lack of eyebrows is one of her trademarks[8].
Goldberg has been made an honourary member of the Harlem Globe Trotters.[citation needed]
Goldberg has one violet colored eye.

DEAR ABBY ADMITTED SHE WAS AT A LOSS TO ANSWER....

Dear Abby,
A couple of women moved in across the hall from me.
One is a middle-aged gym teacher and the other is a social worker in her
mid twenties.
These two women go everywhere together
and I've never seen a man go into or leave their apartment.
Do you think they could be Lebanese?

Dear Abby,
What can I do about all the Sex, Nudity,
Fowl Language and Violence On My VCR?

Dear Abby,
I have a man I can't trust.
He cheats so much, I'm not even sure the baby I'm carrying is his.

Dear Abby,
I am a twenty-three year old liberated woman
who has been on the pill for two years.
It's getting expensive and I think my boyfriend should share half the
cost,
but I don't know him well enough to discuss money with him.

Dear Abby,
I've suspected that my husband has been fooling around,
and when confronted with the evidence,
he denied everything and said it would never happen again.

Dear Abby,
Our son writes that he is taking Judo.
Why would a boy who was raised in a good Christian home turn against his
own?

Dear Abby,
I joined the Navy to see the world.
I've seen it. Now how do I get out?

Dear Abby,
My forty year old son has been paying a psychiatrist
$50.00 an hour every week for two and a half years.
He must be crazy.

Dear Abby,
I was married to Bill for three months
and I didn't know he drank until one night he came home sober.

Dear Abby,
My mother is mean and short tempered.
I think she is going through mental pause.

Dear Abby,
You told some woman whose husband had lost all interest in sex to send
him to a doctor.
Well, my husband lost all interest in sex and he is a doctor.
Now what do I do?

On this day in 1945, President Harry Truman announces the establishment of a panel of inquiry to look into the settlement of Jews in Palestine.

In the last weeks of World War II, the Allies liberated one death camp after another in which the German Nazi regime had held and slaughtered millions of Jews. Surviving Jews in the formerly Nazi-occupied territories were left without family, homes, jobs or savings.

In August 1945, Truman received the Harrison report, which detailed the plight of Jews in post-war Germany, and it became clear to him that something had to be done to speed up the process of finding Jewish refugees a safe place to live.

In late August, Truman contacted British Prime Minister Clement Attlee to propose that Jewish refugees be allowed to immigrate to Palestine, which at the time was occupied by Britain. Attlee responded that he would look into the matter and asked for a joint Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry to examine the complicated issue of integrating Jewish settlers into territory that was home to an Arab majority. Meanwhile, two U.S. senators introduced a resolution in Congress demanding the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.

In April 1946, the committee issued its report, which recommended the immigration of 100,000 Jewish refugees to Palestine. Truman wrote to Attlee for his help in moving the repatriation process forward. However, by mid-1946, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff had weighed in, bringing up the question of who would control the lucrative oil fields in a region that had the potential for unstable political and cultural relations between Jews and Arabs. Since the threat of communist expansion into politically unstable regions then dictated most of U.S. foreign policy, Truman and Attlee became convinced by their respective military advisors that Jewish communist sympathizers in a new Jewish state might jeopardize the west's access to Middle Eastern oil. The settlement plans were put on hold.

Truman was again inundated with requests for help from the Jewish community. The issue of the establishment of a Jewish state was debated and delayed for another two years even though the newly formed United Nations, which had no enforcement power without the participation of the United States and Great Britain, had decided in favor of a Jewish state by 1946.

On this date in 1789 : First presidential tour concludes.

George Washington, inaugurated as the first president of the United States in April, returns to Washington at the end of his first presidential tour.

For four weeks, Washington traveled by stagecoach through New England, visiting all the northern states that had ratified the U.S. Constitution. Washington, the great Revolutionary War hero and first leader of the new republic, was greeted by enthusiastic crowds wherever he went. Major William Jackson, who was Washington's aide-de-camp during the Revolutionary War, accompanied the president, along with a private secretary and nine servants, including several slaves. The group traveled as far north as Kittering, Maine, which was still a part of Massachusetts at the time.

Two years later, President Washington embarked on his first presidential visit to the southern states, making a 1,887-mile round-trip journey from his estate at Mount Vernon, Virginia.

Well, folks. There's our hawkman back again and we adore his Abby write-in's. They are absolutely hilarious, BioBob.

I definitely have comments to make about one of your actors, Boston, but will await Raggedy's appearance before doing so. Suffice it to say that it has to do with Katherine Anne Porter and the amazing story of her life.

Rex, Thanks for remembering Johnny Cash once again.

Walter explained to me that Germany celebrates a different type of Thanksgiving in October loosely referred to as Harvest Home, so I found this interesting song, listeners:

Singing, the Reapers Homeward Come
(Author Unknown)

Singing, the reapers homeward come, Io! Io!
Merrily singing the harvest home, Io! Io!
Along the field, along the road,
Where autumn is scattering leaves abroad,
Homeward cometh the ripe last load, Io! Io!

Singers are filling the twilight dim
With cheerful song, Io! Io!
The spirit of song ascends to Him
Who causeth the corn to grow.
He freely sent the gentle rain,
The summer sun glorified hill and plain,
To golden perfection brought the grain, Io! Io!

Silently, nightly, fell the dew,
Gently the rain, Io! Io!
But who can tell how the green corn grew,
Or who beheld it grow?
Oh! God the good, in sun and rain,
He looked on the flourishing fields and grain,
Till they all appeared on hill and plain
Like living gold, Io! Io!

Sorry, dys. I missed your history information. Recalling the book Exodus by Leo Uris. What a wonderful depiction of the Jewish refugees and their journey to the homeland. As I recall, our Francis said that he read it when he was thirteen. <smile>

Quote of the day:

I shall try to tell the truth, but the result will be fiction.

Katherine Anne Porter

Good morning peeps, it's time for…

Seasons In The Sun
Terry Jacks lyrics

Goodbye to you my trusted friend
We've known each other since we were nine or ten
Together we climbed hills and trees
Learned of love and A B C's
Skinned our hearts and skinned our knees.

Goodbye my friend it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
Now that the spring is in the air
Pretty girls are everywhere
Think of me and I'll be there

We had joy we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the hills that we climbed were just seasons
Out of time......

Goodbye Papa please pray for me
I was the black sheep of the family
You tried to teach me right from wrong
Too much wine and too much song
Wonder how I got along.

Goodbye Papa its hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
Now that the spring is in the air
Little children everywhere
When you see them I'll be there.

We had joy we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the wine and the song like the seasons
Have all gone.

We had joy we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the wine and the song like the seasons
Have all gone.

Goodbye Michelle my little one
You gave me love and helped me find the sun
And every time that I was down
You would always come around
And get my feet back on the ground.

Goodbye Michelle it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
Now that the spring is in the air
With the flowers everywhere
I wish that we could both be there

We had joy we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the stars we could reach
Were just starfish on the beach

We had joy we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the stars we could reach
Were just starfish on the beach

We had joy we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the wine and the song like the seasons
Have all gone

All our lives we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the hills that we climbed were just seasons
Out of time......

We had joy we had fun
We had seasons in the sun

My, my, Mr. Try. You certainly do love that song, buddy. I like it as well, so play it as much as you like.

A bit about Katherine Anne Porter. She is the first writer to have introduced me to stream of consciousness; the fact that she lived into her 90's in spite of all the diseases she contracted, is testimony to her creative spirit and strong immune system.

Wind song:

THE WILD WINDS WEEP
Set by John Mitchell (1941-) op. 1 (1964, 1977).
Text by William Blake (1757-1827)


The wild winds weep
And the night is a-cold;
Come hither, Sleep,
And my griefs unfold:
But lo! the morning peeps
Over the eastern steeps,
And the rustling birds of dawn
The earth do scorn.

Lo! to the vault
Of paved heaven,
With sorrow fraught
My notes are driven:
They strike the ear of night,
Make weep the eyes of day;
They make mad the roaring winds,
And with tempests play.

Like a fiend in a cloud,
With howling woe,
After night I do crowd,
And with night will go;
I turn my back to the east,
From whence comforts have increas'd;
For light doth seize my brain
With frantic pain.

I thought Oscar Werner was great in the movie adaptation of Katherine Anne Porter's "Ship of Fools".

Well there's our Raggedy with a wonderful collage of notables. Fantastic, PA. Let's see, folks. There are Jack and Oskar and Jean and Whoopi.

I don't remember much about the movie Ship of Fools, but I recall thinking Oskar was a hunk. I need to go back and review the cast, I guess.

I really like Jack Elam. Without referring to the hawk's bio, didn't he play in the Cohen Bros. Fargo?

Don't recall too much about Jean, either. That's why Bob's bio's are so wonderful.

Now Whoopi I remember well. She can play a villain as well as a funny character. Loved her in Sister Act.

I think this song was from one of the movies:


Rescue me
Protect me in your arms
Rescue me
I want your tender charms
Cause I
I need you and your love too

Come on and rescue me
Come on baby and rescue me
Come on baby and rescue me
Cause I need you by my side
Can't you see that I
Rescue me

Come on and take my heart
Take your love
And conquer every part
Cause I
I need you and your love too

Come on and rescue me
Come on baby and rescue me
Come on baby and rescue me
Cause I need you need you by my side
Can't you see that I

Rescue me
Protect me in your arms
Rescue me
I want your tender charms
Cause I
I need you and your love too

Come on and rescue me
Come on baby
Take me baby (take me baby)
Hold me baby (hold me baby)
Love me baby (love me baby)
Can't you see that I need you baby
Can't you see that I
Rescue me

Come on and take my hand
Come on baby and be my man
Cause I love you
Cause I want you
Can't you see that I

Mmhm, mmhm
Mmhm, mmhm

Take me baby (take me baby)
Love me baby (love me baby)
Need me baby (need me baby)

Mmhm, mmhm
Mmhm

Can't you see that I
Rescue me
Rescue me

Mmhm, mmhm

Them nuns swung.

(waving at Letty!)