"You piss on my date and you say you're sorry?"

[A story Jacobson obviously loves to tell evolves into a memorate. -- bc]

Rolling Stone, 6 August 1981, p. 18

Times Square

A Report from the Sleaziest Block in America

By Mark Jacobson

[In a conversation with the head of New York City's Office of Midtown Enforcement, the writer admits to being an aficionado of the local grind theaters.] "Great places if you stay out of the balcony. Angel Dust City. Very important to the development of my sensibility, very important to the formation of my personal vision of Times Square. Everyone knocks them, but they're great. Haven't you heard the great Forty-second Street movie line, the one everyone claims to have been there when it was said? A voice comes out of the balcony saying, 'Sorry? You piss on my date and you say you're sorry?'" [...]

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/columns/cityside/1740/

New York Magazine, 3 January 2000

Happy Ending

Even in the new Times Square, signs of the possibly imminent apocalypse are everywhere. But thanks to Rudy and Hollywood, we may not recognize it when it comes.

By Mark Jacobson

[...] Down 42nd street, the new Arnold movie, the cannily timed and titled End of Days, is at the brand-new Loews thirteen-screen "E Walk" theater. Once upon a not too distant past, this street, and the movie theaters formerly situated here, sticky-floored, semen-smeared dumps like the Harris, Selwyn, and Liberty, invoked their own kind of post-apocalyptic landscape. One could watch Bruce Lee coil his coil of doom and hear a scream from the balcony: "You're sorry? You piss on my date and you say you're sorry?!" [...]

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/anniversary/35th/n_8603/

New York Magazine, 7 April 2003

Times Up

Times Square’s sin and vice and squalor helped define the New York experience. They still do. In our minds.

By Mark Jacobson

[...] Not every package-deal tourist sees the charm in having his feet stick to the floor at the old Selwyn (or Harris, or Lyric) during the eye-gouge scene from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as some balcony denizen shouts, “You’re sorry? You piss on my date and you say you’re sorry?” [...]

http://nymag.com/movies/profiles/54318/index2.html

New York Magazine, 15 February 2009

No Kiss Kiss, All Bang Bang

Spielberg-loving, Spike Lee-attacking critic Armond White is the film world’s brother from another planet.

By Mark Jacobson

[...] [N]ot so very long time ago, the film freak could put his feet on a sticky floor at the old Brandt Times Square theater and see a triple bill of Sergio Leone’s immortal trilogy, Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for $1.50. The in-theater entertainment was also memorable, such as on the immortal evening when, right in the middle of Enter the Dragon, yours truly heard some skell in the balcony scream, “You’re sorry? You piss on my date and you say you’re sorry?” [...]

[Here are a few other occurrences of this anecdote I've found. The first is from a novel. -- bc]

Geoffrey Wolf, The Final Club (Knopf, 1990), p. 91.

[...] And another, unlucky in drink at the Columbia game, roused from blackout at Palmer Stadium by a Cap and Gown senior screaming: "You're sorry? Sorry! You piss on my date's raccoon coat and silk hose and advise me you're sorry? Oh, you'll know sorry, sir. We'll show you sorry. You'll eat the next two years out of tin cans. Remember me." [...]

http://www.ariel-leve.com/st_interviews/dustinhoffman.html

Ariel Leve as featured in The Sunday Times magazine

[Leve's interview of actor Dustin Hoffman originally appeared in the 3 December 2006 issue of London's Sunday Times Magazine under the title "Confessions of a Driven Man." -- bc]

Dustin Hoffman

[...] He recalls: "To this day, Bob Duvall says it was one of the best times of when we were all living together. Because I'd come home and they'd say, 'What did so-and-so do today?' " Hoffman would act out the characters he'd met there. He tells me how Hackman would see six films a day on his day off. "He'd spend his entire day in the cinema. It was a place where the homeless went, because for 35 cents they could sleep there all day. He was in there at 10am and he heard one homeless guy in the balcony saying, 'You're sorry? You're sorry? What do you mean, you're sorry? You piss all over my date and you say you're sorry?' [...]"

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004413.html

Language Log

"Sorry" Spectacles

Posted by Geoff Nunberg at April 16, 2007 06:35 PM

Listening to the latest in high-profile public apologies -- from Alberto Gonzales, Paul Wolfowitz, and Don Imus -- took me back to an incident that happened in my undergraduate days at Columbia about a million years ago. A bunch of my friends and I used to spend long afternoons and evenings at the movie theaters along West 42d Street, where for less than a buck you could see a double or triple feature of gangster movies, war movies or westerns. That was well before the area was sanitized and Disneyfied, and the theaters were -- well, "seedy" hardly begins to say it. The seats and carpeting were shabby and permanently saturated with a mixture of fluids, processed and unprocessed. The balconies were sharply raked, the rows so close together as to make even the economy section of a United Airlines flight seem positively spacious. And the clientele was a mix of movie buffs, lonely guys, and down-and-outers who considered 99 cents a stone bargain for a warm place to sleep off a bender. So it was that a friend and I found ourselves in the balcony of a largely empty theater one rainy weekday evening watching an Anthony Mann western when we heard a middle-class male voice behind us saying in a loud, indignant tone: "Sorry? You piss on my date and you're SORRY?"

I didn't actually see the malefactor, and it occurs to me only now (a little sadly) that the remark might have been simply a prank. [...]

Fraudulent Voters Bused in

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/us/politics/groups-like-true-the-vote-are-looking-very-closely-for-voter-fraud.html

New York Times

17 September 2012

Looking,Very Closely, for Voter Fraud

Conservative Groups Focus on Registration in Swing States

By STEPHANIE SAUL

It might as well be Harry Potter's invisible Knight Bus, because no one can prove it exists.

The bus has been repeatedly cited by True the Vote, a national group focused on voter fraud. Catherine Engelbrecht, the group's leader, told a gathering in July about buses carrying dozens of voters showing up at polling places during the recent Wisconsin recall election.

"Magically, all of them needed to register and vote at the same time," Ms. Engelbrecht said. "Do you think maybe they registered falsely under false pretenses? Probably so."

Weeks later, another True the Vote representative told a meeting of conservative women about a bus seen at a San Diego polling place in 2010 offloading people "who did not appear to be from this country."

Officials in both San Diego and Wisconsin said they had no evidence that the buses were real. "It's so stealthy that no one is ever able to get a picture and no one is able to get a license plate," said Reid Magney, a spokesman for the Wisconsin agency that oversees elections. In some versions the bus is from an Indian reservation; in others it is full of voters from Chicago or Detroit. "Pick your minority group," he said.

The buses are part of the election fraud gospel according to True the Vote, which is mobilizing a small army of volunteers to combat what it sees as a force out to subvert elections. [...]

In Racine, conservative poll watchers also alleged fraud, including a claim that a busload of union members from Michigan had come to Wisconsin to vote illegally. The Racine County Sheriff's Department determined that the accusation had been based on an anonymous call to a radio station.

"There is no evidence this bus convoy existed or ever arrived in Racine County," the Sheriff's Office said.

As for the buses her organization saw in Wisconsin, Ms. Engelbrecht could not provide details. "It was reported to us that this had occurred," she said. "I know these sightings were also being reported on the radio." [...]

Drones Photograph Wives

http://www.economist.com/node/21561927

The Economist [UK]

1 September 2012

Yemen and the United States

Don't drone on

It is uncertain whether America's drones have their intended effect

SANA'A -- [...] If these tribesmen are anything to go by, the Americans' increasingly active deployment of drones is far from winning Yemeni hearts and minds in the battle against jihadism.

"Our people ask how these foreign planes have a right to come here and kill them, even if some of the people they kill are al-Qaeda," says a friend of the sheikh, a smuggler. "The other thing is that they think the drones are taking photos of them and spying on them. Because of this, our people have finished with America. They see America as this," he adds, making the letter X with his fingers. All the men on the cushions are convinced that drones photograph their wives, a vile insult in conservative Yemen. [...]

Sect Kills by Phone Calls (Nigeria)

http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/news-update/59791-police-denounce-killings-through-phone-calls.html

The Nation [Nigeria]

31 August 2012

Police denounce 'killings through phone calls'

By Adekunle Jimoh

The Kwara State Police Command has dispelled rumours of the alleged killing of people by the Boko Haram sect through phone calls.

The police denounced the stories contained in text messages as untrue and advised people to ignore them.

The alleged killings through phone calls had created apprehension among people of the state recently.

The text message reads: "Do not pick any call from this number (08061197911) because Boko Haram sect has been killing people through the number.

"They have killed four people in Ilorin this month.  Two people have also been killed at Egbe, while Mr. Adediran at Omu-Aran died this morning, send it to your people." [...]

http://www.tribune.com.ng/sat/index.php/news/8444-police-dispel-rumour-of-killer-number-arrest-originator.html

Saturday Tribune [Nigeria]

1 September 2012

Police Dispel Rumour Of Killer Number, Arrest Originator

Written by Biola Azeez, Ilorin

Chinese Restaurant Serves Dog Meat (Worthing, UK)

http://www.worthingherald.co.uk/news/business/worthing-restaurant-manager-hits-out-at-dog-meat-rumours-1-4212222

Worthing Herald [UK]

31 August 2012

Worthing restaurant manager hits out at dog meat rumours

A RESTAURANT manager in Worthing has quashed rumours that the food he serves is made using dog meat.

Simon Cheung manages Interwok, in Chapel Road, and has had people calling him and asking him if they have been closed down because of dog being found in their meals.

Mr Cheung said every time he asks one of his customers where they have heard this, they tell him through friends or on the internet. [...]

Camel Spiders

Rolling Stone, 21 September 1978, p. 44

Ethiopia After the Revolution

Vultures Return to the Land of Sheba

By Donald R. Katz

[...] An American mercenary, an old African hand, once told me that in Ethiopia there is a spider that eats only living flesh. It's called the camel spider and is equipped with a prong on its back that emits a local anaesthetic. He told me that at night the camel spider descends while you sleep, gives you a shot, and eats your lips. I slept with my hand over my mouth. [...]

Sleepers Will Die (India)

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/mischievous-phone-call-triggers-panic-in-parts-of-andhra-pradesh/1/214432.html

India Today

23 August 2012

Mischievous phone call triggers panic in parts of Andhra Pradesh

By A Srinivasa Rao

Hyderabad

At a time when rumours of attacks have triggered large scale exodus of North-Easterners from different parts of the country to their home states, a mischievous phone call kept thousands of people in several districts of Andhra Pradesh awake on Wednesday night.

The rumour was that anyone who slept in the night would die in their sleep and never wake up the next morning. This bizarre incident was witnessed not only in the rural parts of Anantapur, Nizamabad, Kurnool, Mahbubnagar, Medak and Ranga Reddy, but also in Old City of Hyderabad, where people came out of their houses and spent the whole night on the streets discussing about the mysterious phone call that forced them to undergo a sleepless night. [...]

http://twocircles.net/2012aug23/losing_sleep_over_rumors_hyderabad.html

TwoCircles.net [Cambridge, MA]

23 August 2012

Losing sleep over rumors in Hyderabad

By Mohd. Ismail Khan, TwoCircles.net

Hyderabad: Rumor rampage ones again stole away the sleep of Muslims in Hyderabad. Yesterday night when a rumor of girl born with ‘four hands and four legs’ and an illogical prediction made by her spread like a wild a fire in old city. According to the rumors a baby girl in Shaheen nagar area in the suburb of the city was born with pecuniary [sic -- bc] features, started speaking and gave a warning that every child from 1 to 11 years of age will die if he or she slept before 2:a.m in the night. [...]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/article3815185.ece

The Hindu [India]

24 August 2012

Rumours fly thick and fast

Asif Yar Khan

Panic prevailed in parts of the old city on Wednesday night after a rumour of possible death of children if they sleep in night started making rounds. Anxious parents woke up their children and rushed out of their houses to prevent them from sleeping. [...]

Carried away by the rumours a large crowd gathered near the St. Ann’s hospital, popularly known as ‘Gudi-ka-dawakhana’ in Jahanuma, after rumours of the girl who predicted it being admitted here. Driven by curiosity, hundreds of people gathered here leading to tension in the area. The handful of policemen who reached here faced tough time dispersing the public.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/nation/south/divine-baby-talk-makes-parents-keep-kids-awake-839

Deccan Chronicle [India]

24 August 2012

Divine baby talk makes parents keep kids awake

By Mohammed Shareef M.P. 

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/displayarticle.asp?xfile=data/international/2012/August/international_August813.xml&section=international&col=

Khaleej Times

25 August 2012

Newborn’s ‘warning’ sets off insomnia in Andhra Pradesh

P S Jayaram

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/infants-talk-triggers-coconut-smashing-ritual/285303-60-118.html

IBN Live [India]

27 August 2012

Infants talk triggers coconut smashing ritual

S Kaththasami | ENS

Rumours about a bad omen befalling new born babies prompted several parents to break coconuts at different places in the knit city of Tirupur on Friday hoping to ward off evil. [...]

Christians Crucified (Egypt)

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/08/22/jonathan-kay-how-egypts-crucifixion-hoax-became-a-classic-internet-urban-legend/

National Post [Toronto, Canada]

22 August 2012

Jonathan Kay: Egypt's "crucifixion" hoax becomes an instant Internet myth

Jonathan Kay

Have you heard the one about how Christians are being nailed up on crucifixes and left to die in front of the Egyptian presidential place? [palace -- bc] It's a story worth dissecting - not because it's true (it isn't), but because it is a textbook example of how the Internet, once thought to be the perfect medium of truth-seeking, has been hijacked by culture warriors to fire up the naive masses with lies and urban legends. [...]

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/08/24/jonathan-kay-more-on-the-debunked-egyptian-crucifixion-hoax-and-its-2009-precedent/

National Post [Toronto, Canada]

24 August 2012

Jonathan Kay: More on the debunked Egyptian ‘crucifixion’ hoax (and its 2009 precedent)

By Jonathan Kay

Earlier this week, I debunked the story -- spreading like wildfire on WorldNetDaily and other Internet sites -- that Christians were being crucified by the Muslim Brotherhood in front of Egypt’s presidential palace. As I noted, the story was based on nothing more than a social-media rumor that had been posted for a few minutes on the Web site of Sky News Arabic, before an alert Sky editor deleted it. [...]

Over the last day or so, I have had an ongoing email correspondence with Michael Carl, the WND reporter who wrote the crucifixion article. He tells me he is sticking by his story. When I asked him if he has “any information from any of the tens of thousands of people who would have seen an actual ‘crucifixion’ if one really did take place in front of the presidential palace,” he told me that he had. Tantalized, I pressed him for details. Alas, he refused to divulge any of the evidence to me -- or anyone else. If he did, he explained, the Muslim Brotherhood “would kill my sources.” And so ended our correspondence. [...]

Henna Use Leads to Infections, Death (India)

http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=772606

Outlook India

20 August 2012

Mehendi Induced Festive Paranoia Lands Girl in Hospital

PTI

A girl who applied mehendi on her hand on the occasion of Ramzan fainted on being told by some persons that she would get skin allergy and was hospitalised, where doctors dispelled her fears. [...]

http://truthdive.com/2012/08/21/yet-another-rumour-in-chennai-made-muslim-women-rush-towards-hospital.html

TruthDive

Yet another rumour in Chennai made Muslim women rush towards hospital

Posted by P Rajeshwari on August 21, 2012 in Chennai

Chennai, Aug 21 (TruthDive): The exodus of the N-E people that was undoubtedly caused by rumour-mongers who want to create panic in the minds of the people has not yet healed that, Muslim women and children in large numbers rushed to hospitals on Eid eve after rumors were spread that two women lost their lives after applying mehendhi on their hands and a girl lost her limbs. However police are looking for the person who sent a text message that went viral on Monday night. [...]

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/rumour-mills-target-women-doctors-say-henna-is-safe/283980-60-118.html

IBN Live [India]

21 August 2012

Rumour mills target women, doctors say henna is safe

[...] Hundreds of women thronged various hospitals in Chennai, Vellore, Coimbatore and many other places in the State in the wee hours of Monday after rumours spread that mehendi, which they applied on their body on the festival day, has led to the death of two persons in Bangalore. [...]

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/tn-midnight-mehendi-rush-at-hospitals/283991-60-120.html

IBN Live [India]

21 August 2012

TN: Midnight mehendi rush at hospitals

The mehendi rumours that did the rounds on Sunday night left scores of women thronging government hospitals across the State. [...]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Rumours-over-mehendi-create-panic-in-Chennai/articleshow/15578887.cms

Times of India

21 August 2012

Rumours over mehendi create panic in Chennai

CHENNAI: Hundreds of Muslim women and children flocked to hospitals late on Eid eve after rumours spread that two women had died after applying mehendi on their hands and a girl had lost her limbs. Police are on the lookout for the person, who sent a text message that went viral on Monday night

Muslim women wear mehendi during Eid. Several government hospitals received women and children with mehendi on their hands, with complaints of itching and irritation after they heard the rumours. Doctors said many of them were because of psychological reasons.

The mischievous text went like this: "A girl applied Mehandi (sic) called red cone ... her hands and legs got infected, so doctors suggested to cut off her hands and legs..." Police and doctors said the message was totally baseless and intended to create panic among people. [...]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article3800211.ece

The Hindu [India]

20 August 2012

Mehndi rumour has police on tenterhooks

S. Vijay Kumar

Arita Sarkar

[...] “The message actually emanated from Facebook and spread via chain-mails and SMS. It stated that a girl who used one particular brand of cone mehndi had developed serious skin allergy, which resulted in her death. There was another SMS which said four people had died in Bangalore. This is completely baseless…we have identified one mobile number involved in the rumour. The Cyber Crime Police have been entrusted with the probe,” a top police official told The Hindu. [...]

Poisoned Milk (India)

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mangalore/Rumours-of-adulterated-Nandini-milk-causes-panic/articleshow/15568670.cms

Times of India

20 August 2012

Rumours of adulterated Nandini milk causes panic

Jaideep Shenoy, TNN

MANGALORE: After preying on the battered psyche of students from the North-East, rumour mongers had a field day targeting consumers of Nandini milk processed and marketed by Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd (DKMUL) on Monday. A rumour that Nandini milk delivered to agents across Dakshina Kannada and neighbouring Kasargod was adulterated (read poisoned) that spread as wildfire was enough to cause panic. [...]

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/273046/rumours-poison-milk-trigger-panic.html

Deccan Herald [India]

20 August 2012

Rumours of poison in milk trigger panic in M’lore

Mangalore: DH News Service

Rumours of poison in Nandini milk triggered panic in the coastal district on Monday. People woke up to phone calls from friends and relatives and news on the television that their milk was poisoned.

Initially rumours spread via SMSes that some people had died and a few more were hospitalised after consuming Nandini milk in various parts of Dakshina Kannada. [...]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bangalore/Rumours-of-poisoned-milk-and-toxic-henna-rock-state/articleshow/15578728.cms

Times of India

21 August 2012

Rumours of poisoned milk and toxic henna rock state

TNN

[...] In Chikmagalur town, a vehicle went around the streets with a microphone asking people not to buy milk, vegetables, curds, mehndi or perfume, saying they had been laced with poison. According to witnesses, the announcement was made in Urdu and in Kannada.

Chikmagalur district police chief Shashi Kumar said some mosques in Chikmagalur asked the community members to be cautious while using mehndi and perfume, but did not include milk, curd or vegetables in the list.

Bob Dylan on Columbia Records

Rolling Stone, 10 February 1977, pp. 68, 70

Backstage at the Creation

By Al Kooper with Ben Edmonds

[In this excerpt from Kooper's memoir, Backstage Passes (Stein & Day, 1977), he recounts an incident that occurred during Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde recording sessions.]

I was sitting in the control booth while Dylan was in the studio unmoving, writing again. Al Grossman had made a habit of pitching quarters into the soundproofed ceiling, and now everyone was doing it. I just knew when we left town, some engineer was gonna turn up a bass track all the way and all them fuckin' quarters was gonna rain down on the control room like a Las Vegas jackpot.

Anyway, me and Grossman and Johnston are pitchin' quarters, and this local newspaperman had somehow got in. He was in there about an hour and a half just staring at the motionless Dylan through the glass when he finally said, "Damn! What's he on, anyhow?"

Grossman, not wanting the facts to get distorted in this guy's potential scoop, tells him, "Columbia Records, sir." The guy is ushered out shortly thereafter.

[In Kooper's liner notes to No Direction Home (Columbia Records, 2005), a collection of Dylan outtakes, demos, and live versions, he claims the obtuse journalist made two visits:]

Bob would arrive, go to the piano in the studio and start changing a lyric. Sometimes he would be in there for four or five hour stretches. The band took it in good humor and played pool and ping pong, watched TV and catnapped. One night a journalist somehow slipped in with a friend and was asked to come back later as Bob was writing. He returned four hours later and Bob appeared to be in the exact same position at the piano as when the journalist was originally expelled.

"Man...what is he ON?" the reporter asked no one in particular in a loud voice.

"Columbia Records," Albert Grossman, Bob's manager, replied as he showed the gentleman to the door (p. 42).

Graham Greene's Waiter

Graham Greene, Yours etc. Letters to the Press, Christopher Hawtree, ed. (London: Reinhardt Books, 1989), p. 8.

News Chronicle/15 March 1948

Incident in Prague

-- I have received a press cutting of 'John Bouverie's Journal'

for 27 February and for pure curiosity I should like to know

whether this Journal comes under the heading of fiction [the

story also appeared in the Daily Herald's 'Chanticleer'

column]. Under the heading Czech-mate there is a paragraph

dealing with me of which the only accurate statement is that

I happened to be staying in the Alcron Hotel. As far as I know

the Alcron did not pass from private into public ownership, I

am certainly unaware of ever having been served by a

Communist waiter who had been appointed national

administrator, and I was not lecturing for the British Council.

Do satisfy my curiosity about this Journal.

Bouverie had written, 'A guest in Prague's most ambitious hotel, the Alcron, when it passed yesterday from private into public ownership, was novelist Graham Greene, who is in Prague at the moment to lecture for the British Council. He looked for  his Communist waiter. He had been appointed national administrator.'

Rock Music & Unwed Mothers

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AJguAAAAIBAJ&sjid=nqEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3375,332568&dq=boykin+pregnant+984+pregnant+music&hl=en

The Montreal Gazette, 2 December 1975, p. 21

Rock music damned for 'appeal to flesh'

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Damning rock music for it's "appeal to the flesh," a Baptist church here has begun a campaign to put the torch to records by Elton John, the Rolling Stones and other rock stars.

About $2,200 worth of records were tossed into a bonfire this week after church officials labelled the music immoral.

Rev. Charles Boykin, associate pastor and youth director at the Lakewood Baptist Church, said he has seen statistics which show that "of 1,000 girls who became pregnant out of wedlock, 984 committed fornication while rock music was being played."

He could not, however, remember the source of the statistics. [...]

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19751205&id=A5guAAAAIBAJ&sjid=nqEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2959,1207873

The Montreal Gazette, 5 December 1975, p. 39

Syncopated sinners beware: It's that old devil rock music

By Mike Royko

Chicago Daily News

[...] I decided to get further details from Rev. Boykin. I phoned him and we had the following interview:

Where did that statistic come from, the one about all those girls getting pregnant while listening to rock music?

"I want to be accurate, so let me correct you. They didn't all listen to it DURING the sex act. I was speaking of listening to it as a prelude to fornication, as well as during."

I see. But rock music was involved in all but 14 pregnancies out of 1,000 cases?

"That's right. It was sort of like a Gallup Poll of unwed mothers."

And who provided the statistics?

"This man. He's from West Virginia. He stopped in our church one day and gave us the statistics."

He's a professional poll taker?

"Uh, no. He's an evangelist. He travels all the time." [...]

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19751208&id=y_EvAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Sl8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6430,6787826

St. Petersburg Times [FL], 8 December 1975, p. B1

A presentation against rock music has brought more fame than flame

Dudley Clendinen

TALLAHASSEE -- Brother Charlie Boykin is an earnest young man under fire, and he sure hopes that his spiritual brother, Bob Combe, of the Hyles-Anderson College in Hammond, Indiana, can locate the source of those figures for him. [...]

Brother Charlie has telephoned twice out to Hammond, India to ask about it. The first time, Brother Bob said he couldn't exactly remember where they'd come from, he'd have to look through his files. The second time, Brother Bob had gone off to deliver The Message, and Brother Charlie hopes he gets back soon, and finds the source of those figures for him.

Brother Charlie wishes everyone hadn't picked up so hard on the figures to begin with. "That's not our main argument," he says again, so you'll understand. [...]

But people are after him about those figures, and if he's going to be giving the Presentation again, Brother Charlie wants to be able to quote the source, because a lot of people don't believe he knew what he was talking about when he said it.

"Of 1,000 girls who became pregnant out of wedlock, 984 committed fornication while Rock music was being played." That was what Brother Charlie said as part of his Presentation. It was after that the kids at Lakewood Baptist Church decided to burn their Rock records. [...]

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=HnZfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ci8MAAAAIBAJ&pg=5784,3364683&dq=boykin+pregnant+984+pregnant+music&hl=en

Lewiston Morning Tribune, 11 December 1975, p. 6A

Minister links music immorality

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (UPI) -- [...] The 25-year-old minister has studied effects of pop music on youths for almost four years and says his survey of high schools in north Florida supports a 1968 poll which he says revealed that 984 out of a sampling of 1,000 girls who became pregnant out of wedlock were listening to rock music during fornication. [...]

Rolling Stone, 12 February 1976, p. 15

Fahrenheit 250: Florida Minister, Flock, Fire Rock

By Michael Bane

[...] What's wrong with [those records], according to Brother Charlie, is their appeal to the flesh; a sensuous, slithering quality that apparently sends youngsters scrambling for the bedroom. In fact, he adds, of 1000 girls who became pregnant out of wedlock, 984 committed fornication while rock music was being played. Brother Charlie cites a 1968 issue of Time magazine as his source, but neither the magazine nor Frank Garlock, the Bob Jones University teacher who inspired Brother Charlie while he was still a student at Tennessee Temple College in Chattanooga, can document the elusive reference. "I never heard of it before," says Garlock over the telephone, gently but firmly extricating himself from the ministry of Charlie Boykin. "I try to steer away from sensational things like that statistic." [...]

Linda Martin and Kerry Segrave, Anti-Rock: The Opposition to Rock 'n' Roll (Da Capo Press, 1993), p. 284.

Perhaps, however, Boykin got the pregnancy theory, if not the actual statistics, from the Population Institute in New York City. In 1975 this organization felt there was a link between rock lyrics and the rise in the number of unwed mothers. The institute started a project to "raise the consciousness of the record industry" even though they admitted there was "no statistical evidence linking any one song to the sharp increase in the number of U.S. teenagers having pregnancies outside wedlock."

http://newspaperarchive.com/lowell-sun/1975-04-15/page-27/

Lowell Sun [MA], 15 April 1975, p. 27

Campaign underway to clean up some rock lyrics

By David T. Cook

Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON -- A campaign has begun to clean up the lyrics of popular songs that glorify childbearing outside a formal family setting to a largely teen-age audience.

More responsible rock record lyrics could play a part in solving the rapidly rising number of unmarried teen-age mothers, some population experts say.

The Population Institute, a New York City-based organization supplying information on population matters recently started a three-year project to "raise the consciousness of the record industry," says Norman Fleishman, West Coast director of the Institute.

The Population Institute admits that it has no statistical evidence linking any one song to the sharp increase in the number of U.S. teenagers having pregnancies outside of wedlock. [...]

Tunnels Under North Bend, Oregon

http://theworldlink.com/news/local/what-s-going-on-under-north-bend/article_af6b1714-e0b9-11e1-a59d-001a4bcf887a.html

The World [Coos Bay, OR]

7 August 2012

What’s going on ‘under’ North Bend?

Is there really a secret tunnel system? What is the city finding?

By Jessie Higgins

NORTH BEND -- Imagine downtown North Bend around 1910: Wooden planks lined Sherman Avenue, horses and horseless carriages shared the streets and upstairs from the saloon that is now Roger's Zoo was a brothel.

Legend has it, a tunnel ran from the saloon’s basement beneath Sherman and connected with the Humbolt Building. That way, men could enter the whorehouse discretely. [...]

Deadly Oranges (Nigeria)

http://dailytimes.com.ng/article/lagos-police-debunk-rumours-deadly-oranges

Daily Times [Nigeria]

6 August 2012

Lagos Police debunk rumours of deadly oranges

Spokesperson warns residents against spreading panic

By Patience Ogbo

The Lagos State Police Command has debunked claims that 13 persons died in the state after taking oranges.

A statement released by the Command on Sunday, and signed by its spokesperson, Ngozi Braide, described the news making the rounds on social networks as false.

"The Commissioner of Police considers this rumour false, as none of the Divisional or Area Command Headquarters in Lagos have received any complaint with regards to such, from the public," the statement read.

The news about deadly oranges led to some apprehension in the state, with the information warning people to stay away from oranges.

One of such information being passed round says: "Please stop taking orange! The Nigeria Police has announced this morning that they have confirmed 13 people dead in Lagos, and the orange is spreading faster. Please inform others. Send this to all your friends and family if you love them." [...]