SOME GENUINE MEMENTOS OF COMEDY AND CULTURE will be going on the auction block in October. The family of the late Bob Hope will be auctioning off some of his personal items and souvenirs from his long career in vaudeville, film, radio and TV.

Bob Hope’s 10-gallon hat from the movie “Paleface”
is one of the 800 items to be sold.

The man who became an entertainment legend in his own lifetime was a prolific saver and collector and left 11,000 mementos after he died in 2003. The Associated Press reports:

“Dad was a pack rat,” daughter Linda Hope told The Associated Press. “He loved to collect things. Even when he wasn’t conscious of collecting, people would give him things. They would be brought home, listed, photographed and placed in storage. Now keeper of the family flame, Linda Hope, 68, made the first public announcement of the Bob Hope Estate Auction on a recent sunny morning at the comedian’s longtime compound in North Hollywood — 7 acres of mansion, office building, swimming pool, greenery and short-hole golf course. A selection of the items to be auctioned were spread atop two large tables. 

“A lot of the things will go to the Library of Congress,” Linda explained in a lounge where her father gave many an interview over lunch, including to this reporter. “Most of the paper goods will be going there, scripts and photographs and other things that Dad donated before he died. The Library isn’t interested in three-dimensional items.

“We decided that after giving important gifts to museums, there was still a lot of wonderful stuff that people could enjoy,” Linda Hope said.

The proceeds from the auction will be donated to her father’s favorite charities.

Hope’s personal attache case
will go to a lucky bidder.

The auction will be televised live and streamed online so that fans throughout the world can watch and bid on their favorite items if they want to. The sale is being handled by Julien’s Auctions of Los Angeles and you can visit their website to view some of the items that will be up for sale. You can also register to bid at that same site.

All of the collection will be posted online and proxy bids will be accepted starting on September 1.

Julien’s Auctions webpage for the Bob Hope sale is HERE.
Read the full AP story HERE.
 

BO DIDDLEY, WHO CLAIMED TO BE THE FIRST of the Rock’n'Rollers died at his home in Florida this morning at age 79.  After suffering a series of strokes and heart attacks over the past two years, he died peacefully while surrounded by 35 of his family members.

Reuters

Coming of age in Chicago, the Mississippi-born musician was born in December, 1928 and named Ellas Bates, later changed to Ellas McDaniel after his adoptive mother’s name.  While performing as a street musician he somehow got labeled with his stage name of Bo Diddley and he kept it.

Trained as a classical violinist, he said that he looked around and didn’t see very many black violinists making a living, but there were plenty of black guitarists.  So he picked up the instrument and took off.  His unique musical style that he developed and used througout his career was so distinctive that you can identify his sound after the first two notes.

Using a custom-made guitar that looked like it was homemade from a box, he attacked his music much like a drummer does.  His very first recording, “Bo Diddley” shot to the top of the charts and his future was made.  In 1987 he was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

Not one to squander his money, he always managed to live comfortably and follow his star, working right up until last year.

Wikipedia probably has the best biography of him HERE.

ONE OF PROCTOR & GAMBLE’s MOST POPULAR innovations was the Pringle’s potato chips.  Those saddle-shaped snack delights that stacked ever-so-neatly in the box so they could survive their trip to your house.

Dr. Frederic J. Baur was a retired organic chemist and food storage technician who specialized in research and development and quality control for Procter & Gamble.  He had many inventions patented in his name over the years of service to P & G.

But Dr. Baur, who died on May 4, was so proud of having designed the container for Pringles potato crisps that he asked his family to bury him in one.

So his children honored his request and put part of his cremated remains in a Pringles can, the rest in a regular urn, and buried them together.

The Cincinnati Enquirer has a nice story about Dr. Baur’s life and some of his inventions HERE.

BRITAIN IS NOTED FOR ITS MANY TRADITIONS and observances, such as the Shrove Tuesday pancake races, that date back to medieval times.

One of the most bizarre, and dangerous, of these events is the annual Cheese Chase held in Gloucestershire.  The contest which dates back to the Roman occupation calls for a legion of hardy (or fool-hardy) souls to chase a wheel of cheese down a very steep slope.

An eight-pound wheel of Double-Gloucester cheese is released at the top of the hill and it can achieve speeds of up to 70 mph.  The chasers try to catch it before it reaches the finish line, or at least be the first to cross the line after the cheese reaches it 200 meters below the start.  The winner gets to keep the cheese.

This year’s Cheese Chase was made a little safer by a timely rainfall that softened the ground a bit and lessened the chance of broken bones.  Nonetheless, 19 people were injured and had to be treated by the 30 members of the ambulance squad.  The year with the highest injury rate was 1997 when 33 people were hurt.

This video report shows the winner of the first race being carried off the course on a spine board by the medics:

This could also be subtitled:  “P” Is For Park

Then again….think back to your first basic fire school at the local fire academy.  Every class has one of these guys in it.

But there are enough of them out there to keep us in business.

Hat tip to Neill M. for the link.

THE DISTURBING FIRE AT THE BERLIN PHILHARMONIC concert hall Tuesday was largely confined to the roof of the building, it was disclosed this morning.  (See Firegeezer report of the fire HERE.)

It is even possible, according to a philharmonie spokesman, that they could resume using the hall as soon as June 2.  The fire caused serious damage to a quarter of the tent-shaped roof of the building, but left the acoustically precious interior generally unharmed, said the spokesman, Stefan Stahnke.

He said severe damage was avoided because firefighters took extra care in dousing the fire, relying heavily on foam.

Along with checking out and restoring safety systems,  a temporary roof will have to be placed over the damaged area to keep out rain.  Although the firefighters had to remove about 17,00 sq. ft. of the roof to get at the fire, there was no structural damage to the building.

AFP

Andre Schmitz, state secretary for culture, said the main auditorium had no visible damage and that chances were good that it would open again “very quickly.”

He further said that the fire was caused by repair work being carried out on the roof.

“Water damage (from putting out the fire) on the whole is light and does not concern the main auditorium,” a spokesman for Berlin fire brigade told AFP.

BBC News filed this video report yesterday:

Sources: N.Y. Times, AFP, International Herald-Tribune.

NAPLES, ITALY, HAS MORE THAN 50,000 TONS OF TRASH and garbage bags laying uncollected in the streets throughout the region.  And the people have had enough of the government’s failure to collect it. 

Now they are dragging the waste into piles in the streets and setting them afire.  There were more than 80 such fires last night and in some cases, when the fire engines showed up to put them out, the FF’s were pelted with rocks and paving stones to drive them away.

AP

The crises began when local landfills (dumps) had to close because they are full.  The courts prevented any new dumps from being created and also wouldn’t allow older ones to be re-opened.

The government has been spending millions to have rubbish hauled away and shipped to other places in Europe for disposal, but the contracts were given to the (non-existant) Mafia and none of the money was spent on trash removal.  The landfills are mostly owned by the (non-existant) Mafia also, but the only trash they allow into them are imports from other countries that pay them a high price for disposal.

Reuters

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is considering bringing in the army (again) to clear up the mess and quell the demonstrations.  This past January the army removed the mountains of rubbish, but the problem remains.  All this current trash accumulation is just from the last three months.

This video was taken back in January:

The AFP has a more detailed report HERE.

Last month AFP did this video report on the renewed problem:

INDEPENDENCE DAY CELEBRATIONS MIGHT BE A LITTLE BLEAK this year due to a severe shortage of fireworks display rockets.

The problem began on February 14 when a massive fire at a fireworks exporting compound in Foshan City destroyed a large major storage of completed fireworks.  The fire burned for 24 hours and consumed 15,000 cartons of aerial displays and 20 warehouse buildings.  (Reported HERE.)

Following the fire, the Chinese government slapped some severe restrictions on packing and shipping fireworks.  Now the country’s factories, which supply over 90% of the fireworks sold in the U. S., are sitting on large stocks that were scheduled to be shipped to America in time for the July 4th holiday.

Add in the fact that only one shipping line in the world, Maersk, is willing to transport fireworks across the ocean and you have a tight crimp in the supply line.  Prices on both retail and commercial display fireworks are expected to be at least 30% higher this year.

The New York Times has a story that goes into the problem in detail and also gets into how this Summer’s Olympics is messing things up even more.  You can read it HERE.

Hat tip to Hillary H. for helping with the story.

LEGENDARY MUSICIAN AND SINGER EDDY ARNOLD passed away this morning (Thursday) in Nashville, Tennessee.  The famed “Tennessee Plowboy” would have been 90 years old next week on May 15.

Born in 1918 in Henderson, Tennessee, his father died when he was young and the family became sharecroppers.  Purchasing a guitar through the Sears, Roebuck catalog, he learned to play well enough to accompany his naturally-smooth singing voice and he started traveling to barn dances to pursue his dream as a singer.  His “day job” during these early years was an ambulance driver for the local funeral home.

Working his way up the entertainment ladder by going from radio station to station, his first big job came in 1940 when Pee Wee King, another future Country Music Hall of Famer, hired him to play and sing with his band, the Golden West Cowboys.

It was then that he met his wife of 66 years, Sally Gayhart, and they were married in November, 1941.  She predeceased him by only two months.

His recording career is legendary, selling over 85 million records, 28 of them were #1 hits.  He also introduced the concept of “crossover” music with his recordings of country tunes done with a pop sound charting in both the country and the pop music charts.  He also had more singles that “charted” than any other recording artist.  In 1947, two of his records held the #1 position for the entire year.

In 1948, all of his nine singles went into the Top Five, and five of them went to number one, including “Anytime,” “What a Fool I Was,” “Texarkana Baby,” “Just a Little Lovin’ (Will Go a Long, Long Way),” “My Daddy Is Only a Picture,” and “Bouquet of Roses,” which stayed at the top for 19 weeks.  He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1966. 

He also was seen frequently on television, having his own show for a while, doing guest work on countless others, and even acting as a substitute host on the Johnny Carson show, second only to Joey Bishop in the number of appearances.

A good biography of his life and successes is on the CMT website HERE.
Wikipedia entry HERE.

Nashville Channel 4 has a video report:

A DUTCH ARTIST, HENK HOFSTRA HAS begun displaying an “environmental art” project called Art Eggcident in Leeuwarden, a city in northern Netherlands.

Yesterday several large eggs (approx. 100 ft. wide) were set up on the Zaailand, one of the largest public squares in Holland.

They will remain on display for the next six months, according to our source, the Wooster Collective.