Later this week, Michael Jackson will be here on the show. Obviously, Dave is joking. Dave looks over to our executive producer Barbara Gaines. "Did we call him?" Dave wants to know. Barbara confirms that we did. "We did?" cries an unbelieving Dave. "We did?" Apparently, we did. “Is the coming?” No.

It's hot as nuts outside today so we decided to play "The Late Show Slurpee Taste Test." We visit Rupert and Dave recaps the first week of the Slurpee machine. Last week at this time, Dave suggested to Rupert that he get himself a Slurpee machine for the Hello Deli, but Rupert "pooh-poohed" the idea. Isn't that right? Dave asks, "What did you do when I suggested a Slurpee machine?" Rupert says he didn't think it was that great of an idea. Dave corrects Rupert, "You pooh-poohed the idea. What did you do last week when I suggested that you should get a Slurpee machine?" This time Rupert answers correctly, "I pooh-poohed it, yeah."
What's Rupert selling the Slurpee for? "$2.95 . . . . plus tax." DOH! Why do store owners do that, charging a price like $2.95? I hate that. Shouldn't it cost $2.78 and with the tax it would come to a nice even $3.00. Wouldn't that make sense? And I hate it when you buy one item and it comes to $4.08 and you give them a ten. They'll ask with a sigh and an attitude, "Do you have 8 cents?" I want to scream at them, "YOU'RE THE ONE CHARGING $4.08! NOT ME!" Ah, don't get me started.
Dave notices Rupert has a new item for sale, it's the Rupert Jee Hello Deli coffee mug. What's that go for? "8 bucks." Dave brainstorms. "Hey, Rupert, for today only . . . (Rupert already doesn't like the idea) . . . buy a Slurpee and get a free mug." Rupert considers it and agrees under one condition, "For the show only." This special will only last the duration of the show. Deal.
Dave sends Rupert outside to find a contestant. Meanwhile, we have a show to put on.

There was a live shot of Michael Jackson's motorcade as he made it to the courthouse yesterday. We have a clip.
We see a long line of long black automobiles traveling to the courthouse. The news guy announces over the footage: "Michael Jackson makes his way to the courthouse in the long motorcade. Also on the way to the courthouse (cut to a city bus) is Tito. It is not known if his transfer ticket will still be valid after 4:00."
(I know that wasn't exactly the voice over lines, but it's the best I could do from memory.)

For my records only, following that last piece Dave places a pencil horizontally under his nose for an odd but amusing look. It's a clip like that . . . that 3 seconds of Dave with a pencil under his nose . . . that someone will be looking for 5 years from now. . . . and they'll need it immediately.

After the not guilty verdict, Michael Jackson sent out this message of thanks.

"Throughout this trial, questions have swirled surrounding Michael Jackson's sexuality. Well, Michael would like to assure the world he is all man. In fact, he's pleased to announce he has a new girlfriend. . . . Katie Holmes.
Michael Jackson - Just your regular skirt-chasin' hetero."

Back to Rupert's, we find him with contestant Katie Destafano of Nickelton, New Jersey outside Philadelphia. Ooh, near Atlantic City? She says it's not so near. Dave then mentions a slew of Jersey towns, hoping for a hit.
Trenton? - kinda near.
Bayonne? - never heard of it
Newark? - stopped there on her way to the show today
Elizabeth? - never heard
Jersey City? - never heard
Hoboken?

What does Katie do for a living? She works for the IRS. Uh oh. Dave suggests to Rupert, "Rupert, take the cash drawer and run!" What does she do there? She looks for fraudulent activity on tax returns.
"Ever see someone's name you know?" Katie says they aren't allowed to look at the names on the tax returns. I wished Dave asked it again anyway.

So let's get to the game. Two flavors; Cherry and Lemon-Lime. A blindfolded Katie will taste each, then determine which is the Cherry . . . . and which is the Lemon-Lime.
Katie tastes the first out of the Rupert Jee Hello Deli coffee mug, the cherry. She then tastes the second out of the Rupert Jee Hello Deli coffee mug, the lemon-lime. It is now time to guess. Katie says the first sip was . . . the Cherry. The second . . . the lemon-lime. Ding Ding Ding Ding. Katie Destafano is right! And what does she win? An autographed photo of our Late Show announcer Alan Kalter. And not only that, but Katie wins the chance to stick her head under Slurpee machine. She's a bit apprehensive, but knowing the world is watching, albeit a tiny tiny portion, she agrees to put her head under the Cherry Slurpee dispenser. With Rupert at the controls, the poor girl's mouth is overflowed with Cherry Slurpee. When all is said and done, Dave pleads to Rupert, "Please don't tell me you're going to charge her for that." Rupert, laughing on the outside, crying on the inside, says he won't. And that's how we play "The Late Show Slurpee Taste Test."

TOP TEN: Messages Left On Michael Jackson's Answering Machine #9. "Barbara Walters here. I'll double my interview offer and throw in a giraffe."
#5. "Happy Father's Day, from the lab where we artificially inseminated your sham wife." OUCH! Hey, if he doesn't like the messages, get rid of the message machine.
#2. "Tom Cruise here. I'm calling every person in America to tell them I'm in love with Katie Holmes."

DAN AYKROYD: He's about to celebrate the grand opening of House of Blues Atlantic City on July 8th-10th. He's currently on tour this summer with Jim Belushi performing the Blues Brothers act. Dan likes to drive from gig to gig, just like Chuck Berry. A while back, Chuck Berry performed at the Dallas House of Blues and his demands were simple. He shows up, gets something to eat, do the show, get paid with money in a bag, and after the show, no one follows him. Dan liked that. It's how he does it now.
Dan mentions appearing in the casinos in Robinsville, Mississippi. In Robinsville, in order to build a casino it has to be on the Mississippi River. So what they've done is cut a hole in the side of the River creating a 20-mile ditch. When it get right down to it, the casinos are built on the Mississippi Ditch. Business is bustling.

How did the Blues Brothers originate? Back in 1973, Dan loved the blues. John Belushi loved the heavy metal. Dan taught John all he knows about the blues and with the help of composer Howard Shore, they created the Blues Brothers. When they came to New York, they performed with Willie Nelson at the Lone Star Cafe.
I laughed when I heard him say the Lone Star Café. I remember going to the Lone Star many many years ago. Lots of country and western music. I think it was located one block away on 54th Street. It's been a long time since I've thought about the Lone Star.
And how long ago did the Blues Brothers movie come out? Steady now . . . 25 years ago. Yup, a quarter century.

Dan has a favorite John Belushi story. While filming the Blues Brothers, there was a chase scene where Dan and John and an entire police force drove wildly through an indoor mall. The filming was to be done at 3:00 AM. Unfortunately when the time came, John could not be found. Dan noticed an old beaten path with weeds all around leading up to a small house in the distance. Dan sensed John could be found there. So at 3:00 in the morning, Dan walks up to the house and knocks on the door. He introduces himself. A guy answers and says, "You looking for Belushi? He's inside. He raided my fridge and now he's asleep on the couch."

Dan loves the blues and it's his hope that his House of Blues brings the greats to the American people. We don't appreciate their greatness as much as we should. There's some fantastic music out there that we're missing. The House of Blues is where you can find it.
Dan finishes his segment with a song the Blues Brothers did, "Flip Flop and Fly."

BILL SCHEFT - He's a former writer for Late Night and the Late Show. He's now written a book, "The Best of The Show," a collection of his columns from "Sports Illustrated" magazine.
What's it like going from city to city doing a book tour? Scheft says it's more like going from bedroom to the living room to the phone. Most of his plugging is done by phone on the sports radio talk shows.
What's that like? Well, Bill has learned that nobody really wants to talk to you. What Bill often hears is the host saying, "OK, the phone lines are still open . . ." When someone does call, the host will ask, "Do you have a question for Bill Scheft?" More times than not the person will says something like, "No. GO GATORS!" Other times it's, "Do you have a question for Bill Scheft?" followed by, "No, but I would like to answer the trivia question." The caller will then say, "I believe that Americans eat more shrimp than tune." There will be a pause, then the host will say, "Martha, would you please say that again."
Martha: "I believe Americans eat more shrimp than tuna."
Host: "That's right! It just changed last year!"
It can get a bit frustrating.

Dave holds up the book, "The Best of The Show." On the cover is a caricature of Bill. Scheft is not too happy with the drawing, saying it looks like Dustin Hoffman after some bad shell fish. This is opposed to the caricature of Bill Scheft found in the Sports Illustrated. Here he looks like a guy who just hijacked a truck of cigarettes. Or the kind of guy who says, "Hey, let's get some who-errs."

Dave describes Scheft's "Sports Illustrated" column as "esoteric." The jokes and the references are pretty much way out there. Bill explains, "if you get 50% of the jokes, you're a border line obsessive sports fanatic in a bad marriage. If you get 75% of the jokes, you need to see a doctor." Bill himself admits he only gets about 75% of the jokes, and he writes them!
That's the thing about writing comedy: not everybody gets it. Bill says he once wrote a piece for "George" magazine. Everyone working at "George" at the time was a 23-year-old female who just finished flirting with JFK Jr. or was about to flirt with JFK Jr. He received a call from one of the 23-year-old fact checkers. "Hi, I'm DeeDee the fact checker. I need to run a few things by you . . . is it a known fact that John Hancock died without life insurance?" Bill had to explain to DeeDee that it was a joke, just a joke.

Something I didn't know about Bill; his uncle was Herbert Warren Wind, known by many as "the dean of American golf writers." Back in 1990, he couldn't go to the Masters golf tournament for the fist time. He ended up watching the tournament at Bill's house. Now there were two things you should know about Bill's uncle and the Masters: he hated the 17th hole, and he hated Verne Lundquist. So Bill and his uncle were seated in the living room watching the Masters and the commentators introduce themselves: "Hi, I'm Gary Concord at the 15th hole . . . Hi, I'm Ben Wright at 16. . . . Hi, I'm Verne Lundquist at 17." And Bill's Uncle Herbert yells at the TV set, "That's a good spot for you, Verne!"
"The Best of The Show" - in bookstores now. And when you pick up the book, check out the acknowledgement page. I'm in it! And my name is next to whose? Phil Mushnick. How great is that?!

ACT 5: It's a line of customers at Rupert's getting Slurpees in a mug. Wow, what acting! I hate acting.

MIKE DOUGHTY: From his new CD, "Haughty Melodic," Mike performed "Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well."
Oh, "Haughty Melodic" is pronounced "Hottie", like haughty with a Boston accent. Doughty, like Doe-tee. And the CD title, "Haughty Melodic" --- it's an anagram of Michael Doughty. How about that?

And that was our show for Tuesday, June 14, 2005. Wahoo EXTRA!

HEY HEY HEY!!! What's going on with the Google? On Van Gogh's birthday, the Google logo had a bunch of Van Gogh references on it. On some kind of water appreciation day, they had a bucket of water by the logo. And on Frank Lloyd Wright's birthday they had the Guggenheim Museum by the logo. On any special day, no matter how unspecial it is, Google adorns their logo with something connected to the day. So what did they have today on Flag Day? NOTHING! NOTHING AT ALL! Those damn Commies at Google! What's the matter with you? If you weren't such a good search engine, I would boycott you!

From the March 15th Wahoo Gazette:

"Is it me, or maybe it's because I live in the New York metro area . . . . . but is NBA Basketball on strike, too? Yiiieeee, talk about a non-season. Is anything happening?"

Last week I embarrassed myself by admitting I always misspoke when I would say "Beggars can't be choosey." I learned it was "beggars can't be choosers." Choosers, not choosey. I asked if you had some verbal gaffs you learned after many years. Paula Goff of Perkiomenville, Pennsylvania:

"Hi Bob. Well, of course I speak perfect English, but will rat on two people close to me. My ex likes to chuckle at the fact that one of my brothers says "supposably," instead of "supposedly," but the ex will not be deterred from saying "all the sudden" when he really should be saying "all of a sudden."

Lou Ferreri of Palm Harbor, Florida.

"Let's not forget Mike Tyson who once said after a loss, 'Now I can fade off to Bolivian.'"

"Hey Mike! I just recently read in a book the phrase 'for all intents and purposes' and realized that I have always thought it was 'for all intensive purposes.' I googled these phrases to find out that my mistake, according to a 'Common Errors in English' site is 'Another example of the oral transformation of language by people who don't read much.' That just about made my day!"

"Bob! Longtime reader, first time emailer. Re: beggers can't be choosey/play it by year. My mistake, and I had the joy of being corrected in a management meeting, was: for all intensive purposes. As opposed to the actual and correct: for all intents and purposes. I sort of like mine better, but, hey, I imagine all of us on the malaprop train are like that.

"You asked for examples of misunderstood sayings. Back in the early 1990s I had to travel a lot through the US with my boss. He was a walking treasure trove of verbal entanglements. Besides his constant use of "dramatic" (which he thought people were saying when they actually said "traumatic"), he had any number of other gems such as "through your good gracious" instead of "good graces", "hoover" instead of "hover", and my favorite -- he heard people referring to an advertising "blurb" and then went on to use it for years as "vlurp". He was the kind of boss who didn't accept corrections gracefully, so I just sat back and enjoyed watching business contacts try to figure out what he meant each time he'd talk about a "drama" or a "vlurp".

"Don't know if this is really significant, but hey, should fit fine in the Gazette (I like to greet people with an insult). Until recently, when called by a friend, I thought 'the carrot and the stick' referred to just a carrot on on end of a stick. Apparently it refers to that (as an incentive), and another stick with which to beat the animal. Embarrassing."

THIS DATE IN NHL HOCKEY HISTORY
JUNE 14, 1994: The New York Rangers defeat the Vancouver Canucks in Game 7 to win their first Stanley Cup championship in 54 years.
By special request, I was asked to do the following.

THIS DATE IN NHL HOCKEY HISTORY BONUS!
JUNE 14, 1994: The New York Rangers defeat the Vancouver Canucks in Game 7 to win their first Stanley Cup championship in 54 years.