TB-to-BT Too Bizarre to Be True

By Bill Russo

An interactive, arcane collection of aphorisms, pithy tales, and odd facts - mostly about the third planet from the sun and its strange inhabitants

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bill Russo
• Release date: Jul 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370780884

Bill Russo

Bill Russo had lived in an area of Massachusetts called the Bridgewater Triangle for many years and never knew that it was said to be inhabited by scary swamp creatures until he met one. It happened on a midnight walk. Years later, two film producers read his blog about it and featured him and his story in their documentary, The Bridgewater Triangle. He also was approached by Discovery channel producers and was featured in the opening segment of Monsters and Mysteries in America - Season two, Episode two. Among his work, are two anthologies featuring the Bridgewater Triangle Universe. One is strictly fiction and the other contains his account of meeting the swamp creature - plus other stories from New England. As a disc jockey, he was the first person to play and promote the trucking classic "Tombstone Every Mile". He counted as a friend, the first man to cross the musical color line, in a 1940s Jazz Band. The "Human Jukebox", who opened for both Elvis and Roy Orbison, was a neighbor of his. Stories of these and other artists are included in "Crossing the Musical Color Line". Bill's background for writing comes from a Boston education at the venerable white shirt & tie, Huntington School for Boys. He followed that up with a study of journalism, music, and broadcasting at the famed Kenmore Square institution, Grahm Jr. College, where he said he learned more about music from an African American gentleman who was the school's janitor, than he ever could in a classroom. He introduced me to Gloria Lynne, Bill said. Years after he learned of her, she had a mega hit with I Wish You Love. One of Grahm's well known graduates was performance artist Andy Kaufman who created his Taxi TV character Latka while at Grahm. Andy also claimed he learned Transcendental Meditation at Grahm, although it was not taught there. But who knows? It could be true. Bill Russo learned music from the Janitor. Maybe someone in bookkeeping was a guru and gave Andy the secrets of TM. At various times during his career, Russo was a New England Newspaper Editor, a Disc Jockey, and a Radio newswriter and newscaster for a number of stations. He also has had stints as an iron worker, and a low level manager for a major mail order clothing retailer. One of his favorite jobs was partnering with Bill Barry, the inventor of a jewelry polish called Clear Bright n Shiny. The 'Bills' as they called themselves toured New England selling...

Book preview

An interactive, arcane collection of aphorisms, pithy tales, and odd facts - mostly about the third planet from the sun and its strange inhabitants.

1: Cover photo: A sculpture in Vancouver B.C. Five full size cars layered on top of a 20 foot Cedar stump. Art by Marcus Bowcott. He capped his stack of progressively bigger autos by putting a Trans Am on the top. The Totem Pole is apparently a statement on the growth of Canada’s most densely populated area.

How’d that work out? The Titanic was the first ship to use the distress signal, S.O.S.

Kings of the WWE Ring: Wrestling’s Hall of Fame includes such stalwarts as Gorilla Monsoon, George the Animal Steele, Jake the Snake, Killer Kowalski and Donald Trump. In case you are wondering who in the name of Lynda Carter was ever beaten by the real estate mogul – the answer is he beat the guy who owns the whole game, Vincent McMahon Jr.

Trump was inducted into the ‘Hall’ in 2013 along with living legend Bruno Sammartino who wore the Champion’s Belt longer than any wrestler in the history of the promotion.

McMahon Junior took over his dad’s business many years ago, just like Trump took over his dad’s business many years ago.

Both men have done well and greatly expanded their ‘Papa’s’ businesses.

The moguls faced off in a WWE battle in which the loser agreed to have his head shaved bald on national TV. Stone Cold Steve Austin is hilarious to watch as he threatens to dismantle both tycoons! You can see 20 minutes worth of the fun by clicking the link: https://youtu.be/vVeVcVBW_CE

Odd facts about Hillary Clinton. She won a Grammy Award. The best spoken word album for 1996 was her own rendition of her book, It Takes a Village.

True or False? She never took Bill’s last name until seven years after her marriage. If you said false, you are wrong. When Bill was re-elected Governor of Arkansas she stopped being Hillary Rodham and became Hillary Clinton. Later she became known in the press as Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Ants and People Weigh the Same: It’s really true. If you add up the total weight of all the ants on earth and add the total weight of all the people on earth, the two amounts would be roughly equal. The reason for this is that there are 1.6 million ants for every person!

On the third planet from the sun there are 196 countries but only four of them have single-syllable names: France, Spain, Greece, and Chad. There used to be five when Rome was a country and the capital of the world. Today Rome is a city in Italy and is the only city on Planet Earth that has a country inside of it. The 110 acre nation called ‘Vatican City’ is the smallest country in the world.

The Italian city of Verona, the site of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, receives about 5,000 letters every year sent to Juliet. (Some are actually addressed to Juliet, Verona.) A team of volunteers reply to every letter offering advice on affairs of the heart! Ciao!

Ciao is an Italian word meaning both Hello and Goodbye. Other words that are both a greeting and a farewell include Aloha from Hawaii, Salut from France and Servus from Germany.

Actually the German word, and in fact all of the others, come from the Latin word servus (same spelling as the German usage). Servus in Latin means servant. Later the term meant at your service. Among the other words derived from the original Latin word is the word serf.

Some people wish that English had a term for both ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’: actually it does. It’s ‘Ciao’. The handy little word has been used so much that it has been adopted by many languages - in the same manner as you can sometimes hear speakers from such diverse nations as Brazil and Bulgaria insert the American word OK in the middle of conversations.

What is the name of the only city in the world that straddles two continents? - Istanbul in Turkey." The Strait of Bosphorus splits the city of 14 million people into a European Side and an Asian side.

Isntabul was once the mighty Constantinople. On the 500th anniversary of the fall of the city-state to the Ottomans, somebody wrote a song to commemorate the 1930 changing of the municipality’s name to Istanbul. The song was a giant hit for the four lads and a minor hit for ‘They Might be Giants’. Here’s the link to the Youtube ‘Gold Record’ version by the Four Lads; https://youtu.be/Wcze7EGorOk

Now here’s the connection to the more up-tempo take by They Might Be Giants. The group is most famous for singing Boss of Me, the theme song to Malcom in the Middle, which featured Bryan Cranston - most famous for Breaking Bad; https://youtu.be/vsQrKZcYtqg

Boss of Me was never a hit in the U.S. but reached number 21 in the U.K. and 29 in Australia. The group took its name They Might Be Giants from a 1971 film of that name starring Joanne Woodward and George C. Scott which in turn was lifted from Cervantes most famous work, when his Don Quixote mistakes windmills for giants.

His name was not Don! Quixote’s first name was actually Alonso. Rather than a person’s name, Don in Italy, Spain, Portugal and other countries is a title of honor bestowed for gentlemen of esteem or wealth.

In Italy the female equivalent is ‘donna’ and in Spain it is ‘dona’. The Spanish language calls for a punctuation mark over the n, called a tilde, which changes the pronunciation

of ‘dona’ to ‘don-ya’.

The malt beverage, Guinness Stout is brewed in over 50 countries around the world, and sold in more than 120. About three million quarts of Guinness are quaffed every day. Over 40 per cent is consumed in Africa, the site of three of the five company-owned brewing operations. Great Britain, however, is the largest Guinness customer, followed by Africa, and Ireland. The Guinness drinkers of the United States aren’t too far behind, ranking fifth on the list.

This information comes from a little side business of the beer company, called The Guinness Book of Records. The book itself is a record holder. It’s the best selling copyrighted book of all time! You might think I got this information from the Guinness Book of Records. You would be wrong – Wikipedia!

There are at least 8,000 man-made objects orbiting the Earth. Almost 2000 tons of