Show Prep #34

Greetings and Salutations, people. It’s the radio show that’s all the hip internet kids are listening to, This is Vertically Striped Radio.

Today on Vertically Striped Radio: NFL Playoffs! Only 7 games left in the NFL season unless you count the Pro Bowl…and if you count the Pro Bowl, you probably use IRC Chat. We’ll chat up the playoffs as well as try to figure out what in God’s name Ladainian Tomlinson is doing…I’ll explain in a bit. We’ll talk about a woman who would have been all about American Idol if such a program had existed in the roaring 20’s. The American Kennel Club released a list of Top 10 dogs in pop culture, we’ll see how many of these dogs our callers can name on this ridiculous list. Do you know who Imelda Marcos is? If not, you will by the end of the show. Could you bet EVERYTHING on one spin of roulette? We’ll talk a bit about one guy who did. Of course, we have a fresh batch of news and yet another music recommendation for the betterment of your musical knowledge and refinement…or something like that. Plus your calls…if, you know, you want to call in.

Give out the phone number - (646) 716-6831 OR 6-HOP-1-MOVE-1
Email address: radio@verticallystripedsocks.com
If you’d like to chat with the show and it’s listeners as Vertically Striped Radio broadcasts live, you can point your internet machine over to DAMNradio.blogspot.com where there is a chat room open for your convenience.

1. Stopping at a flashing yellow.
2. Stopping at a continuous merging lane.
3. Driving the speed limit or slower in the left lane.
4. Getting over into my lane directly in front of me and then slowing down.
5. Three Words: No turn signal
6. Braking for no logical reason
7. Not pulling into the intersection to turn left when the light is green but you don’t have a green arrow.

Let’s get to the news…
(Play News Music – Clip 03)

MOSCOW (Reuters) – An enormous television screen showing a pornographic film caused a midnight traffic jam in central Moscow Thursday as stunned motorists slammed on the brakes to gawk at the writhing naked bodies.
The owner of the advertising screen, which sits atop a main road about two km (1.2 miles) south of the Kremlin, told the state-run RIA news agency that hackers had broken into the screen's computer system and turned on the porn.
"They were either acting out of hooliganism or were from a rival company," Viktor Laptev, commercial director of advertising firm Panno.ru, told RIA.
A short clip showing cars slowing to a halt to look at the screen sprung up on youtube.com and internet sites Friday across Russia, a country which banned nudity on television before the Soviet Union fell in 1991.


PODGORICA (Reuters) –Montenegro, the small European Nation just south of Serbia and Bosnia has a problem. It appears that Montenegro's only hippopotamus has escaped from the mountainous nation's zoo during floods this week, officials said Wednesday.
The two-ton female hippo called Nikica broke out of her cage and swam away after seasonal floods hit the zoo just outside the Montenegrin capital Podgorica,
The Zoo manager says, "She remains at large, but one of the guards is keeping an eye on her and is feeding her daily."
The hippo found a dry spot a mile away from the zoo as shelter from cold flood waters. Zoo management said that zoo guards would have to wait until the water recedes to try to lure the animal back to its enclosure with food.
In its native Africa, hippos (the world’s third largest land mammal) are considered aggressive and dangerous. But zoo owner Nikola Pejovic said that the Hippo Nikica was not a threat to people.
"People like her, and she is used to people, villagers are bringing her fresh hay," he said.


WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) – Canada's second-oldest magazine, The Beaver, is changing its name because its unintended sexual connotation has caused the history journal to become snagged in Internet filters and has turned off potential readers.

The Beaver was founded in 1920 as a publication of the Hudson's Bay Company, then a fur trader and now a department store chain. It has long since become a broader magazine about Canadian history and will change its name to Canada's History with its

April issue, editor-in-chief Mark Reid said on Tuesday.
When The Beaver started publication, the name evoked only Canada's thriving fur industry. Ninety years later, the fur trade has diminished and the magazine's name has become slang for female genitals.

Readers complained that Internet filters were blocking emails and newsletters from The Beaver, Reid said. The society also had concerns about attracting readers.

"Market research showed us that younger Canadians and women were very very unlikely to ever buy a magazine called The Beaver no matter what it's about," said Reid, adding he has mixed feelings about the name change. "For whatever reasons, they are turned off by the name."

Print subscriptions to the Winnipeg-based magazine, which publishes six issues a year, range between 45,000 and 50,000. It is published by Canada's National History Society.

Changing the name also makes sense because the fur trade, while an important part of early Canadian history, isn't meaningful to all Canadians today, especially as the population's makeup has changed through immigration, Reid said. Readers have been generally understanding about the need for the change, he said.

I’m Craig, and that’s the news…(Play News Music – Clip 03)


MAIN TOPIC:

WHAT IT DO! – Ladainian Tomlinson and his ridiculous music video.

NFL Playoffs:

Cowboys - Vikings: Cowboys 33 Vikings 30
Colts - Ravens: Colts 27 Ravens 14
Saints - Cardinals: Saints 27 Cardinals 24
Jets - Chargers – Chargers 38 Jets 19

Florence Foster Jenkins (July 19, 1868 – November 26, 1944) – Clip 17 - Her infamous rendition of "Der Holle Rache" - Mozart's "Queen of the Night" aria from "The Magic Flute". This woman was simply born too soon, she was clearly decades ahead of her time, as her high lack of self-awareness would have her perfectly at home on American Idol or Jersey Shore.
Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Jenkins received music lessons as a child, and expressed a desire to go abroad to study music. Her wealthy (and reasonable) father refused to pay the bill, so she eloped to Philadelphia with Frank Thornton Jenkins, a medical doctor. The two divorced in 1902. She earned a living there as a teacher and pianist. Upon her father's death in 1909, Jenkins inherited a sum of money which allowed her to take up the singing career that had been discouraged by her parents and former husband. She became involved in the musical life of Philadelphia, and later New York City, where she founded and funded the Verdi Club, took singing lessons, and began to give recitals, her first in 1912.

From her recordings, it is apparent that Jenkins had little sense of pitch and rhythm and was barely capable of sustaining a note. Her accompanist can be heard making adjustments to compensate for her tempo variations and rhythmic mistakes. Her dubious diction, especially in foreign language songs, is also noteworthy. Nonetheless, she became tremendously popular in her unconventional way. Her audiences apparently loved her for the amusement she provided rather than her musical ability. Critics often described her work in a backhanded way that may have served to pique public curiosity.

Despite her patent lack of ability, Jenkins was firmly convinced of her greatness. She compared herself favorably to the renowned sopranos Frieda Hempel and Luisa Tetrazzini, and dismissed the laughter which often came from the audience during her performances as coming from her rivals consumed by "professional jealousy." She was aware of her critics, however, saying "People may say I can't sing, but no one can ever say I didn't sing."

The music Jenkins tackled in her recitals was a mixture of the standard operatic repertoire such as Mozart, Giuseppe Verdi and Johann Strauss among others (all of which were well beyond her technical ability and songs composed by herself or her accompanist, Mr. Cosmé McMoon, who reportedly made faces at Jenkins behind her back to get laughs.

Jenkins often wore elaborate costumes that she designed herself, sometimes appearing in wings and tinsel, she would throw flowers into the audience while fluttering a fan and sporting more flowers in her hair. After each performance Cosmé McMoon would collect these flowers from the auditorium in readiness for redistribution at the next one.

After a taxicab crash in 1943 she found she could sing "a higher F than ever before." Instead of a lawsuit against the taxicab company, she sent the driver a box of expensive cigars.

In spite of public demand for more appearances, Jenkins restricted her rare performances to a few favorite venues, and her annual recital at the Ritz-Carlton ballroom in New York City. Attendance at her recitals was always limited to her loyal clubwomen and a select few others – she handled distribution of the coveted tickets herself. At the age of 76, Jenkins finally yielded to public demand and performed at Carnegie Hall on October 25, 1944. So anticipated was the performance that tickets for the event sold out weeks in advance. Jenkins died a month later.

Her career was the subject of the 2004 play, “Souvenir”, written by Stephen Temperley; the Broadway singer Judy Kaye commented that "It's hard work to sing badly well. You could sing badly badly for a while but you'll hurt yourself if you do it for long."

She had a Posthumously released album titled “The Glory (????) of the Human Voice.” Its liner notes recount the history of Florence Foster Jenkins, "the first lady of the sliding scale." The socialite appears on the cover in one of her many recital costumes, "Angel of Inspiration."


Movie reviews: “The Road” and “The Princess and The Frog” (and “Almost Famous”)

Imelda Marcos:


NEW YORK (Reuters) – The "Peanuts" comic strip character Snoopy was named the top dog in pop culture by the American Kennel Club on Tuesday as part of its 125th anniversary celebration, beating out a college sports mascot.
Nearly 76,000 online voters chose their favorites from a list of pop culture dogs drawn from television, film, literature, sports and art, the kennel club said.

Snoopy was the pensive dog whose best friend was a bird and who seemed to be smarter than his human master in the comic strip created by the late Charles Schulz, who died in 2000.

"Peanuts," which for close to five decades served as a mirror for the baby boom generation, appeared in 2,600 newspapers in 21 languages. Its daily readership was believed to be the most of any comic strip in history.
Second place went to Texas A&M University's mascot Reveille, followed by Scooby Doo, the television cartoon character.

The top 10:

1. Snoopy
2. Texas A&M's Reveille
3. Scooby Doo
4. Eddie from the TV show "Frasier"
5. Pound Puppy toys
6. Painting "Dogs Playing Poker"
7. Song "How Much is that Doggie in the Window"
8. Georgetown's Jack the Bulldog
9. The song "Who Let the Dogs Out"
10. Brian Griffin from the animated TV show Family Guy



Ashley Revell - (born 1972) is a London resident who briefly achieved fame for selling all his possessions (including all his clothes) and gambling US$135,300 on a single spin of a roulette wheel in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2004.
Revell won his bet (on Red; the result was 7 Red) and left with $270,600. The event was filmed by Sky One as a reality mini-series. Ashley used his winnings to set up his own online poker company called POKER UTD.

What is the best Candy Bar of all time?

Who is the best opponent in Mike Tyson’s punchout?

Is Washington a good place for Mike Shanahan?

Pete Carroll leaving USC for the Seahawks? Is this a move because he wanted the challenge of an NFL gig, or is it rats fleeing the Titanic?

Is the Rooney Rule a good idea?

Imelda Marcos:

The Vertically Striped Music Recommendation:
Sufjan Stevens – “Illinoise” (Casimir Pulaski Day – Clip 17)
(Next Week – Wilco – Sky Blue Sky (White Light – Clip 20)

Shalom and Good Evening to you all!