title: Fast radio burst

text: In October 2018, astronomers reported 19 more new non-repeating FRB bursts detected by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP). These included three with dispersion measure (DM) smaller than seen before : FRB 171020 (DM=114.1), FRB 171213 (DM=158.6), FRB 180212 (DM=167.5).


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 9 January 2019, astronomers announced the discovery of a second repeating FRB source, named FRB 180814, by CHIME. Six bursts were detected between August and October 2018, "consistent with originating from a single position on the sky". The detection was made during CHIME's pre-commissioning phase, during which it operated intermittently, suggesting a "substantial population of repeating FRBs", and that the new telescope would make more detections.


title: Fast radio burst

text: Some news media reporting of the discovery speculated that the repeating FRB could be evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, a possibility explored in relation to previous FRBs by some scientists, but not raised by the discoverers of FRB 180814.


title: Fast radio burst

text: FRB 180916, more formally FRB 180916.J0158+65, is a repeating FRB discovered by CHIME, that later studies found to have originated from a medium-sized spiral galaxy (SDSS J015800.28+654253.0) about 500 million light-years away – the closest FRB discovered to date. It is also the first FRB observed to have a regular periodicity. Bursts are clustered into a period of about four days, followed by a dormant period of about 12 days, for a total cycle length of days. Additional followup studies of the repeating FRB by the Swift XRT and UVOT instruments were reported on 4 February 2020; by the Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT) and Medicina Northern Cross Radio Telescope (MNC), on 17 February 2020; and, by the Galileo telescope in Asiago, also on 17 February 2020. Further observations were made by the Chandra X-ray Observatory on 3 and 18 December 2019, with no significant x-ray emissions detected at the FRB 180916 location, or from the host galaxy SDSS J015800.28+654253.0. On 6 April 2020, followup studies by the Global MASTER-Net were reported on The Astronomer's Telegram. On 25 August 2021, further observations were reported.


title: Fast radio burst

text: FRB 181112 was mysteriously unaffected after believed to have passed through the halo of an intervening galaxy.


title: Fast radio burst

text: FRB 180924 is the first non-repeating FRB to be traced to its source. The source is a galaxy 3.6 billion light-years away. The galaxy is nearly as large as the Milky Way and about 1000 times larger than the source galaxy of FRB 121102. While the latter is an active site of star formation and a likely place for magnetars, the source of FRB 180924 is an older and less active galaxy.


title: Fast radio burst

text: Because the FRB was nonrepeating, the astronomers had to scan large areas with the 36 telescopes of ASKAP. Once a signal was found, they used the Very Large Telescope, the Gemini Observatory in Chile, and the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to identify its host galaxy and determine its distance. Knowledge of the distance and source galaxy properties enables a study of the composition of the intergalactic medium.


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 28 June 2019, Russian astronomers reported the discovery of nine FRB events (FRB 121029, FRB 131030, FRB 140212, FRB 141216, FRB 151125.1, FRB 151125.2, FRB 160206, FRB 161202, FRB 180321), which include FRB 151125, the third repeating one ever detected, from the direction of the M 31 (Andromeda Galaxy) and M 33 (Triangulum Galaxy) galaxies during the analysis of archive data (July 2012 to December 2018) produced by the BSA/LPI large phased array radio telescope at the Pushchino Radio Astronomy Observatory.


title: Fast radio burst

text: FRB 190520 was observed by the FAST telescope and was localized using the realfast system at the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). Optical observations using the Palomar 200-inch Hale Telescope revealed a host dwarf galaxy at redshift z=0.241. This is the second FRB observed to have an associated Persistent Radio Source (PRS). The dispersion measure(DM) and rotation measure measurements reveals a very dense, magnetized and turbulent environment local to the source. In June 2022, astronomers reported that FRB 20190520B was found to be another repeating FRB.


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 2 July 2019, astronomers reported that FRB 190523, a non-repeating FRB, has been discovered and, notably, localized to a few-arcsecond region containing a single massive galaxy at a redshift of 0.66, nearly 8 billion light-years away from Earth.


title: Fast radio burst

text: In August 2019, the CHIME Fast Radio Burst Collaboration reported the detection of eight more "repeating" FRB signals.


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 13 July 2022, the discovery of an unusual FRB 20191221A detected by CHIME was reported. It is a multicomponent pulse (nine or more components) with peaks separated by 216.8ms and lasting an unusually long duration of three seconds. This is the first time such a periodic pulse was detected.


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 29 December 2019, Australian astronomers from the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (MOST), using the UTMOST fast radio burst equipment, reported the detection of FRB 191223 in the Octans constellation (RA = 20:34:14.14, DEC = -75:08:54.19).


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 31 December 2019, Australian astronomers, using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), reported the detection of FRB 191228 in the Piscis Austrinus constellation (RA = 22:57(2), DEC = -29:46(40)).


title: Fast radio burst

text: Fast repeating burst observations are reported in May 2021. In late February 2022, astronomers reported that M81, a grand design spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away, may be the source of FRB 20200120E, a repeating fast radio burst.


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 28 April 2020, astronomers at the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), reported the detection of a bright radio burst from the direction of the Galactic magnetar SGR 1935+2154 about 30,000 light years away in the Vulpecula constellation. The burst had a DM of 332.8 pc/cc. The STARE2 team independently detected the burst and reported that the burst had a fluence of >1.5 MJy ms, establishing the connection between this burst and FRBs at extragalactic distances. The burst was then referred to as FRB 200428. The detection is notable, as the STARE2 team claim it is the first ever FRB detected inside the Milky Way, and the first ever to be linked to a known source. That link strongly supports the idea that fast radio bursts emanate from magnetars.


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 24 September 2020, astronomers reported the detection of two new FRBs, FRB200914 and FRB200919, by the Parkes Radio Telescope. Upper limits on low-frequency emission from FRB 200914 were later reported by the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope project.


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 31 March 2021, the CHIME/FRB Collaboration reported the detection of FRB 20201124A and related multiple bursts within the week of 23 March 2021 — designated as 20210323A, 20210326A, 20210327A, 20210327B, 20210327C, and 20210328A — and later, likely 20210401A and 20210402A. Further related observations were reported by other astronomers on 6 April 2021, 7 April 2021, and many more as well, including an "extremely bright" pulse on 15 April 2021. Source localization improvements were reported on 3 May 2021. Even more observations were reported in May 2021, including "two bright bursts". On 3 June 2021, the SETI Institute announced detecting "a bright double-peaked radio burst" from FRB 201124A on 18 May 2021. Further observations were made by the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory on 28 July 2021 and 7 August 7, 2021 without detecting a source on either date. On 23 September 2021, 9 new bursts from FRB 20201124A were reported to have been observed with the Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope, followed by one CHIME observation, all after four months of no detections. In January and February 2022, further observations of new bursts from FRB 20201124A with the Westerbork-RT1 25-m telescope were also reported. In mid-March 2022, further observations of FRB 20201124 were reported. In September 2022, astronomers suggested that the repeating FRB 20201124A may originate from a magnetar/Be star binary.


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 2 and 3 April 2021, astronomers at the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) reported the detection of FRB 20210401A and 20210402A which were understood likely to be repetitions of FRB 20201124A, a repeating FRB with recent very high burst activity, that was reported earlier by the CHIME/FRB collaboration.


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 30 June 2021, astronomers at the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (UTMOST) detected FRB 210630A at the "likely" position of "RA = 17:23:07.4, DEC =+07:51:42, J2000".


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 15 December 2021, astronomers at the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory reported further observations of the "bright CHIME FRB 20211122A (event #202020046 T0: 2021-12-11T16:58:05.183768)".


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 14 April 2022, astronomers at Tianlai Cylinder Pathfinder Array (a radio interferometer located in Xinjiang, China, operated by the National Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC)) detected FRB 220414 (?) ("A bright burst was detected with a S/N~15 for ~2.2 ms duration at UT 17:26:40.368, April 14, 2022 (MJD 59684.06018945136)") located at "RA = 13h04m21s(\pm 2m12s), DEC = +48\deg18'05"(\pm 10'19")".


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 15 October 2022, astronomers at CHIME/FRB reported the detection of nine bursts in three days of FRB 20220912A. Since later bursts observed between 15 October 2022 and 29 October 2022 by the CHIME/FRB collaboration, astronomers, afterwards, at the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), on 1 November 2022, reported eight more bursts from FRB 20220912A. ATA coordinates were first set to the original settings (23h09m05.49s + 48d42m25.6s) and then later to the newly updated ones (23h09m04.9s +48d42m25.4s). On 13 November 2022, further burst activity of FRB 20220912A was reported by the Tianlai Dish Pathfinder Array in Xinjiang, China and, on 5 December 2022, from several other observatories. On 13 December 2022, over a hundred bursts from FRB 220912A were reported by the Upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT), operated by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in India.


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 1 December 2022, astronomers reported the discovery of FRB 20221128A, using the UTMOST-NS radio telescope located in New South Wales, Australia. According to the astronomers, "The most likely position [of FRB 20221128A] is RA = 07:30(10), DEC = -41:32(1), J2000 which corresponds to Galactic coordinates: Gl = 177.1 deg, Gb = 24.45 deg".


title: Fast radio burst

text: On 6 December 2022, detection of a possible magnetar burst at or near the same time and location as a fast radio burst was reported.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes was a hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. It opened on May 23, 1955, as the tenth resort on the Strip. It was initially owned by a group of businessmen from out of state, but failed to prosper under their management. It also opened at a time of decreased tourism, while the Strip was simultaneously becoming overbuilt with hotel rooms. A few months after the opening, management was taken over by the operators of the Sands resort, also on the Strip. This group failed to improve business and relinquished control less than six months later.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Businessman Major Riddle turned business around after taking over operations in 1956. He was involved with the resort until his death in 1980. He had several partners, including Sid Wyman, who worked for the Dunes from 1961 until his death in 1978. Mafia attorney Morris Shenker joined in 1975, following one of the most extensive routine investigations ever conducted by the Nevada Gaming Control Board. The Dunes had frequent connections with Mafia figures, some of whom were alleged to have hidden ownership in the resort, and state officials were concerned about Shenker's association with such figures.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: In 1957, the Dunes debuted Las Vegas' first topless show, "Minsky Goes to Paris", prompting other resorts to follow suit. Two other successful shows, by Frederic Apcar, would later debut at the Dunes. The resort also offered amenities such as the Emerald Green golf course, which opened in 1964. The Dunes was one of two Strip resorts to include a golf course, the other one being the Desert Inn. The Emerald Green was the longest course in Nevada, at 7,240 yards.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes opened with 194 rooms, while a 21-story tower brought the total to 960. The tower was among the tallest buildings in Nevada, and was opened in 1965. By this time, the resort also had the tallest free-standing sign in the world, rising 181 feet. Several popular restaurants were also added in the 1960s, including the underwater-themed Dome of the Sea, and the Top O' the Strip, located at the top of the hotel tower. Another tower, 17 stories in height, was opened in 1979, giving the resort a total of 1,282 rooms. The Dunes added a second gaming facility, the Oasis Casino, in 1982.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes experienced financial problems in the 1980s, and had many prospective buyers during this time, including businessman Steve Wynn. Japanese investor Masao Nangaku eventually bought the resort in 1987, at a cost of $157 million. Nangaku intended to renovate and expand the Dunes, although his plans were derailed by an unusually lengthy control board investigation, which dissuaded financiers. Wynn's company, Mirage Resorts, bought the Dunes in November 1992, paying $75 million. Plans were announced to replace it with a lake resort.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes closed on January 26, 1993. The original North Tower was imploded on October 27, 1993, during a highly publicized ceremony which helped promote Wynn's new Treasure Island resort, located about a mile north. The demolition event garnered 200,000 spectators. The newer South Tower was imploded on July 20, 1994, without the fanfare of the first implosion; it attracted 3,000 spectators. Wynn's new resort, Bellagio, eventually opened on the former Dunes site in 1998.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes was initially owned by a group of businessmen that included Robert Rice of Beverly Hills, James A. Sullivan of Rhode Island, Milton Gettinger of New York, and Alfred Gottesman, a wealthy theater operator in Florida. Rice and Gottesman were new to the gaming industry. The group proposed the project, originally called the Araby, in July 1953. It was later renamed the Vegas Plaza, and then Hotel Deauville. Groundbreaking took place on June 22, 1954, with the resort now known as the Dunes. It was built by the Los Angeles-based McNeil Construction Company, which spent 11 months working on the resort.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes opened on May 23, 1955, as the tenth resort on the Las Vegas Strip. The opening attracted many celebrities, including Cesar Romero, Spike Jones, and Rita Moreno. Gottesman and Sullivan were majority stockholders, and also served as 50-50 partners in the operation of the casino. Businessman Kirk Kerkorian bought a three-percent interest a couple months after the opening, marking his first Las Vegas investment.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes was one of four new Las Vegas resorts to open within a six-week period, resulting in financial trouble for each of them. The Las Vegas Valley had been overbuilt with hotel rooms during a time of lessened demand, and the Dunes was also the southernmost resort on the Strip, located a considerable distance from other properties. A Dunes attorney blamed the resort's financial trouble on a persistent losing streak in its casino. Rice believed that the financial problems were the result of it competing with other resorts for expensive live entertainment. In addition, the Dunes had numerous creditors. Among these was McNeil Construction, which filed a $166,000 lien against the ownership group, representing unpaid salary. The group said it would not pay the balance, stating that the construction contract had been violated.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: In August 1955, an agreement was reached for Sands Hotel Corporation, owner of the Sands Hotel and Casino, to lease and operate the struggling Dunes. To mark the management change, a three-day celebration was held starting on September 9, 1955. Singer Frank Sinatra headlined the ceremony and entered on a camel. Sands closed the casino portion in January 1956, due to falling profits. It was the third Las Vegas casino to close in recent months, following the Moulin Rouge Hotel and Royal Nevada. Live entertainment also ceased, although the hotel remained open. Rice blamed disagreements within Sands for the casino's failure. The group lost $1.2 million operating the Dunes, and relinquished control of the resort on February 1, 1956.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Businessman Major Riddle subsequently partnered with local hotel operator William Miller to reopen the casino. They would be equal partners with 44-percent ownership, while Rice would own the remainder. The Dunes casino reopened in June 1956. Seven months later, plans were announced for Sullivan and Gottesman to sell the property to Jacob Gottlieb, owner of a Chicago trucking firm. Gottlieb became the resort's landlord through Western Realty Company, and Miller departed the property as president and general manager. The resort was managed through Riddle's operating company, M&R Investment. The Dunes was sold in a Clark County sheriff's auction at the end of 1957, to satisfy the debt owed to McNeil Construction. It sold for $115,000, but was valued at $3.5 million. Gottesman, Sullivan, and Gettinger bought it back in November 1958.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The resort thrived under Riddle, who added several new shows and facilities. On April 15, 1959, the Dunes hosted the first double groundbreaking ceremony in Las Vegas history: one for a convention center, built south of the existing resort facilities, and another for a 500-space parking lot directly north of the resort. In 1961, St. Louis businessmen Sid Wyman, Charlie Rich, and George Duckworth invested in the Dunes and became the new operators through a lease agreement. Wyman was put in charge of casino operations, and Riddle remained as the majority owner. The following year, he sold 15 percent of the operating corporation to the three men, reducing his interest to 37 percent.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Several notable individuals were married at the Dunes, including Mary Tyler Moore and Grant Tinker (1962), Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon (1965), and Jane Fonda and Roger Vadim (1965). Mike Goodman, author of the best-selling 1963 book "How to Win: At Cards, Dice, Races, Roulette", was a pit boss at the Dunes during the 1960s. Gambling author Barney Vinson also worked there.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: During the 1960s, the resort's western edge was condemned for construction of Interstate 15. The resort added a golf course in 1964. A 21-story hotel tower, initially known as the Diamond of the Dunes, was opened in May 1965, to mark the resort's 10th anniversary. It was part of a $20 million expansion project, and later became the North Tower, following the addition of another hotel building to the south.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: In 1969, M&R merged with Continental Connector Corporation, a New York-based electronics firm. M&R became a subsidiary of Continental Connector, which owned the Dunes and the land beneath it. Later in 1969, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against Continental Connector, accusing it of making inaccurate financial statements regarding earnings at the Dunes. The company subsequently sought a buyer for the resort. In 1970, businessman Howard Hughes was in discussions to purchase the Dunes, although negotiations ended without a deal. Rapid-American Corporation began discussions to acquire the resort, but eventually dropped out.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Rice, Wyman, Duckworth and three other top resort officials were indicted in 1971 by a federal grand jury, alleging that they filed false corporate income tax returns and that they conspired to skim money from the gaming tables. The officials pleaded innocent, and Wyman later divested his ownership, but remained with the Dunes as a consultant.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes had numerous Mafia connections for much of its history. Sullivan's early ownership in the resort was actually held by Raymond Patriarca, and Gottlieb was affiliated with Jimmy Hoffa, president of the Teamsters Union. During the 1950s and 1960s, the union financed many casino expansions in Las Vegas through its pension fund. This included a $5 million loan for the Dunes' original hotel tower. Allen Dorfman, who handled negotiations on behalf of the pension fund, was alleged to have hidden ownership in the Dunes. The Dunes occasionally provided first-class treatment to Mafia figures such as Anthony Giordano, who was arrested at the resort in 1969, while visiting Wyman. The FBI planted surveillance bugs at the Dunes during the 1960s, and certain resort employees worked as informants for the agency during the 1970s.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: In 1972, a new group emerged as a prospective buyer for the resort, still under the ownership of Continental Connector. The group included San Diego developer Irvin Kahn and partner Morris Shenker, a St. Louis attorney who was representing Wyman and other resort officials in their case. The Nevada Gaming Control Board launched a routine investigation into Shenker and Kahn's financing, but halted its probe in 1973, following Kahn's death. In 1974, Shenker owned 37 percent of the Dunes through stock holdings in Continental Connector, and he sought to buy out the remainder, prompting the control board to reopen and expand its investigation into his financial background. It was one of the most extensive investigations in Nevada gaming history, as state officials had concerns about Mafia figures with whom Shenker was associated. Shenker later denied allegations that his ownership in the resort was a front for Nick Civella, whom Shenker had represented previously as attorney. Civella had a comped visit at the resort in 1974, but Shenker noted that he had not yet taken control of the Dunes at that time, and said he would not have allowed Civella to stay there if he had been in charge.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: In 1975, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro began spending extensive time in the Dunes casino, where he would take phone calls routed to the poker room. The gaming control board accused him of treating the Dunes as his personal office, and questioned Shenker and Riddle as to why he was allowed on the premises, given his Black Book status. The men denied knowing Spilotro or his background, and said they only had an outdated photograph of him from 20 years earlier, making it difficult to identify him. The control board alleged that management was, in fact, aware of Spilotro and had already been warned about his presence at the resort.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: M&R had negotiated a $40 million loan from the Teamsters Union pension fund in 1974. A $75 million expansion was planned to begin in 1976, and would include two additional hotel towers. The project would be financed in part by the Teamsters loan. However, the union withheld the funds, citing the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. Specifically, the union stated that the loan could not be granted because Continental Connector owned a trucking company which employed teamsters who had contributed to the pension fund. Shenker criticized the pension fund's reasoning, saying that Continental Connector had already divested itself of ownership in the trucking company. A second tower, rising 17 stories, eventually opened in 1979.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Wyman died of cancer in June 1978, and gaming at the Dunes was halted for two minutes in his honor. In 1979, Continental Connector was renamed Dunes Hotels and Casinos Inc., amid plans for a second Dunes resort in Atlantic City. Riddle died in 1980, and Shenker suffered a heart attack that year, prompting him to seriously consider selling the Dunes. In 1982, the resort added a second casino building, known as the Oasis Casino.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: In December 1982, it was announced that the resort would be sold to brothers Stuart and Clifford Perlman for $185 million, which would include the assumption of $105 million in debt. The Perlmans provided a $10 million loan to prevent the Dunes from being seized by the Internal Revenue Service, but later backed out of the purchase after learning that the debt would be $20 million more than initially expected. Circus Circus Enterprises subsequently considered a purchase, as did Golden Nugget chairman Steve Wynn, who made a $115 million offer.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: In May 1984, the Dunes was sold to John Anderson, a farmer in Davis, California who also owned the Maxim hotel-casino in Las Vegas. Shenker maintained a 26-percent stake. M&R filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 1985. Later that month, Wynn made another $115 million offer, which was rejected by Anderson and Shenker, deeming it too low and valuing the Dunes at $143.5 million. Numerous other offers would be made over the next two years, including one by New York businessman Donald Trump. Blumenfeld Properties, a Philadelphia real estate development company, made a $145.5 million offer for the Dunes, but ultimately did not purchase the resort. Burton Cohen was named as the resort's president in January 1986, following the departure of its previous president.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Financial firm EF Hutton eventually formed a partnership that was interested in purchasing the Dunes, while a separate group led by Kerkorian was also in discussions. Talks with the two prospective buyers ended in February 1987, without a deal. Shortly thereafter, Texas-based lender Southmark Corporation purchased the first and second mortgages of the Dunes from Valley Bank and First Security Leasing, the Dunes' two major creditors. Later in 1987, Hilton Hotels and Japanese investor Masao Nangaku both considered buying the Dunes. Foreclosure was delayed to allow more time for a possible purchase. Hilton offered $122.5 million, and planned to refurbish the existing rooms while adding a third tower, at an additional cost of $110 million. Cohen believed that the resort needed 2,000 hotel rooms to adequately compete with other resorts. Kerkorian re-emerged as a prospective buyer, and Sheldon Adelson also considered purchasing the 163-acre resort. Nangaku ultimately prevailed, offering a $157.7 million bid in August 1987. His purchase was finalized four months later.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: While Nangaku waited to receive a gaming license, he hired Dennis Gomes to operate the Dunes, replacing Cohen as president. Nangaku underwent an unusually long gaming control board probe. Investigators suspected that unlicensed people from Nangaku's company, Minami Group, were involved in the resort. The control board encountered difficulty when looking into Nangaku's business associates because of differences in how Japan handles documents, which are generally kept confidential. Investigators also suspected that the associates were making attempts to hinder their efforts.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: In December 1988, Nangaku received a limited two-year gaming license while investigators continued their probe. Nangaku planned up to $280 million in renovations, including a new hotel tower and the demolition of the original motel-style structures, although little work had been done by mid-1989. He blamed the limited gaming license, stating that financiers were hesitant to lend money because of uncertainty about whether he would remain licensed in the near future.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The first phase of Nangaku's multimillion renovation eventually began in September 1989. The following year, Nangaku announced a planned $200 million remodeling project. He also hired the architectural firm Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum to design the new high-rise tower. Nangaku eventually received a permanent gaming license in May 1991, at which point he was seeking a partner to help renovate and operate the Dunes. The resort had laid off hundreds of workers that year, due to financial troubles brought on by the early 1990s recession. Despite Nangaku's expansion plans for the resort, he ultimately invested only $12 million in basic repairs.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The "Las Vegas Review-Journal" had written in 1988 that the Dunes had lost its "mystical luster" over the past 20 years, with its high rollers migrating to "more attractive" resorts. The newspaper's John L. Smith wrote that the Dunes had lost its "classy resort" reputation and had become "a dump by Strip standards" despite its name recognition and prime location on the central Strip. The Dunes failed to stay competitive against new megaresorts opening on the Strip, including The Mirage in 1989, and the Excalibur a year later. During 1990, the resort was losing $500,000 monthly.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Wynn's company, since renamed as Mirage Resorts, agreed to purchase the Dunes in October 1992. It was sold the following month for $75 million. At the time, the property was losing $2 million a month. Gaming executive Richard Goeglein led a team which helped operate the Dunes in the months leading up to its closure.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes closed on January 26, 1993. Wynn said: "It's becoming in death a much better place than it was in life. This thing about melancholy in its passing is sorta strange. No one felt that while it [the Dunes] was laying there, terminally ill. It's been laying there on life support systems for many years". At the time of its closing, the Dunes employed more than 1,200 people. Employees held reunions each year following the closure. An on-site sale of the Dunes inventory, including light fixtures and carpeting, began in March 1993.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Demolition started on September 16, 1993. A four-alarm fire began on-site that afternoon, after workers accidentally ran over an electrical outlet in a bulldozer. The fire affected a two-story hotel building and eventually spread across the property. More than 200 firefighters responded, and six blocks of the Strip were closed off for more than four hours until the fire was contained.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The original North Tower was demolished on the night of October 27, 1993, one day after the opening of Wynn's new Strip resort Treasure Island, located about a mile north. The tower was imploded with great fanfare in an event emceed by Wynn that incorporated his new resort; on his command, a faux pirate ship at Treasure Island shot its cannon several times, simulating the Dunes' destruction by cannonballs as the implosion began. The tower was brought down around 10:10 p.m., following a six-minute fireworks show. The $1.5 million demolition event attracted 200,000 spectators. The Dunes was the first Las Vegas resort to be imploded, and numerous others would follow suit into the next decade.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The tower's implosion was handled by Controlled Demolition, Inc. The demolition required 365 pounds of dynamite, and 550 gallons of aviation fuel were also used, creating fireballs that went up each floor of the tower's east side, facing the Strip and spectators. The Oasis Casino and the Dunes' two-story casino building were not part of the implosion. Fireworks sparked two small fires on the roof of the Oasis, and numerous small fires began in the Dunes' casino area, all put out by on-site firefighters. Both facilities were bulldozed following the implosion. A three-month clean-up project began to remove the debris left from the imploded tower. During the clean-up, workers discovered hundreds of $100 Dunes casino chips in the resort's foundation; some casinos executives would dispose of outdated chips by burying them in the foundation of their buildings.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The South Tower was briefly used as a job center for Treasure Island. It was eventually imploded on the morning of July 20, 1994, without the fanfare of the first implosion. Mirage Resorts had urged people not to show up for the second implosion, which attracted approximately 3,000 spectators.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Commenting on the end of the Dunes, Wynn said, "This is not an execution; this is a phoenix rising". His new resort, Bellagio, eventually opened on the former Dunes site in 1998. The resort's lake covers much of the land once occupied by the Dunes' casino and hotel structures.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: New fire-safety rules were implemented in Las Vegas following the MGM Grand fire (1980) and Las Vegas Hilton fire (1981). In 1985, the Dunes was one of seven hotels that failed to comply with the new safety rules, receiving six citations. The Dunes agreed to close its main showroom and convention center in exchange for a county extension, allowing time to raise $13.5 million needed to bring the facilities up to standard. In February 1986, the Dunes won additional extensions to meet the fire-safety requirements.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Later that month, a series of arson fires were set to several Strip resorts, including the Dunes, the Holiday Casino, and the Sands. As a precaution, 1,650 hotel guests were evacuated from the Dunes just before midnight. On the casino floor, many gamblers refused to leave and continued playing. Firefighters quickly determined that the fires posed no threat to the casino area. Crews battled a total of five fires at the Dunes, and guests were allowed to return to their rooms after three hours. Six people were treated for smoke inhalation, and damage was estimated at $55,000. The Dunes offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the arsonist. A man was eventually arrested for the arson spree and sentenced to 10 years in prison. In light of the recent fires, the county reconsidered the extensions previously granted to the Dunes. By May 1986, the resort had made significant progress on its fire retrofit work.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes featured an Arabian theme, and was designed by Robert Dorr Jr. and John Replogle. The resort initially occupied 85 acres. The casino opened with 120 slot machines. The convention center, opened in 1959, included seating for 800 people. The casino was remodeled in 1961, and a keno lounge would be added 10 years later, part of a $2 million renovation project.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: In 1965, the Dunes became the first Strip business to offer a nursery, which would supervise children while their parents enjoyed the resort's amenities. By that point, the Dunes also had two swimming pools and a dozen shops, while additional retailers would be added in 1979.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: An addition, containing various amenities, was approved by the county in 1981. The expansion cost $15 million, and included the Oasis Casino, which opened on August 20, 1982. The structure, with an exterior of black mirrored glass, was built at a cost of $17 million. The Oasis provided the Dunes property with an additional of gaming space. Although the Oasis was a two-story building, it opened without the second floor, which was unfinished and sealed off.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Oasis Casino featured curved neon palm trees at its entrance, standing 70 feet with fronds 20 feet in length. They were designed by Ad-Art sign designer Jack DuBois, based on early design work by Raul Rodriguez. The palms were dismantled in April 1993, after being sold during the liquidation sale to a buyer in Taiwan. By 1999, the palms had been installed at the entrance to the NASA nightclub in Bangkok. The club closed some time after that, and the whereabouts of the palms are unknown.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes opened with 194 rooms, and plans for additional rooms were already in the works, although it would be years before they came to fruition. In 1957, plans were announced for a $2 million expansion that would include a 14-story tower. A year later, the proposed tower was increased to 18 stories. An additional 246 rooms were eventually added in 1960, with the opening of the Olympic Wing, joining the existing Seahorse Wing.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Groundbreaking for the tower eventually took place on October 20, 1962. It was designed by Milton Schwartz, and the opening was pushed back because of design changes. The tower eventually opened in May 1965. It had 510 rooms, bringing the total room count to 960. At 21 stories, it was among the tallest buildings in Nevada.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The tower was originally known as Diamond of the Dunes, and was later called the North Tower, following the addition of the South Tower. Construction of the latter began on July 26, 1978, part of a $100 million expansion and remodeling project. The 17-story South Tower was topped off on April 12, 1979, and was opened that December. The second tower was designed by Maxwell Starkman and included 464 rooms, for a new total of 1,282.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes opened its Emerald Green golf driving range in November 1961. The Emerald Green golf course debuted in 1964, and had its formal opening in April 1965. Since then, the resort was sometimes known as the Dunes Hotel and Country Club, reflecting its golf amenities. The Emerald Green measured 7,240 yards, making it the longest course in Las Vegas. It stretched south from Flamingo Road to Tropicana Avenue, occupying roughly 80 acres along the eastern edge of I-15. Riddle bought the site from banker Jerry Mack and Mel Close, bringing the resort a total of 163 acres.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Emerald Green's closure in 1993 left the Desert Inn as the only other Strip resort with a golf course. At the time, the Emerald Green had seen an average of 65,000 golfers each year, second only to the Las Vegas Municipal Golf Course. It was especially popular among celebrities. The Emerald Green site is now occupied by parts of Park MGM (opened in 1996) and CityCenter (2009), as well as T-Mobile Arena (2016).


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes originally featured a 30-foot-high sultan statue above its entrance. The fiberglass statue was created by sculptor Kermit Hawkins. The sultan's turban included a diamond that lit up at night, and which was actually a car headlamp that had been put in place. In 1964, the sultan was moved to the edge of the golf course along I-15, serving as an advertisement to motorists. The sultan was destroyed by fire, caused by a short circuit, on the night of December 31, 1985.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Lee Klay of the Federal Sign and Signal Company designed a roadside sign for the Dunes, activated on November 12, 1964. Klay recalled that the resort owners asked him to create "a big phallic symbol going up in the sky as far as you can make it". At 181 feet, it was the tallest free-standing sign in the world. The foundation measured 80 feet in width, and supported two white-colored columns forming a bulbous onion dome or stylized spade shape at the top. Contained within this shape were two-story-high letters spelling out "Dunes", with a large diamond atop the lettering.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The sign contained 16,000 feet of neon tubing, including 7,200 lamps. At night, the sign lit up in red coloring. Blackout curtains were added in hotel rooms facing the sign, as some guests had trouble sleeping because of the neon lighting. Schwartz objected to the construction of the sign, believing that it conflicted with the design of his hotel tower, although Riddle overrode him. A full-time, three-man team worked to maintain the sign, which had a service elevator going up one of its columns to the top. The sign was intentionally destroyed as part of the 1993 implosion event, with the use of 18-grain detonating cord. Architectural historian Alan Hess had advocated for saving the sign, although Mirage Resorts stated that it was in extremely poor condition, with demolition being cheaper than preservation. Saving the sign would have required it to be disassembled in eight-foot sections, at a cost of up to $100,000.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: A smaller, similar sign exists at the city's Neon Museum. In 2019, filmmaker Tim Burton also debuted a Dunes-inspired sign as part of "", an exhibit at the Neon Museum. An original neon entrance sign from the resort is also located at the Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: A popular fine-dining restaurant, Sultan's Table, opened on March 4, 1961. It was designed by Schwartz, and included live music for diners. Riddle was inspired to build Sultan's Table after visiting an upscale restaurant, the Villa Fontana, in Mexico City. Sultan's Table was the first gourmet restaurant to open on the Strip, and Diners Club named it "America's finest and most beautiful new restaurant".


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes opened its Dome of the Sea on June 12, 1964. It was a seafood restaurant with an underwater theme. It was also designed by Schwartz, who created the exterior as a circular building that "looked like it came from outer space". Schwartz collaborated with designer Sean Kenny on the interior, which had a budget of $150,000. Images of fish and seaweed were projected onto the restaurant's interior walls. It also featured a harpist, dressed as a mermaid, who performed in the center of the room. For a brief period starting in 1972, the restaurant would transform into Dome After Hours, offering cocktails and continuous live entertainment between the hours of 1:00 and 5:00 a.m.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: A restaurant and lounge, Top O' the Strip, opened on June 4, 1965. It was located on the top floor of the new hotel tower, providing views of the city. It was popular among tourists, and also featured live entertainment. It was renamed Top O' the Dunes in 1979.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Comedian Wally Cox was an early entertainer at the Dunes, opening there in July 1955, although he was fired due to poor audience reception. Gottesman acknowledged that Cox was ill-prepared and brought no new material to his performances. Cox had been signed for four weeks, but only gave three performances. Comedian Stan Irwin briefly filled in for Cox, who was then hired back later in the month.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Entertainers at Top O' the Strip included Art and Dotty Todd, Russ Morgan, and Bob Anderson. The Dunes also opened a Comedy Store location in 1984, hosting numerous comedians. It relocated to the Golden Nugget hotel-casino in 1990, but briefly returned to the Dunes in 1992.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes' 1955 opening included Vera-Ellen in a production show titled "New York-Paris-Paradise", which was contracted for a four-week run. It was part of Gottesman's policy to focus on shows rather than big-name stars; he said, "There aren't enough name stars in the world to play all the Vegas hotels". "New York-Paris-Paradise" was directed by Robert Nesbitt and played in the Dunes' showroom, known as the Arabian Room.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: On January 10, 1957, Riddle debuted Las Vegas' first topless show, titled "Minsky Goes to Paris". Riddle said, "We have something people can't get on television". The show's success inspired other resorts to debut their own topless shows. During 1958, the show was attracting 9,000 viewers weekly. Later known as "Minsky's Follies", the show ran until 1961.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Riddle brought "Tenderloin", a Broadway musical, to the Dunes in May 1961. The Broadway show "Guys and Dolls", starring Betty Grable and Dan Dailey, also played at the Dunes for about six months, starting in 1962.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes opened a new venue, the Persian Room, in December 1961. It replaced the Sinbad Cocktail Lounge. The Persian Room debuted with "Vive Les Girls", a French musical revue by Frederic Apcar. It was successful, becoming an annual show at the Dunes. It closed in 1971, when the Persian Room was replaced by the keno lounge.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes had also debuted another show by Apcar in December 1963, titled "Casino de Paris" and initially starring Line Renaud. The show cost approximately $6 million to create, featuring 100 cast members and more than 500 costumes. The show incorporated a custom stage known as the Octopus or Octuramic. Designed by Schwartz and Kenny, the stage had several arms capable of extending 50 feet above the audience. Circular dancing platforms, 20 feet in diameter, were built at the end of each arm, allowing showgirls to dance above the audience. The show ended in June 1981, due to the high costs of putting it on each week.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: "Showstoppers", a family show by Jeff Kutash, was planned to open in 1990, but was canceled before its premiere.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: Many major professional boxing events took place at the Dunes from 1975 to 1990; notably the May 20, 1983 undercard that featured Ossie Ocasio retaining his WBA's world Cruiserweight title by fifteen round unanimous decision over Randy Stephens, Greg Page beat Renaldo Snipes by twelve rounds unanimous decision in a WBC's Heavyweight division elimination bout, Michael Dokes retained his WBA world Heavyweight title with a fifteen-round draw (tie) over Mike Weaver in their rematch, and Larry Holmes won over Tim Witherspoon by a twelve-round split decision to retain his WBC world Heavyweight title. This was the first time in history that two world Heavyweight championship fights took place on the same day.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes made numerous appearances in television, including a 1964 episode of "Arrest and Trial". It is featured in a 1977 episode of "The Bionic Woman" titled "Fembots in Las Vegas", and a 1978 episode of "Charlie's Angels" titled "Angels in Vegas". The Dunes sign is used in the intro of the television series "Vega$", and the resort is seen in the pilot episode of the 1980s television series "Knight Rider", titled "Knight of the Phoenix". It also appears in the season-two premiere episode "Goliath".


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes made film appearances as well, including the 1971 James Bond movie "Diamonds Are Forever", in which it serves as the office of Whyte House casino manager Bert Saxby. The Dunes sign also makes an appearance in the film, and a deleted scene, available on home media releases, takes place in the Dome of the Sea restaurant.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: In the 1984 film "Oxford Blues", the main character (portrayed by Rob Lowe) works as a parking attendant at the Dunes. The sign and hotel also appear in the 1984 film "Cannonball Run II", and are seen in the closing credits of the 1989 film "K-9". The sign also appears in the 1991 comedy "Hot Shots!", when the pilot nicknamed "Wash Out" mistakes a runway and lands near the hotel. The 1991 film "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man" includes footage of the casino and hotel, including its rooftop.


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The hotel's 1993 implosion was filmed for "Treasure Island: The Adventure Begins", a television special promoting Wynn's Treasure Island resort. The implosion is also among other Las Vegas resort demolitions featured during the closing credits of the 2003 film "The Cooler".


title: Dunes (hotel and casino)

text: The Dunes is shown across from the fictional Tangiers casino at the beginning of the 1995 film "Casino", directed by Martin Scorsese. The Dunes is also seen during the Las Vegas sequence of Scorsese's 2019 film "The Irishman".


title: Albright College

text: Albright College traces its founding to 1856 when Union Seminary opened. Present-day Albright was formed by the mergers of several institutions.


title: Albright College

text: Albright Collegiate Institute opened in 1895 and was renamed Albright College three years later. Union Seminary became Central Pennsylvania College and, in 1902, merged with Albright College. Schuylkill College, previously called Schuylkill Seminary, merged with Albright College in 1928. Albright's campus relocated from Myerstown, to Schuylkill College's campus, which is the present location of Albright, at the base of Mount Penn in Reading.


title: Albright College

text: The college is named for Pennsylvania-German evangelical preacher Jacob Albright, who founded the Evangelical Association (later known as the Evangelical United Brethren Church). Born in 1759 in Douglass Township, (now Montgomery County) with the given name of Johannes Jacob Albrecht, the family changed their surname to "Albright" following Jacob's 1808 death.


title: Albright College

text: Albright College students are encouraged to cross and combine areas of study without taking longer to graduate. The college offers Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees, as well as a Master of Arts and Master of Science degrees in education. The college also offers online and accelerated degree programs.


title: Albright College

text: Albright offers a wide range of classical and pre-professional programs. It created one of the first undergraduate psychobiology programs in the nation in the 1960s. The college's liberal arts curriculum has an cross-program focus that allows students to create an individualized education. Fully half of Albright students have concentrations that combine two or three fields of learning.


title: Albright College

text: The theatre program has been honored by the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival consistently for many years. Albright's Domino Players Company has been invited to perform at the Region II KCACTF Festival 10 times in the last 18 years (2004, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2020). At the National Conference held every April in Washington DC, Albright's theatre program has garnered dozens of awards for distinguished work in performance, direction, dramaturgy, scenic, sound, costume, and lighting design. Acclaimed productions of “Waiting for Godot” (2007), “Clybourne Park” (2016), “A Raisin in the Sun” (2018) have also been named “Outstanding Production of a Play” – recognizing them as the best college production of their years. “A Raisin in the Sun” also received eight other national awards, for distinguished performance, scenic and lighting design, director and performances. Graduates of the program have gone on to graduate study at such schools as Yale, NYU, Brown, Columbia, Villanova, UArts/Pig Iron, SCAD, UMass Amherst, University of Minnesota, and CalArts, and have distinguished themselves with work on Broadway, in Hollywood, and in theatres and opera houses across the globe.


title: Albright College

text: The Albright Creative Research Experience (ACRE) is a multi-disciplinary program that affords undergraduate students the opportunity to conduct research or pursue creative endeavors during the three-week January Interim or summer break. The students, who work one-on-one with faculty members, can be from any discipline, from STEM subjects to the humanities.


title: Albright College

text: In 2017, Albright College was named one of the "Best Northeastern" schools by The Princeton Review; this was the fourteenth consecutive year that the college was included in that category. In the "Campus Ethnic Diversity" category, as part of the "U.S. News & World Report" 2018 Best Colleges rankings, "U.S. News" ranked Albright 33rd out of 208 national liberal arts colleges. In the "Economic Diversity" category, Albright ranked 27th out of 210 national liberal arts schools named. "The Economist" magazine listed Albright among the top 50 American colleges and universities for economic value in 2015.


title: Albright College

text: Albright College athletic teams compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III as a member of the Middle Atlantic Conferences.


title: Albright College

text: Charles "Pop" Kelchner founded the men's basketball team in 1900 and was athletic director at Albright College for 21 years. He was involved in aspects of Major League Baseball for over 50 years. Albright College dedicated the baseball field as Kelchner Field in 1952. Branch Rickey gave the dedication speech, with Connie Mack in attendance.


title: Albright College

text: Doggie Julian was the head football coach at Albright from 1929 to 1930. Clarence Lester "Biggie" Munn was the head football coach at Albright College from 1935 to 1936, before coaching Syracuse University (1946), and most notably Michigan State College (1947–1953), where his 1952 squad won a national championship.


title: Albright College

text: William "Lone Star" Dietz was the Director of Athletics and head football coach at Albright from 1937 to 1942. Dietz led the football team to their first undefeated season in 1937. He previously led Washington State to 1916 Rose Bowl victory. In the National Football League, Dietz had coached the Boston "Redskins" (1933–1934), the forerunner of the Washington Commanders. Dietz is in the Albright College Athletic Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame.


title: Albright College

text: In 1948, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) and Albright College played the first intercollegiate football game between an Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) institution and a majority-white institution.


title: Albright College

text: Dr. Wilbur G. Renken was athletic director and basketball head coach for 38 consecutive seasons. A highly regarded figure in collegiate athletics in general and specifically basketball, Renken was the president of the United States Olympic Basketball Team Selection Committee for the 1976 Olympic Games. He also served as the president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) in 1979–1980.


title: Albright College

text: On October 11, 2017, sophomore backup quarterback Gyree Durante was dismissed from the football team for kneeling during the national anthem before the team's game against Delaware Valley University, going against a collective team decision made before the game to kneel for the coin toss and stand for the anthem. President Fetrow later offered reinstatement to the team to Durante (and two other players who did not fully kneel during the coin toss), saying that further review of the details surrounding the game's events found that "what we understood to be shared agreement among players, student leaders and coaches has not been adequately supported.”. Durante, however, declined reinstatement, citing his former teammates' stated lack of trust in him.


title: Albright College

text: Albright's campus radio station, WXAC 91.3 FM is a student-operated college radio station. The initial call name was WALC, but was later changed to WXAC on March 8, 1965. WALC had been the same call name for the Alcoa Steamship Lines.


title: Stuart: A Life Backwards

text: Stuart: A Life Backwards is a biography by Alexander Masters of his friend Stuart Clive Shorter, formerly, at various times, a prisoner and a career criminal. It explores how a young boy, somewhat disabled from birth, became mentally unstable, criminal and violent, living homeless on the streets of Cambridge. As the title suggests, the book starts from Shorter's adult life, and works backwards to trace through his troubled childhood, examining the effects his family, schooling and disability had on his eventual state.


title: Stuart: A Life Backwards

text: The book won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in 2005 for biography, and the 2006 Hawthornden Prize. It won the 2005 Guardian First Book Award. Recently many secondary schools across the UK have included it in their higher education academic syllabus for English language.


title: Stuart: A Life Backwards

text: A television dramatisation with the same name, starring Tom Hardy as Shorter and Benedict Cumberbatch as Masters was co-produced by the BBC and HBO in 2007. Tom Hardy was nominated for a 2008 BAFTA for his portrayal of Stuart Shorter. Additionally, Laurence Hobbs was cast in the role of Smithy.


title: Stuart: A Life Backwards

text: A stage production premiered in 2013 adapted by double BAFTA-winning writer Jack Thorne produced by HighTide Festival Theatre and the Crucible Theatre Sheffield. Perrier Award winner Will Adamsdale played Alexander Masters and Fraser Ayres played Stuart Shorter, and was nominated for Best Actor in The Stage Awards.


title: Stuart: A Life Backwards

text: Stuart Shorter (born Stuart Clive Turner on 19 September 1968 in Cambridge – died 6 July 2002 in Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire) was a homeless man and advocate whose life was chronicled by Alexander Masters in his book.


title: Stuart: A Life Backwards

text: Shorter was born in a condemned cottage on the edge of Cambridge, the son of Andrew Turner (called Rex in the book and dramatisation), a gypsy and Sonia (Judith), (née Tierney), a barmaid. Sonia later remarried, to David Shorter [Paul]. Stuart had two brothers and one half-sister, Andrew [Gavvy], Kai [Marcus] and Zoe [Karen]: most noted in the novel are his older brother, Gavvy, and younger sister, Karen. Marcus is only mentioned briefly in the book. Shorter suffered from facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, which he inherited from his father, and borderline personality disorder.


title: Stuart: A Life Backwards

text: As a child, Shorter was sexually abused by his brother, and also by a babysitter, after which he was put into a children's home. Here, he was abused again by the paedophile Keith Laverack, who in 1997, was jailed for 18 years for various offences against children. During his adult life, Shorter was in and out of various homeless hostels, as well as spending much time in prison for a number of violent crimes. He also fathered one son, the Little'Un, who lives in Norwich.


title: Stuart: A Life Backwards

text: In 1998, following a five-year jail sentence for armed robbery, Shorter was living in a subterranean multi-storey car park when he was rescued by two outreach workers, who found him a flat to live in. He subsequently became one of the first people to bring "The Big Issue" into Cambridge, and his work as an activist for the homeless began when he presented a short BBC2 documentary, "Private Investigations", denouncing police plans to ban homeless people from the city centre.


title: Stuart: A Life Backwards

text: In 1999, Shorter became a leading figure in the campaign to release Ruth Wyner and John Brock, the Director and Day Centre Manager of Wintercomfort for the Homeless, who had been sent to prison because some of the people they were looking after had been secretly trading drugs on the charity's premises. Shorter negotiated with police to organise marches and vigils, and arranged the campaign's most successful gesture, a three-day sleep-out of homeless people outside the Home Office in London – which ended in the release of the "Cambridge Two" after just six months.


title: Stuart: A Life Backwards

text: On 6 July 2002, just outside his home village of Waterbeach, Stuart Shorter was hit by the 11.15pm London to King's Lynn train, and was killed instantly. He was 33 years old. As to the cause of his death, the jury returned an open verdict. Despite an overall lack of evidence that Shorter purposefully walked in front of the train, the coroners report stating that this was contrary to how his body was positioned at the time of death, there are hints that suggest Shorter may have intended to die. Shorter had a long history of attempted suicides and his sister Zoe once mentioned in an interview that Shorter informed her that were he ever to commit suicide he would make it appear accidental as he felt that the prospect of his mother losing both sons to suicide would be too much for her to bear.


title: Church attendance

text: Church attendance is a central religious practice for many Christians; some Christian denominations, such as the Catholic Church require church attendance on the Lord's Day (Sunday); the Westminster Confession of Faith is held by the Reformed Churches and teaches first-day Sabbatarianism (Sunday Sabbatarianism), thus proclaiming the duty of public worship in keeping with the Ten Commandments. Similarly, The General Rules of the Methodist Church also requires "attending upon all the ordinances of God" including "the public worship of God". The Lutheran Christian theologian stated that church attendance is the "foundation for the Christian life" as "the Christian Bible and the sacraments provide the framework for the faith"; he also states that it is important for believers because it aids in the prevention of backsliding, as well as offers "the company of other believers". Until 1791, the government of the United Kingdom required attendance at church services of the Church of England (the mother Church of the Anglican Communion and a state Church) at least twice a year.


title: Church attendance

text: In addition to being based upon the spirit of the Ten Commandments, the importance of church attendance in Christian theology is delineated in , which implores the believers: "Let us not neglect our church meetings, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near."


title: Church attendance

text: About two-thirds of Latin American Christians and 90% of African Christians (in Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa and Zimbabwe), according to the World Values Survey, said they attended church regularly; according to a 2018 study by the Pew Research Center, Christians in Africa and Latin America and the United States have high levels of commitment to their faith. Data from the European Social Survey in 2012 showed that around a third of European Christians said they attend services once a month or more. The Gallup International, a self-reporting survey conducted via telephone, indicates that 37% of Americans report that they attend religious services weekly or near-weekly in 2013. The Pew Research Center stated, however, that there is a "sharp increase in church attendance around the two most significant Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter." As such, on Christmas (a holy day of obligation in the Catholic Church, a Festival in the Lutheran Churches and a Principal Feast in the Anglican Communion), LifeWay Research found that "six out of 10 Americans typically attend church". Countries that hold or have held a policy of state atheism have actively discouraged church attendance and church membership, often persecuting Christians who continued to worship.


title: Church attendance

text: The holding of church services pertains to the observance of the Lord's Day in Christianity. The Bible has a precedent for a pattern of morning and evening worship that has given rise to Sunday morning and Sunday evening services of worship held in the churches of many Christian denominations today, a "structure to help families sanctify the Lord’s Day." In and , "God commanded the daily offerings in the tabernacle to be made once in the morning and then again at twilight". In Psalm 92, which is a prayer concerning the observance of the Sabbath, the prophet David writes "It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night" (cf. ). Church father Eusebius of Caesarea thus declared: "For it is surely no small sign of God’s power that throughout the whole world in the churches of God at the morning rising of the sun and at the evening hours, hymns, praises, and truly divine delights are offered to God. God’s delights are indeed the hymns sent up everywhere on earth in his Church at the times of morning and evening." The early Christians attended two liturgies on the Lord's Day, worshipping communally in both a morning service and evening service, with the purpose of reading the Scriptures and celebrating the Eucharist. Throughout the rest of the week, Christians assembled at the church every day for morning prayer (which became known as "lauds") and evening prayer (which became known as "vespers"), while praying at the other fixed prayer times privately; Christian monastics came to gather together to corporately pray all of the seven canonical hours communally.


title: Church attendance

text: In addition to being based upon the spirit of the Ten Commandments (which includes the injunction to "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy"), the importance of church attendance in Christian theology is delineated in , which implores the believers: "Let us not neglect our church meetings, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near." Among Sunday Sabbatarians (First-day Sabbatarians), observance of the Lord's Day often takes the form of attending the Sunday morning service of worship, receiving catechesis through Sunday School, performing acts of mercy (such as evangelism, visiting prisoners in jails and seeing the sick at hospitals), and attending the Sunday evening service of worship, as well as refraining from Sunday shopping, servile work, playing sports, viewing the television, and dining at restaurants.


title: Church attendance

text: The majority of Christian denominations hold church services on the Lord's Day (with many offering Sunday morning and Sunday evening services); a number of traditions have mid-week Wednesday evening services as well. In some Christian denominations, church services are held daily, with these including those in which the canonical hours are prayed, as well as the offering of the Mass, among other forms of worship. In addition to this, many Christians attend services of worship on holy days such as Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Ascension Thursday, among others depending on the Christian denomination.


title: Church attendance

text: The Gallup International, a self-reporting survey conducted via telephone, indicates that 37% of Americans report that they attend religious services weekly or near-weekly in 2013. Self-reporting surveys conducted online indicate substantially lower weekly attendance rates, and methods of measurement that do not rely on self-reporting estimate even lower rates; for instance, a 2005 study published in the "Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion" found that just 22% of Americans attend services weekly. This compares to other countries' claims such as 15% of French citizens, 10% of British citizens, 8.8% of Australian citizens and 5.6% of Dutch citizens. In the U.K., in 2011, an average once-a-week attendance in Anglican churches went down by 0.3% compared with 2012, thus exhibiting a stabilizing trend. Previously, starting from 2000, an average rate of weekly church attendance in Britain was dropping down 1% annually. In 2013, the Pew Research Center reported that 37% of all Americans attended church on a weekly basis. In its turn, Gallup estimated the once-a-week church attendance of the Americans in 2013 as 39%.


title: Church attendance

text: Based on 1990–1991 data, it was estimated that the country with the highest rate of church attendance in the world was Nigeria (89%) and with the lowest – the Soviet Union (2%). Nigeria's data was notable, as Nigeria is very religiously diverse – the population is 50.1% Muslim and 48.2% Christian. The state authorities in the USSR, which dissolved in 1991, discouraged church construction; they had a hostile relationship with traditional organized religions and instead promoted Marxist-Leninist ideology, which espoused state atheism.


title: Church attendance

text: A survey commissioned by the "Época Magazine" in 2005 showed that 29% of Brazilians attend church weekly, and indicated that it is lesser than in the United States but higher than in Western Europe and Japan, indeed showing that contrary to the local popular belief, Brazilians of the time could indeed be regarded as a religious people even in practice (though it is ponderable that the growth of the population declaring to be solely irreligious in nationwide censuses grew about 100% between 2000 and 2010, and 200% between 2000 and 2013, from 4% to 12%, and general secularization also grew among the portion of the population that remained religious).


title: Church attendance

text: A 2006 "Financial Times (FT)/Harris Poll" conducted online surveyed 12,507 adults over 16 years old in the United States (2,010 U.S. adults were surveyed) and five European countries (France, Italy, Germany, Great Britain and Spain). The survey found that only 26% of those polled attended religious services "every week or more often", 9% went "once or twice a month", 21% went "a few times a year", 3% went "once a year", 22% went "less than once a year", and 18% never attend religious services. "Harris Interactive" stated that the magnitude of errors cannot be estimated due to sampling errors and non-response bias. A previous nearly identical survey by Harris in 2003 found that only 26% of those surveyed attended religious services "every week or more often", 11% went "once or twice a month" 19% went "a few times a year", 4% went "once a year", 16% went "less than once a year", and 25% never attend religious services.


title: Church attendance

text: Calculating the church's average weekend attendance is important since it determines the size of a given church. For example, in the U.S., an average weekend attendance of more than 2,000 people separates a mega church from a large church, and an average weekend attendance between 51 and 300 people defines the large church; while a small church is the church with an attendance lower than 50 people. (Alternative definitions, such as house church, simple church, intentional community, were proposed by the Barna Group, an American private consulting firm.) A narrow definition of a regular church attendee can be viewed as a synonym for a Sunday service visitation, while a broad definition, names as a regular attendee a person who comes to church during three out of eight weekends.


title: Church attendance

text: The frequency at which Christians attend church services varies greatly around the world. In some countries weekly attendance at religious services is common among Christians, while in others weekly attendance is rare. The following attendance statistics are mostly based on self-reporting surveys and may not accurately reflect real attendance figures.


title: Church attendance

text: The following church attendance statistics are taken from the 2004 Gallup report, based on self-reporting telephone surveys. However, it is unclear whether the survey was solely of Christians in the respective country or the entire population (including non-Christians).


title: Church attendance

text: A study by the European Social Survey conducted in 2008 found these rates of respondents "never" attending religious service (excluding special occasions):


title: Church attendance

text: The frequency by which adults attend church services also vary on a state-by-state basis in the United States.


title: Church attendance

text: The Pew Research Center studied the effects of gender on religiosity throughout the world, finding that women are generally more religious than men, yet the gender gap is greater for Christians than Muslims. Pew Research Center data in 53 countries, found that 53% of Christian women and 46% of Christian men say they attend services at least once a week. While Christians of both genders in African countries are equally likely to regularly attend services.


title: Church attendance

text: Church attendance remains stronger among older demographics, and more common for women in the West. There is evidence that links church attendance with health benefits. The Pew Research Center, which conducts the extensive research and information program "Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life", has linked regular church attendance with happiness. Several studies associated church attendance with decreased risk of Alzheimer's disease. Research by Rita W. Law and David A. Sbarra demonstrated that "church attendance was found to have a protective effect against the emergence of mood problems among older adults." Graham et al. discovered that "consistent pattern of lower systolic and diastolic blood pressures among frequent church attenders was found compared to that of infrequent attenders which was not due to the effects of age, obesity, cigarette smoking, or socioeconomic status." Oman D et al. found that "infrequent (never or less than weekly) attenders had significantly higher rates of circulatory, cancer, digestive, and respiratory mortality (p < 0.05), but not mortality due to external causes." With respect to students, Glanville et al. found "that religious attendance promotes higher intergenerational closure, friendship networks with higher educational resources and norms, and extracurricular participation." Research conducted at the Harvard School of Public Health found "that regularly attending church services together reduces a couple’s risk of divorce by 47 percent".


title: Church attendance

text: A 2018 sociological survey found that in the United States, "Donald Trump voters who attend church regularly are more likely than nonreligious Trump voters to have warmer feelings toward racial and religious minorities, to be more supportive of immigration and trade, and to be more concerned about poverty." A 2005 European Union survey found that religious belief increased with age and was higher among women, those who were leaning towards right-wing politics, and those reflecting more upon philosophical and ethical issues. In particular, the Iona Institute documented increasing church attendance in Ireland, despite sex-abuse scandals that plagued the Catholic Church. Some suggest the rise is due to the effects of the economic recession.


title: Church attendance

text: Research shows that there is a correlation between church attendance and the level of education. For instance, in a Pew Research study from 1996, approximately 34% of high school dropouts went to church on a typical Sunday, while 44% of those with a college degree or higher did. 48% of married individuals attended church on a typical Sunday, compared with 29% of divorced and 31% of never-married individuals. While it is likely that the well-educated and married might over-report their church attendance more often, these findings nevertheless demonstrate that they have maintained a stronger church-going identity than other Americans. In the United Kingdom, research in 2018 demonstrated that "Students at Oxford, Cambridge and Durham are twice as likely to worship on a Sunday as the general population"—colleges at these universities maintain approximately fifty-six chapels for worship.


title: Church attendance

text: According to a 2017 study by the Pew Research Center, overall, American Christians are more likely to have college degrees than the general population. The study found that highly educated Christians in the United States are more likely to attend church than those with lower education levels. On a scale measuring levels of religious commitment, over 70% of Christians in the United States who are educated demonstrate high levels of religiosity.


title: Church attendance

text: Several research studies in the USA and Europe found that church attendance practices of parents, especially fathers, can be highly influential in forming the future church attendance practices of their children.


title: Church attendance

text: In Switzerland, the Fertility and Family Survey was commissioned by the Federal Statistical Office (Switzerland) to enable Switzerland to take part in this international project launched by the UNECE Population Activities Unit. The survey was conducted between October 1994 and May 1995, with the results being published in 2000 by the Council of Europe. The results are representative of Switzerland's permanent resident population aged 20–49 and presented in the table below.


title: Church attendance

text: A non-practicing mother with a regular father will see a minimum of two-thirds of her children ending up at church. In contrast, a non-practicing father with a regular mother will see two-thirds of his children not attending church. If his wife is similarly non-practicing that figure rises to 80 percent.


title: Church attendance

text: Research on individuals residing in the United States and Canada concluded that "Ninety-six percent of the unchurched are at least somewhat likely to attend church if they are invited." In July 2018, LifeWay Research found that "Nearly two-thirds of Protestant churchgoers say they’ve invited at least one person to visit their church in the past six months".


title: Church attendance

text: Church attendance in advanced industrial societies is in gradual general decline with people shifting from weekly to monthly or holiday attendance. Sociologists have attributed this trend to a number of reasons, starting from a simple boredom during services and lack of motivation, to generational incompatibility of belief systems and social changes attributed to modernity. Research across 65 different nations showed that out of 20 advanced industrial countries, 16 demonstrated a declining rate of monthly church attendance.


title: Church attendance

text: An article published in the "Christianity Today Magazine" in 2007 suggested that in America, church attendance since the 1990s had remained stable.


title: Church attendance

text: The percent of Americans who regularly attend religious services has fluctuated over time, but presently is at a low point. In Gallup Poll surveys, the yearly aggregate of those who answer "yes" to the question "Did you, yourself, happen to attend church or synagogue in the last seven days, or not?" was 36% in 2014, 2015, and 2016. This is a very long-running Gallup question: "In 1939, when Gallup first asked this question, 41% said 'yes.' That percentage dropped to 37% in 1940 and rose to 39% in 1950. It continued to climb, reaching as high as 49% at multiple points in the 1950s. Attendance then settled down to figures around 40% for decades, before dropping to 36%" beginning in 2014.


title: Church attendance

text: The decline in church attendance is more pronounced in developed European countries, where it is suggested that the secular culture overrides interest in religion. In Poland, church attendance has declined from more than 50% in 1979 to 40% in 2012.


title: Church attendance

text: In the early 1990s, American sociologists Kirk Hadaway, Penny Marler, and Mark Chaves found that weekly attendance at Protestant and Catholic churches in one rural county in Ohio was only about 20%, whereas self-reported church attendance was 36%. The following studies confirmed a long-suspected gap between actual and self-reporting church attendance. The researchers have been wary of accusing over-reporters of dishonesty, as they found in the study that those who over-report do so mainly to maintain perceptions of themselves as "churched" Americans, not because they are afraid to reveal to the interviewer that they are "bad Christians." The findings point to a bigger issue as many people in the world may be over-reporting church attendance because of their self-perception and identity as churchgoing people, indicating a certain psychological aspect to the over-reporting of church attendance. Although surveys of church attendance are aimed to study religious behavior, many respondents view them as questions about their identity. This is especially true among Americans who consider themselves "regular churchgoers."


title: Kyle Johnson (actor)

text: Kyle Johnson (born August 14, 1951) is an American actor, most notable for his performance in the 1969 film "The Learning Tree".


title: Kyle Johnson (actor)

text: He is the son of actress Nichelle Nichols and her husband Foster Johnson. His parents divorced the year he was born. Johnson began his acting career when he accompanied his mother, as a form of punishment, to an audition for a stage play. The director saw Johnson and cast him on the spot for the production.


title: Kyle Johnson (actor)

text: Johnson's TV appearances include such shows as "The Fugitive" and "The Mod Squad". His early film roles include the 1965 epic film "The Greatest Story Ever Told", in which he was cast as the son of Simon of Cyrene (who was portrayed by Sidney Poitier). Later films included Roger Vadim's "Pretty Maids All in a Row" (1971) and "Brother on the Run" (1973).


title: Kyle Johnson (actor)

text: Johnson was active in the Los Angeles music scene of the 1980s as a musician and songwriter. His song, "Ready To Receive" was recorded by independent folk and pop artist Claudia Russell.


title: Kyle Johnson (actor)

text: In the early 2000s, Johnson had a radio show in KNFT in Silver City, New Mexico, which was the only left of center show on the station which also featured shows by Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives. The show was pulled from the air after just two months, reportedly due to pressure from local ranchers who objected to its content.


title: Polka Party!

text: Polka Party! is the fourth studio album by "Weird Al" Yankovic, released on October 21, 1986. The album was produced by former The McCoys guitarist Rick Derringer. Recorded between April and September 1986, the album was Yankovic's follow-up to his successful 1985 release, "Dare to Be Stupid". The album's lead single, "Living With a Hernia", failed chart.


title: Polka Party!

text: The music on "Polka Party!" is built around parodies and pastiches of pop and rock music of the mid-1980s, featuring direct parodies of James Brown, Mick Jagger, El DeBarge and Robert Palmer. The album also features many "style parodies", or musical imitations that come close to, but do not copy, existing artists. These style parodies include imitations of specific artists like Talking Heads, as well as imitations of various musical genres like country music.


title: Polka Party!

text: Peaking at No. 177 on the "Billboard" 200, "Polka Party!" was met with mixed-to-negative reviews and was considered a commercial and critical failure. Despite this, the album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording in 1986. "Polka Party!" is one of Yankovic's few studio albums not to be certified either Gold or Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).


title: Polka Party!

text: Yankovic entered the recording studio in April 1986 to begin the sessions to his follow-up to 1985's "Dare to Be Stupid". To produce the album, Yankovic brought in former The McCoys guitarist Rick Derringer, who had also produced Yankovic's previous albums. Backing Yankovic were Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz on drums, Steve Jay on bass, and Jim West on guitar. The album was recorded in roughly three sessions. The first session took place between April 22 and 23, and yielded four originals: "Don't Wear Those Shoes", "One of Those Days", "Dog Eat Dog", and "Christmas at Ground Zero". The second session, which spanned August 4–5, produced three parodies: "Living with a Hernia", "Addicted to Spuds", and "Here's Johnny". The final session, which lasted from August 29 to September 1, produced the parody "Toothless People", an original song named "Good Enough for Now", and the album's titular polka medley. Thematically, Yankovic described the record as "not a whole lot different than" the other albums he had recorded, calling the process "even a bit formulaic".


title: Polka Party!

text: On April 22, 1986, Yankovic began recording three new original songs for his next album: "Don't Wear Those Shoes", "One of Those Days", and "Dog Eat Dog". Although "Don't Wear Those Shoes" is an original composition, Yankovic admitted that the intro was inspired by the style of The Kinks. Lyrically, the song is a plea by the singer to his wife not to not wear certain shoes which he cannot stand. "One of Those Days" is a song detailing horrible things as if they were everyday annoyances. Each horrible thing escalates up to global annihilation while more mundane annoyances pop up at different times.


title: Polka Party!

text: "Dog Eat Dog" is a style parody of the Talking Heads. Described as a "tongue-in-cheek look at office life", the song was inspired by Yankovic's past experience of working in the mailroom and traffic department at the Westwood One radio station. He noted, "At first I thought [the job] was kinda cool that I had a phone and a desk and a little cubicle to call my own, but after a while I felt like my soul had been sucked out of me." The song features a line directly parodying the Talking Heads song "Once In a Lifetime": "Sometimes I tell myself, this is not my beautiful stapler/Sometimes I tell myself this is not my beautiful chair!" This mirrors a similar line in the Talking Heads song: "You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house/You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife".


title: Polka Party!

text: On April 23, Yankovic recorded "Christmas at Ground Zero". The song, "a cheery little tune about death, destruction and the end of the world" was the result of Scotti Brothers Records' insistence that Yankovic release a Christmas record. After Yankovic presented the song to his label, they relented, because it was "a little different from what they were expecting." After the song's release, some radio stations banned the record, a move that Yankovic attributes to "most people [not wanting] to hear about nuclear annihilation during the holiday season." Following the September 11 attacks, when the general term "ground zero" was co-opted as a proper name for the World Trade Center site where two of those attacks took place, the disturbing lyrics caused this song to be banned largely from radio. Yankovic wanted the song to receive a video, but due to budget reasons, his label did not agree. Yankovic, however, directed one himself which was mostly made up of stock footage, with a live action finale that was filmed in a run-down part of the Bronx, New York that "looked like a bomb had fallen on it."


title: Polka Party!

text: The final original that was recorded was "Good Enough for Now", a country music pastiche about how the singer's lover, while not the best, will do for now.


title: Polka Party!

text: On August 4, Yankovic began recording parodies starting with "Living With a Hernia". The song, a spoof of "Living in America" by James Brown—which was also the theme to the 1985 film "Rocky IV"—is about hernias. When it came time to pick a song to parody as the lead single for "Polka Party!" Scotti Brothers Records "had some very strong ideas" and wished to have Yankovic parody a musician who was signed on the same label. After "Living in America" became a hit, the record label insisted that Yankovic parody the song, to which Yankovic obliged. In order to accurately write the song, Yankovic researched the various types of hernias. Yankovic noted that "it was a real thrill to do James Brown. I'm a total non-dancer, never went to any dances in high school, but if I analytically dissect a dance routine I can figure it out." A choreographer named Chester Whitmore was hired to accurately create the dance scenes featured in the video, which was shot on the concert set actually used in the movie "Rocky IV". The second parody recorded was "Addicted to Spuds", a pastiche of "Addicted to Love" by Robert Palmer, about a man's obsession for potatoes and potato-based dishes. A music video for the song was never made because there was a strict budget for videos for the album, and Yankovic felt that the video would be "one joke" and not really worth its own video. A parody of Palmer's video, however, was later inserted into Al's "UHF" video.


title: Polka Party!

text: On August 5, Yankovic recorded "Here's Johnny", a parody of "Who's Johnny" by El DeBarge. The song, a loving ode to "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" announcer Ed McMahon, features John Roarke of the television series "Fridays" fame doing an impression of McMahon's voice. According to Yankovic, Peter Wolf, the man who wrote "Who's Johnny", enjoyed the parody idea so much that he personally brought into the studio the floppy disc that contained the song's programmed synthesizer parts. The final parody recorded for the album was "Toothless People", a play on Mick Jagger's "Ruthless People", which was recorded on August 29, 1986. The song, about elderly people who are missing their teeth, was written after Yankovic heard it would be the theme to the 1986 film "Ruthless People". Assuming the song would be a hit, Yankovic requested and received permission from Jagger to record a parody version. Jagger's song, however, was never a hit, but because Jagger had "approved" the parody, he decided failing to produce it would be an "insult" to the artist.


title: Polka Party!

text: The album's polka medley, the titular "Polka Party!", was recorded on the same day as "Here's Johnny". This was Yankovic's third polka medley, and his only medley to bear the same name as an album. Like his other medleys, the song is a conglomeration of then-popular songs in music.


title: Polka Party!

text: To promote the album's release, Scotti Brothers Records purchased full-page ads in "Billboard" magazine that advertised the release as Yankovic's "biggest bash yet". Unlike previous albums, Yankovic did not undertake a tour to promote "Polka Party!" Instead, he opened for the American rock band The Monkees; Yankovic later joked that the Monkees merely "closed" for him. Yankovic explained that while it "was a fun tour" and that the crowds were very enthusiastic, the tension between the Monkees was obvious; on his website, he wrote that while the band members "are all terrific people individually", they "didn't seem to get along all that great when they weren't on stage."


title: Polka Party!

text: "Polka Party!" received mixed to negative reviews from critics. AllMusic reviewer Eugene Chadbourne gave the album three stars and wrote that "just about anyone could feel let down by this album." Chadbourne was largely critical of the parody choices, noting that many of the original versions would be forgotten in "fifteen years". Christopher Thelen from The Daily Vault gave "Polka Party!" an F and described it as an album that "seemed like it could well have been the 'last call' for Yankovic." Thelen heavily criticized the record, writing that both the parodies and originals were not good and that "Yankovic [was] going through the motions". "Rolling Stone" awarded the album three-and-a-half stars, tying it with the 1992 album "Off the Deep End" and the 1999 release "Running with Scissors" as Yankovic's best-rated album. Although it was not a critical success, the album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording in 1987, but lost to Bill Cosby's "Those of You with or Without Children, You'll Understand".


title: Polka Party!

text: Despite the album's lackluster reception, many of the songs on the album, such as "Dog Eat Dog", "Addicted to Spuds", and "Christmas at Ground Zero", went on to become fan favorites and live staples. Two of the album's tracks, "Living with a Hernia" and "Addicted to Spuds", appeared on Yankovic's first greatest hits album (1988), "Christmas at Ground Zero" appeared on the second volume (1994). In addition, the 1994 box set "" contained five of the album's songs: "Addicted to Spuds", "Dog Eat Dog", "Here's Johnny", "Living with a Hernia", and "Christmas at Ground Zero". Only "Dog Eat Dog", however, appeared on Yankovic's 2009 "Essential" collection, although the 3.0 version contained "Living with a Hernia".


title: Polka Party!

text: "Polka Party!" was released October 21, 1986. After it was released, the album peaked at No. 177 on the "Billboard" 200. Compared to Yankovic's previous albums—"Dare to Be Stupid" peaked at No. 50 and "In 3-D" peaked at No. 17—"Polka Party!" was considered a commercial disappointment for the comedian. The album was the lowest-charting studio album released by Yankovic and is one of his few studio albums not to be certified either Gold or Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The others include the soundtrack to his film UHF (1989) and "Poodle Hat" (2003).


title: Polka Party!

text: Yankovic was dismayed by the album's lackluster reception. He noted that he "thought it was the end of [his] career". Yankovic explained that "I figured I'd peaked with 'Eat It' and 'Like a Surgeon' and now people were slowly forgetting about me and I was well on my way to obscurity." However, Yankovic's next album, "Even Worse", would resurrect his career and become his best-selling album at the time; the experience led Yankovic to realize that "careers have peaks and valleys, and whenever I go through the rough times, another peak might be right around the corner."


title: Foxy Shazam

text: Foxy Shazam is an American rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio formed in 2004. , the band's lineup consists of lead vocalist Eric Nally, pianist Sky White, trumpeter and backing vocalist Alex Nauth, bassist Trigger Warning, guitarist Devin Williams and drummer Teddy Aitkins. The band released their debut album "The Flamingo Trigger" independently in 2005 before signing with Ferret Music, under which they released their second album "Introducing Foxy Shazam" in 2008. The following year, the band recorded its first major label record with producer John Feldmann. Foxy Shazam signed with Sire Records and released its self-titled major-label debut in 2010. The band's fourth studio album, "The Church of Rock and Roll", was released in January 2012. "Gonzo", the band's fifth album, was released April 2, 2014.


title: Foxy Shazam

text: They announced in October 2014 they were disbanding for an unknown length of time. The band scheduled a reunion concert at the Taft Theatre in Cincinnati, Ohio on January 30, 2020, which sold out immediately. The concert was originally scheduled for April 11, 2020, but rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The group released their sixth album "Burn" in December 2020, through their own Eeeoooah label. They released their seventh album, "The Heart Behead You", in February 2022, also through Eeeoooah.


title: Foxy Shazam

text: In 1997, Eric Nally started nu-metal group Train of Thought. After Loren Turner joined the group in 2003, they later released a self-released extended play (EP), which consisted of two songs. In 2004, they decided to change the name of the band to "Foxy Shazam!" due to several members of Train of Thought leaving and a change in sound. On June 15, 2005, the band released their official debut album, titled "The Flamingo Trigger". In support of their debut album, the band toured all across the country from 2005 to 2007.


title: Foxy Shazam

text: After the band's debut tour, the group announced that they signed a record deal to Ferret Music. On January 22, 2008, they released their second album, titled "Introducing". The album was supported by their lead single: "A Dangerous Man". In 2008, they were named as one of the "100 Bands You Need to Know" by "Alternative Press", which led the band earning their spots on tours with bands such as The Darkness, The Strokes, The Sounds, The Fall of Troy, Hole, Portugal. The Man, Tub Ring, The Dear Hunter, Tera Melos, Free Energy, Bad Rabbits, Panic! at the Disco and The Young Veins, to support for their second studio release.


title: Foxy Shazam

text: In 2010, Foxy Shazam was included on the "Spin" list of "Ten Bands You Need To Know". The lead vocalist from the band, Eric Sean Nally wrote songs for Meat Loaf's album "Hang Cool, Teddy Bear". The band announced that they signed a deal to Sire Records. On February 7, 2010, their single "Unstoppable" was used in the Super Bowl XLIV telecast as background music for the first half highlights. The track was featured on the "NHL 11" video game and it was included on the Cartoon Network's second live-action show "Tower Prep" as a theme song. The song was also included in a trailer of the movie "Your Highness", and the song was featured in a series of the commercials for MLB Network. On April 13, 2010, they released their self-titled third album, "Foxy Shazam". The band then performed at Lollapalooza festival. They appeared in many magazines such as "Alternative Press" and "Spin" to support the album. The band played a 3-song set on Fuel.tv's "The Daily Habit", a 5-song set on shockhound.com, as well as performing an acoustic 3-song set for "Spin Magazine". In July 2010, the band visited the Chicago's JBTV, where they were interviewed and then they performed live and premiered their exclusive version of "Oh, Lord" to the music discovery app, titled Shazam. The band was later named as the spotlight band for the 2011's Warped Tour.


title: Foxy Shazam

text: On December 5, 2011, Foxy Shazam announced the title to their fourth album, "The Church of Rock and Roll", revealed the album's final track listing, along with a cover artwork and the release date for January 2012. On January 24, 2012, they released the album. It included three singles: "I Like It", "Holy Touch" and "Welcome to the Church of Rock and Roll". After the band toured, serving as the opening act for The Darkness. Foxy Shazam announced that they would be embarking on a headlining tour starting in April 2012. They performed at their hometown Bunbury Music Festival in Cincinnati, OH in July. They then toured as the opening act for Slash on his North American tour dates from September 4 to October 4, 2012.