SAN DIEGO (TNA) – During his 63 years on planet Earth, songwriter Clarence Reid has made a clean living writing songs like “Clean Up Woman” for soul singer Betty Wright and “Sound Your Funky Horn” for K.C. and the Sunshine Band.
Cynthia Plaster Caster: Naughty American
SAN DIEGO (TNA) -- You’ve heard the phrase, “Do what you love and fame and fortune will follow”? In the case of Cynthia Plaster Caster, it was more like, Do who you love.
SAN DIEGO (TNA) – If someone’s got a raw, uncanny talent that’s recognized by the masses, does it give him carte blanche? The ability to be a rebellious, wandering gypsy who makes up his own rules and disregards any and all other agendas?That would be a...
SAN DIEGO (TNA) – Ron LeFlore is the luckiest son of a bitch who ever lived, that rare figure in American history who got a mulligan with their life – a complete do-over. It’s as if the Creator saw him throwing his life away so spectacularly and blessed him for it. How else can...
‘Pot Culture’ Is Now Pop Culture
BROOKLYN, N.Y. (TNA) – In 1967, an era creaking under the burden of race riots, assassinations, an imminent war and the first inklings of hippie culture, you’d have to be high to sing the indelible classic ballad “What A Wonderful World” and mean it, right?It may...
‘Soapy’ Smith: Naughty American
SAN DIEGO (TNA) – What kind of Naughty American gives away money to both build town churches and bury penniless prostitutes? The same kind that raises money for charity by swindling people at three-card monte and shell games.
SAN DIEGO (TNA) – Nearly 70 years before Madonna published “Sex” in 1992, a vaudeville performer named Mary Jane West produced a raunchy little play by the same name. The original “Sex,” which ran in New York City in 1926, got its producer arrested, convicted, and...
Prankster Teaches Tricks Of The Trade
BOSTON (TNA) – Forget about teaching America’s youth the A-B-Cs and 1-2-3s. A comedian who hoodwinked the wholesome retailers of Wal-Mart into selling him porn is on a mission to tutor our nation’s future on how to pull
Chute Find Rekindles D.B. Cooper Legend
AMBOY, Wash. (AP) -- A tattered, half-buried parachute unearthed by kids had D.B. Cooper country chattering Wednesday over the fate of the skyjacker, who leaped from a plane 36 years ago and into the...
SAN DIEGO (TNA) – Chet Baker wasn’t the best trumpet player ever to play jazz. Great as he was, he can’t even wipe the asses of Louie Armstrong and Miles Davis.But he was good enough to become internationally recognized for his music, and will forever be make-out music...
Asylum's Renaming Insults Advocates
WESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- It's an intriguing and provocative name that translates to Web hits, phone calls and tour tickets: the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.
It Pays to Play Nice, Harvard Study Says
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Screaming sports coaches and cutthroat tycoons have it wrong: Nice guys do finish first, a new study suggests.The Harvard University study involved 100 Boston-area college students playing the same game over and over -- a punishment-heavy version of the classic...
Buddy Cianci: Naughty American
SAN DIEGO (TNA) – When the sitting mayor – a former organized crime prosecutor – is found to have a weakness for women, booze, kidnapping, and racketeering, you know you have a character on your hands.
Study: Hazing Still A Problem On Campus
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- Virtually every college bans hazing, but more than half of college students belonging to
`Redneck Shop' Creates Dispute In S.C.
LAURENS, S.C. (AP) -- A black civil rights activist is fighting to close a store that sells KKK robes and T-shirts emblazoned with racial slurs. David Kennedy is confident he can make it happen. After all, he says he owns the building.
Spymaster Would Allow Peek Under Cloak
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The professionally coy American intelligence agencies may be getting ready to show a little ankle.A top intelligence official says he wants to pull back the curtain of secrecy to let Americans see more clearly what it is intelligence agencies do, and how they do...
Cattle Rustlers Still Thriving Out West
BUHL, Idaho (AP) -- Two guys and a four-door sedan.That's all it took for cattle rustlers to relieve dairy owner Pete Wiersma of three valuable calves.Once the province of outlaws and the bane of hardscrabble ranchers who grazed their cattle on the open range, cattle rustling...
Network Apologizes For Mocking Athol
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) -- A cable sports network says it no longer will make Athol the butt of its jokes. Comcast SportsNet said Thursday it would pull a newspaper ad that leaders of the small central Massachusetts town called insulting and offensive.The ad featured two side-by-side...
No Swearing In South Pasadena This Week
SOUTH PASADENA, Calif. (AP) -- What the @$%#? This community on the edge of Los Angeles has become a cuss-free zone.
Oakland School Turns Out Pot Club Pros
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- You know you're in a different kind of college when a teaching assistant sets five marijuana plants down in the middle of a lab and no one blinks a bloodshot eye.
Charlie Parker: Naughty American
SAN DIEGO (TNA) – It is quite possible that Charlie Parker has influenced more people to engage in naughty behavior than anyone else in the 20th century.
US Reveals Secrets Of National Seal
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Conspiracy theorists take note: The myths surrounding one of America's oldest and most enduring national symbols are about to be debunked ... if you believe the government, that is.
Ban Sought On Novelty Lighters
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- The cartoonish plastic frog with bulging eyes could be a children's toy -- but for the torch-like flame that bursts from the novelty lighter's head.
Web TV Spoof Features The Homeless
DENVER (AP) -- A dirty, disheveled Keith Peeler had been living on the streets for nearly a year when a crew of 20-somethings with cameras jumped out of a van and headed straight for him. Some of Peeler's homeless buddies wanted to run.But the young people had an offer: $10 a day,...
SAN DIEGO (TNA) – In the 1960s, when stand-up comics were entertaining clubs with acts about family life and politics, Lenny Bruce stepped up to the mic and joined in, only his shtick elicited more than laughter. The obscenity-laced routines that poured from his mouth jolted audiences,...
Snipes Trial Offers IRS Perfect Script
OCALA, Fla. (AP) -- Even Hollywood couldn't have written a more ideal script for the Internal Revenue Service than actor Wesley Snipes' tax-fraud trial.At a time when millions of Americans are buckling down to prepare their taxes, Snipes is being cast as a villainous example of...
Therapists Say Stop 'Diagnosing' Britney
NEW YORK (AP) -- You wouldn't think a pop culture diva like Britney Spears would exactly fit into the usual fare on discussion at the annual winter conference of the American Psychoanalytic Association.But last week, on the sidelines of the gathering of hundreds of analysts from...
HOUSTON (AP) -- Maria didn't mean to poison her children. Quite the opposite. Worried about her daughters' lack of appetite, the young Houston mother was merely following her grandmother's advice when she gave the two girls and a niece a dose of "greta" -- a Mexican folk...
Unfriendly Fire: Activists Spar Over War On Drugs
MEDFORD, Mass. (TNA) – On the surface, one would expect Barry Cooper and Jack Cole to get along just fine. They certainly have enough in common.
Legal Aid Programs Spend Money On Perks
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Legal aid programs serving poor people spent federal money on booze, interest-free loans for staff, late charges on overdue bills and even lobby registration fees.The parent organization that distributes grants to programs in all 50 states, Legal Services Corp.,...
