George Burns On The Likelihood That W. C. Fields Was Really An Alcoholic:

JD's quotes:

















~ One classy monologist, George Burns.




To me, one of the most likable entertainers to ever live was George Burns. The only problem I ever had with him was his irrational penchant for Al Jolson...very irrational. Anyway, I just finished the charming book that George wrote called 100 Years, 100 Stories. The book is George's look back on 100 fairly short show business stories that he had probably repeated to countless people. This is a perfect light reading excursion. I doubt any of the stories take up more than three pages but they're fun. Mr. Burns covers a lot of territory from Groucho Marx annoying George with his amazing stamina for telling the same joke over and over again, to clean sex talk via coffee euphemisms. Here are 10 quotes that I thought I'd share:


1. George on height and anatomy, engaging in frequent name dropping sessions, mentions:

''I never realized how short Dudley Moore was until I saw him dance with Dolly Parton. He looked like he had three heads.''

2. George reflects on his career life before his perfect comic cohort, Gracie Allen came along:

''Before I teamed up with Gracie, I was pretty bad. I had to change my name every week. I couldn't get a job with the same name twice.''

3. George on life's funny deformities:

''Now, Dolores was a pretty girl, except for one thing: she was very bowlegged. Every time she sat down, it looked as if somebody had stolen her cello.''

4. George on whether or not his dear friend and certainly one of my favorite comedic minds of all time- W. C. Fields- was really and truly all that serious a drinker:

''He always wore a specially made vest with pockets that held small bottles filled with martinis. I invited him over to have dinner with Gracie and me one night, and when he came into my bar I had the gin, vermouth, olives, and ice lined up for him. He went to the door, removed his vest, and hollered to his chauffeur, ''Clarence, my good man, you may take this vest. I'm getting my libations from another source.'' ''

5. George on fellow icon Carl Reiner's understanding of bald humor:

''One day, just before lunch, he came up to me a little worried and said, ''George, I'm in trouble. I'm supposed to speak at a luncheon today at the Sportsmen's Lodge, and I forgot my toupee. Can I borrow yours?''

''Of course, Carl, what are friends for?'' So he put on my toupee and left. When he returned I asked him, ''How did your speech go, Carl?''

''Your hair was a riot,'' he said.''

6. George on his unusual history of drug use:

''Now, at this concert some of the kids were smoking grass, so I thought I'd try it. I pulled out a handful of grass, pushed it into my cigar holder, and lit it. It was nothing. The fertilizer was murder!

7. George continuing on his history with drugs, after unwittingly being invited to an, ahem, chemically enhanced party:

''I was hardly in the door when one of the guests came up to me and said, ''George, have you got any junk on you?''

I said, ''No, I give it all to the Salvation Army.'' ''

8. George on his continuing evening at that same party, still supposedly oblivious:

''Later at dinner, this attractive young girl sitting next to me leaned over and said, ''George, do you ever use uppers?''

I said, ''What for? I've got my own teeth.'' ''

9. George on the claim that he still wasn't grasping the situation by the end of his evening:

''At the end of the meal, out came a bowl of white powder, surrounded by a lot of little silver spoons. Well, I like my coffee sweet, so I put in three or four spoonfuls. The next thing I knew, the host was showing me to the door.''

10. George on Gracie's appreciation for his lovemaking prowess:

''She said, ''George, I can't sleep. Make me laugh.'' So I made love to her, and she laughed.''

There you have it. Get a hold of a copy of George's book for the full stories, you won't regret it.


Today's post is brought to you by:

*No ephedra
*No caffeine
*No stimulants at all!

It's an all-natural weight loss supplement. Try Slender fx for 90 days, it may be the help you've been looking for without the dangerous side effects that are typical of ''diet pills''. Find it and other premium health care products here- Your Home Based Business Opportunity With Youngevity

The Truth About Bear Feces, Porcupine Recipes & The North Korean Scrabble Tournament

Lucy's Quotes:


~ Comedy icon, Dana Carvey.

One of SNL's most successful stars, Dana Carvey, just came out with another HBO special called Squatting Monkeys Tell No Lies, performed at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California. Dana's still got it and trots out all the old standby impersonations to the delight of the crowd and touches on his standard fare with lots of current political talk (Mixed with old political icons). Dana's musings cover everyone from Deepak Chopra to Dick Cheney, including the following:





1. In my favorite bit of the special, Dana ponders the mind behind the CBS program, 60 Minutes and its famous segment A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney. Dana muses that Andy must have had some ideas that he wouldn't be able to express on network television.


Dana doing his hilarious impression of the 89-year-old thinker:

''Why does the expression ''Does a bear sh!t in the woods'' substitute for the word 'yes'? You say to your friend, 'Do you go to the store?' and instead of saying 'yes', they'll say 'Does a bear sh!t in the woods?'. Bears don't only sh!t in woods. Polar bears might sh!t on ice or in water. An overworked circus bear might sh!t his pants while riding a unicycle . . . 'Cause, how would an overworked circus bear know when to go to the bathroom? He wouldn't have opposing thumbs to get off his little tuxedo. His handler would be out having a cigarette with the clown . . . These are things I think of in the night. People ask me, ''Andy, do you hear voices in your head?'' and I always say 'Does a bear sh!t in the woods?'.''


2. Dana over the years has enjoyed Al Gore's often awkward personality in front of the cameras. His own impression of Al has gone from mechanical to, well...:



Dana on Al Gore's newest public persona:
''I love Al Gore, but when did he start sounding like a gay Forrest Gump?''


3. Dana talking about President Bush's intense discourse with Kim Jong-il about ending their nuclear weapon's program once upon a time:

Dana as Kimmy: Mr. Bush, North Korea going to stand down on our nuclear program. We are not going to continue if you end your sanctions against our country.
Dana as ''W'': Let me tell you something right now. Fool me twice, once on shame. Fool me again and twice and once.
Dana as Kimmy: What the f*ck kind of English is that? You got three adjectives in a row, two pronouns back to back and a dangling participle!
Dana as ''W'': I'm rubber, you're glue . . . Scooby-doo.
Dana as Kimmy: Jesus Christ, English my fifth language. I could still kick your ass at Scrabble.

4. Dana as that loveable little Texas bajillionaire, Ross Perot: ''You can't put a porcupine in a barn, light it on fire and expect to make licorice.''

*This isn't the first time Dana has uttered this phrase while imitating Ross Perot's colorful countryisms.

5. Dana did a long spiel involving former president Ronald Reagan mapping out the future of politics after his own administration.

Dana as George H.W. Bush speaking of George W. Bush to Ronald Reagan:

''Well, not the crunchiest chip in the bag there.''

6. Dana as Reagan talking to Senator John Kerry: No, you can't be president.

Dana as Kerry: Why not?
Dana as Reagan: Because you look like Herman Munster. Your face is 19% longer than anatomically thought possible. Now get the f*ck out.

7. And, lastly:

Dana as Reagan talking about who would be president after ''W'':

''Well, we won't know till we know. That's all I'll tell you. But I've got my eye on a nice African-American gentleman from Illinois- Wonderful speaker, kind of looks like a cross between the Mad magazine guy and Urkel.''


Well, I don't know about you but if Obama gets elected, that's pretty much all I'll see when I look at him for the next few years, thanks to Dana.



Today's post is brought to you by:

*No ephedra
*No caffeine
*No stimulants at all!

It's an all-natural weight loss supplement. Try Slender fx for 90 days, it may be the help you've been looking for without the dangerous side effects that are typical of ''diet pills''. Find it and other premium health care products here- Your Home Based Business Opportunity With Youngevity

Who would win in a fight betweeen...? (Stallone's Boxing Quotes)

JD's quotes:

VS (Not Actual Size)

Sylvester ''Rocky'' Stallone---------------------- ''Smokin' Joe'' Frazier


Although I am not now, nor will I ever be a fan of pro wrestling, I usually find the people involved are nice and charismatic in real life. The WWE website has an often amusing segment that they do called Superstar to Superstar where they have a wrestling superstar interview a celebrity superstar of whatever other kind. These interviews include Mr. Kennedy interviewing Psych's James Roday and John Cena with Snoop doggy dog. Reading about my favorite sport-boxing, I stumbled across an amusing anecdote that other boxing fans will likely enjoy. Professional wrestler Montel Vontavious Porter, aka MVP, interviewed Sylvester Stallone in this edition as Stallone made the rounds promoting the fourth Rambo installment. Stallone is a longtime boxing fan, hence the Rocky franchise that he personally created. Well, MVP and Stallone eventually hit on the subject of actors VS real life athletes. Stallone couldn't resist mentioning an experiment he had done and he humbled himself by stating the following:


''I learned my lesson. You think that you play the role long enough, and you assume, “Oh, I can compete with a professional.” Well, I had that scenario set up. In Rocky III I decided I was going to use a professional athlete – this is before Mr. T came along.''


Stallone thought he would try out real boxers in a light sparring session. With whom did he choose to step into the ring?


''The first fellow I brought in the ring, I brought in Joe Frazier. Joe Frazier got in the ring, and I’ll never forget, he was wearing a green suit, he just took his shirt off – he was wearing his street pants, his street shoes – put on the gloves and again, within less than 30 seconds, he came across the ring and cracked me. He gave me four stitches over one eye. I was looking at the lights, I couldn’t believe it. My fantasy was completely destroyed that you can last more than however long it takes a professional athlete to actually get to you, that’s how long you last in the ring.''


Any boxing fan would note that Joe was one of the harder punchers of his time-arguably the most competitive time in heavyweight boxing history. Good move, Sly.


Having been quickly hurt by Frazier, who was likely pulling his punches as a courtesy, Stallone then goes on to pick a lesser-known boxing icon. Better safe than sorry, right?


''The next guy who came in – and this was idiotic on my behalf – was a fellow named Ernie Shavers. Ernie Shavers was sitting in the dressing room, and I saw him taping his hands, and he has a very high voice, and he goes, “Thank you, Mr. Stallone, for this opportunity. We’ll get in there and spar a little bit.” He was very cordial, and he had this really high voice. But I watched him tape his hands with air conditioning duct tape, and I’m going, “Oh my God.” So he gets in the ring, and I’ll never forget this, he hits me on the shoulder so hard that I capsize, go against the ropes, fall down to the ground, and I started to almost laugh hysterically, like when you hit your shin against a pipe. I never felt … I said, “Was there something in your glove?” Then his manager pulls me aside, and said, “Seriously, they don’t know how to pull their punches.” I said, “But he’s not even trying hard!” He said, “Oh, we have trouble in the gym because he actually breaks guys’ jaws off the hinges, that’s how hard he hits.” So I said, “He’s out.” ''



For the life of me, I can't understand why a boxing fan would try to avoid danger by going from Frazier to Shavers. For you non-boxing fans, understand, this is hilarious. While Frazier was one of the harder punchers of his time, the albeit, less successful Shavers is known to most serious fans as being potentially the hardest puncher EVER. I laughed while I cried real tears reading this interview and I don't laugh out loud or cry very easily. Poor, poor, pitiful Sly, thought he was safer but he could have died.

Stallone, not giving up on using a real athlete, decided to go for a lighter weight fighter, which is good. What wasn't good is that it was Roberto- Freaking- ''Hand of Stone''- Duran! This guy officially knocked out 70 professional opponents. Oh, and did I happen to mention his nickname was ''HAND OF STONE''?

Stallone on sparring with old stone hands:

''And then I tried one more time, and I got in the ring with Roberto Duran. He stood in one spot, to prove a point, and every time I threw a punch, he would slip and bang me, and bang me, to the body, that the next day my arms were green and purple. I looked like bad cheese.''

Interviewer, MVP, observes: ''You picked three of the hardest hitters in the history of boxing.''

Question: So, what happens when movie athletes fight real athletes?
Answer: They end up looking like bad cheese...

We all know who ended up in the film but let's hear it. Stallone's final decision?

Stallone on the final result of the real fighter experiment: ''So I got a pansy like Mr. T. (Laughs) He was a vacation compared to this. ''



Astonishingly, what does he do for the fifth Rocky, years later? He gets deadly puncher Tommy Morrison to play the ''bad guy''. Some people never learn.

Read the full original interview here:

Part 1: WWE: Inside WWE > Superstar to Superstar > Interviews > MVP & Sylvester Stallone: Superstar to Superstar
Part 2:WWE: Inside WWE > Superstar to Superstar > Interviews > MVP & Sylvester Stallone, part two: Superstar to Superstar

The Lesser-Known of Russian Drinking Games: Harry Truman's Point Of View

~ Above is former president, Harry S. Truman playing piano with comedy icon, Jack Benny.

JD'S Quotes:

You may love him, hate him or not know one iota about him but Harry S. Truman was unique among his co-workers. He seemed to have this absurd habit for a politician to have-telling the truth. In the book Give 'em hell, Harry!, Mark Goodman presents former president, Truman, in his own words. Why that title? Well, people being aware of Truman's often disagreeable attitude toward the serious Bull-Sh!tters, both political and otherwise, would shout ''Give 'em hell, Harry!''. Old Harry said about this, ''I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it is hell.'' The book is full of quotes giving you insight into Mr. Truman's mind. Among my favorite quotes in the book, the humorous side as always (I hope):

1. Harry, being the definitive straight-shooter, was approached in 1944 about becoming Vice-Presidential candidate. When told that the beloved F. D. R. would endorse him for the nomination, Truman didn't exactly gush with this response:

''Tell him to go to hell. I'm for Jimmy Byrnes.''

2. Truman on his disgust for political wordplay in one of his memoranda while at the White House (shortly before Christmas of 1947):

''I have appointed a Secretary of Semantics-a most important post. He is to furnish me forty to fifty dollar words. Tell me how to say yes and no in the same sentence without a contradiction. He is to tell me the combination of words that will put me against inflation in San Francisco and for it in New York. He is to show me how to keep silent-and say everything. You can very well see how he can save me an immense amount of worry.''


3. Truman on the beautiful career that might've have been:

''If I hadn't been President of the United States, I probably would have ended up a piano player in a bawdy house.''

*Possible fact to consider: It's possible, had it not been for politics, Bill Clinton would have been a saxophone player in a ''bawdy house''...For you modern folks, a bawdy house is a cathouse, by the way...for you completely modern folks, that's a house of prostitution...I just wanted to clarify for kicks and giggles.


4. Truman-era republicans did not tend to get into the good graces of the country's head democrat. Truman, among other things had said (1945):

''When I hear Republicans say I'm doing all right, I know damned well I'm wrong.''


5. Also in 1952, Truman said, generally speaking:

''The Republicans have General Motors and General Electric and General Foods and General MacArthur and General Martin and General Wedemeyer. And they have their own five-star general running for President . . . I want to say to you that every general I know is on this list except general welfare, and general welfare is in with the corporals and privates in the Democratic Party.''


6. A certain on-again, off-again relationship included Truman's statement that:

''The real trouble with Adlai Stevenson . . . the real damn trouble is, he's no better than a regular sissy.''

Why, I do think Mr. Truman just called that man an irregular sissy, if I'm not mistaken.


7. At a time when much of the country worried about John F. Kennedy's Catholic religious affiliation, Mr. Truman worried about John's father, the Machiavellian old goat himself, Joseph Kennedy, Sr. Mr. Truman mentioned his hesitation over JFK's presidential future by stating:

''It's not the Pope who worries me, it's the Pop.''


8. On October 10, 1960, the Associated Press quoted Mr. Truman speaking of potentially electing Richard Nixon for president and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. for vice president. They quoted him as saying that anyone who voted for Nixon and Lodge ''Ought to go to hell.'' and that ''Nixon never told the truth in his life.''

Also, prophetically speaking about Nixon, on October 30, 1960:

''You don't set a fox to watching the chickens just because he has a lot of experience in the henhouse.''

I wonder if it felt good to be proven so right, a few years later.


9. To explain the namesake of this post's title:

Among Mr. Truman's personal favorite anecdotes was the tale of Joseph Stalin, giving a dinner at the Potsdam Conference. He remarks:

''All the Russians were drinking a lot of vodka. Stalin kept pouring all night from a special bottle he had in front of him and drinking one drink after another. Finally I asked if I could taste what he had in that bottle. You know, it was nothing but a light French wine?''

~ I've read that this was a common tactic of Stalin's, to soberly watch his ''friends'' get fit-shaced until they spoke of something which they would ordinarily keep secret. Man, you gotta love calculating, paranoid psychopaths. Well, actually, I guess you don't but whatever.


10. Lastly, Truman on the best evidence of American Freedom (September 16, 1951):

''If people couldn't blow off steam they might explode. Half the fun of being a citizen in this country comes from complaining about the way we run our government-state, federal and local.''

If you're a fellow American; the next time you complain about your government and someone spits an asinine phrase out at you, like ''Love it or leave it.'', in misunderstanding of your complaints, it's okay to let them know that this would neither be much fun nor would it be in the tradition of President Harry S. Truman. They may not get the spirit of that statement anymore than they got the spirit of your complaints, but you might feel better.

What To Do When Your Child Wants To Know The Facts Of Life:

Lucy's quotes:

~ Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen star in Knocked Up.


Knocked Up stars Katherine Heigl (Grey's Anatomy) as Allison Scott and Seth Rogen (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) as Ben Stone and is another reproductive romp-the category I find myself oddly obsessed with. Though the plot is about Allison and Ben's unplanned parenthood, one of my favorite scenes in the movie took the focus from the stars and gave it to Heigl's onscreen sister and niece. After Ben blurts out that he and Allison are going to have a baby to Allison's little niece at the breakfast table, the niece wants to get an education and her mother handles it like a pro.


Sadie (played by Maude Apatow): Where do babies come from?
Debbie (played by Leslie Mann-Apatow's real-life mother too): Where do you think they come from?
Sadie enthusiastically illustrating the procedure: Well, I think a stork, he um-he drops it down and then-and then a hole goes in your body and there's blood everywhere coming out of your head. And then you push your belly button and then your butt falls off and then you hold your butt and you have to dig and you find a little baby.
Debbie: That's exactly right.


Playing Sadie's dad, Paul Rudd's facial expressions during this conversation cracked me up. He made me laugh throughout the movie. Gold star for Paul.



Today's post is brought to you by:

*No ephedra
*No caffeine
*No stimulants at all!

It's an all-natural weight loss supplement. Try Slender fx for 90 days, it may be the help you've been looking for without the dangerous side effects that are typical of ''diet pills''. Find it and other premium health care products here- Your Home Based Business Opportunity With Youngevity