Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojkt1998 – Bill Clinton becomes the first sitting president in history to testify in front of a grand jury. The testimony arises out of an earlier deposition in which Clinton had lied about having a sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, prompting Independent Prosecutor Kenneth Starr to charge Clinton with perjury. Clinton’s grand jury testimony becomes infamous for his parsing the meaning of the word “is”. Asked if he was lying when he had claimed that “there’s nothing going on between us,” Clinton says “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the—if he—if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.” The whole episode leads to Clinton’s becoming only the second president to ever be impeached, although he was eventually acquitted by the Senate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiIP_KDQmXs
1987 – Rudolf Hess, the last living member of the Nazi inner circle, asphyxiates himself with a lamp cord in Spandau Prison. He was 93. The third highest ranking Nazi, behind Hitler and Hermann Goring, Hess was captured and imprisoned by the British in 1941 after he parachuted into Scotland in a bizarre and unauthorized attempt to negotiate a peace agreement with the British. Following WWII Hess was tried at Nuremburg with other high ranking Nazis, and was sentenced to life in prison. At the time of his death, he was the only remaining resident of Spandau Prison.
1978 – Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman complete the first ever transatlantic balloon flight when they land their craft, the Double Eagle II, in a barley field in France. The flight, covering 3,233 miles and taking 137 hours, had begun in Preque Isle, Maine, and is the 18th attempt to cross the Atlantic in a balloon. The crew itself had tried and failed to achieve the feet a year earlier in the Double Eagle I.
1974 – The Night Chicago Died by UK band Paper Lace tops the US charts. The song tells the story of Al Capone’s defeat at the hands of police in a street battle on the East Side of Chicago. No such battle ever actually took place, as Capone was in fact arrested and imprisoned on tax evasion charges, and indeed there is no “East Side” of Chicago, as the center of downtown Chicago sits on the west coast of Lake Michigan. Still, the song goes Platinum in the US, with more than 1 million in sales. The song is in fact the band’s second big hit, the first being Billy Don’t Be a Hero, although it was a cover version of Billy by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods that hit number 1 in the US.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryVh9BuwOs4
1933 – Yankee great Lou Gehrig plays in his 1,308th consecutive game, topping the previous consecutive game record held by Everett Scott. Gehrig, known as the Iron Horse, will go on to play in 2,130 consecutive games, eventually removing himself from the lineup on May 2, 1938, in response to symptoms of what will later be diagnosed as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a rare disease that will go on to take Gehrig’s life and which, as a result, will come to more popularly be known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Gehrig’s streak, which will stand as a record for 57 years, almost came to an end 4 years earlier. Suffering from back pain on July 13, 1934, Gehrig is listed in the away game lineup as a shortstop rather than his normal first base, and after getting a hit in the top of the first inning, Gehrig is removed for a pinch runner having never played in the field.
Filed under: This Day in History |
All Things in Moderation 
I had no idea that Paper Lace did the original version of ‘Billy Don’t Be A Hero’.
Both songs made my definitive list of the worst #1 hits of the 70s.
Artist – Title, Year, Weeks at #1
Blue Suede – “Hooked On A Feeling”, 1974, 1
Paper Lace – “The Night Chicago Died” 1974, 1
Bay City Rollers – “Saturday Night” 1975, 1
Carl Douglas – “Kung Fu Fighting” 1974, 2
Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods – “Billy, Don’t Be A Hero” 1974, 2
The Raiders – “Indian Reservation” 1971, 1
Cher – “Gypsies, Tramps, & Thieves” 1971, 2
Helen Reddy – “Delta Dawn” 1973, 1
Maureen McGovern – “The Morning After” 1973, 2
Starland Vocal Band – “Afternoon Delight” 1974, 3
Paul Anka – “You’re Having My Baby” 1974, 3
Mary MacGregor – “Torn Between Two Lovers” 1977, 2
Debby Boone – “You Light Up My Life” 1977, 10
Vicki Lawrence – “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia” 1973, 2
BJ Thomas – “Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song” 1975, 1
Captain & Tenille – “Love Will Keep Us Together” 1975, 4
Three Dog Night – “Joy To The World” 1971, 6
Dawn – “Knock Three Times” 1971, 3
A Taste of Honey – “Boogie Oogie Oogie” 1978, 3
Chic – “La Freak” 1978, 6
Rupert Holmes – “Escape (The Pina Colada Song) ” 1979, 3
CW McCall – “Convoy” 1976, 1
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Scott, my sister-in-law and her husband own an apartment in the same small apartment building in Larchmont where Gherig lived for some period of time as a Yankee. Nice place. But so small! Fits a childless couple snugly.
YJ – of the titles I recall from your list I concur in thumbs down. That makes two thumbs down, as defined by Siskel and Ebert. We have to remember that in any era there are at least ten bad songs for every good one but that in every era there ARE good songs. Music, like math, is capable of more combinations than we can ever exhaust.
I just finished breakfast at a greasy spoon across from the garage where I am waiting on Rosanne’s Camry to have its motor mounts swapped out. The jukebox is stuck in about 1955-59. Best stuff played so far: Everly Brothers, by far. Stands up on their close harmony.
Used the Men’s room before walking back here to the garage. Big Elvis 1956 poster in the john. Last song playing as I left, Rick Nelson singing Traveling Man.
My grandfather the engineer lived in Manhattan in the 20s and took his daughter, my mother, to Yankee games. She was a great baseball and basketball fan but she never even tried to get football. Her father and one uncle played semi-pro baseball so she did understand the game well. My father played HS baseball; 2b on the same team as Hank Greenberg. Broke his leg on a tangled DP and never went with the team to the City championship playoffs. So yeah, I grew up with my main toys being dozens of old baseballs and I would hit fungoes on the farm as far as I could, then run with my bat into the field where I hit them and fungo them back to my first position. Anyway, my mother was always into comparing players from the modern era to the Yankees of the late 20s. Unlike most folks her age, she recognized that athletes generally had improved in strength and speed over 75 years [she died in 2003]. But she rated power hitters by the sound of bat-on-ball. She said that Mantle, Bo Jackson, and McGwyre “sounded like” Ruth when they connected. Sort of like an explosion. But she would caution that she was comparing TV to live, and maybe these guys wouldn’t have sounded so loud in the stadium.
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yello:
I would rule out of the list any song that subsequently was used effectively in a great movie. So “Hooked on a Feeling” (Reservoir Dogs), “Saturday Night” (So I Married an Axe Murderer), and “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” (Shrek) don’t count. On the other hand, “The Morning After” (Poseidon Adventure) and “Convoy” (Convoy) both deserve extra demerits for being not only terrible songs but also theme songs to terrible movies.
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And BTW, if you are going to include “Delta Dawn” by Helen Reddy, how can you not include the dreadful “I Am Woman”?
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As dreadful as “I Am Woman” is, I gotta argue “Delta Dawn” is worse. Just why was she in that dress she wore and what did that man do to her?
One song I really wish had been a Number One hit was ‘Muskrat Love’ because it is way worse than the Captain and Tenille song that did qualify.
Edit:
The song is literally cheesy.
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yello:
One song I really wish had been a Number One hit was ‘Muskrat Love’ because it is way worse than the Captain and Tenille song that did qualify.
Hah. Too true.
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I would rule out of the list any song that subsequently was used effectively in a great movie.
Why? Cheeeesy songs are often used for atmosphere or satire in good movies. They are still cheeeesy.
I would throw a lot of least favorites into the hopper but I have suppressed them, I am sure. To make room for what I liked in my memory, no doubt. That exercise [suppression of pain, remembrance of joy] is what makes folks tend to think songs were better when they were 14-24 years of age. Lady Madonna was playing when I walked out of Newport Naval Base with my honorable discharge and DD214. Might not have been the Beatles’ best, you say? HA!
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mark:
Lady Madonna was playing when I walked out of Newport Naval Base with my honorable discharge and DD214. Might not have been the Beatles’ best, you say? HA!
Half the songs on yello’s list spark distinctive memories of totally innocuous events from my childhood. The Night Chicago died brings back a summer day spent swimming at my cousin’s house. Billy Don’t be a Hero reminds me of driving to Song Mountain in upstate NY to go skiing. Afternoon Delight reminds me of driving down the NYS thruway one day in the back seat of my parents car, although that is not so innocuous since what I recall is my brother explaining to me what he song was about. Lightbulbs went on over my naive head.
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Lightbulbs went on over my naive head.
It was and is good that parents do not listen to every word of every song pre-teens listen to.
Of course, not only did we not always get the implications, sometimes we totally mis-heard the lyrics.
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Didn’t they talk about The Night the Lights Went out in Georgia in Resevoir Dogs?
I also gained new respect for Steeler’s Wheel in that movie.
Do Not mock Convoy!
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McWing:
Didn’t they talk about The Night the Lights Went out in Georgia in Resevoir Dogs?
Yes, it was. But the discussion was not quite as interesting as the discussion of “Like a Virgin”.
Do Not mock Convoy!
For the record, I have it on my iPad.
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I just added ‘Reservoir Dogs’ to my Netflix Instant Queue.
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I had convoy on a 45 as a youngster. And I agree with yello, Muskrat Love is loathsome.
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Do Not mock Convoy! I remember it a bit more fondly because it was a relief from the disco that was beginning to flood into radio. But it wasn’t much of a song, really. A novelty song. Just not maybe terrible. Linda Ronstadt covered Crazy and That’ll be the Day about the same time Convoy was on the local Austin stations. I think The Eagles Hotel California album was a year later? I think they were still playing Take it to the Limit as a hit in ’76. I was into Texas and SoCal crossover country-rock then which we saw a lot of live. Two guys who hung out in Austin at the time sang I Really Want to See You Tonight. I’ll have to look it up but I think Whiskey River was before that. I think most of ’76 sucked, though. Disco.
Correction: it was called I’d Really Love to See You Tonight.
I had a friend, Randy House, who owned and still owns his own ad agency here in Austin, who looked and sounded like Dan Seals and did gigs in clubs sometimes. Dan was from west Texas and John Ford Coley was from Dallas. Maybe this song was never as big outside TX. I played this just now in the garage waiting room and Tony, the owner said “I can remember every word.”
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I like downtown ‘Querque. I like Old Town ‘Querque. Lots of cheap decent eats. Anyway, I hope you find a suitable care taker. Firing the previous one sounds like the end of a sad story.
WJC should have resigned. My beef with HRC predates that time period.
We are going to see Blackfish tonight, rather than Jobs or The Butler, which both received mediocre reviews. I have been resisting seeing the Sea World Orca eating the trainer but it gets totally rave reviews.
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Good luck Lms. I’m siding with you though, it might be time to take her to CA.
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Cool link.
http://twistedsifter.com/2013/08/historic-black-white-photos-colorized/
I’m looking for Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg in the audience for the be bop photo.
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