Phyllis Diller to receive Lifetime Award from her hometown

Posted: May 15, 2012 7:07 PM EDT
Updated: May 15, 2012 7:07 PM EDT

(WOIO) -

After 57 years of making the world laugh, trailblazing comedienne, actress and artist Phyllis Diller finally gets her due. The Northwest Ohio Independent Film Festival, based out of Diller's birthplace of Lima, Ohio will present its first ever Lifetime Achievement Award at the comedienne's Los Angeles home in June, two weeks before its Opening Night Gala.

The 2012 Festival will take place July 6-8, 2012 primarily at the Veteran's Memorial Civic and Convention Center.

Diller attended Lima's Central High School, before attending Sherwood Music Conservatory in Chicago and Bluffton College in Bluffton, Ohio, where she met fellow "Lima-ite" and classmate Hugh Downs.

The 94-year-old Diller, best known for her quick one-liners, cigarette holder, and unmistakable laugh started out during the Eisenhower years, when mainstream female comics were few and far between. After an infamous stint as a contestant on Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life, the then 37-year-old housewife worked her first set at San Francisco's Purple Onion on March 7, 1955 - and remained there for 87 straight weeks.

[Northeast Ohio (Cleveland)] Superstar Bob Hope caught her act and became Hope's unofficial protégée, adopting his rapid-fire delivery for her own comedy. Coupled with Diller's common theme of the [humorously] angry and frustrated housewife in her act, her fame rose to unprecedented heights and broke down many barriers for female comedians.

She travelled with Bob Hope during the height of the Vietnam War to the region to perform with him in 1966 with his USO troupe. Her barrage of one-liners about the frustrations of being female in a domestically demanding culture was identified through her "husband," Fang - the catchall name for the men who had disappointed Diller, and for underachieving husbands everywhere.

Comic icons like Joan Rivers explained how radical Diller actually was: "She was the first one that there was such rage and such anger in her comedy. She had the anger that is now in all of us. And that's what made it so funny, because she spoke for all these women that were sitting home with five children and a husband that didn't work."

Diller appeared regularly in the 1960s as a special guest on many television programs including What's My Line? and Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Diller has several film credits to her name, including a cameo appearance as Texas Guinan, the wisecracking nightclub hostess in the 1961 film Splendor in the Grass and provided the vocals for the Queen in Disney/Pixar's animated movie A Bug's Life. [Plus several pix with Bob Hope.]

Diller also starred in two short-lived TV series: the half-hour sitcom The Pruitts of Southampton (later retitled The Phyllis Diller Show) on ABC from 1966–1967, and the variety show The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show on NBC in 1968.

She also guest starred [more recently] alongside William Shatner in an episode of Boston Legal and provided the voice work as Peter Griffin's mother, Thelma on Fox's hit show, Family Guy. Her most recent television appearance was a January, 2011 episode of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 as part of a panel of comedians.

"Phyllis Diller is from Lima, and it would be a major oversight and insult to her efforts if we did not do our best to recognize her achievements," says Festival Executive Director, Len Archibald. "Not only as a comedian, but as an [extraordinary and legendary] artist who defied expectations regarding the perception of what women were capable of."

Archibald will make the trip to Diller's home to shoot a video presentation of Diller's acceptance of the Lifetime Achievement Award to be screened in its entirety during the Festival's Awards Gala at City Club on July 8.

He promises Diller's involvement in the Festival's second year will be the first of several celebrities who will help attract international attention to the event, which debuted in Van Wert during the summer of 2011.

"We are tremendously honored and excited that Ms. Diller has accepted our award. I hope this will open the eyes of the community so everyone understands just how many artists hail from Northwest Ohio. This will also serve as an example for future artists that you can be from anywhere in the world and still make your mark."

What: The Northwest Ohio Independent Film Festival
Where: Veterans Memorial Civic and Convention Center / 7 Town Square/ Lima, Ohio / 45801
When: Friday, July 6 to Sunday, July 8, 2012.

Tickets and passes are on sale now through the Civic Center Box Office and the Festival's website, www.nwoff.org. Single-event tickets start at $5 with specified events free to high school students. For more information, please visit www.nwoff.org or contact Executive Director Len Archibald by calling 419-979-9692.

Copyright 2012 WOIO. All rights reserved.

[edit additions/clarifications_Neale Sourna]

Living Character, choices: Janitor Turned Owner Rescues Failing Ohio Factory

When writing character or needing a plot, how about this one from "real" life?_Neale Sourna
==========
By Aaron Task | Driven – [video]

Tony Lee always dreamed of owning his own business and sending his kids to college. Today, he's co-owner of Ring Masters, a company that makes engine rings for industrial use, and his daughter is heading to college next fall. Tony is hoping she'll be the first college graduate in the family.

Tony has achieved some of the biggest goals he set out for himself and his family, which are impressive, given he grew up in a low-income neighborhood with limited opportunities and never went to college. But what's even more inspiring is Tony Lee's journey to get there.

After leaving the Army in 1997, and a short stint at American Steel, Tony took the only decent job he could find. Tony accepted a janitorial job at an Eaton Corp. factory in Massillon, Ohio in the heart of the rust belt. Like a lot of U.S. manufacturing centers, Massillon has suffered from closed factories and thousands of lost jobs. Tony was grateful for the opportunity and made the most of it, rising from janitor to foreman in four years.

But Tony was just getting started.

In 2002, Eaton started shutting down divisions of the factory, one by one. Soon over 1000 workers were down to just 35 in Tony's division, which was slated to be closed at the end of 2002.

But Tony refused to let the factory die. He spent hours at night in the local public library studying. Despite never going to college, much less business school, Tony wrote a business plan detailing how his factory could survive and prosper.

Against all odds, he convinced a group of investors to buy the factory and keep it running. Members of the investor group and Tony's co-workers all say they were inspired by Tony's leadership, passion for the business and drive to keep it alive. Everyone, it seemed, was rooting for Tony to succeed.

But there was one big catch: The investors wanted Tony to have some "skin in the game," so he had to raise $25,000 to purchase a stake in the factory.

For Tony, this was just one more obstacle to overcome. After taking a second mortgage on his house, selling his motorcycle and literally scrounging for loose change, Tony had the money and was in on the deal. Actually he was "all in;" failure was not an option for Tony.

Now, 9 years later, Ring Masters is a thriving business with over $4 million in annual sales. From 15 workers at the start, the company now has over 20 employees, a growing list of clients and plans for further expansion.

Tony says he's recouped his $25,000 investment "several times over" and is now a co-owner of a growing business. For anyone who's ever thought 'I can run the company better than my boss', Tony Lee is an inspiration. And he's still inspiring his co-workers and employees by working side-by-side with them on the factory floor. Tony says he "leads by example" and would never ask an employee to do a job he wasn't willing to do.

Tony has already beaten the odds and accomplished more than most people would even dare to attempt. Yet Tony is still driven to reach his ultimate goal of owning several businesses.

RingMasters is a "stepping stone", Tony says. Given his track record so far, there's no reach to doubt he'll reach his ultimate goal.

###

The Driven Team is on a nationwide search for the next entrepreneur to be featured in an upcoming episode! Share your story with us at Driven@yahoo-inc.com or follow us on twitter @aarontask #drivenstories.

VOTE "NO" on Issue 56_To re-add unattended, illegally parked traffic camera$ in Garfield Heights, Ohio_Fall 2011

[CLICK on Title Above for more information]
VOTE "NO" on Issue 56_To re-add unattended, illegally parked traffic camera$.

Traffic Cam$ gouge the citizens and insults us all.

Kids aren't being run over all day, or it'd make the news, people.

The City of Garfield Heights, Ohio, needs cash but not out of our own pockets just for seconds of passing an illegally parked, abandoned (no cop or traffic maid inside) commercial traffic trap.

We can sell the methane the city generates 24-7 not $100 tickets out of the blue, mailed to you for an offense no cop saw.

---

This is what the Arizona traffic cam company had them mail to the Citizens of Garfield HTS OH. More info and our opinions or PDF version

Voter Suppression in Ohio_House Bill 194 by Sandra Williams, State Rep - Ohio

Background: House Bill 194 drastically changes the voting process in Ohio to make it harder^- to vote. This legislation will do the following:

· Eliminate the "Golden Week" of registering to vote and voting the same day

· Limit the early voting in person from 35 days to just 12 days.

· Reduce early voting by mail to just 2 weeks.

· Eliminate Sunday voting completely.

· Require that Saturday early voting hours end at 12 noon, no matter how large the county.

· Eliminate voting on the Friday, Saturday and Monday before the election, which is typically the busiest time for early voting.

· Prohibit the Board of Elections from mass mailing absentee ballot applications, used by large counties lessen election day lines

· Prohibit the Board of Elections from paying the return postage on an absentee ballot application, which puts an extra burden on the voter.

· Prevent local Boards of Elections from creating additional early voting locations without at least three board members agreeing.

· Removes the requirement that trained poll workers tell a voter if he or she are in the wrong precinct and that their vote would not count,

· Provisional ballots would require driver's license number, full social security number or State ID number,

· Eliminate the 10 days after a voting provisionally a voter has to prove his or her identity to the Board of Elections.

· Invalidates a vote even when intent is clear, for example: if a voter checks the box of their candidate and then proceeds to write the name of the candidate next to the box, their vote is not counted.

What this means to you: This legislation will undoubtedly lead to voter confusion and chaos on Election Day. House Bill 194 will make in harder and more inconvenient for seniors, working families, students and others to exercise their right to vote.

Hon. Sandra Williams, State Representative

Ohio House of Representatives, 77 South High ST FLR 10, Columbus OH 43215

DOWNLOAD 2011Fall_HB194_VoterSuppression.PDF with additional information

Call NOW 216-443-3231 to receive your Absentee Ballot Application from Cuyahoga County Voters Board

"WRITE your representative. SIGN a petition. Vote! I do."_Neale Sourna

The Good Old Days: Pre-Internet Sex—Prairie Family Whores

Two concepts that never mix quite properly in our mind’s eye are Sex and Old West. Think about those two things … together. You’re still inclined, or trained, well, we all are, to never really think of those two … together. Yeah, the men are aloof, tough and say “Yes, ma’am”; plus, the women are all either virgins—whether girls or women—or clean and happy whores.

But, then there’s human nature, reality, and taxes; more on these later.


[Good whore "Miss Kitty" with "friend"
Marshall Matt Dillon in TV's "Gunsmoke"]

Although I love his characters, American author Louis L’Amour (1908-88), king of the cowboy story, with his lone man against the elements and against other men (That’s gay!), and of course the one lone woman, in which he shows masculine, but gentlemanly interest.

She’s now a widow and clearly destined to be with “lone man,” after the book, while she’s presently living, uh, stranded on the prairie, alone, because her stupid and missing husband has actually gotten himself killed in an accident, after moving her out into the wide, flat nowhere, where any stray rapist male or wild animal (Hm, the same thing?) might….

Two sexless, American western frontier people, who are probably wearing out their wet, little fingers and hairy, hard palms far out of sight of violent but sexless L’Amour’s typewriter.

We’ve been encouraged by film and elementary history, but human nature negates our teachings. That long ago life was much less like sexless Gunsmoke and closer to “there’s sex in this story; but we don’t really dwell too much on it” with sweetie, white teen Natalie Wood being kidnapped, from the prairie, as a little girl (little sister in a pinafore Lana Wood) and sexed up by a “blue-eyed faux,” middle aged red Indian—.

“Oh, the mixing of the races and premature, not properly married under a Christian ceremony! Rescue her so we can humiliate her. But, at least she’s not preg—.” In John Ford’s The Searchers.


[Unknown Deadwood, Arizona prostitute]
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/sd-deadwoodpaintedladies.html]

Nope, those long ago days are closer to HBO’s Deadwood meets Little House; Bowdlerized, cleansed for youth fiction commerce and general-rated American entertainment; our descendants purifying the family links.

In 1865, newspaper editor Horace Greeley said, “Go West, young man,” and his words were a major drive for decades, along with found gold, silver, old growth timber, and the general advertising of adventuring, which sent men west.

And when these men got West, they discovered their cocks were hard, dry, and cuntless; since they’d left wives and girlfriends back East, because adventurin’ was man’s work (Fun!!!) or because they felt they hadn’t enough gold, silver, or whatever to afford a “good” woman, or any woman, as wife.

“Women are expensive, boy; but shore are convenien’, when the gonads get to achin’.”

So in a land filled with squaw rapists looking for white meat, enter adventurous women, desperate women, or women abandoned, or whatever. They came West, too.

Some “found men,” like a “good” woman should, to “take care of” them, way out in the middle of nowhere, far out on the scratchy, dusty, yards deep sod where stray, lonely men occasionally stop in for hospitality and a woman cooked meal….

John Ford again, with his half blind, eye patched view, and with a song and a passing of the jug, too. Or would that be a passing of the jugs.


[Actress Megan Fox as old west prostitute for film "Jonah Hex"
http://chud.com/articles/content_images/5/meganfoxjonahhex.jpg]

Well, think about all that western stuff in our heads and synthesize it with true human nature, and the cold reality of self- and family-interest/survival. What’s more important to them, raised on the Holy Bible, especially the mean Old Testament, which talked about a host protecting omnipotent Angels from violent and sexual men by pushing his own daughters out to these men, which he did. Gladly.

Yes, this is in the Old Testament and there’s a thing of ancient hospitality and a general disrespect in the Bible for sex-aged women, too; but that’s another comment.

What was more important to those in the Old West, because our grandparents spouted that same kind of reasoning, such as giving charity, but never accepting it.

Do you think these men ever wanted to suffer the humiliation of returning—unsuccessful and whipped—to their old eastern homes, as masculine failures? With their hand out for: charity, food, and a roof over their heads?

What wouldn’t they do to prevent that?

Greeley was a city guy, and probably never farmed a day in his life. Farming’s hard and weather erratic, cattle ranching, too; what is safely consistent are a man’s needs: drink, food, occupation, and women, well, something or someone in which to stick his cock.

Which makes him start to think and reason when his single friends come to his soddy house and eventually get around to asking, then begging, provided they’re nice and not overly violent enough to just take:

“Can I fuck your wife, please, please, please. I’d let you fuck my wife. How about the girl, she’s small; but at full woman’s price, a bargain.”

So, what’s more important to a husband and father, like that: not appearing to be or actually becoming a failure? Or their wife or daughter’s “purity,” “honor,” “innocence”?

“…pay your taxes, finally put down payment on that new plow blade.”

It’s a heartbreaking bit of reality, after all that virginity, Bible talk they were raised on, to find they’re not with fantasy King Solomon worshipping his fantasy woman but locked in the reality of what aloof, tough frontier men can really be like, when they’re cunt deprived, and you have a cunt.

And dad needs cash not grain, not cows, to pay the taxes, or the bank, or he loses everything.

“One hour with the girl.”

Or dad’s found that working a farm or ranch is harder than he thought, being a city kid, who “went West.”

“Forty-five minutes?”

Or he has done it before, but this isn’t lush Ohio with perfect farming land, this is cutting through yards of hard saw grass, pounded down by a few million years of tons of bison herds, before you can even get to the great farm land way beneath it. Oh, yeah, and the grasshoppers and locusts will eat all your grain you’re growing, so you have nothing to feed the cows or sell for cash.

“Fifteen minutes and I’ll marry her, if I get her with child.”

The frontier was a place where women died before their time, or prayed they would, because of the hard work, roving men, and bad birthing techniques, plus refusal of men to wear condoms (Just like many today! And those were the really thick kind then; but, that wasn’t the reason.).


[Old West prairie sod house family;
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Rawding_family_sod_house.jpg]

“Good” women, if they knew what they were for, would refuse to have condoms, or “French Letters,” in their presence because men only wore those with whores, and a “good” woman’s not a whore. Of course not, she’s a yearly baby making machine, who’ll be replaced with a new wife to tend all her kids she left behind, when her uterus explodes and bleeds her out dead.

Ick. But true.

“What did you say? How much you’ll pay me, f-for…?”

“Steve’s interested, too. And Whitey. You could make serious progress on that bull stud.”

And, not so suddenly, your fourteen or so aged daughter is old enough for marriage, which her wedding trousseau will cost you.

Or her whoring, which pays you.

But, gentle reader, don’t think of a fourteen or twelve year old in that time as a teenager or adolescent, because both terms in the manner in which we use them, as implying a time between childhood and adulthood, which is extended childhood not true adulthood, didn’t exist then.

You were a child; you were grown. Children in England, in the 1800s could give consent for sex and sell their bodies at age eight or (If luckier?) begin their work lives in general. At least this way, it stays in the family.

—Neale Sourna