3 more things about golf clubs used as a weapon

NEWS ITEM Early speculation was Tiger Woods was hit with his golf club; reportedly, his SUV windows were smashed out with one in "rescue."

• • • Windshield, unshielded -- Jack Nicholson attacked the car of another motorist with a 2-iron.

• • • Bird, brained -- Pro golfer took multiple attempts before he hit and killed an EPA-protected hawk that was making noise during a TV shoot.

• • • Golf club assault -- 44,000+ hits.

3 more movies that open with a lead character dead already or saying they'll be dead by the time it's over

NEWS ITEM "Lovely Bones" is the tale of a murder victim watching her family and killer.

• • • "American Beauty" -- Kevin Spacey remarks, "Remember those posters that say 'Today is the first day of the rest of your life' ...? Well that's true every day but one."


• • • "Sunset Boulevard" -- William Holden says "That's me floating in the pool."


• • • "Milk" -- Sean Penn narration says the tape he's making is only to be revealed "upon his death by assassination."

3 more movies that show a real part of L.A. not commonly shown

NEWS ITEM "A Single Man" will show a niche of life in 60's Los Angeles.

• • • "Mask" --Not the Jim Carrey movie, but the Peter Bogdonovich movie shows San Gabriel Valley and other north county areas; foto via IMCDB







• • • "Repo Man" -- Lots of now seemingly archival locations throughout the Atwater region north of downtown; watch the trailer; foto via aric








• • • "Real Women Have Curves" -- There's a great montage of East LA while the not-yet-a-major-star America Ferrera walks to her garment factory job; watch the trailer; foto via BlueGrassFilmSociety

3 more things deemed unfit for TV

NEWS ITEM Adam Lambert kisses a man during the American Music Awards.

• • • Elvis Presley -- His first number on Ed Sullivan was cropped close, though he and his hips got plenty of air time previously on other shows, and later during that same CBS show.

• • • Rolling Stones -- On their second appearance on Ed Sullivan, despite the host swearing they'd never appear again after their first performance, Mick Jagger tweaked the "lewd" lyrics to "Let's Spend Some Time Together."

• • • Bob Dylan -- When told he couldn't perform "Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues" during his scheduled Ed Sullivan performance, Dylan cancelled.

3 more things you think you know but don't

NEWS ITEM Day after Thanksgiving isn't biggest retail day; typically it's the Saturday before Christmas.

• • • Kool-Aid -- "Drank the Kool-Aid" is a Jonestown reference to buying in to a doctrine, heart and soul, except it wasn't Kool-Aid they drank there. It was Flav-R-Ade.

• • • Lemmings -- It's part of the language that the rodents commit mass suicide by running off cliffs, but they don't do that. Blame a Disney documentary crew.

• • • Fences -- "Good fences make good neighbors" is a line from a Robert Frost poem that doesn't endorse barriers but mocks needless fences.

3 more things about boxers outside of the box

NEWS ITEM After Manny Pacquiao proved he's among the greatest boxers ever, two hours later he sang at a previously scheduled concert.

• • • Oscar De La Hoya -- His pretty decent CD came out in 2000.

• • • George Foreman -- Yes, he was a champion prizefighter before he was an appliance salesman, yet not a cook like Jack King.

• • • Tex Cobb -- He can not only take a punch but he can take direction, being an awesome nemesis in "Raising Arizona."

3 more words that are paradoxically ironic oxymorons, sorta

NEWS ITEM HBO's "Bored to Death" is about a slacker private eye with "bored" alluding to palpable disinterest but the word is also a metaphor for intensity, as in drilling, which would be a different show if it were about dentistry.

• • • Strike -- In bowling it's a hit and in baseball it's a miss; for labor, it's a job action of job inaction; for plants, it's about expanding, yet for theater, it's about reducing.

• • • Cleave -- to adhere [Old English cleofian; related to Old High German klebēn to stick], to split apart [Old English clēofan; related to Old Norse kljūfa, Old High German klioban, Latin glūbere to peel].

• • • Cop-- is to steal and a guy whose job it is to prevent stealing and an act of admitting and an act of denying, as in "After copping out, cop copped to the copping."

Follow-up

1 more thing Carrie Prejean knows from inappropriate.

• • • 3 more things about beauty queens

3 more things about prophecies

NEWS ITEM "2012" movie destroys the world, timing pegged on Mayan calendar.

• • • Ron Weinland -- Ever-evolving date for Second Coming is now set for May 27, 2012.

• • • John Hogue -- Problems surrounding Palestine and India will either erupt or be solved this year.

• • • Tim McHyde -- There's a star that will pass through the solar system that will make the year 360 days long; that happens in 2015.

3 more things about beauty queens

NEWS ITEM Miss England loses crown after bar fight.

• • • Carrie Prejean, ex-Miss California -- Didn't do her job, got herself fired, sued, got herself countersued for the costs of her breast impants, settled for lawyer fees for fear of her sex tape being released; a round-up of other marginal types: kidnappers, substance abusers, provocative models, brawlers and attempted murderers.

• • • A Rhodes Scholar finalist -- She was also Miss America '05.

• • • Kids -- There's something kinda creepy about these.

3 more things about zombies

NEWS ITEM Before "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" things were dreadful.

• • • Zombie Squad-- on the list of survivalist groups, because if a zombie attack isn't a crisis, then nothing is.

• • • Creating zombies -- Haiti made it illegal in 1835

• • • Of course there's a musical -- "A new musical that will eat your face off!" -- no relation to Rod Argent's band.

3 more examples of posturing

NEWS ITEM Something vaguely familiar about the imagery and how evocative it is

• • • Michael Flatley -- lord of a type







• • • Michael Phelps -- didn't get acclaim for walking on water.




• • • W -- really, what's more to say?

3 more productions with incredibly short titles

NEWS ITEM Remake of '83 mini-series debuts, still not based on Thomas Pynchon novel.

• • • "O" -- rethinking "Othello."

• • • "Z" -- political turmoil in Greece.

• • • "M" -- one of the best movies of all time tells of criminals hunting a child-killer when police fail.

3 more reasons to love the internet

CONTEXT A reader asks for a mashup of the themes of this blog: "I want to see the overlap of pop culture, gardening and trivia, perhaps in the form of topiary."

• • • Disney

• • • Sesame Street

• • • Beatles