WEDNESDAY, June 9, 2010

Senior White House correspondent Helen Thomas resigned after making ill-advised comments about Israel.  She’s not completely out of the business, though.  She was immediately hired by “60 Minutes” to sit at Andy Rooney’s desk each week while technicians adjust the lights. 

New York City officials are complaining that the decision to transfer “Law and Order” from New York to Los Angeles will result in an $80 million loss to local merchants.  Not exactly cheap for the producers, either.  So far, they’ve had to spend  $75,000 just to have all the graffiti removed from the squad cars. 

A Los Angeles judge ordered Lindsay Lohan, charged with violating her probation on a DUI conviction, to wear an electronic monitor attached to her ankle.  Now, every time she goes through the checkout line at the supermarket, the bar code registers “$1.5 million a picture.”

A research team of biologists from the University of Queensland discovered that salt water crocodiles, naturally poor swimmers, can travel thousands of miles by “surfing” ocean currents.  Not only that, several were spotted wearing polo shirts with designer logos in the shape of tiny humans.

In Jersey City, Weird Al Yankovic kicked off National Accordion Awareness Month with “A Salute to Myron Floren”  amid a cheering crowd of excited fans who then watched Dick Contino play “Lady of Spain” and gave thanks that John Tesh never learned to squeeze one.
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Excerpted From THE LAUGH MAKERS  

We set aside a full day for our visit to Peking’s Chinese Opera School, which can best be described as the New York School for the Performing Arts — with barracks. Hand-picked by the government, kids from all over China are given free room, board and training to someday take their place in the cast of the Oriental version of the Met — the Peking Opera. I take that back. Compared to the Met, this ensemble is a Green Beret unit.  With more centuries under their belt than they care to admit, the Opera combines tumbling, juggling, gymnastics, slapstick comedy, fencing, acting, dancing and singing. The entire company consists of a first string unit as well as a number of road versions that constantly tour the provinces. Sort of AAA-Opera.  The kids, who range in age from about eight to twelve, gave us a heart-pounding demonstration of calisthenics that seemed to transform them into prepubescent pretzels. We would later borrow six of these talented youngsters for a musical number that Hope would perform on Peking’s famous Marble Boat — the one Billy Graham managed to float in the monologue.

Near the city’s edge is a lake, on the banks of which the emperors built a summer palace — for those times when the pressures of emperoring called for a little R&R. Its most famous resident was the empress dowager, who apparently handled money something like Leona Helmsley, who left her fortune to her dogs. Somehow she managed to blow hundreds of thousands of yuan that the Chinese parliament had allocated for a navy. To appease an unsatisfied admiralty, she ordered the construction of a boat made entirely of marble. The size of a small Mississippi paddle-wheeler, it forever stands immobile at the dock, a monument to the dowager’s quick thinking gift-giving.

Tomorrow:  Big Bird Invades the Peoples Republic 

Order THE LAUGH MAKERS on line:

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Also available in an unabridged audio version read by the author: 

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