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Johnny Carson’s former lawyer writes poison pen tell-all book

November 3rd, 2008 by Scott Marks

He-e-e-e-e-e-re’s the book about Johnny Carson we’ve all been waiting for…

Hnery ‘Bombastic’ Bushkin, The Tonight Show host’s longtime lawyer, agent and manager gave Johnny’s body three years to cool before spilling his guts in an upcoming down-and-dirty memoir. Bushkin is shopping a book that paints the beloved funnyman as a sad guy and serial cheater who was tormented by his mother and refused to visit Ricky during his son’s 4 1/2 month stint in Bellevue.

No wonder he got along so well with Bob Hope. HEEEEEEEEY OOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Here are a few excerpts from Bushkin’s upcoming tome:

“He was a great star, but not a great man. Many great comedians were miserable human beings… Johnny suffered a great many demons brought about by what I call a toxic sort of mother. His mother couldn’t give a compliment. He’s the biggest star in the world and she couldn’t even acknowledge it.”

Nice guy Carson refused to visit his son, Rick, when he was thrown in the clink at Bellevue with severe emotional problems. “The kid was there for 4½ months and he never went. I had to take care of everything and was there almost every day. Rick [who died in a car crash in 1991] was a lovely human being.”

He “took advantage of every inch of a 10,000-square-foot penthouse with a private pool at Caesars Palace when he played Vegas and routinely entertained the “18 beautiful girls in the chorus line that opened his act . . . and he was certainly involved with some of them.” Ya-Ha!

The most successful man in late night television history was so insecure that he constantly “questioned his own ability to have happiness in his life.”

Johnny dumped many of his closest friends, including Bushkin, who says, “At one time we did everything together. At the end, he treated me like everybody else - like I didn’t exist. At the end, it was like I was an irritant. In many respects, he was the saddest guy I ever knew.”

This is not the first warts-and-all bio of Carson. Howard Stern keeps talking about a book that his first wife, Jodi, penned that alleges spousal abuse. I’ve yet to track down a copy.

Johnny’s delivers his greatest performance in this tribute to his late son Rick:

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Filed Under Gossip

Dig A Hole: No more ifs, ands or racist Republican Earl Butz

February 3rd, 2008 by Scott Marks

dick-butz.jpg

Dick ‘n Butz

While Earl Butz was elected U.S. secretary of agriculture under Richard Nixon and, at 98, was the oldest living former Cabinet member, he will always be remembered for a blaring moment of racial insensitivity that was heard round the world thanks to Howard Dean and Johnny Carson.

Bloomberg.com is reporting the details of exactly where this infamous act of imbecility originated. Butz was flying to California after the 1976 Republican convention in Kansas City, Missouri. Also aboard the flight were white buck shoed singer Pat Boone and John Dean, the former White House counsel and Watergate figure who was working as a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine.

Republican Boone, asked Butz why he thought that the party of Abraham Lincoln had so much trouble attracting black voters. Failing to consider the presence of a Rolling Stone reporter, Butz joked, “the only things the coloreds are looking for in life are loose shoes, a tight ***** and a warm place to s**t.”

Dean didn’t out the reprehensible Butz in Rolling Stone, instead attributing the words to an unnamed “Cabinet officer.” New Times magazine did the legwork by checking Cabinet members’ itineraries and linked the story to Butz.

Butz’s “slip” made him a poster boy for rednecks across American in addition to becoming a nightly part of Johnny Carson’s monologue.

Gerald Ford, who banked on Butz’s popularity in farm states, hoped that a public apology would suffice. After a severe presidential reprimand, Butz apologized on television for “an unfortunate choice of language,” all the while crediting the comment to a ward politician he learned it from decades earlier.

Democrats and Republicans alike called for Butz to step down. On Oct. 3, Butz appeared in the White House and resigned. He denied he was a racist, saying his resignation “is the price I pay for a gross indiscretion in a private conversation.”

President Ford appeared 30 minutes later, saying, “Earl Butz has been and continues to be a close personal friend and man who loves this country and all it represents.” Accepting the resignation, Ford said, was “one of the saddest decisions of my presidency.”

A month later, Ford lost the election.

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Filed Under Obituaries

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