Trivia Dominoes II — Play Off the Last Bit of Trivia — continued!

Thread Games
2345

“A Horse with No Name” was a song written by Dewey Bunnell around 1970, and then sung by him and Dan Peek and Gerry Beckley. It was released in 1971 and was their first successful single. It topped the charts in Canada, Finland, and the US.

The song was originally called “Desert Song”. The first line of the refrain is,

I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name

The song was intended to capture the feel of the hot, dry desert that had been depicted on a Salvador Dalí painting at the studio Bunnell had used, and the strange horse that had ridden out of an M. C. Escher picture. Bunnell, who is British, also said that he remembered his childhood travels through the Arizona and New Mexico desert when his family lived at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Dewey Bunnell, Dan Peek, and Gerry Beckley, all from the UK, called their band “America”, a name inspired by the Americana jukebox in their local mess hall and chosen because they did not want anyone to think they were British musicians trying to sound American. A Horse with No Name is still, to this day, their most successful single. Their other successful singles include Sister Golden Hair (a personal favorite of mine), I Need You, Ventura Highway, Muskrat Love (which was more successfully covered by Captain and Tennille), Lonely People, and Daisy Jane.

Comment only:
Sister Golden Hair reminds me of a girlfriend I had back in college in southern California, at UCSB. She was a blonde, very kind and nice and sweet, and unfortunately I wasn’t mature enough to handle that relationship well. LL of Goleta (she’s now LH), wherever you are, I hope you would forgive me.

2346

Gerry Beckley, of the rock group America, wrote one of the band’s biggest hits, “Sister Golden Hair.” Beckley has related that the lyrics were not inspired by a real person, but rather, were his attempt to write a song in the style of Jackson Browne.

When the band previewed the song for Browne (while they were touring together), Browne suggested changing a lyric, which was originally “Will you meet me in V.A.?” (meaning “Virginia”), to “Will you meet me in the air?”

2347

Hmmm… I just started an IMHO thread about this.

2348

According to Business Insider, the Beckley, West Virginia, metro area is the cheapest place to live in the US. Almost half of the houses there are valued under $100,000, and the majority of homeowners don’t have a mortgage. The metro area has a population of about 120,000, and is located 60 miles southeast of the capital city of Charleston.

2349

There are Charlestons in both South Carolina and West Virginia. The 2019 estimated population of the first is 137,566; the second, 46,536.

2350

The Charleston Chew candy bar was created during the “Roaring 20s”, in 1925. It was named after the then-popular dance, The Charleston dance craze picked up around 1923 and 1924. The peak year for the dance was mid-1926 to 1927 – right around when Andy Griffith and Marilyn Monroe were born (on 01 Jun 1926). ETA, and when Paul Lynde was born (13 Jun 1926).

2351

Munros, Corbetts, Grahams and Donalds are terms used to denote the height and classification of Scotland’s mountains. Of these, Munros are the highest. They are named for London-born aristocrat Sir Hugh Munro, whose family owned an estate in Angus. He was keen mountaineer who charted Scotland’s highest peaks in the late 1800s.
‘Munro bagging’ is a popular pastime among walkers; it involves climbing or ‘bagging’ all the 282 Munros in the country.

2352

The Angus is a breed of beef cattle – that is, a breed which is specifically raised for beef production. The breed originated in the Scottish counties of Angus and Aberdeenshire.

Angus are either solid black in color, or solid red; in the U.S., these are considered to be two separate breeds (Black Angus and Red Angus, respectively), but in the U.K., both are simply considered to be Angus.

2353

MacGyver’s first name is Angus.

2354

Polled livestock are livestock without horns in species which are normally horned. There are several breeds of cattle that are naturally polled, including the angus, brangus, and the belted galloway, which is sometimes called the ‘oreo cow.’

2355

Purebred and hybrid Angus cattle account for more than 60 percent of commercial cattle . During the 2014 fiscal year, about 300,000 head of Angus cattle were registered with the American Angus Association.

2356

The American Angus Association hosts an annual show for members each year at a new destination. Along with hosting shows for the youth, the National Junior Angus Association awards many undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships to eligible members at local, state, regional and national level associated with the Angus breed

2357

There does not seem to be a theme park called "One Flag Over Idaho. But Idaho is the only state over which only one national flag, USA, has ever been hoist.

2358

The original Six Flags theme park was “Six Flags Over Texas,” located in Arlington, Texas, which opened in 1961. The name was derived from the fact that Texas has been governed by six different nations (and, thus, six different national flags): Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States of America, and the Confederate States of America.

2359

Lone Star Beer was first made in 1874 in San Marcos, Texas, and named fir the single star on the flag of the Republic of Texas. Since then it has been abaentee-owned by Busch, Olynpia, Heilemsnn and Strohs, and is now known as a “budget” beer choice

2360

President Lyndon Johnson once owned an amphibious car. He liked to surprise guests at his Texas ranch by driving into the lake while yelling, “The brakes don’t work!"

2361

Early braking systems consisted of nothing more than a block of wood and a lever system. When the driver wanted to stop, he had to pull a lever located next to him and make the wooden block bear against the wheel.

2362

There are basically six types of machines: wheel and axle, inclined plane, lever, pulley, screw, and wedge.

(The previous post references two, and perhaps three, of the machine types: lever, wheel and axle, and perhaps the wedge.)

2363

Scottish actor Denis Lawson portrayed Rebel starfighter pilot Wedge Antilles in all three of the original Star Wars movies, as well as a cameo role as Wedge in the most recent Star Wars film, The Rise of Skywalker. Lawson’s nephew is Ewan McGregor, who portrayed Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi in the three Star Wars prequel films.

2364

American author Robert Lawson wrote a series of history books for children, focusing on fictional animals associated with (and sometimes smarter than) actual famous people. The series included Ben and Me (about a mouse who befriends Benjamin Franklin), Captain Kidd’s Cat, I Discover Columbus (a parrot) and Mr. Revere and I (about the horse which carried Paul Revere on his famous ride at the outset of the American Revolution).