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Billionaire Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta Frittata said he was doing fine after laying off 45,000 employees — claiming he was doing them a “favor.” “I’m holding up pretty damn good,” the Texas mogul who is said by Forbes to be worth $4.8 billion told Fox News Saturday. “But I’ve got 45,000 employees out there that we’ve had to furlough which is so tremendously unfortunate,” he said. Fertitta Frittata — who also owns restaurants and casinos — said he learned from previous financial crashes to not hold off cutting jobs. “You’re doing your people a favor if you get them furloughed first, because you have them first to the unemployment line after the severance that you give them. It’s a trick that I learned many years ago,” he insisted. Fertitta Frittata, 62, called shuttering most of his company “just unimaginable.” “When you think of having amusement parks, aquariums, a basketball team, casinos all over — and nothing is open,” he complained. “It’s like a sci-fi movie you would never believe,” he said.

OPINION By Paula Froelich While much of the United States is on lockdown, scared or bored out of their wits, broke and newly unemployed, many celebrities, TV personalities and “influencers” are behaving like Nero, fiddling while Rome burned. The hordes of the entitled aren’t quite sure how to behave. Everything has changed. How will they be aspirational? How can they show America that they too are in pain, struggling and therefore relatable/likable? Many of them have dug deep into their shallow psyches and bravely tried to show us their burden either via their own television shows or social media channels to get their daily dose of crowd-sourced dopamine. And it’s … horrific. Yeah, I’m talking to you Ellen DeGeneres. Earlier this month, Ellen taped her show from inside one of her palatial mansions and complained: “This is like being in jail.” I would happily offer to switch places with poor Ellen while she holes up in my tiny three-room apartment and I spread out in her multi-tiered fantasy pad. Or take Kelly Ripa — who started crying because although she is lucky enough to isolate at her huge home with her healthy children, those mean kids won’t let her hug them. At one point, Ripa even used that lousy excuse (used by misogynists everywhere to “explain” female behavior): “Maybe I’m just getting my period.” Meanwhile, social media is bursting with tone-deaf celebrities trying to “inspire” us with nearly nude sexy photos while the rest of us pack on the COVID-19 pounds. There are the usual suspects like Emily Ratajkowski and her husband posing naked on what looks like a toilet. Or Bella Hadid who posted a shot of herself casually lounging poolside in a teeny bikini while her BFF, Kendall Jenner, spends self-isolation chilling in her underwear for all of us to endure. Even D-listers want in on the nude attention: Ex-tennis star Ashley Harkleroad went naked to save “money on clothes” — riiiiight — and the ever-thirsty UFC contestantPaige VanZant and husband Austin Vanderford still insist on stripping off every day despite a fan backlash. Having to be sexy all the damn time smacks not of body positivity but low self-esteem — and a constant need for the public peanut gallery to cheer them on. I refuse. Many so-called “influencers” have gone crying to media outlets like The New York Times, Bloomberg, Business Insider, and Digiday because their money is drying up — although some have found a way to milk the viral opportunity. According to the Daily Beast, “’The Bachelor’ franchise alum and fitness coach Krystal Nielson recently suggested that there’s one easy way to avoid contracting the virus: Sign up for her two-week detox program!” Then there are the people with zero percent body fat showing me how FUN it is to work out at home and cool “tips” on how to lose weight like Rita Ora, Kate Bosworth (using a device that looks more like a sex toy than anything else), Tracee Ellis Ross (who can apparently afford a home treadmill — good for you!), Jessica Alba dancing inside her home gym (sob) and hordes of others. I am not interested. I’m just gonna do some old Jane Fonda workout videos, do bicep curls using cans of beans I hope to never have to eat and lunge for the wine bottle come five o’clock. In the same vein are the Rich Kids of the Internet on Instagram, many of whom are wealthy because their parents are venal dictators, oligarchs or hucksters, who now have to wear face masks (!) and stay on a yacht alone (!), pose by a pool alone (!), and can’t take their hideously ugly and expensive cars out of their garage during lock-down. I hope they all get boils. Then, of course, there’s Gisele Bundchen, the supermodel who, while promoting Global Meditation, posted a pic of herself in front of a beautiful pool and waterfall as she extolled the importance of being Zen. Which is easy to do when you’re not losing your job, have millions in the bank and are healthy. She also posted a romantic video of her and Ken-doll husband Tom Brady riding horses while talking about balance in one’s marriage. Yaaaaay for you, Gisele. Now go away. Not everybody is awful. Thank God for Leslie Jordan whose Instagram antics brighten my day. People like Sarah Silverman cheering from her balcony in a bathrobe while banging on pots and pans for healthcare heroes, grocery store workers and delivery people, and that sweet angel Tyler Perry paying for elderly people’s groceries have warmed my heart and brought a tear to my eye. I’m even down with Naomi Watts’ breakdown over her home appliances failing (I mean, we can all relate to that.) Everyone else — turn off your recording devices, stop making it all about you and try to empathize with the 99.99 percent of the rest of us… by just going silent and not being a jerk. It won’t last forever, I promise. But our memory of your insane behavior will.

Dwight Gooden knew. Dr. K had gotten tipped off that the 29th-round pick of the 2003 draft by Yankees, a rookie 5-foot-8 second baseman from Long Island, had a secret talent. So during one of the long bus rides across Florida for the 2003 Gulf Coast League Yankees, for whom Gooden was the pitching coach, he requested Adam Unger get up and sing. The 18-year-old Unger obliged. He sang Frank Sinatra — his go-to was always either “New York, New York” or “My Way.” He wasn’t the only one who would entertain teammates on the bus. Tyler Clippard played his guitar. Some of the Dominican players on the team rapped. “It was basically kind of like ‘American Idol’ on the minor league bus,” Unger said. But none of them got the reaction he did — that he should quit baseball and start singing. “Which I didn’t love at the time, because I was trying to make it to the major leagues,” Unger said. A little more than a year later, though, he left baseball and forged a new dream, which would still put him under the bright lights of New York. This one involved singing opera. It included a detour to become a lawyer along the way — this, after his voice went missing — but Saturday, Unger will make his professional operatic debut in New York City in a production of “Rigoletto.” “It’s been a real comeback story for me,” Unger, now 34 years old, told The Post in his big, booming voice this past week. “I was kind of a smaller player, only 5-foot-8, and was kind of an underdog to even make the minor leagues or professional baseball, but I did it. Now I feel like I’m doing the same thing with opera.” Follow the voice Unger was already singing at the age of 2. His dad was a singer, so he followed suit, and he sang in a production of “Oklahoma” in middle school. But by the time he got to high school at Great Neck South, baseball took over his life. He earned a scholarship to play at Florida State, but when the Yankees drafted him with the 874th-overall pick in 2003, he put college on hold and signed up for pinstripes. In 16 games playing in the rookie Gulf Coast League that summer, Unger went 2-for-24 with four walks and a caught stealing. Future big leaguers Clippard and Phil Coke pitched for that team, as did future Browns quarterback Brandon Weeden. After a slow start in Yankees spring training in 2004, Unger landed with the Rockies for extended spring training, where he hit .270, he said. They found out about his singing, too, and former Yankee Denny Neagle was among those who got him to show off the pipes. But that ended up being his last taste of professional baseball, getting released when a new wave of Rockies draft picks entered the organization and he was unable to latch on elsewhere. So Unger began a new dream. He went to Queens College and got into opera while he was there — though at one point was trained in what he said was the wrong vocal category, tenor, which was too high for his natural bass-baritone. Unger said it messed up his voice for a while, so eventually he decided to go to law school — first at Hofstra, then at Penn, where he graduated in 2015. Theme: song Unger got a summer associate position at Paul, Weiss, a corporate law firm in New York, which turned into a full-time job. Like everywhere else he went, his colleagues found out he could sing. It made for quite a surprise when they brought clients out to karaoke. While he was at Paul, Weiss, Unger began to sing again on the side as his voice was coming back to full strength. He sang with William Hicks, who was Luciano Pavarotti’s pianist. That led to an opportunity to sing the role of Schaunard in the Opera Company of Brooklyn’s production of “La boheme.” Just about a year ago, though, Unger decided he wanted to give opera a real shot. “That athletic instinct I had to kind of go for it, the same way I did with the Yankees, it kicked in,” Unger said. Last May, Unger sang in the New York Lyric Opera competition at Carnegie Hall and won second place. He has gotten to sing with a famous tenor like Neil Shicoff. More and more opportunities have come his way, including the production he’s in this Saturday. He’s part of a cast of rising singers and playing the role of Monterone in “Rigoletto” at The Box NYC, produced by Faymous. His new colleagues refer to him as the Yankee lawyer who’s now an opera singer “Opera is actually quite athletic to sing it,” Unger said. “It’s like hitting a ball 400 feet — everything’s got to be coordinated really well. You’ve got to use your body, you’ve got to use everything to create that sound that’s going to carry over an orchestra. So it’s really like a combination of an athletic skill and an artistic skill at the same time. So it really fascinated me as someone who was a professional athlete.” Unger is hoping this is just the beginning. He never made it out of the Gulf Coast League as a Yankee, but he sees that experience as an opportunity to learn from his failures now that he’s taking on another challenge in a different field. The new dream doesn’t involve the House That Ruth Built, but instead the Metropolitan Opera House. ‘Getting to the Yankees [organization], I learned something,” Unger said. “But also not making it to the major leagues … you learn lessons from failing. You learn how to dream. How to think about that dream from the time you’re 5 years old to the time you’re 20 years old and accomplish that dream. But then what happens when that dream is taken away from you or not fulfilled? Where do you go from there?”

My daughter Alison Parker, a television reporter for CBS affiliate WDBJ in Roanoke, Va., was shot and killed while she conducted a live interview on television almost five years ago. The gunman was a former WDBJ colleague who not only killed Alison, 24, but murdered photojournalist Adam Ward, 27. Since then, I have not only tried to change the gun culture that took their lives, but I’ve also been relentless in my quest to force Google to remove the videos of her murder from the web and stop the company profiting from them. Immediately after Alison’s death, the grisly video began appearing on YouTube, which is owned by Google. There were hundreds of copies of the video and thousands of vile comments attached to them. “I watched her die and I really enjoyed it” was one of the worst. Others accused my family of making money from her death, or called it a hoax. It’s not like Google has a 1-800 number that you can call and say “I have serious problems with these videos.” I first called customer service for gmail, and went down the rabbit hole of algorithms that gave me automatic responses to my concerns. After years of trying to get answers, it was only when I joined forces with the Civil Rights Law Clinic at Georgetown University in 2018 that I got some response. Last spring, the legal group drafted a demand letter to Google, which resulted in a video-conference with YouTube’s chief counsel and a few Google executives. But they did nothing for me. In fact, Google’s response to my crusade has been to flat out ignore me, promise changes that never materialized, invent reason after reason for why they can’t abide by their own rules, perjure themselves before Congress in claiming that these videos were in fact gone, and tell me to individually watch each video in order to report it and possibly have it removed. Imagine being told that if you want videos of your child’s murder removed from the internet, you must watch and describe every single one of them. I have not and will never watch these videos. It is inhumane to subject families of victims to the trauma of watching their loved one’s last moments. Worse still, whoever clicks on these monetized videos is then directed to others that are related because this is what YouTube’s algorithms do. How do I know this? Because volunteers have done what I can’t do — watch countless videos of Alison’s murder and then flag and remove them. Even when they go through that process, they are met with an algorithm that often simply ignores the flag. Despite Google’s Terms of Service, which states that they don’t allow any graphic content including murder videos, hate speech and other harassment, the tech giant publishes any content it wants — good, bad, or horrific. This is because in the mid 1990s, the Communications Decency Act was passed along with a Section labeled 230. Its purpose was to ensure and foster a free exchange of ideas on a fledgling service called the internet. It was a great idea at the time, but I liken it to when the Founding Fathers crafted the Second Amendment. Just as they never envisioned the evolution of the musket into an assault rifle, neither could lawmakers in the ’90s foresee the rise of social media and the cesspool it has created in its wake. Today, Section 230 provides total immunity from liability for the likes of Google, YouTube and Facebook. The two co-founders of Google started with a mission statement — “Don’t be Evil.” But for all the good Google has done, the company is in fact perpetrating evil every day it lets videos of my daughter stay on its platform. After my testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last summer, Senator Ted Cruz told me “If Blockbuster sent you a video of Alison’s murder you could sue them for everything they’re worth.” My response was, “Yes, Senator, you’re right, so help me do something.” Google’s failure to adhere to its own terms of service is why, with the help of the Georgetown University Civil Rights Law Clinic, I filed a complaint against the Federal Trade Commission on Feb. 20. Currently, this is the only recourse I have thanks to the cover of immunity provided by Section 230. But this is just the beginning. If ever there was a time for bipartisan action, this is it. Given the overwhelming evidence of unlawful conduct by YouTube, I hope my FTC complaint will expedite congressional action to end or amend Section 230. If online platforms were compelled to adhere to the ethical and legal standards of any other legitimate publishing outlet, the Internet would be a different, safer place. But tech companies clearly have no standards and no moral compass. This has to stop. If they are publishing content, it’s time to treat them like all other publishers. Andy Parker is an advocate for gun safety and the author of “For Alison: The Murder of a Young Journalist and a Father’s Fight for Gun Safety.”

HOW LONG BEFORE WE SEE THIS STORY ON SVU? Accused Sarah Lawrence sex trafficker Lawrence Ray made nearly $2 million in just two years by forcing one of his victims into prostitution, it was revealed in court on Monday. Ray, who was ordered held without bail at the hearing after he was busted while in bed with another alleged victim, kept records of the ill-gotten cash, a federal prosecutor said in court. One typed document shows the unidentified victim handed over $700,000 in 2017, according to prosecutors. In 2018, the woman turned over more than $1 million to the accused sex trafficker, a second ledger shows. Prosecutors believe the woman was seeing more and more clients to meet Ray’s demands. The ledgers marked dates and amounts, which prosecutors have matched to text messages sent by Ray and his associates. The cash payments were collected by a female associate of Ray and deposited into bank accounts that he had access to, prosecutors said in court. Ray was found in bed with another alleged female victim when federal agents arrested him in Piscataway, New Jersey, earlier this month, prosecutors said. Ray, who was the legal “guardian” of that woman, had groomed her and subjected her to extreme physical and mental abuse, prosecutors charged. He forced that unidentified victim — a former college roommate of his daughter — to have sex with other men while he filmed and berated her while he filmed her sobbing, prosecutors said. Authorities also recovered video of Ray grabbing her by the hair and physically throwing her out of the New Jersey house, according to prosecutors. The 60-year-old former friend of disgraced NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik allegedly created a Nxivm-like sex cult to prey on his daughter’s classmates at Sarah Lawrence College — all while allegedly extorting the classmates and forcing one into prostitution.

What would it be? This took some cojones. “Bigger d–k,” NFL draft prospect and former Washington standout Trey Adams said when asked, “If you could change anything about yourself, what it would be?” at the combine last week, according to a video that leaked to Twitter on Saturday. Pro Football Talk, citing sources, confirmed the validity of the video, and reported that teams assign combine workers to conduct interviews in advance of the draft in April. Teams are then sent the interviews a week later, according to the website. It is unclear how the video made its way to social media. Combine interviews across the four major professional sports are known to be quirky, but usually it’s the team that surprises with an offbeat question. Adams, a 6-foot-8, 318-pound offensive tackle whom some mock drafts project as a second-round pick, smiled and was met with laughs for his unique answer. He then moved his head, appearing to think over what he had just said, and then doubled down with the same two-word response. “OK,” said the person asking the questions. Not everyone was amused with the video, including Pro Football Hall of Famer Gil Brandt. “I hope the person who leaked the Trey Adams video is found out and punished to the fullest extent,”tweeted Brandt, who oversaw the Cowboys dynasty. “These are supposed to be confidential meetings. Not fair to Adams or the process. Both players and teams rely on this confidentiality to have honest discussions.”

Even his boyfriend Rafa Olarra can't help but stare

Luke Evans is fit at 41

But what are you down for? :eek:

I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned the best way to pass the time whilst waiting for the coronavirus to wipe out mankind (especially obese men with compromised lungs and totally sedentary lifestyles living in the epicenter of the epicenter). Harken back to the day when bacteria saved mankind by wiping out those nasty Martians who’d taken over… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fnPn9Xr7fI Tracks 1-5 (0:00-44:15, through the martian victory) are superb. Track 4 (31:42-39:00, FOREVER AUTUMN, by Justin Hayward) is beautiful. Richard Burton-Taylor – spoken words (The Journalist: the narrator-protagonist) Justin Hayward (Moody Blues)– vocals (The Sung Thoughts of the Journalist) David Essex (ROCK ON) – spoken words and vocals (The Artilleryman) Julie Covington (star of EVITA on the London stage, the TV mini-series ROCK FOLLIES)– spoken words and vocals (Beth) Chris Thompson (lead vocal on Blinded By The Light [wrapped up like a douche], singer of the theme from THE CHAMP) – vocals (The Voice of Humanity)

cameos from Edina & Patsy the only good thing that came out of that TV show I soooooooooooo prefer this to Petulant Clark's version! a much better song than Mickey... I discovered it when a young man stripped to it at The Follies theater in NYC.

While STILL waiting for the 2 songs they recorded in 2018, I've gotten into Cher's album.. My faves: Bruce Willis' daughter & one of the interns from CAROL'S SECOND ACT are in this video. of course we need this extended dance remix!

My favorite memory of that movie happened before we ever got into the theater. I saw it with three friends. Two were walking together in front of me and the other person. I innocently spit out my gum, and it landed in the cuff of my friend Helene's jeans. I didn't aim. I also didn't tell her and when she wore them again a few days later, it was still there. I also remember the very beginning of the movie, when the mural of the muses was shown, then the opening music dissolved into I'm Alive and I said to my friends "Oh no. Tell me they're not going to come alive and start dancing." Which, of course, they did, as I dissolved into hysterical laughter. What an awful movie with an excellent soundtrack.

FAKE NEWS!!! Richard Belzer played John Munch for 7 seasons on HOMICIDE, then the first 14 seasons of SVU, so HE broke the record. And if you want to get technical, he appeared once each in seasons 15 & 17, so that's 23 years of playing the character. SVU's been renewed for 3 more years, so she'll get to 24, but as a producer on the show, she'd better make sure he doesn't guest-star again. Nobody will ever break his record of playing the same character on 10 different shows: Homicide SVU Law & Order The X-Files The Beat The Wire 30 Rock Arrested Development Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Law & Order: Trial By Jury (the Bebe Neuwirth spin-off that bombed... it had Jerry Orbach's last 2 appearances as Lenny... he was supposed to have a lighter load on the show, but died)

Maybe they can run zip lines from large apartment buildings to office towers.

I've been channel surfing a lot & came across these 2 shows-- one old, one new. THE FUNNY DANCE SHOW (on E!) pits 2 pairs of comedians against each other in a dance off, with the winner getting $10,000 for their favorite charity. It's fun, and this week dwarf comedian Brad Williams teamed up with his handsome friend Adam Ray. BTW, Brad met his normal-sized wife in a 3-some, and they still have 3-somes. https://www.eonline.com/shows/the_funny_dance_show/videos/305996/adam-brad-channel-their-inner-sia-in-elastic-heart https://www.eonline.com/shows/the_funny_dance_show/videos HOT ONES has apparently been around for years. It's an odd interview show in which the host and guest eat 10 increasingly hot & spicy chicken wings during a fairly-straightforward interview. I've watched Halle Berry & Los Hermanos Jonas on the show & enjoyed both. FULL EPISODES, with the ads cut out: https://firstwefeast.com/video/2019/06/halle-berry-hot-ones https://firstwefeast.com/video/2019/05/jonas-brothers-hot-ones I haven't tried HOT ONES: The Game Show-- no celebs on that one.

I'm mourning the cancellation of LIGHTS OUT WITH DAVID SPADE. It was an often-hilarious look at pop culture news of the day, with Spade joined by (usually) 3 guest comedians. If you want to bust a gut laughing, some episodes are still on demand, and episode #100 was the best episode. HYSTERICAL! Josh Wolf was my favorite guest:

Enjoying the lockdown: