On Today’s Show
➢ Oprah Winfrey is looking out for folks in the cities she’s called home … giving grants totaling $12 million through her Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation to underserved communities in places she’s lived — Baltimore, Chicago, Milwaukee and Nashville — and Kosciusko, Miss., where she was born. She says wealthy people need to step up and donate, because the novel coronavirus is not going away, and even when it IS gone, people will still be reeling from the devastation it’s causing their livelihoods, particularly those who live paycheck to paycheck. She’s donating to the 5 cities she once called home because she says it’s important to look into your own backyard to see how you can help those less fortunate.
➢ People on TikTok have found that if you wash your strawberries in salt water, little bugs crawl out. Here’s a girl trying it out.
➢ With Nicholas Cage already locked down to play Joe Exotic in the scripted “Tiger King” series, all eyes are on who will be cast as Carole Baskin. And according to one report, that honor could be going to Tara Reid. Her manager was quoted as saying: “We are in talks with the producers and she is being considered…Tara loves Tiger King.” Reid is also set to star in “Tom, Dick & Harry” with Vivica A. Fox, but the project has been put on hold due to the pandemic.
➢ Chris Pratt accidentally deleted 51,000 emails because of his son. Luckily, it was “mostly junk.” Before he deleted them he posted a video explaining why he has so many and apologized for not getting back to people.
THIS WEEK’S NETFLIX (Canada) RELEASES:
➢ May 28:
• “Animal Kingdom, Season 4” A southern California family’s excessive lifestyle is fuelled by their criminal activities.
➢ May 29:
• “Space Force” (Netflix Original): A comedy series about the people tasked with creating Space Force, a new branch of the U.S. military. (Steve Carell)
➢ June 1:
• Movies dropping include: “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial”, “The Hunt for Red October”, “Into the Wild”, “Jurassic Park”, “The Lost World: Jurassic Park”, “Schindler’s List” and 4 ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ films
TODAY IS……………….
- “Paper Airplane Day”, an unofficial observance honoring the simple aeronautical toy anyone can make.
- “World Dracula Day”, Bram Stoker’s Gothic horror novel Dracula was first published on this date in 1897. According to legend, the character may have been based on Stoker’s horrible boss.
- “World Redhead Day”, Some Redhead Facts:
• Less than 2% of the population has red hair.
• Red hair is thicker than other colors, and harder to dye.
• Redheads are more sensitive to hot, cold and pain.
• Redheads are more likely to be left handed.
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COUNTRY MUSIC NOTE
Billy Currington took “Good Directions” to Number One in Billboard in 2007.
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Everyone Is Loving This Dad’s How-To Videos
A YouTuber named Rob Kenney has been going viral with his dad-themed how-to videos.
It’s basic stuff that dads teach their kids . . . like how to shave, change a tire, iron a shirt, or unclog a drain.
Rob said he does it to help kids who don’t have a father around teaching them those things. It’s inspired by his own childhood. His dad left when he was 12 years old.
(You’ll find them on his “Dad, How Do I?” channel.)
FOUR RANDOM FACTS
- The first college football game ever involved a Canadian school. The game was between McGill University from Montreal and Harvard in 1874, and it ended in a 0-0 tie.
- The biggest city in Florida is Jacksonville . . . its population is almost TWICE as big as Miami’s.
- Gandalf never says “You shall not pass” in any “Lord of the Rings”book . . . he only says “You cannot pass.” The line was changed to sound more dramatic in the script for “The Fellowship of the Ring”.
- The first pass Brett Favreever completed in the NFL was to . . . himself. The pass was tipped by a defensive lineman and Brett caught it. He lost seven yards in the process.
GOOD NEWS
A 100-year-old Muslim guy in the U.K. was inspired by Captain Tom Moore, and started walking in his garden to raise money for charity. In less than a month, he’s raised close to a quarter-million dollars and walked every day, all while fasting for Ramadan.
Speaking of Ramadan: A mosque in Germany had to limit the number of people who could be inside at once. So a Christian church down the street opened its doors, so they could hold Ramadan services at a second location.
Dolphins in Australia’s Tin Can Bay apparently miss people so much they’ve started bringing GIFTS like pieces of coral and old bottles onto the beach to try to get them to come back.
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BIRTHDAYS
[71] Hank Williams Jr, country singer
[54] Helena Bonham Carter, actress (“The King’s Speech”, “Alice in Wonderland”)
A Guy Is Busted Stealing People’s Garage Doors to Install at Other Homes
There’s a 35-year-old guy named Justin Strasburg in Eagle Mountain, Utah, and he works as a garage door installer.
Well, it turns out that his source for garage doors was . . . stealing them from other people’s homes.
Justin would go to homes under construction, steal the garage door, then install it for one of his clients.
When the cops finally busted him earlier this month, they linked him to at least eight open reports on stolen garage doors . . . and they think there could be even more.
He’s facing several burglary charges.
Cops Catch Someone Who Wore a Watermelon on Their Head to Rob a Convenience Store
Two people robbed a Sheetz convenience store in Louisa, Virginia earlier this month, and they covered their faces with . . . hollowed-out WATERMELONS.
Seriously. You can see from the still shots of the surveillance video they’ve both got part of a large watermelon covering their heads, with eye holes cut out.
Last week, the cops managed to figure out who one of them was, and arrested them. They’re still trying to find the other one.
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COMPUTER MONITOR:
It’s the part about working from home that you didn’t bank on. Some employers are using employee-monitoring software that can provide digital surveillance into the minute-by-minute activity of their employees.
Companies that sell this technology — called “tattleware” by some — have seen a surge in demand since the pandemic began. Capabilities can include tracking the websites visited, monitoring how long an employee spends writing emails, pinpointing GPS location, tallying keystrokes and mouse activity, snapping automated screenshots of an employee’s screen and, sometimes even watching them over their webcam.
Companies that sell the software say it provides clear data on productivity while working remotely. But critics say the software, while perfectly legal in most countries, can be an invasion of privacy, and working from home requires adjustments to a regular schedule for those with kids or other loved ones to care for.
Hubstaff, Time Doctor and ActivTrak are among the more popular employee-monitoring software on the market.
TUESDAY MAY 26TH
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
[71] Hank Williams Jr, country singer
[54] Helena Bonham Carter, actress (“The King’s Speech”, “Alice in Wonderland”)
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- A huge crowd gathered in Daytona Beach over Memorial Day weekend when someone started throwing cash from the sunroof of their car. It turned out they were shooting a music video. Police said there were also gunshots, and several people got hit by shrapnel.
- • “America’s Got Talent” (NBC): Season 15 premiere. Expect only a partial season, since production was halted in March amid virus concerns.
- “World of Dance” (NBC): Season 4 premiere.
- Patton Oswalt jokes about turning 50, and what one of the biggest changes was. (From his 2020 Netflix special, “I Love Everything”)
- The ESPN documentary about Tom Brady, states are reopening, and Netflix is cancelling unused subscriptions. (From Jimmy Fallon and Bill Maher, the weekend of May 22, 2020)
DID YOU KNOW?
Two in three Americans said they don’t remember the last time they wore real pants. In a survey of 2,000 Americans who currently work from home, four in five said they spend their days wearing PJs or comfy clothes. So, it should be no surprise then that seven in 10 said they much prefer working from home than heading into the office every day.
Morgan Wallen Was Arrested on Saturday for Public Intoxication and Disorderly Conduct
MORGAN WALLEN was arrested for public intoxication and disorderly contact on Saturday. It was outside of Kid Rock’s Honky Tonk & Rock ‘N’ Roll Steakhouse in Nashville.
But it started INSIDE when Morgan and his friends were allegedly “kicking several glass items.” Security guards escorted them out of the place, and then the cops outside gave Morgan several opportunities to walk away . . . but he refused.
He also started getting into “multiple verbal altercations with several individuals passing by.” Next thing you know he’s arrested “due to being intoxicated in public and being unable to take care of himself.” He was released on bond sometime later.
Morgan tried to set the record straight Sunday on Twitter, saying he and his friends were “horse-playing with each other” and didn’t mean any harm. He apologized to the club staff and “thanked authorities for being professional and doing their job with class.”
How Jon Pardi Went from Country, to Pop-Punk, and Back to Country
Not all country artists follow a straight line from listening to country music as kids, to playing it as adults. JON PARDI was weaned on the good stuff, but he took a detour in high school and got into the pop-punk music scene.
He was especially influenced by West Coast bands. Quote, “At the time I rebelled from country, because I grew up everything country, and Blink-182, and Green Day and all that stuff was huge, so I got really into that high-energy, super-catchy stuff.”
Turns out the “rock thing” never really took. Quote, “I kinda burned out after high school . . . because when I started writing country again, I had songs I wrote that always sounded country through the whole wannabe pop-punk stuff.”
But that diversion did influence his next phase. Quote, “It forced me to really dig into high-energy catchy riffs and always trying to be fast, loud, and [I] that back to country, not knowing that it was a West Coast thing.”
JORDAN DAVIS ON NEW EP: ‘THESE ARE THE MOST SPECIAL SONGS I’VE WRITTEN’
Jordan Davis releases his new self-titled six-song EP today (Friday, May 22nd). The collection includes his latest single, “Almost Maybes,” as well as a collaboration with pop star Julia Michaels called “Cool Anymore.”
Jordan tells EXCLUSIVELY that these songs represent him completely, hence the title: [“This is kind of who I am right now, and I’m in a different spot as I was with Home State, now being married a couple years and having a six-month-old at the house. These are some of the most special songs I’ve written, not just since my first album but since I’ve started writing songs and I just kind of felt that the self-title was . . . if I was gonna do it, I was gonna do it with a batch of songs like these.”]
